sirguessalot

i love reading your lines of curiousity and inquiry and what they evoke in circles, cw such sacred questions and questioning lead us like a candle through the woods of ignorance and sacred answers are never absolute unless one is telling a fib, of course like i just clearly did and will now continue to do that said... if i were to classify, or reflect on the qualities of the "since the first century" thing in christian culture in any spiritual, rational, mythical sense...or other rambling non-sense in doctrines in practices in lifestyles whatever i would have to say that the most injurious grain in the story of cultures like TWI, CES and such is very closely tied to this extremely naive first century claim and all the many reasons the claim has been made in doctrines in practices in lifestyles whatever somehow, deeply imbedded in the shared storylines is a pattern that causes people to basically resist openly and honestly examining the contents and contexts of most all other spiritual lineages that do not share this very very specific lineage claim other lineages (people, books, communities) are rejected for having names and words and maps (and yes...racial profiles) that are perhaps simply too exotic and alien to represent too complex a range of spiritual experience in doctrines in practices in lifestyles whatever and so not only does vpw's STFC doctrine cut us off from most all lines to abraham but from most all lines to any such truths of jesus and to two millenium of judeo-christian thought and to protestants and evangelicals and as well as most all members of their own spiritual sub-sub-sub-sub-culture in doctrines in practices in lifestyles whatever and so there is basically no access to the lion's share of spiritual wisdom available to us the doctrine renders one mostly incapable of leaving a very small self-justified cave and unable to compare anything with anything... all the while maintaining the same bold lineage claims where more than 99% of the world's spiritual wisdom is a shared taboo and "hiding from us" in our own shadows in doctrines in practices in lifestyles whatever the usual subjects like shame, guilt, fear, pride, envy, lust... are also sewn into the "since the first century" storyline which sadly, is also a storyline shared by a portion of this generation of judeo-christianity that is much wider than twi and ces which sadly, also includes a streak of being hell-bent on duplicating itself which sadly, includes a "parting gift" of - being "allergic" to most any spiritual academic or community activity that resembles TWI - being "addicted" to most any spiritual academic or community activity that resembles TWI which, imo, is somewhat alarming to observe at this point in our history and spiritual evolution or whatever you want to call IT i dunno just saying :blink: a few helpful places i can see "the' conversation going (not just this thread) is discussions around... - the value of seen our relationship with truth and goodness as a spiritual "spectrum" of "unfolding" human experience, rather than flat and monochrome and static. - and how we might find a way to see simple spiritual "measuring" is not the same as imposing pre-rational hierarchy. but rather a spirituality that is more as a curious naturalist in the wilderness, where snakes and scorpions and demons and dragons are no longer seen as evil - and how we might explore the deeper shared traits of all traditions, as well as new technogies while appreciating the cause and qualities and values of their differences and without "flinching" at them in whatever ways we keep "flinching"

ah, yeah..well told, cw i mean, gosh how have we come so far that we've institutionalize a fearing and fleeing and hating of that which frees us dreams visions prescience travelling in dreams meeting people in dreams i mean...come on many lives are filled with them the bible is friggin loaded with it from the beginning to end the past 500 years of rational thought has fields of fields of schools of studies and practice in them art and literature we hate and love is so dripping wet with them dreams are like blood every world scripture and race as we moved thru our stages and waves from reptile to monkey to adam to caveman to abel to cain to jesus whatever you wanna call em ...full of dreams, prophetic visionary experience and so how have we come to either claim they are not real, or very useful, or understandable or how have we come to fear or control or otherwise avoid them in our bold judeo-christian claims of being lineage holders or pseudo-scientific claims either way dreams and prophecies are true and real and rather extra-ordinarily always already occuring and echoing in the background of our lives and quite a gift to have such direct access to them and quite another to embody and live them as they happen honestly, how traditionally christian or scientific has our culture become about this stuff? partial science partial religion rightfully rejecting each other's false claims false, not for lying but for being too-partial while claiming wholeness and holiness mostly, we have surely lost touch with our dreams i pray for times like pentecost to hit us like a tsunami if it must when waves of people start remembering all at once again yes...we will likely have to come up with a new language to hold it, as well otherwise, we will sound like silly confused children trying to talk about it hmm just sayin

Here is a link to a series of books by a family of Christian writers and illustrators...ironically, the Linns as a lifelong book worm and chewer of pages i have come to find these books to be some of the most quality, easy to read and cult-free reads on the topic colorful, pleasant, healing stories for adults and kids and kid-like adults ...nutritious. i think, is a good word to describe em titles like "Good Goats, Healing our Images of God" "Healing Spiritual Abuse and Religious Addictions" "Don't Forgive Too Soon: Extending the Two Hands That Heal" "Healing the Eight Stages of Life" etc... and too...hard not to come across like i'm selling something here being as i am basically the web-master and integral part of this growing resource center but i hope that some of you know me enough to see through that heck...i dont even mind if anyone purchases or borrows these titles elsewhere howz that for a sales pitch, eh? :blink: and odd to say, but business is Booming, and we are growing we also sell to hospices, hospitals, educators and other institutions have big book tables at conferences and such but mostly, i just want you guys to know about them cuz not only are they very well done and enjoyable but a lot of people have found them to be very healing and as ever...i appreciate being even some strange part of this strange real virtual community and always looking for a ways to repay my many many debts to all yalls

this thread is haunting me how true are dreams? i mean, really what kind of dream is it that does not happen? what about the dreams we miss? are they not true, too? does God see the dreams that we miss? cuz without a doubt as true as dreams is the Witness of those dreams invisible eternal generic ordinary clear allowing as you with you holding you watching your mind dream watching your heart dream watching your body dream as if "to watch" is "to feel" and the clear darkness watches light "feel its way in the dark" indeed, the eye of God is always watching and not mere mythically, or mere metaphorically one could say "God is so intimately involved in each and every dream we have" cuz one way or another, we will ultimately find ourselves no longer asleep during the dream no longer lost and trapped in the dream but a place where you can fully experience what the dream has to say like a kid in a movie theatre watching from the ordinary place that causes the dream body and the world beyond dreams at the fountainhead of your self at the wellspring the true ground of your being no...not above in the heavens, but deep undernearth and wide and high beyond embracing both heaven and hell as the Witness where yes, christian, buddhist, hindu, hopi, jungian, quaker, jewish, sufi...you name it can learn that they have all been learning the same "silly tricks" all along in many kinds of ways and so positively odd is how ordinary language about this stuff evolves and crashes in waves highlighted by new languages created in occasions of interdisciplinary common-groundedness we may not realize it, but undernearth the mainstream of all of them are the deep wide dreamers and gentle prophets who can and do easily agree on this kind of very extra-ordinary but mostly overlooked "thing" and way of being where they commune and develop new languages to hold what they find in each other as well as hold and magnify the texture and distinctions without prejudice which involves a lot of discussions about dreams and premonitions from dreams, of course no, not as children but as wise folk with the heart and curiousity of a child who view dreams and such as a primary and final terrain of our personal path in this life from having lived and practiced and studied them in schools for so many generations prayer and meditation art and music and sciences good food and wine and ways of celebration simply allowing the dreams and premonitions to be heard as an ordinary lifestyle...as play, even but especially in places of healing, dying and respite dreams have always been more important more cherished there for their healing properties there have been waves of interfaith cooperation around this stuff throughout all our histories and right under our noses in spite of the same old books and storylines being at world war with each other but sages and saints and elders...as well as many young dreamers, holding a silly rule of common-hearted-ness that allows us to compare notes on spiritual things talking about ordinary dreams and practices alongside our medicines and traditions involving diet, health, pregnancy, dyng, illness, prayer, etc.. art forms and lifestyles surely, this is the kind of thing that was new to them on Pentecost not that something new had finally come to them but that a timeless awareness had finally come to them as old as clay a strange "new trick" whereby no one is freaking out (and basically "flinching" deeply) about things we often cant even pronounce instead, we find a curious and fearless enough heart to reinvent our tongues in order to hold the deeper, wider, higher and longer experiences of life especially as medicine around grief...Jesus had just died after all..no? and so meeting people in dreams.. leaving your body and going on journeys... encounters with angels and ancestors and demons oh my... were considered part of the territory of the wilderness of creation and valuable as such all wise men and worlds scriptures and stories tend to agree that without dreams we are dark to our selves that close close and vibrant view of the actual inner workings of our one and only vehicle where we see for ourselves how we are mostly a mixed cocktail of glittering stardust and poop but that is a lot is it not? i wonder...how far have we come from this wide open approach to dreams in our spirituality? such as in twi and ilk...and our present day incarnations of christianity and islam and such how is it that we learned how to avoid most ALL of this stuff? our dreaming life is either hyped or written off as invalid or less valuable to us perhaps for being mostly insubstantial we have made enmities with such ordinary and necessary things and re-translated them into places of demons and shadows and deceptive satan influences limiting our interpretations and experiences of dreams to a very narrow slice of its story when there is a world wide pool of valid records of studies and experiences about dreams where we are already free to compare spiritual things with spiritual things i wonder if perhaps its time to find more ways to lift the lid off such things as dreams before we kill each other over silly things as dreams and old books about dreams i dunno just sayin

hey George and all something ive found that helps a person and community navigate such places is a practice of compassionate inquiry...and asking potently free and freeing questions ...the kind with no correct answer or no obligation to answer at all and what it might look like for us, perhaps, (given what i glean from what you have written) is if we ask things such as... "how might we find out what kinds of things you would like to discuss?" "how you can imagine discussing them?" "do you have questions you would like the community to ask?" or "how might we proceed with this strange new virtual kind of community conversation?" etc, etc... cuz simply asking these open kinds of questions into a circle can draw out our deeper wisdom and intuition and imo, there is one helluva lot to those 4 insights you have already given us to draw from and so i guess i am just pointing to what i understand to be a treasure trove of tips of the ice-berg kinds of conversations that will indeed teach us all and i'm not paying tribute or anything though in my studies, we have a saying that "the dying are our greatest spiritual teachers" which i find to be true from both religious and rational points of view as you seem to know, there can be an astonishing value to all this, in spite of the outcome as if there is something universally sacred about the "liminal space" that is evoked as our priorities are stripped and shift dramatically, with or without our consent and so i am curious about how we might help us become more comfortable and able to be ordinary with you to whatever depth and degree you invite so you can say what you find to say before disappearing even if it turns out to be years from now anyway...i hope i am making sense and i hope i have not overstepped bounds for anyone

a mere stranger/neighbor whose been sharing this cafe with you for years it seems and interestingly enough, a student in end-of-life spirituality and palliative care and such i am compelled by your courage, George and your generosity, honesty and your wide open curiousity imho, your story....as it is unfolding....is the ultimate gift to any of us all i can find to say right now is a deep deep thank you for your offering of being present with us perhaps even more in your dying than in your living and that i am especially thankful to what simply is for the GSC ...this real virtual circle of companions and friends we truly are lucky to have each other like we do in quality and quantity...and variety of wisdom especially at such times about which i cant say enough so i should probably stay quiet but, and, so, too... you mentioned reading, George...i am intimately familiar with a wide variety of audio video books and other resources and teachers on the topic...and am not merely a theist, or a merely a scientist that said... i wish and hope and pray for peace, quality and comfort as well as miracles of all kinds thanks again simply here Todd

i think there are many wide gulfs and stark distinctions between how spiritual manifestion is understood, practiced, or otherwise approached in all the various biblical, non-biblical, extra biblical means and such but one simple distinction i have come to see, is how: 1) Some view them (manifestations, dreams, visions, predictions, prophecies, insights, etc...) as things and events that are seperate from ordinary reality, where conditions must be met to somehow stimulate them. Or they somehow do not exists, or are waiting to be given or earned or created. But mostly that they are somehow seperate and special. A lot of myth, story and relatively narrow and exclusive attention and prejudice as to what kinds of info is allowed when talking about them. Naturally, this can be a hard thing to swallow. 2) Some see them (manifestations, dreams, visions, predictions, prophecies, insights, etc...) as being a way to map and experience the very fabric and substance of ALL creation and reality that surrounds us NOW, which is an "always already is and will always be" kind of thing. One's relationship with the manifestations leaves the book and weaves new living stories in life today. Which then includes the books to a greater capacity (from anthropology and art to the original reasons we celebrate holidays) i think that perhaps the saying that "the map is not the same as the territory" in an important thing to understand for those who want to live according to any scriptures whether it is christian, buddhist, psychologist, astrophysicist, ecologist, politician, atheist, etc... the meaning of books themselves are reborn again this way, it seems and as this relates to dreams and predictions and angelic visions and visitations from above, below or otherwise beyond consensus reality.... dreams and prophecies are always true, good and beautiful in all their manifold manifestations and expressions and when we find a Way to simply Witness it as such we are more free to change and make more choices and the quality of our experience tends to unfold

Happy Christmas Allan best wishes to you and yours on yonder side of the world :)

i think that one of perhaps twis most selective habits when it comes to teaching/doctrine....etc has a lot do with how 99.99% of the world's spiritual writings were pre-considered to be lies and deception coming from places like that logic/script regarding "the value of a counterfeit is..." it seems to make a real wide shadow to box where light is never cast where one doesnt look and the deeply tribal part of it (selective teachings) is perhaps even deeper and older and less-noticed than alchoholism, greed, pride, and sexual predations, whatnot on the surface and those scripts regarding the 5 ways of serpent's trick and such... really strangles ones capacity to doubt, and otherwise be inquisitive and honest and able to be transformed and renewed yada yada we do not honestly investigate that which troubles us most we just want it gone, because we pre-judge it an enemy (books/teachings) no authentic practice of Friendship, in that regard and so no genuine presence of Christ, is us...in that regard heresy = choosing, at its root...an exclusion (by way of limited inclusion) without prior examination and not just mere examination..but an honest actual examination there is sin from the damage done by such extreme choosing and pre-judgement prior to knowing which then, realy is a heresy...for one who is somehow universally spiritually whatever (as Christ surely was and is) twi 1,2,3 or 4 knows little to nothing about the bulk of christian religion that is demonized to them, and perhaps even less about the many eastern schools, many indigenous schools, and many modern and post-modern sciences and psychologies and spiritualities and perspectives and points of view and such and so we come to know very little about we didnt know and refused to look at in the first place ...or last admit we looked at cuz ya know...it seems ever more obvious to me that VP was reading and learning wildly outside of even christianity with his maps and models and programs and whatnot and also wildly stripping and reshaping what he read envy, malice,...i dunno...his "counterfeit script" probably had a lot to do with it yet he was promoting (and seemingly carried on) a legacy of more or less hillbilly ignorance and suspician regarding 99.99% of the growing body human history of spiritual and religions thought and tradition and practice ... btw...not saying that everyone should read everything for salvation, or happiness, or anything else just that an honest teacher should prolly not claim superior knowledge about things they've only barely peeked at which is why ive often said that VPs spiritual education was like one of the kids in "Porky's" ...mistaking a peek through a hole in the wall for ordinary full-on sex simply said...a teacher shouldnt teach the value of a book they've never even really ever read

Dot, the ever-loving puppy dog and devoted burier of bones deep gratitude for setting out such a graceful question i can say that i have spent many hours of many recent days sobbing in realization of my dying friends which has only been amplified by my studies on my mother's side alone, i am the oldest of 120 something great grandchildren and have large family on all sides, yet with 3 living grandparents and have spent more of my life among more of my many elders than most my age and most of my deepest dearest friends and co-workers and aquaintences and fellow students are over 50 some of my most dearest friends are 70s and 80s and i have recently lost count of how many are either suffering, dying, recently died, grieving, or are living with terminal illness when great grandma left last year, my great aunts and uncles all started fading fast one of my dearest uncles may be dying in a van somewhere, refusing to go to the hospital and deeper...i am working closely with about 200 students and faculty in the ars moriendi and a number of them are wise old masters in their own fields who are living with terminal illness as we teach and dream and so being among the youngest of this body most all of who have come to agree that "the dying are our greatest teachers" i have also recently realized that i will most likely live to see them all die while teaching about dying which is starting to feel like a heavy thing who asks for this? ya know? who could put it down? i dunno but in spite of it all i feel i have seen the medicine for dying which is not always the same as medicine for living though both trees grow better together than apart and there is a fountainhead and a wellspring and i include the gsc in my family of friends who are dying and i wish i knew how to play at ways of leaning into these things with us here but that i am mostly just a lazy artist who has found my self playing in these fields never an expert, really....in a world of so-called experts and so i thank God for the architects of this real virtual community and how our stories are being told here...and how that is medicine i also wish i could help my friends in my generation see the importance of this work and the joy and healing and reward of simply finding and listening to the stories is enough cuz we are the medicine i wish you all yer christmas wishes, Todd

ha... a christmas rant...to go with that crazy link mythic versus rational? rational versus mythic? half-headed, either way perhaps even half hearted or half a$$ed i dunno cuz some so called sciences are more mythikly ignorant than so called religions and some so called religion is more scientific than mythic science and science and such or something like it :blink: honestly...what i am trying to point at is how most growing mainstream scripts on both sides of the science/religion argument seem so post-modern, shallow and flat and so narrowly partial as to more-or-less misrepresent the actual depth and scope of the scientific and religious debate and dialogue that has been happening all over this world for some time now in a wide number of fields gawd...writing that was like coughing up a furball...ack anyway...so all i can say, sometimes ... pi$$ing here alongside you all in the mainstream, as they say is that i hope those of you who find yourself somehow trapped on either side of this world wide war of world views may you somehow also find a way of expanding beyond the scope of theism and atheism but in a way that fully includes the qualities of both, ya know? i dunno the math is not that hard, really especially if all the colors and numbers are allowed we can count it all off on our naked fingertips i cant help but wonder how it will take us to figure it out enough to actually play music again especially cuz it is winter, and the world is going mad coldest and darkest time of the year and it seems to feel as if we need a more believable story of hope at times like this that can deal with all this in a more helpful and hopeful manner truth goodness are more beautiful together than apart and then always simply leads to truly new and better ways ho ho ho thanks for the link, greasy tech

and the more i know and feel about such things as dreams and religion and medicine and comas and dying and near-dying and the more i know about your life, brother Roy the more and more your naked appeals and expressions make sense to me and though ive enjoyed from the beginning, as you know there is an ongoing ripening to all this, our foolishness and i mean everyone's foolishness...in a big bowl, ya know? you have dug deep wells, my friend and have seen the fountainhead just thought id say all that...cuz it seems worth saying, i guess ...positively odd

ah...you have really lit me up, frickfrack...and thank you yes, Blush is always on the table

such 'holy remembrance' makes us cry, i think, sista e a whole nuther layer of the notion that "truth hurts" which opens so many new and wonderful things in us for all of us can you imagine if all more of the hillbillies who are at war would sit down and have such a dream? some day they will as they have in the past and we'll be there i am sure of it til then i think it suffices to say that jesus and buddha agree on self awareness that at the foot of it all is a bloody red place and the condition of the one who opens all the seals on the book of life is the same as the first noble truth and we should never forget the first lesson or all other later higher lessons will not be as lessons at all but curses, mostly this is the hard truth that make grown men cry or should not for guilt but because crying is not a shame and heals many things the feeling of humiliation is holy and healing in this gateway to greater self-awareness burns us to cinders becaue we finally realize what a fool we are and how that is ok...we know we are being held...always losing is as good as winning and winning is as good as losing so breathe ....which is perhaps why such lessons are saved for when one is in or near the door of death or the nature of the world stories that are told in winter, and our darkest hours together let us speak of the darkness and let us speak of the truer sparkly gifts we have prepared for this time and remind our selves how in a deep sense... how almighty God is fully aware of us and we are always seen and all shall be well so go play as a child but a child who is wise as a serpent and harmless as a dove can you imagine what might happen if more today were aware of such impossible things?

yeah...merry Christmas all you gaylords ..all us holy fools and saints Paw, and everyone ...something else in addition to and alongside your cool idea for sharing and recording christmas greetings and messages and such i went out and bought a nice headset have been playing Skype with a handful of friends and family as well as in my studies with fellow students anyway...i tell ya...it is (typically) simple, easy, works good, and free...complete with a chatroom then..of course...it could get really wild if whomever figures out how the entire conference could simply "skype out" by calling the Christmas greeting number you have set up record a christmas greetings to the old friends lost in HQ, or something...hehe...be it olive branch or bag of burning poop ...which could possibly then become recorded choruses of voices and greetings and general merriment and holy mayhem...planned wider conversations and interviews could be recorded, mining for gemstones of stories skypecasts are a cool thing to look into just a thought or two some may be into such things..some not some may even go crazy have a ball with it

i think perhaps vpw's maps didnt take the notion as deep or as high or as wide as he claimed they did cuz its one thing to use clay and fire to make things without even knowing much about how it works and quite another to insist that your particular kind, style and type of mind garden is pre-eminent and that it would be evil to NOT repeat and spread the same kinds of templates of the mind sharing stories are like sharing bread our mind lives on them especially if the McRecipe for sandwiches simply sucks and and causes people to invenst in a unhealthy mind map that is programmed to aggressively duplicate itself and lacks adequate level of holy Hospitality and such to do so but its yet another thing to know how to explore and experiment with the nature of fire and clay and building temples and gardens of our big little minds...and look at them as arts and sciences...just as any potter or temple builder would as Eckarte Tolle might say...we are NOT our minds (or better yet..we are not MERELY merely our minds) but if we think we are and identify with them as our self sense our mind will most likely defend its self-sense from destruction as if one would react to dying and if this same mind is used to drive the body and social behaviour the body and society will react as if its life is being threatened which then...makes it pretty hard to renew our cracked-pots and throw another if we think we are merely a lump of clay looking for a spirit that we already have the spirit is the potter that simply sees the pot hard to become a potter of any skill if one is afraid to mash the shards of a shattered pot and who must throw thousands of pots even to become a student there is the artist and the artifact and there is artistry that only comes from having won and lost many many times clay is clay fire is fire strange as it might sound i think that perhaps the most effective fire vp had for the mind was his formula for speaking in tongues and so...his hyper-xenophobic dunce cap program on scriptural interepretation had a pretty darn effective fire for polishing our idols...too bad the recipe was so imbedded with paranoia and pride thank God all things can be redeemed and transformed simply put...its as if we have no choice but to think creatively in order to have a free mind what child does not know this? how is it that men forget? i think we forget the value of contemplation and meditation both of which seems to help the mind free the mind from itself by tricking it like playing a flute where you are both the snake and the flute player in the garden like trying to sneak up on a thought and catch it before it pops out of its hole ...and it will likely out fox you and wait for you to be distracted again no wonder the Kid and his Teachers and Buddies spent so much time in the dark in the woods not putting on the breaks or stepping on the gas but popping in the clutch and idling simply observing a thought (or feeling) as a strand of your own being...literally and letting it fulfil its own natural course...and it has a tendency to self liberate basically because we are practicing being patient with our many selves perhaps even kindly and curiously helping comb out a tangle of the mind/heart/soul like amother would..in way that does not disturb the natural unfolding of the brew i dunno gawd...thinking of twi..and i wonder how twi had come so so far from the deeper roots of christianity thank God we can renew our minds and become transformed in a way that requires no books or laws or rules but is free to play with them all

dear e, yeah...the home we never left in the first place simply witnessing "it" is nothing more than a pure remembering of what always is, was and ever will be 'going to heaven' seems more like throwing a ball up in the air and then trying to catch "it" which is a part of the terrifying aspect of God i suppose simply finding that and noticing it is really just a flicker of an eye that sees something we've always known all along and have simply forgetten i dunno still seems pretty weird to me to say such things but i cant help see "it" in scripture ...all scripture how we most naturaly come to fear the very ground of awareness we have always walked on we begin as "it" (self awareness) and are most naturally born thinking we are drowning in "it"...often screaming bloody murder and spend the span of our life swimming through "its" stages...resting often at "its" peak it is said its like the frothy edge of an ocean of infinite space and radical openness empty of will and thought and matter that just keeps on holding everything like a mother brooding on the face of the deep and we are buried in nestled layers of "it" strange, i think God, in this old old sense...is truly strange and mysterious beyond words..as the book says and our creative edge is like a flame in space and this is the face of the infinite child in us the one who will look at anything and sees without prejudice in one sense...there is no father God just good ole boys who think magic wands do all the work of creating the flaming edge of newness in Christ the spark of awareness that came from grace which is always a mother's space

well..dr Rhino to tell the truth...the nickel just kind of showed up in my hand like it was change from the seat it just happened to be there and happened to work in reflection, i feel as if the lesson for me is more about how much more you can do with a nickel to navigate than simply throwing more money at the inability to control the outcome i dunno $175 and yer telling me it took you an hour to come up with that? hehe yeah right

aw...must we sing that one again, mr strange? :blink:

odd, huh? something interested to add... up until recently, how almost all judeo-christian (and even some islamic) monastic and more deeply spiritual traditions had a range of 9 sins/manifestations and the 2 that have been removed in recent centuries are 6 and 3 which, according to many enneagram and post-modern psyche studies...make up about 3/4 of american population which implies...that the 2 sins we commit the most are also absent from your list, bro odd, huh? which is perhaps the most common spiritual map in our judeo-christian cultures and beliefs in other words, our deepest problems are not even on our list of possibilities any more do the math, i guess which is perhaps a large part of why we are polarized between celebrating military emergencies (fear is the 6th sin missing) and adoring politicians and rock stars (deceit is the 3rd sin missing) btw...a light confession to this church: avarice is my sin of choice (though i am pretty much a minimalist and post-materialist by modern standards...i hoard other things...and a strike is a strike is a strike) though i like to dabble in gluttony and envy at times (my partying side, as well as all my needs for artistic drama...yawn) lol and its not like we celebrate our sins but that we celebrate finally knowing them enough to name them and then start combing out the knots so that they become gifts ...redeemed and such anyway... food for thought btw...enneagram is pronounced any-a-gram which means "faces of God' literally shows up in the histories and texts and literature of most all races of history though i find it always helps to remember how the map is never the same as the territory it describes which helps keep us from favoring dead paper over the present living book

aw...man, Tbone i tell ya i think something huge that your most recent post points to ...something that turns both science and religion on their head and inside out... is how it is long been proven how we can investigate and measure the interior human experience as many ways we can find as we would with any art and science the spirituallity of integrating body, heart, soul, mind, spirit can be (and has been) approached as much a technology and science as unexplained religious experience and imagination demonstrable, verifiable, adaptable... ordinary awareness is not limited to the body, but includes the body...as fully as possible and the mind...as fully as possible and the heart...as fully as possible ordinary awareness IS the essence of spirit...as fully as possible Spirit is that which deeply witnesses body, heart, soul, mind, etc... that which remains even when your dreams have gone to sleep that invisible holy ghost observer who was there all along an impossible and not impossible person or thing to find but the most most most obvious damn thing that never ever ever refuses to leave us or forsake us even at our lowest we cant help but feel our eyes feels the waves of light our ears feel the waves of sound and we see what we feel and paint pictures of it with our stories and we feel the meaning of the stories it is our capacity to witness feeling hearing and seeing is like feeling the music of a harpist vibrate your very bones with your eye closed and a shared awareness of this with each other can become an extraordinary and amazing thing because there is a sense of our selves that actually deeply literally inhabit each other like fish in a bowl together...and we are also the water we do it all the time...family, friends, enemies taking and receiving paintings on our inner walls of every occasion with each other through all of our sense and other ways we often dont even realize dripping soaking wet with each other like waves in an ocean imho, and ask any good jew this notion is the origin of the Christian God of whom it is said there is no escape ISness AMness stubborn, untameable, fierce everywhere present whether in heaven or hell this invisible God is always right here and now awareness itself manifold awesome terrible wonderful ordinary yada yada yada IT is no secret and has never been lost we are simply asleep and we have lost our stories of IT perhaps IT is not even an IT but simply IS but such a God is also only the simplest flicker of attention away which seems cruel, depending our expections, perhaps though its also kind of playful and mysterious and omg...dare i even say it is deeply erotic, at times ...this ultimate God and the quest for this ultimate God is also a very sensual reality in the Bible, or anywhere else to approach any such naked awareness must be an act of shamelessness and wide open heart naked and shameless and subtle to approach such wide open heart of this Awareness of course...is like a baptism of fire for most all of us and almost always always always...a life long journey ... of course, for some, these are often not light things to hear i know...especially if i say it so casually cuz...reality bites especially this time of year last thing we often want is more awareness of all this crazy insane crap in the world and my life blood, puss, smoke, waste, smoke, tears... but awareness of reality and awareness of possibility are two different kinds of awareness, it seems and either one can suck but they go better in marriage than they do in enmity unless it playful game, or course or some sort of romantic flirtation or otherwise playing at parting and reuniting (like scientific method) perhaps it could be said that reality and possibility are best observed as dance partners and perhaps it could be said that presence presents gifts in these cold dark days ho ho ho, an elf

oh, how wonderful I remember now yes...Melanie! thank you again, guys

ha...luv it thanks guys for throwing in i like Tbone's style on that other thread, too stitches a nice line in the weave, it seems johniam...honestly, there wasnt much of a thought or feeling of twi in this dream has a lot more to do with miss being with my mom and family for christmas living on the other side of the cascades from them in winter which has a lot to do, of course, with going wow and leaving town in the first place...hmm... thanks for the guesses tom..i guess you can have one the nickels Whitedove gave us cuz yeah...a lot new work and new things are coming up on me pretty fast and i really do love what i'm doing right now and i dont really want to slow down ...nickel was for navigation, i think like i needed a rutter or something e...luv...and ya know...it feels and seems to me as if the second half of life becomes more about going home than it ever was about getting anywhere else anyway. and that the journey home can be as long as the journey you went on. just as many steps from another direction. i dunno..just rambling sister gold curly locks...not sure what yer sayin...but sure that is one crazy funny avatar to go with it..and yeah...i did give it my all...steering mostly. i thought i might end up blowing through someone's house like a human cannon ball. Belle...a rule of thumb i like to use, is how you (or i) are most qualified to interpret your (or my) own dreams, simply from being the only one with direct access to recollect the dream. in other words...not even jung or a shaman can tell you how you felt about a symbol or animal in a dream, or what you knew about it and the storyline behind it. though they may know how to help us ask better questions. the arts of open inquiry into dreams is exotic and spans all cultures and times. but ultimately...the dreamer is the only one who dreamt the dream. so whether its playfully light or deeply serious and important, it was some sort of only asking the dreamer kind, curious questions meant for helping the dreamer find more precision and clarity. its almost a given how the dream is never anything but wild and untamed and typically hard to catch. artful inquiry reminds me of sitting at a bench in a park and sharing nuts with the squirrels the dreams come out of the woods if you simply sit still and give them free food maybe play a flute just so they'll come out for you to observe and name, perhaps cuz you sure as hell cant catch em. dreams can be like that, i have found a most ordinary magic, in a sense "I'm enjoying every centimeter of the journey." ha! yep..thats it, it seems, aint it? if one is also on a journey inside as much as outside (skull? brain? body? whatever) and its also a life-long trip it must then also a very short slow trip or something cuz physically...we dont really have that far to go ...white dove what a wonderfel song i have never had the pleasure of hearing that one btw...whose Melanie? and too..reflecting on the nickel...i wonder how i might be looking for a cheap quick financial way to change my course...or something. maybe i just couldnt very well use a dollar or a credit card to stop or steer the speeding a$$-rocket...or whatever it was

one that explains a bit about my life these days and i couldnt think of a better place to write it out and i couldnt find a recent thread to hold it so...well...here goes as i mentioned elsewhere around here ive been twilight journaling a lot more lately and with it, i am remembering more dreams yesterday, i jotted notes on four dreams this morning it was five but one of them was a real hoot it has really stuck with me all day ok, imagine... ...ive got this groovy little vehicle its about the size of a large cereal bowl that i have to sit down in it and hold to my skinny a$$ with both hands and lift my feet up in the air and it has one small wheel on the bottom and im telling ya...this thing really takes off so im racing along the main street of my hometown real fast, too and i miss the turn i wanted because there are no breaks on this gizmo and so i cant slow down so while im not bothered much by the speed i am growing worried that i am going to be in the next city if i dont figure something out real quick cuz like i said...this thing is really cruising along and so i pull a nickel out of my pocket and try to dig it into the pavement which sends sparks flying and slows me down enough to start thinking about turning but then, the dream, or my memory of it, ends but it sure speaks to the feeling of my life these days in part...i figure...nothing like a little familial longing to mark the season with a crazy dream about my runaway life...i can see how i am definately wishing i could slow down and get back home i dunno but i thought some of you guys might get a kick out of it whether you are feeling that way or not

thanks, brutha cman...for the courage and to this community for the heart to hold space for such a topic my 2 cents...on a general note... it is becoming clearer to me that all things can be (and perhaps should be) viewed from many perspectives and the days of claiming one perspective over another are coming to an end...we hope the interior psychology and spirituality of it all is 100% relevant the exterior physical and bio-mechanics of it all is 100% relevant the collective interior cultural field through which we come into this world is 100% relevant and the collective exterior social systems and ecology of it all is 100% relevant all of these perspectives are wholly relevant and valuable ways of viewing the "data" of our lives and to marginalize or otherwise close our eyes to any one of them is somewhat of a violent act when we can somehow hold all of them at once we will have a more complete picture of all that is "really" occuring our psyche has a relationship with our body, with culture and with the environment our body has a relationship with our psyche, with culture, and with the environment our culture....etc... praying thinking wishing dreaming feeling loving ... that said... AA is not everything but its sure is alot which is more than nothing and i recall a lot of different and contradictory opinions from the twi big wigs about it and i have also recently learned that the founder of AA was also informed by "the enneagram" and modelled his process after it...to some degree or other peace and love