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Friday, January 16, 2009
The Grim Reaper and Me
Time to get personal. My relationship with death. My first experience with death was when my mother's mother died, probably in her 60s (I was under 10; I was her favorite). I recall crawling up in a ball on the floor and crying, but not much else. After that, my next encounter with the Grim Reaper was when I was 22 and one of my closest friends, of the same age, was killed in a car accident—every bone in his body was broken. I was traveling the world at the time and didn't return for the funeral.
After he died, I had the following dream. I was outside sitting on some grass with him, and we were eating grass. I looked into his dark brown eyes and I suddenly remembered that he was supposed to be dead. I asked him about it, and then if he remembered dying. He was confused at first, or puzzled, then he looked at me closely and said, "You don't understand, you've got it backwards. I'm not dead. You are."
When I woke I knew that he was referring not just to me but to all of us. This realm I had woken into was the real "dead zone." And yet, although I do believe this to be in some sense true, I also believe that the difference between the realm we are in now and that in which the dead "reside" is that here we have the option of change, while the dead do not. They are in Eternity, where nothing can ever change, because everything is in the eternal Now. So the "writing" of our lives that we take into death stays fixed upon our souls; it is only while in the realm of life—of individual self-ness—that we have the option of changing or erasing the marks which we have engraved on our souls, through the acts of living.
As a culture, we have agreed to agree that death is a regrettable thing.
It's sometimes suggested that I am too "negative" or dark, that I focus on things to fear rather than things to delight. But is it negative to focus on things that people would rather not look at, even if it's to place them in a context by which they can be more clearly seen, not as negative or fearful, but merely as what is?
More personal disclosure. I don't trust happiness or happy people. It's a bent of mine that has been there since childhood. (It's even there in my astro chart.) This is partly because I was raised around a lot of inauthentic "happiness" (alcoholism), and because I developed at a very young age a sense of the transitory nature of "pleasure", that whatever gives us joy will soon pass, and the joy along with it. In fact, as a teenager I couldn't even have the thought of being happy without plunging into instant unhappiness—the curse of consciousness. So I eventually associated happiness with stupidity, a lack of (self-) awareness. Such neurotic distrust has allowed me to see through fake joy or superficial well-being that depends on a denial or ignorance of what IS, and prevents a full and tender awareness of our impending death.
Part of the reason I chose to relinquish the role of "prophet of doom" (until recently!) is that I realized I was arrogantly assigning the same level of comfort—the same strange affinity—with death, destruction, and Plutonic transformation that I had been hard-wired with from birth. One man's wine is another man's poison.
In the end , what I am really saying is that I know, beyond all doubt, that I myself haven't done the work integrating my darkness, and that I am not ready to make my peace with it. Count of C asked me to share what I truly know and it is this.
Whatever present or future we can create for ourselves, as individuals and as members of humanity, will be precisely measured by the extent to which we have integrated the dark, disowned aspects of our psyches, and so attained wholeness.
We as a race, as much as individuals, have to be spurred to change, grow, evolve. Without death driving it, consciousness itself is inert.
Besides my own neurotic personal imprints, it may be that I rail as I do against what I perceive as unfounded optimism because I believe that the wonderful forecasts of (premature) peace and harmony would truly be the death of the species. We simply aren't ready for Eternity. Or at least, I'm not.
One other thing I know: I need a full-on, soul-smashing, ball-dropping, head-to-head encounter with the Adversary before I am ready to celebrate my emancipation from fear and dive headlong into the everlasting joys of galactic one-ness.
Am I the only one...?
50 comments:
- Sounder said...
AK>"We as a race, as much as individuals, have to be spurred to change, grow, evolve. Without death driving it, consciousness itself is inert."
Is this to say that for death to drive consciousness, we must be alive? Interesting that you say; that 'without death driving it consciousness itself is inert'. Maybe, but how then did your friend find the energy to express himself? Or was that another part of you, energized by thoughts of death?
AK>"Besides my own neurotic personal imprints, it may be that I rail as I do against what I perceive as unfounded optimism because I believe that the wonderful forecasts of (premature) peace and harmony would truly be the death of the species. We simply aren't ready for Eternity. Or at least, I'm not."
We are not ready for Eternity, and I imagine there will be several more re-integrations of our delusional projections that we try to impose on reality before GC can be touched. Anyway a re-integration of our forms of understanding does not bring peace and happiness so much as it brings a fuller context that enables more conscious engagement with our struggles.
- 4:22 am, January 17, 2009
Hi aeolus. I don't think you are negative at all, you are simply honest. Sometimes (in fact most of the time) reality IS negative, but it is NOT negative of you to point this out! In fact, I would say it is hightly positive, since only by facing truths can anyone hope to make changes they need to make (maybe this is why the fairies are envious and jealous of us, and why your friend said that you...or maybe most of us...are dead...if one is in life and not changing and growing, one may as well be dead). And like you, I, too, do not think we are ready for Eternity because no species whose feeling function is still so primitive could possibly be ready for it. And I doubt very much that any mere human could ever be done with the work of integrating their darkness...our lives are simply too short and our darkness too deep.
Sounder: I think it is terrible that you responded with your intellect and an analysis when aeolus opened his heart to us the way he did, instead responding with your own heart.
- 6:17 am, January 17, 2009
- Sounder said...
AG, perhaps I am off base, but that was my attempt to address what I took to be a substantial element within AK's musing. I certainly mean no disrespect.
- 7:52 am, January 17, 2009
A beautiful testimony, Aeolus.
It is all a matter of building trust here and it is a difficult and anonymous medium to do this in, but I feel that I am closer now to seeing your perspective.
- 8:51 am, January 17, 2009
- Jasun said...
thanks SJ, and AG for that heartfelt but unnecessary defense. There's a place of heart response and a place fr the intellect, both are welcome here.
Sounder did zero in on a phrase that i was wondering over late at night: Is consciousness inert without death to drive it? I think it should be narrowed to human consciousness, as I'm not ready to speak of angels and gods, who, if they are beyond the realm of organic life, may be beyond death also, even while still evolving?
Or perhaps we need to redefine what we mean by death? Acc. to Juan Matus, death is the "active player" in the Universe, or at least the human realm, and without it nothing happens.
If we lived forever, what would motivate us to do anything at all?
As for my friend - i think it was really "him" in the dream, but it may have been my awareness of death that was driving "him" to make contact with me?
- 2:43 pm, January 17, 2009
The Human species will never be ready for eternity because it is an aberrant and cancerous growth upon the purity of nothingness. You cackle and haw our pathetic musings as though the "change" imprinted on your being meant something. But the reality is that no fundamental change in your nature can be brought about. Whatever relative degree of awareness you have, you are still filth. The question is whether you are waking filth or sleeping filth. In either case you still stink, and are still subject to rot in as a nest of fly spawn. Not just your bodies either. The electromagnetic soup that conducts the current of consciousness is still a part of nature, and when this universe is consumed in its final inevitable cataclysm, you souls - however 'radiant' - will be consumed as well. Naught shall remain but void. Eternity , as you conceive it is the outcome of a logical fallacy. Its just another philosophic phantom, absurdly wrought by taking language at its word. You see, human beings ASSUME that for every existent there is a corresponding existent, antithetical to it in nature, against which it can be defined - from which, in other words, it derives its being. But it is foolish to treat the whole of being in this way, assuming that against temporality and finitude there must be an atemporal and infinite state of which this is but a derivative manifestation. All humankind's pious ponderings are opiates, means of distraction from the pathetic futility of existence.
- 2:48 pm, January 17, 2009
- Jasun said...
the grinch speaks
- 4:34 pm, January 17, 2009
Hi Sounder. Yeah, Sounder, I'm sorry about that. Its all too easy to fall into judgement sometimes.
- 6:16 pm, January 17, 2009
Beyond reasoning and logic we have our fundamental 'higher feelings', our 'higher senses', linked to intuition, imagination, and the known-unknown, the ever-beyond. This is not an axiomatic infinite of deduction, but of feeling-knowing.
This is what distinguishes us, 'unseen friend'. The intelligent machine is not a conscious machine. The nihilist that can not feel it's nihilism is not a nihilist, for that would implicate a spectrum of experience.
People need to taste some nihilism. It must be an integrated existant in the universe for creation, for formation, for the imagination, for higher values that are beyond a labeling ranking. Without it we are as programs, run amok with ourselves. The extreme that is 'Unseen friend' is as a program run amok with itself. We might suppose Unseen friend is antithetical to a true nihilist, for it carries no spectrum of doubt within it.
This is coming from someone feeling excessively doubtful currently, who is facing stupendous obstacles. Yet without a lonely, isolated, nihilistic viewpoint, how could I continually discover connection-or even more-communion?
So may we commune with our nihilism- for it too is profoundly beautiful- as with doubt, despair, and depression. Any attitude or emotion in complete dominance of all else is as a program, is madness. Let us realize then, that true ecstasy, beyond happiness, is a transcendent of all emotions, is utter communion with 'entities' or composites of consciousness. We are of the harmony, and must make ourselves as the harmony, a microcosm of All That Is.
The individual, unity, individual exchange is energetically tantric, is evolutionary, and our communion with paradox, eternity. Eternity then- the is, is not, is, of logic-, is an ever-exchange of consciousness. We are not 'lost' in eternity precisely because we are lost in eternity, in the process of 'finding' ourselves; that is to say eternity is not 'permanent.' Eternity is evolutionary itself, and there are infinites of infinites, and beyond.
Mathematics, being language, and language itself being based on logic and reasoning, leads us here on this blog to describe 'experience'. But the language we are speaking is an understanding that lies beyond the paraphrasing and the concepts, one it seems our 'unseen friend' does not speak.
May this be then a profound opportunity to address any truth that arises for you in what the unseen friend spreads, for this resolution will bear within it much of purpose, (of which the unseen friends claims there is 'naught')
A big welcoming greeting to all.
Thank you Aeolus for your beautiful, insightful podcasts and this blog. I've been listening for some time now.
-'lady of the light'
- 9:40 pm, January 17, 2009
Hi all, I've been enjoying the podcast and the blog for some time, and thought this would be a good time to jump into the conversation.
First, I'm very perplexed by An Unseen Friend's torrent of nihilistic vitriol. There are a couple of crucial distinctions that are omitted in his/her argument. For example, if the electrons that fill the nervous system are non-local, then they should have no definite location in space or time. How would the information encoded in them be obliterated at the "end" of the universe?
Second, the belief in eternity is not the product of logical deduction. Even the most methodical rationalists, like Spinoza or Hegel, were trying to express a mystical experience. Because language is linear and finite, any attempt to capture eternity will in words be partial – and so vulnerable to "refutation", but only as a formula. But to refute the formulae is not to refute the experience any more than tearing up a map is tearing up the terrain it pictures.
That said…
Aeolus wrote, "This realm I had woken into was the real 'dead zone.' And yet, although I do believe this to be in some sense true, I also believe that the difference between the realm we are in now and that in which the dead "reside" is that here we have the option of change, while the dead do not."
If the Masonic Sorcerers mean to suppress humanity's conscious ascension, wouldn't it be in their interest to impair our ability to change in the manifest realm? We are made to endure a kind of waking death, our evolutionary potential squandered on empty diversions. Our attention is continually directed into the trivial and the monotonous. What better way could they contrive to forestall our liberation?
"We simply aren't ready for eternity, or at least I'm not" - AK
I wonder whether the concept of 'readiness' can form a subtle barrier against realizing the timeless state. Certain eastern teachers regard the entire sequence of initiation as a way to placate our deeply ingrained desire for becoming until we're ready to take the simple and radical leap into being. It's another of those sublime paradoxes; we need time in order to discover timelessness.
What does everyone think?
"I need a full-on, soul-smashing, ball-dropping, head-to-head encounter with the Adversary before I am ready to celebrate my emancipation from fear and dive headlong into the everlasting joys of galactic one-ness." – AK
How do you square this requirement with the notion of surrender, Aeolus? To surrender is to accept here and now exactly, to cease waging war against what is, to let go of resistance. To practice it is to recognize the greatest opportunity in the greatest obstacle, to realize that the divine blessing concealed in the most insidious misfortune. To walk this path is to surrender in the face of death, to be as nothing, and thus to be as god. That said, what does it mean to "confront" these dark ones?
- 10:22 pm, January 17, 2009
- Jasun said...
Satan/the Shadow/the Adversary/Ultimate Fear: to confront it means to face it, in order to put the devil behind us, as a driving evolutionary force and not an insurmountable barrier. To love in the face of fear is to give our back to fear, and to give our face to Love.
"Love thine enemies" is not merely Christian platitude: it is the profoundest and most empowering act of sorcery there is.
Through love, "Satan himself is transformed into an Angel of Light."
- 11:36 pm, January 17, 2009
- Leon1234 said...
Hey, how are you doing? Hope all is well.
- 2:48 am, January 18, 2009
- Sounder said...
AK> Through love, "Satan himself is transformed into an Angel of Light."
This notion dear to my heart. If we associate Satan with intellect and 'freezing' imagination into rigid forms, we being the more 'enthusiastic' types, may tend to see it as evil. The church and the Royal Society formed in 1666 have colluded in imposing a set of forms, through a vesting of authority, which effectively ended participatory consciousness. And yet, maybe this stepping back from immersion in the experience is a legitimate element within a larger process.
Skip to the end.
It is not like Lucifer is gonna beat out Satan. It's more like unbalanced expressions of order and liberty will be redeemed through Christ.
Our potential is found in creating a new psychical conditioning system that better illustrates the substance behind the forms, without the meaning content of the forms being able to be easily corrupted by unethical actors.
No worries AG, I do not mind that responses to my blathering be pointed, as it is better than no response at all. I also like your writing, all the more, because it expresses a connection to being found through experiences so very different than mine. (I have an easy life, -so far)
- 4:05 am, January 18, 2009
Hi, everybody. Maybe I'll practice a little paranoia here. I got to thinking, after Unseen Friend's first post (and especially when s/he didn't respond back to any of the posts relating to his/her post) if we have an "agent", narc, or whatever you want to call such people in our midst, trying to sow dissention and discord, and implant negative memes. I don't know if this is a subject anyone wants to persue, and I don't want to subvert the subject of this thread, but since it DID occur to me, I thought I'd throw the thought out there and see what you all (or you'ens, as they say around here) thought about it (my conjecture, as well as pursuing the subject of my conjecture in another thread).
And thanks, Sounder, for the compliment :)
- 4:45 am, January 18, 2009
- Jasun said...
Lady of the Light, happy to have your presence among us and thanks for the kindnesses.
Ditto Knight - no option alas of keeping up with all the insightful comments and questions that are surfacing at this blog. I will say, re: your question about squaring the circle of surrender with the notion of a head-on encounter with Adversary, anyone can surrender to bliss, but to surrender to horror and darkness and seeming malevolence - meaning to fully accept and embrace it as an aspect of the divine as greatly in need of integration (or more son) as anything else, that's another matter. And if we wish to embrace the adversary, the Shadow, which as the sum total of all we have disowned is the source of power and wholeness - we must first confront it and allow our terror to overwhelm us.
Whatever we are trying to hold onto in such an encounter with the Shadow will just as surely be our undoing.
AG: i had the same thought about UF, but s/he seems far too impassioned (and imaginative) to be acting in so calculating a way. If anything the intensity of the poetic outpourings of nihilism and despair seem more like a cry for help than an attempt to sabotage.
UF: are you aware of turning yourself into a parody of negativity? The very passion and eloquence of your diatribes undermines the supposed message behind them. If you really feel this way, why are you taking the time to share it with others, and why in such a place as this?
(One good thing: it provides a powerful contrast for anyone who considers my own POV too "negative"!)
- 5:11 pm, January 18, 2009
Hi, Unseen Friend. My question to you is simply: why do you feel this way?
- 6:14 pm, January 18, 2009
What better object of worship could there be than the negation of all things? Nothing is perfect, nothing lasts forever. There is no god enthroned amid the firmament, no lucifer enflamed beneath the abyss. Only the insufferable emptiness humans try so desperately to mask with their insipid fantasies! Why not yield to it, finally end the weary march through the barren wasteland of manifestation?
You entertain yourselves with the delusion that you can come to know yourselves through the process of introspection. But within you and about you there is an invisible web of lies, an intersubjective network of cultural constructs, for which you are but PUPPETS. If, the chicken is an eggs way of making more eggs, a mind is a meme's way of making more meme's. The true rulers of this earth are not men, but ideas, an the power of an idea does not consist in its benevolence or even its truth, for truth itself is an illusion. Instead, there are simply the rules of replication. The power of an idea consists in its ability to spread, in its viral infectiousness. The collective consciousness of this wretched, dying world is an ugly brood of memeplexes and meta-memes, eating each other like giant carnivorous paramecia.
The real "parody" is the idea that any mysteries remain. Human beings obfuscate the simple and brutal truth that there is no meaning or purpose, fleeing from one phenomenological opiate to the next.
- 10:03 pm, January 18, 2009
- Jasun said...
Including the mystery of the identity of our mysterious Unseen Friend? Who apparently has a position s/he is desperate to defend. Nihilism is as fervent a system of belief as any other, UF, and as firmly rooted in denial as any religious belief.
Your words come from a place of deep intellectual awareness and from intense personal feelings; but they are empty of Knowing. They cannot even recognize the animating Spirit that allows them to be formulated and spoken.
A rich paradoxical irony: the creature denying the Creator. The denial itself is a powerful and profound affirmation. But maybe you know this already?
Either that or I suggest you kill yourself.
- 10:15 pm, January 18, 2009
- Jasun said...
Just kidding!
- 10:33 pm, January 18, 2009
Would all of you be so troubled by my soliloquies if you didn't sense the validity of my claims? You have already tasted it, Kephas, the bitter sting of futile emptiness that waits for all who dwell too long in chapel perilous. Would you work so tirelessly unless you heard the siren song of nullity calling you toward dissolution? My voice threatens each of you because you have heard it already, in your own thoughts.
- 10:34 pm, January 18, 2009
- Cosmic Ti69er said...
I must admit this is fun to read.
- 12:04 am, January 19, 2009
Hi UF(o?). Your comments don't trouble me so much as they amaze me. You are a wonderful writer and although your writing is very dark it is wonderful to read. You call your writing soliloques...are you writing just to hear yourself, because that is what a soliloque is: 1)the act of talking to one's self 2)a dramatic monologue that gives the illusion of being a series of unspoken reflections, and your writing is nothing if not dramatic.
- 6:24 am, January 19, 2009
Hi again, aeolus. Another thought just occured to me pertaining to Unseen Friend, who seems to be deliberately trying to provoke you into an emotional reaction: could it be that s/he is daring you to love the Other as you say we must (and which is absolutely true), with him/herself cast in the role of Other or Adversary?
My apologies to you, UF, for speaking of you as if you are not here, but I don't see any choice given the posting format (but then, too, I am a total technophobe).
- 6:48 am, January 19, 2009
Many of us have already had a lifetime of negative experience.
Our whole lives are conducted with death not as an adviser but as an imminent threat. And that threat is not so much an end of things but a quality that siphons away our gladness...a death taste if you will...that embitters our every life experience with its presence.
Can you blame many of us for hoping a positive shift will awaken the world? we don't need the dark point of reference any more because we have had quite enough as it is.
- 10:46 am, January 19, 2009
- Jasun said...
Hope is the life-blood of illusion
the more we value ourselves and our preferences, the greater the burden we carry
without a carrot, there can be no whip
there is no blame in hoping, only futility
our emotional input makes zero difference to the outcome
99% of our being is unconscious - that tiny surface fraction with which we "hope" and consciously plan or wish or desire is inconsequential - true intent is aligned with the unconscious. Surrender is our only chance, but also our only option. It is win/win.
AG: Yes UF is testing us all. If he did not exist at this blog, it would be necessary to invent him. ; )
UF: yes I have tasted "the bitter sting of futile emptiness that waits for all who dwell too long in chapel perilous." There are no two ways to cross the Abyss - surrender must be total.
"Whosoever gives one particle of dust will lose all in that hour."
- 10:57 am, January 19, 2009
- lancifer said...
UF said> "What better object of worship could there be than the negation of all things? Nothing is perfect, nothing lasts forever."
Using this logic if you worship the negation of all things then you also worship the negation of negation which leads back to life and the un-doing of your nihilist perspective.
¬(¬p) ⇔ p.
As you say nothing in the material realm is perfect or lasts forever, but anything of the spirit is.
UF said> "If, the chicken is an eggs way of making more eggs, a mind is a meme's way of making more meme's. The true rulers of this earth are not men, but ideas, an the power of an idea does not consist in its benevolence or even its truth, for truth itself is an illusion. Instead, there are simply the rules of replication."
A mind is a meme's way of making more meme's only if the mind is mechanical and reactionary and is lacking the light of consciousness and spirit. A conscious mind can pick and choose which memes it wishes to propagate.
- 11:44 am, January 19, 2009
Hey whats up Aeolus.
Dude I think that the main thing we are seeing from you here is that we are all interdimensional beings and that we all exist in many dimensions simultaneously and that earth walk here is in the 21st is a collective egoic jack off session.
Dude as for a Galactic Mind Portal opening up for all of us into a sea of cosmic unity I mean as wicked as it would be we all have to kind of DOUBLE THINK these things because if we dont we sound kind of quacky.
All of this is very fascinating to me and I would to talk to you more about this proccess that the NEW AGE calls Ascension or a transformation to a higher octave of awareness I think that I would like to learn a few things and share ideas, I dont have your email but hit me up on email@example.com
Last cool thing I read was the manuscript of Matrix Sorcerer by Jake Horsley If I get his permission I can post it up for all of us to see !
- 2:08 pm, January 20, 2009
I have to be Optimistic here.
This is a new beginning. I think mass death event thing while possible just doesnt seem to jibe with universal harmony at least the perspective I am taking at the moment. I mean the only way a crazy mass death event would happen besides a gigantic natural disaster or a bomb would be for the collective ego mind to transform the apocalypse of the self into an externalized projection of the proccess that ego dissolution is putting us through, in which case that would be ver possible.
But are jobs as high beings is to keep a space for that pandemoneum and on the level of attractor fields we could very well be "saved" from what you dudes are calling the Flyer mind.
I mean for the sake of humanity lets kee it positive here even if its a bad time ahead. We have to keep it real for all the people who will be needing our aid if they will even be needing it.
Who knows
This could all be a grand delusion of our own minds we have to let go of this END OF THE WORLD CONSPRIACY and be in are bodies and breathe.
- 2:14 pm, January 20, 2009
The end of the world is not a conspiracy. It is the inevitable outcome of insipid human stupidity. The earth will reject the hideous viral infection of the technosphere, overturning all of your proud contrivances. It will vomit the waste of human arrogance into the cold of space. Naught shall remain but void and ash.
Sorcerers do not create reality with their thoughts. Psychotics create reality with their thoughts. Thinking positively about the situation is just another way to distract yourself from your miserable condition.
- 3:20 pm, January 20, 2009
Jeez UF, all right, already.
- 3:59 pm, January 20, 2009
Ill be on the other side of the gate waiting for your stupid ass to come through crying with joy.
Your one of the small ones I see, you must grow taller my friend.
Please talk more.
You must be a sorcerer for power, so am I but I have a bit more of a benevolent attitude then you. I hope that tickles you in a divine kind of way you, we are all beings.
I got some eternal love for you if you wannnnnnnnnt it! *mwah*
Fall asleep.
- 4:01 pm, January 20, 2009
Oh my
- 4:03 pm, January 20, 2009
- Jasun said...
"Sorcerers do not create reality with their thoughts. Psychotics create reality with their thoughts. Thinking positively about the situation is just another way to distract yourself from your miserable condition."
I hate to be the bearer of bad news but our Unseen friend posing as the adversary is absolutely right about this. Positive thinking makes zero difference when it is predicated on even the slightest element of denial (and positive thinking ALWAYS requires an element of denial, because we have a PERSONAL PREFERENCE for what we consider "positive"). So then not only does positive thinking not create a desired outcome, it by and large helps ensure the very opposite outcome becoz, as UF points out, we use it to distract ourselves from the Truth - to keep whatever we perceive as "negative" at bay.
The idea of positive thoughts creating our reality is the founding lie of New Agism. it is not thought but INTENT that shapes our reality. And Intent is independent of conscious thought, and (usually) even at odds with it.
So far, I think UF is the only one here who is fully able to grok the notion that species extinction might be a "GOOD THING" from a galactic POV. It is mere human arrogance that ASSUMES this could not possibly be the case. As long as we are holding on to our idea of a "positive outcome" (and the delusion that we have ANY influence whatsoever, from a "thinking," personal perspective), we are not surrendering to what is, and so we are living in Untruth. Those who are living in untruth must always experience the Truth as apocalyptic.
- 5:14 pm, January 20, 2009
There's a story about a spiritual seeker who undertakes a perilous journey to receive the counsel of a great adept. He climbs the sheer face of a tall mountain and upon reaching the summit, encounters a being that tells him "You are God and you create reality." Enthralled and emboldened, he returns to civilization.
Upon arrival, he sees an elephant charging in his direction, with a man riding on top screaming, "Get out of the way! Get out of the way or you'll be killed!" Instead of fleeing he decides to stand firm, believing that he is God and that he creates reality. The man is trampled and suffers terrible injury.
Angry and bitter, he climbs the mountain again to confront the master. Upon finding her, he screams, "You told me that I was God, but look I've been maimed by a mere elephant!"
The master says, "Yes, you are God. But so is everyone else. So why didn't you listen when God told you to get out of the way?"
Sure there's a profound sense in which each of us creates reality. But it's not our ego that does it. It's our innermost being, where we're at one with the nondual transcendent. To tell the average person that they have brought about their current lot is to reinforce the condition of ego identification, and thus to disempower them.
To believe that you are the finite and fragmented specter of your ego is insane. It is an illness from which virtually every member of our society suffers. When you recognize this truth, you can bear no more resentment - for is it not the utmost cruelty and indifference to resent another's illness? You will regard your relationships to such people not as occasions for hostility, but as opportunities for compassion.
To say that someone chose a circumstance of any kind, negative or positive, is to imply that they are conscious. In order to deliberately create an experience, an individual must first cultivate a very high degree of consciousness. Without that, you are at the mercy of your conditioning, tossed about on the tumultuous waves of habituated energy patterns. Choice does not enter your life until you cease identifying yourself with the mind; there is no true freedom until you do so. Until you reach a level of development where you can practice presence and intense inner alertness, you are unconscious – deaf, blind, and numb to the reality of spirit. Everything you think, and everything you do, arises from the conditioning of your mind.
This perspective may appear to suggest that no one is responsible for their actions unless they have undergone initiation, but that's not what I'm saying.
All are responsible, for in every moment all of us are offered the choice between unconsciousness and awakening. In a sense, I am telling you that there is an essential choice that precedes all others: the choice to choose. The alternative is the choice not to choose. To whatever extent you exist in the mind identified state, you have forsaken choice. But although this may be so, you still bear the consequences. You must live through the fear, violence, discord, and suffering set in motion by your unconsciousness. And eventually, the suffering thus created will force you into surrender; leave you with no other choice than awakening.
We need to recognize that fear and hope are both aspects of the same essential mind state. Until you realize this, you are strapped to wheel of life, always ascending or descending. The art of a practitioner is to abide at the center of this wheel, to find stillness in the midst of change.
- 8:14 pm, January 20, 2009
Well, I have to say that as usual, our friend AK is absolutely right. When I stop fighting the idea (of human extinction) and surrender then I know what he and UF are saying is absolutely true. It is neither positive nor negative...it simply IS. The duality of "positive" or "negative" is actually the curse of existance. When I surrender to WHAT IS then I actually become still and relax...sitting here now at this computer, letting go of the denial (optimism/positive thinking/rationalization) that I use to keep fear at bay, and then letting go of the fear, I know that what ever happens, it will be alright. What a relief surrender is. The trick (at least for me) is to remember to stay surrendered and not fall back into fighting what is, since I cannot change it anyway.
- 3:43 am, January 21, 2009
- Brian George said...
Hi Aeolus,
In your last post on the Apocalypse thread you had said, "perhaps we could all adjourn to a more recent thread? It's getting a bit tricky to keep up with these multiple strands!"
—This seems like a reasonable request. I did, however, have a few more comments to add about Serrano; they are relevant , I think, to our ongoing discussion about the Shadow, as well as to the nature of Death, and the whole issue of whether Time exists. One of my favorite sentences from Serrano's work is found in the "Introduction" to "Nos", and reads: "In Nos, Book of the Resurrection" I have been forced, as I said, to violate the aesthetic formula, so as to introduce lengthy semi-conceptual, but always symbolic, passages, which apparently break through the web of a parallel world in order to situate themselves in another one—thus forming the arrows which assassinate time."
My comments about Serrano at the beginning of my last post seem to have confused the attribution of the quotations further down. These quotations (about Hitler as the avatar of "Kalki") are from Savitri Devi, who, I think, is the one who came up with the phrase "Esoteric Hitlerism." Serrano, on the other hand, explored the concept at far greater length, and elaborated an epic mythology around it. Devi was an occult racist theoretician. Serrano was an actual "psychonaut", as you term it, as well as a much better writer. I have read most of his early books, which were widely available during the 1980s, altough I have never come across translations of the two books about Hitler, which do not ever seem to have been available in this country. Actually, almost all of Serrano's work has now been withdrawn from publication. I am not quite sure what is behind this, although it would not surprise me if no respectable publishing house wants to be associated with the ex-leader of the Chilean Nazi Party. It was different when he was merely a diplomat, at which time he was more discreet. I have also heard that publishing rights to his books have been purchased by some right-wing publishing house, which is planning to prepare its own translations. Yuck.
It is a great challenge to figure out what to do with Serrano; who I must condemn, but who I also like. After all, I am still a kind of Roosevelt Democrat, and have no use for the man's politics, whatsoever. George W. Bush, or "King Fool", or "The Emperor Without Clothes", as I sometimes like to call him, has brought the country closer to Fascism than I had ever expected to see in my lifetime; it is not a pretty picture, or in any way a triumph for Esotericism.
Here are two further comments on Serrano, from an exchange with Gary Lachman, which may prove of general interest.
--Varuna's snare and the long arm of the shadow
Hi Gary,
You wrote, "Serrano was a virulent neo-Nazi, and I'm sure neither Hesse nor Jung had any idea of his true character when they allowed themselves to be importuned by him; they were both very old men who allowed a younger 'fan' to ingratiate himself."
—If only things were that simple. Having read most of Serrano's correspondence with Jung, it does not surprise me at all that Jung would have volunteered as a mentor. Serrano's work is a peculiar synthesis of modernist and archaic elements, and he often seems to be speaking from the depths of the "collective unconscious." His first book, "The Visits of the Queen of Sheba", is, I believe, the only literary work to which Jung wrote an introduction. Serrano had many of the virtues of a great pioneer in consciousness, but, quite oddly, he never developed any real awareness of his Shadow. There is no way that Jung could have predicted such a glaring lapse in psychic integrity. Even in retrospect—from the distance of more than half a century—it does not make any sense.
This is an excerpt from a letter that Serrano sent to Jung. It is matter of fact in tone, and gives clear expression to an experience that I have also had;
"I remember that when I asked you in Locarno about the chakras, you said that they were 'centers of consciousness', and then you gave me their Sanskrit names. But a little while later, when I was talking with Dr Jacobi about the same thing, she said that chakras were not centers of consciousness but only of energy. Nevertheless, I know that you were right, for from my own experience I have discovered in my body what might be called distinct zones of consciousness.
Sometimes in the early morning, I have a feeling that my dreams come from different parts of my body. Some come from the knees, for example, and even after I wake up I can still feel them. If I don't interrupt them with rational thoughts, they continue to vibrate, and the images proceeding from my knees, or rather preserved there, flow up like a river towards my consciousness, or towards the light of day. Other truths like these can come from the heart or the belly. It is because of these things that I think a total being, totally conscious in all of its chakras, must be round, like the being of the alchemists, or like the stars and planets."
I was, as I have mentioned, shocked, to discover that Serrano was a Nazi; but this has only made it a more pressing challenge to translate and to analyze the glyph of his psychology. For the work itself—at least in the books with which I am familiar—does not in any way resemble propaganda. It is dense and provocative, yes, and perhaps disturbing in its echoes; but each reader is free to develop his/ her relationship to a subject.
Here is an excerpt from the introduction to "Nos; Book of the Resurrection":
"'EL/ ELLA; Book of Magic Love', the work which preceded this one, sought the reintegration of him and her, the recomposition of the primordial Cosmic Egg. However, in the Initiation of A-Mor, which "Nos; Book of the Resurrection" attempts to reveal (with great fear and difficulty), I am going beyond the Androgynous of the beginnings, in search of an absolute differentiation, the Absolute Personality. I imagine that the ultimate solution is a leap into the Void, over the Sahasrara chakra, from the peak of Mount Meru, where the Magic Wedding of Siva and Parvati took place. Their union in sacred matrimony is called "Gandharba"—the "Heiros Gamos or Mysterium Conjuntionis." From there the intention is to reach Sunya, the seeming Void, the Non-existent Flower, the definitive separation of tantric ecstasy: "Kaivala" as opposed to the Vedantic "Samadhi." That is to say, the magician as opposed to the saint and the mystic. The ultimate aim of the Hyperborean Initiation of A-Mor."
—Archetypal poets should probably stay far away from politics; it is only the theatrical element that really interests them. The desire to integrate the practical and symbolic realms of action can get even the most intelligent of explorers into trouble. Turning backwards from the ocean of the psyche towards the world, it is all too easy to overestimate one's knowledge, and to underestimate the complexity of the trap that has been set.
--The "Future World" is not the "World to Come"
Hi Gary,
1) I do not in any important way disagree with your assessment, but I prefer my Fascists to be stupid thugs, whose repetitive diatribes are made up of clichés. In figures like Serrano and Evola, we have access to the mystery of human evil. It is the extent of their own intelligence that condemns them; we cannot dismiss their work as a mere symptom of social pathology, but instead must come to terms with the expression of an active, metaphysical force.
For me, such figures act as a kind of "koan"; instead of, "What is the sound of one hand clapping?" I contemplate "What is the sound of an encyclopedic memory turning against the light?"
2) —Some more thoughts on the location of "the Future":
I had thought of using the following paragraph as an epigraph for "Habits of the Heart", but decided that it was a little bit too long. It is from "The Alef-Beit", by Rabbi Yitzchak Ginsburgh, and reads:
"The only completely 'closed' letters in the Hebrew alphabet are the 'Samech' and the final 'Mem', the circle and the square. As the engraved letters of the 'tablets of covenant" given to Moses at Sinai penetrated through the tablets 'from side to side', the 'insides' of these two letters, being entirely closed, were suspended in midair, within the stone of the tablets. Rabbi Chisda said: 'the Mem and Samech of the tablets stood miraculously.' In Kabbalah it is explained that these two letters are the secret of the two levels of the future revelation of Divinity to Souls. The closed 'Mem' is called …'the Coming World', and the 'Samech' is called …'the Future to Come.' The Future to Come is an even higher revelation than that of the Coming World. Grammatically, the phrase 'the Coming World' (in Hebrew) can be understood in the present tense—or even the past—as well as the future. Thus the Coming World is in truth the revelation of the future comprehensible to the present and the past. The Future to Come, the secret of the 'Samech', is the absolute revelation of the future, incomprehensible to the present…"
The "Coming World", as I understand it, is the end result of the process of "Tikkun Olam", the dynamic of historical "repair", in which we have been engaged for the last 5000 years. It is towards and upon this "world" that we project our desire for perfection.
The "Future World", on the other hand, is not subject to our mechanical opposition of the "future" to the "past", and, though beyond our knowledge, it is perhaps not beyond the realm of our active imagination; it corresponds to "Atzilut", the "world" from which all others "emanate", and to the body of "Adam Kadmon", the "Primordial Man."
This figure is a variation on the Gnostic concept of the "Aeon", the Primordial Female/ Male; who exists outside of time, but whose spherical form encompasses all of the energies of the time-cycle.
- 6:38 am, January 21, 2009
Wow, Aeolus how did you learn in archetypes? That must be very fascinating to move through the world seeing symbols. I did not even think in such a way in my response which teaches me something very profound.
As a personal preference I do not want to die and from a galactic point of view do you think it is possible that their are beings down here, humanbeings that strongly wish to align themselves with natures laws and live in accordance with them are they accounted for?
I mean what about the army of Individuals who are moving towards awakening and this abstract concept called Ascension are we not going to keep our bodies. I love this body.
You really taught me something Aeolus, I want not expecting that. I want to learn more about all of these new waves and ideas and I wish to be a voice of sanity in all of this confusion.
My soul purpose I discovered on an LSD trip was to be a harmony holder. What do you think is going to happen everyone? How are we all going to die and what are these DOUBLE THOUGHTS a lot of us are experiencing.
Its troubling me, I want to live a full life what happens after this leap in awareness and this is not to turn you or anybody into a Guru I just want to talk more, a lot more about this.
I think a forum is needed perhaps?
- 8:00 am, January 21, 2009
An Unseen Friend,
Your words both trouble and amuse me and your vileness is vididly experieneced on my part. As a humanbeing that you are in body I can only take your voice of reasoning as what it is and that is a mere perspective. I think that thinking so prophetically and mythologically is also a fallacy on your part here and that we should also retain a mind of logic and skepticism.
Granted your words make me feel despair, futility and aloneness but I also am aware that we are all in this together and that if we die I will die by the sides of my friends and In that moment where I will die by whatever cause may create it I will state my name and if at all possible
"I will dart past the eagle and be free"
- 8:09 am, January 21, 2009
I just stumbled upon this Terrence Mckenna video. I feel its relavent to the discussion we are having here, check it out and comment
Copy Paste
- 12:03 pm, January 21, 2009
- Jasun said...
In Jung and the Gnostic Gospels, Stephen A. Hoeller describes a "Gnostic teaching within Kabbalistic Judaism . . . closely resembling the Gnostic and Christian concepts of apokatastasis, a process known as "Tikkun."
"Tikkun is the process whereby the lost light-sparks are drawn up from their imprisonment among the dark shards that abound in the unregenerate realms of the cosmos. Tikkun is primarily the task of the Messiah, but all wise and righteous human beings play a vital role in it. The task of restitution is in fact the Gnostic alternative to the forcible and violent extraction of the light from darkness, such as may occur in man-made and cosmic catastrophes alike. Unconsciousness, the unwillingness to redeem the shadow within ourselves and in the world, leads to destruction: egos, cultures, and worlds are equally shattered by the pent-up force of the unmet darkness that lurks in psychic and cosmic depths. Holocausts and cataclysms, whether envisioned as the flood that submerges Atlantis or the nuclear conflagration that devastates the earth: all of these are light extractors, extreme measures for the freeing of surviving soul power when no other means are available. . . . Thus, there is only one option open: Like Shiva in his destructive aspect, the Antichrist, the "dark fish," obtains ascendancy and breaks asunder the material framework, so that the light and life captured within it may be freed from its shackles and ascend unhampered into the fullness."
- 10:16 pm, January 21, 2009
- Jasun said...
BG: I wonder if Gary Lachman would be a suitable guest for SW? He is almost non-existent on the Net and his official site is down. Want to suggest it to him?
Collin said: "As a personal preference I do not want to die."
That's encouraging. Besides UF i think we can probably all concur on this one!
"I mean what about the army of Individuals who are moving towards awakening and this abstract concept called Ascension are we not going to keep our bodies. I love this body."
If the physical body is fused with the energy body and then this is in turn linked to the energy of the Sun, it may be possible to "keep" the physical body, or rather a perfect image of it, to "dart past the Eagle (demiurge) and be free."
This is known as burning from the fire from within, when every cell becomes conscious of itself and the body becomes conscious of itself as a cell within the consciousness of the Universe, and so on, ad infinitum.
Galactic consciousness is only the beginning...
To retain something akin to "physical" (light-image) form while allowing the self-identity to be completely flooded out by Infinity would seem to be not only the goal of sorcery but of the Creation itself. If so, it's a goal that is always being realized, yet is never actually attained. For within the timestream of Eternity, there is always further and deeper into the Infinite to go.
- 10:25 pm, January 21, 2009
- Brian George said...
Hi Aeolus,
Over the past year or so, Gary Lachman has posted a number of fantastic essays on "Reality Sandwich" (realitysandwich.com), including "Archangels of Our Darker Natures", the piece from which I quote in "The Road of Excess Leads to the Palace of Wisdom." You and Gary deal with many of the same subjects; from positions and through methods that, while not opposed, are nonetheless quite distinct. The two of you would probably have quite a bit to discuss, and I will contact him today about podcast.
- 7:25 am, January 22, 2009
- Brian George said...
Hi Aeolus,
You wrote, "If the physical body is fused with the energy body and then this is in turn linked to the energy of the Sun, it may be possible to "keep" the physical body, or rather a perfect image of it, to "dart past the Eagle (demiurge) and be free."
This is known as burning from the fire from within, when every cell becomes conscious of itself and the body becomes conscious of itself as a cell within the consciousness of the Universe, and so on, ad infinitum."
--Here is another section from "To Akasha/ Part 1; An Incantation for the End of History", which deals with this idea. This is the 15th, and final, section of the book.
The guardians' days are numbered. To the 5th world was a boundary set. The "World of Making" has been hammered into radiance. 10 thousand points of light have now winked open through the heavens.
You whose name is Memory of Space: this incantation has after many words arrived at the beginning of a circle. Your singer's chakras have been opened and expanded.
He has discovered in his throat the lost continent of Mu. The rule of death has now been broken by a sound. The empire's robot Einsteins will not long have their way. They will give thanks to the Lord of Sirius. Still living they will taste the beyond. They will be struck down by the Monkey King gone AWOL from the Peking Opera.
As from a great height they will observe their small part in the drama. They will laugh to experience the patterns of the transhistorical kaleidoscope.
Strength returns to the courier. The world acts out the symbols of his not to be translated message.
He left at dawn for the eternal city. It seems that he has misplaced several days.
He now stands out from the surface of the 3rd blue planet Earth. He stands staring from a Boston window at the pyramid of a CITGO sign. Energies leak from the creaking continents of his skull's tectonic plates. At the Morning Star he stares. At 4 AM his breath has stopped.
At the 1st dawn of the worlds your lost courier would enter you. He would know your tongue. He would bring his members with him to the origin of time and space. He would not leave his corpse on Earth.
He now steps from the scene of a spontaneous combustion. A caduceus is in his hand. The power that destroys appearance now burns and opens in his hand. Through each 1 of the 10 dimensions he would make his actions simultaneous.
The Son of Man sits sweating with a shotgun in an Arkansas motel. 2 black suns burn in place of eyes. He broods on the subquantum void with a cold BUD in his hand.
He has set his shoulder to the wheel of time. Its spokes have shattered into space. He has appropriated a key to the precession of the equinox- to a door that opens only every 26,000 years.
- 7:38 am, January 22, 2009
Whatever you say Aeolus all I know is that I am going to dance circles around the fear based attractor fields that are going to try to swallow my awareness because I am just the cosmic SHIT and its going to be blessings and prayers till the end of the wave and I am going to just be fanning myself off with and yawning and the universe just loves me so much that its going give me a free pass and slip me through the back door of infinite with a surfboard to boot and I am going to be rolling so deep with my unity posse that no nuclear bomb will touch me because im just going to be in and out of time like a bitch because thats how the ego crumbles.
David Collin G.
- 8:20 am, January 22, 2009
You know what the universe is that great and beautiful universe. SHES MY GIRLFRIEND and I give it all ive for her so good that shes just like opening up spreading her galactic legs wide open and welcoming me inside of her proverbial vagina in coitus.
Im just going to be that LUCID & AWAKE because I just love to be a PIMP and spread the love and joy amongst the people of earth and the universes will is my will and I pray to Zeus :P to take care of my sweet divine child soul and thats just how a Blue Solar Eagle rocks it.
- 8:26 am, January 22, 2009
Blue Solar Eagle
Man this universe is a piece of cake. ;)
- 8:30 am, January 22, 2009
- Jasun said...
jeez Collin - chill out, dude. You make me long for some of Unseen friend's embittered nihilism.
- 9:37 am, January 22, 2009
Dude I want to talk to you more about Lucidity.
shoot me a quick email so i have your addy.
msn: firstname.lastname@example.com
Whatever man I just want to dart past the eagle and be free you know? is that to hard to ask since we are getting an planetary eviction notice here? cant we just you know keep our bodies and can the you-niverse just let me do what I do and fly around the cosmos with some hot babes.
sorry :P
- 10:42 am, January 22, 2009
- Jasun said...
sorry collin i don't have time for private correspondence right now - can barely keep up my end of the blog these daze
as for you question/plea: cockiness is not a trait common to sorcerers, and i can guarantee no one EVER darted past the eagle by force of desire...
- 7:45 pm, January 22, 2009
I thought I'd follow Collin's example and post an inspirational video
- 3:15 am, January 23, 2009


text:
EDMONTON - Alberta's Progressive Conservatives defied the pollsters Monday, winning a 12th consecutive majority government that will see them enter the record books as the unconquerable colossus of Canadian politics.
"Oh my! Oh my!" Redford told supporters at a rally in Calgary after the final vote totals were announced.
"Today, Alberta, you spoke, and you spoke loudly.
"And I want you to know I heard you."
Redford said the election was about a choice "to put up walls or build bridges."
"It was a choice about Alberta's future, and Albertans chose to build bridges."
Her Tories have been in power close to 41 years. By the time their new mandate ends, it will be 45.
They will then stand alone, surpassing the 1943-1985 Ontario PCs (42 years) and the Nova Scotia Liberals of 1882-1925 (43 years).
Redford's team took 61 of 87 seats compared with 17 for their Wildrose rival on the right.
The victory flew in the face of polls that had Redford's party trailing the Wildrose and its leader Danielle Smith for much of the campaign.
Redford's team appeared to benefit from soft Liberal supporters who switched to the Tories in a strategic swing.
In the final week there were suggestions homophobic and racist comments made by two Wildrose party candidates would translate into an intolerant government restricting the rights of women and minorities.
PC supporters took to the airwaves and social media to urge moderates to switch their votes to block a Wildrose win.
A website was even created featuring testimonials from young Albertans. One man said he would rather have rodents eat his face than vote PC, but was voting Tory anyway to block the Wildrose.
Raj Sherman's Liberal party, which had been the official Opposition heading into the campaign, saw its vote collapse into single digits with just five ridings, giving Tories back the vote support it had lost to the Wildrose.
Redford, speaking to reporters after her victory speech, reiterated that she doesn't rely on polls.
"The only poll that matters is this election one."
Smith won a seat in the legislature for the first time in the Highwood constituency south of Calgary. Her party dominated in the old Tory rural strongholds in southern Alberta plus some ridings in Calgary. They were shut out in Edmonton and northern Alberta.
Smith remained upbeat in her concession speech to supporters in High River.
"Tonight we found out that change might take a little longer than we thought," said Smith.
"We wanted to do better and we expected to do better. Am I surprised? Am I disappointed? Yeah. Am I discouraged? Not a chance.
"Albertans have decided that Wildrose might need some time to establish ourselves, and I relish the opportunity."
Brian Mason's NDP doubled the party caucus to four — all in Edmonton.
Mason said he was thrilled at the outcome for his party, but he was also quick to congratulate Redford on her victory.
"I never thought that (overwhelming win) was going to happen, but you can't count the PCs out," he said.
The Tories' previous 11 majorities have been measured in large or larger majorities. The last time they were threatened was by a resurgent Liberal party in 1993. But under new leader Ralph Klein, the Tories took 51 of 83 seats to 32 for the Liberals and the dynasty rolled on.
Redford was re-elected in her Calgary-Elbow seat. She was chosen last fall by party members as leader, but now becomes Alberta's first elected female premier.
Tory cabinet ministers Doug Horner, Thomas Lukaszuk, Diana McQueen, Jeff Johnson, Dave Hancock, Verlyn Olson, Frank Oberle, Cal Dallas, Fred Horne, Heather Klimchuk, Greg Weadick, Thomas Lukaszuk, Doug Griffiths, Manmeet Bhullar, George VanderBurg and Jonathan Denis were all re-elected.
Redford will need a new energy minister, however. Ted Morton went down to defeat, as did Tourism Minister Jack Hayden, Agriculture Minister Evan Berger, and Transportation Minister Ray Danyluk.
Political scientist Harold Jansen said the Tories peaked at the right time.
Jansen said the Wildrose, after making announcement after announcement in the early days of the campaign, found itself without anything to offer in the final stretch, and ended up on the defensive while the Tories gained ground.
He agreed that the Liberal collapse benefited the PCs. In the last days, Jansen said, many of the Tory campaign announcements weren't unlike those of the Liberals.
"If you closed your eyes and changed the voice, it started to sound like the Liberals," said Jansen with the University of Lethbridge.
"I think we've seen a restructuring of the party system where the PCs have claimed the centre."
Sherman's party took five seats, including his own in a tight race in Edmonton-Meadowlark. He congratulated the other leaders and Redford.
"They offered a good vision, and we agreed with many parts of that vision," he said.
Redford, who took over as premier six months ago from Ed Stelmach, has some fences to mend.
She ran on her record of spending increases and no taxes, promising millions of dollars to build more schools and family health-care clinics. She also promised to put up an extra $3 billion over the next two decades to further develop oilsands products and protect the environment while not raising royalties.
The Tories were taken to task for granting themselves the richest salaries for provincial politicians in the country – about $163,000 on average. But it didn't end there. Over the last decade, the party quietly and broadly changed the eligibility rules allowing more than 20 retiring politicians to walk away this year with six-figure golden handshakes.
To top it off, the Canadian Taxpayers Federation reported last month that members of the government's largest legislature committee, mostly Tories, had been receiving $1,000 a month but had not met in over three years.
Redford stopped the bleeding early in the campaign, promising to end the six-figure handouts and ordering her members who sat on the no-meet committee to pay it all back.
With a week to go, polls suggested the Wildrose was headed for a majority. But then Smith's party got hung up in the razor wire of social issues and she had to fight off critics who suggested her party had a hidden agenda.
The criticism firmed up around the issue of conscience rights — allowing civil servants to opt out of doing jobs they morally object to, such as marrying gay couples or prescribing birth control.
When there was a suggestion that her party could use a citizens-initiated referendum to end public funding for abortion, Smith disclosed that she was, in fact, pro-choice and pro-gay marriage.
As the campaign entered its final week, Wildrose candidates entered the spotlight. A year-old blog surfaced from Edmonton candidate Allan Hunsperger suggesting gay people would "suffer the rest of eternity in the lake of fire" if they didn't change their lifestyles. He pulled the comments down and Smith stood by him.
Wildrose Calgary candidate Ron Leech was forced to apologize for suggesting in a radio interview that he had an advantage in his constituency because he is white and could speak for everyone. Again, Smith stood by her candidate.
Both Hunsperger and Leech were defeated.
Smith herself was shouted down at a leaders forum last week when she questioned the science of climate change.
Environmentalists feared that a Smith government that still didn't believe in climate change would not push hard to clean up toxic emissions from the oilsands.
The Liberals took to calling the election a choice between Tory "bullies" and Wildrose "bigots."
Smith said in the end voters just weren't ready to take the giant leap her party was asking of them. She also acknowledged the Wildrose stumbled in the final days.
"I think we had a few self-inflicted wounds in the last week of the campaign, and maybe that was enough to make people pause and say, 'Hmmm ... maybe this group needs a little more seasoning,'" she said.
"I know that we do have to do a little more work to be able to earn the trust of Albertans. We knew it was a monumental task to try to go from four seats to government within 2 1/2 years of me becoming leader."

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Being weird in a good way seems like a more difficult status for artists to attain than it used to be. We can tell when you're trying too hard — the Gaga meat dress, the Miley tongue-wags felt 'round the world — and it's straight-up unappealing. Thanks to Ye Olde Internet, we're also genuinely harder to shock than we used to be. At the same time, the acceptable box that artists seem to need to fit into to be marketable, to achieve anything like mainstream success, feels smaller all the time.
Enter tUnE-yArDs: Even if you count yourself in the camp of people who "just don't get" the music, there's no denying that the delightful weirdness that spews forth from the brain of Oakland's Merrill Garbus has never felt anything but authentic. On her new album, Nikki Nack — out today on 4AD — she seems more than ever like she's receiving musical cues from sort of secret invisible wood nymph from the future, and also that wood nymph has been listening to a lot of drumming and hand-clapping videos and maybe some Janet Jackson lately. She (Garbus) keeps you guessing, and you get the sense that that's due, in part, to keeping herself guessing. All of this is good. It's good for music.
Garbus debuted some new songs last month at The Chapel, then hit the road for a national tour, including several dates opening for the Arcade Fire. She won't be back in the Bay until two Fillmore shows (June 6 and 7, with Sylvan Esso and The Seshen opening, respectively), but she gave us a call from the road to chat about the new record's Haitian influences, how tour is going so far, and The Arcade Fire's culinary prowess.
San Francisco Bay Guardian Thanks for talking! Where are you right now?
Merrill Garbus I'm in a hotel room in Nashville, Tennessee. We just drove all the way from Columbus and now we have a night off, which is nice. But I'll probably spend most of it on the phone, doing interviews.
SFBG I'm so sorry.
MG No, it's great! It's your job! (laughs) I'm excited that people want to talk about the record.
SFBG I do love the new record. Can you talk a little about how heavy it is on the drums, and some of its Haitian influences? I know you traveled to Haiti not too long ago.
MG Thanks so much. As far as the Haitian influences, I would say it was less about the trip than a community I got involved with at home, at the Malonga Casquelourd Center for the Arts in downtown Oakland, which is a center for African arts, and the culture of Africa and the diaspora. It's an incredible place. So for about a year I was studying with Portsha Jefferson, who is an amazing American woman who has devoted much of her life to studying Haitian folklore and dance, and Daniel Brevil, a Haitian-born drummer who teaches drum classes. This company they've created in Oakland is a community of people who are studying and immersed in Haitian culture, to see how it's affected people around the world, especially as the first independent black republic that's been an inspiration for generations of people.
For me it was, oh my gosh, music and revolution and cultural history, and folk music versus pop music, all of those [topics] were really present in studying with these two people. And it was important to me that I wasn't just going "Oh, that sounds cool, give me that cool rhythm" — I was a student of those drums. And there are definitely through lines of Haitian drumming in a lot of the songs that, lyrically, deal with the relationship between the quote-unquote developed world and the developing.
SFBG Your last album, 2011's w h o k i l l, brought you to such a bigger platform (the national stage, really) than your first one had. Did you feel pressure with this album to follow that up with something even bigger, or to try to reach the people who still don't "get" you?
MG I really do everything I can to not think about what how other people are going to receivewhat I'm making while I'm making it, because it just kills it right away. It's something I have to practice, just like I have to practice singing or practice things with music, I have to practice not considering what other people think. Especially when you feel like you're failing, because there are always moments when you're making something going 'This is not good.' Or 'people are not gonna like it.'
It's the same thing with reading reviews or interviews — unless someone tells me "Oh, I think this one would actually really be helpful for you to read." Otherwise it's kind of poison, regardless of it's good or bad. Because there's a sense of being outside of yourself, and I always want to get really inside myself. I kinda shut down on the social media.
SFBG How's Oakland treating you these days? Have you reached the point where you feel like a a kind of famous person, or is life pretty much business as usual?
MG You know, people say hi at the farmer's market, but no one really cares. Which is great. Oakland's been really good for my head, and I feel like there are a number of factors that keep me grounded. My relationship, the ways I've started to ground myself. It helps to remember that it's all a mirage — I mean, if I give [press and publicity] any more weight than that, it's kind of entering into the fictional world.
SFBG How's tour been going so far? What's it like opening for the Arcade Fire?
MG It's awesome. One of them the other day was like, "If you want to sit in on anything, let us know," and I was just like — I don't even know what that would be, or mean (laughs). They've been so nice to us. I knew some of these guys from Montreal, and what they want to do is nerd out about music. Which is exactly what I want it to be about. They're crazy, too; they play for two hours.
Tour in general — I love seeing new places around the world. Driving from Denver to Nashville is such a cool way to see this country, and we got to go to Australia this year, Europe several times. I do have to navigate my extreme fear of getting ill on the road, and it's not so emotionally easy to be with seven people riding in a van for so long, but that's why I feel so lucky that all the people with me are really dedicated to the project — Nate [Brenner] and I wrote a lot of this music together and then asked these people to play it with us for the next few months of their lives, and there's no way I could do it without them. I'm also really excited that we sold out the Fillmore.
SFBG Best thing you've eaten on this tour?
MG When we were in Kansas City, the Arcade Fire guys got these huge things of barbecue backstage, and they knew what they were doing. Let me think…yeah, definitely that.


text:
Saturday, June 16, 2012
31 comments:
- Caroline @trend-daily said...
What an incredible place you'll have Jeanette! Your week ahead sounds so exciting. Have a wonderful weekend with your girls! :-)
- 16/6/12 01:29
- helen said...
Red - as barns should be!
- 16/6/12 02:54
- wood & wool stool said...
oh Jeanette, your barn is so exiting and I'm sure you will have many joyful hours to make the inside BY FRYD. The red wood outside is already beautiful and the Alchemilla too. You'll spend a lot of time in The Barn Of Joy.
Enjoy the weekend
- 16/6/12 07:46
- Line said...
wow så flott låve! Drømmer om å pusse opp låven her på gården også men den er så sliten at vi vet ikke hvilken ende vi skal begynne i ;)
Gratulerer så mye med seieren i Interiørtalent konkurransen!!!!
- 16/6/12 08:33
- tinajo said...
Enjoy it to the fullest! :-)
- 16/6/12 10:07
- Chi @ 106 said...
Congratulations on your TV appearance and your handsome barn - what a great space!
I work from a little studio at the bottom of my garden and I remember how very excited I was to paint it, choose furniture and make it truly mine.
Can't wait to see yours when it's finished!
Have a lovely weekend. :)
- 16/6/12 11:12
- mAs said...
How exciting, congratulations on everything and enjoy your weeks ahead :)
- 16/6/12 11:33
- McMGrad89 said...
Yay for you and your barn. It is certainly coming along.
- 16/6/12 14:27
- Inger Johanne said...
Så spennande - ser ut til å bli ein kremplass for kreative utfoldingar! Gler meg til å sjå meir bilder
Gratulerer òg med å bli årets interiørtalent! Eg er ikkje overraska! Du er knallflink!
- 16/6/12 17:39
- Fine Friminutt said...
For en nydelig låve - og for en forandring! Spennende:-)
- 16/6/12 18:24
- Pet said...
Oh, they've got exactly the same color barns in Wisconsin!
- 16/6/12 19:45
- Valentina Fussell said...
It is just as I imagined it! Maybe one day we can come for a visit, but in the meantime I am enjoying daydreaming with you as to how it will be when it is all finished! Hugs from Copenhagen!
- 16/6/12 20:09
- Will @ Bright.Bazaar said...
This barn is PERFECT! What a lovely retreat.
- 16/6/12 20:12
- Annette said...
What a beautiful transformation! I know you will be filling it full of beauty and lots of joy!
- 16/6/12 22:25
- Louise@ElsieMayandBertha said...
I love the red colour of your barn.
- 16/6/12 23:01
- twiggs said...
i cannot wait to see the news inside! it already looks lovely outside!!! :)
- 17/6/12 00:51
- Stenar said...
HURRAH! Jeg har ventet tålmodig lenge for å få se dette!
Ganske hyggelig. Ønsker jeg hadde sånn.
- 17/6/12 03:49
- Minnie said...
such a cute barn ♥
love the pics ♥
- 17/6/12 15:18
- Kreetta said...
Looks so tempting and you are so lucky to have this kind of work space! wow.
- 18/6/12 11:36
- mellaogmalla said...
Gleder meg til å se mer fra låven:)
Og gratulerer med seieren!!
- 19/6/12 22:09
- anyaadores said...
Super smuk og super dejlige billeder Jeannette -
Happy summer sweets - speak soon,
- 20/6/12 09:14
- Lene said...
Så deg nettopp på tv. :) Bildet du vant med var lekkert! Håper jeg en dag blir like flink. Inspirerer meg masse ihvertfall :)
Klem Lene
- 21/6/12 08:58
- AML said...
Love the transformation!I love the color and lots of space on the barn. Not bad flower garden too. I absolutely love the pictures.
- 22/6/12 05:00
- The House That Lars Built said...
I just got the goose bumps.
- 24/6/12 19:30
- Karen said...
It's so beautiful, love the red - it reminds me of my childhood in the American Midwest. I look forward to seeing more of your joyful & magical transformation!
- 25/6/12 10:43
- Unknown said...
- This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
- 26/6/12 13:33
- Unknown said...
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- 16/2/13 07:57
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text:
Toe Jam on a Boat
For the first time the Bylery Toe Jam headed to the family-friendly Correct Craft Corporate Complex for the Rockstar Wake Jam. And the most important family in attendance were the Grubbs who got to see their baby boy beat out the rest of the boat heavy hitters and add another title to his impressive list.
Though some very threatening clouds tried to shut things down, even a little lightning couldn't stop the event (just put it on hold for a little while.) After several qualfiying rounds, the final two came down to Reed Hansen and Brian Grubb, and although Reed eats giant wakes for breakfast, he couldn't put it together in the end, at least, not as well was Grubb. Multiple 360 variations, wake to wake shuvs and big spins and even a 540 attempt made up the final two runs, but when it was all said and done, Grubb came out on top.
Since this is the first year every event hasn't included a boat event, it was exciting to see how much the level has been upped from wake to wake. Other stand outs included Dieter Humpsch's incredible tweaks and wake to wake kickflip attempts, Jen Gilanfarr riding alongside the boys and BT's impressive consistency. It was also amusing when BT donned a contruction vest and walked around with a hammer, but you'll have to check the Alliance Wakeskate gallery to really appreciate that one!
1. Brian Grubb
2. Reed Hansen
3. Stu Shinn
3 Brandon Thomas
5. Grant Roberts
5. Dieter Humpsch
5. George Daniels
5. Ross Gardner


text:
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The Ozaukee County Express is a convenient two-way bus service between Ozaukee County and Milwaukee. It is a service of Ozaukee County and is operated through a contract with the Milwaukee County Transit System.
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text:
PRINCESS ANNE, MD - (Aug. 12, 2013) - Lenorá Guion-Firmin, UMES' All-American track star, is in Russia this week preparing to compete in the 14th International Association of Athletic Federation (IAAF) World Championships.
Guion-Firmin, a dean's list student scheduled to graduate this December, is coming off of gold, silver and bronze showings at the European Athletics Under 23 Championships held last month in Tampere, Finland.
The sprinter took a gold medal in the women's 400-meter race, fell just short in the 200-meters to take silver, and her relay team took bronze in the 4 x 400 meter relay.
Her performance in Finland generated buzz among international sports journalists who closely follow the summer track and field season in Europe.
She is scheduled to run in the 200 meter and 4 x 400 meter relay in Moscow, one of just 20 French women participating in the event.
Guion-Firmin, who is from Martinique, a French overseas territory in the Caribbean, was an alternate on the French Olympic team in London last year. She is the second woman from UMES to participate in an Olympics. The other is Dawnette Douglas (1992).
The IAAF Championship runs from Aug. 10 through Aug. 18. The French women's 4x400 team is set to compete in heats beginning on Aug. 17 while Guion-Firmin will run the 200 meters on day six, Aug.15. The finals of that event will be the following day.
The IAAF World Championships is a biennial event held in the opposite years of the Olympics. It has a history of attracting world renowned track and field stars, including Michael Johnson, Carl Lewis and Usain Bolt, currently "the world's fastest man."
Guion-Firmin is the most decorated woman track and field athlete in UMES history, holding school records in the 200 and 400 meter outdoor events. She is a three-time All-America selection.
"She is the best (female) athlete to ever run at this school," head coach Ernest Barrett said. "I am proud of her and knew she was capable of great things; I think she is just starting to taste the success she will have internationally."
-- Stan Bradley, UMES sports information director


text:
What are you even going on about?Reefer2 wrote: WTF - there I said it 3 times and the good witch of the east just visited me and promised at least a game 6 so my friends put $10 down on Canucks and you should get a good return?
WTF - is that better
I'm simply saying your bedwetting and reactionary posting style hasn't changed.
Too bad there's no ignore function on this board, my list so far rivals Topp's from the 'ol days.


text:
Lobster Elite Freedom - B/O until 2021
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Lobster Elite Freedom - B/O until 2021
Price: USD $839.00
The Lobster Elite Freedom Portable ball machine is equipped with features that are not found on any machine in its price range. The large ball capacity (150 balls) and battery life (2-4 hours) allows extended play on the court. The Lobster Elite Freedom's oversized wheels and extended handle provide unequalled portability for players who are on the move. Enjoy playing against such advanced features such as full corner-to-corner random oscillation, up to 50-degree lobs to practice your overheads and speeds of up to 65 miles per hour. The full corner-to-corner sweep of the Lobster Elite Freedom portable ball machine will challenge a wide range of players from advanced to beginners alike. Designed for maximum durability, the Lobster Elite Freedom's 35-pound ergonomic design and oversized-wheels allow for easy transport, even with a full hopper of 150 balls. If you want additional oscillation features, find out how the Lobster Elite Two and Lobster Elite Three models may better fit your playing needs.


text:
There's a meeting to discuss the plans to build on the Huntsman's Field, at 8pm on Thursday 4th November. It's being held at St Michael & All Angel's Church Hall, Pond Road, Blackheath. Apparently it is for Cator Estate shareholders only, although I'm not sure how they'll check, and indeed whether that's really fair. Anyone trying to get the train in the morning will be affected by the building of hundreds of new flats in Blackheath.
The residents association are opposing the development on the grounds that it:
- will provide an unsafe and dangerous junction at the corner of Manor Way/Brooklands Park will generate additional motor traffic
- could very easily provide a 'cut through link' for all traffic from the KDA to the Cator Estate, vastly increasing (and introducing third party) traffic movement and volumes on the Cator Estate
- will detrimentally affect the character of the Conservation Area and amenity of the Cator Estate
- will detrimentally affect the character and amenity of the Cator Estate by virtue of the height and scale of certain buildings on the north boundary (being some 3-3.5 storeys) and the western boundary (3-5 storeys)
Don't forget, the wonderful thing about our planning laws is that the developers only have to win once. See Foxtons, for example.
More details in their newsletter (PDF).


text:
Awards season may be over, but Gabourey Sidibe's still the toast of Hollywood – according to E!'s Marc Malkin, the bubbly "Precious" star will host an upcoming episode of "Saturday Night Live."
"It literally just happened," a source told Malkin, who did not report Gabby's hosting date.
The most likely date is the currently host-free April 24 episode, which will also welcome musical guests MGMT.
The actress' role in "Precious" may have been a serious one, but Gabby showed her comedic chops on the red carpet and on late night shows in recent months – and while radio host Howard Stern himself took aim at her earlier this month, stating that her weight would keep her from further work, it appears she will have the last laugh.
Beyond "SNL," the young actress has also lined up a recurring TV role alongside Laura Linney on Showtime's "The Big C," premiering this August. She has also completed the upcoming independent film, "Yelling to the Sky."
Related Content from AccessHollywood.com:
VIEW THE PHOTOS: Young Hollywood Starlets!
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text:
"A Christmas Prayer Answered," Friend, Dec. 2012, 42–43
A Christmas Prayer Answered
The Lord will remember the prayers of the righteous, which have been put up unto him (Mormon 5:21).
Peggy awoke on Christmas morning. She was excited to receive a fun new toy and eat a Christmas feast. But as she looked around, she knew this year would be different. Even though her father worked hard, money had been scarce for her family.
There were no signs of an upcoming Christmas feast. The vegetable trays were empty, and there was no food in the refrigerator.
Peggy and her brother, Malcolm, walked to the door of their parents' bedroom and saw them kneeling next to their bed. They quietly listened as Mother and Father prayed that Heavenly Father would help the family have food.
"Come on," Peggy said to Malcolm. "Let's go outside."
Peggy and Malcolm went out and collected some of the wild ferns that grew near the garden. Maybe there wouldn't be any toys this year, but they could still make their home feel like Christmas.
They felt better after they decorated the house with green ferns, but there was still no sign of food.
"The Lord will provide," Mother said. "Now let's set the table."
Father placed plates on the table while Mother set out forks and spoons.
The children looked at each other with confusion in their eyes. The table was ready, but there was still no food. Breakfast soon passed and lunchtime neared. Peggy was hungry! She wondered how her family would get food.
The clock ticked to 12:00, then 12:30, then 12:45. Still nothing. Then Peggy heard a knock on the door.
She rushed to open the door and was shocked to see the Kirk family standing there. They were holding ham, bread, chicken, salads, and sweets. Peggy couldn't believe her eyes.
"We were just sitting down to eat our Christmas meal when we thought of you," Brother Kirk said. "We hope you can use this food."
Father shook Brother Kirk's hand, and Mother began to set the food on the kitchen table. Peggy was still shocked. She looked with wide eyes at Mother and Father, but they looked like they expected this to happen.
Peggy knew the feeling she had in the morning was right. This Christmas was different. This was the Christmas that she learned that Heavenly Father hears and answers prayers. And that was the best gift she could have received.


text:
On the day of her four-year wedding anniversary, Khloe Kardashianofficially dropped Odom from her last name — at least on social media.
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On Friday, Kardashian changed her Twitter account to read as "Khloe" and her Instagram changed to "KhloeKardashian." That same day she also posted a photo that read, "I can't explain and I won't even try," and a status thanking her followers for their support. Kardashian has made no mention of her husband, NBA player Lamar Odom, on Twitter in the last month and neither has confirmed or denied a split.
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The name change comes on the heels of divorce rumors that have been circling for months. Weeks before his August DUI arrest, there were reports that Odom cheated on his wife. Last week, Odom took to Twitter to defend his wife and in-laws after his estranged father gave a scathing interview about them.
What do you think of Kardashian's latest move?


text:
Arts and Crafts Taboret by Richard Hirsch
I have been an artist all my life and have worked with many different mediums. When I became a woodworker I discovered that no artist pallet or medium could compare with the variety of woods, grain patterns and colors available. Even after working with wood for over 30 years I still find it to be quite challenging. I like to design a particular piece around a unique or unusual piece of sustainable wood. Subtle lines and curves that showcase contrasting colors and grains or the figure of the wood; I will often utilize woods that have natural flaws or imperfections and spalting. All of my fine furniture is constructed with solid woods using mortise and tenon joints for heirloom quality and dovetails joints on the drawer boxes for strength and beauty. My main influences are furniture makers James Krenov and David Marks. Krenov for his attention to the little details that makes a piece of furniture beautiful and David Marks for being a perfectionist and the woods he uses in his designs.


text:
Request for Gen. Shepley to find relative, Richmond, Va., 1865
Item 76622 info
Maine Historical Society
Not all the requests Shepley received related to Maine soldiers -- or even to soldiers.
After Lee's surrender, while serving as military governor of Richmond in 1865, Shepley received a letter from Aaron B. Reid of Haverstraw, New York, asking Shepley to get a letter to Reid's sister, a resident of Richmond.
Reid wrote, "I have some relatives among the mis-guided & unfortunate citizens of Richmond..."
Reid also praised Shepley for his previous work as military governor of Louisiana, predicting that "the same urbanity, justice & kindness of heart, which caused you to be such a favorite among all classes at New Orleans, will win for you the same admiration at Richmond."
Item 13 of 13


text:
bipolar disorder
bipolar disorder, formerly manic-depressive disorder or manic-depression, severe mental disorder involving manic episodes that are usually accompanied by episodes of depression. The term
manic-depressionwas introduced by the German psychiatrist Emil Kraepelin in 1896. The manic phase of the disorder is characterized by an abnormally elevated or irritable mood, grandiosity, sleeplessness, extravagance, and a tendency toward irrational judgment. During the depressed phase, the person tends to appear lethargic and withdrawn, shows a lack of concentration, and expresses feelings of worthlessness, self-blame, and guilt. This dual character of the disorder has given it the name bipolar disorder, in contrast to the unipolar depression symptomatic of the majority of mood disorders. The symptoms range in intensity and pattern and may not be recognized at first. Individuals suffering from bipolar disorder may have long periods in their lives without episodes of mania or depression, but manic-depressives have the highest suicide rate of any group with a psychological disorder.
Sections in this article:
- Introduction
- Treatment
- Bibliography
- Incidence
The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th ed. Copyright © 2012, Columbia University Press. All rights reserved.
See more Encyclopedia articles on: Psychology and Psychiatry


text: "Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don't be afraid." ~Frederick BuechnerThank you for your interest!All proceeds from the sale of these images go towards GiveDirectly, a 501(c)3 non-profit rated the 2013 Top Charity in terms of impact per dollar spent by GiveWell. GiveDirectly transfers cash to low-income households in developing countries via mobile phone-linked payment services. You can find out more about GiveDirectly at http://www.givedirectly.org/ or http://www.givewell.org/international/top-charities/give-directly#Whatdotheydo