Medicine: A Soul Journey Home

Love and Intuition: Heeding Oneself

2007-03-31T20:09:00.000-07:00

In the past several days, I've had a series of revelations of the sort that should seem fairly obvious in the first place. They haven't been because I guess I wasn't paying attention. The first came a few days ago when I decided to go back to the ear acupuncture clinic because of my sinuses. When I was about a half block from the bus stop, I had the following distinct thought: "I have a weird feeling I'm about to miss the bus." I actually thought that sentence to myself and in the same moment had to literally refrain from running. Ten to fifteen seconds later, the bus went rolling past, and I missed it. Of course, I was instantly annoyed with myself. "Goddamn it," I thought, as my next thoughts turned into a diatribe about how long I might have to wait now and how much sooner I could have reached my destination. But the more I thought about it, I started to grasp the bigger picture, which is that there's intuition that one follows and doesn't think twice about and there's intuition that one second guesses.

For example, if I'm walking down a street at night and I get the feeling that I should cross the street or turn instead of going straight, I never doubt it. I just do it. I never argue with myself. I never even bother to wonder what might have happened. I just go with it. But there are other times where I'll get a premonition or forewarning that I won't heed—like the aforementioned bus incident. The distinguishing feature seems to have something to do with language and immediacy. When I feel the need to cross the street, it usually happens in a split second in which there is no time to think it over and also the languge is something like "turn here" or "I think I should turn here." But it happens so quickly that I don't even realize there was a sentence or directive. I just do it.

But every now and again I will "hear" these sentences that start with "I have a weird feeling that..." and those are the kind I will tend to dismiss. I guess these things are less urgent, and I am more aware of the fact that I'm talking to myself. Except now I wonder about the true source of this information, because clearly this is intution though I have failed to recognize it as such. I guess what this really means is that during the periods of time in which I have felt as if I am cut off from my intuition, I probably have been fed or have generated plenty of intuitive self-instruction but I have been closed to it for one reason or another. Too distracted. Too tired. Too dense.

The second revelation has to do with love or the nature of love or specific with the reason that spiritually love is so important. By spiritual love I mean the "love your neighbor" kind of love that suggests we are all one. It came to me as I was watching Tibet: The Cry of the Snow Lion. My heart literally hurt as I listened to all these monks describing the various tortures they'd endured at the hands of the Chinese. Mortifying things. And of course the movie talked about the Dai Li Lama, and nonviolence even at the hands of the oppressor and the need for forgiveness etc. I thought about atrocities that have been committed from the beginning of time and that are being committed even today by my own country. Right at that moment a monk was describing being smeared with urine and feces by those who had taken him prisoner and a nun described being electrocuted in her vagina, and I almost had to stop watching. I kept asking myself, "How can people do this to each other? How can anyone treat anyone else like that?" Then the voice of my intuition explained the obvious to me. If people don't love each other, then they hate one another. When you hate someone you allow yourself to see the other as "the other" instead of as human or even as a fellow living creature. After that it's probably fairly easy to do things that we otherwise would never dream of doing to one another.

I was really struck by that. And yet, the next day, it was a real stuggle to keep myself from falling into old patterns and not to view msyelf as separate from those around me whose appearance or behavior I may have disliked. I guess that's the practice. But I had never really thought about it that way, and I think it's good. It puts a whole different slant on the nature of this existence.

Spring Cleaning - Day 12

2007-03-21T21:27:00.000-07:00

Mmm mmm. Two days ago I made it out of the Master Cleanse woods. I never wanna see another lemon again. Actually, I had some lemon juice today but it was mixed with some new things.

Monday was the last day of the strictly "lemonade" diet. Yesterday, I traded in the lemons for oranges, choosing to break the fast with fresh squeezed oj. The rationale is that oj stimulates the digestive system. I don't know by what mechanism that works, but it's what I read in the Master Cleanse book by the guy who invented it. M., who is two days behind me on this fast, balked at the idea of strictly orange juice, feeling it would be too acidic. I had similar thoughts the last time I fasted, but I had no problems with it that time or this time. Plus if you think about it, how much more "acidic" can you get with lemon juice and cayenne pepper.

According to the Master Cleanse, there are two ways to break a fast. One is to drink orange juice for two days and then the third day following the cleanse, drink oj in the morning followed by raw fruit for lunch and fruit or a salad for dinner. The next day you should be fine to eat normally. However, that's for people who are vegetarian. We poor omnivores and carnivores are to follow a different strategy. The first day after the cleanse, one drinks only orange juice and extra water if desired. On the second day, one is to drink several glasses of oj and then in the evening, it's suggested that one have vegetable soup—mostly the broth, although the vegetables can be eaten sparingly. Burroughs also says that rye wafers may be consumed with this meal but no bread or crackers. The next day, one should drink oj in the morning, at noon have more soup and for dinner "whatever is desired in the form of vegetables, salads or fruit. No meat, fish or eggs; no bread, pastries, tea, coffee or milk." Normal eating is resumed on the fourth day.

Now the ways to break a fast are as myriad as are the ways in which to fast. Every school of thought seems to disagree with all the others. I've read that a fast should only be broken with fruit or specific kinds of fruit or melon. I've even seen that it's popular in some camps to break a fast with a couple tablespoons of unsalted, unbuttered popcorn. The one point of agreement is that breaking a fast should be done slowly, some even advocating that it should take half the time of the actual fast. By that logic, a ten-day fast should be broken in five days.

I see the wisdom in that, but my ascetic whims are fading rapidly. What I'm doing now is kind of winging it. I had grandiose ideas about 21 days, but I've reached my limit. I really want to eat—out of pure desire not hunger. Five days makes sense, but I don't have it in me. Three days was what I had originally planned and that's what I'm sticking to; but I also planned on three days of strictly fruit and vegetable juices. I just can't do it. I can do it, but I don't want to do it. So after slurping down some oj in the A.M., and enjoying a 16 oz. "I AM RICH," i.e. oj, carrot, beet, lemon juice at Cafe Gratitude in the afternoon, I went grocery shopping. I returned home all sorts of goodies: carrots, red cabbage, spinach, kale, parsley, a handful of tiny red and white potatoes, a turnip, beets, a yellow onion, garlic, and a handful of dried pinto beans, the latter of which I promptly set aside soaking. I also bought two brands of vegetable broth/stock: Wolfgang Puck's organic style (more savory) and Kitchen Basics' low sodium vegan version (sweeter). I threw everything into a pot with some sage, basil, and seasoned black pepper. I also added about a half a can of organic black beans. I simmered them until the carrots and potatoes were easy to cut through. Then I left the house, reminiscing about an old childhood favorite: "Stone Soup."

I've read that people have the tendency to go hog wild when they begin eating again. That wasn't my intention, but I'm really over the whole liquid diet thing, especially juice type liquids. So one tip I read is to eat whatever that first thing is, at the evening meal so that you go to bed and ostensibly you don't eat again until the next day, which keeps you from overdoing it. So when I returned to the house later in the evening, I grabbed a bowl and filled it mostly with broth. I also got a little piece of everything—a tiny bit of potato, literally three beans, a slice each of carrot and celery, a smidgen of wilted greens, and a tiny bit of beet and turnip. All together, I don't think they would have amounted to much more than a tablespoon of food. I was, of course, more generous with the broth. Then I sat down and tried not to inhale the whole thing. It was nice to savor, actually, as the entire ensemble tasted righteous.

I can't wait to indulge in more tomorrow. I made enough soup for an army, so I'll definitely be enjoying it for lunch and dinner, with increasing amounts of solids in the mix. I think I'll go get some rye wafers for an additional treat with dinner. Then Saturday and through the weekend, I'll try to stick to the mostly raw foods idea, but all my planning is starting to fall by the wayside. On a positive note though, I continue to feel very, very good, and although I am slightly disappointed that I haven't stuck 100 percent to my original intention, for the most part I am congratulating myself. I feel clean and lean and now I'm ready to pollute myself again. By next Wednesday—V.'s b-day—I will be ready for an all out feast.

Spring Cleaning - Day 9

2007-03-18T13:57:00.000-07:00

The end is near! Truthfully, I can't wait for it to be over. The difficult part this far into it is mere boredom and the knowledge that although tomorrow is my last day on the Master Cleanse, I have a few days yet before I'll be eating solid food and several days before I'll be back to eating "normally. " I can't comment on whether it's been worth it until I've completed the entire regimen, but I think no matter what there will have been some benefit—all those that I mentioned in the previous posts.

Day 7 was the most difficult by far. I'm not sure what triggered what, but I felt pretty ill late in the day. I think I pushed myself and the process too hard. I'd gotten a shiatsu massage the previous day and went the ACTCM Auricular Drop-in Clinic for free ear acupuncture clinic on the morning of the 7th day. I'm sure that both of those things boosted the detox process. I also drank some tea at the clinic, but I don't know what kind it was. I'm sure there was nothing bad in it, but may have been a shock to my system after only lemonade and laxative tea for the preceeding six days. I think the real culprit is that fact that immediately after returning from the clinic, I did a salt flush. It was probably just too much to do after everything else I mentioned.

As the day wore on I found my energy waning for the first time since I began the fast, and my stomach felt bloated though I was eliminating almost pure water almost the entire rest of the day. I had several moments of nausea and started to feel a little panicky about the whole venture. In the evening I had a cup of Traditional Medicinals' Easy Now herbal tea blend, which is a mixture of chamomile and mint for the tummy and lavender and passionflower to soothe the nerves, and the combination didn't let me down. While laying in bed, I did a little energy work on my stomach and decided that if I still felt bad in the morning, I would break the fast early.

Yesterday I awoke with a slight headache, but I've been having that happen for at least a week even before the fast began. I also slept about 11 hours and was suprised to wake so late in the day. However, once I got up and started moving about I felt fine. I even ran several blocks to BART because I was late in meeting a friend, but the running didn't seem to upset my body in any way. We went to see Barack Obama at the Oakland City Hall, which meant being on our feet for at least an hour. Shortly after he took the stage, I felt an urgent need to use the bathroom, but I couldn't deal with the idea of a port-a-potty and then trying to fight my way back to where A. was standing, so I clenched and made it through. It was another hour before we got home, but somehow I survived the minor ordeal. After taking care of business, it was all good.

Today I feel totally, 100 percent good, and I'm excited about only having to drink this stuff for one more day. I was talking with M., who is also fasting and is two days behind me. We agreed that the harder part will come while breaking the fast and then beginning to eat again because the temptation will be to immediately eat all those things we've been denying ourselves—the garlic fries, the calamari, the meat balls, the pizza and even stuff like beer and 420. It's not like any of those things comprise my normal daily diet but knowing that I "can't" have them makes me want them a lot more than usual.

Among the many reasons for fasting is to gain insight into one's natural tendencies. For example, I often feel like I'm a sugar addict, but when I think of the things I miss right now it's not donuts and cake or any of the other treats I tend to dream about. Maybe it's because of the maple syrup, but I think what I really miss right now is the variety of taste and different sensations and textures. I don't care about sugar at all right now. I miss the act of chewing. But I also feel super super healthy. I know I've done something really good for body and my spirit. I also know I have no desire to ever fast longer than 10 days.

I've been calling this a 21-day fast. In reality, my proposed breakdown at the start was 10 days on the Master Cleanse, followed by 3 days of fresh fruit and vegetable juices, ending with 8 days of a 75% raw food/25% cooked food diet. If I stick to that, then I will end on March 30, with the last day of the month being the first day in which I resume the freedom to eat whatever I want—hopefully sticking to healthier choices but able to have something not so healthy if that's really what I desire in the moment. However, V.'s birthday is on the 28th, and she's been pretty bummed out at the idea that if we go out for dinner, I'll only be able to eat salad. Sooooooo, between her birthday and my honest desire to be done with this already, I'm only going to do 5 days on the 75% raw food diet and then on the 28th, I plan to go hog wild—in a very restrained fashion, of course : ) I can hardly wait.

Spring Cleaning - Day 6

2007-03-15T21:49:00.001-07:00

I am patting myself on the back because this is the first time I've ever gone beyond five days on a fast. The last time I fasted, I felt I could have gone beyond the five-day mark, but I had a time constraint known as Thanksgiving in the way, and since I had invited myself to my brother's, I felt it would be rude to show up and not eat. Poor timing. Timing is the whole key.

Today M. and I talked about how much one's mindset plays a role from the onset. If you have any sort of resistence or regret about what you're about to do, it's a sure fire guarantee that you won't reach your fasting goal. I've definitely experienced that. Once on the second day of what I had intended to be a three-day fast, I had an event to attend. When I arrived, I was stunned to discover that they had a sushi buffet with every kind of roll imaginable. That was the end of my fast. Another time, I was not even 12-hours into a fast, when I decided I just didn't feel like it. I finished out the day and decided to do it again another time. Completing a fast is impossible if you don't have the will, and I don't believe it's worth forcing myself, so sometimes I just bag it.

This fast is going remarkably well, though. Still, I will admit that I had a little bit of a freakout last night. It started late in the afternoon. I was sitting in the living room of S., and we were chitchatting. All the sudden I started tripping out on the fact that he had no idea that I hadn't eaten in five days, and I began thinking how weird that was—that one could just nonchalently say, "Oh, I haven't eaten since Friday night" on the Wednesday that comes after it. The more I thought about it, the more I started pysching myself out in a really bad way. I tried to ignore myself but by the evening I began having a genuine hypochondriac reaction. My head hurt. My organs hurt. I imagined all kinds of terrible scenarios resulting in my having to be hospitalized and the doctors standing over me shaking their heads, saying amongst themselves, "She hasn't eaten! Why would someone do this to themselves! Now she'll never be well, tut tut." It was ridiculous. I felt queasy and faint. My inards ached. I became dizzy, and my fear expanded into other realms. I thought I heard tapping on my window, rustling at the door. I had bad dreams, dreams in which dogs came into my living space and were slobbering and sniffing around me....

I awoke with my tongue pasted to the roof of my mouth. Looking in the mirror, I was happily disgusted by the thick white "fur." During a fast, the process of detoxification causes one's tongue to appear white, sometimes yellowish. This is a good sign that things are proceeding nicely. In Between Heaven and Earth: A Guide to Chinese Medicine, the authors explain that state of the tongue is considered one of the "most useful and reliable" methods of physical examination. They say that the fur, i.e. the coating on the tongue, mirrors the "digestive Fire" or Qi of the stomach. " Qi (pronounced and sometimes spelled "Chi") is basically one's life force: "Qi is both the foundation of structure and the catalyst of transformation and movement." There are many ways to understand Qi, and there are types of Qi, but suffice it to say that a Chinese Medicine practitioner can give incredibly accurate and detailed diagnoses of one's health simply by looking at the color and shape of the tongue, which in addition to indicating what's going on in the stomach, "also reflects the intrinsic strength and functional capacity of the individual." In a disease state, the color, texture, moisture, size and shape of one's tongue [are] affected; but "as illness [or detoxification] improves, the quality of the fur and color of the tongue become more normal."

Ayurveda, the traditional system of medicine in India, also uses the tongue as health indicator. A whitish tongue indicates a specific sort of imbalance and mucus accumulation and any sort of fur or coating may indicate the presence of toxins in the stomach, and small or large intestines. In fasting, the ideal is to fast until the tongue returns to a normal, healthy pink color, ostensibly meaning that the cleansing and rebuilding process is completed. Unfortunately, this usually does not happen in a conveniently pre-determined three- or five-day period. While it varies from individual to individual and from fast to fast, I doubt ten days will do it for most people either. All I know is that I don't have the gumption or wherewithal to push myself beyond what I set out to do this time around. Maybe I'll give it a shot in the Fall or next Spring. In the meantime, I've got a tongue scraper, and I take heart in the fact that that my nasty looking tongue is a sign that what I'm doing is not in vain.

I am really starting to get bored with my diet, though. Today M. sent me a recipe for Tuscan Bean Soup. She's also fasting and though she's only on Day 2, she's already planning what she's gonna make as her first meal. Since I will be easing into it with the raw food part of my 21-days, I don't have as much to be excited about. However, I think anything that doesn't have lemon or lime in it will make my day.

I still feel great though. Yesterday I walked up to the Haight and back—about a 4-mile jaunt—during the day. I brought the juice with me, so I was fine. By the time I got home I was very tired—tired but not weak. Later in the evening I had to talk myself into spending half an hour stretching, but I'm glad I did as I discovered my hamstrings were extremely tight.

Unfortunately I'd run out of syrup, so I had even less of the mix yesterday than I'd had the preceeding day, and that's a trend I do not want to continue. I'm sure it contributed to my mini-nervous breakdown, although I didn't have as much as I would have liked today either. I think I've had about 40 oz., the past few days. I'd like to stay more around the 50 oz. mark, more for my head than for the rest of my body. As time goes on, it does freak me out that I'm surviving so well on next to nothing. For the Western mind, this just does not compute. I think most people are raised to believe that the human body starves to death in a relatively short period of time. It's a bit of mind fuck to realize that you can live extremely well for a period of time on a few pinches of hot pepper, three or four of lemons and a quarter cup of tree sap a day.

Spring Cleaning - Day 4

2007-03-13T22:17:00.000-07:00

I'm happy to say that the fast is going quite well so far. Yesterday, I experienced a bit of hunger but nothing that threw me off. I was stressed out about things over which I had no control, which translated to hunger. Fasting is a good way to learn what type of role food plays in one's life. I'm not the sort to eat a pint of ice cream because I'm sad or upset, but I do like to eat when I'm stressed, and I'll eat anything, preferably junk. In fact, I almost always only eat junk food when I'm stressed out. Note to self.

Knowing that I was stressed I decided to de-stress by taking a sauna. I spent about an hour at Osento. As it was a gorgeously warm, sunny day, the steam heat was particularly potent. I mean it was HOT inside that barrel, but it felt really good. I used my custom de-tox blend—dead sea salts, epsom salts, clay, baking soda, juniper, rosemary and some other good stuff—to exfoliate, and I also threw some Olbas on the rocks a couple of times. I brought my bug juice with me but also drank Osento's filtered water with quarters of fresh lime in it. I'm usually in the sauna for 2 hrs, but I felt tapped at half that and knew to listen to my body.

I went home and relaxed for a couple hours before going back and giving my first energy massage to a woman I'd met at Osento a few weeks ago. That went relatively well—she exclaimed, "You have amazing energy!" Then she talked me back into the sauna for another half hour or so, claiming, "There's no such thing as too much sauna." Obviously that's not true, but again I listened to my body, and it was nice to do it a second time in the same day.

Later in the evening, I did notice that my stomach was gurgling an awful lot. It was loud and rather non-stop. I wasn't in pain and didn't feel weak or anything else untoward but it was something different than I've experienced in the past. I gave more thought to the salt water wash.

While doing this fast it's imperative to remove the released toxins from the body either by drinking laxative tea twice a day or by doing a salt water flush. Otherwise, as Burroughs states, "It would be just the same as sweeping the floor around and around and never removing the dirt from the house." I have always been afraid of doing the salt water flush; it sounds like it would lead to barfing. You haven't eaten for hours or days, and you're drinking salt water? Sounds like a recipe for disaster. However, Burroughs prefers this method to the laxative tea alone, explaining that the salt water cleanses your entire digestive system from top to bottom. The idea is to use uniodized sea salt. That's very important; regular table salt will not work properly. According to Burroughs, "the salt and water will not separate but will stay intact and quickly and throughly wash the entire tract in about one hour." He adds, "The salt water has the same gravity as the blood, hence the kidneys cannot pick up the water and the blood cannot pick up the salt." All I know is that saline can be used to clean a lot of things from pennies to contacts to sinuses, so the concept makes sense to me.

But I awoke this A.M. knowing that I would give it a shot. I drank 32 oz. of luke warm water mixed with 2 tsp. of the right kind of salt. To be honest, it tasted good after three days of maple lemon taste. I was under the impression that I would immediately expell this concoction but it takes several minutes to move through the digestive tract. I didn't feel nauseous and didn't experience any cramping, the latter of which I do sometimes get from the tea. Instead, after about half an hour of laying on my side, I decided to get up and do jumping jacks. I don't know why. I guess I was remembering watching someone clean a bong—you shake it. After that I still didn't feel very different. I went to the bathroom simply because I didn't know what else to do with myself. There was no physical sense of urgency. However, once I sat down a mass of "stuff" was released—mucousy stuff. I won't get any more graphic than that. I was rather pleased; the trick had worked.

The subsquent eliminations—of which there were many during the next three or four hours—were less pleasant. It was basically like peeing water out of my ass, and I didn't like it all, especially considering that the bug juice recipe also includes cayenne. I'll just say that a certain part of my body felt singed and chaffed. But the salt water flush works. I will probably do it again in a couple more days, but I will make sure that I ease up on the cayenne content during the preceeding day.

By mid-afternoon, the water faucet had turned off, and it was back to the regular business of fasting. I decided to give limes a try instead of lemons and found that it makes for a nice change of pace. I can't say that I like one better than the other; they're both pretty tasty. Tomorrow, I'll try combining them.

My energy has remained as high as it's been the past few days, though I can't say I tested it much today. The most strenuous moment other than squeezing the limes was walking to Dolores Park to read and nap in the park. It's been so nice here the past several days. V. said the weather has been reminding her of summer in Greece. Vitamin D sunshine was just what Doctor M. ordered, and I made the most of it. But now I'm curious, as I head into Day Five, of whether my energy will wane at any point.

In the third edition of their book Prescription for Nutritional Healing, Phyllis and James Balch inform us that "a three-day fast helps the body rid itself of toxins and cleanses the blood. A five-day fast begins the process of healing and rebuilding the immune system. A ten-day fast can take care of many problems before they arise and help to fight off illness, including the degenerative diseases that have become so common in our chemically polluted environment." I'm excited about that. I've never gone past five days.

I've also never had a fast go as smoothly and easily as this one has so far. To be sure, I've never usually found them overly difficult, but I have felt more "wired." I'm not sure if that's the right word. Regardless, I don't feel any different than if I weren't fasting, and that's a real surprise. I feel clean and healthy, but I don't feel like anything is intensified or heightened, and that's part of why I do this—the spiritual aspect. Cleanliness is next to godliness, right? I write that tongue in cheek. I've also read that every two or three days, the body goes into a deeper phase of cleaning and that it's possible to experience fluctuations in energy because of that. We'll see.

I do miss food because I love food and much of my normal days revolve around food. Frankly it's a little boring not to be eating. I continue to amass a list of things I want to eat or places I want to go to eat or things I want to make to eat. I grilled V. about the pastrami sandwich she ate next to me in the park. She laughed, thinking it was too much temptation but I was just curious. I've never had pastrami as far as I can remember.

But all in all, I am happy I am doing this. I don't have a scale so I don't know if I've lost any weight. I do look leaner though. Today I flexed my biceps for V., and she was shocked. She said I look like a bodybuilder. A puny bodybuilder of course, but there's definitely more definition becoming evident. My little belly chub doesn't look like it's going anywhere, though. Weight loss isn't one of my goals so it doesn't matter, but I suspect the chub will drop because the other interesting thing I've noticed is that I'm "eating" less and less ever day.

On the first day I drank 64 oz. of the concotion. The second day I probably drank about 55 oz. or thereabouts. Yesterday I had roughly the same amount, give or take 5 oz. Today I had 40 oz. This is not by plan; I simply don't feel like taking in more than that. I had the 40oz. and a couple of 16 oz. bottles of spring water while V. sipped vodka tonics at the bar, and that's been fine. I'm about to have a cup of laxative tea, and that's it for the day, and it's all good.

Spring Cleaning - Day 2

2007-03-11T21:47:00.000-07:00

The pain in my head was undescribable yesterday, but my headache finally faded during the last half of That Obscure Object of Desire, which I watched while laying on the couch last night. I was a bit exhausted by the ordeal but decided to call my dad anyway, which was a good thing; however we were on the phone until 3am my time. It's important to get adequate rest while fasting; when we hung up, I knew I'd kind of blown it as far as that goes. I also knew I was in for little sleep since I was planning on attending a meditation class at 10:30 AM. I missed the transition to Daylight Savings Time and the class, so I got some rest after all.

I decided that rather than mope around the house, I should get out and enjoy the stellar weather with which we've been blessed the past several days. I mixed up a batch of bug juice, transferred a diluted amount into my water bottle, then took off on my bike. I rode about 16 miles and burned about 900 calories over the course of two hours despite not having eaten for more than 24 hours, and it was great. With the headache lifted, I had energy to burn, though I didn't push myself to do so. I felt fantastic! We had clear skies, warm sun, and an occasional cooling breeze. The day was pretty much perfect. This is one of the indicators that fasting is healthy for me: I felt good mentally and physically.

Last night I started reading Stanley Burrough's The Master Cleanser for the first time. It's odd that in all these years I've never done so, and I'm sorry I haven't. Burrough's originated the recipe that I use, and his little pamphlet is chock full of ideas. I don't agree with all of it, but it's giving me a new perspective on what I'm doing. One idea with which I do firmly agree is his belief that "to be complete, a healing system must be able to cover the entire field of human experiences—physically, mentally and spiritually. Any system which denies any part of this trinity fails in its attempt to heal to the same extent to which it denies any part or parts." He goes on to admit that "many of the principles that are presented in this book may be completely contrary to everything you have believed and studied." He then urges his readers not to dismiss his theories outright but to use one's own judgement. This is pretty much how I live my life anyway.

For instance, I strongly disagree with his statement that honey "must not be used at any time internally." He believes that it raises the sugar content of the blood too high, too quickly, just like alcohol, forcing an overproduction of insulin, which then causes the blood sugar levels to drop below normal. Burroughs states that regular use of honey can create "constant imbalances," whereas maple syrup and cane sugar are balanced and don't affect the body in the same way. I'm not scientist or doctor, so I don't know if these statements are true. But whether or not "it is one of the most overpromoted, overpriced product[s] being sold to gulliable health foodists," as he claims, I also know that lots of non-gulliable people believe in the health benefits of honey, particularly raw honey as opposed to the cooked and filtered honey that is found in most grocery stores. I use honey from time to time, and I'm not afraid of it after reading his thoughts about it. I don't think having a spoonful of honey is the same as knocking down a shot of Maker's Mark or pouring a couple packets of sugar in my mouth. In my mind and in my own experience, nothing is worse than processed sugar, and even if it's not as healthy for humans as some people believe it is, I don't think honey is a health culprit of nearly the same level. By the same token, I would never deviate from using anything other than the ingredients Burroughs suggests for his recipe.

His version of his recipe is interesting. I was surprised to learn that one can use either lemon juice or lime juice, freshly squeezed of course. I've never done it with limes and am intrigued by the thought. I also thought that Grade A maple syrup was a total no-no. While the darker grades are preferable, he says that all grades can be used. Burroughs notes that freshly extracted sugar cane juice works well instead of the maple syrup, but it's hard to come by in the United States. Pure sorghum, or molasses is another "possible but lesser replacement" in the recipe. His original recipe calls for "medium hot water," though "cold water may be used as preferred;" and he doesn't indicate a preference for spring vs. purified (distilled) water. I've always used spring water in the past but bought steam distilled drinking water this time around. He calls for a lot less cayenne than I tend to use, but I have a higher tolerance for it than most people, and the recipe says 1/10 tsp (per 10 oz. glass) "or to taste." I like it with a kick.

A lot of my friends ask me what the cayenne is all about. In addition to warming the body, the cayenne is an adaptogen, meaning that it invigorates or strengthens the system. Its purpose in this diet is to break up mucous in the body and add trace amounts of the B and C vitamins. Though I said I never deviate, I do sometimes add sage to the recipe. This is not sanctioned in his book, but sage is a member of the mint family, and Burroughs does say that mint tea can be used occasionally during the fast for "a pleasant change and to assist further in the cleansing. Its chlorophyll helps as a purifier, neutralizing many mouth and body odors that are released during the cleaning period." So I far I smell as fresh as a rose (wink), but one's breath does tend to "rot" during a good fast. As for the sage, I think I used it during my winter fast because it helps to clear the sinuses and lungs. I don't think I will use it this time around because it also stimulates the appetite. Though it didn't trouble me, it seems counter-productive.

In general, the fast has been pretty easy so far. The biggest challenge was this afternoon when I hung out with D. after my bike ride. I joined him while he demolished a giant empanada. We were surrounded by people eating heaping plates of chicken and rice that smelled delicious. It was torturous, but I was in no real danger of caving. In the beginning, everything that's been sworn off calls your name, but it's mostly a mental game. Usually by Day Three, the temptations diminish. I have two things on my list for next month, though—an empanada and a shrimp and scallop crepe with tomato sauce. Dios mio!

Spring Cleaning - Day 1

2007-03-10T18:19:00.000-08:00

Today's the first day of what I intend to be a 21-day fast. In the past few years I've been doing one or two fasts annually. This is the first year that I am committing to a full schedule of seasonal fasting, which means 4x per year—March, June, September, and December. The March and September fasts—Spring and Fall—are the most important and the Spring fast is the most important of all, hence the longest. Probably my Summer and Winter fasts will be three to five days long. In the Autumn, I'll do a ten-day fast.

Conflicting information abounds when it comes to the subject of fasting. Some authorities claim that it's highly dangerous, others will claim that it will cure everything under the sun. The ways and means of fasting are also a matter of contention. I only know what has worked for me and what makes me comfortable. Each time I fast, I stick to what I know, but I'm always learning as much as I can and making adjustments accordingly.

Almost every source will recommend a pre-fast for a day or two, whereby you eat only fruit and vegetables. Again, some will say this and some will say that. What I did yesterday was to eat only fruit in the morning and vegetables in the evening. So sum total, yesterday I had: a banana, some blueberries, some strawberries, a plum, lots of grapes and some freshly squeezed oj. For lunch I had half a bag of baby carrots. In the evening I had a decent-sized salad with mixed greens (mostly romain and butter lettuce), tomato, green beens, carrots, corn, red cabbage, radish and red onion. I did succumb to the bread and butter, but I didn't feel even the slightest bit guilty about it. I was at a restaurant watching my friend devour a shrimp and scallop crepe with wild mushrooms and tomato sauce. So I had a bit of bread. So what?

Today was Day 1 of the Master Cleanse portion of this venture: grade B maple syrup, fresh squeezed lemon juice, steam distilled water, and cayenne pepper. The idea is to drink half my weight in ounces each day. For me that's 64 oz. I can also have a cup or two of herbal tea. Today I didn't care for it, so I didn't have any although I will be drinking an herbal laxative every night during the liquid portion of the fast. That's it for the several days.

I'm not the slightest bit hungry today, although I do have a raging headache. Some people will suffer discomfort in the form of headaches and other complaints, such as cold-like symptoms, during the first portion of the cleanse. This is due to the process of detoxification. I have never suffered any of that. Unfortunately my headache started three days ago, even before my one-day pre-fast, so it has nothing to do with the fasting. I think it's mainly sinus pressure and also the stress of the past few months. I thought about holding off for a couple days, but I decided to stick to my original plan. This is an opportunity to put my money where my mouth is. I think the fast will actually help heal my sinuses. One reason they got inflamed is I haven't been drinking enough water lately. During the fast I'll be very well hydrated. Also since my system will, in effect, be resting, my body can turn its attention to taking care of any ailments in the works.

Unlike Beyonce, I'm not doing this to lose weight, though probably I will shed the elusive one or two pounds that keeps me from being able to wear a couple things in my wardrobe. Again, some sternly warn that exercise is a no-no during a fast. I have found that the Master Cleanse leaves me more than enough energy to do a light-to-moderate workout. For example, three days into my Spring fast last year, I joined my group in a 5-6 mile run. I had no problems whatsoever. But you have to know your body. A day prior to that, I had to walk about 20 blocks in the rain, and I felt very faint and shaky. My gut feeling is that running isn't the best option, but like I said, that day I was raring to go. I plan on doing lots of yoga and stretching and some moderate cardio such as biking and walking. I believe the activity is not only good but essential.

I'm also seeking a spiritual and mental focus and will be using this time to read inspirational material, bolster my meditation and prayer practices and study more about energy/healing modalities. I look forward to these fasts, just as I look forward to breaking them when I've reached my goal. Right now I've got 20 days to go, and I feel great about it.

We Meet Again, Over Yonder Psychic Horizon

2007-02-20T23:16:00.000-08:00

I had a strange experience this evening. I finally made time to check out the free introductory meditation class at Psychic Horizons. I arrived at 7:05, thinking that it started at 7pm and that I was late, but I was actually early because it didn't start until 7:30. I left for a few moments and returned about 15 minutes later.

When I walked in, a woman whom I'd never seen before asked me I'd been there before. At first I said "yes," but then I asked her if she meant had I been there earlier that night or had I ever been there. She meant if I'd ever been there. I said no. Then she asked if I was sure because I looked really familiar. I said I was sure, but as I was looking at her, I realized that she looked really familiar to me—yet I'm positive I'd never seen her before. She joked, "Oh, it must be a past life thing," and since we were in a room full of psychics, it got a hearty laugh. But it was weird because she totally reminded me of this woman I used to see all the time at Osento, the one whom I consider my "teacher"—the one who has disappeared.

Anyway, when I was leaving another woman was about to walk past me when she stopped and said hi. I greeted her back. Then she asked me if she'd seen me before somewhere. I shrugged and said, "I dunno." She said I looked familiar. Deja vu, right? I left. I stopped at Valencia Whole Foods to buy a carton of soy milk. At the register, the owner, who sees me all the time, asked, "Were you in here earlier tonight?" I said no. He looked puzzled. I said, "Well, I come in here all the time. Almost every day. Sometimes even more than once a day, but not today." He said, "Yah, I know, but for some reason it seems like you were here earlier." It didn't strike me how odd that all was until I was crossing the street.

It's weird that in a short span of time, three people thought they'd seen me before, and it's particularly weird that the store owner said "it seems like you were here earlier." That's downright bizarre. I may have unwittingly invoked the magic circle; maybe my doppleganger is making the rounds.

Niggerati Manner

2007-02-19T21:47:00.000-08:00

Because
I am dark,
Black on the face of the moon.
A shadow am I
Growing in the light,
Not understood as is the day,
But more easily seen
Because I am a shadow in the light.
—Bruce Nugent
excerpt from "Shadow"

A few nights ago I watched the film Brother to Brother, which came out (no pun intended) a few years ago. The film is about a young black gay art student who encounters an older black gay "nobody" who turns out to have been a member of the Harlem Renaissance. The movie is entirely fiction, but the artist and writer—Richard Bruce Nugent—is a real persona. He kicked it with Langston Hughes and Zora Neale Hurston among others back in the day. It's not brilliant filmmaking, but it's a very sweet-hearted film. It also impacted me in an unexpected way: having lived in SF for nearly 7 years now, I'd forgotten that I'm Black, and I'm gay.

That's a bit inaccurate. I'd forgotten that it matters to other people that I'm Black and gay (and a woman and a first-generation African American to boot). These societal "deficiencies" or "handicaps" aren't any less identified as such in "we're all liberals" Northern California—but it's not as "in your face" as it is in the midwest or out east or in the south, I'm sure. So without getting into the whyfores and wherefores, suffice it say that the film gave me pause. In the process of taking stock of my present, I realized that instead of applauding myself for having made it this far and viewing the sum of my experiences as the basis of the strength that will carry me forward, I've been judging myself quite harshly, as of late, for all the things that I haven't accomplished in this lifetime so far.

In summarizng that all so nicely for myself, I also gave myself the opportunity to take stock of my values and how my life has played out against those values—the choices I've made (regardless of whether or not they have all felt voluntary) and the outcomes to which I've complicitly agreed (simply by virtue of having decided on "a" as opposed to "b" or "none of the above" or "c" only if "d" etc.). So while it's true that I don't have my own family, a real home, a career (let alone a job at the moment), it's also true that I have known since I was five years old that I didn't want kids; it's only in recent months that I've had thoughts of having a "real home," however I define it; and career notwithstanding, I have a "great resume" and work is likely right around the corner. These are very big realizations for me.

Something else I don't have is a partner—either in the romantic sense or in a collaborative, creative sense. (This is one of those instances in which I would opt for "a" and "b," if at all possible.) So many great duos and collectives from Gamble & Huff to ... the denizens of the so-called "Niggerati Manor" to ... I dunno maybe Obama & Clinton—chuckle—have been greater together than alone. I have wondered time and again why I don't have that sort of community or single partner. And again, I look back upon the whole of my life and see how that has never been a realistic part of the picture for me—at least not as a child. I was always too much other, and if I wasn't treated that way directly, I was conditioned by my environment in such a way that it ceased to matter if my outsider experience was imposed or self-imposed. But now I'm solidly an adult. Not a kiddie adult of 20-something, or a reluctant adult of 30-something, but I'm poised for the next decade of my own time on Earth and now, for real, anything that's held me back in the past, has held me back in the past. If it holds me back in the future, it's because of what I make happen in my present—not because of the past.

I know this is all heady, but somehow it's taken a great weight off my shoulders. It's all made me realize that the "problem" isn't how to make my life right, but how to rightly view my life. I want to do so much, and I have the freedom to do it, and that freedom is gold. It's not all the gold I need because I need cash, I need an uninterupted flow of ideas, I need to take action on those ideas not just sit around and lament what hasn't happened in the past. But I see now that I can do it. I know also that it won't be easy, but hell, none of it's been easy.

Labyrinth

2007-01-01T22:07:00.000-08:00

Murphy: What are you, Picasso?
McManus: No, it's not art. It's a maze. It's a meditative maze. Murphy: Oh, okay. What's a meditative maze?
McManus: Well, if you got a problem that you're trying to figure out, you enter the maze. And as you make your way through, you concentrate on finding the right path, which stimulates your powers of reason. And by the time you reach the end, hopefully you'll have figured the problem out.
Murphy: Oh, yeah, I forgot. You went to that New Age seminar last weekend.
McManus: A maze is kind of dumb, but who's to say, right? I mean, if it works ... but we gotta try it, right?
Murphy: Sure, Tim. Only, you know, without real walls, these dinks are just gonna step over the line.

In the first episode of the final season of HBO's Oz, Tim McManus, administrator of the fictional prison's experimental unit paints a labyrinth in the prison's gymnasium floor, and, as he explains to his head Correctional Officer, Sean Murphy, by the time someone exits the maze, they'll have had insights about whatever brought them there. Given the heights the show had reached in previous seasons, I was suprised how low it was falling with such an implausible and dumb idea. Throughout the season, various characters walk the "maze," during emotionally heavy moments of their lives, and every time, I thought to myself how ridiculous it was.

Perhaps in the context of television it is, but less than a month after I had watched the final episodes on DVD, I was trying to come up with a spiritual activity for New Year's Eve or Day. In years past, I've gone to the ocean or gone to a church. One year I went to a Zen Buddhist Temple. Looking for ideas, I got online and somehow I stumbled onto the website for Nob Hill's Grace Cathedral Church, where the word "labyrinth" jumped out at me. Suddenly I found myself staring at an image that looked familiar, except this was no maze. The Rev. Dr. Lauren Artress, President and Founder of Veriditas, The Voice of the Labyrinth Movement explains: "The Labyrinth is an archetype, a divine imprint, found in all religious traditions in various forms around the world. By walking a replica of the Chartres labyrinth, laid in the floor of Chartres Cathedral in France around 1220, we are rediscovering a long-forgotten mystical tradition that is insisting to be reborn." Grace Cathedral has two. I was intrigued. Wallah! A New Year's Day ritual.

My experience was incredible and more than I could ever have expected. I'd had only five hours of sleep after a long night surveying the the dreck of 2006, and all that I hope to leave behind. I set off for my walking meditation with absolutely nothing to lose. Arriving at the church, I stumbled upon the terrazzo labyrinth. It was smaller than I expected. The skies were a bit grey. I was alone, but happy to be so. I plugged in my iPod, selecting music for meditation. Just as I was about to enter, a group of four or five little Russian kids in ethnic garb came from nowhere and entered the "maze," laughing, running and disrupting my solitude. I was grossly disappointed but prepared to do what I came to do. They skipped and danced. I kept my head down and settled into a steady, contemplative pace. The moment my feet had crossed the entrance, the sun beamed upon us all. Within seconds I had my first revelation, which was that having the kids scamper and cavort was kind of "delightful," and that though they were not the company I might have chosen, I enjoyed their presence. I thought about how often this is the case in life, that although I don't always have the luxury of choosing my companions, it's often my attitude about their presence that makes the difference between enjoying myself and being bothered.

Two adults, an older man and a woman about my age joined in, and I was very aware of the contrast between the adult furrowed brows and frolic manuvers of the kids. I noticed also that each time it seemed like any of us were about to collide, the labyrinth would suddenly turn back on itself; all that was required was faith. Without it, we might have strayed, trying to avoid a danger that revealed itself as only the appearance of danger. I saw also that even though the labyrinth switched directions, I was always on "the right path," always headed toward the center even after I'd lost my bearings. My walk was filled with revelation after revelation of this kind, so that by the time I did reach the center I thought I'd be overflowing, too full. But at the center, I found quiet. The others continued circling and switching back around me, oblivious, as if I were a proton in the nucleus and they were electrons. Life was going on all around me as I stared out at the park across the street full of children on swings, dogs and their owners and strolling couples.

After some moments of silent prayer and meditation, I set about reversing my trip inward. I was reluctant to go back, but soon I was lost in the movement itself, and it became irrrelevant whether I was journeying inward or outward. The spiral drew me back to my start point, though I felt changed; the others who'd been with me had already left. A young couple stood still for a moment as if on the edge of a precipice, undecided. Then they began, the same as me, one foot after the other.

I felt incredible. Nearby a man was playing with his son, a toddler. I smiled at both of them as I passed by to explore the rest of the grounds; the father eyed me suspiciously. I passed a homeless man muttering to himself. I came upon a locked gate beyond which lay a garden. I held the bars, like the men in Oz, and contemplated all that had just happened. I thought about what I would like to manifest in this lifetime. I wondered, among other things, if I'll ever have a real relationship. Just as I asked where this womanly creature for me might be, a silver balloon bounded gracefully towards me. Where it came from, I had no idea but I opened my hands and arms and it floated right to my heart. I was comforted by its message and presence. Then I looked up and noticed that the clouds were rolling in, a nip was returning to the air. I felt it was time for me to go home. I gave the balloon to the toddler, and his father stammered a thank you. For a moment the sun peeked out again. And then I went home.

Following the Yellow Brick Road, Part II

2006-04-19T13:34:00.000-07:00

I recently read this great book by Patrick Harpur called The Philosophers' Secret Fire: A History of the Imagination. The author, as an Amazon reader stated quite well, "revisits 'the Otherworld,' a realm of imagination—of mythology and folklore, metaphor and analogy, spirit and soul. It is a world celebrated by Plato and
neo-Platonists; by shamans and soothsayers; by alchemists and magi; by mystics (Jacob Boehme and St. John of the Cross); by Romantic poets (William Blake, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and W. B. Yeats); and by the psychologist C. G. Jung. [Yet] the burden of Harpur's message is that modern man has lost his soul. The spiritual hubris of his literalism, materialism, rationalism, and scientism has separated him not only from his own "soul, but also from Nature and from the 'World Soul,' which permeates the cosmos and which, in a pantheistic sense, is the cosmos." I would add that "modern man" in this context specifically refers to "Western man," given that the more "primitive" cultures remain ever in touch with "the Otherworld." While this tells you what The Philosophers' Secret Fire is about, it doesn't tell you how wonderfully written and what a pure joy it was to read. Honestly, it was one of the best, most delightful and most thought-provoking reads I've stumbled upon in recent years, so I really took notice when Harpur quoted some material from The Passion of the Western Mind by Richard Tarnas. Harpur generously commented that although he doesn't agree with everything Tarnas has to say, his work is worth reading. I duly noted that.

Meanwhile, during a mid-day break from my corporate life-sucking job, I spent some moments browsing the new titles section at Cody's Books on Union Square. One hefty volume caught my eye, a book entitled Cosmos and Psyche. The cover art was engaging, and the jacket marketing did its job. I scribbled the title down without making the connection between the author, Richard Tarnas, and the other book I'd recently added to my "to be read" list.

The connection might never have been made if it wasn't for an event notification that came to my inbox. Fields Book Store was announcing an upcoming reading by Richard Tarnas, who would be promoting his new book Cosmos and Psyche. The advertisement featured a big cover image, and I immediately recognized it as the book I'd picked up at Cody's. It was then that I also realized he was the same guy Harpur had mentioned. Owing to this series of "coincidences," I felt I had to go, so I marked my calendar and counted down the days.

Once there, I felt a sense of anticipation and wariness. I carefully scanned all the other people attending, I made eye contact with Tarnas himself during the reading, and I was prepared for something monumental to happen. Either something monumental did happen or, in my zealousness, it snuck past while my attention was diverted. I will say that Tarnas was a very good speaker, with an obvious following. I found his work to be tremendously appealing even if sometimes the sheer magnanimity of it was daunting, and despite the fact that I, like Harpur, wasn't totally convinced of Tarnas's main conclusion, which is that the next step of human evolution is upon us. (I know I haven't drawn that out in this or the previous post, but a google on Tarnas will yield all kinds of info). The only thing I can say is that given the subject matter, I expected some kind of synchronicity to propel me in new directions. Instead, I felt only a tiny little intuition that made no immediate sense.

The intution said to send my resume to Tarnas and to the book store. I have done neither. I don't know if I will comply or not. It feels a little foolish. Yet, I am a person who doesn't believe in coincidences as meaningless events. I am fairly convinced that in that sense, there is no such thing as a coincidence. This does not make me a fatalist per se, but I regard such moments as messages and like any message you can fail to answer the phone when it rings or hit delete without even looking at the email message. Without a doubt, the "intuition" in itself was a meaningful message, but I'm not sure if I want to open that envelope because even if I do, I might be unable to put the contents in meaningful context. Or they may require more of me that I may or may not be prepared to do. Or the envelope could be empty, which would be a disappointment. So for now, the tracks stop here.

Except for this one other thing: Most interesting of all is the fact that I'd never before received a mailing from Fields. I don't recall signing up for their announcement list and to be honest, I have never again received anything from them. I don't really know how to explan that one. So maybe I will send that resume. Can't hurt, I guess.

Quoting The Philosophers' Secret Fire

2006-04-18T21:09:00.000-07:00

On the Seal-Woman's Skin (The Princess and the Deer)

"Animals are also the ancestors ... humans and animals are interchangeable."

On St. Patrick's Purgatory (Plato's Cave)

"[There was a] Greek notion that we have two different kinds of souls. Thymos is warm, emotional and red-blooded; while psyche is colder, deeper and more impersonal. From thymos' point of view, the Otherworld is the cold, grey, unsubstantial Hades.... From psyche's perspective, it is our robust, red-blooded world which is unreal, while Hades who was called Pluton (Pluto), the Rich One, holds all the treasures of the imagination. ... Thymos has been assimilated into the robust ego-consciousness of Western man who believes in no reality other than his own. From the deeper psychic viewpoint, however, ego-consciousness is - as the Neoplatonists noticed - a kind of unconsciousness. We are unaware of reality, claim the Romantics, except in moments of imaginative vision. The Otherworld lies all about us, an earthly paradies - if we would but cleanse 'the doors of perception,' as Blake put it, and see the world as it is, 'infinite.'"

On The Soul of the World

"One of the distinctive innovations of Western thought has been to turn the Otherworld into an intellectual abstraction. It has been formulated in three main ways: as the Soul of the World; as imagination; and as the collective unconscious. The latter two models of the Otherworld have the added eccentricity of locating it within us.

Historically, all three models have been largely ignored or outcast by Western orthodoxy, whether Christian theology or modern rationalism. But wherever they have as it were broken the surface and emerged from their 'esoteric' or even 'occult' underworld, they have been accompanied by extraordinary efflorescences of creative life. In Renaissance Florence, and again, among the German and English Romantics three hundred years later, imagination was exalted not only as the most important human faculty, but as the very ground of reality."

On Matter and Spirits

"What Western culture claims as the increasing triumph of rationalism and the progress of science, the daimonic tradition reads as the perpetual striving of the daimons to restore the true ambiguity and equilibrium of reality, either by countering one ideology with demonized opponent, or by subverting it from within."

On The Daimon's Tales (The Structure of Myth)

"As Rodney Needham reminds us, myth 'reflects history, provides a social charter, embodies a metaphysics, responds to natural phenomena, expressed perennial verities, copes with historical change, and so on almost endlessly...', but no theory of myth comes close to explaining all myths. The reason for this is simple: theories about myth are themselves further variants of the myth, re-tellings in the language of the day, even if it is unpalatable psychological jargon. Myth, like Nature, kindly provides 'evidence' for the truth of any theory we care to hold; but that theory will in the end flow back into the source stories that circle the earth like great ocean streams.

What myths most resemble, I suppose, are dreams."

On The Hero and the Virgin

"It was a movement from below, from the people, which forced the papacy to create two articles of dogma which have no biblical justification. The first was the Immaculate Conception which effectively makes Mary a goddess by asserting that she was born without sin; the second, made about a hundred years later, in 1950, was the Assumption - which asserts that Mary did not die but was lifted bodily up into Heaven. Roman Catholic orthodoxy ratified the myth thrown up by the popular imagination.

The myths are clear expressions of the traditional tension between human and divine, mortal and immortal, masculine and feminine. In a pagan society variants of the Christ story would go on proliferating, as if attempting to resolve these contradictions by constantly transposing them into other terms and on other levels. But Christianity does not do this. It does not offer us a mythology. Potentially it did, because there were powerful variants which said that Jesus could not have been crucified - as God, he was pure spirit and therefore only his apparition hung on the cross. Conversely, there was a variant which held that Jesus was not a God, but a man - albeit an outstandingly good man. But these myths were called heresies and banned. However, their spontaneous appearance meant that the main body of the Church had to sit down and define exactly what Jesus was. At the Council of Nicaea, they came up with the official myth: that a man, Jesus of Nazareth, was also the Christ, meaning the Anointed One. He was both man and God. The only myth he was officially permitted to mirror was the myth of Adam. Just as Adam was a god-like man who, through a sin 'fell' from an earthly paradies into the human condition, so Jesus was a man-like God who, through a sacrifice, 'raised' mankind up to a heavenly paradise.

...

The paradox as the heart of Christianity is what made it so offensive to the Jews, so ridiculous to the Greeks and so awe-inspiring to the Christians."

On The Animals Who Stared Darwin in the Face

"[Mother Nature] is not the fixed entity that scientists, who view her through literalistic spectacles, would have us believe. She is a sea of metaphors which reflect back at us the face we show her. We characterize her by whatever perspective we look at her through - as an implacable enemy, for instance, or as a vast harmonious rhythm; as a wild creature who must be tamed, or as a nymph who must be left unspoilt or as a violent animal, red in tooth and claw. As Darwin quails in the face of a dizzying Nature, and fends her off, so she comes back at him, hostile and sickening. By the time he is fifty he will write, shockingly: 'the sight of a feather in a peacock's tail, whenever I gaze at it, makes me sick.'"

On The Transmutation of Species (The Scientific Priesthood)

"'Everything possible to be believ'd,' asserted Blake, 'is an image of truth.' Evolutionists are guilty of idolatry, not because they worship false images, but because they worship a single image falsely, fixing the wealth of Nature's metaphors in a single rigid mode and so obstructing the fluid, oceanic play of imagination, so appalling to Darwin, yet so essential for the soul's health."

On The Transmutation of Spirits (Genes as Daimons)

"The daimon is our imaginative blueprint. It lays down the personal myth we enact in the course of our lives; it is the voice that calls us to our vocation. All daimonic men and women are aware of personal daimons and their paradoxes. Both Yeats and Jung spoke of having daimons who drove them ruthlessly - often, it seemed, against their will - towards self-fulfilment; who gave freedom in return for hard service. The same language of ruthless driving and bruth necessity, but without the concomitant meaning and freedom, is used by biologists to describe genes.

Genes are literalized daimons. I am not of course claiming that they do not exist.... They are shadowy, borderline, elusive, ambiguous entities - to judge by the amount of disagreement [amongst sociobiologists] about them - and as such, they satisfy the daimonic criteria.

They greatly exercise Richard Dawkins, a leading proponent of evolutionism. In language remarkable for its primitive anthropomorphism, he avers that genes 'create form,' 'mould matter,' 'choose,' and even engage in 'evolutionary arms races.' Like demons, the 'selfish' genes 'possess us.' The are 'the immortals.' We are 'lumbering robots' whose genes 'created us body and mind.' This, surely, reminds us more of the sermon than of science. It certainly demonstrates the ubiquity of daimons, even (especially) when literalization prevents them from being recognized as such. Traditionally, our bodies have been seen as the vehicles of our personal daimon, our soul or 'higher self.' Now, by an amusing inversion, we are simply asked to believe that our most treasured attributes are simply pressed into the service of genes.... Given such an extreme ideology, it is no wonder that sociobiologists want to believe that genetic engineering will solve everything from cancer to drug-addiction to unemployment."

Following the Yellow Brick Road, Pt. I

2006-04-13T20:31:00.000-07:00

Today I went down Fields Book Store to see and hear Richard Tarnas, who was there to promote his new book, Cosmos and Psyche. I haven't read the book, so I can only recount what transpired when, in front of me and 24 other avid listeners, he espounded on his life's work in psychological astrology. I can also explain what I was doing there in the first place.

First Tarnas: He got his start in the 1970s, studying at the Esalen Institute near Big Sur along with other people who would become reknowned such as "mythologist" Joseph Campbell and religous scholar Houston Smith. Now a widely respected scholar who teaches at the California Institute of Integral Studies (CIIS), Tarnas's forays into archetypal astrology reveal the existence of a consistent correlation between the movements of the planets and the expression and development of human history. He clarified painstakingly that this coincidence of meaning a.k.a. synchronicity, is reflective not casual and that the study of overall patterns can only be used to make archetypal predictions of future events. They merely point to a direction that things may go. He used the example of a clock, stating that just like the hands on a clock don't cause it to be a certain time, say 7:30 PM, planetary positions don't cause particular happenings, but they do reflect something about "the cosmic state of the archetypal forces" in effect at a given moment.

These comments necessitated a brief definition of archetypes, and Tarnas noted that their said existence has been a topic of debate since the days of Plato and Aristotle. His own definition of an archetype is "a universal principle or force that affects--impels, structures, permeates--the human psyche and human behavior" in all facets of life and that can be expressed "as impulses and images from the interior psyche, yet also as events and situations in the external world." Hero, Healer, Villian, Teacher, and Mother are common examples of these ancient patterns of consciousness. (For an extensive overview, see A Gallery of Archetypes as compiled by Carolyn Myss.)

From there, Tarnas explained his view of astrology as a tool for enhancing free-will rather than enforcing an unflexibly destiny or sense of fate. He believes that as individuals we have the best chance of knowing our own authentic nature when we're conscious of the patterns of meaning held within our birth charts. The greater one's understanding of the archetypal forces influencing one's own life, the greater is the opportunity to make decisions uncircumscribed by unconscious motivations. Tarnas told us that as he delved deeper into the subject, he noticed that "the constant coincidence between planetary positions and human lives exists as a kind of universal code for the human mind to unravel," and it's from that point of view that he wrote first the 1991 tome The Passion of the Western Mind: Understanding the Ideas that Have Shaped Our World View and then this year's 592-page sequel, Cosmos and Psyche: Intimations of a New World View. In both books, Tarnas has applied his understanding of archetypal dynamics to birth and transit charts of the soul of the collective, with a particular emphasis on planets (archetypal forces) and aspects (the angular relationship between planets, which are said to reflect the nature of interaction between archetypal forces).

My limited understanding of the science of astrology prevents me from commenting more thoroughly about the rest of the discussion. However, it wasn't difficult to grasp that the result of this work is the discovery that a multitude of seemingly disparate historical and cultural moments and events arise and have arisen under the same star influences. Take the French Revolution of 1789, and the mutiny on the "Bounty" during the same year: from these Tarnas denotes "the synchronous emergence of parallel events totally isolated from each other yet reflecting the same archetypal complexes." Temporal proximity can be as widely divergent as geographical proximity as evidenced by the parallels he draws between the revolutionary mood of France in 1790 and shudders of evolution experienced worldwide during the 1960s. In his work he also tracks the rise of certain individuals (e.g. Madonna's career trajectory or Hitler's) and developments in art or science, juxtaposing them against various astrological configurations and periods.

Overall I found his commentary to be quite compelling. A robust Q&A followed, with most of the audience seeming to be extremely familiar with his work and deeply knowledgeable about psychology, astrology, transformation studies, etc. I was a bit out of my league, so I left. Which brings me to how or why I ended up there in the first place.

To be continued.

Oldupai Gorge

2006-03-11T23:23:00.000-08:00

The cradle of mankind.

Oldupai, your secret's still unknown
Oldupai, ancient stones and ancient bones
Oldupai, the heritage we share
Oldupai, we will take care
—from a song of the gorge

Somewhere in the eastern region of the Serengeti Plains, in northern Tanzania, which is in East Africa, lays the Oldupai Gorge. The gorge is named after the Masai tribe's word for sissal, which the Europeans transliterated as "olduvai," as it's more commonly spelled. It was there, in the gorge, that archeology's royal family, the Leakeys, found fossil evidence of the earliest known human ancestors.

In addition to the ancestry of humankind, there is a personal ancestry that includes blood relatives, claimed spiritual lineage, and the ancestors of the places from which we come. Thus I can claim as my ancestors anyone from my great-great-great grandmother to Queen Nefertiti to those who lived in the place where I was born, long before I was even a sparkle in either of my parent's eyes.

Ancestors are a storehouse of wisdom. If honored properly through regular communication, i.e. if we cultivate a relationship with them just as we would with the living, they can teach us, protect us, and guide us back to the roots of ourselves. That is my purpose here.

Sometime last year, I began expanding the notion of my relationship to the universe. I don't have a map or a compass, and most of my actions have been hit or miss, but I am trying to get to the heart of me. This will be one of my respositories.