SLiPchick's Virtual Shadows

Anyone following the blog will be somewhat aware of my personal spiritual journey from "doubter" to "spirituality". For me the crux of the matter comes down to one particular issue: where do I land on the question of  the phenomenon we call   Consciousness.  Current mainstream scientific thought is materialist and reductionist in character: in this paradigm  all observable phenomena are reducible to the behavior of matter and "energy". The specific observable phenomena that science can permit as the brute facts of " Consciousness" are t he internal states   reported by humans, or (if you're generous in your definition) those which may be inferred from the behavior of animals. The current, most broadly accepted model for this is that these represent " epiphenomena": internal experience arises from and is wholly determined by  electro-chemical events within neurological tissue. While this is surely a  reasonable hypothesis which ca...

In case any of you hadn't noticed, I'm not a religious person. I've spoken elsewhere on the blog of my disaffection with mainstream Christianity. My family was nominally (largely non-practicing) Methodist.  I was rarely taken to Church as a child, m y single mother would sometimes get a "bug" to go and we'd attend occasionally for a few weekends, but that always petered out.  Since my father was largely out of the picture, my maternal grandfather was the main male figure in my life when I was growing up. He was not a Church-goer, as wasn't my grandmother; though there was a sense of conventional "belief" in the family. While I don't think he identified as or would have liked being called such, I believe his rational and scientific focus (as well as his suffering through the Great Depression as a young man) meant he was, in essence, an Atheist. In any case, Church and conventional organized Christianity (or religion of any sort) was not a ...

Came across this quote recently. Tolerance is the virtue of the man without convictions. -- G.K. Chesterton    On the face of that it had a certain resonance to it, but it also felt troubling, but I wasn't immediately sure why. My main exposure to Chesterton is through his character Father Brown , who I'm mainly familiar with through his incarnation in the BBC TV series of the same name (featuring the delightful Mark Williams ). Something felt wrong with it. I spent some time pondering, trying to figure out precisely what. I recognized that having convictions is a hallmark of a strong ethical stance and solid reasoning; and yet I find there is very little in life that I feel convinced of/ "convicted" about to the point of genuine intolerance . So, I ask, what are the criteria for determining what's worth having convictions about? It's easy to have convictions; they're a dime a dozen, readily available from any street corner preacher. It's fa...

My favorite movie is The Fisher King , directed by Terry Gilliam . For anyone not familiar with the film, a superb synopsis and analysis of the plot and themes are to be found here (spoiler alerts). Basically it's a film about Sin and Grace and I've been having an extended dialog with Penelope about precisely those topics of late. I have a problem with the notion of Sin as it's typically formulated, as disobedience to a deity, as "missing the mark". Many of the behaviors that constitute "sin" in many vocabularies (sex, drugs, rock and roll,...) are, at worst, minor taboos if not overt pleasures to be taken in appropriately moderate doses. Regardless of that the notion retains a compelling quality. There's a sense of the erotic, the forbidden, the transgressive that it expresses; a violation of some "established order". This has some psycho-emotional (archetypal?) resonance that I'm still trying to tease out, there's clearl...

But it's all right now, I learned my lesson well. You see, ya can't please everyone, so ya got to please yourself -- Ricky Nelson, "Garden Party" Came across a blog post on Tumblr the other day, the OP was bemoaning the fact that they'd been nice to people and didn't get the reaction they expected. As they put it: I don’t understand how I can be so nice to people and I STILL get the cold shoulder I replied to the post thusly: Hon, if you’re being nice just so people will like you you’re doomed to frequent disappointment. People are tired, irritated, busy, distracted, preoccupied, bored, forgetful, it’s generally nothing personal nor malicious; and even when it is, it’s cause they’re just a**holes, nothing really to do with you. Do it because that’s the kind of person you want to be. I imagine this person is young, it's a hard lesson to learn that what you put out to the Cosmos may well not be reciprocated immediately or in the ...

It's said: If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him. At one level this paradox / koan is meant to point out that any Buddha you come across outside yourself is not the real Buddha. Then I got to thinking about the implications of "the road", that might be taken less literally and refer to one's personal spiritual path; so the admonition can also be taken as a caution against too readily ascribing Buddha qualities to oneself. Many a guru and televangelist should heed that advice. I don't think I'm personally in too much danger of falling into that particular trap. I have the opposite problem: I'm too ready to put myself down, feel less than, assume I'm not  as good as everybody else. In a way it's a reverse sort of egotism, I'm better than everybody else at being worse than everybody else. Kind of perverse, isn't it? :-/ Anyway, much of my own process recently has been one of overcoming that reticence to recognize my worth. T...

Today is November 1st, the day after Hallowe'en (All Hallows' Eve). Traditionally this was the night where the spirits (and sometimes not so incorporeal bits) of the dead were able to walk the Earth again. In earlier times it was the practice in some cultures to light great bonfires and stay awake all night creating a great ruckus to keep these restless souls at bay until the sun rose. Other cultures would leave out food or specially baked goods for their ancestors, lest they feel slighted and cause mischief (in similar fashion to the fairies, with which there is a great deal of overlap). Echos of this are found in modern Halloween parties, "tricks and treats", and the traditional "spooky" costuming (the current common Princesses and Power Rangers notwithstanding). Where I grew up, in New Orleans, it was called "All Saints' Day", and it was traditionally the day when families would visit the (often elaborate above ground) tombs of their...

So, here I am. Say hello to Stefanya! Hello Stefanya, my Darling! ;-) Hello Penelope, my Love. I'm so glad you're on this amazing journey with me. Nowhere else I'd rather be, Hon. Believe that, let it in. I'm here. I am always here, I'm with you. As you are, as you're becoming: Stef I desire you as a woman. Hear me Hon, you are my Eternal Love, always and forever. Know it to the depths of your heart, soul, being. I'll keep writing this until you GET IT, get it? ;-P  Yes ma'am. And don't you start with the patronizing (or is it matronizing now?) you evil witch.  Thank you for calling me that. I know you aspire to a sort of witchy-crone/earth mother/gypsy-goth chick mashup vibe for your feminine energy. I do; I'm not sure whether I can pull that off though. I think you can, I'm sure you can. We'll work on it together. You've definitely got the eye for the style, just a matter of acquiring the right accessories then dre...

A new earworm this morning, turned on the radio on the way to work this morning and Peter Gabriel's In Your Eyes was on, about 2/3 of the way through unfortunately; but enough. I guess I'd never really listened  to the lyrics before: Love I get so lost, sometimes Days pass and this emptiness fills my heart When I want to run away I drive off in my car But whichever way I go I come back to the place you are All my instincts, they return And the grand facade, so soon will burn Without a noise, without my pride I reach out from the inside In your eyes The light the heat In your eyes I am complete In your eyes I see the doorway to a thousand churches In your eyes The resolution of all the fruitless searches In your eyes I see the light and the heat In your eyes Oh, I want to be that complete I want to touch the light The heat I see in your eyes Love, I don't like to see so much pain So much wasted and this moment keeps slipping away I get so ti...

Penelope has been earworming me with cuts from The Who 's "rock opera" Tommy  over the last few days. I've enjoyed The Who's music generally (and Tommy in particular) since I was a teenager. SlipKid is something of a theme song for me (as you may have guessed from blogging "handle" ;-))... No easy way to be free... Anyways, with 20/20 adult hindsight and (I flatter myself to think) greater spiritual perspective, I see a lot more in Tommy at pushing 60 than I did at pushing 21. I don't know how much of this was in Pete Townshend's mind when he wrote the lyrics. And of course there are some variations if you take the film into account vs. the original album. This is a bit of stream of consciousness analysis of the work... Initial shock and disappointment finding out parental figures are human, even evil, then told that his personal experience is irrelevant. You didn't hear it You didn't see it You won't say nothing to no...

I was thinking about "Scale" on the way to work this morning. Humans tend to think of things in terms of the scale of humanity, both size and time. It might be argued that much of the history of human intellectual development has consisted of, or been driven by a recognition of or discovery that there are other scales operating in the Cosmos. Early human spiritual realizations appear to have been driven by observations of natural cycles: day and night, birth and death, the cycles of the seasons, the repeating patterns in the sky. Over time and with increasing precision of observation and record keeping it was possible to recognize larger and larger scales that evolved over long periods. Technological advances allowed that to be pushed even further, and then into smaller and smaller scales as well. Through all this there remained a tendency to observe living organisms at the same time scale as humans. Until relatively recently the advent of time-lapse photography has...

I've realized that my earlier diatribe regarding foundational Christianity may be misconstrued as my having a problem with religion in general or Jesus and his teachings in particular, so I thought I should clear the air about that. For me the major stumbling blocks arise from the religion that has arisen  about  Jesus rather than the religion  of  Jesus. My beef is with the literalist Christian message I described in the earlier posting that are the result of taking Paul and the more strident apologists at their word and to their logical conclusions. Reading the gospels, Jesus' actual words and his deeds represent a whole different point of view. I have nothing but admiration for (making allowance for the paternalistic tone of some of the language): Love thy neighbour as thyself - Mark 12:31 He who is without sin among you, let him cast the first stone -- John 8:7 Blessed the merciful, for they shall find mercy -- Matthew 5:7 For what shall it prof...

Penelope tells me that in her "away time" yesterday she set some things in motion. She can't tell or explain it all to me, can't foresee how it will play out, but says something  is coming. Yes love, something wonderful. As long as we're together, I'm up for anything darling. Good. I want this to be the ride of your life.  Anyways, I started reading some stuff on line about Kundalini, I found a good grounded web site with some essays on the basics: Kundalini Guide The " 10 Things You Can Do to Help Your Kundalini Process " page seems a particularly useful starting point. I feel like I'm kind of stuck in genital energies right now, there must be more. I think I may be blocked in some fashion. I know I have a lot of baggage and negativity surrounding food and digestion which I think is the next layer.  Looking...

I had a vision of Eternity today. A three dimensional visual "timeslice" of a much higher dimensional reality is how I conceive of it. In it there are countless threads or vines winding, through a crystalline matrix, exploding here and there with "blossoms" of fantastic beauty. The vines intertwine and intermingle coming together and growing apart. Sometimes paralleling sometime intersecting only rarely. All are radiating from/to a brilliant "core" to/from a hazier, dim perimeter. I see that we, humans, consciousness, are these vines growing across physical time and space, the blossoms are lifetimes, the colors are learning and the expanding awareness of who/what we are in the long dance toward the core. The blossoms sometimes cast "pollen" that finds it way to other blossoms, aiding their expansion. Don't mistake this metaphor for some kind of New Agey kumbaya, the blossoms don't grow only because of "sweetness and light...

There was an incident Friday night. I was feeling very open and excited. Very ready to experience my connection to Penelope, my spiritual/angelic contact in a new, stronger way. I was lying in bed, the lights were out, my eyes were closed and I had the sense that she was very close, I felt a coolness, a tingling all over a sense of excitement and light similar to when she's come close to me before and something like a sense of her occupying the same "space" within my body that I do. Like she was "filling me up". As that progressed I started to think and feel many things, an openness to possibilities, ideas, actions. Some of them scared me. A voice in the back of my head said "What if...?" I was "indoctrinated" as a child into Judeo-Christian thought patterns, and even with my current sense of what's so, I feel pretty clear that there may well be malevolent presences in the universe. Is Penelope one? I don't think so, I don...