there are a shit ton of things i should be doing, none of which are this.

i’m listening to… snowman’s absence.

yesterday, gina and i went to get a soul guide reading from this local lady in town. you can see her website here, and we got an intuitive reading and a flower essence consultation. she describes these services with the following words:

Intuitive Reading
I offer myself as a channel for spirit to those who seek a deeper understanding of themselves, and who desire to develop trust in their own wisdom and connection to spirit. People seek consultation with their guides for a many reasons, such as for help in decision-making; questions of life purpose; cultivation of physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual health; healing issues of lack; and deeper understanding of love and relationships.

Flower Essence Consultation
Flower essences are a subtle, yet profound, energetic medicine that helps to support the deep transformational work of personal growth. I use the essences to address the spiritual and emotional realms, which then vibrate outwards to affect the physical and mental realms. Flower essences are not contraindicated for any medical condition or drug, and are safe to use with infants, children, adults, elders, and pets.

is this shit a buncha bullshit? well, a year ago i might’ve said yes, but i would have been open to it. now i am more apt to believe it, though i will assert that i maintain a healthy dose of skepticism. regardless, though — whether she talked to my spirit guide or not, i gained helpful things from the session. and either she is a hella banging psychologist or she is just psychic, which is also in that whole world of just fine and dandy.

firstly, though, some pics.

[1] (right) costume i made for intuitive navigation way back when. bedsheet. lucy did the MOST amazing dance while wearing this costume. speaking of, i need to do laundry today… woke up into a nosebleed and have to do that shit. god, i hate doing laundry. shawn told me that i was the person that did the least laundry ever. what can i say, i’s filthy. but anyway. i might bring this to burning man next year… ha!

[2] (below) me, sitting in this coffee shop i am at, with the flower essence that was prescribed to me. therefore, i will begin with the flower essence and its elements. i will begin by saying that shayne told me, “i cannot even impress upon you how rare this is.” evidently, she checks in with your guide and gets the recipe from (in my case) him, and he prescribed me a bunch of gems, for grounding purposes. most people don’t get much grounding materials, i guess. and it’s also interesting because before i went into it, i was mentioning to troy that i was very curious what flower essences i would get because floral things frequently, frequently make me nauseous — especially lavender. i’d never mentioned it to her, though. below are some meanings… of, firstly, lavender, which i was not prescribed, and secondly, all the other things that i was prescribed.

LAVENDER

Positive qualities:
Spiritual sensitivity, highly refined awareness.
Patterns of imbalance:
Nervousness, overstimulation of spiritual forces which depletes the physical body.

The Lavender flower essence helps those souls who are highly absorbent or spiritual influences. They tend to be very awake and quite mentally active, with a strong attraction to spiritual practices and various forms of meditation. However, they often absorb far more energy than can actually be processed through the body.

“High-strung” and “wound-up” are words typically used to describe such personalities. They especially suffer from afflictions to the head, such as headaches or vision problems, and neck and shoulder tension. They are quite often plagued by insomnia or other nervous maladies.

Lavender first works to sedate and soothe such persons; at a deeper level, it teaches one how to moderate and regulate one’s spiritual-psychic energy. In this way the soul learns to use its highly sensitive capacities in balance with the physical needs of the body.

maybe that makes me sick because i am soooooo not plagued by insomnia and am soooooo not high-strung… now for the things IN my bottle.

GUARDIAN (FLOWER)

Guardian helps you create a powerful force-field of protection in your aura and environment. It contains Covellite, Devil’s Club, Round-Leaf Orchid, Stone Circle, White Violet, and Yarrow. These essences enable you to claim your energetic space, maintain your grounding, and feel the protection of strong, healthy boundaries. Guardian also contains the essential oils of Hyacinth, Litsea Cubaba, Tangerine, Lime and Melissa. These oils enhance the protective and grounding qualities of the essences and add uplifting notes of joy and playfulness. This spray is especially useful for those of us who are highly sensitive. We often feel our sensitivity is a curse instead of a blessing because we don’t know how to keep the energies in our environment from penetrating and depleting us. Guardian reminds us that we are the source of our own protection. It connects us with our inner light and helps us radiate this powerful energy outward into our surroundings. This helps us stay open and sensitive, while feeling sealed and protected.

PYRITE (GEM/CRYSTAL)

Energises the lower chakras, promoting grounding. Helps one to see the reality of a difficult situation. Uplifting & emotionally balancing.

HERKIMER DIAMOND (GEM/CRYSTAL)

Powerful cleanser for the subtle bodies and energetic structure. Opens higher chakras promoting clarity of perspective & development psychic gifts. Stimulates connection and the ability to be in harmony.

RUBY (GEM/CRYSTAL)

Ruby has a profound impact on the heart chakra and helps the development of spiritual balance and divine love.
Emotional/mental – Ruby is universally applicable for all emotional issues related to the heart chakra. It provides illumination into areas of procrastination within the personality and stimulates the development of self-confidence, decisiveness, negotiation & leadership skills as well as the development of unconditional love. This essence will promote a greater degree of stability and balance within the personality, which will stimulate a desire for forward movement and spiritual growth.
Energetic level – The energy of Ruby impacts the heart chakra, heart meridian and heart chakra nadis. It also aligns the mental and spiritual bodies, which stimulates spiritual inspiration and divine love.

LAPIS LAZULI (GEM/CRYSTAL)

Emotional/mental – Lapis Lazuli helps those who have shy, introverted or retiring personalities through its ability to stimulate spiritual & personal self-expression. It also promotes the release of buried emotions and hidden fears.
Energetic level – Lapis Lazuli has a major impact on the throat chakra and the energetic blueprint associated with this chakra point. It aligns the etheric, mental & spiritual bodies and strengthens all the meridians. Lapis Lazuli is also a very potent cleanser of unwanted energies from the energetic blueprint.

ANGELICA (FLOWER)

Positive qualities:
Feeling protection and guidance from spiritual beings, especially at threshold experiences such as birth and death.
Patterns of imbalance: Feeling cut off, bereft of spiritual guidance and protection.

Angelica flower essence – The modern human soul suffers in a way which is unique and tragic, for it must face profound spiritual isolation and separation through living in a materialistically dense and technologically abstract culture. The Angelica flower essence addresses the soul’s experience of compression and restriction by quickening the thinking and perception processes.

The soul becomes more able to perceive and discriminate its connection to the subtle sheaths surrounding the physical world. Angelica flower essence especially encourages the individual to develop a relationship with the spiritual world, transforming an overly abstract or intellectual viewpoint into a genuine feeling for spiritual presence and spiritual beings. This awareness is particularly enhanced for that group of spiritual beings who immediately border the human kingdom: the angels.

Through a living relationship with the angelic realm, the human soul receives guardianship and guidance in daily affairs, and protection at times of crisis or during threshold experiences. This feeling of being protected and cared for is of enormous importance to the inner life, giving the soul great strength and courage for its work in transforming and healing the world.

Angelica flower essence is broadly indicated for many flower essence formulas and is particularly important at threshold times such as birth, death, festival celebrations, or other major life passages.

flower essence descriptions are from this book and website and the rest are from this website.

the herkimer diamond (different from diamond), guardian, and angelica were the things that stuck out in my mind the most when she was describing them. she mentioned that the herkimer diamond was to help with opening the third eye, the guardian with opening oneself up spiritually while still protecting oneself, and the angelica was a hollow-stalked plant that facilitated direct contact with the spirits.

so. man. i dunno. that shit sounds crazy but then the stuff she told me was kind of even more maddening. and it very much covered things i have been thinking in just this past week.

the session began with her and i just shooting some shit and i felt totally kind of anxious and unsettled for some reason. it was weird. gina’s description that she had passed onto me of “native american lesbian” kept sticking out in my mind and it was super annoying and i couldn’t figure out why that description wouldn’t let itself go. thank god that we soon did a meditation… a heart meditation… and she told me to envision breathing in gold to my heart and then breathing out the negative things. i pictured gold swirlies being breathed in, black swirlies being sent out. helps to visualize. definitely calmed down a bit.

before the session, she had asked me to bring a form that i’d filled out. in it it asked what issues i wanted to work on, but i didn’t have any particular issues to work on as i feel like i am generally pretty “good” in life right now… i just said that this was a big year, spiritually and mission-speaking, and that i wanted to know what i should focus on. she asked me what it meant that it was a big spiritual year, and i basically just ran down everything from being bummed out in the beginning of january to a love spell in february to a succession of “lovers” that then turned me onto writing, a new mission for redefine, and finally, love. she asked me what it meant to me to be “spiritual,” and i just said a sense of connectedness, and the idea that what you think or intend are very much things that you can make happen. kind of a weird answer, the second part, but that’s what came to mind.

she also told us beforehand that there would be a purging session afterwards, if necessary, where i would get a chance to speak about everything that had been told to me. and she told me i could do whatever while the session was going on, but i didn’t really end up moving from the same spot anyway, so enthralled i was.

she took a moment to call my guide, but he came in a matter of seconds. i guess he was readily available (and gina’s was apparently already there before they started, and shayne said she had to ignore her for a while while they were chatting about things).

so dude appeared to HER, and the whole time, she was looking off in the corner of the room so that she could see the vision. from his description, he probably looks something like this dude (these are pictures of lao tzu, and it’s actually REALLY interesting because i have been weirdly directed towards taoism in the recent past). i actually had wanted to ask at the end, during question-asking time, if dudercopter was chinese, but i didn’t. but i mean seriously. the dude had purposely set himself up in a “scene” that he wanted me to see. again, i wasn’t seeing the scene directly; shayne was translating the scene TO me from what SHE saw.

the scene was this: he was an old man — “so old,” shayne made sure to say, and that he had a really long and thin beard. i don’t believe she saad what color. i also feel like he might have had long hair but i also think that may have been an assumption i made. in any case, she definitely mentioned that his robe was REALLY soft, and that it was a grey or periwinkle color (seriously, lao tzu pics, wtf!). she said he was holding a giant stick, and that he was stirring a pool of water. the water was not that wide across, but it was REALLY deep (shawn told me later that evening that that was “dangerous,” which seems true hahahah).

okay, so funny, there was that visual, which stayed hilariously in my head and definitely made me giggle when it was first thrown down.

oh man there’s so much to write and it’s hard to keep track of it all in one go. bits and pieces keep flooding back to me randomly throughout the course of the day but i will try to make some bullet points… everything stated below in parts one and three is what he, my spirit guide, said to me, about me. there are some of my thoughts inserted in-between, but they are clearly denoted.

PART ONE: THEORY
- i am an “old” spiritual soul.
- i see a lot of things before other people do.
- he mentions weariness, and this ties into how i was feeling last week after the redefine site was put up. i was basically thinking that it — everything i was doing — was completely pointless because it is not reciprocated. the basic idea of the whole thing was that i need to get grounded. i need to get a deeper sense of myself so that i will have a firm foundation on which to grow these ideas that i have.
- my greatest ability is to be able to sit back and let things happen as they are and then cut in when the moment is right.
- that i should not only look forwards but look backwards… and not just inwards, but backwards. and not just personal backwards, but historical backwards.
- lots of calling me a visionary. which is, i mean, totally awesome… and that i’m very good at executing ideas and visions. definitely got the sense that a lot of my ideas are not necessarily my OWN ideas, but that they were visions that i am simply carrying out.
- i am a force for “positive change”, with regards to meeting where the “collective unconscious” wants to go. seriously, those words were used.
- that i affect a lot of people, or inspire people to do small things.

PART TWO: PRACTICE
- so the whole time the list of theoretical things about me was going on, in my mind i was like, “where is the practical advice???” and of course it went there, and was phrased in a way i would phrase myself, as in, “so what can i do about this?” there were two “solutions”:
- meditation. “three times a week” or whatever i decide… he didn’t say meditation in specific, but said “sit,” which is interesting, since that is a buddhist term… but yeah. just pre-slotted times for sitting, and that i should envision myself growing roots into the ground while i do it (i did that last night and it was like an endless root tunnel going downwards… just one stalk… was interesting). i think it was with regards to this that it was stated very clearly that this was advice for me, and ONLY for me. it might’ve been something else, though, but i think it was with regards to this.
- looking into my ancestral past. i fucking knew this was coming the whole time which is totally crazy too, and it is something that has really, really been on my mind (no hints towards that at ALL when i was talking to shayne). said that i have a very, very, old spiritual family, outside of my immediate family, and that i should look into it to get a more solid foundation. because having that knowledge will give me the ease to know that it’s not just me, but that it’s something i have known for a long time. i mean honestly… it’s weird. i’ve been thinking about this stuff a LOT because i feel like the way i react to things is fairly “learned.” like… i just naturally am super taoist, and it’s truly without trying. it’s just the way i am. and it has no doubt been trained to some degree but it’s also just… a thing. has always been a thing. so i dunno if there’s taoism or buddhism or something in my past… i’d wager that there probably was just because of like, the fact that i’m chinese, but yeah. it’s curious. i’m working on figuring out how i can figure that out.
- solutions for family, because i had mentioned beforehand that i felt like family was the one part in my life that i felt not that amazing about, and that i had taken it upon myself to kind of change them and try to make them more positive people. the advice was… after i did the sitting, i would get a more solid sense of self, and that that would make it so that whatever negativity they threw my way would no longer matter because i was so rooted in myself. and that being rooted in oneself allows for the expansion of one’s compassion, and that i would grow more compassionate because of it, so that the compassion would actually take me to another level where things that they would do and say would be beyond me, basically. that is f a s c i n a t i n g and definitely the best advice ever, and things i have considered doing, but so good to have it given as kind of a directive so i actually have more incentive to do it.
- it was also noted that i should not pay attention to the immediate family who are stuck in decision-making through “fear,” because they are not my true spiritual heritage, essentially, and that there is more to be found in my spiritual lineage.

PART THREE: REFLECTION
- time for questions. says that i should ask anything because that’s what he’s there for. one of the questions i asked was how to balance a sense of ego versus a sense of doing things because i felt like i should do them because i’m in a position of power to do them. i zoned out partway during the response, unfortunately, but the part that did stick with me was the idea that, you are not better than anyone else. you are just doing these things because that’s your soul’s desire, and other people don’t have the same path of desire. i also really wanted to ask some joking question but didn’t for some reason. also asked about my spiritual family, and what that meant exactly, and what their role was. i forget the response.
- i am on the right path.
- “love is good.” but make sure you can ask for what you want. which is totally interesting because that is definitely the only problem, really. and that i make sure that we grow together spiritually as opposed to separately. with a stress on spiritually.
- dude wants me to contact him directly, which from the sounds of it is super rare. he basically said, “i want you to know that you can talk to me anytime.” supposedly i should just, when sitting, try to ask questions and not try too hard, and if the answers come, then they come and i’ll have known they come from him, and if not, i just didn’t do it that time. which is um, interesting, and super taoist… seriously though, everything that has been coming up lately in life is the most taoist ever, including recent classes doing tai chi and the whole approach to that…
- he explained the “scene” he put himself in as the last thing. the water he was stirring described my unconscious, which he was stirring up so that i would notice it.

anyway, i think that’s enough for now.

huxley.

ejected from my brain this morning in the twenty or so minutes after i woke up. i woke up before any alarm went off today, these words streaming in my mind. it was as though i could not NOT put them down, and for the next half hour of alarm clock-snoozing and cuddling, i was pretty much trying to NOT think about that but failed greatly, instead drafting out the outline of it mid-sleep, subconscious functions a-tickin’. last night gina gave a lecture at praxis talking about how friedrich neitzsche and michael jackson are similar (hehehehehe), and she had previously suggested that i give a praxis lecture about aldous huxley — my main squeeze and ram jam as of late. perhaps not a bad idea, perhaps. in any case, this is the beginning of -something- whether it be the talk i potentially wanna give at research club, the change to redefine’s new mission statement after the website goes up, or perhaps a praxis lecture! it remains to be seen but this is a draft and i’m not even gonna re-read it again right now because i’m on my way up to seattle. so that’s that. also, over the course of the next couple weeks, i have to write up some art installation proposals and pitch them to gabe because i have sooooooooo many art show / installation ideas — they’re pretty much never-ending — and i just need an excuse to do them all. i actually usually write them down in a flash (thanks subconscious), just like the essay below, and pretty much never think about them again until i have reason to. man, i totally live in my subconscious… no wonder i can’t remember jack shit in waking life…

anyway, here goes. hopefully this crap makes sense.

oh yeah, and i am also reading cosmic trigger that troy gave me finally. robert anton wilson’s book. it definitely makes me want to finish mine (which is almost done — just going through my second round of personal proofing). but yeah. it’s funny how books show up in your life when you want them to, if you’re looking for the signs. last night i was talking to paul, and he’d mentioned that he had just finished some book about a priest whose daughter died and as a result started becoming super interested in the occult… and he went to the library later on and just randomly saw a book which really caught his eye — about bringing dream life into waking life — and that the dream book turned out to be written by the wife of the priest dude. crazy, right? crazy. anyway, since i just realized that this post went into the “subconscious” category i created recently, i also just created a “synchronicities” category! wOo! i am wholly frOo-frOo!

and oh yeah, my interview with gardens & villa totally rules…

>>>

When you work in the web industry, you sometimes take for granted the web’s ability to bridge gaps. I don’t think anyone can argue that the benefits of the internet for everyone in the world are many, but it is my opinion that, more than anything, the main benefits lies in these personal links. These links provide, on a basic level, comfort for anyone with leanings toward the esoteric, as they begin to feel that they are not alone in their rare preferences. In fact, in some cases, the presence of the internet may even make one begin to lose sight of the fact that their rare niche interests are, in fact, extremely niche, simply because one can find such a solid community in it. On a more profound level, though, the internet inspires collaboration between like-minded and not-like-minded individuals. The collaborative potential in this is immense, and although it seems maybe obvious when one says it aloud, it is, in fact, in practice, not particularly practiced at all.
These ideas come to mind through a series of events, and upon that series of events have arisen points I would like to focus on. The first begins with my music and art publication, called REDEFINE. I began it seven years ago in Seattle. It was a printed quarterly rag initially, with the goal of promoting talented independent bands that other publications weren’t covering. At the time, that was an important thing because major labels were still of humongous influence and importance. From the very beginning, an extremely juvenile worldview that because what I was doing was so unique – and it quite was at the time – that I did not need to collaborate that much with my peers; they were my competition, not my friends.

Less than five years after I started the publication, it became obvious that the whole industry had changed immensely. While major labels still wield power over certain genres of music, their slice of the pie has gotten much smaller; the amount of music disseminated by independent labels is much, much more prevalent, and particularly prevalent in the styles of music I am interested in. The esoteric is no longer as esoteric as it once was. As a result, many a music magazine and music blog cropped up, and what had previously been REDEFINE’s tagline – “Fighting The Independent Fight” – was no longer as convincing of a tagline, except to those who were still hideously stuck in the past and feeling pity for themselves – because just about everyone was now fighting the independent fight.

This led me to re-assess my publication’s entire mission, as difficult as self-criticism is – particularly for a project that lies near and dear to your heart, which you have been working on for nearly a decade. But it is when I decided to open up my eyes to the collaborative potential offered by the internet that, firstly, I learned to become more satisfied with my product, and secondly, learned to further that project. While some amount of healthy competition is nice, it is also not the only thing that is valuable; cross-promotion between like-minded individuals and non-like-minded individuals is vital to an organization’s growth in this day and age. Particularly because there are so many individuals pursuing interesting ideas and it has become difficult to push your innovative idea into the forefront, if you are a content creator.

Now onto my second point. A couple months ago, I was reading “Ends And Means” by Aldous Huxley. His book “The Doors Of Perception” had originally changed my life and opened up my eyes to a whole subculture of individuals, but it was really when I read “Ends And Means” that Huxley became solidified as one of my heroes, and perhaps my number one hero. “Ends And Means” Is a sociopolitical book in which Huxley details his solution for world peace. Huxley, part-spiritual and part-logical, describes himself as a “rational idealist” – which, as far as I can tell, is a term he coined – and means an individual who is excessively positive and believes in hope for mankind as a whole, yet understands that it must be achieved through small steps and extremely rational means. It’s that simple. “Ends And Means” is a book that changed my life, yet I realized one day when another individual on Tumblr messaged me exclusively because I was reading that particular book, that it is a book that is, firstly, out-of-print, and secondly, hardly read by anyone at all. It’s shocking to me, really, considering the solutions that are laid out in that book. I could write an entire curriculum on that book alone – and, in fact, the only other person on Tumblr reading the book, a third individual, has had the similar idea himself – but there is one central idea I have taken away from “Ends And Means” that has since changed my worldview which I would like to share. That idea is this: “Our discussion of the nature of explanation brings us to the conclusion that causation in human affairs is multiple — in other words, that any given event has many causes. Hence it follows that there can be no single sovereign cure for the diseases of the body politic. The remedy for social disorder must be sought simultaneously in many different fields.”

As obvious as all enlightening points seem when stated aloud, they are not always put into practice. I believe this point is not put into practice enough, and furthermore, is not acknowledged enough. The Occupy Wall St. movement has certainly made that obvious. Everyone is complaining that there is no one central goal, that there is no one central solution – and that is because there isn’t. Causation in human affairs is multiple. There are a myriad of reasons people are currently dissatisfied, and, as a result, a myriad of solutions. The remedy for social order indeed must be sought simultaneously in many different fields. But if that is the case, why is everyone looking for answers in the same place? Why is everyone looking for other people to save them when they could each be pitching in to save us all from ourselves? What little things can we do in our lives to save us from the problems we see in society?

This is where cross-disciplinary collaboration becomes an important thing. Another quote I stumbled upon earlier this year which also changed my life was one from Benoit Mandlebrot, the discoverer of the fractal. He said, “The rare scholars who are nomads-by-choice are essential to the intellectual welfare of the settled disciplines.” And maybe it is a bit vain that, indeed, he was talking about himself – as he was a mathematician who discovered something that affected the fields of biology, physics, and ecology – but I think there is great weight in what he has said. This importance has been heavily obvious in the realm of translation, or perhaps in comparative religion, but there is not enough of this work being done in other fields. I have taken it upon myself to disseminate to others what I think is extremely important knowledge in the 21st century, and I would like to list a number of individuals who are “nomads-by-choice” who have profoundly altered fields of study they are involved with.

Some include:
[Physics dude who linked wave and particle]

In my own personal life, I have eternally been trying to balance the two main parts of me – the Sociologist and the Music Editor. It is with this new attitude of cross-disciplinary collaboration that it really dawned on me that having a music magazine, especially in this day and age, does not at all discount the possibility of stroking the back of me, the Sociologist. And while since 2005 I had always leaned towards doing articles with a social bent – such as features on a tour called the Take Action Tour which gives all proceeds to suicide prevention hotlines – it was a feature that had since fallen by the wayside and been replaced with more traditional music coverage. Now, thanks to Huxley and Mandlebrot, I’ve come to realize that not only can I work with other music blogs to help prop one another up, so to speak – but I can make positive social change through the outlet of a music publication. And it is perhaps here that the most change can be sought, because there is such a low barrier to entry, and many people approach music appreciation in such a visceral way. For most, it is only later that the intellectual components come into play.

subconscious idiot/genius.

i’m listening to… emil & friends’ new album, lo & behold. first time listening. haven’t decided what i think yet. interesting, yes, but i really loved the ep and this i am this far not that amazingly stoked on. dude is obviously talented as all hell, though, and doing something interesting, and i’m sure his live show hella kills…

i just woke up with some ideas that compelled me to actually physically wake up and do shit. ughhhhh i am ridiculous. see below for email i just drafted to gina because… my subconscious is so ridiculous!!!!!

so
as usual my subconscious is simultaneously being a major idiot and genius. for some reason, in one of my four wake-up-with-ideas states-of-mind this morning, i woke up with some idea for you to rearrange your room. clearly you don’t need to do this but i thought i’d pass it on…

i was thinking that if you turned your bed 90′ from the way it is right now, your bed could be used as some kind of couch for movie-watching, and where all your records are right now could go at where the foot of your bed is right now. the projector could go next to one end of your bed (the far end). would make your room bigger and your bed more a couch.

why the fuck am i thinking about this shit?

also kinda had to just wake up because i just had an idea for an art piece i would do. ugh. what the fuckkkkkkkkkkkkk! in any case, think i’ll pitch that piece to place sometime… woo sugars and candies and caffeines! makes the brain crazy but very productive! it’s sunrise outside right now! the sky is nice and pink and purple. looks pretty dope…

arf. arf. arf.

how was the rest of your night?

also, were t_____’ friends annoying yesterday? he apologized for their presences and that they were obnoxious, though i personally didn’t especially notice at the time…??

vivian

last night, we had a mini-party at our place that went til pretty late — like 2am or something — because rose and maddy are leaving. and cause i’m leaving for a month, a week from now. which is crazy!!! here’s the description originally posted for that party, although we didn’t end up bedazzling anything! i did manage to bust out the crazy shirt from camboria that lenny’s mom bought me, though, cause it is a hella bedazzled shirt with “burberry” written onto it in glittery rhinestones. pretty amazing…

hello fine ladies and gentleman residing in the greater portland area!!! if it would behoove you to join us for this eve of festive gathering and camaraderie, you would be very much a delightful and welcome addition.

vivian and rose shall be departing on a month-long cross-country road trip, beginning the 13th of september — which will culminate in rose “peacin out dis bitch whut whut”.

similarly, maddy shall also be “peacin out dis beeeeeyotcccccch!!!!!!!!!!!!” on the 11th of september, though her route will take her throughout the southwest and back to minnesota.

to celebrate their life growths, we iz sayin bai with potluck n dranx and steez. come by and hang oos.

OH YEAH AND BRING A PIECE OF CLOTHING N LEZ BEDAZZLE SUM SHIT. (YES, THERE IS A BEDAZZLER.)

BLING BLINGIN ENCOURAGED. THERE WILL BE STREAMERS, EVEN!

holla dolla. herndy verndy.

i also finally got robby and matt to meet, which i am particularly stoked about, since they both really like math and shapes, and are two human beings who i respect artistically to the utmost degree. both of their websites, respectively: robbykraft.com and mattleavitt.com (see also: interview with matt on redefine)

as i am currently sitting outside on our patio — it is 6:28am — i am being harassed by our local neighbor cat, aka (by shawn) scruffy cat. scruffy cat always wants the love and is totally cute as fuck, and i would be way more open to her hanging out and climbing all over me if someone would just cut her claws. she’s constantly scratching the shit out of me without meaning to, i’m sure, because she’s totally cuddly and all love. c’est la vie. man, troy has all the animals!! he has like three animals that are constantly running into his room because his door doesn’t latch. but that’s neither here nor there… just needed to say… it’s been quite a while since i’ve regularly associated with animals. it’s kind of nice.

might sublet prince rama’s apartment with rose, if they’re into it, and then i’d have a place in bedstuy in brooklyn, next to pratt, and that’d be hella rule. i think i’m going to have my apartment subletted too, so i would actually be saving money on rent and would have a dope part of brooklyn to live in (one i actually wanna explore, and really wanted to explore last time). this trip is coming together rad… all of a sudden a bunch of people popped out of the woodwork — acquaintances and such — who are contacts in detroit. also, a street photographer gave me a list of abandonments in detroit to check out, and was super glad to share. i’m excited as all hell. i haven’t taken photography for quite a minute because frankly, i just haven’t been giving a shit (seriously, that trip to vietnam turned me off on photography so hard even though i had some good images from that set)… but hopefully this time will bring me back to liking photography in the same way that i liked it when all-you-can-jet was going on a few years prior.

(side note: as of just now i’ve just added a new category to my sidebar: subconscious)

it was in a recent conversation that i discussed with rose that intuitive me knew “better” than reality me. she was skeptical about that and said it was dangerous, but i said it hasn’t proved me wrong yet. and it hasn’t, man. subconscious me has the BEST fucking ideas. meditative states and the spaces between sleep and wake are where i get the best ideas, easily, because waking me is way not that profound all the time. haha.

aaron and i had a conversation last week about that concept, as well, where aaron was talking about how maybe the fourth dimension was a connected interwoven “sense of everything being one”, which is interesting because i’m reading the tao of physics and i happened to pick it up again that day that aaron and i hung out, and in it it was simultaneously talking about how the fourth dimension for physicists was space-time, where time is on one continuum that is constantly flowing and constantly happening at once, and how for mystics, it is a “place” devoid of space and time, but is nonetheless moving forward. that same concept came up in conversation with troy and andrew last night, where troy was talking about how creation is what is constantly moving us forward in time — creation both in terms of human creation and universe creation — and it is something i intuitively feel. i lately had a conversation with andrew, after watching a documentary about the mayan interpretation of 2012, about what might potentially happen in 2012, should something actually happen. what i was talking about was a “balance” of sorts, because that’s what the mayans feel will happen, essentially, where an intuitive female power will start taking influence again, and the “western” mode of rational thought will stop being as dominating and important. i mean, if you look at the state of the world right now, it seems perhaps possible that the current trend of western hyper-logical thinking isn’t necessarily working on a global scale. and in terms of musical creations and artistic tendencies, there is definitely a return to less structured, intuition-based spontaneous creation without forethought. there is also a return to primalism of sorts. will all of this culminate at the end of 2012 into this insanely crazy shift of mental proportions? i dunno. it sounds crazy to believe that something might actually happen, but i feel it. but then again, this is what andrew said that his parents in the ’60s felt… that things seemed ever so crystal-clear to them and they thought, “if only everyone could get it and see things as we do…” but no one ever got it. but i dunno. that’s why i think 2011 is so bloody important and why there are many an idea in my head of things i need to accomplish by the end of the year (first and foremost being my book) because i feel they are important, particularly in this time, right here, right now. god, it feels crazy to feel that way. well anyway, back to what i was talking about. i was talking to andrew about 2012 being a potential shift in balance, and that that would perhaps lead to a small group of people who are intuitive and logically-minded to pave the way for positive change (like our group of friends right now… this is another thing that was recently touched upon… when we were at helsing junction, gina was reading a joseph campbell book, talking about cultural monads, and essentially, how, through the artist and music, we can make great cultural change because they are the ones who touch culture at large… and essentially, gina and i are doing this to some degree right now, along with many other people…) … … in response to this, andrew’s thought was… “if everyone becomes good, doesn’t that destroy the balance of all things?” and while i agree with that theoretically, i tried to give the example that although there is always the presence of good and evil in everyone’s lives, it is, after the existence of those things, a choice for one to figure out which route they would take in their own lives. the same set of circumstances thrust upon different people would yield different results. one might spiral downwards while another floats to the top. that kind of forward momentum is something that undeniably exists — the third aspect of what would otherwise be a duality. the third aspect is what makes the change, whatever that third aspect is. whether it be choice, or creation, or some kind of otherwise undefined forward-propelling momentum. (WHAT THE FUCK AM I TALKING ABOUT GHHAHFHHHHHHGAHHHHH!)

other than that, jeff was talking to me last night about how a lot of writers who are nobodies, such as i, and him, get friends to act as publisher, and that these friends will support one another. publisher would basically be… your friend prints your book and backs your product because they feel it is important, and it’s less vain than publishing your own shit and trying to push it on other people. but the problem is my thing is fairly lengthy and i don’t exactly want a chapbook… i want a nicely bound actual book. we’ll see. perfect-bound shit is pricey shit, after all. and i know that some people publish through lulu.com but i haven’t properly researched that just yet.

anyway. lastly. i wanna share a small selection of photographs from helsing junction that rose recently sent me from our trip that past weekend, cause they are nice. if anything, traveling with rose for the next month is going to result in one million thousand photographs! holy hell!

oh, and, generally speaking, i’ve been loving on this song so hard (see my review)

OH YEAH and. last edit for the morning as it just hit 7:00am… and i should go back to taking a nap since i went to bed at 2:30am and shit…

THEY RECENTLY DISCOVERED A DIAMOND PLANET THE SIZE OF JUPITER!!!

i found out about it from troy through this time magazine article but funnily enough i just realized this one person is following me on wordpress (thx mang) and he wrote a pretty in-depth post about it, if you wanna check it out here.

in other news, my “tags” for each individual post are getting more and more “out there” with every entry… haha.

not gonna lie…

parents were just here, visiting me, in portland, for a few days.

what can i say… the first couple days were fine, even pleasant, even, though it has to be taken into consideration that it was mostly pleasant because of what it wasn’t — that it was pleasant because i had expected worse and gotten dished out less than “worse.” but hey, standards are standards, although they may not be extremely high. so there’s that.

this particular evening, we went to shandong in portland. first time going to that restaurant, and i must say that i was quite very stoked that there is! indeed! close-in! portland! good! chinese! food! shandong was half americanized, but in a really good way… it was authentic although it catered very much to americans. so i am into it. the dan dan mian (which i will now make in the future nearest) was of particular note, and they have a really good koreanized jja jjang myun… so i’m into that, too. i will definitely be going back, oh yessss. so excited. funny that it is down the street from the ambassador — this really funny chinese food / karaoke place that troy and i went to on our first date. dare i say the ambassador even had a better chinese eggplant dish than shandong, and i’d say the ma po tofu, too? i dare. funny fun fun funs.

anyway. when the parents came, we did some hefty driving, first to silver falls state park — apparently in the amazingly named city called sublimity. that place has like this trail that is 8.5 miles long and goes through 10 waterfalls. the north falls were AMAZING because they fall from pretty high and then have a seating area behind them that is carved into the rock and is basically a circular section looking out onto the opening of the rest of the park. hard to explain — will have to snag a photograph from the mother who actually took photographs — but yeah.

yesterday, we went to astoria (pretty pointless, i must admit) and then to seaside, which looks totally different in the summer! last time i went there was in the winter, or fall or something, with sherry and tinwin. i don’t feel like half the shit that was open this time was open then. i bought a shit ton of salt water taffy. some that was super cheap and some that was more expensive… i must say… more expensive salt water taffy is WAY better than cheaper salt water taffy. the chocolate peanut butter ones i got (more expensive) had real peanut butter and just generally hella ruled. the other kind all kind of tasted artificial, and very little like what flavor it was supposed to, no matter what flavor you got…

the rents met troy and really, really liked him. and generally, they gave everyone a good impression when in a public setting. i feel bad in some ways, because hanging out with them too much makes me turn into this ugly, ugly person that i am usually never like around anyone else; it is just that they are so, so, so suffocating, and negative… and there’s so much a reason that i broke away and live on my own and will never go back. i mean… it’s nice to see them occasionally, but rather horrible to feel like i am constantly being judged and micro-managed. i felt bad in some ways that troy would ask me how my day was — when the rents were here — and i could kind of only answer in the negative because it was a negative… because whereas usually i can make shit roll right off my back, in the case of my immediate family, it is truly, truly something else. i just can’t let shit slide in that way. it’s just not possible… everything is just such, such a far cry from who i am. i am the opposite of planning out every second of my day, of worrying about every little thing… and though i care about those things sometimes more than my friends, the degree to which i’ve scaled it down from my origins is like… almost insurmountable.

but anyway. originally my dad had really not wanted to go to dinner because he thought he’d have to pay for everyone, but he ended up footing the bill, though i have to say that literally the reasoning he gave me was (said in chinese): “it looks better this way.” and yes, it did, but… yeah. i mean… i pick up the details that may get lost in translation but i suppose in every family and with every set of facades, only those who were really in it know the truth? and there are a lot of things i could say but suppress. today, i found myself taking deep breaths a couple of times to get a double-take and to not say things that were biting and unnecessary… but those deep breaths and second thoughts only accounted for like, 2% of the things i probably did end up saying, or the bad attitude that i gave off when i shouldn’t have… i don’t know, man. i don’t know. it’s something i have to work on… because yes, they are in the wrong, but i could act better, too… i could take the attitudes that i take in other aspects of life… of going with the flow… of letting things go… and apply it to these difficult familial situations, as well. i’m learning…

i haven’t updated in a while, so this is a complete brain dump.

my parents met troy a couple nights ago and were quite stoked on him. (we went to blossoming lotus, and i was rather surprised that they kinda liked it… but i was glad to give them the new experience because it was their first time eating at a place with food that said GF — gluten-free, R — raw, and … something else i forget… dad said it made him poop well… dad loves to comment on toilets and bathroom facilities… seriously…) anyhoot. troy seems like the type who would probably please any parent. but seriously, they had nothing but nice things to say about him, which is good. dad even went as far as saying he was pretty good-looking, haha. it’s funny, though, because dad barely said anything to him — but, as troy was pointing out today, of the three things dad DID say to him, one involved inviting him to taiwan in november. which is pretty hilarious. like. dude. we’ve been dating for a month! luckily, i can say these things to troy, and dad can say shit to him (like tonight at dinner: “take care of my daughter!”) amongst a table full of 7 other friends (robby, rachel, shawn, andrew, christopher, rose, gina)… and troy won’t get frightened away. haha. i guess that’s good. the other night at blossoming lotus troy thanked dad for paying for dinner, and he said, “it’s family!” and in a lot of circumstances it would be truly head-in-the-hands “fuuuuuuuuuuuck” — and in this case it was subtle and he barely heard it, but “take care of my daughter!” today was definitely met with a head-in-the-hands reaction on my part and a lot of laughter on everyone else’s part. luckily, it was funny enough that it wasn’t uhhhh hugely awkward. it’s just funny because money is such a “thing” with the rents, and such not a thing for me… they said multiple times, “troy seems nice!” to which i would respond, “he’s the best!” and mom would respond with something like, “the best should still need to know how to earn money!” once, dad said, “i hope he makes enough money to take care of the both of you!” or that “he knows how to plan for your future!” and… firstly, it’s like, dude… we have been dating for a month… secondly, it’s like… dude, we split payment on a lot of things, and i do that with all guys i date… and thirdly, it’s like… dude… we’ve been dating for a month. haha. even if it feels like longer than that…

a couple days ago troy and i went and had a picnic at colonel summers, and i started telling him about a dream i had about george clooney. when i initially told gina this dream, she said, “troy is kind of a george clooney,” and it was only until i started telling him this dream that i began to realize that fuck, the dream kind of was about him, or something. what happened in the dream was that the police were looking for george clooney in this city with super narrow streets and high walls (kind of like siena in italy, or something). they looked for a really long time and could not find him. finally, i think they stop looking, and i run into him. i jump up and hug onto him, like a koala bear, and am bawling FURIOUSLY. i have never cried like this in a dream or in real life. soon thereafter, he lets me down or something, and says, “but i am going to see you in a couple days!” and i instantly start laughing. end of dream. this was when troy was on tour… totally was about him… and i don’t know why i didn’t realize it until that moment when i was retelling it to him. sooooooooooo weird. sooooooooooooooooooo weird.

life is funny, anyway. shit just pops out and punches you in the face and you’re just like… whaaaaaaaaaaaat. there have been no use of words like the “L” word — whatever — but there certainly has this feeling of just this thing being the realest, easiest thing i’ve ever had. it’s pretty fucking crazy. i am really, really happy.

in the work world, too — life is good and easy. i pretty much have not had to look for graphic design projects in a really long time, and everything is just… easy… and it’s good… 2011 is the most magical of years. and i’m just trying to figure out the best way to round the rest of it out. for starters, beginning in mid-september, i will be embarking on a cross-country road trip with rose, who is moving out to new york. it will be something else, i am sure. until then… i have a little more than a month (man, time is flying, again) to do a million things… psychedelic things… helsing junction farm sleepover things… camping under the stars things… loving life things… eating food things… soaking in everything wonderful and wonderful and wonderful and wonderful and wonderful and wonderful things…

i’m ready.

OH DUH. it is to be noted that last saturday, rose, gina, robby, andrew, and i went camping and found an amazing, amazing, amazing situation for ourselves. these are robby’s photographs from his iphone. see below. OH MY GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT SO GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOD.

basically, gina / niko’s friend bobby had a space out in southern washington that he shares with this hippie retreat place… they have a bunch of land friends can camp on. we had a bonfire and basically slept under the stars — no tent — and then went hiking the next day. gina destroyed her really awesome sneakers hiking in the river. ah man. it was good times… there were a lot of s’mores eaten. probably too many s’mores. but it happens…

campground area:

but yeah. we found a really amazing swimming hole with a waterfall. below are pictures from it. pretty much there was life before the waterfall and life after the waterfall… haha.

robby tried to dive into the river with us but then froze to death (0 body fat) and then had to get out. as for andrew and i, we went close to the waterfall and it was seriously 2x closer there. like, it was cold when we got in, but when you got near the waterfall it was some serious shit. afterwards, the four of us were so cold we were seriously retarded. for starters, we could only — in andrew’s terms — “shrimp” to the shore… as in — we were walking upright when we went into the water but crawling on all fours when we got out. it was also like a three mile hike into the waterfall area, through rivers, and while it was slightly challenging and uncomfortable on the way there, on the way back we were seriously being so retarded… practically falling off logs… i felt like i was way closer to nature because of the poor decision-making skills i’d newly possessed: rather than going over a set of fallen branches, for example, i would crawl in between them and find my face now inches from ferns i would have otherwise simply risen above… it was strange, profoundly strange, deliriously delightfully naturally strange. high, high, high!!!!

too busy to write is actually not a good feeling.

i’m listening to… the zombies.

—

i thought this week would be a piece of cake! i suppose it is in the conventional regard but i was telling robby, “oh sure! i can meet up anytime this week!” but that turned out to be a huge ball of lie as this week, which had seemed so very free, in fact was not… for starters there are like, three friends’ birthdays this week, one of which will probably be celebrated twice, and it’s just all around “aaaaaaaaaaghhhhhhhhhhh!!!” insanity!!

but you know, whatever.

there has been an all-time high use of that thing we call mary jane at our home because shawn is out of town on the east coast and austin is living in his place. austin is quite a fan of such, and rose and sarah have been coming over to hang, and andrew is quite a fan of such, too… so it’s an all-around… smokery mess… the household dynamic is ever-interesting. man. not gonna lie. been paying only minimal attention to all of the responsibilities i should probably be taking care offffffff in terms of redefine. i mean. i’m doing a bunch of shit but there’s a never-ending amount of additional shit to do which has been neglected ;s need more hours in the day…

anyway. i really want to not write right now because it takes time but i think i need to.

life is been unbelievable in terms of synchronicities this year, as i have already been talking about, but it’s kind of at an all-time high, particularly since i started realizing it. gawsh, i hope our minds are not literally just our minds and that all of THIS is not some elaborate fantasy. it’d be quite elaborate and quite fascinating that a mind could construct such butttttttttttt. yeah.

the past few days have been non-stop philosophical conversation, to the point of some serious, serious life reflection… in this… mind-numbing, all-of-this-is-way-too-big-for-us-to-possibly comprehend type fashion. the other night after watching “pi,” rose and austin and i were talking outside on the porch and they were totally on the extreme frOo-frOo spiritual side of things, making me feel like this scientific extremist even though i’m not. blake was passed out on the couch so he was not able to join the discussion which was too bad, because they were just like, “i feel so much!” and i was like, “what the fuck!!” i wasn’t angry, but it was a very like, involved discussion… but in either case, it was interesting because there were these points that kept coming up that they were saying but that blake had said other nights… for example… they were talking about how it would be great to change education in a way that taught children how to rely on emotions and intuition… whereas the other night, blake was talking about how it would be great to change humanity by teaching people to reason and think logically. so fucking weird these polarizations, and hearing both sides, and being essentially the mediator of these sides that stand in stark contrast to one another… it’s kind of maddening. actually, i think my body is pretty pissed at me and is really stressed out. i really want to stretch non-stop…

anyway, another portion of our conversation was brought up by austin, who said that perhaps a solution to some of life’s problems of extreme emotions was turning to this buddhist way of thought… by clearing the mind of thought so that one could think about nothing until an emotion passed… because emotions supposedly only last a short amount of time. to this, i was like WHAT THE FUCK THAT MAKES NO SENSE. and i was trying to argue it from the standpoint that firstly, you couldn’t clear your mind completely really, and even if you did… it would not be at all useful in a modern world because the thought that were bothering you would probably just re-emerge like 5 minutes later, and what could you possibly do? clear your mind non-stop every 5 minutes? it’s simply not practical.

(man… side note… i haven’t had the impetus or time to listen to ANY new music. it’s a fucking problem, seriously…)

what else did we argue about… back to the emotional teaching model of thinking… they were both saying how it would be great if we could teach people to properly emote because that would solve all the problems, and i thought that that was missing the point entirely; teaching someone to rationalize was one thing… scary potentially, yes, but more possible than teaching someone emotion because we have absolutely no grasp on emotions… the prospect of teaching people how to emote is WAY scarier than the prospect of teaching people how to think logically. i don’t know if it is was cause they were stoned (probably a contributing factor) but this line of thinking was rather maddening to me, and again, it was like, “GODAMMIT BLAKE WAKE UP CAUSE I FEEL LIKE AN EXTREME SCIENTIST WHEN REALLY I’M JUST PRETTY MIDDLE OF THE ROAD AND THEY ARE FAR FAR FAR IN LEFT FIELD!”

anyh00t. they were also talking about how teaching emotional awareness would lead to the solving of the earth’s problems, that humans would stop destroying the world around us and realize that we are all connected to everything around us and we should therefore take care of it… and i ended up taking this stance that everything is ultimately selfish, from every human to every tree that is struggling simply to live… and that the trees were not destroying things not because they didn’t want to but because they literally did not have the faculties. that they couldn’t even consider destroying everything because they don’t have godamn arms and shit. they brought up that chimpanzees were similar to people and that they didn’t destroy the earth like we do, and i had to say that they do, that they war and fight against one another, and would probably do more only they don’t have the tools to do so… that we destroy because it’s in our nature, to a degree, and because we have the faculties to do so… they seemed to take on a super pessimistic viewpoint, but only of humanity, saying that it is only humans who sets out to destroy all things, and that all other beings in life work together to help each other. austin talked about how there’s evidence that cells group together and work together to help each other and that animals do too (? i don’t know details and he didn’t say specifics ?) and i had to be like, “wtf, human beings do all sorts of great things and work together on all sorts of great things!” to which rose was like, “like what?” (?!) and i was like, “what do you mean like what? look at this fucking fence! it’s fucking great!” it ended up being a point in my argument that human beings, even with the best of intentions — even if instilled with love of the earth — intrinsically need to create and by creating end up creating waste… that we destroy the earth by virtue of being curious and having large enough of brains! i don’t know why this argument even needed to be argued! it seems like a no brainer!!! again, being stoned probably didn’t help them with their thinking, but!! aaaghhh! maddening!!!

MADDENINGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG.

other than that, went to sauvie’s island this past weekend with rose and blake for the first time, which was quite nice. ugh, i’m sleepy. it’s midnight-thirty, and i have oh-so-many errands to run tomorrow. i think i will actually be able to wake up early and get everything i need to fucking do fucking done, yo.

ugh. i actually wanted to write down a why-life-is-so-fucking-crazy-this-year type equation or list of events but this is going to take a while. i will try to summarize quickly.

january > sucked, essentially, haha. got better towards the end, but what-in-the-hell-ever.

febuary > started realizing some interesting coincidences and feeling a different kind of energy. horoscope lineups and all sorts of synchronicities. psyching oneself out on the amazingness of life, generally-speaking.

march > everything everything everything seemed to go flawlessly, effortlessly well. mysterious energies, again, found in things like horoscopes, tarot, etc. interest in duality, stemming a lot from literature, in re-readings of vladimir nabokov, in aldous huxley and related things… slight bent on spirituality, though spirituality from a very concretely written point of view… not entirely frou-frou, but grounded in a pretty solid kind of way (other than baudelaire). all of these books which pointed in this direction were attained rather synchronicitously, baudelaire by random excursion into a borders bookstore that was closing down; aldous huxley by random trip to a bookstore in new mexico; etc. comparisons between baudelaire and metaphysics, symmetry in asymmetry, order in chaos… influenced my writing a lot, lots of pattern-based writing and careful attention to structures… as if i didn’t do that enough already, ugh, but baudelaire kind of contributed a lot more to that…

april > bit the butt in many ways. spent a month alone contemplating the concept of duality. every piece of literature i read — particularly charles baudelaire — began to shape my reality more and more, and interesting that i only probably became interested in baudelaire because of troy… and all the more interested because “it”: a) didn’t work out; b) gave me a lot of introspection in a period when i spent all my time by myself in california. timing could not have been better. seriously. picked up book by sartre, in the only place i could find it, which was the dublin library. read it and the timing was perfect. being by myself in california, had the occasion to begin writing my own book, highly inspired by sartre’s nausea… slightly philosophically, but more in structure and writing style. again, the whole troy thing lighting a fire under my creative ass…

may > began noticing dualities between metaphysics and spirituality… something kind of intrinsically felt in my life but difficult to explain as i barely know anything about either… kind of just a feeling. continue writing book. continue exploring such concepts through conversations. finding a close duality in another human being that makes for some senses of knowledge-completion. two sides of the same coin, both providing me with viewpoints — literature, one, with a focus on poetry; science, two, with a focus on philosophy… both equally abstract, but not to them… but very obvious to me, as a middle-of-the-roader, and the timing is just sheer insanity, and the parallels between the two even larger insanities. in addition to that parallel, though, it all just kind of clicked one night at a party, being sandwiched between a spiritual-minded individual and a science-minded individual, both with quite similar ideas, via different terminology and interpretations. but again. me = middle of the road.

june > conversations intensifying with themes of duality, but moreso this exploration between metaphysics / physics and spirituality… things practically falling into my lap. books being introduced which address the idea of parallels between quantum-level physics and spirituality, lectures and quotes coming up without my even looking…. and this month has only just begun. i resolved a couple days ago to begin dedicating myself, in a way, to studying this topic and trying to synthesize the information in a meaningful way because i know not what else i can do with these topics which keep coming up. i am trying to find the connection between intuition and rationalization — in what ways they are two sides of the same coin. errrf, i guess i am trying to explore the relationship between quantum-level physics and spirituality, via philosophy and literature. what.

hopefully these notes make sense. fuck.
probably will make sense to very few people.
the coincidental power… i don’t know what to do with it.

i think my body is not stoked. i feel suuuuuuuuuper stressed out, my thyroid is super swollen, and oh yeah, i think i can never smoke mary jane again. seriously. it makes me feel like shit — about myself, the universe, etc.

:>>> :>>> :>>>

but yeah here is the problem with studying this stuff; a scientist is largely isolated from religion, a religious person largely isolated from science. the idea is to find the cross-over… i am looking for patterns by loosely studying both ends, and then the goal is to interview the proper people to find more parallels and patterns. fuck. this seems fucking like a crazy undertaking… there are very few human beings to talk to about this, honestly.

—

lenny: (about above)
it makes sense
but i have a hard time relating that to the world i guess

me:
i can understand that
i can barely relate
just kind of happened
as, if you believe in this kind of bullshit, happens..

lenny:
like, what exactly happens to make you realize stuff like this exists
i dont even know what the stuff i’m referring to is

me:
i dont know man. this year i just started feeling this really weird way like everything was working out really well
and then throguh books that were introduced
these ideas just came up
and then kept going
so i guess it started with intrinsic feeling and got solidified by knowledge shared by other people which vibed similarly with feelings i was unexplainably feeling
whoa.
this is a new idea i hadnt thought of.

lenny:
im still pretty lost
what kind of ideas?

me:
let me give you some quotes
ok so life was going really well
effortlessly well
in feb/march
to the point where im like… this is barely life… life cant be this easy
and then i read this book. and this quote kinda describes how i felt

http://hellomynameisvee.tumblr.com/post/4218407856/from-the-french-window-i-walked-out-under-a-kind

it’s like pseudo-spiritual, kinda, but not like super out there… pseudo-spiritual but in a really concretely written literary way
this was only a jump-off point
and from there i just read a LOT and all of these ideas seemed to like
converge.
and a lot fo the books i didnt even look for, i mean i kind of did by the sheer act of going to bookstores and looking at books
but they just happened to be there and appealed to me for whatever vague reasons
and then meeting two people who are very similar in many ways and i have very similar relationships with… yet are complete opposites of people in a lot of ways and opened up two worlds for me: (1) world of abstraction through writing and literature; (2) world of abstraction through philosophy
and also these meetings/intense connections being rather chance in and of themselves…
and fleeting
as though used only for the purpose of gathering knowledge
does this make a lick of sense haha

lenny:
yeah the idea of it makes sense
like i get what youre saying
that recently youve been having these eye opening experiences and synchronicites in your life

me:
yeah i mean i can understand how it’s hard to realte
like a year ago i woulda been like wtf
but that’s the thing with these weird kinda spiritual things
they jut like
… pop up
and then it’s like oh i kinda get it
or something
so they’re kind of hard to explain by nature

what a day is.

i recently had this thought — what troy described as a “fight club” kind of moment — what i would only describe as a moment of clarity — however simple it might seem on the surface (it barely sounds like a revelation when written — but my, it certainly feels like one). troy has been ever telling me that time is but a concept — that it is not real — and while my terrestrial mind would be hard-pressed to believe that it is 100% non-existent — there has been a phenomena with me lately where i am discovering the value of what we call “a day” — whereas before i was constantly blathering on about how there are not enough hours in a day, lately i have been discovering that time is eternal? at least much, much more malleable than i had once thought before. when i had this realization it was the feeling that time is simple to manage — that i can practically do everything i want to do all the time. seriously, there are occasional logistical difficulties — i can’t be everywhere all the time or make a car drive the same distance in less time — but i can accomplish so much, and without as much stress as i would have previously thought, ever. i have been hyper-aware of time this past week in new mexico — this mystical land — and this feeling is unshakeable.

ROSWELL -> SANTA FE.
(written in the car, 03/17/11)

april 20th, 2011.
this was all in the car, after i left carlsbad caverns in southern new mexico and drove (yes, i was writing while driving — there was no one on the roads, after all, and it was clear on both sides for miles) from roswell to santa fe.

when i first entered carlsbad caverns, i had run down the entrance to the caves — probably like half a mile — not taking my time, barely noticing anything, really… and just concentrating on the act of walking downhill, stopping occasionally here and there, as people do, to take photographs and not really see. and then, i reached the “big room” (see picture above, which i did not take). the “big room” is a giant room in which there are many, many formations, which are all astounding, and remarkably different. a quarter way through the big room, it finally fucking dawned on me. i am in a fucking cave. a HUGE cave. i’m in a fucking cave, and it’s millions of years old or some shit, i’m not even noticing it at all??????? how am i not noticing it at all??

from that moment, i took my time. and when i left, i stopped by a small trail, where native americans had previously been thought to reside, and i climbed atop a tiny hill. when i got to the top of the hill, i meditated. i had meditated the previous morning and great sand dunes national park, and let me tell you… a morning meditation session in nature is truly like nothing else.

i had a series of revelations upon that mountaintop. they all sound really dumb when written — as many revelations do — but when i was up there, feeling them, it was powerful.

the first had to do with time, as i wrote down later. the second i am not writing until presently…

the second lied primarily in my method of meditation. i was meditating, lost in my own thoughts, til the wind started blowing strongly, and i came half back to reality, in a sense. i was centered in that midpoint which i love so much — between wake and dream. there, i began to look to the wind as an indicator of when i would stop meditating. i had been doing it for a while, and somehow, a rule i had newly formed for myself involved meditating until the wind stopped. it didn’t stop for a long while, and i found myself fixated upon the point of it blowing. upon realizing this, i was a bit soured upon the idea — i was obviously not that deeply entrenched in my meditation — and it dawned on me that i was willing the wind to stop so i could stop. it was just a rule i had made for myself, as i do. but that desire reflected so much a desire i always see and mock in my parents. for example, whenever we go somewhere and the weather is great, they’ll thank god, or whenever we go to a restaurant and a good parking spot opens up, they’ll thank god. i found all of that rather ludicrous, yet i was doing the same thing — albeit in a non-verbal manner — but my thoughts were selfish, and human… i was begging that nature stop for ME, lil’ ol’ me!!, so i could finally cease meditating because of this stupid rule i had invented. how human, and how selfish of me!

realizing that was important, i think. it involved taking nature for granted, in a sense. i am not certain whether my attempts to remedy were laudable, but i attempted to, by thanking the moment, and the situation — simply acknowledging the fact that i am a silly human and that i had made this rule, and sorry nature, but now i will depart, by my own accord, because it was silly of me to expect you to stop for me. thank you nature, i must depart. and then i left, after giving thanks.