Saturday, October 12, 2019

Legends of the Ancient Future: The Cauldron of the Dark Goddess, the Secret Engine of the World and the Riderless Horse that Crossed the Himalayas



[NOTE: This is the expanded, full text version of a talk delivered on September 20th 2019, in celebration of the Global Climate Strike and my birthday. Video artifacts are forthcoming via the Spoken Words of Power You Tube channel. -- Blessing, Richard Power]
I am grateful for the love that flows among all of us in this space tonight.

Each of this talk's four movements ends with an epiphany written since the publication of "Wyrds of Power" and "I, the Dragon." (You could call these writings poems or incantations, but I call them “epiphanies," it's a word I was introduced to in the writings of the great James Joyce.) In the course of my presentation, I will share some powerful images ("Fair Use"); most are the works of great women artists from the 20th and 21st Centuries (which is in itself an important statement).



The Singularity Has Arrived

In 2010, I spoke and wrote about “The Singularity in Anticipation of Itself.”

Many of our greatest minds had been expressing grave concerns about the possibility of a Singularity arising from the growth of Artificial Intelligence (AI). And for good reason.

 Meanwhile ...

I was suggesting that no matter what happened with AI, there was a Singularity already arising from within the evolution of Human Intelligence, a Singularity resulting from our unbridled folly and genius, a Singularity epitomized by the Planetary Climate Crisis and Sixth Great Extinction, a Singularity that has disrupted the geological timeline itself and hurled us all into an abomination that scientists have named the Anthropocene Age. 

Well, here and now, in 2017, 2018, 2019, the Singularity I spoke of in 2010 as "in an anticipation of itself," that Singularity has arrived:
Four or five overarching themes run through my writings and talks since 2010.

 We will touch on some of them in the course of this presentation, for example, the need to champion Altruism and Sustainability as Spiritual (and Existential) Imperatives.

As corroboration, I draw your attention to this recent message from Jane Goodall --

 “We must eliminate poverty. We must change the unsustainable lifestyles of so many of us. We must abolish corruption. And we must think about our growing human population … It is no wonder people have despaired. But I believe we have a window of time to have an impact.” -- Jane Goodall. These 4 Issues May Not Seem Related to Climate Change. But They Are and We Need to Solve Them Now, Time Magazine (9/12/13)



The Other Side of the Event Horizon

So yes, the Singularity has arrived and we are on the other side of the Event Horizon.

What do I mean by "event horizon"?

 Here's the Oxford Dictionary definition:

 e·vent ho·ri·zon
noun
ASTRONOMY
noun: event horizon; plural noun: event horizons
a theoretical boundary around a black hole beyond which no light or other radiation can escape.
a point of no return.

There is no frame of reference for where we are now. Nothing stored in our DNA to prepare us. No institutional memory to drawn on. No testament left behind by some other civilization that disappeared beyond the event horizon. No NDE could have prepared you for where you are now. This is something else entirely. Nothing has ever returned after slipping into the black hole of the utter unknown. The only way through is on, if there is anyway through at all.

 There is real fear and real grief, mind-warping fear, soul-wrenching grief.  Or at least there should be. Some of us run far away from it, embracing the illness of climate denialism. Some of us try to block it out and live the best life they can for as long as it lasts. Some of us struggle on attempting to make a difference in some meaningful way. It impacts all of us, whether we realize it or not, whether we verbalize it or not. This is happening. No one is going to escape it.
  • It’s hardly surprising that researchers who spend their lives exploring the dire effects of climate change might experience emotional consequences from their work. Yet, increasingly, Cobb, Shukla, and others in the field have begun publicly discussing the psychological impact of contending with data pointing to a looming catastrophe, dealing with denialism and attacks on science, and observing government inaction in the face of climate change. “Scientists are talking about an intense mix of emotions right now,” says Christine Arena, executive producer of the docuseries Let Science Speak, which featured climate researchers speaking out against efforts to silence or ignore science. “There’s deep grief and anxiety for what’s being lost, followed by rage at continued political inaction, and finally hope that we can indeed solve this challenge. There are definitely tears and trembling voices. They know this deep truth: They are on the front lines of contending with the fear, anger, and perhaps even panic the rest of us will have to deal with.” -- David Corn, It’s the End of the World As They Know, Mother Jones, 7/18/19
  • The impact of climate change on mental health is a looming public health crisis … “We are searching for terms to capture this deep feeling of pain in Arctic nations – words like eco-anxiety or ecological grief – but for me, something called ‘solastalgia’ perfectly sums up how people living on the frontline of climate change feel. It was coined by the Australian environmental philosopher Glenn Albrecht. It is also related to an Inuit word that refers to a friend behaving in an unfamiliar way. It means feeling homesick when you are home. Many of these islanders are in mourning for a disappearing way of life.”  Howard’s biggest concern is the lack of acknowledgement. We are challenging the medical profession to acknowledge the world we are inheriting. Schools and universities aren’t considering how climate change will affect people from a medical or a psychological perspective, so we are not training a new generation of medical professionals to help people in a fast-changing planet, and this is intolerable. We are moving too slowly on this.” -- Dan  McDougall, Life on Thin Ice, Mental Health at the Heart of the Climate Crisis, Guardian, 8/12/19
Just as the planetary state of emergency demands rEvolutionary action, i.e., voting, marching, protesting, greening your life, going to court, divesting, whatever, just so this planetary state of emergency demands deep, true, sustained self-care be embraced as a rEvolutionary act.

 Unplug frequently. Eat consciously. Indulge in forest bathing, and if that's not available to you, maybe commune with the night sky on your rooftop. Meditate (which simply means wrap yourself in the shawl of silence, breath as if each breath was just a gentle kiss on the brow of your soul, and let go, let go, let go for just a little while). Sleep more, and better. Move into fuller embodiment through yoga. Allow yourself unstructured time. Choose well. Whatever self-care means to you, cultivate that, because it is as meaningful as any other aspect of your commitment to all you love, to the planet, to all of life.



“You Must Do the Impossible ...”

Another overarching theme running through both "Wyrds" and "Dragon" is the Ascendancy of the Feminine. I have spoken and written about numerous aspect of this particular theme, which I consider the most vital and impactful of all of the contributing factors in our further evolution. Yes, if we are to have a future, if there is to be a great shift, if something new is to emerge from within the Singularity, it is, I am certain, dependent upon the Ascendancy of the Feminine in the human psyche, in society, in culture, in business, in science and especially in government.

Consider Greta Thunberg's rise to the world stage:
  • In August 2018, she began striking (i.e.,taking off from school) on Fridays, and stationing herself, holding her protest sign outside of the Swedish Parliament in Stockholm.
  • By December 2018, she was speaking before the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP24) in Poland. 
  • By April 2019, she was speaking before the European Parliament.
  • In March 2019, she was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize (NOTE: Although the Committee did not award it to her, at least in 2019, she's in excellent company, Mahatma Gandhi was nominated for the Noble Peace Prize five times and never received it, even after he was martyred.)
  • In September 2019, she led many millions of people in a world-wide climate action.
Now, the Old Testament is a troubling and hurtful book in many ways, a relic of the patriarchal violence that will be mostly (but not wholly) irrelevant in the ancient future that is on its way. But one particular prophecy has been speaking to me recently, whenever I ponder the world-wide uprising of Greta Thunberg and her young cohorts: The wolf will live with the lamb, the leopard will lie down with the goat, the calf and the lion and the yearling together; and a little child will lead them. The cow will feed with the bear, their young will lie down together, and the lion will eat straw like the ox. The infant will play near the hole of the cobra, and the young child put his hand into the viper's nest. They will neither harm nor destroy on all my holy mountain, for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the LORD as the waters cover the sea. -- Isaiah 11:6

Of course, this prophecy is often cited in regard to Jesus of Nazareth, in different ways by different theologians and mystics. He taught in the Temple when he was a little boy, and later, in the course of his mission, he exhibited a powerful connection to the children that came into his presence. The example of Jesus is drenched in the innocence and love that overflows from that prophecy. But I don't think Isaiah was talking about him.

 Jesus was grounded in the Deep Feminine. It's so warped that he became the poster boy of the perversion that has been the patriarchy. I once wrote a story, "The Lost Years of Jesus." In that story, I wrote that the Madonna was not his biological mother, she was his Guru, a great Bhakti saint, like Amma. Her darshan was his immaculate conception. And yes, the Magdalena, maybe she had a professional life, maybe she was the mother of his children, but certainly she was his Tantrika, she initiated him into the dark mysteries. This is the Jesus that I know. And I am certain that if he were approached for his insights into Isaiah's prophecy, Jesus would point down the corridor of time directly to young Greta Thunberg and her cohorts throughout the world.

"You must do the impossible," Thunberg said in her speech to the U.S. Congress on her September 2019 visit, "Because giving up can never ever be an option."

Well, the Singularity has arrived. And we are beyond the Event Horizon. 

 A little child is leading us. And we must do the Impossible.
The Secret Engine of the World
The first of the new epiphanies, "Secret Engine of the World" --
  • What are you called? Bruja? Baul? Bodhisattva? Tantrika? Aghori? Troubadour? Dakini? Bhakta? Curandera? Yogini? Wizard? Sorceress? These are all just cover stories. Your true designation is beyond human speech. Authentic, mystical love, real love, is the secret engine of the world. But this authentic, mystical love, this real love, does not act like fire or water; it does not incinerate or drown that which it encounters. Authentic, mystical love, real love, moves like a vast glacier; whatever it does not crush or bury, it pushes forward. Yes, this love glacier levels mountains and forges canyons, it breaks the unbreakable and reshapes the earth. The love glacier is so massive that it takes a lifetime just to glimpse it, and even then it can only be seen as far as the horizon; it moves so slowly it is almost undetectable, and so it takes a lifetime to measure its grinding progress. Authentic, mystical love does not act like fire or water; it does not incinerate or drown that which it encounters. this love moves like a vast glacier; whatever it does not crush and bury, it pushes forward. This is the secret engine of the world. How utterly empty and free you must be to revel in the movement of this glacier, knowing that all you have ever had or wanted will be torn up and ground under, and that then in the glacier's aftermath there will be only a long fathomless silence, in which you will be no more than the shadow of a raven on the white stillness of the deep snow. -- Richard Power, March 2019



 Yoga of Primal Reality

A third overarching theme in my work since 2010 has been what I call "the Evolution of Yoga and the Yoga of Evolution," and as a subset, my "Yoga of Primal Reality." 

 Yoga is evolving rapidly, in our lifetimes, and this evolution is being driven by women, particularly in the West. Many of us in this circle are intimately involved in that evolution, in one way or another. 

What do I mean by “Yoga of Primal Reality”? 

 It isn't a school or a system or a certification, it's just a suggested frame of reference, a perspective, an attitude toward the path of yoga and toward human incarnation itself.

I will touch on two aspects, just to give you a sense of what I mean.

The technology of yoga reveals that we have five bodies:
  • Physical Body (Annamaya Kosha)
  • Energetic Body (Pranamaya Kosha)
  • Psychological Body (Manomaya) Typically, in translation, Manomaya is referred to as the "Mental Body," but I call it the "Psychological Body," because I say it includes the intellect and the emotions, the whole psychological construct.
  • Wisdom Body, or Intuitive Body (Vijnanamaya Kosha)
  • Bliss Body, or as I call it Sat-Chit-Ananda Body (Anandamaya Koshas 
When these five bodies are discussed in the traditional literature, and in most YTT manuals, they are depicted with the Physical Body as the outermost and the Bliss Body as the innermost.

 But I suggest you view the five bodies in a very different way, in the opposite way, actually. I say that the Bliss Body, the Sat-Chit-Ananda Body is the all encompassing one, the outermost one if you are drawing a diagram, and then the next one in is the Intuitive Body, and then the Psychological Body and the Energetic Body, and then the Physical Body is the innermost, the one at the center of it all. It's held there, the Physical Body, deep inside the immensity of your primal nature as pure Sat-Chit-Ananda, pure Being/Consciousness/Bliss, pure Sakti/Siva, pure Energy and Intelligence, wrapped in the swaddling garments of the Intuitive Body, the Psychological Body and the Energetic Body, pulsating inside of a bubble, a luminous bubble (aka the Universe, the galaxy, the star, the planet), inside of that radiant bubble, you live and move and breath as a human in this incarnation, as if in the palm of the Goddess' hand, and this is Dreamtime. I suggest to you that turning our understanding of the Five Bodies inside out changes everything -- if we allow it to. 

 We have five heads. We have ten arms and ten legs. That's the meaning of all the iconography of goddesses and gods with multiple heads and multiple limbs. Not something outside and beyond to pray to or worship, and not something in the distant future to aspire to over lifetimes of sadhana. No. This is our reality here and now. This is our primal reality. Here and now. And the mystical journey, the quest, whatever name you want to give it, it is nothing more than self-discovery and celebration.

 This view changes our understanding of the nature of siddhis (i.e., powers). I suggest that even and especially in your present condition and circumstances, you are dripping with siddhis, bristling with siddhis, siddhis that you have taken for granted throughout your life: the five senses are siddhis, creativity is a siddhi, sleep is a siddhi, common sense is a siddhi, sexuality is a siddhi, sense of humor is a siddhi, walking, dancing, running, singing, all siddhis, powerful, magical powers. Here and now.


Hal, Makam and …

Most of us here tonight identify in some way as being on the path, I experience it as a pathless path in truth, perhaps you do too, but it is also aptly described as mystical path, spiritual path, occult path, yogic path, tantric path, depending upon the shades and hues of your particular predilections  …

Forward movement on the path is identified in Sufi terminology as the interplay of Hal (state) and Makam (station). You experience a Hal, some revelation, some exalted state, some breakthrough into vibrating at a higher frequency, and then your baseline changes, your Makam, your station. Hal after Hal, your Makam becomes broader, wider, smoother, deeper ... That's the dynamism of the path ... that's how real Sufism works, and real Bhakti Yoga ...

But whatever you call your path, whatever technologies you rely on, whatever iconography you have decorated your interior reality with, however far the dynamism of Hal and Makam has taken you, it is vital to ... Well, I will just read you this excerpt from "Dragon" -- 
  • “There is no way around the psychological realm, or beyond it, the way to traverse it is to go straight through it, there is no other way, no matter how vast your understanding of the Adwaita Vedanta is, it doesn’t matter how profound your realization is, you will still have to make your way through the psychological realm, no, there is no way to transcend it or transmute it or escape beyond it, you have to go through it ..." -- Excerpted from "I, the Dragon: Chronicles of An Epic Life Among the Humans," p. 241
Now my circumstances were extreme, dire, life-altering in irreversible ways. Part of healing is understanding what will never heal, and then adapting as best we can ... But some way or another, some time or another, you have to do some real work in the psychological realm. You can't by-pass it. There are no quick fixes, there are no woo woo solutions. You have to find someone to work with one on one, someone who has actually done the work on themselves, i.e., worked with someone who held the container for them, within an actual modality, someone who is accountable to someone who is accountable. There are no quick fixes. No woo woo solutions! If someone is recommended to you, ask them how they trained, where they trained, what was their process like, how long was it, what work did they do on themselves before they started “helping” others. If what you need to work on in therapy involves child abuse and in particular sexual abuse as a child, you need to find someone who has gone through such abuse themselves, otherwise they really won't be able to help you significantly. If someone tells you how long it will take, they are either lying (maybe to themselves too) and/or don't know what they are talking about. An authentic psycho-therapist, particularly an authentic somatic psycho-therapist is a technician of the sacred just as surely as an authentic curandera or an authentic shaman. But they are working in different realms. The work of one is not the work of the other, they cannot supplant each other.



The Cauldron of the Dark Goddess

 The second of the new epiphanies, "Cauldron of the Dark Goddess" --
  • In the beginning, the dark goddess knew a loneliness so fierce that no creature could possibly comprehend it. Indeed, the revelation of such a loneliness would obliterate you before you ever arrived at its fullness. Before the dark goddess there was utter nothingness. She is the shadow of that nothingness, and as she emerged from it she was already dancing. Undulating, she shaped a huge cauldron. And into that cauldron she poured five elements that she pulled from her root, from her yoni, from her brain and from the midnight blue flesh of her vastness. The fresh water of intimate, personal tenderness. The love of the all in one. The salt water of agape. The love of the one in all. The blazing magma at the core. The lava flowing. The blazing hearth. The raging forest fire. The dark wet soil. The adamantine. The avalanche. The high winds that carry the Saharan sands over the Atlantic. Myrrh and frankincense wafting from an altar. The very breath moving in and out of your lungs. And of course Akasha, the laughing, sighing emptiness of space itself. These five elements swirling in the dark goddess' great cauldron form a world, three worlds in one actually. A beauty so exquisite it is unbearable. And then on that three-in-one world, a sorceress takes shape from within the swirling elements. And as she dances, this sorceress casts her own long shadow, and this shadow is itself a portal, which opens back into the being of the dark goddess, whose shadow, in turn, is a portal opening back into the ferocity of that original emptiness. The sorceress stomps on the earth as it engulfs her. She whirls in the fire as it incinerates her. She spreads her great wings into the insatiable hunger of the sky as it devours her. This is the truth of all creation, of every incarnation and of each beat of your heart. How deeply are you willing to lean into this truth? How ready are you to meet what awaits you there? -- Richard Power, June 2019



Occult Anthropology

All of my talks since 2010 have evolved organically, I haven’t been executing some grand vision that was revealed to me, I have just acted upon one intuition after another, but looking back I can see how they are all interconnected and interdependent … 

 Delivered in January 2019, "Dragon Bone Broth" was maybe the twenty-first or twenty-second of these talks, and it introduced my explorations into what I call "Occult Anthropology." 

The presentation was organized into four sections.

The full text, slides and embedded videos are included in posts on this blog:
So I am not going to go over it again in this talk, except to say that our work on the classifications of magical and muggle species continues, and to update you on three new areas of research.

Two new ways to classify humans (both magical and muggle) have revealed themselves.

First, we are looking at whether a creature is feral or non-feral.

Note that I did not say "feral or domesticated." This is because our research indicates that the opposite of feral is not "domesticated." We have encountered numerous beings who although raised as "domesticated" humans had strong feral strains in them. Therefore, feralness is not something limited to those among us who have raised ourselves on the streets and on the run. Feralness is something else, something mysterious. It is both a powerful energy and a peculiar way in which psyche and soma are structured. You are either feral or non-feral. It's how you're wired. You could have been raised "domesticated" and yet be quite feral, you could have been raised yourself, on the run, and yet be quite non-feral (although this is much rarer). The origins of feralness remain mysterious, and perhaps that's for the best, but it is detectable, palpable, undeniable. Determining whether a creature is feral or not reveals a lot about their psychology, the nature of their journey here and their reasonable expectations in regard to circumstances and relationships.

Second, we are looking at which of the seven phylums a human (whether magical or muggle) belongs to, e.g., Chordata (reptile, amphibian, mammal, bird, fish), Mollusca (e.g.octopus, squid, etc.) or Anthropoda (spiders, insect, crabs, etc.). And what family of animal within that phylum the being belongs to, e.g., if within the Cordata phylum, is the human's psyche-soma reptilian or mammalian, etc. or if within the Mollusca phylum, is the human's psyche-soma cephalopod, e.g., octopus?

How these two new methods of classification relate to the taxonomy of magical and muggle beings is yet to be determined. For now, these classifications are all independent of each other. If, for example, a being is classified as a peri or a centaur or a dakini, it does not mean by definition that being is feral or non-feral or reptilian, mammalian or cephalopod.



CADS

Following up on our research into Spiritually Transmitted Diseases (STDs) and its various strains, we have discovered a new mystical and mental health issue: "Cognitive Atrophy and Dissolution Syndrome" (CADS). CADS is not an STD. (Although those who have CADS are likely to be ridden with STDs.) CADS is a progressive disease, which leads to a kind of atrophy of the cognitive function, and if allowed to rage untreated, the utter dissolution of it, i.e. there's no healing it, no getting it back.

What does CADS look like?

A friend of mine, an authentic Tantric worker, posted something about climate change and the sixth great extinction, it wasn’t a political statement, it was a humanistic statement, a mystical statement, a Gaian statement. My glance happen to fall on a comment made by one of her “FB friends”: “The Green New Deal is UN global control. Please, please stop spreading this fear based propaganda and use your critical thinking skills to look at the actual facts. The planet changes climate in cycles, along with the other planets in our solar system. Any solution that doesn't involve stopping all wars, and using the advanced antigravity technology the government already has, is ridiculous. Look for global control offered as the solution after all the well-meaning public has worked themselves up into so much fear from articles like these, that they are willing to give up their rights in order for solutions that won't do a thing about the real problems: pollution and deforestation.”

Well, that’s just insane.

The comment wasn’t made by someone on that side of the ideological spectrum typically associated with climate change denialism, it was from someone who probably see themselves as either very progressive or somehow beyond politics. The person's political ideology and aesthetic sensibilities would resonate with ours in many ways. But they're suffering from CADS.

Two years ago, in Manhattan, at a book event for “I, the Dragon,” I found myself engaged in a dialogue with four people in their late 20s or early 30s, creative professionals, living in Brooklyn, They were all emphatically arguing that the earth was flat. They were serious. I offered some tangible proofs and several compelling thought experiments to counter their delusion, but it was a futile effort. These young people were suffering full blown CADS. It's a form of disassociation. I don't think they really believe the earth is flat. I think that just don't really believe that there is any reality at all, so they embrace the absurdity and run with it. And again, these young people weren't from the extreme opposite end of the ideological or cultural spectrum, you and I would resonate with most of their political views and aesthetic sensibilities. They've just been driven crazy.

These are just two examples of those among us suffering from CADS. I could offer you countless others, but you might start recognizing some of your friends, or even yourself.

We have identified several contributing factors in the rise of CADS (it is important to note that all of these contributing factors are PROFOUNDLY BENEFICIAL in many ways, BUT yes there are some UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES and unfortunate side-effects):

 Communications and Entertainment Technology: There are successive baselines. First, we had a generation that grew-up watching TV, then they were followed by a generation that grew up watching TV, playing computer games and surfing the Internet, and now we have a generation that has grown up dependent upon the amazing reach of the smartphone. Furthermore, each wave of new technologies has been embraced by those who grew up along the previous baseline. And yes, with each successive wave, there has been a furthering weakening of the cognitive function. 

Social Media: Have you gone down the Rabbit Hole? Gotten lost in the real and/or imaginary lives of others? Gotten lost in generating the stream of your own real and/or imaginary life? Scrolling, scrolling, scrolling, down, down, down ... Entranced ... If not checked, it can lead to further weakening of the cognitive function ... Meanwhile, as your social media activity is tagged and analyzed, news stories begin to appear in your feed, news stories which some artificial intelligence has determined would be of interest to you, some of that news is real news, which would indeed be of interest to you, it is benign, but some of that "news" is actually weaponized, toxic, i.e., disinformation. Malignant. Calibrated to send you down a rabbit hole within the rabbit hole. Weaponized disinformation meant, in turn, to weaponize (or disarm) your mind. Some of it generated to serve corporate agendas, some generated to serve geopolitical agendas. Poison. It weakens your cognitive function even further.

Festivals: To walk off the threshing floor for a few days. To shed the armor of coping. To immerse yourself in the desert or the deep forest. To drop the mask of getting by and getting on, and for just a little while, choose a mask of ritual power. To celebrate. Self-discovery and self-expression. To swim in a sea of resonance. Tribal discovery. Tribal expression. The great festivals of our privileged sojourn on this sacred land. "Lightening In A Bottle." "Symbiosis." "Enchanted Forest." "Northern Lights." "Beloved." "Burning Man."  All this, yes. Transformative. From burn-out to bliss-up. But tell me, do you organize your life around the festival circuit? Have you come to view the expanded space and slowed down time of the festival experience as not just a needed respite and renewal but somehow more real than the daily grind? Do you harbor the illusion that the altered states induced could or should supplant the ordinary mind of the everyday? You could be suffering CADS.

"Neo-Tantra": If you are wondering why "Neo-Tantra" has been included on this list, you may well be suffering from CADS. Patriarchy is the scourge of our civilization, its profound dysfunction threatens all of the genuine good that has come from our collective evolution, and in the two or three millennia that we have been held in the Patriarchy's vise, no aspect of our primal reality has been as viciously savaged as our sexuality. Humans need authentic sexual healing, collectively and individually, and humans need authentic sexual exploration to realize the potential of passion and pleasure. BUT much, if not most, of what presents itself as such "healing" and "exploration" is crazy-making. Especially if it is led by men. However cleverly disguised, however beautifully adorned, it is predominantly driven by aspects of patriarchal perversion. There is abuse, there is exploitation. The fantasy world-views conjured up in the ungrounded activities of "Neo-Tantra" can contribute significantly to the further weakening of the cognitive function. The teaching of Tantra can only be authentic if it is grounded in the reality of what the Sri Yantra actually reveals. In such authentic, grounded work, sexuality is just one of several vectors into the adventure. It is organically integrated with the whole of the divine architecture of the Sri Yantra. 

Plant Medicine: So this is happening. The rise of plant medicine, and by that I mean the movement to popularize and legalize it in our oh-so-ill society. From the mystical, occult and shamanic perspectives (yes, all of them), this is one of the most important developments of our time. Ayahuasca. Peyote. San Pedro. Iboga. Portals for deep exploration of the soul's vast landscape. Powerful medicines for the healing of the psyche. Yes. But as in every other great transformative movement, much nonsense and yes abuse gets mixed up with the truest intentions and the purest actions. Too many ingest plant medicine too cavalierly. Too many reel from one experience to the next without authentic work to integrate what has been revealed to them, or more precisely what the plant has attempted to reveal to them. And I mean real work. In other modalities. For example, long-term commitment to somatic psycho-therapy, disciplined, pristine daily meditation, dedicated Tai Chi or Yoga practice, etc. The path has to be full spectrum to truly honor what the plant goddess tells you in the night. And of course, plant medicine abuse would not be possible if it weren't for too many who have re-branded themselves as priests and priestesses of plant medicine, setting themselves up as gatekeepers, when in fact, they are 1) not really working on their own dysfunction in any sustained, full-spectrum way, 2) do not have the capacity to truly hold sacred space for the journeys of others, and 3) are answerable to no one (except perhaps the IRS for all the money they're taking in). Anyway, if you are going from plant medicine journey to plant medicine journey, and aren't doing the sustained day to day, night to night, week to week, month to month, year to year ordinary mind work of integrating your visions you're at risk. Plant medicine can help optimize your healing journey and accelerate your soul exploration. But plant medicine abuse can just as surely increase your odds of getting CADS.

And just as a reminder, as I said, all of the contributing factors listed here are profoundly beneficial powerful agents of the Ancient Future to come, really, but they also have UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES which can be dangerous if not understood.

There are antidotes and yes, VACCINATIONS, for example, a) it’s good to periodically unplug from social media for a while b) when on social media, it’s good to not scroll for too long, try not allowing yourself to scroll more than three or four posts either up or down, in any one session, before jumping out of the app, c) reading books, tactile, in paper, novels, works of imagination, instead of just binging on Netflix, binging on Netflix is a wonderful indulgence, therapeutic in its own way, but like all of the elements here it too has unintended consequences, d) having a real job helps, e) chopping wood and carrying water helps, f) taking care to curate the news and information that you consume and share, for example, it’s clear that to just consume mainstream news is mind-warming and false-meme perpetuating, but it’s also true that consuming alternate or counter-culture news and information can be mind-warping and false-meme perpetuating, you have to always ask what is the hidden agenda here, what is the unconscious motivation here, g) and most important, as mentioned above, one's journey of self-discovery, healing self-care must be full-spectrum, you must work, pray, celebrate, love, rage, struggle, surrender, die and be reborn again and again, in all five bodies, in all five dimensions of your primal reality ... Feel the Force/Chi/Prana flowing throughout of all you 24x7 and dance with it, sing with it, speak and move and breath with it ... Take deep self-care of your cognitive functions. Just as surely as you consciously choose what to eat, choose what (and how) you feed your psychological (mental/emotional) and energetic bodies ...



A Temple, Hallowed and Empty 

The third of the new epiphanies, "A Temple, Hallowed and Empty" --
  • There will come a moment, maybe in the predawn darkness, maybe in the late afternoon sun. In that moment, you will realize that this life has become a sanctuary, a temple, hallowed and empty. Many stories will be scrawled on its walls. Stories of valor. Stories of betrayal. Stories of healing. Stories of heartbreak. Wanderers will enter. Each foot step will echo. Some will sob. Some will drink from the spring in the garden. Some will just sleep. Eventually almost all will move on. Some for better, some for worse. Some may fall into the labyrinth of a new delusion right before your eyes. Often the most gifted. It happens. But a few others will stay on. Portals will open between your sanctuary and the one organically taking shape inside their own beings. This is the way the spiderwoman's web grows stronger, expands farther, reaches deeper. Each such sanctuary is a node on her network. Can you feel the silken roof beams stretching out within you? Can you feel the silken foundations laid deep in your dark ground? Can you feel the four walls? Pulsating, like membrane. Each wall has a door that opens on to a vastness beyond. Through the East and West doors, the sun rises and sets. Simultaneously. Likewise, the moon waxes and wanes. Simultaneously. Through the North and South doors, the planetary poles reveal themselves. For many millions of years, these two poles gazed fiercely into future. But now they weep, and their tears of grief are transforming everything. It didn't have to be this way. Can you feel it? All of this? The hollowed emptiness? The echoing footsteps? The stories of valor and betrayal? The wanderers coming and going? Those who forget right before your eyes? The portals opening? Spiderwoman's web expanding, deepening? The roof beams? The foundations? The walls? The doors opening to the four directions? The moon and sun? The grieving poles of this world? Can you feel it all? Well, then ... -- Richard Power, April 2019



 The Seventh Beast

The tale of the "Seven Beasts" is one of the structural components that frame the narrative of “I, the Dragon.” These "Beasts" are animal energies that came to me at critical junctures on my journey. Five from the natural world -- Lizard, Wolf, Cave Bear, Raven and Vulture. Two from the supernatural world – Dragon and this last "Beast" that I called the 7th Beast. It is a shapeshifter. It has appeared to me in the forms of several different avatars. It is indeed a series of emanations from some deeper dimension of my own being. Although this shapeshifting avatar has been with me from before the beginning and has appeared over and over in its various forms, we are now very much in the time of the Seventh Beast. Recently, it revealed itself in yet another emanation. And this emanation, like Michael and Narasimha had been with me for a long time, I just hadn't recognized it.




Lung Ta (Wind Horse)

Sometimes a revelation is not something utterly new, but instead, it's some previously unrealized connection between two different threads of insight: suddenly, you see how they were entwined all along, upstream from where they have seemed separate … This painting by the Russian mystic Nicholas Roerich depicts the Lung Ta (the "Wind Horse") carrying the Chinamani (the "Wish Fulfilling Jewel"). Of course, this Wind Horse is also depicted on countless prayers throughout the Himalayas and beyond …  I was fortunate to often sit up late at night, talking and drinking coffee, with the legendary American sage Joe Miller (my "Yoda"). One night he dug out a small print of this Roerich painting and shared it with me, and told me about a friend of his who had written a lot of good books, this friend had fallen into despair because he felt nothing much had come from all of his work. So Joe brought his friend’s attention to this painting and told him that he was that horse and that he had carried treasures wisdom across the Himalayas and brought vital teachings to the world and that great good would come of it albeit in ways other than he might have imagined or hoped. Anyway I have always remembered that image and the story that went with it. It has been in my consciousness for decades, just hanging there …  Concurrently but unconscious of any connection to that image or that moment, a feeling had grown up in me, an attitude, an inner imperative, it told me I had to extract the most important, the most potent, the most direct, the most powerful “secrets,” those open but obscured secrets, and I had to extract them from the tombs of tradition to bring them with me into the now and on into the future, to share them with those who might not otherwise have come across them … Indeed, at times, this drive in me had a desperation to it, I have a notebook that I’ve not published, or even referenced, ever before, I don’t think I have, anyway. That notebook is from the Death Planet years, from my double down dark night of soul years, from the ultimate Fight or Flight meltdown years. It was a desperation exercise. To extract and distill those secrets from all that I had studied, both experientially and intellectually, to distill it, like tinctures, it was all very technical, there was no poetry in it. I collected it all in this notebook, so that I didn’t need any books with me, so that I wouldn't even need one shelf of books, I could walk away from everything with only this notebook, and still carry the greatest truth, the greatest power, and in the process I was taking it so deep into myself that I didn’t even need the notes. But the notes would exist, and someone sometime would be able to reconstitute a certain depth of truth and power by simply activating it's freeze-dried potentiality with some tear drops. A few bites of the Siva Sutras were in it, and shards of some related Kashmiri texts, e.g. the 112 techniques that the Goddess Devi gave to the world in the Vijnanabhairava. There were a few excerpts from a Bon text on Dzogchen, and a couple of excerpts from the Bhakti Sutras. It was filled with rare gems gathered from here and there, across the millennia … Since 2010, when the Voice said "It's time to make your move," my focus has been on putting these secrets, these open secrets, into new language for a new reality and threading it through, braiding it, with other strains, strong, rich strands from other realms of the Ancient Future, from both what has not been for a long time and what has already arrived from the time that is yet to come; indeed, the subtitle of "Wyrds of Power" is literally "New Language for A New Reality."  And only recently, as my glance fell upon the image of the Wind Horse once again, I had the revelation that these two previously known threads had been entwined from before the beginning, and gazing anew at the Wind Horse, I realized it was yet another emanation of the Seventh Beast ...




Chintamani (Wish-Fulfilling Jewel) 

Now what is the Chintamani, the "Wish-Fulfilling Jewel"?

 How do you come into a state in which the nature of the Wish Fulfilling Jewel reveals itself to you? 

 How do you become establish in a succession of stations from which you can access and avail yourself of the power of the the Wish-Fulfilling Jewel? 

 How do you access the power of the Chintamani?

 I want to focus on two sacred words that I’ve stolen from the Buddha Dharma -- Bodhicitta and Bodhisattva.  But I urge you to disregard the dictionary or text-book definitions. Just put all of that aside and come with me into an exploration of their primal meanings.

You could describe Bodhicitta a thousand ways, and yet never be able to describe exactly what it is, but each time you would be saying something insightful about it, and if you strung all of the attempts together they would be a beautiful poem: Loving Kindness, Luminous Caring, Irrepressible-Joy-Clarity-of-Mind, Luminous-Mind-Generous-Heart, Boundless-Positivity-Irresistable-Calm ... Hear just a few and you get carried away and just keeping adding variations … You could just riff on it and you would always just touch it and it would slip away, but it is always there ... Luminous-Mind-Generous-Heart is a functional description, a useful description; in other words, a mind that's clear and a heart that's open. Technically, we would talk about Relative Bodhicitta and Absolute Bodhichitta. Relative Bodhicitta is when one of us performs an act of kindness, or we try to cultivate in ourselves kindness or cheerfulness in the face of adversity, that's Relative Bodhicitta. Absolute Bodhicitta is what we are utterly immersed in all the time, whether we know it or not, whether we feel it or not, it is the substance of the universe, many people only realize this at the moment of death, or beyond the moment of death, but other people realize it before death, realizing that under the layers of everything that's happening, under all of the swirling, and in and through all of the swirling, the substratum of it all is this incredible power, and this power is love, the secret engine of the world. But a love that is a sea, it isn't directional, it just is, everything rises from it, everything falls back into it, as inconceivable as that truth sometimes seems to us, Bodhicitta, Bodichitta, Bodhicitta, but not as a state (a Hal) and temporary condition, or a moment, no, Bodhicitta, Bodichitta Bodhicitta as the INFINITE RESERVOIR of Loving Kindness or Luminous Caring or Irrepressible-Joy-Clarity-of-Mind or Boundless-Positivity-Irresistible-Calm that we are all steeped in ... 

Now concerning Bodhisattva, we all know the story, the meme, that the arhats go on to paradise after they realize the nature of reality and become fully established in it, bye bye, but the bodhisattvas forswear escape, they vow not to go on until all of humanity is liberated, the Bodhisattvas says "I will be the last one out the door and I will turn off the lights as I leave, I will be the last person of the ship. I will stay until everyone achieves enlightenment." 

Well, that's the exoteric version of what the Bodhisattva energy is, and what the Bodhisattva attitude is, but I have different feelings, two different feelings, about it all: 

For me, it's more like this, "Wait a minute, what? You want me to leave? I don't want to leave this place. I love this world. You mean I could stay? You need somebody to stay? I'll stay. I would love to stay here. This is incredible. You want me to go off to some paradise. No, I want to stay here. I'll stay Sign me up. I will be the last person out. I will turn off the lights behind me. I am staying on this planet with these crazy people and this fucked up situation, I'm in. Hell, no, I’m staying. I want these five bodies and when it all breaks down I’ll try to get another ticket to ride, so yeah, I’ll stay, I’ll take the night watch, I love it here, leave Gaia? no way … "

That's one way I look at Bodhisattvahood, another way I look at it is like this, "Wait a minute, what are you saying? Leave now? What about them? I’m not leaving without them. I love them. I’m not going to leave them here alone and uncared for. Why would I leave the beings that I love? You mean, oh, I have a ticket, but they don't have tickets, so I'm supposed to use my ticket and leave them behind because they're not ready yet? You don’t just leave behind those you love. Unless you don’t have a choice. You’re telling me I have a choice. Well, I choose to stay with those I love. Where else would I go? Don’t you love anything or anyone? How could you choose otherwise?" So it's not "Alright, I'll stay behind, I'll make this great sacrifice ..." No, it's more like, "What else would you do but stay? Would you abandon your children or your four-legged, IF you had a choice? You wouldn't!" 
Someone said to Inayat Khan, "Master, when you talk everyone in the room gets an answer to some question that they never said out loud, how do you have all of this psychic power?" And Inayat Khan said, "I don't have any ... How does a mother just KNOW when her child is sick?" Love is the mode of communication. So the Bodhisattva is just a being who has that kind of feeling that most people might have for a certain someone, or something, or for their family, or for their tribe or their nation, well, the Bodhisattva is just a person who has that kind of love for EVERYTHING! 

So then Bodhisattva kind of feels like a different job than "OK, I'll stay and forgo my bliss in paradise until all of these people fall awake," and more like "No, this place is great. I want to stay," and "Leave the creatures that I love? No, I'm not going to leave them." "Hell, no, I’m staying," the Bodhisattva says, "I want these five bodies and when it all breaks down I’ll try to get another ticket ride, so yeah, I’ll stay, I’ll take the night watch, I love it here, leave Gaia? No way."

The point is that these two energies, these two attitudes, Bodhicitta, Luminous-Mind-Generous-Heart, and this irreverent, alternate view of Bodhisattvaship that I have offered you tonight, they open us up to the possibility that we ourselves as the Wish-Fulfilling Jewel ...

The Bodhisattva principle, the Bodhisattva imperative, is alive within all of us, within those who has ever loved anyone or anything, within those who have ever opened up to the unspeakable beauty of this world, yes, unspeakable beauty bound just as it is to unspeakable horror. Bring it, I’m in, I’m all in. That’s the Bodhisattvic attitude. It just has to be awakened, and may this Singularity wake it up in a critical mass among us, here together as we all are on the other side of the event horizon, yes, may it spread among us ... Bodhicitta is the pure, vital energy of our blessedness, as Goddesses, Gods, and Divine Theys, and Bodhisattvaship is the indefatigable, indomitable attitude of our blessedness as Goddesses, Gods and Divine Theys … Embrace these powerful insights into your own nature and Chintamani will become humanifest woomanifest within you, it will be within your grasp and when you grasp it you will be embracing yourself and within that embrace, held there between you and yourself, will be everyone and everything worthy of such magic …



Chintamani (Wish-Fulfilling Jewel)

So about this Wish-Fulfilling Jewel, some might say, "Well, I have wished for many things ..." Yes, but would you know if your wish had actually been answered in some way you didn't expect it to be answered?

The Wish-Fulfilling Jewel is a portal. Just as incarnation is a portal, and every breath is a portal, and every step is a portal, and every act is a portal, every syllable is a portal, it's all portals, portals opening into portals ... And in the throes of that revelation, you will come to see that you yourself, with your five bodies, your five heads, your ten legs and ten arms, and all of our siddhis (creativity, conscience, the phases of sleep, sexuality, sense of humor, common sense, all of it, all of your maha siddhis), yes, you will come to see you yourself are the Wish Fulfilling Jewel. 

 We ourselves, our lives, our incarnations, are in toto, the Chintamani.

And then, you will know for certain that you carry in you what I call our “dash of quantum.” 

I say "dash of Quantum," and that distinction is important.

 There is a lot of woo-woo nonsense around the notion of "Quantum," some among us talk of  the "Quantum field" and there are a lot of "life coach  and "ascension guides" telling how you can change your world, change your circumstances, heal yourselves, etc. solely through some kind of mental or "spiritual" manipulation in some so-called "Quantum field." Most of that is nonsense. I'm not talking about some CADS-infused nonsense, à la "What the Bleep?".

There are the four fundamental forces of nature (e.g., law of gravity).

And there is Chaos Theory.

And there is the mystery of Karma. Karma is not some moralistic cause and effect mechanism. Karma is a mystery beyond human comprehension.

And there is also randomness. 

Now I know that Einstein said “God does not roll dice,” but I suggest that the Goddess does play with dice. This doesn’t make Einstein wrong, of course, it just factors in another set of dimensions, the God that doesn't role dice, and the Goddess that does role dice occupy the same space. 

 It is a divine paradox. 

Just don't assume that everything is purposeful, there is randomness in it too.

 All of these factors are at work in ways that are beyond our understanding, and there is an aspect of it all in which something, anything, can be both wave and particle at once, and so like the fate of Shroedinger’s Cat, it is mysterious, so we reach for our dash of quantum when it seems appropriate, it can’t hurt, maybe we can reverse the field, maybe we can, and we can always at least engage our own perspective in some different way if we choose, if we have the energy for it … 

 Each of us is an open portal ...

 “You must do the impossible,"  and we act on Greta Thunberg's exhorts, "Because giving up can never ever be an option."
Life and Life Only

The fourth of the new epiphanies, "Life and Life Only" --
  • I remember numerous hells. Vividly. I remember numerous heavens. Vividly. Waves of grief and gratitude. Crashing against the steep cliffs of knowing, the waves intermingle and fall far below into the tide pools of yes. The roaring of this ceaseless tumult reverberates, and from the wall of sound, an utterance rises over and over, like a drumbeat: "Life and life only." Late some night, at a time not yet known to me, the sands in this hourglass will run out, and without hesitation, I will reach for the next heaven, and the next hell, feeling ahead of my shadow and on into the Mysterium. Stepping through one portal after another, I will pursue it all again and again. "Life and life only." When your heart is broken, beyond all healing, I encourage you to reach into the open wound and feel for the new heart that is being birthed deep within the tears. Even when your mind seemingly shatters, I want you to reach into the chaos and feel for the new mind being birthed from those countless, vicious shards. It is all an endlessness. "Life and life only." You carry a rolled up parchment sewn into your Elvin cloak, whether you have hidden it from yourself or not. Written there, in your own blood, is a short list of true would-have-beens or should-have-beens. Late some night, at a time not yet known to you, that parchment will erupt in flames and devour itself. All that will be left behind in what the great Comte de Lautréamont aptly termed "the Cage of Time" will be the deep amethyst mine of your heart, the fractal-generating engine of your psyche and the tremulous, ever-shimmering membrane of your soma. And you will offer it, for whatever it is worth, to those few who dare enter. "Life and life only." This is the truth. -- Richard Power, August 2019
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