Alternet gets it.

http://www.alternet.org/media/have-our-lives-turned-real-life-horror-movie?akid=11181.132665.bv7jpO&rd=1&src=newsletter928640&t=9

Much as I'm not happy to see an article like this - it lets me know I'm not living in some paranoid fantasy, at least not all by myself.

Please forgive me, but I'm going to predict something I wish I didn't feel like predicting - this 'extreme weather' is just going to keep coming now, like a true nightmare - that's what I feel and believe.

Where do I go from the alien agenda? Only backwards, I suppose.

Many years prior to 2012, probably the best thing I read which brought together intelligently and cohesively the stops along the journey that I personally felt placed upon by unknown forces, was Daniel Pinchbeck’s 2012: The Return of Quetzalcoatl. I have a lot of respect for Pinchbeck, despite his appearance, which is not designed to capture a following beyond the artistic fold, but in some sense, he’s the Obama of the alternative reality.

By this I mean, he can’t ‘do it’ alone and the majority might not agree with where he’s going or has gone with what seems to be, primarily, an extraordinary ability to articulate worthy concepts and thoughts. I was much impressed with his evolver.net at its inception, because it allowed people to interject into a blog of consciousness building through the sharing of personal experience and thoughts. I found it to be an extraordinary ‘gift’ of sorts to those awakening in their own way to come together in the virtual realm.

I don’t wish to negate his efforts at all; however, it now seems to have merged into his realitysandwich.com site, which for me is much more esoteric than is practical given the underpinnings of the message he once channeled allegedly from Quetzalcoatl. I still bop in every now and again and know Pinchbeck is still very much committed to the ultimate cause, but I find the general take away too esoteric for the most part, so much so, that I don’t feel ‘fed’ as much as I’d hoped for, once upon a time, with regard to the edgy reality he originally stood for when writing about 2012.

Now, 2012 has come and gone, and Pinchbeck has at least one child to feed, so I’m not going after him personally in this seeming critique – not at all, because he’s done much more than most of us, as it stands, but we need more than creative ‘bread and circuses’ don’t we?

Maybe not, maybe that’s as good as it gets, in all truth, I don’t know – I mean, it’s a process and maybe that’s the process we need to engage in, but as far as any immediate itch that might need to be scratched, it feels like a light weight loofah to me. I mean it might remove some of the dead skin, but it’s not getting into the subterranean any time soon. Not saying it won’t eventually, but God knows how long that might take. And, I wonder, do we have that much time?

Then again, what are ‘we’ trying to accomplish? I mean, I share Pinchbeck’s pain, and I know he still lives in something like a state of pain from my bopping in every now and again, so certainly I’m not trying to hold him to the task of savior. I’m ‘just sayin’, as we used to say.

So, maybe that explains my own foray into blogging here, I don’t know. Maybe I just want to ‘talk turkey’ a bit more than Pinchbeck seems inclined to do, but then again, I haven’t suffered the wrath of critics as he has and I’m not the cultured artist that he is either.

I must say one thing it did inspire in me, and I daresay countless others from what I understand, is an interest in ayahuasca. I just ordered a new book that speaks of the experience with this new mecca of the soul many are taking to the Amazon to undergo the vine experience with Shamans there and intend to give a book report once I’ve read that piece.

I’ve also been directed to listen to Terence McKenna through my attention to Pinchbeck and to return to my formerly only errant experience with shrooms, because I’m not so compelled as to buy a ticket to the jungle and although it might be a slightly different trip that psilocybin puts me on, it’s the much more accessible alternative to ayahuasca.

I’ve yet to take the ‘heroic dose’ of five grams recommended by McKenna, however, and my three gram trip is still haunting me and egging me on, but I’m cautiously waiting for a sense of the ‘right time’ to take it to the next level. I did ‘get an ‘A’ on my last/ three gram trip, as in, I saw a lot of As out in nature, mostly carved on trees, but also one on a stone I found on the beach and others made of fallen limbs, and crazily enough it continues to this day (some seven months later).

It wouldn’t be so crazy to me if the very first one I saw didn’t cause me to proclaim “I got an A!” and feeling that to be the case with regard to my adventures toward shrooming. Tripping, mind you, is not the regular experience – these things are profound in that state and while it appears that someone long ago had a propensity for carving solitary As on trees along the trail I was on, I’ve noticed them without looking for them on other trails, since, while not tripping. ‘Universe’ is definitely f*&king with me.

At one point, I proclaimed that if I saw another A, I’d have to take them seriously and soon thereafter came across this one that made me feel undeniably astounded. Admittedly, there are As everywhere out there in the woods – go on, look for them and you’ll see, but I still feel that there is some sort of encouragement for me personally in seeing them. I’ll have to post a picture of the stone I found on the beach, because it’s a humdinger.

So, anyway, McKenna is a major voice, too bad he passed away prematurely. He’d have been a great guy to have around now. But, all we can do is listen and learn and apply what he had to say and maybe it’s important that he said what he did before the heat got turned up and on high, because it reminds us that this shit is not new, it’s been a long time coming. You’d think he was among us now the way he talks. I like to listen to him on youtube – just kick back and suck it up because he was a great orator, one of the best in my experience. And, I think he has/had good and important things to say.

So - hats off to Pinchbeck – that’s absolute, but I think we all need to think about what we might add to what he started and he’d probably like that, too.

Aliens among us?

In my efforts to locate answers to the dilemmas we face, and willingness to look beyond the norm for such answers, I have come, reluctantly, to entertain the subject of aliens. Reluctant, because I’m not a sci-fi nut, and, I think, understandably, I find the idea of the reality of aliens creepy and disturbing.

[If you are interested in contemplating the fact of aliens and haven’t heard of Travis Walton, that’s a good place to start. In particular the episode of Paranormal Witness that features the fellow loggers who witnessed and collaborate his abduction story.]

But, here’s the interesting rub in all of that ready discomfort – what if the aliens represent some otherwise hard to find hope for the long-term survival of our species? Some alternative thinkers of note who subscribe to this notion are Major Ed Dames, remote viewer, Clif High of webbots fame, and a variety of UFO and abduction researchers, including Harvard educated John E. Mack, among others.

I acquired a deeper appreciation of the real potential for this possibility by watching a DVD made by a local (mainline) MUFON group of a talk given by David M. Jacobs on his research into the abduction phenomenon – work in which he does not have much company, as he laments.

Most striking about Temple Professor Jacobs is his unassuming and seeming emotional authenticity in presenting the results of his research. Supporting this sense is his departure with many of his colleagues as to the hopefulness of the abduction phenomenon. Jacobs is clearly unsettled by what he has learned; specifically, a hybrid race has been created and hybrids are now being integrated into and among the human population, with the assistance of the abductees under the direction and control of the aliens.

Further, it seems they are anticipating and planning for an ‘event’ which will require coordination of the movement of humans, somehow. Abductees are being shown what they will need to do when this ‘event’ occurs to keep the population calm and moving along, apparently, much like traffic cops.

I have to state, this taped talk did make a deep impression on me, and I thought about it long and hard for hours afterward. As stated, I find Jacobs believable and to exhibit integrity in that he doesn’t suggest that anyone take him at his word, as he himself wouldn’t be inclined to do so, were he us, and urges us all, if so inclined, to look into the matter for ourselves.

But, more than that, his expressed distress over what he has uncovered, mixed emotions and misgivings for having engaged in this work for so long (40 years), and stated embarrassment as to the statements he now feels compelled to make regarding his findings strongly suggest that he is on the up and up, to me, anyway. He’s not a grandiose person, at least.

He seems like a regular guy steeped in an irregular subject that is the cause of some alarm to him. I found myself feeling sorry for him, to a degree, as he seems exhausted by this torch he is carrying without much company or assistance. And, clearly, to his mind, this lack of attention on all of our parts is not a good thing, so no doubt he does feel burdened by his unique knowledge.

He is and acknowledges that most of his colleagues do not have or did not have the same bleak view he holds. In fact, quite to the contrary, many have felt encouraged to learn of this ‘alien agenda’, believing they are not in opposition to us humans, but rather an integral part of us or at least our history somehow and if not acting with our best interests (at heart?) then perhaps nonetheless their actions are or will be in our interest, ultimately.

Jacobs, however, feels and believes that the aliens are much more interested in usurping us than they are in helping us. He believes that they are disinterested in the majority of the human population as it relates to their agenda, that only the abductees might share some benefit of their plan, and that, ultimately, they seek to replace the human population with their hybrids.

I’m no expert, have not done the abductions research for myself, but have read or observed several of the others who have done the research on this topic and tend to believe or to favor their more optimistic view. But then, I’m willing to consider that this hybridization is necessary to keep at least some part of the human race going as a species because, let’s face it, we are driving ourselves to extinction, along with most all other life on this planet and my guess is it won’t be long, even, before we accomplish that maligned task.

The abductees do not get ‘filled in’ on why or how this alien agenda works (apparently, it’s on a ‘need to know’ basis); however, when questioned pointedly as to why this or that, the aliens have stated that this is the only way they can do what needs to be done with regard to the human race and this planet. Vague, but, somehow when I think about it, that makes a lot of sense – putting myself in the shoes of the aliens (is that possible?), anyway.

It’s all a crazy crap shoot.

The End.

An undeniable truth:

Seeing photos of the destruction from the Midwest tornado outbreak yesterday, noting how similar they are to so many photos of like destruction these days. I paused, this time, however, somewhat unable to comprehend the association between the photos and the news at hand.

As flatly stated by the talking heads, it is late in the season for tornados, especially any that far North, and packing that sort of destruction, even more rare. And this, little more than a week from the strongest storm ever to make landfall hitting the Philippines.

My reaction, upon processing? ‘We’re f*&ked!’ It seems, eventually, wherever you are, this new weather phenomenon is going to find you somehow. As many interviewed in connection with the Midwest tornados are stating, ‘you think it won’t ever happen where you are, until it does.’ One day, you are living in that complacent bubble and the next you are looking at years of work just to get back to anything resembling normal and likely living with more fear of a recurrence after completing all of that work.

Trouble for me, as someone who has not ignored the bad news as to what we are looking at environmentally, is I don’t believe we can avoid it. Much as I am disturbed by the lack of emotion displayed as these disturbing events roll out and on, I am unimpressed by the screeching sometimes heard beseeching us to pay attention to climate change. Why?

Take it from me, all it’s going to do is convince you that ‘we are f*^ked’, so I’m not sure how valuable that is – unless you believe it is better to live appropriately depressed about the awfulness of life as opposed to optimizing the bliss of remaining oblivious.

I’ve come full circle from wanting to raise awareness as to what we are facing environmentally to condoning the ‘head in the sand’ approach. When there is nothing you actually can do about something – why stare it down, head on? At least not until you have to, in the form of a tornado, a flood, a tsunami, or the like, hitting your neighborhood and/or home. Sad statement? Yes it is, but, in my view, an undeniable truth.

If you haven't seen this home video, it's worth a look:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o1WMEwd8Al0

Reality is steadily descending on my life and my need to transition from law to a creative life and the obvious problems inherent with this need. I feel that my biggest difficulty, however, is a baseline of depression that I’ve had perhaps all my life. Not for no reason, but still – it’s certainly an unfortuitous fact.

I don’t think that there can be any doubt that my nuclear family dysfunction caused it, to some degree. But I also think my own personality has played a part – I’ve wanted more from my interactions with people, all of my life, than they have borne forth – maybe that is a problem with me, somehow. Yet, I’ve given a lot, I believe, and along the lines of what I wanted returned and it seems the consensus is simply against what I believe in, and has grown ever more so. Although, I also think this fact is a contributing factor to the collective doom we know is out there on the horizon of our existence.

We have failed in our evolution with regard to our interpersonal priorities, in my opinion. We actually don’t put any real premium or place any real attention on these realms – is this an observation that belongs under discussions of the effects of a running patriarchy? Perhaps – I would include it there, although not exclusively, but certainly women have been much more the keepers of the interpersonal reality we all share in, than men.

And, by observing that, I’m not bashing men – I’m looking at it through a big picture lens and simply making an observation. What I am reflecting upon in my own experience has a larger context and it seems part of the oppression or general disregard of the ‘feminine’ which is part of us all, male or female in a yin-yang sense and in a planetary sense, to be sure.

I believe men suffer for the lack of value of the feminine in our society and culture as much and maybe even sometimes more than women do. I also think it’s time to re-examine the rhetoric on this topic because what may once have been true strikes me as a lot of claptrap from my more mature, if only by virtue of years alive on this planet, vantage point.

What am I talking about? I’m talking about the need for discourse between us that goes to the status of us all as individuals as opposed to more strictly competitors in some world ‘out there’ which commands our all consuming attention. We’ve accepted this notion far too much, by my estimation. We’ve abandoned ourselves and each other for what’s ‘out there’ and where we belong in that space as opposed to whom we are unto one another in a familial or communal sense.

I believe this tendency which has been increasing steadily in my lifetime is a significant contributing factor to the noted increase in mental illness at large and the increasingly horrific crimes, most notably the school shootings and other public shootings. These shootings speak of the desperation of individuals to be recognized and heard in their most basic of human needs. And, in their ultimate connectivity to us all, such that we must know they cannot be ignored, not just for themselves but for the greater good of us all. They go out screaming this message, in my view, willing to die, and even murder their own souls, so that it might be heard.

Kumbaya? You betcha. In my view, the moment most of us began to smugly mock that old song was the day some part of our collective music died. And, whatever you may think of that particular song, the loss of the sentiment expressed by it is not a ‘good thing’. We are all connected, like it or not, it’s not something we can just ‘deselect’, any more than basic morality – at least not if we want to survive, we can’t.

Sure those crazy gunmen and women may only get some small number of us, but if we are going to accept that our society produces such ills, why don’t we accept terrorism as well? Why do we fight terrorism and not our own illnesses? Why do we accept the cause of our collective illness while demonizing those wrought upon us from out other cultures and places on our globe?

Can we honestly be saying ‘our mass murderers are better than your mass murderers?’ How insane is that? And, yes, I think the kyboshing of kumbaya is an outcropping of our love affair with capitalism, but it’s gone too far. Anyone who can’t see that just isn’t looking at all of the evidence that even the main stream media can’t help but pump out daily for all of us to review.

Just after writing the above, I watched a YouTube video that promotes belief that these shooters are being programmed by ‘them’ just as the weather is being programmed by ‘them’. These are the sorts of conspiracy theories I do not entertain. They never answer the question of why ‘they’ would want to cause such events. Indeed, many who promote these theories admit they can’t imagine as to why and suggest that question is irrelevant. Wha?

While I don’t know all there is to know about how ‘they’ might be responsible for these things, I don’t believe ‘they’ have managed to create a consensus among scientists that suggests an opposite cause as to the weather events nor do I believe it isn’t possible that the shooters are plain old crazy and therefore must be under the control of ‘them’. I’d suggest that people who promulgate these sorts of conspiracy theories don’t want to own up to their own part in our collective troubles and are looking to ‘Daddy’ to bear the blame.

I’ve been accused of being a Debbie Downer, and I get that, but at the same time, it’s difficult for me, feeling what I feel and intuiting what I intuit, to just join the crowd in pursuit of distraction and avoidance. So many things are happening that are only going to get worse if we collectively remain ignorant and expect someone else to take care of things for us.

Trouble is, I’m not sure what can be done, except to try and raise the collective consciousness. These problems that we face are not accessible for resolution by any one of us, or even a good number of us, we need critical mass. It’s also not just something that comes up for a vote, such that we just need to get out and vote, to address. Again, it comes down to raising consciousness.

Collectively, we need to re-examine our priorities and critically examine how our most reasoned priorities are represented within our society, or perhaps even as a species. The truth is the institutions that exist which once were created to serve society no longer do. We’ve been lied to or kept in the dark for their convenience for a long time now and the chickens of that deceit are coming home to roost.

No longer can we rely on our political system to do the right thing as it has become far too ‘in service’ to corporations which, contrary to the law that gives them status as persons, are not people. Corporations exist to make profit for their shareholders and, increasingly, those who run them. They do not have an inherent interest in the best interests of the public and those running the corporations do not see themselves as ‘in service’ to the public.

This is, in large part, how and why we are becoming more and more misguided and mentally ill, because money affords us no moral compass to foster cohesive psycho-emotional directives for our collective well-being. Maximizing profit is not an altruistic goal – it’s a selfish, predatory one more often and perhaps even exclusively.

The lights are coming on, as reflected by the increasing critiques of capitalism, but we are not at home. Rather, we are dealing with the risk of losing our home, literally and figuratively, with the mounting evidence of extreme threats to the planet, economic collapse, increasing police state efforts, loss of privacy, and random and general lunacy of the populations.

The problem, therefore, is not that no one is home, as the lights come on, but that our home is at so much risk as to consume us, so that we cannot afford to take in what the light illuminates. Most often, therefore, we willingly close our eyes.

We have left the sight afforded by the light to be seen only by the brave so-called ‘conspiracy theorists’. We glibly disregard them as such, without pausing to consider that there is no inherent flaw to believing in conspiracy. We are, in our human drama, constantly conspiring, every day in every way.

Simply noting that someone is speaking or theorizing about a ‘conspiracy’ does not ipso facto make what they are saying some sort of idiocy. Further, often what is dismissed as ‘conspiracy theory’ is often not talk of conspiracy at all, but rather a review of the culminating effects of actions taken by others.

In short, the primary intent to disregard what we don’t want to hear by calling it a ‘conspiracy theory’ is a transparent one. While many people feel relief within their mental processes by readily engaging in such dismissals, we are not serving ourselves with such smug, short-sighted self-assurances.

As someone who has been trying to make sense of an impending sense of doom for perhaps all of my life, I’ve found the so-called conspiracy theorists to be the only ones willing to speak of anything that might actually offer a clue. Everyone else is just repeating the same old songs and dances that aren’t effectively keeping us in good health or out of danger. They are like the dance band on the Titanic, playing on as the ship sinks beneath the surface to its watery grave.

Before coping can be discussed, there exists an entire array of mechanisms we can employ to avoid the sense of any need to cope, chief among these being denial. There are many forms of denial as well, including willful and naïve, self-serving and, arguably, altruistic, as in, I can’t bear to think of those I love suffering these things and therefore I must deny their existence.

Our psychological health or lack thereof is a subject heavily implicated in the state of the world to day, in fact. We see many accusations abounding of psychopathologies, narcissism, addiction, and, at the root of all of these, perhaps, the loss of moral compass and a proper reverence for life and/or a properly optimistic approach to the living of life. Most mental health professionals seem to be in agreement that as a society we are experiencing a decline, overall. The question arises as to whether this is cause or effect. I suggest that it is both, and that we are caught up in a sort of snowball effect.

One wonders (or I do, anyway) if the apparent loss of care and concern for one’s neighbor that has crystalized into certifiable forms within certain political ideologies might be the ultimate cause of the forseeable demise of, not just some segments of the population that are viewed as deserving of rebuke and even death (if it should come to that and it clearly could as the result of policies being pushed where they are concerned), but of our entire species along with many others.

Jesus said ‘love thy neighbor as thyself’, and perhaps for reasons well beyond the hopeful ‘feel good’ effect or even entry into the kingdom of heaven after a life well lived. Jesus may have conveyed that message out of love for us as a species, knowing that, if we should fail to heed that advice, we might ultimately fail as a species. It seems entirely likely to me that Jesus was speaking to us from that vantage point as one of the main aspects of His love was that it was not a love for one, or even for a many, but for everyone.

Before you get the wrong impression that I am a ‘Jesus freak’, I am not, although I don’t have much argument with the statements attributed to Jesus and do believe that, whatever or whoever Jesus was, His intentions were beyond reproach. Some of the concepts as to who or what Jesus may have been that I entertain are way beyond a belief in Jesus as a Messiah. I seriously wonder if Jesus may have been an extraterrestrial (more on Ets later, but this theory dispenses with one big problem I’ve had – which is the so-called ‘virgin birth’) – that’s how far my mind has opened over the last decade plus.

So, I’m not concerned that the reader might think I’m ‘out there’. Know it, I am ‘out there’, because there is nowhere else to be when in search of answers to the big questions of any age and especially our’s today, I think, with all of the culminating events and their effects that we are forced to grapple with somehow. Hence ‘coping with madness’ is what I hope to accomplish. I’m not afraid to consider anything that might help me to make sense of this mess we are in today and believe that is what it will take to do so. There are no nice tidy answers or we’d have found them already.

I believe that the snowball effect may well have started when all of the norms and mores of our past were thrown into questionable service as a result of all of the easing of our need to stay connected with the earth for survival brought about by the ready availability of fossil fuels and continuing up to and through the technological advances that are on the brink of running away from us collectively if they haven’t already.

We aren’t, perhaps, able as a species to handle these break-throughs on a strictly physical plane of existence and we may not be ready, on the other planes of existence they require of us, to handle them, besides. This is not a novel idea, but presented here in the simplest of terms, because I think ‘keep it simple’ is a good motto on this course of inquiry. It’s already exceedingly complex enough. But, it’s true, I believe, that without solid mental health, including a reliably good moral compass, our technology might prove disasterous for us the same as it did, as lore goes, for Atlantis.

People say ‘technology got us into this and technology will have to get us out’, but I suggest that involves a belief in some sort of ‘ghost in the machine’; whereas, I believe that we must be the inhabitors of the machine and not some sort of ghost that might well be from hell. Most ghosts are not in a ‘happy place’ if you haven’t noticed.

Yes, I may be running amok with hard to follow metaphors, etc., but that’s appropriate enough, these days, what with the snowball bearing down on us and all, so I hope you will bear with me or at least enjoy some of the ride, as in “I may be going to hell in a bucket, but … at least I’m enjoying the ride” Bring on The Dead.

Which reminds me, Jim Morrison definitely seems to have a place in this story, what with his unending fascination with death and notable psychopathology – a true ‘God’ for our times. Just listened to The Doors boxed set and it really scratched an itch I wasn’t even aware of having – long live the Lizard King. He too may have died for all of us, although he bears no other ready resemblence to Jesus Christ, to be sure.

We can see our shadow selves through the journey he takes us on with his poetic lyrics. And, I have to agree with Jung, our failure to examine said shadows selves might be the cause of our ultimate downfall. Jung had a deathbed vision of our times which was none to pretty (add him to the list!) and to his mind it was due to this failure to examine our shadow selves. So, get out The Doors and take an enjoyable, if at times squirmy, listen.