Today the Queen of Bohemia went up a different mountain on the other side of the Kingdom. She hadn’t been there in a while, and she wanted Sergeant Pepe to be off leash for he had been promoted to Prince Pepe. For you see, Pepe had been groomed at the Penelope’s Pet Palace outside the Kingdom. And although for the castle and the court he was fluffy and lovely like a black-and-white pom-pom on four legs, truly he has the wild side along with his master the Queen. He’s out again in nature and the mud to get dirty, but he might as well show off his new do to the other big dogs, chasing them vigorously before happily catching up with the Queen out of love, his territory claim marked as yellow snow among the big dogs.
My dog, Sergeant Pepe, is the trickster. I manifested him. The black-and-white duality dog is he. Years ago I had envisioned a set of children’s stories with characters that imparted yogic wisdom. The dog character would be the trickster, based on the black-and-white Zuni clown. So Pepe showed up at the humane society one day when I was looking for a dog. This half Papillon, half border collie cutie. We called him a “half-ion,” or a “scrap-ion.” I never made the children's book characters, but I have Pepe now, and he gets me out to walk.
We walked this time up near Devil’s Thumb. From the South Mesa Trail in Eldorado Springs the rock formation looks less like a thumb but rather a penis shape, which was obvious on all the school hikes up there, but left unspoken. Pepe is pretty well trained, however, sometimes he just won’t come. Reasons are usually when he sniffs something intense in the woods, which means it probably was bear, coyote or mountain lion. Another reason not to come when called is to eat certain types of poop (Yuck!) or chase after prairie dogs (Panic! Is there a ranger watching?) At other times he is just the trickster and times unpredictable. That’s the trickster’s role; to let you know that just when you think you’ve got everything in life under control, he comes along and pulls the rug out from under you. Such is life in duality.
So when I walk, it’s a matter of training and suspense. Pepe’s gotten good with his off leash skills in the open space. So when a dog approaches, I’m no longer chasing after Pepe who is in pursuit of the dog and its owner for a quarter of a mile back down the trail. And I don’t have to constantly carry treats. He just naturally has his fun with the big dogs, being like the rabbit at a racetrack for the dogs to chase around and show off this hilarious Papillon spin to him.
Whenever I see a dog ahead on the trail, however, I still get this feeling of, ”Oh, no. How is Pepe going to behave? Is it going to be chaos? Or calm?” For the other day he decided he didn’t want to get back on his leash and I had to chase him across several people’s yards in the snow for ten minutes before I tackled him.
I figure life is like that. I can be content in the moment, but every time I see something coming ahead, I don’t have to feel anxious. I’m just in a calm state of quiet alertness, ready to act, but available in the moment to seek options and alternatives to the problem. It’s a trust in the moment that the answer will arise and the problem solve itself. I've learned that the tiger is content because he knows he has everything he needs in the present moment. I’ve been at it so long, now I really realize the secret is not reacting to anything in the first place, which leads to suffering. When you’ve suffered enough, you are like the rat from college psychology class movies that has endured zillions of shocks for the cocaine and finally realizes this hurts and it’s not worth it! Such is evolution. I now feel am calm and confident that I will figure out what to do with the sight of each dog coming down the trail. Sometimes it is luring Pepe with a treat, or chasing him for half an hour, and most of the time he just behaves because he loves me and wants to please me so returns to me and continues walking.
I had my father over for lunch the other day. I made a fresh avocado and lime soup. We sat at my house and talked. We talked about the coming economic collapse, and he assured me not to worry because we are all going into the fifth dimension and the UFOs are going to make disclosure soon. He forwards me newsletters via email about alien disclosure, and how the disclosure date was moved because Obama still won’t reveal the truth and how disappointed everybody is. Waiting for the savior! That myth keeps popping up every millennium or so. I figure, why not UFOs? They've been in our psyche for a long time now. I think Star Trek might as well be true, I mean the I-Pad is out! Jung said that the imagination is real. It exists in energy, and in the Yoga Vasistha there are myths that echo the idea that things are created because somebody thought of it. Like in the novel Sophie’s World by Jostein Gaardner. Or like Shopenhauer, who said that the universe is being dreamed by a single dreamer in which all the dream characters dream too. And then there's the Aboriginal dreamtime. Might as well make my own dream time and believe in it!
Also, we had a rare event of my kids and my younger sister and I taking my father to see the movie Avatar. I saw it for the second time, as did my son. I can’t remember ever seeing a movie with my father. I feel the movie acts on a subconscious level, drawing us toward the psyche’s need for balance. Jung said that Americans are incredibly one-sided, completely ungrounded and weren’t ready for yoga because they were not in their body. This movie pretty much sums it up, how cut off we are from nature and the feminine functions of the psyche and our body. So nature corrects itself. Mother is pissed. Durga! The machine is stopping.
Avatar is a powerful myth for our time. Man as the machine, heartless, murderous, plundering and pillaging for profit. As if we finally need to confront our past that we have been in denial of for so long. The history of Western colonialism -- murdering natives, enslaving them for capital gain and keeping us triumphant over nature by denying mother and death and to acknowledge (root meaning of the word confession) those nefarious deeds. A Reuters article recently reported a study that proved that luxury actually makes one more selfish. But if we are selfish and separate, then we are alone. So terribly alone. That terrible fear, like a story from the Upanishads. Even the divine, once aware of itself, was afraid of being alone. So it divided itself into all the creatures of the world. So that it could play and love and not be alone, yet it is also still one. That’s the beautiful paradox. We embrace the paradox. The dark stuff isn’t so scary any more. It’s just playing its part in duality. Like Bush ushering in the destruction of America. Somebody had to play that part. Maybe the devil really is the most beloved angel of God, like the Muslims believe. Or like the dogs on the trail. They just keep coming. No need to fear them, just accept them coming down the trail, and be prepared to draw upon your training and experience. Epicurus said that tempestuous storms make skillful pilots.
Avatar inspired me into the heroic life. What is it to really give yourself over to something? In The Ernest Becker’s Pulitzer Prize winning book, The Denial of Death, he says that the biggest problem young people face today is that they have no call to the heroic life. Death is denied in our culture, however, it is facing death that creates heroism. I remember I heard that when I worked as a stringer for the Bakersfield Californian. I had the northern Kern County beat. I regularly covered Delano, where the Cesar Chavez grape strike started. I also volunteered to do religion reporting and stumbled on a story of these three sisters. They owned a bar and restaurant on Delano’s skid row, but they had an experience with the Pentecostal movement and realized they were contributing to people’s sin and suffering. So they stopped serving alcohol and put on these parking lot revivals on Friday and Saturday night. I remember the sounds of the distorted voices through the bullhorns cutting into the darkness. I remember the Hispanic women and migrant workers standing and waving their hands near the stage, giving themselves up to something. The man I interview told me, “If you haven’t found a reason to die, you haven’t yet found a reason to live. That was Christ’s message.”
Living the heroic life. Find a good reason to die, what else is there? Haven’t we finally learned to believe in our eternal nature? What is there to lose? Just our egos. Physics tells us energy can neither be created nor destroyed. We are identical with the powers of the universe. The Mayan believed that the world tree was actually the Milky Way. This tree that connects us to the cosmos. This tree that is us. I think of my nervous system like the branches on a tree - reaching into the ethers and sensing the divine energy flow, conducted through the tinier branches. They say that on December 21, 2012 is when the center of the galaxy is lined up with the earth. Maybe we don’t space travel linearly but by consciousness itself, manifesting bodies at will, manifesting what we need across the dimensions of time and space. And we are at one again with the universe and are in accord with nature, not against it and alienated from it and only consuming in it, but participating in it. We are participating in the myth, and that makes all the difference because we give ourselves to it whole-heartedly. And besides, it's a hell of a lot of fun that way.
The Queen thinks, what does she want to do? What is this life about? She decides that it is to really follow her bliss, put on some clothing in disguise, leave the Kingdom and the castle and set out to explore the big-wide world. And do something wonderful because it makes her heart feel so good. Sergeant Pepe agrees.
My dog, Sergeant Pepe, is the trickster. I manifested him. The black-and-white duality dog is he. Years ago I had envisioned a set of children’s stories with characters that imparted yogic wisdom. The dog character would be the trickster, based on the black-and-white Zuni clown. So Pepe showed up at the humane society one day when I was looking for a dog. This half Papillon, half border collie cutie. We called him a “half-ion,” or a “scrap-ion.” I never made the children's book characters, but I have Pepe now, and he gets me out to walk.
We walked this time up near Devil’s Thumb. From the South Mesa Trail in Eldorado Springs the rock formation looks less like a thumb but rather a penis shape, which was obvious on all the school hikes up there, but left unspoken. Pepe is pretty well trained, however, sometimes he just won’t come. Reasons are usually when he sniffs something intense in the woods, which means it probably was bear, coyote or mountain lion. Another reason not to come when called is to eat certain types of poop (Yuck!) or chase after prairie dogs (Panic! Is there a ranger watching?) At other times he is just the trickster and times unpredictable. That’s the trickster’s role; to let you know that just when you think you’ve got everything in life under control, he comes along and pulls the rug out from under you. Such is life in duality.
So when I walk, it’s a matter of training and suspense. Pepe’s gotten good with his off leash skills in the open space. So when a dog approaches, I’m no longer chasing after Pepe who is in pursuit of the dog and its owner for a quarter of a mile back down the trail. And I don’t have to constantly carry treats. He just naturally has his fun with the big dogs, being like the rabbit at a racetrack for the dogs to chase around and show off this hilarious Papillon spin to him.
Whenever I see a dog ahead on the trail, however, I still get this feeling of, ”Oh, no. How is Pepe going to behave? Is it going to be chaos? Or calm?” For the other day he decided he didn’t want to get back on his leash and I had to chase him across several people’s yards in the snow for ten minutes before I tackled him.
I figure life is like that. I can be content in the moment, but every time I see something coming ahead, I don’t have to feel anxious. I’m just in a calm state of quiet alertness, ready to act, but available in the moment to seek options and alternatives to the problem. It’s a trust in the moment that the answer will arise and the problem solve itself. I've learned that the tiger is content because he knows he has everything he needs in the present moment. I’ve been at it so long, now I really realize the secret is not reacting to anything in the first place, which leads to suffering. When you’ve suffered enough, you are like the rat from college psychology class movies that has endured zillions of shocks for the cocaine and finally realizes this hurts and it’s not worth it! Such is evolution. I now feel am calm and confident that I will figure out what to do with the sight of each dog coming down the trail. Sometimes it is luring Pepe with a treat, or chasing him for half an hour, and most of the time he just behaves because he loves me and wants to please me so returns to me and continues walking.
I had my father over for lunch the other day. I made a fresh avocado and lime soup. We sat at my house and talked. We talked about the coming economic collapse, and he assured me not to worry because we are all going into the fifth dimension and the UFOs are going to make disclosure soon. He forwards me newsletters via email about alien disclosure, and how the disclosure date was moved because Obama still won’t reveal the truth and how disappointed everybody is. Waiting for the savior! That myth keeps popping up every millennium or so. I figure, why not UFOs? They've been in our psyche for a long time now. I think Star Trek might as well be true, I mean the I-Pad is out! Jung said that the imagination is real. It exists in energy, and in the Yoga Vasistha there are myths that echo the idea that things are created because somebody thought of it. Like in the novel Sophie’s World by Jostein Gaardner. Or like Shopenhauer, who said that the universe is being dreamed by a single dreamer in which all the dream characters dream too. And then there's the Aboriginal dreamtime. Might as well make my own dream time and believe in it!
Also, we had a rare event of my kids and my younger sister and I taking my father to see the movie Avatar. I saw it for the second time, as did my son. I can’t remember ever seeing a movie with my father. I feel the movie acts on a subconscious level, drawing us toward the psyche’s need for balance. Jung said that Americans are incredibly one-sided, completely ungrounded and weren’t ready for yoga because they were not in their body. This movie pretty much sums it up, how cut off we are from nature and the feminine functions of the psyche and our body. So nature corrects itself. Mother is pissed. Durga! The machine is stopping.
Avatar is a powerful myth for our time. Man as the machine, heartless, murderous, plundering and pillaging for profit. As if we finally need to confront our past that we have been in denial of for so long. The history of Western colonialism -- murdering natives, enslaving them for capital gain and keeping us triumphant over nature by denying mother and death and to acknowledge (root meaning of the word confession) those nefarious deeds. A Reuters article recently reported a study that proved that luxury actually makes one more selfish. But if we are selfish and separate, then we are alone. So terribly alone. That terrible fear, like a story from the Upanishads. Even the divine, once aware of itself, was afraid of being alone. So it divided itself into all the creatures of the world. So that it could play and love and not be alone, yet it is also still one. That’s the beautiful paradox. We embrace the paradox. The dark stuff isn’t so scary any more. It’s just playing its part in duality. Like Bush ushering in the destruction of America. Somebody had to play that part. Maybe the devil really is the most beloved angel of God, like the Muslims believe. Or like the dogs on the trail. They just keep coming. No need to fear them, just accept them coming down the trail, and be prepared to draw upon your training and experience. Epicurus said that tempestuous storms make skillful pilots.
Avatar inspired me into the heroic life. What is it to really give yourself over to something? In The Ernest Becker’s Pulitzer Prize winning book, The Denial of Death, he says that the biggest problem young people face today is that they have no call to the heroic life. Death is denied in our culture, however, it is facing death that creates heroism. I remember I heard that when I worked as a stringer for the Bakersfield Californian. I had the northern Kern County beat. I regularly covered Delano, where the Cesar Chavez grape strike started. I also volunteered to do religion reporting and stumbled on a story of these three sisters. They owned a bar and restaurant on Delano’s skid row, but they had an experience with the Pentecostal movement and realized they were contributing to people’s sin and suffering. So they stopped serving alcohol and put on these parking lot revivals on Friday and Saturday night. I remember the sounds of the distorted voices through the bullhorns cutting into the darkness. I remember the Hispanic women and migrant workers standing and waving their hands near the stage, giving themselves up to something. The man I interview told me, “If you haven’t found a reason to die, you haven’t yet found a reason to live. That was Christ’s message.”
Living the heroic life. Find a good reason to die, what else is there? Haven’t we finally learned to believe in our eternal nature? What is there to lose? Just our egos. Physics tells us energy can neither be created nor destroyed. We are identical with the powers of the universe. The Mayan believed that the world tree was actually the Milky Way. This tree that connects us to the cosmos. This tree that is us. I think of my nervous system like the branches on a tree - reaching into the ethers and sensing the divine energy flow, conducted through the tinier branches. They say that on December 21, 2012 is when the center of the galaxy is lined up with the earth. Maybe we don’t space travel linearly but by consciousness itself, manifesting bodies at will, manifesting what we need across the dimensions of time and space. And we are at one again with the universe and are in accord with nature, not against it and alienated from it and only consuming in it, but participating in it. We are participating in the myth, and that makes all the difference because we give ourselves to it whole-heartedly. And besides, it's a hell of a lot of fun that way.
The Queen thinks, what does she want to do? What is this life about? She decides that it is to really follow her bliss, put on some clothing in disguise, leave the Kingdom and the castle and set out to explore the big-wide world. And do something wonderful because it makes her heart feel so good. Sergeant Pepe agrees.
Sgt. Pepe is wise.
ReplyDelete