Image: Tina Yu
“Confront the dark parts of yourself, and work to banish them with illumination and forgiveness. Your willingness to wrestle with your demons will cause your angels to sing.”
August Wilson
There has been much on my mind lately, I have been carrying a lot of weight, for an endless amount of reasons. This time of year is always weird and overwhelming for me; the closer we come to October, the thinner the veil, and the more sensitive I seem to be to the outside world. For those who have read my work in the past on Dear Wicked you know that spirits seem to come to me in droves to seek some sort of redemption, or pass to the other side during the month of October, as crazy as it sounds. For some reason, the visits are happening now, as oppose to 3 weeks from now.
This year has definitely been one that many tales in old age will be based on.
Besides the fact that spirits are freely coming into my dreams, and attempting to come into my home, I have been overcome by a deep, soul wrenching sadness. This is a pain unlike anything I have felt before, and it has thrown me and my routine completely off. I am drained beyond measure, and using any, and every back up resource of energy to just keep going.
It was during a conversation with my chosen kin Brother that I learned the pain I am feeling is coming from Syria, and the destruction that is currently happening to all the temples. Just this past week ISIL blew to pieces the Temple of Bel. It was not until my Brother reminded me that this place that is seeing so much bloodshed, so much pain, war and destruction is our motherland, our holy land, a place that we all come from.
For me, I have strong Soul connections to Mesopotamia, and the nightmares of past lives I have been having are almost surely because of what is going on over there currently, in the modern day. I will link you to the full story at the bottom.
The situation begs the question, why are they choosing specific ancient temples to destroy? What are they trying to hide? Who told them to do it?
All rhetorical questions, obviously, because I know the answers, and I hope that you do, too.
So, I have spirits visiting, and there is a terrorist group destroying priceless, ancient artifacts for fun. (Among a wide array of horrific atrocities being committed by them.)
Check.
Then I read an article about sea life, and other animals on the West Coast who are washing ashore, or being observed as being delirious, disoriented and having convulsions. Only two theories here, Fukushima radiation, or the sonic blasts our military does off the coast(s). There is a link for this story as well at the bottom, if you wish to read for yourself.
It seems the world has turned into a shit show, and that says a lot because it has been a shit show for at least 10 years now. What will it take for humanity, as a collective to finally wake up and see all the distractions right before their eyes? We have become nothing but a consumerist society, blinded by fake wars, covering up the real ones, and spewing lies of “Gods and Monsters” (an apt description for the visual I am going for.)
We are supposed to be kept in fear, a fearful herd is a distracted herd.
While on this topic of herds, you know people always call the masses “sheep”, even I used to call the masses sheep. Then I realized, sheep are in a herd for safety, for comfort, they have a well-built social structure that runs effectively, I mean, I think to call the masses sheep, is an insult to sheep.
The stronger the herd, the less likely they are to fall prey to the wolves; humans fall prey to wolves of a different variety every single day, and most walk to slaughter willingly, and blissfully unaware.
I think there is no comparison to the human herd mentality, we as a species have become THAT lost, THAT blinded, THAT fucking stupid.
Our future generation is strong in numbers, and could be an invaluable asset to change the fabric of society but a majority of them are caught up in Instagram likes, and YouTube fame that they can’t be bothered with what Bernie Sanders is doing, or what the GOP wishes to do. They fail to see that not voting in attempt to protest is having the adverse effect of what they wish to achieve; revolution.
You can’t change shit when you surrender, you can’t change shit when you remain silent.
You see? My mind is heavy.
I often wonder when I get like this, semi-manic, completely introverted, lost in my Abyss, if anyone else does this. Does anyone else know the freedom, the reward of allowing yourself to go mad for a bit? To go into the deepest part of your mind in attempts to reach the collective unconscious, but instead you detour off only to reach a grand place where there are endless epiphanies?
Because, if no one else does this, if no one else on this fucking wretched but painfully beautiful planet doesn’t allow themselves to go mad, like this, like me, then what am I fighting for?
What is left TO fight for?
It is in the moments of insanity, that one can gain so much clarity.
Have people become afraid of their minds? Of themselves? Of what they are capable of?
Have we lost sight of the individual while trying to seek unity?
Any unity we attempt is doomed to fail if the unity is not a group of individuals freely choosing to work together, put aside differences and “get shit done”. Otherwise it is considered forced unity, where the individual is lost; a forced sense of oneness will only lead to resentment, and rebellion (not the good kind).
Break free from your cage, face your demons, and find your truth then jump down the rabbit hole, there is nothing left to lose and everything to gain.
Links:
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2015/08/isil-blows-part-bel-temple-syria-palmyra-150830195420900.html
“It is in the moments of insanity, that one can gain so much clarity.
Have people become afraid of their minds? Of themselves? Of what they are capable of?”
Hey there Noir, I really think you nailed it here. People are so afraid of their own minds that they must constantly keep them occupied. And even if people don’t seek this distraction, our current way of life with the “smartphones” creates this effect. The truth is that confronting your demons is difficult, and in today’s self-esteem based society, we are told that feeling bad is itself bad. There must be something wrong with you, you’re upset – here, take this pill, or here, let me comfort you or distract you until you just aren’t thinking these troubling thoughts.
Now, of course there’s a difference between the negative thought traps which the inner monologue (the monkey mind) sometimes gets stuck, which are unhealthy, foreign ideas that just need to be understood and exorcised – between those, and the type of inner confrontation you are speaking of. But assuming one knows the difference here, I agree with you wholeheartedly that allowing yourself to not panic and instantly reach for some relief or distraction, and instead choosing to try to learn from your current state instead of trying to banish it is both incredibly powerful and a bit of a lost art.
The truth is that your “conscience” is really the voice of… god, the universe, your muse, whatever you want to call it… and it’s trying to tell you something. Drowning out its voice will only lead to misery. Sometimes, what is has to say is painful. It’s unpleasant. And it might not even been intelligible at first – just that uneasiness, that restless gnawing.
I love that you are challenging yourself and others to not panic and seek a change of head space, but rather embrace the chaos as a learning opportunity. In order to walk this road, all it takes is a willingness to put it all on the table. Are you lying to yourself? Are you tricking yourself into a pleasant lie in some are of your life? If you’re really wiling to ask these questions, the answer might come surprisingly quickly.
Of course you’re also speaking of something more than psychology, but actual spiritual chaos and turmoil. You’re aren’t just speaking of processing internal darkness, but external darkness (which makes its way inside you, of course, but the origin is the thing here). When you are a spiritual empath of some type, one who can really feel the weight of sadness, even halfway around the world.. of course you have to protect yourself at times.. but I think what we are talking about is the strength and courage to actually process unbelievable cruelty and tragedy on the part of others, because bottom line, that shit is happening. If you feel it, if you know it, you can’t just go back to ignorant bliss. It’s all about whether you would want to choose to “go back into the matrix,” having become ware of its existence. I think we are among those who choose to embrace reality, no matter how grim.
We know this is a worthy undertaking, because we know real strength can only be built on a foundation of truth. The truth cuts like a sword, but its actually doing surgery, lifting the caul from our eyes and chasing the bullshit out of our head.
One of the mental traps here is to fall into imagining that you can or should try to save the world. We can all work together to do this – and I think we are, through personal change and growth – but we have to see our individual growth and power as joined up into the web of power that radiates from each person who has chosen to make themselves a point of light. You spoke of false collectivism vs true; the web of light I speak of here is the ultimate in free association. We associate because of our ideas, and our shared vision. We must strengthen each other with our resolve to face the truth. We must draw strength from the knowledge that this battle is not our to fight alone. This is the battle for human consciousness, and we have allies everywhere, even (and perhaps especially) in the dark places of the world. Our brothers and sisters in the Middle East need our support, and we theirs. Certainly there’s a place for a Westerner from a place which isn’t war-torn to engage in humanitarian activity – bless those people and their great hearts. But of course, we know who the bad guy is here – the United States, capitalism, and western imperialism.
The desire of one man to subjugate another is perhaps the ultimate darkness of the soul, and western capitalism has turned this into a virtue. [i]All hail the conquerors, the victors! The “self made” millionaire![/i] I’m sure I don’t need to elaborate here, so I’ll just make my point – we Americans have a heavy burden to try to stop the out of control evil our “system” or way of life is causing around the world. We have a duty to try to change hearts and minds here at home, however we can.
And that starts with encouraging people to get real, to look at reality, to look in the mirror – which is exactly what you have done in this essay….so well done. 😉
I feel your words so much. My days lately have felt like one long nightmare. There are moments of clarity, but even then, the information that comes through is often devastating, that it takes me a while to get back up again. Thank you for sharing your process, at least I know I am not alone.