On Mysterious Radio discussing Ley Lines and Earth’s Energy Points

Hey Folks,

Just a quick head’s up but I’ve been featured on Mysterious Radio again, this time around discussing ley lines, earth’s energy points, individualized spiritual travel and basically a discussion and expansion of these these blog posts. You can also listen to their podcasts here.

This Conscious Planet Thinks and Reacts

Earth’s New Energetic Centers of the World Part I

Earth’s New Energetic Centers of the World Part II

Earth’s New Energetic Centers of the World Part III

David Icke, Obelisks and New York City

Always fun talking to K-Town and Kim and look forward to speaking to them again in the future.

Let me know what you guys think :-)!

Into The Maelstrom

“Aye, aye! and I’ll chase him round Good Hope, and round the Horn, and round the Norway Maelstrom, and round perdition’s flames before I give him up.”

– Captain Ahab in Moby Dick, Herman Melville

Apologies Shifters for not writing very much. It just seems that almost everyday now, another level of outrageousness is being unleashed on all of us that it makes me wonder if I can even keep up and write about it any meaningful way of what’s happening in the world and by correspondence, on the subtler plains.

I’m going to just be honest but it would seem that everything is a mess. I knew things were going to get ugly and degenerate with Agent Orange Baby Fists as president but I wasn’t expecting it to happen so quickly and barely 2 weeks into his presidency. It’s almost impossible to focus on anything else, even up here in Canada because of the influence and centrality the US has on the international order.

Agent Orange Baby Fists now has his name on this rink. Central Park, looking south.

I spent a week in New York City by myself and came back a few days ago. Rates are cheap right now given it’s the low season, they were practically giving rooms away at 5 star hotels so I decided to take advantage of it. This wasn’t really a Trump trip or anything of the sort, but like I wrote earlier, there’s no escaping him. New Yorkers and Manhattanites are a very tough breed but practically every soul I encountered there was beyond disgusted at what’s happened and the direction that country is going in.  I mean they know Agent Orange Baby Fists the best, he comes from the same town and they’ve lived with his obnoxiousness for years. I had one conversation with an amazing  Wicca/Pagan witch where she pointed out to me that Agent Orange Baby Fists’ team seem to be all reincarnated Nazis. They couldn’t pull through with their plans the last time and now they’re going to make sure they do everything they can and of course instead of Jews, the Muslims will be the new canary in the coalmine. You have to remember that in Nazi Germany, Hitler didn’t only go after the Jews, but also homosexuals, gypsies (the Roma), people of color, intellectuals and professors who disagreed with Nazi ideology. I can totally see that happening with this current crew.

Joseph Goebbels, Reich Minister of Propaganda.
Has this dude reincarnated as….

….this dude? Steve Bannon

One night I happened to be in Greenwich Village and the sound of thousands cheering brought me to Washington Square Park with a full pro-immigrant, pro-Muslim, anti-Trump  demonstration in full swing with everyone under the Sun in attendance, black, white, brown, yellow, straight, LGBTQ.

I was literally right up against the right pillar of the arch.

The night after the Executive Order banning Muslims from specific countries was issued,  I happened to go for some curry take-out at a place frequented by Pakistani and Bangladeshi cab drivers, all of whom , who normally are a cheerful bunch, were in a sombre mood and quite worried what the future would hold for them.

Yup, it’s like this all the time now outside of Trump Tower

Another afternoon, I happened to be strolling down 5th Avenue and needed to use the ladies room. Trump Tower was in front of me and from the street I could see a Starbucks inside so I figured there had to be a restroom inside. After walking by SWAT-team members with machine guns and uzis, having to put my purse through a detection machine, I  walked around a bit to take in Trump Tower and it is by far, the ugliest, tackiest, energetically most terrible place in NYC.

When I popped in, it was as dead as it is in this photo.

The over-the-top pink marble everywhere, rose-tinted gold mirrors everywhere, brass finishings. Even the people at the Starbucks  cafe  on the second floor looked depressed. The cafe downstairs was cheap-looking and empty. You had a lot of waiters and hostesses standing around trying to look busy or lure in tourists. I don’t know why but there were quite a number of Chinese and Japanese female tourists with head curlers still in their hair.  I went to powder my nose and left. I have no idea what kind of an insecure loser you’d have to be to want to live in such a garish architectural abortion.

There wasn’t even any escape in Central Park. One rare, sunny and unusually warm afternoon, I was munching on a sandwich while sitting on the warm rocks in Central Park South, and admiring the skyline when I suddenly see an ice rink and a zamboni clearing up the ice both with ‘TRUMP” displayed prominently. It completely ruined the moment.

The rink is behind these rocks.

An then the worst part was coming back home and hearing about the Quebec City mosque shootings. Agent Orange’s presidency might have something to do with it but racism and intolerance have been a long-time feature in Quebec politics and Quebec society. I know because I’ve experienced it firsthand while growing up. There is a certain strain of Quebecois (certainly NOT all) who really, are nothing more than the French-speaking equivalent of Southern redneck Klansmen in the US. Same xenophobia, same level of cultural ignorance, same level of white supremacy and entitlement, same level of fear that the planet will no longer be the Anglo, American, Western European man’s domain but that it’s going to get very, very colorful very soon with Slavs, Asians, Chinese, Indians and women, all of whom are on the ascendancy.

But there were other moments of grace. Mostly spontaneous encounters with people on the street, bus or subway, random deep conversations about what’s happening. To me this is the most beautiful thing of what has happened: People finally GET IT that they have no choice now but to work together and fight together to look out for one another, because if they don’t, they could be next. Jews are lending their synagogues to Muslims to pray in. I saw a huge contingent of the LGBTQ community come out in force about the Muslim ban. People who normally never speak to each other are now coming out of the woodwork to defend each other and are talking to each other. Everyone knows who the common enemy is. And this is just after week 2.

I don’t have the gift of prophecy but if this is what’s happened in just 2-3 weeks and the population’s energy is frothing and churning like a maelstrom like this, there is no way in God’s Good Earth that Agent Orange Baby Fists will complete his term as president. *Something* will go down, either impeachment or an assassination attempt, I think. People generally can’t live under than level of constant stress for very long before someone or something eventually breaks down and there are always weirdos and unstable types around.

The question to be asked at that point is what will replace it? I don’t think we can go back to how things were. The age of neoliberalism and capitalism is drawing to a close and the people who are forcing this change are the young because they’ve been left out in the cold and they’re not drinking the capitalism Kool-Aid anymore.

This is where we’re going to need the dreams and ideas of fools, poets, writers, thinkers, artists, anarchists and the marginalized. If you look at the history of human progression, good ideas almost always start off in the margins, in the fringes of society and once they move to the center and capture the public imagination, they suddenly become policy or reality. For instance, basic guaranteed income started as an idea in anarchist circles because, to paraphrase Professor Chomsky, people should not need to rent themselves out in order to live, and now several countries are seriously thinking of implementing it.

To that I say, dream big, people, dream.

Magic in the Neighbourhood

The Brownie Castle, Granby, Quebec

I have mentioned a few times that I grew up in a particularly idyllic part of Canada, in Southern Quebec, an area known as the Eastern Townships, which straddles the border with Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine. It is in the Appalachian panhandle, the oldest mountain range on planet Earth, which once upon a time, many ice ages ago, was 7 times higher than the Himalayas.

Lavender farm among the hills of the Eastern Townships.

Today they are mostly gentle, rounded hills, meandering rivers, sleepy villages established by the Loyalists (persons who were in the US but wanted to remain loyal subjects of the British Crown so left and came up to Canada), farms, vineyards producing iced apple cider wine and ski hills.
To me the Townships has always been home, not Montreal.

Lac Boivin, I learned how to ice-skate on this lake as a 4 year old, in the winter when it was frozen over.

More particularly I grew up in a town called Granby, a small town established by Scottish settlers. Much of the English-speaking population left the Townships in the late-1970s, early 1980s, when the separatist political party, the Parti Quebecois came into power. Today about 50 000 Anglos barely hold on while the area became more French due to draconian language laws (I’m not going to go into the whole Anglo vs French thing in Quebec but its a constant theme living in Quebec. You can read about it here if you want). Even so, if you ever get the chance to visit, the “STOP” signs are still in English. The wide boulevards, which mark English town-planning are still there. Drive around even more and there are little villages and hamlets with names like Mystic, Aberdeen, East Angus and Waterloo.

In Granby, I grew up practically on the doorstep of the mysterious Brownie Castle, a strange mansion with a hexagonal tower built by the Walt Disney of the Victorian age, Palmer Cox.

Palmer Cox, back in the day.

Funny how you can live somewhere for years and never really know the history and more particularly, the esoteric history of that place. I only found all this out in late August but Palmer Cox was a very well-known illustrator in the late 19th century, who grew up in tiny Granby and worked for years in places like New York City and San Francisco. His illustrations were in publications like The New Yorker and Harper’s. And then he created, The Brownies.

The Brownies were based on the stories he grew up with from his Scottish heritage, particularly his mother who was from the Highlands. In Scottish folklore, the Brownies were tiny spirits who helped people out in the home. You walk out of a room and come back 5 minutes later and suddenly the floors are mopped or the bed has been made mysteriously. Cox wrote many books about them which were a fantastic hit with kids the world over, not unlike the Harry Potter phenomena.

The Eastman Kodak company using the Brownies for an ad.

The Brownie images were used to promote dozens of products like soaps and shoe shine polish. In many ways, it was the precursor of what we see the Disney corporation do these days with their animated characters. Cox made millions from it, lived in Europe for years and then for some reason, decided to come back to sleepy little Granby to build the Brownie castle.

And with the Brownie Castle in the background, shortly after it was constructed.

The Brownie mansion sits in my old neighbourhood.

Across the street from the mansion is the oldest park in Granby, Victoria Park (named after the queen at the time) designed by Frederick Todd, who went on to design Canada’s Parliament Hill in Ottawa, the Plains of Abraham in Quebec City and… Fort Tyron Park in New York City (with Frederick Olmsted Jr.).

The stream heading off into the pool, Victoria Park 1945. It still pretty much looks the same.

I practically grew up in that park, walked through it everyday on my way to school, played with my friends among the rocks and streams and even as a kid, I felt there was something special there.

The Japanese Red Cedars, they can live for hundreds of years. Many temples and shrines in Japan have groves of these trees.

In the fountains, in the grove of ancient Japanese Red Cedars, in the ponds and the exposed giant granite rocks, a hallmark of Olmsted and Todd park design, which I found out in my recent NYC trip. Even now, whenever I return to visit, I always catch someone doing something spiritual there. I’ve seen people meditating, I’ve seen people doing Tai-Chi or yoga. I’m not the only one who can feel *something* is at work in that park. There’s some good mojo in that whole area.

Before going to New York, I went back to Granby to look at the Brownie Castle again (today, it is a private residence with three different apartments, I’m not sure the tenants even know or care about the significance of the building) and to visit Palmer Cox’s grave at the Cowie Street cemetery.

Plaque on Cox’s grave.

I couldn’t figure out why on Earth would Cox come back to tiny Granby after hitting the jackpot and living in glamorous places like NYC and Europe for decades to build a whimsical mansion in the middle of nowhere ? (The park and neighbourhood were developed decades after the mansion was built.)

Cox, was a Freemason, which also has its own set of esoteric teachings, much of it is a mish-mash of proto-ancient Egyptian and Hermetic teachings and rituals, so he was savvy to these things. Frederick Todd, another Scotsman, was also a Mason (in fact a guy I once knew who was thinking of becoming a Mason even told me that the layout of Parliament Hill is based on the layout of the inside of a Masonic Lodge).
It makes me wonder if Cox felt the energy of that area, the benevolent presence of something and felt compelled to return the favour?

David Icke, Obelisks and New York City

The healing garden of The Cloisters museum

Sorry Shifters, in getting this out to you so late, I got back from New York City a few days ago and needed some time to process the many things I saw and experienced there. Sit back, relax, make yourself a cup of tea because this will be a long one.

First off, like I had indicated in earlier posts, my primary reason for heading down to NYC was to see David Icke in the Grand Prospect Hall in Brooklyn. If you watch the video below, you’ll see me in the audience in the front row in a bright orange hoodie at 1:37 to 2:00

I already knew much of what Icke was saying since I’d watched dozens of his videos on Youtube over the years but what I found particularly interesting was maybe the last 3 hours of his 12 hour show (it started at 10am and he got off the stage at 10:15pm) , where he goes into what the end game of a micro-chipped population really means as well as what the ending of this Kali Yuga means coinciding with the Truth Vibrations as we head off into the next age. Great stuff. I met some lovely people in the audience as well and even got to chat with his son Gareth Icke who was really pleasant (and super-tall as is David’s other son, Jaime). The next day, I met up with a fellow blogger which was wonderful. I’m glad I went.

I’ve been to NYC many times before but they were usually short stays, a few days here or a couple of hours there between flights but this time I took a full week to really take in the city, its various neighbourhoods and investigate the spiritual hot-spots of probably the most concrete city on Earth.

Manhattan island’s various neighbourhoods

Much has already been written about haunted New York, the secret clubs, the creepy organizations based there and even some of the buildings which have sordid and storied pasts like The Dakota or the San Remo. Those are the creepy, bad places and most of them are located in either mid-town Manhattan (which is tourist central and probably the most psychically polluted part of the island) , the Upper East Side, the Upper West Side and of course down town where the Financial District and Wall Street is.

The twin-towered San Remo building as seen from Central Park. Tons of celebrities live there. Bono lives in and owns the top three floors of one tower and apparently Demi Moore has tried to sell her part of her tower for a reported $75 million dollars.

Walking around, you can’t help but feel the power, see the wealth and flat out energy of the city. You’ll feel it particularly as you walk along 5th Avenue, across the street from Central Park in what I call billionaire row and what the guidebooks call Museum Mile.

The Fifth Avenue apartments across the street from Central Park East. Everyone from Jackie Kennedy to Aristotle Onassis to the Rothschilds have lived here.

The apartments in that particular area house folks like the Rothschilds, mysterious neo-con billionaire Bruce Kovner and Michael Bloomberg. Walk further south and you hit the Plaza Hotel. I remember the flags out front used to be the American, Canadian, United Kingdom and maybe French flags. Now its China, India and Saudi Arabia which should tell you plenty about who is buying up real estate in NYC and who are the biggest spenders there.

The Plaza Hotel, across the street from Central Park South

Then you hit Rockefeller Centre, the famous statue of Atlas with the world on his back, the British Empire Building (huh? I thought that was long gone)  and then the uber-luxury stores and jewellery stores,  all the playthings of the incredibly rich. The further you get from the park, the denser, the crazier and busier everything gets.

The Titan god, Atlas holding the world up.

Truthfully, I didn’t pay very much attention to this part of Manhattan. From a spiritual point of view, if you want to experience and feel something pure and real, you have to head up to the northern reaches of Manhattan island, particularly around Morningside Heights and Fort Tyron/Fort George/Inwood.

The last time I was in NY, I had missed out in seeing the stained glass windows from Canterbury Cathedral in the UK at a special exhibition by the Metropolitan Museum of Fine Arts‘ “other” campus, called The Cloisters. The Cloisers is basically a recreated monastery which John D. Rockefeller had dismantled from other monasteries in France and Spain  and recreated brick by brick in Fort Tyron Park. It houses the Met’s collection of medieval and religious art.

I wanted to see the recreated healing herb gardens with 99 plants which the Emperor Charlemagne ordered planted for their medicinal properties, and look at the Unicorn Tapestries but what I wasn’t ready for was the details in the capitals of the columns. You have to remember all this was done by hand and its all in stone. Complicated scenes of demons and angels, tons of symbolism and vivid imagery.

Dozens of them at the Cloisters and each one is different

The second thing I wasn’t prepared for was Fort Tyron Park itself. Perched high on the northern end of Manhattan island, come at sunset and you’ll have amazing views of the Hudson River and the Palisades.

Yes, this is Manhattan island. And that’s New Jersey on the other side of the Hudson River.

I however was on a bit of reconnaissance mission to Fort Tyron Park. Designed by Frederick Law Olmsted Jr.  (his father Frederick Law Olmsted Sr. designed Central Park and Montreal’s Mont Royal Park)  and Frederick Todd (with whom I have a strange connection to which I will write about in a forth-coming post) , this is by far the “cleanest” place on the island from an energetic point of view. The exposed granite rock and cliffs which have been incorporated into the park itself has a lot to do with it. More on granite later.

The other neighbourhood, Morningside Heights, in the north-west corner of Central Park, houses several places of note.

First you have, St. John the Divine Cathedral, which is supposedly the biggest Gothic cathedral in the world (and is still unfinished). When you walk inside, trust me, you’ll feel its size.

Named after St. John the Divine also known as John the Beloved, who wrote the Book of Revelations in the Bible.

Second, the wonderful W 111th Steet People’s Garden which if you walk around slowly, you’ll see some very interesting spiritual art and statues among its bushes and trees. I spent a delightful afternoon here, eating my lunch on a bench underneath the shadow of a gigantic oak tree with the soaring spires in front of me (if you want dessert and coffee or tea, don’t miss the fantastic Hungarian Pastry Shop across the street).

The show-stopper is no doubt the strange Peace Fountain. First of all it has no water, so it shouldn’t be called a fountain (but what do I know?). It depicts and angel and demon in the grip of a fight while the Sun, Moon and Cosmos looks on. Basically Good vs. Evil.

Very bizarre.

Another place of note in Morningside Heights is the Nicholas Roerich Museum. I’ve highlighted Roerich’s art work several times already,  he was a Russian mystic, based his paintings on the spiritual myths and realities of the lands he travelled which included  India, China, Tibet, Mongolia, Central Asia, Siberia and Russia and was one of the architects for the Treaty on the Protection of Artistic and Scientific Institutions and Historic Monuments in times of war and conflict. It is one thing to see his paintings in books and online but nothing can prepare you in seeing them up close and personal. They are VERY powerful. Roerich was very clued in.

Order of Rigden Jyepo, Nicholas Roerich 1933. I bought a magnet of this at the museum and its on my fridge now.

Alright. Granite.

The ancient Egyptians essentially built most of their monuments, temples, statues and sarcophagi  in granite. It is a rock which is VERY hard and given the arid climate of Egypt, does not wear down easily over time, even when exposed to the elements. I’ve read in some esoteric literature that granite also holds and amplifies energy.

Colossal granite head of Amenhotep III at the British Museum.

When I read “Swimming with the Whale” a book about the teachings of Cypriot mystic Daskalos, he said that the Egyptians had placed spells into the granite walls of the pyramid chambers themselves and when initiates stayed in these chambers during initiation trails and ceremonies, under the right conditions, certain spirits would come out to test them. They were not necessarily benevolent either. There was even an episode when Napoleon, during his invasion of Egypt, decided to stay in the chamber overnight, but something gave him such a fright that he fled very quickly afterwards and refused to talk about what had happened to him for the rest of his life. Dolores Cannon has said the same thing in some of her talks and readings. The modern Irish mystic and angelologist Lorna Byrne experienced the same thing in NYC City’s Met museum at the re-created Temple of Dendur.

The Temple of Dendur at the Met Museum

Lorna in fact said that the “neter”, the spirit of the Temple of Dendur came forward to her and told her it that it was very sad and wanted to go home. When I visited the Temple and walked through the Egyptian antiquities at the Met museum a few days later, saw all the sarcophagi, the graves of formers kings, queens, and noblemen have been dug up and placed under glass for ugly tourists with fat knees to gawk at, or ignore completely, things which had been buried for the dead for a reason, I just felt overwhelming sadness as well. Death isn’t something we should gawk at. It’s something private. The Museum’s position is that these things are brought out for us to learn from but I didn’t see a lot of learning. I saw lots of people taking silly selfies and not even reading the information placards beside each artefact. On a more conspiratorial note, I’m almost certain some of these artefacts are being used by American secret societies in ceremony and ritual since many members of these groups sits on the board of directors, regents etc. of the Museum.

The Egyptian obelisk and the Met Museum. The traiangular bit is the Robert Lehman Collection.

Walk behind the Met Museum and you see that the Robert Lehman Collection wing from certain angles, looks like a glass pyramid. (Another famous museum, Paris’s Louvre Museum also has a glass pyramid outside.) 100 feet away from this, in the back, you’ll encounter a 3000 year old Egyptian granite obelisk in near perfect condition  right in the middle of Central Park.

The New York obelisk before its recent clean-up.

When I got there, there was a meditation group sitting in a circle beside it and doing meditation and chanting. They left an hour later and I was left alone with it. The matching twin to NY’s obelisk sits in London near the Thames.

The obelisks in New York and London are actually a matching pair from Heliopolis, Egypt.

Another Egyptian obelisk stands in Paris, near the Place de la Concorde. Yet another Egyptian obelisk stands in Istanbul’s Hippodrome in the historical Sultanahmet district. There are 13 Egyptian obelisks in Rome alone. The Washington Monument in DC is also a giant obelisk not an Egyptian one, but a hallowed out structure. Cities which can’t get a real obelisk then try to create fake ones like the McGill Tower Building in Montreal.

And what is this supposed to be?

New York, London, Paris, Rome, Istanbul. Either currently or formerly imperial cities. Centers of power and finance.  All have Egyptian obelisks? I find that mighty strange. Many other folks have made the connection between obelisks and architecture and power already, particularly with respect to Freemasons. I’m not going to go into that. Rather, to go back to Icke’s work for a moment. he talks about this reality hack, this fake matrix by archons. If that is so, I’m almost positive these obelisks are “power pins” holding the thing down kind of like those pegs you use to drive into the ground to keep your tent in place.

Obelisks are the esoteric equivalent of these pegs.

No wonder the spirits of these monuments and temples are sad. They are being used.

September 2016 Astrology – Falling Idols, The Wetiko Illness and David Icke in NYC

I don’t know what it has been like in your neck of the woods, but it’s been a strange, strange summer for almost everyone I know. With the alternative research community going crazy over the Zen Gardner fallout, it now looks like Aussie researcher Max Igan has outed another so-called “Truth Warrior”, Ken O’Keefe.

(There’s a pretty hilarious fellow who goes by the name of C.W Chanter who has been posting videos about all this stuff on Youtube lately if any of you are interested).

Ken and Max in Gaza in better times (2013)

For those of you that don’t know, Ken is a former Navy Seal-turned-save-the whales-activist-turned-Save-Palestine activist (he was on the Gaza flotilla when it was raided by Israeli soldiers in international waters a few years ago). He’s been highlighted on places like RT and PressTV for his stridently pro-Palestinian stance but according to Max, it turns out he made some bullshit non-profit drive called ‘World Citizens Solutions‘ and pocketed the donations to go buy land in Dominica and retire.

With this back-and-forth with Old Man Saturn in Sagittarius, the planet of karma doing his dance around the sign of higher progressive thought and philosophy, in some ways I’m not surprised some of these guys are being outed now. There will be more to come, not just in the alt research community but everywhere else I’m afraid.

I’m a firm believer that you have to listen and watch news sources you never would normally do if you really want the truth on anything. Remember the cardinal rule: There’s always three sides to any story, your’s, the other person’s and the Truth is usually somewhere in between. Syrian leader Bashar Al Assad gave a fantastic interview to MSNBC a few weeks ago, made the journalist look like a bumbling idiot and exposed American and Western intervention in the Middle East for what it really is: an attempt to destabilise the entire region, institute regime change (i.e.. put in a puppet leader who will follow the orders of Washington and London ahead of the best interests of their own people) , create a new and larger Israel and pave the way for Americans to get into and control Central Asia. Assad is many things but stupid isn’t one of them. Before politics, he was a trained ophthalmologist and doctor. Hezbollah leader, Nasrallah goes into exact detail why this is happening. ISIS is an American/Saudi/UAE/Israeli creation and paid proxy. Nothing more. Once everyone understands that, the jig is up.

From what both Carl Boudreau and Steve Judd have indicated, there will be an intense series of eclipses taking place which are going to rattle people and places. There’s a solar eclipse on September 1st and then another lunar one on September 16th and a Mercury retrograde happening the whole time. Steve predicts more geological changes and people’s irritability buttons are gong to be pushed, big time.

Carl had this to say:

“This surge of eclipse energy from the mutable T-Square will accelerate the demise of global oligarchy and hasten the end of the gross political and economic inequality threatens global stability. The eclipse energies will trigger and accelerate karmic consequences for using dishonest and manipulative language. This will further cleanse our politics and economics of toxic rhetoric and hasten the end of the oligarchic institutions and practices that it supports. “

So it would seem whether you are a powerful oligarchy, a mighty government and military with a false sense of entitlement, the myths of nationalism or an internet New Age shyster on a soapbox, your words are going to come back to haunt you. Truth only needs two things to help it come out: Perfect Timing and Perfect Opportunity. That’s an iron law.

————————————————————————————–

Because of this whole Zen Gardner fall-out, one of the side effects is that a certain Native American word has been making the rounds on many sites lately. It started out on Paul Levy’s website where he talks about “wetiko”, a psycho-spiritual illness which induces blind-spots which makes people to destroy the very base the live on, the land, the air and the water (it’s not a coincidence that the stand-off between pipeline companies and Native American tribes is now taking place in North Dakota over access to safe water. Chief Arvol Looking Horse of the Lakota nation has put out a statement on this and it is well-worth reading and thinking about.)

“Wetiko—whose origin is within the human psyche—induces a psychological blindness such that those who have fallen under its spell not only think of themselves as sighted, but arrogantly believe they are more sighted than those who are clear-sighted. Instead of inducing people to see hallucinations that are not there, in what can be thought of as a “negative hallucination” the wetiko bug makes people unable to see what is there. Wetiko (I could—and did—write a book about it called Dispelling Wetiko: Breaking the Curse of Evil) can be thought of as a mind-virus that covertly operates through the blind-spots of the unconscious in such a way that those under its spell become its unwitting instruments to act it out—destructively—in the world while, at the same time, this virus of the mind surreptitiously hides itself from being seen.”

And that folks, is the basis of capitalism, indoctrination and the cult of individualism, right there.

Wetiko is what makes you look for more when you already have enough. Wetiko is what makes you afraid to share. Wetiko makes you suspicious of others. Wetiko is a hunger in the mind and soul which constantly needs to keep eating, buying and taking because it is never satisfied. Wetiko makes you covetous of what others have. It makes you want things you don’t really need. Wetiko is when you want something, know its inappropriate for you but don’t want to admit it so you look for an excuse, reason or justification to take it (I would say this is 99% of academic work and justifications for continued white privilege and cultural appropriation). In fact, it sums up the greedy colonial and imperialistic mindset very neatly, if you ask me, whether its Spanish, English, American or Chinese. If this world will have any chance at all, we all need to individually overcome Wetiko. Naming and identifying an illness is usually the first step to treating it.

—————————————————————————————

Speaking of idols, David Icke has finished up his Australia and New Zealand portion of his world speaking tour. I’m heading down to New York next week for a few days off and to take in his Brooklyn show. A friend saw him in Sydney (and momentarily met him too, outside the venue) and said it was worth every minute even if it is an all-day show. I’m almost positive that the New York and especially the L.A show will be filled with celebrity and insider types given that folks like Jim Carey and Johnny Depp and practically every sci-fi screenwriter in Hollywood in the last 15 years follow Icke’s work.

If there are any readers who want to meet up for tea or drinks, let me know, my email address is on my profile picture. I’m always up for connecting to new people and new faces. (David, if you do read this, I’ll be sitting somewhere near the front and will have an outrageous mango-orange colored hoodie on, waving like crazy).

More info. to follow.

The Pull of a Place

A small part of the Grand Gallery in Horseshoe Canyon, Utah  These figures are actually over 9 feet tall and come from 10 000 BC.  The Hopi, Ute and Zuni tribes all claim its theirs but no one really knows. One of the earliest depictions of a spiritual being in the world. To get here, you have to turn off the main road and drive along for 48 km along a dusty, unpaved road, which in case it is waterlogged, you will not get through unless you have a 4×4 truck. When you get to the trailhead at the top of the canyon, its a 750 foot descent to the bottom of the canyon and from there you have to hike for 3 miles before you get to the Grand Gallery. Also because its super dry and hot, you need to be carrying at least 5 litres of water in your backpack or else you risk dehydration. Give yourself at least 7 hours in total to do this. When I  came, 2 park rangers were there cleaning up after a flash flood. They let me go right up to it and offer tobacco.

For some reason Utah and Arizona have been calling me lately and I’ll most likely go this summer. It won’t be my first time. Back in 2008, I spent 2 weeks by myself driving along old historic Route 66, exploring 4 Corners, namely Colorado, Utah, New Mexico and Arizona:

Went horse-back riding through Monument Valley with a Navajo guide,

I did that!

Pitched my tent in the Grand Canyon, offered tobacco and was immediately greeted by two condors sweeping in over me,

A condor, one of the largest birds in the world, flying over the Grand Canyon

Drove through the Vermilion Cliffs, hiked through Horseshoe Canyon and saw the otherworldly Grand Gallery right up close,

The Vermilion Cliffs of Arizona

Stumbled on a dinosaur footprint,

Dinosaur tracts at the top of Horseshoe Canyon.

Had an encounter with a ghost in my hotel room in Jerome at the Mile High Inn , an old mining town which is considered one of the most haunted towns in America,

Jerome, is nothing more than a few streets but sits one mile high up a mountain near an old mine.

Fell in love with Taos, New Mexico,

Taos has desert and deep river gorges on one side, and towering mountains of the Sangre de Cristo mountain range on the other side.

Spent several of my mornings watching the sun come up over the cliffs while soaking in the hot springs next to the Rio Grande River in Taos,

Natural hot springs pools beside the Rio Grande river. When it’s super early and deserted you can do the water circuit. Sit in the hot springs for as long as you can take it, then dive into the cold river and then chill in the lukewarm water pool.  Repeat three times, ideally in the nude if you’re absolutely certain no one is around.

Went to hot baths underneath cliffs,

Iron and Arsenic Pools at night at Ojo Calientes

Explored Georgia O’Keeffe country around the Jemez loop,

Missed running into Paul McCartney by 10 minutes at a diner Elvis Presley used to go to in Williams, Arizona (he and his then-girlfriend-now-wife were exploring Route 66 the same time as I was. In fact, I got the same booth they sat at and the seat was still warm),

Had my first meeting with Hopi Elders, explored Mount Zion, Grande Escalante and Bryce Canyon National Parks and basically drove about 5000 km by myself through some of the most breath-taking parts of the United States.

Bryce Canyon National Park, a tiny part.

The entire area is just steeped in positive woo-woo magic and I was very, very lucky to have caught some of it. Maybe because I was in vacation mode, but I just fell in love with the landscape and area almost immediately. It felt like home, I probably had a past-life there (I find it a little more than coincidental that I felt right at home in Anasazi territory, a tribe known as the “Ancient Ones”, which is long-gone now, but many suspect were responsible for building the pueblos at places like Mesa Verde and Chaco Canyon and my family name is very close to sounding like Anasazi).

Mesa Verde, Colorado

I don’t think I could ever really live there since it is Republican-dominated (and boy, do they ever love their gun racks and pick-up trucks down there). God only knows what might happen these days if people know I’m Muslim. I think I got a free pass because I constantly got mistaken as Latina or Native American, depending on where I was.

I then did a quickie trip in 2011 but this time around, it is Southern Utah in particular which is calling. I think it was while I was driving along the unforgettable Route 89 and UT-12 during sunset, between Utah and Arizona, just over from the Grand Canyon and the Vermilion Cliffs, taking in  the grandeur of the place, the valleys, canyons, rock formations, that it unmistakably reminded me of Cappadocia back in Turkey and the myriads of valleys, caves and secrets which no do doubt still remain undisturbed, even now.  There’s a part of me which wants to explore every last square foot of these places. Quite frankly, sometimes places are far more interesting than most people.

Grand Arches National Park, Utah

People have asked me in private messages how do you decide if a place is good for you or not. I don’t know much about astro-cartography (but Steve Judd certainly does) but in my experience it is sort of like how you determine a friend or a good person you want in your life… it’s the way they make you feel. Likewise with places.

Antelope Canyon, Arizona

Some places (or people) resonate so well with you that they leave you buzzing with energy and the impression and memory can stay with you for the rest of your life. Other times, a place (or person) feels so downright sinister or gross and disgusting, that you immediately want to flee, which is pretty much how I felt the whole time I was in Washington DC.

I also find that places which resonate with you, for some reason are easier to “read”. Because the energy of the place jives with you to begin with, it becomes that much easier for you to figure the place out.

I have a psychic friend down in Massachusetts, who does automatic writing and produces prophetic quatrains, not unlike Nostradamus. Until she goes public, I won’t mention her name but she once produced a reading where it said a person’s way forward comes about when (and I paraphrase) person, place and purpose all seem to come together effortlessly and I agree completely.

So for those of you craving adventure and trying to plot your way forward, I’d only say this, get out there, start exploring. You just never know, in finding your magical sweet spot, you may end up finding your purpose as well.

 

Whales, Fjords, Blood Moons and Apocalypse Naught

The hamlet of Tadoussac, Quebec in the foreground and the Saguenay River fjord in the background

Fjords don’t only exist in Norway.

Quebec also has its share of them, albeit, not nearly as high, dramatic and jagged as the mountains of Norway. They start showing up along the North Shore of Quebec’s St.Laurence River, an area known for its remoteness, fjords, rugged natural beauty and whales.

The village of Tadoussac, with the oldest chapel in North America in the foreground.

The tiny village of Tadoussac is one such hot spot. With the oldest chapel in North America, one of the earliest settlements and a former trading post, Tadoussac is also one of the most active whale watching spots in the world.

Where Tadoussac is located

Beluga whales, minke whales, sperm whales, right whales and the biggest of them all, blue whales are regularly sighted here since it is a confluence of the St. Laurence (salty water)  and Saguenay (fresh water) rivers, giving the whales a safe and protected place to eat and get fat during the summer and fall, before they make the long migration to the Tierra del Fuego at the bottom of South America.

A French poster of all the whales found in the St. Laurence River basin

Aside from the whales, the energy here is off the charts. I think the Manicouagan meteor/crater and the island and lake it formed, the so-called “Eye of Quebec”, probably also have something to do with it.  Maybe that’s why such high-frequency animals like whales also like it here.

The Manicouagan meteor hit created this perfectly round lake and raised island, as seen from space.

I was there this past weekend and I found the timing of the chance to go very interesting since it coincided with last Sunday night’s Blood Moon/lunar eclipse (which some websites seemed to be going apeshit over) AND Pope Francis’ visit to the US.

A typical Zodiac boat.

My 11 month-old nephew was with us so we couldn’t take a Zodiac boat which would have afforded us a closer look at the whales, but rather we took a whale watching ferry-boat. Even then, we managed to see a whole pod of white beluga whales frolicking around us,

A pod of white beluga whales. They are a gregarious species and always show up in a group.

…and 4 minke whales came very close to the boat. One of them came out of the water practically 10 feet away from me, so close to the side of the boat that I was practically looking down directly into its blowhole.

A minke whale breaching

When you get this close to these giant, majestic beasts of nature in their natural habitat, a few thoughts immediately hit you: 1) We’re nothing but an existential speck of dust in the grand scheme of things 2) There are species of beings on this planet what are far older and wiser than we ever will be 3) Human beings, as we are now, act like  annoying, immature,  invasive pest species 4) The natural world can transform us and heal us if we let it and take the right attitude. 5) We still have so much to learn and improve on.

Pope Francis meeting the homeless in Washington, DC last week.

Truth and justice are like whales in many ways, you may not see them often, they hide in the depths, in secret places you and I will never experience, they are very shy creatures, they only come up for air and are seen here and there but when you do see them, they are gifts that leave an indelible mark on you forever after. They are immensely powerful beasts who don’t realize their own strength, where even a random flip of their fin or tail can inadvertently kill or harm.  Love them and they will love you right back and show themselves to you. They are creatures which have taken on a mythical and mystical status, the stuff of legends and folk tales, but just because you don’t always see them, doesn’t mean that they are not there, dreaming, singing, remembering and on occasion, surfacing.

Humbug Mountain, Mount Shasta and Nature at work in your Face

Mount Shasta, California

“When you go into the mountains, all you see are the forests, springs, lakes and peaks. But in the mountains there are also caves, underground rivers and deep caverns. Think of these sometimes, as well as of the beings that live in them, so that you can be their friend. Mountains are not simply masses of earth and rocks; they are containers for enormous treasures: crystals, stones and precious metals, which powerful entities watch over and work with. I am not saying this in order for you to go venturing into caves, armed with picks and pickaxes, to dig tunnels in the hope of finding seams of gold and silver.  No.  Pay attention to the symbolic, living aspect of mountains, whether you climb them or else dig deep in yourself to find spiritual treasure. “

– Omraam Mikhael Aivanhov

Humbug Mountain

Looking at Humbug Mountain from its South side.

Humbug Mountain sits just south of a tiny town on the Oregon coast called Port Orford. At 1756 feet it is the highest point on the Oregon Coast and a mountain which was once used as a site for vision quests by local Native American tribes, a fact which would have been lost in the annals of time had it not been for an out-of-print guidebook I found about the Oregon Coast written by local insiders I found in a second-hand book shop in Montreal. When I tried researching further if this was true, there were zero sources online, but given the fact that this is the highest mountain right on the ocean, it would make sense why this particular mountain has some special significance.

Humbug Mountain sits within the confines of the Eden-like Humbug Mountain State Park, a place which strongly reminded me of another magical place and one of my favorite places on Earth, Olympos, Turkey. Both are located in a tiny valley, mountains on all sides, with a river/brook cutting through the valley which then leads out to a magnificent beach. Olympos, an ancient pirate hide-out, is strewn with ancient Greek, Roman and Byzantine ruins in the midst of orange, lemon and pomegranate orchards and people stay in tree houses and the protected pebble beach is a breeding site for the endangered loggerhead turtle.

The beach at Olympos, Turkey

Humbug Mountain may not have ancient ruins but instead is draped with a lush, prehistoric temperate forest, giant ferns, giant Pacific pine trees, moss and clover and the beach, while sandy, small and private, has numerous seals and whales visiting within sight of the shore, and people stay in tents or RVs.

Trail from campground, goes under a bridge and leads you to the beach….

…And here’s the beach. Humbug Mountain State Park Beach, with  Bush Creek emptying itself into the ocean.

 

Trail up the mountain.

Paralleled but different. The hike up to the top is about 5km long and while it is longer , it’s also far easier and more gentle than Neahkahnie Mountain. You have plenty of time to meditate and think things over while you walk up through one of the most beautiful forests I’ve seen in my life. It’s a funny mountain; one side is completely forested and wild, and the other side is just hard rock and literally drops into the ocean. The top unfortunately has a blocked view now. The trees have grown so there’s not much of a view, but there is a tiny meadow, and should any of you ever find yourself there, and it is a day not crowded by other hikers, you have plenty of space to meditate, pray or do ceremony of your choice. The vibe here is very, very peaceful. I hung out for a good hour and offered tobacco and made my way down.

 

Top of Humbug Mountain meadow.

Mount Shasta

What can I say about this place that hasn’t already been said or written already?  The modern-day superstar of the New Age movement, Shasta is so many things to so many people. To the culty I AM movement, it is their world headquarters (their compound is near the base actually) and apparently sightings of St. Germain or Melchizedek or UFOs are common, depending on who you talk to. To channelers, the underground city of Telos, populated by ancient Lemurians sits underneath the mountain, to the Klamath Indians, the local Native tribe, it is the resting place of the spirit chief Skell after he fought Llao, creating Crater Lake. You can spend a lifetime reading about the various myths of this mountain if you really wanted to.

 What happened to me was quite different. I got to Shasta by driving south, from Oregon, along Interstate 5. Shasta at  14 000 feet is a giant of a mountain and can be seen from hundreds of miles away. Once I passed Ashland and saw my first sight of Shasta, I don’t know why but I just started crying. The mountain had called and I came. 

The main corner of Mount Shasta town

I’m not going to talk too much about Mount Shasta town or Mount Shasta Boulevard which has at least 8 crystal shops in the space of 2 blocks. Or how most of the books at the main New Age shop, “Soul Connections” had titles, 95% of which were channeled material from God-knows-what “spirit” or entity of uncertain origin. Or how the main crystal shop is selling crystal bowls, giant geos and original visionary artwork and paintings in the tens of  thousands of dollars range.

They had to build up a wall and cordon off the source of the springs due to overuse and degradation of the land.

Or the fact that Panther Meadow Springs is now cordoned off to help the delicate plants there come back to life (some of them take hundreds of years to do so) since that meadow has been overused and trampled through by entitled, sanctimonious New Agers, neo-pagan hippies and idiot, hipster campers with zero respect, over the years. So much so, that the spring ran dry for the first time in its recorded history last year.

Bulletin board poster of Panther Meadow over the years and restoration effort.

Or the New Age tourists I had to yell at who ignored the designated trail completely and decided that getting to the spring was their main focus and didn’t give a shit that they were trampling through a delicate alpine ecosystem which is trying to recover. That kind of stupidity and disrespect is happening all the time on the mountain. 

Stick to the trail, don’t walk on the grass or meadow.

However, the mountain is big enough and powerful enough to swallow up these tiny botherations. The road up to the final overview lookout at 7000 feet above sea level, is 20 km long (about 14 miles) and it winds its way to the middle of the mountain. Along the way, you’ll first see medium sized redwoods, which then give way to pine trees, which then give way to dwarf pines, which them give way to lichen and moss and then finally bare rock and snow, due to altitudinal zonation..

A diagram which briefly explains altitudinal zones of vegetation.

Funny enough, the soil and rock of the mountain looks almost pink or lavender in certain spots. You will see the change in vegetation the further up you go along the mountain, things get smaller and smaller the higher up you go. It also gets quieter and quieter and the sunlight gets brighter and brighter. People say mountains are holy places and that it is easier to have spiritual insights there, but I’m not sure if altitude sickness has something to do with it also. The symbolism is also obvious; the higher up into the mountains you go, the further you get away from this world and its sophomoric occupations.  

The treeline stops very quickly from Bunny Flat.

I lucked out and got a spot to camp at the Panther Meadows Campground, the only designated spot to camp on the mountain and no where near the springs. There are 12 spots and it is usually first come, first served and I managed to get one of the last available slots. If you have never camped at 7000 feet in your life, it is an experience I would recommended to anyone. At night, it gets super cold, the wind starts blowing off the peaks of Shasta. It got so windy, it started rocking my tent and woke me up around midnight or so. When I looked out, I was rewarded with probably one of the most unforgettable scenes in my life. The entire mountain and forest were flooded in silver moonlight, so bright that you wouldn’t need a flashlight at all. The millions of stars could clearly been seen in the clear night sky and the outlined shadows of the alpine trees, super tall, straight and narrow, made me realize these were not normal trees. They looked like sentinels guarding the mountain. You could practically feel them watching you.

 

Panther Meadows is split in two, Lower Panther Meadow and Upper Panther Meadow, where the source spring is. Upper Panther Meadow is up for registration on the National Register of Historical Places in the US, given it has been considered a holy site long before the Europeans ever arrived and still in continuous use. People think that by coming here, taking a fuck-ton of pictures to show up to their friends back home that somehow, they’ll have a “spiritual experience” here but I don’t think that’s how this place works at all.

The source of Panther Meadows Springs, can you see the two circles where the water gurgles out of the ground?

This is a place where you offer prayers, you give it to the waters and let the waters carry them away from you, that’s it, no more. But with New Agers leaving behind “offerings” of plastic angels, Lemurian rock crystals and what not, disrespectful hikers walking wherever , the vibe has changed. It has become a tourist spot and now the only time you can ever really be here all alone is either in the middle of the night or right around dawn. It’s full of people all day long now.

The end of the Shasta road, where the treeline vanishes completely. The hike begins here.

The real place for leaving behind offerings is literally , at the end of the Shasta road, at the Old Ski Bowl. The treeline abruptly ends and from there you can try hiking the remainder of the 7000 feet to the summit, if you have the right mountain climbing gear.

It is even more insanely quiet and brighter here than at Panther Meadow. The overlook is strewn with rocks, boulders and rubble from the mountain itself and past pilgrims have started doing devotional rock formations here like;

rock mandalas…

Rock mandala.

and spirals,

Rock spiral at Mount Shasta.

This was the end of the road for me too. I burnt the sigils here and left the final bit of tobacco and mixed it into the soil of the mountain itself. Someone had started a giant rock spiral so I collected a few more rocks and added to it as well. I hope it keeps growing.

I now understand why pilgrims carry so much emotional resonance with them when they do pilgrimages. It is the doing of an act of faith and there’s no guarantee you’ll get to do it or finish it.  The late meta-physical teacher Stuart Wilde offered a wonderfully simple prayer. It went  “Please God, don’t let me go until I can fix this” and I think I understand the essence of that. It is really not about what you can receive, but rather what you can give and it is in the act of giving, with no expectation, no reward, nothing transactional nor conditional “If you give me this then I’ll do that”, that you end up receiving, a point which unfortunately is completely lost on New Age fetishists, religious fundamentalists , faux-yoga celebrity bunnies and the like. I think it is time we all changed that, don’t you?

As I write this, a few noteworthy developments are taking place. Astrologer Steve Judd was the first one to call it out in June. He basically said that the recent Saturn retrograde back into Scorpio from Sagittarius was a signal that some more unsavory truths about the private lives of prominent people was going to come out. And his prediction was correct.

David Icke has been saying from at least 1998 that former late, British Prime Minister, Edward Heath was a murderous pedophile, and now it looks like a victim has finally come forward with evidence and there is going to be an official investigation against Heath among other very prominent British politicians. This isn’t conspiracy theory territory anymore, this is in the mainstream media. Whether you want to admit it or not, London is still the intellectual, financial and political capital of this Earth. Places like Washington DC, Los Angeles, Paris, Rome etc. are all just satellite centers. If London, the City of London, Westminster and the British establishment collapse, there will be a domino effect around the world. Count on it.

The truth, like a panther, seems to be stalking, closer and closer to its prey. Not quite yet going for the jugular, but inching ever so closely to its target with each passing minute.  Even more uncomfortable truths are going to come out and it leads me to believe that the age of subversion, greed and self-interest is coming to an end. The climate for it is vanishing. Evolve and adapt and try to start to get real or stay phony and go the way of the Dodo Bird. It’s your choice.

Mountains, Sigils and Blessings

View of Neahkahnie Mountain and parts of Nehalem Bay from the hamlet of Wheeler, OR

“When we see high mountain peaks from a great distance, we instinctively sense that mountains represent a link between earth and heaven, both physically, of course, and even more so spiritually. A great wisdom presided at the formation of the mountains, and where they are situated is never due to chance. Each one is assigned a definite function, which is why they all differ in shape, mass and height. Their peaks rise up like antennae intended for emitting and picking up waves of different frequencies. Each peak therefore creates particular conditions, which can support the activity of our soul and our spirit. And we all have inner mountains we need to climb if we are to communicate with heaven. This is why, for our spiritual life, it is so important that we understand the significance of the word ‘peak’ or ‘summit’.
If you want to get results on a spiritual level you have to climb up to the top of the mountain. The mountain I am referring to is your own mountain, your own casual body. You have to scale the heights of your casual body in order to rise above the mist and dust. ‘Mist’, ‘dust’ and ‘mountain’ are of course all symbols. Dust is that which clouds the mind when it has lingered on too many different paths, and mist is produced by the humidity of the heart when it is exaggeratedly emotional and sentimental and it too prevents you from seeing clearly. In order to escape from the dust of the mind and the mists of the heart, we have to rise above the astral and mental planes and reach the casual plane. This is why, in your meditations and prayers, you should always try to rise, to rise very high, as high as possible. In fact, why not use your imagination and picture yourself scaling a mountain? The picture in your mind will lead you to another mountain, the one inside you, and when you reach the top, the casual plane, you will find so many more ways open to you for the realization of your spiritual thoughts and desires. In the Kabbala, God is called the Most High because symbolically, power and omniscience are to be found on the higher planes.”

– Omraam Mikhael Aivanhov

 

Alright folks, I’m back from holiday.
I did not expect this to happen but I returned to the Pacific Northwest and specifically the Oregon Coast and Mount Shasta, California. But it turns out the mountains there were calling me and dropping sizeable hints and cosmic breadcrumbs even in Montreal and so, like Mohammed, if the mountain can’t come to you, you go to it.
Last year I briefly visited Neahkahnie Mountain and did Crater Lake and Orcas Island. This year I hiked and climbed Neahkahnie to the top. Ditto Humbug Mountain and ditto Mount Shasta. However, before I go into describing these places, their symbolic significance and what came to me afterwards, I need to back up quite a bit.

For those of you who have been reading my blog for a while, you already know that music, namely 1980s British alternative, underground, “college radio” music and music scene from the 1980s played a pretty huge part of my teen years and it’s still a musical genre I consider my favourite. Besides the clubs, the fashion, the music, it really kind of moulded my outlook on a lot of things, appreciating and preferring the little-known, the marginal and the obscure over the mainstream.

The Smiths back in 1985. This reunion will never happen.

Some, like the guys from Depeche Mode, Morrissey of The Smiths, Robert Smith of the The Cure and Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails (NiN) fame have aged and transitioned well from that era and are still regarded as highly influential and highly regarded musicians. I mean Trent Reznor won an Oscar for scoring the film “The Social Network” a few years ago. I still remember seeing him in NiN in 1989 as the opening act for Peter Murphy when no one knew who NiN were! Unfortunately, many others haven’t. I always kind of keep a tab on some of these artists since I still have such warm, fuzzy feelings for them.

One of my favourite bands, bar-none, from that era are the Godfathers of Goth, Bauhaus and by extension, Love & Rockets. Bass player, David J. Haskins recently wrote a book called “Who Killed Mister Moonlight? Bauhaus, Black Magick and Benediction”. If you’re a music industry junkie, you’ll love this book, everyone makes an appearance from David Bowie, Catherine Deneuve, William S. Burroughs, Iggy Pop, Ian Curtis and Joy Division, Rick Ruben, Chris Martin of Coldplay, Perry Farrell of Jane’s Addiction and Lolapalooza and tons more. It’s not the name-dropping which particularly impressed me. David J. is a fantastic writer but in the tradition of many British musical artists, he also seems to have an interest in the supernatural and the occult, not unlike Jimmy Page or Robert Plant of Led Zeppelin fame. There are some incidents in the book which I don’t recommend reading at night if you get scared easily but it was Chapter Six, entitled, “Sigils” which particularly caught my attention.

“…Among those in the pile was a copy of V.Vales’s Research #4/5, which featured interesting articles and interviews with (William S.) Burroughs, Brion Gysin, and Genesis P. Orridge…In one of these articles, Genesis talks about sigils – an occult technique whereby one writes down a desire in very simple direct language. Any letters that are repeated are used to form a symbol that represents that desire. The sigil is then “charged” by concentrating on it and visualizing it as glowing brighter and brighter while focusing one’s will on the intention and sending it out into the universe. The original is then burnt, and it is then necessary to forget all about it. I decided to give it a shot.”

There are many websites and Youtube videos on how to create sigils and such, should anyone be interested, but it got me thinking that a lot of the prison-like reality many people live in, is controlled by symbols and corporate sigils of someone else’s making.

Logo for Procter and Gamble. This is a corporate sigil, whether you realize it or not.

Think about logos or brands for instance. Are they not forms of sigils many of us don’t want nor care for? I figure if they can do it, why can’t we also play the same game and beat them to it by creating sigils of our own which benefit everyone? (I should note here; if you are going to work with sigils, a reminder that anything you ask for, for yourself only unfortunately falls under black magick since it comes under ego, white magick is based on altruism, when you ask for something with benefits everyone, no exceptions. Intention counts for everything here.)  As soon as I finished reading the book, that’s when the signs really started coming in that I needed to go to Oregon and California and specifically those three aforementioned mountains. So I went.

Neahkahnie Mountain
Nehalem Bay and the surrounding area is probably one of the most picturesque and pleasant areas along the mystical Oregon coast and rife with stories and legends. Nehalem Bay comprises the small villages of Manzanita, Nehalem and Wheeler and Neahkahnie Mountain dominates the skyline of this area.

 

View from top of Neahkahnie Mountain. The seaside village of Manzanita along the shore, Nehalem Bay in the back and Wheeler on the opposite shore of the Bay.

With the pounding ocean, beaches and the mountain on one side, you have the river which feeds into a protected bay, a gorgeous valley and even more mountains surrounding on the other side. Wheeler is the home of the “Wheeler Moment” , a strange phenomena where synchronicities take place regularly in the area. Neahkahnie Mountain itself is considered an auspicious place by Native American tribes, a place where “the Good Spirit abides”. The last time I came, I offered tobacco to the mountain. This time I was asked to climb it. Suffice to say, that it is NOT an easy hike, unless hiking is already a huge part of your life, it’s a good 4 km hike from the base along the Oregon Coastal Trail to the top. I eventually got there, offered tobacco and worked with the sigils and then hiked back down.

The Old Wheeler Hotel

The next day, I woke up after having the most pleasant dreams I’ve had in quite a while, the kind that finding you smiling when you wake up. I stayed in a magical, somewhat haunted B & B called the Old Wheeler Hotel and had a view of the mountain from my room. There is no doubt in my mind that whole area between Route 53 and Highway 101, and Nehalem Bay itself has a giant energy vortex there, a very pure and positive one which hardly anyone seems to know about. It’s not a coincidence that there’s even a place nearby called God’s Valley. (Go now before the New Age freaks take over!)

A day later I found myself in Cape Lookout State Park. When I asked one of the park rangers if the whales were migrating at the time, (Cape Lookout is a very good place for whale watching), he mentioned there were some the week before but no one had seen anything recently. I found myself in a remote part of the beach and asked for a sign of validation if what I did was right. The second I asked, the whales appeared, water spouts and fins and all, four of them.

Next stop: Humbug Mountain and Mount Shasta

And So it Goes…

“This future is joy and light. Do not let yourself be influenced by those who predict only difficulties and misfortunes: it is simply because they do not know what the future really is or how to build it. Misfortunes are the past, not the future. Before the future can present itself – that is to say, your true future as sons and daughters of Cosmic Intelligence – it is waiting for you to finish drawing lessons from the past. This future is on the move: since you are creating it, you are already beginning to live it. One year is ending and another is about to begin… But before thinking about the coming year, turn your attention  for a moment to the one that is departing, and speak to it, for a year is a living being, and so you can talk to it. When you leave it, ask it to remember you. As it is alive, it does not remain idle: it has recorded not only your actions, but also your wishes, feelings and thoughts. On the last day it reports to the lords of destiny, and it connects you to the new year: you must be able to say goodbye to it before it goes for good. As for the new year, you can begin to prepare for it consciously, by setting a goal for yourself: to get rid of a bad habit, develop a certain quality, put a plan into action for the good of all. With this thought, this wish, it is as if you were placing a first stone, and then all the benevolent spirits in nature will bring you their help, so that you  can carry out your plan. These are the things you should be concerned with today: welcoming the new year in  and placing yourself under the protection of the light.”

 – Omraam Mikhaël Aïvanhov

Hope you Shifters have a peaceful and joyful holiday season in whatever form you celebrate it, whether it’s Christmas, Hanukkah, the Wiccan Yule, the Winter Solstice.

I have not been writing a lot in recent weeks mostly because I have been pre-occupied with other things and ideas which I’m working on. Long story short, while I am not ending this blog I have made the decision that it’s now time to stop talking the talk and walk the walk. Part of the problem of why I decided to minimize my presence online is that it’s just not enough for me anymore. Religious and spiritual traditions the world over, without exception, emphasize the importance and need for community. The Buddhists call it the “sangha”, Christians might call it the living Church. I realize that online forums, social media, the blogosphere, yoga studios and whatnot, even if they are populated by some really well-meaning folks, are not a sufficient enough substitute for the real thing. So I’ve decided to take these discussions and some of my ideas offline and into the real world in an attempt to meet and discuss with real people, face-to-face and in real-time. Mostly via local Meetup groups, random Craigslist postings, and see where that goes.

Jet-set Pugs

Another thing which I want to focus on is on creating an individualized spiritual travel company. For those of you who are familiar with my posts from the early days nearly 3 years ago, energetic travel and travel to these “hot spots” plays a huge part of who I am and my own spiritual development. There are places which for whatever reason, for long-forgotten historical reasons, sacred pilgrimage sites imbued with the prayers and aspirations of millions of pilgrims and spiritual seekers, some places which are dormant and need to be re-activated where the energy is far more conducive to accessing higher realities where I was able to have certain spiritual breakthroughs which I could have never had if I stayed on in Montreal. There are some parts of the world which are connected to certain spiritual issues people struggle with, other places are connected to specific chakras and still others connected to certain illnesses. I figure since I am actually qualified to do spiritual assessments on people and because I do have contacts to healers, shamans, Elders and my own first-hand experience in certain parts of the world, why not combine all that and create programs for serious spiritual travellers who want a genuine, deeper experience with a guide there beside them, which these group tours just don’t offer and can’t? It’s not just about being a guide, but actually entering into a healing relationship with these persons and walk with them as they go through the process. Travel can be lots of things to lots of people but for me, it’s always been a modality for transformation. It’s for women who have hit a certain plateau in their life and are now looking for something more. You gotta start somewhere, right?

For anyone who wants to know more, drop me an email or we can do a Skype session sometime and I can tell you all about it.

Best wishes to every last one of you in this New Year! I hope all your individual journeys deepen and become richer. I get the feeling 2015 will be year where many of us who put the hours in, finally turn a corner.

Cheers,
EER

Allies

View from top of Mount Constitution on far sunnier day than when I went.

“Even peaks that are not especially high but are prominent and isolated often have an angel in charge. For instance I observed one at Mt. Constitution in the San Juan Islands in Washington. This appears to be the highest point of land on an island which is fairly central in the group, and from its top there is a magnificent view over hundreds of islands on all sides…The angel in charge is one of special power, remarkable in proportion to the peak. He is the guardian of all the islands and makes this point his main center; he has saturated it with his special atmosphere. He has both power and dignity and is of a steady, slow temperament, but especially marked by kindliness and wisdom.  He takes a remarkable interest in human beings and has, indeed, a real fondness for them.  He seems to have a certain scheme which he is working out. He wants to maintain a special atmosphere throughout the islands and this influences his fairies.  It also makes them friendly and helpful to humanity, for this is his wish.  He has also established a feeling that there shall be no barriers.  He has had a wonderful piece of good fortune because a state part (Moran State Park) has been established in such a form as to take in his particular peak and a large area around it.  This is an animal sanctuary in which there are many deer and other fine wild things and magnificent trees…I also think he has managed to impress many of his ideas on the human beings in and about the peak, for his genuine friendliness towards people enables him to understand and guide them…High up on the mountain are several lakes and these are the home of particularly fine specimens of the freshwater fairies…What is remarkable about this place is that it is not only a sanctuary for animals but also a resort for fairies and even angels from the islands and the mainland. The peculiarly lovely combination of sea and mountain and lakes and forest preserve, protects and creates a splendid place, and the powerful personality of the angel draws these beings. They come for counsel and change…He always makes a special effort to help human beings who come to the mountain, and I think many people feel his benign presence even if they do not know of his existence. The magnificent expanse of sea and sky, the distant mainland and snow peaks far off key up the sensitive visitor so that he has a better than usual chance to respond to the presence of this most ancient, wise and stimulating inhabitant.”

– Dora Van Gelder
“The Real World of Fairies, A First Person Account”

Orcas Island is the largest of the San Juan Islands off the coast of Washington State and straddles the US/Canada border. It is full of VERY wealthy Washingtonians, not surprising since both Microsoft and Boeing are both based in Seattle. Practically everyone here drives a Land Rover. Get out of the villages and head into the woods and it’s all moss-covered giant Douglas fir trees, quiet private coves, and secret meadows. And then there’s the intense and sudden fog which comes off the sea and shrouds everything in minutes. One minute you can see the next island and the next you can’t see anything past 5 feet.

Taking the ferry ride over from Anacortes, I saw a few Orca whales. I thought it was strange that practically every time I went near the ocean water, I was seeing a whale while other people pay upwards of $85 an hour on whale watching boat tours with no guarantee of seeing anything.  I guess the gift of Whale medicine was real.

Moran State Park entrance.

I went to Moran State Park and drove up to the top, to the observation tower. I couldn’t see anything because of the intense fog that was there. From where I stood, it was like looking out over a cloud field, like what you see when you look out the window of an airplane. The fog can linger for hours.

The lookout tower at the very top.

When I got to the tower at the summit, as expected the place was chock-full of with tourists and hikers, not a place to do any sort of work. Since Van Gelder mentioned the lakes near the top, in her book, I figured I might as well go there and may be it would be much more quiet and private. She said it was near the top. In actuality, it is a steep hike which lasts about 2 km. It looks like nothing on paper, but it’s quite a difficult hike, especially returning uphill. It took me 45 minutes to go down and 2 hours to get back up.

The forest is indeed beautiful; giant Douglas firs, huge old-growth forest trees, lovely moss everywhere. As you can see from the map, there are three lakes near the top, Mountain Lake, and 2 smaller lakes which are only separated by a tiny sliver of land which are called the Twin Lakes, so I went there since I liked the name and they were closer.

There were a few hikers on the trail but everyone was far apart that you could forget about them. I wasn’t sure where to go so I decided to hike along the edge of the two lakes and see if something interesting came up. So I went along the edge of one lake and eventually found a beautiful mossy slope going up. I looked up and saw that there was a path there and even further up, someone had made a rock cairn, not at all obvious from the main trail.

Not the rock cairns I saw…

I scrambled up the trail and soon found myself in a mossy, flat glen, with a clearing in the middle, completely encircled by the trees. There was even a rocky knoll jutting out at the head of the glen, everything, the rocks, the trees and the forest floor were all covered with the thickest, softest moss imaginable. It almost looked like a raised daïs with a throne and I figured with the perfect circle of trees and the clearing, and the privacy and intense quiet and the throne-like rock structure, this was as good as it was going to get. “Bingo” I thought to myself. I took off my shoes. Again intense quiet here, not like Crater Lake which felt muffled, probably because of the altitude, but this forest was like something right out of Narnia, it felt so alive and quietly vibrant.

Digory Kirke and Polly Plummer in the Wood Between the Worlds, in C.S Lewis’ “The Magician’s Nephew, illustrated by Pauline Baynes

There’s a part in C.S Lewis’s Narnia book, “The Magicians Nephew” where Digory Kirke and Polly Plummer were in a place called the “Wood between the Worlds”, a quiet, lush forest where you could actually feel things were growing.

The trees grew close together and were so leafy that he could get no glimpse of the sky. All the light was green light that came through the leaves: but there must have been a very strong sun overhead, for this green light was bright and warm. It was the quietest wood you could possibly imagine. There were no birds, no insects, no animals and no wind. You could almost feel the trees growing…You could almost feel the trees drinking up the water with their roots. This wood was very much alive. When he tried to describe it afterwards, Digory always said. It was a rich place: as *rich* as plum-cake.”

The feeling was very similar to that. I lay down the tobacco and stayed for about an hour. I then headed back to the main trail to complete the rest of trail around the Twin Lakes and then back up to the tower.

Trail back to the top…

About halfway up the mountain. I heard some branches breaking. I looked behind me and saw that it was a lovely doe on the trail, maybe 20 feet away. She wasn’t afraid or anything. We looked at each other for a few seconds and then she pranced off. The next day as I left the island on the ferry, I had my third encounter with a whale, another Orca.

A lot of things came to me after I processed the trip and the various places I visited. My usual readers already know that David Icke’s name comes up regularly here. Really, he’s in essence taking a very old idea and putting it into more modern terms. You don’t have to believe everything you read or what others say. There are plenty of resources to look up and then make up your own minds.

However, if in some way our reality/matrix  has been hijacked by something evil; inter-dimensionals, bad spirits, demons, jinns, reptilians, whatever you want to call it, and if they have had a direct hand in creating these artificial hierarchical systems of control, manufactured scarcity, unnecessary depletion and pollution of this planet’s resources and the uglification of every square foot of earth they can get, then it is not hard to see that it is a true death cult. It hardly leaves any room for real beauty, peace and grace. At this rate, there will be no need to go to Mars.  It will be  re-created right here.

A typical ‘industrial park” building. The kind of place many people work in . A dead zone if you ask me…

People and places aren’t always what they seem and sometimes you wonder if there’s any integrity left among some human beings. They might have been successful in manipulating many under their influence, but they forgot one crucial point;  they completely overlooked the natural world. The animals, plants, trees, the stars, the Sun, the water, the wind, and the land operate on a completely different frequency which they can’t control, understand or tune into. On the other hand, we can if we really wanted to. That’s our advantage. It also explains why they are hell-bent on destroying any vestige of these other forms of intelligence and consciousness using some people to do their dirty work (they are even trying to make apps for apes now!). Once you decide to enter into a relationship with the natural world, it transforms your outlook and interactions completely. You begin seeing things you didn’t before, it starts heightening your senses, you start understanding more. You don’t have to believe me; scientists are pretty much saying the same thing.

One thing about Native/shamanic teachings and Gnostic teachings, they acknowledge that conscious life can exist in many, many different forms and give them due respect as equals. It’s what they’ve been trying to teach most humans to understand while other formal “religions” (or any other  constructed “ism”) have been trying to do their best to destroy these teachings and eradicate this information from getting into the hands of most people.

Edmund Bordeaux Szekely, big time Essene scholar and researcher.

Seneca Hawk Elder, Grandmother Edna Gordon ended her earth walk last year at the advanced age of 93 but before she did, she published a book, “Voice of the Hawk Elder” which is mainly comprised of her sayings, thoughts, opinions and the kind of old-fashioned homespun wisdom you just don’t see anymore. She said we’re living in a Popcorn-Potato Chip kind of world.

“It’s a Popcorn-Potato Chip world we’re living in today. We got fast food for the stomach and fast food for the soul. Maybe don’t nourish you, but it’s quick and it’s easy. Bet you never ate the REAL potato salad like we made in those days. Oh, my, it was the world’s best meal by itself! Nobody can seem to make that REAL potato salad today. Today’s kids think potatoes come instant or in chips in plastic bags or all greasy french fried like McDonald’s or Burger King. They think corn comes popped with imitation butter on it, already salted! That’s why I say it’s become a popcorn-potatochip world.
It ain’t real. It’s all imitation.”

She’s right.

It’s a reasonable facsimile of the haze most people operate under everyday and take for reality. I’d go even further and say many people have forgotten what real life and real consciousness is supposed to look like.
If you’ve got an hour to spare, give her a listen. There are some genuine golden nuggets of wisdom here for those who really want to hear. And you don’t have to travel all the way to the Pacific Northwest to get it either 🙂

Enjoy the Silence

“Silence is inhabited by countless beings, in forests, lakes, seas, mountains, and underground too – Cosmic Intelligence has placed inhabitants everywhere. Even fire is inhabited, so too is the ether, the sun, the stars – the entire universe is inhabited. So wherever you go, in the mountains, in the forests, by rivers, lakes or oceans, if you want to be like an awakened being, aspiring to a life that is subtler and filled with more light, do not disturb the silence of these places. Show that you are aware of the presence of etheric creatures living there. When you approach them, begin by greeting them; show them your respect, your love, and ask them to give you their blessings. These creatures will catch sight of you from afar and, filled with wonder at your attitude, will come running to shower you with their presents of joy, light, love and pure energy. And you will return home with a much greater idea of what true Life is.”

– Omraam Mikhael Aivanhov

Very few things can prepare you for your first sight of Crater Lake.

It’s not just the unearthly blue of the water, it is also the sheer size of the place. It looks a lot smaller in photos than in real life. The lake itself is about six miles wide and the drive around the rim is about 53 km. Many people hike the rim trail and for most of the year, the lake is inaccessible since it receives almost 12 feet of snow per year and even when I visited in the second week of August, there were still patches of snow at the waterline. If you want to have your breath taken away, forget the Grand Canyon and the tourist circus that place has become and go to Crater Lake instead.

Crater Lake is a lake that was created when Mount Mazama blew its top 7700 years ago. The dome collapsed, forming a caldera and the snow run-off over the years is really where the water comes from. The deepest lake in the US and the seventh deepest lake in the world, the water is ice-cold and very, very pure. Wizard Island, on the western end of the lake was formed from a volcanic cinder cone and geologist say that one day, it will blow again as well.

Some Native American tribes still do vision quests as a rite of passage for young men in that tribe.

Depending on which tribe you listen to, this place is either cursed or holy.

Local Klamath Indians still come here to do vision quests, which usually involves fasting for a few days under the guidance of an Elder, holding ceremony and then diving into the frigid water to receive the vision. On the other hand, some Klamath Elders and Modoc Elders consider the placed accursed and that to gaze on the waters is to invite death and avoid the place completely. In the past, Natives would deliberately lie to many of the early white explorers and settlers to throw them off from finding the lake and Wizard Island since they consider the place haunted and evil. They believe this because their stories still record when Mount Mazama erupted and apparently the force of the eruption was 42 times stronger than when nearby Mount St. Helen’s blew in 1980, so you can just imagine the devastation. Imagine something along the lines of Mount Vesuvius and what happened to the inhabitants of Pompeii and Herculaneum. I’m sure that kind of destruction leaves an etheric footprint.

Mount St. Helen’s erupting in 1980

Many, many, many stories about the place have developed over the years. UFO sightings are rife and apparently in February 1997, a fighter jet was seen pursuing UFOs over the lake and that evening, a sonic boom was heard throughout Western Oregon. Sasquatch/Bigfoot sightings happen regularly as well and several park rangers claim to have followed a large, dark, foul-smelling creature through the woods until it started throwing pinecones at them somewhere along the Southern Rim Road. Many people have gone missing  over the years and rangers regularly see fires on Wizard Island in the middle of the night to only go investigate and find out no one is there and there was no evidence of any campfire. (Public boating isn’t allowed there, the only way to get to Wizard island is to take the official boat tour which involves a gruelling 1 mile hike down the rim from Cleetwood Cove.)

Even the waters are supposedly haunted. Some people claim to have seen a dragon, serpent-like creature in the water a “block long”.  Until recently, that could be dismissed  as legend and a tall tale. However, in recent years scientists discovered that new life forms have been found in the coldest parts of the ocean, thanks to deep sea vents, volcanic fissures in the ocean which create  just enough pockets of warmth for lifeforms to develop despite the absence of light and despite the cold temperatures of the water. In effect, most biology textbooks had to be re-written when they found that out since it was assumed you needed light for life to exist. And guess what? Crater Lake has deep lake hydrothermal vents since the area is still seismically active and volcanically dormant, not dead.

Picture of an actual hydrothermal worm which lives on the seafloor.

I drove in coming in from the North Entrance, since it far less busier, through the ancient lava field, now an open field with the odd, lonely pine tree standing here and there. It was a hot, humid day and the place was crawling with thousands of tourists.

Skell Head lookout point

Stopping at various look-out points, scoping it out and getting a feel for the place, the very first thing I noticed while standing on the rim was the immense, almost muffling silence of the place. You can feel the wind against you but you won’t hear it. People can be talking loudly barely 10 feet away from you stand but it somehow sounds muffled. This wasn’t the rich, almost buzzing-like golden silence I experienced in places like Cappadocia, Turkey or Moray, Peru or the soft silence of untouched forests. This was the kind of silence you feel like when you’re being watched. Oppressive and strong.

Crater Lake Lodge and one of the wind-bent trees there

I had a vague idea of taking the boat ride tour the next day, out to Wizard Island to offer tobacco.  Online reservations were full, so I headed over to the Crater Lake Lodge, a posh but rustic overpriced hotel to buy my ticket for the next day at an automated teller machine. It turned out there was one, last available ticket. I was about to buy it but then before I could press the “Buy” button, something, a sudden feeling, told me to back off. I didn’t buy the ticket but that night while researching about the lake online and trying to figure out a secluded spot I could go to, I found out about all the bad mojo the lake and area have.  I didn’t feel bad anymore about missing the boat tour.

Glad I missed that boat….

The next day I returned. I left the main hiking trail and given that I was in running shoes and not proper hiking boots, I veered away from the edge of the rim trail. There are no guard rails and if you go down, you’re going all the way down since it is insanely steep. I found a meadow, not far from the highest point along the rim,  and went to the center of a grove of Whitebark Pines, pine trees which have grown up deformed because of the strong westerly winter winds here.

A typically twisted but ancient Whitebark Pine found around Crater Lake.

I noticed a giant blue jay sitting in the tree but not squawking as they usually do, blue jays are normally very noisy birds. Again, a silence you could cut up into pieces. I lay the tobacco down and did my thing. I’ll only say this; there are some exceptionally powerful beings and entities here. Very powerful.  For anyone who wants to come here to do serious spiritual work, you need to come with an attitude of reverence, respect and humility.  I didn’t see anything but I certainly felt the presence of *something*. When I looked up, there were now 3 giant crested blue jays in that same tree staring down at me. No singing, no chirping just complete silence as they flew off one by one.

What I learned is that even when it comes to good places or bad places, if you respect a place, it will respect you right back. Intention is everything.  Even when we think we’re all alone, in the middle of nowhere, we never really are. Something is always watching over us

 

The Language of Nature

“The Danish writer, J. Anker Larsen, in his novel “The Philosopher’s Stone”, speaks of the contacts that humans can have with nature.  He speaks of the “open world” and the “closed world”, explaining how nature opens up to sensitive, innocent people, particularly to children, whereas it stays closed to the majority, who have not learned to receive the vibratory energies of the subtle world: trees, lakes, rivers and mountains are nothing more than lifeless landscapes, and they have no communication with them.  Those, however, who live in the open world feel not only that they are part of nature but that all of nature is part of them. So when they touch a rock, a tree, an animal or any other creature, they are aware that they live in this rock, tree, animal or creature, that they are part of the soul and being of everything. In order to speak to animals, plants and stones and be understood by them, we must know where to find the entity governing the realm they belong to. The entity which rules over the animal kingdom is found on the astral plane of the universe; the one ruling the plant kingdom in found on the mental plane; the one in charge of the mineral kingdom is on the causal plane, which is so far away that stones to us appear lifeless. However stones are alive; they are alive and conscious….All the time, wherever we are, we can be in contact with all living beings. The language does not matter, because thoughts (and even more so words) produce waves of energy which influence all creation. Those who have worked for a long time at controlling their inner lives will be able to possess the power of the Word. Their purified and illumined lives release a power which permits them to take the etheric double of a tree, a flower, a rock or a spring and use it to serve the world. Yes, for example, they can speak to a rock and ask it to go to the aid of someone fragile, to make that person more stable and stronger, like the rock. They can also go to a spring and ask it to purify and bring new life to their friends… Nature spirits are waiting for you to ask for their help and protection. If you are unaware of them, what can they do? I am sure some of you are thinking as you listen to me, ” What on Earth is he telling us? We are living in a scientific and technological century and he wants us to believe  that we can be in touch with elemental spirits and that they will help us!”  Well, well, well, let me tell you that I believe it. The examples are numerous and the methods are for you to choose.”

– Omraam Mikhael Aivanhov

My favorite kind of vacation is the kind where I can throw my tent, sleeping bag and foam pad into a giant backpack, fly to a particular destination, pick up a car rental at the airport, throw everything into the car trunk and then hit the road ASAP. I figure when you’re you’re young and able-bodied, that’s the time to do the trips which can be physically demanding, like hiking the Grand Canyon, investigating remote valleys in Cappadocia, or hacking my way through overgrown bush to get to a remote historical site. Art galleries in Florence or palaces in St. Petersburg are not going anywhere, I figure I can see those when I’m old.

http://www.urbanaboriginal.org/artists/sharifah-marsden/sweat-lodge/

Aivanhov’s quote above is in line with the teachings I received when I spent time with First Nations wisdom keepers and Elders. That there is life behind all of creation even if we don’t always see it or understand it. In fact, when you do a sweat lodge and the heated rocks are brought in, they are referred to as Grandfathers and Grandmothers and a certain respect is also given to them.

So it was after receiving the sign from my stay at the Aivanhov retreat that I found myself on a flight to Seattle in order to investigate a few places in the Pacific Northwest. Camping along the way in state parks, driving back roads over remote mountains, ducking into motels when it became too cold, eating at diners or splurging on seafood feasts thanks to Oregon’s 350 mile wild seacoast, for years the area had been beckoning me and I finally made it there.

A few things sparked my interest about that part of the United States. After having visited New Age circuses like Sedona, Mount Shasta and California in general, I’m always on the lookout for those forgotten and overlooked magical spaces which have escaped the blight of commercialism and mainstream attention. I figured since I was going to be in Oregon, it would also give me a chance to visit Crater Lake and Orcas Island which I will write about in the next few days and weeks.

Still a big deal in the Pacific Northwest

Aside from Sasquatch/Bigfoot sightings which people still report, it was reading about the “Wheeler Moment” which happens regularly in the Nehalem Bay, an almost regular occurrence of synchronicity the people in the area seem to experience almost daily and how locals always tell people who visit here “to make a wish” particularly in sight of Neahkahnie Mountain. It is a mountain which Native tribes consider to be holy and  “the place of the Supreme deity” in their language. After doing some research, it seems there is a portal or vortex there, an extremely powerful and pure one which some local spiritualists work with as well. Another strange coincidence:  Robert M. Pirsig, the writer of the classic “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance” has a teacher who also lives near the base of Neahkahnie Mountain. Practically everyone who visits the area or the closest village, Manzanita, seems to come away with some insight.

Nothing will prepare you for the temperate rainforests of the Pacific Northwest. It literally is like stepping into some primeval world straight out of a J.R.R Tolkien book. Shades of green that you can’t imagine, crystal-like waterfalls everywhere, canopied forests and lush ferns and wild mushrooms abound. Then there is the moss, which starts to cover tree trunks, drapes from the trees, covers rocks, bridges and the forest floor.

The sense of vitality and of the abundance of the life force  is almost overwhelming. The moss was so soft that I could hike barefoot on some trails. The only sad part was seeing how much of Oregon’s wilderness has been sacrificed to logging companies. One minute you’re driving through a fairy tale scene, the next you’re in some desolate post-Apocalyptic landscape.

I tried swimming in the water pool, the water is freezing cold.

Neahkahnie Mountain

Manzanita Beach with Neahkahnie Mountain in the background

Aside from the Wheeler Moment, Neahkahnie seems to be shrouded in mystery and stories of pirate treasure still keeps people coming. A rock formation called the Indian Maiden guards the base of the mountain and whales are usually spotted from the lookout point.

Indian Maiden Rock

Neahkahnie Mountain dominates the skyline of Nehalem Bay, which includes the villages of Manzanita, Wheeler and Nehalem. It’s a small community comprised mostly of fisherman and given the abundance of seafood which is harvested from the bay, it’s easy to see why. I made my way to Neahkahnie Mountain, offered tobacco like I always do when I visit a holy place, and spent an amazing afternoon meditating on Manzanita Beach. I’m not going to share what I meditated on and what came to me only to say that I got my insights a bit later on after the trip and the experiences at Crater Lake and Orcas Island are also taken into consideration. The next day I stopped off in Wheeler to investigate a bit more while on my way to Cape Lookout State Park. As always, I asked for a sign that I had been heard.

Cape Lookout State Park:

Driving along Highway 1, along the coast is a “must”. Everyone goes on about California but honestly I found Oregon even better.  Samuel H. Boardman Scenic Corridor has my vote over Big Sur any day. With parts of the coast resembling Maine’s rocky shoreline, other seaside villages which would rival Italy’s Amalfi coast with homes dramatically sticking to cliffs (i.e Oceanside), the purest soft-sand beaches with haystack rock formations and arches which go on for miles, you can walk all by yourself for miles at a time and not encounter anyone else.

The little village of Oceanside.

Number 1: No pretentious attitudes. Number 2: Oregon lawmakers and environmentalist had the foresight to keep their beaches public for the use of all in perpetuity and prohibited any kind of development. Meaning, you have the most stunning, remote beaches and they are open to exploration by anyone with nary an ugly condo development on the beach itself anywhere. Number 3) Dogs are allowed on the beaches and everyone picks up after them. Some towns have unfortunately become tourist traps like Seaside and Cannon Beach, but there are still amazing hidden gems there like Manzanita, Oceanside and Yachats.

Add to that, the mystical fog which seems to shroud everything in the early morning hours, coming in off the sea and hitting the coastal mountains and cliffs, families out on the beach investigating what the night tide brought into the tide pools like jelly fish, crabs and razor clams and just the sense of space the whole place gives you.

Trail heading out to the beach at Cape Lookout State Park

I came here to camp and after setting my tent up decided to walk along the long beach. I was blessed to hit it on an exceptionally bright sunny, cloudless but windy day. The water was an aquamarine blue and the sound of the thunderous waves would rejuvenate even most tired of souls. I eventually found a lonely spot, away from the families and dogs I could just sink into, lean against a piece of driftwood, read a book, take in the salty air and just take it easy. I was less than 50 meters away from the water when about 100 meters away from me, I suddenly saw a giant dark, black-grey dorsal fin pop out of the water.

I of course thought it was a shark but then a spout of water shot up through the air. Then a second, a third, fourth, fifth and sixth. It was a pod of whales sunning and feeding themselves. I spent the rest of that afternoon hanging out with them, silently communicating with them for hours until sunset, when one by one, I did not see any more water spouting every few seconds and they swam off.

In Native lore, when you have an unexpected animal encounter, it means you are being gifted with a certain medicine, that a certain animal totem-animal spirit is bringing you a message from the Spirit world. In my case I understood that whatever I had petitioned for back on Neahkahnie Mountain had been heard and second, I had been gifted with Whale Medicine.

The lesson here is: don’t ever pay any attention to what New Agers, channellers, UFO enthusiasts and the like tell you about what place is “powerful” and what isn’t. Always pay close attention to the old stories and myths of the original, indigenous people of any given area since they know that landmass better than anyone else because of their history in the area. I mean: First Nations tribes in the Americas, Aboriginals in Australia, Dravidian/Tamil Indians in India, the Ainu in Japan, Celts in Ireland and the old Druidic orders in Great Britain etc. There are still many magical places left on Earth, but you have to look for them and no stupid New Age huckster will ever tell you where they are. Never  forget that the natural world has all the answers we need. We just need to train ourselves to ask the right questions and understand that language better.

Following the Cosmic Breadcrumb Trail

“Centres of light must be established throughout the world, because they attract the inhabitants of higher realms who rejoice in them. The beams of light we project by means of our songs, our meditations and our prayers are seen from great distances by celestial, high-frequency entities. Perceiving these pure rays of light shining through the spiritual shadows and darkness surrounding the earth, they come to contemplate them and bestow their blessings on us.  We must establish these rivers of light throughout the world in order to form a link between heaven and earth. They are living, breathing conduits through which these divine blessings descend for all human beings, and. without them the earth would be prey to very dark and destructive forces. If you truly wish to help your family, your country and the entire world, you must do everything possible to create these pockets of light through which the earth enters into contact with heaven. All human beings benefit from your efforts, thanks to which they receive spiritual nourishment and joy. This is the greatest, most glorious work you can undertake. You must never forget this.”
– Omraam Mikhaël Aïvanhov

This past July I went and spent a weekend at Blagoslovenie, the motherhouse of the Canadian chapter of the organization which looks after the dissemination of the teachings of the Bulgarian/French Gnostic spiritual master Omraam Mikhael Aivanhov.

Aivanhov, to the more recent readers of my blog, is one of  the spiritual master whose teachings I feel resonates the closest for me (you’ll see his quotes around here a lot)  and while I don’t want to classify myself as a “follower” (I find that word has really culty associations and asks people to suspend their critical thinking skills) I will say that Aivanhov’s teachings have inspired me immensely over the years and in many ways have played a huge part in how I look at things. What I like about him is that he has a very take-it-or-leave-it attitude. There’s no “come-follow-me-and-I-promise-you-riches” kind of talk.  May not work for everyone but it works for me.  (For anyone interested, the biography about him by the late yoga scholar and noted Indologist Georg Feuerstein is fantastic and gives an amazing understanding of Aivanhov’s work for beginners.)

Great read.

The have chapters all over the world now but I’m quite lucky in that the Canadian headquarter is a 2 hour drive away from me in Quebec’s magical Eastern Townships, at the top of the Appalachian panhandle and not far at all from one of the only 7 crystal mines in the world. It’s a beautiful and often over-looked part of Canada which is blessed with an exceptional microclimate which allows for all sorts of organic farming, outdoor living and homesteading.

My understanding is that the area was once a golf course back in the 1970s. The organization bought it in the early 1980s. Aivanhov visited the area several times before he passed on in 1986 and designated it the Canadian headquarter . The area is now transformed into a self-sustaining organic farm with 7 different lakes on the gigantic property which includes meadows, forests, orchards, fields, hills, greenhouses, streams and ponds all fed by underground springs. It is quite an impressive and incredibly peaceful and pure place to visit. Colorful birds and butterflies are everywhere, cute little chipmunks run around between the trees and you can hear birds singing all day long. In Aivanhov’s words, “Billions of the most extraordinary entities live here… Go, walk the land, explore it and put these entities to work.”

It was this last quote alone which convinced me that I need to go experience the place and investigate it. Also, I had been due for a spiritual retreat for quite a while. Too many questions. Not enough answers. Not enough clarity. Needed to be around some like-minded people. Walking, doing some yoga and meditating in nature sounded like the antidote which I needed. And so I went.

For those persons who are unfamiliar with Aivanhov’s teachings, it might be a bumpy trip. After all, you’re saying prayers in the original Bulgarian or in French translation, singing songs in Bulgarian, eating vegetarian meals in silence, waking up super-early in the morning to watch the sunrise and greet the Sun in silent meditation followed by a session of sun-gazing and solar yoga (exercises below). I’ve been reading Aivanhov since 1996-97 so I understood what these spiritual exercises signified and what was going on and didn’t feel uncomfortable in the least while joining everyone else. Everyone there made me feel welcome and were exceptionally kind.

One morning, another guest and I went walking through the forests and meadows and looking at the various lakes. I was looking for a good spot to do some yoga by myself but I also wanted a chance to investigate the extensive grounds and get a feel for the land there. My walking companion is a herbalist and wanted a chance to gather some fresh St. John’s Wort in the meadows. Eventually I found myself at one of the many lakes, liked what I saw and lay down my yoga mat.

Companion: “Can you keep a secret”

Me: “Yes, of course”

Companion: “This is the exact spot where the Master would meditate.”

I was elated. What were the odds? It was sign that I was at least on the right rack. Finally, a space where I could try to communicate with him. I returned the next day by myself to meditate, ask questions and ask for a sign which would give me an answer. One of the questions I wasn’t sure about was a reconnaissance trip to the Pacific Northwest of the US, to survey and investigate a few spiritual spots, namely Neahkahnie mountain, Nehalem Bay, Crater Lake and Orcas Island.

Almost as soon as I hit the highway while driving home back from the retreat, I saw an exit sign towards “Boulevard de Portland” in the town of Sherbrooke.

I got my answer.

(P.S It’s not possible for everyone to go out and create a spiritual retreat or compound. It’s really about creating a shared, common place of  pure intention, that’s how we become the the conduits between heaven and earth. You can do that in your back yard, front lawn or balcony.)

No Sleep till Brooklyn…sorta

The Brooklyn Bridge

Like I had posted last weekend, I attended the Brooklyn talk “New Directions in North American Yoga” which Carol Horton and Roseanne Harvey gave.

The talk was quite insightful and I pretty much agree with everything that Ivan Nahem wrote of the discussion over at Yoga Teacher Magazine. One point which was touched on in passing and I think would have been nice to discuss was the issue of the cultural appropriation of yoga but unfortunately time did not permit it. I also think it would have been interesting to see a wider discussion of yoga outside of North America but like the title indicated, it was a discussion of yoga within the North American context only. With global power and economic dynamics changing, this century will easily belong to Asia. New, emerging and insanely monied financial power centers are flexing their muscles and popping up like Singapore, Dubai, Shanghai and Mumbai and the other BRIC economies which leads me to believe that the days of North America setting the global “beat” on cultural issues are not indefinite…and that goes for yoga as well.

The old learning models are going.

Towards the end of the talk Carol talked about the breakdown of the guru/disciple model of learning citing scandals like Osho, Bikram Choudhury and John Friend and instead suggested that maybe the next model will be one of networking, like a web, where disciples/students learn from various teachers depending on their specialty or focus. I would just add that the web of learning is now global as are the options and any discussion of a network of learning or idea-sharing needs to include that as well.

Learning different things from different teachers in a network.

As for New York City itself, I have this strange relationship with that city.

On one hand NYC is everything you ever heard about and more. It really is senses working overtime to paraphrase that old XTC song. Bigger, faster, richer and just more (add adjective here)er  than you can imagine.

A pug dressed up as Scarlett O’Hara, at the Tompkins Square Park Halloween Dog Parade

I love to visit, my usual stomping grounds are the West Village, East Village especially around St. Mark’s/Tompkins Square Park and Morningside Heights. NYC along with San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury neighborhood, is probably the best place on Earth for serious people-watching. It’s practically a microcosm of Planet Earth, people from all corners of the globe concentrated in this one city, all shapes, sizes, colors, political affiliations, spiritual affiliations, etc.  Just think of the most obscure category you can come up with like “Nestorian Christians” or “Yazidis” and I’ll bet money that they probably have their own neighborhood somewhere in the greater NYC area.

New Yorkers during their annual No Pants Subway ride

As much as I love the excitement, the vibrancy and the mind-boggling amount of things to take in, it’s not a place I don’t think I can ever live in. The stress of living there is just unbelievable and you see it quite clearly etched into the faces of the people there. Just because of the cost of living, you must have your game face on all the time, you have to be “ON” all the time and depending in what industry you work in, you have to be either assertive or flat-out aggressive, you have no choice or else you’re going to be flattened out.

I’m a real stickler for vibes and energetic interference and just because of the densely populated nature of NYC, you constantly have someone in your face all the time. It’s really not surprising why yoga studios and day spas offering massage therapy sit practically on every corner. You need them just to offset the insane amounts of stress which living in NYC generates.

I mean there are a few other equally frantic cities like London, Paris, Delhi and Istanbul but these are also very old, ancient cities. They have spots, usually of spiritual significance, which are linked to the far, distant past which you can easily escape to and it is very easy to slip into a deeper meditation or lose your sense of time and experience a deeper reality in those places.

The underground Roman Cistern in Istanbul

New York, like Toronto or Sydney is a New World city. They are very young, they don’t have that link to our far past and quite often those spiritual spaces they create, in my experience, somehow feel synthetic and not nearly as grounded or organic as more ancient, older places do.

The Cloisters, part of the Met Museum

I’m going to close off with a quote from Aivanhov and perfectly captures the conundrum of anyone who is faced with the choice of having a lot of money and accumulating things while losing their sense of joy or having little but remaining at peace despite it all. I’m sure everyone as well as New Yorkers deal with this all the time.

“Having a taste for things is so much more important than owning them – This is why, for those who lack nothing, it is better if money remains of secondary concern. You can see what life is like for so many business people – all that time they spend in the office and at meetings.  When they leave, it is so they can race around from one end of the globe to the other without seeing anything of the regions they pass through or of the people who live there. And that is how their sensitivity to what is beautiful and poetic in life eventually becomes dulled. So, what was the point of amassing a fortune? They cannot even enjoy the advantages it gives them, as they have destroyed that something in them that gives the most exquisite flavour to things, events and people. And that is what is sad: to have the possibility of acquiring anything you want but to feel no joy from it, except the vanity of owning it.  So if you have to choose between these two situations – owning a lot but no longer being able to appreciate it, or owning very little and keeping your taste for it – choose the latter, and the smallest thing will give you joy.”

– Omraam Mikhael Aivanhov

Water Always Seeks its Own Level

Havasu waterfalls, Arizona

Has this ever happened to any of you, where you find yourself reading something and somehow find yourself attracted to the mind and personality behind the words?

This has only happened to me twice, once with Alan Watts (but given the way he loved women and women loved him right back, that’s really not very surprising) and the second time with Scottish historian , William Dalrymple.

William Dalrymple, probably the coolest historian in the world right now.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not into him or anything. In the great tradition of intrepid English travel writers, he has that foppish, slovenly air about him. An unabashed Indophile and Islamophile (he lives 6 months out of the year in Old Delhi with his lovely wife Olivia and their kids), I first encountered Dalrymple when I read his first book “In Xanadu” where he followed the footsteps of Venetian merchant Marco Polo and like Polo, he took holy oil from the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem and then travelled overland via the ancient Silk Route and Central Asia to Xanadu, the summer palace of Mongol emperor Kublai Khan in Inner Mongolia.

In Xanadu, the book…

The mythical Pleasure Dome, a part of the Xanadu palace.

Polo gifted the holy oil to the great Khan and Dalrymple poured out the oil over the ruins since that’s all that’s left of Xanadu these days. I know, it sounds extravagant, impractical and pretentious but completely adventurous and wildly romantic at the same time, combining erudition, history, myth and cultural anthropology…and exactly the sort of thing I would sign up for in a heartbeat.

All that’s left of the ancient palace is a bit of rubble.

Aside from just being an amazing historian and whose writings are positively delicious in their detail and scope, Dalrymple represents one of a handful of Western public intellectuals who strive to look for the commonality amongst different people and their ways as opposed to looking for the “clashes of civilizations“, which other negatively fixated (and xenophobic) public intellectuals seem to always stress and then use to infect the public discourse of these issues, say like Samuel Huntington or that diabolical dinosaur, Bernard Lewis.

Bernard Lewis = classic example of an academic shyster

I bring up the qualities of Dalrymple and his ilk because I had a funny incident this past weekend. A buddy of mine and I went out for a drink after attending a dinner party we both were invited to. Now, buddy is a nice enough lady and a real knock-out of a brunette (she could easily pass as Brooke Shields’ younger cousin)  but at 36, she is positively freaking out and looking for a “life-partner” and seems to always be scoping out every room we walk into. She’s pretty frantic about this stuff now and I keep telling her to tone down the over-enthusiastic vibe she gives off because it can easily be misread as desperation, a turn-off for most people. Not that she listened, because she made a bee-line for a blonde dude at the bar and started chatting him up and later found out that he’s 28 and he kept talking about video games and gaming for 30 minutes, much to her chagrin.

Not really them but you get the idea.

I belong to the school of thought where a person should really honest-to-God figure out what they want and what they DON’T want first, what are their non-negotiables because if you don’t know what you want, then who knows?

I don’t think anyone should ever settle for anything less than what they truly want and I believe there is absolutely nothing wrong with finding love later in life, particularly if values like spiritual and emotional maturity are important to you (there are always exceptions to every rule, some sleek young bucks are old souls, it’s true it happens).  In the meantime, I think the safest bet is to focus on making yourself to be the person you want to be and become the person which will attract another who has those qualities you really need and want in your life.

Recipe for disaster if you ask me.

I know that places me in a marginalized minority particularly in this let’s-beat-the-biological-clock-and-accumulate-lots-of-stuff-culture but when I see that I’ll-grab-anything-I-can-get mentality, I can’t help but shake my head at all the mismatched unions, bad marriages, headaches and heartaches which have come out of this obsession with time and physical expediency…and convenience.

Like I wrote, water always seeks its own level,  I just wished more people figured out what their own levels were.

Egregores and Psychic Warfare

The past few weeks I’ve been knee-deep in studying the history of occultism in the 20th century and it’s been quite an interesting and eye-opening read.

Much of what we know and see today as either the New Age scene and the conspiracy theory scene actually have their roots in the various occult movements which were sweeping across Europe during the 1910s, 20s and 30s.

Aleister Crowley is probably the best-known example of one of these occultists from this period but I don’t want to focus on him too much since he belonged to a Black Lodge and that’s not something I dig.

 

Rather I want to focus on the White Lodges. 

My own theory is that after the horrors of WWI, interest in occultism literally exploded all over Europe because people couldn’t make sense of the violence they had witnessed or experienced and needed something which could help them come to terms with it. Europe was at the height of its culture, how could something so barbaric take place?

Fallen German soldier during the Battle of Vimy Ridge, World War I

This was a time when people did not understand mental illness as we do today, did not understand things like Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and simply dismissed people as “mad” or shell-shocked. Groups like the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, the Rosicrucians, the Theosophical Society, the Anthroposophical Society, the Thule Society, the Vril Society sprung up and blossomed all over the continent and by extension, in their colonies as well.  Not that it helped very much because barely 30 years later,  WWII broke out with even more horrific consequences but it definitely laid the theoretical groundwork for New Agers, hippies, occultists (both black and white) later on.

The hippy and psychedelic movements did not come out of nowhere in the late 1960s.

 One occultist and psychic who interests me immensely is Dion Fortune. 

Not a lot of photographs of Dion Fortune exist.

Born Violet Mary Firth, Fortune was a pre-eminent occultist, writer, psychologist, teacher and mystic who established the Society for Inner Light. She was also quite a pioneer in trans-personal psychology and was one of the first persons to introduce psycho-therapy and the teachings of Carl Jung and of the collective unconscious to Britain. She also incorporated these teachings with occultism, how certain personality types were susceptible to certain forms of hypnotism or psychic influence, something which was unheard of before. 

Fortune’s old house is the one on the middle with the giant fir tree behind it.

Fortune had quite a storied life but one of the things which intrigues me most about her is how she  lived at the bottom of Glastonbury Tor for many years. Her old house is now a magical bed and breakfast. Fortune was quite a prolific writer and for many years her  books were out of print particularly her classic “Psychic Self-Defense” (a must-read in my humble opinion for anyone who is interested in the unseen world).Thankfully, her books are now being republished and there has been a resurgence of interest in her work, mostly because, I think, the stuff she wrote about are now being experienced by more and more people.

A very, very interesting read.

 

Because she lived at the base of the Tor for many years, the influence of that magical area no doubt exerted an influence on her. Fortune was convinced that the Tor and the Glastonbury area and countryside were intimately linked to the Arthurian legends, Merlin, the Holy Grail, the vale of Avalon, and that the Tor was the real, true heart of Britain and NOT the City of London, as the British Royal Family and British Establishment would like you to believe. Fortune also led an extraordinary early effort in mass psychic defense against psychic warfare.

The seven ridges of the Tor are considered a mystery but to anyone with even a tiny amount of spiritual knowledge can instantly see that the Tor is like a giant stupa. The seven ridges representing the seven chakras and seven levels of consciousness and the top representing the kundalini being released to through the crown chakra. Full credit to the ancient inhabitants of Britain for representing such a spiritual concept into the land itself which not even the the introduction of Christianity could eradicate.

 

The idea of the Egregore in occult literature is one which seems to have fallen out of fashion in the English-speaking world, but when I plow through some of the French occult writers like René Guénon or the Marquis Alexandre Saint-Yves d’Alveydre and even in Aivanhov, it’s still something quite current in their esoteric literature. The Egregore, put simply is a thought-form, 

” It is a symbolic, collective entity formed in the Invisible World by the collective thoughts and feelings of a country, religion or group representing the sum total of the will of the community. It is an autonomous psychic entity made up of, and influencing, the thoughts of a group of people. The symbiotic relationship between an egregore and its group has been compared to the more recent, non-occult concepts of the corporation (as a legal entity) and the meme.(Wikipedia).

 

Cartoon from the English satirical magazine Punch, or The London Charivari showing up Egregores effectively. With the Russian Bear sitting on the tail of the Persian cat while the British Lion looks on, it represents a phase of The Great Game. The caption reads: “AS BETWEEN FRIENDS. British Lion (to Russian Bear). ‘IF WE HADN’T SUCH A THOROUGH UNDERSTANDING I MIGHT ALMOST BE TEMPTED TO ASK WHAT YOU’RE DOING THERE WITH OUR LITTLE PLAYFELLOW.'”

Nations and culture have specific Egregores (don’t ask me how they come up with it and who is on the selection committee because I don’t know) though I imagine they are not all that different from totem animals which Native tribes use to identify their various sub-tribes and clans.  Russia’s Egregore is identified as a great Bear, India with the Bengal tiger, Japan with the Dragon, the US and Germany with the Eagle, Canada with the Beaver, France with the Rooster, Spain with the Bull, Turkey with the Wolf and Britain with the Lion. Each Egregore protects and helps the aggregate it belongs to and may even fight other Egregores. Aivanhov has written that the Egregore of the coming age will be one of peace, the Dove. 

I bring up the topic of Egregores because they played quite a key role in the Magical Battle of Britain and in no small part due to Dion Fortune. It’s a fascinating chapter in occult history and documented quite well in her book, “The Magical Battle for Britain”. Fortune knew on a psychic level that the Nazis were using black magick. The Rhineland was (and still is) full of occult groups and the stuff you saw in the early Indiana Jones films was not complete fiction and not entirely baseless. It would explain their meteoric rise and militaristic success in a mere 30 years from hyper-inflation, financial ruin and national shame right after defeat in WWI to suddenly becoming one of the most formidable armies in the world at the time. 

 

A typical German volkisch poster, complete with Christian and pagan symbolism.

German secret societies were able to utilize German folk culture and mythology and have it as something the general German population could strongly identify with and rally around. This energized the German population immensely on many different levels, especially on the psychic one. Many upper level Nazi SS officers were deeply involved in these groups, particularly Heinrich Himmler and Hitler was not dismissive of them in the least. Fortune was convinced after watching newsreels of the Nuremberg rallies and his various speeches that Hitler had some mediumship capacity, that he wasn’t completely clueless on these matters. Fortune also understood that Britain and in particular, the Glastonbury area had to be protected at all costs psychically during the air bombings since it was (and still is) considered by many following the Western esoteric tradition to be an area representing the heart chakra of this Earth. 

 

Map of Earth chakras. This is just one of many, many versions out there.

To do so, she sent out weekly newsletters detailing a mass meditation of the week, with particular visualizations, particular prayers which were do take place at a particular time and apparently hundreds if not thousands of people volunteered to be a part of it. She led a cadre of meditators at the Society for Inner Light’s headquarters. The visualizations became more complicated over time but one of them was where she asked people to envisage giant, red-robed benevolent entities/beings along the coast of Britain, traversing across the land, giant Egregores of protection. Another visualization involved King Arthur and Glastonbury Tor. The German Luftwaffe never conquered Britain.

A depiction of one of the visualizations.

 

People might say that repeated experiments in mass meditation are flukes at best and delusions at worst but I would respectfully disagree. Fortune’s campaign was highly organized, focused, efficiently executed and methodically thought through. Most mass meditations I’ve seen or read about are nowhere nearly as organized, it’s usually willy-nilly all over the place, not disciplined in the least and quite disjointed and that’s why I think many of them don’t work. Targeted and aggressive marketing campaigns, cultural memes, clichés are all forms of repeating a certain idea over and over again until they become internalized. True, they exist in 3D reality, you can see it, touch it, point at it, but once it’s in your head, it’s in your head. So why can’t we create targeted aggressive marketing campaigns of our own with visuals and meanings and symbols of our own choosing towards positive and collective ends of our choice?

 

Those Healing Places and Spaces

A typical scene in Vermont.

I seriously love Vermont.

Not only is it a mere 60 minute car ride from Montreal, (a fact which seems to freak out some of my geographically challenged American friends who seem to think Canada is some distant far-away place closer to the North Pole. Newsflash: Burlington, Vermont is a 90 minute drive away from Montreal, Boston and NYC are about 5 hours of driving away from Montreal, Vancouver is less than 2 hours away from Seattle and Windsor is literally over the bridge from Detroit.) but Vermont is one of the most independent and progressive states within the union, with strict environmental laws, which are the envy of most of the industrialized West and a political movement within the state which is pushing to jail George W. Bush and  Dick Cheney (and rightly so I think…). Vermont was one of the last states to join the union and if there ever is another civil war in that country, will probably be one of the first states to leave as well, I suspect. It regularly produces very independently minded politicians like Jim Jeffords and Bernie Sanders, who until a few years ago was the only sitting socialist in the House of Representatives. Anarchist theorist Murray Bookchin lived there for many years as well.

It’s known as the Green Mountain State, in reference to the fact that the Appalachians roll through the entire state, with meandering rivers cutting through bucolic verdant, green valleys in the summer. Autumn here means that the hills are literally alive with color.

A typical Vermont farm scene.

Three Nobel prize winners of literature, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Sinclair Lewis and Rudyard Kipling have all lived, at one point or another in the tiny town of Brattleboro. “Catcher in the Rye” author J.D Salinger lived as a recluse for many years here as well. With family farms sitting beside tiny New England villages, it’s easy to see why artists, writers and other creative types come here in droves to just be left alone, think and be inspired.

Naulakha, the old Kipling house in Brattleboro.

It’s the kind of place where if you need to decompress or get your bearings, you can and not be worried about distractions of any sort. Not surprisingly, it is a place, like Hawaii, that New World Order-types have also targeted to ruin. The latest attempt is the new air force base near Burlington which often has eardrum-exploding F-35 fighter jets screaming across the sky practically every hour.

Water springs at the House of the Virgin Mary, Ephesus, Turkey

People the world over have always expressed certain springs or certain geographical land features as “healing”. Catholics have places like Lourdes, Fatima or even the House of the Virgin Mary at Ephesus, and swear that the waters from the springs there have healing properties. The Incas had the Urubamba River in Peru, far below Machu Picchu. The Irish have hundreds of holy wells dotting their countryside, each one attributed to some saint or other. Every religion and/or faith tradition has its own spot or place of healing power. I went to the House of the Virgin Mary and had the water there. I also fell into the Urubamba River while rafting. Nothing special happened to me physically at all at either of those places, unfortunately.

Many of the holy wells in the Celtic world predate Christianity by thousands of years and were places of worship in pagan times. Introduce Christianity + rename the place = Voila, a new holy well!

Native and First Nations people however have a different take on healing spots. When I visited Mount Shasta, California in 2005, I spent time with the spiritual leader of the tribe who are the real guardians of that mountain, the Winnemem Wintu. Unfortunately  they are a tribe who are not nationally recognized and not on the register for the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Nonetheless, I was lucky enough to spend time with Caleen Sisk-Franco their leader, and her family during their annual Coonrod Ceremony in August, to honor the salmon. The meeting also meant smudging everyone before they jumped into the lower McCloud River Falls. A member of Caleen’s family described it to me in this way: “We consider a site or place holy mostly if there is something unusual about a place, geographically. See these falls, how it is almost perfectly round, like an arena or amphitheater? To us, that means something. It means Spirit has been at work here in a special way”.

Members of the Winnemem Wintu jumping into the lower McCloud River falls during the Coonrod ceremony.

I have this “thing” about swimming in natural settings, preferably in rushing streams, gorges, rivers or the ocean. Negative ions in the air which comes from the water’s constant movement and splashing or churning probably has something to do with it. It just makes you feel better.

One of my favorite swimming holes, Les Cascades Rawdon, where the Oureau river changes elevation dramatically through a series of rock ledges and rock pools.

I’m literally the type to carry my bathing suit with me when I go hiking, just in case I come across the perfect spot to jump into, to cool off in. That would explain why I hate swimming pools, artificial beaches and why I find lakes revolting (especially when you walk into a patch of “warm” water and there’s tons of little kids everywhere…). I found this excellent site which lists natural swimming holes all over the US and decided since I was going to be in Vermont for a few days, I was going to explore some of the places listed, particularly around Stowe. I decided to visit and explore Bingham Falls, Sterling Falls Gorge and Moss Glen Falls.

The last thing I had on my mind was healing as I hiked through the woods and clambered down the wet rocks and boulders and made my way towards Bingham Falls. It’s at least a 400 feet drop along one side of a hill, on round boulders, and requires your complete attention lest you slip on these wet rocks on your way down. (Do NOT do this with flip-flops). I was too busy enjoying the beauty of the place, the fresh mountain and forest air, hearing the roar of the water as it rushed through rock pools and small gorges. When I finally got to the bottom and saw the falls and watched boys jump from the top of the falls into the pool below, all I could really do was take in the wonder of the place and realize that these are the hidden places of the world, the real places, where I’m sure the little folk meet on full moon nights, far from the gaze of humans, far from the gaze of civilization. This is where real magic takes place. I just felt happy to be there. I offered some tobacco to the place, in gratitude.

Vermont also has a strong tradition of skinny-dipping but I think Bingham Falls is way too well-known a spot for that sort of thing.

I took my time and went swimming in the pool, clambered over rocks, investigated pools downstream and watched how the water formed a gorge upstream. Talked to people there, some were Hell’s Angels bikers but if you leave them alone, they leave you alone. Most were teens on holiday with their parents from places like New Jersey or Maryland (Stowe valley is a bit of a resort area). Finally it was time to leave and I was not looking forward to climbing up those 400 feet back to the main trail. Mostly because I have always had some inflexibility in my left hip and no matter how much yoga or massage therapy I do, it never gets better. (I made the mistake of taking the stairs up to Machu Picchu and what normally takes most people 45 minutes to do, took me 90 minutes, to give you an idea).

Stairs to Machu Picchu. Never again.

I made the slow climb up the boulders, pacing myself mostly because I didn’t want to get all hot and sweaty again especially after such a refreshing swim, I walked slowly along the uphill trail back to the road and then made it back to my tent. That’s when I realized that there was no pain at all in my hip. In fact, ever since Bingham Falls, I have not felt any pain at all in that hip even after exploring steeper places.

The pain is gone.

The Journey to the Centre

A far-reaching science and a vast body of philosophy is contained in this figure  The circle symbolizes the universe and the dot represents Cosmic Intelligence who sustains and animates it. Look at it and you will see that the central point is at exactly the same distance from every point on the circumference; and it is this that enables it to maintain the circle in perfect equilibrium. A ceaseless ebb and flow that exists between the centre and the periphery, communicating life to the whole area enclosed by the circle. The fullness of life is there: vibrating, palpitating, digesting and eliminating, breathing and thinking…Astrologers have always used the circle with a dot in the centre to represent the sun and this figure     can be seen in every sphere of nature from the solar system to the atom. The dot represents the spirit, the prime mover, the space between the dot and the circumference represents the soul where currents between the spirit and physical are exchanged and the circumference represents the body, the physical limit. And now if you look at the structure of an eye, the inside of fruit or a tree, you will recognize the same pattern, these same three divisions: the spirit, the soul and the body.

– Omraam Mikhael Aivanhov, “The Symbolic Languages of Geometrical Figures

Ramadan starts tomorrow (pending if the crescent moon is sighted tonight of course) marking the holiest month for Muslims worldwide.

Ramadan crescent moon as seen over Bahrain, near top right hand corner

When Ramadan ends, the Islamic calendar then celebrates one of it’s most important holidays of Eid al-Fitr, the breaking of the fast. When I was growing up, the fast was explained to me as a spiritual exercise in which we need to forget about mundane matters for a little while and think about deeper spiritual matters in that time instead. I was also told that the fasting was also to help us feel and understand what those who are less fortunate than us must feel when they are hungry and this is to instill a sense of brotherhood and sisterhood which is to extend to all members of the human family, that we have a duty to be each others keepers and feed those who are hungry and share with others what we have (hence the insane amounts of food which are distributed at mosques and street vendors every evening during Ramadan around the world when the fast breaks at sunset to anyone who shows up, Muslim or not).

Ramadan food stalls in the streets of Kuala Lampur.

It made me think about the other Pillars of Faith within Islam. For several years now, my brother and I have been asking my dad if he wants to do the Hajj, the pilgrimage to Mecca and Medina all Muslims are supposed to undertake if they have the means. He keeps saying no. Mostly because my dad is not super-religious at all but keeps his spirituality private but I also suspect being alone in Saudi Arabia wouldn’t be fun for him either at his advanced age. I wouldn’t be against accompanying him for the pilgrimage to see first-hand what the experience would be like.

Some of my elder relatives have done the Hajj. When I asked one of my great-aunts about it, she would always inevitably tear up and say that she never felt closer to God than during the Hajj, that the whole experience shifted her perception of life and creation, that she really felt that sense of brotherhood and sisterhood with the rest of humanity, with everyone dressed the same in the white shroud (again to stress the equality of each human life and to signify no rank, no hierarchy, no caste, no chosen tribe, no separateness, that we are all in this together), everyone doing the same rituals (like the throwing of the stones to the devil), and the 7 rotations around the Kaaba, the centre of Islam, everyone coming together in unity irrespective of color, culture, race and gender and the overwhelming sense of peace it brought her.

In Islam, the Kaaba is the centre.

I bring up the Aivanhov quote because that’s what the centrality of the Kaaba and Mecca reminds me of, as well as the rotations around it and the way that Muslims around the world, regardless of location need to pray towards Mecca. To me it’s symbolic, not literal.

Indian Muslims near the Taj Mahal, praying in the direction of Mecca.

I do however find the idea of pilgrimages to be a beautiful one, whether it’s the more established one like the Hajj or Hindus making their way to Varanasi,

Hindu pilgrims at Varanasi

…or Christians going to Rome, Jerusalem or doing the Camino in northern Spain or other holy sites like Medjugorje, Fatima or Lourdes.

Pilgrims walking along Santiago de Compostela.

Some people need to do the Pow-wow circuit which is in full swing now among First Nations communities with the Sun Dance happening out west later this summer.

Getting ready to do the pow-wow

I know at some point I need to make my way towards the Rila Mountains in Bulgaria for the August full-moon sessions of Paneurhythmy, a form of dance and solar yoga which the followers of Aivanhov and Peter Deunov follow. It takes place near the Seven Lakes of Rila.

Followers of the teachings of Aivanhov and Deunov doing the Paneurhythmy dance in the Rila mountains.

Not a lot of people know about Paneurhythmy but several years ago but each year, more and more YouTube videos are going up. I have no idea when I’ll go but one of my contacts there once told me, “Don’t worry about when you come, Rila is always here for you.”

Other pilgrimages follow no rule-book or formula but instead are highly personal, simply places that they are compelled to go to, rituals they need to do for whatever reason, places which may very well be in the middle of nowhere and have no meaning to anyone else. To me it’s all good. Like anything else in life, it’s intention here which counts. It’s not the idea of going through the motions of certain rituals but rather what you bring to them which changes everything and your experience of it.

It’s the journey which got you there which counts, not the end destination.

The Extinction of the Unique

An army of demonstrators facing off riot police in Istanbul.

I’ve been steadily watching the ongoing riots and demonstration happening in Turkey the last week, it hits a bit close to home since I spent several years living and working there and consider it in some ways my second home. The names of the squares, the neighborhoods the news reports mention are all dearly familiar to me.

Kizilay, the center of Ankara.

I left Turkey in 2002, just before Ergodan got in. In fact I actually had a run-in with him while he was on his election campaign. It was in the ancient city of Amasya. Me and a group of friends were there spending the weekend and staying at one of the old Ottoman houses which have since been converted into boutique pensions and hotels.

Amasya, sits along the banks of the river-valley of the Yeşilırmak River. Full of old, preserved Ottoman homes and tombs of ancient kings carved into the mountainside, it’s a wonderful place to spend time. The region is also famous for it’s apples.

We were there to do some serious hiking and investigate the ruins and tombs of Pontic kings which have essentially been carved into the mountainside. We saw Erdogan give a speech in the town center and an American in my group yelled out “Hey Eddy” while frantically waving. Erdogan waved back but then when he realized we were a bunch of foreigners, looked confused and then stopped waving.

The Migros mall in Ankara.

Anyway, I’ve returned to Turkey several times since then and the country becomes more unrecognizable each time I go. It saddens me immensely that the small things which made Turkey unique, like the Pasaji malls, the small old-fashioned cinemas and neighborhood weekly food bazaars (farmer’s markets) are disappearing quickly.

Weekly neighborhood farmer’s markets or “pazaars” usually rotate around the city so everyone has a chance to buy from local farmers.

Historical places which were off-the-beaten path like Olympos have been overtaken by mass-tourism, losing it’s charm and soul along the way. American-style subdivisions have swallowed up Ankara. You can easily mistake some of them for a suburb in New Jersey or California now. Mega-malls and multiplex cinemas are everywhere, and foreign franchises like Gap, Abercrombie & Fitch, The Body Shop sit at every new corner.

Karum, is a super-posh mall at the base of the Sheraton hotel in Ankara.

I have many friends there who are involved in leftist politics and the litany of complaints just goes on and on. Turkey is awash with NATO money, condos, malls, resorts are going up everywhere. It’s the usual arguments for globalization, the classes and sectors most closely entrenched with the bureaucracy and with technocrats, profit the most while everyone else seems to experience nothing but diminishing returns. There are now restrictions to access to things like abortions, birth control, the Morning After pill and alcoholic beverages. There are even some shades of lipstick which are now deemed “inappropriate”!

Yoga practitioners are staying put in Gezi Park – from yogadork.com

Most of the Turks I know are very progressive politically and can’t stand what their governments are doing in their name. They don’t like the fact that Erdogan has gotten involved in the mess in Syria. They don’t like the fact that Turkey has such cozy military arrangements with the US and Israel. They don’t like the fact that journalists and activists who call for social reform and more freedom of the press are regularly jailed and imprisoned.

Anyone who reads my blog regularly knows how much of a leftist, anarchist anti-globalization sympathizer I am. I hate the way the world is becoming more generic everywhere with each passing day. The blandness, the uniformity and in the name of “progress”. In that regard, I can understand why someone would become a Luddite. If I go to Japan, I don’t want to get off the plane to see another GAP, identical to the one at home. I want to see all the unique things, the foods, the buildings, the temples, the plants, animals, the geography, the farmer’s markets, the legendary fish markets which make Japan unique in the first place.

This could be, literally anywhere.

It’s not just countries transforming themselves to all look a certain way. I see it in the way people dress too. Everyone pretty much wears the same uniforms now. T-shirt, jeans, sandals/sneakers whether it’s Montreal or Mozambique. Everyone is eating the same food, burgers, sushi, soda pop. Everyone reads the same books, the same best-sellers whether it’s Dan Brown or Stephen King. People are even starting to think the same way and I’m noticing that it’s starting to take even greater reserves of psychic energy to maintain your uniqueness, to stay different and to stay outside the box.

Talk to any scientist with even half a functioning brain and they will be the first ones to tell you that diversity, heterogeneity is a good thing. That having genetic diversity gives organisms genetic strength. That being in a state of homogeneity is dangerous for extended periods of time and leaves the species vulnerable.

This kind of homogeneity is not a good thing.

That if you were to wipe out all varieties of say, rice, but just keep one or two strains for mass agriculture and plant all the fields with these two strains. In case a parasite or fungus is introduced and wipes out these two strains or rice, because you didn’t keep the other varieties which might have been immune to the fungus, you’ve now lost all your rice. That example can easily be extrapolated to humans, our minds, our opinions, our way of life.

Stay unique Folks, these are very homogeneous times.

Spiritual trendiness

Joseph Campbell

“When you find an author who really grabs you, read everything he has done. Don’t say, ‘Oh, I want to know what So-and-so did’ — and don’t bother at all with the best-seller list. Just read what this one author has to give you. And then you can go read what he had read. And the world opens up in a way that is consistent with a certain point of view. But when you go from one author to another, you may be able to tell us the date when each wrote such and such a poem — but he hasn’t said anything to you.”
– Joseph Campbell

Shrine of Rumi, Konya, Turkey. The turquoise-tiled minaret shows where Rumi is buried.

Rumi’s grave (May eternal peace be upon him)

I remember while in Turkey, taking a long weekend off of work to journey to Konya to watch the Whirling Dervishes, the mystical Islamic Sufi order established by Jalaluddin Rumi (or Mevlana as he is known by in Turkey), dance the Sema dance and to visit Rumi’s grave. I’m sure you’ve seen in either in ads or commercials or documentaries.

To outsiders who don’t know any better, it just looks like a group of men in long flowing white skirts and jackets, wearing fez hats, twirling around in circles. The Sema, in fact has a deeper symbolism. The circles they dance in represents the Circle of Life. Birth, death and rebirth. Fall, winter, spring and summer. The blood in our bodies being pumped out by the heart to only return back to the heart. The examples are infinite. It induces a trance-like state for the dancer which is supposed to help them meet with That, like ayahuasca might for some or peyote for others.

Mevlana was actually born in present-day Afghanistan, wrote all his poetry in the Persian language and is buried in present-day Turkey.

Back then, Rumi was not the spiritual superstar that New Agers and certain yoga instructors these days love to quote. In fact even 10 years ago, I’m sure if you even mentioned Rumi to those who were knee-deep in Deepak Chopra-speak or Wayne Dyer-speak, they wouldn’t even know who or what you were talking about. It’s interesting to watch because since the Rumi train seems to be slowing down now, I’ve noticed that the Deepak/Dyer crowd have now jumped on another mystical Islamic, Persian poet, namely Hafiz. (I’m betting after they get sick of or run out of the Persian poets, they’ll return to the Russians like Alexander Blok, and Pushkin and then heaven forbid, the old Europeans mystics like William Blake, W.B Yeats, Goethe, Meister Eckhart and Emanuel Swedenborg. It’s always about finding a “new” bottle for old wine.)

When western yoga instructors “discover” Emanuel Swedenborg, will that lead to a revival of interest in Christian mysticism? Your guess is as good as mine…

Truth be told, I find the sudden interest in Islamic mysticism by some Westerners and bubble-headed yoga instructors who are normally Conservative, Republican, right-wing and very anti-Arab or anti-Muslim, strange to put it mildly. True, the poetry of Rumi and Hafiz have inspired wonderment across centuries. If you have even the smallest spiritual inclination in you, you can’t help but be touched by their words. But before Rumi, it was the Khalil Gibran train. Before Gibran, it was Marianne Williamson and Neale Donald Walsch. It’s this constant hopping around because it’s a trend, without any real study or serious reflection on the works of these past masters and then passing it off as “This makes me look serious” which I take issue with.

if you want to be trendy with what you wear and what you eat, fine. But don’t expect anyone to take you seriously if you do it with your spirituality.

And this brings me back to Campbell’s quote above. I have to agree with Campbell 150% on this one. It is best to find someone whose words ring so deeply and so true for you that you will need to read up on all their works to process and internalize their ideas and sentiments properly. That’s when you start to “get” them properly. One spiritual master whose words have consistently resonated deeply with me, as I have posted many times here is Omraam Mikhael Aivanhov.

It was Neem Karoli Baba who gave him the name “Omraam” and it was Nityananda who explained that Aivanhov was an incarnation of Vedic sage from the Solar Age and in fact had come back to bring back the Solar teachings. Apparently he also met the legendary Babaji in the Himalayas as well but he refused to talk about it.

Like all seekers at the beginning of their road, I did my fair share of hopping as well. Not because a certain writer was the flavour of the month but because I was searching. I read George Gurdjieff, Rudolph Steiner, tried Jiddu Krishnamurti and Theosophy in earnest but none of it seemed to “stick” for lack of a better word. But with Aivanhov, it was like remembering a deeply treasured memory which had been forgotten and a flood of light breaking through a door. I’ve been reading Aivanhov since at least 1996 and have never looked back.
In fact here’s a photo of my Aivanhov bookshelf;

Like I posted recently, these days it’s also Alan Watts which is speaking to me (thank God for YouTube!). While I don’t see myself going to Japan to study Zen in all seriousness with a proper Zen master ( and I’m not even sure if the monasteries there even accept women!), Watts, like Aivanhov, was/is able to synthesize the Perennial teachings along with recent scientific findings and present it with their own flair and in such a way the modern reader/listener can connect instantly.

That is a rare talent and not one which New Age hucksters can ever master convincingly.

An experiment in Earth Healing

This enchanting house is located on an island called Elliðaey near Vestmannaeyjar, a small archipelago off the south coast of Iceland. In 2000 the house was given to singer, Bjork from her motherland as a “Thank You” for putting Iceland on the international map.

I have seen signs. The end of the world as we know it has begun. Don’t panic. It might look terrifying on the surface, but inside every human being is a choice to act out of fear or love. Earth is calling. God is calling. Sky is calling. Creation is calling. Wake up. Wake up now. Generate the capacity for love, for compassion in your heart. Now is the time to yield to the call of growth, to the call of action. You, you are the change makers. Sleepers of all ages, wake up. Wake up now.

– Poem by Icelandic Parliamentarian and WikiLeaks representative, Birgitta Jónsdóttir, on “Democracy Now!” (at 14:58)

Like I posted in one of my very first blog-posts  Iceland is indeed proving itself to be a high-frequency consciousness country over and over again. This is a country that had the foresight to jail their bankers who created the financial meltdown of 2008, then forgave every one of their debt. The result that they are now one of the most financially robust economies in the world. More recently, Iceland has decided to push legislation against internet pornography because of the damaging effects it has on women in the industry as well as the scarring if little-understood effects it has on children who are exposed to this material before they are ready to handle it.

Then I watched the recent interview with   Birgitta Jónsdóttir on “Democracy Now!” linked above and I thought to myself “*THIS* is the kind of politician we need everywhere folks. Now.”

Birgitta Jónsdóttir – Class Act

Can you ever imagine you local politician ever writing something like her poem and then reading it out loud in front of a political prisoner’s jail? None around my neck of the woods, that’s for sure…One of the things I’ve always admired about the Nordic and Scandinavian countries is this very pragmatic outlook they have on things. They don’t give a rat’s ass about politics or stepping on some billionaire or politician’s toes but rather ask “Does this work?” and if it does, employ it and get rid of whatever doesn’t.

Did you know that Iceland grow their own bananas in their greenhouses because it’s cheaper to do so than to import them from overseas? Also the fact that the island is volcanic and geothermally active ensures they have all the cheap heat they need. (Do you see any agro-business or oil companies having a fit now?)

 A few weeks ago Waking Times posted a very interesting article on “How We Create Reality”. Normally, I have a hard time digesting magical thinking and can’t tolerate stuff like “The Secret” or books like those by Og Mandino.

No. Just no.

However this article was a little different in that it addressed how to actually negate poor self-image and also the fact that what other people think of us does end up affecting us, which is why it’s important to drop those frenemies and surround yourself with people who really do have your best interests at heart, an important point which many of these New Age pot boilers fail to mention.

Gwynnie-poo and Madonna, classic frenemies, any wonder why they don’t hang together anymore?

I then thought about  Birgitta’s  poem and what effect , if any, there could be if indeed many people, instead of focusing on complicated systems and complicated daydream scenarios or visions lasting 20 minutes, instead repeatedly focused on one simple image, like the article suggests.

Would it really change anything?

So Shifters, here’s a simple experiment for you, should you want to join in (if you don’t, that’s cool too).

Here’s an innocent image below, all it is a vision of a Tibetan Mandala. Specifically, the Mandala of Auspicious Beginnings . In Mahayana Buddhism, the ideal is the Bodhisattva, one who has taken the vow to become a Buddha, an enlightened one. The maṇḍala, a symbol of the universe in Buddhist cultures, depicts the three great Bodhisattvas who represent the power, wisdom, and compassion of the Buddhas. This maṇḍala was  to invoke the blessings of the Bodhisattvas.
Don’t think about how-tos, wherefores, whys or what-ifs  or any of the rest. Just commit the image to memory and remember it as vividly as you can and remember it several times a day, even for a second or two.  Share it with as many people as you want.

It’s just an experiment, let’s just see where this goes, shall we 🙂 ?

The Futility of Permanence

I met a traveler from an antique land
Who said: “Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
`My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!’
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away

-Ozymandias, Percy Bysshe Shelley

Visit any ancient monumental site, whether it’s in Egypt,

Abu Simbel, Egypt

Turkey,

Nemrut, Dag, Turkey

Sri Lanka,

Reclining Buddha at Polonnaruwa, Sri Lanka

or even ancient Greece,

The Kouros of Samos, Greece

and you’ll quickly realize many of these ancient kings, emperors and conquerors were megalomaniacs, building this statue or that temple, like in Shelley’s poem, trying to stake their tiny claim in the face of eternity.

Unfortunately, monuments, cities and buildings eventually fall into disrepair or ruin. Things like climate changes, wars and the march of time have a funny way of doing that. History is full of examples of civilizations or cities disappearing altogether, like in the case of the River Menderes silting up the plains and thus precipitating the ruin of the ancient Roman city of Ephesus, or an earthquake swallowing a city whole in the case of Antioch or even a city being abandoned completely because the Uzboy river dried up  like the ancient Khwarezm civilization  in Turkmenistan.

All that’s left of an ancient Kwarezm city, Turkmenistan

I will on occasion usually watch cheesy awards shows like the Oscars. The fanfare, the pre-awards shows where plastic hosts ooh’s and aah’s over the actresses (usually) gaudy gowns while acting like the actor or actress’ bit of acting work has somehow achieved world peace or cured cancer, and now the post-ceremony parties.

Scarlett Johannson and Isaac Mitzrahi in a major faux-pas on the red carpet

It shows up the worst of vulgar celebrity culture. I don’t care about the winners anymore since in my mind, the Oscars lost their credibility a long time ago (if you’re a serious film fan and want to know the movies worth watching, keep a close eye on the winners at the Cannes, Telluride, Berlin and Venice film festivals as well as the NYC and London Critics Circle Awards). It’s a popularity contest for those playing the Hollywood game and for insiders to come out and prance about like peacocks. Many people who go into film, and especially into acting or directing, I think are also striving for eternal immortality, maybe not in marble statues anymore like the old Greek gods and Roman emperors but definitely on celluloid. What is today’s winner quickly becomes yesterday’s trivia. (Think fast: Which film won “Best Picture” in 1974? Do you know? Do you care? Has it changed anything?)

Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean

Mikhael Aivanhov had a wonderful quote on eternity and permanence (which I’m still looking for) which I read years ago, that even if you strive for permanence on the material plane, that eventually it will fall into ruin, whether it’s a political ideology, an invention or a monument. That often, very quickly after you die, even after all the hard work you put in trying to achieve something permanent or immortal, if you have an airport, hospital, an elementary school or park named after you, given enough time, these too will vanish and be forgotten. That the only thing that lasts are ideas and the spiritual work you accomplish out of that wisdom. That stays alive forever. One only has to look at the likes of Socrates, Plato, Aristotle and the benevolent teachings of Buddha, Lao Tzu  and old JC, to see what impact their teachings and ideas have informed and transformed the world, in a good way, that even now, thousands of years later, their work and words  remains alive and vital. (In light of this, when I see an aging train wreck like Madonna doing her best to remain youthful and striving for immortality, it just comes across as sad…and tragic)

From Aivanhov:

“What about things such as illness, misery, ugliness? Are inferior things also limitless and capable of expanding all the way to Infinity? No, there is a limit to evil, proven in physics by the fact that heat rises from 0 degrees Celsius, to infinity, whereas cold cannot go lower than 273 degrees Celsius below. The frozen particles block each other and pile up; when movement stops, the limit has been reached. Heat does the contrary, it dilates and expands the body, stirs the particles into movement and pushes back the limits of space. Space is infinite, it cannot be limited. We believe ourselves limited because we have never tried to go beyond our own experience, we think we are limited in space but we are wrong: above there is no limit.That is what led me to the conclusion that evil is limited in both time and space. Cosmic Intelligence did not intend evil to endure. It did not endow it with lasting power as It did good: the power of good is unlimited. That is the difference between good and evil, the only real difference. People believe them to be equally strong but they are not. The forces of Evil are not equal to the forces of Good. Therefore, in electing to go toward the positive pole, you enter into the realm of unlimited time and space, Infinity and Eternity, Cosmic Intelligence Itself.”

The Fall of Expectations

Patmos is a teeny, tiny Greek island which is closer to the Turkish coast. One of the smaller Dodecanese islands, the island is known to be, an off-the-radar-screen hang-out for the Greek jet-set. Surprisingly, the monks who live in the monastic complex still wield a lot power and control over the island.

The Chora or Hora, which dominates the island’s skyline.

Why?

Mostly because the Orthodox Greek monasteries and libraries which have been on the island for well over 1000 years. This is the island which has the cave which St.John the Beloved received his visions of the Apocalypse. Even since then, there has been a strong spiritual flavor to this tiny island and I have to say, my time there was quite magical.

The view of the island from the Chora.

When you leave the tiny port down below at the base, the Scala, and make your way up towards the monasteries and fortresses, there is an absolute air of gentle and tranquil serenity which I have yet to experience elsewhere in the world. The people are all smiling, tiny Orthodox chapels are scattered across the Hora (the town at the top of the hill) which even if locked, some monk always eventually shows up to open the door for you.

A typical Patmos chapel

The whitewashed walls and narrow cobbled lanes, the unbelievable profusion of bougainvillea cascading down over courtyards, with the strongest and most best-preserved Byzantine homes and mansions in the Aegean, it’s easy to see why so many people want to live here and why so many people come back here over and over again. I’d go live there tomorrow if I could.

A typical lane through the Chora

It’s not just fervent Christian pilgrims, but check out the beaches at Lambi or Meloi, and it’s full of hard bodies and skimpy bikinis. (The beach at Lambi has, bar-none, the best outdoor grill restaurant I’ve even been to in my life. No joke. I could eat there everyday if I could get away with it. The local wines will knock you off of your feet. Literally.)

A typical Greek dish of fried calimari and octopus, feta salad, tszaiki sauce. I nearly died of happiness from the food alone in Greece

Everything about Patmos always leads back to the Apocalypsos (the cave). Before you can even enter the cave, there are glowering Greek monks who are busy assessing if you’re dressed decently enough to enter, and if not, they will hand you a skirt and scarf to cover your head. This is after all , considered to be one of the holiest sites in the world. [Note to Russian, Dutch, German and British tourists: Just because it’s an excursion from your cruise, does NOT make it OK to show up in your thong bikini or swim shorts and flip flops. A bit of respect goes a long way, you know.]

These guys will make you feel like a mouse in less than 5 seconds flat with a mere glance.

The cave itself is tiny and poky. The crack in the little alcove, over which St.John used to sleep, runs in 3 directions, which the Orthodox monks say point to the Trinity.

5 people can barely fit in there.

Fellow reader, I was disappointed.

With the magic of the island itself, the serene chapels, the kindness of the monks and nuns I met there, as well as my experiences at the grave of St. John in Ephesus, I thought something great would happen. Some sort of spiritual breakthrough.

Instead, it was a circus, and not unlike Sedona, Mount Shasta or any other New Age haven I’ve been to. On one side you’d see some idiot tourist try touching and rubbing the ancient icons (when you’re not supposed to) or you’d see elderly Greek women  crossing themselves 3 times for every little step they took. I couldn’t wait to leave and go back to Lambi beach and my room, which a grizzled old Greek sailor named Nick rented out to me and my travel companion.

Lambi beach- Have your swimming shoes ready, because the rocks here are very pointy.

How many times have any of you ever had a conversation with someone you were crushing after from afar to only find out that they’re not all that great? How many movies have you gone to which your friends told you were “amazing” or “awesome” but when you walked out, you felt cheated because the hype was too much? Have you ever gone to a restaurant which the media were raving about and when you tried the signature dish, you wished you had stepped out for a burger instead?

It’s hard not to fall into the lure of expectation especially in a culture which is as results-driven as the Western one. We’re bombarded with it from all directions every day. I even see it in the yoga studio and on my mat (“Well I was able to do that pose yesterday, but today I’m struggling. What gives?”).

All was not lost.

Patmos was handing me a lesson on setting up expectations. When you set them, they always inevitably let you down, while when you don’t have any, you go in with an open and fluid mind, then you never know what might show up. Normally, it was at those exact times of no expectations, when I’ve been dumbstruck or floored by the intensity or the beauty of an experience, whether it was a meal I ate, a place I visited, a  show I attended or a person I met.

It’s ultimately about just letting go and letting things be and allowing them to happen naturally.

Relax. Have a glass of wine here instead.