Shuttle Redux
So lately sales have been down a bit, which has left me with a bit of spare time here and there. Never too much, but just enough that I can do a bit of hobbying. So I pulled out K’s old computer (it wasn’t really old, but it wasn’t as portable as she wanted) and had been tinkering with it, the idea being that I could fix it up as a project to keep myself busy and then donate it to the synagogue, since they were looking to buy something new this year anyway. I mentioned this machine middle of last year, noting that it was having overheating problems. As it turns out, the BIOS had the CPU voltage on an auto setting, which was obviously not set correctly, as it was defaulting to 1.85 on my Barton core which was meant to be run around 1.65. Hence the overheating problem. It got to the point where it would randomly lock up after about 15 minutes every time it was turned on. We had to keep the cover off and the airway unobstructed (by PCI cards) just to copy files off of the hard drive. In any case, I went into the BIOS set the fans on high and noticed the problem. Googled the recommended voltage, and set that. Rebooted and left it on all night. Still working the next morning.
What’s funny is that I called Shuttle and they had no idea what the problem might have been (They did recommend a BIOS flash, but even after flashing and setting the reset jumper, it still defaulted to the Auto setting for CPU voltage). Seeing as I’d never touched that portion of the BIOS before, you’d think they would have heard that complaint before.
My response was:
The dream of mankind has been for consciousness to continue in this world, perhaps freed from constraints of flesh. We see it all around us, in our technology and simultaneously in our obsession with spirit. Continuity of consciousness, for this very reason, is the prime goal of humanity. Kadmon maintains it, but interestingly enough, most of the old adept houses that my friend Loan used to talk about, did not. This is in part why their solutions were not deemed viable, whether we’re talking about vampirism, in which consciousness is passed from body to body through the blood (as it was explained to me, vampirism leads to a decay of the personality as the data from external personas is taken in), or the way of the Dragon, in which ancestors “snowball” all of their souls into one spirit, which becomes the heir to all their knowledge (Dragons molt regularly, which involves shedding their personality). Kadmon works as a reserve pool, in which dead souls are able to continue experiencing their world, and are allowed to maintain their shape or using similar techniques to lucid dreaming for the living, morph into new souls. These new souls are then reborn through Kadmon members, and the cycle continues. Hence consciousness remains continuous, while the soul is allowed to change, so as to not become “stale”.
I’ve been dreaming heavily lately, but a little bird mentioned to me that I probably shouldn’t post them. So I haven’t.
More changes are coming, perhaps especially in relation to the job situation again (didn’t I just do this one???) as well as maybe a move here or there. I’m ready to bust out of this egg I’ve been living in. I hate the idea of being the Sheldon who never came out of the egg.
My final tribute to Aikeena…
…can be found here.
Note: All works on the above site were published with the permission of the Nguyen family.
I demand shrubbery!
quandry
I wonder what it would be like if I could stop being afraid that others could hear my thoughts.
Good Times and Self Discovery
Had a busy day today, and tomorrow looks to be shaping up to be much the same. This morning we had our first interfaith class. I had much apprehension about going. It turned out to be quite a riot. We had a good time, exchanged some fun stories, and actually learned a thing or two. The thing that I had not expected to find was the comfort that came with knowing who the other interfaith couples were. Seems strange, but I wouldn’t have known them had they not been introduced as such today.
Spent a couple hours at the mall with the kids. Took P to the pet store to look and the animals. Our pet store has the tunnel o’ aquariums, to better show off the fish. It is dark and lit only by the tank lights. She thought that was wonderful. She also liked the rude bird. The Boyo likes the snakes and lizards. Boo likes all of them. We had a good time. The pet store guy kept telling me how great my family was, and then he tried to sell me a turtle.
We were also invited to a new member get together this evening. I was unsure about going, and then things sort of kept cropping up to make it more difficult. In the end, we made it, and it was a great time. Was surprisingly fun. One of the couples from the interfaith class was kind enough to loan their house out for the occasion, so we were able to talk to them some. In the beginning, when I began to attend services with my husband I was a bit uncomfortable. These were not my people, and I don’t belong to a group of my own. A year later, and it is clear, that part of the religion or not, I am part of the community, and that’s an interesting realization all on its own. While I hold no illusions perfection about the community, it has problems as it is filled with humans. Sometimes the fit is based on problem compatibility. Our issues don’t clash.
There are some incredible human beings in varying phases of spiritual growth in this community. All of them are good people, yet some stand out in incredible ways. One of the women has reached that place, that state of mind where she has struggled with her identity and won. It really is a state of being. She is so comfortable in her own skin, that she just sort of floats about in a cloud of her own selfness. Other women are in different stages of that journey, and I really feel privileged to be part of a community of women like them. It was a bit surprising when I realized that as I saw these people as incredible, they saw me as one of them. That was pretty amazing. Growing up, the women in my life were not the healthiest of role models. Coming into this group of healing, healthier, healthy women at this particular time in my life has been a great stroke of fortune. Learning to be comfortable with my self has been incredibly hard; in part because I didn’t want to be comfortable in any of the roles I had seen modeled as a child. The fear of “becoming my mother” was fairly constant. Yet as much as I have been influenced by the path of my family, I have not been imprisoned by it. Now, I have dropped that set of fears, and just started the long process of self definition by actions, independant of the paths of my “mothers”.
All this being said, I used to be terribly afraid of these events, because people like us (my mother’s family) did not belong in communities like this. Now, I am not burdened by this same fear. As I was leaving after having had good conversations with some of the people there, I realized that I fit in better with this group of people than I do with members of my own family and religious group. So now, I get to work with that realization and what it means for me.
Multifunctional Fingernails
I hadn’t thought to use them that way.
Read more
to do
For future reference:
Take the canals shown here here.
Apply them to the Tree of Life projected onto a Sphere.
Interpret results.
Processes and Cycles
First I must give some really serious props to my hubby, who has done a bang up job of reworking the site. Really, it deserves a look or two. He also did all of this while remembering our anniversary, working, and generally being a good guy.
For me, relearning the things I used to know, learning them from new perspectives, and trying to fit them into a new framework is interesting. Working with herbs is something that I used to do like breathing. Have you ever tried to explain to someone how to breathe? It is still fun though. My new toy came today, and of course I must play with it. My mother in law dropped of a bucket of oranges the other day, so orange oil was my first test. Botched it due to some minor things. Lack of planning, life, and children are not something I ever had to take into consideration before. I am also rather bad at being patient. So Saturday after the itty P is sleeping, I will make another batch. It’s all fun anyway.
Dealing with some anger issues with my son. He has made so much progress, but sometimes the light just goes out, and he slips right back into the same old crap. I need superglue for attitudes. He is brilliant and thoughtful most of the time. Just wish that his behavior was a bit more stable, or the swings were a bit more manageable. Still he has come a long way. Sometimes, I need to take a minute and remember that. From the middle of whatever drama he has brought home from school, it is sometimes hard to remember that.
All in all, it has been ok. Had a nice lunch out to celebrate our anniversary. I am so in love with the Veggie Patch Pizza at Applebee’s. Mmmmmm! Ups and downs, and all, the week has been ok.
Project Miodendre
“Now if you say that the word of any ignorant person has the same effect, come and see: One who is unaccustomed to the mysteries of Torah and innovates words he does not fully understand – when that word ascends, a man of perversity, tongue of falsehood (Proverbs 16:28; 6:17) bursts forth from the chasm of the immense abyss, leaping 500 parasangs to obtain that word. Grabbing her, he takes that word back to his chasm and transmogrifies her into a distorted heaven called ‘chaos.’ The man of perversity flies through that heaven – 6000 parasangs in one glide. As soon as the distorted heaven is established, a woman of whoredom (Hosea 1:2) emerges, clinging to it, joining with it. From there she sets out, killing thousands, myriads.”
- from Haqdamat Sefer ha-Zohar, pg. 28 of The Zohar (Pritzker Edition), Translation and Commentary by Daniel C. Matt
Although it seems obscure, this is vitally important stuff for anyone who has a mystic world view. Why? Because it describes the mechanisms by which ideas spread from our words and change the experiences of others in the world. To start, we have the idea of “innovating words” which is actually pretty vital to the whole process too. Innovating words, it would seem, is describing a type of prophecy, as we can infer from the statement later: “…when that word ascends…”
In the Tanakh there are instances in which we see individuals using prophecy as a weapon, ala Balaam. In this case, we’re talking about someone who is prophesying without an understanding of the processes that are magnifying his words into new realities. So when this person begins to prophesy, “a man of perversity” (Samael, the Accuser, according to Matt), takes hold of the word and uses it to create a heaven.
Heaven is an important technical term here also. Matt explains that these are new heavens being created, not the established heavens. But what does heaven mean? Heaven is the sum of the vectors created by the invisible principles that are governing your reality. These principles are defined by your beliefs about reality. These can be (and frequently are) summarized by mythologies, which determine the vectors in the “story” of your life. Heaven is the sum of those mythologies that you are living out. When our clueless prophet is creating chaotic heavens, these are translated into life stories for others to act out.
It’s also important to note the strange numbers. These are coordinates of sorts, that tell you where an influence is coming from in the hierarchy of Etz Chaim, the Tree of Life. Samael leaping 500 parasangs means that his influence extends from Gevurah of Yetsirah (Yetsirah being the world of imagination, meaning, & dreams – Gevurah being the essence of Severity, which Samael embodies) to create this new heaven. Then it says he glides 6000 parasangs – This means that his influence is extended to Tiferet of Beriya (Beriya being the world of identity [Mi], and Tiferet being the heart, the seat of compassion). What does this mean? This means that the accuser is allowed to usurp the powers of compassion that G-d normally extends into everyone’s “heaven” and twists them, to create a life of severity.
This creates, as the text continues, a complex, a subliminal principle that is viral in nature. As it says, “a woman of whoredom” that can slay myriads. The reason I favor this interpretation is that Lilith was associated with the teeming creatures of the seas, which to me represents a principle living beneath the ‘surface’ of consciousness in multiple entities. She was said to bear thousands of children (thoughts) which she would turn around and slay (internal conflict). Matt also says that the term “woman of whoredom” is a reference to Lilith. This subliminal complex becomes viral, and spreads to anyone who allows themselves to ‘be accused’ by the thoughts generated by contact with the behavior that those infected propagate. So when you see someone who is acting in a way that you see as evil, and you wonder if others percieve you in that way, that thought is the trail left behind by that viral complex entering you.
This is why Samael is called accuser; he as the male, or active principle, is the part you see – the accusation, while Lilith, the female, or passive principle, is not seen but does all the slaying. So how could our clueless prophet choose his words more carefully? The Zohar suggests more study of Torah, which purifies the soul, leaving it free of klippothic influence, but I would add that any purification ritual can help in this regard. The clueless prophet spreads the complexes inherent in his own words to others and their lives. Ultimately, none of us are free of complexes, but it is vital that we cleanse ourselves of negative behaviors to the greatest degree possible, so that our words will not spread darkness into the lives of others.
This brings me to another aspect of this ontological knot.
These worlds also relate to each other, just as planets do. They exert gravity and change each other, just as you describe yourself as being “pulled” into someone else’ world. The web of connections between all these heavens or worlds is described by the Kabbalists as a Garden of Pomegranates. This is important, because you have to see the pomegranate as the basic unit. Each aril is a human being, or as someone else once wrote, “Every man and woman is a star.” A group of people with shared identity at some level becomes a world or heaven. The boundaries of these worlds are subtle, but they are very real. The connections between them exist through sympathy and correspondence.
Each heaven has it’s own feeling, it’s own range of states of consciousness. When you go to work, it feels different because you are helping to create a subtle atmosphere that self-perpetuates. In some places, these fields can become self-aware also, lending to the idea of a hidden presence. These areas are gateways, and if we do not have the keys, we can become stuck in one. In those cases, we take that area with us, wherever we go. That context stays with us, unless we can detach from it. To attach to an area, we create knots or issues within the psyche, which binds our tzelem/image (the astral body) to the local area’s tzelem. So by resolving whatever issue the area is attached to, you can move from place to place unfettered.
However, more importantly, you can start to get a glimpse of the hierarchy of heavens or arils, to keep our metaphor consistant. The Hierarchy of Arils has been mapped out in thousands of ways, through art and literature, through song and verse, through architecture and civil engineering. It is the way in which we attempt to keep sight of each other, to hold hands in the blinding fog of our spiritually occulted universe.
Kadmon provides an opportunity to map the heavens, as it maintains a low-level constant emanation flow between it’s members. This emanation flow isn’t just the Yechidah/Unity that everyone possesses without knowing it. This is a custom flow designed to attach directly to the conscious mind. Basically the practical side of this is that when one Kadmon net (a small group of people unified by purpose) concentrates on each other and they are in different arils, a comparison occurs. This works something like the Powder of Sympathy experiment from Eco’s Island of the Day Before, except without needing any dogs. Kadmon is not alone in this ability, but it could be organized in such a way that it would make rapid acquisition of massive amounts of data possible in ways that we have not seen before with minimal amounts of investment in students and “cartographers”.
The Hierarchy of Arils is a personal quest that I have undertaken. Like the Glass Bead Game of literature, the enormous amount of data required to complete this web of correspondence would fill libraries. This is an overwhelming task that cannot be accomplished by single person as previously mentioned. The key is being able to gather enough data that structure can be discerned. Once a pattern of sorts can be divined, it will make later exploration much easier. Also, human fascination will play a large part in the this goal. Generally speaking, places with odd “feelings” about them attract attention, whether positive or negative. Going to these locations may provide us with extra details on the larger region.
However, I think that the best overall strategy would be to invest in a license for Google Earth Pro. Using that software, we could overlay massive amounts of data onto wide areas, which would provide us with the imprints that are distinctive to different shared “heavens” and would give us guidelines to start exploring by.
