Surviving the Jungle

A little parable about a little survivor

***

A wealthy man decides to go on a safari in Africa and takes his faithful pet dachshund along for company. One day, the dachshund starts chasing butterflies and before long the dachshund discovers that he is lost.
So, wandering about, he notices a leopard heading rapidly in his direction with the obvious intention of having lunch. The dachshund thinks, "OK, I'm in deep trouble now!"

Then he notices some bones on the ground close by, and immediately settles down to chew on the bones with his back to the approaching cat.

Just as the leopard is about to leap, the dachshund exclaims loudly, "Boy, that was one delicious leopard. I wonder if there are any more around here?"

Hearing this, the leopard halts his attack in mid-stride, as a look of terror comes over him, and slinks away into the trees. "Whew," says the leopard. "That was close. That dachshund nearly had me."

Meanwhile, a monkey who has been watching the whole scene from a nearby tree figures he can put this knowledge to good use and trade it for protection from the leopard. So, off he goes. But the dachshund sees him heading after the leopard with great speed, and figures that something must be up.

The monkey soon catches up with the leopard, spills the beans and strikes a deal for himself with the leopard. The leopard is furious at being made a fool of and says, "Here monkey, hop on my back and see what's going to happen to that conniving canine."

Now the dachshund sees the leopard coming with the monkey on his back, and thinks, "What am I going to do now?"

But instead of running, the dog sits down with his back to his attackers, pretending he hasn't seen them yet... and just when they get close enough to hear, the dachshund says, "Where's that monkey? I sent him off half an hour ago to bring me another leopard."

________________
Survival 101

Intent and Will

(A communication from the double)
One thing I have come to understand is that you do not fully comprehend the nature of intent. I fear you're confusing it with intentions and it's a clever trick of the Eagle that the two words bear visual resemblance but are essentially opposites.

Look at it like this: you will never become eternally Whole through good intentions but only through unbending intent, and if you don't see the difference you will stumble and fumble and ultimately fail because intentions are the things you want and hope and plan to do, but Intent is the unwavering image held in the heart of your heart and soul - the paradigm upon which everything you Think or Do becomes a Realized reflection of the paradigm itself, yes? It is a meta-physical part of you, invisible to the naked eye but no less real than liver or spleen, and if you aren't using it to its full potential, your evolving self is incomplete, dis-eased as a body without a heart, see?

Intent is the active side of clarity, an unwavering vision held firmly in the mind, which serves as the sorcerer's direct interface between question and answer; the metamagickal probe or prod applied to the all-knowing All as a means of extracting the specific Knowledge required to achieve the manifestation of the intent itself; it is the quantum Questioning mother of the Will - not the Will, but without which the Will can never manifest because without Intent the Will has nothing to manifest, nothing to create, no seed to nurture; Intent is the goal/vision the sorcerer projects unceasingly onto the silent screen of eternity until eternity reflects the sorcerer's will by yielding up the information required to achieve the Intended evolution. Intent does not compromise. It does not yield to reason or common sense. It can be summoned clearly, instantly and impeccably in all states of awareness by invocation of the word Intent.

The quantum concepts with which otherworlds are built can give you the keys to the third attention or just as quickly lock the door forever if you take it as commonplace or just another mystery with no solution, and this is another reason your Intent must be impeccably defined with the sharpest knife, a vision cut away from the Nothing which you turn to in times of doubt or confusion. Intent is the instrument you rub against the web of non-local information to create a sympathetic synapse between the brujo's question and the evolutionary answer, the intersection where vision becomes manifestation through manipulation of matter/energy using the invisible tool of Intent itself. It is, quite simply, the overlap point of vision and creation, brought into being by using the question to elicit an answer which is in accordance with the unbending vision.

(Orlando, November 23, 1999)
Excerpt from "Quantum Shaman: Diary of a Nagual Woman"

Recapitulation & the Teflon Warrior

Though I have been on this path of heart for many years, one thing that has traditionally seemed off to me is this idea of recapitulation with the intent of reclaiming lost energy. There are several reasons for this, some scientific and others meta-physical. On the one hand, it makes sense to disentangle the hooks embedded in one's spirit from events in the past, so perhaps it's the wording “reclaiming lost energy” which has always disturbed me. Energy is always in motion and cannot, therefore, really be reclaimed, just as one cannot step into the same river twice.

Also, it's been my experience that attempts at recapitulation could, under certain conditions, actually be harming the warrior's progress, because it will always be easier to deal with the past than to create the future. For myself, what's traditionally worked with regard to not losing energy is to recapitulate as I go along, and that is quite easily done by the simple realization that we live in a world of illusion peopled largely by phantoms. It might be best said that nothing sticks to a teflon mirror. Once we realize the world is folly – truly internalize that down to a molecular level – it becomes only a vast play on a canvas of dust, an interaction with phantom actors who might try to get hooks of their script into us, but there is simply no surface of the warrior vulnerable enough to be penetrated.

The true seeker actually has the ability to reflect those intended hooks right back at the phantom who launched them in the first place, or to merely deflect them so they fall harmlessly aside.

As for recapturing energy from the past, once one begins to live in a manner of a teflon mirror, recapitulation is no longer necessary as a ritualistic practice, for one also realizes that the world has always been folly, thus these events in our past which have left us with hooks begin to fall away quite naturally, which is far more energy efficient trying to re-experience them.

One thing about the Toltec practices, in my opinion, is that way too much emphasis was placed on the idea of making lists and recapping each and every annoying gnat on the nose of my discontent. To me, that is an ultimate waste of time and energy, when the teflon approach works not only in the now, but also as a retroactive enchantment – which is to say, when one masters it in the Now, the ramifications and benefits sweep not only into the future, but also into the past.

My father was a tyrant of the nth degree. It would take years to recap everything that man ever said or did, and though I can see a certain appeal to the traditional idea of recapping, I can also see that it might become one hell of an indulgence, too. By releasing the phantom self, the energy hooks just naturally fall away, because once it is recognized that the warrior is essentially a new being, the whole idea of a long and drawn-out, ritualized, list-bearing recapitulation becomes unnecessary.

So, when a warrior is serious about recapitulation, I encourage them how to recap themselves. And it is not a long and drawn-out process. It is a ruthless shift of the AP and an immediate release of any self-importance or indulgence that may be attached to personal history. Quite obviously, the teflon warrior technique is not something that can be easily accomplished by those new to the path, but works miraculously for those at a more advanced level.

(Excerpt from Quantum Shaman: Diary of a Nagual Woman)
Copyright 2015, All Rights Reserved

Available on Amazon, or from
http://www.quantumshaman.com

Joiners Need Not Apply

A seeker recently asked whether or not he should join a particular organization. He went on to say that the founder of the organization seemed to advocate raping and eating children. Whether this was a misconception on the part of the seeker or a legitimate nest of crazies, who's to say?  But the fact that anyone would even consider aligning themselves with such an organization prompted the following response...
_____________
If someone is seriously talking about raping and eating children, why in all the collective fucks would you even THINK of joining them? And for that matter, why would you want or need to JOIN anything at all? In almost ALL of the esoteric teachings, "joining" is a fast track to mental and spiritual enslavement, and maybe a whole lot worse. You won't get super powers or immortality through ANY form of ritual or community. You will get it through DOING THE WORK for yourself. What does that LOOK like, you may ask?

1. Define your intent. What do you really WANT? And what could you want so much that you would consider joining a group that rapes and eats children? Ask yourself this question - "Am I right in the head?"

2. While some groups will claim that "Evil is in the eye of the beholder," consider that it is also in the HEART of the do-er. Put simply, there is a concept which Carlos Castaneda calls "the right way to live" - an intrinsic knowing that tells us right from wrong. In order to attain the immortal condition or even simple "enlightenment," you really do NEED to make contact with that aspect of yourself. THAT is where you will find the assemblage point of unconditional love - which is not some ooey-gooey lovey-dovey sweetness-and-light crap. It is the seat of your existence and the source of the power of your own self-creation. FIND IT. And if you can't, go to the bother of creating it.

3. Identify and THOROUGHLY examine all your belief systems - including and especially any belief systems that are telling you there is a short cut to power and immortality. Look not only at WHAT you believe, but ask yourself WHY you believe it. Begin with the stuff that may seem trivial. You probably believe the sun will rise tomorrow morning, right? Maybe the belief is true, maybe it is false. Either way - WHY do you believe it? Who told you? Upon what evidence do you base your belief? In this case, you probably base it on the fact that the sun has always risen every morning since you were born - so you base it on subjective experience. But when you start looking at the bigger belief systems (god, religion, good, evil) you may find that MOST if not ALL of what you currently believe is based on nothing more than what you have been told you SHOULD believe. Start with a simple question in each case - "Does this thing even EXIST apart from my belief in it?" If you are at all honest with yourself, you'll find that most of these "esoteric" beliefs are nothing more than fairy tales. Here's a head start for you to think about - good and evil don't really exist as extant elementals. They are extensions of Man's doings, but even more than that, they are extensions and CREATIONS of Man's beliefs. In and of themselves, there is no difference between "good and evil." What you believe is good, I may perceive as evil. We are both wrong. (And once again, I direct you to "the right way to live" - which is really the ONLY guide we have to tell us right from wrong.)

4. Release your belief systems altogether (this will take time and actual WORK), until you become a "seer" - basically someone who is able to see the world as it is, without the distortions created by false beliefs. This is a stage where you may experience great joy and/or great anger, and/or extreme ecstasy, and/or extreme "depression." Reason being - all those feelings are just the death throes of your false belief systems. We want-to-believe there is goodness in the world. We want-to-believe that the things we do somehow MATTER (they really don't). When you become a seer, you see equally the beauty and the futility in all things. This is where you graduate to "controlled folly."

5. Controlled folly - instead of deteriorating into the state of deep depression because you finally *see* the futility of existence (but also the POTENTIAL for doing the impossible, equally), is when you begin to live your life in a way different from how you've always lived it. Knowing "nothing matters," you nonetheless start to live your life AS IF it matters. You learn to pick your battles, in other words. You don't waste time chasing after political causes or religious fanaticism, you don't involve yourself in "causes" that are ultimately futile, but you DO decide what you are going to do AS IF it matters. To some people, maybe that's raising a family - though that comes with a whole butt-load of programs and issues that I've never personally wanted to undertake, so that was not a "battle" I personally chose. To other people, maybe it is a stand of action for animal rights - not in any political arena, but in direct experience. If you're going to get involved in something, you do so with the knowledge that in the end, it won't matter one wit. But maybe for one individual (yourself), it will make a difference in the direction of the building of your Will and the manifestation of it. If some temporary "good" comes of your actions, so much the better - but if you engage your controlled folly with that EXPECTATION, then you have missed the point altogether.

6. Controlled folly will also require the art of detachment - which involves getting away from the indulgences in all those comforting belief systems. As long as someone believes in god, just for example, there is always the underlying implication that "God will take care of it." When you release that belief system, when you realize that YOU are the only god there is, you begin to come into your own "personal power." As long as there is ANY hope of salvation or divine intervention, you have defeated your own power and settled for a role of "passive observer" rather than "creator of singularities."

There is also a "mantra" that comes with any doings of metaphysics. "As it harms none, do as you Will." This does not mean to do as you PLEASE. It means to do what your Will is capable of doing - what you yourself are capable of bringing into manifestation. "As it harms none..." Think about that before you would even consider joining ANY group, particularly a group that clearly intends to use "evil" as a means to an end (and an end that will never manifest). Anytime you "Join" anything, you have given away your power to the group. Is that really what you want to do? I don't think so. "As it harms none..." Joining is an act that harms YOU... so when you join a group such as that, you've already broken the first law of magick.

Thou art god. Create yourself accordingly. 

______________

May 12, 2015

Traffic Jamming

January 16, 2004

Traffic was endless. I was at risk of falling asleep at the wheel.

Los Angeles has always conjured up the words in the darkest recesses of my mind: Camelot of the Damned. So as I was leaving that dark gothic necropolis on an afternoon of no particular significance, with the rapidly setting sun in my rearview mirror and a stream of red tail lights stretched out in front of me like an artery bleeding out of the inner city, I began to experience a feeling which is virtually impossible to describe. Some might call it a longing such as one experiences when looking up at the stars and wondering who might be looking back. That was the kind of longing I felt as an eleven-year-old girl longing so desperately for those stars which seemed so very far out of reach, that all she could do was shake her fist at the sky and shout, "If I can't come to you, I'll bring you to me!"

It was something like that which came over me in the car, only darker, and carrying with it an intensity that made me instantly want to turn away from it. I could sing. I could count SUVs. I could turn on a CD and lose myself in someone else's lyrics. But even as I was having that instinctive "run away from this" reaction, it occurred to me to ask: Why did I so want to turn away?

Impossible to categorize, except to say it was an ache from deep in the soul – like the pain one experiences in unrequited love. Bittersweet. Some ancient link to some ancient memory – like waking up one morning with a sense of being in love... only to realize that the object of one's affections died 30 years ago, when you were both still in high school. This feeling had elements of silver winter, a faded photograph that hangs innocuously in the hall for years, until one morning it simply hits you that this is some part of life that is no longer reachable.

Heavy, dark – and yet strangely alluring at the same time. I felt I was looking through time, yet there was no single event or memory I could point to. And then I realized I was looking through the worlds, seeing and experiencing something for which no words exist. The lure of the nagual man, and the pain of knowing I will not see him again in this physical lifetime. The call of the siren he has become – a cold and lonely wind blowing fierce over the icy expanse of eternity. The cry of the muse, beckoning me to follow, but at the same time making it altogether clear that the mortal human never really catches the muse, and the goal therefore is the chase rather than the capture.

Still, knowing all of those things didn't lessen the sensation. Quite the opposite. How is it possible to say that the feeling was energy unto itself, and that by going into that energy, I found myself being pulled out of body right there on the I-10, in the middle of rush-hour traffic, surrounded by gang-bangers in dilapidated death-traps, semis spewing diesel fumes, and the distant screaming of emergency sirens that reminded me of some frightened animal finally driven mad by its unnatural environment.

My body went on automatic, because clearly someone was driving the car. And yet, to my perceptions, I was suddenly standing on a mountaintop that had been nearly 50 miles in the distance – Mt. San Jacinto –  the towering granite peak that looms over Palm Springs and casts a shadow over the entire desert valley.
Years ago, very early on in my journey, I had looked at that mountain, feeling a presence from it that I could not identify, and heard the words through gnosis, “You have to meet the immortal world on its own level.”  At the time, I took those words to mean that it is up to the mortal self to climb the mountain, because only in doing so do we stand any chance of becoming the thing we seek to become. Over time, those words have become something of a personal mantra, whose meaning has grown and evolved along with my own understanding.

At any rate, I suddenly found myself on top of this snowy mountain with Orlando. Normally, when he appears in visions, he might be wearing jeans and a t-shirt or occasionally with nothing but a loincloth and his hair in long dark dreads. On this day, on this inaccessible mountaintop, he was wearing a fine tuxedo, though somehow managed not to look like a stiff jackass in his finery. Top two buttons were undone, and the traditional bow-tie had been left at home.

And there was that feeling again. Looking at him as if he were dressed for a wedding, I knew intuitively that this was not the time we would exchange our final vows. Death had not yet tapped me on the shoulder even though I was standing face to face with my own double, in defiance of one major aspect of the rule of the nagual.

He opened the conversation without preamble. “You humans have no concept of the nature of time.”

I couldn’t very well argue that one, so I challenged him as he has so often done to me. “Then why don’t you tell me?” I invited.

He only laughed. And then he did something completely unpredictable. He made a small cut on his left wrist, but his blood wasn’t red. Instead it was shimmery gold-silver-copper-bronze. Liquid light. Time condensed. Essence of the ancient future.

He gave me that look – the one that ended my world when I knew him in manifestation. Half-smile, half-sinister. “To taste eternity is to understand it,” he said, holding his wrist out to me.

I stood there like some pole-axed schoolgirl, though it shouldn’t surprise me that he would behave like a vampyre – feeding me his lifeforce to make me like himself. That’s long been one of my favorite fantasies, and the nagual man is a  master of knowing exactly what will lure the nagual woman into the Infinite.  And yet…

I found myself not knowing whether to trust the bastard.  Had I miscalculated?  Was I already dead?  Had the Suburban gone off the road and was this, then, just the rehearsal dinner before the darkest wedding of bones to the earth?

 I know myself well enough to know what I’m capable of as a stalker. Would I trick myself into going willingly into the arms of my own death if it meant I would simply walk out of one world where my body was still stuck in a traffic jam, and into the Otherworld where my Whole self was waiting to welcome me with a loving embrace?

 “When it’s time, I won’t have to trick you,” he said, reading my thoughts. “You’ll come to me willingly, and then we’ll dance, because that’s the way we both want it, no?”

He knew I would succumb to his charm. The snow was cold beneath my feet. I could feel it as surely as if my physical body were there. The dusk-wind was blowing through the crack between the worlds.

I took his wrist and drank, and then I simply Knew. In both worlds, I felt my body spasm – like a seizure that occurs when the body is exposed to some massive jolt of electricity. I understood it all – the nature of time, the dance of the immortals, the evolutionary two-part migration of the soul.  To taste eternity was to understand it – right down to a molecular level.

It. Was. All. There.

And yet… when the nagual man pulled his wrist away and I returned to a state of semi-ordinary awareness, the Knowledge left me as quickly as it had filled me. It could not be held, it could not be brought back to this world – no matter how hard I tried, no matter how much I was willing to surrender or let it go. This was simply the way things are, for there was a Truth in his lifeforce that told me we simply do not possess the preceptor organs in first or even second attention to process or store direct memory of events in third attention.
I could taste it and Know it, but it would forever remain the nagual – the literal unknowable – for as long as my organic awareness was housed in the world of ordinary affairs.

The only words that escaped my lips were spoken aloud in two worlds, for I heard the echo of my physical body speaking in unison with my astral Self. “I am here with you.”  What I was trying to convey to myself was that the experience was real – valid. More than just a hallucination or even a vision. Somehow, what I had tasted of eternity had shown me that, and it was all I was able to bring back.

As I spoke, Orlando just laughed softly, maybe even a bit sad. “Exactly.”  Then he shrugged and brushed a snowflake off the lapel of his tux. “It’s about remembering on the bridge between the worlds. Humans have forgotten how to remember the other self, so they get lost in the little dream down there in the traffic.”  He jutted his chin toward the freeway which was nothing more than an unmoving line of light, lightyears distant, and for a moment, I had no idea what he was talking about – for I had forgotten that dream.

“Will I ever be able to remember what I experienced today?” I asked. “Will I ever be able to bring it back to ordinary awareness?”

He looked at me for a very long time, then reached out to pull me against his chest. He was real in my arms – far more real than the endless river of taillights and the heartbeat of some vicious rap song on a passing radio. It had nothing to do with time or otherworlds. It had to do with perception and awareness – with Knowing it is real instead of only believing it.

“Now that you’ve tasted eternity, all you have to do is remember,” he said.

And then I was back in traffic. A funeral was in progress at Forest Lawn, and just as the sun slipped below the horizon, a flock of white doves was released from somewhere near the coffin that was being slowly lowered into the ground. On the CD player, Amy Lee of Evanescence was screaming out a plea to the cosmos, to her own double:  “Bring… me… to… life.”

And so I go on, struggling always to remember.

 _______________
Copyright 2015, by Della Van Hise
All Rights Reserved

Excerpted from Quantum Shaman: Diary of a Nagual Woman

Manifesting the Mystical

When I'm observing inanimate objects, it's usually with certain expectations which may or may not be valid in the sorcerer's world. For example, I do not EXPECT a rock to move, but in the sorcerer's world, there's nothing to say it can't. We program ourselves to have certain beliefs & expectations, yet those are only belief systems as long as we agree to them. The reason some folks can walk on hot coals (or water), the reason a monk was once observed levitating a coconut, the reason it sometimes might seem that the faeries have moved a pencil from where it was left on the desk last night... all these things are possible when the programs are shattered and we enter into what don Juan called "the sorcerer's world".

I recently read ILLUSIONS by Richard Bach. Some of the things described were mirrors of things I've done in my own life, and with some degree of regularity. A few years ago, when I was first beginning to "see" that the sorcerer's world existed, I began experimenting. One day, on the way home, I said to myself, "Okay, Self, if we create our own reality, let's test it. I want to see a red hearse before I get home." In the middle of nowhere, on a sparsely traveled desert road, this seemed highly unlikely if not impossible. I had the thought, let it go, and went on with my journey. I hadn't traveled more than a few miles when I came to a 4-way stop. There, facing me in the oncoming traffic lane, a hearse. It chilled me to the bone, for though it wasn't red, it was most definitely a hearse. I patted myself on the back and said, "Okay, but not exactly what I asked for." But then... as the hearse and I passed one another going in opposite directions, I noticed the license plate. 1RED338 So... the big IS has a grand sense of humor.

I repeated this experiment many times. Once on a freeway in San Diego, I said to Wendy, "I want to see a crib before we get to your mother's house." No sooner had we gotten off the fwy that I looked into a residential neighborhood to see an unassembled crib leaning against a garage wall. A few months later, mid-summer, I said to Wendy on the same fwy, "I want to see a pumpkin before we get to your mother's house." Again, we get off the fwy, and there sitting on the front porch of a house is a fine fat pumpkin. Nowhere near Halloween or Thanksgiving. Not pumpkin season. Yet there she sat. Might as well have been some grand carriage drawn by tiny mice who had transformed into mystical horses. Just a pumpkin on somebody's porch... and yet one of the finest manifestations of the nagual I had ever witnessed.

Another incident: driving through the desert, again in the middle of nowhere. By this time I'm getting a bit demanding with my manifestations. So I picked something REALLY impossible. I said to my traveling companions, "I want to see a washing machine before we get home!" And so as we bumbled along the road where only chaparral and jackrabbits dare to dwell, we came around a bend in the road, and there on the side of the road sat not only a washing machine, but a washer AND dryer. Sense of humor evident. A sign on them said, "Free." Not if THAT wasn't a message from the nagual! :-))) "Free" indeed!

A few months later, on the way home from Encino, stuck in a major traffic jam on the 101 fwy outside of LA, I turned to Wendy and said, "I want to see a lion before we get home." She shot me a dirty look, stuck in traffic as we were, and she at the wheel. The stench of diesel and brushfire choked the air. Red tail lights had formed a river of blood that seemed to stretch endlessly, clogged in freeway veins. I shut up and went back to contemplating the dust on the dashboard. In less than 2 minutes, we rounded a bend, and there, emblazoned across the horizon, was a HUGE sign made entirely of tiny white lights, cast in the shape of a lion's head. Stood about 50' tall. And as if I might miss it, directly beneath, also enlightened in huge, glowing white letters, "THE LION KING."

There have been many such incidents since embarking on this path. So many I cannot count them all. So many that all I can do is gaze in wonder at the earth, the red hearses, the pumpkins and the lion kings, and occasionally glance at the face in the mirror and wonder, "Who ARE you?" The answer is a work in progress, a mosaic of memories and mumblings, a strange tapestry of strange events that really aren't strange at all once we finally accept that the "magick" is real. It's our CR view of the world that's the ultimate illusion, the greatest lie.

We program the coconut to hang on the tree, but we might just as easily rearrange its molecules to become a fine, fat pumpkin on a porch in San Diego. It's all just an arrangement of energy in the sorcerer's world.
_____________
March 6, 2003

Excerpted from...
Quantum Shaman: Diary of a Nagual Woman

Available on Amazon
or from the author's website at
http://www.quantumshaman.com

Cracking the Program Wide Open

I was recently asked... Why do we need to break out of the program? For starters, as long as we are operating within its limits, evolution is impossible, because personal evolution is not part OF the program -- i.e., the established belief system allows for essentially one of three alternatives: 1) any established religion; or 2)atheism; or 3)molecular regeneration. Any of those belief systems are accepted inside the box. Anything other than that would be considered, essentially "hocus pocus" or completely insane.

The program labels those who are "insane" as, essentially, those who do not find themselves in agreement with the program. And, again, fear raises its ugly head. We are afraid of the label "insanity", and so we hoist ourselves back in line with the program - at least insofar as we discuss publicly. Thus, fear holds us captive to the program. What we gain by breaking the program is coming to see that we are not "insane" at all, but instead it is the world that has gone mad and the lunatics are running the asylum. Certain new age "teachers" always squawk when I say that, because their naive opinion is that the "lunatics" are innocent, ignorant sheep who know not what they do. Personally, I don't care if they know it or not. It is, even by THEIR definition, insane to go through the motions of "a normal life", knowing all the while that it ultimately means nothing when all is said and done.

And now we come to those unpopular ideas that can cause even warriors to start singing Mary Had A Little Lamb, jamming their fingers in their ears, and pretending not to hear. This is the part of the road we come to where we desperately WANT to go back to Ixtlan, but where we realize that it is only a phantom city inhabited by hollow-eyed zombies, yet it is a city we have defended all our lives, a city we have loved, the only city we have ever known. And we're scared to death of leaving it!

What do we have to gain by breaking out of the program? Absolutely nothing... except a glimpse of freedom. We have everything to lose, of course. Family. Friends. Comfortable beliefs. Even a self-identity we might have believed real all our lives. But it's worth it, that single glimpse of freedom - to know there is a foundation above and beyond all this lunacy where all the role-playing games are stripped away and we lay our souls bare to find our double standing whole and pure in the third attention - the perfected self we have created through our dreaming, the self we will inhabit into eternity, beyond the eagle's reach.

New age bullshit? Nope. I've been there. I've inhabited that double which is actually the self made whole into eternity, and believe me, I was loathe to come back to the asylum. But... there's still work to be done, fragments to be gathered, songs to be sung, and fires to be lit in the spirit so the heart can find its way back home to that place in the third attention from whence it came in the first place.

Yes, it's all a quantum paradox, but that's the delight of it -when it all starts to make sense. All I can do now is spin a web of words, trying to form a net in which to capture the essence of freedom, but my words will never be enough. And, ironically, how would one capture freedom?

You've had the power all along.

What do we gain by breaking the program? We find ourselves face to face with the answer to the first question: who am I? As long as the program is in effect, there is no possible answer to that question, for we are only the program manifested, fragmentary selves, false personalities, phantoms wearing our own face. But once the program falls, we turn and face the double, who begins whispering in our ear about the right way to live, the path of heart, the assimilation of cohesion.

Follow the yellow brick road, knowing all the while that the red slippers can take you home anytime. That's intent.

What is Spirit?

Spirit may also manifest to seekers as the voice of the double,
whispering Knowledge from the Infinite.

A Message From the Double via Silent Knowing

Spirit is the feeling that accompanies the midnight cries of a lone coyote, and it is the reason for the cry itself. It is carried on the sound, but is not the sound. Spirit is the soul poem blowing in on the edge of an oncoming storm, yet it is neither the words nor the rain, nor the thunder and lightning, but is instead the creative and infinite force which summons the storm into being - not the physical elements of meteorology, but the metaphysical shiver of the universe which is the generative spark of spontaneous parthenogenesis. Something from nothing. Spirit is the sentient force of the energetic universe, permeating all living and non-living matrices, yet it is neither the form nor substance, nor even energy.

If there are four elements of life and creation - earth, air, fire and water - spirit is the fifth element which brings the others into alignment and creates both cohesion and the possibility of meaning. Spirit is the animus, without which all else is rendered inert.

Does it have its own volition? In human terms, it could be said to have omniscient and omnipresent awareness, yet it is not comparable to any deity or entity. It is sentient without being singular, yet it is the singularity at the heart of the All. It is an element of the infinite, the compelling force of the nagual which is at the same time the breath of life within the tonal. To speak of volition in terms of spirit is rather like attempting to define time without using the word time in the definition.

It does nothing TO humans, but when humans come into alignment with the spirit, there is nothing they cannot do. It is a force that is omnipresent and may be summoned with intent; yet it is at the same time elusive by virtue of being the essence of the All itself.

To a warrior, Spirit is the force which guides one's choices and creates a viable sense of purpose, direction, well-being and forward motion even in times of seeming inaction. To live in alignment with the Spirit is to live impeccably, for then it could be said that what is within the Self has achieved an unbroken communion with the All. This does not diminish the individual, but to the contrary enhances the uniqueness of the Self by bringing into manifestation the Whole potential of that individual identity. Living with the Spirit does not mean becoming One with the All, but becoming Whole within the All, and ultimately becoming the All itself.

Messages from the double via silent knowing

Orlando -- June 28, 2003

 _______________

copyright 2015 by Della Van Hise

All Rights Reserved

________________

To read similar messages from the shaman's double, please consider...

It's not your neatly typed essays that interest me,
but the scrawls on the walls of your soul."
-Orlando

A Suicidal Blind Madman

Consider this: it will always be easier to take the road already built by those who have gone before, for the journey is well-mapped and the conveniences along the way even make the trip easy. Ah, but what if that road you're on was first forged by a suicidal blind madman running headlong through the jungle with a sword, hacking out the path to his own death so he might find it waiting at the end of the way, and what if all of humanity timidly followed that demented fool just to see where he was going, but now they've been on that same fatal road ever since, never stopping to consider that there are many paths to the river, and not all of them need end with death?

Orlando - September 26, 1999
The ongoing gnosis of shadows

Why the Heart Has Two Chambers

With regard to the double being (or Nagual) Carlos Castaneda may not have had the full story when he wrote THE EAGLE'S GIFT, in that he was still describing the Nagual (double-being) as two separate individuals, when my own experience (as well as several other "naguals" I know) has been that this may not be entirely accurate. In fact, there is a lot of experiential evidence to support the idea that the Nagual is actually a single being that divides at some point, and so may have the APPEARANCE of being 2 separate beings, when in reality it is a single entity with the natural ability to divide, much as cells do.

Because Carlos himself was described as a 3-pronged nagual, his own "division" may have been somehow thwarted or he only partially divided, and so the other "part" of himself was either lost entirely, or perhaps never made it to third attention and became trapped in some other realm. No way to know. Another Nagual woman was presented to him (Carol), but though she was *a* Nagual woman, she was not *the* Nagual woman specifically-matched to Carlos. Again, tip of the iceberg, and the wabbit hole goes plenty deep.

Don Juan said, "it is impossible to try to reason out the double", and yet, I'm not so sure it's "impossible" as much as it requires re-writing the paradigm of our belief systems about the nature of "reality" itself. In so many ways, our present mode of thinking is still at the level of "flies cause garbage", and because it's what we've always believed, we have no easy way to see it from a completely different angle.

Of course... I can also argue the other side, where CC is coming from, because it is more "rational" than what I'm saying. Easier to think that two separate beings could come together than to think a single being divides for the purpose of coming together again in what amounts to a different space-time continuum. But I think the "easier" explanation is also very limited. In my experience, the whole point of the double being is that one "half" of that being is predisposed to exist in the conditions of third attention, and the other half is predisposed to exist as a mortal human.

I think it's important for warriors, and especially for those who may discover themselves to be double beings, to have as clear an understanding as possible. I think CC was right in baseline theory, but he simply never revealed the whole picture. My suspicion is that if he ever did realize the deeper secrets about the Nagual, he simply chose not to write about it, because as I have discovered through experience, there is no way, really, to explain any of this rationally. So we have a tendency to simplify, to say "two separate beings", when in actuality, it is a single being that splits in two for the purpose of serving as its own guide.

First shaman created the world, and when she realized she was lonely, she tore out half her heart and put it into her own dreaming body so she would never be alone. Because the double was made of spirit, though, it left her all too soon and went to dwell in eternity, where its siren cries call her back into the Infinite. This is why the heart has two chambers and why the shaman walks the earth with one eye on the world and the other focused on that which has no name.
____________

For more anecdotes of a similar nature...

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They are available for $5.00 plus shipping here. I'll even sign your copy on request!

Awakening Inside the Double

It was a weekend of sensory overload, a contrast of a noisy generator on one side, and the clatter and clamor of drums and belly dancers on the other, offset by a crowd of 100,000 Renaissance patrons and participants, all of whom seemed to be in a tremendous hurry to be somewhere other than where they were, even though they had paid a fair amount of money to be precisely where they were.  My cold had turned to the flu. The assemblage point shifts in delirium. A cacophony of unrelated colors and shapes. A din of heat. An ice-cream flavored swirl of screams and shouts. Maybe I had a fever. A pox on any moron who sells a child a toy flute.

On the drive home, I was finally alone for the first time in over 5 days. Being a loner, I do not care much for human contact. Find it painful for the most part. Minds press too close. Probes attempt to penetrate. I turn to smoke.

The rental car glides easily through the desert, with Leonard Cohen's gruff voice on the CD player and massive thunderheads gathering in the west. The Nevada/California desert weaves an alien landscape.  Joshua trees walk the night. Jagged mountains poke bony fingers skyward. Skid marks zip the road tight to a parched earth.

Words are only fodder for semantics, tools of misunderstanding. You had to be there.But I was alone. No way to tell the tale but to trace along the edges, maybe to reveal what lies beneath.  Such is the contour of the nagual.

 "The self dreams the double. Once it has learned to dream the double, the self arrives at this weird crossroad and a moment comes when one realizes that it is the double who dreams the self. Your double is dreaming you. No one knows how it happens. We only know that it does happen. That's the mystery of us as luminous beings. You can awaken in either one." (Carlos Castaneda, TALES OF POWER)

You can awaken in either one.

Somewhere in the middle of the desert, in the middle of a long and winding road, I awakened inside Orlando. It really was that simple. Opened my eyes, looked around, had a laugh or two at the human condition, a bigger laugh at my mortal self going through the machinations of Life, and began to cross-ponder from what can only be called a "dual point of view" (Orlando and Della) this bizarre thing called Time.

Time is a mortal construct. We make it up to use as a yardstick, a reference point against the backdrop of eternity.  But it isn't "real" in the sense we might think. Impossible to describe how it felt to be outside of time altogether. Orlando often talks about Time, but after today's experience, I now realize he talks to us in much the same way an adult would talk to a 5-year old about the birds and the bees. He uses language we can understand, but the actuality of it all tends to lose a lot in the translation. Birds and bees have very little to do with human reproduction, and time has very little to do with life and death. It's just an egg in which we gestate while waiting to hatch. While. Waiting. Our language itself creates Time, referencing it in countless subtle ways...

So there we were. Mortal self and eternal double driving down a winding 2-lane road in the middle of nowhere in the geographical center of infinity. Perhaps chance chose the space-time. Who's to say?  Life seemed strange, at odds with itself in so many ways. The organic robot in the SUV behind me was flashing his lights while puffing on a cigarette and talking on a cell phone. Funny monkey - all red-faced and angry, holding up a predictable finger while mouthing some obscenity in my direction as he zipped past on his way to his appointment with death. For kicks, I showed him my own finger in return - it was expected, after all, and I had a bigger ring that caught the sun - and with that little ritual out of the way, I turned my attention back to Orlando.

"You are the final fragment of yourself," he whispered, so close to my ear I could feel the heat of him, even though logic and reason said it was only the sun pouring through the window. "Touch me with your naked hand, touch me with your glove," Leonard Cohen murmurs in a black silk velvet voice that sends shivers down my spine, a voice that invokes the midnight even in mid-afternoon. I felt Orlando's touch. As if in a vision more visceral than stone, the thunderheads in the west trembled. A lover's caress. Lightning snaked parallel to the ground. A golden butterfly struck the windshield and entered eternity.  An eagle soared over the desert, hunting. Two fine fat black ravens strolled along the side of the road, oblivious to the slipstream thrown off by a careening 18-wheeler.

"There is a crack.  There is a crack in everything.  That's how the light gets in."  Cohen again. Wickedly perceptive old man.

I laughed, hearing it echo from here to there and back again, from the dark into the light, manifesting particle-wave duality riding itself back into the blackness, serpent eating its own tail only to turn wrongside out into some other perception of an ever-evolving reality. "You are the final fragment of yourself."

And then I was mySelf again, just a mortal crone propelling herself down the road at dangerous speeds, cycling endlessly between one moment and the next, between here and now, drifting between the harsh terrain of Time and the snowscape of timeless infinity.

"When the final fragment is integrated, Time itself will end."

"I see," said the blind man.

I See.
___________________
An Excerpt from Quantum Shaman: Diary of a Nagual Woman
copyright 2015, by Della Van  Hise
All Rights Reserved

To read more anecdotes from the path with heart...
Quantum Shaman
Scrawls On the Walls of the Soul

The Longing of the Heart

(A message from the double)

There is an energy in sorcery that has no name in any language. The closest words can come to describing it is a soul-deep pain, not unlike the longing for the stars you felt as children. It is that energy, when carefully directed, that fuels the heart of the double and causes it to begin to beat. First just a single drum in the night, a long, single beat. Then a little faster as the ache inside you grows over the years. The danger faced by both the double and the mortal self is simply that if the ache dies, the heart of the twin can cease to beat. It is the hurt that will make you hunt a cure. But if you let the hurt die because you are afraid of never being able to soothe the ache, what really dies is yourself, yes? (Orlando, 2003)
____________
I remember being about 6 years old, and feeling that terrible ache/longing for the first time, and it actually took my breath away. When I tried to explain it to my mother, she looked at me as if I were daft, and I don't think she had ever experienced it. For me, it has indeed proven to be the heartbeat of the double.

Some might say the conclusion that there is “no cure” is perhaps a self-fulfilling prophecy which could have the dangerous side-effect of self-pity if one is not careful – which is why don Juan often cautioned Carlos against morbidity. For myself, the "cure" has always been around the next bend in the road, over the next hill, beyond the next horizon. The cure is not the destination, but the way of traveling.

Most of all, the cure is the Knowledge that if one is ever REALLY cured of their longing, one has become a phantom.

An Exercise in Silent Knowing

Find a place that is comfortable for you and relax into the Now. Have awareness of your surroundings without being attached to them. Is there a bird chirping in the distance? A dog barking? Road sounds? All of these things will be part of the experience, so awareness of them enables a blending of the warrior into milieu, and the milieu into the warrior.

Essentially, the purpose of this exercise is to bring the warrior in contact with the double. As you sit with yourself in silence, focus on the Intent to move the assemblage point into "the place of silent knowing" - aka "gnosis". For warriors at an advanced level, this may seem too simple. For those who have not yet worked with gnosis on a conscious level, it may take a few attempts to really make the connection, but once it is made, it is unmistakable. For myself, when I enter into a state of gnosis, there is a tendency for my head to tilt back and my eyes to close - though obviously this is my predilection and your mileage will vary. However it works for you to shift your AP to the place of silent knowing, the purpose of this exercise is to actually "hear" the voice of the double - though it may not be experienced as a "voice" as we traditionally think of it. Could be a whisper that sounds at first like your own internal dialogue, yet is experienced as a bit of knowledge or information you did not know on any conscious level.

One of the hardest tasks a warrior faces is learning to distinguish the voice of gnosis from one's own internal dialogue.The easiest way I have found to make the distinction is that the internal dialogue is usually nothing more than lists, comments about what we are experiencing, reflections on the past, or otherwise "personal" information that is likely filled with our own self-importance. IOW - the internal dialogue is saying, "It's all about ME!"

The voice of gnosis, on the other hand, is often experienced as a single statement that fills the mind quite abruptly, and may or may not have any direct relevance on the surface. One of the strongest voices of gnosis I ever experienced came when I was staring up at a huge mountain overshadowing Palm Springs. "You have to meet the immortal world on its own level," the voice informed me. Another one: "I am helpless before all possibility." Another: "The core of your belief determines the realities you see and obliterates those you choose to ignore."

Each of these statements is what amounts to a zip file - a single statement embedded with layers upon layers of additional knowledge which unlocks & unfolds itself over time, assuming the warrior takes upon herself the task of contemplation and the act of assimilation. I found it helpful to keep a journal, though some will frown on that as an "attachment." It's up to you.

So as you sit in the place of silent knowing and take measures to stop the world, simply be open to hearing the voice of gnosis and take note of what it says. It doesn't usually tend to give long speeches, though it certainly can if there is a reason. But for the most part, if the warrior approaches this exercise with Intent and impeccability, most likely you will begin to hear the voice of the double - and it is through learning to listen, ask questions, and communicate with the double that the double is further developed until, as don Juan pointed out, there comes that crossroad moment when you realize the double is dreaming you.

What does your double have to say to you? What message are you receiving? Would be curious to hear of your experiences - hope you will take the time to comment.

To learn more, consider this Quantum Shaman
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to work at your own pace in your own space.
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The Positive Side of Negative Emotions

All emotions are part of being human. It's how we
use them that determines how they serve us.

There are some spiritual teachers who advocate what amounts to the suppression of emotion – or what was called by one man I once worked with, “going into observe mode” so that even when a seeker may have every right and reason to be angry, the result would be essentially standing to the side, observing the situation from a more detached perspective, with a more placid “acceptance” of “what is”.  I put several phrases in quote marks because these have come to sound like buzz words to me.  Something about this whole idea of "observe mode" just didn't feel right, but I believe I may have stumbled onto a partial explanation while working with a friend/apprentice recently.

Since I first embarked on this journey, I have encountered a lot of metaphysical teachers (from Toltec to Buddhist and everything in between) who essentially attempt to teach their “apprentices” that our “negative” emotions are somehow tantamount to evil itself, and must therefore be excised, or at the very least controlled to the point that the apprentice automatically goes into “observe mode” at the first sign of any negative emotion. In other words, one reaction is simply substituted for another, a different program is brought into play, but it's still a program. I’m going to use anger as the emotion du jour, but any of the traditional “negative” emotions could be substituted.

There have been several discussions about this, including the infamous thread, Kirks and Spocks and Klingons, oh my!* – and yet I still did not feel satisfied that I had really been able to isolate precisely why this idea of suppressing our emotions feels every bit as “wrong” to me as the idea of an extant deity on a golden throne answering to the name of “God”. And yet, every time I would hear a warrior say something to the effect of, “I was really pissed off that my husband kicked the dog, but I went into observe mode so as to remain detached,” I would be left with a feeling that said, quite simply, That ain’t right.

Being whole is a matter of integrating all aspects
of ourselves, not obliterating half of who we are.

Finally, I had what amounts to a personal epiphany which explains to me why these “observe mode” methods so highly touted by certain mystical teachers simply do not work in the big picture.  In a sense, it’s because teaching an apprentice to “go into observe mode” can end up being more like a bandaid over a gushing artery.  It stems the flow for awhile, but doesn't fix the underlying problem.  It's like teaching a child to say "darn" instead of "damn" - one may appear more acceptable, but the underlying problem still remains.  Teachers who employ such methods may help an apprentice identify the behavior and even suggest ways to "staunch" the behavior, such as “going into observe mode” or "become transparent", but what I've really observed is that this can end up replacing one pre-programmed response with another - i.e., you're only substituting "observe mode" for "anger mode", but the anger is still present.

A long time ago, Orlando said that if you're going to cut away diseased organs, you have to replace them with something lest the patient die on the table.  Problem is - can't replace a "heart" with a "liver"; can't replace a "stomach" with a "spleen".  To me, that's what happens with apprentices trained to go into “observe mode”.  I've seen it in apprentices who have worked with even some highly respected “naguals”.  The "cure" works for awhile, but when the apprentice starts to realize that their abilities haven't improved and they are still FEELING the anger (or jealousy or hurt), and that they're just replacing "anger mode" with "observe mode", they start falling back into the old patterns – and as a result, usually end up turning on their "master".  IOW, the cure is only temporary, because the disease still remains, and has only been masked by substituting a different extant behavior.  That's what I mean by "can't replace a heart with a liver."  One is for moving blood through the body, the other is for filtering toxins; and while both are necessary, neither can do the work of the other efficiently.

Please note:  I don't "blame" the teacher for this.  S/he can effectively bring an apprentice to the point where they really need to figure out for themselves what to Do with the so-called "negative emotion".  IOW, being able to drop into "observe mode" isn't enough in the long run.  It's just a starting point to break the old programs, to give the apprentice breathing room from the anger.  But it really does nothing to address the anger itself.  After that has been learned, the apprentice can then start learning how to re-channel the REAL human emotions into their daily life, as a matter of Intent.  I don't believe in trying to pretend I don't feel anger or hurt - I'm human, so that's a natural part of my being – and like my instinct to run from fire or to swim if thrown in water, I think our “darker” emotions are just tools to be used like any other instinct.

Trying to behave like a Vulcan is only another role-playing game - it's simply not real because we're not really Vulcans.  It's not in our nature. So what I've learned to do is to use my anger productively and ruthlessly - literally change the "molecular nature" of anger into creative godforce, for example.  Rather like using a propane-fed fire to power a refrigerator in your camper.  Using "negative" energy to create something positive, rather than just trying to squelch or ignore the negative energy because we’ve been programmed to think that anything “negative” or “dark” is something to be eradicated, when the truth is that it is just another tool once we strip away the assignations and stigma put onto it by our own human programming.

In the big picture, until we leave this earth, we're still human and that's just the way it is.  So where my "method" differs is that I don't try to teach people to be "peaceful warriors", but to use their emotions with awareness and ruthless impeccability. So-called spiritual people who talk about seeking wholeness and then fragment themselves into the good, the bad and the ugly need to seriously examine how that's really working for them.

If you really want to be whole, what you need to do is strangle your inner bliss ninny, stand naked in front of your own mirror, and see yourself for who you are. Chances are... it's not nearly as bad as you may think.



__________________
Condensed from a post to "The Shaman's Rattle"
May 4, 2005
__________________

*Kirks and Spocks and Klingons, oh my! refers to a discussion that was ongoing for several months on an old forum I once moderated entitled "The Shaman's Rattle." Anyone seriously interested in accessing it can hopefully find it here.

"The Light On the Lake" (More Tales of Power)

It was a certain way the light hit the lake, the way the sun bounced off the little chops on the surface of the water. No way to describe it, really. A hundred different elements had all come into play with just the right timing. A pale silver mist, not quite fog, not quite cloud. Scent of cut grass. Hint of mystery on the wind.

Just words, meaning nothing.

What seemed to matter was the fact that it caused my breath to catch in my throat. Suddenly I was 17 again. Back on the shore of some half-remembered lake in Florida when I was still just a girl, chasing bullfrogs and courting the nagual without having a name for it.

It was an afternoon when I had cut school with one of the local boys. Doug, I think his name was. We snuck off to a lake that had no name, floated out to the center of the water on a cheap raft, and spent the day talking about whatever it is that teenage kids talk about.

What I remember about that day was looking toward the shore and noticing how the trees grew almost to the water's edge. The shadows. Thick and black and inviting - far more inviting, even, than the embrace of the handsome young man in whose arms I was lying. He was known somehow. No mystery. The shadows and the orange groves and the black bottom lake were the mystery, calling forth something in me that I had never felt before in quite that manner, until that afternoon on the lake.

I knew then, somehow, that I would never be completely content. No man would ever be enough. No friend would ever know me as I wanted to be known. And yet...

There was something in the shadows that knew me. There was something in the trees that was kindred.
And for a moment, today, I found myself back in that assemblage point... overwhelmed with that sense of wonder and awe and melancholy perfection which simply cannot be spoken of except in 3 a.m. campfire whispers. For a moment, the world stopped, and I was neither Della-the-girl, nor Della-the-woman. I was simply - somehow - the synapse of energy between the two assemblage points. I was the manifestation of the unknown, reaching across the void to BE the shadows which have drawn me to this moment, to become the light on the lake, reflecting back and forth between then and now and then and the infinite.

For that moment, I knew my name... written in a language of light on the lake, and the shadows that lie beyond.
_______________
Journal Entry, September 30, 2007
Copyright 2015, by Della Van Hise
All Rights Reserved

"We occupy the same space..."

More Tales of Power

A few years back, Wendy and I had gone out to dinner with some acquaintances, and I decided to return to the car to wait while they were reminiscing. Just felt a need to be solo for awhile.

I dozed intermittently, then opened my eyes into full awareness. My head happened to be turned toward a low-rise hotel,and I was completely aware of my surroundings. But instead of the hotel as it should have appeared, I realized I was looking at a very old building. It was the same building, but seriously aged, dilapidated.

Because I was keenly aware of my surroundings and knew I wasn't dreaming, I made the decision to maintain the vision/perception for as long as I could. I began studying the building, and observed that there were lights on inside the rooms, but the color and intensity said they were candles, like lanterns.

As I was studying this perception, an androgynous voice made the statement, "We occupy the same space, but not the same time."

I was filled with a sense of awe throughout the experience, which I was able to maintain for approximately 2 minutes.

What does it mean? Who's to say?

Just an unexpected but strangely pleasant encounter with the unknown.
_____________
If you enjoy this kind of anecdote, you might consider joining the Carlos Castaneda group on Facebook.

Or order one or both of my books...
Quantum Shaman: Diary of a Nagual Woman
Scrawls On the Walls of the Soul

Tales of Power - "42 Minutes"

Over the course of my life, I've had many unusual experiences. At some point, I have probably mentioned an incident that occurred back around ~1995, wherein I woke in the middle of the night (3:38 a.m. to be precise), and walked from one end of our old rambling house to the other, went into the bathroom in my office, then came back out and returned to the bedroom, only to discover that I had been gone for approximately 45 minutes. The clock which had read 3:38 a.m. when I left the room now read 4:22. I could account for perhaps 2-3 minutes, MAYBE 5 minutes if I really stretched it. But certainly not the 42 minute interval that had ensued.

In the grand tradition of humans, I tried to convince myself I had simply looked at the clock wrong, until Wendy rather sleepily asked me why I had been gone so long. So... to HER perceptions, time had passed, whereas to my perceptions, I could only account for the 3-5 minutes.

This has been an incident I have pondered often over the years, and through a couple of attempts at regression, I have been able to extract certain images of what might have occurred during that interval of missing time. Over the years since then, there have been at least a couple of other incidents of a similar nature -- I would look at the clock, walk across the room, for example, then look at the clock again... and 42 minutes would be missing. Again, I could account for perhaps 3 minutes, so a pattern was beginning to develop... intervals of almost exactly 42 minutes of missing time, occurring somewhat frequently. Not in any exact pattern I can discern, but at least once or twice a year THAT I WAS AWARE OF... and who knows how many times that I simply haven't noticed.

Then, just 2 nights ago, it happened again, with 100% certainty that I didn't simply glance at the clock wrong. Woke up in the middle of the night... glanced at the clock. 4:44 a.m. Got up, did the aforementioned procedure, looked out the window at the cloudy night (a beautiful rarity in the desert), took note of the fact that dawn was just beginning to break behind the clouds, then returned to bed. Again, I could account for approximately 2-4 minutes... and yet as I was climbing back into bed, I glanced at the clock. 5:29 a.m.

At first, I again tried convincing myself I had simply glanced at the clock wrong. (How adamantly we try to explain away the mysteries of life!) But as I glanced at the windows, I realized it was MUCH lighter than it had been when I gazed out the window in the bathroom. The horizon was now pure silver, the pre-dawn brightness which can be almost blinding at times. No doubt that approximately 42 minutes had indeed passed, for it was validated by the difference in light.
So... what is the significance of ~42 minutes? There is absolutely no sense of a "glitch" in my personal timeline. No sense of having dozed off (standing up? looking out the window? nah), no sense of having passed out, no evidence that ANYTHING is out of the ordinary... except that 42 minutes is missing from my life, and that this significant interval of missing time continues to occur somewhat frequently, without rhyme or reason that I can detect.

Is this some function of heightened awareness? And, if so, why 42 minutes? Is anyone out there aware of any special significance to that interval of time? Is it a biorhythm? A tick of the cosmic clock? And how often does it occur that I DON'T notice, simply because I don't happen to be aware of time. Not wearing a watch and not being a clock-watcher, I can't even begin to imagine.

I fully realize that "missing time" is a function of the so-called UFO experience, but that doesn't seem to "track" with my own perceptions and my own awareness. Just as Carlos Castaneda had absolutely no awareness of events taking place in heightened awareness until years later, I suspect this could be part of that same process. What's that old quote? "The world isn't only stranger than we imagine, it is stranger than we CAN imagine."
____________
Journal entry, ~2002

Stopping the World

The day itself was an entity - a personality shrouded in grey and drifting clouds, misting rain that was cold but oddly unwet, and a pervading darkness that caused one to believe it was dusk even in the early afternoon of the Los Angeles pre-Christmas madhouse.

Though I did not particularly want to be there, there was a part of me that was secretly in love with the bleak nature of the storm and the face it had painted over the tall skyscrapers and crumbling gothic-style hotels that stand side by side in a landscape of dichotomous duality which occasionally looks more like a flat matte painting than anything remotely "real".

I wandered alone while my SO was busy in one of the shops. Familiar territory, but grim and cold now, streets flooded, and an odd scent permeating the damp air - the scent of human urine, street-vendor hot dogs and stale perfume wafting out from one of the nearby wholesale outlets.

The wind was cold against my cheeks, colder still against my bare shoulders and chest - for I had dressed for summer, knowing full well it would force me to experience the rain on my flesh - a sensation which can be discussed in words, but can only be experienced in the do-ing. A miasma of language swirled around me. Spanish. Korean. Chinese. Farsi. I thought of Bladerunner, and the futuristic world depicted in the film.

A pang of some unidentified emotion swept over me. For a moment, I remembered actually being at the premiere of Bladerunner. Sitting maybe 2 rows behind Harrison Ford, watching the movie unfold around those who had created it... and the dreams I had carried with me at the time. Dreams that I might write movies myself. Fantasies that I would wear a slinky black dress and sip cocktails with Ridley Scott while chatting about artistic trends in the realm of film noir.

I had been a writer back then. And yet... there came a day when I was talking to Wendy and I said with all the truth in my heart, "I don't want to be the one writing the books. I want to be the character in the book - the one on the grand adventure, hero or villain, both and neither, I want to be do-ing what writers only dream about on paper! I want to be the ghost hunter or the starship captain! I want to sit in that Bladerunner bar where nobody speaks English and the rain is cold and wet against my bare skin - and I want to feel all of that pain and the glory of the pain and the simple joy that there is anything at all to really feel in this crazy world!"

So I stopped for a moment on that rainy Los Angeles street, and realized yet again that I had gotten my wish. The power of my own intent had manifested it - even if not in the way I might have fantasized or imagined, it had nonetheless brought me to that one moment when I could stand at the crossroads of the past and the future, looking with wide-eyed wonder. The buildings where Bladerunner had been filmed were barely 2 blocks away, and the sheer irony of it all caused me to wonder yet again how real any of it is, and how much is only the Dream within the Dreamer's dreaming.

As I stood there surrounded by the madness of Christmas shoppers literally arguing over who would get the last Baby Betty or how much they were willing to pay for some cheap statuette of the Blessed Virgin, the world simply stopped. The writers went on strike. The dialogue turned to silence. The actors stopped in mid-stride, and for a split second I began to wonder if I had stepped onto the set of The Day the Earth Stood Still.

The world... stopped. 

"It'll be over soon, won't it?"

The voice came from my right, and as I turned my head, it was to see a paper-thin man in a rickety wheelchair, backed up into the shadowy recesses of a doorway to an abandoned storefront. As I met his eyes - haunted and full of sickness for which no cure existed, racked with the pain of his illness which went untreated as a result of his inability to pay for the continuity of his own life - I realized that he *saw* it, too. He saw that the world had stopped. He saw that the matrix had paused to take a breath.

Though there were many ways I could have chosen to interpret his question, I knew through my own *seeing* precisely what he meant. Though he knew he was dying and probably would not survive until Christmas, his question came from a position of the assemblage point that had nothing to do with himself. When he said, "It'll be over soon," it wasn't even a question.

I nodded without speaking, following his gaze up to where a small Asian man stood in a third floor window - broken and dusty - sipping coffee and gazing down at the chaos in the filthy streets below.

"You know who he is?" the old fellow in the wheelchair asked.

"I have no idea."

"That's God," the man told me. Then he laughed, though it came out as a cough. "Problem is - he don't know how to fix it either. So he just paces back and forth in front of that window all day, drinking his goddamn coffee." Another chuckle, another fit of coughing, then: "Fuck the son of a bitch. Who needs him?"

When I glanced back up at the window, God was gone. The world kick-started itself as if on the last breath of its own intent. Rain that had been paused in the air resumed its love affair with gravity, and began falling steadily. A baby screamed. And somehow I simply knew it was the birthcry of all the world.

The old fellow in the wheelchair had gone back to staring at his mismatched shoes, the gathering droplets of rain on his silver hair like diamonds on the crown of a fallen, forgotten king.

I touched his shoulder gently, though he never looked up.

"It'll be over soon," I told him, validating what he already knew.

He had fallen asleep there in the rain, in the shadows of the grey city, in a doorway, in December.

And for that one single moment outside of time, we had Dreamed together of a storm and a broken window, and God.
___________________
Journal Entry, December 19, 2007

Copyright by Della Van Hise, 2015
All Rights Reserved

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