When God sings it ain’t always pretty


Rediscovered this image of a rudimentary draft of a poem jotted down on the side of a brown paper bag in public then forgotten about. I hurriedly revised this weird dive into the messiness of life. Here it is.

When God sings
They don’t always sound sweet & pretty.
Sometimes such a song
Wakes us up
And stops our dancing.
When we stop to listen,
A lament of such deep sorrow
Rumbles up from the bowels of our planet
And vibrates loose the stars from Heaven.
Comets & moons, asteroids & planets collide,
And space dust skreeks across the void
In tangles of broken violins & cosmic rays
So violent the Kosmos wails.

We humans do not get the message.
Don’t even wanna know there is a message.
We have dropped The Key.
What we don’t understand is not all souls are
Automatically immortal.
What we don’t understand is spirituality is hard work.
What we fail to understand is God is NOT Love and never was.

We had it backwards, sort of.

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Arrival Arrives

A review without spoilers and names of prominence.

Saw the film, Arrival. Wow, what a movie! Opens up, takes apart, and recreates language, time, and sensations of consciousness. And without blowing shit up, either. Relationships are the pathways to connection as well as the results of connection. No, not pathways, fields, as in fields of connection. This movie is both cerebral and emotional and thus deeply engaging. At the center of it all, of everything really, is presence. Presence. Awareness and self-awareness. One becomes present to what is deeply precious.

For those who think they really know whom & what Cthulhu is, well, y’alla in for all manner of surprises. Plus Arrival‘s another in a line of fictional films rich with symbolisms of soft disclosure. If it’s not your cup of tea, well don’t drink the damn tea then & go experience the movie.

The premises of the film as serious science fiction aren’t new. Messin’ with perceptions of what is time, explorations of consciousness, and their affect on what is reality and how we humans relate to each other and everything else are staples of so-called “serious” or “literary” syfy. Wordsmiths will love the story’s inquiry into language and the relationship between language and reality. This merges into inquiries regarding such in the relationships between ourselves and especially with those we love. One may be reminded as I was of the late ethnobotanist and psychedelic pioneer Terence McKenna’s observations of language and how the mind uses language to create and define what it perceives as reality.

A close friend, a mother with kids of her own, attended the show with me here in Seattle. She was blown away and moved to tears. Later she helped me fill in what I thought were gaps in my understanding due to my profound hearing impairment. My new hearing aids helped tremendously, and yet they don’t match the capacity of healthy ears and brain. What I discovered was there wasn’t anything to hear. I was so focused on hearing I missed the body language and the temporal-visual language of pictures moving at certain key points. In addition I was confronted with my own inner contradiction: I disliked nonlinear temporal constructs and prefer neatly organized compartmentalization of flow, yet by undoing all of those allows for breakthroughs in consciousness revealing deeper understandings of truth, reality, and ultimately my self.

Yeah, take someone by the hand and dive on into the Dreamtime. Thy minds shall open time.

 

William Dudley Bass
November 2016
Seattle, Washington
United States of America
Bioregion of Cascadia
Planet Earth
Sol Star

Note:
Adapted from my Facebook post of Tuesday 15 November 2016 & revised Friday 25 November 2016.

 

Copyright © 2016 by William Dudley Bass. All Rights Reserved until we Humans establish Wise Stewardship of and for our Earth and Solarian Commons. Thank you.

 

BANALITY, or: Abandoned by Angels

I lay my head down
in the boneyard of relatives
to feed Aunt Bea’s chickens.
Over in the corner
in the shade of Grandpa’s old pear tree
my mother lays among buzzing yellow jackets
feasting upon apples scattered in decay.

Momma pushes away all of her children,
those of us still alive;
screams for us to grow up;
demands we stop listening to the news;
shouts we better hunt us up
some animals for breakfast.

Desperately she lifts tattered, dirty burlap,
shoves small bones ragged with chunks of meat
into her vagina as she mourns and grieves
the deaths of three babies
from dirty, unwashed hands.

I glance up and see Aunt Bea peeking down
thru broken shutter slats guarding old attic windows.
She won’t come down;
expects us to visit her instead.
We do not dare, of course.

Aunt Bea is hungry beyond pain,
yet she avoids the bone yard where
her sister screeches
in the shade of serpent grief.

She pushes notes at us
from under her door,
notes so raw her letters leave us
wet with terror.

Aunt Bea’s eye sees me as it always does,
quivers with relief as it watches my head twitch.
Her one enormous eye, wild, heavy, swivels “Yes!”
I stand up headless and walk away
as chickens cluck and peck at my face.

My old twin head Wilson, severed across the throat,
rolls in staggered jerks beneath
swarming hens, roosters, and slaps of Momma’s shoe.
I’d once saved Wilson’s life from drowning.
My twin washed up on Absinthe Beach north of Yurka
five years after vanishing off Nikumaroro.

I return to the shed to cook down
p-ephedrine with hydroiodic acid,
red phosphorous, iodine, and lye.
Daddy slouches naked in the shadows
among broken antique furniture once
slathered in now faded yellow, green,
red, purple Dutch Boy lead paint.

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Out of My Body and Across the Sea

Once I had an OBE, an Out-of-Body-Experience, and flew across the sea. There were a few times I am certain I had other OBEs, one bordering on a NDE or Near-Death Experience. This particular OBE had one significant difference, though, that distinguished it from all the others. As of March 2013, this event remains the only time I managed to intentionally astral travel. All of my other OBEs were unintentional and spontaneous. This particular astral journey was startling in its clarity. I remember it vividly many years later as if it happened yesterday.

During my time as a Wiccan, I was exposed to a number of practices and paranormal phenomena at odds with mainstream orthodox science. Among these were strange “things” called astral projection, astral travel, or out-of-body experiences. They are different terms for the same phenomena. One could dismiss such things as magical thinking, a level of psycho-spiritual and socio-cultural evolutionary development considered inferior. Magical thinking is a cluster of different religious and psychological belief systems wrapped up in elements of what many deride as “superstition.”

The one primary distinction shared within this cluster is the idea thinking certain thoughts either intentionally or unintentionally generates actions and events in the outer or “real” world of matter and energy. Research into psychic phenomena and brain waves demonstrate the power of focused mental energy to affect change in the environment beyond the body. Meditation, prayer, casting spells, calling down old Deities, and focused ESP represent different examples of focused mental power.

There is still much to learn regarding the mysteries of consciousness. The experience of Afterlife beings raises questions about definitions of life, especially beyond biological death. None of this mattered to those who feared for my soul, however, as they were sure these “things” were real. My Fundamentalist Christian friends and a few family members swore I was deluded by the Devil and flying straight down into Hell.

One afternoon, however, regardless of Heaven or Hell or the Levels In Between, I faced my fears and deliberately left my body for what proved to be an exciting adventure.

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Call of the Divine down by the Clothesline

Our culture is riven with wounds. The linguistic tapestries woven from many of our stories arise from psychological, emotional, social, and physical trauma. Ken Woodley, a man who once attended the same small, all-male college as I did went on to advocate for deep racial and social healing between Blacks and Whites in Virginia and across America. From his position as Editor of The Farmville Herald, the local newspaper in Prince Edward County where he still works, he once stated, “We are not responsible for a lot of the wounds we find, but we can be responsible for the healing.”

Healing of such magnitude begins with awareness and presence. Healing of any kind demands such presence. Awareness begins with waking up. Dreams aren’t any good unless you wake up to take action to make your dreams come true.

I remember when I first woke up.

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Goat-Headed Devil in a Black Tuxedo

Ancient image of Cernunnos on the silver Gundestrop Cauldron created by Celtic craftsmen during the European Iron Age. Photo from Wikipedia Commons.

Ancient image of Cernunnos on the silver Gundestrop Cauldron created by Celtic craftsmen during the European Iron Age. Photo from Wikipedia Commons.

A Modern image of the Horned God of the Wiccans dispayed in the Museum of Witchcraft in Cornwall, the UK. Photo from Wikipedia Commons.

A Modern image of the Horned God of the Wiccans dispayed in the Museum of Witchcraft in Cornwall, the UK. Photo from Wikipedia Commons.

 

What transpired is true and cannot be proven.

Once upon a time in the deep dark of night my first wife Margaret and I walked in the door of our home and saw a goat-headed devil sitting in the chair watching us with his legs crossed and his hands in his lap. Scared the bejesus out of us, too. We didn’t know what in Hell this creature was other than it was male. He certainly challenged our religious, psycho-spiritual, and cultural upbringing.

Thick, smoky fog oozed through the woods and draped the open fields. Down the hill beyond the bluffs snaked Big and Little Sandy Rivers. It wasn’t too cold, but the damp chill made the fog drip with hypothermia. Margaret and I arrived home close to midnight. We’d been out at a gathering celebrating Goddess and God with the other Witches of Silverwood Circle. Our group was a Neo-Pagan Celtic Wiccan coven in Prince Edward County, Virginia.

My wife, well, she was my first wife, was the Inner Flamenca or High Priestess of Silverwood. Our close friend, Paul, was the Inner Flamen or High Priest. We preferred “Inner” instead of  “High” to promote ideas of going deep into the mysteries rather than someone being superior above others. The terms “flamen” and “flamenca” derived from Latin words for Roman priests and priestesses responsible for the sacred flames of Gods and Goddesses. They’re not as common in Wiccan usage these days, but some Celtic Wiccans preferred the Roman words to distinguish themselves from Neo-Celtic Druids.

The closer we approached our home the colder and clammier everything seemed. We felt open psychically, perhaps too much so, for we had relatively little training in the arts of psychic and spiritual self-defense. We were beginning to encounter spiritual entities for which we were unprepared to meet.

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Inner Shifts of Being

Sunset from the bluffs while gazing across the Sound toward the Olympics. Richmond Beach Park, Shoreline, Washington, Sunday 23 September 2012. Foto by William Dudley Bass.

Sunset from the bluffs while gazing across the Sound toward the Olympics. Richmond Beach Park, Shoreline, Washington, Sunday 23 September 2012. Foto by William Dudley Bass.

Something has shifted in me recently. What has shifted is I’ve lost my taste to speak harshly of others.

During the unexpected challenges of recent years I almost crumbled. The past few months were particularly difficult emotionally and financially. I could’ve sunk deeper into cynicism and bitterness and wallowed in apathy and self-pity. Instead I found the strength and the courage to pivot into a field where there are no paths. My life was my own to choose. My life was mine to live.

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When Machines marry Humans for Love

If some folks can’t handle the vast variety of marriages expressed around the world, wait till humans start marrying sentient machines.

(Saturday 12 May 2012 via Twitter to Facebook)

—-
Response to Facebook Friend Liz T.: Liz, I’m honored. My comments were inspired by a convergence of 4 thoughts: Romney’s recent address at Liberty University where he collapsed his opinion & wants with a definition of marriage, and I sought to respond by not being one of many autokneejerk reactions, and of studies of marriages taking many forms including but not limited to polyandry, polygamy, polyamory, group marriage, open marriage, gay marriage, intersexed, etc., without extolling nor condemning any one choice. Ethics, not morals.

(13 May at 8:46am via mobile to Facebook)
__________________________________________________

Yellow jacket punches thru a spider web as a humming bird dips into petite, purple flowers. Green stalks quiver above the grass as I brush my teeth this side of windows.

(Mother’s Day Sunday Morning 13 May)
__________________________________________________

Sol slips behind the Olympics across the Salish. Sometimes those mountains rise above the water. Tonight they cut open the sky as it bleeds down into the sea.

(Monday night 14 May just after sunset.)
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Once upon a time a long, long time ago in some faraway place much like home, an epidemic of broken hearts raged thru a land afflicted with romance and delusion. The realm’s healers were quite perplexed to discover a broken heart does not bleed but turns to stone. And when they chipped away and cracked these broken hearts open out spilled the most sparkling diamonds. From every one.

(Tuesday 15 May 2012)
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Overcome with emotion, the first healer scooped up handfuls of diamonds from the cavity of a broken heart turned to stone, the one he cracked open eight minutes ago, to discern any clues to the current epidemic. For a moment, for one, infinite moment they sparkled with the Eye of God. Blinded into madness by such health, he danced with the Joy of Oneness as he knew nothing else no longer mattered.

Jealous and dismayed, his associate broke open another broken heart turned to stone, snatched up 6 diamonds only to feel them dissolve into liquid and penetrate his skin. His glee turned to surprise then fear then horror.

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Gabriel Requests Your Surrender to The One

Magnificent Gabriel came down upon the earth, folded back his wings, & clambered up into the cave above Mecca to recite the words of Allah to an illiterate merchant. Muhammad, PBUH, chose to listen in spite of his fear…to listen as if he had elephant ears…cuz he knew to be The Last Prophet of the Axial Age he had to do more than just hear so never mind the wind and rain the heat and cold the searing pain…till finally Gabriel relaxed his grasp and Muhammad, PBUP, as the great angel exhaled he the prophet inhaled, inhaled the sacred exhale of Gabriel, inhaled the Recitation, breathed to life the Qur’an, and then out across the deserts he walked and he rode, laying the foundations of the worldwide Umma, and history was never the same again. Surrender to God as freedom, not enslavement, was the greatest gift of submission. Oft misunderstood as enslavement, and still misunderstood as submitting to something way out there, while within, The Lord of all the Worlds, The ONE beyond all Gender even beyond all Attributes awaits thy ultimate surrender, inshallah. Amen.

 

(Prose Poem inspired by “Gabriel Secret,” prose poetry by Prezz Pressley posted on 6 July 2011 in the Facebook Group “MEN who r NOT AFRAID 2 CRY,” and inspired by my own studies of Islam and a late-night-just-before-dawn mystical experience of Allah.)

William Dudley Bass
7 July 2011
30 March 2012
Seattle, Washington

From my Mythic Awakening period.

NOTE: This prose poem originally appeared on my earliest blog, Cultivate and Harvest, on Friday 8 July 2011, at http://cultivateandharvest.blogspot.com/2011/07/gabriel-requests-your-surrender-to-one.html, then revised and reposted here on my new website this late March of 2012. Thank you.

Copyright © 2011, 2012, 2016 by William Dudley Bass. All Rights Reserved until we Humans establish Wise Stewardship of and for our Earth and Solarian Commons. Thank you.

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The Eye of Everything

As the we ride the Earth thru endless cycles of rotations upon its revolutions around Sol, cycles that may someday stop perhaps even before Sol drags all its planets around the center of the Milky Way, light shifts, darkness expands, love heals, and across a Kosmos jammin’ with spinning masses a voice shouts suddenly from the shadows before a fire blazing in the hearthmaw…jerks us awake as copies of The Rag & Bone Shop of the Heart slips from our grips…and with scolding index finger jammed up the Sacred Ass of God with 3 more dirty fingers pointing back down into Blessed Inferno…the reincarnation of Krishna Allah shakes His many eyes open & peers around the circle at us & shouts again, “Each one of us has a point of view. Each culture and religion has a nest of views like a den of snakes. Above, however, above Us only God has View.” Another shout breaks open the smoke…”Assalamu alaikum…for the 10th Avatar is here in our midst as the mystic Christ revealed not as another Prophet, but as…us! You! Me! Yes, us, all of humanity.” And the Kundalini rises blind up the spine singing “Everything is Sacred even if you hate it.” Cerridwen Shiva Mary Vesta Isis Gaia boils hot love deep inside every nuclei of every cell as She weaves One Giant Eye in Divine Dance to crown Her spiraled, flaming root.

 

(Inspired by Prezz Pressley’s poem “EYE” of 6/20/2011 warning one to consider the angle of one’s sight amid the Sun and the Night when one is Wrong and one is Right.)

William Dudley Bass
22 June 2011
30 March 2012
Seattle, Washington

From my Mythic Awakening Period.

NOTE: This was first published on my earliest blog, Cultivate and Harvest, on Friday 8 July 2011, at http://cultivateandharvest.blogspot.com/2011/07/eye-of-everything.html, then revised and reposted here on my new website this March of 2012. Thank you.

 

Copyright © 2011, 2012, 2016 by William Dudley Bass. All Rights Reserved until we Humans establish Wise Stewardship of and for our Earth and Solarian Commons. Thank you.

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A Window Only You Can Shut

Oh a window opens in the sky
And I see myself
Far away among stars
Looking back
I behold the most precious Earth,
Love Itself
On fire
Beating back the darkness of death
Civilizations upended
Men and women and children running about
Screaming and shouting
In the center of it all
God dances with no arms

 

William Dudley Bass
Thursday 21 January 2010 – after a week of pondering
Edmonds, Washington
March 2012
Seattle, Washington

From my Mythic Awakening period.

NOTE: This was first published on 21 January 2010, on my first blog, Cultivate and Harvest, at http://cultivateandharvest.blogspot.com/2010/01/window-only-you-can-shut.html, then revised and reposted here on my new website this March of 2012. Thank you.

 

Copyright © 2010, 2012, 2016 by William Dudley Bass. All Rights Reserved until we Humans establish Wise Stewardship of and for our Earth and Solarian Commons. Thank you.

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What happens when a Man stands Tall

When a Man stands tall
And his head is on top,
People forget how holy
Everything else is.
People tend to forget
All that is below.
Everything as an expression of the Divine
Can be viewed as sacred, right?
But how many people know that?

So when that mountain loomed high above
And I felt scared and alone
I prayed,
Prayed hard.
I stood up,
Stood up tall,
Then fell prostrate upon stones and dirt.

God heard me.
He lifted up my balls,
Put his finger up my ass,
And reminded me of his Holiness
Thus I climbed the highest mountain,
Quickly.

Are you ready for God’s finger?

 

William Dudley Bass
Thursday 21 January 2010 – after a week of pondering & a little work in the Men’s Group
Edmonds, Washington
March 2012
Seattle, Washington

From my Mythic Awakening period.

NOTE:  This was first published on January 21, 2010 in one of my earlier blogs, Cultivate and Harvest, at http://cultivateandharvest.blogspot.com/2010/01/what-happens-when-man-stands-tall.html, then revised and reposted here this March of 2012. Thank you.

 

Copyright © 2010, 2012, 2016 by William Dudley Bass. All Rights Reserved until we Humans establish Wise Stewardship of and for our Earth and Solarian Commons. Thank you.

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Wandering Star

Without knowing why or understanding any reason
Once a sun came alive.
A star awoke into consciousness,
Self-awareness blessed with intelligence.

Restless, the star sought to break free of its orbit
Around the galaxy
And wander throughout the vastness of space.
After much deliberation,
This star determined it could channel its fiery energies
Into massive jets of blazing plasma and scorching radiation
And compel its body to travel across the Cosmos.

God appeared, amused, compassionate, firm,
And said,
“Sun, you are now alive.
Thus you now have a choice.
You can choose to spend your life going around the galaxy
With planets and their moons going around you,
Blessing many with your wondrous light,
And live for a very long time
Allowing living beings to flourish in your light.”

“Or,” God continued,
“You embark upon a journey to discover all that you can
Knowing you will never see everything or go everywhere,
Expending all your energy on moving yourself, a star,
Across space, constantly breaking free of gravity,
Experiencing all the wonders that you can,
And die after a short life.
And your life will be short.
And you will destroy much along your way.
Imagine a solar system teeming with life
All its worlds in harmony with one another,
And a new sun comes wandering in all curious?”

God paused and waited.
The star churned as it deliberated.
“Freedom,” replied the star, finally.

“So be it,” God responded and vanished
Leaving this Sun alone with its freedom.

Many ages went by as this star roamed the Universe
Destroying all in its approach as well as in its wake.
It was more alone than ever
As it attempted to explore star system after star system
Teeming with life and even civilizations.
Some of these even tried to attack the star
But to no avail.
Others prayed for the star to go away,
Again to no avail.

And the wandering star grew lonelier still,
Becoming envious of solar systems
Where celestial harmony reigned,
Where suns were even worshipped,
Where life grew verdant,
And in some rare cases entire solar systems
Reached a level of self-aware interdependence.
And the wandering star felt even more alone.

A moment arrived when the star’s energy waned.
This sun churned as if turning inside out, then
Blossomed into an almost-empty red giant
Of a monster, a planet-devouring colossus.
Feeble attempts to move spun into nothingness.
The star felt itself losing consciousness.
Whirled apart in last burst of struggle
The star blew apart in one final explosion of light
Seen many billions of light years away.
Lifeless the remnants collapsed
Deep into the center of the void,
A black hole sucking in all existence,
Crushing everything into nothingness,
The mystery of obliteration
All that remains.

Light arose from the depths of Darkness
And eventually
Light falls back into Darkness.
Both are richer than before.
As it is with life and death
If only all could see.

Without knowing why or understanding any reason
God chuckles.

 

 

William Dudley Bass
Thursday 21 January 2010 after a week of pondering
Edmonds, Washington
Edited and reposted
30 March 2012
Seattle, Washington

From my Mythic Awakening period.

NOTE: This was first published in late January 2010 on one of my older blogs, Cultivate and Harvest, at http://cultivateandharvest.blogspot.com/2010/01/wandering-star.html. Then revised and reposted here toward the end of March 2012. Thank you.

 

Copyright © 2010, 2012, 2016 by William Dudley Bass. All Rights Reserved until we Humans establish Wise Stewardship of and for our Earth and Solarian Commons. Thank you.

*

Oh, the Freedom!

Oh, the Freedom
Of being down on my knees
In the gutter
Reeking of waste.

Dripping with Earth
I feel the stillness of God expanding
Embraced by Goddess enveloping.
Oh, I swim amid their pressed loins
As a dolphin leaps into air
From warm waters dripping silk.

It doesn’t matter where I am
Or what filth covers me
For I am in Love
And
All is sacred
All is divine
All is holy
Even excrement.

Adult admonishing reviles juvenile curiosity
Forgetting to hear among the scattering of scat
Giggles of the Divine.

 

William Dudley Bass
Thursday 21 January 2010 after a week of pondering.
Edmonds, Washington
29 March 2012
Seattle, Washington
Cascadia

From my Mythic Awakening period.

NOTE: This was first published in early 2010 on my earlier blog, Cultivate and Harvest, at http://cultivateandharvest.blogspot.com/2010/01/oh-freedom.html, then revised and reposted here this March of 2012. Thank you.

 

Copyright © 2010, 2012, 2016 by William Dudley Bass. All Rights Reserved until we Humans establish Wise Stewardship of and for our Earth and Solarian Commons. Thank you.

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Holy Sea of Mind

As refreshing as a cup of cool water
Pulled up deep from the well
In the afternoon of a hot, sleepy day
God lives inside my Mind
Or so my Mind likes to think.
In truth
God lives deep inside my Heart
And sails the mind everywhere
As a ship sails the ocean
For Mind is everywhere an ocean unto itself.
With Mind anything is possible
If so believed.
The Body may turn Mind aside
Even as Body stays rooted in
The Earth of a Planet turning around the Sun.
When my ego turns inward
And I lift my eyes to
See the sun rise upon the cusp of dawn
I look inward across the infinite seas of Mind
And feel God pounding in my heart
Pounding as the greatest most fierce
Most kind lover
I have ever known.

 

William Dudley Bass
Tuesday 22 December 2009
&
Wednesday 13 January 2010
Edmonds, Washington
29 March 2012
Seattle, Washington

From my Mythic Awakening period.

NOTE: This poem was first published in one of my earlier blogs, Cultivate and Harvest, on Thursday 21 January 2010, at http://cultivateandharvest.blogspot.com/2010/01/holy-sea-of-mind.html. Eventually I revised this poem and reposted it here on my new website this late March of 2012. Thank you.

 

Copyright © 2009, 2010, 2012, 2016 by William Dudley Bass. All Rights Reserved until we Humans establish Wise Stewardship of and for our Earth and Solarian Commons. Thank you.

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Spirit & Soul as Apocalypse Approaches

Inspired Notes from Working with Michael Meade

“Forget the Enlightenment,” Michael Meade said as he came out swinging. “We’ve now entered into an Age of Endarkenment.”

In early November of 2009 I visited Port Townsend with my friend Michael Scott Brooks, called Scott by those who know him, to hear Michael Meade. Port Townsend is a beautiful place, a progressive town where liberals thrive amid isolation. It’s at the tip of a peninsula on a peninsula and a ferry ride followed by a long drive from Seattle even though as the crow flies it’s fairly close by. The waters of the Salish Sea surround it with views to mountains all around. Olympic National Park squats in massive diversity behind a veil of hills. The workshops were held in the local Unitarian Universalist church, itself a bastion of self-proclaimed “liberal religion.”

Scott’s a friend of mine who facilitates Men’s Work in the mythopoetic vein of Robert Bly and Michael Meade. Although not as well known as they are, he’s an amazing man in his own right, a survivor who transcended deep trauma, and is still in training. Scott’s a master of ritual and an intuitive healer who brooks no nonsense. He cuts through bullshit with rigorous lovingkindness in a way I’ve seen very few people do. As I’ve written before, Scott transcends the boxes many contemporary Men’s groups try to put us into. Instead, he grounds himself in the timeless wisdom of indigenous human beings.

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Dancing at the Gates of the Underworld

“Celebrating the 13th Mortiversary of the best man I’ve ever known,” leapt from the glowing blue and white screen a few days before Halloween. The author was a gorgeous and stunning enigma who turned heads whenever she strode into a room, or in my case, a tipi during an all-night Native American prayer meeting. “Mortiversary?” I wondered in awe. “Oh, he’s dead!”

Then I felt the glow of shame for not getting it right away at my friend’s expense. Here was a woman honoring the life of a man who once moved her deeply by celebrating his death. From beyond the veils between worlds he continued to move and inspire her. In allowing her self to feel so moved she inspired me and my heart opened to the pain and the sadness and even the magnificence of death.

As storyteller and mythologist Michael Meade said about two years ago on a blustery November night in Port Townsend, “Welcome to the Endarkenment.” He felt the world has energetically moved away from a period of awakening, enlightenment, even bliss into a period of darkness and turmoil and chaos. It wasn’t all bad, either. Such dark times are often the cauldron of creativity and transformation. Our spirits fly away leaving our souls burrowing into dirt and filth, transforming both into rich soil.

It was Samhain, the Celtic New Year, All Hallows Eve 2011. This year it fell across a three-day weekend with October 31st falling upon a Monday with two more dark holy days following. Samhain (usually pronounced as ‘sow-win’), Feralia, Pomona, Halloween, Hallowmas and All Soul’s, Dia de los Muertas … it’s that time of the year to really celebrate Summer’s End and herald in the Endarkenment. I love how they mix and blend together like the blood and genes in our Postmodern flesh.

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October Falls

I love October. Leaves burst with color then fall leaving the conifers green. Rocks turn dark. Bright sunny warm days dance with chilly wet rainy days. Crunch of twigs, grit, and animal bones. Samhain awaits at the Gates of November stirrin’ up what’s left of my old, hot Celtic blood.

William Dudley Bass
October 2011
Seattle, Washington

 

Copyright © 2011, 2016 by William Dudley Bass. All Rights Reserved until we Humans establish Wise Stewardship of and for our Earth and Solarian Commons. Thank you.