Monday, January 31, 2005

Travelogue, Part 5, Woodstock Nation.

A footnote at eye level; it may cross the mind of some to wonder why I name names and don’t associate them with events or why I mention who someone’s parents were. I’m not gratuitously namedropping, nor are these names exceptional in that regard; save for some on occasion. I’ve a point in mind and that will be clearer once I’ve gotten to it. I see now that after this post I can do a fast forward post encompassing the years to the present as an over view and then summate. Often we don’t see the reason for things because the actual conclusion is other than the one we think we were attempting.

Before I wound up living on Mead’s Mountain with Father Francis and working for Peter Whitehead; when Billy first brought me to Woodstock I initially was at the commune on Ohayo Mountain. It was primarily financed by Gerry Swartz who owned Slugs in N.Y.C.
Slug’s was the premier jazz club in New York City at the time. There was a faux Manson type (far more of these were around than you might think) named Bob Williams; a former professional bowler into a Svengali like fellow whose main interest was sexual encounters under the guise of a nuclear family. This was just prior to the Woodstock Festival which was put together by one Michael Lang; if I ever met a person who was less in the spirit of what the festival was supposed to represent I can’t imagine him; enough said.

Acid and casual sex flowed around me. I was light years from this sort of thing and after a few weeks it was clear I needed other realms. The Hog Farm showed up; here was a group that was also anything but the hype they achieved. None of this looked like my sort of thing so I took off for California and wound up at Altamont instead; right up front on about seven hits of very strong acid. Things had really changed while I was inside. I hooked up with Richard Yerxa who had owned Bookland in Palm Springs but had been converted to a seeker after the nee technologies of the day. Richard and I were very different and you had to be careful with him. He was a superior mountain climber and fearless explorer. If you weren’t taking care you could get hurt around him.

Once we were in Joshua Tree and huge cobras appeared in the desert, maybe thirty feet high. They sucked the sand up into their forms and blew it out of their nostrils to the ground to create wind dervishes. We did a toreador act with them. Richard said, “Let me see what happens if one of them hits me. Well, it picked him up and carried him many meters away and threw him to the ground. That was Richard. A fellow who was there with us later broke his back climbing with Richard.

I went around to all of the people who had corresponded with me and had a myriad of adventures but the West Coast was never really my place and so I came back to Woodstock and it was then that Billy’s mother turned me in.

Woodstock at that time was a fantastic place. I met Michael Green who is now a well known Rumi scholar. A Google search brings up a great deal about him. He is a gifted artist and visionary. He was at Millbrook with Leary. Michael looks like he was carved out of rock and that says a lot about his persona. We would form fire circles in the woods and have ‘sessions’ with a group of like minded souls, chanting to the Amitabha Buddha in a copy of Native American Peyote sessions using LSD. This went way beyond what might happen in a less structured way. He and I lived in teepee’s for several years while running a Macrobiotic restaurant and I had my bookstore as well. We became so inured to the elements that we would walk barefoot in the snow and bathe in mountain streams. That was the life.

I met Sally whom Michael and probably half the town was in love with. My being with her brought me resentment from people that may still remain. I did not drink or smoke and lived as clean as I could aspire to but the world was changing. I began to write songs and learn the guitar. I studied with a group called The Builders of the Adytum who taught the Qabalah and the use of the Tarot in its interpretations, esoteric astrology and the like. I read everything I could find from Eliphas Levi to the Sacred Magic of Abremalin the Mage.

Things happened and things happened. I cannot possibly go into the things that happened in the forests and inside my head. I was a clear as I can remember being and surrounded by a group of like minded people. I met Peter Blum who became my partner in the bookstore and is still a good friend; now a well know Shamanistic teacher, Tibetan bowl singer and hypno-therapist. Peter turned me on to Cocaine and the world changed. Until this time I was probably well liked and well respected. I’d formed an organization called The Survivor’s Club which had as many as 150 members. I was asked to run for mayor of the town by the head of the Democratic party. Cocaine changed everything. Suddenly I was awash in a tidal wave of young ladies and rock clubs. I instantly became an advocate of the left hand path of tantra, a Shaivite. I met a man with kilo’s of pure coke who delighted in giving me large amounts. Rock stars went looking for me in the woods at dawn; very funny.

I became a ghost. Grim things happened and I learned to be clever and dissolute. Yet I was always praying and striving but I was in the wrong boat, seemingly going in the wrong direction.

Guru Bawa showed up in Woodstock and took my whole group away to Philadelphia. Most of them are still there. I went too initially. Guru Bawa (web site on the net) was a Sufi saint of indeterminate age. They’d found him sitting in a tree in Ceylon forty years before, even then an old man. He was about 4’11” and 85 pounds; a man of great power and virtue. It was during this time that I found that although I often got on with the teacher quite well, I had problems with disciples. It’s hard to interact with people who have never lived and who know everything.

I went there with Sally. I tried to fit in. I met my good friend Kenny O’Brien there. Once Bawa looked out the window at me and shook his head and said, “Pavum, what a waste of a brilliant mind.” He also once looked in his hand while talking to me and said, “Ah yes, I’ve read your books, all of them. You will write books of wisdom and I will help you.” I tried to get with the program but I guess it wasn’t meant to be. Sally went to nursing college in Philly and I went to college in Ulster Co. I did so well that it looked like I could matriculate to Swarthmore in Philly. I went back down and met up with some people from Gamble and Huff; the Philadelphia sound. They signed me as a songwriter.

Things seemed to be moving. Then a producer with Columbia Records, the owner of ESP Disk which did many of the jazz greats; Bernard Stollman, signed me away from Gamble and Huff- bad move. I went to New York to record with David Mowry (now with Beaucoup Blues). Rick Glover, a bass player and kung fu aficionado came along (remember him for later). It came to nothing. I seemed to be falling apart inside. My yearning remained at a terrific pitch but everything was crumbling; probably the coke which seemed to always be available to me. I met Susan Sonnenberg who has just divorced Ben Sonnenberg, the son of ‘the’ Ben Sonnenberg who owned one of the most powerful PR firms in the world. When he died Newsweek devoted four pages to the auctioning off of his effects. Susan knew a lot of people and it looked like yet again things were headed up. I broke up with Sally and gave Michael a set of rings. “You marry her.” I said. He did. Her parents were quite upset. They actually liked me. But I knew I was going to lead Sally down. I knew it. I remember saying to myself, “I’ve got to go rock. “ I could literally see sorrow stretching out before me but I couldn’t seem to see my way around it. I went full into the fire.

When you do coke you drink. I never did anything halfway. I became unpredictable. I started hanging out with Richard Manuel for The Band and other people. High living and strong drugs will take you down. All my friends were with the guru. I had exchanged my former aspirations for a mirage. A man went to Bawa with my songs. He thought I might be the next big thing. Bawa was down on this sort of thing but he told me to go ahead; the only one he ever said so to. This caused yet more furors down there. I drifted away and broke up with Susan too; fairly acrimonious that was. Nothing much was coming of anything I was doing except outrageous events becoming more outrageous. I went back to Woodstock and met Betty. Next thing I knew I was in the paraphernalia business, attending boutique shows in New York City and doing coke and drinking and wondering what went wrong. My visions and spiritual encounters turned into a cauldron of melting flesh and sexual excess.

Always I had good friends to lift me up when my world crashed and burned. Paul Dumont carried me for some time, as did Kenny and others. John Fuchs pulled me out of Massachusetts after Betty had gone on to Maui- waiting for me while thousands of dollars from my business went missing at the post office. I don’t know what happened but it wasn’t good. I’d travel to Philly and Washington D.C. moving through a world of ghosts and sad neon, wandering streets full of strangers with stranger lives. I’d become a hollow man. There was nothing to do but sail for a new horizon and Hawaii was the perfect lure.

By now I’d started writing novels, god knows I had enough poetry to prop open the gates of doomsdays break in a high wind. But nothing, not ever, materialized into anything. It didn’t when I was right and it didn’t when I was not right. My saving grace may have been that I knew how to cook and always ate well and I have my martial arts practices that somehow I always held to for some small stability in the torturous changes that inevitably followed over and over.

Once again leaving so very much out but wanting to rush forward and be done for now, next we go to the islands for a little crash and burn.

People are calling me to go to the harbor for the afternoon so I really had to cut this one short and race through it without really seeing what I was putting down- sorry bout that.

Sunday, January 30, 2005

Travelogue, Part 4, Into the Belly of the Beast.

Whipping through the scenery important characters go by the wayside. I met Billy Rodenberg when he was 16 and I was 19. The first time we met, I was declaiming to a crowd in the park. I didn’t know he was standing behind me and so I smacked him in the face with a sweeping gesture. The second time he saw me I was passed out under a tree; people had stuck pigeon feathers in my hair. We’ve remained best friends through the years.

Bill was the only son of a Washington lawyer from inherited money. His father had died by the time I met him and he lived in a five story mansion in Georgetown across the street from Al Gore Senior. Through him I met his best friend Douglas Hume; the younger brother of administration catamite Brit Hume and Howard Coon, the son of the ambassador to Nepal. Well, they were all film star good looking except for me and Douglas. All of them now live in rural Va. Surrounded by Washington Lawyers and ex-CIA execs.

These three figure prominently in many of the adventures and bear witness to the events. It was at an estate owned by Billy’s mother in West Va. Called Bear Den (Mosby’s Rangers used it as a lookout.) that some of the more cosmic dances took place. I spent one whole day there interacting with some discarnate Southern Gentleman who dispensed ageless wisdom to me in a homespun drawl. Once in a Shiva posture with leg extended in dance he said something about my possession of the truth. My father’s voice cut in with a sinister force, “He’d better be, I damn well nailed it over his head.” A hawk struck a bird in the sky a time later and the man said, “It don’t pay to be too innocent.” Meher Baba passed on around that time. On that day I was sitting on meadow and the wind came up and whispered Meher Baba all around me.

It was in Palm Springs where I first saw a seated Buddha in an antique shop window with hand extended on his knee in just the way mine were always held. Before and after I was always seeing green holographic Buddha’s seated in flower beds and meadows. They were everywhere as were the serpents that coiled in and around everything. Clouds infallibly transformed into Hindu chariots bearing the Gods across the sky. It was a long time before I realized that everyone didn’t have these similar experiences. Quite often I would find myself spinning across the ground like a dervish and then tossed into the air over a distance impossible for me to achieve in any normal way. It was something connected to slipstreams that exist in the ethers. Anytime there was a fire I could weave fantastic phenomena from it. This I can still do, given a portion of something psychedelic. The other powers faded with time and my descent into dissolution. But the fire magic remains as do the visitors who come. These days they come from The Sun and remain with me until reintegration. I checked in a couple of years ago and it was same as it ever was. Though uncanny phenomena do occur in ordinary life; if this life can be called ordinary it is rare. Yet it is instantaneous if I stimulate the pineal with essence. Obviously I’ve not passed some remaining hurdle. You can’t storm the gates of Heaven. God knows I’ve tried. These days I’m just plugging straight on with little appetite to cut ahead in the line as I so often did.

So I came to the highway after that spine trembler of a night. My first ride was from a man who said he was an anthropologist and who ironically smelled just like an ape. This was followed by one strange ride after another until I found myself back on that same Black Canyon Highway (or whatever it was called) in Arizona. I was now involved in a protracted conversation with someone who was probably in my head but appeared to be in the sky because that is the direction I was answering in. Even then I couldn’t make out what was being said but I must have understood somehow because I was answering alright. I remember when the intensity of it peaked and I was crying out that “I’m not worthy.” And “I can’t” I found myself walking across the highway and knocking on the door of a trailer. A woman answered and I asked her if I could call the police, who were looking for me. She said, “Of course.” And told me her son had done that very thing a year ago. We had a wonderful talk. The Sheriff came and he was just as nice as could be. I waited at his jail until he established that I was indeed being sought. And so a long journey by car in the hands of U’S. Marshals ensured until I was returned to the scene of the crime.

My P.O. was vicious toward me in a way beyond the calling of his job, as were they all. I went to court and the Prosecutor proceeded to assemble the railroad. I saw it coming and started singing in the court and then gesturing to one and all with my mudras. You had to have been there. The judge shook his head and said I want this young man looked at. The prosecutor was screaming and saying I was faking it. Later, outside, he kept shouting, “I’m going to get you.” Sure was a lot of emotion for a nobody like me.

So they sent me off to Petersburg Reformatory for mental evaluation. In the van I went deep into myself and held my body in a state of dynamic tension which I maintained for the whole 90 days. You have no idea what can happen when you one point to the exclusion of all else. In the holding tank the man with me was bouncing off the walls from the force. They locked me in a room on the hospital ward. The next morning John Reed appeared at the window of my room while I was flying birds on the reins of my hands through another window facing the outside. It hadn’t taken long for word to spread of my arrival. John had no doubt told them he could communicate with me; not hardly.

I maintained my persona and soon the whole place was under the spell. They put the word Guru in the nameplate outside my door. I fashioned a cone hat of paper and pasted pictures of The Beatles with the Maharishi on it. I inscribed the words Grand Imperial Dragon on it; having no idea of the meaning of the words. As the days passed I fashioned a bowling ball from a sock stuffed with toilet paper and began to bowl in the hallway with ten plastic bottles. I became incredibly strong. One fellow grabbed me and I put him down like he was a child on the ground. Word kept spreading through the prison about me. I started to kick the tile walls with the ball of my foot. I could kick it with tremendous force and suffer no injury. It really tripped the people out. The MTA’s who worked there; guards know as medical technical assistants were solidly in my camp except for one fellow called Sweeney. He’s probably dead now, he was older. He was reduced to a mockery by forces beyond his comprehension. The warden would come and sit with me to chat. I would sit on my bed and sing Chinese songs- I knew no Chinese- and inmates would gather. I had the run of the place. There were those in authority who were adamantly opposed to my liberties but they were swept away and rendered powerless.

Ian Fralich came to visit. He had been arrested for some amount of marijuana. He had owned a glorified headshop and meeting place in D.C. called The Source. He was head of a nuclear family and was the orchestrator of the first Be-In’s in Washington. He’s sit on my bed for long periods staring into my eyes. I don’t know what he thought he was going to find. There wasn’t anything in there. I was a comic rendering of someone from another planet. I spoke like a benign Gollum. I haven’t the ability to picture for you how I appeared. It was all coming from somewhere else.

One major event I remember among so many was when Robert Kennedy was assassinated. I was standing at the MTA station; a counter by the exit door where these guards did their administrative work. The exit door was on my right. To my left was a large dormitory/ward enclosed by bars and containing about 18 beds. At the time it contained about 9 black guys and John Reed. They had raped a boy out in the compound and were in there for the clap they had caught. I’d already had some fun with them. On this day I had kicked the wall a few times at the behest of the guards. They always liked to see me do that. Anyway, I’m standing there a few feet from the exit door which is partially open. The TV is going on about Robert Kennedy and one of the MTA’s says, “Guru, would you close the door?” I reached for it, it was out of my reach and then I said, without thinking, “that’s okay, it’s coming to me.” And just like that the door opened into my hand. Stunned is an understatement for the following mood, all of the inmates behind the bars had been watching too. I gave no reaction to the event. Just pushed the door closed and stood there. Shortly thereafter the inmates were playing grab ass and one of the MTA’s said, “Ya’ll better settle down or I’m sending Guru in there.” I said, “Yessss, let me in.” and walked over the cell door. I walked, generally stiff legged, my feet would leap out before me and pull me along, much like a centaur would do. They freaked. Most of them had been sitting or jumping about on their beds. They promptly jumped to the floor and crawled under them. I continued insisting that they let me in. They didn’t. It was a hoot.

Many other strange things happened. The psychiatrist examining me became a devotee and asked what he could do for me. He was willing to facilitate anything in his power. Somehow we worked it out to send me back to The John Howard Pavilion at St. Elizabeth’s. I perhaps should have said, “Keep me here.” I’d have gotten out sooner. And I didn’t realize until I was arriving there that if I continued in the persona they would shoot me up with Thorazine, especially after I met Dr. Kunev, an immigrant from Hungary who filled the halls with garlic every time he arrived. Dr. Kunev did not like me. He let serial killers and seriously violent nut jobs out before me.

I spent the next 19 months there, eating once a day, often fasting as well, sometimes just brown bread and meditating mostly. I befriended the heaviest hitters in the place and had no problems. I did not know if they would ever let me out when one day I met a fellow in the hall. He was a lawyer doing a study of conditions there. I thought for years that he was Michael Kingsley and it was that fact that a few years ago took me to Slate. We started talking and he instantly became involved in my case. He was sent to me, no doubt. He understood my talk about The Tao and other things. He advised me not to speak of these things any more and he would get me out. Dr. Kunev fought it tooth and nail but the lawyer prevailed. Upon release I was in such a high state that the world was more imprisoned than I had been while inside. This is a feature I noticed in my friends when they came to visit. Billy came regularly and Darren came every week.

I went to see her in Richmond where she was in school. I was on parole to a halfway house in Atlanta near my parents. It was the former home of the founders of Coca Cola. The parole officer there was a creep. I wound up driving a lawnmower at the airport. I wasn’t going to cooperate, but you knew that. I turned the head of the halfway house on to acid and he couldn’t do enough to help me get gone with a lot of lead time. People had started to gather around me in a nearby park but I wasn’t for staying. I left and met up with Billy in Washington D.C. and he took me to Woodstock, N.Y. where I lived with an archbishop on a mountain there; Father Francis, one time friend of the Vanderbilt’s and the Astor’s. I stated working for Peter Whitehead whose father had founded the community and still owned a large part of the real estate. I called myself Louis Ming and hung out with the poet Lokar Railey.

Billy’s mom, who hated me for years; many parents did; the Socrates problem, somehow overheard Billy talking with a friend and found out I was in Woodstock. She called the police and I was arrested and found myself at The West St. Federal Detention Center in N.Y.C. well, back into the persona. After a few days of non communicado a parole officer named Michael Esposito came to see me. I wouldn’t speak to him. He said, “I can’t very well get you out of here if you won’t speak to me.” Huh? Three weeks later I was out and paroled to Woodstock. After a year I had a gubernatorial pardon. Michael would still come to visit with his wife.

While in Palm Springs I had been musing about a spiritual occult bookstore where I might study the things that were happening to me. Suddenly I was working in one and soon after had it given to me. But that’s all for the next round and what happened in Woodstock.

I should mention that while I was locked up dozens of people from various parts of the country corresponded with me; Brad Lapin and the LA group and many people from Palm Springs and other locations.

I’ve left so much out and this is all just a vague sketch but we’ll just keep on choodlin till I can fast forward to the present.

Saturday, January 29, 2005

Travelogue, Part 3, Kundalini Rising.

After meeting The Man on the Beach I doubt I remembered it with any great intensity. I knew that ‘something’ had happened to me but things were happening to me all the time during this period and they all had supernatural aspect.

I went back to S.F. and moved around through the community there. You could meet almost anyone at this time and I had some portion of that but it’s irrelevant to the main issue. Somehow I hooked up with a couple of Arizona nutcases who got affected by my view and they prevailed on me to come to Arizona where, “all kinds are people are waiting to meet you.” They were in town to buy some acid and other comestibles. I traveled down to Phoenix with them and into the Paradise Valley area. I had it in mind to climb around in The Superstition Mountains which, if I remember aright, you could see from where I was.

I met a lot of people and then these characters prevailed on me to go to Mexico with them. We did and they visited the whores and did what they did and people wanted to sell us grass but we knew better and had even left the ounce bottle back in a culvert on the other side. Well, someone in Mexico contacted the border people. It was a regular thing there to sell pot to the gringo’s and then turn them in. You got to keep the money and stay in business too. They stripped the van and found nothing. But they followed us into Arizona, lost us while we picked up the pot in the culvert and then found us again. They did a squeeze play on the highway and the idiot with the pot waited until the van stopped and then dropped the bottle out the window. Caught with these guys and less than half an ounce of pot I was charged with smuggling which carried an automatic five years. I had a two to ten waiting for the two ounces I allegedly provided in VA, which was a federal thing. I spent two months in Nogales and Maricopa jails and they never connected me. How I came to walk out into the daylight free and clear is a tale of magic meant for a more comprehensive effort.

I went back to Paradise Valley and everyone I had met was gone. After a few idyllic weeks by a glittering pool I found myself on The Black Rock (or Black Canyon) Highway headed back to D.C. I should add that the feds were in high pursuit of me all though I only knew about the concentration of their efforts later. They were destined to never successfully catch me again; the larger time I spent in captivity came about after another fashion and I’ll be getting to that.

I got back to D.C. in the fall and soon after ran into John Hall in DuPont Circle. Terry Jones father had a house in Virginia and John and friends wanted to go there for a night of music and psychedelia. Jack O’Connor, a fine drummer was along and there were a couple or three other guys whom I cannot remember.

Here is what I remember. I was sitting in the living room. John and another fellow were to my right wailing on the guitars. Others were here and there. I first noticed that the art on the walls all turned from Occidental to Oriental. Then I noticed that John’s music suddenly switched to some sort of minor key Hindu-like repeating lick (like so much that happened, no one had any idea of what was happening or how their participation came to be what it was). Then I felt this surging force in my body that wanted to lift my arms and hands into the air. I didn’t know why or to what end. I saw a fellow across the room and thought he was a witch. I thought an enchantment was being thrown on me. I really didn’t have a clue. I resisted. The whole room was pulsing with force and I am sure everyone was catching something. The notes John was playing began moving through my body and pinging at different locations. The force I was experiencing was too strong for me to control and I just said “God I trust you.” And let go. Instantly my hands went into mudras (I didn’t know what they were then). My hands went like the Man on the Beach’s except not holding reins- forefinger and little finger extended and the other two clasped at the palm- an ancient dance manifested, Shiva-like, very disturbing to my companions. On the carpet before me little red devils appeared with their backs bent before me. All energy of that nature inside and outside of me came under control. A solid outline of radiant green, like a thin neon tube surrounded my form; I entered John’s mind and could read his thoughts clearly. He felt me and freaked. He pushed, tried to push me out, but it didn’t work. I could feel his ego raging at the intrusion. Personally I thought it was great. I then realized there was only one mind and we all shared it.

It was awhile before I realized that the things I sought and enjoyed and considered normal just scared the shit out of everyone else. I embraced the wild unknown as familiar territory. ‘Almost’ everyone else ran like Hell.

I rose to my feet; the power coming off of me was so intense that everyone in the room was frozen and watching in disbelief. I felt it was time to go outside. I stepped out upon the back lawn which was circled by deep woods. It was a world I had never seen before. I walked on the Earth and the force of my footsteps shook the ground. Whatever, whoever it was who was inside me was more powerful than anything I could have imagined before. I didn’t have to imagine it, it was happening. In front of me were five golden cobras in electric silhouette. Their heads were raised about three feet off the ground. It was very cartoon like. Off to my left were a number of cat silhouettes, not filled in like the cobras; that of a cat sitting and facing forward, not in profile. There was a number 9 that filled the entire outline of their shape up to the eyes. I cannot remember how many of them there were but they were lined up in a row.

I was coursing with force. I knew the others were in turmoil inside and watching from inside. The whole thing was incomprehensible to them. I strode off toward the woods intending to go into them. There were all manner of fifth dimensional creatures in outline all about. The night was alive with life forms I had never encountered before. I did not go far into the woods. I was returned to the yard. I connected this finally with the Man on the Beach. There was no question he was behind this. I walked back into the house and into the kitchen. Two guys were standing there. I pointed (whether intentionally or not- I have no idea) at the feet of one of them and his feet went right out from under him. His friend laughed but they were both freaked; events like this and events much more surprising than this became commonplace afterwards. Everyone was truly freaked except me. I was loving this. I should point out that at the initial moment that the energy rushed up in me. It washed ‘me’ out. There was no longer a me. It seemed as if there never had been.

I went upstairs into a bathroom and looked at my face. In this period many identities came and went. After this I was at times in an Egyptian underground area with hieroglyphics and torches and old memories, in green and yellow robes standing on flagstones in China, many places- I could see writing, like Hebrew but not Hebrew, written into the form of every thing; trees, the ground, any object. It was a flame alphabet, vibrating and alive and which was the actual integrity of whatever the thing was.

It is impossible to record all of the things that transpired there and thereafter. Suffice to say that many of them repeated over and over again. I always came into new permutations and understandings but the realm I was in seldom changed. These planes exist. I have been there many times. A proficiency in the martial arts was given me that night along with many another thing. It took some time and other events for me to pick up on this and much practice to coordinate but it all came internally. Other times found me directly involved in the practice of these things and often interacting with forces of nature who showed up to play or instruct. The intensity of that night lasted for several years before the unfortunate integration, that I am presently climbing out of, allowed me a more protective camouflage.

We drove back to D.C. and I couldn’t be gotten out of the car soon enough. I didn’t see John again for some time after. He was famous by then and in no mood for anything that related to what had happened. It looked that way; I just said hi in passing and passed. I was not something he wanted to be reminded of.

After that the world changed. For some time I had a great deal of power and it spun me from coast to coast through many an environment. A group gathered around me in the LA and Palm Springs area as well as in D.C. The police were chasing me at all times but always missing me even when they knew where I was. On a number of occasions I encountered the police but they rather got quick of me as soon as they could. Whatever it was that I was, was too much to contain or oppose for some long time. During the tail end of this sequence I ran into Elvis and many other people, encountered life forms from other worlds and traveled in time to past events that though significant for me I did not understand and still do not understand. Even in the coldest weather I never needed a coat.

I wound up leaving Palm Springs in early winter with the idea of heading back East. I had a companion who was headed out of town, going home somewhere. The police had been at us in a confrontation earlier and we both were going. There was a turnoff on the road between Palm Springs and Indio that was just a short squiggle on the map. It connected to the highway to Arizona and beyond. That little squiggle turned out to be over 35 miles, most of it through a haunted Indian burial ground and wild desert. Deep into the red rock canyons of the burial ground (very few cars ever passed us and none stopped) a lone police cruiser appeared and took my companion away. He recognized me from the day before but just left me there. Night fell and Jinn’s and what have you from the inferior kingdom appeared, big time. Words cannot accurately describe what I was up against. As has ever been the case, I did something without knowing why. I said, “How are you my friends?” I made them my friends and they walked with me all that night until the highway arrived at dawn. I can only liken this to Aragorn going through the path of the dead in the LOTR. That is the most like it that I can think of. They howled and blew on all sides and I danced and camped it up with them all the way. I learned quite the lesson with this and I was surely going to need it where I was headed next.

I have left so much out of this and yet I see I will have to write two more pieces before I can do the finish post. Even so, they will be much sparser than these last because they will span a greater time. I’m neither happy nor comfortable writing this. It makes me uncomfortable. I am also chagrined that so many things have not been included that were so very important. But the gist is there. I still don’t know what any of it means and I am far more surprised at the way things went afterward considering the way things were before.

I'm just riffing this out as it comes to mind. I'm impatient with it to a degree. I don't really want to travel over this ground but I realize it's important to do it, however non comprehensively and without the reflection that would make it more cohesive. I've never done this before. To me my personal biography is unimportant. Where I've been means nothing. A personal history is a liability on the path and though I am truthful and accurate in my recording what portions I am recording, all of this is meaningless insofar as the present which is all there is of anything. I've had years of supernatural events. No one can tell me such things don't exist or hope to baffle me with their sciences, their philosophies or their religions. There is a great deal of difference between experience and speculation. I've no doubt of the reactions of the Don's in their studys and all who've walked and recorded the familiar paths of the wider congregated pushing crowds. Most everything I've heard has proven irrelevant or flat out wrong when it comes to what is.

I'll be glad when this is done and I can get back to the daily surprise of finding out what's for lunch while I'm cooking it.

Friday, January 28, 2005

Traveloque Part Two; I meet The Man on the Beach.

The D.C. Jail is what passes for state prison anywhere else. The peculiar nature of The District of Columbia makes it so. People were doing life in there. Before I was transported to D.C., I was in a Maryland jail where “The White Rabbit” (the moniker of the Narcotics agent who tracked me down) laughed and made fun of me with his lugheaded henchmen as they shaved my head. Actually, this is not nearly as bad as it might have been if I’d gone into the D.C. Jail with long hair.

My first time in I did not have the degree of skill at certain things which I acquired later. But there is no question that I had the protection of the divine. That can’t be argued. As uncertain as I was of myself and as dark and corrupt as this particular dungeon was; a hotbed of jailhouse rapes and terrible beatings with the complicity of the guards, there is no question I was looked after because I passed through it unscathed.

I had a girlfriend, Darren Jennings. Her father owned Springfield Firestone in Springfield Virginia. He was an old school dad but his daughter must have prevailed upon him, or something did. Six months into my first stay he bailed me out sight unseen. I spent three of those months at St. Elizabeth’s’ John Howard Building for the Criminally Insane undergoing mental evaluation.

I played the game through the grinding boot of the court ritual and the probation system until the bail had been returned. As far as I was concerned I had done nothing wrong, nor has my mind changed, so I promptly sent a postcard to the P.O. detailing this and bid him farewell. I then took off for San Francisco, CA.

In Haight Asbury I hooked up with some teenage junkies from D.C. at their apartment on Filmore St. One of them was just 14 years old. I knew them from before where the periphery of our circles overlapped. After a few days there it seemed like a good idea to me to take them down to Big Sur and do some acid on the beach with the intention that they might get off of junk. I had a run in with Charlie Manson during this time, either just before or after the event that follows. Some out of this world adventures worked as a prelude to this but space once again forbids further details.

We piled into a VW bus and drove down to Big Sur. We wound up at a place called Lime Kiln Creek and paid the son of the owner 3 bucks for the carload. There were a few other people there, a number of guys and one solitary lady with child who didn’t appear to be with anyone. The greatest music of the last century played from a state of the art system in one of the cars. I disbursed the acid and then went my solitary way for initial reflection. In my hand was a copy of the I Ching which I had obtained during one of the aforementioned adventures. Later down the road, everything made sense. But while I was there, on this day, I had little opportunity for objective thought. I was never allowed to step outside the thing and analyze it. Neither can I remember all of the details but I can relate much of it and the general overview. All of what occurred was responsible for what took place a few months later in a very private house in the Virginia woods.

There was a man sitting cross-legged off by himself on the beach. When I first saw him I thought he was an Oriental. Indeed, I asked him if he was Chinese. He said no. For some reason I asked him if he was twenty eight or so. He seemed some years older than me. He said no. I sat down before him and asked him if he knew who had written this book. I didn’t display the book. It was just in my hand. He said, “I think a king and his son.” He expelled air forcefully from his nostrils as he spoke and his head would cock to the side. His voice was clipped. His face was arranged along visible lines of force. I would say, think of the figurines of Japanese and Chinese sages. He was exactly that in appearance.

He was wearing desert boots, they looked like those Clark models, a pair of pressed brown chino’s and a white t-shirt. He looked immaculate except for his nails and that he needed a shave. His nails as I remember, some of them were broken and there was dirt under them. His hair was short and bristly. His body was just like that of the bodies you see on the statures of Shiva and the various bodhisattva statues- exactly, powerful, symmetrical. He moved with an undulating grace and deceptive speed. I know now that the cobra hood was realized above his head. I knew nothing of these things at the time. The way he moved and walked cannot be accurately described by me; like a cat, like a serpent.

He held his hands, all the time I was with him, in just the way a carriage driver would hold the reins of the horses, between thumb and forefinger. The Saturn and Apollo fingers were drawn in against the palm and the little finger mimicked the forefinger. Here is our conversation as I remember it.

“God is a serpent. God is sleeping and this is his dream.”
Me: “But God’s going to wake up right?”
Him: “I don’t know.” (he said this frequently and later I was saying it all the time myself and really knowing, with visceral conviction, that I did not know)
He rises to his feet, seeming almost to just materialize there and says-
“Everything is under control, take the reins.” He gestures forward and I see two seagulls flying off and yet connected to lines of force extended from his hands.

I asked him why he wasn’t in the city where people might profit from his wisdom. He said, “I don’t like being pushed around.”

Then he said, “I like to fuck but I despise deals.”
I said, “but you don’t have to make any deals. “ He replied, “Deals have been made.” There was a sense of sorrow that I got from him at times, but it was more than that. It was more like the far reach of many years.

We walked a ways back toward the creek and ran into this fellow Donovan and his girlfriend. This Donovan wanted to string a huge bell across the valley. This is one of the sorts of things you ran into during these times. Heh heh. Later a close associate of mine ran into the fellow and he confirmed all of what happened that day. It is interesting to note that in most every case there have been witnesses to what might be considered unbelievable events. This would not qualify as such- except in respect of what follows.
I forget a lot of what got said here but something was said about how there was nothing to ever be worried or concerned about. For some reason I said, “What about the Chinese?” meaning the communists. The girlfriend laughed and said to me, “Don’t you know you’re God?” I didn’t know how to integrate such a thing but she in speaking had drawn close to The Man on the Beach and he rose up quickly just as you would imagine a cobra might, angling away from her and saying- it didn’t seem to anyone in particular, “Yes, you’re God.”

I can’t remember anything else except when we were walking back and while crossing the creek he spun around and said to me, “You’re a celebrity here you know.” I still don’t get that. Anyway, we gravitated over to the music and I stood next to him- joints were passed around, occasionally he would share in one. He danced in a close to the body timeless rotating way, his hands before him. I remember thinking how beautiful it was the way he handled his disability. I thought he was crippled. I noticed at some point that he was tumescent. His cock pressed against his trousers. But there was no sense of sexual strangeness. Everything was not only fine but beyond fine. I could see into the skin of everyone there and there was a sense of brotherhood moving through the music that I have since experienced very few times.

As it got dark, the junkies were in sad shape. The acid hadn’t done anything and truthfully I never spent any time with them. That wasn’t why I was there, although I suppose it was a good intention on my part. They wanted to go, soonest. Several people said to me, “You should stay.” The Junkies said I should stay and The Man on the Beach said, “Yes, you should stay. I didn’t stay. I thought it was my duty to shepherd these fellows home. I regret this more than anything else in my life. So we left.

Even seeking brevity I see this will still run several more posts, sorry about that. Next up we follow the events that lead me to the house in the woods and what happened there.

I should add that this man was fully realized and one of the immortals. There is no question of this in my mind considering what followed. I don't know what progress I've made in respect of this. I often feel I was much closer before and have only deteriorated since or barely treaded water. At least I'm on the other side of the firestorm that engulfed my life the last couple of decades. It would be nice to come up for some of that rarified air I used to breathe.

Thursday, January 27, 2005

A Strange Travelogue, Part One.

This will be, due to space considerations, about conditions and results in a general way; more about giving an example rather than a gratuitous chronologue of events.

I lived in Kyoto Japan for my first five years of life and the Orient has been a major factor in my development throughout life. I remember at around the age of two or three that I was laying in my bed one afternoon; no doubt it was nap time and I came awake to a droning chant. My eyes eventually focused on the beams that supported the ceiling. I saw the small figures of monks in robes. There were a dozen or two dozen, I don’t remember exactly; two lines of them facing each other across the beams and they were chanting and looking down at me. I had no idea of what I was seeing but it was a powerful event that I have always remembered but never attached any importance to since I still don’t know what it means. Other things happened as well but they don’t come to memory except as vague images. There were two Japanese maids that took care of me during that period and sometimes they would take me with them when they shopped. I remember a very old Japanese man whom they would bring me to and he spoke to me but I can’t recall about what.

My fathers brutality surfaced in my mind during that time; the stern sound of his voice and the early beatings. I remember being willful even then, despite the punishments. I remember thinking he won’t win.

Then I was at Georgia Military Academy for several years. My father was an instructor there. I was a very good student and consistently got A’s but I was picked on by other students and humiliated in front of them by my father in a consistent fashion. I did not understand any of this. I did not fit in or know how to adapt and that never changed. I began to wet the bed and of course I was brutally punished for this but that didn’t help any. I began to have terrifying dreams of werewolves and vampires. I could hear things howling in the night outside the house and on the farm. I had friendships with spiders and would let them crawl on me. I talked to them. Something happened that I don’t remember and I was terribly frightened of them afterwards. That’s over now. I used to have conversations with people I couldn’t see all the time. I used to hang out with an old black man called Rainey. I was always aware of Nature as a living thing. Rats scared me.

We went to France and lived in Paris and that was wonderful except for the continued punishment from my father. I had less trouble with other kids for awhile but I was still picked on. Sometimes kids would sit on my chest and slap me around for long periods of time. Other times I would lose my temper and waste them, so that I was an unpredictable element. I used to run around the streets of Paris and went to the Louvre often and the various churches. Books became a major interest and I read constantly when I wasn’t exploring in the woods or the sewers or wherever.

I remember at around 11 years old I was sitting in class one day and an overwhelming Love swept through me. The classroom was filled with light and I felt completely transformed. I cannot give words to this. Everyone I looked at I could see light in their skin and a vibrating energy that surrounded them.

I went to Ft. Niagara, New York. Sports, principally baseball, became my whole focus; of course books were a mainstay, even as they are today. I still got picked on, until I lost my temper and then I always won. It was at this point that I took the Iowa State tests and scored in the 95% to 99% percentile in all subjects. The teachers called a meeting with my family because of the disparity between my scores and my grades. Well, my home life was a nightmare so go figure. Around this time I started to develop crippling pains in my stomach. The doctors could not find a problem. I got a lot of painful tests. Finally they found an adult ulcer. This was unheard of and probably what took them so long. I went into the hospital and the doctors told my father I had to have a special diet thereafter. My father said I was in collusion with the doctors and my mother and that there was nothing wrong with me. On the night of my return my mother made me hotdogs and something bland. My father kept going on and on about me being a special privileged character. The rest of the family was having chili. Finally I said, “Mommy, can I have some chili?” The predicted results followed.

My father would read about things that happened in the papers and sometimes punish me for them because he was sure I had done them. I should say something about the nature of the beatings. They might involve fists, pieces of wood, extension cords and on one occasion sections of a rose bush with the thorns on. One time it was the back of a shovel. The ulcer finally went away but plagued me intermittently until I left home. Sometimes I would climb under my bed and tear my arms bloody with my nails.

I wanted to be a baseball player or an archaeologist. I was fascinated with Richard Halliburton and Harry Schliemann (sp?) He discovered Troy. I started reading the classic writers. I read some or all of most of them. This was my escape. Aldous Huxley really helped. He was the first person I thought had left footprints for me.

I moved to Ft. Ritchie at Cascade Maryland, near Camp David and Blue Ridge Summit PA. I got very good at baseball. I was a pitcher and used to strike out about 2 batters an inning and I could hit. This got me some relief from the bullying. The brutality continued with my father. I was getting on the 16 now and resentment was getting strong. I didn’t go through puberty until about this time and never had any pubic hair until I left the Air Force at 17. This was not conducive to taking public showers; after sporting events. I got good at hiding.

Some soldiers got me drunk and a whole new world emerged. A couple of alcohol fueled rampages got me into trouble with the law and my father was forced to put me into the military the week after I turned 17. I couldn’t do anything right there. I still wasn’t more than 12 years old in many ways. I was sent for mental tests and the doctors said I was a chronic schizophrenic. I was discharged but managed to fight it all the way to a PEB Board of full Colonels. They actually flew me from Chanute IL. to Andrews Air Force Base for this, thus ensuing at least that I got some part of the GI Bill. I had just finished the 10th grade when I went in. I was still 17 when I came out. I rode down to Oklahoma with a ner do well who got a bad conduct discharge. His family didn’t want me. I didn’t know what to do. I knew I was crazy so I signed myself into the Oklahoma Mental Institution in Norman. This is where I first had sex with a girl on the grounds. Six months later I got out and I hitchhiked with some guy to Washington D.C. because I heard there were 8 girls for every one man. While in the institution I was reading a psychology journal about this Timothy Leary and his experiments with LSD. I felt this incredible draw to what he was saying and thought how I would like to try this.

I got to D.C. and worked in Gospel Missions for awhile, working with the refuse of humanity. I’d forgotten about Leary and was just trying to get a life. I got a job at The Library of Congress in The Division for the Blind. I started reading Freud and Nietzsche; I thought maybe I could solve my problem. I gravitated toward DuPont Circle and the beatnik culture. I began writing poetry in earnest, though I had always done this (I’m leaving many things out but this skeleton is just about setting the stage for a point. ‘The’ point I intend to make.) and began to read my work at a coffee house called The Crow’s Toe and then later The Lute and the Lyre. It was run by a black man named Teddy Portochinko. Mostly blacks came there and it was an incredible scene. A whole lot of things happened which led to my meeting some early hippies and taking some Sandoz acid in the liquid vials. The whole world changed. I instantly knew I wasn’t crazy. It was the world that was crazy and I wasn’t schizoid, I just had wider margins. It would take a book to reveal what all I went through during this initial period. Large areas of knowledge and information opened up inside of me. Who knows where it came from? Very rapidly I became some sort of font or teacher and people would gather round me in the park. Quite a few of them were young women and so then there were the guys who came around me to pick them up. I remember shaking my head and thinking that they were missing the point. However, on one level they certainly weren’t. I had a girlfriend, one or two, but I was caught up in the things I was learning and didn’t really avail myself of all the free sex.

I met John Hall who later went on to found the group Orleans. John Reed was a dark man who would come around when I spoke. He figures into what happened. Hall and I were inseparable. Due to my visibility there the police took an interest in me. This was intensified due to my ability to spot them and my stupidity in pointing them out. I was a reckless boy. I ran afoul of Scientology. Scientology went to the cops and told them I was dealing drugs, not true. The police arranged a sting through John Reed whom they had already compromised and he sent up a ride across the river to Virginia to get some pot. John Hall was with us. There were two cars. Undercover officers came along and kept trying to get me to handle the money. I refused. But when we got out of the car Reed went running into the building and I was left standing when one of the cops extended some money through the window and said, “Here, get us another ounce.” I said I’d give the money to John. Well, you can imagine how that worked. Nothing happened then.

John Hall and I went to Greenwich Village. A warrant was out on me. When we got back to D.C. we were staying at John’s parent’s house in Maryland. His father was an executive with Westinghouse. They were very well off. They were very uptight about my influence on their son. They even paid for a private investigator to research my test results from the mental institution to prove I was not a genius as was being bandied about. They waved the scores in my face; only in the low 130’s, so there. Heh... Heh... John, under pressure, let them know the police were after me. So his parents arranged for me to be arrested at their house and he went along with it. John probably still doesn’t know that I know this, I never told him. So a huge dramatic scene took place with a bullhorn, spotlights and drawn guns. You would have thought I was Dillinger. This was due, I think, to Scientology painting me as a Rasputin sort of a figure and what the police had observed about my behavior. Away I went into the system for a bit.

I’ll pick this up again tomorrow. I apologize for many things I have had to and will have to leave out. Brevity requires it and, I have to reiterate, this is about a point to be made, not about my amusing and oft tragic journey to where I sit writing this. Everything I do mention here later comes up elsewhere or relates to my point. I’ll use flashbacks as I go because there are things I left out that are more relevant seen in hindsight.

Please be patient with me on this, it may run to three posts or more before I can do the intended post; the summing up. I realize things that I am going to say, some of them are going to be fantastic- they're all true. In nearly every case there are cooroborating witnesses easily reached. Whether they want to grant the time for extensive detail is up to them; should such requests be made. And for every event I give there will be a hundred left out. Some of it will give fuel to my critics but I'm not concerned with that. They've go their job to do just like me.

I may err sometimes in being comprehensive and this won't have the impact of a thoughtfully composed itinerary, that's for another time, if ever.

Wednesday, January 26, 2005

The Double Entendre of Making an Inside Straight.

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Yes, the game is fixed. But if the game is fixed it’s fixed on both ends; “as above so below, for the performance of the miracles of the one thing.” So if you’re in the lower classes in England and you can’t match the pot, you’ve got all the chips you need to play the game on the other end. And since we’re dealing with a helix, when you go around you can be sure you will come around.

The truth remains stable regardless of the passage of time or the change of circumstances. It always was and it always will be. Where’s the problem then? I mean, if the truth is always the truth how come we haven’t gotten it at this point? It’s fair enough to say that at the time Jesus walked and Buddha spoke that most of the populace wouldn’t have caught on. Over time we note that the unique understandings became commonplace. Christianity, Buddhism, Islam all came to rule in their neighborhoods of influence.

If we are for the most part agreed on the principles why is it so often lacking in the practice? What is the disparity between the head bowed in church on Sunday and the supplicant in the world through the week? What is the disparity between the fair exchange in the marketplace and the reality of the day to day?

Great souls have walked among us and all of their words agree. It’s not like the matter is hidden as far as rules of conduct go. It’s true that the teachers had one message for the initiated and one for the general population. Still, we must assume that the message was basically the same; there was just a difference in the level of understanding.

In my next two offerings I am going to give some details of my personal travelogue. By example I can show how this conundrum has acted out for me; but that’s later down the road.

I tend to think that the simplest answer- even when we don’t like it- is usually the right answer. They say a straight line is the shortest distance between two points. Physics has proven this to not always be the case, but it will do for the argument at hand. Even though the quickest route between Kansas City and Atlanta may be along certain roads, there are experiences that lie between that may make the journey much longer than expected. One may never arrive. So we may plan as we like, there are always other factors that come into play.

Truth exists in and of itself but for the resolution of personal needs the truth is not expedient. One person playing by the rules is at a disadvantage against someone who doesn’t; “wise as serpents and harmless as doves.” The playgrounds of our youth move in the larger arena and the same kids are pushing the other kids down and unless those kids adapt they’re screwed, so they adapt to the other principles. The power of the group mind subdues the individual mind and those minds who refuse are locked in or locked out.

It must be that we know what’s right but we refuse to do it. This is a key understanding. We actually know how we are supposed to be but we refuse and the reasons we refuse are many- but all complexities of numbers can be reduced to a common denominator; everything reduces to one. Some people are afraid; these folk go along and they are dangerous in groups. Some folk are canny and they see the angles. At least they see the angles on the limited playing field with the limited possibilities of outcome. Some find sanctimony useful. Some teach technique and some pontificate from a higher ground that they never intend to occupy in fact since they can more easily just appear to occupy it. Hypocrisy becomes one of our most universal qualities.

To walk in Truth is to be set against the hand of every man. You may intend no harm at all. Your passion may not even see anything outside your objective. But you are certain of enmity. Enmity is certain. A person of wisdom then must take pains in protective coloration. No further explanation of the practices of mystery schools need be given. The Templars might have been better off not to go about like John Gotti; less flash and more cash.

In youth there are many dreams. The fresh potentials for great work provide a cornucopia of choices; although, in truth, these options remain all of your life. But as we see, hopes are routinely dashed by circumstance and trial and for most; The Great Work is too much work. We know alright. We know what’s true and what is good but it just isn’t practical and you look like a fool and you attract the heat. All through history we have seen the examples. We surely know by now. So if we do not follow the leads of great hearts then the reasons are obvious. I’ve heard all the excuse in my time. I’ve experienced the betrayals and the deceits. I have done the same in turn when challenged by my higher guide on that which I had not the courage or the faith to continue in.

For myself I have always returned to the scene of my failure to pick it up again. I will not go down agreeing that my shortcomings are my true measure. You can’t offer me a thing here that can match what waits ahead. My every day is filled with the never ending test and it is a terrible crucifixion to see anger and despair so often wrestle the controls from my hands. The fact is that I’ve yet to master the reactive mind. I just can’t always catch myself before I respond in the wrong way to something of no importance. But I’m better than I was because I never give up. My humiliations are too numerous to recall. My despair has cut away any self respect I may ever have had and the rest was beaten out of me. But I never give up.

People give up. It’s what they do. The point of compromise is different in each life. In most cases however, the great battle is put aside for another day. In most cases the battle fought is not even the important one. And then you wonder why this is what you wound up with. But you knew. What you did not know was how much the truth really mattered, how much the truth was the only thing that mattered. This is where you screwed yourself. This is where you got deceived. At the time it seemed that safety in numbers and contempt for the odd man out was the sensible move. You were going to get your share and a mess of potage to call your own. Now it’s too late right? You’re bought and sold, you can’t go home again, you can’t start anew; you’re just going to tread water till your strength runs out. Who’s really crazy here?

It’s not too late however. While there is life there is hope. It isn’t any easier than it was before though; or is it? Now you know for sure that you were wrong. Now you know for sure what is right by benefit of having been wrong. Still, the leap of faith seems wide. Uncertainty remains and the sad attraction back is strong. Does this sound familiar? It should because there is no soul that escapes the dilemma. I think about the rich mans directive, to go and sell all that he has and give it to the poor. He thought about it, yeah, he thought about it. But he just couldn’t do it. So he accepted the following despair in the face of the clear freedom offered. And you have to ask yourself, how important was what he had if he was looking for a way out in the first place? How important was it when he considered the offer and why did it make him sad?

You stand all your life on a gulf. You hang from a ledge afraid to let go, never knowing that the Earth is inches below your feet. That gulf may be so wide that it has no other side, or it may only be as wide as your fear.

Tuesday, January 25, 2005

The Siphoning Felator Fugue in Flagrante Delecto Major.

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"When I find myself in times of trouble"

I am the shape of the thing entire
The central heart that does aspire…
Vitruvian Man
I am
spread out upon the quicksand
in endless suspension
of doubt
faith is the join
that holds at the points of the Star
and under the Rose
I am
Born in a fit of splendor
out of the womb of God
Twin Mary's bespeak the reconciled throne
for I will not sit here alone.

There is an odd twist to profanity; to what is considered profane. We seem to want to profane what is sacred. It serves the wider purpose of the suppressor to diminish the capacity of the divine. Maybe it is part of the war on the feminine aspect and maybe it’s just business.

It’s okay to suggest blowjobs in advertising and entertainment- even though the idea of one in our culture is essentially evil. The posture suggests in the automatic consciousness a further enforced servitude of the feminine, instead of the glorification of higher union. It is sort of like the suggestion that kindness is a show of weakness. It is quite odd. The Sanhedrin of the moment proclaims its view of what is sexually permissible, what is sexually sanctioned. At the same time, the business end of the Sanhedrin’s enterprises works the whole gamut for profit. The liquor, drug and tobacco industries are as AOK as the NRA but it always depends on who you are and who you know.

A moment of silence for my old friend Wilhelm Reich.

The sex force is THE force. We see some aspect of it in everything we do. We’re all making Love but most of us do it badly. The ones who do it with the least sensitivity and class are the arbiters of morality and technique. I find that strange.

My research has shown me that the point of sex is to eventually understand the object of union. Ultimately, sex with God is the real object. Most people are having sex with all sorts of partners every day. They don’t realize it but they do. And they have children from each union as well. The Kundalini is a feminine force.

Consider the fable of the princess locked up in the tower and held hostage by The Black Knight. I could make an argument that The Princess is The Kundalini and the tower is the established church and state and The Black Knight is ignorance.

Fables are truth with clothes on. I like to undress truth. Unfortunately for me I often do it in public and there are laws against that. I don’t mind breaking those laws and I don’t foresee a time when I’ll stop. Of course this means that some people won’t like me but I expect they’ll get over it when they take my place.

The main thrust of most major religions is the brutal subjugation and control of the feminine. If you look closely you will see that most of their dogmas are directed toward this. They’ve got this celibacy thing that seems to be engineered toward the creation of homosexual priests. You rarely hear of a Catholic priest who grooms the attentions of young girls. On the other hand you have the strange feature that father daughter incest is highest in the orthodox Jewish community. Well, I guess the links in the chain break at different points depending on where the pressure is focused.

Depending on where your attention is focused, you are the recipient of felatio though most of your waking day. It’s a siphon of sorts. You energy is being harvested by a number of engines. When you watch TV; walk through the mall, have a cocktail or a cigarette, your energy is being siphoned. As long as your energy can be kept at a certain level you can be milked like a dairy cow. Some few can concentrate their energy toward an object beyond the siphoning machines and achieve liberation from the milking process. It’s no easy go however.

Your feminine nature has been dishonored and you suffer. She is the high end of what you are. If the high end is made to appear as the low end, misery is automatic. You’ve been told that woman is the fall of man. It may be that there is a fall into the sensitive life but surely it is only through woman that you may rise again.

I could not hope to address all of this in one simple post. I’m just throwing out ideas for thought here. We don’t really understand something unless we have reasoned it out for ourselves. Intellectual grasp of a concept is not real understanding. Truth needs to be visceral.

Millions of women were burned at the stake for manifesting the wisdom that is part of the essential feminine. Somehow, without my ever seeing just how it happened, the church is now OK and very much the official source of truth, cause there she sits. I’m perplexed when I see a doddering old man, literally drooling on his expensive robes- his face pressed to within an inch of his reading matter, giving out with rules of conduct- calling for peace on Earth when his own policies make for massive daily suffering throughout the world. I’ve been in the company of enlightened teachers. They need no notes and can speak extemporaneously on any subject with vast eloquence.

Sometimes I think the church is a karma fabricant. You repeat these sayings over and over and roll on a rail from cradle to grave, on to an invisible processing plant on The Moon where a new body is manufactured for further service to the temporal Felator. Maybe I’m nuts but the whole business looks awfully strange to me.

I’m sure there are rules. I’m sure theses rules are not the same rules given by those who engineered the scriptures to represent the travesty that is the day to day. It seems like you can see the feminine as either whore or God. That seems like what my choices are. I’ve heard about the whore with the heart of gold but I suspect there’s more resentment there than anything else.

I suggest you restore the feminine to a divine state. I suggest you turn your attention to her voice within. She’s not the same there as she is on TV or in advertising copy. Remember that this engine depends on you for its existence and it is very protective about it. There’s this illusion that it has overwhelming power. Not all of its seeming power marshaled together at the same time has anywhere near the power of your smile of assurance when in contact with the original source of everything you experience. It only looks like it does because you’ve turned it upside down. Demons are angels in disguise. Don’t punish yourself with a false presentation of the true image.

Monday, January 24, 2005

Little Man in the Boat Overboard.

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There goes the personal ego, what a rowdy fellow; a miniature sun seeking to shine through a cloud of personal ignorance, enswathed in a greater cloud of collective ignorance. The defining characteristic of a personal ego is that it sees itself as something separate from everything else. The defining characteristic of the one ego; The Christ, if you will, is that it bespeaks its unity with all things. I have said before that Love and Unity both share the number 13 in the Hebrew alphabet; or rather I should say, in the context of the Hebrew alphabets attributing numbers to each letter, Love and Unity have an underlying connection. When one considers that Fear- the absence of Love- is a main motivator in the actions of the personal ego, there’s much we can speculate on here.

The personal ego is God’s pet. I’m assuming all of us have had pets and all of us have watched our pet behave according to the impetus of its personality; intrinsic characteristics, instincts, training (or lack of) and the like. I like to think of a wild bear and a trained bear as a good example. Those of us who have taught our bear to dance have a much more fruitful relationship than those with a wild bear.

What is the world after all? It’s a series of stages upon which bears in various stages of expertise exhibit their talents; or what they consider to be their talents. There’s the guy with the lampshade on his head. There’s the comic portraying the guy with the lampshade on his head and there’s the guy whose head is a lampshade with a light inside. There is the small soliloquy stage of the ego performing for itself and then the increasingly larger stages as it performs for others.

Nothing so perfectly exemplifies our present state of dumbed down incompetent ego performance as the ubiquitous Rap and Hip Hop bands as they lurch and expostulate like infantile goons potty talking their way into the lower astral. We now celebrate the most base and guttural aspects of our potential. These crotch-grabbing Neanderthals are the present day Bob Dylan’s and Beatles. On the other hand we have the saccharine and insipid offerings of the Disney lip-sync dancers with the full show presentation of mind numbing treacle. Don’t get me started on Country Music.

I use music by way of example because it is one of the most universal cross cultural phenomena that we have. An entire generation is traveling in the throwback machine. It is the music of ground level materialism. It’s shit. Modern Art is fellow-traveling along. Television and film are riding in the back. Everything is about the image of the personal ego as a tattooed biker slut. Its hip, its happening and it’s the thing that the In Crowd knows.

So what is this, a polemic about the sad state of the day? Yeah, sure, it’s that. You could say, “If it’s too fast, if you don’t get it, then you’re too old.” Fine. Of course, I didn’t care for any of this when I was eighteen, so probably I was too old then too. But these images are just by way of example in the direction of a point about what the personal ego is. The personal ego being limited and ignorant to a lesser or greater degree is easily led. The personal ego likes to belong while standing out. It’s reaching for identity with one more nose ring and a set of pants with fake underwear sewn in over the top of the jeans on a teetering skateboard. It passes thousands of similarly altered personal egos on the street each day, all celebrating their individuality. What’s this really mean? The personal ego is a clown and a fool. That’s what it means. Now the Fundie’s calling out to a Jesus that doesn’t exist are no less fools than them. And the sharp guys and gals in suits who were born with a briefcase in their hands, incipient hemorrhoids and an instinct for the jugular and the backstab, yes, they’re fools too. They’re clowns too. They’re all clowns. Let’s be fair though, I’m a clown as well. Clowns aren’t supposed to make you cry or make you angry however. A clown’s job is to make you laugh; Emmit Kelly aside. Today’s clowns aren’t funny. Today’s clowns are mean, violent and looking for a little John Wayne Gacy style romance. Hey, why not? It’s hip.

I shouldn’t say these things. Who am I to criticize? It makes me a player hater right? When the subtle balance between the male and female principle has spiraled out of control you can be sure you will see a lot of strange things. And you can be sure that the more wacked out it is the harder and quicker the adherents will work to legitimize it. After awhile nobody will have any idea of what normal is. But who wants to be normal? Looking for The False Prophet? Open your eyes. Want to see the prophecy realized? Open your eyes. I ran for cover. Yes, that’s just what I did. I ran for cover. Oh, I know you can’t avoid Samara, but I’m after the less traveled, more scenic route. If I got to be here then I’m going to decorate my room with the things I like to look at while I work on seeing the beauty in all of it; no easy task.

It should be no surprise that the president you have fits perfectly into the whole scenario. What part of what is screamingly obvious don’t you get? What we have here is co-dependent co-incidence. Well, you can discipline your kids with the intention of protecting them from a real ass-kicking or you can just let the world do it for you- and it will. How does that make you feel Little Johnny? Would you like to talk about it?

What’s the perfection of the little ego about? It’s coming to the level of appreciating the Central Ego as the one and only truly singular self. It’s coming to the point where you can dissolve into it. What do you do when the world is going batshit around you and you are powerless in regard of a solution? You work on what you have. You take what you see and you articulate the truth as your personal contribution to the mix. The Central Ego is doing this all the time, so your job is no job at all. It’s times like these when you can really get a jump. Maybe the time to stand still is when everyone else is running amuck; of course you do want to be on the edge of the crowd. You do want to quietly move to the exit so you can leave when some idiot hits the foam ceiling with a Roman candle.

It’s scary to think about it but that’s only when you have supposed you are supposed to do something. Yes, you have your tasks, the ones you can name in your life right now and the ones that present themselves every day; helping out as you go. But it’s bigger than your capacity to change overall. It just is. Thank God someone’s in control huh? Even when it doesn’t look like it.

There’s a reason for the en masse effort to look stupid. There is a point. It’s okay to stand in awe of it. It’s going to work out. You can probably intuit that there’s gonna be a Bad Day at Black Rock. You can suss out where the higher concentrations of chaos are likely, and I’ll tell you, you can be in the middle of it and still walk out unscathed; given the connection and the faith. That’s something for you to determine while the higher mind does the right thing for you in advance; if you’ll let it. This is just a little something to let you know that although you may be surrounded by insanity, the director is totally sane. You can walk off the cliff with the crowd but you don’t have to. For many this is their first taste of show biz. Damn! I never knew the lights would be so bright. You can’t see a thing.

I’m just filled with gratitude. I don’t know how else to put it. I can feel Meher Baba smiling and telling me, “Don’t Worry, Be Happy.” I know there are yogi’s in the Himalayas who send me their best wishes. I know there are discarnate souls who walk beside me and a couple of big dragon dogs that lick my face and run alongside and watch out for me; you can feel them even if you can’t see them. They’re pets too. They don’t know how big and dangerous and crazy they are unless I tell them. I think they’re cute so that’s what they think too. Enjoy the show.

Saturday, January 22, 2005

Now We Are Just Dickering about the Price.

There’s an old joke; a man approaches a beautiful woman and he asks her if she will go to bed with him for a million dollars. She assures him that she will. He then asks her if she will go to bed with him for $10.00, with a shocked retort she replies, “Absolutely not, what do you think I am?” He replies, “We’ve already established that, now we’re just dickering about the price.”

They say everyone has their price. I suppose in most every case I would have to agree. I consider myself priceless but you can have me for free.

Fame is a curious animal; truly a ‘warts and all’ creature seen in hindsight. Quite often in the immediate passage, fame is the beneficiary of real cosmetic artifice. Fame may come as the result of actual achievement but is just as easily secured by a good press agent.

Upon meeting Truman Capote, I asked him if he would like to read some of my work. He answered me in his high pitched trademark squeal, “My advice to you young man is to get a good agent.” I believed when I was young that I would achieve fame. I was convinced that certain of my talents were the equal of any man and that my message had the requisite timeless resonance. Of course, I knew nothing about fame and even less about myself. As time passed there were moments when I behaved badly; in defiance of the status quo; in misapprehension of the necessities of arts exposure; fueled by chemicals and often ignorance as well. I was lucky I had no more than a localized celebrity.

In this time, fame is generally confused with notoriety and capriciously bestowed for no good reason. It’s often a corollary to the efforts of businessmen who could never be accused of possessing either sensitivity or taste. Fame endures like infamy. Real fame isn’t the notice of the moment but rather the result of the ongoing test of time. Messages given to humanity are often understood only at a point well beyond the departure of the messenger.

It seems to me now that the measure of fame is in ‘who’ remembers you and ‘why’ they remember you. Einstein is famous but very few people know why. Justin Timberlake is famous and I don’t know why. Coca Cola is famous too, so is Disneyland, Mickey Mouse and Viagra- they’re more famous than most famous people. The highest personification of the game show host in American Idol and its many clones confers a fame that will vanish the moment the show goes away. There are skiers in Latvia; Pro Sports and Extreme Sports aficionados on everything from skateboards to snowmobiles, TV actors in a hundred countries, singers and dancers in every city, hairdressers, dress designers, paperback writers and hookers with hotel fortunes. All of them are famous in their world. There are hundreds of thousands of famous people. I live next door to someone here called Cliff Richards; I was told he is Sir Cliff Richards. I have no idea who he is; something to do with music.

I’ve been on a few large stages and I remember being struck with the desire to throw raw meat into the crowd. Once I performed at a concert attended by around 25,000 people. Some number had brought kegs into the crowd and as time passed they got drunk and
unruly. I closed out my set with an acappela rendition of one of my tunes called Alcohol. It was a huge hit, the timing was right. Drunks were screaming it out as the song progressed. Then, for the rest of the night as other artists performed, you would hear someone screaming it; sometimes several people in different locations. I think I was famous that night though I doubt most knew who I was or remembered after. No stage I’ve ever been on matches the stage I stand on every day. No stage is larger or more majestic; the grand empyrean of stars and transiting bodies and here below all brilliantly garbed in the colors and sounds of eternal shakti. And all of this is just empty chimera in comparison to what lies within and beyond.

“Here comes the Sun King- and everybody’s laughing.”

No one is more famous than The Sun. The Sun is the essence of celebrity and fame. There is no life without The Sun and everything you do and are is a part of The Sun. On the personal level some suns shine too hot and create an arid desert, on other levels the sun seems hardly to shine at all. So it is in the larger sense. It is correct to say that your destiny is to become The Sun. Every star is a seat of consciousness, a living presence that is a personalized aspect of the spiritual sun preceding all phenomena. The Sun even creates the atmosphere that protects you from it. Plants take the power of The Sun and convert it directly to energy. We are in the process of learning how to do this. All our trial and error is dedicated to achieving this.

In the deeper fabric of life there are rarified realms where millions of voices are raised in a ceaseless chant to the infinite. They create and maintain a wavelength upon which the intelligence of The Sun travels. Marvelous tapestries are woven from this ongoing song. You can close your eyes and travel right into the thanka of the Tathagata, into the living presence of The Sakyamuni and The Christ. Look upon the spiraling descent of angels from the Sun. Daily they flow back and forth upon the sublime wavelength all singing the glory of the ineffable; “Here comes The Sun King”.

Should I, myself, hope to aspire to any personal remembrance when faced with the incomprehensible achievement of that which has made out of itself every moon, every star, every planet, every solar system and galaxy; everything in everything? I am only a single grain of sand on a single beach. Every star draws from the cloud nebula new life as it passes through it. It bathes itself in itself. I become more and more impressed with the hubris of those who think themselves singular and exceptional.

If other lifetimes must come I hope I may live to sing the praises of this force which has brought me over such a distance of diminishing darkness into the gradual understanding that is like a slow increasing light. Things I could not see at all stand now in stark relief and other shapes are now dimly outlined beyond them. The anonymous melt of my tiny part into this smiling repose is beyond anything I once imagined. I suspect it is something I once feared more than anything else.

I look back at the pain and the punishing force whose intentions I never understood and I see it was all a process of alignment; of placement. What fame do any of us deserve beside the work of the divine? If I light and burn for a moment in that Love isn’t that fame enough? And I have been told that I will shine forever because of it. No, let others accept honors and awards. Let others feast at the high tower and let their names be carved in stone. I would rather move more quickly and less encumbered.

There is a joy that rises in us just as The Sun seems to rise in the sky. Every disappointment and loss in our lives is meant to be a spur to encourage us to look to where this joy rises. For now, the doorway is open only occasionally until we close it again, unable to bear that light. But once the hinges of that door are broken, once that door hangs from a single hinge, incapable of closing, then we shall be free.

Wednesday, January 19, 2005

The Shadows on the Wall of Plato's Retreat.

If you knew what was really going on behind the veil of appearances; if we knew what reality was as opposed to the perception of reality, it would be easy to assume that the world was insane. As insane as this world may be, it is possible to live in a state of sanity amidst; a place where what happens is different from what usually happens. Things may burn and melt, crumble and explode on the usual level but blossom into flowers on another; a bar fight may take on the appearance of a dance and a war become the shifting of a dragon in his sleep.

Until recently I took a few things personally that I didn’t understand essentially. I looked at the world and saw things that were wrong; that looked wrong to me. I lent my voice to the force of changing them, often in a shrill and cumbersome language. I thought my part in being a soldier fighting the good fight was to draw attention to inequities and inconsistencies and to point the finger of shame at the robbers, reavers and rapists of the world. It may have just added to the noise on the highway.

As I have more and more been able to turn the focus of my efforts upon myself, I have come to see more clearly the value of certain tactics over others. I note that in this most dangerous of all traffic zones in Europe that I seldom see what others tell me is constant. I’ve noticed the absence of all manner of annoyances that I have been told are here and there; I don’t encounter them.

I’m thinking that if you or I or anyone were to want to change the world it wouldn’t make any sense to try unless we could bring about ‘effective’ change. We’d have to be changed ourselves first and then that change would alter the mix automatically; in the specific and in the general.

I like to think myself into the center of the atoms that compose this world and all that is in and on it; into the spaces between these atoms; into all the centers and spaces of the whole. I like to expand and then contain the whole within my certain awareness of it. I like to unite with the integral force that maintains it until there is no difference between it and me. The thing itself is conscious, just as I am. I am conscious of myself in it and it is conscious of me in it as part of everything that it is.

Weaving the hate one perceives with the Love that one feels, you gain both the rose and the nitrogen source needed to feed it. I have discovered in a small way how to use evil instead of opposing it. Any philosophy, discipline or religion that does not contain within itself the seed and the flower of a simple and certain liberation is a pointless exercise. It’s the very masturbation that Onan got slapped down for.

This thing called ‘ageless wisdom’ is called that for a reason. Ecclesiastes and other sources will tell you the same thing. Wisdom doesn’t change. You might say that wisdom is perfect recollection. There isn’t anything new and it is the truth of this that makes all of these ‘so called’ New Age practices seem so bogus to the discerning eye. You are further informed of their bogus nature by the fact that they charge money for them. Not only will the truth set you free, but the truth is free except for the price you pay in experience to discover it.

Successful proponents of the New Age also like to turn themselves into Gods living in splendor attended upon by fools. The same can be said of the traditional marketplaces of religious artifacts and epitaphs someone has convinced you will serve to pay the ferryman. People set themselves up as teachers and create industries built on personalities, when the only important thing is the degree of light shining ‘through’ them and the only thing important about that is the light itself. Real teachers, without personal agendas and possibly without even the personal knowledge of relative values; because they don’t make such distinctions- are much more likely to be defamed because they aren’t part of the big marketplace of deception. Ignorance wars against truth because Truth challenges its survival simply by existing. Ignorance has no effect on the Truth but it can affect the collective mind that fears its own individual exposures. Ironically, everyone stands naked at all times; however they may believe otherwise or speak against the evidence of their senses- until some innocent points it out, like in The Emperors New Clothes.

It’s certain that you can’t appreciate the act of getting clean until you have rolled in the mud. The wages of every promiscuous excess follow on the heels of the action. The results of jumping off a cliff can be logically reasoned or intuitively grasped. One doesn’t always see the cliff in fact. Some of our constant activities are so cloaked in a collective misinterpretation that we think the dead moths at out feet are scattering leaves.

The benefits of abstinence over excess are more problematic. The draconian mind of forced dogma-fed justification brings on the Inquisitions and witch-burnings, The Crusades and the crucifixions. Common excess coarsens ones nature and yet one is told if he were to persist in it he may become wise. Misdirected abstinence leads into terrible confinement and horrible crime.

We hear about The Whore of Babylon and The Beast and The False Prophet; of which there are many variations on a common theme. We don’t seem to understand these things in real time. Even with the presence of obvious deception on all sides, the greater body chooses to be deceived. What is is made to appear as what is not. What is not is made to appear as what is.

I can’t know of course, but I assume that everyone who has found the fountain has become a spout. Given the exhilarating massage and radiant, transformative consistency of such a state, it seems likely that such persons would have little use for trappings and possessions, or much of anything. It seems likely that such persons would usually be quite private except where destiny has chosen them to be a showpiece. Given the nature of the thing itself, it stands to reason that whoever has encountered it would be compelled to give it away; the waters of spirit freely given, so to speak.

Given that there is a priceless matter that can be apprehended and shared, it stands to reason that everything else would be of no matter beside it. It stands to reason that it would also stand in direct contradiction to the world and would be mocked and trampled were it not so well hid and protected. It also stands to reason that since such a priceless matter does exist that merchants everywhere would proclaim their possession of it and picture it with a buxom scantily dressed lady sitting atop it. It would be beaded with condensation as it would glow with warmth. It would be both fast and luxuriously slow. It would be all the things that it is not. It would be the constant companion of the rich and the powerful and it would be the object of infinite value sought by all. But it freely runs in the gutters, is vibrant in the air, is everywhere and nowhere and is certainly not the product or possession of merchants, the rich or the powerful.

Whoever has it, or knows of it; knows what it is, even if it appears at some small distance yet. Whoever has it possesses both wealth and power unequalled in this world and would certainly have no need of anything else. They might live well. They might enjoy all manner of things in passing, but pass they would. It’s not all that hard to tell the difference between the shadow and the light.


P.S. I know I am behind on my emails- I'm surprised I got this up today since I composed it outside of my usual morning routine...just a tad busy right now. Hang in there and I will get to you all in the next 24. Warmest of Regards.

Monday, January 17, 2005

Betting; to Win, Place or Show?

(A few points;

Sometimes you answer a post or you send me an email. I’m not real sure of all the details but- If you answer in a post, unless you reference the post and if it isn’t the immediate post then I have no way of knowing where you contacted me from unless you tell me. I get an alert which includes what you had to say but it doesn’t say from where. If you email me make sure your email address is in the email.

I get some very nice responses; both in threads and in emails. Yesterday, from what I understand, someone mentioned me in a post somewhere else. As a result I heard from a few people; one was from a highly articulate person who mentioned in passing that they had thought of emailing me but didn’t want to lean on me. Others have mentioned that they know I am busy and don’t want to provoke me into having to respond. Let me be very clear about something. All I do is write these pieces, compose music or work on my books. Well, I also sit in the sun a lot, take walks and follow certain disciplines which I enjoy. I don’t have a job in the sense that people understand that to mean. This is my job. I don’t have children to raise except the ones inside me. I don’t have a social life. I’m just here. So no one is bothering me and if you don’t mind waiting now and then, you’ll hear back from me.

No one is or will be leaning on me. I’m already leaning on something else. We would both be leaning on the same thing. Of course I’m not in a position to work out the details of anyone’s life, nor will I help orchestrate minutiae. It’s not cause I’m standoffish, lazy or selfish; although I could be a little of all of them (smile). The fact is you can get all the help you need from the same place I do. Unless you know this everything else is only going to confuse your efforts and your progress. But I’m glad to hear from people so don’t let any of that stop you. You have to take a number to annoy me, that room’s already full and I’m candid enough not to get into any enabling or faux supportive routines. Knowing with full certainty that there is a god makes it impossible for me to take myself seriously; knowing a little about myself makes it impossible for me to get the idea that I’m any kind of superior individual. The absolute and certain fact is that we are all the same person at different points along the same route. It could be that I can see something a little better than you just by virtue of not having the same concern at the same time. It’s also a given that you see some things better than I do. Alright, let’s see what there is to talk about today.)


Betting to Win, Place or Show

I like sports. When I was a kid they were the only life I had besides books and punishment. I played everything I could get to. I don’t like soccer though and golf is not a sport. I mostly played Baseball, Football and Basketball in that order. I also played tennis and bowled. I love ping pong and I’d better stop now or this will be a grocery list. And yeah, ping pong is a sport; you can sweat right through your shoes if you’re full at it for awhile. Bowling is actually a complete sport (pot bellies aside). I’ve heard it said it exercises every muscle in the body just like swimming, it’s just not aerobic.

I don’t get to play sports much any more. I don’t have any companions. So I work out at various martial arts disciplines and the odd this and that which I can do alone. I guess it stands to reason that I know something about professional sports; who the teams are, their strengths and the less obvious factors like home field, crowds and turf, rivalries and the ‘who’s your daddy’ feature that showed up yesterday between The Patriots and The Colts. I was pretty sure The Patriots would win because I study the thing. I’ll admit I wanted The Patriots to win but if I thought it was going the other way I would have called it that way. I knew the Eagles would convincingly beat Minnesota. The next two are harder to call, especially the Steeler game coming up. I think you can figure out where I think it will all wind up though and, yes, I’ve been wrong but I do run about an 11-4 weekly ratio. That’s pretty good.

I don’t get to watch sports much any more although I do get the playoff and series games on the internet if I happen to be at home when they’re happening. Good streaming internet can be problematic on the road.

Of course, I’m not going to go on about sports here. Some say that life is a game. It’s certain that people get gamed all the time. Sometimes they get gamed en masse. It stands to reason that if a magician can go on stage and fool you; usually with smoke and mirrors but often with misdirection as well- it stands to reason that if someone can entertain you by deceiving you (and they’re just getting paid for doing their job) that someone with vastly more power and vastly more at stake can also deceive you, though whether they entertain you is a matter for debate.

For a time my education required me to spend some time in jails and prisons and high security mental institutions. I could write a book about the characters I met and the things I saw and heard about. I know about Murphy and Badger cons, variations on The Spanish Prisoner and a host of things from Three Card Monte on up. All of these are based on the never ending abundance of human stupidity and greed. They say you can’t cheat an honest man. You also can’t con somebody who doesn’t want what you are selling; who isn’t interested the possibility of a dicey payoff, who knows about The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, Mowgli’s tale of the elephant goad and all the phony Las Vegas mirages winking in a real desert.

I’m incomplete in some ways and have my crosses to bear. I’ve also got some talents. A spiritual master once paid me a wonderful compliment. He said to someone who knew me, following a conversation I had had with him that, “you can’t bullshit that guy.” I got a detector and it goes off immediately when I hear bullshit. Let me clue you. I mostly hear bullshit. Most of it is innocuous or has to do with the way people misunderstand themselves. Often it has to do with laziness.

I never thought the Paris Hilton sex tape came out by accident, nor do I think she has half the talent of Pauly Shore. I usually don’t buy what I’m told about most of what I hear. It’s not that everybody is evil or a liar. Sometimes they believe what they are telling you.

I don’t think either The Colts or The Vikings threw the game. I believe that under the right circumstances they could have won. At that level and at that part of the season between gifted teams it comes down to coaching. All the coaching in the world won’t win for a bad team though. You have to be at a certain level to compete, otherwise you have to cheat.

When you look at the recent presidential election and the preceding one, you might think election fraud was the deciding factor. You might think dirty tricks were the factor. You might even think bush won. The latter is the least likely. What you probably don’t think is that Kerry was a stalking horse. You probably don’t think it was engineered from the gitgo. Of course fraud and tricks was a feature but if you were watching then you could see the more hidden features at work.

You might think that the point of my writing this is to point this out. You might think I feel the occasional need to get into this kind of thing; bring it up, keep it fresh. Actually that isn’t the case. My point is that things like this are going on all the time. Maybe you saw where bush says that the election justifies everything he did, that he has a mandate now and that he don’t have to explain nuthin any more.

Maybe you thought about why the democrats would nominate and support a candidate from the most problematic state in the union. Maybe you thought about the gay marriage thing and the enormous backlash from the majority of the country. Although most people are okay about the gay thing, a huge majority oppose mainstreaming it. You can’t mainstream fringe anyway. The gay issue was the nail in the coffin. But way before that was the engineering job. The Swift Boat liars could have been nailed many a time. I personally could have engineered a commercial campaign that would have ousted bush. I know about his many vulnerabilities. It is interesting how the Rather thing has developed. What is more interesting is that everything Rather said was true. What is true about bush is much, much worse than anything that has come out.

We have three basic levels of consciousness; Self Consciousness, Sub Consciousness and Super Consciousness. The argument of Creationism and Evolution is an amusing conundrum. Actually they are both correct. But let me give you a new twist on The Garden of Eden. Adam was God. He divided and became Eve too to create the basic relationship out of which everything has followed. God makes everything out of his own substance. He becomes it. The serpent was God just as is the Messiah. God came into manifestation and everything that has followed is God playing hide and seek, doping dress up and acting out.

We mistake logical sequences for causal sequences. What happens in our life is we are pulled by the future, not pushed by the past. God is behind everything and God knows where he’s going. God is in the past present and future at all times. Our problem is that we have difficulty being led. “Unless ye become as little children…” The fix is in and has been. You think things are happening, you think you do things, but you are being set up all the time. The future is assured. You suffer because you don’t hear or react properly. This is what we are learning. It is very hard due to the simplicity of it. Everything that happens in your life, everything is some aspect of God dealing with your soul; everything down to the tiniest most insignificant seeming detail. Believe it. You can make this a lot easier but you can’t change the basic reality. You are stuck with that. You have to play the game according to the rules. It is the rules that make the game. Free will is your ability to go along willingly or to oppose. You make it hard and you make it soft; or rather God does in the process of leading you... but yeah, you do it to. You are dancing with God. Is it a waltz? Are you down in the mosh pit? When you can’t understand why something happens to you it is because you haven’t gotten to the reason yet. If what happened was hard it is because you didn’t catch the gentler nudge.

The minds that think they are orchestrating events are themselves being orchestrated. God is indeed leading bush, just not to where, or in the way, he thinks. Everybody setting up the con is being conned. Everyone orchestrating is being orchestrated, to ends other than the ones they imagine. Don’t try to extrapolate this into football, don’t go there.

There is no diminishment of women in my previous illustration. Man and woman are roles. We play them both. And we are all female to God. I don’t bet on games. I don’t wish and hope. I don’t know why I haven’t gotten to do the things I thought I was here for in the way I thought I was supposed to. You probably don’t either. But the movie isn’t over yet and I doubt I could write the ending half as good as God.