OWh... something other than nothing found it's way into me. I would like to return, a raft floating alone, horizon to horizon on an empty sea of dark, dark limitless bliss.
Just a little fun, experimentation. If I were to give a serious introduction, and I am trying though it does make me laugh, I would have to start with, perhaps, well birth would be too early, anything before that definitively so. I will start with two of my friends in high school, who influenced by their parent's musical tastes, introduced me to Bob Dylan, Led Zeppelin, Jimi Hendrix and all those guys and girls. I fell in love and delved deeply into the whole culture and was especially delighted when I discovered the direct awakening of consciousness that was occurring at that time. An important point of my own awakening occurred first through art. I had a brilliant, ecstatic perception of the interconnected nature of all of life, spontaneously bubbling forth in all it's various manifestations and what a pleasure it was to live with such an awareness. From this moment on I lived a life motivated by this force. At that time the closest thing I found to this perception, a couple of years later, was Jack Kerouac's spontaneous prose. As part of this I went through a number of years of psychedelic drug use, though I came to the point where one hit of m/j would send me into another world and had to take some time to integrate the different levels of my awareness, my outward life, heal hurts and generally emerging from the undesirable restrictions of a cocoon that I had made for myself. These days I still don't partake, though it seems I am edging ever closer once again. I occasionally sit with a group that has used m/j for thousands of years for just the reasons I stopped using it and I am investigating the traditional use of Ayahuasca and other sacred substances. Though at the same time it doesn't escape my mind that I live in an area where shrooms are in their most abundance of anywhere on the planet, yet they where not used within the native spiritual culture, contrary to the general rule. I am motivated to come to these forums because of a current that has begun to sweep through my life. The simplest way to explain it would be through the alchemical process, which is really my life in all honesty. The first is work with the prima materia, working with the 'lead' of the human. One withdraws from the outer world into the dark night of the soul, which is deserving of it reputation. After this purification one experiences the inner world as being full of the light of life. This is then given back to life, so that each my nourish the other. This was symbolised in in a dream where I saw my penis as an intense ray of white light shooting out into darkness, nothing. If I were to accept help from the mother, matter, this white light would be marked red. Often the symbolism for this is giving ones own blood to the purified substance, to give it life. So am allowing the giving of myself to mother/matter/the external world and for her to give herself to me, in order that we may nourish each other and the next phase may be completed. Sounds like fun to me! Which is really why I'm here, fun. The other stuff is not really a conscious thing, I didn't plan it, I simply wanted to come here and realized after I'd signed up that this is another facet of something that has been occurring in all areas of my life. I'm looking more for social interaction, interaction with archetypal forces, really interaction with anythings other than my own pure awareness, which was all I was interested in before, keeping totally to myself. I'm just doing my best to let myself flow in the current now. So, this process is my life and there is not much I can do about that. On a personal note, though there is really nothing more personal that what I just wrote, I enjoy sharing, I love all forms of art, it's my feeling that life should BE art, from the way you arrange food on a plate to the way you dance down the street. Ideals which I don't live up to quite a bit of the time. I play music, adore movies, poetry, laughter. I dunno... I think each of us are more an experience than a collection of memories, likes and dislikes. Perhaps that is pompous, but I think you know what I mean. Hopefully you can see why I would be attracted to a place like this, that my will is good. I'd like to offer a gift: Little bits of Bradford Keeney
