Endorphin

Endorphin is a guy in a jogging suit. The symbol he gave me is a fleshknot that has a tripod base, with each part of the tripod rising to twist around the other two parts. He causes pleasure, notable in runner high, but also in meditation and experiencing something new, but he also opens doors of possibility. At the same time endorphin warns about being overused because it can cause addiction. The sensation of endorphin is a tingling feeling...and also a feeling of flow. Book Review: Taoist Yoga by Charles Luk

I found this book to be an insightful read into Taoist internal alchemy, however I'd also say that anyone reading it needs to have at least a couple years experience to even begin to get the concepts discussed. What I found was that the book provided greater clarity about some of the different exercises I'd already done, but I also realized that if I didn't already have experience with those exercises, I probably wouldn't get what the author was discussing. It's a useful book to have for an intermediate to advanced Taoist meditation practitioner. 5 out 5

Amazon link

Powells link

Some musings on retroactive time

I had some thoughts the other night, after I'd been playing Assassin's Creed 2 about retroactive time and what would happen if you didn't live the life of your ancestor the way s/he had lived it. The video below is some of my discussion about retroactive time and ancestor memory.

Dopamine and Norepinephrine

Dopamine: Appears as an old man/trickster figure. Dopamine causes pleasure, most notably in sex when a person orgasms. When I worked with him this time, as with when I first worked with him, he reminded me to use dopamine carefully...that it's not something to be abused. This makes senses to me, especially if you consider the possibility of addiction to the pleasure. Norepinephrine: Appears as a kabuki Actor. Norepinephrine causes numbness, so its basically a natural painkiller for the body. There's some definite applications when used in combination with other neurotransmitters.

Limitless freedom: are you really free?

I've been thinking about the concept of enlightenment, in terms of attaining a state of non-attachment to everything as well as what the result might look like and I think it might be something like experiencing limitless freedom.You become everything and nothing, but because there are no limitations you can never turn that possibility into something real. In fact, you the person don't even exist. A rather tenuous existence, and while a person might be one with everything and nothing, what in the end does that really mean, and what does it really do for the person. I'll admit I'm attached to my identity.

Need and desire can be spiritual

"When we think the solution to our unhappiness can be found in the external world, our desires can only be temporarily sated. Not understanding this, we are tossed this way and that by the winds of desire, ever restless and dissatisfied. We are governed by our karma and continually plant the seeds of future karmic harvest. Not only does this mode of action distract us from the spiritual path, but it also prevents us from finding satisfaction in our daily life" -- Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche I was thinking about what's written above the other day as I was walking around the Hawthorne district in Portland. I'd just come out of Powells (a bookstore) and I realized that while I'd enjoyed going into the store and looking at the books, I'd also felt a sense of dissatisfaction, a recognition that nothing I could purchase would be anything more than a distraction, an illusion. I might temporarily fulfill a desire and enjoy doing so, but I would still have to come face to face with the underlying reality that whatever I got was only a temporary distraction from that desire, and it would come back to remind me that it needed something more.

Since then I've also been thinking how much desire and attachment actually anchor a person into living life, providing the drive that people have to live, and I consequently wonder how much the valuing of the spirit over the material world is just another desire, another sign of dissatisfaction expressed in trying to find some spiritual answer that will take away any sense of need a person has.

Seems to me that need and desire are spiritual in and of themselves. Without the need or desire for something, would we strive so much for our goals, our projects, our ideals, etc.? When we determine that something is not spiritual, aren't we just creating the dualistic divisions that cause Karma? I find the subtle hierarchical beliefs about the spirit vs the material to be the most dangerous because in trying to divide everything up we also end up labeling it and using that labeling to create the dualistic tension described as karma.

If satisfaction is to be found, it must be found in our ability to make peace with our desires by accepting them as gateways to spiritual experiences that also allow us to perceive the material world as the manifestation of the spiritual. Instead of dividing, why not just experience it all?

Dream Technique part 2

I'd mentioned a little while back that I'd begun experimenting with using physical sensations as a means to create a dream reality where I could do internal work. I've found since that original post that what seems to work best for me, if I want to do a night of internal work is a kinisthetic sensation. I've tried visualization, but visualization seems to work better as a secondary sensory tool used to create an environment around the kinisthetic sensation. I'm not sure that this "rule" would apply to everyone. It may only apply to me because I'm a kinisthetic learner first, and a visual learner second, and an audio learner last. For a visual learner, using some kind of visual stimuli may work better for creating an initial dream environment in which the internal work will be done. Likewise an audio learner may find that an audio signal is best.

I've found that using kinisthetic sensations has helped me create dream environments I can work with so that I'm doing some form of internal work while sleeping. It seems to be most helpful if I use a sensation I felt during the day before I do the dream work. Trying to draw on older memories of sensations is less helpful, especially as those memories get replaced by newer experiences. It does help if the sensation is unusual. I've found that focusing on sensations that my feet feel is particularly useful, partially because of how sensitive feet are and partially because I don't normally go out of my way to pay attention to what my feet feel. I now have that incentive, in order to create a dream environment I can work in, but it can also work with any other sensitive area of your body.

Dimethyltryptamine

This neurotransmitter has always appeared to me as a Young boy with a crystalline spear. The point of the spear goes into many different dimensions. When I worked with this neurotransmitter this time, it focused on showing me how it could be applied as a diagnostic tool by providing different perceptions of how the body felt or appeared to a person. It also did something else for me however, making me aware of certain feelings I had about my creative career and hadn't recognized, so it seems that it's a diagnostic tool that works not just with the body, but also with other dimensions of a person's life.

Why Mundane skills in magic matter

In thinking about what I read in Strategic Sorcery, something I really agree with Jason on is the importance of learning mundane skills that complement the magical practices you want to do. Doing magic to bring you money won't do much good if you don't have practical money skills to handle that money. The same is true with other situations that have require knowing mundane skills.

Melatonin and Tryptophan

Melatonin always appears as a dark skinned woman. she's the polar opposite of serotonin, but also  does similar activities in terms of balancing the neurochemistry of the body as well as a person's emotional moods. She's also helpful in cases of insomnia. She and serotonin can be worked with simultaneously in order to help with situations such as insomnia, where there might be too much serotonin and not enough melatonin or in cases of waking up, where serotonin can be upped while melatonin is decreased.

Tryptophan appears to me as a pregnant sleeping Empress. She aids in Digestion and is consequently a force for change in neurochemistry. People may wish to work with her to get help with digestion issues or sleep issues.

Book Review: The Sorcerer's Secrets by Jason Miller

In this book, the author presents practical ideas and strategies for people who are just starting out in their magical practice. This isn't a 101 book, but its safe to say it's a 102 book that also offers some insights to magicians with more experience. What I appreciate the most is that the author takes the time to focus on considerations such as finances and explains that while magic can help, it's also important to learn practical mundane skills.

I also appreciate the author's choice to draw on a wide variety of sources that fall outside the traditional bibliography usually found in books. The author illustrates the importance of developing a well-rounded strategy by exposing readers to alternative sources.

There are two reasons this book gets a four instead of a five, however. One reason is because the author doesn't address the value of doing internal work as a practical and strategic solution. while knowing how to do practical magic to solve a problem is important, being able to identify your participation in the problem and making changes is even more important, and more practical. The other reason is that while the author does draw on non-traditional sources, he doesn't address the topic of innovation and how it can be used to develop practical magic.

All that said, this is an excellent book to read, and one I'd recommend to someone just starting out.

Amazon link

Powells link

Dream technique

Yesterday I was at the Oregon coast and I walked barefoot in the sand. I retained a strong kinisthetic body memory of the sensation of walking in the sand, and on a whim, decided that when I went to sleep, I would use the sensation of walking on the beach to create a dream environment where I could do internal work. As I drifted to sleep, I allowed my body to recall in intimate detail the experience of walking on the sand. Using that sensation, I allowed myself to put together a dream environment of the beach I'd been walking on, with myself being the only person walking on it. Then as I walked in the dream, I began meditating on the particular issues I wanted to work through. Because I was using the physical sensation of walking in the sand as my baseline, it made it easier to build other physical sensations into the dream, such as touching my tongue to the palate of mouth, while doing Taoist breathing.

I remembered my dream in the morning and a fair amount of the details of the inner work I did. Doing this work helped me to feel more at peace about a couple issues I'm working through. It will certainly be useful to draw on this technique in further depth.

Serotonin Report

For me, Serotonin is a 6 eyed red snake. When I experience Serotonin in my body, it feels like a fuzzy, warm light has encased my body. Serotonin is balance, the balance of the light with the dark, as well as the balance of the neurochemistry of the brain and the balance of the moods a person has. Serotonin teaches the magician how to balance the other neurotransmitters correctly, when doing inner alchemical work with the body.

Experiment restart

About five or so years ago I invented a technique where a person could contact their neurotransmitters as entities and then work with them to make changes to the chemistry of the body. For a time I worked with a group of people and we tested out the technique and concept. We got some interesting results, took it some places, and then went our separate ways. Since that time I never really got back to those experiments. There were a variety of reasons for that, but five years later and I'm finally ready to dive back in and I've got some people I can work with on further developments. I'm starting out with the basic technique again, reacquainting myself with each neurotransmitter, so you may see some notes on the neurotransmitter work on here, as a result.

I'm also restarting some work I've done with my modified version of the Tibetan Tumo technique. I've decided to utilize the modified version to do some daily work with the elements of space and time.

So I'm going back to some of my roots, experimentally speaking and it should make for some interesting work and developments in those respective areas. What helps is I have a magical partner that will help keep me on track and focused. I've missed having someone to work with who gets my ideas and wants to explore them, but now I have such a person in my life and that helps immensely.

Identity

Last October, I switched the element I was working with from Emptiness to Time, or so I thought. And I have done some work with time and space and in fact would say the work I've done has been very integral to my life growth, but I realized recently that if I've really been working with an element this year, it's actually identity. Last October I felt like everything got cleared away, and it did...if not then, then in January with the divorce. And the last half year or so has involved rediscovering my identity, my space, and my time. And even though I have gotten involved with someone new and am happily exploring a relationship with her now, I still feel very focused on the discovery of my agreement with the universe, and what I really want my identity to embody in this life.

I'm also discovering what I don't want in my agreement with the universe, and so as a result I'm looking carefully at my life and who and what I include in that life, as well what behaviors I'll accept or won't accept (both from myself and others). So I've realized that in a lot of ways identity has been my element this year, at least on a subtle level, because this year has been more about planting seeds of who I will become and also embracing the new circumstances than anything else.

And I think its magical, because magic isn't something that happens at a prescribed time or in a prescribed way. Magic is about the mundane details as well as the spiritual, really about the integration of both...

What is practical magic?

I've been thinking about what practical magic since I've started reading a book about strategic sorcery. When I think about practical magic and what it is, I don't just think of magic used to solve a problem or crisis in the mundane world, but also as the magician taking a step further and examining what his/her participation was in the problem, and then making changes in his/her life past managing the problem that the magic solved. The video says the rest.

A definition of embodiment magic

Understanding the relationship of the body with the communication with the subconscious is important to realizing how the body can be worked with successfully. Learning how to embody an emotion or concept can be a useful way to understand the effect the emotion or concept has on your life.

Some further thoughts on embodiment work

When I first learned about the paratheatre technique, one problem I had with it was that I felt there was something missing from the explanation of the embodied space. Well more than something...a number of things actually. First what was missing was a concrete explanation of how we move through space. It seems to me that most people take movement for granted and consequently move in a very unconscious manner. I've observed as well that people, in American culture move in a very linear line like manner, 2D movement really. We aren't taught to recognize how our bodies could move. I had to turn to Laban's work on movement to find a comprehensive manual that explored movement and showed possible ways to move that I hadn't considered before. Learning this kind of movement has proven useful for fully doing internal work with my body as an active component of that internal work (i.e. dance and performance art movements).

Second what was missing was understanding space from a social perspective. In general when the word space is brought up it usually makes one think of the darkness of space. But anthropologist Edward T. Hall explored the concept of social spaces and how people interact in them with each other and with objects in the room. As a result of reading his work I came to really understand how much we even embody objects with personification as a way of filling up space. The way a given culture sets up a physical space is indicative of how that culture processes space from an emotional/intellectual perspective, and also how people define themselves within given spaces.

With these two considerations of space in hand, it's been much easier to integrate paratheatre to my meditation work, because I now can consider how I move and how that movement expresses and changes an embodied space I've created, while also recognizing the cultural influences that shape my understanding of that space. Finally, and perhaps most important, I can be much more aware of how my body feels when I move, how it expresses the concept I'm working with through movement, and how that concept is or isn't expressed in my environment everyday.

Doing this work is creating some interesting realizations. I like where its taking me, as well as what I can learn about my body and the relationship I have with it and the environment around me, and how my body expresses the subconscious with its movement and interaction with space.

The need for innovation in magic

When we adhere to other people's rules and definitions of magic without questioning them or testing them, we become dogmatic and lose out on innovation. For magic to be an effective practice, we need to question all definitions and practices, with an eye toward improving our magical practice and also toward improving magic as a whole.

Embodiment magic

A while back I'd written about some of my experiences with Laban, a form of physical movement. My main purpose for studying Laban was to learn more about the spatial realities of the body as well as how it moves through space, something I considered essential for really getting the methodology of paratheatre, which Antero Alli writes about quite a bit. Since I don't have access to Mr. Alli's classes on paratheatre, utilizing Laban, which admittedly provides a much better explanation of physical movement through space, proved essential for being able to integrate paratheatre into my magical practice. Recently I decided to try out my first paratheatre ritual. I've recently been doing some internal work around intimacy and my issues with being intimate and also being in relationships (friendship or otherwise) where there wasn't much intimacy. I thought it might be useful to embody intimacy or at least try to, using paratheatre. I felt that integrating my body fully into the embodiment was essential for really communicating with my subconscious about intimacy and the issues surrounding it.

I felt very vulnerable when I invoked intimacy into my state of no-form and began to move. In a sense I felt like a child, innocent and unsure of myself, experiencing something for myself that I wasn't really certain of. Intimacy for me involved opening up and so I initially started out very shielded in how I positioned my arms and legs and gradually I began to loosen them and from that loosened my body up further, gradually allowing myself to feel a state of what I would consider to be gentle warmth. Sometimes I would hug myself or gently touch my shoulder or leg. I wasn't striving to be sensual, and I didn't feel that way. But I did feel intimate with myself in a manner that invited myself to be gentle and loving.

As I experienced this feeling of intimacy I paid attention to thoughts, feelings, and whatever else came to my experience that would help me communicate with my issues around intimacy. I learned quite a bit about how I sometimes make it hard to accept what someone wants to give, but also how much I've picked relationships with people (friends and lovers) that didn't necessarily invite intimacy into my life.

When I was ready, I put myself back into no-form and grounded the sensation and feeling of intimacy...but after the working I also felt more comfortable when my partner offered it to me, and also was more aware of what has informed my tendency to fantasize about intimacy. I'll definitely be using paratheatre in the future for some of my internal work, and I have to say that learning about Laban really did help with integrating paratheatre into my magical practice.

A memoriam to Isaac Bonewits

I only met Isaac Bonewits a few times in my life, but each time I met him I was struck by his humor and intelligence, and a willingness to question his own beliefs and theories as well as others. What I count as one of my favorite moments was meeting him at Gathering of the Tribes and getting the opportunity to speak with him at some length. In fact, he even invited me back to his trailer and we chatted for a couple hours about magical theory and practice. Given that he was busy writing a book and preferred at least some alone time, I am and was very grateful. The discussion we had was one that allowed me to clarify a lot of my thoughts about my approach to magic. I also felt very honored when he wrote at some length about one of my experiments in one of his books. I have a lot of respect for Isaac. But what I also appreciated was the humor and humanity of him. While I can't say I knew him well, my interactions with him were ones that moved back and froth from seriousness to humor. I wish I'd had more opportunities to speak with and even work with him, but I'm grateful for those moments I did have, as I imagine many other people are. Isaac gave a lot to the community and now he's moving on. I wish him the safest journey and bow to him in respect for his works and ideas. I also wish condolences to his family.

Recognizing and changing patterns

I was talking with Kat recently about patterns, specifically the patterns of behavior each person has, as well as the patterns that occur between people. It seems to me that each person does have specific patterns of behavior that they act out, and also have specific patterns of behavior that occur in the relationships...kind of a behavior DNA, but some of these patterns will occur with any partner, because people will seek out people that fit the level of chaos and dysfunction within their lives. These patterns can change, but usually involve doing some internal work that helps you identify the root cause of the behavior. Occasionally they'll also change because a catalyst will enter your life and the shock of that experience will cause a change in the pattern. Some patterns of behavior are good and some are dysfunctional. One of the ways you can recognize a pattern of behavior and analyze is to look at the overall history of your life for patterns of behavior you've acted out. For example, one pattern of behavior I had until the mid twenties was a tendency to try and date people I knew would reject me. What those people got out of that pattern I can't speak to, but for me it was based on a root belief of abandonment and figuring it was better to know I'd be rejected then take an actual risk, and in an odd way this behavior makes sense, but it doesn't lead to a lot of happiness.

One of the best ways to discover patterns in your life that you don't like is to identify what you regret. The emotion of regret usually indicates that you've done something you'd like to change, but spending some time looking at the circumstance(s) can help you identify the pattern of behavior. Once you've identified it, you need to trace it back to the root experience. It's in that experience that the behavior pattern was first formed and its in that experience that it needs to be resolved, because the pattern of behavior is based off the reasoning of that initial pattern. At the same time its useful to also revisit other iterations of the pattern and find resolution for those moments as well. By finding resolution you can conclusively change the behavior. To find resolution, its useful to do a pathworking meditation where you revisit the moments where the pattern of behavior showed up and then changed what happened with new behavior that you want to act on.

We are only at the whims of our respective behaviors if we choose to do nothing about them. Once we consciously recognize a behavior that is unhealthy, it is our responsibility to change that behavior instead of continuing to act it out. And once it has changed, life does seem to get better and simpler.