All roads started from here

It's not looking for where all the roads converge, it's looking where they all come from.

Yesterday, in the subterranean mall, looking for goods, the smell came out. THAT smell, the smell of Banyen Books, sandalwood and peace, gentle subtle body blanket in through one sense, then connecting with the others and secreting peace and equanimity like a body organ.

I wonder if it's the Ken Wilber Book I'm reading; it's less than 7 days out from it's home in the tomed and fertile womb of Banyen, and as such would carry it's mother's scent for some time; but no - that book is away in the knapsack.

I wonder if it's my hands carrying the scent from the child embossed from the mother, but that too is put to rest - all I can get is garlic from a cooking adventure two nites ago.

Yup, it's clearly in the air, and yes, it's forgotten about until

Later

When I'm outside the coffee store, taking in the smells of That Which I Cannot Have - the bean has been put out to pasture for the last 7 days as I go through this Mediclear cleanse - and will be further excommunicated for another 14 days - it hits me again.

Synapses being what they are, a new connection is added. Now we have Book Womb Scent Child Cleanse. Or, in humanese, maybe the cleanse is finding the blocks and either making them translucent onion soul paper the Sun can shine through or removing them or allowing the Sun to flow around them. Maybe the translucence is needed to clear the other Huxleyed variables maybe

Again!

The gentle sandalwood, in through one sense, now resting, subtle down on the translucent spots, a balm that warms and enters, enters and warms. In and back Aslan, in and back

And as the day goes on the sandalwood finds me:

from the microwave, piggy backing on the inlet air; tasted in the run salt over my lip; from my tea

It's beautiful and appropriate that One Taste started as One Smell, choosing the most primeval of the senses, the most base, sending chemical signals to the reptilian brain stem because bodysense, the physical, the gross, is a part of the whole that has been largely ignored in the search for emancipation.

But now it's gently opening doors to the other senses; not knocking just quietly opening, peeking in and helping itself in

and now

It's not just Sandalwood everywhere, it's Friends everywhere

They're splitting open like corn husks, gross physical levels opened into the souls womb where their light is all; ebullient, ephemeral, ghostlike terrible beauty.

There! On the street corner. Out with the inner, in with the outer. Form is formless, I see with the eye of spirit, they are looking back.

Cramped in the elevator! Family of lotus, peeling back; clothes, psyche, ego left crumpled and forgotten at their feet; just soft lights bleeding into each other; breathing each other; becoming what was always was

And it makes sense, Wilbers talk of the prison of time, beginnings, endings

Beyond language kids, because how can I explain something that simply Is.

I try to wrap myself in the light and sandalwood; the first step of contraction out of I-I; forget mySelf for minutes hours days? And wonder before I enter the amnesia again when next grace will again bring the Sense back to my senses.

namaste

Islands in the Stream

So, in my kosmic geography (small k, Mr. Wilber, as it's everything in MY existence, which is clearly just a part of the great K Kosmic. Ultimately, there's no separation so there shouldn't be an issue), we have this stream:

(Underattachment in childhood -> search for meaning -> overattachment in first love relationship -> relationship breakdown -> existentialist drowning -> Getstalt dialogue-> Witness!)

Problem is, the endpoint of the stream is a state that comes and goes. When grace reveals it, I can identify with awareness and witness. But then contraction comes like a thief in the night, covers grace like a dark blanket, and I continue on in spite of mySelf.

The Integral Framework provides a map for navigating this topography. I will have states (witness) intersecting with stages in my life. And that stage is somewhere between postmodern and integral. Reaching for 2nd tier, at times touching some of its border lands, but not Realizing enough of what I've tasted to actually move into the new geography and say goodbye to the old for good.

It comes out so clean on paper - just do what it takes to move to a higher stage, continue the practices that will bring true realization of the states, and yowsah, you're there.

But it takes so little to come apart into a deconstructed mess.

Let's listen in, shall we, to the other stream, River Ego, exploring old canyons and inventing new ones in the internal eosystem.

pretty straight forward, all you have to do is take a quadrant approach, balance it through regular practice. simple! booya! Or is it, because the associative path to that is a stream towards needing a community to practice in, that should be a part of the quadrant approach should it not? Sangha? Community? And then you have Cohen and company, who at one glance seem credible and cutting edge, connected with Wilber for Gawd's sake - but on the other hand, just don't sit right at some level. He's violent with his student's egos - and on one hand it's needed but on the other hand, seems to lack compassion. And then what about just meditating and exercising, isn't that enough of the quadrant life to keep me moving, well, that would be without a teacher, and that doesn't seem right, or maybe the teacher is my group of teachers and readings throughout the years.

And through it all, failure. I've tried for permanent changes so many times, and always they have fallen short. Maybe this too has to be accepted, unconditionally.

So many books I've bought and haven't finished that I should finish. Any one of them could be the answer

Maybe that's the thing, maybe they are ALL the answer

But if they were, why would I still be searching and looking for the answer, for my purpose.

Maybe, mayhap, because I have discovered truth but not REALIZED it.

My ass hurts.

Alone together, Into the Sun

From May, 2007

The backdrop.

An existentialist, for whom all points back to the one as opposed to the One. Everything points back to self, and the bright lights of the intellect clearly articulate the borders, the end point. Anything beyond is not worthy of attention, could only be the result of an overactive imagination or the failure to see Reason.

The narcissist, who simply lays claim to the existentialist's illumination as another shimmering piece of chattel, more of the inventory that can be used in the supply and demand of their need's needs.

Picture it.

Endless black, God's inkwell. This time, from nothing, two - the Narcissist and the Existentialist, a mere speck but growing larger. They pass the vantage point and we have a clear view of the two in their bubble, looking through each other with indifference. Things change with light. Faint and diffused at first, silk mesh across the inkwell, blue ice to white heat
to saffron fire.

The Existentialist notices the heat first - the Narcissist his discomfort - as the mercury climbs. First boundary gone as the bubble contorts and dissolves as the sheet of fire grows beyond imagination.

Fear bursts the next boundary unconsciously, as they embrace in the face of the known-unknown. Narcissist's wings blaze around the Existentialist, and for one glorious, naked moment before conflagration, the final boundaries are transcended, four eyes become two eyes; and I-I swallows the sun whole.