11.24.01

Thanksgiving Morning:

Well - the most insane thing that I’ve ever had happen to me just happened to me in my dream. I was spinning slowly in a whirling dervish circle and I cocked my head back and looked up and suddenly I saw a red cloud form above my head it materialized very quickly - like in a matter of seconds - and then before I could even contemplate it - it consumed me entirely - mind, body, whatever - it ate me entirely. I don’t know what that’s supposed to mean - but it ate me or it took me quickly through a wormhole and spat me out in another alternate universe - and this was in my dreams - I thought my dreams were another alternate universe - as it turns out there must be more than one because I was transplanted to another one - momentarily - and I don’t remember what I saw but I felt like my whole entire body was there - everything was a bit of a blur - I think I’m going to try this technique again: cock my head back, look up and see if a red cloud instantaneously appears. I wonder also if I can do this in the real world, like when I’m in a trance, and if I will get taken away then too.

In my dreams - I had come across a house - imagine the Medford and Manchester intersection or whatever. Those rolling hills - kind of - except different. There was a yard and lots of people and a big country farm house and it was like there was a hippie festival or something. I had been hanging out there for a while, though I’m not sure what I was doing. I was participating in this house, whatever it was, and all of a sudden, I’m walking in the yard at this time, or was it an underground tunnel? I’m walking in this tunnel and in the mirror across from me I see Anthony, as clear as day I see him, with a guitar on his back, with a perfect shiny shaved head, looking up and around him, and then I look over there and there he is - except he’s wearing a green frock and his hair is long and froopy - like his hair was straight except it almost curled underneath a little bit - like a medieval friar’s haircut. I thought he looked funny and we noticed each other but didn’t say anything because it was uncomfortable. I walked by and a couple minutes later, I saw him wearing the same clothes with the same hair and I saw him talking to a woman of some color - was she black? She was light skinned and jabbering on and on about nothing. I don’t know what feeling I felt but I do know that it was something like a jealous indifference. And I didn’t want to talk to him so I just watched him walk by and I was out in the grass field and that’s when I started twirling my arms, looked up, and saw the red cloud. I don’t know what to make of this - except that it might be a technique I can use again to leave my body in my dreams.

By the way, I have to confess that quite often I get the feeling that there are presences or spirits around me. I couldn’t guess how many there would be near me right now, for example, but I would guess several. I don’t know why I perceive these spirits, and they’re not doing anything really, nothing that can easily perceived - so maybe I’m delusional - but I feel like I am constantly being visited by these sprits - in front of me - behind me - in my peripheral vision. Sometimes I think I see glowing light in the corner of my eye. Sometimes I can’t tell if I’m just cray-z.

Saturday Morning:

Oh - I went and opened the door and then I got on the internet and no one emailed me, no one signed my guestbook, no one did anything, moved anything, changed anything, said anything. No thing. Sometimes the internet seems so sterile and meaningless. So I got on the nytimes website and looked at these photos by photojournalists - amazing photographers - what gifted eyes. AAAh. I want to go out to the Middle East - or just to be sent somewhere else. Not this country. Not this society. Then I would feel like I was living pure action. Then I would feel like I was doing something meaningful. Or if I was traveling around the country as a singer trying to support myself. That would be pure action. If I was talking to people about spiritual issues - raising their consciousness that would be pure action. Living in a monastary would not be pure action. Having a meaningless job with a cell phone and a house and bills is not pure action. That’s pure laziness - granted I bet they think they’re working themselves to the bone and their lives are just busy and they have too much action. But what are they doing for others? What are they giving? Are they giving themselves, the deepest essence of themselves to other people, or are they making money for themselves? I wonder what it would be like to go an entire day without thinking about myself. How difficult would that be? Would I have to not eat in order to not think about myself? Would I subordinate my needs? Mother Theresa, for example, is pure action. The Beguines were pure action. They took to the streets and took the poor in. Watching the Baraka movie makes me want to know what I’m going to do to be the change I want to see in the world. Waking Life raises the question of there being so little change in human kind because of fear and laziness (and selfishness - which is related to the other two reasons) (I think not challenging yourself and following tradition and the norm is selfish in a sense because you’re not working for the advancement of human consciousness.) I feel that there are a great many people out there that are trying to reach into themselves in record numbers - they are challenging themselves to be more conscientious and they are challenging the world to be more conscientious. I am repeatedly humbled and awed by the number of people out there who want to talk about issues of a spiritual nature or people who are challenging the corporate state. I believe this work is a bodhisattva’s work. It requires people to give up their expectations of what life is meant to be and to imagine life as it could be - to live fully the principles they’ve imagined. This is the hardest work of all - to make vision and action congruent. They’re like two parallel roads toward the same goal. And I have this sneaking suspicion that there are people all over this country who want to work for something greater than themselves because so many more people are in tune with the spirits and angels around them. I think the spirits are trying to tell us something - and they will speak to anyone willing to listen - and we have to listen deeply - but that means laying down our ego-weapons and our desire-crutches. Even in my deepest trances, I feel it is hardest to let go of my head. Perhaps that is why the dream I dreamt the other day was so easy - because for once I had NO EGO to hold on to - I completely vanquished my ego and completely surrendered to the red cloud above me. It was beyond surrender, however, it consumed me without an ounce of surrender. It took me whether or not I wanted it. I believe this - also - is true work - to do what you are called to do whether or not you want to do it. What is your calling? What is my calling? Are we just idling our time?

I look at the brotherhood of man and I am proud - but maybe proud isn’t the right word because so often my pride is really humility and reverence. I am humbled to be a servant of the universe, to be worked through. But even more so am I humbled by the amount of gleaming eyes ripe with the desire to do more than they are capable of doing. They want to push themselves to the brink of reality to show what light they have within but also because the universe needs them to work and be in order for its plan to come shining through. I think that maybe this is a special time and that maybe together we can break through towards a new consciousness - the essential question is - are we ready to take a gigantic leap together into the unknown and break down the structures that bind us? Is this anarchy or is this faith? Strangely, when I read about the Prohibitionists - I understand where they’re coming from. They believed in these morals that were higher than them, more powerful than them, they worked from the heart to achieve something which they believed would benefit the entirity of society by wiping out saloons. They believed in a new golden age of human spirit. Maybe the spiritual and intellectual left could take a cue or a clue from their efforts and show the similarities between the saloons and the corporate state. Don’t both debilitate our reckoning? The fact that I get to feel the presence of God at all is a remarkable thing, and for that I am truly humbly blessed and grateful, but to feel that surrounded by hundreds and thousands of my fellow humankind, in an era such as this, but to be holding hands together and looking for new ways of living, that is surely a humbling blessing, and surely something that many of us would like to see happen, occur, or just otherwise be. What will it take to bring us together? What will it take to end this war? These wars. These wars in Afghanistan - finally I am beginning to see the Devil - and I see it in photographs of people who have no love - but in children I see the hope. And love is the language through which God communicates. God does not communicate through hatred, violence, oppression, or hurricanes as Jerry Falwell would want someone to believe, no - he/she/it uses love as its language - and love is a palpable vibration - a feeling as real as biting into an apple. Maybe that’s why children are doubly special - because when they are born they give an adult a dose of unconditional love - which can be a very moving moment for someone, anyone, who is stuck in the routine of bitterness, anger, depression, cyclical work - but they give you the second dose of ecstatic, joyeous curiosity - which is important for anyone to keep in mind. Oh - it brings to mind what C said to me the other day about her grandfather - that as a child she had to always obey what her grandfather said - that she was always wrong and always had to listen to what was right because he knew better. Do adults really know better? Do children know things we can’t possibly know? What if children ran our anarchic state? What would our lives be like? Jeff went on to say last night how happy he was to live in these times with flushing toilets and CDs - but he also went on to ask if that comes at a price. Does it come at a price and at what price? I went on to complain pointing to my CDs - I said: ‘This - this is my life - look at what those other people consider life - it doesn’t recognize my own - how can I sit comfortably listening to CDs when I know that there are hungry people out there - when I know that there are people who can’t listen to CDs?’ How can I justify this to others, especially children, when I can’t justify it to myself. Jeff says: What do you want ME to do about it, I like things the way they are. That’s incongruent with what he says though - he doesn’t like things the way they are - he doesn’t like our Government or our economy. And he says he wants to be the change he wants to see in the world. My question is - do we need to come to this level of luxury in order to FEEL our souls - to come to know our consciousness on a mass scale? If so - does this mean that we must first contemplate and then act? What if we get so stuck in the meaningless void of contemplation that our action is inert? How do we dig ourselves out of ourselves then?

Why does my life seem empty? If I answered that question - my answer would have to be that my life seems empty because I’m caught up in ego fulfillment. I’m not giving enough away. Having so much information is not fulfilling. The Afghan refugees in Pakistan live in small rooms with old mattresses on the floor, a few sheets between their skin and the smelly mattress, and it appears that 10 people all share the amount of space that I call my own in my orange bedroom which is a haven to my ego-fulfillment. That brings to mind an interesting question - why - with sharing my room with Anthony did I feel so violated? Was it because he was not congruent with my ego-fulfillment? Then perhaps, was I not congruent with his ego-fulfillment? Is this the reason why we abandoned each other? Perhaps, then, did we fulfill something deeper in each other and it was the deeper issue that we felt and which brought us together - meanwhile our egos were battling each other for territorial space fulfillment? Could we only love each other when we surrendered our egos? Could we only love each other in union? Were our minds in the way of our hearts? What does your heart say? What do you feel?

I don’t feel alone. I feel there are beings constantly near me - arousing my heart - I feel them in the corner of my soul - I turn to look but I see nothing. Their presence, though, is enough to make my heart thump, thump, thump, deeply in my chest and I am constantly teetering between blind expectation and fear. Oh - this is the closest I’ve come so far to the borderland between realities. My reality is deftly affixed onto my eyeballs - but if I let that grow a wee bit fuzzy - something else comes in over top and I see blurry movements of nothing washing around my visible spectrum. And I am no longer hungry.

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