I have to wonder about all the crap that goes on in the name of holidays and the holiday spirit. What does that mean anyway? A couple days off work? Time and a half pay for those who work on Fridays? Trampling people to death for a few bucks off already cheap goods?
People in this commercial world don’t know the meaning of love. We treat our relationships like Happy Meals and listen to broken heart songs (or let’s get fucked up and fuck songs) and think that’s the way it is supposed to be. Our commercialization of our holidays is directly proportional to our commercialization of our intimacy. We give cards and candy at Valentine’s rather than give of our hearts and souls. We find a way to trample over the innocent—whether opening the door at a Wal-mart or sitting in a sweatshop in China—in our quest for the thirty second high of a child under a tree we cut down from a forest that provides life to this planet.
Our holidays have become about as dead as our people skills.
Category: 2008
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It is important to realize that with any religious or spiritual path, the “resurrection is not enough”—whether literal or metaphorical. Just because there is an event does not mean that it is important without any follow through that comes later and puts that events both into perspective and into personal practice. Part of the push to see the HGA experience as something more than just an event but as a lifelong “conversation” process is precisely for this reason.
One can have the knowledge, i.e., the “resurrection,” but without the ongoing conversation. This last piece is not related to dialogue per se—though there is certainly some correlation—but actually comes from the Latin word conversātiō (which, ironically, is a feminine word in the Latin) which means a “way of live, conduct, or behavior.” It is more directly related to conversion and a monastic life than any kind of verbal discourse. The Conversation portion of the HGA experience is directly related to what Christians call “born again.” The problem is that they see it as a single point-event—much as Thelemites see the Knowledge portion of the HGA experience—and then it’s over. The conversion is a one-time deal.
But to know something, i.e., to have that “resurrection,” is not enough. One must go on to the conversation, to the conversion, that is a change in the way of life itself. And such an experience is not something that will go unnoticed. Nor, might I add, is it something that will only happen once in a lifetime. This is an ongoing evolution in one’s life. And it is through that evolution that we manifest these changes to the world. The real promulgation of the Law is through our lives living out both the scripture and the sacrament, the tradition and the table, and the community and the justice out in the real world to real people with real meaning.
Anything less is just lip service.
Category: 2008
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The real promulgation of the Law is through our lives living out both the scripture and the sacrament, the tradition and the table, and the community and the justice out in the real world to real people with real meaning.
Category: 2008
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The Book of the Law enigmatically states “there are four gates to one palace (AL 1.51)” and I have, at various times in the past, made a half-hearted attempt to connect these four gates to certain qualities such as these listed by Shelley [in Prometheus Unbound]: Gentleness, Virtue, Wisdom, and Endurance. But when we examine these qualities, we find a near complete list of that which creates success in every aspect of our lives.
Category: 2008
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We no longer live in a world where love reigns on a throne of patient power. We live in a world where love has suddenly become about what flavor of ice cream is the preference of the day and the spasm has replaced the sincerity. Don’t misunderstand me. I fully believe in the injunction to “take your fill and will of love as ye will, when, where and with whom ye will! (AL 1.51)” But I also believe in the way that verse ends: “But always unto me.” These ideas of superficial affairs and flavor-of-the-day relationships are not what I think this really has in mind. But it requires that love become a sacrament and be treated as such. Unfortunately, so many treat it like commodity to be traded, bought, sold, passed around, and held with little meaning past the midnight spasm and early morning afternoon getaway with a t-shirt. Love is meaningless anymore in this world.
But I still believe, like Prometheus, that there is a fire worth giving away that will liberate Men from the bondage of their own darkness.
I hope to share that fire someday.
Category: 2008
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At some point, we have to let go of the chains that bind us, unravel the knots that are twisted up inside our guts, and move out of Life’s bathroom where we’ve been sitting on the floor vomiting up our own courage, self-worth, and inner strength. At some point, we have to just let go of all the shit. At some point, we have to take a chance that intuition, that creative genius, that inner voice—whatever you wish to call it—is right and know that we really are on the correct path
Category: 2008
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All human liberty is predicated on the equality of the essential nature of human beings. One can beat around the bush all they want about the ephemeral and unverifiable qualities of this nature, but the point remains that without some postulate of an essential nature, we are reduced to mere machines without independent thought or will to action. The reductive properties to the argument of biopsychosocial phenomenon to not properly address the logical conclusions of such an position.
Category: 2008
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Life runs in cycles. I’m not particularly interested through which cycle one chooses to examine their life, but I’m quite sure that any solid pattern could be used just fine. For me I find that the pattern of the Tarot is quite sufficient—and quite enlightening. But I think it is really blind to assume that life just goes and goes, unchanging or even randomly changing without the slightest hint of being able to see these patterns. They may truly, of course, be more akin to chaotic patterns in nature, but they are still patterns nonetheless.
Being able to see these patterns is not a gift. It’s an ability that can be learned and a framework that can be examined. Pick a door. Any door. Just pick one. You will be able to change your mind if you want later. The framework is unimportant so long as it is meaningful to you.
Category: 2008
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Doubt is a killer. Disbelief, lack of trust, blind faith or even a lack of faith, suspicion: all of these are tied up in doubt. Self-esteem and self-identity (including self-image) is wrapped up in this concept of doubt. Doubt is different than skepticism. Skepticism is healthy. Doubt is fatal.
Category: 2008
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Being sober is not about never taking another drink, never popping another pill, or never pumping more poison into a vein.
Being sober is about recognizing and understanding the consequences to choices and accepting them at face-value. It is about being responsible for and to one’s own choices in life without need for self-delusion, self-medication, or self-avoidance.
Being sober is about being human: flawed yet honest, resolute yet compassionate, but—most of all—evolving to a future without degradation to the past. Life is cyclic, to be sure, but if you are repeating the same cycles over and over again, you are stuck somewhere in that past.
Category: 2008
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