Chapter 7

7

ANOTHER RESOLUTION

…Needless to say, there is more to it.

Or, should I say the path to such radiant simplicity is not as simple as it sounds,

thus this Litany of Adventures:

FATHER’S LAST WORD,

Or,

Steam of Consciousness Streams to the Sea,

From Priesthood to Sorcery,

And

Back Again(?)

(‘A PILGRIM LOSES HIS WAY, But Finds Instead…’)

____________________________________________

Acknowledgements and Unresolved Elements

 Who really killed the Exorcist?  (Perhaps another book is required!+)

Why did the Golem have to be destroyed?  -And by such ‘good’ people?

Who finally is Stephanie?  Why was she exiled to the Island of Ghosts?  How did she really gain freedom? How and why did she create the Golem?  What outside influence increased this creature’s danger by a power of 10! What is its true purpose and capacity?

Speculations:  Legal standards and religious taboos are not enough to explain mystical physiologies.

But are Mahayana practices and theory and the Psyche of Biology in comparison with Chastity as explored here any more sufficient?  As  Nepsis Narratives demonstrate, it certainly can be incendiary.  Art and Ideas-titillating imagery- the function of Imagination?

The liberation of women from inferior status is a major step forward.  However, it doubles the competent, compulsively active  forces of a Technocracy (Democratic or Communist) that is destroying the world- The 6th Extinction of Species is unabated and artificial Climate Change threatens universal disasters, not to speak of Nuclear potential for destruction.

I am still loyal to, in love with the self-justifying, inner radiance of the Church-  and ask what is the greater Love:  To man the positions of an important institution’s economic, social, pedagogical. sacramental  and charitable stations, or to devote one entire life’s resources to discover resolutions to the above issues?  Or both?

***

 

 

Finally, and importantly:

 

Color has its own existence, you know- (Suspend disbelief for a moment, and go with me here…) -Before light and energy to carry it.  Before matter to bounce off…  All that is subsequent to color.  One must be able to draw out this spirit or essence of color.  It’s what one does with it that matters– this emanation of God, like all creation.  For want of better language…  But it’s best not to speak of such things at all.  Even that word ‘God’ is crude blasphemy compared to an experience of it, to the thing itself.

 

Color has its own existence.  I discovered that when I went to the Achekale in eastern Turkey on the Russian border.  That worn out brown landscape– violet circle of flowers around the red-yellow-white flame of the sacred fire released its color from that ritual for the ‘dragon’ of that place. Six weeks of hitchhiking across the U.S. from California, Europe then the transportation systems of Turkey to the Russian Border, East of Kars.  Color was released and we still dance to its whipping undulations.  ‘He called me a white wizard.’ How different it all is than white and black–the magics.  How much more a delight its variations, its colors, its terrors…

 

Dance with me for a bit as I recount my spell.  Our spell– that will save or destroy the world.  Walk with me along this forest path so this knowledge may pass on for the comfort of mystics and a warning to the world.

 

The dignity of our age is to improve the world–to try to perfect it.  But there have been other eras also with dignity and character.  Hunter-gatherers ran with the Gods.  ‘Civilized’ groups participated in rites of sacrifice and the mysteries to help maintain creation, then the Modern Age, the hopeful rule of reason and right.  Now we begin something else. Now we have the power to destroy everything without any better controls on greed and brutality than ever before.

 

Color has its own existence.

 

This Addendum is non-fiction, but better than fiction.   ‘Reality’ either moves too slow or too fast to depict.    So, we make art.

 

Sacred scriptures, icons, mandalas, objects, nature itself, are portals of Transcendence- High Art in general is an opportunity to resolve the human and therefore universal dilemma, of Perception. The human predicament.

 

The real problems began in the human predicament with increasing amounts of technology–from Stone Age tools to antibiotics–and self-conscious awareness in the early evolution of human perception.  Such ‘progress’ has proved itself unavoidable, it seems.  Real religion tries to bridge the rift caused by ‘progress’ since the Fall, i.e. the shift from hunter-gatherers to agriculturists, civilization and now technocracy– As does this work.

 

 

“WHO TOLD YOU YOU WERE NAKED?”

“Genesis 3:11”

Here we respond and conclude with

 

 

RESOLUTION

(Dionysius saves himself and the world by saving his mother from Hell.^[1] That is, perhaps, by moderating expansionist aggression in men and women–i.e. sexual identity patterns, thus the human world avoids self-destruction.

And then, something more…)

 

 

 

[93]

NEPSIS FOUNDATION

 

 

RESOLUTION:

 

As a record or history, these concluding ‘chapters’ of our story are radically abridged.  Much of the whole would be unreadable to the general public—not that it is invalid material, or that it’s untrue. It’s just that you had to be there.  You had to have the experience or it is simply unrecognizable.  None-the-less, there is enough remaining that a dedicated soul may follow the story to its end.  There is enough left so that you may still know the meaning of life and the secret of the universe!

 

__________________________________

 

 

Contents:

 

Eagle Rock

Sipahpoo

Structuring Coincidence

The President, the Priest, the Bishop

Holy Water

The Bindu and Michael the Archangel

Cody Greets the Dawn

Mineral Baths

 

 

Here is told the skeletal hang of our activity, and our intentions. The thing itself remains veiled since we do not have the perceptive faculties or the strength to withstand more than a glimpse of the Holy, veiled as it is in love and awe and terror… We speak of the Holy, or the Sacred, or God. But what we really mean cannot be spoken. The primary thing itself is ineffable. The first elements to appear before the faculties of perception are described by their dualistic relationship. Opposites, then multiplicity, interaction and so on… In order that the Big Bang might occur, for instance, there had to be empty space in which to explode. Action and Emptiness. Masculine and Feminine. That mode of duality and subsequent manifestations are all we can know. God, therefore, is pre-existent, ineffable, void of recognizable characteristics. Any language about God is at best metaphoric, usually blasphemous. For the void cannot be named. Jesus, realizing this, needed a handle in his preaching about this original emptiness that could carry influence, authority, and intimacy sufficient for his heritage and his own experience of God. So, he called God “Father.” He thus alienated himself from an essential Old Testament current.  But, he aligned himself with many other religious traditions in which real heroes claim divine parentage. From the virginal void of Mary, Godhead is made manifest. But thanks be to God, our experience is not limited by the tyranny of language–Old Testament or otherwise! –With all due respect.  It is possible to escape our own creations. It is not impossible to be saved from even the horror of history.

…

 

Imagine if you will, an atmosphere before sunrise–turquoise illumination and cobalt blue; inky black spread swirling across a sky of sparkling stars.  Conjure in your mind these natural elements arranged in vaulting splendor across your inner world. It is from here–where there is no private property and nothing is monetized, and one’s freedom consists of knowing one’s true self and therefore the universe–firsthand, and therefore God. It is from here that we shall evoke our final spell of coincidence and identity that will doom the world or save it. We do this not in our own, personal name, for who knows what that really is, but in the name of our species, of all sentience, for that is who we truly are, not commercial agents, brokers and technicians, middle men and sales women slaving beneath a false valence of “freedom and independence.” We are real beings of spirit and flesh–ineffable spirit and impenetrable matter. Or, perhaps I should say, infinitely penetrable matter as we have split the atom, and after the split there is always more and more sub atomic space. (For that matter, no one has yet plumbed the boundaries of the universe, either. As in the image of God, there is always more…)

 

Reality here consists of the negotiation between tangible fact, imagination, analysis, emotion and the “other” ineffable, sustaining presence: the Holy Spirit, or Nirvanic states of consciousness, or the Holy Ones at dawn. This is the ambiance of our adventure. In the golden white light of our vocation, we gather our powers and cast the Word–of salvation… Or the curse.  Or maybe something else entirely.

 

From perineum to pineal, we breathe in the world, through our eyes, and see God with the detachment of scientists and saints, for matter and spirit are truly meant to be one. Neither bound nor blinded by oh-so-necessary cultural and moral limitations, or ambition for fame or money- or influence and access, or any shortsighted pragmatism.  But armed with a hope in Wisdom and Gift.

To fight this battle one must be filled with the dawn.

***

A Rock from which Eagles Hunt

 

There is a place that is so pure that I go there to be refreshed by the energies of the place. Words like ‘God’ or ‘holy’ or even the associated thoughts, all quite important to me in the past, seem crude in that place, its energies are so refined. Being there makes one feel cleaner–how body and mind are supposed to be.

 

Once, I was standing on that craggy rise, lifting as it does above the surrounding slant of that Nevada desert plain.  It was as if I could see all the way to Iraq and the horror of the coming invasion! That was just before Bush Senior’s militant excursion there, I think. Terrible things, there were and worse to come-   Very curious experience.

 

 

Eagle Rock

 

We discovered this place more than fifteen years ago.  A friend and I were researching the phenomenon of ‘holy places’ that occur and reoccur in the annals of sacred literature. These are places on the earth reputed to have some special “energy” or “spiritual presence.” Lourdes or Fatima or Kailash, would be famous examples of such places, but there are many others mentioned in the sacred texts, or that simply exist without mention. My friend and I located such a place in the northern Great Basin region of Nevada, through an erring process. We wandered aimlessly for several days in the wastelands of Nevada and California until we spotted it. Rather, it seemed to present itself. Over the years, and in many subsequent visits, this place displayed various natural and supernatural characteristics. However, it was two visits in particular that make the point about art and perception that I intend to clarify here.

…

 

My mother and I visited this place of energies, shortly after the summer solstice, 1996.  We arrived at night. This place, we call it Eagle Rock- a place from which raptors hunt- can be approached by car along a dirt road to within about 500 yards. I drove slowly, looking for a place off the dirt road to stop. In the summer, this place is all dust and scrubby sage. But, the twilight moments of dawn and dusk are precious and the place radiates a peculiarly pure, psychic energy at that time. As I rolled to a stop, a bright light flashed from the outcrop of rocks that is the center of these energies. The brief flash of light in the night was as tall as a house. I stopped the car pointed towards the rocks. We were anxious about who might be at this forsaken place this time of night to make such a light. Local Indian shamans? There is a reservation nearby.  Such bright flashes of light can be Shamanistic phenomenon. Hostile Skin Walkers? The Holy Ones? Serial killer deadbeats?

 

As I considered this, my companion said, “The car is moving.” “No, it’s not,” I replied, thinking that she meant that the brake wasn’t on or something. Moments passed. “The car is moving.” “No, it’s not,” somewhat impatiently.

 

Then, I noticed that the car was moving. Sliding back and forth. Front to back. Without the benefit of gravity! The overwhelming sensation was that of the other world. This was as clear as any other sensation might be: Fear, love, joy, who can calculate its measure or prove the experience except by the consensus of witnesses. This time, someone was with me and shared a significant paranormal event. This had not been the case in the past. Though, the sensation of the moment was powerful indeed, great power and otherness. We decided that perhaps we did not need to be there. In fact, should not be there. We were intruding somehow. So, after a good while, we backed out and drove slowly away.

 

We became very anxious to be away from there. Away from that power that seemed so alien, so strong.

 

About ten miles back on that dirt road, there is a farmstead. We both felt that if we could get past that point, back in human surroundings, we would be OK. But, then, as we drove along, I heard a strong hissing noise. It became louder and louder. I stopped the car to investigate. I had a flat. I had to change the tire. As I did so, it began to rain. We were in the Nevada desert in July. Rain is not impossible there at that time, but not likely. Now it poured down. At that anxious moment! The tire fixed, we continued our escape. We focused on looking for the farmyard, after which there is another ten miles to the paved road.

 

Then, all of a sudden, we were at the intersection with the paved highway. We did not pass through the farmyard. There is only one road out there and it runs through that ranch.  We arrived at the pavement much too soon. And as soon as we got there, the rain stopped. Both of us had been looking for the farm. You can’t miss it, since the road goes right through the barnyard. It has the only artificial light in that vast desert area.

 

Trans-temporal-spatial-relocation? Both of us would not have missed such an obvious landmark as the farmyard. Install one gate there and the way becomes impassable.

 

It seemed as if some being, spirit or deity laughed in the night.

 

On another, earlier visit, I perceived in my mind’s eye, that the “spirit” of Eagle Rock looked like a series of vertical serpentine rods of golden white light. -Like the Seraphim or the salvific Brazen Serpent in the Old Testament, perhaps. But on that earlier occasion, they simply hovered above the rocky crag, approving the one I brought there for initiation into these “mysteries. “At the conclusion of that initiation, I clapped my hands above his chthonic chakras as he lay across those rocks. Simultaneously, lightening ignited the mountainous horizon in the distance, followed immediately by thunder.

 

Now, it was as if the Seraphs hovered majestically for hundreds of square miles above the valley, easily filling that vast emptiness, they ‘sing the glory of God in creation.’

…

 

POST SCRIPT: An issue of note: One other time did the energies of Eagle Rock display themselves with the power that moved my car around, as on that night described above. That was on one of many subsequent trips, again when my mother was present. The spirit of that place seems especially fond of her. The real sentiment here is that something extraordinary happened and there is something about the close relationship between mother and son that is the matrix of extraordinary light, creativity, insight and perhaps spiritual power. Possibly, it is the celibate relationship between masculine and feminine elements, the taboos of which re-channel this powerful dualism in the Spirit. On another subsequent visit to Eagle Rock, my mother once again had the extraordinary sensation of being moved without the benefit of gravity.  I, however, felt nothing of that… She was obviously experiencing something extraordinary. Somehow, without any artificial or other catalyst except being in that place, she experienced a significant alteration of perception. I experienced a sense of soaring beauty, galactic in its largess, intimate in its warmth. This lasted long after…

 

Perhaps, this class of experience is a source of human evolution. Something about the Earth itself, that has inherent in it, heaven itself—

 

 

90 [37]

 

 

Continuing- related issues:

 

1. The question is resolved to some degree in the study of the nude(!), recorded elsewhere, that has become for me a metaphor of essential knowledge. In reference to our topic here, consider this aspect of that study: An Aborigine in Australia might claim the ability to communicate over long distances by physical sensations, a kind of pricking sensation that one can feel in the skin. This is especially active when one is on pilgrimage, a walkabout along the song lines, or to mythic holy places on the skin of earth. That requires a different, not more primitive, worldview–a different attitude about body and world.

 

2. [Jimson Weed… link to explanation of psychotropic plants and the psyche. No need to ingest, if you have the time… no time here.]

 

3. You will remember, of course, how in the 1990’s a broad conspiracy of junkyard dog Republicans and media vultures—very well groomed–but, opportunists none the less, who dogged the President and the First Lady and their lot of confused, ideologically liberal Democrats. Hypocrites all? Keep that scenario in mind as well, as this following episode unfolds.

 

4. I was appointed a chaplain at a university.  My mother had even come to live with me to help run the house and keep the accounts. She had lived alone since my father died and had reached a point where she couldn’t quite manage on her own physically. She remains bright mentally to this day and has kept the books ruthlessly. She’s made a great contribution to our project. And you will remember how the genius lociresponded to her presence at Eagle Rock in the Great Basin.

 

5. As well, I continued my research into esoteric religious practices in their relationship with the rest of the body of creation- In particular, in their relationship with popular religion and science. Inevitably, this involves biology. Also inevitably, since we are biological creatures, this research touched upon sexual topics. Of course, this is especially so since the religions I investigated outside of Catholicism were Tantric and Shamanistic traditions.

 

Unavoidably, if one is exploring these topics, actual sexual practices must be treated. These yogic and shamanistic traditions are ancient, highly nuanced and largely symbolic. That is, they understand and use beautifully the ‘power of symbols’ to bridge so many vast differences in communication, relationships, and finally between this world and God. I often talked freely about these researches with my colleagues, students, and others. This was just part of the process of coming to understand these worldviews.

 

6. However, it was during this period that, apparently, the good bishop (really) of the local Roman Catholic diocese who was my patron in that chaplaincy, became involved in a scandal and misplaced (temporarily) millions dollars of Church funds. It was also during this period that I, long before any of that information about the Bishop was revealed and after three very successful years in that place, had a dark communication from the other world to

 

“Withdraw.“

 

It was deep, powerful, from the unseen psyche of the world– I believe, the Spirit itself. It had no more explanation than that.

 

Hold on to these elements of our story as I introduce yet another:

 

 

7. The Sipahpooin Puebloan (Southwestern Native Americans) sacred histories is a place of emergence from the underground, or underworld(s) of the ‘People.’ It is a device of mythological origin and an intuition that suggests evolutionary process. In the subterranean and partially subterranean Kivas of these same people there is a hole in the earthen floor that is a reference to this emergence myth. But as well it refers to the evolution or growth or process of realization in individuals that is part of the result of the practices pursued in these religious structures. From deference, and for certain practices–and my own ancestry–I maintained such a pit in a field back of our property.

 

It is at the ‘Pit’ in that field, that Simon Han, Chris and I did a ritual one night. We drew on rituals and intentions of the past and pushed them into action, into the future. We started by declaring our benevolent intentions, and then by drinking so much distilled spirits that the world danced a bit to look at it. The fire ignited in the pit as we fed it with sacred bundles and objects. Once Chris slipped into the hole because it had been raining and the clay was slick. He was nicely dressed with expensive shoes when we started. Maybe he will be naked when we finish. We will all be naked. A new innocence?

 

It was cold away from the fire and the sacred circles, in our changing hearts. Not cold enough to keep the snake away, though. For later, days, months… who can remember, Shri Oroborus took up residence in our pit. You can hear him there now- if you’ve learned to listen with the ear of your heart. Scales scraping against scales. Shhhhh…. Shhh…. Shh…

 

Resurrection, metanoia, salvation… for us? For the world? We’ll see.

 

Then the President was impeached. Then our poor, good bishop was forced to resign… Publically humiliated.  Not just an accusation of sex abuse and who he might have had it with–that was just sad and embarrassing. But because he misplaced those millions of dollars! He loaned or spent it all on good causes though- Parishes, charitable programs, etc. He did. Clinton as well- Sexual sins? His accusers were worse; Gingrich, Livingston, Hyde! As were the Bishop’s.  Sex, money, power… Sex and money, sex and money–I said it too often… Then me.

 

Well, not the Church’s money, but mine. Had to declare bankruptcy. Because of the loss of those millions, they closed down our chaplaincy. I lost my source of income. I had been warned to “withdraw.” Too late. Well, almost. I had already started to get sick. Soaring blood pressure. Four or five fierce migraines a week. Sleep and respiratory problems- Exhaustion…

 

Then there was a ‘Spiritualist,’ of European and American descent, who came around the Center a lot. He had spent years in India and a lifetime practicing yoga. He claimed to be a healer and found me attractive for some reason–friendship, sympathy, envy of what seemed on the outside to be an enviable position… And he got aggressive sometimes. Had to have him removed from my class at college once or twice. Asked him to take a break from the Newman Center.

He did some conventional western style therapy and then started to come back to the Hall after a couple of years. Said he was feeling much better. Seemed harmless enough. After a while, he asked to help me with my health problems. See what he could do. He advised herbal remedies, meditations, and yogic massage. Which he did.

 

After several months, no significant improvement, so I went to an MD and submitted to some pretty heavy medical therapy. My yogi friend still hung around until one day an employee found him going through my clothes in my closet—our private rooms are generally considered off limits. I asked him again to take a break from us. A long break. He found that hard to accept. Tried to sit in my classes again. I had him removed again. Then he went to the University administration (and, ironically, the Bishop) and told them that I had used my position of authority to entice him into a sexual relationship he described in detail. He related some private physical details about me–I have a tattoo on my hip–to back up his story. Anyone who ever went swimming with me, including most the students, knew about that tattoo. He was given a mandate to interview all the active students at the SSU Newman Hall, as well as the people and students at the university where I taught in the Philosophy Department. Both the University and the Diocese investigated me. I was found innocent. He was dismissed. But not without stalking us around our house and calling all the students and former students and telling them that I had seduced him.

 

Fortunately, I had served them well and none of them believed him.

 

The investigation and the stalking were exhausting for us. So, when the Diocese had its financial crisis at the same time, I withdrew from public ministry and teaching, and we moved.

 

…Chris slipped in the mud, and fell in the fire…. But we pulled him free. Simon, godlike in his perfect Asian physique, danced in the cold- bare as newborn… and leaps above the fire, perfect martial splits, leaps. But, Shri Oroborus, the great serpent of the world, strikes from below, mouth gape-full of glass-sharp, poisonous fangs to devour. Its massive head strikes up, directly toward Simon’s truly gifted netherworld endowment–No, at such moments one learns to fly!

 

Oroborus dissolves to pure, clear energy to enter in, through the perineum, up, up, through his psychic central nervous system. The Goddess riding that great clear phallus up to Union with—the universe, the whole universe, the great ‘empty vase’ of it traversed, earth and heaven, God and the world, Being itself.

 

Father Steve was, of course, asleep in the house for all of this. The sleeping lama! His mother as well. (I knew one once, a sleeping yogi, hereditary head of the Nyingmapa. Did everything in his sleep. Not only do these tapas require actual physical expression, they can be done in your sleep–That is, if you can control your dreams! And have accomplished the rest of the “Six Yogas of Naropa!” Check out the Abhidharma literature as well if you have an interest in the psychology of it.)

 

The goddess and the virgin: From the empty womb comes salvation. One must be guided by such spiritual agents in order not to be trapped in addiction to arousal or appetite, or if so, to be so for some purpose. (Are athletes addicted to exercise and the alkaloids that come from within their bodies through the extremity of exertion?) The real spirit calls us through our bodies to that pearl beyond price, the pale point of convergence, beginning and source of all things…

 

Isis and Horus, Heracles and Hera, Jesus and Mary…

 

Once, in the cold rain forests of the Olympic peninsula in the Pacific Northwest, Simon, near his family’s island, at a moment of great high energy, and according to the ancient myth, …makes the earth/mating/sky ritual to create the universe. …taking ‘it’ in his mouth spews it forth to create–to identify–the gods.

 

At that moment, Ra-like, to maintain the arousal, he remembers all his loves, Agnes, Stephanie, Cat, Chris (Christopher Michael… in real life, named for the Archangel, defender of heaven, as well as the ‘Christ bearer’ – and in this case is a happily married man in the traditional mode). Yes, Chris is the one who really loved him. And with that memory of real love from an old soul, the Goddess displayed her pearls in a dream- there in the ocean side rain forests of Washington State- Five of them along a black dragon’s spine. Luminescent. Bindu.

 

(Sexual processes and nudity, in themselves innocent, are used here to describe an innocence of perfecting one’s personal intentions.  Personally, I prefer most people, in most circumstances to be clothed. I fall back on the naked human form and its accomplishments to express the relationship between natural and supernatural power- and innocence because the natural world and Godhead itself, so assaulted by grotesque materialism, selfishness and greed, indeed are in extremis.  God is inextricably united to Creation  … It is dangerous enough that we have had to look within so deeply to discover a resolution to our danger.)

 

In the beginning, there is confusion about generative arousal, appetites of the digestive and filtering process, and the dragon’s treasure–the Bindu pearl–since they are so close, in the same neighborhood so to speak. But one learns to distinguish as well as to recognize the bond between creative and other earthy functions. One might say that the Bindu intention is the opposite from digestion and elimination, decomposition. The Goddess arises and seeks completion in union with the God, creating the universe in the process.  Then, transcending it

 

…With the health problems, and the financial crisis in the diocese, Father Steve and his mother moved away. Sadly, at the time…They traded in their remaining possessions for a small, used, motor home. Now they realize their freedom. As they wander homeless from place to place, they find natural sacred sites of great spiritual power and beauty. They are being filled with the dawn; the crepuscular powers of twilight, and expectation…

 

There is also in this a sense of the darkest presence, of power and confidence beyond telling. Some fool fundamentalist might go on about demons and the Beast in our regard! But that is not the sense I have of it at all. It is God. There is nothing but God for us, and the gentle Storm Come for the reckoning and the salvation of the world. Such an identity can only be had as one abandons convenient, conventional perceptions of the world. ‘One must be so drunk’ as Orthodox Rabbis advise their male congregants at Purim, ‘that one cannot even remember one’s name.’ Or, at the Wedding in Cana! I would say as well, so sober, to relinquish the power of names and naming, embrace poverty and chastity and learn to listen with the ear of one’s heart–to know Freedom; to relinquish the postures of strength and knowing… to know Power.

 

–Then, something happened.

 

I can’t tell you what it was or where. But it was coincident with the preparation for, and the successful destruction of the World Trade Center and the attack on the Pentagon! That power was met somewhere in the Great Basin and the Sonoran deserts- A water spirit protected me, mineral hot springs, who transported me to a place of safety under the earth as the avenging angels soar…  (Remember the Yemen experiments near Mr. Bin Laden’s home?)

 

I have evoked the Spirit of the Dawn with all its dark relatives and its access to the light. I have evoked thus because of the hypocrisy, the false good will of the new age, Church and Sinner. Businesses that pillage the environment, then pay millions for TV commercials about their contributions to bio-diversity; Religion–whose justification is to save the world—depending upon, hungering for, slavering after land ravaging developers to finance; and managers and accountants to run its priestly offices. Politicians and entertainers are the same. I have evoked these dark powers because every weak ego and opportunist justifies their wealth by good works—afterwards… I suppose it’s not just the cruel insincerity of the materially successful and the pandering of clergy for power that have turned my heart. But finally it’s just that rational, compassionate efforts to save the world have failed. Humanism, common sense, are excuses everybody uses, but its just greed and pride and cowardice that decimate this animate globe of Gods’ creation.

 

The President, the Bishop, our Spiritualist friend? (Arousal? Hunger? Doesn’t matter, since the earth gods reside with the chaste goddess in her gem-encrusted cave just above the perineum, in such close proximity to the generative organs and digestive ones as well.  Projections of such mysterious processes…)

 

Simon, Adam, Chris and the Pit: Here is where one learns to work with the gods of creation- learns the tale of Love.

 

With this coincidence of elements, coincidence that grows in its vast powers of elemental confluence…

 

…One can realize these elements in marriage, or in one’s imagination. But the point is realization of the light, gift or energia of origin. Then, you will know Christ, and all the Gods (Elohim and Seraphim, Kachina and Dakini–philosophically, ultimate godhead must be one and absolutely simple, but the delight of manifestation is endless multiplication, variety…) and yourself.

 

So our tale draws together, or I should say posits this interesting proposition: The archetypes of Mother and son; the great serpent Oroborus and resurrection; the Pit and evolution/realization; The Great Old Man; Spirit plant and animal familiars; Weather gods and climate; chthonic deity; opalescent pearl of Bindu generation– all activated, known, engaged…

 

That prayer works, spells work, and intentions have effect, goes without saying… but how? To what end? Those were the questions.

 

This method tested early in that pilgrimage to the Achekale in eastern Turkey for the healing of an individual, then expanded to address the needs of a planet, might actually have some merit. But everything was backwards and opposite in the “sex and money spell.” That composition expressed itself according to the personalities and circumstances of its agents. ‘The power seen darkly through a looking glass, cannot be named.’ The coincidence of intentions that did exist was in the liturgies, the Mass, the sacramental vision and salvific intention towards the world. But many other, otherwise innocent, ‘necessary,’ activities distracted, exhausted and finally exploded across the nation. Woe to those who enjoyed the spectacles. Blessings for the victims. Hope for all… but that’s not enough, not nearly enough. There must be satisfaction. Listen well Sons of Adam, Daughters of Eve, “incline the ears of your heart…” ‘Drink deeply or tarry not at all.’

_____________________________________

 

“Cody, Wyoming: 5:00 a.m., September 2001:

 

Cat wakes me as a distant horse neighs repeatedly from a far pasture. I step outside into temperatures warmer than early morning should be there. From Cody, I face west to Yellowstone. The full moon slides along the top of Buffalo Gap gorge playing from behind black and silver clouds–swirling, marbled layers–fluid and clean. The ‘Holy ones” are out, around everything in ‘beauty’ just before sunrise… Soon the moon slips slyly down the gap and behind the world.

One’s inner life must progress like a healthy eco-system. Not with a few spectacular creatures promoted and advertised, like the Bald Eagle or Mountain Lion. One determines the quality of an eco-system by the health of the overall relationships between all its members–physical and spiritual. Nature and the Holy One(s) must be considered in any valid operation in the world. Without question, the two are one.

 

…Regarding the Gem Encrusted Cave of Chastity: Our very physicality is an aspect of the “one life” St. Paul discerned, and that I describe here as the unity of matter and spirit. Sexuality is involved in the generative and creative process of physical manifestation from its non-temporal or spiritual origin. As such, the intense draw of sexuality is a special portal of opportunity–abstaining or engaging–in an eco-system of becoming, returning, being! Finally, it is only an aspect of the whole that must be realized, but a powerful agent indeed, a conduit for divine powers.

 

Origin, manifestation and being determine one’s action. It usually goes without saying that the modern agenda has little time for inner cultivation, determined as it is to develop the physical life. Maybe there is a little attention for the mental life, but no more than necessary to service the physical and how we feel about being physical. If one believes in the sacredness of being, of self, of body, of matter and spirit, then one is less inclined to participate in the exploitation of these elements for good business profits or politics–or whatever reason. So the same question arises as before, “WHO ARE WE?” Salesmen, administrators, technicians, maintenance workers? Or are we beings as ineffable as our non-temporal origin- Religious beings that are capable of knowledge about the sacredness of being, and all its parts and processes- (science and religion together.)

From a different angle: what is it about us that is able to relate to, or sense the presence or processes of other beings. How is my ability to see this computer screen, or the person across the room any more verifiable than the history of human experience of spirit, of the ‘other world’ if you like, or ‘genius loci’ for that matter. The encounter with this ‘other’ has drawn the character of human evolution and colors our imagination about existence.

 

“Thus, chastity is the beauty of clarified vision and the sparkling, gem-clear power of ‘Bindu’ generation. It is the identity of relationships in love with the whole eco/spirit system of origin and manifestation. It is the dawn just before sunrise sufficient to make or destroy the world. (Or, at least one’s own life.)”

 

This statement was created within the remembered ambiance of the Simon’s ‘Bindu’ attainments on the Olympic peninsula and published with a painting that was part of a series depicting the battle for heaven and earth. The title of the painting described the primary weapon in this battle, referring as it did to the ineffability of the identity of any personality.

 

(152. [18] 
”No One’s Funeral, For There Is No One To Bury” (T.S.Eliot, Four Quartets)

 

Hours following the promulgation of this tract, the World Trade Center twin towers in New York City were destroyed and the American Pentagon itself, successfully attacked…

 

Father Steve’s anguished response to that event went something like this:

“Dr. Carl Jung said that morality was a “sign of true barbarism, in tout res… and that wisdom is preferable.” I had hoped that wisdom would prevail and the sanctions against Iraq would be modified so that those million children would not have starved to death after the Gulf war–not to speak of the old and infirm. I had hoped that simple justice would prevail so that Palestinians would at least be compensated for what was stolen from them by richer, better armed forces and given a state of their own–why should they pay for European crimes and problems—and suspect scriptural interpretations? I had hoped that our foreign policy would stop promoting monsters like Saddam and the Shah, Sharon and the Taliban–only to be treated to their own medicine–though as usual it is innocent bystanders who suffer most. I had hoped that American public opinion would not be so easily manipulated by the owners of media and the political game bought and sold, so easily. I had hoped that our economy might broaden its base from military connected enterprise (70%) and oil and cars and oil… (Remember, a million starved children have paid this month’s bill for that damned oil.) I had hoped for wisdom. Now I would be satisfied with simple morality.”

 

Vintage Chaplain. We are about something else. Christianity is not real Christianity if it expresses itself only in the semantics of the Hebrew, Greek and Latin. But Christianity begins to come into itself when it is recognized in the worldview that speaks Sanskrit and Pali, Tibetan, and Navajo…

 

“AT A HOT SPRINGS SOMEWHERE NEAR DEATH VALLEY THE GOD SPOKE TO ME AGAIN AND TOLD ME TO BE SILENT AND DO NOTHING. THE GOD DID NOT ACTUALLY SAY THAT BUT ALLOWED ME TO GO INSTANTLY FROM THAT PLACE TO STAND ON EAGLE ROCK IN THE GREAT BASIN AND SHOWED ME HOW TO STAND. THIS INVOLVED A PROFOUND INNER SILENCE AND NON-ACTION AS THE BEST WAY TO ACCOMPLISH OUR GOALS. EVERYTHING PRIMARY HAPPENS INSIDE…. “

 

We’ll see how well we survive and if there isn’t some alternative for Simon and Cat, Chris and Ag; the Bishop, Father Steve and his mother, Adam, the young man and the pilgrim, and all the rest… The spell has been cast from my center, from the Tan Tien. One way or another, the ‘Fury of Being’ will know its rectification…

 

Will know its rectification…

 

But I am something else now.  And now I will spread my colors.  I have tested my powers. Now, I will act!

 

 

Sincerely,

G. K. Odiak—

Golem (not now just a clay doll or slave, but animate and free—though, not yet a god,

a most dangerous passage.)

 

P.S.  (From Stephanie in Book 2)  “There were two babies.  Chris didn’t know.  He wasn’t there at the birth and I hadn’t told him.  I had twins.  The women said they would kill him if I told him.  The Shivalilas.  But they took the other one.  It broke my heart.  But for Chris’ sake, I’ve kept silent ‘til now…”

 

The Golem Kodiak gained his liberation.  It was the figure of a beautiful young man.  Black, black not as a racial mark, but somehow he was made of the blackest, obsidian, mountain-night-sky black substance.  He is made to counter the cultural golem made of technocracy and capitalism. He is made of power from farthest, deepest space.  He is made of the darkest dark matter.  Not evil–not any more than the material universe that now takes possession of the Spirit’s creation.  He looked bewildered and lost by his expulsion.

 

The great seraphim, from the Great Basin’s Eagle Rock, gathered its vast wings around Father Adam: In protection from these creatures newly extant in the world?  Or, to block the path back for now homeless, though still beautiful beings.  Spirit?  Demon?

 

THUS, FR. STEVE WAS LIBERATED, free to be only himself- Like everyone else, ineffable in origin, yet a natural man, like St. Anthony of the desert…

 

 

REGARDING RESOLUTION

 

RESOLUTION is the final section to both the fiction, and the non-fiction narrative.  As a final section, an addendum, Resolution is an account of real experience, both spiritual and paranormal, with some fictional elements that represent otherwise indescribable phenomena.  As well, Resolution is coincident and empathetic with the last poems and especially the paintings, as these operate in a context described by their captions.  In fact, these art objects–poems and graven images, are the means, as ‘objects of power,’ that are the product of and the provocative matter itself that evokes the overall liturgical metaphor of this story.

 

Basically, what happens in the abstract expressionist prose poem, Resolution, is a picaresque coalescence of religious, personal, universal references that describe a mutable identity pattern.  Obviously, the individual characters in any of these stories do not have the real personal power to cause earthquakes, or storms, or wars, etc.  But the ability to impersonate a collective identity that definitely does involve itself in such activities is a very real ability available to us.  One can also ‘impersonate’ deities of peace and transcendence so as to achieve union with the real divine Spirit.

 

There is an expulsion of two characters at the end of Resolution that mark this as an important turning point.  One is a male lamia that I have known for years.  He is a beautiful young man, a puer eternis, but violent and ravenous.  He is expelled from the garden of my heart and later his return is prevented by the power of a mighty Seraphim-like being who is our protector and sponsor.  This creature is a being of splendor that “sings the glory of God in creation.”

 

The other expelled character, the Black Golem, is G.K. Odiak.  AKA: The Golem Kodiak.  A golem or a tolpa is a being created from the imagination of a powerful mystic.  Some of these creatures become so real as to comment upon the nature of identity itself and sometimes display troublesome and mischievous traits.  On a higher, more poetic plane the golem is a symbol of the alchemist’s higher aspirations.  Upon such a creature the mystic may fly to the stars or visit the inner reaches of a molecule!  The golem Kodiak is the author’s active influence in the world as the author withdraws more and more to the inner realms.  In fact, the golem Kodiak asserts himself so strongly that he claims authorship under a pseudonym of the last novel in Nepsis, HOW DIONYSIUS SAVED HIS MOTHER FROM HELL.  Though this creature is described as black, this is neither skin tone nor moral attribute.  Here, this crystalline black of which he is made describes the vast emptiness of the universe in which all our star encrusted worlds make their rounds and where we invent— no, where we charge our lives on the account of—what, or the one who, gives us breath.

 

… But as an experience for the student, this is a temporary composition in that it seeks to briefly clarify certain elements necessary for religious initiation only that one may move on to deeper realizations about the interplay of this phenomena at every level of human perception.  Due to the nature of the topic, a multi-disciplinary approach over a long period of time seemed required to plumb the depths of even a few of these issues.  The interaction of the processes of painting, poetry, study, prose fiction and non-fiction combine to produce a well-referenced point of view.  In brief, this hard won perspective is that human perception benefits from the inculcation of history and myth together, art and critical thinking, spiritual practice and ritual expression/action—all incorporated into one’s normal life.  The Tibetan Buddhist mandala is an example of an art form that carries such a complete integration interactive with its culture.  Roman Catholic liturgical cycles would be another such example.  For this level of integration to occur, a cultural and practical environment is necessary to allow it.

The hard edge here is the realization of what happens when such integration is not allowed either by political force or social indifference.  The questions developed in the course of this investigation concern religious initiation—what or who into what or whom?  Then, we discuss the shift of consciousness within various cultural and personal contexts of praxis as the touchstone for all prayer or meditation, asceticism or yoga found at the core of any spiritual system or tradition.  Finally, we consider what it is that produces ‘satisfaction’ in this regard, i.e., beyond one’s ideology, what worldview might best evoke the fullest human experience.  The distance between a life lived to the fullness of matter and spirit compared to theories about such a life, and other wide-spread contemporary alternatives to such a life, is the seemingly unbridgeable chasm that both defeats and ignites the challenge of this project.

 

 

230 [158] ECSTASIS III: Flora, Fauna, Spirit

 

***

 

PRIEST’S CONFESSION AND APOLOGY

 

Art and religion are the areas of concentrated interest in this presentation.

 

However, even while exploring through the specific lens of aesthetic and religious perception, the most fundamental interest here is more universal. How can one best characterize human identity, given the astounding shift in the human project of the last 10,000 years or so—i.e., since civilization? How might one better understand and characterize nature, being, human experience and the “non-temporal”—i.e., Nirvana or God…?

 

My approach has been three-fold: 1. Study the aesthetic, intellectual and practical expression of Shamanism/Animism, Buddhism, Christianity, Icons/Mandalas as well as Abstract Expressionism and other Modernist disciplines such as one might find in Academia or the Art World. 2. As far as gift, tolerance and actual possibility allow, to personally experience these areas. 3. Accept the guidance by recognized Masters, rigorous critical disciplines as well as art and religious training.

 

Then, following long apprenticeship through such initiation, to seek some way to express the essence of these researches most widely in a technological age as both critical communication and religious realization. For this, one might compare issues of self-restraint–especially in Christian or Buddhist yogic practice–with self-indulgence as a means of absolutizing one’s experience, or as a means of liberating one’s perceptive experience from any such category, as in Tantra. Or, for instance, in the process of distilling essential elements of our topics, the creation of several works of fiction, as well as paintings and sculptures on related themes helped enormously in a larger task of abstraction in this philosophical, at times metaphysical, endeavor.

 

Related to such methodological considerations is the challenge of how one such as myself might deal with inescapable elements of human identity patterns in the last decade of millennia, such as media generated appetites, sexuality or money.  For instance, I am a vowed Christian celibate. One might argue from a correct and technical perspective that this only prohibits me from the married state. That sexual experience such as intercourse is only permitted to sacramentally married heterosexuals, but everything outside such carefully proscribed sexual practice is forbidden–even, perhaps especially, sexual thoughts. (Scripture Reference: …whosoever looks at a women…commits adultery. Rare and hard to obtain, this inner state references an exalted liberation indeed.) So, I sought another approach. How can one know the Tantric processes of liberation from such passions well enough to compare them to Christian methods without being able to personally, as well as scientifically to explore these realms? The same might be said for homosexuality, career ambitions, attitudes towards money, or any of the other powerful human drives. Is it impossible to imagine that a sincerely celibate, Christian seeker might be able to exercise the scientific detachment of gynecologists? Most likely one would be accused of some form of currently illegal abuse. Become a pariah in both the secular and religious community. Certainly be ridiculed, dismissed, if exposed to popular attitudes.

(The esoteric must really remain so, in order to have its effect.)

 

It has been sobering indeed how many otherwise friendly relationships end dramatically if one just raises such issues. Yet, one must admit that such a path is not only possible, but best for some and implies much for all.  Here I must apologize for not having the courage to go farther, to rest just this side of the segregation of licit and illicit.  But perhaps what I’ve witnessed is enough…

 

The stratification of religious and intellectual castes, specialists, from the masses thus becomes also an issue of significance in religious and anthropological studies. The integration of such elements has certainly been a practice of great concern in many venerable religious traditions. So, one should not be surprised by an attempt here to draw together popular and specialist attitudes about knowledge in general. Those who perceive a fragmentation of knowledge at the core of the human dilemma, especially emphasize this in attempts to integrate knowledge or at least its methodological disciplines. A complete overhaul of human identity and the meaning of the human project is required to address these issues and indeed is taking place in the world as we speak.

 

Discovering, informing and impacting this reorganization are our task here.

 

…and to accomplish this we’ve used many methods, sometimes the very methods, we, in the past, deplored.

 

We also have ‘ridden along the precipice of the abyss—shards sparked blithely—‘

 

in-be-tween

 

the more secure conventions above, higher up the rise/

 

the writhing depths below…

 

Touched by (n)either… I believe

 

Only perfect chastity or perfect scientific insight or the perfect whole

 

Might Judge

 

…and

 

‘…Poppies, golden poppies, and purple lupine gently breezing between the graves;

 

Lisping whispering dialogue

 

of trees and grass

 

lisping… whispering…

…

or,

 

silky undulations

 

long undulating ribbons

 

ripping now

 

through winds of being…

 

until they snap!

 

…come my lord,

 

Come

 

 

‘CAST THE STORM’

***

 

 

 

_____________________________

 

 

Color has its own existence.  This was how I conjured its sympathy…

 

 

See www.nepsis.com for complete

Nepsis Foundation

 

 

 

 

 

 

_____________________________________

[1] In an alternative version of a Greek myth, Dionysus must submit ‘like a woman to a phallus made from an Olive or Fig tree’ to accomplish this salvific task.  This might derive from nearly universal Shamanistic initiation rites. (See Eliade’s Introduction to his authoritative Shamanism.)  There are echoes in some Yogic practice.