Aretz (finale)
During this study a lot of interesting material has been brought up. Aretz can be anything from a tribal territory to a plane of existence, and I think this applies at many levels. My attention has been drawn to an article about the Internet as the Fifth Estate, possibly even in a current state of revolution against the fabled Fourth Estate
In a way, one could say that the Internet is a means by which common persons (The third estate/third world/Am HaAretz) are able to strike back at the others – a checks and balances system against the abuse of power by leadership and the media.
These interactions between estates/worlds (both terms seem to me to have similar meanings to the idea of Aretz) can have ‘earth-shattering’ implications to the order of the world around us. Wars are fought and people die in the name of preserving the authority of these worlds over each other, or in bids for dominance.
Alef is King over Breath
Resh is King over Peace
Tzaddi is King over Taste
In this sense, I’d say that the process is one of establishment of collective experience. Breath pervades everything – the Spirit is often compared to wind – and is not halted by most barriers. Peace is the establishment of a consensus: a social compact that lets everyone know that these are the rules and everyone abides by them or they are punished. Taste seems to be something like the deepest level of experience that can be triggered by something ‘outside’ of ourselves. “I wanted _____ so bad, I could taste it.” So we have an all-pervading consensus of rules for experience. Our plane of reality.
But reality isn’t always nice – sometimes it has sharp teeth. Rules are rules after all.
Last month, at the beginning of the Fallujah conflict, my wife’s cousin was shot in the back of the head. He was a tank mechanic… He wasn’t even supposed to be on the front lines. He was supposed to be working on tanks, but he told his family in letters that he hadn’t once picked up a wrench since he’d gotten there. He was to be married the next week, after his tour was over. His wife, a wonderful German woman, had gathered her family for the wedding. It wouldn’t have mattered though – the Army proceeded to extend the tour of his unit the next week for another six months.
What does this have to do with Aretz? Everything. Our reality may be just one plane of existence, but its rules and regulations are still in effect whether we like them or not. In the aftermath of tragedy (on both sides in this case), all we can do is pick up the pieces and move on. It would be easy to shake my fist at God or the President or the Iraqis or some other thing I have no control over, but the bottom line is that all I can do is pick up the pieces and start putting them back together. Stress is irrelevant. Pain is irrelevant. Staying alive – that’s priceless.
And that’s Aretz, for better or for worse. It’s the bride and we’re married to it, and divorce means death. In a marriage when problems come along (and they do) you can shout and scream until you’re blue in the face, but at the end of the day, you either make up or you don’t. In this case, ‘don’t’ isn’t an option I’m willing to consider anymore.
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Also – I thought I’d link to this because this is a mini-plane that I once lived in. The laws were different… no one cared if you broke them. It instilled in me a realization that if people didn’t cling to the laws as though they were weapons to be used against one another, that reality can be an awe inspiring and yet terrible place.
Real Life Happosai
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/646380.cms
55-year-old Japanese knicker thief arrested
TOKYO : Japanese police who arrested a 55-year-old man for stealing women’s underwear from an apartment balcony raided his home to find 4,000 pairs of knickers collected over 30 years, the police and reports said.
Local reports said the man from the western Japan city of Hiroshima had confessed to stealing the items.
“I love women’s underwear and could not control my desire,†he was quoted as saying by the private Fuji television network.
The fetishist’s run came to an end when the husband of one of his unsuspecting victims caught him on his balcony allegedly preparing to add to his stash, police said. They said they had confiscated the 4,000 objects of the man’s desire.
HEY!
Happy Birthday, vakratunda!!!!
The Fifth Estate?
head like a hole
Somewhere inside, my heart is breaking. I don’t know why, and I’m not sure it’s not just nerves or the fact that I’ve not been sleeping well lately. An ache that burns deep within my heart, similar to the way it used to when I had no hope, but in some ways different. It’s different because for the first time in my life I do have hope. Not just pie in the sky, but real honest-to-goodness hope. It’s probably the world’s oldest cliché, that the mystic ‘genius’ wannabe feels that something is wrong, and suddenly the world must either be conspiring against him or ‘something big’ is going to happen.
Is there a hole in the heart of the world? Or is this just more fucking useful bunkum? I can’t help but hear that refrain, “If you’ve not done it unto the least of my brethren, you’ve not done it unto me.†Or vice versa, I suppose. But I think there has to be another way – something between the idea that everything is bullshit and that is its meaning and the alternative that fills everything with cosmic apocalyptic signs at every turn.
Fuck it. I’m tired of settling for a half-hearted lukewarm version of myself – the kind that dichotomies like this have produced. I have not treated the least of my own brothers in the way that I wish I could have. I have talked shit about people, in my own mind most of all, and to be frank, I’m sick of myself and everyone else too. I used to hold myself to a higher standard, and for some reason even when I didn’t succeed I still knew that I had aspired and that meant that I was at least capable of such a thing.
Now mediocrity has become so commonplace around me, maybe in part because I’ve allowed it to creep into the dark places in my soul and corrupt and rot the things I once held dearer than life. An impure vessel, that needs cleansing, purification – too long has the putrefaction process gone on.
Time to move on.
Short
The ice cube slides on down my back
As good folk weep and sense the lack
Of wonder here
And prescient fear
Above our heads the clouds turn black
I was just thinkin’…
“Many people initially rush into whatever form of ‘sensory relaxation’ or ‘guided imagery’ they are adopting, anticipating to be swept along by their eagerness. Not unexpectedly, their early euphoria soon fades, especially when such persons discover that no instant breakthroughs have occurred. In what usually amount to no more than clever rationalizations, they persuade themselves they will resume practice when less hurried, at a ‘better time.’ All to often, that time never arrives and their fledgling efforts toward inner peace are aborted.
Our ego or social self typically manages to find an almost infinite number of excuses to delay real self-examination. By their very nature … our lower urges are unconcerned with the development of our most transcendent qualities. Simply look at how often we postpone performing tasks that we know are absolutely necessary and are deeply unavoidable. The only solution … is to establish a daily regimen, and to stick with it.
…we must make sure to set aside a specific time each day for self-review: ‘Consider what you are doing … and ponder whether it is worthy that you devote your life to it’.”
- Edward Hoffman (The Way of Splendor)
Meme spreadage
Invent a memory of me and post it in the comments. It can be anything you want, so long as it’s something that’s never happened. Then, of course, post this to your journal and see what people would like to remember of you, only the universe failed to cooperate in making it happen so they had to make it up instead.
Voices in the Wilderness
For three thousand years and more, the voci have proclaimed to us what needed to be done. Often we might listen for a time but the messages were easily lost or just distorted (sometimes even by the voices themselves!). Some have been messengers of peace, while others seem like harbingers of war and crusaders. Others still are both.
Reactions have varied. Some people rejoice at the thought of approaching destruction. Others scoff at the notion that such violence is anything besides psychological complexes acting themselves out at a collective level. Others (much like Spock in ST VI) see history as “replete with turning points.”
There may come a time when the strength of these voices will fail ["...but it will not be this day"] and there will be no one left to steer us to the left or right. It seems to me that long ago, revolutions that shocked the world from end to end began with the words of the prophets. And so we are content to weave words and symbols in the hopes that we are making a difference, or even perhaps beleiving that everything is just fine the way it is. But the time of the Voice has ended. This is a different time: the closest we’ve seen to a true revolution in a long time was closely linked to the widespread use of artificially stimulated alterations of consciousness. This too failed, but it points in the direction that we must head in, in order to mature and grow as a species. And yet we drag our feet and cling to the destructive habits that have ruined and destroyed our collective dreams so many times. Like a moth to the flame, this is our trial by fire, and once again we draw near to it, seeking what we desire and yet cannot survive.
I know that this is just another voice (little ‘v’) and I have no illusions that would lead me to think that this will even impact one person enough to slightly change their POV. The word doesn’t have that power anymore.
But the question remains. Will we turn aside from madness?
