Boys and Girls are Girls and Boys . . . Genderation and Violence

Of all the dualisms generally proffered in this age of binary stupidity, one which too often proves dysfunctionally divisive and the source of much violence yet which is amongst the most primal of dichotomies we know, masculine/feminine is perhaps the most mistakenly arrayed in the prominent “Western” socio-cultural constructions and general milieu. The assumption that male=aggression/action and female=passive is in fact nigh the polar opposite of the teachings of tantra and yoga in general, and of many of the rest of the world's cultures. The tantric understanding of such is that masculinity in archetypal perfection is Shiva, God the Destroyer, most compassionate One and Master of Yoga, source of peace and tranquility. Though Parvati, Goddess Mother of the Universe, is sometimes engaged in meditation and austerities, She is most often represented as active, slaying demons, riding Her big kitty cat Dharma, adoring Her Husband or his lingum or caring for children. Shiva is mostly depicted sitting in meditation, and only occasionally in action.

Not to get too Freudian, mind you, but to look at the tantric perspective of the relationship of female and male from an archetypal and deconstruction perspective, from the perspective of form, it only makes sense that the male, bearing the projecting part, ought play the more passive role to effect a legitimate balance, and that the female, bearing receptive parts, ought play the more active or even aggressive role to effect the same. This natural and balanced state, represented in matriarchal societies and in some guises in Hindu culture (and in many undercurrents in “Western” culture), is not unlike the Hindu understanding of the Destroyer aspect/expression of the Divine as the Most Compassionate, thus balancing potential destructive force by placing such with the One most likely to show mercy and forbearance. Similarly in relation to gender, the one bearing “the rod” ought be the one with the most restraint, and the one who is to be penetrated, or better the receptive party, ought thus be the more active if not aggressive player in the partnership. 

 In the general “Western” understanding, promoted if not primarily promulgated in some guise by all three of the Abrahamic religions, does a great disservice to both men and women by a formation of gender that links male to aggression and female to passivity, in effect justifying violence against women because, “Oh, that's just the nature of men/masculinity.” In Nature the true nature of the male is passivity, to be the “pillar” so to speak. Though of certainty testosterone, when not properly utilized via right mind and right practice and true Nature, is potentially a physiological cause of aggressive behavior, the basic assumptions made by American/"Western" culture that woman is/ought be passive and male is/ought be aggressive/active foments discord undue, and is certainly to no small degree responsible for “rape culture” as such exists in this society. Were masculinity associated with quiet strength, wise reserve and compassion, and the feminine as active, dynamic and potent (Shakti, the name of Shiva's Wife/Consort and an appellation applied likewise to designate Laksmi and Saraswati, Consorts of the Maintainer and Creator, means “Power”), such things as political correctness would have no meaning as such is a response to discursive abuses of power that are largely a product of the preexistent misdeployal of gender, and the divorce rate would almost certainly thus plummet. If culture, mores and etiquette taught and fomented those constructions and conceptions of gender which are indeed more natural to humans (outside of cultural contrivances and patterning)--again, male as passive and female as active, and terms like “sissy” and “pussy” put into disuse (obviously discursive violences at least indirectly abusive to both men and women), then gender bias and most sex crimes would cease to perpetuate.

Now mind you, I'm not saying you will find that such a more healthy gender balance is extant in say, Indian culture generally, as patriarchal influences have been present for many years in Indian society in juxtaposition to said more natural balance of male and female presented in tantra and yoga generally. Nonetheless, to shift and reform gender consciousness and cultural binaries towards a pattern of “male=passive, female=active” as presented in tantra yoga would certainly do much to balance sex and gender disparities and injustices present in society generally, and such would also almost certainty improve mental health in our society as many of those ailments are in fact derived from or directly caused by gender formation issues created in and by a society that wrongfully and mistakenly arranges gender in the first place!! The very “penetrative” project of “manifest destiny” and the necessary correlative construct of male=aggressive in what has been designated “Western culture” is symptomatic of misdirected masculine impetus and potency, and indeed not of a basic flaw in “male nature.” The key to correcting such is not to encourage men to be more “feminine,” but in fact to rethink the very constructions of masculine and feminine in light of those more ancient deployals and in light of  Nature, and thus to recognize that Western constructions are not equal to nor necessarily the same as Nature's construction of gender. We are free to reimagine and reconstruct what it means to be a man and what it means to be a woman, and would do well to do so in light of the perpetuations of violence so endemic in this day and age under current constructions, violences that would likely dissipate were we to return to turn to those better constructions of that most basic binary as is proffered by yoga, Nature, and nigh all of our ancestral cultures.

Verfremdungseffekt . . .

Despite the rather tedious lack of overt action in this player's part in the screenplay played of late, the script's still proven rife and a virtual roller coaster emotional ride, with reworking and refiguring the plot and other players, contemplating roles and maybe getting glimpses of who the players, friends and lovers and purported foes, really are behind veils and facades.  All the while maintaining mindfulness and perhaps employing the Verfremdungseffekt (estrangement effect) to engage the audience and other players and Self...unattached to writ role and ascribed character and perhaps inciting the other players (/audience) to transcendent self-awareness as they play their scripted parts in this Grand Play.

Jesus's True Identity Revealed

In my humble opinion Jeshua ben Joseph (aka "Jesus") was very most likely an Avatar of Ayyapa, Son of Shiva and Mohini (Vishnu as a woman) and is the Protector of created beings...

"Only 'begotten Son'" 'cuz his Dad and Mom are actually both Dudes, the Destroyer and Maintainer Expressions of God (Both who are married to Women, btw:  Parvati and Laksmi, and sometimes share one body as Hari-Hara . . .).

Ayyapa does have four Brothers, Ganesha and Kartikeya, and twins Cush and Luv, and one Sister, Jyoti...

Scandalous Yoga . . .

Was just contemplating that sometimes scandal and seeming misbehavior is sometimes dharma, i.e., doing one's divine duty to keep things together.  What brought my thoughts to that subject is thinking about the Beatles' guru's purported sexual misconduct...Without said person behaving scandalously would we have the song Sexy Sadie? And in a similar vein, the Panchen Lama said of Mao Tse Tung that he was an incarnation of an angry deity who invaded Tibet to force the dissemination of Tibetan Buddhist teachings...Is misbehavior sometimes one's proper dharma?!
This is not to justify wrongful behavior, but merely to recognize that She works in mysterious ways...

Caution in Writing . . .

The task that has presented itself to me is daunting, if not terrifying. That presumptions about the most recent four to five thousand years of history, religion and culture are (by some accounts, surely) threatened by what I have to tell the world is only part of what daunts and just a portion of what is so terrible in approaching this task.  The theories I have to proffer are likely to shatter the paradigms held by the majority of the people on this planet is not all would cause a writer intending said short treatise some degree of trepidation.  That zealots, Jewish, Christian and Muslims and possibly others, might find the secrets I've to tell enough reason to put a price on my head or issue a fatwa for my execution is indeed not the cause of greatest concern for this writer in approaching the task. Rather, it is the danger inherent in uncovering occulted truths hidden by such potent spells obscuring, so much so that those most obvious clues regarding this mystery, clues that should be ascertainable to even the most daft of students, are veiled even to the most brilliant of academics—else the latter are too afraid to tell of what they do perceive of this Grand Conspiracy.

Some thought on Dance and Transit...

Intricate this nata, this dance this play . . . when is well directed and the stage well set and the screenplay well writ, good timing and yoga flow adjusting sense vibration just so, it doesn't even feel choreographed or scripted, as all we the actors, dancers and players are the Author of this Play.

___________

One thing I like about the freedom of the road:  once you surrender to the true flow, your true Self, the question is not what must I do, it's what do I wish to do (...once you realize your real wishes are the same as or commensurate to Goddess's/God's. Most readily accomplished when there are no attachments nor distractions)...this can be done at home too...

Tandava

Of all supposed dualities or dichotomies, light and dark is the most apparent and stark . . . An animal can perceive and is in fact controlled by cycles of light and dark, even if it does not have eyes, and to most animals our systems of ethics doesn't make sense. Why do silly people endeavor to conflate the apparent dualities presented them with the actual Nature of the Universe...? Being is not divided, just at play as Him and Her, effulgent and blacker than night, in a dance that is in truth itself illusion, if beautiful nonetheless..
Shiva-Kali Ma Tandava !!

Apsarasah and Angels

Of the myriad of gods and goddesses, and versions of God and Goddess proffered in this grand world, and so many varied understandings of the Divine to be found among the world’s peoples, it has occurred to this writer, yogi, former Baptist Preacher, grad school dropout, dilettante of an historian and sadhu and veritable hippie wandering freak that in fact in quite a number of cases gods and goddesses and other mythic figures from one tradition—or at least their archetypal figuration—are found in other guises in other traditions, and not necessarily always in ways which might be explained in terms of cultural anthropology or perspectives proffered by traditional historiography. 

The most obvious (if intentionally occulted) and likely most important example of the relationships woven through supposedly unrelated mythologies and purportedly disparate cultures is the connection between Abraham, the patriarch of Judaism, Christianity and Islam, and the Hindu Creator Brahma, that the name Abraham somehow relates to the Sanskrit word Abrahman, and that the three Abrahamic religions somehow relate to the more ancient formulation of the Hindu Trimurti, Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva (Creator, Maintainer and Destroyer), as I have expounded in other posts to this blog.  With the aforementioned genealogy in mind, I have been given cause to consider the relationship of apsarasah (divine flying nymphs of the Hindu and later Buddhist traditions) to the “Western” understanding of “angels.”  

Apsarasah are described as “female spirits of the clouds and waters” (Wikipedia), are often described as in the service of a god or goddess, and are said to be seducers of both gods and holy men, and are often married to celestial musicians known as Ghandarvas.  They are often depicted with wings, and are often portrayed in the scriptures as seducing ascetics when such holy men press the limits by raising too much tejas (“fire”) for the comfort of the gods.

To further set the stage for the hypothesis I am posing, I ought note that I am reading the development of culture from a markedly pro “dispersion theory” prejudice and perspective, despite that perspective being eschewed by the academe for the most part. 

Whether developed solely or primarily in or around India, the religion known as sanAtana dharma has definitively preserved that paradigm and mythos which seems the root to nigh all the rest, and which is quite clearly the beginning point for the Abrahamic religions.

I should also note that I personally read history as a tale of the gods at play, gods who are not-not us, and yet bear certain signatures sometimes writ quite large as they play across the span of history, human and otherwise.   Indeed, a mythically aware reading of history betrays certain persons and personalities, figures and figurations showing up in a variety of cultures and mythologies, deities or other important mythic and archetypally recognizable figures who seem nigh ubiquitous in the worlds’ many seeming disparate paradigms, else whose stories can in fact be traced upon a map as if recording the journey of a mortal across land and sea, and from one country or people to another. 

One example of this might be endeavoring to trace the figure of Kartikeya/Skanda from his seeming origin in India: a Son of Shiva who was born when his Father spilled His seed into the Ganges River, which then floated into a bed of reeds and Skanda was thus conceived and born.  In South Africa the Zulus worship Unkulunkulu, son of Umvelinquangi, a sky god who created the bed of reeds in which Unkulunkulu was born.  Unkulunkulu and Umvelinquangi seem rather clearly connected to Kartikeya and Ganga—a goddess who is most often depicted as hovering in the sky and pouring the waters of the Ganges on Shiva’s head.  

Skanda is also depicted as a god of war whose Sanskrit name means, among other things, “perishing,” “destruction” and “attacker.”  The first recorded use of the place name “Scandinavia” is by Pliny the Elder in the first century BCE.  The assumed Germanic root of “Scandinavia” is “skaden,” which means “damage” or “danger.”

There is a Hindu myth which tells of Kartikeya/Skanda and Ganesha (Shiva and Parvati’s Son) engaging in a race around the world.  Kartikeya undertakes the journey in a literal sense, whereas Ganesha merely runs a circle around his Father and Mother, understanding Them to be “the whole world.”  Perhaps it is that Kartikeya/Skanda running around the whole of the globe is in fact emblematic of said being’s conquests and the devotions thus proffered him by the peoples whose lands he has visited or “conquered,” whereas his brother did not venture far. 

A couple of interesting corresponding coincidences is that the Zulus, worshipping the war god Unkulunkulu (Kartikeya?), defeated the British in the last major engagement where an army with primitive weapons beat an army equipped with firearms, and that the Scandinavians were well enough known as warlike peoples.  Perhaps a tad more a stretch, Alexander the Great is known by the name Iskandar in the Arabic—again, rather phonetically like the name Skanda.  Iskandar’s campaign to the east was successful until he invaded India, as his troops began to run short of food.  Perhaps it is that by invading India, Skanda’s Mom—who is in one Avatar known as Annapurna, Goddess of Food—cut them off? (see post titled, "Ganesha and Kartikeya's Big Race")

Though not the primary inquiry I’ve intended to explore herein, the above example well enough displays the sort of genealogy of culture and play of the gods that I believe in truth underlie the whole of history and beyond.  With the aforementioned in mind, the theory I propose regarding the beings known in the Abrahamic traditions as “angels” is that they are in fact very much the same beings as apsarasah (singular, apsaras), and perhaps also to be identified with Ghandarvas—who are celestial musicians, very much like some “angels,” and who are often married to Apsarasah, but that they comport themselves chastely when visiting “Westerners,” covering their beautiful bodies when dealing with the Abrahamic peoples—perhaps as adherents to those religions are too much separate from the ancient traditions wherein sexuality is not equated with sin.  Thus said emissaries of the Divine do not generally favor those runaway children of sanAtana dharma with divine sexual favors, though are still attendant to said humans in various ways that those peoples’ faiths do allow, clothed head to toe in white robes to veil their transcendent sexuality from those in their charge who do not understand sex as truly Divine.  

Muslims, I might note, have some seeming memory or recognition of the celestial beings who are in fact not improperly to be perceived as objects of desire and divine lovers, believing that those men who live righteously in submission to Allah are to be rewarded with the caresses of celestial maidens in Heaven.  AllA, sans the "h," is one of Devi Durga's names, by the way, and at least one of the daughters of Allah, Manat, has a name that sounds very like one of Shiva's Daughter's names, Manas...

The picture in the post was taken by me when a friend and I were looking at some 

land I was interested in on the Wyoming/Colorado border around 2010. 

Didn't notice the flying figure till later examining the photo later.

I am indeed positing that such beings known as apsarasah, known to the “Western world” in veiled form, as “angels,” do indeed exist, though do present themselves in varied guises as the context and beliefs of the people to whom they are ministering merit, as I indeed believe to be the case with other immortals, devas and devis, gods and goddesses who are at play in the lila (Sanskrit for “play” in terms of both “making merry” and a writ and to whatever degree scripted play cycle) of history and life on earth and amongst and with those of us playing as mere mortals.

Namaste

The Psychology of Creation

In fact it is in imagining and manifesting différance (a la Derrida) that Creation comes into being, by the action of imagining and manifesting "other" and the myriad of possibilities which that dance provides, a system of signification that is maya, the illusory and in truth groundless thing we call and try to signify as "reality." Even light and dark are not truly separate or different, as duality itself is a fiction produced by something not unlike différance.

In a vision (primal as primal might be memory?) I have in mind, the start of the show in each cycle of the expansion and contraction of the universe is Him pressing His linga into Her, a tiny mass of everything reaching out into the void . . . else vice versa to elicit the grand illusory play of duality and maya that is.

Dwarka Documentary

Exceedingly important stuff . . . if you wanna really understand ancient history, and in fact modern culture and society if you really understand...

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=d733X4nYHWg&feature=share

Is Our Collective Mind Manifesting Global Warming?!

Mind over matter...my mom used to use that phrase alot.  Though she lost the bout to cancer, I have very much considered the potency of that notion and ontological understanding in my musings. In my hippie wanderings and cohorting with magical people for many years I have learned the power of mind and Mind, and as any group focusing intentions/"praying" can attest, mind and intention can be exceedingly powerful in relation to "manifestation."  Belief is sometimes even more important than so called "scientific principle" in determining what is true and real and what are the mechanisms of causality, as experiments related to Heisenberg's principle of uncertainty have indicated well enough.

With the aforementioned in mind, I must wonder how much it might be that the collective hype about global warming is actually causing global warming.  If the majority of a population believes a certain supposed fact, by the theory of "synchronicity" a la Jung, that "fact" would become more likely to prove "true."

Now please don't get me wrong...I am pleased with the overt fruit of global warming hype, i.e., the world is moving towards sustainable and environmentally friendly energy production. Hooray!! Hoorah!! Nonetheless, if by our fear of a super-heated earth we manifest such, we are not doing ourselves a favor by said misconception of natural history. Thus I point to the Oronteus Finnaeus map of 1531/2 and the Piri Reis map of 1513.  If Antarctica has been largely ice free in recent human history, as these maps indicate, climate science is obviously very mistaken in some of their basic premises.

Indeed, science and global warming hype have thus proffered a lie or at least a very faulty theory to the public, and thus to the manifestational faculties of the collective consciousness. I am a foe to falsity, and I quite abhor lies generally, and especially when the misconceptions proffered promote ills. I am grateful that global warming hype is making the world turn to sustainable and environmentally friendly energy production, as I noted. I am not pleased that that false prophesy may prove self-fulfilling if we believe that misconception too much for too long.  By giving too much power to fear and falsity, we might just be making what we fear manifest.  TRUTH is the only solution!!!! (. . . despite misconceptions sometimes bearing good fruit)

Information and Self True . . .

One thing I endeavor to keep in mind as I encounter the milieu of information on the internet, tailored to evoke emotional responses and manipulate the viewer/voyeur and designed to alter or reify opinions as it is: remain unattached to both emotional responses and even unattached to one's own opinion, both are transitory and illusory in comparison to one's true Self and Nature.

Dancin' with my/your Self

Even upon realizing all you encounter is merely your Self:  goodness me how I am spread too and fro across the globe and through the vast universe, and through the whole of time and beyond!! Though conflicts are thus merely you dancing or vieing with yourself, what a mess of tangled twisted webs and weaves, a wonderful and terrible miliuex to dance through as you get to and are privileged to know yourself!!

Sexy nata

Tenuous dance between life and death, the lines betwixt not always readily discernible, nor e'en between dark and light.
Yet abiding through those illusory dichotomies is, in my experiencings, true Self that abides.

Beyond bullets or shotgun blasts, cancer or car crash, beyond the day and night and cycles of the expansion and contraction of the Universe, beyond self and other and so many illusions of dualism, there you are . . . if you ever were at all.

Unwinding Storylines, Drama and Dharma, Friction and Fire

So oft in recent years spend my time unwinding storylines are seeming someone's writ script plied and proffered to direct this lila I've been living, channeling or dealving into the "akashik records" to determine the dance as is to be danced, my proper steps as some disturbance in the flow has required more conscious effort on my part, it seems, as opposed to the moksa flow I truly know and know true...perhaps there was a change of directors choreographing this nata, this dance, this play? a revision to the script or screenplay?

Layers of mind and Mind and matter, cidacit and such shit: more than a tad trying to be pressed to attend to details I trusted were already in good yoga with the whole good show, to be weighted unduly with others' karma to be transformed, as I rather thought that yoga flow at work well enough that I had no cause for too much concern. 

Tensions raised, I suppose, and uncertainties presented to grant a range of sense vibration and emotion broad enough to accommodate life in this tumultuous time; frictions forced to raise that tejas, that fire, that we need to stay warm in the cold reality of eternity...

Archetypal Visions

Subtle intimations of tragedy
and bizarre dramas
presented my mind’s eye,
from ancient secrets
of gods and goddesses
at play through the course of history,
to the same game
here and now
and in the dance I dance
with others day to day
and in the seeming mundane.

There is in truth
little difference between
the above
and the below,
betwixt myth
and life lived,
for those patterns and weaves
direct the steps and words,
thoughts and actions,
of both the great
and the small,
and it is in fact
not always clear
which is which,
of great and small,
in the play of it all.

Illusion of Time, Illusion of Space

It was just the other day
I was clearing trails in the Cascades,
and just another
I was sailing the Hudson, exploring Montreal, London, Charleston, sitting sky clad in hot springs in New Mexico or California or Arizona,
just the other day.

Nor was it long ago
I held her in my arms,
just a moment ago
and not too far from there to here.

The calendar might tell it differently,
as might others who've grown gray since then;
and some might contend that distance insurmountable,
from then and there to here and now.

It is scarce a step, however,
nor even one split second in eternity,
truth be told:
All is here and now.

Dances of the Not-Two

(Hari-Hara, Shiva-Shakti)

A Cherokee and a Choctaw both,
Hooray and Hoorah,
whose banter and viewing
does raise mountains
In the tumult.

Black and White,
Darkness and Effulgence,
She and He
If any two really be,
Kali and Shiva.

These dichotomies, dualisms,
Self and Other,
always break,
do not abide,
and never really were.

Yet what a lovely dance
is this illusion,
what a wondrous play,
these supposed contentions
grant to life's script.

Cycles of Dysfunction, Cycles of Bliss

Absurd cycles and recycled themes:
sometimes like a broken record we play those through--
too often not learning the lessons proffered,
so we do it all again.
This is why it is said
Siva is enemy to samsara,
as those cycles are too often
cycles of dysfunction
rather than those cycles of bliss
that lead to liberation.

Avatarded

Once you understand that we are embodied expressions of the mind of God,
and in fact (however veiled in the milieu of maya) of God Her-/Him- Self,
it stands to reason some might chance purify their own flows so,
that they might become a worthy vessel,
Avatar,
of an abiding if not eternal face of the Divine,
of archetypal perfection.
This is yoga,
root of the English word "yolk."
Such path is all our potential,
all our destinies,
eventually and always already.

The Big Question

The big question  of the most recent 5,000+ years of human history is simply "To be or not to be," basically as couched in the Sanskrit terms brahman and Abrahman.  That the later of the two supposed binaries (the dividing line between Hinduism and Buddhism, in fact) sounds rather like Abraham, patriarch of the Abrahamic religions, is no coincidence.  Rather, such is at least emblematic of the grand dialogue regarding said question as mulled about in the mind of God and via the lives of those peoples are playing out that query as a grand lila, a grand play that lasts thousands of years long.  Indeed we are the playthings of the gods, of God, yet that is merely us ourselves, the gods, God.

Transsexuals in the Hindu Scriptures

238.           VISHNUPURANAM

Mitra and Varuna; but the ceremony being unsuccessful on aceount of some irregularity from the presiding priest: daughter Ila was born. But by the mercy of the two deities however, her sex was changed and she became a man under the name of Sudyumna. And he again became a woman under an imprecation (from Siva) near the hermitage of Buddha, the son of the moon.

One day while she was walking near the hermitage of Buddha, he became attached to her and beget on her a son named Pururavas. After his birth, the noble Rishis, desiring to restore Sudyumna to his sex, prayed to the glorious Vishnu who is the essence of the four Vedas, of mind, of every thing and of nothing and who is the sacrificed male. By his mercy us: once more became Sudyumna, in which character he had three sons, Utkala, Gaya and Vinata.

On account of his having been formerly born a female he did not receive any portion of his paternal kingdom. His father however at the request of Vasistha conferred upon him the city of Pratishta, and he gave it to Pururavas.

Of the other sons of Mann, Prishadhra, on account of the
sin consequent upon slaying a cow, was degraded to the conditions of a Sudra.

The above instance of the Divine turning someone transsexual is not even the most notable case of transsexualism in the Hindu traditions.  Certainly the most notable case of a transformation of someone from one biological gender to another is that of Vishnu/Krishna becoming Devi Mohini.

Shiva hooks up with and somehow impregnates Vishnu in His form as a Her, Mohini, and She gives birth to Ayyappa, the Protector of Created Beings, who I believe later reincarnated as Jeshua ben Joseph, aka Jesus Christ.

Ayyappa and His Brothers 

Ganesha and Kartikeya

Shiva and Mohini-Vishnu with Their infant Son Ayyappa/Shasta

For more on that theory regarding the drama and dharma of the Divine, see this post:  http://karma-dharma-bhutadaya.blogspot.com/2017/05/the-true-identity-of-jesus-revealed.html

Hitler and Nebuchadnezzar . . . "Hand of God?"

If history is seen with a view to the grand cycles played, those somewhat scripted storylines we naturally play through as individuals and peoples that are indeed better read as mythology than in the manner of reading traditionally writ history . . . In this guise, Adolph Hitler has become an interesting figure in my deconstructions of discourse and mythology, matter and mind, as I've endeavored to understand history and life in terms of the most abiding and ancient constructs, with myth and metaphor in mind and a reading of the texts as if they were telling truth when they speak of gods and goddesses, magic and providence. 

It has occurred to me that in no slight sense, thus, Hitler played a role not dissimilar from that of King Nebuchadnezzar who was, according to the Hebrew mythology and scripture, “the hand of God” in smiting the sinful Jews so they might be purified enough to return to their homeland of Israel from captivity in Babylon. Cycles of captivity or exile is one of the central themes of the Jewish discourse regarding the sacred and the life of their people, and thus it might be argued that Hitler merely played a role in fact manifest and in fact requested by what the Jewish taut as their sacred history and important cycles of penance and reward. Now i would certainly not endeavor to argue, as the Panchen Lama has regarding Mao whom the Lama considered an incarnation of an angry deity manifest to force the dispersion of Tibetan Buddhist teachings. That is, I would not argue that Hitler was any such noble player as a deity in this grand lila (nor would I contend that such a bizarre twist is impossible in the real lila/Divine Play of history), but I would note that when a people lauds a certain cycle, said cycle is not unlikely to be repeated in the life of that people. Two years after what would thus be rendered the Hebrew people chastised by the hand of the twentieth century Nebuchadnezzar, the Jewish people were granted a homeland by the United Nations proclamation. 

Again, the subtle absurdity of dualism. I think the Holocaust is rather too recent an occurrence for Jewish prophets to start proclaiming Hitler as “the hand of God,” however. Many other subtle and between the lines storylines do tell very different versions of “what really happened” than the official discourse doth acknowledge . . . more on those later.

Nothing Lost Nothing Gained

The dual of dualism is
the great illusion of this age,
played that 'I'
might raise the fire of forever,
lovely and warm.
She directs this Grand Play perfect,
with apparent dischord
and seeming disharmony
the tropes and tensions to keep us awake and attendent to the story,
to keep us entertained with eternity.
Death and loss and sorrow
the themes of this lila,
as are life, love, ecstasy and joy,
bad and good,
for all those are not
our abiding Self,
yet grant the impetus
gives us reason and potency
to play on,
to plod on
towards that perfection
that's already ours
and who we are true.
Nothing lost nothing gained.

Brawlin' and Ballin' and Dancin' at the Buckhorn Bar

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Certainly one of if not my very favorite of the many bars I've known to whatever degree of intimacy in my meanderings o'er the expanse of this grand land. The spirits of however many embodied and disembodied (and perhaps partly embodied) souls manifest as patrons and entertainers, gray haired grandmothers and grandfathers, college kids and townies, professors and oil field workers, technicians and hair dressers, thespians and lesbians, cowboys and hippie mamas, hipsters and mountain men and mountain women, too, bartenders and glossy glass-eyed trophies mounted on the walls, and perhaps a few veritable ghosts haunt this iconic gathering place in old downtown Laramie, Wyoming.

One might not immediately notice the Zia-style sun symbol is centered on the ceiling above the pool table to the left as you walk through the antique wood door with a thick pane of glass that has “Buckhorn Bar” etched thereupon in old west style lettering, and a five point mule deer etched in between the words, posed as if warily peeking inside. You are not unlikely to hear any number of tongues spoken at tables and booths and 'round the U shaped bar surrounded by padded and red upholstered woodwork stools pressed up against the brass footrest, as English and Spanish, Japanese, Norwegian, Bantu, Russian, Arabic, Hindu and French and likely even Arapaho or Shoshone or Cheyenne or other more truly regional languages have been heard here. You might chance meet a Hollywood star chancing through town, strike up a conversation with a physics PhD or a real live range riding cowboy or a high school dropout or even a Nobel Prize winner, offering epiphanies in their words or just a nice friendly chat.

When I first started to frequent the Buck, sometime in the mid to late nineties, there were brawls would break out at least a few nights a week in some corner or other of the red light chandelier lit room, bars firmly fixed on the inside of the windows to prevent a perhaps two hundred plus pound body from inadvertently flying through. Sometimes three or four or more fights chance might transpire on the occasion of a full moon or some other unsettled vibration in the air or earth or from the stars above, in those days. I myself have never much faced such at the Buck, nor even the too serious prospect of a fist fight even much threatened, despite bearing a sometimes outrageous appearance, dreadlocks and skirts and a sometimes (to some sensibilities) rather provocative personality and self presentation. The bouts so de riguer in those days were mostly amongst those who mutually agreed to throw down, if but by gestures and postures and words offered to indicate a willingness or want to play out such a violent exchange, to act out that role in the postmodern old west play/screenplay was thus played there in those days. Guns had been no significant part of the scene since a 30 '06 bullet went through the mirror on one end of the bar sometime in the seventies, by the way, as fists and basic brawling (and not even knives) suited the storyline at the Buckhorn just fine.

Those like myself who were intensionally peaceful people were mostly left out of such fun altogether, though on one occasion one of the most notorious bruisers in town did endeavor to try whether he might elicit the fighter in me, out on the sidewalk in front of the bar one sunny day. After a little bout between said scrapper and a girl I was sorta seeing and sometimes sleeping with, provoked when he tugged on her cast-bound foot to which she responded with a barrage of fists which mostly didn't connect and I standing by but still not sure whether or not I really needed to defend her honor, as she was one of those bad-ass mountain mamas who're the daughters of Wyoming's womens' suffrage movement and of a hard and fierce land, and of the sort that sometimes might take offense at a gentleman stepping in the way.  A few minutes later said burly bruiser stepped up to me on the sidewalk and started “talking shit” whilst bumping his chest against mine, lips spewing epithets and insults inches from my ear. With the principles of Ahimsa and satyagraha firmly in mind and a recently found passion for meditative practices, I stood my ground but did not let the proffered provocations push me to throw a first strike. I must note as I stood toe-to-toe with this intimidating figure I instinctively considered my options open were he to throw the first blow, but the tensions played themselves out and we both walked away. Later after we got to know each other a bit, he at least once almost begged of me, “Cummon'!! Just wrestle me!”

On another occasion as I was about to take a shot on the pool table, my back to the bar, I felt something strike the back of my cue stick. I turned to see a balding older fellow falling to the floor, gazed down to note that indeed he was breathing and observed rather nonchalantly as he shortly returned to consciousness and started to get up. I turned and took my shot. A half-hour later or so, I saw the fellow who'd been flattened on the floor sitting at the bar and sipping a beer with his erstwhile assailant.

When I first frequented the Buckhorn, I was a fairly well practiced pool player. Like the greater frequency of fights then compared to now, a change I'm not at all unhappy about by the way (despite how well a well choreographed fight scene can be played—even sometimes divinely), the pool shooting seemed more charged than now, more a game was played passionately by more than a few.  Beers and mostly small change was the fare for bets, but the Buck was a noted local venue for such gaming and gambling nonetheless, and another medium of entertainment and the dance other than fighting, fucking or dancing on those occasions of a band on stage or the right song played on the jukebox.

When I frequented the Buckhorn in those days, I got to know a redhead that was indubitably one of the best shooters in the place, and she and I behaved rather scandalously for a span of wild afternoons and nights that often led us back to my black Honda Civic parked behind Coal Creek Coffee and the Home Bakery, and on at least one evening got rather Rabelaisian as she and I occupied the ladies room for a rather inconsiderate span of time at the Buckhorn. More than one other intriguing player in that sorta love-play did dance that dance with me that would sometimes start at and oft meander through the Buckhorn Bar, at least a bartender and so many glass-eyed heads observing the show from behind the bar and above.

Over the years of getting to know and becoming known at the Buckhorn Bar, live music and dance and even the jukebox songs often somehow conveyed, at least to my perception, the song and dance of the grander show, the macrocosm displayed in our dance and in the songs sung and played as a well-timed soundtrack to our little production of the big-time stories.  Certainly this is a synchronicity that is more readily discerned when a crowd starts to move in time with intension to the rhythms and rhymes and other bodies in motion, a bit of booze flowing through the body and a place to be not so distracted by petty drama. In our movements and inadvertent mudras I envisioned myself and the others on the floor as expression of Siva Nataraja, Lord of the Dance (i.e., of the Universe), the music as performances of the celestial songs and sounds and vibrations that order the quantum dance of everything from galaxies, stars and planets to atoms, protons and electrons and beyond. It was in the person of another fiery redhead, tall and regal and rather not unlike a female version of my own form, with whom on the occasion of a however auspicious night I found moments of synchronous almost mirror perfect movement on the floor to each other's moves and meditations on the music, The Green Street Majority on the stage and a fifty to a hundred hippies likewise in display of those archetypal and abiding expressions of the forever stories, turned into the free form movements of dance. A grand dance and romance played as above and so below and so on, presented and proffered for all our pleasure at places like the Buckhorn Bar, Laramie, Wyoming, where sometimes the eternal magic that in truth animates the grand show of loving and living and drinking and dieing, both above and below, can sometimes be seen clearly enough under the red light chandeliers and Zia midnight sun and glass eyed elk and deer always watching the performance from above.

American Roots and Rebirth

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Billy Holiday, Jazz and Blues ringing true

to those stories of forever,

to memories of eternity:

Laralen singing “God Bless the Child”

at 420 South 22^nd Street,

Melanie's face aglow in adoration

of Lala and her song

as we pass the pipe.

Black Mamas with a capital M

and a capital B, too (though Mel had Auburn hair

and Laralen dirty blond).

Didn't much think about who was who

in terms of past lives lived,

in those days,

just took it for granted

we were here and now.

Since lovers like those two've become

most times mostly memory,

my reveries have conveyed my mind

to a claustrophobic sarcophagus,

my apparent interment after some other life,

and possibilities of who all we were and are

through the tumult of eternity,

incarnations and reincarnations,

love and loss and strange stories

that keep us entertained as we play

and ply our way through forever,

those songs and dances we are blessed

to sing and dance and play

as time goes by,

time and time again . . .