Save Settings and Exit­­­

Today, as I cross-examine my footprints in this puzzle they call life, I realise that problems are ‘one size fits all’ for the inhabitants of earth.

It seems that these problems are so accepted as ‘the way’ that they call it life. In the US we would explain away such complex astro-biophysical dilemmas with: shit happens. As perpetual pain is normalised until we expect nought else, I think worthy of question is that which some claim to exist: heaven, nirvana–paradise.

Being as vague as the Yeti, it laughs at man and his ongoing application for lifetime membership, rejected by his forever-acting brain as (for these banausic frames) it rides the waters of Loch Ness. As I knock on the door of (egoless) knowledge, I now see what the problem always was–it is the disconnection from source. For all the joy and pain I’ve seen, at this sensitive time underneath the cosmos, I have to insist that, my friends believe in God.

I should say ‘trust’ rather than ‘believe’ as it’s more explicit than today’s guilt-retentive, ‘Jesus campaign’ of the God salesman. But that model makes the sane depart, leaving only ‘believers’ who rarely come to ‘know’. Now, mention of such a beautiful word as God, serves the orator the same sentence as an AWOL physician who spoke against a copious pharmaceutical shield. Today, the deaf ears that this refinement falls upon can only be blamed upon the soteriological Bible seller that may not know God as well as she may think. In such cases, it’s like the bottom of the sea trying to describe the air to the land, and so the listener concludes the wind a fiction.

The truth stands as a lone pillar, as a minority in each community that it discovers. Bothered not by external support for verification, it is certainly the outcast that I choose to align with. In the words of Mark Bolton: ‘I’m Spartacus’ and it’s too late in this story to care if my ‘I’ will become a ‘we’. Seeing smoke coming from the engine, we endeavour to save the plane but being seconds from impact, all I can see is a parachute with my name on it, so maybe this scrawl is a ‘my condolences card’.

What if I told the believers that Jesus said, he ‘couldn’t make it and ordered that they go it alone’–would they blame me, trust him, or cease believing? Or would they finally become Christ the individual who, squared by just four, would change this world kerfuffle in a day? Can they not imagine a land of Christs–we can, hence our bold expression of God without apology?

Immediately my blasphemous spellchecker answers the question for them in red underlined binary, it refutes pluralisation of Christ–only ‘Godzzz’–the many god’s they utter.

But then there’s you–my friend–with your disbelief who the believers call a sinner–well isn’t that the kettle calling the pot white? You who accepts cookies from deceitful strangers, in your haste to consume with no care what, why or where, seeing no danger in the brain food that you scoff. Such worshipful, agnostic dissonance is only proof of the inner conflict from that ‘solar detachment’.

But amongst ‘they’ there are those that gno; and they know that both of these disjointed faces that claim to believe (or not) orphaned their hearts to foster the brain, this they have in common. And mid-verse, that sweet spot in-between is where God lives inside (not out). Although sometimes seen outside strolling hand in hand with in, the heart doesn’t give in to the silly suggestions of the floozy brain. So it reasons not with that which can never produce symbiotic flow and so, in the name of rhythm, man remains forever for her and her for he–and all debates on gender die right there in that sweet spot called flow.

But the disbeliever and the believer both share the same offbeat timing. They reason in the brain that society (that is now clearly mad) is part sane and so, in such a mind, a pet fish, a caged bird or a dog are not quite slaves. While they fight to free only their own kind, society it seems is sharing a brain in the name of diversity.

We know their external needs; it’s to fit in, to belong and to make right of wrong and while at it ‘wrong of right’ and if it m­eans to be accepted as part of the bigger clan, who cares? We do, we care to remind you that Hitler only suggested the abuse, the ‘civilised’ community saw it as fit–69 million of them.

But the one who knows within is abstruse, walks alone and is odd to even those of the church that do not. She marries he who she innately loves, knowing the infinite joy of ‘pure’ love over the temporary pretence of companionship brought on by an earlier undiagnosed pain. No, she knows the discomfort of wearing two left shoes as much as she wish it be hale. She refrains from her mind presenting a sister as her mister, thoroughly induced by distain for her significant other. She also doubts she’ll make a protective mother because she couldn’t keep her own (inner) child safe from the blue monster that forced his male privilege.

Science says the abused will abuse again … some bring proof that it isn’t always so, while the knower completes the sentence for them … “even if it be thine own self that they abuse”. The knower says: those who love not themselves will ‘never’ love another and the bible: “… you pay for the sins of your fathers”. But they see not the remedy in the ‘whole vision’, just a bearable fragment that gives the blind a temporary fix, paroling the molester while enriching the surgeon’. They know the inane task of fitting the soldier’s foot in the stiletto and the mother’s foot in the steel toe; it’s her socks that are blue and not her testis. And such illusions will suffice until the truth hits harder still, maybe when one finally matures and thinks just one sovereign thought at home-alone-at night.

But those who know, live mostly in the heart and feel first before they become the victim and make those outer suggestion into an inner desire, engaging the overtaxed brain into action. The brain that takes on all forms of nonsense as true for lack of that sweet spot called ‘soul’. And all that need to placate ‘the majority’, for the lack of autonomy. And the numb (Homer Simpson) community advise her to abort ‘her’ milk supply and stick grafted pieces of skin to replicate a crane that will never fly, very much unlike one that only the supreme architect could design. But they say that ‘copying is the best form of flattery’, while replicating God’s design, who clearly does not exist. And in such absence of sensitivity, both the surgeon and the saved are paid on commission.

Meanwhile back in the hill, my aunty ‘Christ’ begs to pray for me, pray that I let Jesus save me with her holy words, barely moments after I gave the shoes off of my feet to a homeless stranger. My bare feet in the rain interpreted by her brain as ‘sinner’.

I also noticed that the very moment my goose bumps faded, after I gave the poor man my ‘lonely’ dollar, Seymour turned up to accuse my virtue.

I know that the very week that I had to bury my mother, Paul relapsed and blamed me for not supporting him in his struggle with drugs and not abandoning my own issues.

I know that minutes after my uncle’s diabetes was confirmed, Courtenay came with iced-donuts. And just as this live-thought landed on the page, Lee tempted me to come outside for a walk away from God.

Mostly these figures in their colourful all-sorts, being ‘lost at see’, miss God’s land on this defining day. To them, all is defined in the sensory where they find their reasoning, ignore signs, empathic feelings, impulses and the unseen subtleties that emphatically drive this whole damned fabric.

In a sense, it’s not their fault that they talk numbly of the paranormal and will never conceive the fact that: 99.999999 % of that which appears before them is held together by (what they would call) nothing–empty space. That sweet spot that we know too well is where they could find the harmony that they seek, if they could just slow down and listen. But they want more speed–7 G if possible.

As I maintain: I insist that my friends know God by experience and her timely perfection. If you want to know this mystery called God that evades even those who think they believe, at least first know the devil and his timing before a dissed believer gets you into another mess in the wrong place, at the wrong time. I imagine for the life of this post you may have ventured within for a brief moment but as you go back without, into the world of non-sense, maybe you’ll commit the thoughts to mind before you exit, as fade will these unverified, unpopular, yet true words.

By: Angel Levvis

Happy New Years

Caveat:

Use of the word ‘we’ does not constitute ‘My self’ in a manner that makes Me complicit in the issue/subject but is used only as a formality and effort not to violate writing tradition. Even though it may appear that my use of ‘we’ means ‘us’, I reference only My self as ‘we’ in respect of the overwhelming shared sentience of the masses, of which I am but am not of, in respect of My unfamiliar peers and their ignorant acts antonymous to My autonomous weighs. I, just as all corporations do, hold My self harmless from the collective wrong that society willingly partakes and I take personal responsibility for all things that I willingly, clearly and openly consent to by clear (non-tacit) agreement, without force, duress or coercion.

I Am.

It’s now 2023 and as we step into this great unknown, I must say that ‘ignorance’ is a choice.

As abstract as it seems, knowledge is not the property of schools of education but readily available for all who genuinely search for it–the reward of the seeker. It’s just that most would rather collect pointless data steered by either peer-esteem, likes or something of the egocentric nature. This is despite the fact that, over the decade, all that seems currently unknown was previously (widely and openly) available and easily accessible to all via online. That is at least before the colonisation of the Internet in 2012 (New Hampshire RSA 193-F:4.).

The result of this pathway to policing dialogue and searches, hiding behind cyber bullying, is comparable to a mass book burning and the resulting chaos. With today’s corporations learning algorithms, our search engines can guarantee failure as we try to stick the salvaged pages back together again. This colonising of websites and the heavy concentration on child censorship, made way for key information to be available only in select jurisdictions. Even though tangible location is somewhat of a fiction in the online world, we ignorantly opened the doors to communist ideals.

Continue reading

Awareness Alone

She was flying at speed, with no sense of fear. Kaleidoscopic rainbows of colours were rushing past her with excitement, an eager playfulness that she found contagious. She looked down and saw hills and valleys beneath her, she saw ploughed and fallow fields and the microscopic activity of lives being lived. She looked up and witnessed the stillness of the stars. There was a never-ending depth to them when viewed from this angle, like brushstrokes to the infinite. She looked ahead of herself and into the oncoming colour, she felt a reassuring calmness within the speed. 

She had always been a rebel, quick to play the devilish advocate of the opposite and contrary, quick to assume the role of the antagonist committed to playing the counterpoint. For so many years she had been the one trying to rush others onwards. She had called it passion. She had judged most of life as a drudgery, a flattening bore of responsibility and restraint. She had seen those surrounding her, family and friends, even strangers who’s path she would cross, as needing shaking up, waking up into the pure potentiality of a life lived in full glory. She had made herself a nuisance without any sense of shame. Pushed forwards with the wholehearted belief that she was following a higher cause, the lifetime commitment of an awakened truth-seeker, desperate to both inspire and be inspired. The counterpoint to what she perceived as inertia had always been movement, a dragging and a thrusting, a call to arms proclaimed by an individual rushing onwards at speed. Now that she was flying at speed, she found herself playing the counterpoint again. Only it wasn’t the inertia that she had always imagined it to be, the counterpoint to speed was actually stillness. 

She was still, while flying at speed. And with the stillness came a calm contentment. Strangely familiar, like a friend from the past that one struggles to recognise at first. That moment before the spark of reconnection lights the fires of your heart. The squeal of delight, the lightening of spirit, the widening of the eyes. It was as if every cell in her body was pulsating with the eternal light of the stars above. She could feel everything with expanded awareness, the entirety of her body, as well as the vistas above and below. The wind was her too. The way it rushed past with eager delight. Every colour was a world of its own, a doorway into a past moment of her life. Red and orange, blue and green, yellow and fuschia, purple and pink. She had been all these colours and more and she had retained their stain as an imprint upon her soul. The fibres of her being stored the memory of how she had been, and her past being had shaped her even more than she realised. 

Her subservience to ideology and principle had left its residue. It had been corded to her for so long and during any time of cording there will be a continual osmosis, unconscious assimilation and the creation of baggage. It wasn’t enough to cut the cord and be done. That idea was born of impatient irresponsibility. There were dues to be paid, reparations to be gathered, uncollected baggage waiting to be reclaimed. She would have to suffer the kickbacks of her former trigger-happy self, and when they came, as they surely would, she would have to resist the temptation to re-cord herself to her former ideas and principles as a method of self-defence. For such a method would place her finger back on the trigger, it would result in more shots, more death and destruction, the creation of even more baggage, further dues to be paid, further reparations to be gathered. An endless cycle of birth and death, pleasure and pain, an almost continual suffering. 

She would have to stay clam, retain a connection to stillness. And her unofficial counterpoint training would help; because in a world of continual change: new creations, physical death and decay, emotional rises, psychological shifts, developing thoughts, ever-reactive senses, the only counterpoint is that which never changes. That which is consistent. 

Awareness. 

Her Awareness. That within, which is aware of all the changes, the senses and thoughts, feelings and beliefs, all the fluid identities of the surrounding world. The ‘I AM…” that connects itself to different things in order to complete the trailing sentence and experience itself in absolute totality. If she could remain connected to the knowledge that in truth, given a long enough timeframe, she is only that awareness and nothing more, then she would probably be alright.

She continued to look ahead. The confluence of different colours had merged into a fixed point of light. Colours continued to exist in the periphery, but her attention was so concentrated that she didn’t notice them. She was beginning to know something beyond colour and form, separation and difference. She was still aware of what was below her in the fields and the valleys, she could even feel the sadnesses and joys of those who ploughed them. They fell into her like a pebble to a lake, causing a splash and a ripple that settled into calmness and transparency, security and rest. She was becoming aware of the source and the sauce. The source of it all, as distinct from the separate sauces of life, the different tastes and fancies. She was beginning to connect to this perennial awareness. Something singular and alone, but far from feeling lonely she felt more accepted and connected than she ever had before. And no sooner had she smiled to herself in self-satisfied satisfaction, than she awoke to the warm daylight of a summers morning, the rest of her household fast asleep. Her day just beginning.


by Palmer Golden

photo by talib

Ten Years Ago, St. Mark’s Road

Darkness flowed ten years ago, at 3am on St Mark’s Road, when I walked home from A****’s flat.

Such was the desolation in my heart even the warmest of souls couldn’t provide respite beyond a few hours. Laying in bed, listening to empty nothingness, the torment gripped me – the worst bit, the unpredictable disorder before numbness kicks in. Knowing I’d have to make my exit at daybreak anyway, I grasped the nettle of my aloneness and set off home.

From Dalgarno Gardens, I turned onto St Mark’s Road. With the park in pitch blackness on one side, it was disquieting, with exhaustion and all that negativity putting me on edge for my journey.

Down St Mark’s it was just me, a few foxes, the city and the cosmos beyond.

My nerves were shot. I needed the fresh start of a new day and dragged myself towards it. No people, no cars, silence in London aside from my own footsteps.

I turned right onto Lancaster Road, left through Verity Close. Still no people on street level. Thousands slept.

My final turns were Walmer Road then Bomore Road. The leisure centre that was there then is gone now, but I remember rounding a slight bend on Bomore, which put me in sight of my flat, my bedroom…and onto the highlands of Paranoia, sensing that something wasn’t right.

I saw a figure at the gate, hunched over, rubbing its hands, grunting. My emotions morphed my perception and produced a surge of paranoid fear like I’d never known. I’m short-sighted and it was the dead of night; what I saw when it looked back at me was a half-beast, some kind of golem.

Like I’d unexpectedly interrupted some private business of his, which I guess I had, he did a double-take then went back to his grunting business without acknowledging his fellow being. I was close to him, a few yards and he was emitting not-quite-human sounds. At that moment, I saw my desolation – the disturbance that had been wrecking my days and scattering my sleep had manifested as this man-thing.

I walked around that bend and I was out of his sight – then sprinted to the building and gratefully into my flat.

I rationalised this encounter, weighed all the factors…I’m short-sighted…probably somebody drunken fumbling with their keys in the dark…but still, this was my demon. Down St Mark’s Road, my mind had stayed alert; with home in sight it went off-duty and got caught out, the vision awoke the basest, weirdest, darkest fears to flood my brain.

Unthinking cruelty, the capacity of people to go cold beyond zero, to flick their humanity off, along with their commitment to reality.

In bed, the fear and relief gave way to desolation. Home, but I was being denied my human right to share it with *******. Certain that I would not sleep and not wanting to wake A****, I didn’t text her to let her know I had gone but was safe.

I was awoken at 7am by my Blackberry….”Oh my God, where the fuck are you?”

“Oh shit, sorry, I couldn’t sleep so I walked home.”

“I thought you might have gone and done something stupid…”

This was how serious it was 10 years ago.

A decade on, 305 blog posts, if I said life is very different it wouldn’t be true. Darkness flows on, and that same fear gets triggered by cruelty and hostility. It did today. Same story. Everyone’s mind can create demons. Mine even made me see one.  But it also sees the angels – and round here they seem to outnumber the demons, even in the darkest of times.

Talib @urbandandyldn

Photo by MNT

Stay Fresh

To calm the mind, the ego, to boost my self-esteem. Because low self-esteem is judged to be a hindrance in life.

But part of me doesn’t lack esteem – it is aware of its position, its stature.

Something else – ego – doesn’t accept this stature as real. Ego doesn’t feel that it is justifying its existence unless it is telling me to improve something, or telling me it’s no use, I’m no good, everything is bleak.

This is the constant dance.

During lockdown, ego has been on top, dominant, with Rajas and Tamas. But Sattwa* is always there. All things are always there – relax and experience them.

 

@tomhcharles

*Rajas, Sattwa and Tamas – the three Gunas – Hindi philosophy for understanding human experiences. Rajas = Movement; Sattwa = Lightness; Tamas = Heaviness. More on the Gunas here.

Mooji

“Don’t become addicted to personality or identity” – Mooji

Reading Mooji is not reading an instruction manual. The spirit of the writing is as important as the words taken literally.

Not to be caught up in ‘things’ is one pointer he gives, but there’s nothing wrong with genuinely enjoying material things. Just know that there is more enjoyment in appreciating just being alive.

Each morning I tune into my senses, to know that I exist as a human being. Here, the phenomenal things arise – desire, doubt, thinking-planning-analysing. But above and underneath all of it, I exist.

And above and underneath, within that, I am not separate to everything else that exists. And I am not separate to that which holds all of that within itself.

Pic from YouTube – Moojiji

Tom Charles @tomhcharles

I Sit With My Thoughts…

When the lights are off, the music on, my mind drifts like tumbleweed being blown through a desert

I sit with my thoughts, emotions, memories, dreams – constantly twisting like a psychedelic Rubiks cube – yet not looking to create order, but just being….xxx

by Mark Bolton
@MarkCBolton1

below by @tomhcharles

IMG_3392

Love Lockdown

As I sit in front of this screen my heart feels a longing to hug those I Love – to let them know it’s going to be alright,

Letting our auras entwine, creating colours beyond the spectrum – feeling that bond pull tighter, becoming one with the universe, being made whole and pure for eternity…

by Mark Bolton
@MarkCBolton1

below by @tomhcharles

IMG_3398

Mid-Lockdown

I never post anything just for the sake of it – Been very dry+uninspired last few days…but as in boxing, most fights are won or lost in the middle rounds,

So whatever you’re going through don’t give up. I won’t…It’s never over until the final bell..xxxx

by Mark Bolton
@MarkCBolton1

below by @tomhcharles

IMG_3389

 

 

Mindscape

It’s important we know the times we live in – but to do that, we first must truly know ourselves – our true self.

What we think, fear, do when we are on our own. Accepting our own imperfections helps us accept them in others. Wisdom without grace is futile as is knowledge without Love.

by Mark Bolton
@MarkCBolton1

below by @tomhcharles

IMG_3324