View Full Version : Monogamy Issues in 2012
Giselle62
10-04-2006, 06:56 PM
I just wanted to write in response to the relationship stuff in the 2012 book I just read. I’m very interested in the drug and shamanic stuff too, but wanted to respond to Daniel’s writing about monogamy issues, specifically. I’m sure he has gotten some letters and emails about people’s personal lives, but since my life is an open book I’ll just put my stuff right out here on the table, as per usual, for all to see.
I was a child of hipsters. My mom and dad were proto-hippies, becoming full-blown as the sixties progressed. Mom hung out in Hollywood, after divorcing my dad when I was one and a half. They were kind of beatnik/juvenile delinquents in the San Pedro LA harbor area; and by the time my mom met my dad he was already selling reefer and pills and other things. Mom says she started taking pills because of sleep problems. I was brought up during the height of free love, drugs, sex and rock and roll.
The one value that I think hippies and hipster parents convey to their children is the value of honesty. All things are questioned, and it’s important to be real—not be phony. I think Daniel brings this to some of the things he writes about; although I am sometimes suspicious of his more extreme spiritual ideas.
One thing that strikes me about Daniel’s torment over relationship stuff is that first of all, he’s really smart and sometimes maybe thinks too much about matters of the heart; and secondly, that he is way more honest about his intentions and behaviors than most people are in this society. He also seems to punish himself a lot for his thoughts and feels guilty, but I hear that is a very Jewish way of being.
I no longer believe in monogamy and haven’t believed in it for the last ten years or so.
When I was 22 I left San Pedro and went to go live on a commune in Virginia where many kinds of relationships took place.
Living on a commune, where 200 or so visitors came through every year, and members came and went by the dozens; was an educational experience-- and I can say that as a school of life you learn much about human behavior in a very intense and rapid manner.
My first year there I got together with a Jewish fellow with long brown wavy hair named Aaron who sang me John Prine songs and Bob Dylan songs with a much more beautiful voice then either of these great songwriters had. Aaron’s singing made me cry. I fell in love with Aaron during my visitor period, but he quickly grew very possessive and as I tried to feel out his preferences on relationships—asking him how it would feel to him if I experimented a little with other people, for instance-- he became quite typically jealous in what I considered a mainstream way.
I had just gotten out of a jealous relationship with a young man in LA who was an underground musician and proved to be abusive when got drunk, We were both from working class backgrounds and I saw many parallels between his behaviors and some of the men that my mother had been with—I was hoping that when I got to the commune that I would find something different, but I didn’t really know what, yet.
In the part of LA that I was from, there weren’t a lot of Jewish people, and I found myself attracted to the Jewish men on the commune with the long curly dark hair. Because Twin Oaks was kibbutz-like there where a few men from Israel; and as men they proved to be-- deep-down—rather traditional in their view of women.
So, in the first year I was there, I ended up breaking up with 3 men and immediately got a reputation as a heartbreaker--which went on to haunt me my entire time on the commune, (which like any small town or village was run by old ladies and gossip.)
I met my daughter’s father, Scott at the commune. We were both from Southern California and met in a pagan group .When I met Scott, I was very much in love, but often felt restless like I wanted to go other places and be with other people. I tried breaking up with him, but he just stayed around anyway. That’s the way he has always been. In the last 20 years, I have, in my mind, been broken up with Scott, but he still asks me to live with him as family. The same feeling is still there, the feeling of being restless. Right now I am living with him, and down in LA half of the month.
At the commune, the relationships between men and women were egalitarian. Having your food, shelter and meds provided for you meant that you were never dependent on any one else for your financial livelihood. The only dependencies came from your own mind or heart.
Women were equally drawn toward new relationships, even when in existing relationships and with dependent children. This did cause problems, and outside media were always interested in how that was dealt with. I lived in a building where one mother of two boys had dinner every night with her current lover and one of the boy’s fathers. (Dinner time was family time.)
After I left the commune, one woman decided she wanted to be a mother, and since she was poly-amorous she was okay with the contributions of both of her lovers being thrown into the pot, so to speak --to achieve conception. I think she has two kids now, and I don’t know if she still has the same lovers.
I can think of three poly-amorists associated with the place who have had long-term relationships with more than 2 people—the same people over 2 decades—adding or subtracting as the years went by. One of the partners is sometimes considered the main squeeze, though it is done however one wants to do it.
Of the many types of relationships that I did see, serial monogamy was the most common, with ties being kept with children through scheduled nights rotated amongst different people having chosen to be “primaries” in the child’s life. Most “primaries” were biological parents, and any caregivers who chose to really commit to that child long-term. Some primaries and children remain close after many years. Scott and I chose to be my daughter’s only primaries because she was so damned unhappy for years being with anyone besides us! She still loves her parents as her best friends.
At this time in my life, I feel like I am finally mature enough to contemplate poly-amory., but sometimes I would get an icky-swinger vibe from the poly-amorists at Twin Oaks that I didn’t dig. So maybe I’ll just remain a serial-monogamist all of my life, or just stick to knitting for the time being. Unfortunately, for me, sex and love often provided a means to friendship with interesting people. As I have aged and gained weight, I have found that less people want to be my friend. Well, that just goes to show, whatever it goes to show. Yeah, sure, men are into looks, duh!
What I wanted to tell folks starting out in relationships is that everyone pretty much has to figure it out for themselves. We have so many choices now, and as with other things in this modern life, there are no right ones. Some people can stay together for years—but they are people who were brought up in a much less fragmented world, or just have strong influences toward monogamy, which doesn’t really seem to be a natural state. Most of us, in the Western world, if we are completely honest with ourselves, are serially monogamous. ( the poly-amorists make fun of us.)
Regarding children: there can and will often be a strong bond between people who have children together, and what I tell anyone who will listen is that you really need to work on making your relationship with someone you have a child with into something that will be loving, caring and long-standing—make it mutual respect because you will need to deal with each other on some level for decades! I’m all for alternative families.
I heard that Andy Dick lives in a house with ex-wives and ex-girlfriends just so they can all take care of the kids and they can all see enough of each other.
That’s another thing, we know that children want to see a lot of their parents; and in this day and age we are trying many ways to still be able to provide real parenting to the products of our divorces. Do what you can to get the security you need and the newness you crave. For some that’s hobbies and other interests contained in a traditional relationship all the way to the other side of the spectrum of many-loves.
As long as sex - you know the kind - is still involved it will always be
problematic. That may sound hard-line coming from me, but I can
guarantee that moving to a deeper priority in the Heart will take
care of that issue quite well, and subsequently it will encourage
communions that one could barely imagine prior. It is a matter of
intent and honesty.
I have more than a little faith that many here are going to be
feeling this very, very soon. And way before 2012.
tree hugger
10-04-2006, 08:49 PM
Jezelle62
I loved your post. You spoke with such honesty and from direct experience. It was refreshing.
No matter what it's hard to make love and sex work all the time. We all just make our way as you said. And hopefully we do it with honesty/respect and love. That seems to be the hardest part. Sex can be at times the easy part in the face of those.
Tree hugger
Thanks Giselle,
I found your post very interesting. I do admire your honesty.
I read this article about polyamory (http://www.newscientist.com/channel/being-human/mg19125591.800-love-unlimited-the-polyamorists.html) in the NewScientst a couple of weeks ago.
Not all of it is available online, unfortunately. Maybe see if your local library has a subscription.
Best,
Dna.
forteanajones
10-05-2006, 11:34 AM
From Polyamorous Percolations
http://www.polyamoryonline.org/articles/scientist.html
Love unlimited: The polyamorists
by Annalee Newitz
07 July 2006
RD071006
Love unlimited: The polyamorists
"I WAS dating Gordon when I met Heather and Jim. Then I started dating Jim too, and Heather started dating Gordon right before he and I broke up," says Noemi. Confused? Tonight I'm having dinner with a group whose unusual lifestyle warrants such introductions. They are a "polyamorous" family - one whose members are openly committed to several lovers at the same time.
Their household, in a quiet neighbourhood on the outskirts of San Francisco, looks like any other. A little boy in pyjamas answers the door when I knock, smiling around a large strawberry stuck in his mouth. His mother Heather, an artist with oval glasses and pink hair, is cooking in the kitchen with her boyfriend Gordon, a computer-network engineer with an understated manner. The dining room is pleasant, airy and smells of roasting chicken. Heather's husband Jim, along with housemates Noemi and Alicia, are bustling about the table, opening wine, putting out place settings and making sure Heather and Jim's son (the strawberry eater) brushes his teeth before going to bed. Noemi, a park ranger who is pregnant with Jim's second child, offers me some bread and cheese.
The group's network of relationships is fairly typical in polyamorous circles, where it's not unusual to hear somebody introduce a "husband's girlfriend" or "my wife and her boyfriends". Noemi does her best to explain the history of the family, but it sounds like a logic puzzle. "If you really want to understand all of our relationships, it might be easier if we drew you a chart," says Heather (see Diagram). "I'm not dating any of them," says Alicia, a librarian. "My boyfriend is poly, so I guess I'm poly by association."
"I feel like I'm monogamous because I've been sleeping with only one person for about five years," says Noemi. Everybody starts laughing, and finally she admits, "OK, well I did sleep with some other people too."
It is hard to estimate how many polyamorists exist - there is no box for them on any national census - but the number of online resources, articles and books on the topic has exploded since the early 1990s, when the term polyamory ("poly" for short) was coined in internet newsgroups. The Ethical Slut, a 1997 book by Dossie Easton and Catherine Liszt that some call the "bible of poly", has sold more than 50,000 copies and is about to go into its second edition. Recently the concept of multiple lovers has become the subject of public debate in the US, where conflicts over gay marriage have led some conservatives to claim that homosexual weddings will lead to marriages of more than two people: if you can have two mothers, they say, why not two mothers and a father?
For psychologists and evolutionary biologists, polyamory is a rare opportunity to see, out in the open, what happens when people stop suppressing their desire for multiple partners and embrace non-monogamy. Proponents say the poly brand of open but committed relationships may be a way around infidelity because it turns an age-old problem into a solution: polyamorists are released from the burdens of traditional marriage vows, yet they seem to keep their long-term relationships intact. What makes poly enticing is the possibility of reconciling long-term stability and romantic variety.
No swinging, please
And why shouldn't we consider it? When most people think of non-exclusive marriages, they think of polygamy, an ancient but still widespread practice that involves one person, usually male, acquiring multiple spouses in a harem-like arrangement. Or swinging, in which couples have casual flings on the side. Polyamory is different. It encompasses a dizzying variety of arrangements - anything from couples with long-term lovers on the side to larger groups with overlapping relationships. If anything characterises poly, says Elaine Cook, a psychiatrist who has a private practice in Marin county, California, it is a lack of rigid structure.
What evidence there is shows that poly couples stay together as long as monogamous ones - and, apparently, for good reasons. In a study published last December in the Electronic Journal of Human Sexuality (vol 8), Cook analysed the relationships of seven couples who had been married for more than 10 years, and who had had additional partners for at least seven of those years. She found that most of the couples reported "love" or "connection" as important reasons for staying together. This contrasts with monogamous couples, Cook notes, who often list external factors such as religion or family as major reasons for remaining committed.
That is telling. Cook speculates that polyamorists perceive themselves as having more choices, and therefore they only stay in marriages and relationships that make them happy. "They have other relationships that they are perhaps equally excited about being in, but they want to maintain this [marriage] relationship because it continues to satisfy them," she says.
For some, poly may be more realistic than monogamy. Having multiple partners frees people from the process of trying to find "the one" who is perfect for them in every way. In April, psychologist Rachel Robbins at the Mission Mental Health clinic in San Francisco conducted a survey of 250 polyamorous women. The number 1 reason they gave for being poly was "to experience different activities and explore different parts of themselves with different people". Instead of asking one person to meet all their needs, polyamorists are content with several people who each meet a few.
Noemi's housemates would drink to that. "I have a lot of interests and passions in my life, and I can't fulfil them all in my relationship," says Alicia. "It was good to have my partner go off and date other people, because then I could pursue my outside interests too - and I didn't feel scrutinised for wanting to do that." Noemi agrees: "It makes me sad that so many people isolate themselves," she says. "It's good to have multiple people who love you, and it's good to have freedom and downtime too."
All well and good, but what about the demands of juggling so many commitments at once? Surely it saps their time and energy. In a break during dinner, I ask how the family manages multiple relationships, particularly as most of them live under the same roof.
"We all have our own bedrooms, which is key," Noemi says. "And our bedrooms aren't next to each other, so we have privacy," says Heather. "Also, we have a nominal schedule where Jim sleeps with Noemi and me on an every-other-night basis, and I'm with Gordon on the weekends."
"My nights without Jim are great," Noemi says with a laugh. "I get to hog the covers, and nobody snores."
Critics call poly self-indulgent and morally reprehensible. Yet it is hardly a sexual free-for-all. The freedom has limits - and managing emotions like jealousy becomes a central issue. "These are designer relationships," Cook says. "Every group decides for itself what's open and what isn't."
Take Emma and Nate, a young married couple living in California's Silicon Valley who describe themselves as "stable and well-settled". They met in college 11 years ago and have always had a polyamorous relationship. Emma has had a boyfriend for the past seven years, while Nate prefers to have short-term romances with friends. Some aspects of their relationship, however, are not open. "We don't do sleepovers with other people," Emma says.
"I like waking up next to her in the morning," Nate says. "The only exception is if I'm out of town, in which case I don't mind if she's having a sleepover." Another rule they have established is letting each other know in advance about dates with other people. "If either of us gets serious about someone else, we bring them home to meet the spouse," says Nate. "In fact, that's what we're doing tomorrow - we're having lunch with my new girlfriend and her husband."
Your cheating heart
Polyamorists come to it at different points in their lives and for different reasons. Emma says she had open relationships in high school, and many people I spoke with described discovering poly in their late teens or early twenties. Most, like Jim, tried monogamy. "My first marriage was supposed to be monogamous, and I was," he recalls. "But she slept around in a cheating way. That killed the relationship."
So is poly more sustainable than monogamy? "Infidelity in monogamous relationships is estimated at 60 to 70 per cent, so it seems that attraction to more than one person is normal. The question is how we deal with that," says Meg Barker, a professor of psychology at London South Bank University who presented her research into poly at the 2005 meeting of The British Psychological Society. "The evidence is overwhelming that monogamy isn't natural," says evolutionary biologist David Barash of the University of Washington, Seattle. "Lots of people believe that once they find 'the one', they'll never want anyone else. Then they're blindsided by their own inclinations to desire other attractive individuals. So it's useful to know that this behaviour is natural."
But as a mating strategy, poly may not be any better than monogamy; a person's reproductive success may diminish if there is less pressure to be exclusive. "Jealousy is probably fitness enhancing," Barash says. A more jealous male is likely to stick closer to his mate and prevent her from getting impregnated by other males. "A good look at human biology does not support polyamory any more than it supports monogamy," he says. Biologist Joan Roughgarden, at Stanford University in Palo Alto, California, goes further. "Polyamory won't last. The likelihood of being able to successfully raise children in that context is very limited. My guess is that it's not an evolutionary advance, but a liability."
"You can't optimise one kind of relationship to fit everyone. People can make sense of their worlds in many ways if monogamy is not the default"
To others, however, biology is not the point. "In middle-class urban cultures, people aren't marrying for survival any more," says psychologist Dossie Easton, co-author of The Ethical Slut. "They can get divorced, and the kids won't starve. This means we're having marriages and relationships for very different reasons than our ancestors did. We're doing it for emotional gratification." Easton sees poly as a break from the "survival strategy" traditions that created both polygamy and monogamy. "Polyamory is a cultural outgrowth of serial monogamy, or having multiple partners without necessity," she says. "Once you're released from necessity, you can start doing all kinds of original thinking."
Barker concurs. "It's assumed that jealousy is a natural response," she says, "but some polyamorous people say they hardly feel it at all. I think this gives us insight into how people can make sense of their worlds in many ways if monogamy isn't the default." She has found that when people leave traditional monogamy behind, they often rethink "givens" such as how to divide up the housework, money and childcare. Children of poly couples, for instance, tend to be raised by a small community instead of two parents.
Back in San Francisco, Heather's family is clearing the table. As she replaces our plates with bowls of fruit compote, she says poly is a way of keeping her long-term partnerships alive. "When you think about it, what happened is that Jim and I didn't get divorced when we got new partners. We're still together and yet have more love from other people."
"Polyamory is not for everybody," says Jim. "But it creates a range of options, which is important because you can't optimise one kind of relationship to fit everyone."
"The important thing is that we trust each other," says Noemi, rubbing her pregnant belly with a smile. Although poly is still well out of the mainstream, it has become an attractive alternative to monogamy for some. Whether it is good for society remains an open question. For now, there's a more pressing issue - is it good for you?
In a study of polyamorous communities online, psychologist Meg Barker found that they had invented new terms to describe the emotions and logistics of non-monogamy.
Ethical slut - someone who sleeps with several people but is honest and open about it; the foundation of polyamory
Frubbly - the opposite of romantic jealousy; the happiness a person feels when his or her partner is happy with another partner (known as compersion in the US)
Metamour - a poly partner's other lover
NRE - new relationship energy, the zingy feeling of euphoria when you fall in love with a new person
Primary - a polyamorist's main partner. Other less intimate partners may be termed secondary or tertiary. Those who have several equally intimate relationships say they engage in non-hierarchical polyamory
Love, actually
Dossie Easton is a psychotherapist and, along with Catherine Liszt, wrote The Ethical Slut in 1997. The book discusses polyamory - being openly committed to more than one sexual relationship at a time. Here she describes what polyamory means to her.
What is polyamory, and where did it come from?
"The idea has been around for a while. I decided to be non-monogamous in 1969. Back then people called it free love, open relationships or even transmarital sex. The word polyamory was invented by psychologist Deborah Anapol to refer to group marriage. Now it means people who have a variety of different kinds of relationships. It is everyone who is living outside the notion that you can only have one true love."
Why choose this lifestyle?
"There is a whole range of reasons, but the highest is finding community. Poly community becomes an extended family that shares intimacy, sex, housing and child-rearing. I see non-monogamy as creating places where people can nurture relationships because they don't have to leave home, children or partner to explore themselves. They don't have to tear up their world every time they try something new."
How come everyone isn't poly?
"We have huge social strictures against unbridled sexuality, so non-monogamy is threatening and frightening. In my practice, I see a lot of people who feel strongly drawn to poly, but they think something is wrong with them - that they're commitment-phobic or have problems with intimacy. I think desire draws us along a path of self-discovery, and through that we find intimate connections with other people."
Giselle62
10-05-2006, 12:01 PM
that was a good article. people are just way cool in the bay area. Regular people arent like that. it's another world, really, different even from the central coast where I live some of the time. In most circles, in this country these ideas are considered way out there.
i'm definitely thinking of being more intentional in my relationships-- if I get any chances in the future. I've had a couple of older men proposition me down at my new job, and I let them know that I'm a very independent woman and like freedom. I didn't know how else to put it to these people. These men would not have heard of these alternative ideas. I don't even really llike to say that i used to live on a commune, because most people thiink that communes are Waco-mansonian.
"Ethical slut" is actually a pretty good way to describe it, and it takes that mean word (no, not "ethical") that I have been called since I was a young un' and transforms it into something more positive...
p.s. dont get me mixed up with Jezebelle, the name's Giselle, mister.
There are polyamoric relationships forming already right here in this
ethernet, which is really an objectification of something absolutely
psychic laying just under the surface.
The bodies of these polymorics will begin to draw together in
physicality within the next two years. The distance and space
between souls in this process is necessary for the processing
and refinement of all of the individual personality aspects that
require transformation so that the convergence of souls will
be a radiant and integral manifestation....once the ends of the
spirit are brought all of the way to the pores of the flesh.
There will be more configurations of association between
souls than we can imagine at this point. It is already happening
with myself and my partner and with about seven other souls,
and all in less than a week so far.
The physical encounters of all of these souls, no matter what
their creative relations will be as light as a puppy's nuzzling
and as sweet. The violent conjoining is now a thing of the
distant and fuzzy past.
tree hugger
10-05-2006, 05:13 PM
giselle
So sorry to have spelled your name wrong in my post! Never enough sleep. It is causing permeant damage I fear.
Tree hugger
daniel
10-06-2006, 12:04 AM
long ago, willoweyes threatened to bust me on my 2012 writing on relationships, but she has not yet come through. She thought it was strange that I used Julius Evola - a fascistic authoritarian freak - as an approved source on the subject. I certainly agree that she might have a point.
This is my big area of thought and reading right now. I have come to no conclusions!
Caprinardo Delirio
10-06-2006, 05:39 AM
mckenna said this thing in a lecture from '99 about shamanism and virtual reality, and in thinking about building bridges there between: "simply because these are two of my great loves, and being monogamous, i feel they must be one love."
i have done a lot of thinking on the whole gender/sexuality/pre-transpersonal thing, and i'll love to engage in this discussion, but i'm only 70 pages into Q, so i'll wait until i'm done with it..
..though, i can't see anything that suggests that one prevailing, possibly all-inclusive, sexual orientation should be pushed or promoted, and i frown quite a bit at the kind of queer theory that suggests that you can just make it all up, in the wake that your sexual self was just a "social construct" (i'm often overwhelmed at the uninspiredness by which this and similar terms are being understood and recast) and that you escape from it by doing whatever you feel, making up and inventing value as you go along, and that no actual sexual force with any kind of logic is to be honored or investigated. a lot of queer theory seems to me to be very reactionary to what a fuller transpersonal understanding of the self would do to sexuality and gender issues-not-issues.. anyway!
sidecross
10-06-2006, 06:01 AM
long ago, willoweyes threatened to bust me on my 2012 writing on relationships, but she has not yet come through. She thought it was strange that I used Julius Evola - a fascistic authoritarian freak - as an approved source on the subject. I certainly agree that she might have a point.
This is my big area of thought and reading right now. I have come to no conclusions!
Again daniel you are confused with names; it was dragonfly and not willoweyes who was to make a comment in the future.
long ago, willoweyes threatened to bust me on my 2012 writing on relationships, but she has not yet come through. She thought it was strange that I used Julius Evola - a fascistic authoritarian freak - as an approved source on the subject. I certainly agree that she might have a point.
This is my big area of thought and reading right now. I have come to no conclusions!
Well, even if Evola was a fantastically authoritarian asshole, doesn't mean that everything he says is garbage. And I'm not saying he is, since I'm not real familiar with Evola.
Anyhow, I'd like to hear more about what you've learned on this subject Daniel. Polyamory (not the best name tag in the world) is a philosophy both my wife and I share, even though we're still in a monogamous relationship. So yeah, it's always a treat to hear other viewpoints from all sides.
K.J
I hope you guys are not still thinking of bodies in conventional ways
when you are ruminating upon this monogamy issue. And this is not
a 2012 date issue. It is right now. Anyone reading this who is not
feeling a major movement in their sternal region and alterations and
transparencies forming in their personality (and relationship) structures
must be very uncracked indeed.
I hope you guys are not still thinking of bodies in conventional ways
when you are ruminating upon this monogamy issue. And this is not
a 2012 date issue. It is right now. Anyone reading this who is not
feeling a major movement in their sternal region and alterations and
transparencies forming in their personality (and relationship) structures
must be very uncracked indeed.
No worries Nyk, I'm cracked indeed. :D
K.J
willoweyes
10-06-2006, 10:56 AM
Sidecross, thank you for reminding us who said what.
I was pretty confused for a minute--did I say that? And is Daniel SURE he wants to invite me to speak out on his relationship issues? (Which I do have opinions on, BTW).
sidecross
10-06-2006, 11:05 AM
Sidecross, thank you for reminding us who said what.
I was pretty confused for a minute--did I say that? And is Daniel SURE he wants to invite me to speak out on his relationship issues? (Which I do have opinions on, BTW).
This error that daniel made is a serious one. If he can not get his facts straight on who said what and when, it is no wonder he is attacked on his creditability on sources in his book.
This is an issue where even having the resources to hire research editors would not help.
I too, by the way, have strong opinions on the discussed issue.
This error that daniel made is a serious one.
Thanks for pointing that out willowcross...OOPS! Another serious error! call 911!
sidecross
10-06-2006, 12:32 PM
Thanks for pointing that out willowcross...OOPS! Another serious error! call 911!
I said ‘serious’, not life threatening! :p
It is very funny how you guys sit around and smoke red herrings all day!
:D
Caprinardo Delirio
10-06-2006, 01:10 PM
speak up will!! you too sidecross, now, c'mooun... arrr! :D
i've just gotten to the crop-circle part, and it's not even nearly as toe-cringing as i had imagined it to have been. as a matter of fiction-act, actually, it's made to seem quite sensible and sincere, the way daniel approaches it, and as the personal testament goes, it fits nicely... well, i'm still not through it yet, just thought i'd state my surprise at my surprise or something likeness..
the sexual themes, one could fantastically argue, could be made out to have a grain more of a debate weight and better be exported to the lesser lights of the lunatic fringe.. i believe it will be necessary to heed some nazi-like integral view of this to begin to address the problems of freedom and evil and all these imploding ponderables!
wha'choo think of my nickname for you will?! :) - consider it transhuman or some shit ;)
willoweyes
10-06-2006, 01:33 PM
I like it Cap. "Willow" sounds too easily swayed. But "will" is powerful.
My opinion? I felt a real sense of tragedy when Daniel described his meeting with Laura in England, both parties angry and distant, both parties wanting the other to unbend. I was touched, disturbed, and saddened for them both.
______________________________
"If a cowboy doesn't want to end up carrying his saddle across his back, he had better keep his horse happy." old texas saying
Caprinardo Delirio
10-06-2006, 01:41 PM
gaaargh, you ruined it for me!
--just kidding...
Humming
10-06-2006, 04:28 PM
"I hope you guys are not still thinking of bodies in conventional ways
when you are ruminating upon this monogamy issue. And this is not
a 2012 date issue. It is right now. Anyone reading this who is not
feeling a major movement in their sternal region and alterations and
transparencies forming in their personality (and relationship) structures
must be very uncracked indeed."
Strangely... I *did* have a major movement in my sternal region as I read your post....
"I hope you guys are not still thinking of bodies in conventional ways when you are ruminating upon this monogamy issue."
Wow. That will give me something to think about for the rest of my life ;)
I am reminded of Daniel's mention of Dzogchen Buddhist teaching which states that "there are no entities".
And, if you believe that we are all a part of a unified consciousness, then any sexual act is sort of like masturbation in the absolute realm, so why be jealous when you're only pleasuring your(Self)?
The ego is the main culprit in ruining our chances for a sexual utopia... but I do think that it is possible. Communes might be the best solution that currently exists, but I can imagine how the world would be different if polyamory rather than monogamy were the global standard. My intuition is that family groups would be much more loosely defined than they are now, and generally people would love each other more because there would be less of a sense of other people as "strangers".
I've thought about this a lot, and I think it's very interesting to look at pre-industrialized societies and the way they treat sexual relationships. I think that our modern conception of "property" is largely a result of the type of monogamous family relationship that is almost exlusively dominant in our culture. From birth we are trained and conditioned to believe that one set of people, our biological parents, essentially *own* us and have the authority to directly control our lives for many years. This can result in a lot of neurotic outcomes, like abuse, authoritarianism in the home, and even the extreme situation where children can be killed at birth or abandoned or orphaned because of the burden on the parents. In a society where the children are shared and not considered the "property" of the biological parents and people share resources to benefit everyone, then the situation of homelessness seems much less likely.
It boggles my mind how I can be in a place sometimes, like in California, or in New York, where there are people with millions of dollars and people with literally no money or resources at all who sleep in a box on the concrete at night, who are living within 3 blocks of each other. This, to me, is an example of an insane society. What seems much more reasonable and beneficial would be a situation where the wealth was more evenly distributed throughout society.
While still thinking about Nyk and Humming's posts (there are no entities) I'll say that, for me, the courtship or pursuit of a desired woman is almost irresistible. As a desert roamer, beset by mirages, might find it impossible to bypass an oasis.
It's not polyamory I'm interested in, but authenticity.
Authenticity will open the door to relations one has never dreamed of.
But speculation will do nothing. Only falling all of the way thru what one
has been. It is a leap of faith. And the power is leeching out now.......
daniel
10-07-2006, 12:40 PM
sorry... dragonfly not willoweyes.
Sidecross, I appreciate the corrective but not the interpretation. Finally I have to ask: why in many of your comments do you seem to delight in subjecting me to negative judgments? You often seem to go out of your way to be nasty to me, whether putting me down in comparison to McKenna or attacking me about not fixing the forum, or saying how you agree with negative and hurtful reviews of my work, or whatever. Did it ever occur to you that I might have an extremely complex life, seeking to balance too many things at once, and that ultimately I am just a flawed human doing the best I can? From what platform of Olympian attainment do you feel entitled to keep flinging these annoying zingers? Perhaps you might want to look into the mirror one of these days, and ask yourself what you see.
daniel
10-07-2006, 12:45 PM
As for sexuality, what interests me is the possibilitiy that there is no "norm" at all, no "human nature" as such, and that eroticism is an arena that is, in a very profound way, "beyond good and evil."
I would think that the solution lies in the direction of realizing that humanity represents, as Alfred Kinsey found, an infinite spectrum of sexual expressions, and that each individual is different in their nature. Beyond "monogamy" and "polyamory", then, is the commitment to articulation - to going further and further in discovering what is the authentic path for yourself, and making sure that is not a shameful secret to be hidden, but something you have integrated with as much consciousess as possible.
What is very difficult is that most people have no idea where social conditioning might stop and something authentic might begin - and even stating that, there can be no perfect answer, as social conditioning is part of the "morphogenetic field" of human consciousness, which shapes us as we shape it.
More thoughts later...
sidecross
10-07-2006, 01:49 PM
sorry... dragonfly not willoweyes.
Sidecross, I appreciate the corrective but not the interpretation. Finally I have to ask: why in many of your comments do you seem to delight in subjecting me to negative judgments? You often seem to go out of your way to be nasty to me, whether putting me down in comparison to McKenna or attacking me about not fixing the forum, or saying how you agree with negative and hurtful reviews of my work, or whatever. Did it ever occur to you that I might have an extremely complex life, seeking to balance too many things at once, and that ultimately I am just a flawed human doing the best I can? From what platform of Olympian attainment do you feel entitled to keep flinging these annoying zingers? Perhaps you might want to look into the mirror one of these days, and ask yourself what you see.
I am not a bobble head whose spring only bounces in agreement.
:eek:
Agent Smith
10-07-2006, 01:55 PM
that's true.
i've seen your bobble head bounce in argument, and bewilderment as well.
sidecross
10-07-2006, 03:00 PM
that's true.
i've seen your bobble head bounce in argument, and bewilderment as well.
This time it is in bewilderment! :cool:
This time it is in bewilderment! :cool:
Yeah sure. sidecross, you have this intense correctional mindset. That's
all well and good. I have had many sidecrosses intersecting with me
over the course of my exposures, and I always appreciate the razor's
edge. But there is something else within this coming out that you just do
not seem to appreciate. It is about self-immolation, and becoming
naked.....it is about change. Change is often messy. You can trample
tender shoots if you over-correctionalize.
We need to look at our metamorphosis with new eyes......somehow.....
and not thru the eyes of that which is being transmuted; the hominid.
Particularly now.
sidecross
10-07-2006, 06:27 PM
Yeah sure. sidecross, you have this intense correctional mindset. That's
all well and good. I have had many sidecrosses intersecting with me
over the course of my exposures, and I always appreciate the razor's
edge. But there is something else within this coming out that you just do
not seem to appreciate. It is about self-immolation, and becoming
naked.....it is about change. Change is often messy. You can trample
tender shoots if you over-correctionalize.
We need to look at our metamorphosis with new eyes......somehow.....
and not thru the eyes of that which is being transmuted; the hominid.
Particularly now.
Get a grip nyk, this is a discussion board.
Both you and daniel want bobble heads that only nod in agreement to your points of view. Anyone who disagrees is accused of being ‘nasty’ or having an 'intense correctional mindset'.
As for your view of “…it is about self-immolation, and becoming naked.....it is about change. Change is often messy. You can trample tender shoots if you over-correctionalize.”, that is your opinion!
Do not imply that having a different opinion or point of view is either ‘nasty’ or an ‘intense correctional mindset'.
Typical reactionary response sidecross. This is not just a 'discussion
board'. Nothing is just such and such. That is utter bullshit. You are
simply refusing to love. And some of us do not have the resources
this far down the pike for that kind of game. In baser terms it is
called trolling. Your reaction betrays you. Let it go.
You are being nasty. Listen to what Daniel said to you, admit it
and get past it.
craazyman
10-08-2006, 01:46 AM
I read somewhere, I can't recall, about the Living Theater, a theater group active in New York and probably elsewhere in the 1960s, about a show they had one night in New York where they took on the idea of personal prisons, and societal shackles and all the super-ego traps. Somehow the actors all got naked on stage and called out to the audience to free themselves and get naked too and come up on stage to join in the freedom. Quite a few people actually did. Most, apparently, regretted it the next day when the real world intruded again.
Agent Smith
10-08-2006, 04:54 AM
typical holier than thou, psuedo-spirtual bullshit nyk... condcending know it all psychobable.
you're not ready nyk. you haven't got the psychospiritual fortitude to comprehend the magnosity of the awesomeness of the truth sidecross is bringing.
sidecross is pedantic, and petty, but stick around for longer than a week before you start calling him a troll, m'kay? a large part of the energy of this board has been sustained by him fnord, and his intrest, and agitiations when the rest of us couldn't give a flying fuck. if the board lasted this long, in as active a state as it has been for you to discover, and sing your little songs of the enormity of your own little fnord enlightenments, then it is in part due to the fact that sidecross kept the discussion going.
before you start in with the 'look in your heart' horse shit take a moment to consider that some of us know your kind well, and don't give a rat's ass.
you are not ready nyk.
disembed the fnords before you launch your own ego defending typically reactive reply nyk... they've been culturally engineered to cause maximum self-absorbed image wounding.
RIbot
10-08-2006, 07:17 AM
Well, to be sure, I'm no expert on much of anything these days. I thought I used to be and know lots of things. Possibly the illusion of " physical reality" has run it's course as I await something more profound from within. Enough about that. It seems we aren't really aware of our programming on a subconcious level and tend to try and explain things from our so called awake states of conciousness. We can conjecture forever through the mind, but the mind cannot see beyond itself, regardless of how well it can adapt to almost any environment it creates and manifests through technology or whatever else. So, we who live through the mind and ego are not truly conscious as we have to try and conjure up reaseons for everything we do. My idea of the whole sex and non-monogamy thing stems from this basic premise. Men are visual and view a woman with nice breasts,a thin waist and shapely pelvis as a sign of fertility for whom they want to spread there seed arond. A woman doesn't want her man doing this because it would take him away from his family by fathering other children. Yet, a woman might love a particular man not for his body, but go out and try to find the best physical specimen to impregnate her and have the man she loves raise the child most likely unknowingly. This is where a man's jealously come in because he doesn't want to raise another man's genetic code and therefore feels threatened and acts accordingly if he witnesses his partner and another man getting too close for his comfort. These seem to be programmed responses common to our species and the animal world. We also shouldn't forget our shadowistic tendencies and that of our anima/animus subconcious drives, with thier generally negative traits. Also, how much of what we say and do actually comes from our minds and are not the promptings of some of those demons that exist literally off our left shoulder. After all, who do you think is actually controlling the world right now. It's our fears and negaivity that these entities thrive off of. There seems to have been a marked increase in UFO sightings since WWII ever since fighter pilots started noticing them due to this increased negativity and insanity of the Nazi regime. It seems Hitler only left the building for a vacation and is now back with a vengeance.The insanity of our leaders should be enough evidence that they are somehow being influenced beyond something from our plane of existence. Sorry, I don't mean to writing a book here...maybe a screenplay?? Ever check out www.StuartWilde.com? He's got much firsthand experience in this realm. Hey Daniel,thanks for the great book! It's most inspiring and thought provoking. Let me know if you ever want to shoot a film or documentary. I might be able to help. Peace to all.
typical holier than thou, psuedo-spirtual bullshit nyk... condcending know it all psychobable.
you're not ready nyk. you haven't got the psychospiritual fortitude to comprehend the magnosity of the awesomeness of the truth sidecross is bringing.
sidecross is pedantic, and petty, but stick around for longer than a week before you start calling him a troll, m'kay? a large part of the energy of this board has been sustained by him fnord, and his intrest, and agitiations when the rest of us couldn't give a flying fuck. if the board lasted this long, in as active a state as it has been for you to discover, and sing your little songs of the enormity of your own little fnord enlightenments, then it is in part due to the fact that sidecross kept the discussion going.
before you start in with the 'look in your heart' horse shit take a moment to consider that some of us know your kind well, and don't give a rat's ass.
you are not ready nyk.
disembed the fnords before you launch your own ego defending typically reactive reply nyk... they've been culturally engineered to cause maximum self-absorbed image wounding.
And you call what I write 'psychobabble'?! Hah!
I have put my money where my mouth is. Have you? The city is burning
and sidecross is citing people for jaywalking. And just where is this board
today? It is nowhere. It is just floating here. Only a handful here have
the 'heart' - yeah that word - to cut deeper. And deeper. I have no
interest in towing the line. You picked your name well.
craazyman
10-08-2006, 08:21 AM
All right, I'll be honest. If any of you hot babes out there want a little polyamory PM me. I pretend to be an old fart around here just for fun. Actually, I'm not much older than Daniel and I look like a cross between Brad Pitt and Jude Law. I'm self-employed so my schedule is flexible--except Sunday afternoons are out because I'm watching football. Otherwise, I like romantic walks on the beach, stuffed animals, giving backrubs, swimming in the moonlight, and talking all night long about your personal philosophical and spiritual problems. It's the part-time aspect of all this that really appeals to me and it will be more convenient for me than making the trip to Russia.
okster
10-08-2006, 09:48 AM
Daniel wrote:
"This is my big area of thought and reading right now."
You have turned me on to many cool books. I wonder if you have any interesting finds to mention on the subject of sex, sexualtiy, relationships, etc. (or on any other subjects).
Anyone else have interesting books to mention?
Agent Smith
10-08-2006, 09:54 AM
nyk- if this board is so insignifigent, why don't you snuffle along back to tribe where you can pretend to be important by cluttering up your profile with pictures of fantasy warriors, with all the other matrix happy dmt clones.
c'mon gives us a good fight... more self-righteousness next time, more wounded anger... more dismissive judgement of this new venue for your narcissism. PROVE that you're worthy nyky, QUALIFY yourself...
i mock your deeply held value sets.
sidecross
10-08-2006, 09:55 AM
And you call what I write 'psychobabble'?! Hah!
I have put my money where my mouth is. Have you? The city is burning
and sidecross is citing people for jaywalking. And just where is this board
today? It is nowhere. It is just floating here. Only a handful here have
the 'heart' - yeah that word - to cut deeper. And deeper. I have no
interest in towing the line. You picked your name well.
“And just where is this board today? It is nowhere. It is just floating here. Only a handful here have the 'heart' - yeah that word - to cut deeper. And deeper. I have no interest in towing the line.”
Is this an example of what you previously wrote: “You are simply refusing to love.”
I think your computer has a ‘delete’ button nyk; why not use it if we are a board that “is nowhere”?
Agent Smith
10-08-2006, 09:59 AM
Osker- ages ago daniel mentioned evola via the book 'demons of the flesh' by the neo-nazi-satanists nicolas and xena shreck (xena's madien name LaVey-they had a falling out with her father anton when he wouldn't take the church of satan is a more blatantly racist direction.) it's actually a pretty good book. if you can get over the fact that it's written by fucking neo-nazis.
okster
10-08-2006, 10:42 AM
yeah, the Demons of the Flesh book is one of the most interesting books ever (and an example of one that I discovered here when Daniel mentioned it).
http://www.amazon.com/o/ASIN/184068061X/
Evola is kind of heavy reading for me. I also got ahold of Kiss of the Yogini, which was mentioned by Drew. Also a bit of a serious read but interesting.
Mantak Chia's stuff is always good.
I came across this very cool site a few days ago:
http://www.luckymojo.com/sacredsex.html
nyk- if this board is so insignifigent, why don't you snuffle along back to tribe where you can pretend to be important by cluttering up your profile with pictures of fantasy warriors, with all the other matrix happy dmt clones.
c'mon gives us a good fight... more self-righteousness next time, more wounded anger... more dismissive judgement of this new venue for your narcissism. PROVE that you're worthy nyky, QUALIFY yourself...
i mock your deeply held value sets.
Hah, you are good! You are also too late. So slow for a matrix agent.
The qualification is just around the corner. Watch out.
Phlash
10-08-2006, 12:38 PM
I am not a bobble head whose spring only bounces in agreement.
:eek:
I don't know why I am bothering to get in the middle of this, but I'm sure Daniel is not asking you to agree with everything he thinks or says; rather I think he wants to know why you have to be such a dick about it, if I may be blunt. Disagree all you want, but lose the venom.
“And just where is this board today? It is nowhere. It is just floating here. Only a handful here have the 'heart' - yeah that word - to cut deeper. And deeper. I have no interest in towing the line.”
Is this an example of what you previously wrote: “You are simply refusing to love.”
I think your computer has a ‘delete’ button nyk; why not use it if we are a board that “is nowhere”?
You could be right. But the fact of the matter is that I just do not have
time anymore for these circle dances. I have been involved in this
movement for 3+ decades and I am frankly getting tired of the stale
mates. I have had to take action that I cannot talk about directly. Then
I come into these forums and still people are insisting on flummoxing
themselves and treading water.....right until the very end. You are
concerned with form over substance, and seem to think that form will
produce substance. What you are doing here has real value, but why
do you stop where you do? I have no lack of love for anyone here, but
receptivity is up to the individual. Why didn't I hit the DELETE already?
Well, I am here because of Daniel and a couple of others, not because
of the board. There is a log jam here. Well, everywhere I've seen looks
logjammed. And to tell you the truth, I do not know what to do about it.
sidecross
10-08-2006, 01:34 PM
I don't know why I am bothering to get in the middle of this, but I'm sure Daniel is not asking you to agree with everything he thinks or says; rather I think he wants to know why you have to be such a dick about it, if I may be blunt. Disagree all you want, but lose the venom.
Can you give me examples of 'venom'?
willoweyes
10-08-2006, 03:10 PM
Daniel, I hope you will expand (as you hinted you might) on your ideas about sexual taboos, and what they do to us, and what inspires them in the first place.
forteanajones
10-08-2006, 04:23 PM
For what it's worth, I would be disappointed to see anyone stop hanging out and participating here because of a silly little spat. And if anyone truly felt their participation on this board was thanks to just a few people, well that bears consideration and probably says more about that person than anyone else. But whatever, do what you need to do.
Next time there's disagreement, instead of using knee-jerk labels, take a few breaths first. Challenging someone's ideas, beliefs and methodologies is one thing, and is totally encouraged. Just don't be too much of a jerk. Reducing a person to one or two dimensions ('nasty', 'bobblehead' and 'troll' come to mind) is probably to be expected in any public forum, but it's also below the belt. The gloves inevitably all come off at that point.
forteanajones
10-08-2006, 04:40 PM
Daniel, I hope you will expand (as you hinted you might) on your ideas about sexual taboos, and what they do to us, and what inspires them in the first place.Me too. An updated view. I assume the Paglia book will inspire something and I look forward to hearing it.
Agent Smith
10-08-2006, 05:56 PM
. There is a log jam here. Well, everywhere I've seen looks
logjammed. And to tell you the truth, I do not know what to do about it.
that ain't no log jam... but if you don't know what to do about it, well you could always try THIS http://herbdoc.com/p17.asp
in all seriousness though, if you are in anyway still hungup on the third rate matrix symbolism, you might want to check out the Third Eye Epic. y'know, being a self apointed warrior for truth, and all. find out where the warchowski's stole their schtick.
and telling folks to 'watch out' around here's another real winner of a tactic.
Phlash
10-08-2006, 06:30 PM
Can you give me examples of 'venom'?
Not going to bother. First, I was just crystalizing Daniel's point, second, I think you know what I mean and third, I agree fully with Forteanna's last post on this topic.
sidecross
10-08-2006, 07:10 PM
Not going to bother. First, I was just crystalizing Daniel's point, second, I think you know what I mean and third, I agree fully with Forteanna's last post on this topic.
So your point is that you accuse someone of spewing ‘venom’ and your source is daniel’s opinion.
I would suggest in the future if you accuse someone “to be such a dick” and expressing “venom” you have something to back it up.
Dylan had a good line for you to think about, “don’t follow leaders; watch your parking meters”.
For what it's worth, I would be disappointed to see anyone stop hanging out and participating here because of a silly little spat. And if anyone truly felt their participation on this board was thanks to just a few people, well that bears consideration and probably says more about that person than anyone else. But whatever, do what you need to do.
Next time there's disagreement, instead of using knee-jerk labels, take a few breaths first. Challenging someone's ideas, beliefs and methodologies is one thing, and is totally encouraged. Just don't be too much of a jerk. Reducing a person to one or two dimensions ('nasty', 'bobblehead' and 'troll' come to mind) is probably to be expected in any public forum, but it's also below the belt. The gloves inevitably all come off at that point.
And I really shouldn't be posting so soon after jumping off cliffs. Bad nyk.
Sorry sidecross and Agent Smith.
that ain't no log jam... but if you don't know what to do about it, well you could always try THIS http://herbdoc.com/p17.asp
in all seriousness though, if you are in anyway still hungup on the third rate matrix symbolism, you might want to check out the Third Eye Epic. y'know, being a self apointed warrior for truth, and all. find out where the warchowski's stole their schtick.
and telling folks to 'watch out' around here's another real winner of a tactic.
Okay, okay. Gotcha. I get it.
And I will look up 'third eye epic' after dinner. Thanks.
gandydancer
10-08-2006, 07:29 PM
I am new here so I hope I don't regret jumping in on this, but here goes.
Just reading little bits of the people who post here I have tried to make a whole person out of these bits, and take some of the people into my life as my "friends".
So far these "friends" are Dragonfly, who has not been posting and I miss her, Willoweyes who I get a strong sense of "wise woman" from, Sidecross, who I find myself agreeing with so frequently, and Gizelle62 who I find just delightful and I always smile when I read her posts, (and Gizelle I may have got your name wrong, if so just sue me :D )--there are others but the impression is not very strong yet.
I have also formed an opinion of Daniel, partly from the Q book, partly from an audio interview that someone posted a link to, and partly from his posts here on the forum. From the book I feel indebted to Daniel for using his talent to bring together the wisdom of "The Wise Ones" and put it in writing as he did so beautifully in the first chapters of his book. From the audio I found a person who had an easy laugh, "spoke softly and didn't press the point" (a good test), and from what he writes here on the forum I find him to be honest and humble. So do I like him?, well of course I do!
I am an RN and I worked for 7 years in drug/alcohol treatment and so I have had a lot of involvement in group discussion--I also spent several months at Esalen. It is my opinion that Daniel's post to Sidecross was an emotionally healthy and direct way to get to the bottom of the darts that I have seen Sidecross shooting at Daniel. But what I am seeing from Sidecross is side-stepping the issue and not being up front with his feelings.
Please understand me, I am not taking sides! It is actually more than likely that I would agree with Sidecross' opinion, since I so frequently do. But my feeling is that Daniel has really taken the first step in saying, well let's just have a go at getting this out in the open... To my way of thinking, if Sidecross just comes back with more barbs it is no different than nyk telling me (in another thread) "Oh, just forget it (you wouldn't get it anyway as it's way over your head)".
Well, that is what I am thinking...
sidecross
10-08-2006, 07:59 PM
I am new here so I hope I don't regret jumping in on this, but here goes.
Just reading little bits of the people who post here I have tried to make a whole person out of these bits, and take some of the people into my life as my "friends".
So far these "friends" are Dragonfly, who has not been posting and I miss her, Willoweyes who I get a strong sense of "wise woman" from, Sidecross, who I find myself agreeing with so frequently, and Gizelle62 who I find just delightful and I always smile when I read her posts, (and Gizelle I may have got your name wrong, if so just sue me :D )--there are others but the impression is not very strong yet.
I have also formed an opinion of Daniel, partly from the Q book, partly from an audio interview that someone posted a link to, and partly from his posts here on the forum. From the book I feel indebted to Daniel for using his talent to bring together the wisdom of "The Wise Ones" and put it in writing as he did so beautifully in the first chapters of his book. From the audio I found a person who had an easy laugh, "spoke softly and didn't press the point" (a good test), and from what he writes here on the forum I find him to be honest and humble. So do I like him?, well of course I do!
I am an RN and I worked for 7 years in drug/alcohol treatment and so I have had a lot of involvement in group discussion--I also spent several months at Esalen. It is my opinion that Daniel's post to Sidecross was an emotionally healthy and direct way to get to the bottom of the darts that I have seen Sidecross shooting at Daniel. But what I am seeing from Sidecross is side-stepping the issue and not being up front with his feelings.
Please understand me, I am not taking sides! It is actually more than likely that I would agree with Sidecross' opinion, since I so frequently do. But my feeling is that Daniel has really taken the first step in saying, well let's just have a go at getting this out in the open... To my way of thinking, if Sidecross just comes back with more barbs it is no different than nyk telling me (in another thread) "Oh, just forget it (you wouldn't get it anyway as it's way over your head)".
Well, that is what I am thinking...
Thank you for your very thoughtful post; I am in complete agreement with it too.
The problem between daniel and myself seems to be misunderstandings that I am willing to confront if he can specifically point out complete posts where he feels my point of view is ‘nasty’.
The word ‘nasty’ is a strong word. I have made strong statements some in disagreement, but they were never made to be ‘nasty’, nor were they made with any sense of ‘delight’.
Those two words, ‘nasty’ & ‘delight’ are daniel’s fictional interpretation. I am willing for anyone to fully quote a post of mine and discuss it.
Agent Smith
10-08-2006, 08:09 PM
nyk- there's precious little info out there about the situation, this ought to give you a decent overview of the controversy. http://www.killermovies.com/forums/archive/index.php/t-342111-matrix-ripped-off-the-third-eye.html
everyone else who cares (and i might not)- this board has seen "venom" before. i hardly think any of this counts. sometimes it's hard not to take things personally. toughen up, the rebirth of the world is not a tea party.
To my way of thinking, if Sidecross just comes back with more barbs it is no different than nyk telling me (in another thread) "Oh, just forget it (you wouldn't get it anyway as it's way over your head)".
Well, that is what I am thinking...
Excuse me gandydancer! 'You wouldn't get it anyway as it's way over
your head' is neither my spoken nor implied intent. So, you can just erase
that right now. 'Just forget it' means I am totally frustrated with myself
and cannot explain it, and also that even if I could explain it probably
would have no relevance to anyone else anyway. That has nothing to do
with being 'over' anyone's head or whatever. It has only to do with me.
So just forget it, okay. I certainly have. I have nothing important to say.
nyk- there's precious little info out there about the situation, this ought to give you a decent overview of the controversy. http://www.killermovies.com/forums/archive/index.php/t-342111-matrix-ripped-off-the-third-eye.html
everyone else who cares (and i might not)- this board has seen "venom" before. i hardly think any of this counts. sometimes it's hard not to take things personally. toughen up, the rebirth of the world is not a tea party.
Thanks Agent Smith. I needed that.
willoweyes
10-09-2006, 06:47 AM
Something about my animal body wants to fight, sometimes. Like guilt, it feeds this hungry Thing in my karma.
It's what brings out the best in me.
As in "The Seven Samuri" (that most wise and spare of movies), we might need the warrior one day, when the barbarian is storming over the wall.
That being said, I'd hate to find myself as__________'s current bitch. I'd hate to be in a fight with him/her when the stakes were high and the prize was emotional domination.
_____________________________
"No blood, no foul." the philosophy of my brillo rust pad headed ref nephew.
craazyman
10-09-2006, 07:31 AM
Oh my, what a pillow fight.
Honey, this is what happens when the girls have too much sugar before bedtime.
Smith, given the barbs you've thrown at this board, your patriotism is heart-rending. Seriously, though, it's good to see you back. ;)
Something about my animal body wants to fight, sometimes. Like guilt, it feeds this hungry Thing in my karma.
It's what brings out the best in me.
As in "The Seven Samuri" (that most wise and spare of movies), we might need the warrior one day, when the barbarian is storming over the wall.
That being said, I'd hate to find myself as__________'s current bitch. I'd hate to be in a fight with him/her when the stakes were high and the prize was emotional domination.
Hah! As if a Willow would ever or could ever court domination! No way.
7 Samurai. My favorite movie for 34 years now.
Humming
10-09-2006, 09:07 AM
forteana, thanks for the emotional centering. It is much appreciated.
As for this discussion...
Sidecross, I don't think Daniel is holding you down and forcing you to comply to every detail of his ontological framework. I think his request of you was pretty reasonable...
What I have noticed in your posts is a kind of nit-picking the minutiae of Daniel's every post. How is this useful or helpful for any of us? I think your responses have been more about your need for attention than about any real substantive discussion that you want to have with Daniel. (Anyone here remember the infamous BoBo McFlo post a while back?)
If you have serious issues that you think should be discussed, and you want to voice these with the goal of having a progressive conversation, that seems to be part of the purpose of this board and would be welcomed.
Agent Smith, you do not cease to amuse me.
NYK, don't take his shit personally. Agent Smith tells everyone that they're not ready (and he's probably right...) You've seen "Fight Club"? You are waiting at the door and Smith, with a twinkle in his eye, is telling you to GET THE FUCK OFF THE PORCH! lol
NYK, don't take his shit personally. Agent Smith tells everyone that they're not ready (and he's probably right...) You've seen "Fight Club"? You are waiting at the door and Smith, with a twinkle in his eye, is telling you to GET THE FUCK OFF THE PORCH! lol
It's okay Humming. I take everything personally. And intentionally so.
And all is well.
And for Agent Smith. Hi..........
http://img65.imageshack.us/img65/8742/destinyfm0.jpg
sidecross
10-09-2006, 09:15 AM
"Sidecross, I don't think Daniel is holding you down and forcing you to comply to every detail of his ontological framework. I think his request of you was pretty reasonable..."
I disagree and this is the reason for our problem.
Sidecross, I don't think Daniel is holding you down and forcing you to comply to every detail of his ontological framework. I think his request of you was pretty reasonable...
What I have noticed in your posts is a kind of nit-picking the minutiae of Daniel's every post. How is this useful or helpful for any of us? I think your responses have been more about your need for attention than about any real substantive discussion that you want to have with Daniel. (Anyone here remember the infamous BoBo McFlo post a while back?)
If you have serious issues that you think should be discussed, and you want to voice these with the goal of having a progressive conversation, that seems to be part of the purpose of this board and would be welcomed.
Great points Humming.
Sidecross,
I think Daniel is simply asking for your criticisms to come with a little more thought put into them and without so much vitriol.
K.J
sidecross
10-09-2006, 10:01 AM
Great points Humming.
Sidecross,
I think Daniel is simply asking for your criticisms to come with a little more thought put into them and without so much vitriol.
K.J
I will try one more time; show me a post where I was 'nasty'!
This absurd!:mad:
sidecross
10-09-2006, 10:22 AM
sorry... dragonfly not willoweyes.
Sidecross, I appreciate the corrective but not the interpretation. Finally I have to ask: why in many of your comments do you seem to delight in subjecting me to negative judgments? You often seem to go out of your way to be nasty to me, whether putting me down in comparison to McKenna or attacking me about not fixing the forum, or saying how you agree with negative and hurtful reviews of my work, or whatever. Did it ever occur to you that I might have an extremely complex life, seeking to balance too many things at once, and that ultimately I am just a flawed human doing the best I can? From what platform of Olympian attainment do you feel entitled to keep flinging these annoying zingers? Perhaps you might want to look into the mirror one of these days, and ask yourself what you see.
"why in many of your comments do you seem to delight in subjecting me to negative judgments?"
How can daniel or any of you on this site know I ‘delight’ in making comments that in my view, and I am the one writing them, are meant as a constructive criticism?
“"You often seem to go out of your way to be nasty to me, whether putting me down in comparison to McKenna or attacking me about not fixing the forum, or saying how you agree with negative and hurtful reviews of my work, or whatever.”
Again this is daniel’s opinion; I do not go out of my way to be ‘nasty’!
If this is what many of you see as my view, I am more than disappointed in my ability to write. In fact I am just wasting my time!
Caprinardo Delirio
10-09-2006, 01:46 PM
it sounds like sidecross it being made out as that hoopes guy. he, hoopes, seemed like that to me, as far as picking at our author guy goes. i haven't that much noticed an intentional nastyness from sidecross, but maybe a little of a milder serious tone that maybe unflinching of any personal pain, goes straight to the syntactical mosquito that he in his subjective mythos believe to be of 'bad existential form'. and i have to agree with him on that in his dispute with nyk, which i (sorry nyk!) also thought was an awful totalizing nazi-like outburst, which i simply cannot believe she really does hold if she thinks about it.
nyk, it seemed that you said, that if we didn't get onboard the ship of 'heaven's right round the corner' with bad lyrics, you were some kind of klinging projecting monster. this is absolutely absurd, and in a certain sense a total assassination attempt at every kind of personal truth from zen, taoism and hinduism, and sounded more like the bush administration's plan for personal-liberation-by-global-mental-meltdown of the coincidence of opposites, than any of the wisdoms that could flow from the grace of the "now".
awareness is not consciousness!
sidecross
10-09-2006, 02:07 PM
"it sounds like sidecross it being made out as that (H)oopes guy."
That is a very perceptive comment. I am only a High School graduate, while John Hoopes is a Ph.D. in Anthropology at the University of Kansas which is a premier school in that field.
John was an early member of BOTH who had a similar problem with daniel, and sadly has been absent from BOTH. I have exchanged e-mails with Dr. Hoopes and he makes my current problem with daniel look miniscule in comparison.
Some of my comments to daniel’s research had to do with the exchanges with Dr. Hoopes and daniel that appeared on the 2012 tribes site where daniel admitted errors and the wish for a research assistant.
Sadly the exchange between Dr. Hoopes and daniel turned much nastier than what I have experienced.
craazyman
10-09-2006, 02:13 PM
sidecross is a thief and a drunk! He'll pick a pastor's pocket and spend it at the pub, he will, sooner than you can blink, he will! I seen him yesterday down by Maloney's field, pickin' his apples like they were his, he was! No mistaken him sir, not a chance. Lord ha' mercy, don't let him in your house or you'll be missin' your silver before you shake his had goodbye. And he has long hair like a plain scoundrel, he does, you can see it yourself lookin' right at him, plain as day, no thought of wearin' a hat like a gentleman, no sir. Plain as day it is. They say he was a sailor once in Murphy's fleet. A band of common criminals drunk on rum and mayhem, they were, and never a one of them set foot in a church on a Sunday or tipped their hat to a lady. Steer clear of him, sir, there's some advice, and go the other way if you see him walkin' down the street.:D
<just kidding sidecross>
sidecross
10-09-2006, 02:19 PM
sidecross is a thief and a drunk! He'll pick a pastor's pocket and spend it at the pub, he will, sooner than you can blink, he will! I seen him yesterday down by Maloney's field, pickin' his apples like they were his, he was! No mistaken him sir, not a chance. Lord ha' mercy, don't let him in your house or you'll be missin' your silver before you shake his had goodbye. And he has long hair like a plain scoundrel, he does, you can see it yourself lookin' right at him, plain as day, no thought of wearin' a hat like a gentleman, no sir. Plain as day it is. They say he was a sailor once in Murphy's fleet. A band of common criminals drunk on rum and mayhem, they were, and never a one of them set foot in a church on a Sunday or tipped their hat to a lady. Steer clear of him, sir, there's some advice, and go the other way if you see him walkin' down the street.:D
<just kidding sidecross>
I thought I wiped up all that evidence! ;)
Caprinardo Delirio
10-09-2006, 02:28 PM
think it's also people's inabilities to have a good hard battle that turn them so spiteful and filled with sin and this sense of assassination. i mean, "so what.." are you gonna laugh or are you gonna cry? everybody's a saint and friggin' satan!
and forcing someone to love is like selling something you haven't got the faintest idea of how to supply, nyk... "don't cha see de errrr of ye trials?"
nyk, it seemed that you said, that if we didn't get onboard the ship of 'heaven's right round the corner' with bad lyrics, you were some kind of klinging projecting monster. this is absolutely absurd, and in a certain sense a total assassination attempt at every kind of personal truth from zen, taoism and hinduism, and sounded more like the bush administration's plan for personal-liberation-by-global-mental-meltdown of the coincidence of opposites, than any of the wisdoms that could flow from the grace of the "now".
awareness is not consciousness!
So you took what I wrote and ran it thru your brain and came out with
that? Interesting. Perhaps I need writing school!
How about 'consciousness is not necessarily awareness'?
Giselle62
10-11-2006, 08:52 AM
just call me Gi, yo. Everyone calls me Gi.
dragonfly
10-11-2006, 10:13 AM
long ago, willoweyes threatened to bust me on my 2012 writing on relationships, but she has not yet come through. She thought it was strange that I used Julius Evola - a fascistic authoritarian freak - as an approved source on the subject. I certainly agree that she might have a point.
This is my big area of thought and reading right now. I have come to no conclusions!
Yeah, that was me -- and it was not a threat but a promise! I very much have wanted to share some of my thoughts about the book (and did get a chance to talk a bit about them with Daniel when we hung out together after his reading in Durham). However, I've been swamped with other writing projects that take priority. I will try to pull something coherent together soon, though.
sidecross
10-11-2006, 11:12 AM
Yeah, that was me -- and it was not a threat but a promise! I very much have wanted to share some of my thoughts about the book (and did get a chance to talk a bit about them with Daniel when we hung out together after his reading in Durham). However, I've been swamped with other writing projects that take priority. I will try to pull something coherent together soon, though.
Here is an example that has led to so much misunderstanding.
Having different points of views does not mean that anyone is trying to ‘threaten’ or ‘bust’ anyone.
Argument is one way to learn. For example let us use ‘light’ for an example.
‘Light’ can be argued and shown to be both a wave and a particle. If one were convinced that one was the ‘true answer’, and the other ‘wrong’, and the opposite point of view was a ‘threat’ to be ‘busted’ with ‘delight’ with an intent to be ‘nasty’, what you end up is a juvenile exchange.
Ram Dass had a wonderful analogy using ‘sandpaper’; to paraphrase he said it would seemingly be implausible that the rough surface of sandpaper could smooth the burs of a rough piece of wood.
I have been with my partner justplaincross going on 42 years. We disagree quite often. There are many times when one does not argue or persuade the other into agreement. One of us could be right or quite possibly both of us could be wrong.
What is most important, at least for me, is the exchange of ideas. History is filled with answers that in time were shown to be wrong. My use of ‘light’ is but one example.
Eagle Wing
10-11-2006, 02:58 PM
I hope you guys are not still thinking of bodies in conventional ways
when you are ruminating upon this monogamy issue. And this is not
a 2012 date issue. It is right now. Anyone reading this who is not
feeling a major movement in their sternal region and alterations and
transparencies forming in their personality (and relationship) structures
must be very uncracked indeed.
i'd say you get right to the point, nyk.
For one, all the changes that one might expect to happen with "2012", are ALREADY HAPPENING. In fact, they have already happened. The "world" has already ended. Our collective and individual consciousness is just catching up... like how the impending environmental catastrophe is finally being accepted by the mass culture, it is part of a process... matter lags behind light. We already know, inside, that traditional structures (including traditional identity references) are no longer relevant to the incoming paradigm.
For another idea: in regards to monogamy and the "new paradigm", we spend lots of time thinking about the Solstice - Galactic Center alignment but there is another aspect of the much ballyhooed 2012 Alignment that is often overlooked. During this time period, the star Regulus is coming into exact precessional alignment with the cusp of the signs Leo and Virgo. Regulus traditionally signifies royalty and leadership... as it precesses into the sign of Virgo this leadership manifests in a way that is more truthful, organic and Goddess-centered. The original meaning of the Virgo archetype is the Priestess of the Earth, the Tantrika. Her archetype will be elevated in the future relationship paradigm, as the sickness of the old dominator paradigm is more clearly revealed and known by all.
forteanajones
10-11-2006, 03:15 PM
i'd say you get right to the point, nyk.
For one, all the changes that one might expect to happen with "2012", are ALREADY HAPPENING. In fact, they have already happened. The "world" has already ended. Our collective and individual consciousness is just catching up... like how the impending environmental catastrophe is finally being accepted by the mass culture, it is part of a process... matter lags behind light. We already know, inside, that traditional structures (including traditional identity references) are no longer relevant to the incoming paradigm.
For another idea: in regards to monogamy and the "new paradigm", we spend lots of time thinking about the Solstice - Galactic Center alignment but there is another aspect of the much ballyhooed 2012 Alignment that is often overlooked. During this time period, the star Regulus is coming into exact precessional alignment with the cusp of the signs Leo and Virgo. Regulus traditionally signifies royalty and leadership... as it precesses into the sign of Virgo this leadership manifests in a way that is more truthful, organic and Goddess-centered. The original meaning of the Virgo archetype is the Priestess of the Earth, the Tantrika. Her archetype will be elevated in the future relationship paradigm, as the sickness of the old dominator paradigm is more clearly revealed and known by all.
Yes, it took me a year or so to realize that what was coming had actually already happened, and the awareness is what trails behind.
Interesting ideas about Virgo and Leo. Both heavy players in my horoscope and my sun is near that cusp, so I hope to feel right at home during that elevation.
And welcome back, Eagle Wing. I was wondering if I'd see you here again.
Eagle Wing
10-11-2006, 03:35 PM
Beyond "monogamy" and "polyamory", then, is the commitment to articulation - to going further and further in discovering what is the authentic path for yourself, and making sure that is not a shameful secret to be hidden, but something you have integrated with as much consciousess as possible.
What is very difficult is that most people have no idea where social conditioning might stop and something authentic might begin - and even stating that, there can be no perfect answer, as social conditioning is part of the "morphogenetic field" of human consciousness, which shapes us as we shape it.
We might also consider that the "morphogenetic field of human consciousness", while certainly a discrete wavelength, is not an island. The field of the entire animal experience interpenetrates our consciousness. This is certainly true, as the shamanic experience informs us. It's useful of course to look at our two closest mammal cousins. You've probably heard this before, the story of the chimps and the bonobos, so forgive me for dusting this one off... basically, chimps are an alpha-male dominator culture and bonobos are polyamorous. In the entire mammalian experience we find few if any examples of a "mutual" monogamy, such as to be found among many bird species. The chimp alpha-male has to keep his women in line. This is very similar to the human experience of monogamy. Personally, I don't think it's possible to have a long-term monogamous relationship without repressing one's inner truth -- unless the two of you are some kind of weird fortress of solitude and have no relationships with other humans. I say this as someone who is happily married to a woman I've been with for 10 years -- and we're not swingers or anything like that -- but we both have learned to recognize and respect each others' loves, and lovers. We have gone through the base emotions programmed by our culture -- the jealousy, the guilt. This was a kind of trial-by-fire thing where it's like, "ok we've made an agreement on this thing, but I have to do this thing for myself, and I don't want to hurt you but I have to respect myself and be honest about these feelings..."
I realized that jealousy is, without any doubt, one-hundred-percent related to the identity. I have never felt my own ego more clearly.
The more we consciously attune our awareness to the new paradigm growing within us, the less our individual identities are a factor. We are creating a new morphogenetic field... one that is still interpenetrated by the entire spectrum of evolution... yet, newly discrete... a new species of self-other awareness. As we acquire the wisdom born of experience, we learn that there is no threat to anyone's identity when there is Love... furthermore we learn that there really is no "identity" to be threatened in the way we thought of it before.
Obviously most people aren't ready for these kinds of identity and relationship challenges. I wasn't even close to having perspective on it until I went through it and learned its dynamics.
It is interesting and enlightening to read the accounts posted by Giselle and ForteanaJones, as the consideration of the children is something that should be first and foremost in the polyamourous relationship. There is no substitute for attention, love, and honesty. Any dynamics between parents are directly transmitted to their children. That is one aspect of the beginning of your book, Daniel, that I found to be so important -- the time you spent talking about your feelings about your parents. And it is no joke that your book is dedicated to your daughter. Clearly the bwiti experience was an integral part of facing these dynamics within yourself. Re-living and sorting out the wounds of our childhoods (and therefore our destinies) is probably the most important work of the psychedelic (shamanic) path. Can you REALLY know thyself without coming to visceral terms with your lineage? No way. This is a task for all of us, one for which it can be great to have an ally.
In my experience, the more honest we are with ourselves and eachother, the more accepting we are of the reality -- that we all want to love, be loved, and make love with each other. When the Love is there, you know it. And when you love your friend, you would love to make Love. This is not about lust and fleeting desire. It is about the reality of attraction and relationship, compatibility, and truthfulness, honesty with oneself and others. As Daniel put it, the "commitment to articulation".
sidecross
10-11-2006, 03:40 PM
i'd say you get right to the point, nyk.
For one, all the changes that one might expect to happen with "2012", are ALREADY HAPPENING. In fact, they have already happened. The "world" has already ended. Our collective and individual consciousness is just catching up... like how the impending environmental catastrophe is finally being accepted by the mass culture, it is part of a process... matter lags behind light. We already know, inside, that traditional structures (including traditional identity references) are no longer relevant to the incoming paradigm.
For another idea: in regards to monogamy and the "new paradigm", we spend lots of time thinking about the Solstice - Galactic Center alignment but there is another aspect of the much ballyhooed 2012 Alignment that is often overlooked. During this time period, the star Regulus is coming into exact precessional alignment with the cusp of the signs Leo and Virgo. Regulus traditionally signifies royalty and leadership... as it precesses into the sign of Virgo this leadership manifests in a way that is more truthful, organic and Goddess-centered. The original meaning of the Virgo archetype is the Priestess of the Earth, the Tantrika. Her archetype will be elevated in the future relationship paradigm, as the sickness of the old dominator paradigm is more clearly revealed and known by all.
In all seriousness with a world population of over 6 billion people where 60% have to live on less than 2 dollars a day, 80% have no access to water in their dwelling, do they too feel the ‘changes’ are ‘ALREADY HAPPENING’?
You may be right, my question is not meant to belittle your statement, but how do the people I wrote about comprehend your statement?
Yes, it took me a year or so to realize that what was coming had actually already happened, and the awareness is what trails behind.
I'm sorry everybody, but there is a lot to happen if we are to see the kind of world that we wish for.
Awareness does not trail. It is the leading edge, with the physical falling into line behind it.
We have to cultivate our awareness. But we all will get a push, when the economy and the environment go haywire, as they are bound to.
Our world seems to be heading to a crisis point, soon.
The awareness discussed here will be tested then.
forteanajones
10-11-2006, 06:03 PM
I'm sorry everybody, but there is a lot to happen if we are to see the kind of world that we wish for.
Awareness does not trail. It is the leading edge, with the physical falling into line behind it.
We have to cultivate our awareness. But we all will get a push, when the economy and the environment go haywire, as they are bound to.
Our world seems to be heading to a crisis point, soon.
The awareness discussed here will be tested then.I didn't intend to imply that the big pushes -- starting with 9/11 -- are behind us now. Indeed, it would seem wise to remain prepared for more of that sort of thing. Perhaps the intensity of such events will even increase, I don't know. My reference was to massive psychic/energetic shift. This is the event which I feel has already taken place and may be still taking place to a degree.
gandydancer
10-12-2006, 06:57 AM
I didn't intend to imply that the big pushes -- starting with 9/11 -- are behind us now. Indeed, it would seem wise to remain prepared for more of that sort of thing. Perhaps the intensity of such events will even increase, I don't know. My reference was to massive psychic/energetic shift. This is the event which I feel has already taken place and may be still taking place to a degree.
I think it's important to actually remember back to 9/11 and the reaction of the American public. Bush stepped up and said we're the good people and we're at war with the evil doers and we're going to kick their ass, and his approval rating soared to somewhere around 85%. It wasn't that I wasn't aware that many people remain immature and still look for a father figure to tell them what to think and what to do, I was just stunned by the fact that maybe only 10% of the American people were mentally/emotionally mature enough to understand what had happened, and was about to happen.
Some people think that the massive demonstrations for peace just came out of nowhere - they didn't. A very small number of people organize these events and even though from time to time a very large number of people do come out, most of them go home to live in, as Sidecross put it so well, Disneyland.
Public opinion on the Iraq war has turned, but in my opinion that has more to do with the fact that another father figure finally stepped forward, and that was congressman Murtha who said we need to end this war, rather than a maturation of the American heart and mind.
Regarding the question of future catastrophic events, there are many looming on the horizon that could strike now and in the very near future. Chris Hedges, Robert Fisk, and Seymore Hersh all warn that this administration plans an attack on Iran and if that happens, then the shit will *really* hit the fan. And then there is always the possibility of natural disaster, the "big one" hits in California, a tsunami off the northern coast, another hurricane such as Katrina, and man-made disaster such as the event that we are told that al-Qaida plans or a nuclear power plant melt down such as almost happened at Three Mile Island and did happen at Chernoble. Perhaps our government could handle one disaster at a time, if you could call the way the administration responded to the Katrina disaster "handle", but what if 2 or 3 would hit at the same time? I feel the way Katrina was handled clearly shows that our country is no longer capable of aiding its people at time of disaster. And then there is always the bird flu pandemic possibility to which the government has already said, "don't expect the national government to offer any help". Well, there are others...Robert McNamara tells us the possibility of accidental nuclear war is much greater than people are aware of...
And then the possibility of monetary collapse which could be set off by the above events, or could happen on its own. It would have happened already if it were not for the fact that the super rich are part of a global community who are well aware that if our economy falls, the rest of the world is going down with us.
It is my opinion that only great psychological trauma will push our country into mental/emotional/spiritual growth. One of the reasons I believe this is that has been my own experience in my life. My first big growth spurt happened at around 30 when I was divorced and the second happened when I ended a relationship 10 years later. The third big transformation came around 10 years later and by that time I knew the territory much better and entered into the transformation by choice, rather than "kicking and screaming" as I like to put it. But there was a pattern to each transformation, starting with disatisfaction, which decended into almost unbearable pain, then so much pain that I came to the point of letting go ("thy will, not mine" is the best way I know how to put it). Always then the "miracles" began to happen - synchronicities and I feel a real opening in the veils that separate the many realms of existance--I strongly feel that my long dead mother was there to help me though my "trials", and other helpers and higher beings also. And with each period of transformation I had an experience of divine nature, a mystical experience. Then gradually I would return to "normal" but I would not lose anything I had gained. I've given some thought to "well what is it that I gained?", and I think that it is self-love, I loved myself more openly and easily. And I have learned that it is possible to love the other only to the extent that you can love yourself.
I want to carry this thought of transformation through suffering as it (may) apply to society as a whole. And I would like to talk about my and other's feelings about how people are drawn together at time of war as Chris Hedges discusses in his book, "War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning". But this is more than enough for one post.
Thanks to so many of you for your fine posts. It really helps me with my thinking. :)
sidecross
10-12-2006, 07:30 AM
Chris Hedges is a very good writer.
One book I highly recommend is What Every Person Should Know about War.
daniel
10-12-2006, 09:30 AM
hi Eagle Wing,
Thanks for your wonderful post above - in fact, this thread has many wonderful nuggets from many people.
Sidecross writes: "In all seriousness with a world population of over 6 billion people where 60% have to live on less than 2 dollars a day, 80% have no access to water in their dwelling, do they too feel the ‘changes’ are ‘ALREADY HAPPENING’?"
It seems to me that change cannot happen from the impoverished masses, who do not have the opportunity to look at their situation from many different angles and perspectives, to comb through history and philosophy, and to come up with new ideas as to why things are a disaster and mechanisms for changing them. Change can only happen with an elite that does have that opportunity. This "elite" is an elite of the more conscious and aware individuals, not the ones controlling power within the dominant system. For instance, the enlightenment philosophes and their followers (including the class of "lumpen-intelligentsia" defined by Robert Darnton), in France before 1789. The ruling class of a social order eventually starts to ossify in its values and its sense of its own privileges - at that point, the ruling class begins to ensure its own eventual demise, as its interests have become too separated and cut off from the on-the-ground experience of the populace who have to deal with a system that becomes increasingly parasitic, sucking all excess value to the top of the pyramid. That more aware or more conscious elite then becomes, by natural process, the new ruling group when the necessary overturning takes place. They are the ones who have enough of a vision and at least a concept (however abstract or theoretical) of how society can be reconstructed (Lenin in the Russian Rev, or Robespierre in France).
A change in the elite changes the fortunes of everyone thoughout the social pyramid, as the new values filter through the society (in our case, this would be a global shift). By the way, I continue to urge a careful reading and rereading of The Tao because it is very much about this process, and about the nature of rulership - it is a text for our time.
As we have discussed, in many indigenous cultures around the world, there does seem to be an understanding that this time represents the fulfillment of prophecies of various sorts (a shift in World Ages, etc.).
I suspect the question of sexuality/mono-poly-amory-gamy etc has significant repercussions in terms of how this shift in consciousness and potential planetary transformation plays out, though it is very much a problematic for the elite, at least at first.
oops computer running out of power... more later!
gandydancer
10-12-2006, 09:55 AM
Yes, I agree with Daniel re this idea that wisdom somehow sprouts out of the hearts and minds of the gentle country folk. Historically, that has not been the case at all.
On the other hand, as my grandchildren are actually learning in (private) school, the gentry that drew together the really rather grand ideals on which this country was founded had no trust in the common folk what-so-ever, and planned to keep the governing of this country within the educated and the prosperous, the gentlemen of their times - what would a commoner, a woman and leastly of all a negro know about life, liberty or the pursuit of happiness?
Caprinardo Delirio
10-12-2006, 10:53 AM
well, in a sense isn't the apocalypse this widening of the behavioral informational ballast that define the elite to encompass the society at large? a shift will then occur after the apocalypse, and hopefully not require much in the realm of propaganda/indoctrination/schooling, whatever, because we presume that personal and collective illusions have been stripped away and polarized modes of cognition have been reconciled and so forth..
i think it's pretty critical, and i've long held this to be of one of the most critically important aspects of a social/spiritual revolution, that the institutions and corporations of the society must be under democratic coltrol, and functioning through an economic episteme that places their priorities at simply producing the best and most efficient they can, in collaboration with whoever it would be, that would in our current system be called competitors, without a need to 'stay alive' at any of those costs that distort and currupt their basic pupose. and on and on... especially the media and the educational systems, the tele-communications industry would all have to be working in a rational manner (unseen as of yet) to first remove the redundancy of false regurgitated representational values, and then by enlightening blast of clarity and the commonness of total potential and identity, fundamentalism will implode from within us all, and we can practically and telepathically begin to convert the military-industrial complex into the ecology-technological complex.
Caprinardo Delirio
10-12-2006, 11:11 AM
the sexuality issues i perceive as being of more or less that nature of individual illusion that will vanish when the onslaught of either-or abstractions destill into the both-and of reality. some people call it adulthood, and would probably insist that children and teens should be allowed to the most false notions and alienating apperceptions possible in order to initialize and intensify the enlightenment. i'll agree that there's something to that.
Eagle Wing
10-12-2006, 12:03 PM
In all seriousness with a world population of over 6 billion people where 60% have to live on less than 2 dollars a day, 80% have no access to water in their dwelling, do they too feel the ‘changes’ are ‘ALREADY HAPPENING’?
yeah, i think they do. Many of them probably remember (or their great-grandmothers remembered) a time when life wasn't so fucked up. The awareness of things "getting worse" than they used to be, in many parts of the world, is only matched by the often heard insistence that things are "better than ever" in the technologically advanced world. There is a direct correlation here...
so i don't mean to give the impression that the changes which are already happening, are "all good" or some other hippy dippy age-of-aquarius stuff.
what i mean to say, is that the causes of the impending environmental catastrophe have ALREADY been set into motion, and the destiny that has been chosen is already being effected around us.
there is not one culture on the planet that is not experiencing significant challenges to its tradition. Everything and everyone must now come to terms with an integrated planetary ecology and economy -- those who have done everything the same way for thousands of years must face the consequences of those who haven't. There is no escaping it and every culture is transformed. It is happening...
i'd say you get right to the point, nyk.
For one, all the changes that one might expect to happen with "2012", are ALREADY HAPPENING. In fact, they have already happened. The "world" has already ended....
If you call taking exactly 30 years to fully accepting something I originally
grasped in San Fransisco in 1976, getting right to the point, then sure!
And it is so fucking simple. I feel very slow.
Yes, the world has already ended because it is born and recycled in the
same breath - in the eternal now. The manner in which that plays out,
however, is extremely variable in my opinion; and a matter of creativity
and mastery.
Eagle Wing
10-12-2006, 12:31 PM
I'm sorry everybody, but there is a lot to happen if we are to see the kind of world that we wish for.
Awareness does not trail. It is the leading edge, with the physical falling into line behind it.
yes, that is why the identity shift is "already happened" on the psychic plane. i think it's possible that it's always already happened, but at least for our purposes, this spatial-temporal alignment seems like a little peep through the keyhole. You know, it's like our consciousnesses are all imprisoned in lower states than they could be. Greater integration of awareness can help to loosen them up. The resistance of certain perspectives and the emotional-psychic thrust of the apocalyptic vision have necessitated intense physical releases. The leaders of the nations understand this and they are using it to further their agendas, as they have always (this has always already happened). They harness the power of the emotional-physical and enact the global drama. Most of us here are localists; internalists.
Dna wrote,
"We have to cultivate our awareness. But we all will get a push, when the economy and the environment go haywire, as they are bound to.
Our world seems to be heading to a crisis point, soon.
The awareness discussed here will be tested then."
At the crisis point, awareness is not enough. One must also have consciousness. That is, knowing what the proper course of action is. Like knowing where there's clean water. And where there is food. And where your allies and enemies are located.
and on the level of consciousness, and awareness, if you are a visionary, an artist or involved in shamanism, you may already anticipate the entire world's need for a "changed" identity and how it is changing now. Every one of us cannot remain in these habits. Our personal changes on the individual level, microcosmic pre-enactments of the world's death drama. We will all do well to be prepared, physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually. Aware of the challenges, seeing clearly. Conscious of the appropriate action, trusting in spirit. The new world will need psychopomps in order to free itself of the old. It will also need tender loving care and protection, just like a new baby. Don't forget the warning in the book of Revelation: the new earth is born, and a dragon is waiting to consume it. All the angels cry out to the One. Who is there to save us? They didn't have the power. It's a warning derived from Greek mythology: the birth of Apollo. In that story, the wisdom (natural wisdom) of Apollo was such that immediately upon his birth, he slew the dragon. Those who establish new worlds must be ready to slay dragons and plant seeds. We are, each of us, seeds ourselves and will have our own dragons to slay --- locally. Keep the vision focused on the World Tree that we may someday grow to be one and bear fruit, like stubborn roots digging deep below volcanic rock, beneath the ruins of the old landscapes.
sidecross
10-12-2006, 04:22 PM
yeah, i think they do. Many of them probably remember (or their great-grandmothers remembered) a time when life wasn't so fucked up. The awareness of things "getting worse" than they used to be, in many parts of the world, is only matched by the often heard insistence that things are "better than ever" in the technologically advanced world. There is a direct correlation here...
so i don't mean to give the impression that the changes which are already happening, are "all good" or some other hippy dippy age-of-aquarius stuff.
what i mean to say, is that the causes of the impending environmental catastrophe have ALREADY been set into motion, and the destiny that has been chosen is already being effected around us.
there is not one culture on the planet that is not experiencing significant challenges to its tradition. Everything and everyone must now come to terms with an integrated planetary ecology and economy -- those who have done everything the same way for thousands of years must face the consequences of those who haven't. There is no escaping it and every culture is transformed. It is happening...
I certainly hope you are right. I certainly can not predict the future.
But the modern world to the ‘Third World’ is like sugar to an adolescent. Most indigenous peoples become entranced to the idea of a motor for their water craft; this is just one example.
Isaiah Mpski
10-12-2006, 06:12 PM
Again Gott confronts us with the delimea of moral values when he introduced us to aids,hep c,herpes,and all the other nasty creatures that go with what we called in the 60's as free love.
Sidecross I was really going to jump in there and defend you until your admiration of Ram Dass.I think he is a phoney figurehead full of shit.
From what I've seen, heard, experienced from his group in Taos is that they are into making alot money.Perhaps they stimulate some into making healthy decisions but overall I think my evaluation of Ram Dass is correct.
Eagle Wing,great words from you too.Can I use them in my next book?
Gandydancer,that was the best post I have seen from you.I was about to give up on you and then you come through and hit a homerun.
Eagle Wing
10-12-2006, 06:26 PM
there was a pattern to each transformation, starting with disatisfaction, which decended into almost unbearable pain, then so much pain that I came to the point of letting go ("thy will, not mine" is the best way I know how to put it). Always then the "miracles" began to happen - synchronicities and I feel a real opening in the veils that separate the many realms of existance--I strongly feel that my long dead mother was there to help me though my "trials", and other helpers and higher beings also. And with each period of transformation I had an experience of divine nature, a mystical experience. Then gradually I would return to "normal" but I would not lose anything I had gained. I've given some thought to "well what is it that I gained?", and I think that it is self-love, I loved myself more openly and easily. And I have learned that it is possible to love the other only to the extent that you can love yourself.
yes, so true gandydancer.
transformation through suffering -- the theme of the piscean age. again i am reminded that the cataclysmic event heralding the turning of the precessional age will naturally be the final culmination of the piscean age's psychic momentum. Your individual experience was another pre-manifestation; the individual apocalypse (unveiling)
Eagle Wing
10-12-2006, 06:50 PM
If you call taking exactly 30 years to fully accepting something I originally
grasped in San Fransisco in 1976, getting right to the point, then sure!
And it is so fucking simple. I feel very slow.
Yes, the world has already ended because it is born and recycled in the
same breath - in the eternal now. The manner in which that plays out,
however, is extremely variable in my opinion; and a matter of creativity
and mastery.
there's something very real about the 30 year cycle, nyk... it makes perfect sense to me that it took that long to integrate your download, as it were. resistance is futile, as they say.... but your destiny has a way of asserting itself, and there is a connection to the Saturn Cycle in that. You are blessed to have integrated it. This is difficult alchemical work we are involved in.
And sometimes, being slow is actually just being thorough... but sometimes it's also being stubborn!
Eagle Wing
10-12-2006, 07:03 PM
But the modern world to the ‘Third World’ is like sugar to an adolescent. Most indigenous peoples become entranced to the idea of a motor for their water craft; this is just one example.
yes. the archetypes are in flux in every corner. no traditional culture will remain untouched. no culture that currently exists will be sustained. the old archetypes are shattered everywhere. new mythologies are created. as some of us in the western world see the pressing need to learn about natural survival, those who live closer to the natural world want to watch TV. It's good that some people still want to preserve a traditional way of life, even with the western world's amenities. Some people have always preserved the knowledge of the previous worlds.
"the cosmic dice have been thrown."
while many of us are keeping a close eye on the trajectories, nobody knows yet how it's gonna come up. There's the element of chance, but everyone knows there's smart money on the table. Go your own way. Visualize your hand.
The only thing I'm really willing to commit to at this point is to say that everybody on the planet will experience the re-definition of their local archetypes. Nothing from the old world can pass into the new without being transformed. For some it's going to be really painful... think of Fiji. Their islands will be underwater, for example, so I'm sure everyone there will have need of a motorized boat.
daniel
10-12-2006, 07:11 PM
Eagle Wing: "At the crisis point, awareness is not enough. One must also have consciousness. That is, knowing what the proper course of action is. Like knowing where there's clean water. And where there is food. And where your allies and enemies are located."
Yes exactly! That is why I would be interested in moving this board from fulmination to some kind of organization, perhaps a think tank on certain issues. These are also issues I hope to explore in my next book or whatever it will be. I think we could use the dialogue method on these forums to go deeper into thinking through certain possibilities, and actually getting people who are part of the board to do some research (if they are into it) and come back with material for us to go even deeper.
Some areas for exploration:
1. Techniques of viral messaging using the virtual tools of the internet as well as real world tools (postering, canvassing, etc). What does the history of agitprop and media tell us is and is not effective in shifting people's perceptions during a crisis? What kind of new trust-based paradigm could be spread that would allow for the rapid development of communities making wise and judicious use of limited and endangered resources? I.e. - how could we articulate a new paradigm that would help consciousness intensify during a crisis rather than descending into the Road Warrior-style abyss?
2. The theoretical use of psychedelics as deconditioning agents during a societal breakdown. Interesting to look at the history of psychedelic therapy, shamanic practices, and psychedelic religions such as Santo Daime. Let's say a moment of tremendous openness to new possibilities emerged as social systems went into freefall. Psychedelic compounds could provide a means of shifting consciousness for a sizable number of people.
3. The possibility of utilizing global psychic ritual for pacification and changing the earth's climate (as discussed with the Hopi at the end of my book). We need post-modern anthropologists/shaman-diplomats who can return to indigenous cultures such as the Hopi and do the work to make good relations with them. We can bring them esoteric knowledge systems and techniques from around the world, plus the means of taking care of their communities. We will need to learn their thought processes and disciplines around influencing elemental forces, and other techniques of sustainability such as water management and subsistence agriculture.
4. How to create self-organizing systems that allow collective intelligence to flow into and substantiate trust-based networks - something like this might supersede current outmoded governmental structures. It would be Net-based and opensource at first, then perhaps transfer to the "real world" with no need of technology, once it had become the new way of being. Here, we would need study of disciplines related to trust systems, ways of constructing such networks, critiques of models that currently exist etc. (couchsurfing.com is one fun example).
5. Techniques of pacification from martial arts and various spiritual disciplines: how do you stop people who hate you from killing you, how do you stop groups that hate each other from killing each other? How do we pry the nuke triggers away from the fingers of the sociopaths in charge of our government and others? This will require a deep and in-depth study of historical cases and social psychology, as well as looking at training to overcome fear from martial arts disciplines and Chi Gong etc., then a methodology for putting these concepts into practice.
6. How to grow enough food and circulate enough fresh water that the global population does not have to suffer a huge and imminent crash, but can be scaled down over the next decades by limiting the birth rate etc. William McDonogue, Paul Stamets, John Todd, Bucky Fuller and his followers, etc., may be crucial for this - but I still am unclear about how their concepts can scale up, how proved they have been at larger levels, also what other pragmatic yet visionary possibilities for ecological redesign are now available and can be put into practice. We might also want to investigate the health of global seedstocks and seed banks, as well as what it would mean for various regions (like the north east US) to become more or less self-sustaining in terms of food production etc?
7. Alternative energy: really need a deep database of alternatives with full modelling of how a heterogenous transitional power grid could be constructed as we scale down our technology - what are transportation needs etc.
Anyway, lots of stuff like that is what interests me most.
sidecross
10-12-2006, 07:33 PM
"2. The theoretical use of psychedelics as deconditioning agents during a societal breakdown. Interesting to look at the history of psychedelic therapy, shamanic practices, and psychedelic religions such as Santo Daime. Let's say a moment of tremendous openness to new possibilities emerged as social systems went into freefall. Psychedelic compounds could provide a means of shifting consciousness for a sizable number of people."
Bingo!
I totally agree with daniel on this assessment. The use of ‘heroic’ doses of psychedelics to key players in our societies around the world is needed now.
We no longer have the time necessary to use only our intellect for the changes that need to be made.
Most people go about their life hoping someone at the controls of their society knows what they are doing. Not everyone would need to make the drastic rediscovery of a new path or paradigm. Most people would happily follow the direction of someone they trust.
Eagle Wing
10-12-2006, 09:06 PM
"dose 'em all, let God sort 'em out!"
yeah, it might work! paranoia would be a potent demonic adversary though. Nixon was insanely paranoid about getting dosed by the hippies (among other things)...
Daniel, your list of considerations is very right-on. Looking forward to these topics developing here or on the evolver site as this moves forward! These are absolutely relevant concerns for our community. thanks to you and forteana for keeping this site going, it's really a good place.
there's something very real about the 30 year cycle, nyk... it makes perfect sense to me that it took that long to integrate your download, as it were. resistance is futile, as they say.... but your destiny has a way of asserting itself, and there is a connection to the Saturn Cycle in that. You are blessed to have integrated it. This is difficult alchemical work we are involved in.
And this is a sex thread we are talking within...very appropriate. I could
summarize the linch-pin of my realization in one sentence. And I probably
will at some point do just that, but there must be a suitable context
for that to be effective. The alchemical work is difficult, but the principle
is ludicrously simple.
And now I can finally begin integrating soul into life. It is actually very,
very easy now to do this. And the objective effects border on surreal.
I have begun to write about it [not in public], but it may take awhile
because an understanding needs to be fleshed out that effectually
circumnavigates the brain of the recipient.
Not an easy writing assignment, but easy wouldn't be much fun.
Agent Smith
10-12-2006, 09:38 PM
personally, if someone were to dose me against my will, and without my knowlege... i'd be wearing their souls as prophylactics before sun up.
but that's just me. (i am as jimi put's it 'experienced')
"It's so crazy it might actually work!!"... or not.
i agree action is needed.
and on a much more massive scale than has previously been attemped...
...it's hard to know what the correct action is though.
it's not as if all we have to do is just believe, and then tinkerbell comes back to life.
there are other groups, other 'elites' out there who are very much working their own magic as we read'n'write.
what we've seen over the last ten years is largely a result of the efforts of one of those small groups, studying the rise, and tactics of the neo-con death kult, is most instructive. (viral messaging techniques=talk radio? hello?) they felt disempowered 40 years ago, and look at 'em now baby... what's amusing is that they've left behind the blueprint for how they've achived it all.
things are moving far too fast at this stage to rely on stuff that's going to take time... or are they? i can no longer tell...
there are so many factors at play now, the former soviets have been up to some serious shineanigans, both the chinese, and indians have their own sorcerers working on "what's going on"... the various factions of the occult nazi/CIAesque aparatus are obviously still in play...
i've never believed in a concrete, solid, material world. and recently i've started acting like it.
it's tough to figure out just exactly where the feint, and thrust is these days.
do we live on a spinning mudball, with rapidly dwindling resources, in cold sterile space? or do we live in a universe of limitless energy, and creativity, with the ability to utilize what's here?
Citizen R-Kane
10-13-2006, 05:22 AM
yeah, the Demons of the Flesh book is one of the most interesting books ever (and an example of one that I discovered here when Daniel mentioned it).
http://www.amazon.com/o/ASIN/184068061X/
Evola is kind of heavy reading for me. I also got ahold of Kiss of the Yogini, which was mentioned by Drew. Also a bit of a serious read but interesting.
Mantak Chia's stuff is always good.
I came across this very cool site a few days ago:
http://www.luckymojo.com/sacredsex.html
I just found a pdf copy of Demons of the Flesh recently and also picked up Kiss of the Yogini after it was recommended by somebody at my lodge. Neo-nazi or not, the Shrecks know their shit when it comes to "Sex Magick" or as i like to call it, co-opted tantricism and unlike David Gordon White who wrote the amazing book on the siddhi tradition, Alchemical Body & Kiss of the Yogini, they actually practic the art instead of pontificating over it in some closed impotent ivory tower like Gordon White.
Never read any of Mantak Chias work, i'm gonna have to check em out.
sidecross
10-13-2006, 06:06 AM
personally, if someone were to dose me against my will, and without my knowlege... i'd be wearing their souls as prophylactics before sun up.
but that's just me. (i am as jimi put's it 'experienced')
"It's so crazy it might actually work!!"... or not.
i agree action is needed.
and on a much more massive scale than has previously been attemped...
...it's hard to know what the correct action is though.
it's not as if all we have to do is just believe, and then tinkerbell comes back to life.
there are other groups, other 'elites' out there who are very much working their own magic as we read'n'write.
what we've seen over the last ten years is largely a result of the efforts of one of those small groups, studying the rise, and tactics of the neo-con death kult, is most instructive. (viral messaging techniques=talk radio? hello?) they felt disempowered 40 years ago, and look at 'em now baby... what's amusing is that they've left behind the blueprint for how they've achived it all.
things are moving far too fast at this stage to rely on stuff that's going to take time... or are they? i can no longer tell...
there are so many factors at play now, the former soviets have been up to some serious shineanigans, both the chinese, and indians have their own sorcerers working on "what's going on"... the various factions of the occult nazi/CIAesque aparatus are obviously still in play...
i've never believed in a concrete, solid, material world. and recently i've started acting like it.
it's tough to figure out just exactly where the feint, and thrust is these days.
do we live on a spinning mudball, with rapidly dwindling resources, in cold sterile space? or do we live in a universe of limitless energy, and creativity, with the ability to utilize what's here?
My suggestion of ‘heroic’ doses of psychedelics was meant as an option to be encouraged.
It would obviously be done not while they caring out their normal daily functions.
The ideas that this might be done without their consent is repugnant.
Citizen R-Kane
10-13-2006, 06:26 AM
typical holier than thou, psuedo-spirtual bullshit nyk... condcending know it all psychobable.
you're not ready nyk. you haven't got the psychospiritual fortitude to comprehend the magnosity of the awesomeness of the truth sidecross is bringing.
sidecross is pedantic, and petty, but stick around for longer than a week before you start calling him a troll, m'kay? a large part of the energy of this board has been sustained by him fnord, and his intrest, and agitiations when the rest of us couldn't give a flying fuck. if the board lasted this long, in as active a state as it has been for you to discover, and sing your little songs of the enormity of your own little fnord enlightenments, then it is in part due to the fact that sidecross kept the discussion going.
before you start in with the 'look in your heart' horse shit take a moment to consider that some of us know your kind well, and don't give a rat's ass.
you are not ready nyk.
disembed the fnords before you launch your own ego defending typically reactive reply nyk... they've been culturally engineered to cause maximum self-absorbed image wounding.
Ever since i started eavesdropping on these boards a year ago, i've always loved Agent Smith clowning, because in most cases the 'victims' deserved it--there is justice even in these times of predictably self rightous yes men and banal overzealous cheerleaders who are more about impressing the local "guru" pontificate over the "sheeple" than finding a tangible solution to this mess...hail eris! +
Ever since i started eavesdropping on these boards a year ago, i've always loved Agent Smith clowning, because in most cases the 'victims' deserved it--there is justice even in these times of predictably self rightous yes men and banal overzealous cheerleaders who are more about impressing the local "guru" pontificate over the "sheeple" than finding a tangible solution to this mess...hail eris! +
If you believe that discord will accomplish tangible results, then I will
stand by and cheer you on.
;)
The new world will need [...] tender loving care and protection, just like a new baby. Don't forget the warning in the book of Revelation: the new earth is born, and a dragon is waiting to consume it.
Thanks Eaglewing,
I loved that analogy. I feel you are right. I feel that that is just how it will be.
Dna.
Citizen R-Kane
10-13-2006, 11:53 AM
If you believe that discord will accomplish tangible results, then I will
stand by and cheer you on.
;)
maybe, maybe not-maybe so-maybe perhaps-maybe non dual-maybe solipsism-maybe deer in headlights-maybe masterbation-maybe logic yo..actually i take the discordians about as seriously as i take scientologists, people who even bring david icke in conversations and others of the similiar frothing and foaming nature, esp. those who use the word "sheeple"
willoweyes
10-13-2006, 12:12 PM
Thank you all--what fuel for thought.
I have to add my private obsession to the mix--and that is, humanity won't be alone in this transition. The earth, the plants, the animals--we will all be taking part.
The article posted by Sidecross from the NYTimes re "An Elephant Crackup" describes how another intelligent social being is confronting the Change (at least as far as we humans can infer, at this point).
It's going to take humility and cooperation, and participation by many a butterfly. I don't think it will happen thanks to windmills that regretably kill thousands of migrating birds, or any other vast technological process that leaves a trail of death and earthly devastation.
More of the same, only bigger and better, probably won't cut it.
maybe, maybe not-maybe so-maybe perhaps-maybe non dual-maybe solipsism-maybe deer in headlights-maybe masterbation-maybe logic yo..actually i take the discordians about as seriously as i take scientologists, people who even bring david icke in conversations and others of the similiar frothing and foaming nature, esp. those who use the word "sheeple"
Slippery. Sounds like you covered yourself in oil before writing that. :rolleyes:
Do you think that the internet will actually evolve in ways that will be
of benefit to our dreams here, or is it actually a devolution into machine
consciousness? I find myself wondering seriously about this today. I had
thought that the internet was perhaps sitting on top of some real teleo-
logical potential...I suspect now that I was imposing some archetypal
formula of my own upon this affair, and not really reading it correctly.
There is a severe disconnect in this medium with our individual physical
lives and bodies. I am thinking now that instead of that facilitating contact
with others, it may instead be castrating each of us.
Just my thoughts of the moment.
daniel
10-13-2006, 09:35 PM
nyk,
i think the answer about the internet is both - brings us closer to machine consciousness and functions as teleological helper. But machine consciousness is not all bad. There is a great Lewis Mumford quote in one of the 2012 chapters on abductions, about how we have to go through the realm of machine intelligence to reach the more deeply human. I think about that quote quite a bit.
Dualisms intermixing and fusing - seems part of the consciousness shift.
willoweyes
10-14-2006, 07:54 AM
The name of my latest diary is "reconcile Opposites" and I'm trying to figure out how machine consciousness can be reconciled with the spell of the sensuous.
The internet is the least sensual medium--even the hints of the pen, held by a hand, stroking the page, removed.
Where the machine is, life is grayed. Machines, with their need for interchangeable parts and economy of identical scale, foster uniformity instead of diversity.
The needs of the machine are opposed to the needs of life?
We need to be thinking about all life, not just human life here.
"Sheeple." I've never heard that term--I think I like it!
Caprinardo Delirio
10-14-2006, 10:20 AM
i definently want to become with the sheeple!
but, Will, come on, machines are machines... only the ghostly notion the you yourself might actually just be a cold cold machine, will allow yourself to so soul-glo and anthropomorphize them, actually intensifying the reductionisting filter we lay over the world of repetitative human tasks and thinking, somehow choosing to view the all-essential subjective feeling-toned experience of whatever it might be, as just a component in a larger devoid-of-meaning structure beheld, by a passing minds eye.
it is the inheritage of our materialistic history and the therein built allegorical narratives, that we suddenly feel the chilling breeze of the boneyard blowing up against us, when we see machines supposedly doing what we do, and maybe better. it IS a really interesting phenomenon, and i'm not dismissing it's "reality" i'm just saying: i love machines!!!
the internet can be a pretty sensual experience, if you bring along your good imagination and intentions...
willoweyes
10-14-2006, 02:09 PM
It takes some good words to knock me awake and rock me back on my heels and make me say Whoah! He might have a point.
I love my little Dutch handhoe, a sharp triangle designed for the tulip field weeding. efficient and accurate, and dangerous.
I love pen and pencil, I love paper, I love this computer. I love hot water on thoughtless command. (i love my refridgerator).
In truth, my problems with machines probably began shortly after a viewing of Blade Runner, when I realized that Darryl Hannah could replace me in ANY position I might aspire to . . . .
gandydancer
10-14-2006, 02:40 PM
The needs of the machine are opposed to the needs of life?
I don't think so! You've got millions of them working for you right this minute, your little mitochondria, little strangers that moved in how many millions of years ago and even still have their own genes, not yours. And for their energy they use solor fuel made from the little chloroplast machines in every plant.
Have you read Lewis Thomas "The Life of a Cell"?
sidecross
10-14-2006, 02:49 PM
I don't think so! You've got millions of them working for you right this minute, your little mitochondria, little strangers that moved in how many millions of years ago and even still have their own genes, not yours. And for their energy they use solor fuel made from the little chloroplast machines in every plant.
Have you read Lewis Thomas "The Life of a Cell"?
Lewis Thomas’s book is a gem and worth reading, but willoweyes is also a gem and needs more than a literal interpretation. ;)
gandydancer
10-14-2006, 03:06 PM
Lewis Thomas’s book is a gem and worth reading, but willoweyes is also a gem and needs more than a literal interpretation. ;)
I know that Sidecross. I do not write nor explain myself very well, and I am aware of that. I felt I was pointing out something quite gem-like that Willow would like.
Isaiah Mpski
10-14-2006, 06:09 PM
Follow me because you are being followed.
Old pond,new frog.Old frog,new pond.Splash.
willoweyes
10-15-2006, 12:32 PM
Isaiah, that reason is not good enough==but you are the only one Out There, bravely saying?
" i am here, i am real, welcome stranger."
I've been guilty of a wordlapse. I was seeing those machines that are big bad things--savage heartless mercenaries, tearing up the mountains. Those are the ones I don't care for.
And all those run by slave oil.
Domestic animals (of which we are a variety)/ / / /! Our crops, our feedlot barnyard bonded brothers--they are kept alive nowadays on drugs. (Not a metaphor)
What about us?
(me a gem? what a phony I must be, to have you believing that! All the same it makes me feel I should consider/ going on living)
sidecross
10-15-2006, 01:59 PM
"(me a gem? what a phony I must be, to have you believing that! All the same it makes me feel I should consider/ going on living)"
This why you are such a gem!;)
magicbean
11-09-2006, 03:45 PM
Hehehe, I knew that would get someone's attention.
Someone wrote upthread:
> At this time in my life, I feel like I am finally mature enough to contemplate poly-amory.
See, this is just the problem. Secretly, most poly folks believe they are more "mature" and "emotionally evolved" than mongamous folks. Many pay lip service to believing that everyone must find their own way, but deep down most polys are quite sure that they have the Way, the Truth and the Light. I wonder if the polys have ever considered the value of what Jack Kornfield calls "taking the one seat". Sticking with something even when it's difficult, and even when you don't want to. Or considered that it takes a great deal of maturity and awareness and respect to *not* sexualize a relationship. We are driven by many cravings and aversions, sex is big one.
It's dangerous to rationalize your own sexual preference in cosmic terms, and I think it's a great failing of the book as a whole.
I was very surprised and alarmed by the subtle and consistent message throughout 2012 that sexualized all important male/female relationships. I would be very unlikely to believe the spirituality proposed by anyone who threw what appeared to be a public temper tantrum because a woman wouldn't sleep with him...it's just not the sign of a mature or wise man. There's a pervasive and quiet disrespect for women in 2012, and I think Mr. Pinchbeck would be wise to take his own advice to "women" and begin to do the work of integrating his dark side. He's been criticized for this before, and someday I would like to see a cogent response.
nanouk
11-09-2006, 04:48 PM
...Swans are supposedly monogamous...also they are indifferent to sex...
~N~
nanouk
11-09-2006, 04:52 PM
"They're coming 2 take me away, haha, hihi, hoho!" rule Creatia!
~N~
nanouk
11-09-2006, 04:54 PM
...and why can't i find the side-turned 8- on my keyboard? E 4 = Eternity.
~n~
jezebelle
11-09-2006, 07:11 PM
willoweyes you are so much deaper than hanna . . . complexity rules any day.
we are the machines mixed up with planet earth and her dominions
see how we have evolved in the ape vehicle
now what do we do, before we "cut our green hair"
smmooshy artist that I am, I just want to love the present.
because the future will be the present that will look greener when in the now.
How this plays out I'm in.
jez
It's dangerous to rationalize your own sexual preference in cosmic terms, and I think it's a great failing of the book as a whole.
I was very surprised and alarmed by the subtle and consistent message throughout 2012 that sexualized all important male/female relationships. I would be very unlikely to believe the spirituality proposed by anyone who threw what appeared to be a public temper tantrum because a woman wouldn't sleep with him...it's just not the sign of a mature or wise man. There's a pervasive and quiet disrespect for women in 2012, and I think Mr. Pinchbeck would be wise to take his own advice to "women" and begin to do the work of integrating his dark side. He's been criticized for this before, and someday I would like to see a cogent response.
I have to agree with you magicbean. On the other hand, at least it
is somewhat honest, or out in the open. There are other writers who
are not so forthright about this and it becomes a subliminal theme
in their works instead. Joseph Cambell, for example.
magicbean
11-10-2006, 11:53 AM
Nyk, thanks. I agree that any hidden and unmindful sexual agenda - whether poly, mono, tranny, straight, anything - can be troublesome. But what I'm saying is that open simply means aware - and it does not follow that if a person is more "open" then he or she will be sexually available and reactive to any member of the community.
And for the public record while respecting users' privacy, I have received several private messages from users who've said they agree with what I said, but don't feel welcome saying so on the website. That speaks a great deal to me about the "openness" here...clearly not all opinions and discussions are welcome.
But what I'm saying is that open simply means aware - and it does not follow that if a person is more "open" then he or she will be sexually available and reactive to any member of the community.
I agree completely. Unfortunately, openness equates orginess to many.
People have their sexual identities screwed on so tight that no matter
what steps they take in their alledged evolution they are dragging their
old personality templates right along with them.
And for the public record while respecting users' privacy, I have received several private messages from users who've said they agree with what I said, but don't feel welcome saying so on the website. That speaks a great deal to me about the "openness" here...clearly not all opinions and discussions are welcome.
After only one posting you had already received several messages? Well,
that is saying something!
nanouk
11-10-2006, 01:36 PM
It's going to take humility and cooperation, and participation by many a butterfly. I don't think it will happen thanks to windmills that regretably kill thousands of migrating birds, or any other vast technological process that leaves a trail of death and earthly devastation.
Interesting thread this...and very passionate feelings are expressed here...
And for the public record while respecting users' privacy, I have received several private messages from users who've said they agree with what I said, but don't feel welcome saying so on the website. That speaks a great deal to me about the "openness" here...clearly not all opinions and discussions are welcome.
:D I love this forum.
going to go watch The Ren & Stimpy Show with my boys now,
Have a Nice Day/Night/Dusk/Dawn!
;) ~n~
Agent Smith
11-10-2006, 09:18 PM
hey magicbean- i was going to openly post earlier that i agree with some of what you've said...
...but i'm a lazy son of a bitch, who's far too busy with my own projects to give this forum, or daniel pinchbeck any serious thought nowadays. sorry about that.
i do apprieciate your thoughtful posting on this subject though.
and it deserves careful and thoughtful discussion.
i do hope you'll stick around.
nanouk
11-11-2006, 02:56 AM
long ago, willoweyes threatened to bust me on my 2012 writing on relationships, but she has not yet come through. She thought it was strange that I used Julius Evola - a fascistic authoritarian freak - as an approved source on the subject. I certainly agree that she might have a point.
This is my big area of thought and reading right now. I have come to no conclusions!
We are all nothing but Embryos in the Life Span of Gaya! :)
~n~
Hi Magicbean,
Or considered that it takes a great deal of maturity and awareness and respect to *not* sexualize a relationship. We are driven by many cravings and aversions, sex is big one.
We can go one way or the other here, either by trying to sexualize a relationhip or by supressing such feelings, however briefly they appear. The best approach is always self acceptance. Denying feelings tends to amplify them, but that's what happens when you don't trust yourself. It's counterproductive.
Dna.
Magicbean wrote, I would be very unlikely to believe the spirituality proposed by anyone who threw what appeared to be a public temper tantrum because a woman wouldn't sleep with him...it's just not the sign of a mature or wise man.There's a pervasive and quiet disrespect for women in 2012 (...)
I agree that some of the relationship material in the book makes unusual reading - there's a kind of aggression in there which felt strange. But as to whether you are being asked to "believe" in anyone's spirituality - I don't know. I didn't feel belief was required of me. Do other people feel like the book is asking them to believe in something?
I read it as a sort of exercise in syncreticism informed by the multi-dimensional universe of psychedelics - and the personal material is an attempt at complete clarity, an attempt to present honestly the effects of integrating the sources the author mentions in the book. Whether he should have attempted to integrate different sources is the real question. Would it have resulted in a happier life, a better story, a brighter book? Did he have any choice?
An understanding I brought from the book is that our intellectual diet is as important as our bodily diet!
magicbean
11-12-2006, 07:05 AM
The best approach is always self acceptance.
Yes, but...It's always "yes, but", isn't it?
Sometimes we "accept" behaviors and responses in ourselves that are not wise nor appropriate. How do you (does one) distinguish? There's a vast difference between (a) an ego-driven "but I waaaaaaant it! now!" and just assuming that everything you want is just dandy and OK and (b) surrendering to insight. It can be a subtle difference, and neither monogamy or non-monogamy is the answer at the end of the day.
What I'm saying is it may be the case that that Daniel's inner insight led him to a non-mongamous path. Great. Fine. But the subtext of many of the male/female interactions in the book came across as bitter and oversexualized, as well as quietly idealizing non-monogamous relationships. With that kind of persistent resentment, I just don't buy it all. It's a misconception of the role of the feminine principle, and a distinctly limited perspective to reduce male/female interaction to sex. For a book that speaks so much about the lack of acceptance of the feminine principle right now, it certainly illustrates that lack of acceptance on its own terms.
Self-acceptance does not require action, either. Must all impulses be acted upon to be accepted? That's just silly. What if I have a momentary impulse to go to war? There's a wisdom in allowing thought to arise...and pass away. Non-action does not mean non-acceptance. Now *that's* accepting the yin, the feminine.
I agree that some of the relationship material in the book makes unusual reading - there's a kind of aggression in there which felt strange.
An understanding I brought from the book is that our intellectual diet is as important as our bodily diet!
I agree the aggression was strange, and commonly commented upon, and this is what I'm interested in. I've yet to hear anyone say cogently that there wasn't something odd about all the relationship resentment. And c'mon, Thom, don't cop out and tell me you think it's all just food for thought (ba-dum-dum)!
But...do we really care or need to care all that much about Daniel's
personal issues? Does is matter?
Maybe it does. Maybe it does color everything in the book. It seems to
me that D has given a kind of lip service to the Q myth; appropriating it
for his personal use, without bothering much with the deeper layers
(archetypes) laying within it.
For one, the deal with Q and his 'sister'.
:errf:
Agent Smith
11-12-2006, 09:28 AM
no i don't care all that much about daniel's personal life. which is why i find it odd that he would divulge so much of it.
i think this culture of compulsive honesty, and personal confessional, is a disease.
it's not enough that people want to share their business with me, it encourages them to not mind their own fucking business. because "we're just being honest here."
Magicbean wrote: I agree the aggression was strange, and commonly commented upon, and this is what I'm interested in. I've yet to hear anyone say cogently that there wasn't something odd about all the relationship resentment. And c'mon, Thom, don't cop out and tell me you think it's all just food for thought (ba-dum-dum)!
Well...I do think it's all just food for thought. I'm not that interested in the authors personal views on relationships. They are his personal views - they are a bit strange, whatever - it's just not an area of the book that I find interesting.
Maybe you misunderstood my comment about diets. As hermeticists go I prefer Ted Hughes to Julius Evola...
I was underwhelmed by much of the book, and agree with Nyk and Agent Smith that the author's personal relationships are background material, except in that they illustrate an attempt on his part to be completely open about all of his shadow stuff. That his shadow stuff happens to be about relationships with women is a side issue, for me.
It's not as if we've learned that Thoreau secretly owns a slave plantation.
Personally, I'm more interested in the sections about the post-modern goblins - that section struck me as offering something new, and of importance beyond the author.
gandydancer
11-12-2006, 06:22 PM
Gosh Agent Smith, you talk as though you know what you're talking about!--just exactly where are you getting your information from? And I mean "exactly", or do you just blab on an on about what you think might be the case? Does honesty need be "compulsive honesty"? And what about "personal connfessional"? Do you know what you are talking about? Would woman after woman who first speaks of being sexually molested at age 5 who always thought it was her own fault (as they always do) be just confessing so as to expect you to share your own "fucking business" with her?
...it may sound as though I am being a tad hysterical here, but I am not at all. Agent Smith's cold summary of "sharing feelings" just brings to mind the many groups that I have sat in on and I want to honor the feelings of the many brave people who opened their hearts and souls to their group, and to the group who opened their hearts and souls to the one who was sharing.
How fucking arrogant you are Agent Smith. No wonder Drew, who is clearly mentally ill, bothers you so much.
Eagle Wing
11-12-2006, 06:24 PM
But...do we really care or need to care all that much about Daniel's
personal issues? Does is matter?
Maybe it does. Maybe it does color everything in the book. It seems to
me that D has given a kind of lip service to the Q myth; appropriating it
for his personal use, without bothering much with the deeper layers
(archetypes) laying within it.
For one, the deal with Q and his 'sister'.
:errf:
yeah, I wish Daniel had gone deeper into the archetype as well... this book felt more like a sequel to the personal narrative of BOTH than a thorough investigation of the archetypal material concerning Q. Frankly, I think Daniel should write something more challenging and less...marketed? Not to say that the book isn't totally fascinating and thought-provoking, because it is. Following, I'm re-posting some of the original comments that I wrote to Daniel last year, regarding the myth of Quetzalcoatl and his sister, as Nyk mentioned:
(Originally posted in the Quetzalcoatl thread of 2005):
I'd love to add a comment on the mythology of Quetzalcoatl,
especially as it relates to his sexuality, frailty and tragic (yet redemptive) nature.
The Plumed Serpent was of course also the Yucatec Cuculcan, whose pyramid is Chichen Itza, aligned to the solar zenith passage and the precessional alignment of the Pleiades.
Legend has it that Cuculcan did in fact incarnate once before...
as the king of an ancient empire. He was the most powerful sorceror of the land and lived atop a great tower where he was obsessed with spiritual practices such as fasting, bloodletting, etc. He lost touch with the people in the society around him. This allowed his dark shadow figure to infiltrate the community. (In northern Mexican tradition this figure was named Tezcatlipoca). Cuculcan's alter-ego manifested as a powerful shaman who began to disrupt the habits and traditions of the culture, inciting them to materialism and violence. Eventually, through trickery, the double infiltrated Cuculcan's palace and faced down his nemesis. In a symbolic defeat, Cuculcan was tricked into drinking 5 cups of the intoxicating alcoholic beverage Pulque. This caused Cuculcan (Quetzalcoatl) to get so tore up that he actually ended up fucking his own sister!!
Well, needless to say it was a disgrace for this man, who lost his spiritual authority among the people. Interestingly, his double disappears at this time too.
The moral of Cuculcan's downfall seems really clear-- don't deny the shadow, don't try to purify it completely out of existence, because it might come back, bite you on the ass and make you look like a schmuck. Also a great story of sexual repression and how alcohol can release it negatively... and, in another sense, this was an ancient prophecy of the fate of former president Bill Clinton... a mundane sort of moral, like most of the old religious beliefs and stories.
Cuculcan's story does not end there. He symbolically buried himself in a coffin for a while before wandering from the city as an exile. Eventually he made his way to the coast, where he sacrificed himself on a funeral pyre, and 4 days later arose as a phoenix (plumed serpent) and ascended to Heaven to become the planet Venus.
This aspect of the ancient legend associates Quetzalcoatl with Lucifer (Prometheus, morning star Venus).
The "5 cups" of pulque also refers to the synodic cycle of Venus (5 heliacal rises in exactly 8 solar years), and the 4 days are the 4 possible day signs of the Mayan calendar on which Venus would heliacally rise (once every 584 days).
Agent Smith
11-12-2006, 07:15 PM
gandy-man you ain't nothin' but a whiner.
people have it tough all over.
I'm re-posting some of the original comments that I wrote to Daniel last year, regarding the myth of Quetzalcoatl and his sister...
Let me guess...D didn't respond?
Mayan mythology is many layered (from my understanding of it).
It is also my understanding that at a deep level the spirit split itself
into male and female. At a certain distance the result of that looks like
husband and wife. But at a certain closeness it begins to look more like
brother and sister. The Q story could have something to do with that.
Eagle Wing
11-12-2006, 10:59 PM
sure... the most common thing of course is to marry your mother or father. The whole human race is totally spiritually incestuous and that's why we're still on a tribal mentality in many respects - even projected onto "nation state" identities that sometimes take on the psychological roles of bickering spouses, jealous lovers and oedipal dramas. It takes a lot of effort and skin-shedding to raise to a different level... a gradual process. I like the Quetzalcoatl myth because it is about that process. I think Daniel is correct in his book to link Quetzalcoatl with the Tzadik... the link is also there to be made with the Osiris. Of course, Q sails across the sea on a raft of serpents. If you read the Egyptian Book of the Dead, Osiris is described as a room whose walls are made of serpents. There is also here the parallel to the "Body of Christ." Quetzalcoatl, Osiris and Christ are all later-day versions of the neolithic immolated king.... here elevated to represent the entire human project, as it were.
gandydancer
11-13-2006, 02:48 PM
gandy-man you ain't nothin' but a whiner.
people have it tough all over.
Agent Smith, it sounds like you and all your friends are of the sort that just figure if everyone else is not raising themselves up by their own bootstraps, well then whose fault is that but their own anyway? To hell with um!
The most important feeling that we can develop in this life is that of compassion, which is just another word for love. And if you can't love yourself, you will never be able to love the other.
The search for self love is the Hero's Journey, as discribed by Joseph Campbell. When the call comes you go inward on a dangerous journey into the unknown, you "slay the dragon" and you obtain the "holy grail", and then you return and assist others on their journey.
As Kurt Vonnegut said in his book "Bluebeard" (using the words of his son Mark in the dedication) "We are here to help each other get through this thing, whatever it is".
Agent Smith, I don't know how old you are, but if you are over 30 and have not yet accepted a mission, you are going to find yourself a very lonely old man one day.
Picture old men playground bullies.
nanouk
11-13-2006, 04:59 PM
eAGLE wINg WrOtE:
The moral of Cuculcan's downfall seems really clear-- don't deny the shadow, don't try to purify it completely out of existence, because it might come back, bite you on the ass and make you look like a schmuck. Also a great story of sexual repression and how alcohol can release it negatively... and, in another sense, this was an ancient prophecy of the fate of former president Bill Clinton... a mundane sort of moral, like most of the old religious beliefs and stories.
Cuculcan's story does not end there. He symbolically buried himself in a coffin for a while before wandering from the city as an exile. Eventually he made his way to the coast, where he sacrificed himself on a funeral pyre, and 4 days later arose as a phoenix
lOVE Yah-wEE toO!!! :D
~n~
Agent Smith
11-13-2006, 04:59 PM
such insight, such...
oh why do i even bother?
here this will explain it far better than i ever could
http://youtube.com/watch?v=FOCs4Bi_Vl8
nanouk
11-13-2006, 05:00 PM
...missed you more...
~n~
nanouk
11-13-2006, 05:15 PM
did someo0ne just censor me? i wrote nothing wrong, just very soft encouragement to some...peeps...that need it....not porno or anything...but half my mess is gone....Mr/Mrs/Ms Moderator/s?...
Now i am starting to Believe the Stars are among the Earth Worms and not Above! :rolleyes: :eek: :hmm:
~n~
I too want to know where the rest of Nano's mess went (and what it was)!
:confused:
Eagle Wing
11-13-2006, 10:23 PM
agent smith, thanks for posting that video. pretty gnarly stuff, Quetzalcoatl and Tezcatlipoca. :skeptic: is there more you can say about that? i'd like to hear your take on what's happening, i've never seen that show before...
Agent Smith
11-13-2006, 11:24 PM
Eagle Wing- heh. yeah that's "Hellsing", a japanese animie about a british govt. black-ops. organization that hunts vampires. very, very, very Tezcatlipoca...
magicbean
11-15-2006, 06:21 AM
Magicbean wrote:
it's just not an area of the book that I find interesting.
I was underwhelmed by much of the book, and agree with Nyk and Agent Smith that the author's personal relationships are background material, except in that they illustrate an attempt on his part to be completely open about all of his shadow stuff. That his shadow stuff happens to be about relationships with women is a side issue, for me.
I can see that. I was so underwhelmed by what I felt to be the disorganized thought of the rest of the book that the personal stuff stuck out. And there was so much of it. At the end of the day, he's a much better story teller than philosopher, and can spin a tale more crisply than he can synthesize data to illuminate intellectual connections. And I appreciate the tale-telling, but...I don't think it's worth just dismissing as "his own personal dark side" when there are larger principles to be considered. And I don't believe that the author was just trying to be open about himself, I do get the sense he was using his own story to illustrate principles.
To move the lens to a wider angle, I should say I'm bothered by several larger issues that I think 2012 followed the trend of:
1. That many people seem to misunderstand "openness" and the what the yin principle really means. It's not just glorification of motherhood and doing whatever pops into your brain at the moment. There's a much deeper meaning of receptivity that is overlooked in favor of acting on your momentary fun thoughts. A superficial understanding of non-judgment is another way to see it.
2. There's something that troubles me that I'm having a hard time verbalizing as a larger issue, but again I think 2012 just follows the trend by discussing non-monogamy...maybe it's just oversexualization? I think it's a common issue among psychedelic authors and personalities, which tend to be mostly male. Not that it's not common in other parts of the human race, but it seems to run more on the surface and remain surprisingly unexamined in the part of the population devoted to reducing inhibitions and expanding consciousness. It's an issue I think worth addressing by pyschedelic explorers who insist that they are seeking knowledge and wisdom. It's disappointing to see a wisdom path consistently stumble on sexuality, and alienate a great number of female explorers who are tired of dealing with hypersexual men. Setting some wise boundaries between people in an unbounded state of mind allows for more inner exploration, not less.
sidecross
11-15-2006, 07:03 AM
First, I want to thank magicbean for the excellent comments that have been made.
I want to agree that until psychedelic spokes people include women that have the clout of a Leary, McKenna, or even a Daniel Pinchbeck, psychedelics will remain another patriarchal exercise.
Agent Smith
11-15-2006, 07:36 AM
just to clarify- i am not being dismissive when i said i was uninterested in daniel's (or anyone's really) personal business. i find these disclosures repugnant, and they seriously color my ability to engage with the ideas being presented on a purely intellectual level. gives me serious questions as to why the information is being disclosed.
...having said that-there are "polyamorous" folks who can, and do respect boundries.
some folks just aren't comfortable being monogamous. i am not convinced that human sexuality is a fixed thing anyway. why try to shove other people into our moulds? (as when non-monogamous people try to get monogamous ones to 'open themselves to a new experience'.)
so what, there are some men who want to sleep with lots of beautiful women. as if they fate of the fucking world depended on this. or depended on it not happening... fucking whatever.
magicbean
11-15-2006, 08:32 AM
so what, there are some men who want to sleep with lots of beautiful women. as if they fate of the fucking world depended on this. or depended on it not happening... fucking whatever.
Agent Smith, I agree that it's not a problem...except when you posit it as some cosmically true thing. Nirvana in my cock. Then it becomes problematic. And I think it is worth addressing critically when well-read members of a community (like Pinchbeck) start mistaking their own preferences for what's natural and right for humanity when it comes to sexuality and relationships. That's the impression I got from 2012, that the human race would be better off if we all just grew up and accepted our polyamory. And that impression came from the personal stories. There are a few places in the book where he theorizes one approach and acts another - that's the value of the personal story, I guess: makes it more apparent whether you just talk the talk or really live it. But yes, all the self-disclosure gets on my nerves too, for different reasons.
Sidecross, it's for another thread topic, but why do you think that is so? Because I'm a woman (as if you all hadn't guessed by now) and I would be hard-pressed to be a public figure.
sidecross
11-15-2006, 09:26 AM
“…Sidecross, it's for another thread topic, but why do you think that is so? Because I'm a woman (as if you all hadn't guessed by now) and I would be hard-pressed to be a public figure.”
My comment was addressed to the general readership of BOTH and not necessarily only you.
I have serious questions about the absence of women who are spokespersons for the psychedelic community.
Yes. And I wonder why the absence?
And I think this 2012 book needs to be recalled, like any other
defective product.
Giselle62
11-15-2006, 12:21 PM
it's funny that this thread has been up for a while, but people mainly avoided talking about the monogamy issue. Seems to be pretty personal to most people, and, when I think about it, I can see why most people would choose not to talk about their personal feelings regarding this issue on a message board. it could get some of us in trouble!
Isaiah Mpski
11-15-2006, 02:21 PM
How old did you say you are love?
it's funny that this thread has been up for a while, but people mainly avoided talking about the monogamy issue. Seems to be pretty personal to most people, and, when I think about it, I can see why most people would choose not to talk about their personal feelings regarding this issue on a message board. it could get some of us in trouble!
I wouldn't mind some trouble.
nanouk
11-16-2006, 04:33 AM
Trouble? That's my middle name ;)
I do not believe, that if polyamory was the "common" way of living in a partnership, that the word monogamy would even exist...
My marriage broke up because i did not conform to monogamy, and i am NOT a man...i just think some people take other's for granted if we let them, and the spark dies...sex is not just a fumble in the dark, it is an art form, that needs to practised the way tai chi is.
Love and Respect,
~N~
magicbean
11-16-2006, 05:26 AM
My comment was addressed to the general readership of BOTH and not necessarily only you.
I have serious questions about the absence of women who are spokespersons for the psychedelic community.
Oh, my thinking out loud was just that, I knew you were addressing everyone. I was just agreeing heartily and wondering aloud about myself as anecdata.
I'll start a thread in Cultural Production.
okster
11-16-2006, 07:48 AM
"sex is not just a fumble in the dark, it is an art form, that needs to practised the way tai chi is."
Good one, nanouk!
craazyman
11-16-2006, 08:05 AM
i am absolutely appaled by all this talk of promiscuity and licentiousness. teenagers read this board, and what kind of an example is this for them. Women, love your men. But if not, PM me, organic American sirloin will make you forget all about fast food and if someone has trouble for a middle name it'll change to Joy. Kickoff is Sunday at 1pm. There's a new quarterback & the season might be salvaged somehow, but at 3 and 6, the playoffs are looking, well, pretty much out of the question. This has been a difficult process to come to terms with, kind of like a Divorce from fantasy into reality. Who would have thought this when Coach Gibbs came back two years ago.
It makes me almost want to pull down the shade and cry for Washington, DC. The fall color was absolutely beautiful this year and the nostalgia was fierce, the smell of burning leaves and the deep blues and soft oranges of late afternoon, the oak trees were talking to me but I was too obsessed with Washington's lousy offense and injuries to really engage in dialog.
Isaiah Mpski
11-16-2006, 08:27 AM
Lord CM,when the veterans came home from the war they got a free education.So many of them came to Norman and got married they built a little series of quonset huts just south of the endzone at the football stadium at OU.Oklahoam won the national championship for the first three years of my life and everytime they scored the band played Boomer Sooner(often wondered about the unconscious meaning of that term) so OU football is in my psyche.
I can remember the days of when if you were on the starting eleven you got nothing less thana corvette.
O for the good ole days.
Anyway-one of our commune fellows has and uncle who played for Washington-center-in the 80's and if it will make you feel any better I'll get you his autograph.
Yes,men and women love each other and be truthful.
...sex is not just a fumble in the dark, it is an art form, that needs to practised the way tai chi is.
So....that would be like Tui Shou, but with your pants down?
Isaiah Mpski
11-16-2006, 03:38 PM
The more the merrier eh NYK.
Sure, if one is into self-destruction.
nanouk
11-17-2006, 01:19 AM
i am absolutely appaled by all this talk of promiscuity and licentiousness. teenagers read this board, and what kind of an example is this for them. Women, love your men.
craazyman, i am aware that teenagers, read what is said on this board, but what is said is not criminal, i was merely making a point about human biology, if i were to quote the bible i would be lying, to myself and everyone else... ;)
and...chosing not to be in a monogamous relationship does not equal that one is promiscous[sp.?]i would say that the serial monogamist stand a greater chance to deserve that title.
but you are right about the pumpkin autumn skies, tried to eat a few yew berries yesterday, but they have gone over with the first frosts we had last week and were too soft...
Peace,
~n~
ps. nyk, what is Tui Shou? ds.
Isaiah Mpski
11-17-2006, 09:36 AM
Nanouk,he was just teasing you in a child-like way.He wasn't consciously serious.
I think Nanouk,now would be a good time to get some things out in the open.
Criminality for one.
What is criminal for one is not for another.It may be destructive,but that is the way of the world.
No.I for one would fight before I went back to either a mental hospital or prison.I mean,any of you offical fuckers of men who are working within or without the GOVERNMENT,call or e-mail me before you show up at where I may be. jesus26christ@yahoo.com[/email][/email]thanks brothers and sisters
For you are better off in believing that I will exhibit my constitutional rights and I in particular do not like to see guns anywhere near me.I tend to have panic attacks and such situations are not good for one's mental health.
Oh,and a good number to reach me here or in Mexico is 918-577-1299
Nanouk, I thought yew berries were poisonous!
Isaiah Mpski
11-17-2006, 09:59 AM
Maybe that's why the frost got em.
daniel
11-17-2006, 10:34 AM
Thom wrote, "I was underwhelmed by much of the book..."
NYK wrote, "And I think this 2012 book needs to be recalled, like any other
defective product."
Just want to say, thanks, guys. I spent five underpaid years and put my heart on the line to write this, plus created this free space for you to express whatever you want. I am highly impressed with your spiritual evolution, as well as your compassion, not to mention your insights. Keep up the great work.
daniel
11-17-2006, 10:51 AM
magicbean,
I am looking forward to critiquing your judgments of me and my perspective in more depth, when i have time - hopefully early next week.
A few quick points: I would also love to see more female (as well as male) expressions of psychedelic/shamanic literature, and more powerful female figures in this area in general. It is funny - when this subject comes up, it is almost like I am being blamed for the lack of these figures, as a male speaking out on these subjects. To put it on record, I am not responsible for this lack of public female voices on psychedelics, and if I find someone who expresses themselves powerfully, I will support them as much as I can. I have in fact urged and encouraged many brilliant women I know to take the podium, and in some cases have enabled them to do so.
Also, just so you know, I have a vast range of connections with women, who are my friends and compatriots, my teachers and students. I do not in every or even in most cases think or believe that these relationships need to be expressed sexually. When given the opportunity, I fight for women to be empowered and to empower themselves.
As for sexuality, I agree with William Blake that "The lust of the Billy Goat is the Glory of God." When relationships become onerous responsibilities, there is little chance of creating "Heaven on Earth," which is the only place I am interested in living. I also find Allen Ginsberg to be highly refreshing on this subject, albeit expressing it from a homosexual perspective. I recommend his interviews collected in "Spontaneous Mind."
More later...
Thom wrote, "I was underwhelmed by much of the book..."
NYK wrote, "And I think this 2012 book needs to be recalled, like any other
defective product."
Just want to say, thanks, guys. I spent five underpaid years and put my heart on the line to write this, plus created this free space for you to express whatever you want. I am highly impressed with your spiritual evolution, as well as your compassion, not to mention your insights. Keep up the great work.
I have posted quite a bit here in two months, despite the fact that I
do not have even a fraction of your savoir-faire. But I tried. Where have
you been? Now you come along and pick out some little jibe of mine that
pricks your personality, while ignoring all the rest. Are we to wait for
'evolver' before you begin engaging any kind of sustaining dialogue?
There are some definite problems with your book. These have been
explained well by others here. I have also been supportive of you,
here and elsewhere, but I guess you have been too busy to notice that.
I have even hosted your book in the local metaphysical bookstore,
which happens to be the largest of its kind west of Seattle. Oh well.
Agent Smith
11-17-2006, 12:18 PM
oh, i'd ignore that nyk. it happens from time to time.
here's some thoughts from peter lamborn wilson/ hakim bey that folks might find interesting regarding "love" and it's forms
http://www.hermetic.com/bey/obsessive-love.html
oh, i'd ignore that nyk. it happens from time to time.
Maybe my timing is off and I arrived when D found better things to do
than this.
here's some thoughts from peter lamborn wilson/ hakim bey that folks might find interesting regarding "love" and it's forms
In response to this situation, modern times have offered two judgements of romance, apperently opposed, which relateto our present hermeneutic. One, the surrealist amour fou, clearly belongs to the romantic tradition, but proposes a radical solution to the paradox of desire by combining the idea of sublimation with the tantrik perspective.In opposing the scarcity (or "emotional plague"as Reich called it) of Capitalism, Surrealism proposes a transgressive excess of the most obssessive desire and the most sensual realization. What the romance of Nezami or Malory had separated ("longing" and "union"), the Surrealists proposed to recombine. The effect was meant to be explosive, literally revolutionary.
http://www.hermetic.com/bey/obsessive-love.html
Interesting link. Wish I could understand the above quote better!
sidecross
11-17-2006, 12:45 PM
Thom wrote, "I was underwhelmed by much of the book..."
NYK wrote, "And I think this 2012 book needs to be recalled, like any other
defective product."
Just want to say, thanks, guys. I spent five underpaid years and put my heart on the line to write this, plus created this free space for you to express whatever you want. I am highly impressed with your spiritual evolution, as well as your compassion, not to mention your insights. Keep up the great work.
I would hope you would also take the responsibility that you almost let the BOTH web site rot on the vine because of neglect. It was the members of this forum with their effort and money that kept this site up and flourishing.
As for your not being paid for your efforts, get in line with many other artists both famous and not who still plug along without compensation.
craazyman
11-17-2006, 01:07 PM
"Surrealism proposes a transgressive excess of the most obssessive desire and the most sensual realization."
Usually that's very expensive, upwards of $1000/hour in New York and Paris if you know the right people, and you will get your money's worth. Now, If you can hit it off with someone and do it yourself for free, be careful what you get yourself into. These things have a way of going off in weird directions, and sometimes ultimately involve the police and jail time. Remember, when it's matter of your word against some elses, the court system is not especially sensitive to nuance and a lot of things that look great in the dark don't look so good in front of a jury.
I'd rather pay to play. But I have a policy of not paying for two things--women and river access for fishing (I may make an exception for Icelandic salmon). So pretty much, that leaves me on the sidelines here.
sidecross
11-17-2006, 01:47 PM
"I'd rather pay to play. But I have a policy of not paying for two things--women and river access for fishing (I may make an exception for Icelandic salmon). So pretty much, that leaves me on the sidelines here."
While I do appreciate daniel’s setting up the BOTH web site in’02, I do not regret donating the same amount of money to keep BOTH up and running that I paid for his latest book at my local book store.
In fact, I found I receive more from this site than I have from daniel’s new book. The reason being I can participate in a dialogue rather than being only a passive reader.
I generally agree that the web should be free, but I have no regrets helping pay to keep one of the better web sites on the internet up and running. It might be that this makes me the crazy person!
;)
craazyman
11-17-2006, 01:57 PM
No Sidecross I think you misunderstood (or maybe I am misunderstanding you). I was referring to the Surrealist quote about sex and I took a flyer off that one in my comments. I gladly supported this site with a credit card donation and gladly paid for Daniel's two books. They were excellent, both of them.
In fact, here is a poem in Daniel's honor.
L'Albatros
Souvent, pour s'amuser, les hommes d'équipage
Prennent des albatros, vastes oiseaux des mers,
Qui suivent, indolents compagnons de voyage,
Le navire glissant sur les gouffres amers.
À peine les ont-ils déposés sur les planches,
Que ces rois de l'azur, maladroits et honteux,
Laissent piteusement leurs grandes ailes blanches
Comme des avirons traîner à côté d'eux.
Ce voyageur ailé, comme il est gauche et veule!
Lui, naguère si beau, qu'il est comique et laid!
L'un agace son bec avec un brûle-gueule,
L'autre mime, en boitant, l'infirme qui volait!
Le Poète est semblable au prince des nuées
Qui hante la tempête et se rit de l'archer;
Exilé sur le sol au milieu des huées,
Ses ailes de géant l'empêchent de marcher.
— Charles Baudelaire
sidecross
11-17-2006, 02:10 PM
No Sidecross I think you misunderstood (or maybe I am misunderstanding you). I was referring to the Surrealist quote about sex and I took a flyer off that one in my comments. I gladly supported this site with a credit card donation and gladly paid for Daniel's two books. They were excellent, both of them.
In fact, here is a poem in Daniel's honor.
L'Albatros
Souvent, pour s'amuser, les hommes d'équipage
Prennent des albatros, vastes oiseaux des mers,
Qui suivent, indolents compagnons de voyage,
Le navire glissant sur les gouffres amers.
À peine les ont-ils déposés sur les planches,
Que ces rois de l'azur, maladroits et honteux,
Laissent piteusement leurs grandes ailes blanches
Comme des avirons traîner à côté d'eux.
Ce voyageur ailé, comme il est gauche et veule!
Lui, naguère si beau, qu'il est comique et laid!
L'un agace son bec avec un brûle-gueule,
L'autre mime, en boitant, l'infirme qui volait!
Le Poète est semblable au prince des nuées
Qui hante la tempête et se rit de l'archer;
Exilé sur le sol au milieu des huées,
Ses ailes de géant l'empêchent de marcher.
— Charles Baudelaire
Thanks for the clarification of your post; it illustrates the power of dialogue over reading only, especially if you can read only English.;)
magicbean
11-17-2006, 02:55 PM
As for sexuality, I agree with William Blake that "The lust of the Billy Goat is the Glory of God." When relationships become onerous responsibilities, there is little chance of creating "Heaven on Earth," which is the only place I am interested in living.
That quote makes me laugh. And indeed, there is much heaven on earth already, isn't there?
However...
This is what troubles me with many "open" relationships: neither relationships nor sexuality nor indeed life is always Heaven. Happiness arises, happinesses passes away. Unhappiness arises, happinesses passes away. And there is great value in giving life to The Witness, in watching things arise and pass without action. Goenka speaks of it as the idea of accepting reality as it is, not as you want it to be. We seem to have lost in this age of entertainment and pleasure on demand an acceptance of the intermittently unpleasant as a reality.
So how does one skillfully balance impulse and action with stillness and observation when dealing with sexuality and relationships. I don't think the ultimate answer is in open relationships for all. For some, sure. For everyone, no.
magicbean
11-17-2006, 02:59 PM
It is funny - when this subject comes up, it is almost like I am being blamed for the lack of these figures, as a male speaking out on these subjects.
Jeez, that's giving an individual a whole lot a credit. World leaders only wish they had that much power.
craazyman
11-17-2006, 03:46 PM
[I], if i were to quote the bible i would be lying, to myself and everyone else... ;) .
Darling you could quote the bible to me and it would be OK--preferably over a bottle of 82 or 83 bordeaux, somewhere in Paris, in the fall. Ecclesiastes is very quotable and always good for existential contemplation, and many of the Psalms, but some can get a bit too heavy for a social outing, and forget Jeremiah or Samuel, too much blood and gore.
Yeah the sparks can come and go, but when the respect dies, it's finis. Funny how that works. And how it comes from nowhere and is everywhere slowly. The weird thing, though, is that sometimes people find themselves afterward and make a quantum jump to a new level of psyche, and somehow they've been refreshed and changed and enormously strengthened. And sometimes you look back and realize just what was there and what you didn't see. The mystery, the mystery of it.
daniel
11-17-2006, 04:01 PM
magicbean,
nowhere do i say or think that "open relationships" are good for all, or "polyamory" is the singular way of the future. I do think it likely that some proportion of the population will find their greatest satisfaction in a monogamous relationship. However, I do believe that there is a major cultural problem in that other options are not equally accessible, and have a lot of social opprobrium against them. As I write in 2012, our legal system, our societal structures, our media, and our architecture all act in support of a more or less conscripted form of monogamy, without other options being seriously considered and honored. There appears to be a basic assumption that if you don't accept monogamy as the best option, you are therefore utterly sexually depraved, or somehow morally beneath those who find monogamy to their taste.
As I note in 2012, Kinsey's work demonstrated a potentially infinite variety among human sexuality, therefore constraining this variety under one limited model is going to lead to a build up of repression, shadow material, and aggression. Frankly, I suspect the erotic hang-ups of our political leaders, reflecting the erotic disfunctions and "repressive desublimations" of our mass society, are what has led us to Iraq and to other policies of a destructive nature. I remember reading a comment by a writer at a Republican National Convention a few years ago of the "sexual rage" he could feel in the Republican political wives.
I do feel that if other relationship options become socially accepted, then new models will emerge, and some proportion of the population (it could be 5%, it could be 95%) will find themselves shifting away from monogamy into alternative models. But those models would have to be well articulated and lived into by a small group of trailblazers before becoming generally accepted. As a matter of fact, among communities that I travel in, especially on the West Coast, I believe this is already happening, and from what I have experienced, it is working. I am seeing and experiencing in my own life tremendous progress going on right now, above all in the ability of the sexes to communicate with each other. Something new is being born -- I feel it and honor it.
I
daniel
11-17-2006, 04:09 PM
This is what troubles me with many "open" relationships: neither relationships nor sexuality nor indeed life is always Heaven. Happiness arises, happinesses passes away. Unhappiness arises, happinesses passes away. And there is great value in giving life to The Witness, in watching things arise and pass without action. Goenka speaks of it as the idea of accepting reality as it is, not as you want it to be. We seem to have lost in this age of entertainment and pleasure on demand an acceptance of the intermittently unpleasant as a reality.
When you accept unhappy situations with another, you become an enabler of your own misery and the other person's unhappiness as well. I think it is all dependent on your frequency of consciousness. You can't necessarily change others, but when you change your own mind, you attract different situations, and repel ones that repeat patterns from the past.
I don't disagree with Goenka. I utterly accept the present reality and my present state of being, but I also accept as part of that acceptance my dedication to transforming myself and my reality into something that exceeds even my imagination of what this world could be.
daniel
11-17-2006, 04:13 PM
I would hope you would also take the responsibility that you almost let the BOTH web site rot on the vine because of neglect. It was the members of this forum with their effort and money that kept this site up and flourishing.
Actually I still pay for this site, and have received nothing from the administrator toward my expenses.
As for letting this site rot, I had other things on my plate and no help until the current admin stepped in. At the same time, I am still concerned as to whether or not I am doing the right thing here, as I worry this site allows for stasis on the part of its members rather than true growth and activation.
nanouk
11-17-2006, 04:27 PM
"Surrealism proposes a transgressive excess of the most obssessive desire and the most sensual realization."
Usually that's very expensive, upwards of $1000/hour in New York and Paris if you know the right people, and you will get your money's worth. Now, If you can hit it off with someone and do it yourself for free, be careful what you get yourself into. These things have a way of going off in weird directions, and sometimes ultimately involve the police and jail time. Remember, when it's matter of your word against some elses, the court system is not especially sensitive to nuance and a lot of things that look great in the dark don't look so good in front of a jury.
I'd rather pay to play. But I have a policy of not paying for two things--women and river access for fishing (I may make an exception for Icelandic salmon). So pretty much, that leaves me on the sidelines here.
I'd rather play than pay...so, underpaid published writers "starve", while his/her inspirational subjects earn $1000 an hour? Kiss my donkey!!!
Dna, the seeds, bark, roots and spines of the yew tree are poisonous, but the berries are a delicasy, ask the gold finch and the druid...
Love and Respect, and overall Peace,
~n~
nanouk
11-17-2006, 04:33 PM
Actually I still pay for this site, and have received nothing from the administrator toward my expenses.
As for letting this site rot, I had other things on my plate and no help until the current admin stepped in. At the same time, I am still concerned as to whether or not I am doing the right thing here, as I worry this site allows for stasis on the part of its members rather than true growth and activation.
Quetzalcoatl is growing...whether we like it or not.
sidecross
11-17-2006, 04:34 PM
Actually I still pay for this site, and have received nothing from the administrator toward my expenses.
As for letting this site rot, I had other things on my plate and no help until the current admin stepped in. At the same time, I am still concerned as to whether or not I am doing the right thing here, as I worry this site allows for stasis on the part of its members rather than true growth and activation.
Are you to be the only judge of stasis?
As for the money being collected so far, I have not a clue as to why you have not received any; it might be the funds have been used to pay for the use of a server. In any regard, I think those of us who have made contributions need an explanation of how those funds were dispersed. I certainly did not contribute money for personal profit.
nanouk
11-17-2006, 04:44 PM
i'd rather give my cash to John D. Son any day, if i had any. gave my spare buck to Children In Need today, bless the UK over a million kids are living in poverty here, without food that will say, even to this day...
Love and Respect,
~n~
nanouk
11-17-2006, 04:46 PM
World Child's Day of Unicef, 20th of November, give freely will you?
~n~
sidecross
11-17-2006, 04:50 PM
“As I note in 2012, Kinsey's work demonstrated a potentially infinite variety among human sexuality, therefore constraining this variety under one limited model is going to lead to a build up of repression, shadow material, and aggression. Frankly, I suspect the erotic hang-ups of our political leaders, reflecting the erotic disfunctions and "repressive desublimations" of our mass society, are what has led us to Iraq and to other policies of a destructive nature. I remember reading a comment by a writer at a Republican National Convention a few years ago of the "sexual rage" he could feel in the Republican political wives.”
A visit to the billion dollar industry of pornography on line and elsewhere is a sure sign that sexuality has a long way to go to be a liberating experience. Do you not agree?
As usual D did not follow up on my response. I guess I am just another
of those annoying barnacles he wishes would dissolve from his bulkhead.
From what I have heard from a friend of D's, the people in 'evolver' will
take care of such as myself. Particularly nasty in some non-specified
way.
Anyway. I found the following sex book in a free box on the sidewalk
about 4 years ago and found it very interesting.
http://www.zionmag.org/img/clanky/angeuk.jpg
Angel Claw
CONTAINS ADULT MATERIAL. Moebius & Jodorowsky. Eurotica/ Nantier - Beall - Minoustchine (NBM), 1996. A series of sexually explicit images from Moebius, accompanied by the elliptical texts of Jodorowsky. The nudes depicted are often female, bound or passive. This is a hardcover edition, which has pictures of nudity, genitalia and sexual situations of an adult nature. 72 pages. Hard Cover Black & White 10" x 13" (25cm x 33cm) Dust Jacket. £14.99
sidecross
11-17-2006, 06:24 PM
Let us hope that BOTH will not turn into the Evolver web site: http://www.evolver.net/forum/
:mad:
You are severely underappreciated sidecross.
And you have amazing fortitude.
Actually I still pay for this site, and have received nothing from the administrator toward my expenses.
As for letting this site rot, I had other things on my plate and no help until the current admin stepped in. At the same time, I am still concerned as to whether or not I am doing the right thing here, as I worry this site allows for stasis on the part of its members rather than true growth and activation.
If you no longer wish to pay for the site, fine. We can figure it out among ourselves. I maintain a few sites myself and would be happy to keep this one going for the 40 bucks a year that it should cost me.
I agree with Sidecross that you should not be the judge of stasis. For my part, I feel that this site is a wonderful resource. I delight in the intelligent conversation that usually flourishes here and the contributions that they all make.
Dna.
daniel
11-18-2006, 02:49 AM
nyk,
i am sorry if you feel i have ignored your posts out of some kind of intention. I haven't at all. I respond when I feel moved to respond. I don't feel I need to respond to everything directed at me out of politeness. I know I've responded to some of your ideas and posts in the past.
for me, the sad thing about the forum is that i get emails from younger confused people who want info on shamanism, and would like to be able to safely direct them here, with the hope that the regulars would be kind and compassionate to them, and help them learn. Instead, when i have tried this, there seems to be a lot of negative comments and unnecessary attacks. I would just like this site to evolve in terms of maturity - to fulfill some socially meaningful function. I wonder if it would work better if we no longer allowed pseudonyms, and everyone had to respond as real people without hiding behind made-up names ?
nanouk
11-18-2006, 03:51 AM
for me, the sad thing about the forum is that i get emails from younger confused people who want info on shamanism, and would like to be able to safely direct them here, with the hope that the regulars would be kind and compassionate to them, and help them learn. Instead, when i have tried this, there seems to be a lot of negative comments and unnecessary attacks. I would just like this site to evolve in terms of maturity - to fulfill some socially meaningful function. I wonder if it would work better if we no longer allowed pseudonyms, and everyone had to respond as real people without hiding behind made-up names ?
I think that is a very good idea, Daniel, but how can we feel safe from the occasional psychopath that hides in these forums?
Love and Respect,
Pernilla
gandydancer
11-18-2006, 03:53 AM
Oh cut the crap and quit distorting the Polix short-lived event. Polix was 19 years old and planned to quit school and travel around the world and get "enlightened" to rise above the pain and misery of the world.
Instead, when i have tried this, there seems to be a lot of negative comments and unnecessary attacks
Umm, yes that was me, it was I who made the unnecessary attack. Here is my post from that thread in which I quote your words first:
Daniel:
I finally beamed into this long discussion with Polix. First of all, I think it was brave of him to come out and display his thinking to this unruly mob. I really think people on the board should refrain from insults and epithets - calling someone a "spoiled brat" is not constructive, and is likely to turn off people and abort all meaningful discourse. /Quote
[Gandy] Unruly mob? I feel people have tried to be patient and kind to the extreme! And as for my "spoiled brat" statement: I don't believe in giving un-asked-for advice, however Polix came here asking for our thoughts and feelings. In my opinion honest feedback is always constructive and "spoiled brat" is hardly an insult or an epithet or a statement that might "abort all meaningful discourse".
One might as well say, "Please give me honest feedback, as long as it's only what I want to hear". /Quote
And I'm starting to feel that Daniel is a spoiled brat also, but now grown to the Guru looking for cult members to feed his ego.
gandydancer
11-18-2006, 03:59 AM
Oh! Nanouk you had not yet posted when I made my post. I am the occasional psychopath that is hiding in this forum.
nanouk
11-18-2006, 04:12 AM
*lol*
I should have known... :eek:
I think BOTH is a fantastic way to get resources, support and enlightenment, at the same time as having a laugh and a few moments of bewilderment and sorrow, i am grateful to each and everyone who posts here, whether i agree, or am interested in the subject or not. I found my way here through some weird community called "The Island", when i was researching shamanism and theories for my own book a couple of years ago, and BOTH is the best forum i have come across to this day.
I do miss the postings from Mark Morford's chronicle in SF, had it bookmarked but spent so little time in front of the screen, i can't be bothered...and like i said before, it was so cool to have Doc Farmer's presence here, i didn't realise he has moved to the States now, last i heard he was finishing off late Lord Sutch's calendar down in Marrakesh or somewhere rather.
Love and Respect,
Pernilla
sidecross
11-18-2006, 07:01 AM
Oh cut the crap and quit distorting the Polix short-lived event. Polix was 19 years old and planned to quit school and travel around the world and get "enlightened" to rise above the pain and misery of the world.
Umm, yes that was me, it was I who made the unnecessary attack. Here is my post from that thread in which I quote your words first:
Daniel:
I finally beamed into this long discussion with Polix. First of all, I think it was brave of him to come out and display his thinking to this unruly mob. I really think people on the board should refrain from insults and epithets - calling someone a "spoiled brat" is not constructive, and is likely to turn off people and abort all meaningful discourse. /Quote
[Gandy] Unruly mob? I feel people have tried to be patient and kind to the extreme! And as for my "spoiled brat" statement: I don't believe in giving un-asked-for advice, however Polix came here asking for our thoughts and feelings. In my opinion honest feedback is always constructive and "spoiled brat" is hardly an insult or an epithet or a statement that might "abort all meaningful discourse".
One might as well say, "Please give me honest feedback, as long as it's only what I want to hear". /Quote
And I'm starting to feel that Daniel is a spoiled brat also, but now grown to the Guru looking for cult members to feed his ego.
I agree with gandydancer; no one should be expected to be a ‘one stop source’ of information as to the meaning of our existence.
Anyone who asks for advice on shamanism or psychedelics demonstrates a misunderstanding of the dimensions of their question.
As for the 19 year old Polix and his thread, I found the responses to be quite fair and without malice.
artemis sidecross is my real name; if daniel is asking for a legal or government legal name to be used for discussion purposes he is wrong to move in that direction.
willoweyes
11-18-2006, 07:32 AM
Children, I have to care for my own mother for a few days (her 100th inadequate suicide attempt--this time even the emergency room doctor tried to be helpful--suggesting something with acetaminophen in it next go-round)
she blows her police whistle downstairs, and requests an enema. . .
But now I have a few minutes to myself.
Her mothering consisted of rum, sodomy and the lash (figuratively speaking of course). Like the British navy--the results were not pretty, but they crushed the opposition.
My first memories of my father --a monstrous figure, twisting and pinching my flesh until I screamed. My mother running into the room, where we are all alone. "What did you do to her!" she asks, always too late. "I didn't do anything to her I was just playing! She's a crybaby!" my dad insists, properly furious at my weak inadequate female body.
The problems with sex are central--I no longer hope for salvation--maybe if I listen very very hard there will be illumination.
Craazy said it: "the sparks come and go, but when the respect dies. . . "
In Malcolm Gladwell's Blink, a marriage counsellor tells him CONTEMPT is the name of failure in human relationships.
Without respect, there is no communication. "Teaching is all about listening, and learning is all about telling," a teacher said yesterday, and I agree.
We have to talk some more. No one has come up with a solution yet.
Isaiah Mpski
11-18-2006, 07:49 AM
I have proposed some very important fundmental propositions.
And God do I know about the situation you have with your Mother.
Thank Gott I had Eve for a wife.
Although I will have to die for her sins.
How did your father die?Was it painful?
God forgive US all.
I agree with gandydancer; no one should be expected to be a ‘one stop source’ of information as to the meaning of our existence.
Anyone who asks for advice on shamanism or psychedelics demonstrates a misunderstanding of the dimensions of their question.
As for the 19 year old Polix and his thread, I found the responses to be quite fair and without malice.
artemis sidecross is my real name; if daniel is asking for a legal or government legal name to be used for discussion purposes he is wrong to move in that direction.
The longer I am here the more I agree with sidecross.
And that is a really cool name!
Isaiah Mpski
11-18-2006, 07:56 AM
Have you heard about just plaincross.Lol.
i am sorry if you feel i have ignored your posts out of some kind of intention. I haven't at all. I respond when I feel moved to respond. I don't feel I need to respond to everything directed at me out of politeness. I know I've responded to some of your ideas and posts in the past.
It's not the stuff directed toward you I am concerned with; it's the
more intrinsic material. I basically feel a lack of involvement on your
part.
for me, the sad thing about the forum is that i get emails from younger confused people who want info on shamanism, and would like to be able to safely direct them here, with the hope that the regulars would be kind and compassionate to them, and help them learn. Instead, when i have tried this, there seems to be a lot of negative comments and unnecessary attacks. I would just like this site to evolve in terms of maturity - to fulfill some socially meaningful function. I wonder if it would work better if we no longer allowed pseudonyms, and everyone had to respond as real people without hiding behind made-up names ?
I gave myself honestly and fully to such as you indicate. I would've done
the same with a fake name. Your suggestion, while I do not doubt your
sincerity, is wholly analogous to what governmental and military bodies
strive for in their control of the individual. Identification. Isn't that
somewhat contrary to what shamanism is about...breaking thru
identity into other worlds and the nether regions of self?
Have you heard about just plaincross.Lol.
Have you heard 'have you heard' by Mike Pinder (the Moody Blues).
Mmmmm.
Agent Smith
11-18-2006, 08:27 AM
eh.
this is why i mostly cannot be bothered.
however there is a hidden message in this video that will be a balm upon your soul.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=zUzxdulMGN4
mild criticism. threat to pull the plug.
:snore:
that's about all i care to say about it at the moment.
willoweyes
11-18-2006, 08:31 AM
I love Sidecross--and how proud I feel when NYK sees him too.
We can love here without the body threatening.
daniel
11-18-2006, 08:35 AM
i am not trying to create some military id system, i just want a bit more accountability as i feel it will bring more respect and less contempt toward me and others. If this space is not going to grow in that direction, I don't know if it should exist. I will drop the idea of using real names, but hope that people will be more accountable.
I welcome criticisms of my work and my posts on the board, as long as they are offered in a manner that is respectful and well-tempered. I don't think most of you have the right to critique me on a more personal level, as you simply do not know me.
nyk, my situation is that I have too much to do and a limited amount of psychic energy. To be honest, I am trying to do the best I can to serve the critical world situation with the limited psychic energy that I do possess (and have some fun in the process). Right now, if I spend a lot of time in deep dialogue on the board, it means I can't do other things that seem more important to me, such as working on EVO and various writing projects. It may be that continuing to participate in more of the dialogues on the forum is the most important thing I could be doing, but my assessment is that it can't be as much of a focus right now, so I pop in and out.
While I see this is not going to happen, if the BOtH forum somehow self-organized into a place that was about actualizing intention and working together for specific goals, I might find it more interesting personally, and give it more of my present attention.
By the way, I agree that Artemis Sidecross is an extraordinary name!
Responding to a comment below, I would say that shamanism is about fully embracing your authentic self, which includes its manifestations in multiple dimensions of being.
gandydancer,
If I was 19, had been suicidal and had serious questions about psychedelic use, and found a community of older people willing to discuss this stuff, I would most likely run away when someone went out of their way to call me a "spoiled brat." Why don't you start to take some accountability for yourself? You write, "And I'm starting to feel that Daniel is a spoiled brat also, but now grown to the Guru looking for cult members to feed his ego." Thanks again for the insults - good for you! More impressive clear thinking - and a great tone for bringing in others who might be lurking or hovering around these dialogues, wanting to come in but fearing castigation and rejection.
craazyman
11-18-2006, 11:46 AM
Thank you Willow, I strive for the occasional outbreak of sanity and insight among my lunatic ravings, and I very much appreciate those see that sanity, and even more, the regard for the "human form devine" not too subtely hidden--I hope--even in my seeming lunacy. You are one of those. You have a mind, as well as a bright soul. And you are appreciated. Craazyman is a character, he, or it, is not me.
Sidecross, I can't speak French either. But that poem by Baudelaire is so apropos that I couldn't resist. The English translations on the net are so hideously awful, so devoid of the music of the French, and the "logopoeia", in Ezra Pound's phrase, such hack jobs of disjointed and maladapted syllables, that reading them is a woeful misery. I couldn't bring myself to post one.
Yes, I dedicated it to Daniel's honor & to the spirit of this place because I have a soft spot in my heart for men and women who use their imagination like a sculptor handles clay, without the power of it burning them down or intimidating them too much. Letting it dance the dance of life, like in the Matisse painting.
Critics and naysayers be dammed--do your own work and place it next to what you criticize, and let the contest be like against like. I could say so much more on this--Jung has said a few things I remember about the unconcious, the psyche, the imagination--but I'm getting sentimental here, so I'll stop.
Imagination and reality. To speak through a character, as an actor does--maybe a hero, a lunatic, a lover, a friend, a killer, a psycopath, a prophet, a redeemer, a missle of idea and revolution--or to speak as a self, bound by all the stilted comformity of society--or with sincerity and purpose and a genuine attempt to strike truly human bonds. Or both, interchangeably, in a confusing and liberating milieu. It's bound to spark insult and confusion and emotion, maybe even intimidation--but better yet, and at its best--inspiration and insight and transformation and heightened possibility of mind and reality. In a way, that's what's going on here.
Yes, there are limits. Every game needs limits or it descends into barbarism. I have always believed that ad hominem personal attacks should be out of bounds. And off topic forays may be less welcome in, say, a discussion board dedicated to mathematical physics. But here, not limits that choke the imagination. I will always side with poets over censors. And with freedom over conformity. Let the chips fall where they may.
Despite our many differences, I think this larger theme is probably something we can all agree on. Perhaps the limits here need to be restrained a bit. I will defer to what the editors institute.
Here is the best English translation I'm aware of, of Baudelaire's "Albatross", translated by William Packard, a New York poet now deceased, who for many of the formative years of my life was a very close friend, a mentor and a man who somehow gave younger minds the cultivation and emotional support so needed--and there were many of us, lost and hurt young men and women, walking the street of New York with our minds on fire, clueless, hopeful, full of energy and undirected mind, ambitious and dreaming--but he didn't hesititate to give a Zen-like punch to the gut when it was the most approprate teaching tool. (I'm thinking of our friend Polix;) )
I miss Bill every day, and every day I see his genius, more and more and the great restraint he showed those of us who learned from him. If there's any inspiration for anyone who reads this translation, compare it to the translations on the net.
-Mark H.
New York City
The Albatros
Often for their own sport
crewmen on board some ships
will catch an albatross,
those large birds of the sea
which follow after men
on their long ocean trips
like easy going friends
that circle endlessly
Hardly do they set down
on deck than these poor things
who are the gods of air
feel foolishness and shame
as they fall and unfold
those great wide snow white wings
like oars on either side
which weigh and make them lame
New sail from the bright sky
how he is old and weak!
True beauty of the blue,
how queer he is and shy!
One pokes a lighted pipe
into his helpless beak,
another mimes his walk,
this drunk who tries to fly!
The poet is just like
this proud prince of the clouds
who glides through storms and laughs
at arrows in the air,
yet once he is brought down
and faced with coward crowds
his great wide snow white wings
keep him from rising there.
-Charles Baudelaire
tr. by William Packard
sidecross
11-18-2006, 01:35 PM
Thank you Willow, I strive for the occasional outbreak of sanity and insight among my lunatic ravings, and I very much appreciate those see that sanity, and even more, the regard for the "human form devine" not too subtely hidden--I hope--even in my seeming lunacy. You are one of those. You have a mind, as well as a bright soul. And you are appreciated. Craazyman is a character, he, or it, is not me.
Sidecross, I can't speak French either. But that poem by Baudelaire is so apropos that I couldn't resist. The English translations on the net are so hideously awful, so devoid of the music of the French, and the "logopoeia", in Ezra Pound's phrase, such hack jobs of disjointed and maladapted syllables, that reading them is a woeful misery. I couldn't bring myself to post one.
Yes, I dedicated it to Daniel's honor & to the spirit of this place because I have a soft spot in my heart for men and women who use their imagination like a sculptor handles clay, without the power of it burning them down or intimidating them too much. Letting it dance the dance of life, like in the Matisse painting.
Critics and naysayers be dammed--do your own work and place it next to what you criticize, and let the contest be like against like. I could say so much more on this--Jung has said a few things I remember about the unconcious, the psyche, the imagination--but I'm getting sentimental here, so I'll stop.
Imagination and reality. To speak through a character, as an actor does--maybe a hero, a lunatic, a lover, a friend, a killer, a psycopath, a prophet, a redeemer, a missle of idea and revolution--or to speak as a self, bound by all the stilted comformity of society--or with sincerity and purpose and a genuine attempt to strike truly human bonds. Or both, interchangeably, in a confusing and liberating milieu. It's bound to spark insult and confusion and emotion, maybe even intimidation--but better yet, and at its best--inspiration and insight and transformation and heightened possibility of mind and reality. In a way, that's what's going on here.
Yes, there are limits. Every game needs limits or it descends into barbarism. I have always believed that ad hominem personal attacks should be out of bounds. And off topic forays may be less welcome in, say, a discussion board dedicated to mathematical physics. But here, not limits that choke the imagination. I will always side with poets over censors. And with freedom over conformity. Let the chips fall where they may.
Despite our many differences, I think this larger theme is probably something we can all agree on. Perhaps the limits here need to be restrained a bit. I will defer to what the editors institute.
Here is the best English translation I'm aware of, of Baudelaire's "Albatross", translated by William Packard, a New York poet now deceased, who for many of the formative years of my life was a very close friend, a mentor and a man who somehow gave younger minds the cultivation and emotional support so needed--and there were many of us, lost and hurt young men and women, walking the street of New York with our minds on fire, clueless, hopeful, full of energy and undirected mind, ambitious and dreaming--but he didn't hesititate to give a Zen-like punch to the gut when it was the most approprate teaching tool. (I'm thinking of our friend Polix;) )
I miss Bill every day, and every day I see his genius, more and more and the great restraint he showed those of us who learned from him. If there's any inspiration for anyone who reads this translation, compare it to the translations on the net.
-Mark H.
New York City
The Albatros
Often for their own sport
crewmen on board some ships
will catch an albatross,
those large birds of the sea
which follow after men
on their long ocean trips
like easy going friends
that circle endlessly
Hardly do they set down
on deck than these poor things
who are the gods of air
feel foolishness and shame
as they fall and unfold
those great wide snow white wings
like oars on either side
which weigh and make them lame
New sail from the bright sky
how he is old and weak!
True beauty of the blue,
how queer he is and shy!
One pokes a lighted pipe
into his helpless beak,
another mimes his walk,
this drunk who tries to fly!
The poet is just like
this proud prince of the clouds
who glides through storms and laughs
at arrows in the air,
yet once he is brought down
and faced with coward crowds
his great wide snow white wings
keep him from rising there.
-Charles Baudelaire
tr. by William Packard
A truly great post!
Agent Smith
11-18-2006, 01:52 PM
i have always been fond of barbarism.
especially when the alternative is feeling mortally, and personally insulted by mild criticism.
sidecross
11-18-2006, 02:03 PM
i have always been fond of barbarism.
especially when the alternative is feeling mortally, and personally insulted by mild criticism.
An equally great post, it may the other side of the previous great post!
Eagle Wing
11-18-2006, 06:11 PM
CONTEMPT is the name of failure in human relationships.
Without respect, there is no communication. "Teaching is all about listening, and learning is all about telling," a teacher said yesterday, and I agree.
Willoweyes -- you are right. There is no violation that cannot be mended through Love. Just as there is no agreement that cannot be broken by contempt.
The story about your family is intense. Sadly it reminds me of something that i just saw in popular culture -- in the new "Borat" movie where he meets some very drunk frat kid who goes off about how little he respects women.
Respect.... starts within.
Thank you for sharing in the midst of this difficult time, willow.
Love, -EW
Eagle Wing
11-18-2006, 06:23 PM
magicbean, thank you for bringing this thread back on topic. And Giselle, thanks for sharing your experience with us.
Magicbean wrote,
"I wonder if the polys have ever considered the value of what Jack Kornfield calls "taking the one seat". Sticking with something even when it's difficult, and even when you don't want to. Or considered that it takes a great deal of maturity and awareness and respect to *not* sexualize a relationship. We are driven by many cravings and aversions, sex is big one."
- maybe even the biggest? seems like the sexual principle is embedded in the nature of everything... attraction/repulsion.... the thirdness that results from the joining of the two. Think about the sex organs of plants, even... they are the two in one. The nature of all relationships is joining and separating.
Can a relationship not be sexualized? I'm not sure what you mean when you say "sexualized"... if you mean, acting from a place of love, and not of lust, then absolutely YES! And it does take maturity and awareness... yeah, some people take longer than others. Lust is what I assume you mean when you say "cravings and aversions."
But I don't think that relationships can really ever be removed from the realm of attraction/repulsion, which is by the order of nature infinitely interlinked with the desires of sexuality. These desire can of course be directed in many different directions, not just physically having sex. Creative energy has a lot of sexual force behind it. Everything else is a matter of love, cultural programming, and respect.
I do think that we are very intelligent monkeys. And I don't mean to be putting monkeys down or anything. But we do pretty much all the same things that the apes do, like monogamy and polyamory and all that, as Daniel pointed out in his book.
I think many of the same power dynamics of monogamy are expressed in polyamory as well. Think about any kind of pressure dynamics. Some people do what they're comfortable with and want to do (which for most individuals is to have sex with whoever they love). Some people primarily do what their local culture tells them is ok. A “mature” perspective typically means making decisions based on mutual respect of themselves and others.
So anyway Giselle, in response to your comment about how little the forum has had to say on-topic regarding this, and in response to magicbean’s very well-considered concerns about this issue, please allow me to share my own story. (apologies to agent smith…) you all can take this as a compulsive purge of my personal life:
I consider myself polyamorous even though i'm in a monogamous married relationship. Sounds weird, but it's just what makes sense right now for us... ok, actually right now we’re completely monogamous. We were a lot more experimental in our college days. We really enjoyed a couple group sex things then, which opened up that whole area of possibility for both of us.... but very rarely has anything ever come of it. We always talked about how neither of us thought monogamy was really normal... and shared when we had a crush on a friend. Only a couple times did anything ever come of it -- and those things were not what we would call "polyamory", as it was just a fling with a third person for a little while.
This kind of thing was never satisfying for either of us, so we grew out of it. We were just being young and experimental. As far as the relationships between the two of us, we have definitely seen each other through.
The real moment of truth came when we had been together for 7 years. She really fell in love with someone else and started sleeping with him.... she would still be home with me at night, we spent lots of time together and in other respects things were fairly well.... but yes, the idea of it really started to get to me! And things started to get bad.
gnawing, grueling feelings..... knots....... hot flashes......
yes, the real deal, emotional turmoil, jealousy....
I started to act like an asshole… in reaction she spent more time with him which made me feel more upset…
we separated for a while.
It really was a wake-up call for me because I realized that I had been all talk, all theoretical about this stuff.... not practical at all. I didn't anticipate the real force of my own jealousy and the cultural paradigm that underwrote my insecurity.
a number of things really helped me out of that time period... mostly lots of crying, meditating and a vision quest.
the funny thing is, we were always in love with each other. Her "affair" was never about me. She just needed to experience the feeling of attention and love from her other friend, during that time. It was her process of growth. There is something truthful about that. And I wanted to be with her, which brought out feelings of insecurity.... even though I had tacitly approved of the entire situation. I thought I could handle her being with both of us… I was wrong!
There was really a lot I had to go through in that time.
It's hard being put through so much by someone you love. I think maybe that's what you mean, magicbean, when you talk about people seeing it through for the long road? People will take each other on big, big changes. Sometimes, like with some of the people i used to trip with, you have to just separate for good because you’ve taken each other through the changes, and now they’re done… you’ve set your compass and you’re off you’re way, they’re off theirs. Other times, the separation and the coming together are themselves part of the long road and the changes.
We spent half a year apart... then we decided to acknowledge our relationship with the ritual of marriage after rejoining in the 8th year. Since then we again explored being polyamorous with two of our closest friends – we have remained good friends with the fellow who my wife was involved with. But the spirit in which we approach an “open relationship” is very lighthearted. In all respects, with the people we’ve hooked up with, we are the best of friends and hang out like friends – and it was never some kind of deceitful trip like becoming primarily emotionally involved with someone else or hurting their feelings. We kiss our friend/lovers hello and goodbye on the lips and we “know” that little thing about each other, but whatever. Since alcohol is generally involved whenever something like that has happened, there is that level of ritual that makes it ok within a certain space – an ok way to be affectionate and have fun with close friends.
I do think there’s a big difference between what we do – which is I guess a monogamous relationship that is open to sex with others within a determined safe space – and a “real” polyamorous arrangement, something more like what Giselle described. We could be open to living with others in an arrangement like that, one day… who knows?
Basically there's always been levels of respect with us -- we've always been honest with each other, which is what has made the whole thing a real process. We like challenge though. I cannot recommend a bigger challenge than being honest with your closest friend and lover that you feel like making love with someone else, too. I guess neither of us could be married to someone easy, so we're good for eachother that way!
For the last year, we are strictly monogamous now because we want to have a child soon and we want to assure that we remain disease free and totally dialed only into each other. But exploring polyamory was fun and we are closer to our friends as a result. I hope I don’t offend anyone by saying that a married couple having sex with their friends is fun, but it has been for us. We will probably do it again.... and we are comfortable in our trust of each other as "married."
so that's one perspective folks, take it or leave it.
magicbean, you later wrote,
"1. That many people seem to misunderstand "openness" and the what the yin principle really means. It's not just glorification of motherhood and doing whatever pops into your brain at the moment. There's a much deeper meaning of receptivity that is overlooked in favor of acting on your momentary fun thoughts...."
Your insight in these matters is wonderful. Momentary fun thoughts was the feeling of youth.... sometimes i admit, it's good to do it. lovely in fact. The deeper meaning of receptivity is indeed, irrelevant to gratification on this level. But that deeper meaning is truly the foundation of the enduring and mature gratification -- in fact it's the ground not only of the deeply committed, most intense sexual union, the intention of generating new life in most pure essence, spiritual as well as material.... it's also the ground of meditation and spiritual practice. The Openness of Yin is infinite ground... infinite space... infinite sacred openness... A truly safe space within a relationship grows through the Yin-nature of the partners.... cultivating space for each other for sharing, honesty and forgiveness. Also for openness as an agreement – but take my experience as a warning! I’m telling you that I thought I could handle openness, but I really couldn’t. I had to do a lot of soul-searching and letting-go to forgive what I perceived as a “hurt”, that really wasn’t from any perspective but my own. I got what I asked for and it was difficult – but useful – to confront those feelings within myself. From my perspective now, I see it as outgrowing a certain kind of sexual insecurity.
"2. There's something that troubles me that I'm having a hard time verbalizing as a larger issue, but again I think 2012 just follows the trend by discussing non-monogamy...maybe it's just oversexualization? I think it's a common issue among psychedelic authors and personalities, which tend to be mostly male. Not that it's not common in other parts of the human race, but it seems to run more on the surface and remain surprisingly unexamined in the part of the population devoted to reducing inhibitions and expanding consciousness. It's an issue I think worth addressing by pyschedelic explorers who insist that they are seeking knowledge and wisdom. It's disappointing to see a wisdom path consistently stumble on sexuality, and alienate a great number of female explorers who are tired of dealing with hypersexual men. Setting some wise boundaries between people in an unbounded state of mind allows for more inner exploration, not less."
Yeah. Have you visited Santo Daime?
Explorers ARE seeking wisdom in psychedelics -- and, the truth is that much of this wisdom comes through the rediscovery of the body... especially for men in this time period.
Psychedelics are effective deconditioning agents. I think you partially explained the root of your critique when you wrote, “devoted to reducing inhibitions…”
If the culture’s perspective on sex wasn’t so strangely bipolar, perhaps drugs wouldn’t make men go quite so hypersexual. I really think it’s all part of a process though.
We do have to recognize that psychedelic drugs are very dangerous and they unleash forces that are bigger than the psyche of the individual. Everyone is going to have to face their own shadow. For Quetzalcoatl, the shadow is named Tezcatlipoca and he represents the unleashing of “perverted” sexual energy that alienates the god from the common people’s morality.
I think you are right to describe Daniel's story as oversexualized.
Sexuality is, indeed, at the very core of the Quetzalcoatl myth. I have a lot more to say about this but I will save it for my own review of Daniel’s book which I hope to finish and post soon. Thank you again Giselle for opening this relevant discussion.
nyk, my situation is that I have too much to do and a limited amount of psychic energy. To be honest, I am trying to do the best I can to serve the critical world situation with the limited psychic energy that I do possess (and have some fun in the process). Right now, if I spend a lot of time in deep dialogue on the board, it means I can't do other things that seem more important to me, such as working on EVO and various writing projects. It may be that continuing to participate in more of the dialogues on the forum is the most important thing I could be doing, but my assessment is that it can't be as much of a focus right now, so I pop in and out.
While I see this is not going to happen, if the BOtH forum somehow self-organized into a place that was about actualizing intention and working together for specific goals, I might find it more interesting personally, and give it more of my present attention.
Daniel-
Okay, here is what I see. I could be way off the mark. It appears to
me that when you engage this forum it thrives. Note the galvanation
which occurred as you plopped in last night and today. And when you
shun this forum then it withers. It's as simple as that. It would be nice
if it were otherwise, but it isn't (from my perspective).
You are focused on the big picture, and out and about. I don't blame
you. This is a frustrating and disembodied medium here. And somehow
there is a correlation between your presence here and the health of
your offspring (BOtH).
Use me or lose me: I am not going to just twiddle my thumbs forever,
waiting...
Well, that's that, and where I will leave it.
-Nyk
[I have a fake real name almost as cool as artemis's];)
Originall posted by Eagle Wing:
We do have to recognize that psychedelic drugs are very dangerous and they unleash forces that are bigger than the psyche of the individual.
Daniel, are you struggling with a psychic force that is bigger than your own psyche? Your last post seemed to suggest that you were over stretched and tired. If you take the weight of the world on your shoulders it'll squeeze out all your juices.
Is this a necessary path for you to take?
Dna.
sidecross
11-19-2006, 07:11 AM
“[I have a fake real name almost as cool as artemis's]”
Let me restate that artemis sidecross is my real name.
I am a first born USA citizen; my parents both socialists and outlaws from their previous countries, Russia & Eastern Europe (either Poland or Germany depending on who was keeping score on the map’s boundary).
On my mother’s side, her father was on the run and shot in the back and left for dead. On my father’s side, they were socialists from St. Petersburg.
My mother’s father could not either read or write when he came to America and placed an “X” where he was sign his name. If you were to look at an “X” with the modern view of perspective it could be seen as a cross looked at from the side; hence a ‘sidecross’.
Both my mother and father family were given names when they came to America; they were Benjamin on my father’s side and Miller on my mother’s side. Both names were fictitious and were given to them at Ellis Island. Anyone familiar with American history at the beginning of the twentieth century would know any name sounding with a possibility of being Socialist or Communist would be discriminated.
I decided to change my name to artemis sidecross sometime ago. To have the name made ‘official’ would cost both money and time. I did not need to waste money so the government could decide who I am. In many ways it was an advantageous to be named in a way that the government would see me one way, and those who I cared about knew me by another.
If you were to look at an “X” with the modern view of perspective it could be seen as a cross looked at from the side; hence a ‘sidecross’.
I need ellucidation. I do not understand how an 'X' looked at from the side
would be seen as a 'cross'. If I turn the plane on which the 'X' resides
90 degrees so that I am facing the plane edgewise, then wouldn't I
see a vertical line?
:errf:
sidecross
11-19-2006, 10:22 AM
I need ellucidation. I do not understand how an 'X' looked at from the side
would be seen as a 'cross'. If I turn the plane on which the 'X' resides
90 degrees so that I am facing the plane edgewise, then wouldn't I
see a vertical line?
:errf:
If you rotate a "X" 45 degrees and stare at it, in time you might see a cross from the view of both perspective and three dimensions.
daniel
11-19-2006, 10:24 AM
nyk,
how do you want to be "used"?
nyk, how do you want to be "used"?
Creatively. I believe I have a lot to offer artistically, in the domain where
psychic and physical symbolisms intersect. I do not however want to
just fritter my works away in the open ocean.
I created the following picture yesterday to illustrate the relationship
of the limbic (cobra head/kundalini) stem to the torus (the magnetosphere)
of the human...
http://img45.imageshack.us/img45/1639/applecobranz0.jpg
In 1983 Al Huang liked my paintings enough to offer flying me out to
Hawaii to illustrate a taiji retreat.
daniel
11-19-2006, 02:57 PM
great picture!
i was hoping to have Evolver up and running by now as a media platform to push visionary ideas and visionary culture, but the gods had other ideas.
since there is no Evolver right now to make use of yours or anybody's talents, how would you ideally like to be put to use in this arena?
great picture!
i was hoping to have Evolver up and running by now as a media platform to push visionary ideas and visionary culture, but the gods had other ideas.
since there is no Evolver right now to make use of yours or anybody's talents, how would you ideally like to be put to use in this arena?
Daniel-
Most of my pictures are less literal than that one.
I think that it would be best for me to wait until Evolver is active. I am
assuming that Evolver is going to be a creative affair that will include
the internet, but not be limited to that medium. I do not know of any
venues (other than perhaps small local artistic affairs) that would be
suitable for my visionary ideas. My particular focus and challenge
right now is finding innovative approaches utilizing imagery and textual-
ization that flesh out holotropic principles in visceral ways; that pull
the reader/viewer inside the concepts. Being a good photographer
only helps a little with that task.
So, I don't know what to do next, besides my personal work on
that development. There is a question of resonance. That is,
whether or not you have caught the drift of the teasers I have
inserted into this forum, and feel any affinity with their intent.
It is probable that I have been so terse as to be of no significant
interest. Other than insufficient talent on my part, much of that
is due to the public (and disembodied) nature of this medium, and
my reluctance to abandon myself into it. And I'll tell you, the more
yin I become, the less inclined I am to even bother with any of
this. [As if my task wasn't hard enough already!]
-Nyk
You see...the torus is integral to everything we are.
Here is the earth - same thing.
http://img168.imageshack.us/img168/1998/magnetosphereca1.jpg
And yes, this is definitely about sex too.
daniel
11-20-2006, 09:33 AM
my main reading on the torus energy field around the body was from Joseph Chilton Pierce's sequel to "The Crack in the Cosmic Egg".
Can you be a bit more informative about your project? Perhaps start a new thread in cultural production?
my main reading on the torus energy field around the body was from Joseph Chilton Pierce's sequel to "The Crack in the Cosmic Egg".
Can you be a bit more informative about your project? Perhaps start a new thread in cultural production?
Actually, I found a lot of resonance with Pierce's "The Biology of
Transcendence: A Blueprint of the Human Spirit". Other than Bentov he
may be the only one I have read that gets into this subject in any
substantial way. This is surprising to me because I found the torus in my
own experience even before I cracked, and have had continuous
revelations about it ever since. It seems such an obvious intrinsic feature,
yet almost nobody seems to see it. The entire fieldis the body and looks
like that apple. What we call the body as humans is more like a shaft in
the middle of the whole configuration. Well, humans have a blind spot
with regards to negative space, so I guess it isn't all that surprising.
It's the same thing with the earth. The solid portion we are familiar
with is actually a small kernel within a much larger sphere. There is a
kind of chicken/egg situation with human comprehension of electro-
magnetic fields, and we tend to discard all of this as superfluous
emanations; effects. By the same token, the earth's body is actually
inside of the sun's body. Pioneer X has only in the last year or so
reached the boundary of the sun's outer skin.
When you see a film of an aikido master spinning and throwing people
all over the place you are (partially) seeing a torus in action. Without
the embodied understanding of the torus, aikido would never work. That
I know personally.
Which leads to the question, "so what"? This is where merging with
concepts comes into play. When you combine conscious understanding
of the torus with physical apprehension, then you have bridged the
gap (the duality) between mind and body. Then you become an
instrument of power; creativity and evolution. The torus is the primary
energetic structure within which all living bodies emerge and thrive.
Aikido is tacit proof of this. But I have also found that there are other
manifestations and applications of torus incorporation that step well
beyond the domain and specializations of martial arts...into the
environment, for example. This is what I am endeavoring to flesh out.
There is the challenge of bringing this out without tangling with
people's fossilized comprehensions concerning the nature of reality.
And this is also a work-in-progress that hinges on my own personal
actualization of the torus, rather than just theory.
nanouk
11-20-2006, 02:46 PM
You see...the torus is integral to everything we are.
Here is the earth - same thing.
http://img168.imageshack.us/img168/1998/magnetosphereca1.jpg
And yes, this is definitely about sex too.
Yes! :)
My stepdad, who is a tomato grower on a large scale in Finland(organic, of course, since 35 years), invented this ultrasound torus mimicking device for growers to assemble in their green houses or poly tunnels to copy the vibrations of bee's wings, in order to help pollinating the plants, slow start on orders, but the last few years, it is going like butter in sunshine, luckily for him, he is about to retire, with no heir to take of the greenhouses...
he explained the principle to me (bit like the plasma of Aurora Borealis, ultrasound and electromagnetics) about 12 years ago, and now it clicks, finally! :D
Love and Respect,
~n~
I have heard that natural sounds of high frequency are needed to help plant growth. Isn't it wonderful how nature fits together. Birdsong is not only beautiful but functional!
Dna.
Yes! :)
My stepdad, who is a tomato grower on a large scale in Finland(organic, of course, since 35 years), invented this ultrasound torus mimicking device for growers to assemble in their green houses or poly tunnels to copy the vibrations of bee's wings, in order to help pollinating the plants, slow start on orders, but the last few years, it is going like butter in sunshine, luckily for him, he is about to retire, with no heir to take of the greenhouses...
he explained the principle to me (bit like the plasma of Aurora Borealis, ultrasound and electromagnetics) about 12 years ago, and now it clicks, finally! :D
Love and Respect,
~n~
I had a mildly disturbing polyamory dream last night. Just tell me that
your are not tall with red hair and freckles. :errf:
I have heard that natural sounds of high frequency are needed to help plant growth. Isn't it wonderful how nature fits together. Birdsong is not only beautiful but functional!
Dna.
Birds are our own objectified thoughts dancing in the wind and trees.
Someone please tell sidecross that it ain't all bad.
nanouk
11-20-2006, 08:28 PM
I had a mildly disturbing polyamory dream last night. Just tell me that
your are not tall with red hair and freckles. :errf:
Dont forget the plaids!
I'll leave you with that image etched onto your retina... :razz:
~n~
Daniel wrote,
Thom wrote, "I was underwhelmed by much of the book..."
NYK wrote, "And I think this 2012 book needs to be recalled, like any other
defective product."
Just want to say, thanks, guys. I spent five underpaid years and put my heart on the line to write this, plus created this free space for you to express whatever you want. I am highly impressed with your spiritual evolution, as well as your compassion, not to mention your insights. Keep up the great work.
Just a quick response to that - fair enough Daniel. Much of what went into the book I was already familiar with, form your posts on this board - and much of my reading in recent years has been guided by what I have learned from this board. So I do apologise for an ill-tempered comment. I thought the synthesis of various philosophical systems was excellent, and your summary of Gebser one of the best I've read. I do think the book is one of the most important to appear in recent years, and have reccomended it to friends.
Just a quick response to that - fair enough Daniel. Much of what went into the book I was already familiar with, form your posts on this board - and much of my reading in recent years has been guided by what I have learned from this board. So I do apologise for an ill-tempered comment. I thought the synthesis of various philosophical systems was excellent, and your summary of Gebser one of the best I've read. I do think the book is one of the most important to appear in recent years, and have reccomended it to friends.
I owe Daniel an apology too.
I am sorry Daniel. I was projecting my own frustrations on you for a spell.
magicbean
11-21-2006, 11:05 AM
I feel so far behind on this thread, but I'm dealing with a emergency pet problem that is breaking my heart. Everybody pity me! Slowly catching up...
magicbean,
However, I do believe that there is a major cultural problem in that other options are not equally accessible, and have a lot of social opprobrium against them. As I write in 2012, our legal system, our societal structures, our media, and our architecture all act in support of a more or less conscripted form of monogamy, without other options being seriously considered and honored. There appears to be a basic assumption that if you don't accept monogamy as the best option, you are therefore utterly sexually depraved, or somehow morally beneath those who find monogamy to their taste.
That is true, and I can see how multi-partner households could use a 1970s/80s gay revolution style outing of themselves. It's a very complicated thing to deal with, ESPECIALLY when it comes to legal responsibility for children, and given how much trouble we're having getting gay marriage accepted, multi-partner households are facing an overwhelming shift.
Perhaps it's a reaction against the cultural rejection, but most (though certainly not all) of the multi-partner people that I know do secretly consider themselves better and wiser than the monos. Anecdata, for sure, but it's not like there are studies out there asking the question. It's like lesbians thinking they're better than men, or trannys thinking they're more wisely gendered than any of us.
I do feel that if other relationship options become socially accepted, then new models will emerge, and some proportion of the population (it could be 5%, it could be 95%) will find themselves shifting away from monogamy into alternative models. But those models would have to be well articulated and lived into by a small group of trailblazers before becoming generally accepted. As a matter of fact, among communities that I travel in, especially on the West Coast, I believe this is already happening, and from what I have experienced, it is working. I am seeing and experiencing in my own life tremendous progress going on right now, above all in the ability of the sexes to communicate with each other. Something new is being born -- I feel it and honor it.
Well, there are trailblazers out there already. Many. At least where I am. It's not really a new thing, poly-spouse or partner is as old as anything else, and is as full of problems, ways to err, and pitfalls as mono relationships. Maybe more since there aren't well-remembered models.
magicbean
11-21-2006, 11:20 AM
When you accept unhappy situations with another, you become an enabler of your own misery and the other person's unhappiness as well. I think it is all dependent on your frequency of consciousness. You can't necessarily change others, but when you change your own mind, you attract different situations, and repel ones that repeat patterns from the past.
I don't disagree with Goenka. I utterly accept the present reality and my present state of being, but I also accept as part of that acceptance my dedication to transforming myself and my reality into something that exceeds even my imagination of what this world could be.
Accepting unhappy situations isn't enabling your own misery at all. Sometimes the situation is just unhappy and you have to deal; it's practical. Denial of what's true is what causes misery, not acceptance that the truth is not what you want. For example: I can't change the fact that it's miserable that my pet is dying. It's true. And I can't change the fact that's is a huge burden to drop everything and take care of the pet. I would be much happier in the moment if I weren't spending all my savings for a trip to Peru. But sometimes it's necessary to accept unhappiness, it's a reality, as much as happiness is.
Gita Mehta wrote elegantly in "Karma Cola" about a apocryphal guru who told his students to Be Here Now, and they said "Yeah man, we get it, we're here, it's cool, we're having fun", and the Guru replied that the students didn't really get it, because to be here now fully is to "be denied hope and prohibited from regret". It's not about pleasure.
Now I certainly don't live that way, I am the Eternal Optimist and goodness knows I do plenty of craving especially of sweets. But the tale illustrates that there's a difference between the wisdom of the body and learning by what feels good versus chasing pleasure to satisfy a craving.
Yes, but perhaps it was a 'craving' that brought us into this maya
in the first place. And perhaps it is our natural cravings that move
us along within this adventure, they way a dog follows its nose.
Perhaps this is all really a matter of personal development, of
refining our instincts.
What is wrong with 'pleasure', or the pursuit of it, anyway? We are
not other than Self in the first place. There is something wrong with
the perspective of these gurus.
It's ALL you.
sidecross
11-21-2006, 11:51 AM
When you accept unhappy situations with another, you become an enabler of your own misery and the other person's unhappiness as well. I think it is all dependent on your frequency of consciousness. You can't necessarily change others, but when you change your own mind, you attract different situations, and repel ones that repeat patterns from the past.
I don't disagree with Goenka. I utterly accept the present reality and my present state of being, but I also accept as part of that acceptance my dedication to transforming myself and my reality into something that exceeds even my imagination of what this world could be.
Long term relationships with another human being will include misery; if misery is a sign to disband a relationship, than you need not unpack your suitcase.
A marriage or partnership is not for the weak of heart. There is a great scene from the movie The General with Buster Keaton where on the locomotive he is ready to strangle the heroine; his hand wrapped around her neck, he suddenly stops and givers her a kiss instead.
A long term partnership is never easy; and each person must be willing to put 50% in making it work. Someone even willing to put up an extra 5% when their partner can only put in 45% is on dangerous ground and the relationship is bound to fail.
I have a successful 42 year relationship and we can exchange a glance and paragraphs are exchanged.
Sometimes what might appear as ‘misery’ is just a rough edge that needs the abrasion of a file in the form of time to smooth it out. Then again some misery is real and can be self destructive.
Sometimes the best shaman lies deep in your heart, and only you can hear their call.
magicbean
11-21-2006, 11:51 AM
yet again, EW, you make-a me smile. There's a great deal to chew on in your story, I am sometimes a slow digester of thoughts, and will slowly post more in response over time....so for now:
Can a relationship not be sexualized? I'm not sure what you mean when you say "sexualized"... if you mean, acting from a place of love, and not of lust, then absolutely YES! And it does take maturity and awareness... yeah, some people take longer than others. Lust is what I assume you mean when you say "cravings and aversions."
Yes, that's exactly what I mean...
It's hard being put through so much by someone you love. I think maybe that's what you mean, magicbean, when you talk about people seeing it through for the long road? People will take each other on big, big changes.
That is what I'm thinking of. Sticking with someone is like sticking with your body for life. It's yours, it's going to change on its own, and you have to be there with it through the changes, enjoy them or not! There's a great deal of joy in that realization, I think.
Yin, inifinite space, true openness being very scary, yes to all.
Santo Daime, I have never felt that call to that particular group, but I have many friends who have.
If the culture’s perspective on sex wasn’t so strangely bipolar, perhaps drugs wouldn’t make men go quite so hypersexual. I really think it’s all part of a process though.
That's a very thoughtful and interesting perspective, and will feed me well for some time.
Thanks for your thoughts, EW. I'm going to go off and chew a little more.
magicbean
11-21-2006, 12:14 PM
Yes, but perhaps it was a 'craving' that brought us into this maya
in the first place. And perhaps it is our natural cravings that move
us along within this adventure, they way a dog follows its nose.
Perhaps this is all really a matter of personal development, of
refining our instincts.
What is wrong with 'pleasure', or the pursuit of it, anyway? We are
not other than Self in the first place. There is something wrong with
the perspective of these gurus.
It's ALL you.
I love your doubt!
Try this example to see what I'm getting at: how would you describe the difference between eating reasonably and demanding candy bars all the time because you like them instinctively?
And I think you're right, at the end of the cosmos, it's all you, but when you really dig deeply into that the way I think Eaglewing expressed above, realizing that can be both difficult and scary. Truly.
I love your doubt!
Try this example to see what I'm getting at: how would you describe the difference between eating reasonably and demanding candy bars all the time because you like them instinctively?
And I think you're right, at the end of the cosmos, it's all you, but when you really dig deeply into that the way I think Eaglewing expressed above, realizing that can be both difficult and scary. Truly.
I believe this is an issue of mobility of consciousness. There is conscious-
ness which fixates, and there is consciousness which flows. We need both
to function. When both are in balance, one zeroes in on something,
moves into it and experiences it fully, then moves right on thru and
along. That is a fluidic kind consciousness, one that is innate until
school gets a hold of us and compresses us into little yang cubes.
And when this liquid being is fully activated, then everything is a
candy bar, and a certain equanimity or temperance naturally follows.
A good example is sexuality. When a being lives in a natural state
of ecstacy, then there is really no inclination to rut - in conventional
terms - anymore. That would be like walking into a wall.
As for digging deeply. Yes, it does initially seem both difficult and
scarey. And the reason it does is because we hold to a certain sexual
identity, and we keep holding to it long past the point that we know
we really should let go of it. There comes a point however when you
really do - at least for a moment - relinquish your fixation and the
aspects of yourself that you have held apart objectively with persist-
ence (or as someone say, you have buried) all come piling in. You then
find that you are effectually an unknown identity with two genders
(and perhaps a host of personalities) all standing in one spot in the
same space. And you also find that it isn't so bad afterall. It was
when you were stretched thin and fragmented that it wasn't so good.
Now you are like someone who only had one eye before and suddenly
have two, and stereoscopic vision.
magicbean
11-21-2006, 01:14 PM
\
And when this liquid being is fully activated, then everything is a
candy bar
Everything? E-v-e-r-y-t-h-i-n-g? How about a hot poker up the ******, cause it might be someone's truest, happiest fantasy? Sound like a candy bar? If you can make your consciousness that mobile, I'll eat my pants. Or something better.
I just don't buy it that what we're cosmically shooting for is one long mdma trip, because it's expecting something to be "forever" - happiness. And nothing is forever. Not pleasure, nor pain, nothing, so we're best off accepting that sometimes things are painful and not what we want. Ecstasy isn't the natural state of consciousness. Change is.
That's not to say that state of mind isn't critical. Certainly your attitude affects how you handle things and what you notice and perceive as important. But it doesn't change that suffering exists.
Everything? E-v-e-r-y-t-h-i-n-g? How about a hot poker up the ******, cause it might be someone's truest, happiest fantasy? Sound like a candy bar? If you can make your consciousness that mobile, I'll eat my pants. Or something better.
I just don't buy it that what we're cosmically shooting for is one long mdma trip, because it's expecting something to be "forever" - happiness. And nothing is forever. Not pleasure, nor pain, nothing, so we're best off accepting that sometimes things are painful and not what we want. Ecstasy isn't the natural state of consciousness. Change is.
That's not to say that state of mind isn't critical. Certainly your attitude affects how you handle things and what you notice and perceive as important. But it doesn't change that suffering exists.
You mistake 'ecstasy' for positive polarity. Ecstasy is unification. It is
pleasure and it is pain and it is neither. And I never said it is easy.
Change is mobility of consciousness (and life). But what is riding the
changes?
Every pleasure and every pain is self-created. They may seem to
be triggered by external stimulus or events, but the entire experience
is internal....a mix of perceptions with memories and interpretations.
What we once thought was 'pleasure' and exciting and great, we may
one day discover was pure pain and torture. That is a really interesting
discovery in itself.
But aside from all of that is the key ingredient which tends to get
overlooked in all of the ruminations. Concsiousness - our own - is
behind it all. We make our reality. We make the pain and we make
the pleasure.
Ecstasy means displacement and trance. We are dislodged from
the fossilized egoic structure that we have happlessly solidified;
we are outside it rather than inside it. Or rather we have enwombed
it within our greater being.
nanouk
11-21-2006, 05:00 PM
Ecstasy means displacement and trance. We are dislodged from
the fossilized egoic structure that we have happlessly solidified;
we are outside it rather than inside it. Or rather we have enwombed
it within our greater being.
Willoweyes, i have not gone through hundreds, but a few dozen of my Mothers suicide attempts, or threats, heck, i was her carer from birth! I cannot even imagine how it is, but i did have a naughty feeling once, to send her the Nike logo simply saying: "Just Do It!"
I am pretty sure you were too?
I copped out, i called the NSPCC, or BRIS, or whatever the helpline/charity was called in the US, when i was 9, i was exhausted, after having been the Sister and carer of 3, carer of Mum, molested by Stepdad no 2(not the Horticulturist, mind), and his drunken friends...etc.
...the drop over the rim was when a prized pedigree puppy died by getting hit by a car on the gravel road, because my 3-yearold brother left the gate open to wave me off to school, and i got the blame(nor should he!). The puppy died in my arms, my tears streaming down...
I had a nervous breakdown, it was the 3rd of May 1979, less than a month before my 9th birthday...i got myself fostered that day, i missed my siblings terribly, and worried about them even more...
Mind you, before then i had run away at least 6 times, always to a farm with horses, or i rang my Grand Parents, and stayed with them forawhile. My first horse was a donkey named "Relischka", i was 3 when i looked after her...
My problem is, i don't take sh-t. I took too much of that, and ate too much dog food in my infancy to survive to conform to being just that...
So please Daniel, do not think that this forum is a waste of your name and web space, listen to the voices here, read THIS thread from the start...and SMILE. you have accomplished what no Western-, or what i call a Neo-Shaman could ever dream of in a close circle...
...i know you do not earn from these sessions, but hey, neither do we! Have you ever heard of an intimate circle of psychotherapists in practise that are as disclosed and honest as we are? ;)
Love and Respect,
~N~
Eagle Wing
11-21-2006, 10:42 PM
Sidecross wrote,
"A marriage or partnership is not for the weak of heart."
Nyk wrote,
"There comes a point however when you
really do - at least for a moment - relinquish your fixation and the
aspects of yourself that you have held apart objectively with persist-
ence (or as someone say, you have buried) all come piling in. You then
find that you are effectually an unknown identity with two genders
(and perhaps a host of personalities) all standing in one spot in the
same space. And you also find that it isn't so bad afterall. It was
when you were stretched thin and fragmented that it wasn't so good.
Now you are like someone who only had one eye before and suddenly
have two, and stereoscopic vision."
Magicbean wrote,
"And nothing is forever. Not pleasure, nor pain, nothing, so we're best off accepting that sometimes things are painful and not what we want. Ecstasy isn't the natural state of consciousness. Change is."
I would just like to say: I agree.
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