Place of Refuge

Place of Refuge

30 October 2010

Brecht was right, but he had the wrong medium (how could he have known?)


Bertolt Brecht was talking about the internet,
I believe,
when he said:


"It is purely an apparatus for distribution, for mere sharing out. So here is a positive suggestion: change this apparatus over from distribution to communication. The radio would be the finest possible communication apparatus in public life, a vast network of pipes. That is to say, it would be if it knew how to receive as well as to transmit, how to let the listener speak as well as hear, how to bring him into a relationship instead of isolating him."

Bertolt Brecht
"The Radio As An Apparatus For Communication"


I was inspired to post this when I found this
other link on a film about Digital Humanities
(being bemoaned by Hitler! -- sorry, this cannot be embedded, so please follow the link),
thanks to the blog Exploring Our Matrix.

Also with gratitude for the blogger Radio Survivor,
who made it possible for me to find this quote
without having to dig through my books!

29 October 2010

Return to Avatar





As I say in previous entries:
our bodies are just avatars,
earthly machines
in which we carry our portion
of the trembling 
spiritual
entity 
that imitates --
ie:
is the material double 
of the spiritual essence
of the God.

Packaged so lovingly 
in such lovely packages
the spirit persists,
in pieces.
Oddly,
or perhaps not so oddly,
we obsess over the box,
the physical home
that was never designed
to last eternally,
despite
the fact
it was designed to house
the eternal:

the essences of
love
and
wisdom
and
truth
and 
good
and
evil.



The technology 
of the human
body
is so precise,
so
advanced,
and each element cooperates
with the others
to help us
maneuver
our earthly domain.


The body was only designed
to carry
the parts
       until
the parts could be united
again.


When the parts we carry
are once again subsumed
into the whole,
when our earthly clothing
falls away,
      time will
          cease
         entity will
                cease;
the realm of reproduction
and the double               
will cease         
because it will no longer
be needed
because we will be All
again;
and our physical existences
will live on          
only
in our actions
and memories
and in our writing,
in what we inscribe
on the walls of the womb
of the eternal.





24 October 2010

ok, perhaps the greatest living diva

. . . . madonna

have I been ignoring her?
Not, not really.

She is, in my estimation,
THE Diva of our time;

she, who shares my age
(in this lifetime)


When she first came out,
when we were both. . . . 


however old that was,
I wanted her to hold her guitar

throughout her career.
(by the way, Madonna and I play the guitar about equally as well!)
But she didn't.

She did what I would have done,
if I were in that field:


she did it all.
She put down the guitar,


she built up her voice,
She Sang. . . . 





Which is what a diva should do.

And I loved her, even when I hated her.




So anyway, 


here she is: the greatest of divas
alive
today.






 


Oh, the previous entry
is pure channelling,
and I know 
they can be pretty hard to understand.
 And I'm tired today.

So I thought I'd share something a bit easier today.



22 October 2010

Prophecy: A Channelling Inspired By a Brilliant Coupling



OK,
so it's true,
I'm trying to establish with you
that I have some goofy gift
of prophecy.

ME?

Me:

Makropoulis,

a 424 year old woman

who hasn't aged much

until recently,

when she turned

425.


~ ~
And since I'm aging slowly,

I can tell you

exactly what aging

is all about:

the aging strikes 

certain places first,

because

 those are the parts 

of our Avatar,

our machine,

that we use the most:




1.  

My eyes -- my eyes
your eyes

we use them a lot
to look both outwardly
and inwardly.

They receive signals, the data
then transmitted
to the brain,
the master terminal
of this fabulous machine
called the body;

they work
day in and day out.

Is it no surprise
that they begin to go first?

(Think of it this way,
and I've talked about this before:

your body 
is nothing
but an avatar
an earthly machine
designed
to best contain the parts
of God
that it's our duty
to bear)

-##-

because
as Inayat Khan says,
and I say elsewhere,
Creation
is the manifestation
of totality
of the 
All (that is God),
borne of its desire
to reproduce itself

However,
in general,
All
cannot
represent itself,
except
in its constituent parts

--

Get it?

God cannot represent himself
as One
because God 
is All,
and to create
ALL²,
would be nigh impossible
because
no matter how many times
you duplicate
All,
it's never duplicated,
it's always just
ALL,
just more of it.

So,
in the duplication of Itself
God discovered
He had to divide
His parts
into parts,
which in and of itself 
was a fairly artificial act

-- 

kind of like colonization,
and the way
the
created the nations
of Iraq and Iran:


(Sèvres

those national lines
are some of the most
unnatural lines
on the planet;
in fact,
they are
the most flagrantly proud
of man's acts,
as man
has continued to blindly
attempt
to imitate
God
imitating God, 
who had to divide
the undividable
in order
to do see Himself:

with that Treaty,
we created
man-made lines,
that put together a few groups of people
who didn't really belong
together,
and called them
a nation,


Anywhooooo,
yeah,
likewise,
that's how some of the divisions
that God created
when he divided himself
had to be:
uncomfortable,
and unnatural,
but necessary,
and every
material object
that he created to reflect
the All
in its constituent parts
contains
a three-some
of those parts
as well.

He tried to combine these
three elements
in ways that were
negotiable,
in ways that would help
the material manifestation
of God
sustain itself;
it has just been
our job
to sustain ourselves and not
let one aspect
dominate
another.



2.
My spine - my spine
Your Spine,
Our Spine:

The spine is the terminal,
the radio tower
of the apparatus we occupy,
the apparatus 
that communicates
by two means:
locally,
by language
and
long distance,
by signals,
frequencies:

the duty of our bodily apparatus



is to bear

the brain,
and 
the heart
of God --

those parts of God

that are the most fragile,

and the most powerful

=

We are here to contain 

God's


capacity to love.

+

we are here to contain

God's

capacity to know-better =

two abilities

that don't always work well

together,

and

they are also

two abilities

that just happen to be

eternal

//

yes,

which is why they had to be

put together:

our task is to contain

the elements

 that defy the elemental:

but at the same time,

we are here
to contain

God's capacity
to love himself,

which is our survival apparatus,

and it is that capacity
that has maintained us
in the material realm,

because when we see ourselves

in another,

we want to love ourselves

in the most perfect

of physical ways.


Yeah,
that's how we've maintained
a somewhat unbroken
existence of the eternal elements
of the All
that is God:
through the self-serving,
self-loving act
of copulation.




Our task all along has been to figure out all these pieces of the puzzle, and get our acts together, and imitate God as perfectly as possible.




You see, that's the idea

of the soul mate:

he/she's the one,

the other part

of the part of God

that you are here

to find,

to imitate,

but

if you do not find that partner

in this life,

just


love the one you're with

with

everything you have.

It's very likely you'll never
meet your soulmate
in this life,
because
if you did, 
chances are
you hate that person.


And do you know what's fabulous?

Often our soul - mates

aren't perfect,

and yet,

we can love them because

even with their earthly imperfections

we can still

recognize

some trace


of ourselves.



Yes,


the ones who are the hardest to love

are the ones


we are required


to love


in order to be able


to survive.


.

So the Creating Force
that is God,
that powerful
lust-ful
element
of SelfLove,
is the glue
to our physical
timebound cycle
is the glue
of the fragile parcel
(these time-bound bodies)
in which he packaged

the ability to love

with the ability to

know better

;


those two capacities,

combined

have the capability to save 


each other.





the heart can save the mind

by curbing it,

and making it feel;


and


the mind can save the heart

by stopping it,

and requiring it to think --


and 

Love,


Pure Love


is that impulse


we feel


when the heart and the mind are working

in harmony,

and

when we love and we KNOW it's right.


* # *

but anyway,

the spine

is another part of the apparatus

that wears out
relatively quickly,

not only because

it keeps us upright,

but because

it is our primary conductor,
it is
the conductor by which
we transmit our signals

from self to self,

from self to self,

from Self to Self,

to the greater Self.





3.


and my brain,
your brain,
the brain

is the decoder,

the master cylinder

that communicates

the message from

the larger central consciousness

to our own

individual

apparatus,

our vehicle.


( wikimedia )


if we lose the brain,
well,
we probably won't survive,
because
that cuts us off
from the primary signals
that make us a part
of the whole

~ ~


We all have the capacity to be conductors,

seers,

if we can free our

minds,
hearts,
and spines


of the burdens we bear
in our everyday lives.






But for now,

the world is so occupied

with itself,

and most humans
only imitate

the popular consciousness,

so we need

seers,

those


with the gift to read the signs
that everyone else
cannot see,
due to temporary
blindness.




And hey,

that's me.



(sacredtexts - Brahan Seer )


Well, ya' know,

I actually started this entry


with one intent:


to tell you a prophecy

that I shared with my friends 

about three weeks ago:

I heard that


Elton John and Leon Russell

did a collaboration,

produced by T. Bone Burnett.


And I said,

hell,


that's the Album of the Year,

if not

the century.

You see,

I see

that T. Bone Burnett 

has a formula,

like a magical brew:


have two classic artists,

who admire each other terrifically,

who might even want to do nothing more

than make love to the other,

put them together,

and make an album.

And he makes things like this:

and now this:





My prophecy for today:

if you can buy stock

in 

this album,
or
T. Bone Burnett,


do it.




20 October 2010

Another Trinity -- from "God the Infinite" by Hazrat Inayat Khan



(photo by Makropoulos)

". . . the Spirit of God is incomprehensibe
because that which comprehends itself
is intelligence, God's real being;
and comprehension has nothing to comprehend 
in its own being.  No doubt, in our usual terms
it is the comprehending faculty in us which we call
comprehension; but this is not meant here, for intelligence
is not necessarily intellect.  Merit is something which is comprehensible;
it is something which is clear and distinct, so that it can be made
intelligible; but intelligence is not intelligible except
to its own self.  Intelligence knows that I am; 
but it does not know what I am.

"Such is the nature of God.  Intelligence would not have knows its own power
and existence if it had not known something besides itself,
so God knows Himself by manifestation.  Manifestation
is the self of God, but a self which is limited, a self
that makes Him know that He is perfect when He compares
His own Being with the limited self which we call nature.
Therefore the purpose of the whole of creation is the realization
which God Himself gains by discovering His own perfection
through his manifestation.

"Among Christian ideas there is one which, if we can solve its riddle,
helps us to discover the truth of life.  It is the idea of the Trinity.
What keeps the soul in perplexity is the threefold aspect
of manifestation, and as long as the soul remains puzzled
by this, it cannot arrive at the knowledge of the One.
These three aspects are the seer, sight, and the seen;
the knower, knowledge and the known.
In point of fact, these are the three aspects of life.
One aspect is the person who sees; 
the second aspect is the sight, or the eyes,
by the help of which he sees; 
and the third aspect is that which he sees.
That is why one cannot readily accept the idea
that what one sees is the same as oneself,
nor can one believe for a moment that the medium
by which one sees is oneself, for these three aspects
seem to be separate and to be looking at one another's faces,
as the first person, second person, and third person
of Brahma.

"When this riddle is solved by the realization that the three are one,
then the purpose of the God-ideal is fulfilled. . . . "


(from: The Unity of Religious Ideals,
by Hazrat Inayat Khan)

(If you have time, read this alongside
some of my entries about 
the Creation,
the Palindrome,
and God's Desire
to See Himself)

thank you for reading 
this blog--










16 October 2010

the love that exceeds (a channelling)

(Sounio, south of Athens, Greece
photo by Makropoulos)

When we love
      with a love
                 that exceeds
our expectations of love,
we ignite a fire
in our being
that unites with
the infinite,
the penetrating
incapacitating
                     power of the All
is engendered there.
(also at Sounio,
photo by Makropoulos)


Incapacitating
                it is
because it erases
our
mortal individuality
and implicates us
in a nameless
immortality.

(The human
and all that it imagines 
and comprehends,
even of love,
has boundaries -----
the temporal frame
of earth 
and life and death

and the portrait of
                  our living
that that frame embraces---

is our lives
is our lives.

(pebbles through water 
off a beach
in Kythnos, Greece
photo by Makropoulos)

That frame,
the only portal
at our disposal
that gives us acccess
to the beyond

is the subtle,             
delicate
heart
                             so inextricably wedded
to mind

and the melody
                           plucked on the strings
      that bind
them

is the song of our love
seducing us to love

beyond our limits.

When we love
      with a love
                 that exceeds
our expectations of love,
we ignite a fire
in our being
that unites with
the infinite,

the penetrating
incapacitating
                     power of the All
is engendered there.













frustrated with blogger

Hey,
I need some help.
I was just trying to answer
Debra She Who Seeks 
lovely comment on my entry from last night,
and for some strange reason,
I can't even comment on my own blog!

I've also been trying to 
comment on a few others,
and having troubles.

To those of you who have mastered this art
a little better than I
have,
please inform on what I may be doing
wrong.

Answer this posting with your suggestions--

I've also been trying to say hi
to Cricket Song
for over a week!

Hi Cricket Song,
hope you're fine.

11:11 on 11/11/11



So, as we all may know,
there's a growing community of folks
who are a bit worried
about the date
12/21/2012.
Somethin' about
Nostradamus
and
the Mayans,
and
some kind of planetary alignment.


Well, I had a revelation
today, and
it goes like this:

That's not really the date to watch
out for.

Well, ok, so it's true;  the evidence
(if you accept that kind of evidence as evidence)
does suggest
something major,
on
12/21/2012
something/anything
ranging from
major paradigmatic shift
to 
ice age
to
metaphysical awakening
to 
alien encounter
to
total destruction

or

fill in the blank

on 12/21/2012.
( somy35 )

But I had a vision today,
and it was
that the really interesting
palindromic
upcoming
temporal event 
will be:

11:11 on 11/11/11


I think it could be
either
a.m. or p.m.

you choose.

~ ~ ~

Anyway,

I would propose that

11:11 on 11/11/11

should be declared

the deadline time

for the one-ness,

and if we meet that deadline,
and stay in a state
of oneness
until 12/21/2012,
well,

we'll pass whatever

judgement day test

God has in store for us

for

12/21/2012.


Get it?

You see,


the deal is this:


if, 

by some weird

outside

chance,


we are facing Armageddon,


then hey,


what the heck?


Would it really hurt us to try,


for a little over a year


to just be at peace,


to just love each other.



This Is My Request,
My Dare,
To The World:

If everyone would meet that deadline:


11:11 on 11/11/11


a.m.  or p.m.,

you choose,


and then


beginning on that date,

just


STOP


stop all the hate.


Stop all the fighting.


Stop all the bickering.


Stop all the competition,


and hating,


and hurting,


and murdering,
STOP IT ALL!!!!


and just start loving,


loving people


who



you never thought you could love.



Find a place in your heart



where you can see



the thing that makes those people
who anger you, or have hurt you,
or who you don't understand


yes, 


those people,



find the thing that makes them



beautiful.





and love them until


12/21/2012.




Well, actually:
 let's say
the danger zone for
a real,
possible
 Armageddon
or
Apocolypse
or
whatever
is
from
12/20/2012
until
12/23/2012.

Yeah,
that sounds good --
those solstices 
can take awhile,
especially when they involve
a realignment
of the Earth's
magnetic fields.


So, given that,
if we get through
12/23/2012
and we're still here
and the sun
is still shining
and Santa Claus comes
and brings you
all the presents you asked for,
well then,
if we're still here after
12/23/2012,
and we've loved for a year,
and we've communicated honestly for
a whole year
and we've given to the poor for
a whole year
and we've forgiven all our debtors
for a year
and our debtors have forgiven us
for a year
and we've built up Iraq's infrastructure
for a whole year
and gone to tea with the Taliban
for a whole year
and the Taliban has gone to tea
with us
for a whole year

So, let's say
we do all that for
a little over a measly year,
and we get past the 
end of the Mayan Calendar
with no Apocolypse,
no voice from the heavens,
no planetary destruction,

why then,
if that year or so of loving
each other really proved
to be a waste of our time
we can start hating each other again,
and go back to fighting each other again.


That's the deal.



That's the deadline.





11:11 on 11/11/11





begin the one-ness








p.s.:

so I wrote this entry, then did a search on 

11/11/11,

and wouldn't you know it?


I'm not original,


Other People are thinking about it


or channelling it?


I don't know if the entry I just did


was a true


channelling.


It was, in part


a smart-assed remark


but also a dead serious


suggestion.


Call it a plea.



Call it whatever.


Here's what someone else calls it: