Monday, March 28, 2005

Going to Source in Meditation & A Fellow "Believer"

Really, it should be as simple as it was today. I went right into the Source of All That Is, and before I knew it, I was "in" Albany. Whether I was really there or not, it's hard to say. It felt like I was really there and in my body here in Manhattan simultaneously. I was on State Street and Pearl, and it appeared there were people either getting ready for a parade or some sort of Easter celebration. I saw a bunch of objects that reminded me of golden chicks. They might have been balloons or they might have been stuffed animals, or I don't know what. At first, I thought they were little kids dressed up though.

I walked up State Street to hang out on the Rotunda in front of the State Capitol. Some people were there feeding the birds, and to my surprise, after I sat down on a bench there, one of my sometime guides "Dave" appeared. Dave is an older fellow, a fisherman, white, very Christian-Middle-America type guy. He reminds me of fishing guides who are retired pillars of their communities and who volunteer for a nominal fee to escort outsiders around the lakes and waterways or maybe even into the forests for hunting. Dave was a comforting presence, and we didn't really have a lot to talk about, other than things are fine. We've got no complaints going, relax and enjoy things.

I thought it was interesting that I went to Albany though. Don't exactly know what that means except that I was really glad to be "out of New York" at least in my head. I do love that building, and evidently the building seems to like me. Other buildings in Albany could care one whit about me though, and the spirit of the City seems to enjoy me, but not anymore than others who love the town.

Reminds me, I watched Big Eden again the other day. This time around, though I cried again as per usual, I started to doubt what I wanted. Perhaps that is because I sense that it is becoming a reality around me, and that certain "old" frequencies are winding down and soon I'll be set free to create my own version of Heaven on Earth (HoE). All of the spiritual websites I read now say pretty much the same thing, that I need to constantly choose gratitude, love, acceptance and service to others to make HoE happen. So I breathe in my dreams right now. It feels pretty good, but there are responsibilities and there is grunt work, and there is tedium involved because that's what happens in all lives. The thing is I can choose my areas of tedious expertise. And I have several with which to play at any given time! I release the fear of achieving what I want in my life. I release also all my doubts about what I want and embrace community, good fellowship, helping others to enter into God/dess consciousness. I release my fears of want and lack as well, and I trust my source, the Source of All That Is.

Music: "Montana Half-Light" by Philip Aaberg. (Just love this tune, it's the third time I've played it tonight.)

UPDATE:

I've been surfing ye olde Webbe and I discovered a thoughtful article from a Christian gay perspective that basically says the same thing I have come to believe about the Religious Fanatical among us. These people need our love, friends. They need the light we can shine into their fearful lives, which they think is plenty bright enough right now. But check this link out:
http://www.whosoever.org/v9i5/minor.shtml

Minor says very eloquently what I've been saying to myself and to anyone who would listen. These people are basically drunk on their beliefs, and this can only escalate. The only real thing we can do is to calmly articulate our positions and live the best lives we can. Lead by example. Let it Begin With Me. Praise Jesus! (And Dian-y-Glas! and Hermes! and Kwan Yin! and Hekate! and Freya! and Odin! and Hestia! etc.)

Sunday, March 27, 2005

Food

For being "The Disappearing Chef" I haven't blogged much lately about food. Right now, I'm in a comfortable rut with my food. I have pretty much the same thing for "deakfast" every day--2eggs, 1/2c 4grain cereal, 2T nuts, 1c mixed fruit (berries, pineapple and banana usually, though occasionally I throw in grapes or bits of peach or bits of an apple). Lunch has been fairly consistent--either "Lentil Bentilz" or a Mexican Turkey Burger at a local restaurant or salmon with turnips & brussels sprouts or squash from Mama's Food Shop. Plus 2T dressing and 2T nuts, some grain (usually 1oz grits), and a fruit (usu. a banana). Dinner, typically is 8oz of some animal protein or 1/2 chicken, an ounce of rice cakes, 1c greens, 1c salad veg., 1c squash, 2T dressing, 2T nuts, 1tsp butter, 1 apple, and 1/2c tomato sauce/salsa. Very simple most days.

Even though I'm comfortably "rutted" this way, I do every once in awhile get a desire to venture out a bit. I'm hoping that I'll see some of that happen now that the change of the seasons is upon us. I think I've mentioned it before, but I feel the Cross-Quarter Days--Imbolc, Beltane, Lughnasa and Samhain--are the emotional beginnings of Spring, Summer, Fall and Winter respectively, and that Ostara, Litha, Mabon and Yule are not so much the beginnings of the seasons as they are the capstones of the previous one. Ostara effectively ends winter. Litha is the end of Spring, Mabon the departure of Summer and Yule says goodbye to the Fall.

Spring foods aren't something I really think about much. Eggs of course are considered a spring food, even though I eat them year round. Spring greens are probably much in abundance, and I'm sure there are other foods out there to consider. For some reason I think Cilantro is probably a "spring" herb. Feels like one to me, anyhow. I'm going to have to go over to the Farmers' Market on Union Square one of these days and see what the spring foods are. I'm looking forward to the end of May though, when Avocado Squash will be back in store. (Yum!)

I've also been thinking a lot lately about my food addiction and how it still can play out in my head. There's a bakery nearby to where I work, one that makes really good old-fashioned cakes. When I was really into the food, that place was such a favorite. I walk past it now and sometimes I wistfully remember "way back when." Of course those memories completely obliterate the wheezing breath, the difficulty climbing stairs, the headaches and the wooziness, the wondering if I was diabetic, the crushing loneliness and desperation and the demented self-hatred I had of myself as "that fat faggot."

I'm really glad I eat well today, and I'm also glad that I have the memories of the pain to accompany the nostalgia after the foods I got too much of but never actually required. I've also made friends with my hunger today, and I've heard that at the University of Wisconsin-Madison they are exploring how calorie reduction expands life expectancy. So it's a good thing I'm making friends with my hunger if I want to stick around this planet longer. As I change and as I let my delusional ideas of who I am drop to the wayside, I see that yes indeed, that's exactly what I want!

Saturday, March 26, 2005

Working with Jesus outside of Religion

On the first day of working the Warriors of the Heart path at this year's Winter Witch Camp, several events of note took place. First, I saw my different points on the Iron Pentacle in various states of health. My point of Sex (top of the head) was like a blue flame having a difficulty catching the wick. My point of Pride (right foot) reminded me of a machine that was trying to work with a whole bunch of mud thrown into its works. My point of Self (left hand) was a nice bright yellow light, my point of Power (right hand) was a purple Nerf ball(!), and the first day I worked the IP, my point of Passion (left foot) was shrouded in fog. For some reason I visualized the sword from the 7 of Swords in the Cosmic Tribe deck sliding down the bone of the leg into the ankle. It just happened like that for some reason.

The instructors told us to anchor the experience, and asked if any of guides appeared. That was when Jesus (of all avatars!) showed up and smiled at me. I grimaced, surprised, and then I touched my right side. The word "spear" came to mind as the thing to anchor the whole experience, because my affinity group was Tiwaz, the rune for Spear and the warrior god Tyr.

Since then I've been working with Jesus a bit more. I see him somehow as connected to The Blue God, at least he is to me. And there are mystery schools that believe Jeshua bar Joseph did actually go to India to study esoteric Hindu ideas. (Whitworth's The Nine Faces of Christ depicts several mystery-cult initiations of this figure, including Druidic, Persian and Egyptian, with some references to the Mayan Jaguar Priests as well.) When I was 11 and had my Dian-y-Glas/Kitty Carlisle Hart dream, I knew I had experienced a vision of some sort and believed it was Jesus who was showering.

For all I know, it might have been. (Ah, :) I feel Jesus smiling at this winsome possibility.) I've been reading a couple of books now about Jesus, with the openness to working with the cute avatar of the Essenes in my spiritual development. I've been reading now the books of Jim Marion--Putting on the Mind of Christ and The Death of the Mythic God. Both have been really helpful, but the Mind of Christ book has helped me to understand more of where I am on the spiral of spiritual development.

When I was in Madison, Michael and I did a ritual where I basically journeyed into the Underworld. We called Freya and Hades into the circle. Hades was the decided-upon god because a mourning dove showed up on the deck as I asked "Which God should we call?" I really was open to anyone, and when I clarified it was "mourning dove" not "morning dove", I said "I guess we call Hades then." The mourning dove showing up at that moment, and then another one crashing into Michael's window the next day alerted me to the need to pay attn. to these birds. I'm pretty sure one was outside my window just the other day. And so, I'm reading this book in Washington Square Park yesterday morning and I'm in a section about The Dark Night of the Soul (which evidently is different from The Dark Night of the Senses, something I've heard absolutely nothing about but which Teresa of Avila and John of the Cross both discussed). All through Marion's book, I had many pings of recognition as well as moments of "I didn't have that experience at all." So I'm feeling fairly confused all in all about what level I'm at. I was pretty sure I wasn't in The Dark Night of the Soul when it started to become more and more obvious to me that I'm probably about to enter into it. And that Hades and Hecate and the other deities in my pantheon are here to help, as is Jesus of course.

Marion's book is also helpful to any seeker of any spiritual understanding be it Hindu, New Age, Sufi what have you. And for gay/lesbian seekers, it's especially helpful because Marion is a gay man. Today I had a dream, after asking for more clarification about this stuff. In the dream, I saw three boxes in my heart, each one inside the next. The three boxes were also attached to three other Selves. The innermost box was the Psychic Realm Box, the Middle one the Subtle Realm and the Furthest one in the Causal Realm. I was trying to pry the Psychic one out of my body, and having moderate success in lifting it but something was keeping it stuck from below. It would "thunk" back into place. My Psychic Realm Self seemed pretty solid as did my Subtle Realm. The Causal was barely a presence, but he wanted me to know he was there too. I feel the mystery of this dream points me to an awareness that I'm really in all three at once, even though I haven't yet gone through the Dark Night of the Soul. Part of me feels that it might not be necessary for me to do this, but I don't know. I'm truly open to however this manifests.

(I think. I say that now, but I might change my mind, knowing how these things can go.)

Still, I'm confident that the choices I have made have been largely good ones. I look forward to how things develop, as always.

Monday, March 21, 2005

Go-Stop-Go and other thoughts

I'm in a persnickety mood.

It's a bit confusing to me at the present time, but I feel like I both want to sleep for many, many hours AND get on a bicycle and ride until I drop. I want to enter into a wild orgy of delightful, joyous connection AND sit by myself in a grove of oak trees. I want to write prodigiously about all the thoughts, feelings and impressions I have been having, AND I want to shut myself up in silence in a monastery out in the middle of the High Plains somewhere.

I want to show up to my night job AND I want to high-tail it to the next place I'm going. I want to keep up the chop-wood-carry-water bit, AND I want to take some heroic action AND I want to procrastinate, all at once. How, truly frustrating.

And I want to blog, but I feel weird about it right now. The aspects of not blogging that have to do with feeling judged by other anonymities can not have an impact on me, but I do wonder what this is for. I am having a series of thoughts and it seems promptings to take some of the material I have herein published and turn it into a pamphlet of some sort. Specifically my assignment from the Samhain ritual to attend the ancestral campfire each day for 2 weeks for 20 minutes on each of those days. It appears that this would be valuable to others????

Taliesin seems to be encouraging me this way, as is the Otter. I sense that my dear blue god would also like to see me enter into engagement with the larger world, and I sense this would be a step in that direction.

On another note, I've been doing a lot of reading about Jesus lately, but keeping it to the notion of working with Jesus as I've been working with Ben Franklin, Cerridwen, Freyja, Dian-y-Glas, Otter, et al. Since Jesus appeared to me at the Winter Witch Camp, I've been curious about the man and how he used to fit in my life. He is "a long lost love who has recrossed my path," and perhaps he will manifest in the guise of a man who I shall deeply love and yearn for. Jesus has had a lot of sweet words for me, for a lot of people, and I find it interesting that his appearance ties in with Ix Chel passing the baton to Quan Yin, to be my "Foster Goddess of the West" until Beltane.

A tarot card reader told me she saw Odin, Freyja and "a green deity with an orange lotus above his/her head." It could be either Quan Yin or Avalokiteshvara, I would surmise. I'm having a lot of visions of deity for some reason, as opposed to animals or mythic creatures, or being clairaudient with the trees and the like. Each one of us has his or her gifts of communicating, and I see that I also have a deep resonance with the ancestors, and most likely the descendants as well. It appears that I need to communicate some of this to those who would listen, to those who would derive benefit, and even to those who would deride. Right now, I'm about 2/3 the way through a book my food sponsor recommended to me called The Nine Faces of Christ by Eugene E. Whitworth. Fascinating it is, for it ties in all these different mystery religions and brings them all together into something called "The Great White Brotherhood" and "The Order of Melchizedek." I feel all sorts of connections and past life mishagoss going off in my body as I read this book. It's like "Oh, I remember when I went through that. (shudder.)" Of course I hope I don't have to go through it again, but one turn on the wheel deserves another, eh boys and girls?

Que viene aqui, no sabemos. Preparasen Uds. (But it could be fun. I'm putting my beads in THAT basket.)

Sunday, March 13, 2005

Getting back into the Swing

I had a really wonderful vacation. It's been a challenge to get back into the New York groove, and I must say I don't seem to resonate with the energies here. While I have issues with the 9-5 corporate mindset that is in force everywhere, I did feel that both Madison and Minnesota had more of what I need for myself.

I do have a lot to say, but I don't really know where to begin with it all. It's been difficult for me on several levels, not least of which to come back into the world of blogging. Writing is an aspect of my path through life, but it's not quite what I thought it was back when I was eating. I lived for my writing back then. Today, I have come into a bit of a shock where my passions are concerned.

At the Winter Witch Camp, I worked with a meditative tool called The Iron Pentacle. There's a lot of personal information that can be gleaned from working with the I.P., and on the first go-around, I got to my point of passion (my left foot), and it was all foggy. I saw a sword sticking out of the fog, and I had the sense it was a sword of clarity and healing, as in the Ace of Swords. In the Cosmic Tribe Tarot, the 7 of Swords (interference) shows a clear sword being fogged up by 6 niggly, wimpy sword-like emanations. I was thinking it was more this sword that was being activated, reminding me to focus on my passion. The next day, the fog had cleared, but I was left with a point of passion that was in a cast, and negative messages were scrawled all over it. Messages like "You suck, no one's ever going to read your plays;" "you're such a loser who can't write commercially to save your ass;" "gay men deserve the violence that's done them;" and so on. I wrote all of those messages on little pieces of paper and burned them in my best friend's fireplace as an energetic way to sandblast those messages off my healing cast. And I've replaced them with more encouraging and healing ideas.

So now I'm working with the IP, the Ha Prayer and a 2o-minute meditation when I get up. All totaled it's taking me about 4o minutes once I eat breakfast, to even be ready to face getting dressed. There's so much I want to do now. Two of the aspects of Freyja that I am working with is the attention to beauty and the need to give of myself in joyous obligation. Both of these are translating into my decision to get a storage locker and to put a whole bunch of my possessions there and to give myself more space. I've been boxing up books and will continue to do so as I give myself more space to creat the life I'm cut out for. And it's coming, I can feel it.

I get confirmations from the oddest of sources, too. I just have to keep doing what I'm doing, even though I feel bored half the time. I trust that this is all leading somewhere, and that I have a lot more to say about what I just went through on vacation and since. I don't have to put it all down right now, though. One blog entry at a time.