Sleeping - George Carlin

People say, "I'm going to sleep now," as if it were nothing.  But
it's really a bizarre activity.  "For the next several hours, while
the sun is gone, I'm going to become unconscious, temporarily
losing command over everything I know and understand.  
When the sun returns, I will resume my life."

If you didn't know what sleep was, and you had only seen it in a 
science fiction movie, you would think it was weird and tell all
your friends about the movie you'd seen.  "They had these people,
you know? And they would walk around all day and be okay? 
And then, once a day, usually after dark, they would lie down
on these special platforms and become unconscious.  They would
stop functioning almost completely, except deep in their minds
they would have adventures and experiences that were completely
impossible in real life.  As they lay there, completely vulnerable to
their enemies, their only movements were to occasionally shift
from one position to another; or, if one of the 'mind adventures' got
too real, they would sit up and scream and be glad they weren't
unconscious anymore.  Then they would drink a lot of coffee."

So, nest time you see someone sleeping, make believe you're in a
science fiction movie.  And whisper, "The creature is regenerating
itself.

George Carlin

with thanks to Love Is A Place

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

Maybe we should all take more cat naps :)

 

Realer than real - Nancy Neithercut

There is a common misconception that enlightenment happens
*to* the person.  And somehow this imaginary character becomes
a no-self.  And obviously anyone who thinks that they are
enlightened also believes that there was a path or method that
they used to get there or to attain that, where there's nothing
to attain and no "person" to get it.

People long to escape their humanness.  As you grow up you
learn morals, you learn what to be like, how to act in society.
These morals generally come from some religion originating
from some God or giant authority keeping society together.
And one of the first ones they try to teach you is how to try to
be selfless.  So they tell you to give some of your candy to
Marianne.  And Marianne is happy to get it and your parents
or caregivers are happy that you've done it and so you feel
good about yourself.  So this seemingly selfless act was very
selfish wasn't it.  Lol

So the goal of many of these religions and societies is to become
a selfless person.  That sounds good to so many because they
can't stand the pain that they feel, the loneliness they feel
inside.  They have been taught that anger and jealousy are bad,
so they are trying to have only nice happy thoughts and nice
happy emotions and act selflessly, but this simply cannot be done.
And it is quite understandable that some people would be 
trying to erase or change themselves, their thought and emotion
in order to feel better.  However, I do think that unless they had
heard of it [as some teach it] they would not be trying to get
rid of the self.

So there are people who claim they have reached this rarefied
atmosphere.  And often they are revered and people imitate their
actions and language they use.  And they give instructions on how
to reach this unreachable place.  And seekers love this stuff because
 it gives them a path and it solidifies the Belief in [a separate] self.

And these "teachers" are revered and given a lot of flattery.  And
the authority hierarchy power driven cult is born.  I knew one
woman who said that there's nothing that you can do or not do 
[to attain enlightenment].  A few years later she was giving
instructions.  Other prominent "teachers" and "teachings" tell
 people to "drop the story" [of me], obviously not realizing that
there is no one who can drop,or not drop anything as we only
exist as a story...

It's all simultaneously dream-like and realer than real...

Nancy Neithercut
Facebook

 With thanks to No Mind's Land

~  

There is no "better" version of the self;
no "enlightened" version of the self.
You don't become your big "S" Self...
We are all "The Mystery" in funky clothes :)

MM

_/\_

~

Photo - Nancy Neithercut
via No Mind's Land

Love those funky clothes!  :)

The Silence Inside the Illusion - Jack Kerouac

painting by joe maccer deviant art

Everything is ecstasy, inside.  We just don't know it
because of our thinking-minds.  But in our true blissful
essence of mind it is to know that everything is alright
forever and forever and forever.  Close your eyes, let
your hands and nerve-ends drop, stop breathing for 3
seconds, listen to the silence inside the illusion of the
world, and you will remember the lesson you forgot,
which was taught in immense milky ways of cloudy
innumerable worlds long ago and not even at all.  It
is all one vast awakened thing.  I call it the golden
eternity.  It is perfect.  We were never really born,
we will never really die.  It has nothing to do with
the imaginary idea of a personal self, other selves,
many selves everywhere, or one universal self.
Self is only an idea, a mortal idea.  That which
passes through everything, is one thing.  It's a
dream already ended.  There's nothing to be
afraid of and nothing to be glad about.  Do
you think the emptiness of space will ever
crumble away?  Mountains will crumble,
but the emptiness of space, which is the
one universal essence of mind, the one
vast awakenerhood, empty and awake,
will never crumble away because it
was never born...

Jack Kerouac


Thanks to The Beauty We Love

What Is Left To Say - Lisel Mueller

The self steps out of the circle;
it stops wanting to be
the farmer, the wife, and the child.

It stops trying to please
by learning everyone's dialect;
it finds it can live, after all,
in a world of strangers.

It sends itself fewer flowers;
it stops preserving its tears in amber.

How splendidly arrogant it was
when it believed the gold-filled tomb
of language awaited its raids!

Now it frequents the junkyards
knowing all words are secondhand.

It has not chosen its poverty,
this new frugality.
It did not want to fall out of love
with itself.  Young,
it celebrated itself
and richly sang itself,
seeing only itself
in the mirror of the world.

It cannot return.  It assumes
its place in the universe of stars
that do not see it.  Even the dead
no longer need it to be at peace.
Its function is to applaud.

Lisel Mueller

via Poetry Chaikhana

see Ivan's commentary on
Lisel's poem here

~

Photo - Face Reflections Mandala

2013

In The Beginning Was The Dream - O'Donohue

In the beginning was the dream...
In the eternal night where no dawn broke, the dream deepened.
Before anything ever was, it had to be dreamed...

If we take Nature as the great artist, then all presences in the
world have emerged from her mind and imagination.  We are
children of the earth's dreaming.  It's almost as if Nature is in
dream and we are her children who have broken through the
dawn into time and place.  Fashioned in the dreaming of the
clay, we are always somehow haunted by that; we are unable
ever finally to decide what is dream and what is reality.  Each
day we live in what we call reality, yet life seems to resemble
a dream. We rush through our days in such stress and intensity,
as if we were here to stay and the serious project of the world
depended on us.  We worry and grow anxious - we magnify
trivia until they become important enough to control our lives.
Yet all the time, we have forgotten that we are but temporary
sojourners on the surface of a strange planet spinning slowly
in the infinite night of the cosmos...
[.....]
There is no definitive dividing line between reality and dream.
What we consider real is often precariously dream-like.
Our grip on reality is tenuous...

Excerpt from Eternal Echoes 

by John O'Donohue

~

We see who we think we are, who we believe ourselves to be.
We see a self that is fabricated by thought and thus we see a
fabricated world, similar to the state of a dream...

Dzogchen Donlop Rinpoche

From - Mind Beyond Death

~

Photo from the web
source unknown

Shamanic Dream...

This painting was my “break through” piece during the recent art course that I took, and was a complete surprise.  I am not an “artist” by profession.  And this is my first ever attempt at painting.  It is not what I would consider my “style.”  It was an experiment as part of the course.  I just painted the images that emerged.  I wish I had taken pictures along the way, as it evolved from just markings on canvas to this.  The day that it became my break-through I laughed and cried at the same time, in a moment of letting go, as I danced around the canvas to music, painting hash marks, squiggles, zig-zags and circles…  Really, that’s how it started.  Sounds crazy I know, but it was very freeing.  I laughed and cried because something was *finally* happening – freely.  It was just a wild and crazy dance of paintbrush on canvas. J  As it turned out, those original markings created these images, except the big heart on the right.   And those images merged into this painting.  Sorry the photo is not the best. It’s a little distorted, and blurred at the bottom for some reason.

The original markings on the canvas were a repository for the paints I had been using on a previous canvas – not colors I would normally choose as the main colors – but there they were, forming hidden images. 

The center figure was the first image that emerged almost immediately.  I painted around it then sat with it for several days, wondering what to do with it – waiting for it to show me.  It didn’t want anything – at least for now. J

 As I looked deeper at the canvas each day, other images emerged around it: The Shaman’s profile on the top right; the all-seeing eye at the top; the bottom figures; and the cauldron and chalice up the left side.

I call it Shamanic Dream because it has the feel of a Shamanic journey/dream.  And one has to wonder, who is dreaming who?!  J

The other 4 canvases that I started during the course are at various stages of completion and all are very different.  Stay tuned! J

The art course I took was an online e-course called Bloom True
with artist Flora Bowley

Family Vortex - Victims and Vampires

It seems I get right to the edge of losing my self and falling into the spaciousness of the Vortex of Light, about to fully surrender into the vast pool of Love, when “life as it is” calls me back from the edge every time; sucking me back into dreamland again… How does this happen, I continue to ask myself…

In this case, as in most other cases, it’s the requirements of family needs, of an aging mother and a sibling with chronic back problems. Both have legitimate physical disabilities, one with failing memory and cognitive abilities as well. But the emotional dynamics of our family dysfunction feels like a play of Victims and Vampires.

With my own aging process and physical ailments I’m finding it more and more difficult to be of assistance to them without completely draining my own life force energy and physical body of its stamina. And I wonder sometimes *how* am I going to continue to do this – to be available to them on a daily basis - as was the case this week. I know there are many of you out there who are, or who have taken care of aging parents, and disabled family members, and so this may come across as a little whiney as I feel my victim-self arise. She wants to know who will take care of her, who will be there for her when this body gives out. I feel trapped by the family vortex and resentment arises - afraid that I’ll be devoured by the vortex of vampire energies needing me – lost in their vortex forever. Sounds *self*-centered, I know.

I will spare you the details of the current situation, but the family dynamic involves a kind of do things only just in time, and just as needed, where those in need don’t take care of themselves in a timely fashion, but wait for crisis point and hope that somehow “The Universe”/God will “take care of everything” – believing “there is a reason for everything.” This keeps everyone involved on an emotional edge – waiting for something to happen, for someone to rescue, for someone *else* to make a decision and take responsibility.

One of the “victims” in this play feels victimized and angered by life circumstances – feels life is happening *to* them, not seeing that the choices they have made in life have created the issues they now face. Neither do they see the impact that their choices are having on others – how they have actually turned into energy vampires. This “victim” *thinks* they are the center of the universe and everything is supposed to happen *for* them… The Universe evidently is supposed to move solely on their behalf. But that doesn’t happen and they end up trying to control everything, to lessen their fear of powerlessness and helplessness - grabbing a false sense of power wherever they can – usually through anger and control. I know, I’ve been there done that… :) And more often than I like to admit I re-visit that space of resentment, anger and control because of my own fear that I will not get what I need... Another *self*-centered fear...

Another victim in this play can also be “self-sacrificing,” giving in to “the victim,” sacrificing their own needs, taking the brunt of the other victim’s wrath. Unable to enjoy life if someone is in pain or suffering (another role I know well), they feel it is their obligation to suffer with those who suffer, but their “caring” is often a mask for a detached piety, and need to be in control. It amazes me the false sense of power that is wielded in this play!

When I am in the family vortex, I am in the moment with them, but I am just trying to get through that sucking energy. I cannot step out of the vortex. And I wish I could just open that aperture and fall into that pure Light and expanded space of Awareness – but I get lost in the vortex with them - feeling sucked in – oops victim language. But I am not “victim” here, I just haven’t seen all the way through this vortex, and I continue to buy into the story of victim and vampires, getting caught in a self-centered dream…

So that’s my little dream drama this week. Not one I really want to participate in, and yet, here I am – participating… It does however show me where I am still attached to the *self*-centered dream of me… And I realize that living in the dream of me is really only living at the edge of Life, always waiting, waiting to fall off the edge, but never really letting go and fully surrendering to the pull of Light; never really taking the plunge – and be devoured by Love…

~*~

We all survived the week and things have settled.
The story has changed, as it always does…

~*~

Art: this piece was done when I first started playing with Pastels,
probably sometime in 2005/2006

Dreaming Mind

I had a dream on December 30th that seemed fairly significant, so I thought I’d share the gist of it, or is that the grist of it. :) I do not remember all the details, but the main “grist” of the dream seemed to be about locks. In particular they were doorknob locks (they all looked like round doorknobs). And I couldn’t lock them. I couldn’t lock the front door to the house, or the mail box (which was also a doorknob). The locks did not work. So I became preoccupied with the locks and spent a good part of the dream trying to *fix* the locks that would not lock, taking them apart and trying to figure them out – to no avail. There were intricate images of “mechanisms” that I would take apart and attempt to put back together again, but they wouldn’t go back together.

I see this as a good thing.

My “locks” are not working anymore, the mechanisms of the mind and self that have kept me (the Self) safe behind locked doors (figuratively) are not working anymore, leaving “me” open… And – I couldn’t put those mechanisms back together again. Hmmmm. Is this what Freedom feels like – open, vulnerable, exposed, falling apart, unable to put the self back together again, unable to lock everything up safely? Be careful what you ask for - Beloved takes no prisoners…

In the middle of trying to fix the mechanisms I woke up – from the night dream that is. As I woke up I realized it was just a dream that had occurred *in my mind.* The exact thoughts were: this is occurring *in my mind!* Like I was surprised, yet clearly knowing that it was all mind-made. I had essentially *thought* the dream. And yet, my *mind* did not want to wake up from the dream! It didn’t want to let go, even knowing that it was a dream. My mind wanted to go back into the dream – to finish the story – to try to fix the locks and the mechanisms – to find resolution. But “I” *didn’t* want to go back into the dream. “I” just wanted to wake up, but found it hard to do so because my mind wanted to hang on – to continue the dream.

The realization was that the *dream* was mind-made and I *knew* it. It was absolutely evident. But the pull to stay in the dream was greater than the desire to wake up. The only “resolution” was to *completely* wake up from the sleep state – where the dream occurs. But even then, after awakening, the dream hung on – in my mind; pulling at the mind to come back. The dream had momentum, the dream-thought continued, and my mind couldn’t let it go. It *wanted* to play out in my mind – even after awakening… I seemingly couldn’t disentangle from the dream state – mentally or emotionally. Sounds a lot like life - the waking dream...

So, I asked myself, is “awakening” really “enough”, is “awareness” enough to completely awaken from the waking dream? You know, the one we call life... Or do we remain in a dream of our minds, even after awakening, even with awareness? Apparently the thought-dream still continues, even after awakening. The mind keeps creating the dream- the waking dream of life. The key seems to be in the realization that it is only a dream and the impetus to wake up from the dream – to not *believe* that the dream is real…

Several days later I woke up with the thought that I had reached “the end” - "the end" of what? The image that opened to me was that of the mouse in the maze picture looking over the wall. The sense was that I had reached the “end” of the maze, that I couldn’t go any further, as there was nowhere else to go – so I *had* to look up over its walls. It wasn’t that I had found my way out of the maze on some blissful path – the yellow brick road - and landed in Oz, I just knew that I couldn’t continue in the maze – the maze of the mind, the maze of the dream. And the only resolution was to stop, to shift my perception from the maze – the dreaming mind - to a different paradigm; to look beyond the familiarity of the well-worn pathways of the mind and discover a different way of seeing and experiencing the world...

It occurred to me that we are free to participate in the maze of the mind or not… We are not locked in to the maze. Our sense of freedom depends on whether we are fixated on the dream, or able to see beyond the walls of the faulty mechanisms of the mind.

“If you want to see what’s behind the curtain of reality,
to take the red pill and discover what the matrix really is…
you have to be willing to give up everything.
The cost is literally all of “you”
– your identity, your addictions, your life-long programming…”
[the maze].
Author unknown.

~*~

Keep on knocking
‘til the joy inside
opens a window
look to see who’s there

Inner wakefulness

This place is a dream
only a sleeper considers it real
then death comes like dawn
and you wake up laughing
at what you thought was your grief
A man goes to sleep in the town
where he has always lived
and he dreams he’s living in another town
in the dream he doesn’t remember
the town he’s sleeping in his bed in
he believes the reality of the dream town
the world is that kind of sleep
Humankind is being led along an evolving course,
through this migration of intelligences
and though we seem to be sleeping
there is an inner wakefulness,
that directs the dream
and that will eventually startle us back
to the truth of who we are

Rumi

~*~

Photo Image – CD cover for “Sonicaid”
Music to promote sleep.
Copyright - Avalon (SOCAN.)
www.avalonmusic.com
Imagery: Solid Imagery Arts, LLC

Dreaming The Fear

Just days after entering “The Cave” and meeting the fear I started having nightmares. Am not surprised actually. When you “decide” – that is, when you have been nailed to the cave wall by your fears you have no other choice than to meet with your demons, because the demons show up. Funny how that happens. Anyway, I thought I’d share this dream, not so much for its possible interpretations, but for the metaphor and Dharma it provided with regard to the fear that is moving through here…

In the dream I am laying in bed, just as I usually am while sleeping. A voice in the dream said: “Maybe you need to take care of that before B gets home.” There was a sense that “the voice” motioned to the window. So in my dream I looked at the window across from me, and it appeared as if there was someone behind the curtain panel on the left, as there was a protrusion of the curtain in the shape of a body and head. I kept looking, trying to see more clearly. As I attempted to look more intently at what this was, an eye appeared in front of the curtain panel to the right, with the faintest outline of a face – the emphasis being the eye; a rather large eye – just staring back at me. In the dream it freaked me out, triggering the nightmare. And I evidently did my usual warbling routine that I do when having nightmares, waking my husband up. I then heard B saying in my ear: “It’s okay – you’re dreaming – it’s just a dream – it’ll be okay.” That woke me up from the dream just enough to allow me to realize I was dreaming, and that there was no boogyman behind the curtain… Whew!

What came to me in the moments after, when I was trying to fall back to sleep, was – “Fear is a dream.” It was as if a switch went off in my head – bing.

This led to the insight that “fearing” during waking hours is also dream. It’s a dream of fear in Consciousness/Awareness. The *mind* of this mechanism called ‘me’ evidently gets freaked out by life’s make-believe boogymen behind curtains. Fear apparently happens when we focus on the construct of the ‘me’ and not the greater context of Self that is really living here.

I also noted that in some ways Fear has become a mask, a persona with which I have met the world. And that construct is collapsing evidently - hopefully. Five days before I had the nightmare I passed a kidney stone – the release of frozen fear. Fear is being released from this body-mind in many ways, and it appears that the “me” structure that has carried this fear all these years may be collapsing with it, as there is a growing recognition of its emptiness – revealing that this mask of fear, this fearful “me” is really a dream veil – hiding the real Self…

In the dream I *believed* I saw “the boogyman” hiding behind the curtain. I *believed* I saw an eye staring back at me. In the dream they were real to me, causing fear. But they were just dream figures rising from the mind, or psyche. And the only thing that *broke* the belief was being told that it was only a dream and waking up to the fact that it was only a dream. Hearing the words, “it’s just a dream,” spoken in my ear - the dream and the belief in its realness dissolved….

Somehow this should translate into waking life as well, don’t you think! There should be this amazing “enlightenment” that life is just a dream – a construct of the mind – with resulting joy and bliss at this realization. As of yet, this hasn’t fully happened. This sense of me evidently still believes the dream figures that appear from behind life’s curtains like a habituated dream machine. But I seem to know on some level that these fears are only dream ghosts from past beliefs, from repetitive, reactive responses to life’s events. The awareness is there – that the fear I experience is just that, an experience, created by how I *see* or what I *believe* about what I see. In this sense I seem to be slowly awakening from the dream machine.

~*~

“You dream your experiences.
You dream that you are (afraid, fearful, anxious)
Look at experiences as insubstantially transient
and related to mind projections.

When we think of experiences as only a dream,
it is less real to us.
It loses its power over us -
the power we gave it -
so it can no longer disturb us…”

Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche
The Tibetan Yoga of Dreams and Sleep
Quote taken from ZenDotStudio blog

~

So where is the experience actually experienced?
In Awareness…
There’s only Awareness
experiencing Itself as energy.
This sense of ‘me’ floats within Awareness.
It’s all Awareness – dreaming…

Author unknown…

~~~~~~~

Photo – the face of my drum

DQ w/ Hot Fudge & Nuts - The Draw of Drama

Well I’m back from the fluidity of the “reality peel” in the sanctuary of Primordial Presence. The re-entry has left me slightly frazzled as the landing was a little harsh. I actually re-entered the dream world last week to yet another family drama. But of course we *live* in the dream world. Duality and Drama happen here. It’s all a story in one form or another. It appears that unconsciousness has run amuck while I was away. That’s the problem with excursions to outer space (or Inner Space actually) the gravitational pull of the unconscious (as Adyashanti calls it) eventually pulls me back into dualistic reality again and again. I am told that the effects of the unconscious gravitational pull become less and less over time, as one gets acclimated to non-dual existence, or at least the dramas, the stories, aren’t supposed to be as magnetic. In this instance it’s the stories of a Drama Queen – a drama that has continued for years and years in my husband’s family, covered with layers of ooey-gooey, densely thick chocolate and driving my husband and I nuts. :) I ponder how one interacts with people who are so deeply unconscious that they don’t even *want* to *see*?

Last week there was a volley of flaming emails between my husband and his sister, dredging up old unconscious issues on both ends, and some new accusations about his supposed lack of understanding, caring, and involvement with what is happening with his mother who has mild Alzheimer's, whom she is caring for… There are always accusations that arise about what “we” have done or are not doing, or the problems that “we” have caused for “them.” Evidently my husband is supposed to have telepathy and just “know” what’s going on, or how difficult it is for his sister, as she decided to withhold all communication more than 6 weeks ago because of some supposed offense that angered her, even though he continually tries to communicate with her about his mother. You’re getting the picture I think. So – in this latest volley all his sister had to do was throw a temper tantrum and her little brother made the 500 mile trip to try to find out what’s really going on and why his sister won’t communicate with him, except for this latest attack. And of course, the unconscious blame game continues as according to DQ, I am to blame for my husband’s *supposed* lack of involvement with his mother and DQ’s family… I am just so tired of hearing this same story after 30 years.

This unconscious activity seems to be very passive-aggressive, and filled with self-importance. It goes silent for long periods of time and then it rears up and spits in your face. So what to do… I will admit I easily get drawn into this drama. My unconscious stuff gets triggered. My own crown from my own reign as DQ is a little tarnished, sitting slightly askew, but - there’s a storyteller still alive inside here. Obviously, I’m writing a story-like blog here! :) As my husband reiterates to me their 6 hour marathon heated discussion, as we talk over the phone in the evening, I try to be supportive without using a dismissive statement like: “I know you can handle it dear” – patting him on the head and sending him off into the fray again. Or, without being reactive or offering explanations about not getting involved in the drama, since that has already happened. Like a good novel, I start to get into it myself and my tarnished crown begins to shine a little. I try to ignore the excitement of the drama, to see from the place of Self/Presence – because I *know* that Self doesn’t get drawn into drama, doesn’t care about the drama, only the dream self, the mind, is attracted to the drama of struggle and emotional pain and hurt feelings, the need for control and blame and all of that… But the spark has been lit with the statement: “Ever since you married Christine you’ve been different with the family.” Translated: I haven’t been able to control and manipulate my little brother ever since you got married – the themes of the dream world. I can feel the reactive response rising within as the dream self buys into the story being told. The dream self *believes* the story and doesn’t like being maligned and wants to defend itself. Caught in the story I can’t even muster any compassion for DQ and her need for constant chaos and addiction to drama & deception. This is such a very old game and I *am* really getting tired of playing it. And maybe that’s a good sign. Maybe that means the draw of drama is losing its pull. Say yeay!

But then there’s this issue about not *feeling* compassion for DQ who is obviously steeped in the unconscious, and who seems to do such a good job at triggering it in both my husband and me. I wish I could ooze compassion from my heart, but it’s not something that’s manufactured from the dream self. How is it that I can feel such deep compassion for an elderly lady in a grocery store – a stranger – and feel *nothing* here…. Once while sitting in meditation, in a deep place of still Presence, I was able to meet her and did feel a sense of compassionate love for her. I could see that there is only Love here. Yet - the drama of the dream continues.

It seems that the key to compassionate living is abiding in Presence, not short excursions, but living *as* Being; stepping back from the drama and resting in pure, awake Awareness. So the challenge for me then is to stay clear, clean and *conscious* - to stay awake. But I’d have to give up all that ooey-gooey sweet, dark unconscious chocolate that is oh so tempting living in the nutty dream world… Decisions, decisions… :) A no-brainer really….

No folks that's not me with the pot on her head, it's i-stock photo :)