Re connection

Following the worst of the pandemic things haven’t changed as much as I anticipated. Not, for me, because of the pandemic itself. My shift and personal growth has been going on for much longer and covid is still around, throwing up new variants, we’re just not hearing nearly as much about it.

Right now I’m at home having cancelled a bunch of things because I’m symptomatic. There’s a new variant and for the past year or so they don’t show up positive in the tests, so what do you do? I’m going to err on the side of caution. It’s probably only a cold for me, but I wouldn’t want it to turn out to be something worse for someone who’s immune compromised for whatever reason.

This winter will be one of masks and hand sanitizer, I think.

The real changes I’m seeing more broadly are a bit of a pause from the former rat race. People seem to be looking for more wholesome entertainment and seeking some kind of reconnection with friends and community, even if they’re still isolated. In some circles stats are going around saying that many of us have very few friends these days. It’s like a kind of collective trauma response, but we’re not wanting to go back to the pre trauma way of life this time. We want more and better.

Since I think it’s high time the Dickensian model of concrete jungle and grind was overhauled, I’m very much here for it. It’s getting weird, so surf that tsunami.

I think we’re in for some more changes, but I see them leading to more of people’s needs being met. Years ago zoos were dreadful concrete affairs with animals pacing back and forth behind metal bars. They’ve changed enormously now. In some zoos it’s more like the viewing public are in the cage amongst animals roaming in a pretty natural habitat.

Many people are seeking a habitat that’s more natural for the human ape. With the research, technology and awareness we have now, I think that’s where we’re headed and the real change arising out of the pandemic years will be the persistent desire for something better.

Needs must

Daily writing prompt

How would you improve your community?

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How would I improve my community? By meeting people’s basic needs. Air, water, sleep, food, shelter, connection and self expression.

It would start with secure housing. Shelter is a pretty basic need and humanity had that sorted in the mesolithic, so this trickle down approach that allows vulture hedge funds to prey on a basic need seems pretty barbaric IMHO. The homes and Commons would have enough space for a shed and a bit of a garden. Given the number of people who love growing gardens and sharing home grown veggies that would go a long way to improving our food security. Then there’s the hobbies and handcrafts that people enjoy, everything from sewing and macrame to woodwork and mechanics. People are naturally creative and given the opportunity will generally seek out something satisfying to do with their time. Less driving, if you’re working from home or on the Commons, means cleaner air and water.

Aside from that, there’s not a lot to tweak. I live in an area which is quite diverse. Walk down Barkley Street and it’s little India. My favourite Bharat spice shop is there and Krishna’s restaurant. Further down is Little Saigon and near the station a block called Little Africa which has the flags of all the nations represented there hanging outside cafes, restaurants and stores. Some other blocks are home to earlier waves of folks from Europe and the Levant, usually surrounded by fruit trees. They take their gardening seriously and I love it. You can walk around for an afternoon and basically do a world tour. I enjoy being here for the food and colour and life. It feels more like they’re improving me.

Easter, eh?

Easter, a time of remembrance or celebration, or a good excuse for a few days off and go bush before the real winter sets in.

TL;DR Who knows? You do you. Go in peace.

My past is a bit of a mixture of different Christian traditions with some Hinduism and Buddhism tacked on. Early years in Catholic schools featured a mostly naked figure bleeding on a cross. Following school the Pentecostal/Fundamentalist was adamant that it was much more important that the cross was empty, though somehow the suffering of life was still a necessary test. Later, more progressive and better educated Professors wondered if it was necessary to dwell on that, or was the vibe of the parables and miracles enough to live by, to live a good life? What the hell is a “good” life anyway? By whose measure?

Neil the Fundie had a thing about Holiness. That although every human was born with a sin nature, once that was atoned for at the cross you were then free to live in grace. You were Holy, though you still had to live by the Old Testament because that was what pleased God. I later met the guy who wrote the book about Holiness, a wonderfully gentle Mennonite who asked, “whom would Jesus bomb?” Holiness still has a bit of a ring of Sainthood about it, to my mind. A mythical standard to set for mere mortals.

At that point, in about 2008, I realised that having no actual connection to Judaism I was not really obliged to stick with Hebrews’ God 2.0. The traditional origins had been misappropriated from the Jews and turned by the Roman war machine into the Holy Roman Empire, then by infighting and rebellions into the many and varied sects we have today. My ancestry is Celtic, Breton and Nordic, which traditions may be somewhat reconstructed from Welsh and Irish folk tales, and the Eddas. What’s there is rather bloodthirsty, hence so much eclectic New Age Paganism or Heathenism has evolved. Less strangling of people in bogs and more acknowledgment of the seasons. That’s certainly how it’s gone for me. I’m too individualistic even to adhere to Wicca, though I find that appealing.

I am still deciding what to do about that Avatar. I did my share of praying, so is there any relationship there? In a podcast recently someone was saying that the Ancient Egyptians considered that God to be a trickster, hence mention of donkeys in some places. Like Balaam’s donkey in Numbers 22. According to Alan Watts, a trickster God is inclined to have a bit of a laugh at you, when you’re taking yourself too seriously. That’s something I consider, as I was influenced by the whole goodness and righteousness thing to take myself Way Too Seriously. In the end, no more a Saint than anyone else. Watts is likewise a fan of the individual experience. No more point judging someone else by your understanding than there is measuring yourself by theirs.

Sainthood, like Holiness, is a curious thing. Perfect people deliberately depicted as a cut above mere mortals like the rest of us, who have to keep just slogging along. In the context of the religion of the Industrial Revolution that was useful to keep people from getting ideas above their station. It still gives us a lot of trouble, as we see in the recent excoriation of Jonathan Van Ness for having dared to suggest that we could be a bit nicer, while not being perfect themself.

But what if you take the idea of the sin nature as a handy fiction designed to keep people shadow boxing? If you grow up thinking that you’re innately bad or even evil, that someone had to be brutally tortured to death to make up for you even existing, that’s a hefty mindfuck. Many other traditions avoid anything remotely like that, some even say the opposite. That you’re innately good. That you have an inner Buddha, even, whom you should nurture and protect. After baptism a person was supposed to have that as a gift of the Holy Spirit anyway, so the question of dogma gets even more murky.

The contemporary Heathen might go a little more with ideas that have arisen from scientific investigation. Humans are a species of great ape. We’ve evolved and changed over a million years or so and now we’re dealing with the effects of our own cleverness, having invented machinery and technology, not to mention the press. Our spirituality is still catching up with all this. We’re gradually getting past the dualism of spirit versus the material world. Rupert Sheldrake’s concept of the morphic field is gaining some traction.

Even staunch atheists like Sam Harris and Daniel Dennett have conceded that consciousness is non-local. This might not immediately translate into the existence of a soul, especially for those chilling with atheism or agnosticism in the wake of deprogramming from religion. The idea that consciousness is not something that’s all purely in your head does not necessarily lead to embracing the existence of Avatars, Saints, Angels, Ancestors or Fey.

Rather than immediately jumping back into the idea of a soul or the compulsion to comply with dictates of a Deity, it can be enough to know that you can use tools like meditation and Internal Family Systems to tune in to something within yourself that is calmer and wiser than your ego, or some other person’s ego.

Should you take that leap there’s numerous Avatars/Deities out there. If you want to affiliate with one or more of them, best it’s about affection rather than a desire to avoid punishment. In my experience, making a whole lot of effort fawning to the pastor and his literal interpretations of ancient texts, in an effort to avoid Hell, can land you in your own little hell. It’s not something I recommend. Shouldn’t a relationship be about mutual enjoyment? If you’re living in constant fear of reprisals by someone much more powerful than you, it’s worth reassessing the situation.

There’s plenty of scope to play with props like candles and incense and crystals and plant medicines, should that float your boat. There’s also a lot of terrain that is purely psychonaut. For all we know about outer space, we know bugger all about how our own heads really work. Autism, for example, is still being classified as divergent. Divergent from what, when all of neurology is so organic and individual? Is it merely those of us who don’t do so well in cubicle farms? I suspect that’s many more of us than only those classified as Autists. As if all of humanity were at once similar yet individual and we don’t really know why or how.

So, Easter. We’re surrounded by images of eggs, borrowed from ancient Spring rites of Ostara; and the the open tomb, with the suffering of the cross freshly in mind. At this time of changing energies and daily new discoveries, what tomb are we emerging from? Sin and death? Or a tradition exploiting the idea of sinfulness? If you’re a great ape you’re wired to function in a monkeysphere, at the very least. That’s about two hundred other people around you whose personalities and stories you can keep up with. Ideally, you interface with them to a somewhat functional degree and everyone’s needs get met. You can rely on that wiring alone to direct you to not be an ass because meeting needs is ultimately mutual, though perhaps complicated by systems of artificial scarcity. What if you’re not innately anything in particular, except an ape with an ego (individual consciousness), who has access to enough wisdom to lead you out of a treadmill of indoctrination and suffering?

No robes necessary. No aiming for Holiness or Sainthood. No high bar of enlightenment. Just you, incarnate in a material world, experiencing life. Perhaps getting to know ways to make it better, now that you know you’re working with something that can be tweaked.

I feel like I’m about to ask for some kind of New Year’s resolution here, but that’s too big an ask. It’s enough just to take a light breath and appreciate something good right now. Perhaps hope that post pandemic things are changing and you’ll be okay. Myself I’m having a lovely time with the cats and the garden, and dwelling on the vibe, because that’s where I’m at. I hope this weekend, whatever your beliefs, is just as peaceful and playful for you. Blessed be.

Shelter, 1

This is some fiction from a future I’ve been sandboxing for a wee while. It’s not thoroughly edited, I just enjoy it. Thought you might like a look.

***

Crystal huffed impatiently as the phone connected. “Hello?”

“Hey love, where are you?”

“I’m on a low flying bus headed…” She looked around, “some place. Where are you?”

“Me and the kids are fine, there’s a shelter just up the road. Look, I’m really sorry I didn’t wait…”

“Yeah you will be, Mister. What the actual fuck!”

“There was a guy with a gun.”

“A gun. In Victoria.”

“Look he was Army or something. He had a fucking gun. He was all like ‘Get in the car and GTFO!’ And I’m like ‘but my wife, she’s getting the kid’s bag.’ And he’s all ‘Your wife will be evac’d too, you can meet her at the shelter. Get in the fucking car mate.'”

Crystal paused. “So where are you?”

The eldest son, Martin, answered, “we’re going through Baddaginnie.”

Crystal muttered under her breath. I’ll give you bad agony. “Where are you going?”

“South West-ish. It’s about an hour away. We’ll meet you there. Where are you?”

“We’re flying over a paddock. It’s very low, I don’t even think this is legal.”

“Yeah Mum, it’s an evacuation. They called in everything. Are you okay? Did you get the bag?” The line hissed with static.

“Yes Martin, I got your controller. I’m fine. Is your sister okay? What town are you going to? Hello? Hello!”

Crystal stared at the phone. Of course there was no signal. Perfect. She sighed heavily and stared out the window at blackened countryside. Overhead half of a triangular wing stretched out, translucent in the smoke haze. The craft suspended beneath it was something of a cross between a hang glider and a party bus, gliding low over vast, empty paddocks, following fence lines around the trees clustered along fractal branches of creeks and eroded gullies.

“Listen up folks.” A guy in a khaki shirt with frazzled hair and a radio on his shoulder stood up at the front of the bus. Fifty heads turned toward him. “We’re being diverted.” This was met by a chorus of groans and frustrated questions. “Okay, okay, settle down. A storm system has dumped a shit tonne of rain around Euroa and Mansfield. They reckon the Broken river’s going to flood. Shep’s underwater, so yeah. We’re being diverted a bit North East.”

A silver haired woman in a red checked shirt laughed. “Fleeing from a fire into a flood. Meanwhile, in Australia.” The passengers around her grinned.

“What about the shelter? We were supposed to meet family members.”

“Yeah, nah, that’s not happening. They’ll be sent further West, probably Violet Town. That shouldn’t be underwater any time soon.”

“Why is there no signal?”

“Crown fires have taken out the mobile phone towers. If you have satellite, use it.”

“Jesus, mate. What the fuck is going on?” A guy in a sleeveless jeans jacket wondered.

Radio guy rubbed his hair. “The tail end of that big storm system up in New South has dumped about 160mm into the Murray-Darling and it’s merging with another cold front that threw up over the bite, but it’s not moving fast enough to extinguish the fires. So we’re fucked, okay? Let’s just enjoy a free scenic flight and we’re all still alive, how about that?”

Crystal looked around at the other passengers. The woman in the red shirt met her eye. “Sharon, love, how are you going?” Crystal shook herself and reached out to shake the woman’s hand across the aisle.

“I’ll be fine. My idiot husband has taken the kids in the car and they were headed to some other small town or something.”

Sharon smiled. “Yeah, they’ll do that. Have you got all your gear?”

“Oh shit.” Crystal’s eyes went wide. “It was all in the car. I have a bag of my son’s nintendo things.”

Sharon laughed. “He’ll be furious.” Crystal found herself laughing along, picturing Martin having to walk around without a game or mobile phone signal.

“There’ll be an op shop where ever we wind up. You’ll be right.”

“I don’t know why he didn’t just wait. I was all of thirty feet away.” Crystal wiped at her face.

“It gets pretty crazy when it’s gusting like this. That storm’s a real beaut and it’s whipping up those fires. Best that you’re all safe. We’ll have days to find everyone once we’re past the worst of it.”

The guy up front who was giving the orders was on his radio again, frowning. “This doesn’t look good,” Sharon opined. “Here we fucking go.”

Radio guy was talking to the pilot. “They’re bumping us again. How long can we stay up here?”

“Mate, I can keep us going in circles all day if you like, so long as we stay over the paddocks. This bloody thing runs on fumes.”

“Good to know. Alright folks, listen up. That storm is taking its sweet time and the fires in the lee of the ranges are gusting all over the place, so we’re getting the hell out of Dodge. There’s a place up North East that hasn’t been hit. We’ll organise getting you back to your families from there.” He didn’t ask for questions.

“What, Winton?”

“No, not bloody Winton. It’s fucked too. Somewhere bush.”

“Jesus, that’ll be those bloody hippies.” Sharon muttered. “Is it the hippies?”

“Fucked if I know. It’s not on fire or under water. Will that do, your majesty?”

The passengers laughed, because what else could you do. Someone was passing around a tablet with a meme on it. A photo of a “Lost” sign taped to a power pole that was a metre deep in flood water. It was a picture of a pet goldfish.

***

Part two will show up from here.

Slow

Daily writing prompt

What are your morning rituals? What does the first hour of your day look like?

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What does my morning look like? Slow.

Playing with whichever of the cats comes to wake me up, these days its usually Edgar, the kitten. Make the bed, drink some water, walk around the house opening blinds and speaking blessing to everything. “Lovely cats! What beautiful plants. What a good day it is.” Then sit down to meditate.

I aim to be writing by nine, but that’s kinda hit and miss while I’m still shuffling my routine. So long as it feels good, everything else can flow around that. I am blessed and I deeply appreciate it.

A moment of synchrony

Had the most delightful little moment of synchrony this week.

Returning from an investigatory shopping trip, where you look rather than spend, I asked my friend to make a left turn at the lights. It’s become customary for us to wander around like this on the odd weekday afternoon. We find ourselves in all sorts of nice places, Gisborne and Woodend being favourites. This particular road took us through St. Albans, which is somewhere I have not spent much time. It’s an old western suburb of Melbourne that had something of a bad rep back in the day and is now being gentrified around the edges.

The road went past an arcane old shopping strip, including a spice and dry goods shop that looks mysteriously attractive. Stopped at the lights there, a guy came around with a squeegee. My friend was aghast.

“Sorry mate, I don’t have any change.” She’s looking around the dash for a coin.

“Nah, it’s okay. I’ll do you a freebie. How’s your day going?” He says as he washes the dust off the windscreen. It was a lovely scene. Golden afternoon light, the gum trees on the verges and the sun was not too hot, for the first time in a while. This guy being nice because it was just a nice day.

Then my intuition piqued and I remembered a gold coin in my purse. A couple of days earlier another friend had found it on the ground in a carpark. She remarked on how lucky that was. We’re pretty lucky these days. She gave me the coin and as I accepted, I felt a kind of intuitive “pin this,” feeling. It was for something specific.

I pulled the coin out triumphantly and handed it to the guy, then told my driver where it had come from. “It’s a moment of synchrony. We are all the cooperative components in this little moment.”

Later I was telling the story to the friend who had found the coin. The four cooperative components.

“Five, if you count the person who dropped it.”

Five, indeed. A pentagram. A synchronous economic act.

As I’m adding the Laxmi mantra to my morning playlist and reworking my beliefs about money and abundance, little moments like this are like help from the Universe to continue on a positive track.

On Thursday I lit a red candle and very lightly inscribed thurisaz on it, as that rune can be kinda punchy, but it was Thor’s day, so why not? The energy this time feels more like editing, rather than a hefty confrontation of maladjustment mirrored around me. There’s a deeper magic at play here. Another winding path in the forest. A shiver of anticipation.

Faith fully

It’s a bit strange looking back through the things I was writing about years ago. Algorithms were rumour and speculation back then. Now we take it as read that social media is secretly pushing our buttons just as badly as religion, advertising and mainstream media ever did. These days I sometimes watch channeled material. I’m open to that because my experience with Tarot and the cosmic giggle has shown me that there is certainly an Other to dance with.

There’s so many people talking about spirituality now compared to a decade or three ago. You can find channeled sessions from all over the world. We have plenty of encouragement to slow down and tune in to the inner being and higher mind, allowing our moves be inspired by anticipation rather than anxiety. I’ve discovered that fear is a good indicator that I’m not following an optimal trajectory. When you’re doing your thing there’s no anxious discomfort in your chest or gut. It’s easy to get in the flow and synchrony will just line things up for you. Interference becomes less dealing with catastrophes and more about curating, to enjoy life as it should be when you’re not in survival mode. When I’m feeling fear it’s likely the discovery of an old program or belief that needs addressing and the Universe has provided an opportunity to do that.

Amidst the podcasts about growth and formerly occult knowledge, there’s quite a few psychics banging on about wars and end times and oh my God the sky is falling! I suspect a lot of this has to do with click baiting algorithms encouraging hosts to promote that, with their chilling little intro’s, to increase traffic. This is Youtube being a dick and people who have to pay the bills are being dragged along with it, I guess. Horror as entertainment. The gritty fantasy dystopia. Again.

What is this noise? Surely we’ve learnt from the last seventy years that a life of homelessness under dark bridges at 3am in the rain is better left in the fantasies of Philip K. Dick and William Gibson? Even in the recent Star Trek series there’s been this intimation that humanity has to go through some kind of massive, world destroying cataclysm before we evolve. I hate to break it to you, but we’ve done that already. All the “when everyone is saying ‘peace, peace’ there’ll be another, bigger war,” thing from the Revelation was likely about world wars one and two. After WW1 people saw how horrible it was to use industrial machinery in warfare and they said “never again.” Then someone didn’t take care of Germany and next thing you know, WW2. As if that wasn’t enough, there was Korea and Vietnam and Iraq and Afghanistan because war turned out to be good for business.

I get why people are saying these things. There’s a number of psychics talking about a coming war, and especially in the United States that kind of thing is fervidly promoted by religious leaders and news feeds. It’s easy to fall into buying that con if you’re surrounded by it because they make it seem pretty fucking real. There’s a powerful program in the meta-narrative that comes from the kind of religious teaching that went with the industrial revolution. Work to show yourself approved. Know your place. Life is suffering. Trust God and wait for your reward at the end of your life. On Earth the end days will be wars and rumours of wars and bloodshed and anyone who says different is Jezebel. Fear persecution. Fear Others. Toe the line to the religious and political dogma or you’re going to Hell.

Talk of warfare does one thing. Keep people living in fear. It’s the manufacture of consent to sustain that dogma and the stock prices of defence industries. Don’t buy it. It is as much a con as any of those online sales on Insta. Especially coming from the same beast that burned witches and led us into Iraq to find WMDs.

Psychics are not immune to having to do a bit of their own shadow work and are as likely to be under the influence of those scripts as any of us. If you are doing said shadow work, discovering the inner family systems or dealing with what’s driving your addiction, you’re face to face with fear and unworthiness on a daily basis. It will be reflected everywhere because it’s come from pretty much everywhere. That’s why it was termed the meta narrative. It’s being emphasised because we need to deal with it internally and externally so that coming generations won’t grow up programmed with it.

Those of us incarnate right now are here to make this change. Please don’t get caught in thinking that those prophesies are the be all and end all of humanity’s future because it’s only one possible future. This is a time of change. Those are the beliefs that we’re here to be changing.

Personally I avoid anything fear based. I’ve found it to be seriously unhelpful. As when riding a bike, you want to look not at the obstacle you’re trying to avoid, but on the path you want to take. Sometimes our most valiant act of rebellion is to tune into some wholesome escapism. If that’s all you have the energy and bravery for today, I applaud you. Good on you. If you don’t, well, still, good on you for surviving.

When I was a kid the future was hopeful. Automation would mean that we all had better standards of living and more leisure time. As Buckminster Fuller famously put it, you could go back to doing what you were passionate about before you had to grind. We got a little bit sidetracked with Dick’s dystopias for a bit and that only served to show us the power of self fulfilling prophecy when we allow ourselves to believe in it.

We are all consciousnesses emergent from Source. We are all here to enjoy being able to experience a material incarnation. To taste chai. To smell kittens’ feet. To hear bird song and music, and laugh with friends. Humans are an ape species; we’ve been around for something like a million years and we’re wired for survival, adaptation and loving connection.

Post pandemic everyone’s looking for wholesome. This is a period of evolution when humanity begins nurturing ourselves and the Earth. Those of you who’ve been through the shift from life in survival mode to living more in the flow will recognise the turmoil people are experiencing. Your enjoyment of life really is a very powerful act of rebellion right now.

In flux

It’s all in flux right now.

Such big changes, from what was happening three years ago. From what I was writing nine years ago.

What is reasonably within my sphere of responsibility and what is my capacity? I observe that when I feel good I function better and everyone around me benefits from that.

It’s alright to start from where I am, because where else am I going to be? Imagining the more beautiful world our hearts know is possible, is wonderful. I can’t immediately create it, but I can feel what it will feel like to be living in that world and following that feeling is what’s helping me get there. I have enough validation of my suffering, I can learn to soothe the wounded aspects of myself enough and I have a diagnosis now that puts everything in perspective. I can be who I am rather than endlessly commiserating that I am not what was expected of me by people who were doing their level best but didn’t know any better.

Because focusing on the quagmire of the old versus new paradigm leads to putting a whole lot of energy into fighting, and violence is the language of the old paradigm.

So here’s me changing. You’re welcome to come along for the ride.

I’m an ape man

Daily writing prompt

What’s something most people don’t understand?

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Humans are a great ape species. We weren’t meant to live in a concrete jungle and succeeding in it is neither wise nor tough.

Technophile

Daily writing prompt

How has technology changed your job?

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I’m absolutely loving the way tech had made writing from home so much easier. And cooler. No more images of someone sitting in a dark, dank basement: it’s the battlestation and geekosphere and interaction with other literary wizards. I deeply appreciate the evolution of tech and its availability.