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Friday, February 5th, 2010
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Tuesday, February 2nd, 2010
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Friday, January 22nd, 2010
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10am-4pmish, Saturday, January 23rd, 2010
607 Fletcher St.
Austin, TX 78704
Expect music, dancing & etc. but def. BYOB.
It's mah birfday, so *you're* buying ME drinks, ok?!!!
We have quite a bizarre collection of stuff to flense.
Out with the old, in with the new!
Let the Feng Shui flow freely, again...
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"The Vodou ceremony generally considered to mark the start of the Haitian Revolution was a ceremony held at a place called 'Bois Caiman,' French for 'Alligator Woods.' This is the event which right-wing Protestant evangelicals have chosen to calumniate as a 'pact with the devil.'"
Here is a much more accurately balanced account of events preceding the Haitian Revolution...
http://www.rootswithoutend.org/haiti.php
NPR had the decency to run a human-inerest article about Vodou, which ended up ejecting me out of my virtual cave to write this post:
"Voodoo Brings Solace To Grieving Haitians," by Barbara Bradley Hagerty
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=122770590&ps=cprs
And contemplating the words of one of the Haitians interviewed in that article who "believes the spirits are angry with how Haitians have denuded the forests and mistreated the Earth," I am inclined to suggest that people keep in mind the moral of the film Avatar... which I tend to view from a similar perspective to that of Erik Davis [Like the Vine of Souls (aka Ayauasca/Cohoba/Kohhobba/etc.) now wending its way through the developed world, the Tree of Souls (from Avatar) becomes a kind of bio-mystical media, a visionary communications matrix that uplinks the souls of the dead and the network mind of the ecosphere itself]:
http://www.techgnosis.com/chunks.php?cat=watching&sec=journal&file=chunkfrom-2010-01-06-2204-0.txt
Ironically, I came across a military perspective on Haitian disaster relief, earlier this evening...
Haiti: The Logistics of Relief Efforts by STRATFOR: Global Intelligence
http://www.stratfor.com/memberships/152679/analysis/20100121_haiti_logistics_relief_efforts
(if you give them your email, they will email you a copy)
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My knowledge of Haiti has mostly been gleaned through Vodou...
( Here are some of my recommended resources for beginning to learn about Vodou online: )
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I will eventually post some photos of the veves I contributed to the Fire of Fires temple @ Burning Man, this year:
http://www.gigapan.org/gigapans/33671/
there's a snapshot of the veve for Erzulie Freda here...
http://www.gigapan.org/snapshots/118759-90x60.jpg
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And if you haven't seen the musical Tesla coils, yet...
Arc Attack is doing an Austin benefit for Haiti!
(which will be filmed for a feature in an upcoming episode of the German TV program Galileo)
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=260271369669
Proceeds will go to Burners Without Borders relief efforts in Haiti
http://www.burnerswithoutborders.org/haiti-get-involved
Donations will also be accepted on-site
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Thursday, January 7th, 2010
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anybody have a windows xp professional setup cd handy that i could use to recover a system that will not even boot into safe mode?
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Saturday, January 2nd, 2010
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we have space for another person (or a couple)...
contact me ASAP for more details!
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Thursday, December 17th, 2009
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Wednesday, December 16th, 2009
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The Witch of Portobello:on a spiritual quest/for love/for truth/but was the world ready for her revelations?
Last night, I started watching The Experimental Witch Videos
"I believe @keithpp explains better than my page _The Experimental Witch,_" stated by Paulo Coelho on twitter 24 hours before the Rome premier of the film he inspired to be created through new media.
Also this evening, I discovered Dr. Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian @ the Criminology Institute of the Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian Hebrew University of Jerusalem... whose fields of interest include: women, law and social control; women, the military, and violence; rights and identity of children and women in areas of conflict; and policing family violence.
Checkpoints and Counter Spaces
Indeed, we are living in crucial times... Neda Agha Soltan's family have continued to make clear accusations that Iranian gov't security forces are solely to blame for the death of their daughter
And in my continuing to feel the even more recent absence of yet another particularly enigmatic & ethereal being whom I felt like I never knew as well as I had wished (I was often too shy to talk with her, even though we certainly danced at the same times, and both contributed to the construction of many of the same sacred spaces), I have to wonder if there is more that I can take away from this experience... other than to cherish every moment with the people whom I love, as if it were our last? Our LA & Austin extended family communities were finally able to celebrate the life of Andrea Burden, this past weekend. And Lucent Dossier posted another heartfelt tribute to her, entitled "Be Kinder..."
This is a sentiment which always leads me to contemplate PKD's cyber-gnostic philosophy of compassion:
"It's not what you look like, or what planet you were born on. It's how kind you are."
Paulo Coelho often references that "God has a masculine and a feminine face, rigor and compassion." This is a common theme in esoteric doctrines throughout human experience. Although many dominant religions have forgotten about the divine feminine, she is beginning to reveal herself again!
However, at the same time that I am embracing the cosmos with love, I am also returning to the rigors of discipline in my daily life... I seem to get more out of my life when I not only honor the cosmic bliss of the eternal now, but also celebrate the ceremonies of the ancients!
So, on that dark note, here's a deep lecture about the philosophy of the 1974 Pulitzer Prize winning author, Ernest Becker... from Professor Sheldon Solomon, for which he suggests a mash-up title, "The Structure of Evil: History is a Nightmare from Which I am Trying to Awaken."
You can also download the entire transcript, but here's a profound summary of one or two of Becker's main points that I feel is particularly pertinent to this discussion:
"All right, well his argument is as follows, as articulated in the _Escape from Evil_ book. What he says is, 'Look, no matter how powerful and convincing your culture is, it is ultimately a symbol. All cultural constructs are symbolic, they’re human creations; however, death is a very real, physical phenomenon.' And the point that Becker makes very simply is that no symbol, regardless of its power or potency, will ever be sufficient to overcome the physical reality of death. It’s like mixing apples and oranges.
Consequently, and I’ve got to degenerate into some psychoanalytical language, which is probably okay for some, less so for others, what Becker says, again borrowing from William James, he says, 'You know what, therefore no matter how good your culture is or how much you believe in it, there’s always going to be some residual anxiety about death.' And you’re not aware of that, he claims, because that anxiety is repressed.
And then, using Freud’s ideas, what Becker says is that repressed anxiety is projected onto another group of individuals, either inside or outside of your culture, that you designate as the all-encompassing repository of evil, the eradication of which would make life on Earth as it is in heaven. He calls them scapegoats, and I think we’re familiar with them; they’re either in-house or external ones. Either way, Becker says, we’ve got a problem; either you run into people that are different and that’s a problem, or you declare somebody to be different and that’s a problem. Because what Becker then goes on to do, borrowing very heavily from some sociologists that we’re very fond of, Peter Berger and Thomas Luckmann in a book called _The Social Construction of Reality,_ what Becker does following Berger and Luckmann is to talk about the psychological processes that are instigated when people encounter others who do not share their beliefs, or encounter somebody who they have designated as different."
Regarding this scenario, I have always been a proponent of libertine philosophy in one form or another... and I particularly enjoy Frank Herbert's maxim known as the sign of profound accord:
"We are here to remove a primary weapon from the hands of disputant religions. That weapon--the claim to possession of the one and only revelation."
To conclude, I must offer one more quote from Prof. Solomon's lecture:
"Becker also insists that there’s got to be a religious dimension to any serious effort to improve the human condition. He basically said, 'You know what, there’s no way that we’re going to get out of this without dabbling in religion broadly defined.' One of my favorite Becker quotes in The Denial of Death is that 'Psychology can only take you so far, at which time it drops you directly on the doorstep of religion.'
Well what does he mean by that? His point very simply is that every one of us, whether we liked it or not, just to get up in the morning we have to believe things about reality. Every one of us has beliefs about reality. They may be religious, they may be secular, but every one of us has beliefs about reality. And if we’re honest with ourselves, there’s no way that those beliefs about reality can ever be unambiguously confirmed."
In my first reading of The Denial of Death, 20-odd years ago; I confirmed that there is something extremely valuable in ritually re-enacting the heroic stories of our ancestors (what Joseph Campbell would have referred to as ceremonial celebrations of The Monomyth) that seem to in some way account for some sort of need in this unconscious/a-rational/spiritual facet of our existence... journeying down into the underworld and up into the divine realms, or simply going outside & beyond our normal experience in order to bring back some sort of gnosis that can benefit ourselves & our people (whether or not they are ready for it, like in Plato's allegory of the cave)... and in fact, I would like to even suggest that the ultimate myths are those which benefit ALL people... for whatever different lives we may lead, we all have one thing in common... "When we have shuffle'd off this mortall coile"
In this vein, I have always been fascinated with shadow-work... whether by one microcosmic way or another macrocosmic way (however devolved)?!!! So, perhaps it's no wonder that I am curious about things like Terror management theory?
And if you prefer the graphic novel (aka "comic") medium... check out "Reapy: The Littlest Harbinger of Death!"
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Thursday, December 10th, 2009
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Sunday, December 6th, 2009
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another star has ascended:
http://www.andreaburden.net/
she was always such a compassionate soul, and with such a talented connection between her eye & her hand... indeed, she created much to celebrate unto the artifice of eternity!
although we will miss her dearly, we can still appreciate her contributions to The Great Work, and she will live on in our hearts, minds, and in our spirit.
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Saturday, November 28th, 2009
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today, i was researching allegory & Visual-Auditory-Kinesthetic communications, which i first learned about through Robert Anton Wilson & studying NLP, EFT, & Hypnosis Techniques.
then, i found a page concerning "perception-space, perception war, and perception operations (perceived-effects)-based operations"
- from The Cyberspace and Information Operations Study Center @ Air University: "The intellectual and leadership center of the Air Force. We produce the future."
and i suddenly remembered that i still haven't read The Coming Insurrection
a number of my friends went to visit relatives in Laredo, this weekend; and i decided to stay home to feed the cats & chickens.
although, speaking of hot spots of paramilitary combat... as i said previously this year regarding the Texas-Mexico border situation, i tend to prefer the serenity of the venus project to the extremes of armed revolution & martial law
can't we all just get along?
meanwhile... "would you like to play a game?"
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we were talking about the orang asli, who were fortunate enough to be able to maintain their lives in paradise, until recently.
their plight is a perfect example of "Yali's Question" outlined in guns, germs, & steel (wow, the pbs video is on youtube... & the book should be required reading before college!)
much of what the modern mind knows of war is from a patriarchal perspective (although the winds of change are blowing)... not that matriarchal societies haven't ever condoned violence or war... au contraire!
but i do think that there are often (sometimes, but not always) extremely different motivations for men & women to become violent.
for instance, when one of my friends was taking a criminal justice class, years ago; she told me that statistically, men kill women most often in the bedroom, and women kill men most often in the kitchen.
surprised?
not so much, eh?
still, i try not to overgeneralize about gender & sexuality... they are such complex & often paradoxical subjects, which makes them all the more fun to explore! ;~})>
but here's a compelling argument which directly relates to your topic:
Why Women Should Rule The World
recently, i have repeatedly pointed out another issue related to the enculturation of violence & war...
MAPS is studying whether MDMA-assisted psychotherapy has the potential to heal traumas caused by sexual assault, war, violent crime, and other causes.
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i originally posted this as a response to one of mordwen's entries about women in the military from a year ago (with apologies for the tardiness of my reply).
i am trying to fix some bugs that i have found in communication between my blogs & i thought that i would re-post it here in my journal to see if the system is working, now. it seems that twitterfeed all of the sudden decided that i needed to re-authenticate with my Username & Password: GRRRRR! at the same time that i had posted an lj entry with a weird timestamp, so it wouldn't forward to facebook: ARGH! ...Well, everything should be fixed, now: <sigh>
...or not?
ADDENDUM:
it seems that this sort of thing can sometimes be fixed by deleting & re-creating the feed
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recently, i saw _Where The Wild Things Are_
...and i cried waterfalls throughout the entire film.
it is one of those rare gems that i will treasure alongside the book that inspired its creation.
many people have been disturbed by this film's quasi-traumatic intensity; so much so that even wikipedia points out:
...The movie's release generated conflicting views over whether it is harmful to expose children to frightening scenes. In an interview with Newsweek, Sendak felt that parents who deemed the film's content to be too disturbing for children should "go to hell. That's a question I will not tolerate" and he further noted "I saw the most horrendous movies that were unfit for child's eyes. So what? I managed to survive."
i understand and sympathize with the many comments about how the film is not entirely appropriate for all young children.
i particularly do not approve of Max running outside of the house for his cathartic journey: in the book, after he throws his tantrum, he is sent to his room to get himself under control; and when he calms down, he gets to come back & have dinner (including chocolate cake for desert, which is included in the film, at least).
the film does have multiple levels of amazing macrocosmic & microcosmic art design (from the cyclopaean fort that they build together, down to the miniature fantasy world in the cave).
i always loved the monster muppets (alice cooper on the muppet show was probably the pinnacle of artistic accomplishment in the medium of television) and the way that all of the monsters in this film speak their lines as if they are voices in max's psyche is just phenomenal!
i should mention that some people have suggested to me that this film has a more profound effect on those people who have anger issues, or have been affected by people who have anger issues in their lives... i have found some resonance for this idea, but i think the jury is still out deliberating that question.
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meanwhile, here are some other curiousities that i found while researching the development of the film:
Francis Spufford suggests that the book is "one of the very few picture books to make an entirely deliberate, and beautiful, use of the psychoanalytic story of anger".
Bill Moyers and Maurice Sendak discuss the inspiration behind "Where the Wild Things Are" and where mischievous Max might be today.
We Love You So - Where The Wild Things Are Final Fort Submissions
Where The Wild Things Are, Art Director Sonny Gerasimowicz, and The Film as a Movement
Straight for the art: Vice's Where the Wild Things Are tribute gallery
The Wild Things Don't Really Love You
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i find myself contemplating other collossal-scale wicker-like art projects, too...
Patrick Dougherty
ashes, ashes... we all fall down! (including thoughts relative to the belgian waffle)
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finally, concerning anger in general... i have always been rather fond of this buddhist allegory: A Bag of Nails
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Friday, November 27th, 2009
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Monday, November 23rd, 2009
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Thursday, November 19th, 2009
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Wednesday, November 18th, 2009
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without further aidieu, i bring you...
The Robotech UN PSA mashup with the Smurfs Unicef PSA (with all due respect to the original creators, and "Darkwater" from youtube):
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U.N. Landmine Removal Commercial, which saw no air time because of its 'contraversial' content:
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Do we need cartoon characters and tear-jerker scenarios pandering to soccer moms for people wake up & recognize what caused this economic crisis?
House Representative Henry A. Waxman (D. CA) interviewing Alan Greenspan during 10/28/08 Congressional hearing:
Greenspan’s Mea Culpa, by David Leonhardt
The Corporate Fallacy, by Noel Pearson
"Since the nineteenth century, when corporations were first anthropomorphised and granted the legal personality of human beings, we have come to assume that they possess the kind of self-interest that Alan Greenspan was banking on, the kind that would ensure they would not risk their own extinction as corporate entities. But a corporation is merely a collection of contracts between humans, whose individual interests are the true self-interests within the corporation. And in recent times, the decisive interests of the managers have become disconnected from the interests of the company and its shareholders."
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THE CU CHI TUNNELS: A Documentary of the Vietnam War, as recounted by the Viet Cong
obviously, one cannot conduct "just war" without an ethical authority... and especially not against an underdog who is using Sun Tzu's Art of War as their handbook, and who is also willing to live in an underground civilization until they triumph!
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lately, my dreams have been haunted by the concept a "just world"
most recently, my maternal grandfather was crying on my shoulder, literally calling for his "mommy!"
the most obvious macrocosmic situation (outside of our immediate family dynamics) that i could relate this to was...
( Robert McNamara's 'about-face' concerning his bungled Vietnam strategy & the obvious correlation to Afganistan )
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As the health care debates continue & the troops keep marching on... I wonder, is there middle way between the the unfortunately often absolute apathy of the vulgar form of gov't (by which i believe societies tend to operate, ultimately... please help create an alternative?) & the sometimes perhaps unrealistically idealistic ethos of kindness (that i wish to engender among our communities, by whatever means necessary)?
An old friend & I had spoken at length about this, and he asked me how I thought that people would continue to treat each other with such compassion without the influence of role models such as the philosopher king?
I have often contemplated the pros & cons of the creation and inevitable dissolution of cults of personality...
And another of my trusted counselors brought up the famous example of Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus
"His immediate resignation of his absolute authority with the end of the crisis has often been cited as an example of outstanding leadership, service to the greater good, civic virtue, and modesty..."
(In the Paradiso, Dante used Cincinnatus as an example of an ethical citizen.)
"...George Washington was often compared to Cincinnatus for his willingness to give up near-absolute power once the crisis of the American Revolution had passed and victory had been won"
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( on that note, i started relating more to my paternal grandmother's side of the family... )
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Meanwhile, I'm going to have to reinterpret my concept of the bonobo methods of conflict resolution, according to some data that I recently discovered.
My first thought is that even the Orang Asli are hunters... they just don't hunt humans (although they have recently realized that they have to defend their territory from foreign aggressors, and at least the Islamic courts in Malaysia have defended them, as an example to the world for how indigenous people's sovereignty rights must be protected!)
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And although my last reference to enlightened absolutism does also remind me of the dark side of the philosopher king, I will also continue to support & encourage those rebels who contribute to The Great Work... in spite of the odds against them!
In this video, Terence McKenna points out the essential similarities between Alchemy & Shamanism, including synergetic reverence for Gaia:
The Alchemical Dream Rebirth of the Great Work
As a final note, I was looking for an Arabic reference for The Great Work, and besides references to Rumi & Sufism, I also found this transliteration: al-'amal al-a'zam!
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Friday, November 13th, 2009
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Sunday, November 1st, 2009
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you can help me move into a new home, tonight &/or tomorrow night... i promise it will be lots of fun!
call me anytime @ 512-573-6470 for further details.
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aethyrflux's journal
