Under a Starless Sky by Ion Light - HTML preview

 

Author’s note:

 

On the Edge of the song. I am torn, thinking ‘Cornershop - Brimful Of Asha (Norman Cook Remix)’ youtube, with Jackie Chan dance scenes spliced in would make a great finally song, assuming this was a movie, and the cast spliced in doing their own dance to the song. I was also thinking, ALiEN | Unlike Pluto - Waiting For You (feat. Joanna Jones)- mostly for the title and lyrics, and the yes, the ‘K-Pop’ dance girls are influencing. K-pop is seriously fun. K-pop and anime collide here frequently.

 

So, here I am, in this present isolation, thinking about finishing not finishing this story. I have been with it a long time. It goes back to high school. I have several notebooks devoted to this Starless-Place, and dozen variations of it. It was never quite finished. Loxy stepped up and now it feels finished. There are notebooks scenes full of the drama of it all, but even then I was clear on the beginning and ending. There was even drama in the 9 months of prenatal existence- not rendered here. I opened with a Jung quote: “He (man) cannot conquer the tremendous polarity of his own nature on his own resources: he can only do so through the terrifying experience of a psychic process that is independent of him, that works him rather than he it.” If you didn’t know sometimes that process takes years, even a life time!

 

Whether you are doing your own inner work directly, or vicariously through the art of others- we are on the path. Bear in mind, my path may not be yours. Find your path. If my map helps you to get your bearings, take it as far as you need it. I find Rumi is also a good compass for bearings:

 

“But don’t be satisfied with stories, How things have gone with others. Unfold your own myth,

Without complicated explanation,

So everyone will understand the passage,

We have opened you.”

 

The ending was also clear. Love is better than war, and that means surrendering. If you have all the power in the world, and omniscient, even half omnificent, somewhere in there you have to give up control. I was a control freak growing up. OCD level control freak. I probably still have some OCD. Letting go and trusting is an act of love. Even going to one’s death is an act of love. I think we have forgotten we are in a relationship with death. This dance is ongoing.

 

I am here in my isolation, imperfectly. Pretending I am Mat Damon on Mars, day one, failed. I drove for a cheese burger and fries. Day two, returned to the plan, ate all my cans of spicy Vienna dogs. ‘Fuck, I can’t stay at home! I’ll eat everything!’ New rules for the new paradigm: all bills, correspondents, and advertisements must come in the form of ass and toilet friendly paper! 

 

I don’t know how many of you realize this. We are the front line of the new paradigm. The world has change. Not just individual countries. The WORLD. This is scary, hopeful, and not enough people have caught up to where we are, where we will be- and I am not singing “doom, despair, and agony on me.” In some ways, it might actually be better. It will definitely be DIFFERENT. There are some people who will be harmed. I worked 24 years in the airline, and there was always talks of layoffs, and actual layoffs- it was always unstable. (I don’t recommend bailing out the airlines; my experience in the past with that, the CEO’s benefitted from the bail out, and people still were laid off.) I  don’t see that industry recovering when business people aren’t going to fly. Why would they when they can have a holographic skype session, and Google can translate? International travel will always be there, but again, why risk going to a real place when you can do it virtually. Technologically speaking, we have been on the cusp of this- the crisis simply jumped us closer. My airline friends will be harmed- especially in a market were 20 percent unemployment is a real thing. There have been talks of Universal Basic Incomes- that talk may jump closer to reality, as well. Seriously, if computers are driving our trucks and cars- what will all the drivers do?

 

The good part- pollution is down? Wow, who would have thought- just taking a break would help us reach desired pollution levels, as opposed to pushing for emission control tech and taxes on carbon footprints! (Just take a fucking break!) Oh, yeah, honoring the Sabath has a point. If you take a break, the Earth recovers. If you take a break, the human recovers. We were not supposed to go go go 24/7. There should be balance. If we don’t learn this, there will be future opportunities. Or not. Maybe we need a seasonal break. Like, I don’t know, every Christmas we all take a national holiday and stay at home with family. Not just teachers and bankers and congressmen- but fucking everyone- and it should be paid, not PTO, not zero, and your job still there. (And you know, I am using discernment, medical and emergency service providers is a necessary part of life, too. But we need a way to figure out how to keep them healthy by making sure they, too, have time to recover from the many horrendous things they put up with to keep us healthy.)

 

My son is with his mother and California. We are skyping. I am working from home. I am safe. We, Loxy and I are safe. We wish you and your family love and strength and perseverance in this present storm.

 

I will leave you with couple of blog entries, one relating to what I shared above, and one about seeing- which was part of the philosophy in this book that has been decades in coming.

 

With love

Always

John and Loxy.

 

 

https://pathfindere.blogspot.com/2020/03/enlightment-now.html

 

 

Warning, reading this could change your life. That's not bait click, you're already here. Just don't read on if you seriously like your life. There is no money exchanged here. No secrets prompting you to go further or deeper. You'll either get it, or you won't. You'll either be closer, or you won't. This is will require language, symbolic and not, a  blending of metaphor and literal, and you got to learn which is which and when to switch and how to use it to shift your perspective. If one person can do it, anyone can do it. You don't have to meditate for forty years plus, be a guru, be touched, be chosen, be lucky, pay an exuberant amount of money, have a friend bring you in... You just have to do it.

 

If you google enlightenment, you will find a myriad of gurus and ways. I am not a guru. I am on the path. Everyone is on the path. Even off the path is still a path. Wiki offers instructions: 1- be present. 2- stop trying to escape your life. 3- practice mindfulness. 4- engage your senses. 5- practice non judgment of your thoughts and others. 6- express your gratitude.... and that's all included in step one. You may find this thing I am about to impart easier than even that- maybe harder.

 

We will start with the easy part. Turn on your television to a non-channel, non signal. Not a static scene. That's a signal. The static, snowflakey field is actually the hum of the universe. I want you to see the black screen of null-signal, like you might if you select input on your remote control and go to the designated HDMI 1 channel. I want you to observe the black there, the black you see before the game console comes on. do this in a dark room.

 

Notice the screen is on, but it is black. It's not off. It's dark, but not shadow. It's an illuminated darkness. TV off is different than this screen.

 

Go sit down on the couch, preferably in a dark room, or have a towel to cover your eyes. Close your eyes, cover them with the towel. Pitch dark. Maybe you see blackness, or purple swirls. Don't press. Just realize the darkness.

 

You are not seeing darkness. You don't see with your eyes, you see with your brain, and that darkness is the brain's projection of darkness on a screen. That darkness is a light. You are the light. There is no darkness. This is truth. You accept as a biological, traditional scientific, non metaphysical paradigm- as long as your brain is on, there is light. Going to sleep is not off. Death if off. Is the refrigerator light on when you close the door- not the right analogy here. Your car idles at 700 to 800 rpms. You drive at a 1,000 or 1,200 rpms. Brains is either in idle, or performance speed, or switching gears. Best dreams- inner visions- idle, playing a sport of a video game, performance speed. You can clock in at different speeds for different activities.

 

Plato's cave analogy applied here make sense. You think you are chained to your body, but really, you're in the matrix of your mind. Eyes closed, you're in the dark light of the mind, the womb- and now the questions becomes- now that you can see this is just nightlight of your existence, what can you make out.

 

When you're in the trenches, it can be difficult discerning best paths for navigating hazards. From the mountain top, you can see the whole of the terrain and think, oh, i should have gone that way... There is a metaphor there, perspective base. Mountain life isn't led in the same way that trench life is led. Use the appropriate metaphor for where you are.

 

Right now, as you take in a breath of air- are you safe? Are you safe enough you can sit down, close your eyes- and learned to see in the dark? People can see through echolocation. Blind people who have never seen can learn this ability and navigate a room of obstacles better than a see person. Your brain is on, the space where we form the world is simply waiting to give rise to that thing. Your heart is a light. It is the most intense light your body transmit. It radiates upwards of ten feet away, if you accept the data from HeartMath, or Doctor Paul Pearsall. Astronomers can map out the sky using radioastronomy. Can you map out the world around you with your heart light?

 

Ever felt like someone was staring at you from behind and your turn to discover someone was? Did that information come by sound? Or is your heart aware of things that you usually don't attend to because the other senses overwhelmed that. The subtle thresholds get washed out really quick. Close the eyes- it's not dark, it's just information that you have never taken the time to sort.

 

Your world view has changed. You are on the path. Paradigms and perspectives matter. A person who holds a victimization paradigm has weight, they tend to sink. Survivor paradigm usually as an upward trend. Which one are you? I am trending towards neutral, simply observing. That, too, leads to new information. The Universe is On, it's all light- and we are one with that Light. Go be light.

 

 

https://pathfindere.blogspot.com/2020/03/the-sabath.html

 

 

I was reading something about a decline in air pollution due to people staying home. I remember right after 9-11 thinking the skies seemed bluer, surreal. I worked at DFW at the time, so I had good access to sky- surrounded by grounded planes. Scientist said the same thing then, air quality improved.

 

 

What happens when a human being works 24-7? He gets tired. Anxious. He is predisposed to health problems. What happens when a society is 24-7? More, what happens when you tell a people that are go go go all the time to go home and relax? They get anxious? They worry? Who in are day in age have been taught how to just be? We are out of touch with family and friends, and guess what, your relationship with your cell phone will only take you so far? Do you even know how to sit on the couch and just be with yourself? can you have quiet conversations over coffee at the table and watch squirrels play in the yard.

 

When given the chance, the Earth always recovers. Well, so far, it has a track record for recovering, with life diminishing then re-bounding. People, when given a moment to themselves, recover. I wonder if this, too, is a wake up call. A great way to determine this is to do a compare and contrast with nations that honor siestas and less work hours compared to nations that expect greater work hours. Who recovers faster? The people that are more laid back or the people who high strung.

 

We are high strung. OMG, we are high strung. I feel like I am walking through a room full of cats and snakes and everyone is hissing and spitting and hair is all on ends.

 

We need to chill. We need to breathe. This Sabath is way due in overcoming, and if you didn't honor it, well, you may have a 'month of Sunday's' to catch up, you accept the expression.

 

Be at peace, my friends. It is what is, and will be what it will be.

Love.

 

3-21-2020, addendum.

 

One of my dear friends, Robert, share with me what his wife shared with him, which was shared by the Shalom center. Synchronicity for  sure. Evidence that I am not alone in holding this.

 

LOVE:

 

Web:Theshalomcenter.org 

 

The Shalom Report:

 

Dear friends, These three outcries of the heart entered my in-box this week. They are pleas for us to learn from the crisis we are in. God forbid that we rejoice in this crisis; and God forbid that we learn nothing, turning our eyes, our ears, our hearts, our heads away. 

 

The first of the three: Rabbi Tamara Cohen has written the following poetic midrash in the light of the Torah portion that is read tomorrow morning. It includes a passage about Moses' calling the people to assemble, and saying that their gifts to build the portable  House of the Holy Presence to be carried in the Wilderness have been enough, and they should bring no more. Rabbi Cohen is the Chief of Innovation for Moving Traditions, a national organization focused on teens, gender, and Jewish identity where she spearheaded the creation of Tzelem, a group for transgender and non-binary teens. As an intern for The Shalom Center ten years ago, she wrote "Eicha for the Earth," a Book of Lamentations for Temple Earth.-- AW, ed.

 

 

And they Assembled  And Moses said dayam, enough. Enough: enough. Stop, withdraw,  bring/do/perform/gather    no more.

 

 Let the silver glare of a silent sanctuary,  the gold blue of a plane-less sky  the garnet sheen of an empty concert hall  be our sacred offering,  meager gifts of absence from wise and less wise-hearted people. 

 

Please God let our ceasing be enough. 

 

Let our hospital beds be enough.

Let our slow awakening to the interconnectedness of every living being be enough Let a pillar of stillness rest at the entrance to every home and prison.

Let this plague pass over us, enough of us. 

Enough.

 

Shabbat Shalom dear chaverim, far and wide,

 

 ------Tamara

 

# # #

 

[Kristin Flyntz wrote the following poetic letter from the Virus to us all. She is the

Content Editorial Director for Ascensus. --  AW, ed]

 

STOP: An Imagined Letter from Covid-19 to Humans  Stop. Just stop.

It is no longer a request. It is a mandate.

We will help you.

 

We will bring the supersonic, high speed merry-go-round to a halt

We will stop the planes

the trains

 

the schools the malls the meetings

the frenetic, furied rush of illusions and “obligations” that keep you from hearing our single and shared beating heart, the way we breathe together, in unison.

Our obligation is to each other,

As it has always been, even if, even though, you have forgotten.

 

We will interrupt this broadcast, the endless cacophonous broadcast of divisions and distractions, to bring you this long-breaking news:

We are not well.

None of us; all of us are suffering.

Last year, the firestorms that scorched the lungs of the earth did not give you pause.

Nor the typhoons in Africa,China, Japan.

Nor the fevered climates in Japan and India.

You have not been listening.

It is hard to listen when you are so busy all the time, hustling to uphold the comforts and conveniences that scaffold your lives. But the foundation is giving way, buckling under the weight of your needs and desires.

We will help you.

We will bring the firestorms to your body

We will bring the fever to your body

We will bring the burning, searing, and flooding to your lungs that you might hear:

We are not well.

 

Despite what you might think or feel, we are not the enemy.

We are Messenger. We are Ally. We are a balancing force.

We are asking you:

To stop, to be still, to listen;

To move beyond your individual concerns and consider the concerns of all;

To be with your ignorance, to find your humility, to relinquish your thinking minds and travel deep into the mind of the heart;

 

To look up into the sky, streaked with fewer planes, and see it, to notice its condition: clear, smoky, smoggy, rainy? How much do you need it to be healthy so that you may also be healthy?

 

To look at a tree, and see it, to notice its condition: how does its health contribute to the health of the sky, to the air you need to be healthy?

 

To visit a river, and see it, to notice its condition: clear, clean, murky, polluted? How much do you need it to be healthy so that you may also be healthy?

 

How does its health contribute to the health of the tree, who contributes to the health of the sky, so that you may also be healthy?

 

Many are afraid now.

Do not demonize your fear, and also, do not let it rule you. Instead, let it speak to you—in your stillness, listen for its wisdom.

 

What might it be telling you about what is at work, at issue, at risk, beyond the threats of personal inconvenience and illness?

As the health of a tree, a river, the sky tells you about quality of your own health, what might the quality of your health tell you about the health of the rivers, the trees, the sky, and all of us who share this planet with you?

 

Stop.

Notice if you are resisting.

Notice what you are resisting.

Ask why.

 

Stop. Just stop..

Be still.

Listen.

 

Ask us what we might teach you about illness and healing, about what might be required so that all may be well.

 

We will help you, if you listen.

 

     ------ Kristin Flyntz

 

# # #

 

[And this poem, "Lockdown," is by Richard Hendrick, OFM --  a Franciscan friar. -- AW, ed.]

 

             Lockdown

 

Yes there is fear.

Yes there is isolation.

Yes there is panic buying.

Yes there is sickness.

 

Yes there is even death.

 

But,

They say that in Wuhan after so many years of noise You can hear the birds again.

They say that after just a few weeks of quiet The sky is no longer thick with fumes But blue and grey and clear.

They say that in the streets of Assisi

 

People are singing to each other across the empty squares, keeping their windows open so that those who are alone may hear the sounds of family around them.

They say that a hotel in the West of Ireland

Is offering free meals and delivery to the housebound.

Today a young woman I know is busy spreading fliers with her number through the neighbourhood

 

So that the elders may have someone to call on. Today Churches, Synagogues, Mosques and Temples

are preparing to welcome

and shelter the homeless, the sick, the weary

 

All over the world people are slowing down and reflecting

All over the world people are looking at their neighbours in a new way All over the world people are waking up to a new reality To how big we really are.

 

To how little control we really have.

To what really matters.

 

To Love.

So we pray and we remember that Yes there is fear.

But there does not have to be hate.

Yes there is isolation.

But there does not have to be loneliness.

 

Yes there is panic buying.

But there does not have to be meanness.

Yes there is sickness.

 

But there does not have to be disease of the soul

 

Yes there is even death.

But there can always be a rebirth of love.

 

Wake to the choices you make as to how to live now.

Today, breathe.

Listen, behind the factory noises of your panic

The birds are singing again

The sky is clearing,

 

Spring is coming,

And we are always encompassed by Love.

 

Open the windows of your soul And though you may not be able to touch across the empty square, Sing.

 

-------- Richard Hendrick, OFM