SOULCLIPSE

well, i will probably be off-line again for a while as i leave for turkey tomorrow for the soulclipse festival near antalya. don't worry, i will make sure to wear the special glasses this time round as i learnt my lesson from the last eclipse; no more retinal burns for me thanks, i already have my share.

see y'all on the other side of the Sun...

more books i have read recently

• The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
  
  
• The Restuarant at the End of the Universe by Douglas Adams
  
  
• Life the Universe and Everything by Douglas Adams
  
  
• The Quickening by Stuart Wilde
  
  
• The Age Entheogens & the Angel's Dictionary by Jonathan Ott
  
  

notes from glasgow

in a sky full of people only some want to fly,
ain't that crazy.

after the states nicole and i ended up back in the uk for a couple of months. as you know from my previous blog entry i didn't like london much, which is not to say that it is not great city, it just didn't gel with me. i have actually met a few folks from london on my travels and they too said that it is a cold city, especially when compared to other cities around the world, so i guess my experience was not entirely unique.

so with that on my mind we got out of there fast and ended up in glasgow for two months. the people there are great, and the city has a gotham city at the time of the industrial revolution kind of charm to it, with the weather doing a stellar job in adding to the gloomy atmosphere. it was also nice to be in a smaller city for a change where you could walk just about anywhere you needed to go.

one of the main lessons i learnt from glasgie-toon and the circumstances i found myself in there was that so many people seem adrift in the mire of a consumer life style. this is where i guess this post turns appropriately bleak given glasgow's gothic nature. (actually i am really fond of the town, my thoughts are based more on some of the observations i had while i was there). i ended up taking the first job that came along which happened to be doing office admin for a scottish provident. the job was basically processing life insurance surrenders, whoa!, glad thats over with. any way, the job gave me an insight into the life of so many people in middle management sectors through-out the first world. the mundane repetitveness of the role, the prevading sense of being hopeless trapped as no one seemed to believe they possesed the power to choose anything else. the job also made aspects of the films the matrix and fight club resonate more strongly experiencially.

coupled with this the fact that it was the time of the christmas frenzy where if people were not out shopping they were talking about what they will get when they do go shopping again. while walking around the city you felt as they you walking amongst a sea of automatons working for cash, to spend on useless items, to generate debt and to be force to continue work for the machine. (while i was there the song "cash machine" was on heavy rotation on the radio. now i don't doubt that there were people who were not caught up in this cycle of mindless economic compulsion but the dominant paradigm was (and is) that of the system.

my thoughts then turned to how if you could, would you wake these people up. the answer is that there is not really much chance, as they are likely to either rebel against the notion that they are slaves to consumer culture and say that they shop because they want to (of course it is that they 'want to' the question "what is driving them to 'want to'"), or they will admit that yes they are slaves but that there is nothing that they can do about it.

i think what brought these observations into sharper relief was the contrast of spending three months in northern california living in intentional communities, working on an organic farm and living off of the grid - coming from the prespective of the alternative approach to life in which day-to-day existence is fulfilling and rewarding; there is no empty dull ache or a faint notion that there might be something other. perhaps it is not really that bad, i guess it must not seem that way anyway when all we know is that which surrounds us, the ideas and beliefs which we have been taught to accept, i am reminded of the story of plato's cave. it might just be useful occassionally though if all of us extract ourselves from the immediacy of our present situation whatever that may be and observe ourselves obeserving, interacting and judging the world around us - it is the most confronting mirror we will ever face but one that can bring about tremendous change.

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oh and while in scotland to try the haggis it is fantastic. and if you are vegetarian like me or just a little put off by the assortment of goodies that maybe be lurking inside try the veggie haggis which is fairly readily available in organics shops and the like. it has become one of my favourite all time dishes and something i will have to learn how to make at home.

Psyche

If you can’t destroy it in a heart beat, it is not worth creating in the first place.

Some brief notes on Psyche – Burning Man 2005



Mmmmmmmm...

If there is one thing that was present in my mind about going to the Burning Man festival was,that no matter how much research, mental and physical preparation I did it would all fall way short of the mark –- nothing can prepare you for stepping into the collective imagining of 30,000 fringe dwellers of reality who gather to make Burning Man what it is. But first a little about getting there. It tooks us (a crew of 6) about 10 hour drive in an old half-loaf school bus from Northern California (NoCal), across the Sierra ranges near lake Tahoe down into Reno, Nevada where we stopped to pickup supplies. At this stop you could already feel the a change in the atmosphere, which was not just the dry desert air, as you start to notice vechiles and people who are most undoubtedly on the same pilgrims journey to Black Rock City and the open playa.



Me cleaning the windscreen of our ride to the burn

In the organic store we are already running into people who are heading to the festival including some other aussies who are going to be camping with us. With supplies loaded it is back on the road for another 3 to 4 hour run across the grand, propotion distorting desert landscapes of Nevada. As we roll on into the site at just as the sun ducks behind the near by ranges we bid farewell to any last remenants of the calm and lush surrounds of our camping spot in amongst the redwoods and racoons back in NoCal and bid welcome to the harsh physical reality of life on the playa salt flat; what we are told several times through out the week, is the second largest area of completely flat area of ground on earth.



Our Guide and councilor for the Burn

Some playa facts

Playa is the name for the stuff that makes up the salt flat at Black Rock City. It is extremely alkaline which means that it is hard on the skin. As such it is a good idea to bring quite a few oranges along as they make a great refreshing snack out in the heat, and when you are finsihed you can rub the peel on any bits of exposed skin (it is really good for hands and feet which tend to take most of the beating.)

What is playa?

One theory which is espoused quite frequently which seems most likely is that what you are walking on out there on the flat is pre-historic fish poop that had constitued the lake bed back when gaints reptiles used party in these parts.

When you arrive on-site, unspoilt areas of playa look like this,...



... but as more and more people arrive, the crusted fish poop gets ground into an extremely fine powder which has the propensity to get into absoltuley everything!



Ground up fish poop

Dust masks and googles are absolutey essential, as extreme winds whip up the powder and can cause what is known as a white out. This is when you happen to get in a dust storm (and it will happen) and your vision is suddenly completely wiped out and you are not able to see a foot in any direction. You have to stop where you are and rely on your instincts to get you out of the way of any passing arts cars or other trepaditious cyclists.

The arrival

When you get to the site you are greated by friendly rangers dressed (and undressed) in all sorts of atire, and you truely feel that you are at the gates of another dimesion or about to walk onto the the battle field with Tank Grrl.

Modes of Transport



As the crowds file into the Burning Man site the population of the site swells to over 30,000 people to become the third biggest city in Nevada. The physical site is several miles all round, and arranged into a semi-circle network of streets -- with the theme for 2005 being Psyche the names of some of the cross streets include, Biopolar, Catharsis, Delerium, Ego, Fetish, while the streets which run directly to the Man are named from begining with the first as 2 o’clock to 10 o’clock being the last – there is a street at each half hour (a bit confusing to explain but makes complete sesne once you are on-site like some many other things that are ordinarily not meant to make any sense at all). It takes about 20 minutes to cycle direct from on side of the site to the other (2:00 o’clock to 10 o’clock), that is of course if you can avoid being side tracked in one direction or another by a beckoning art work, intriguing workshop or being kidnapped by some other playa dwellers. (There was one fellow out there that was catching passing cyclists with a massive butterfly net.) As such, due the largeness of the site it is essential that you have some mode of transport while you are on the playa. Bicycles are great as the site is completely flat, by as the days roll by the playa does become more erroded which makes it a bit harder to pedal through some areas. (Also expect saddle sores if you haven’t riden a bicycle for awhile.)

Art cars are your second option, so if you have the time and money you could convert an golf bug, car or tour bus into a fish, snail, post-apocalypitic battle-ship or anything else that tickles your spirit. If you don’t have the money, time or resources to create an art and your saddle sore become a really pain in the arse, don’t dispare as art cars love to pick up hitch –hikers and it is really cool way to allow yourself to be taken for a ride to some random spots around the site. Also, travel by foot is not out of the question, just make sure that you have enough water with you. I did venture out on foot on a few occassional, including for a visionary experience across the fench line at the very edge of the festival site and on the night of the Burn.



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Some of the Artworks



The scale of everything is thrown out of proportionn at Burning Man,indeed it makes you reflect what and where you get your sense of proportion from any way as you come across a ...











a ten story metal ladded suspended by hightension wires on both sides which extends out of the emptiness of the playa into the nothingness of space.

Commerece

Bring goodies, drinks, trinkets, junkets, blankets, anklets, anything that might be regarded as good to trade as money won’t buy you much out on the playa where pretty well everything is run on the barter system – havign said that money can buy you a couple of things but maybe just an iced chai or other caffienated beverage from Center Camp.

Synchronicty, Sponaneity, Serendipity and Chaos



At first 9 days on a hot dusted salt flat seems an to be excessive amount of time, but it acually turns out to be too short as there is some much going on all of the time. You have a full schedule of workshops you can attend during the day and it is easy on paper to fill up your day but in reality you will probably miss half of what you want to see due to clashes or just getting swept along in a different direction or getting the address confused with the time of the workshop but it all works out magically. You will meet people and instantly find yourself talking about the most intense stuff and then get caught in a butter fly net by a mad scientist, stop at a bar and have a vodka/koolaid, get lost in the boonies, cruise around the playa and check out the art installations; enter the big gaint head just as another burner decides to test out its acoustic qualities in side the dome by demonstrating his Central Asian overtone singing skills sending absolute shivers up your spine with his Sygyte technique. You will be caught in dust storms, mental stupification (lets say due to the heat); spiritual tracendance (lets say also due to the heat) the good , the bad and the vile of port-a-potties; the surreal, the insane, the stupifying and all completely logical.





The Night of The Burn

'Cause I'm T.N.T. I'm dynamite
(T.N.T.) and I'll win the fight
(T.N.T.) I'm a power load
(T.N.T.) watch me explode (AC/DC)

The night of the Burn the is elecitricity in the air and people seem to be running around more frantically like ants right before a thunder storm. The environment takes on a majestic nature and the air feels much more still than usual as if anticapting the moment for a mighty release as the calm gives way to the storm.

The fire is massive!

Dust storms and whirl winds rip through.

Crowd in a frenzy.

And then all the art works get torched.

Street signs ripped down.



Noise, Choas and complete disorientation – it’s like being in the sea of nothingness in the yellow submarine, oh wait I think that was the yellow submarine.

Walked out to the ten story high ladder. Batteries on head lamp die. It is not fashion to glow and blink out here on the playa it is essential for survival with bicycles art cars and wonders wandering around in the dark.

As dawn approaches a calm rises over the site as the day of the temple burn approaches. The most spiritual day of the festival.



The Temple of Dreams

The Temple to Honor those who have passed.

For those parts of yourself which you want to lay to rest .

A sacred fire of transition.

Got real close to the flames, only a few feet away.

A forge for the soul in the primal light of the spirit.









The Temple of Dreams rising in the distance

After Burn

Burning man is such an extreme expereince in which every possible boundary can and is pushed. Your concept of what can constitute reality is completely transformed as you come face to face with the wildest imagining brought to life and as a result a widening of you imaginings. The event is so full that it is impossible to engage in everything you might want to, might no want to, might not kow you want to that it is something that calls you back despite the physical ordeal, financial outlay and the daunting trek. ... All of these things engendering it with the aspects of a pilgrimage, of trail-by-fire from which you emerge transformed – your soul drawn and forged anew from within the sacred flames of Burning Man.



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Check out the Burning Man image archive for 2005 here for over 1100 more images.

Freewill's destiny

This seems to be a perennial topic that they creeps up from time to time, and indeed often serves to divide the pragmatist self-determinists from the etheral-fated souls at times when people gather. Indeed there exists excellent and rather persuasive rhetoric in both camps, but a final outcome seems elusive as opposing sides agree to disagree. And often times individuals find theselves being persuading back and forth from one view to the other as arguments and experiences validate and undermine both beliefs from time to time. All in all it is seems to be an entertaining but something of pointless topic of discussion which can be reverted to when the conversation seems to run out of places to go and/or when the chips are down (or up). But what value can it offer us as a means to help us make sense of this existance as is perhaps the essential underlying principle of this subject.

Someone I met recently mentioned something which triggered a phase shift in my perspective of the argument. The person said in passing on in regrards to a different subject "...that, i don’t think of it as destiny, but we all have a program..." It was this short fragment of a sentence, spoken in relation to a trivial topic which cleared the fog for me, as it brought together some of the ideas which I was already familiar with into a new and sharper relief.

What I saw in this phrase was that, yes we do all have programs, this is indeed a recognized notion that from birth we are programmed to behave, perceive and think in particular ways. Think for example of the classic example of a child who watches fire for the first time, how fascinating and delightful seem the flames, but as the child reaches out for the fire one of two things are likely to happen. Either they feel the stinging reprimand of their parent as they slap their childs hand away to protect it from the fire or they feel the sting of the of the flames. One way or the other the lesson is learned and the association has been changed. Fire the enchanting plaything is now a bringer of pain (whether physical or emotional) – nothing new here, psychology has called this imprinting and the less permanent associations which are created classical conditioning. There are thousands even millions of such programs which exist in all of us with out our being aware of them. Racism is one such program, so too is fear of new technology, a love for the mountains as opposed to the sea, hating to fly and what we choose to eat. As our collection of programs become greater and more dominant we can then see them being expressed through what we call character and personality traits, he is a vegetarian, she never leaves the house without full make-up, and she is a risk taker; he always plays the fool. And it is through examining these so called expressions of the self more closely that we can begin to become aware of where the nature of ourselves, the choices we make and the actions that we take stem from, and in this state of potential tranparency we see that maybe what we thought was an expression of our free will was not quite what we imagined it to be.

At the sophisticated end of the programming matrix you have of course language. Language is wonderful as it provides us with the ability to communicate our inner reality with others, all acheived with a fairly large degree of success. One other thing that it does is to provide us with a frame work with which to structure our thoughts – it is the means through which we create mental formula which can then be translated in to actuality. From, “Maybe I will wear my red pants today“ to “I think that we should incorporate lime-crete in the design of this school building.“ it is through our programming language that we structure and realise our intentions, but language also plays an intricate part in the structuring of our reality.

“I can’t go out like this, everyone else will be all dressed up"

“I can’t live without (insert your vice of choice)“ or

“I always get lost in this part of town“,

These are all trivial examples, yet everytime these phrases course through the brain they strengthen a neural pathway which reaffirms the expressed notion and the stronger the particular neural pathway becomes the more this thought becomes expressed in reality. What we think and more importantly what we verbalise have potentially massive implications on our true freedom – in using the phrase "true freedom" I aim to differentiate it from what might be called perceived freedom. For example, the perceived freedom to choose between pizza, fried kitchen and a burger is not necessarily exercising true freedom of choice as one is still captured within a limited framework of choices of fast-foods as limited by your particular collection of programs which dictate how we veiw the acquisition of nurishment.

In essence then it is the sum of our programs which results in a reality arc of potential outcomes which are prodominantly within our field of expectations whether these expectations be couscious or sub-conscious. So as a result when certain events (or eventualities) come to pass they seem to possess a strong sense of synergy to us (i.e. to our programming) in such a way as to make it seem as though the event was something that was destined to happen.

"I knew that I was meant to get that job."

"Who would have though I would have met that person at that club on that night."

"I knew I would get caught drink driving.

Okay, in an infinite universe there are an infinite possible outcomes, but save force majeure (the unforseeable acts of God) this infinite number of possiblities is limited to a much smaller range of possiblities by our collection of programs. Think for example of what you expect of your life and future. Is it to settle down, buy a house, raise a family? Is this your idea or something that has been implanted along the way? Think then of how this program is expressed in your everyday life, this might include the type of job you currently have or hope to get, the types of leisure activies you engage in (clubs you go to), the types of purchases you make (music, clothes, electronics). I am not making a qualitive judge here on this program, but I cite it as a means to illustrate to what extent we are programmed, how ingrained the programming is as to render it invisible to the conscious mind.

Well, it looks like there goes freewill, destiny seems to rein but has lost most of its charm in this treatment and doesn’t seem like a much better outcome.

Well that is not quite the case. The brain is capable of great mutablity as it is constantly processing new data, however we as the users of the brain can become stagnant in our thinking and as such utilize only a small portion of our total network potential, it is like having a computer system loaded with every software application program available and only using Notepad. Once an individual examines their psyche and starts to become aware of their programming then they suddenly find that they have the power to start re-programming their mind. You can now examine your mind and decide what works best, and maybe develop these programs further thus making them more efficient. Eliminating unwanted program; this is essentially what happens when people give up smoking or become vegatarian, however being aware of what is going on at the deeper level can greatly advance the process and potentially render it more successful. And develop new programs for anything else that you care to focus your will towards. Meta-programming is not necessarily something new to us as a species, how ever with the advent of the computer it has allowed the notion to be placed with in a new analogical framework which perhaps makes the concepts easier to grasp. You will find references to such notions in oriental and occidental esoterics writings like Buddhism, Taoism and Hinduism, Druidism, Gnosticism and Alchemy, and that possibly most ancient expression of meta-programming, Shamanism.


These ramblings have been inspired by conversations had, articles read, strange encounters and the episode of Futurama.

I guess reality is what you make of it.

Futurama episode from season 4 titled Obsoletely Fabulous
July 27, 2003

For more on the topic check out:

Look up the articleCulture and the Individual by Aldous Huxley

John C Lilly

The works of Robert Anton WIlson

Buddhism and the Concept of Maya

Phillip K Dick - Valis

Transmigration

Gnosticism

Meta-Programming

Godel, Escher and Bach

Mindfullness

Ode to Mendo

Sitting here in Mendo

Waiting for the tide to turn.

Yeah, now, sitting here in Mendo,

So many things I've got to learn.

Meanwhile, they're putting up a resistance,

But I know that my faith will lead me on.


Sitting here in Mendo

Waiting for the dice to roll.

Yeah, now, sitting here in Mendo,

Still got some time to search my soul.

Meanwhile, they're putting up a resistance,

But I know that my faith will lead me on.


I don't know where life will take me,

But I know where I have been.

I don't know what life will show me,

But I know what I have seen.

Tried my hand at the burn but never made it to the spring,

I may yet do it another time round

But for now I find myself on other ground.


Gonna lead me on now.

Meanwhile, they're putting up resistance,

But I know that my faith will lead me on.

Sitting in Mendo, Mendo, Mendo.

Sitting in Mendo, Mendo, Mendo.

Sitting in Mendo, Mendo, Mendo.

Meanwhile, they're putting up a resistance,

But I know that my faith will lead me on.



Lyrics adapted for the Song "Sitting in Limbo" by Jimmy Cliff

This track as covered by Willie Nelson brings back memories of farm life and the coming of fall. Good friends and harvest fires. Peace.