Don't Know

I don’t know yet and I probably never will.
Everything is better that way. Not knowing anything for certain, so certain so certain so certain. Let it be a mystery.
Whatever it is let it touch you, kiss your mind open your face with mouth yawning wide in response to a curious sensation. Want to chop it up, box it label it, display it? Such a pathetic response to the real deal.

The real deal, ha! No real way, no way. Something comes out and we say, “don’t let it stop!” Just one moment after the next, never knowing, like a snow bird, robin was it?
Cardinal poised on the branch, little red riding hood. Nobody knows, nobody knows. The trouble I’ve seen? It didn’t trouble me at all when I went all jiggly like jelly melting over hot cake.
What the hell. No mind. Don’t nobody mind what’s going down here.
Didn’t I sing to the walls last night? Waking them up to the starlight and moonbeams and the little exploding lights in the sky.

I am so far from home, a weary traveler.
There is no such thing as home after all. We’ll always be moving if we want to remain alive, some part must always be in motion. If it isn’t the outside that lacks the charms of home then it’s the inside rearranging, that sensation of loosing my mind.
Loosing it is so different from letting it go. Loosing implies the grasping, the desperate urge to contain, while letting is a form of adoration.

What is more important than love?
Such a stupid word for a thing that stands outside of the kingdom of syllabic moaning and groaning. In human bodies, out of human bodies.
What is it, this thing we call life, now, love?
I don’t know and why strive to know through entrapment and dissection. Let it flow freely through whatever I am, wherever I am, whenever I can. Ride this pale horse this strange fleshy creature, a mighty big dog,
Oh death the eternal dark place from which we emerge and to which we return like a bright and shining eye eclipsed by a lid, in with a blink.
Flash one life, flash two life, flash three…The blink of an I . I am this, I am that, I am that I am, say on sayer. Whatever you wish is my command.

 I can change my mode, mode, mode, mode. Cause I’m a billion different people from one day to the next. A slippery sliding whatever it is.
I already told you I don’t know. I don’t know and you don’t know because it can’t be held without dying, like butterflies or opals or those dripping stalagmites beneath the earth.
You can’t hold life, liberty, love in your hand or even in the intestinal coils of the brain. God, it’s stuffed with packing peanuts.

The main point is not what I think with words, the main thing is conductivity. We just need to let it flow right through, and knowing most definitely obstructs the flow because when we know we no longer seek, we hold the crumpled dead thing in our hand and say this is a butterfly.
But this is not a butterfly. This is a crushed dead thing. Butterflies fly and extend long black tongues into flowers to extract nectar from bright blooms, all things that cannot happen when they are held in your hand.
In that moment that you reach out and grab it, it ceases to be what it was, because we are motion.
That is all. We are not what we think. We are what we do. You only exist when in motion.

You are nothing when you are speculating, thinking, waiting. Of course I can’t be certain about this or any of the things that can be said.
They will wiggle away, change into something new, and leave me holding their jackets, looking shocked. I can only let it roll out, rush through a thing in motion, something that I call love or life or liberty.
What I call it and what it is. Two separate animals. An arbitrarily designated connection.
Everything is better this way, not knowing anything for certain, letting whatever it is unfold unimpeded.
Go go little butterfly, dragonfly shape shifter. Questions are so much more useful than answers.

Direct Experience

Terrible questions looming just beneath a thin layer of bone and flesh. Tiny capillaries doing their best, a silent symphony of flowing red life pulsing beneath the surface. Terrible questions looming.
If I am not what I think I am, then what am I?
Antero Alli mentions that the awakened human brain is the alien and that those whose brains have awakened are the aliens among us and can be recognized by the light in their eyes.
He says Timothy Leary said this, and his host becomes stricken, turns ashy and stammers: "I've never heard that."
Ali laughs, "This was in a private conversation."
Ha ha. The man who has read all the books quivers when he meets a man with a direct experience of a third man whom the first man with all the books has only read about, but feels he knows.
Can't follow that? Am I being confusing or are you being dull?
Trick question. The answer is both.
Terrible questions looming, questions worse than these. An uncomfortable feeling that can almost be drowned by television and social networks and booze and parties and romance and cinema and literature.
Will it make a good comic book? Will it be a three part television miniseries?  Can we sell it? Does the second man have any idea what the first man is talking about when he says direct experience?
Ashy complexion. Uncomfortable voice.
Now things have gone too far if we are talking about aliens and the light in their eyes. LSD, ok, secret oral traditions, ok, aliens with light in their eyes, no! No! No! He's gone too far. How dare he?
We are only interested in reality here, which we have a clear understanding of thanks to the books written by others claiming something called direct experience.
Fuck it man, are you really still reading this?
What I am trying to tell you is that you should eat something from outer space that just might help you access a little inner space.
I tell her that mushroom spores could have been carried to this planet on comets.
"Are mushrooms really from outer space?"
Everything on this planet is from outer space baby.
"Yeah some scientists think that water was first introduced to this planet by comets. Bacteria too."
That's right baby, we are all stardust.
"The alien doesn't necessarily come from outer space, contact is made in inner space, and why not? We ARE the alien."
No! No! No! We've gone too far.
Terrible questions looming. Shaking the foundation of what we know. But brother there is a serious difference between gnosis and what you think you know now that you've read all those damned books and posted those comments about the video online.
God, if you're still reading this it must be because you don't know where to find the mushrooms.
Listen, listen, you should try printing this out and eating it. Right now.
At this moment you're just reading some shit somebody else wanted to say about what some other people said.
You should eat this. Go ahead. Take a bite. Chew. Swallow.
That's a direct experience.

Disappear In The Dark

I just wanted to lay down in the dark and disappear, one more phantom in a nest of nothingness. Say goodbye to kisses missed and kisses stolen and kisses desired, to soft cheeks and hands clasped and smiles from the wrong men. No more mothers, no more fathers, no more ancient primate prerogative driving from the depths. I would end the quest for biological immortality, the fear game, the tug and pull to be the one, the only one, the Queen of the Heap, the one to survive. 
What roused me from my usual exhausting efforts to preserve my identity was a chamber of mirrors, an expanded perception of self that allowed me to view the animal in the box through a tiny pinhole. That animal there, covered in hair, endeavoring to conceal its animalness with words and thoughts and fashion and rouge, that would be me.
That would be me there, struggling against my mother, against my sister, against all the king's concubines, rushing to capture the blissful prize of dominion, of the power of being. There are many, many possibilities and I am striving to be the one real self, the one that beats the others back into the abyss, the one who claims validity from the annihilation of all other possibilities, struggling for control of the gene pool, for control of the world, for control of reality.
Once upon a time I wanted to escape the cool dark stillness of nothingness, which is also the white noise of everything at once,  so I was born into this world. But what is here called “life” is in fact death.
I sacrificed the endless multitude for this experience of singularity. I have become separated from the larger body of My Self, the self that exists beyond time and beyond space. I have burrowed deeper and deeper into an angry psychosis, a desperate attempt to escape the Other who is myself.
And yet, even here in the shadow world that I have created the Other is represented. The Other lives inside of me, the Other lives outside of me, the Other is my own reflection, the Other is my mother, my sister, my daughter, all of them animals, all struggling for control over one another because they lack one crucial feature: a knowledge and mastery of self.
We are in denial of self. This denial is what we call “Life.”
And so, for a moment, seeing all of this, glimpsing that pitiful creature through the pinhole of objectivity, I just wanted to lay down in the dark and disappear again, relinquish my stranglehold on reality. Do the brave thing and sacrifice the singularity rather than the multitude, accepting the burden of the Real rather than hiding it under the carpet. For a moment I just wanted to relinquish my position as  The One, and take my place as one of the many. I wanted to accept annihilation and evaporate, become another phantom drifting placidly over a lake of nothingness.

Kiss The Flowers

Blue bonnet baby nods in the breeze. Tulips for your two lips and pansies like lions lying in wait. This is the garden dear friend, filled with les iris burning in bright violet and yellow like suns, eye scorching suns of squiggling violet and yellow.
I found les iris dear friend, long after the curling poster was torn and crinkled and lost. You wouldn’t believe they were real if you were me and had never seen the real thing before. If you were me you’d think that you’d gone mad, completely, at last, that you were living in a poster, dreaming yourself inside of a painting. These things are real, it seems, or as real as anything else which might not be as real as we like to think.
Dear friend. Dear friend. Did you kiss the flowers? I did not kiss the flowers in the garden, only watched them nod. Much like life, how I only watched life but rarely held it hot and broiling in my bare hands.
Because I was too afraid. I was afraid of getting burned. I was afraid it was too real. Irrevocable.
That was the word I used, after Tomalyn died and I realized I could never take another voice lesson from her again. I had been practicing, preparing for another lesson. Then she died, like Michael died and I thought of them both and said, “Irrevocable.”
But it is life that is irrevocable, is it not? Life which can be played one way, but not all ways, unless you come to the garden, but inevitably you will be cast out and find yourself in just one life. One irrevocable choice. 

That is the trouble that I am having, leaves scattering, reeds rattling, stream babbling, gurgling under the bridge. The trouble that I am having, not knowing whether it is all the same or never the same.
Take you, my dear friend, are you really a “you” or another myself? A fragment of my imagination, colors bleeding, blue bonnet blue, emerald green, violet and yellow.
Did I mention red? Red, I am seeing red and did I mention that I was wearing red when that car hit us? I may have died then. Really, I would like to know, did I die then, or was it really Tomalyn a week later, cancer eating her up.
You said that big fish eat little fish and I was frightened because I had always considered you a slippery old fish. I did not want to be eaten by you. I would rather be the one doing all the eating. I would rather be the cancer it seems, seeing red and growing colder and colder, gorged and alone. Anything not to get burned.

Cronos ate his children didn’t he? Swallowed them all up, except Zeus gave him indigestion, didn’t he? Didn’t he? Dear friend, did your two lips touch the tulips?
I know you never touched the rose, not with your lips, or fingers or even with what you liked to call your poems. I know because I guarded the rose, guarded it fiercely, even hid it from the light so that it closed to sleep, tightly clasped, folded in upon itself, a sleeping beauty, a briar rose.
Did you know that thorns have roses? That thorns draw blood and tears just as roses draw poetry? This is the reason that chaste maidens should be avoided, as well as widows and spinsters, they see red. Like I do.
Do you see red too? Red irrevocable? Searing burning red?

Before I came here I learned the art of  smiling and crying at the same time. I could speak with a steady voice in neutral, almost cheerful tones, my lips curling up at the corners while a tear fled from one eye.
“Why are you crying?” you might ask and I would confess that it just slipped out, that it was accidental, that things were not properly sealed.
“Are you sad?” you might ask and I would shake my head, even say no, and it wouldn’t quite be lying because by then I knew I couldn’t be sad, I couldn’t be anything at all. Sorrow or happiness might pass through, but there would never be one permanent resident to fill the blank behind the words “I am…”
I was subject to a number of transient states. In addition to conflicting emotions vying for possession of the rose, a number of conflicting agendas might also be present, swirling about the sleeping princess, none master of the house.

Honeysuckle smells sweet whereas irises have no obvious scent. Not like jasmine. Not like roses, not like fish or even cancer.
I was afraid of being afraid. What if being so careful as to suspend all choice and defining action became THE DEFINING ACTION? Would that too not be irrevocable? As irrevocable to have not kissed as to have kissed the flowers, dear friend?
Cancer is a very discreet eater. You never notice her taking those dainty little bites, hiding the chewing behind a red napkin, until the meal is nearly done.
What a cold death, the eating to not be eaten, the hiding indoors to avoid the burning colors of the garden.
I found les iris dear friend, long after the curling poster was torn and crinkled and lost. You wouldn’t believe they were real if you were me and had never seen the real thing before.
If you were me you’d think that you’d gone mad, completely, at last.
These things are real, it seems, as real as anything else, which might not be as real as we like to think.  They are irrevocable. Blazing in bright violet and yellow like suns, eye scorching star bursts of color. Irrevocable.

Placing Attention on a Candle

To conduct the following experiment you will need a few basic tools. First you must secure for yourself both a quiet space where you will be undisturbed and a moderate measure of time. In addition you will require a small timer to keep track of the passage of time and to limit the duration of this experiment. You will also need as part of your arsenal a white pillar candle and a book of matches or a small butane lighter. In your secluded space, if possible, keep the atmosphere dim by turning off the electrically fed lights and drawing down shades or fastening curtains so that the sun will not invade.
Now, there are at least two basic ways of positioning yourself for this experiment. Both ways involve sitting. One possibility is to seat yourself on the ground, probably cross legged, with the candle placed approximately a foot and a half in front of you. Ideally you should be able to gaze down with your eyes at the candle whilst keeping your posture straight. In this case your face would more or less be parallel to whatever wall or fixture is in front of you, but your eyes will be turned down just slightly so that you can gaze at the candle with ease. The other option is to include in your list of tools a straight backed chair and seat yourself upon this with the candle positioned on the floor a foot and a half away from your own toe tips. If you choose this option be sure to sit up straight with your palms resting on your knees. Ideally your legs should be bent at the knees to form a nice 90 degree angle. If the chair is so short that your knees are inclined to reach up towards your jaw or so tall that the soles of your feet do not quite touch the floor, then skip the chair and sit on the ground.
Let us assume then, to keep these instructions simple, that you have opted to sit in an ideally proportioned chair with the candle on the ground before you. To begin you will need to light the candle and then set the timer so that it will alert you when six minutes of earth time have lapsed. After setting the timer, look twice to make sure that it has begun to calculate the lapsing seconds. By doing this you will eliminate the possibility of spending the entire experiment in distraction trying to remember if you did set the timer, or wondering if it was working properly after you set it. When you have checked it twice set it on the ground beside your chair just out of sight.
Now the experiment begins. Your objective will be to place your unwavering attention on the candle for the duration of the six minutes. When you notice that you are thinking about something and not simply observing the candle, you will dismiss the thoughts and return your attention to the candle. This of course is much easier said than done, which is why I will now describe for you a technique for applying your attention to the candle.
First become aware of your body, feel the sensation of being in your own skin. Experience yourself as physically present. Begin to expand this awareness so that you are perceiving the empty air just a few inches off of your skin. Continue to expand this awareness until it is as if you have cast a net of attention over your physical body and the empty space surrounding it, including the space occupied by the candle. Hold this expanded awareness of self by feeling your body, the empty space, and the candle as one unit. I say, "feel", and not, "imagine", because I do not wish to encourage any intellectual activity. Rather I urge you to experience yourself and your candle as a physical presence. Throughout the experiment your eyes should remain open and focussed gently on the candle. When you notice that you have lost track of your attention and become wound up with the never ending stream of intellectual thoughts ideas and associations that will inevitably try to upstage your physical presence, simply disengage them and become aware of your body, the candle and surrounding space by once again casting that subtle net of presence.
Attention is an active doing, not a state of passivity. It is a subtle form of exertion and requires an effort that most humans are not accustomed to making. It is subtle and more physical than intellectual. If you haven’t had much practice in using attention it will be difficult to do so in the beginning. It will be elusive. Like trying to find the muscles and give the neural command which will lead to wiggling your ears for the first time, it takes practice and effort, and you may or may not be successful within your first 2 or 20 tries. The only thing that you can do is to really sincerely try.
Do not be tempted to just sit there letting your mind run its course of distraction. Expecting that you will naturally be able to place your unwavering attention on the candle without making any unusual effort would be like expecting that by sitting and waiting long enough, daydreaming all the while, you will suddenly acquire the ability to wiggle your ears. Therefor remember that developing any new skill is challenging, and frustration may be the only sign that an effort is being made. Do not loose heart. Continue to work past the point of frustration. Ability lies just beyond that point.

Dreamer

"You know," she said, "I just can’t get used to the idea of loving everything. Sacheverell says I’ve got to be nice to my little people and stop sticking hatpins in them and things, but it’s hard."
-The Green Millennium, Fritz Leiber

Within a dream everything that is encountered is a manifestation of the dreamer. Every situation, every encounter between characters is an encounter between the dreamer and the dreamer. The only thing that the dreamer is experiencing, is itself.
The old witch who cuts you up and eats you in soup is you.
The young lover that holds your hand and stares longingly into your eyes, also you.
When you enter a malicious dark room where objects move of their own accord that is you as well.
When you lay your head down to rest each night you go on to dream dreams within a dream. Those dreams may in turn be dreaming further dreams themselves.

What, in a dream, can really happen?

There is a line of dream creatures that hold to the principle that the only "real" thing to be done is to establish a connection with the other dreamers.
To do this, everything encountered is treated as the embodiment of that being.
To do this, a dream creature must awaken within a dream.
Within this model, everything that is encountered is an expression of self. Everyone becomes a mirror. What you experience outwardly correlates directly to something that is happening within your psyche.
To modify the outward experience one would need to manipulate something internally. Then through this application of tender attention to every detail of the dream, something strange might happen.
A motion might be produced that would be the equivalent of the shore rolling out to the sea in a great wave.
That is to say, that there can be produced, strange vibrations initiated by a sideways movement that defies the logic and order of the dream.
The reverberations would extend in every direction, immeasurably. These efforts create strange growths of a benign nature on the shells of tortoises.
Picture it as a 3D bubble emerging from a 2D experience. Or, if you have the organs of perception and imagination and comprehension to do so, picture it as a 4D bubble emerging from a 3D experience.

For the next week, during all moments of experience, assume that you are dreaming. Every time that you remember that you are dreaming, look at your hand.
Before going to bed, set the intention that you will remember that you are dreaming during the course of that dream within a dream. When you remember that you are dreaming, look at your own hand.