A stretching exercise :)

I believe I've written about the upside-down tree and the hanging man before.
In a way, this is related - how upside-down and inside-out and backwards
we have things.

It is a common view, I believe, that one is a spirit and/or soul trapped inside a body.
Is it not more accurate that the body is inside of spirit?

Or, if you prefer, not a consciousness inside a body, but the body is inside consciousness.

How does that feel for you? Big difference, huh.  :)

Another exercise:



Let's call the center spirit/mercury, the radius an individual soul/sulphur and where
the radius touches the circumference we'll call body/salt.

When we withdraw awareness from the manifest circumference and go within to the
center, we can then realise the all:



Your center is the All-center. Mercury is One. Your source is the One source of All.

To be clear, the exercise is to return to the One center and then creep back towards
manifestation as the All, following All radii instead of just your one personal individual radius.

power, strength, virtue...

I think about words alot. I've often thought of making a blog
just for words that i find interesting.

Potent means powerful; consider potential:
po·ten·tial/pəˈtenCHəl/
Adjective: Having or showing the capacity to develop into
something in the future.

Noun: Latent qualities or abilities that may be developed and
lead to future success or usefulness.

Dynamis (greek) means power, strength; consider dynamic:
dy·nam·ic/dīˈnamik/
Adjective: (of a process or system) Characterized by constant
change, activity, or progress.

Noun: A force that stimulates change or progress within a system
or process.

That's interesting, no?

And then we have a third form of energy/power in the Emerald Tablet:
"Virtus eius integra est si versa fuerit in terram."
"Its power is whole if it is turned into earth."


If you figure out how these three relate, let me know. :)

Fleeing Mercury and approaching Silence

Trying to capture our fugitive is like trying to approach silence, which is like trying
to make two similar poles of two magnets touch - they just keep repelling.
Our volatile Mercury is diffused throughout all of creation. In concentrating/fixing it
there is a reciprocating volatilization of creation and the simultaneous diffusion of
the alchemist/ego from word into silence.
Consider that silence cannot be approached; the very motion of the approachee
"towards" silence is a disturbance/vibration/sound. Silence/Mercury is what remains
when the subject-object relationship collapses/enfolds/implodes. It is the triumphant/
victorious One; always the "last man standing".
In the same way "new" is never "old". New can never be known; to know it is to
make it old. New cannot be grasped by the mind/knowledge which is always old/
past/accumulated. Why put new wine into old wineskins?
Consider likewise that the Philosophical Mercury is not made manifest by a process
of accumulation, but appears spontaneously, miraculously. The best chemists can think
about how to accomplish this and never know it.

stalking you?

"Australian Aborigines say that the big stories - the stories worth telling and retelling,
the ones in which you may find the meaning of your life - are forever stalking the right
teller, sniffing and tracking like predators."  - Robert Moss, "Dreamgates"



To me, this is a fascinating observation. It inspires me to make myself available for
such "big stories" - the bigger picture, the larger vision, initiation, genius. When your
story finds you, life is wonderful, the spirit is joyful - everything seems to go right.
This "big story", which is you - what some call the higher self, is stalking you like a
bird of prey, or a dove of peace if you prefer :) "Knock, and the door shall be opened."

There are interesting parallels with the Shekinah of Judaism and Kabbalah:
"Every bird nests [shekhinot] with its kind, and man with his like." Talmud Baba Kammah

The Talmud reports that the Shekinah is what caused prophets to prophesy and King
David to compose his Psalms. The Shekinah manifests itself as a form of joy, connected
with prophecy and creativity. - Talmud Pesachim

Shekinah is also the Sabbath bride.

Castaneda's immense contribution

I can't quantify the number of times that my own experiences have been confirmed by Castaneda's
writings, or how well they supplement the systems of others. His amazing ability to describe the
energetic realms is unsurpassed IMO. The lessons have an amazing practicality about them. It is rare
to find such a complete (relatively) system. The books are written with a power that initiates the reader
as a true apprentice. I would encourage everyone to read them. If you think you've read them, read them
again!

information, exformation, transformation

A tip of the hat to my favorite Philosopher, Steven Harrison:

Information is what we know.
Exformation is everything else.
Transformation is the continuous impression of exformation upon information, and its assimilation.

Can you see the relation to the hypercube? Is this not the serpent shedding its skin?
Do you see the application to the crucified serpent?



And this one says the same thing, one circle penetrating another = vesica pisces, fish/mercury/Christos:




"The exformation is always going to be overwhelming. It's always going to be experienced
by this information as fear, because it's always going to be vastly greater than the information.
We could say that fear is a portal to the exformation, the vastness, which is washing down
river and pushing. And what we tend to do, what the thought structure does, is try to cover our
heads and hold back the flow."

"It's always going to be experienced by this information as fear, because it's always going to be
vastly greater than the information":


"We could say that fear is a portal to the exformation, the vastness, which is washing down
river and pushing":

Death and Afterlife

I realise I don't post very often. In part this is due to access, but also I am simply
becoming more silent. When we work with the alchemical aether, the vacuum, the
void, dark matter, akasha, etc, space is emphasized. The space between the subatomic
particle-waves seems to grow larger, and hence there is less to say less often. :)

Ha. "The space between" reminds me of one of my favorite songs. It's quite appropriate
in my mind: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H67uEgRZs2Y

"The space between what's wrong and right
Is where you'll find me hiding, waiting for you...
Take my hand 'cause we're walking out of here."


Death is a subject much neglected, perhaps due to lack of explorers. I would venture to
say that death is as enigmatic as the Philosophers' stone. I would also say that this is
because death IS the Philosophers' stone, by which I mean that the realm or dimension
of death is the realm of aether, i.e. non-physical existence. Castaneda claimed that our
destiny or evolution is to become inorganic beings. It is not unpopular to say that we are
more than our bodies, but how few truly know what that entails. I have said before that
the more life/infinity that we realize, the more we "embody" death/no-thing-ness. Such is
the relationship between the One and the All.

Anyway, it is not my intention to rehash what has been said, but to share some additional
views and realizations. These are very fresh for me and it will be difficult to find the words
that accompany the visions, but here goes...
It is an uncommon thought to entertain, that life is a preparation for death. Even saying that
now doesn't 'sound right', but that is due to the stigma we have associated with the word 'death'.
It is evident enough that death follows life, but few are willing to go further and say life is
preparation for death. In stark contrast, some hold the view that death is the failure of life. No.
It's really a matter of the degree of awareness/consciousness one can bring to life and death.
There are societies that see reincarnation as an unconscious loop, the fate of sleepers. Hence
Plato and soma sema: "We are dead and the body (soma) is a tomb (sema)". So I am not alone
if I view this life as a preparation to die well/successfully. :) That could lead to a very long post
visiting all sorts of Mystery religions. Let me just leave you with the Egyptian version of weighing
one's heart/soul against a feather (of truth) and we'll move on.

I recently saw how unprepared I am to die, which startled me because I thought I was accruing
some experience in this area. I wish to relay to you just how rooted we are in this physical
interpretation, and how frightening it can be to lose your grasp on what you have thought was
reality for so many years. I do not equate the two ideas of dying peacefully and dying successfully.
One can have a peaceful dream, a peaceful belief which satisfies and comforts. But I say "beware
the comfort; beware the known". If your death leads you to something familiar, it is not a successful
death, unless no-thing-ness is familiar to you. The fear of the unknown is an essential ingredient of
hell. Indeed, hell is trying to maintain your grasp on what you have known. Hell is dying unprepared.
Hell is realizing that manifest life was supposed to be more than a vacation from unmanifest death. :)
This reminds me of the short fable where the ants prepare for winter and the grasshopper doesn't.
http://www.bartleby.com/17/1/36.html

I also saw how the desire to be grounded in something, to have fixity, leads the afterlife awareness
back to a body. I had been aware of the description where the entity that is waiting to be born is aware
of the parents and such. Some even suggest that we choose our parents. But the experience I had was
not like that. It was a more primal consciousness that was not aware of humans at all or even such a
human possibility. It was simply force and energy and desire to have fixity/stability which magnetically
drew the awareness to a place in infinity where this could occur, and that may happen to be the cells which
are dividing inside a human womb. That is how the primordial soup comes into manifestation. That some
awareness may choose its parents is certainly possible, and indicative of some degree of retained awareness,
i.e. preparation. And this is the whole of alchemy - solve et coagula, volatility and fixity, desire and being/essence.
(a funny synchronicity - my Dad is playing music and the song "Higher Love" is on and the lyric was:
"I could light the night up with my soul on fire. I could make the sun shine from pure desire.")

Well, I'll leave this thread with the suggestion that you give some thought to preparation for death, the 99%
unmanifest realms. Alchemy begins with a death. The depiction in the Matrix movie of the atrophy of Neo's
awakened body due to not having been used is very apropos. Consider preparation. Do not assume that when
one dies there is automatic access to the subtle bodies. These must be exercised prior to death.
How do you do that? Don't wait until winter like the grasshopper to contemplate such essentials.

Blessed be. :)