Introduction: Now And Zen The Story.

 

Let me tell you a story.  A story of wonder and fantasy, one where reality gives way and lets those things happen that are impossible and improbable, but exist non the less.  I will weave this tale in a shroud of fiction intermingled with fact.  It will be up to you the reader to determine which is which.  What is the truth verses the story.  Then you will have the tools to find your own story.

I will beg your forgiveness in advance if I write any words or ideas that push upon your belief structures or poke at your sensibilities making you feel uncomfortable or possibly mad as hell.  For this I apologize, sort of.  You might just be suffering from the twinges of truth tickling your inerts, deal with it.

I will use this blog to introduce this story.  Each day or so, I will write another short chapter or section  and let you judge; but be prepared, for as the saying goes, "beyond this door lies madness, and once that door is opened there is no going back."  This is the wonder of the journey.  Hang on and enjoy...

There is an old Chinese Curse that says, "May you live in interesting times." 

Peace and Balance,

John

  

Vision Quest.

 Four days and four nights one sits alone on the summit of a chosen mountain waiting for a vision to come.  An animal to approach who is not an animal, but a harbinger of a message for only the one who waits.  A message that can change forever the course of the one who waits life, and death.

The waiting itself is not painless not peril-less, but a potential journey of danger and agony.  A spiritual trek that is designed to introduce the questor to their own potential and inevitable deaths.  The path teaches the seeker the truth about his/her end, which is the beginning.  This is the death and rebirth of the Shaman. 

It seems that walking to the top of a chosen mountain with nothing but a question and hope with the knowledge that survival may not be the highest reward, sounds a little insane.  But without this lack of sanity for this quest there can be no gift of power, only dark death.

At times one carries the quest, the vision, and the gift with themselves from one lifetime to the next and the next and so forth throughout the passage of time.  These people are the Bodhisattvas, the teachers of teachers.  Those who build the foundations of truth.

One who chooses the quest must prepare.  Become emotionally and spiritually ready for the journey.  Beyond this door awaits madness.  If ready then the answers will be given and the lessons learned, if not death and a lifetime of mental illness is equally willing to gain control.  The vision matters not for the stability of the seeker, only that it has been given.  

Four days and four nights one sits alone on the summit of a chosen mountain waiting for a vision to come.  Who will approach, the Bear, the Eagle, the Buffalo, or the Wolf, which direction will be followed?  Will any approach, the vision waits for all who seek.  Pass on the truth, teach your children well, and look ahead to glad tidings, Fear nothing.

Peace and Balance,

John

What Is The Shaman?

 

For thousands of years various cultures and societies world wide have had that one individual who would separate themselves from the majority in order to best serve.  These people are given a title, a name with which the rest can identify the individual as a spiritual leader, healer, or intermediary who can interact with the spirit world either through an altered state of consciousness or direct communication in order to address the needs of the community.  These people are the worlds Shaman. 

Regardless of the culture or linguistic group there are several key elements that are common for Shaman world wide.   First the word shaman itself comes from the indigenous peoples of Siberia it is now associated with different cultures of the world including, South America, Africa, Asia, and North America. Over time these practices have woven themselves into the local customs and beliefs creating a rich tapestry of shamanic traditions.  Some of these elements are:

1. The existence of the Shaman, the central figure in shamanistic practices who is considered the guide, healer, or spiritual leader with the ability to communicate with spirits, ancestors, animals, or other supernatural entities acting as a bridge between the physical and spiritual world. 

2. The ability to enter an altered state of consciousness.  Using various techniques the shaman alters his/her consciousness in order to travel the spirit world to receive guidance, healing, or knowledge.  

3. Shamanism is generally considered a nature based practice.  Believing that all beings are connected through nature.  All beings posses spirit energies that can be connected with and honored as a source of wisdom and power.

4. One of the primary roles of the shaman is as a healer.  To heal individuals and communities of physical, emotional, or spiritual elements by using various techniques such as herbal medicine, energy work, and soul retrieval in order to restore balance and well-being. 

5. Shaman use the assistance of spirit guides and allies in the form of power animals, ancestors, or spiritual beings to assist them on their journeys and provide wisdom and protection. 

6. Most shamanistic practices include ceremonies and rituals that help connect the community with the healing.  Each society and culture will have it's own ceremony or ritualistic practices. 

7. Shamanistic practices are deeply connected in communal and community life and shamans play a crucial role in maintaining social cohesion and resolving conflict by maintaining ancestral connection for seeking wisdom and guidance. 

It is important to note that Shamanism varies greatly across different cultures, regions, and the beliefs practiced in each. While the word shamanism is originally from the indigenous people of Siberia it is now a culturally accepted term used world wide to describe these traditions and beliefs with many of the same goals and practices that bind us all together.

Peace and Balance,

John      

The Universe and Cosmic Prayer

 

Sometimes we pray, sometimes we talk, sometimes we just sit and stare at the sky.  When there is a calling, whatever is called for comes in a manner that may or may not be predetermined by the Cosmos.  We, either by plan or by fate, ask for and beseech the universe for its help in healing the whole often through the one.  

It is the intention that when energies are collected they be sent to the whole and focused on the one.  That is, that universal energies are sent to those who need healing with the great thanks of those doing the asking.  

Sounds all very convoluted, but intention is everything, and attention is crucial.  Your mind, as my mind, is part of the universal mind.  So when you focus on a thing the universe focuses on a thing.  When you think of a thing the universe thinks of that thing.  When you ask a question, the universe answers that question.   

If I say out loud that something will be done, and I believe it will be done with my entire being, then it will be done.  Thy Will Be Done.

Sometimes we Pray, Sometimes we Speak, Sometimes we sit and Intention travels skyward.  Belief in the Self, the Universe, and God will make it So.  Mitakuye Oyatsin Hetchetu Yelo, HO,  So Mote It Be, Amen.

Peace and Balance,

John                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             

The Dream Of Life - Alan Watts

Red Shadow Singers - Eagle Song

Power, The Circulation of Qi.

 Power does not come through physicality.  Power does not come through spirituality.  Power does not stand alone.  Power does not stand or exist without duality.  Power is a combination of forces that encompass the whole.  Many facets acting as one unit blended together in balance is the root of power.  

Power has roots that draw from both the Yin and Yang simultaneously. If we breath in the nose we are drawing in the Qi through our in breath.  As we breath in we are moving outwardly physically through the middle body, classically called man, (men) the home of the internal structure of the body.  We breath in the Qi and expand as the Qi circulates and the power escapes.  In reverse we breath out and the Qi escapes through the nostrils and mouth as it is drawn in through the center body and leaves.  This is Breathing, the drawing in of Qi (Breath) and the Breathing out of Qi.  

Also, we are rooted to the Earth through the feet and lower body, (Earth) classically.  We grip with our feet and legs drawing the electromagnetic energy and gravity up into the body as we raise our arms and the Electromagnetic Qi escapes through the top of the Head, Heaven in classical Taiji.  

Now we have a four directional drawing in of Qi and pushing out of Qi.  In and out the nostrils, in and out the middle body (men), drawn up through the roots of the feet and legs and pushed out the crown of the head in and out again.  This is a collective of pulling energies into and out of the physical body.

Pulling the arms back and forth from side to side circulate the Qi from right to left and back again as we create a circulation of energies creating a sphere of Qi around and enveloping the body while rooting in our feet, raising through our head crown, flowing in and out the nostrils and circulating through the men. We now have a complete sphere of circulating Qi around our complete being connecting us with the environment and the wholistic world. This becomes Spiritual in nature and Transends all physical things blending with the stuff of the multiverse. 

Power is this, not this, all of this, none of this, and everything.  Power just is, the process above is our awareness of Our Power.

Peace and Balance,

John   

Kings of Jerusalem

 

Baldwin IV the Great King of Jerusalem had a Great Enemy, and Great Friend in Saladin the King of Syria.  It was agreed that Jerusalem would be a place of worship for both Muslim, and Christian during this the last Crusade.  Baldwin had a personal army in the Order of Saint Lazarus, a military order of priest knights that are often confused with Templars.  These holy knights took an oath only to the King of Jerusalem himself.  They were the army of Jerusalem.  

Yusuf ibn Ayyub ibn Shadi known as Great Saladin, was the founder of the Ayyubid Dynasty, was a Kurdish King and the first Sultan of both Egypt and Syria.  During his reign it can be said that he commanded the greatest army in the known world.  

Saladin lived under the impression that he was working through and for the hand of Allah.  He eventually attacked and took Jerusalem back from the Romanized Catholics after the death of Baldwin.  His intent was to cleanse Jerusalem of the evil that had taken hold of the city, not to conquer a city in his name.  But to protect it's people in the name of Allah.  He was upholding Baldwin of Jerusalem's wishes.  

Like Baldwin, Saladin had enemies within his own camp, he was quicker to respond and quelch any rebellion that would rise against him before it was started.  It can also be stated that he had a larger force of followers.  It seems Christianity from it's inception always had political difficulties from within it's own state.  A malady that would make holding onto Jerusalem eventually impossible.  

Saladin, and Baldwin were Great friends, Brothers of Spirit, and Great Enemies and at the end of Baldwin the Lepers life, the Great Saladin stepped in to uphold his Brother's final wishes, to protect Jerusalem for the people.  

Peace and Balance,

John 

The Re-explanation.

 If you read the last post you will notice that it reads much like a dusty dry textbook.  That's what happens when I write about things using my logical mind, (Gnos) I get dusty.  So, I will attempt to explain that mundane tired explanation of natural forces using words that I can understand myself.  If I understand a thing, chances are you're going to understand a thing.  

In the beginning of all things that is an energy.  This energy goes through a process of change before we get to a point that can classically be called the Beginning.  The energy changes from Nothingness, to somethingness with a period of utter Chaos in the middle.  This chaos it the nothingness collecting into the Somethingness.  The Chaos swirls, explodes, expands and contracts, blows in and out greater than any hurricane, then finely compacts and quiets into the Something.  That is the beginning, before that we don't count because, just because.  

This something compacts smaller and smaller until it is at the point of a microcosm.  Then there is a short burst of energy.  This energy became self aware, and at the point of self awareness knew all things that was to know and expanded instantly to the rest of the universe.  We'll call this the Big Boom.  I'd call it the Big Bang, but some of you might take that wrong and I'd be stuck explaining the nature of things and we haven't gotten to birds  and bees yet.  

Anywho, the Big Boom happened and all of creation was born in a relative instant.  That was between 13 trillion and 16 trillion years ago on our mundane calendar.  After all there really is no time.  

Ok, I'm going to skip ahead a few trillion years to the birth of humankind.  As we developed the original process of the I Am, that's the self aware thing waking up, took shape into a dusty critter we will call people.  And in this critter a thought was formed with an intention, we will call this the mind, or (Gnos). Greek for Mind.  Gnostic means, the study of the Mind.  Get it?  

Our minds started exploring and we personified all of the creation around us.  We gave human attributes to the forces of nature, our first angels.  We gave human thought to the animals around us.  The Sephia or Animal mind. Sephia can also be translated as Sophia the spirit.  We split our thoughts between our imagination and physical reality.  The God, and Goddess were born and from them all other things are created.  Because this is how we related to our universal creation, now we're back the the birds and bees.  They do exist at this point, but I'm not going to explain things to you that you'll eventually figure out on your own.  

Because we think complicated things, our God families get very complicated.  However, let's backtrack to the beginning.  We all, everything that exists comes from the Aeon (the One)  That is We are all, God.

Peace and Balance,

John

Aeon (Gnosis)

The Gnostic emanations of God: the One, Monad, Aion teleos, Bythos, Proakhe, Arkhe, and Aeons, are often called, Sonship's form male/female pairs called syzygies meaning yoking together in Greek.  These are the energies that Judeo Christians call Angels, and Djinn in Islam.  The spiritual embodiments of the energies of nature. 

The source of all being is an Aeon from which an inner being dwells called Ennoea (Thought and Intent).  Charis (Grace), and Sige (Silence) are a great split in the second Aeon, Gnos (Mind) which complex hierarchies of Aeons are produced.  The mind (Gnos) creates mundane realms from which these energies emanate. The Gnos creates and the energies of nature respond and from within the Aeon the thirty emerge.  These are the intangible, supersensible that belong to the purely ideal, noumenal world. The immaterial and hypostatic ideas of imagination, the stuff of creation.

The power of mortal imagination begins in a flaw.  The original Aeon the Great Archon, Aeon teleos, created passion which became the root of sin, his wanting for the female Aeon Sophia; The light or Spiritual world and it's attachment to the Darkness, the lowest regions, the Physical World.   This is called the Pleroma, the fullness.

A split occurred in the Pleroma, the darkness fell from the light and Sophia was left to the darkness away from her Aeon this created the Demiurge a creature that was never meant to be.  The creature does not belong to the Pleroma, but is part of the Pleroma thus has become the physical world.  We are part of this being.  A split that is always in search of it's other half trying to reemerge back into the Aeon.  

Iesha taught his disciples of the Gnosis, and the origins of the Aeon.  He tried to reconnect the physical world with the spiritual world and his teachings were met with skepticism and fear eventually leading to his death upon the cross. Judas represented this fear, the priests the fear itself, and the disciples the teachings of escape. Hence his prayer, "Our father who art in Heaven hallowed be thy name, they kingdom come, they will be done, on "Earth" as it is in "Heaven" Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil, for thy kingdom is the power and thine is the glory forever and ever, in Jesus Christs name, Amen."     This is his direct lesson to us for this reconnection of physical with spiritual, the rejoining of the Pleroma to the Great Archon, the first Aeon, the One or Monad.  

Peace and Balance,

John

The Power of Silence.

 

In 1964 Simon and Garfunkel recorded a song that went multiple platinum, "The Sound of Silence."  The words of that song are haunting, and just a tad prophetic.  In a dystopian society where making music, sounds, where you cannot communicate for fear of breaking the ever present Silence, the God of that society may speak of what is happening in our modern world.   Are we heading toward a world of quiet disturbances, where nothing penetrates the mind of man, where that penetration would create an unquietness that would resemble insanity.  Are we becoming Disquieted?

The Power of Silence is unquestionable.  Do you remember moments where a parent or guardian would suddenly look at you over the top of horn rimmed glasses.  Not speaking, barely breathing, nothing moving, but you know exactly what was being suggested, shared, and or communicated in your direction.  That power is ominous.  There is nothing greater in our universe than a parent gazing at a child in contemplation.  The child is frozen in place like a deer caught in a Buicks headlights.  

In deep space there are occasional explosions of powers that we have never actually heard only magnetically measured or felt.  Hugh sounds so loud that they can only be felt, or at such distances that  energies are only travelling and leaving a physical presence, but never heard.  These are the sounds of silence.  Just before a Super Nova, the magnetic field of the addressing star stops, there are no noises coming from that region of space, for just brief moment, then, "Boom" the power emanating from that center is so great all molecular motions stop for a brief space that moves faster than we can measure, light, time.  These too are the sounds of silence.

Grandparents have that power, looking over the spectacles to also freeze grandchildren in there gaze like so many deer.  This is where the parents learned this skill.  It is every parent's obligation to eventually share this secret with their children.  

In a quiet distance a shuffle of power is moving at speeds not comprehensive to the average observer.  The wave is the stuff of creation.  It is Shiva, the Creator, the Destroyer moving unemotionally outwardly from it's center to act.  The Power, the Sound of Silence,

Peace and Balance,

John

The Potato

The potato is one of the main staples in the United States.  It is a root that is native to the Americas and the secret additional part of the Three Sisters plus one,  maize, beans, squash, and potatoes.  Generally when you think of Native American food you think of the Three Sisters, Maize, (Corn), Beans, and Squash of all kinds, but what is left out that actually occupies a greater portion of the pot is the potato.  

The potato wasn't actually a staple in Ireland until the English brought it back from the Americas.  The English couldn't figure the potato out and gave it to the Irish in hopes of getting rid of a problem, the potato.  The Irish figured it out and the rest is legend.  Ireland became so enthralled with the potato that several excellent dishes were developed and the potato for many generations became the main crop of the Misty Isle.  This is one of the main causes of the potato blight.  Over planting, and poor farming technique.  Pretty soon, no potatoes which cost many lives and started a migration that eventually lead to the fact that there are more Irish folks in the United States than there are in Ireland.  Followed the potato home.

Potatoes are fun food.  You can do so much with a potato, and create many wonderful dishes of goodness.  One of my favorites is a potato hash that I've mastered through practice and taste testing.  Take 6 or 7 potatoes, peel them and chop them into bite sized chunks and place in a preheated frying pan with good slab of butter.  Add a few dashes of Garlic salt, Basil, Kosher salt, and Black Pepper, and let begin to brown.  Chop up a couple of large white or yellow onions and add to the potatoes.  Let cook together.  When the spuds start to brown add a chopped up Kielbasa, of your own choice and cover.  This takes about 45 minutes to cook.  The last few minutes uncover to let brown more and release the steam.  Serve with salsa or ketchup or whatever catches your fancy.  Eatem up yum.  

Potatoes are also very good for you.  The Starch in a potato helps to regulate cholesterol levels, it helps maintain proper sugar absorption, and helps keep caloric regulation normal.  However, that's not an excuse to over indulge in the potato because to much of a good thing is no longer a good thing, ya know Vern.  

So to you I say during the Native American Heritage Month, enjoy your potatoes, with a good helping of the Three Sisters, Maize, Beans, and Squash, your health and your bod will appreciate you.

Peace and Balance,

John