Welcome into the vortex........

anarcho-shamanism, mountain spirits; sacred wilderness, sacred sites, sacred everything; psychonautics, entheogens, pushing the envelope of consciousness; dominator culture and undermining its activities; Jung, Hillman, archetypes; Buddhism, multidimensional realities, and the ever-present satori at the centre of the brain; a few cosmic laughs; and much much more....


all delivered from the beautiful Highlands of Scotland!






Monday 26 May 2014

Snippets From the West



Part One

The weather proved inclement - a southern English way to say that it rained a lot - so we abandoned notions of mountain walking and did other things instead. One day we visited the Isle of Eigg. One of a cluster of little islands scattered off the coast of western Scotland, and seen particularly well from the mainland near the mighty township of Mallaig, Eigg is interesting for a variety of reasons.

Like the rest of the appropriately-named Small Isles, Eigg is frequently subject to rain, wind, and low cloud: even when the western seaboard of the mainland is clear, the outlines of the Small Isles can sometimes be seen with all but the lowest slopes shrouded in mist. In 1997, however, something unusual happened on the social front on Eigg. There was a community buy-out: the current residents (all 84 of them) pretty much own the island. Since, as noted previously on Pale Green Vortex, much of Highland Scotland still languishes under the control of large landowners and estates, this is something of note. Life on Eigg cannot be easy, and it is with a happy heart that I see a group of people being courageous enough to take their lives into their own hands as far as this.

Community self-sufficiency is at a premium. Eigg provides all its own energy, from a combination of hydro-electric, solar, and wind sources. Even if the official blurb suggests that the islanders have been duped into swallowing the human-produced global warming propaganda, this still strikes me as admirable. Followers of Pale Green Vortex may have concluded that it regards all wind energy as evil. This is not true -quite. There is a world of difference between a few small turbines providing electricity for a local community and an enormous array of huge turbines organised military-like across entire hillsides by giant multinationals. Having said that, Eigg could probably do without its turbines...

As we walked past the scattered settlements on the island with their vegetable gardens (the island is mild, especially in winter, so some edibles do grow well), my mind wandered back to the spring of 1976. Along with my three commune friends, I hitch-hiked from Oxford all the way to Ellon, in north-east Scotland. We had been offered a modest cottage with several acres of land for our dream rural commune project, just outside the township. Ellon is located in the hinterland of Aberdeen, and one day on that Easter weekend I stood on a small hill, with the cruel east wind blowing wet snow into my face. I knew at that moment that I was not ready for this, to devote the remainder of my life to growing turnips on an exposed rise in a remote and forgotten corner of northern Scotland. Neither, it seems, were my colleagues. Within weeks the project had disbanded, each of us going our own separate ways. In some respects at least, the inhabitants of Eigg were doing what I had set out but failed to do. They are a bit of an example for the future; good luck to them.

Part Two

Mountain folk are often goal-focussed: get to the top of Everest even if you don't come back; bag another Munro before sunset; complete another long-distance trail. There is a place for such a style, I suppose, - I know it well myself - but another approach presents itself as sometimes more fitting, more conducive to cognisance and awareness of ones surroundings; more elegant. There is a word from old Scottish for a person who walks differently, a personage one occasionally meets in the modern literature on mountains in Scotland. This is the stravaiger. The dictionary tells us that 'to stravaig' is 'to wander about, especially without a sensible purpose'. The stravaiger is not a hill-bagger, a goal-oriented ticker-of-lists. It is a person who trusts in their spontaneity, their instincts, the natural rhythms and flows in themselves and in the world around them. The true stravaiger might end up spending all afternoon staring into a pool of water, or doing nothing in particular. At heart, the stravaiger is a bit of a Zen person, not to mention a little subversive, presenting a living challenge to the highly-valued notions of achievement and progress that drive the mainstream world. The real trick, I suppose, is to incorporate the ways of the stravaiger into daily life, even that which purports to be linear and progressive.

I was recently introduced to a person of similar ilk to the stravaiger; Slomo. Google him, he's easy to find. A friend sent me a link to the little film on Slomo. He in turn had been sent the link by another friend, who had probably been sent......... Anyway,Slomo was once a big boy in the medical world, but he chucked it all in for a life spent skating along the Californian coast. When skating, he says, he feels close to the divine, and when people see him they recognise him as 'one who got away'. A long time before, an old man had advised him to 'do what you want to', but it took many years for the wisdom of these words to manifest in physical reality. And for him to skate.

Many folk feel uncomfortable with the idea of 'doing what you want to'. Guilty, maybe. Life is meant to be hard, after all, full of knee-jerk self-sacrifice, a catalogue of unfulfilled dreams, disappointments, and unaccomplished ambitions. Not so: this is just a story we tell ourselves. And when Slomo does what he wants to, he is not following passing whims, moods, blind urges; the fad and fancy of the day. He is following the voice of his soul, his inner daimon, name it as you will. To skate is his calling, and I find it inspiring when I come upon the life of anybody who has the courage to follow their deeper instincts and intuitions, to trace the shape of their authentic uniqueness on this wonderful planet. These are indeed the people who have got away. And who have got it right.



              

 

Groupthink

We are in no position to reject relevant reading, whatever the source. A good article:

www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/10853279/sinister-groupthink-powers-the-modern-world.html

Sunday 25 May 2014

Workings of Empire

Here is something for your most serious consideration. Neil Kramer has produced a first-class compilation of various aspects to the workings of Empire. His one page serves as an excellent map, providing the basis for a lifetime of study for the aspiring mystic and seeker of what's really going on in the world. Read, consider, discuss, ruminate and, above all, research......

neilkramer.com/invisible-empire.html




  

Thursday 8 May 2014

All One Big Happy Family, Innit?


Probably not human: Highland frog

During the twilight period of my 'official affiliation' with Buddhism, around twelve years ago, I wrote an article for the magazine of the Buddhist organisation concerned. It was written in the aftermath of 9/11, at a time when I saw no need to question the official version of events that fateful day; nor, indeed, realised that anything other than the story beamed out of televisions and newspapers of the mainstream was possible. The article was called 'I'd rather be a gorilla than a guerilla', the main theme being how little I felt in common, on a deep, visceral level, with certain members of the human race. And how, in certain respects, I felt greater kinship with some non-human beings, even on the level of consciousness. I singled out as an example the gorilla, as an animal closely related genetically to humans, and as an animal with which I felt a personal affinity as a result of the shamanic practice I was undertaking at the time.

The article was, I thought, bold and, within the world of modern Buddhism, potentially controversial and groundbreaking. Without fully recognising the implications of these trains of thought and feeling, I was questioning the discrete nature of different species' identities, suggesting instead a continuum of consciousness. The feedback I received on my radical article was precisely...... zero.

The Gnostics, those western spiritual ancestors contemporary with early Christianity, were forthcoming about this topic. In 'the Tripartite Tractate' the Gnostic mystic writers proclaim there to be, not one, but three different kinds of human. There are the Pneumatics, spiritual souls. Then there are the Psychics, matter-dwelling spirits. Then there are the Hylic, totally devoid of soul, lacking the 'light of epinoia'. All three appear the same, living inside bodies of flesh, sharing the same language, mode of procreation, all with the same DNA etc. But their origin and psychic make-up are seriously different. Three different types of human, dressed up to look the same, but with unique configurations of consciousness, and at their own distinct stage in the 'sacred journey' (call it what you will).

More than once on Pale Green Vortex the words 'psychopath' and 'politician' have appeared in the same sentence. Some readers have considered this uncharitable of me; I'd say that the truth staring us in the face, should we dare to look, is not always pleasant, or what we'd like to see. A more softly-softly but related diagnosis for some people in 'high places' is afforded by the phrase 'narcissistic personality disorder'. I have my reservations about some of these psychological diagnoses, but for now let's go with this one. Narcissistic personality disorder is especially prevalent, it would seem, where visible signs of success, power, and status are prominent, and where admiration is readily forthcoming. Politics, celebrity, academia, medicine, finance, law enforcement, high profile sports. You've got the picture. A person suffering from NPD is likely to exhibit the emotional maturity of a typical 3-5 year old.

You can draw up your own mental list of likely candidates: I've got mine. But hierarchical systems of status, power, and influence will inevitably attract, and be populated by, folk with psychopathic and NPD tendencies. This is the rub, and plain common sense. Bees to the honeypot, and it cannot be any other way. A number of friends of mine have implied at various times that I'm a bit hard on politicians and banksters: we're all the same, really, all trying to create a better world. These friends of mine are in the main intelligent people, articulate and with a decent portfolio of formal qualifications. When asked why, with their apparently impeccable credentials and a wish to improve the world we live in, they haven't made any attempt to climb the political ladder themselves, they are at a loss. The answer's easy. They are decent folk, with a good heart and, unlike the Hylic, with an active soul. They are simply not the kind of people who are going to get into high-profile politics, finance, law, or whatever.

One serious consequence of these ruminations is that our current systems are tailor-made for (and by?) the soulless, the psychopathic. And, what's more, some form of political anarchism is the only political set-up that can in the long term be good for humanity. Even small government doesn't really fit the bill: the bees-to-the-honeypot syndrome dictates that small government will become bigger and bigger as time goes by.

It is a materialist worldview, focussed on physical appearance rather than on consciousness, that has promoted the great fraud that we're all the same. We look the same, therefore we are all the same. It's almost as if we've been put onto by this one. So don't be suckered. And keep your eyes peeled next time you walk down the high street: you never know who or what might be passing you by.