Enter the Dragon... again

I find keeping this blog to be a fairly high level activity on... lets say Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. Having had a traumatic time this past winter, I reverted to taking care of more basic needs. Since then I have been focused on minutae involving my way of life.

Recently I have been inspired to keep this blog again. Keep an eye out for talk about Earthwalk Northwest, and about my new yearlong study at Wilderness Awareness School. Also many thoughts about strange things to be shared as I come across them.

...Or Maybe Not

It turns out I may not be part of the Earthwalk apprenticeship much longer. I apologize to anyone who was looking forward to reading about it. I may know more next week.

Meet the New Year, Same as the Old Year

When the transformation occured - when 2006 became 2007 - my family was gathered together to celebrate, my friends were at party, and I was marking the occasion by devoting my energy to an important psychic discipline I like to call "total anihilation of consciousness". Deep sleep, dreamless sleep, basically.

This quite effectively mirrors my inner perspective on the matter of calendar transitions. I ignore them. This is a delicately cultivated perspective born of many years of not ignoring them, of placing great value on them and of using them as markers in my mind of when things should change. Through careful scientific observation I eventually discovered that these dates do not bring change at all. Rather, they are like the proverbial watched pot: when they are anticipated for their transformative power, they arrive inert, bringing gifts of dissappointment and leaving behind trails of self-pity.

Yes, I am bitter. I'm bitter because the "magical time of year" brought no glamour for me, because the day of new beginnings left me with no closure for my old wounds, and no new paths to follow. This bitterness, I suppose, shows the lie of my claim that I ignore these transitions. Well, old habits die hard. I am still wont to expect the stars to bring me my luck which, of course, they never do.

In the beginning, I had felt that I was falling into a pattern of once-a-week blogging, and I would have accepted that and would now accept it as a reasonable rhythm for myself. Unfortunately, in late October I began to realize that I had fallen under a great enchantment, and subsequently the vast majority of my consciousness was devoted to solving that. Only recently does it have the appearance of resolution (though not the substance), and so I think I may now be free to concentrate on other things.

There are a lot of things I want to talk about. I'm going to mention some of them here so that I will remember to do them. I want to talk about Earthwalk Northwest, the first three months of it's apprentice curriculum, it's leaders and it's students, and what I am getting out of it and not getting out of it. I want to talk about the three different kinds of gods and the importance of recognizing which are influencing one's life. I want to talk about what it means to be human, why I'm not, and what I might be. I want to talk about dragons and aristocracy, loci of control and choices.

That's enough for now.

A Year In The Basement

I am not David, but if I were, I probably wouldn't complain about it. The themes and purview of his blog are similar to what I am trying to replicate here. Like David once was, I am now engaged in a year-long study of primitive living. In that time, he produced what I believe is the only journal of student experience at Teaching Drum. My learning is taking place at Earthwalk Northwest, and as far as I can tell there's no online journal of that experience either. Since I'm trying to keep a blog now, it seems like one of the most helpful things I can do for other seekers is to journal my apprenticeship. This blog is not solely about that, but I will include as much detail and expression of it as I can, and hopefully one day people who are googling EWNW to find out if they'd like it will have my memories to draw from.

You Must Be At Least This Tall To Ride The Labyrinthe

In truth, there is no beginning to the story. Wherever you look you can see a hidden history just behind your focus. This history does not determine who we are, but at the same time we are not entirely free of it. Somehow both and neither are true.

My feeling is that I am entering my path essentially naked, unprepared, and inexperienced. I was raised as well as could be expected considering that my mother could not see the future and know the life I wanted to live. I have no disappointment in her as a parent, and yet it is true that she was not really capable of teaching me how to live the life I was meant for; she raised me to be able to live the way she does, and it is only that I am innately so different that I must now abandon the life which she prepared me for.

Don't think I'm trying to avoid responsibility, here. I've had a good ten years or more since my scheduled indoctrination (schooling) ended in which I should have been able to make some headway towards my dreams. Sadly, I must admit that I do not have strength of will. There's a young woman in my class who went (from Pennsylvania) to Wudang Mountain for two years to study traditional martial arts. Now that, I think, indicates a very strong will which I admire greatly. Especially since she's only 21 now. It's taken me all of this time just to acquire the courage to move to the other side of the same country and pursue something within my culture's purview (albeit on the fringes). I look at her, and I feel like I'm late to the game. And that it's my fault.

I'm one of two newbies in a class of seven. The younger members have previous experience in standalone classes and training; two of the older members have been rather extensively involved in nature oriented lifestyles for years. Thankfully, everyone is very accepting and none are condescending. This is good, because I like to ask many stupid questions to fill the gaps in my understanding.

My point, if indeed I have one, is that if you're reading this and you know you're on square zero, that's ok. So was I. All it takes is extended trauma sufficient to break your addiction to your previous life, and then at that point change is pretty much inevitable. What I wrote above implies that I have acquired some measure of courage. Another equally valid perspective is that I was simply to weak to continue living my previous life. Did I take a stand or choose the path of least resistance?

Well, due to my particular perspective on the nature of truth, the answer to that question is yes. In any case, the end has been good enough to justify the means. And it's only been three weeks.

Extended Family

I will reserve most of my comments for another day, but right now I want to make sure I've got a link to one of the most important articles on the web (from my perspective and with regards to the purpose of my little blog here). Ted at Free Range Organic Human has put up the first part of an exploration into what he is, and why he is not what other people are.

This is a man with a strong personal sense of identity for which he cannot account. He senses somehow he is not among his own kind. I have felt this way my whole life. Like Neitzche I have concieved a powerful personal myth.

Yeah, me too. Is it just silly fantasy that when I was a young child, I began telling bedtime stories to my mother, and that one of the first and by far the most persistant story which I always claimed was fact was that I was not human, but rather an alien from the planet Moo? Is it merely social dysfunction if Neitzche, Ted, and I feel that we are not the same kinds of creatures as the people we've been surrounded by all our lives?

Certainly fantasy and social dysfunction are popular explanations for the phenomena, and they satisfy the need of the "normal" people to dismiss our perspectives from their worldviews. But they do not satisfy us. Ted's satisfaction is found in his own personal journey related in his blog, as my satisfaction in mine.

I'm going to indulge in a great deal of what the conventional psychological worldview would consider insane, delusional, and psychotic. I'll do so, because I can't be true to myself if I do not. Hmmm... no wonder I never got that psychology degree.

"Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch'intrate"

"Let me tell you why you're here. You're here because you know something. What you know you can't explain, but you feel it. You've felt it your entire life; that there's something wrong with the world. You don't know what it is, but it's there, like a splinter in your mind, driving you mad. It is this feeling that has brought you to me." - Morpheus, The Matrix

I'm not a writer. Or at least, I'm not a good writer. At one point in my past, I wanted to be. I think I may have even had a talent for it. People seemed to like what I wrote. In any case, I no longer have that talent, and I no longer have that goal.

I don't particularly want to write this blog. I like blogs, and I've tried a few times to keep one of my own, but it has inevitably turned out that I quit writing for them, delete all the entries, and let them sit empty, taking up "space" on the internet.

I think perhaps I lack the right temperament. I don't like sitting by my computer for hours on end trying to think of how to express the things within me. What I know, I can't explain. So it takes me far too long to write my entries: I think it's coming up on fifteen minutes for these last three paragrpahs.

I don't want to write this blog, but I'm going to try. I'm doing it because I find a lack in the internet. What is lacking is the exploration of the feeling Morpheus describes above. Or at least when it comes to my specific splinter. I've tried to find things online, writings by people who share my splinter, and every time I come up short. Almost, but not quite. It is because of this that I want to try to keep this blog now. Someone, somewhere, is looking for recognition of thier splinter, and they're not finding any. Maybe they will find some value in the story of how I'm learning to remove mine.