Chios

I was recently on the Greek island of Chios,

which is just off the coast of Turkey.

I've lived in Turkey,

and been to several places in Greece,

but I had never been to Chios before.

Chios, like other islands in the area,

has been invaded and settled over time by several

different powers,

including the Greeks, the Persians, the Italians,

and of course the Turks.

Because of the island's vulnerable, coveted geographical location,

the people built up cities that were natural fortresses,

like this one, the medieval village of Mesta.

This is its outer wall:

The houses in these village/fortresses are built so close together

that you have to look for the hole

or chink

in the fortress, so the speak,

where you will find the entrance:

And then you walk through narrow passageways

that ultimately open out into fabulous central courtyards

The most fascinating of these medieval villages was Pyrgi,

also built so to protect itself:

But the remarkable thing about Pyrgi is the amazing designs 

on the buildings there.  It's almost like graffitti,

but controlled into fabulous patterns.

It reminds me, in a small way,

of the island of Bali,

a land where art and living work collaborate continually.

But in Pirgi, the artwork comes from very humble means.

It begins with putting plaster on stone walls,

then digging it off into different designs

using spoons:

This people of Pyrgi began doing this to their houses 

a few hundred years ago.  The more geometric patterns

come from that time.  The most recent designs

date back fifty years or so, and they are more

elaborate.  The result is a most definitely Greek

village that might have been imagined

by

Dr. Seuss & Gaudi:

. . . ah, it is so wonderful to see

what the human compulsion

for self expression.

There will, I believe, always be

some form of art.  And it is most fabulous

when our art is also the place

where we live.

(all photos by Makropoulos)

The All That is Nothing

We will be able to reproduce our bodies

if we are only brain.

If we are only brain

we don't need a body, because

if we have lived the life,

and truly experienced it, 

living it

fully,

we can imagine what it would be like to do those things

and we wouldn't have to be there.

1.

This thought came to me when,

in a vaguely herbal state,

I was standing in front of my stove

thinking: "time to turn on the stove."

And I saw my arm reach out

from my body and press

the imitation button button

on the stove top.

And then my mind went somewhere else,

for a relatively long period of time.

When I returned to the stove

I was suprised it wasn't on.

I had seen the action so clearly.

I had imagined, in my mind, an action

that I've completed so many times with my body

that I knew so well;

I projected an image of my arm turning on the stove

so truthful

that I thought I had actually done the act.

But I hadn't.  The oven was cold as a tomb,

so I had to actually use my arm

and finger

to turn it on.

But the fact was: that act was there;

my mind moved so vividly

I believed that the representation

of the act was the act itself.

My imagination had that much substance.

Then I thought: if we could find

a way that I (or anyone) could 

train the brain and

connect my thoughtprocess

(which is only electricity)

with the electric (ie: radio) wave

emitted from my 

part gas/part electric stove,

then we wouldn't really

need to use

our arms anymore.  

Our arms, after all, are only

an imitation of a compulsion

within us to reach, to make

contact with

Thing That Does.

The Thing That Does is whatever object

we created on this earthly plane to help us manifest

either a.) ethereal aspects of God or

b.) those acts we have to do to stay on the planet.

The Thing That Does, by the way

is the inverse representation of

The Thing That Does Not.

The physical place we occupy,

and all its disparate parts,

ie: the kitchen

the apartment

the shoe

the body,

aka

The All That Is Something

are, when functioning collaboratively, the inverse representation

of the

All That Is Nothing.

2.

Different creatures interact

with the All That Is Nothing

in different ways.

Cats, for instance, live on

the margins of the

All That Is Something

and the

All That Is Nothing:

they respect.

They have little to say, 

and their thoughts are elegantly simple;

they know that different aspects of the 

All That Is Something

sustain their physical lives,

so they seek them out,

for sustenance: that is

the essence of the predator.

The predator is one who

lives in that margin,

who knows that the All 

That Is Something

is really Nothing 

but a veneer - a couterpoint -

to the truth: Nothing

which is,

yeah,

Everything.

(Now if you've gotten this far and this makes an iota of sense, I thank you.  You may want to go back to my earlier entries on the palindrome, mirrors,  and creation.  This one echoes many of the ideas found there.)

Because Nothing is the Everything

we seek.

If we can slip inside the glove of nothing

we will become the everything,

and our physical presence

will be made manifest

on the Mirror of Our Desire To Fully See Ourselves.

Honesty is the key.

3.

If, in this human life, you live honestly,

then when you pass into death, you will

be able to look in the 

mirror

that divides the two,

life and death,

and you will see your truthful life

(the mirror never lies)

and look back and say

I was always honest to my 

essential self

in this life.  And when

I made mistakes, I admitted them;

I don't need to go back; 

and do it over

I can be nothing and something

and be absolutely content,

knowing 

that while I lived in this physical body,

I used it justly.

4.

Yes, I am talking reincarnation,

because reincarnation is the only

explanation

for what's going on here.

We come back and come back and come back

into this realm of the 

reproduction 

(don't forget: we ARE the reproduction, and reproduction

is the norm on the physical plane;

it is how we sustain ourselves here.)

So we keep coming back,

reproducing ourselves

in so many different forms,

and challenging ourselves

to do better,

to help the God who is our Creator

see himself.

We're living in the mirror,

and we can either live through the breaking of the mirror, again,

which won't be a hell of a lot of fun,

(and it might even feel like hell, for awhile)

or we can live through

the absolute act

of cohering the parts,

of making ourselves

a total representation of all the 

aspects of God that we,

in this incarnation,

chose to represent.

The most successful way of cohereing the parts

is to develop the brain and the heart.

Because the brain and the soul live on 

after the body is gone.

The brain and the heart are the essence

of God;

God is mind, logic and knowledge

and the creative impulse

combined and working

in harmony.

The body, as I've said 

before,

is just the avatar

that we chose to use

while we dwell on

the Plane of Brokenness.

Our brain is our most

Godlike aspect;

Our bodies were just built from

dirt - the materials of the physical realm -

to carry the brain and the heart around

while it's here.