The Princess

Princess Chu-hua stood trapped in time, watching the multi-colored koi swim nose to tail in the pool atop the Great Fall. Her raiment was pink and floated in the breeze. She whispered a secret word as she reached into her pink silk purse and removed a tiny flower with six purple petals. She began to twirl it in her hand. ‘This is the Dharma’ she whispered. She thought of the Six Worlds as she pulled each petal one be one and dropped them into the swirling stream. They floated away in a line toward the Great Fall.

A terrifying scream pierced the stillness and the Princess’ heart froze. Frightened, she dropped her belongings and ran from the path into the woods. Strange shapes greeted her there with omens and warnings. Tears came to her eyes and dread filled her soul. What was the matter? Where was the Dharma? The woods grew dark and a chill wind began to blow.

Then she remembered. She stopped. She calmed her mind. She sat down beneath a tree and saw that she still stood beside the pool atop the Great Fall with her six-petalled flower, intact, in her hand.

Summer's End

It is Samhain, Summer’s End in Old Irish. Halfway between the autumnal equinox and the winter solstice. A carpet of orange leaves swirls in a moaning wind, coats are pulled closer and eyes are narrowed. It is said that the veil between our world and the Otherworld is especially thin this night, and that the ghosts of our ancestors walk abroad. Offerings of food are given for favor or appeasement. Winter is coming and the light is waning toward rebirth. A harvest cycle promise of death and rebirth.

Straw harvest golems and pumpkins carved into the faces of spirits. Strange sounds carried on the wind. A frantic, masked ride down a deserted lane swirling with fall leaves. Winter is coming and the feel and smell of things is changing.

Warm friends are the best answer to a dark sunless night filled with the spirits of the dead.

The Orb of Knowing

A device which allows you to experience altered/higher states of consciousness. At first I was thinking a giant orb in a glorious temple with beautiful priestesses of wisdom dispensing wine to me as I ascended the grand staircase (escalator) to the Orb of Knowing. More likely a handheld device or personal item or an application for one. A ring. A pendant that is the doorway to other worlds. Perhaps an implant. A cybernetic device.

A series of flashing lights or a repetitive animation could induce alpha (8-12 Hz) and then theta (4-8 Hz) states. Auditory and visual cues could be added. Full five sense virtual reality connected directly to and in the control of the psyche. Perception could be altered/enhanced. Worlds could be built. In a virtual state, it would literally be outside of (but controlled by) the psyche.

The ability to change not just what but how you think. Perhaps fine tuning your perceptual model to assist you in life, in research, in spiritual contemplation.

A Foray

She was sexy and soft, like a passion berry dripping with juice. The photo was slightly ripped, its corners curled, but her smile was still frozen in place. The more I looked at it, the more the image seemed to live. It began to move and take on a life of its own. Meaning crept into her expression and a new history grew up around her. After a while it ceased to be her at all, but instead became something else that I formed from white hot emotion. The interplay of patterns in the vines on the trellis behind her looked like henna on a girls arm, and sunlight through a crystal was shining on the dark-haired gypsy girl, with her cards and her bright eyes and a bloodstone flashing from her deftly moving thoughts and hands. And the smile.

The Beginning

Dear Reader (s), the emptiness of air, luminiferous aether, stars, plasma, planets, machine elves, fairies, angels (or whoever or whatever may encounter these words ) –

I remember once reading Joseph Campbell (who has saved my life more than once) paraphrasing parts of the philosopher, Arthur Schopenhauer’s “Transcendent Speculation upon an Apparent Intention in the Fate of the Individual ” and being struck by the idea that as one ages and looks back on one’s life, it is a common occurrence for the individual to see this life as a “cleverly constructed novel” – and that those people who have come in and out of that life in the course of the plot have helped create the character that we have become. As I near the end of my 44th year, I have been blessed to have many characters who were once in my early chapters return again, to add meaning to an already unfolding story.

One of these characters is Steve, who is co-writing this blog with me – and who has coaxed and encouraged me to begin writing again. Steve and I met in high school and formed an unlikely friendship – I was the plastic homecoming-princess type and Steve was the smoking-court intellectual who kept a low profile. We worked on the school newspaper together and began a deep romance – only on paper, in the notes and letters we penned to each other and kept folded neatly in places away from our other teenage romances….and only in our minds. We lost touch after high school -- where there was military and marriages and college and kids and adult lives to be lived.

Now, twenty-six years later, we have reconnected. One week before Steve contacted me again, I called out into the air, “Where are you, Steve?!” He must have heard my call -- or perhaps the creator of the novel that is my life or the dreamer who is dreaming me heard my plea. Whatever the case, this reconnection seems divine in nature. We created his blog to force ourselves to begin writing again, and to capture some of our collective musings and debates into printed word. As Leary once said, “Words are the freezing of reality”.

Steve and I are fascinated with this reality – and its shifting landscape – as we sometimes lose our footing and end up in “Chapel Perilous”. In the end, we see ourselves on a quest for The Key, on our own glorious monomyth trying to find some ultimate light – whatever that means. Sometimes, we see angels and fairies and trees that light the way. Sometimes Eiseley’s “Trickster” comes in and sends us into the dark and, like the monkeys we are, we end up throwing a bunch of word-shit at our social and physical cages. All we know is that being together as we undertake our journey makes this life we are living a little less lonely.

Schopenhauer (as paraphrased by Campbell) remarks on the interconnectedness of all humanity: “ [T]he dreams and lives of all interlock, as though of a single, superordinated context” – and in having these interlocked dreams, what may seem like an experience that is only for ourselves, actually has impact on others around us, “linking and according with everything else.” May this blog be for exploring those links and the “dream that is dreaming us”.