Rants & Ramblings of an Elder Witch

It's not that I don't have anything to say these days - just that the majority of what I have been observing has either been said before, or there seems to be litle point in tossing words up on a screen just to see them appear like magickal talismans on the cyber-fabric of some internet chat room or forum.  I hear myself asking... "What's the point?"  Obviously, there is none, and so I return to the silence and simply observe the flow of life and death and all that falls in between those two sticky-labels, and the real truth is that it is all too damn big to talk about except to grab at litle bits and pieces which might move the heart or stir the soul at some point in an otherwise insignificant day.

Over the course of the last few months, there have been dialogues here and on other forums that may have caught my attention briefly, but even when I have felt motivated to respond to them, it all comes down to that same question:  "What is the point?"  I have concluded that forums and chat rooms are not really places where we learn much, if anything at all.  Most often, they are cyberlounges for folks on a similar path, and that can have a certain appeal and perhaps even some minor value, but I have also come to realize that any real learning that is going to happen will most likely happen in a one-on-one environment, person to person, face to face.  Doesn't mater.  Just my observation.  Something I am choosing to talk to myself about here in this blog folder where there is no attempt to justify anything, and no need to apologize for any feathers that may choose to become ruffled by my mumblings.  These are simply my thoughts.  You are free to disagree.

Disagree.  An interesting word, and one often heard on forums.  Sometimes it has started to seem to me that people choose to disagree not necessarily because they really do disagree, but because in disagreeing with someone, a platform of dualism is created, wherein a debate may ensue - you say black, I say white, and the debate is on, wherein each of us attempts to define our position and - just perhaps - there is some underlying attempt to define the self through the debate. 

But... is that really the self at all?  If you convince me that black is white or I convince you that the sky is not really blue at all, what has really been accomplished?  Perhaps some belief systems shift slightly, but ultimately they are still beliefs.  Life goes on.  Kingdoms come and go.  Cemeteries fill up.  And what we believe about it all is little more than what amount to a critical review one might write after seeing a particularly silly play in some high school drama production. 

Heh.  People don't want to hear that.  They want to go right on with the comfort of their belief systems, and who am I or you to tell them otherwise?  I've put what amounts to an inventory of my own "belief systems" on my website, Quantum Shaman.  Anyone can read them.  Agree or disagree.  Makes very little difference to me in the big picture.  Your agreement will not strengthen my reality - though for some truly bizarre reason, we seemed to be programed as a species to believe otherwise.  Thus, we are always seeking some sort of agreement - some sort of consensus, some sort of resonance.  And yet... does it ever really happen?  And if it does... what does it actually accomplish?  Just questions I ask myself from time to time when I read something on one of these forums that either pleases me or rankles me.  So what if I agree, disagree, or have no opinion whatsoever?  Nothing changes in Pismo either way, and so the question becomes one of what might be called "confidence" in our own unique reality.

In some ways, I've spent the past 8 years testing my personal "foundation" (my own unique reality) in these forums. Putting my experiences out there in the form of my website, my book, and my forums has been a means of assimilation for me - rocky and treacherous at times, loving and supportive at others.  And still... what really matters is what's inside myself.  Does the foundation hold?  Has the assimilation brought me any closer to a personal synthesis of The Meaning of Life?  Difficult question to answer in a yes/no fashion.  Ultimately, I have no regrets, but at the same time, we come to a point in our journeys where we realize that we have used a certain tool until it has become dull and ineffective.  So, after these past 8 years, what I have discovered is that my foundation is firm, my experiences (and not my beliefs) are the basis for my reality, and that the core of my beliefs determines the realities we see, and obliterates those we choose to ignore.

A contradiction?  Perhaps.  Who cares, eh?

Two nights ago, a visitor came into my office late at night.  At first I believed she was a bat because she flew like a bat and looked like a bat.  I am not afraid of bats, so I made no effort to harm her, and when I finally got a good look at her, I realized she was actually some manner of large gypsy moth - probably attracted to the light streaming out through the open door leading into the courtyard.  She flew around the ceiling light for awhile, but then came and landed on my head.  Just because of her size (about as large as my hand), I could feel the weight of her.  Kinda funny, as she crawled around in my hair.  She would fly away at times, but always kept returning to land on me.  I took it as an honor and tried to listen in case she might have something to teach.  But my hearing wasn't so good for moth-speak, and so I simply sank into the experience of the moth herself.  Took a few pics...

At one point, I took her back outside and released her to the night, even left the porch light on to attract some bugs for her to eat, but she came back in and once again perched on my arm.  Hmm.  Impossible to describe, but we communed at some level beyond humanform.  She said she was looking for sanctuary, and so I left her in my office when I went to bed.  And yet, I realized I couldn't sleep because I was thinking about this strange moth (not even indigenous to this area, or so I'm told, not sure about that).  Got up out of my comfy bed and returned to my office to find her sitting in my chair.  So we regarded one another for awhile, until she flew back up to the ceiling and I returned to bed.  Next morning, she was gazing out the window, and so I gathered her up on a piece of paper and took her back outside.  She flew up under the eaves where she blended exquisitely with the natural wood, stayed there for several hours, then apparently flew away.  Haven't seen her since, yet the experience remains with me and causes me to smile whenever I think of it.

Strange encounter.  An encounter with the nagual.  Perhaps.  Yet entirely mundane if viewed only from the perspective of the tonal. 

Funny thing...  I woke the next morning (yesterday) feeling as if I were 18 again.  My body felt lighter.  My eyes seemed brighter.  Tested my blood sugar only to find it was higher than normal.  Just numbers, I heard my mind say.  Agreements.  A consensus to which one either agrees or disagrees.  I choose to disagree, with the awareness that there are consequences to any choice we make.  I felt better than I had felt in years, so it seemed to me that the numbers could be just an attempt to pull me back into the agreement.  I chose not to play.  Fuck the numbers.

In the other room, Wendy is watching the tube, and I hear the chattering drone like a bee buzzing around some particularly tasty flower.  Ask your doctor.  You are sick.  Be afraid.  Global warming.  Can't sleep, try this pill, even though the side effects may include jumping off a tall building in your stupor or gunning down innocent children on a playground in your delusional state.  This drug. That treatment.  This ailment.  That cure.

Programming of the mind.  First we make you believe you are sick, and then we offer you the cure, but it's not really a cure, because it if were, you would no longer be sick and that would not be profitable, so back to square one, and remember to ask your doctor about the treatment plans available to deal with the side effects of the cure, so now you're even sicker than before, but you agreed to agree, so now we have you by the balls.

We take pills for our ills and put gas in our tank (at $4.50+/gallon) just to get to work, so we can afford to buy the gas to put in our tank to get to work, and all I can do is marvel at the fact that the world keeps turning and humans keep upholding the very programs which hold them as slaves.  For surely we must all realize somewhere deep in the heart of ourselves that this is not real.  I mean... if I see it, surely others must see it as well, right? 

What to do?  Nothing, perhaps.  I could start a revolution and suggest that we each throw a gallon of gas in the bay like our forefathers threw all that tea in the harbor, but that would only add to the pollution, and so we just keep on keeping on even though the system is clearly broken and the hounds of hell who professs to be "in charge" are really only sitting back laughing at the complacency of a population that seems to willingly bend over every time some new tax is imposed or some new war is contrived.

Ever see WAG THE DOG?  Great little movie.  Hoffman.  DeNiro.  Basically the story of how everything we think is real is just manufactured in some Hollywood studio and sold to us on the 6 o'clock evening news, like so much toilet paper and deodorant.  What's amazing to me is that so many buy into it so easily.  Suddenly we are fighting a war on terrorism, when the greatest terrorists of all are those selling us the lies in a plain brown wrapper labeled "truth", when to anyone who *sees*, there is no doubt whatsoever that every bloody shred of it is illusion re-dressed in such a maner as to make it palatable so that we will swallow it right along with all those pills, and keep on smiling when we bend over to take it up the ass yet one more time from the latest tyrant with an agenda to peddle.

And yet...

Does it matter to me?  Not in the least.  I quit voting for good when the guy I voted for actually WON the election, but never took office.  That's one of those times when the illusion-masters slipped up and we got a peek at the man behind the curtain; but instead of staging a revolt, most just went to work the next day (and the day after that and the day after that), pretending the wizard was really the wizard even though they had clearly seen him for precisely what he was:  a fraud, a cheat, a lie.  The funny thing is that we fraud ourselves, we cheat ourselves, and we lie to ourselves, because it is far, far, FAR easier than looking the illusion in the face and seeing it for what it is.  So, we choose to go on believing it's real because that "feels" better, and we are indulgent little bastards who crave our comforts like a baby craving mama's teat.

But no matter...  All a warrior can do is laugh or cry, maybe a bit of both, knowing full well that neither will make one iota of difference in the big picture of The Meaning of Life.  All of these plays and illusions are altogether irrelevant when all is said and done, for these "interesting times" in which we live are but a drop in the bucket of the All, just little dramas to amuse ourselves while we wait in the darkness for the touch of Death on our left shoulder, having long-ago accepted that "all things die", when we have absolutely NO personal experience in that regard, only the belief system coupled with the "evidence" that has been shoved down our throats by well-meanig parents & peers since before we first crawled out of the womb to begin the trek toward the grave. Why do we accept the programming we are given?  Ah, that's the question, isn't it?  We believe we will die, and so we live accordingly.  We believe the sun will rise tomorrow and there will be enough oil in our tanks and water in our piles, and so we live accordingly.  We believe... but what do we really Know?

Not much.  Maybe nothing.

If there is any meaning, it is in what we decide as individuals.  If I choose to find meanig in my meeting with the moth, it is no more or less significant than the bombing of the World Trade Center or the war in Iraq.   If I choose to disagree with all of the consensual agreements, nothing will change in Pismo anymore than if I should choose to agree with the consensus. 

Out there beyond my window, the world is simply what I experience of it.  In here, within myself, the world is what I experience of it.  Everything begins with a thought.  From that thought, we choose to act with intent, or to remain passive observers.  Which is right?  Which is wrong?  Where is the consensus?  What would don Juan say?  What would Jesus do?  What would Buddha think?

Who cares.

Believe what empowers you.  Manifest what serves you.  Throw the map away.  Burn the paradigms that enslave you even and especially if you love them.  Get rid of the toxic elements in your life.  And, most of all, remember to breathe.  

       
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