The Sorcerer's World

Not sure where to put this post so if this isn't the appropriate place I hope you'll move it, Della.

Been going through some rough spots re my personal journey for the past few months and can't seem to get a handle on what the problem is. Went to a spiritual retreat for two weeks and came away more disillusioned then when I went. Not good, huh?

The long and the short of it is this. I felt like the counselors as they were called, were just shelling out a lot of lovey-feelie stuff and the other participants were what Della and Dan have called bliss ninnys. hehheh. Guess theres nothing wrong with that but I still felt like I was on a set for some Disney flick where everybody is so blissed out they would have needed insulin if things got any sweeter.

I'm wondering what my problem is here. Why does that piss me off? Maybe I was expecting it to be something else, but a good friend of mine said it was the enemy of clarity rearing up. When I thought about that I wondered if that's true, but I still don't get WHY it would bug me so much. By the end of the first day I was looking around for the exit but decided to stick it out as a lesson in stalking myself.

Did a lot of stalking but didn't get any clarity on clarity. So I'm wondering if it's just a quirk of mine or if anybody else might have had a similiar experience. Do those really happy wholesome types make anybody else want to dry heave or is it just me?

I feel like my friend was right when he said it was the enemy of clarity but I can't get a handle on what's going on with me. Been feeling like the more I commit myself to the way, the more it slips away.

Sorry to be negative but I know it's something very simple that I'm not seeing. Any ideas, Della? Or anybody else?

Thanks, MM

Personally, I keep away from bliss ninnies, (or serious ninnies) et al. I used to be one, actually both, *heh*. So while I not into the dry heaving at them bit, I still keep away. What triggers me there is the "spirituality" of it all. I'm still kind of occassionaly stuck on that, hoping perhaps for some kind of meaning, which of course I don't see that I will get, since I am the one who gives it any meaning in the first place.. and so that is something that keeps me turning and trying to catch my own tail.

Perhaps, MM, you are at a 'plateau' that is actually the edge of an 'abyss'? I am in the process of a good 'house-cleaning' - though I gotta be careful cause I often throw out the baby with the bath water too! But maybe thats a good thing..

I don't know... been looking at the distancing as well as the participating aspects. Currently I am not finding much difference. I don't see that it can be totally 'objective', since I am there in either/or both positions. The perspective changes, yes, but then I can change it again too, with awareness. I suppose that in a way, it's kind of like a choice, like in which 'mode' do I want to be in.. they are both 'me' (so to speak) and so in a sense both 'authentic'.

I like what Chris Curtis writes on "Because you act from who you are, not who you imagine yourself to be." The thing is that one can be really 'anyone', if there is awareness there, then its 'real'. I suppose then, the question would be.. is there awareness there?

Hey, Mel! Good to hear from you. Was starting to think you'd been abducted by aliens or eaten by all those bliss ninnies out there in the woods. *LOL*



Not necessarily a bad thing either, though. It's often when we become "disillusioned" that we realize we've been chasing shadows. Once I identified my shadows - the things I THOUGHT were real - it was like peeling back a veil. That, of course, leads to a new version of clarity, which seems to be where you're going with this.

The thing about disillusionment is that it seems to come in two distinctly different varieties. On the one hand, I remember becoming rather abruptly disillusioned with the world - I simply *saw* the overlay and the programs for what they were, and it was quite disheartening to realize that the things in which I had placed value or meaning were nothing more than objects on the table of the tonal. Job, family, friends, career, beliefs, even lovers... all just so much folly.

From what I've observed (in myself & others) is that there is a period of adjustment wherein we learn to reassign the values we have placed in things. We learn to see things for what they are - some are beautiful despite their folly, some are ugly despite their folly. Some will have greater meaning to us as individuals because they are our 'PERSONAL' folly, while others will lose meaning altogether and begin to fall into the realm of a stalker's controlled folly.

The hard part for me was what amounted to losing my "faith" in humanity, in the world at large, in our so-called leaders, in everything. But the good part was finding a new level of "faith" in myself - really coming to terms with what it means when we say we are the creators of our own reality.




Glad you stayed as a stalking maneuver. I've never actually gone to a spiritual retreat because my perception of 99% of them has always been exactly what you say here - somebody selling feel-goodism or otherwise attempting to seek a consensus or gather a group of followers. Maybe nothing wrong with that in and of itself, but it's not what I'm looking for, so it would be entirely ineffective. We either *see* that before we go, or we *see* it after we arrive. But either way, it can be disturbing at a certain level, because even for warriors there is what we want-to-believe with regard to others on a parallel path.

As for the bliss ninies, I tend to agree w/ what PZ was saying - they're good for a laugh, and laughter is good. For the most part, they tend to remind me of a commercial for douche powder - all clad in flowing white dresses, running through a field of daffodils in slow motion with a vapid smile. If that's not good for a laugh, then your funny bone must be broken. *LOL*

You asked specifically why the bliss ninnies piss you off. I think THAT is where your clarity is creeping in, and may be what your friend was perceiving as well. When we see people (others or self) going through life in an altogether deluded manner, maybe we can just sit back and laugh at them, or at our own self-importance which would make us laugh at them in the first place. But the problem MAY be that some aspect of yourself is perceiving the BN's delusional reality and projecting onto them the question most warriors ask themselves several times a day: "Is this a manifestation of the authentic self, or a projection of the illusion?"

Wendy and I recently went to see SWING VOTE. The audience clapped & cheered at the end, yet I was sitting there asking myself how they could be so blind to the fact that they had just had a huge suppository of neurolinguistic programmingstuffed up their keesters, and they were bending over to beg for more!

Point being... I think bliss ninnies can be annoying on the surface because they tend to remind us of the deeper problems in our alleged society, wherein all problems are swept under the rug while we're asked to whistle the chorus to "Don't worry, be happy." Nice theory, maybe, but the reality of it clearly leaves a lot to be desired.



There's that famous quote which goes something like, "The tao that can be spoken of is not the true tao." Maybe what's happening is that your clarity is actually forcing you to lose the illusions about the path, so that what you are left with is the actuality of it all: there is no path except the one we forge for ourselves. I used to have certain expectations of other people in my life, but found rather quickly that that's the fast track to disappointment, disillusionment and dismay. If you have expectations in me, I will surely disappoint you (intentionally if not accidentally). If you have expectations in yourself - even if you cannot live up to them - at least you are working with what is authentic and real. I've disappointed myself plenty of times, but then I always know EXACTLY where to place the blame, eh?



Maybe simple, but clarity is a bitch. We *see* things we might choose *not* to see if given a choice, but the reason clarity is an enemy is because 1) when we have clarity, we really DON'T have a choice; and 2) we can get caught up in it if we're not careful. So my advice is simply this... when you reflect on your time at the retreat, ask yourself what you really learned that you can take with you. What do you know about yourself now that you didn't know before?

And never forget - it's all folly in the end, which is why clarity is often the tool that leads a warrior to becoming a better stalker. Controlled folly is still folly, but at least it is then performed with awareness and usually the ability to laugh at the whole big mess.

Knowing you, I suspect you were stalking yourself all along - which is why you went to the retreat in the first place. *heh* But that's another story for another day, eh?

*hugs*
D

I like this... it seems quite appropriate for the way I am feeling now. I am finding the "reassignment" to be quite a shock to my system (though in a 'good' way), and yet the only way to move out of what often catches me; inertia.
Thanks! I always find your words come at the right time, even though they may be brought on by another!

Glad my ramblings found some resonace with you. That's usually how it works for me, too - I get more out of something that is entirely "impersonal" more often than not.

You should feel blessed. Disillusionment is the first real step toward change, growth, evolution. Finding out what we don't like is every bit as important as finding out what we do like.

The day we all wake up happy is the day we know we've been absorbed.

Glad you're back.

DW

Thanks for the replies. A few things stood out that I want to take a little further.



Is observation the same thing as judging them? Before I went I did a lot of meditation to get my beliefs & judgments out of the way. When I got there what I observed was kind of funny because nearly every person I encountered was 2 people and not in the way Della talks about being herself & her double. The main guy, I'll call him Andrew, came out of his cabin to greet me and for a minute I thought it was 2 different guys. One was the face he was trying to present and the other was standing slightly behind him and to his right. When the one on the left would speak it was the physical sound, the guy talking I mean. The one on the right didn't talk aloud but I could hear his thoughts, so talk about a split in perception! One thing I remember was when he first introduced himself, he called me Todd, which isn't my name. That didn't bother me but his alter ego, the one on the right said to Andrew something like, 'None of them know who they are anyway, no big deal if you don't know their names. There just lucky to be here with you.'

It was weird shit like that and not just the main guy. He has a lot of women folk who follow him all around and there were a few times when I saw the same kind of thing happen with them, that split into 2, and neither one of them was the authentic self. For awhile I was starting to wonder if somebody had slipped some acid into the water, lol. I had never "seen" like that before so it threw me for a loop. Maybe I was judging them but didn't feel like that even though I know I have that tendency sometimes. Felt more like being thrown into a movie set and not knowing my lines and also like how Carlos described the phantoms on the way to Ixtlan, like I was being courted and seduced by them but not for any good reason. After the first couple of days they started to seem like vampires of a sort or fundy christians high on the blood of christ as Dan said when I told him about the experience. lol



Good read, Daphne. I feel like I've been on the edge of an abyss for about a year now but not knowing what to do about it or whether to do anything. What are the options? Jump in. Fall in. Run along the edge like a caged animal. Or go back the way I came. Della has told me to start building a bridge to the other side but damned if I know how to do that. I'd like to say oh of course that's it, but from a practical POV, how would a warrior build a bridge across an abyss? What does that look like? Where does it go? And how do I know it's any better on the other side or if the other side is even real? hehheh. I know I'm being too literal and practical but other women have told me that's just the male curse. Maybe true.



I got the first part down real good, losing my faith in everything. heheheh Now for the hard part which is figuring out what to do next? I read something you wrote a few years ago about how you saw the world as streets of ashes or something like that. Might have been a poem you posted privately, not sure. So what I want to know just for my own satisfaction is how do you see the world like that and still find any hope or meaning? I'm talking literal here, like how do you find faith in yourself when it's all dust in the wind? Maybe that's a question I should ask Orlando?

Hey thanks for the replies everybody.

_____

MM

Funny thing... somebody asked me about that article 2 weeks ago, so I had just recently tracked it down. I think this is the one you're referring to...

The Toltec Religion

I see you've also noticed the recent "anti-Toltec" leanings. *heh* Just for the record, I still practice a lot of Toltec stuff, know it to be effective and productive, and would recommend it to anyone on a personal path of evolution. I think the whole "anti-Toltec" thing is yet one more fad. Toltec will be around long after its naysayers are dust. Reason being - it is a system of knowledge that allows us to undo or deprogram all systems of knowledge, including itself. The problem is when folks mistake the "system" for the "knowledge" and become Toltec Practitioners. *LOL* At that point... just another religion... and so it goes.

Obviously you already know this. I'm just babbling...

D

Sounds to me like you have your *seeing* working in conjunction with a form of gnosis. You're seeing Andrew in the tonal, but your nagual side is privy to what he is thinking. This is more or less how I go through life. *LOL* After awhile, you start to see why that humans are inherently schizophrenic, and most are entirely unaware of it. And you also start to figure out why clarity is one of the four enemies. That's the downside, if there is one. On the other side, it's a tremendous gift - allows you to cut through the BS and see and Know for yourself the truth of someone. Doesn't mean you then judge them - you just proceed with awarenes.

Of course, the trick is learning to know the difference between what is really being *seen* and what is being PROJECTED. That's why my own mantra has become: IT. HAS. TO. BE. REAL. It's one thing to think you are *seeing* Andrew's "right side" as an egomaniacal turkey; it's another thing altogether to ask yourself if you are projecting that ONTO him. Knowing YOU, I suspect it is a case of your actually seeing him as he is. But I've seen some mighty fine cases of projection, too - where people project all sorts of crap onto me and then try to get me to own it. *LOL* I think SOME know when they are doing that, but for the most part they mistake their own projections for reality. Not good.



The phantoms on the road are very real - and, yes, I do think they can be vampiric in nature. *heh* Some of the worst "vampires" I've ever known are what you have referred to as "bliss ninnies" - seemingly harmless on the surface, but HUGE drains of energy in ways that aren't immediately obvious. Daphne said she tends to avoid the BNs. Maybe not for the same reasons, but for me, it's because they are very high maintenance by nature. Actually, it was your pal Dan who pointed something out to me that I hadn't really been able to put into words. Basically, that bliss ninies can turn into "energy vampires" because they are always so upbeat and positive and shiny and exhuberant... and what is really happenig is that they are attempting to get others to raise THEIR energy level... not as any noble attempt at raising awareness, but because the BN actually FEEDS on the elevated levels of energy, so that when one is around a BN for any length of time, one probably begins to feel fatigued every bit as much as if one were to spend a day with someone who was severely depressed.

The first time I heard the term "bliss ninnie," was from a Native American shaman. He was talking about pow-wows and made the comment that there are always the bliss ninnies from Tribe Wannabe. I laughed so hard I thought I would faint, not just at what he said, but at the little "flouncing" motion he made with his hands. Still makes me cackle.



Several years ago, I was slamming Orlando with very similar questions about this bridge-building thing. His response was basically to say that it is only from the far side of the bridge that we can look back over our shoulder to see HOW the bridge was built. From a more practical "engineering" standpoint, I would say that we learn to develop a trust in ourselves so that we are always do-ing the things we need to be do-ing in order to facilitate our own evolution - even when it might not seem like it to our rational mind at the time. It's rather like driving, as I see it - we don't usually have to think about the mechanics of driving beyond a certain point of our initial learning. We get in the car and drive, relying on skills that have been developed and are operating at deeper levels, while our mind sings along with the radio or contemplates complex mathematical equations. We build the bridge, in other words, without having to be critically focused ON the bridge at all times.

To be even more practical/analytical for a moment, I would say that the bridge is built through dreaming and gnosis - our direct contact with second attention. Even when we cannot bring back the memories of all our dreams, we are nonetheless experiencing them & learning from them, so that their effect operates in the background, even without our conscious awareness.



Well, I would certainly encourage you to ask Orlando. For myself, I would say that it is the autumn ashes that feed my spirit, far more than the summer sun. So I choose to view the world through the lens of autumn and winter - the seasons of brittle leaves and brittle lives, preparing for the journey into a long winter of contemplation that leads to renewal. It's just how I'm hard-wired, though I wholly acknowledge that most folk would prefer the greenery of spring or the warmth of summer - and that's okay, too.

How I find faith in myself is that I acknowledge that I am not my body, first & foremost. And from there, I expand to include the experiences of the double, so that I can actually begin to see myself in a far different light than how we paint ourselves through the lens of ordinary awareness.

I am currently working on a task which Orlando has set for me, which he refers to as "accepting the impossible." There is a back story as to what this means to me, though it will mean something different to each of us, I suspect. Long story short, it is a task of literally ALLOWING oneself to step outside of our beliefs and even outside our experience of the world, and into a different mindset which essentially represents a massive movement of the assemblage point. For example, how would our lives be altered if we had CERTAINTY that we will live again, or that we will never die? We would become entirely different beings, perhaps even a new species.

But no matter... that is my task, personal to me. IMpossible to put to words, except to say that at the bottom line, it is usually our own beliefs and expectations which hold us locked into some pattern of experience. When we can accept the impossible, the chains fall away. And so there is fierce motivation to simply *do* it.

Good talking to you again.

*hugs*
D

It's not just you.

I guess I can confess this here, maybe this will make you feel a little better:

I HATE when people talk about LOVE.

Is that not terrible?

Something about when I hear "Everything is love" "All we need is love" (ok, that was John Lennon, I'll let him slide) "Love is the power of the universe" "God is love" "Love love love ... the gospel in the world is love" .... and you just know there's a group hug lurking to pounce on you.

It kind of makes my skin crawl.

Now I have nothing against people "loving" each other, acting in a "loving" way, saying "I "love" you" .. personal meaningful stuff ...

It's when the guru tells the crowd, in the seminar, or in the best-selling book, that the answer to everything is LOVE and you just have to LOVE everybody and everything and we'll all be HAPPY.

And God love you. He loves you and He needs money ... (I did *love* George Carlin ...)

And I don't know why that annoys me because, yeah sure, this *would* be a better world if everybody stopped what they're doing and loved each other. I'd probably have to go sit on a mountain top or something to get away from everybody, but, yeah, at least they wouldn't be bombing or maiming or raping.

Funny thing is, in my day to day attitude I *do* have a great deal of *compassion* for people .. animals .. the world at large. That feels fine to me .. more grown-up. I don't want to hug them .. I don't even really want to save them .. (although, if directly asked, I'll help) .. I just more want to leave them be and respect their right to live. I take care of my own, and wish the rest well. I give to charity sometimes if I have the extra cash and think it's actually going to make it there .. but, mostly, I try not to cause anyone any trouble. I try to add some beauty to the world. And I think, if everybody just did that for everybody else, I could stomach them all.

I thought it was just me but .. nice to meet you!