the adventures of stagger li

Chapter One of my novel-in-progress is available at Scribd. Stagger Li is the Noirior, the Dark Warrior, part beast, part don't-give-a-damn, part zen detach, a beating heart within a battered mass.

the babbler, the smasher, and the slurper

A few days ago, upon learning that I am reading Henry Corbin’s “Avicenna and the Visionary Recital,” an acquaintance suggested that I provide a book report. Here is my summary of TWO (page 299-300) pages of the 423 page book.

In our journey as humans, we are accompanied by three companions: the babbler, the smasher, and the slurper (my terms). The babbler walks in front of us commenting on everything and bringing news from afar. Part of what the babbler says is true, much is false. The smasher walks on our right and wishes to strike down anyone and anything that goes contrary to its wishes. The slurper walks to our left and wishes to slurp forever all that gives pleasure.

These three companions are with us our entire lives. At times they take over. Our journey is to learn how to live with them as their master. As we do so, we are able to glimpse, then walk in, other realms.

much ado about something

Some of us say we come from Atlantis, or from Texas, or from some biochemical accident of evolution. We stop at those places (every beginning story is a stop) because it gives us some sense of enjoyment and of power (another form of enjoyment). With each of these come-from stories, we decide and announce that we are something. When we become something, we enter the world of death. A something has a life expectancy (reckoned by some as having a “half-life” – a counting up and then a counting down). When we be-come some-thing, we de-fine ourselves, make ourselves less fine. When we stop at these de-fined places of origin, we assume a stance. Every stance is a trance. Trance-ition is not transition. Trance is death. The thing we think we are will die, is dying already. When we become as something we die. When we become as nothing we do not die. Nothing never dies. Nothing gives birth to all something. When we think we are something, we enter the valley of death. Do not stop at something. If you are going to stop, stop at nothing.

meditation

A purpose of meditation, whether the meditation be form-al (embodying a format on a floor mat) or informal (mindful opening to one’s various and immediate surrounds), is the allowing of capacity, of room for the in-fluence (in-flow) of and confluence (merge) with the higher, wider, deeper realms of who we are. We drop away our chitter-chatter being and allow Vast Silence to take us home.

ring around the rosy

Ring around the rosy
A pocketful of posies
"Ashes, Ashes"
We all fall down!

This song along with the clasping of hands, moving in a circle (clockwise fashion as I remember), and the resultant fall to the ground by all appears to have originated in a depiction of plague and its results. It is also easily interpreted as representative of the Garden of Eden (first two lines) and the Fall of Mankind (second two lines). I wish to spin it into a different realm of mythopoetry.

The rose has oft been used as a symbol of the mystery at the core of the cosmos. One can see it in the Arthurian legend, in the Knights Templar, and the symbology of the Rosy Cross (Rosicrucians). We join hands and circle around that mystery.

Our pocket, our carrying capacity, our templum (clear open space for divining) is full of poesy, of imagery and the transubstantiation of that imagery into metaphor, into the living word we are.

When we lose sight of the rose at the core, of the center of all being, when our pockets no longer contain poesy, we turn to ashes. We fall down. We are as dead.

This little nursery rhyme provides us with the keys to death and life. Both of course are essential. We must go to ashes and fall down from time to time in order to freshly open to the poesy of the rose.

the mythos of recent events

The mythos of recent events – Addled Essence Attacks the Eternal Feminine. We do the same. Humankind is still in its addled essence stage. We ravage the forests of Gaia Earth to wipe our asses, pick meat from our teeth. We inject poison into her bloodstream. We foul her breath with our farting vehicular exhausts. We would kill her very soul for a dunking doughnut if we could. Addled Essence Attacks the Eternal Feminine. Some day we might consider a merge rather than attack, reclaim our merge-inity, so that we know, deeply know, that we and the Eternal Feminine are one.

The Monk Warrior