Tsunamis That Strike Our Existence

A man said to the universe: "Sir I exist!" "However," replied the universe, "the fact has not created in me a sense of obligation."
— Stephen Crane

The existentialist attitude can never comprehend meaning and so lapses into nihilism, but a personalist response that expects meaningfulness begins with the proposition: EX NIHILO...

The meaning of things—for us, who have not created them, nor who have made ourselves—cannot be demonstrated in an impossible, cold, logical concatenation of everything, but in the warmth of a relationship that supports us for the time necessary for its unveiling, which—in any case—at least in this life, will never be total.

A destiny that is simply fate does not take away tragedy: it sharpens it, because it makes the pain not only necessary, but also irredeemable. This is what the Gospel verse refers to, "Unless you repent, you will all perish as they did." That is, you will die without meaning.
— Giancarlo Cesana

Kill. Faster! Faster!

the girl... Yeah, she saved Kirk by hopping in the jeep and motoring over Varla. Varla tried to muster one last karate chop but fell over and heaved her last.

but that girl... Did you notice her epiphany? She was all like, "I saved your life." Pause. "I saved my life too." Up until that time, she hadn't been much more than a clinging or sobbing bimbo, but she finally realized that she could take care of herself. The irony was that she learned this when her limited choice involved killing another.

Cutting up Frost

And miles to here To watch
if there is easy wind and
see me stopping But I have
lake The darkest harness bells a
promises to keep, I know. His
My little horse Whose woods these
go before I sleep, must think it
his woods fill shake To ask
dark, and deep, only other sound's
And miles to are I think
He will not go before I sleep.
woods are lovely, evening of the year.
up with snow. the sweep Of
near Between the He gives his
house is in some mistake. The
without a farmhouse queer To stop
the village, though; downy flake. The
woods and frozen

One Day in One Hundred Years

The pain
And the creeping feeling
A little black haired girl
Waiting for Saturday
The death of her father pushing her
Pushing her white face into the mirror
Aching inside me
And turn me round

— The Cure

The Animals are Waiting

I was in a dream orchestrated by the Legendary Pink Dots. Edward Ka-Spel chanter was there, as well as Niels van Hoornblower making his solitary, melancholy noise. The leer, urban streets were strewn with trash. Rib bone and bottle cap. All the while, the ghosts of retarded street children sang through their chanter...wan and eerie out of memory. The animals are waiting. Chant reiterated by the equivalent horn tones. This wasn’t a dream at all, but a parallel image, awake, outside my chamber door.

Echo I

Damn, and it’s cold here too on this altiplano — and beyond — where the jagged earth rises up to meet my sore feet. How close to the equator, but how much closer to the moon. Swift, agile, barrel-chested youths race by and by, up and down tracks with cords of knots.

It’s too numb cold right now, and the air doesn’t satisfy me either — like trying to bathe in just one drop of water; I have to get back. But I’m not even sure how I got here...or where back is for that matter. Back in time, deeper into my mind, some other land...still yet, further out of my mind, or back to the future. I focus again. Why are all of these people here — with their eyes full of stories and their mouths full of secrets.

Searching for the lost gold — isn’t that why everyone comes here — fumbling Pizarro dropped those buttery bricks. Goldbricks, the shape of butter sticks. Isn’t that why I’m here...to get a taste of that buttery gold. How many sticks would I have to eat to get my blood just the right shade. Do the alchemists know. That intense bright, bright red...the red of gold based hemoglobin...not that dull rusty red of the iron based, or the blue of the silver based, or green of the copper based that you find in deep trenches under the sea or on orbs beyond the moon. We’re so much closer to the moon.

This is a valley of ashes...

...a fantastic farm where ashes grow like wheat into ridges and hills and grotesque gardens; where ashes take the forms of houses and chimneys and rising smoke and finally, with a transcendent effort, of ash-grey men, who move dimly and already crumbling through the powdery air.

— F. Scott Fitzgerald

A Christmas Story

It’s certainly true that throughout the world, and in its many cultures, people believe and practice many things, but what happens when a people begin to forget some of the history or symbols of what they believe or practice? What happens when some people being to forget to practice what they believe? What happens when some practices evolve into something incoherent and obscure the story? What happens when an effort emerges to deliberately erase the meaning of the story if not the word Christmas itself in favor of the more generic...holiday. Culturally, such times are Dark Ages. As an anthropologist I have an interest in these forgettings, and as a believer I have a vested interest. I cannot begin to offer the entire story or its symbolism, but some highlights show that for everything there is a season.

Advent is a liturgical season that is also the beginning of the liturgical year. It starts four Sundays prior to Christmas and ends Christmas Eve. One of the most important questions we should ask ourselves during Advent is not whether we’re ready for Christmas (shopping, decorating, mailing, baking, etc.) but whether we’re ready for Christ. Advent is actually a penitential time and one of the sparity (even fasting) needed to clear the clutter and enter ultimately into reflection. This is a special time to spiritually prepare for Jesus’ coming...his coming in his Incarnation over 2000 years ago; his coming into our lives daily; and his coming back at the end of time. As St John the Baptist teaches us, we must decrease so that Jesus might increase.

However, within Advent there are some days that elicit merriment. December 6th is the memorial of St Nicholas who was the Bishop of Myra, Lycia in modern Turkey. He was known to be generous to the poor; a special protector of the innocent and wronged; and venerated as a wonderworker. He died in about 346. According to legend, upon hearing that a local man had fallen on such hard times that he was planning to sell his daughters into prostitution, Nicholas went by night to the house and threw three bags of gold in through the window which landed in their shoes, saving the girls from an evil life. As a special patron of children among others and associated with gift giving, his story evolved in northern Europe where he flies from rooftop to rooftop on a white horse on St Nicholas Eve dropping chocolate coins wrapped in gold foil, as well as other such treats and trinkets, into the shoes placed out by children. This legend and practice then devolved into Santa Claus in North America.

Also of note is the solemnity of the Immaculate Conception on December 8th, which is one of a handful of major holy days within the year. Essentially it has nothing directly to do with the Advent-Christmas seasons and so really needn’t be discussed in this context except as a point of disambiguation. The reason why it’s not relevant to Advent-Christmas directly is because it commemorates the conception of St Mary by Sts Anne and Joachim not the conception of Jesus by St Mary, which is the commonly held belief. Another point of confusion is probably due to the many themes of Jesus’ conception at this time, but that is because, scripturally, Advent deals with events from Jesus conception to his birth as well as the many prophetic texts surrounding the advent of the messiah.

Now, the actual date of Jesus’ birth is unknown, and some place it in the spring to coincide with the likely time of the Roman census and the reason Sts Mary and Joseph had to travel to Bethlehem. It is also unknown for certain whether its placement by the early Church in the beginning of winter to coincide with (and co-opt) the pagan Saturnalia was deliberate or not. None of this ultimately matters. The birth happened, and the exact date isn’t all that important. What matters to me is unfortunately how cheapened Christmas has become...how lacking in Christ...culturally.

The evening vigil and Christmas Day are a time to reflect deeply on one of the greatest mysteries of history and of faith...the Incarnation. The eternal, infinite, unknowable, all-powerful...the great I AM took it upon Himself to enter time and space. St John Chrysostom wrote:

It is proper and right to sing to You, bless You, praise You, thank You and worship You in all places of Your dominion; for You are God ineffable, beyond comprehension, invisible, beyond understanding, existing forever and always the same...[and]...are surrounded by thousands of Archangels and tens of thousands of Angels, by the Cherubim and Seraphim, six-winged, many-eyed, soaring with their wings.

All of this and more have been poured into a vulnerable little baby. God entered into a human family...He entered into the whole human family so that He might bring us back home with Him.

Stop.
Wisdom. Let us be attentive.
Meditate.

So, this isn’t really the best of times to focus our activities on crass materialism, gluttony, and boozing it up. It's just not right. Anyway, Christmas begins the liturgical season of Christmas, which lasts until Epiphany. This season is the Twelve Days of Christmas recorded in song, and this is the time for rejoicing and merriment.

Now there isn’t a day that goes by on the liturgical calendar that isn’t a feast or memorial of something or other...indeed some days contain up to a dozen possibilities, but this is a Christmas Story so I shan’t bother with the many between the beginning of Advent through Epiphany, but between Christmas Day and Epiphany there are a few that are relevant. December 26th celebrates the Holy Family, and the feast of the Holy Innocents on December 28th remembers the male children who were murdered by order of King Herod the Great in his attempt to eliminate the rival king...the king as fortold in scripture and mentioned by the Magi on their way to Bethlehem...which was the reason for the Holy Family’s flight into Egypt. Of course chronologically, this is putting the cart before the horse, but no matter. January 1st commemorated the circumcision of the Lord one week after his birth in accords with the very Law He came to fulfill. This day is of course New Year’s Day now, and it is also the solemnity of Mary Mother of God.

The season of Christmas ends with the Epiphany of the Lord on January 6th and liturgically, ordinary time beings. In most Christian cultures this has been the time to exchange gifts (or alternately on New Year’s Day) not Christmas Day, and this practice is symbolically and historically more consistent as the Epiphany is the commemoration of the arrival of the Magi in Bethlehem bearing gifts. The meanings of the gifts themselves presented are important as well. Gold is for He who is a king, frankincense is for He who is a priest, and myrrh is for He who is to die.

Culture gives us seasons. It gives us the memories and the symbols, but when a culture is in large part based on a faith...a faith that is revealed directly by the ineffable, the infinite, the A-Ω...how much of that are we allowed to change on our own to suit our own whim, and what is our responsibility not to forget?

The first thing that must strike...

...a non-Christian about a Christian's faith is that it is all too daring. It is too beautiful to be true: The mystery of being, unveiled as absolute love, coming down to wash the feet and the souls of its creatures; a love that assumes the whole burden of our guilt and hate, that accepts the accusations that shower down...all the scorn and contempt that nails down his incomprehensible movement of self-abasement...all this absolute love accepts in order to excuse his creature before himself.....

— Hans Urs von Balthasar

Why are you wearing that stupid bunny suit?

Why are you wearing that stupid man suit?
That's a trick question.
Silly rabbit, Gnostic tricks are for kids.

Parallels...what does it mean exactly...

Lord Krishna is the 8th incarnation of Vishnu – one of three persons of the Sri Trimuthi – the supreme Godhead.

Lord Christ is the incarnation of the Son of God – one of three persons of the Holy Trinity – the supreme Godhead.

Preface      East Meets West: I >>

Paradise

It has its price.
We're forced to crawl through needle's eyes.
Our price.
Our choice.
We rarely make the right one.

— lpd

値
打
ち
の
防
者

双子

...and they have unwittingly revealed themselves

Our policy, for the moment, is to conceal ourselves...If any faint suspicion of your existence begins to arise in his mind, suggest to him a picture of something in red tights, and persuade him that since he cannot believe in that...he therefore cannot believe in you.

— Screwtape

In Buddhist lore, Mara is the demon that tried to seduce the Buddha. He is personified as the embodiment of unskillfulness, the death of the spiritual life. He is a tempter, distracting us from practicing the spiritual life by making the mundane alluring or the negative seem positive. He has three sons named Confusion, Gaiety, and Pride.

It's funny how the colors of the real world
only seem really real when you viddy them on the screen.

Least we forget, Mara also had three daughters named Lust, Delight, and Thirst. Whatever their names, demons transcend religious traditions, and so these demons are truly real and in no way limited to Buddhists as I'm certain that I have met these and personally know many people still under yet unawares to their influence...not least of all our slumbering culture itself.

The 'Life Force', the worship of sex, and some aspects of psychoanalysis, may here prove useful. If once we can produce our perfect work — the Materialist Magician, the man, not using, but veritably worshiping, what he vaguely calls 'Forces' while denying the existence of spirits — then the end of the war will be in sight.

— Screwtape

Muad'Dib said...

Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.
     I will not fear, because...
I also know that fear resides in that place where it is that I gaze upon myself instead of upon Him...
     and like Peter, I being to sink into the lake. Not alone...
I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when my fear is gone I will turn and face fear's path, and only I will remain.

from the XIVth incarnation

I believe I am a reflection,
like the moon on water.
When you see me,
and I try to be a good man,
you see yourself.

Out of the Shadow

A Modern Man,
I was presupposed to be an animal
Programmed by genetic instinct and social construct
To react.

Shed one determinism only to
Put on yet another,
A vacillating slave between instinct and construct.
There’s nothing that you can do about it,
In this glamorous illusion cast by dark powers,
Unless (shudder), never mind.

Then I was awakened to find that
I’m not animal and to see
The fingerprint that is at once too small to perceive and
Too large to comprehend.

Yet too, my Father does speak to
Men...neither animal nor spirit, but
Like no other creature,
Different than the sum of both.

I take root in and tend to His garden.

The Writing on the Walls

Altamira and Lascaux are sites of some of the most famous Paleolithic cave paintings in Europe. The predominate interpretation of the cave art is that it is a part of the religious system of its creators. This is an all too common interpretation in archaeology (when in doubt, it's religious) and it doesn't shed much specific light on this matter either. One more specific interpretation however suggests that the images are a symbiotic part of shamanic transconsiousness ritual and experience. Within either of these contexts anyway, the images must certainly represent some manner of transnatural power. Regardless of aesthetics or differences between the sacred and profane, we see from earliest times man’s impulse to write on walls.

Dirt is matter out of place.

This concept from Purity and Danger is really at the heart of whether something is graffiti or not...whether the script or image belongs on the object where it is placed as determined by the owner of the object. It is also an issue of public versus private domains. So with this understanding we can pretty well assume that these cave paintings constitute matter in its proper place. Not so with graffiti. I remember volumes of it growing up in a neighborhood that was in a turf battle between the rival Hollywood and 9th Street gangs. The tags (some larger than life and some rather artistic) were essentially a form of corporate branding for the purpose of claiming territory within the public domain scripted in a highly stylized way on unwilling private property.

A certain detachment from the surrounding world causes me to examine that world as if it were an archaeological project. Maybe this could be considered a three dimensional anthropologic ethnography where a discreet and singular snapshot is taken from a living four dimensional culture, and so my attention to graffiti began to sharpen when, about a year ago, I noticed serial tags, or that is the same graffiti tag repeated. I began to think, why? The repeated tags don’t make sense in the same way as the repeated tags of the gang rivalry of my childhood. Are these serial tags simply copycatism or is someone trying to deliberately communicate something. That’s hard to say because most of the messages are seemingly rather trite, while others are just plain cryptic. Then I came across a tag that made me much more alert. 23.

I See Good Spirits, I See Bad Spirits.

I became suspicious of the meaning behind that 23 because I recognized that number to have primary occult significance to the Temple ov Psychick Youth (TOPY) whom I first gained acquaintance with during my sophomore year in college. TOPY cannot much be defined as it really seems to present an un-dogma, but most simply it seeks manifestation of magical concepts lacking mysticism or worship of gods. There is considerable overlap with occult sex-magick and chaos-magick, and ultimately I believe that its roots are in Thelema and Gnosis. Of interest is also a similarity between its information ratio system and the 3 degrees of initiation in various secret societies, yet TOPY maintains that all of the ratios are open to all. Incidentally, chaos is also a serial tag, but I have never come across the tag of an eight-pointed compass (symbol of chaos-magick) nor have I come across a tag of TOPY's distinct psychick cross, but 23 has also become a serial tag. So, am I reading too much into meaningless bits of dirt, or has my landscape become a canvas for subliminal messaging?

There are just some, uh, eccentric housewives
trying to imagine the devil under every bed.

Who knows. It is quite possible particularly because TOPY ritualism involves the creation of sigils, which are image compositions often containing collages, symbols, fractals, and pornography. The creation of sigils is believed to be a highly potent act. Extrapolated, random and deliberate objects from billboards and legitimate signage down to graffiti may potentially be used as bits and pieces put together to present a semblance of the whole. If it is true that the landscape is purposely being used as a canvas for sigils...that public space is a sanctuary of occult ritualism, then is this the Altamira and Lascaux for the New Age?

She gave away the secrets of her past and said I’ve lost control again.

schau mal. hör mal.

intersections, webs, ripples.

a grain of sand. a pebble. a boulder.
lost.
dropped.
hurled.

the patterns of individuals, relationships, and time
ripples formed by our own undoing

shall we talk about the weather?
right.
are you looking for a sign?

look. listen.
there are no victimless crimes.

magnolia avenue

The Beat from London to San Francisco

Meat Beat Manifesto sez to...Give Your Body its Freedom. I cock my head quizzically to the side...but isn't one of the greatest freedoms of all the freedom from desire? Jack Danger also sez to Degrade Yourself...ahh, I scratch my head. Huh?

Good beat with a bad rap.