The Fourth Eye

The integration of mind and heart is essential for the survival and development of the human race. This core message wears many masks but ultimately the same truth is expressed. Those who explore hidden realms in order to widen their bandwidth of context and experience need to remember that the journey goes beyond rejection of status quo, beyond situational aware ness of what is unbelievable to most, and does not stop at being "woke" or trying to shock people awake.

When we stumble upon a new layer of experience that shifts our way of thinking and living, we may get so excited or so enraged or so punch drunk in love with some idea that we decide Everyone Everywhere needs to know right now and boy are they lucky we're here to wake them up. That's when it's time to be careful.

The first problem is that you can't force enlightenment. People don't wake up until they're good and ready, and some will smack the hell out of you without even getting out of bed. We all get used to our routines as a function of the survival circuit. We wouldn't be here as a species otherwise, so it's a blessing, but it's very easy to abuse, so it's a curse. We normalize whatever is going on while we're enduring it, until something cracks the glass and we notice how small our world has gotten.

The other problem is that you aren't really enlightened yet, and actually nobody is. The problem with all the verbs for awakening is that people use the past tense. Once the chain reaction begins, there's a shedding of dead weight trend toward growth. It's a process that feels done from time time time but never really is. People who claim to be enlightenED are mistaken. Unfolding into eternity is a present tense thing, not a trophy or a bedpost notch. It is, therefore, dangerous and stupid to decide you are a prophet.

The stages of spiritual development are simultaneously death throes and birth pains. The caterpillar doesn't just fashion wings. It has to dissolve the body of its youth and undergo metamorphosis to progress beyond mindless consumption into flight and a new set of senses. The Monarch butterfly is so vibrant a symbol because it's raised on poison and turns it into stunning beauty with a legacy of endurance. The world is currently in a state of high toxicity in the literal and metaphysical sense, and with that classic human adaptability we have learned to survive on it. This is good in the short term but unsustainable.

To extend the metaphor, we've gone through several molts as a species and seem to have entered the chrysalis. Whether we emerge as Monarch butterflies or Death's Head moths has yet to be seen, and it depends on whether we can reconnect our thinking to our knowing. Before this integration can occur, we should observe that at the moment, we are stuck in our heads. Our world is the product of unchecked ego driven by unclean and artificial compulsions that keep us in a trance, living small and often lonely lives. It's an easy mistake, so there's no need to beat ourselves up. As it turns out it's damn profitable to cultivate the sort of psychosocial environment that breeds these weeds.

Flashback! Life in ancient days was terrifying, and we gave up liberty for the security offered to us by the proto-sociopaths who figured out how to lie and how to not feel those pesky pangs of empathy. Coercion was born when the first ape lifted the first stone with lethal intent and felt the quiver of a satisfied smile. The seed of the police state was planted when the skull-crusher subset learned to sell protection to the weaker shadow-caster types who could only manage a good lie. We named those politicians, and we let the twins of fraud and force run the same scam for a few hundred thousand years. Cut to now.

We can do without the self-loathing and guilt that comes once we realize we've behaved badly and surrendered our power to the least deserving, but responsibility remains. The time has come to be honest about our share of the blame and convert it into our share of the work to be done. We procrastinate because there's a bit of us still waiting for a beating from the surrogate parents we call "the system." It's rather teenaged and we lash out in primitive reflex. Rebellion is essential kindling, but when it's held on to past its usefulness all it does is steal the fire. Why are we still hanging on to the thrill of that first flipped bird? Ok, ok, screw this and to hell with that, but what now?

Mind is a vehicle. It's time for each of us to clean out the car. The first step is to reclaim autonomy one day at a time, one moment at a time by understanding that walking in lockstep with environmental madness is just easier, not better. The wolf you feed is the wolf that breeds. It's a question of resonance. A little bass gives your daily driving music some meat, but too much will shake the license plate off. In the same way, too much obedience removes your identity.

Part of the reason we're all so frenetic is that we're trying to get and hoard cash. Money is magic and the bill everyone in America has access to the economic spectrum is a talisman. There have been terabytes written about what that weird little eye on the back of the dollar bill is meant to be. You know, the one floating over the pyramid. I've heard 'em all, from a salad bar of gods and demons to the gland in the center of your brain. The thing is, people are missing the point. Any of the above may be true to various cults and cultures, but look at it this way: count your eyes. Haven't you got a pair, and isn't the business end of the visual sense stereoscopic vision? There's a lot of real estate in the brain devoted to sight. Why do we imagine the 3rd eye is the only one we need to see the subtler world?

For command of space, we have to understand dimension. Depth perception demands a pair working in harmony. With just one eye, then, you're seeing the image but missing the full context. This is exactly the problem we've got, for we have abandoned the intuitive sight of the heart for the sight of the mind. Intellect divorced from empathy well describes that skull-crusher/shadow-caster parasite class and the paranormal counterparts we've come up with to say it without saying it.

Now you know whose eye that is. Maybe this whole grand hustle comes down to submitting to a world where indeed we are the blind and the one eyed man is king. So what's to do? You can spend a lifetime learning the details of the prison but there's little point if you can't embrace life on the outside. You can scratch the days on the wall or scrape out a hole through the floor under the bunk.

Open your heart and you open your other eye. It may burn at first, as all new eyes do, but in time new levels of subtlety and context will present themselves. The eye of the heart sees through the projections. It doesn't have to think because it knows.

The mind doesn't like this, or rather, the parasitic resonances installed by vulture culture into the egoic level of the mind get angry when they're not pushing all the buttons and pulling all the levers. Boy, they can make a racket. Imagine toddlers on military quality speed with megaphones and automatic weapons.

In contrast, the deep heart is cool and patient because it is in touch with the eternal. It doesn't need to debate, or convince, or verbally eviscerate for a cheap hit of dopamine. It is satisfied, so the pleasures it takes through benevolent actions are not covering up pain but adding up to joy. You can, I'll tell you, get your sea legs by doing nice things for the slightly less cheap dopamine hits. It's practice and eventually becomes natural.

People can tell in the eyes when you look with the heart instead of the mind. It's a lot like the difference between the smile you do for pictures versus the smile that comes when you're focused and doing what feels right. You know, the one the paintings and statues have. That classic "archaic" smile. What's the scoop, Mona Lisa and Saint Whoever? The secret is the knowing of the heart.

So my advice to anyone who's unpacking a new world view is to listen to the mind but hold off on believing it just yet. Give yourself the time to observe and explore without judgment. Practice opening that second inner eye so you can understand what all the analytic chatter means in contrast to the reference point you carry at your core.

Another thing to remember always is that our experience reflects who we are. If you're seeing patterns and shapes and hues dance endlessly in the world, you are the source of the beat that drives them. Again, this is not the time to blame or shame, it's the time to get clear. When we feel we need to fix the world, we must dig down past the emotion and see that our duty begins inside.

It sure feels more appropriate to jump into our cause of choice, but if we're honest, we know this is procrastination in hero drag. We owe it to our shot at life to do our best, and we won't bring what we're truly capable of to the effort as long as we're haunting our present with the ghosts of our past. If we don't banish our demons first we dare not play exorcist. Astral curb stomps are a thing to be avoided.

So thank you and welcome and do speak up. Do tell us your old stories and your new discoveries. Scare us a little more awake and remind us how to see what we have learned to ignore. Show the way to the forgotten places. Shine a light on those unspeakable forms of darkness. But, and this goes out to you and me both, get all your eyes open before you fret about "the blind." We'll be ready when you are.

The Dwindling Age of the Gilded Cage

You can't wield a certain level of material power while you have empathy. So there are ways to shed it, and it's conducive to sort of bleed it out of populations to facilitate the grand hustles. Empathy is key to who we really are, who we forgot we were. A lack of empathy is essential for acceleration into the upper echelons which indeed seem to be under the jurisdiction of forces with no empathy at all.

Thus all the horror and corruption that seems impossible or worthy of ridicule to people who can't feel it's reality goes on and is shrugged off even even noticed. Meanwhile the same baffles and crushes those of us who have resisted anesthesia. It gets worse and worse even as it is unveiled because the people perpetrating it have become harmonized to the dull hum of their own control machinery and don't know how to switch it off. They are slaves of another kind. We imagine them as masters but maybe they're really much closer to fevered, spent addicts who must go into darker areas and do more unspeakable things just to keep the damned thing in motion.

Because they have traded in humanity for power, they have only power. So if the connection for power demands Hell on Earth, Hell they will construct and maintain.  But the thing is, empathy is the glue of what is eternal beneath the material veneer of life and nothing holds without it. No empire, no dynasty, no secret beitherhood or cult lasts forever, however ancient or entrenched. 

Resist, subvert, dismantle, but do not become a demon to fight the Devil. Hang on, and keep your heart about you. The game is getting good.  

Someone may need to read this today.

It can be very hard to sort out how to live a good life in a world that seems to subsidize evil. It can wear you out and choke your hope and if left alone it can turn you into what you hate.

You can't force others to be kind. You can't force circumstance to be preferable. What you or I or anyone can do is influence by improving our own nature to be less destructive, more measured. You can be strong without being violent. Violence may have a place for you in defense, I don't know, but self-violence will only remove the chance to escape this situation. It does take time. It does take work. And these things seem ridiculous and impossible when you're in the thick of such emotions.

Let me ask you something. Can you, for the length of one breath, think of nothing an experience the breath completely? It is hard. I am still learning, but I started late. Maybe you're getting in earlier in your game and have a shot at mastery before my age. It does work and it does return power to yourself to control your own mind and reactions.

I hope you'll try it, but either way, I hope you will find relief and a path to lasting and increasing peace. And if you can't, I hope you'll reach out for the context and support of people who can help.

Smoking Mirrors

Is time a straight line or does it just feel like one because we live one piece of experience at a time?

Why does time and life sometimes feel like a circle?

What shape is a line and a circle at the same time?

If you were traveling this shape, would you see patterns of repetition?

Would these patterns have a resonance, an overall greater pattern?

What if something obscured the greater pattern by adding noise to the signal?

Would you remember the context of your journey if the path were obscured?

Can we expand this to a cultural level?

Does human memory have a tendency to degrade?

How did we used to maintain integrity of our stories?

Why did we abandon these practices?

Who benefits in a world of blinded travelers?

What is consensus?

How is it maintained?

Can it be used to shape the journey of a people or even species?

Who are the apparent gatekeepers of consensus?

What is their apparent agenda?

How do they seem to operate?

Have the public ever been experimented on without their knowledge?

Might an experiment into sabotaging collective memory create confusing changes in remembered history?

What might be the goal of changing the collective sense of history?

Break the trance and eat more plants.

I have two simple words for what ails ya. 

Eat plants.

Nothing but plants if you're serious. But more plants, at the very least. Spend a little time on research, there's a wealth of info behind the spin. Spend a little energy breaking habits and dependence, you don't be have to keep doing things that hurt you after 5 minutes of pleasure. Spend a little money on a blender and some cookware. Start somewhere. The rewards are both immediate and long term. You don't have to feel like this. How do you think the "elite" eat? Their private chefs aren't serving them Frankenmeat and fried cheese puffs. Be your own private chef. 

The whole "normal" system is carcinogenic now. Earth, air and water are compromised, so you have to bring the purifying fire. You really think we survived for 300 thousand years to die fat and stupid and in pain on a wrecked world? This system is toxic at literal and metaphorical levels. It's a deep dish lasagna of depravity. If there wasn't already a Hell, we built one.

But hey, you don't have to be there. We're at a pivotal moment here. The animal kingdom is begging for mercy. The vegetable kingdom wants to recruit you as another monarch and remind you of your proper place in the web of life when you're done messing with the grid of death. 

Animal products have to be taken by coercion or worse and they kill you after they hook you and reprogram your biome for addiction. Plants give food and medicine away and it gives you vitality. It's an easy choice and I can tell you that it's far simpler to make the 180 than you think. There's no need to feel bad about being deceived, but now that you've thought about the problem, it's on you to be part of the solution.

Comment if you're curious. Happy to help.

"Ernest Hemingway once wrote, 'The world is a fine place and worth fighting for.' I agree with the second part."

They say a picture is worth 1000 words. If that's so, and if there are 30 frames per second of video, then this film is worth over 23,000 words. It's an encyclopedia of uncomfortable truths and an epic tale of potential redemption. I urge you to take the time to watch this, with your full attention. There's so much here. Some of it may only interest a few, but all of us are affected.

This movie struck me so hard that I had to spend the time to go through it almost frame by frame and unpack its messages. It speaks without any language, but because its payload is so vital, I have listed my observations below.

NOTHING BUT SPOILERS BELOW. BE WARNED. And also, be warned that this is but my interpretation based on having my ear to the ground and my eye in the rabbit hole for most of my life. The creator of this film wishes to remain mostly unknown for now, so I was not able to get an interview at this time. The mystery of original intent remains, as it must in all good art,  but I feel the following is a list of important takeaways.

For best results, watch it once in one sitting, then come back and follow along with me moment to moment. If this is your first toe-dip into the occult, conspiracy theory, or just a peek behind the curtain we all know isn't quite right, buckle up.

0:11 

Unity becomes Trinity to begin to know itself.

0:18 

Trinity assumes consciousness to do the work of spreading into infinite forms to continue the work.

0:23 

Infinity sprawls from Trinity.

0:30 

Human consciousness awakens.

0:36 

The Sun is eclipsed by a cubic, dark Earth. The planet already looks like a prison.

0:46 

A strange island punctuates dark water, like Earth in Space.

0:49 

A floating cluster of wrong-angled skyscrapers floats above a grid of city dwellers.

1:03 

Monolithic, one structure towers above the rest as the reference point. The center around which all else revolves here in the dark city.

1:05 

Its penthouse, suggestive of a black cube, floats like the capstone on the dollar's pyramid and displays a sinister red glow. A darkness funnels into the ceiling, and a tie to the wotrship of
ancient forces is suggested. 

1:13 

Pillar-like forms are revealed to be robed cultists with heads bowed in fevered worship, invoking a Red Cube into existence. The cube immediately points to the various cults which have
worshipped a black cube representing Saturn (the symbolic god of time and harvest, and devourer even of his own children, not the planet, though the planet itself sports a strange hexagonal
shape which is itself a kind of cube). Each has a pipeline or control cable attached but from where?

To me this says that there is always a greater mystery no matter how far up the chain you
go in this world. It's easy to laugh such sinister notions off, but they are plain once you catch a glimpse. For example, there is a literal Brotherhood of Saturn in apparent operation, one of many such cults that seem to have threads leading back to what I call The Capstone Zone, or the unseen part of government and world power.

Supernatural or not, there is a grid of exploitation over this world and from it cancer grows. The cube here may be red rather than black to accentuate the sinister nature and ties to violence of all kinds. All control over others involves violence. Knowing this is essential to reshaping our world through our behavior.

1:21 

The Red Cube of control infects a solitary host, and replaces his heart with a hollow and darkened space. It radiates and spreads, becoming "normal."

1:23 

New hosts are buckled under the weight of new pain and submit to the Red Cube. Pressure, pushing down on all of us, like the song says.

1:28 

The population of the human zoo either suffers chronic headaches/mental anguish (in addition to a scattered and erratic state of mind) or plays deaf to each other's experience. Ever seen a fox in a fur farm? You'd recognize the look on its face.

1:28 

Human sardines keep the pace of their labors in spite of their constant suffering. We know not what we do.

1:41 

Obsession with material property is hollow.

1:46 

Obsession with image is pointless.

1:50 

Mental decay follows on from chronic stress and material distraction.

1:55 

The blazing pace of time blown in unfulfilling careers creates an upside-down life.

2:00 

Everywhere we see hollowed hearts and fogged minds.

2:03 

The commodification of false happiness is the sign of our times.

2:08 

The adoption of The Lifelong Mask is a bad bet but it seems the only choice.

2:13 

Indoctrination of intoxication is universal. We go to great lengths not to feel.

2:22 

Within the intoxicated state, the rediscovery of connection comes with the permission that comes from exhaustion. This has been made into a false norm.

2:28 

The union implied in the previous scene produces a new life.

2:31 

The child is intact with unspoiled energetic centers. 

2:35 

Upon an argulably unnatural birth, the child is traumatized and potentially poisoned.

2:39 

The child appears to reject Red Cube control, the face wearing slow beating boredom that comes with industrial education, yet a spark of original thought is present. 

2:42 

The child's teacher/handler sucks out the divergent thoughts and the Red Cube appears.

2:45 

Authority leads children to their place in the grid.

2:50 

The adolescent is filled with empathy-numbing drugs and pushed by circumstance into the military, where another layer of control is installed.

3:00 

War profiteers display their trade, and the media-woven veil over it is shown in action.

3:19 CUT TO COMMERCIAL (Imagery of false eternal bliss through possessions projected to children)

3:20 

Hypersexuality stands in for talent, with the wink that signifies membership in a certain "club." Notice it here and you may see it everywhere.

3:23 

The specter of casting couch culture takes its invisible toll, and there is a reference to a yet darker side to the management of public idols. Human sacrifice, slavery, and mind control take many forms.

3:25 

Royals are also slaves to The Narrative.

3:33 

Exaggerated role models fascinate the masses who project themselves onto the big screen.

3:27 

Films can inspire and educate, but dark agendas seem to be behind cinematic trends. Illusions within illusions.

3:42 

Shame creates allegiance to Red Cube as the howls of advertising overcome the individual.

3:47 

Nothing material fills the widening hole left by the need for connection and acceptance.

3:50 

Technology provides a savior in the form of a perfect distraction. The monolith from 2001 in every pocket.

3:53 

All reality becomes virtual, as persona replaces personality.

3:58 

Romance is replaced by an algorithm, and chemisty is replaced by "compatibility" quizzes.

4:01 

Conversation becomes nonverbal and 1-dimensional.

4:09 

Simulated war becomes entertainment while real victims remain invisible ghosts.

4:14 

Narcissism distracts the population from the ruin of the environment.

4:18 

Consumerism becomes the only available ecstatic experience.

4:20 

Fashion oscillates between extremes to drive trends.

4:22 

The invisible horrors of the fur trade stand in contrast to the artificial luxury.

4:25 

The trance of cosmetics and the insanity of animal testing are juxtaposed.

4:30 

Personality cracks after years of trying to fit fashion, and the incredible suffering of the female is revealed.

4:36 

Desperate perversion surrounds a hypersexualized woman reduced to one dimension of existence.

4:44 

Males deform themselves into hideous stereotypes for attention while their inner selves are crippled with loneliness.

4:46 

Attention farming becomes the norm.

4:54 

Activism online is becoming a puppet show. There's a spectrum of useful idiots, controlled opposition, and outright shills helping the empire along. Recent research shows that a huge chunk of the people you may be arguing with aren't people at all, but software pushing agendas.

5:00 

The willfully ignored reality of industrial meat and dairy production is displayed. We treat animals the way psychopaths treat the rest of us. 

5:12 

The brutality of consuming animals insatiably is portrayed. Its consequences follow.

5:17 

The hubris of man synthesizing the gifts of the plant kingdom and its effect in the propagation of disease are shown.

5:28 

Industrialized medicine and pharmacology as panacea are revealed as a grand hustle. Many in the field mean well, but wellness isn't the goal for the show-runners.

5:41 

The modern doctor is shown as a pusher with a million dollar smile. While not the rule, it's hardly the exception. 

5:58 

A drug developer poses like the image of Baphomet, demonstrating the malevolent use of chemistry as a control mechanism. He is rewarded with wealth. Pillars return, perhaps to signify a connection back to the Death Cult from the beginning. 

6:03 

Dog-eat-dog goes literal on the Stock Exchange.

6:17 

Taxpaper funds the politician, who funds the military, who funds the mercenary, who funds invisible war and terrorism.

6:21 

Addict pays dealers, who pay CIA traffickers.

6:30 

Washington launders drug money to fund "foreign affairs" and "black budget" projects while social programs and infrastructure are deprived.

6:35 

Fiat currency is based on confidence rather than anything real. We used to be able to trade paper money for the gold it represented. Now money is printed on demand to create the illusion of wealth. It's among the most powerful spells in human history, the false idol of the whole world.

6:40 

Retirees are bilked and milked, their robberies celebrated by professional thieves in finance.

6:49 

Water is commodified into oblivion.

6:54 

Indigenous peoples are destroyed in the name of "progress."

6:59 

Dissent is criminalized, stigmatized, and the people go silent.

7:03 

Entire populations are sold out by deals between like-minded sociopaths.

7:10 

After centuries of overt enslavement, black people are herded into hells and in such circumstances, a generation loses its fathers to crime and drugs.

7:16 

The social mechanisms destroying the black community are peddled to their young in glorified caricatures. New chains, new slaves. Their distant brethren are digging up the diamonds they sell with their music.

7:27 

The madness of racism prevents alignment of the people against the minions of the Cube Cult.

7:34 

Political correctness makes it impossible to talk about the issues.

7:42 

Puppet pundits silence other voices (the traditional mother and father? I am unclear here) and provoke the faux-trage of anti-social media.

7:53 

Servants of grim agendas bring the post-human into the world through unquestioned technologies. A robot with an electronic mind was just made a citizen in Saudi Arabia.

7:55 

A familiar smile blinds millions to the unseen horrors of a celebrated Presidential career. Clues regarding rumors of pitch-black perversions, both overt and covert, are shown framed on a desk made of death. A flash frame reveals his internal breakdown. His story is the story of all such men. They all go grey, after they go dark.

8:02 

The blinded masses project their hopes onto screens of false opposites who serve the same masters.

8:07 

The Red/Blue Game takes everyone for "a ride."

8:10 

The atmosphere is ruined while everyone refuses to witness it.

8:12 

A grotesque party goes on forever while Joe Public wanders through it without noticing the hypocrisy.

8:18 

Powerful pedophiles ply their trade with impunity, destroying the bodies and souls of the most innocent while parents pretend it can't happen. We don't want to believe they exist and they thrive in our ignorance. Families are divided in the Cube system and become easy pickings for predators within the foster machinery. 

8:28 

The Bogeyman of terrorism is constantly thrown at people until they cry for help from the Daddy State, who surrounds them with surveillance and placates them with smartphones, which are also surveillance.

8:30 

Screen addiction cocoons individuals in separate virtual realities until they are moribund.

8:41 

The faithful servants in the media keep the space between story and experience intact.

8:49 

The masses are crushed as increasingly hollow power figures pray to higher and higher layers of the Red Cube system. At the top, those who receive these energies appear to worship their
own Black Cube which traps the power, and they seem hardly human at all. These are protected by a sphere of masks, in turn protected by the military industrial complex. 

9:33 

One Cube Soldier reflects upon his life, home, and property, which fall away and reveal that he sold his soul for no security at all.

9:36 

Collapse begins with the evaporation of the housing market.

9:40 

Towers of the dark city are shown sheared at 45-degree angles, like the support beams in the World Trade Center.

9:48 

No spell lasts forever. Masks begin to crack and the Red Cube fails.

9:57 

Plant medicine reclaims its territory, perhaps in the form of psychedelic vines curing opioid addiction and cutting off the pusher's cash flow.

10:03 

The corporate world seeks shelter but finds only mutual desperation.

10:05 

A smug manager loses his status, his sanity, and his life, a hollow man stuffed with hollow wealth.

10:17 

Darkness flees its failing hosts to return to its origin.

10:23 

The game is up, and the mask has failed. It's time to give it up and return to personal truth.

10:30
In the unconscious realms, perhaps pushed by survival instinct, people begin to remember their true natures and awaken from the trance.

10:45 

Man undergoes the shamanic evisceration, revealing the dormant pineal gland, now activated.

11:00 

Direct confrontation with the shadow of individual and species enlivens and emboldens the once-dead heart.

11:11 

Ascension with purpose.

11:27 

Phoenix of the female rises from centuries of oppression.

11:44 

Union of opposites/gender, armed with a sword to cut through illusions, and a transferrence of what appears to be the collective consciousness into a new mind.

11:49 

A child is born outside the Cube, full of power and wisdom. 

11:51 

The world tree regenerates and blooms.

12:05 

The new human is awake. A new world is possible. The beauty is that we can each, and all, decide how to build it.

Offer expires while you wait

A couple of things.

1. Being human is fundamentally uncomfortable. Incredible amounts of energy have been spent masking this from ourselves and each other. But it's there. A lot of it comes from denial of mortality, fear of pain etc. Almost everybody I know went through a period of swinging hard to the other pole, being morbid and self-destructive. Now, this does *not* excuse nihilism. Life is what we make of it, and so is self-image. This is a sort of game, and each of us has a sort of character, and character attributes can be tweaked in real time and indefinitely.

2. You are not *just* the character. You are not *just* the mind imagining the character, or the brain supporting the mind, or the body supporting the brain. There is a part of all of us, usually called spirit, that is so hard to define that thousand year wars are fought over the details. But here's the thing: if you stop listening to the tape loops installed in your survival system by life experience and learn to get very quiet inside, you will hear its voice and recognize its truth. Then, you will know how big you really are.

3. But wait, there's more, because we all have a share of spirit, and all of us connect at a level that is usually intangible. You won't see it much up here on the surface. You've got to go deep, deeper, deepest, until there is nowhere to go because you're everywhere. The surface is where the waves are, and without an anchor you're at their whim. We all have to make contact with the part of ourselves that is beyond the reach of circumstance and use it as a vantage point rather than the frenetic control freaks most of us have at the switchboard.

4. It's hard and it takes time. Yet it's simpler than it seems. When you get it, you'll wonder how it seemed so impossible. You'll lose it but you'll get good at returning to being it instead of chasing it. And don't let anybody sell it to you, because it's free, and your birthright.

5. There are plenty of dark human conspiracies that make the world seem like a meat grinder for souls, but the biggest conspiracy is benevolent. Life/God/spirit can't wait for you to recognize what you are, so it throws you clues, sends helpers, synchronizes events to make you think twice about the status quo script (you know, the meat grinder). Embrace vitality. It's yours when you want it.

#plantstho

I've heard many times that humans are meant to eat meat, and that it's natural. I disagree, but I mean, if folks who want venison can run down a deer, kill and eat it using only bare hands and face, and convince their stomachs to produce more acid so they can digest it raw before the bacteria lodge in 20 extra feet of intestine per person, who am I to stop them?

Our teeth are versatile but not ideal at all, our digestive tract is short and meant to run slow. We can't even digest meat without doing half the work in cookware. Actually quite a bit of the body's morphology is a joke for the job, but hey. If people can sort out how to do it without a shred of technology, I'll call it natural. Fair's fair. Go get em, Tiger. Do you.

But actually, to make it fair, we're gonna have to shut down all the slaughterhouses and farms. All that land will have to be reclaimed so the non-native "prey" animals can adapt and make it their habitat. We'll have to stop giving them grains and drugs, and we'll have to abandon dairy production since that hijacks the mammalian life cycle.

Damn, sounds like it might be easier to just not eat meat. Taking one step each as individuals seems more likely by far than making huge societal shifts, given that as a whole we are stubborn primates with delusions of grandeur and centuries of ingrained tradition.

OK, if we want to be technical, the use of fire to cook and the tools of hunting and eating were developed from human ideas. Adaptation can be argued as an outgrowth of our physiology since it makes use of the parts of the brain that appear unique. Technology allowed us to evolve physically far faster than mentally, emotionally, or socially. We can call technology an emergent property of consciousness, and other species display it on a more rudimentary scale. In the case of modern humans, what we have is a species that *can* do anything which has a strong tendency to do the new trick/play with the new toy without thinking about the long term. "It seemed like a good idea at the time" could be a one-line history of the human race, but so could "we always did it this way." People overwhelmingly choose to keep doing what they like.

Most people agree on the grimness of factory farming, though I would have to this extends to all modern animal agriculture. However many feelgood adjectives there are on the package, the facts remain. Meat comes from slaughter at the end of a truncated and unpleasant life. Confinement is unhealthy and cruel. Hens and cows aren't meant to produce milk or eggs in high volume (even in backyards) and it destroys them. These animals can and do only exist to be exploited in their current forms, at all scales of domestication.

Animal products tend to cause problems in people who overeat them, which is virtually everyone who does. No one in the developed world is in danger of protein deficiency, and there are many reliable plant sources, even leaving tofu and processed foods out, that deliver the protein without the saturated fats, pharmaceuticals, and so on. The same adaptability that gave us fire and knives allows us to survive on anything, so it's down to choice.

The thing is, on a grand scale, I know it's moot. Most people put their pleasure first in all aspects of life from food to family. I'm not here to turn the world vegan and I can't force anyone to change anyway. In this and many other areas, I've chosen to act as an individual. I aim for the path of least harm, which in this case, for me, means being vegan. I find that my life has only improved and I see no reason to participate in what I see as both unnecessary and unsustainable.

A few times a year, some new clue is found that lengthens and changes the story of human evolution. For hundreds of thousands of years, we did what we had to in order to fit into our environment and survive. Now, we can do what we want, and have the power to shift our surrounds to suit us instead. May we all learn to do it wisely, at this key moment of choice between exploitation in the service of illusory infinite growth and moves toward sustaining, thriving and redefining life on Earth.

An Open Letter to the New Invisibles

You know, I've sported a stealth tin foil hat for the majority of my life now. You take the shapes you need to to navigate this labyrinth. But I'm tired of accepting the stigma given those who question authority, official narratives, and complacency in the face of clear corruption. Everyone is aware on some level that we have deep problems on this planet, regardless of how aggressive their denial or how oblivious they are through circumstance. I'm less concerned with blame and more interested in solutions. From now on I'll wear my crazy like a crown.

A lot of people think all the high strangeness flickering across their screens popped out of a Russian data bomb in election season, but this goes back as long as people. International intrigue, political theater, blackmail and bogeymen are just the ripples on the surface of very deep water. These things are symptoms. Conspiracy is an emergent property of civilization, or at least, this one. Curiosity is innate among the living. The streams cross for many, more all the time. Call it what you want, it's here to stay. This is the time of unveiling. The world's closets are having a skeleton liquidation, and everything must go! Even the status quo can't avoid it, though the main stream is full of red herrings.

In these post-truth times of fake news and faker news and pageantry and public ritual, it's all too much for just about anyone, probably by design. Weary folk don't have the juice to fight until their backs hit the wall. It's no wonder then that people escape ever deeper into the portable data-mining virtual reality portals we call "phones." It's no wonder so many people are wearing their stress on their sleeves, in their voice, in the eyes that won't meet yours. Once you start to see the bones of this world, you don't get to stop. I can't blame people for opting out.

I've accepted that we're sleepwalking as a species, with our dreams being harmonized to corporate interests. Some of us do fall awake long enough to see the weather on the horizon and add it to the storehouse of situational awareness. Sometimes all you can do is know, and do your best to avoid adding to whatever phantom showed itself for an instant. Possibly because of a history of insomnia and a comical number of near death and baffling spiritual experiences I've had a foot in both worlds a long time now. It's old hat to me, though even a seasoned crackpot like myself is shocked at the currents that are flirting with visibility. One gets a certain vertigo when dots grow together in the clear light.

I came from the days when one's introduction to the fringe came in the form of being curious in dusty used bookstores and prowling the text based ancestors of the Internet over land lines and I'll tell you, I do long for that innocence and simplicity at times. Now there are things like communities encircling the pursuit of truths, but in the little corners where people whisper or shout about what they find between the lines, we're in the days of AI shilling, hashtag erasure, YouTube jail and Google memory holes. The hive is aggressive and does not appreciate autonomy, despite what it might tell you in car commercials.

There's too much data being sprayed at us and collected on us. Demographics have been replaced by psychographics. The old pillars of the press are riddled with cracks. The new delivery systems have different agendas. There's too much news, fake or otherwise (it's a trick question). People are exhausted, and can barely keep up with the omnidirectional information overload. The signal to noise ratio is painfully bad.

The alphabet studios seem married to the alphabet agencies and the strain you hear in the voice of opposition comes from the choke chain around its throat. We keep trying to become the media by producing rather than consuming, but the mold is really stubborn in this tenement. Since you could set type and put ink on a page some stiff was ready with a pail of whitewash. There's always a new form of the old game, which is always to squelch all opposition to the narrative. These are strange days in what could become the slave new world if we keep hitting snooze on the consciousness clock. As long as people have been trying to figure out the shape of things behind the curtain there have been stubborn pests: disinformation campaigns, fear mongering, and people making a buck off dread.

But what's also been here the whole time is a that still small voice that waits for us to shut up and hear it, that gentle pulse of guiding light toward hope. And I see it in the damnedest places these days and I love to catch it working through us. The meme wars are real, and ancient, and will be won in good time. The shadowsphere is aging poorly, and it's running out of tricks to pull. With every generation comes a population of mutants upon which the old trance won't hold for long.

Whatever happened to us as individuals to re-awaken the thrust and thirst for truth, it seems the Great Work has been taken back from the would be architects who corrupted it. It seems it's being crowdsourced to us, the new eyes and ears of The Search. This time, it's spreading to other generations, new populations, and it is finding its way around the familiar traps.

Perhaps this turn in the great game the veils will be shredded for good. Perhaps this time, all the walls between us will come tumbling down at last. What world will we build then? It's hard to guess. But at least we can see what has been built around us, and do our best to learn as we transcend the damage done.

I am driven to know, even if I never can. I went deep into many rabbit holes that will be familiar to some of you. At times I was overcome with amusement at the absurdity of what I found and at other times got very sad and very scared at what I found there, pregnant as it was with the gravity of unspeakable apparent truth. But in these pitch dark tunnels, I found that I could see in a new way. I had discovered how to read the signs and symbols by my own light, to do my best to discern and decipher.

I wager so have you. Here we are in a domain that allows us to compare our views. What a time! We have all come from different directions and seek to uncover paths that do not always cross. Even when we employ our better natures and avoid petty conflicts, discord is sown to disrupt or for malice's sake. But this won't work forever. We don't need to be the same to work together. We can stick apart and compare notes. It may be the best way to work around the old traps.

We all take turns being the darkness as we look for the light. But we can't allow ourselves to stay divided. We all have some pieces of wisdom to trade. We are all here to help each other. As we cross paths and build maps, I hope we will collaborate rather than compete. Best to each of you and to us all. Keep digging, keep pulling weeds, and keep growing this garden. Day must always dance with night, but out of darkness cometh light!