One of the keys to understanding the nature of things is to let go of the dichotomy of true and false. Just because something is a lie or is false does not make it any less true. Just because something is the truth does not make it any less a lie. That which has never been has always existed. Paradoxes are not paradoxes when one sees that truths can contradict each other because they are also lies.

Gliese 581c brings up the tidal lock issue: if Gliese 581c is tidally locked to Gliese 581 then one side of the planet would be scorched while the other would be frozen, rendering the planet uninhabitable for water-dependant life. Most of the planets detected so far (including Gliese 581c) have been only detected through indirect measurements of their mass, we no nothing of the structure of that mass. It is possible at least some of these are double planets. Though perhaps unlikely — if Gliese 581c is a double planet, both planets might be tidally lock to each other instead of the star similar to the situation in Asimov's Nemesis, allowing for liquid water and possibly water-dependant life.

The possibility of life on Gliese 581c brings up something that has been a bit of a minor mental obsession of mine: life that has evolved vision is likely to evolve vision keyed to the spectra of light it most often encounters. Life evolving around a red dwarf would not likely see the same spectra of light we see. Blue would be of little use and their visual range would probably be shifted into the infrared. Something printed red-on-white or blue-on-black in our eyes might simply look like a blank page to such a life form and their chosen inks may be only visible in the near-infrared and be invisible to us. Perceptual differences such as that would serve to further complicate communications with intelligent extraterrestrial life. It is easy to assume our perception of light and sound and smell and feel is the default, because within humanity we consider anything outside of that default a disorder. Our bias is sample bias, and other intelligent life in the universe is likely to perceive things in vastly different ways than we can even imagine.

I've been thinking about quantum immortality and how, if true, it could be used to manipulate one's experienced universe. For example, entity X cannot live without entity Y, so entity X creates a device that will insure their death if entity Y should die. From entity X's point of view, no outcome where entity X themselves die can occur -- as a result entity Y will never die in entity X's experienced universe.

With such trigger devices it would be able to manipulate an experienced universe to the desires of the experience. The trigger devises would have to be infallible, and that is quite a large hurdle to clear for any wholesale manipulation. Imperfect, though perhaps satisfactory, results might be found if the trigger device is significantly less probable to fail than the desired event is to not happen. Of course if the quantum immortality hypothesis is incorrect, the trigger devices will simply kill the user.

I've done salvia divinorum in the past. However, I'd only done 1X. Last night I tried 5X. Oh my, what a difference. The world ripped away in front of my eyes into interference patterns. Then diving down, I forgot everything. Complete dissolving of definition. No knowledge of the day to day world, no sense of self. I had to rebuild my perception of reality. Put everything back together. I had even lost the concept that everything was occurring in a three-dimensional locally-euclidean space, and couldn't figure out what kept me physically separate from anything. Even as I came out of the most intense part, everything kept warping together at the edges of my perception.

The strange putting together of things, defining of things, is the journey from the wholeness at the center. Without a sense of self, everything is one. There is no need for definition or distance. What is at the center is beyond definition. It is the All, the Ineffable. Words are boxes which cannot contain It. Even saying it is "beyond definition" misses the mark, as it is neither beyond or before.

I took the journey twice last night, the first time the speed of the journey panicked me on my return trip from There to Here. The second journey I was able to experience reconstruction from a much calmer place and was able to observe the experience more.

The salvia divinorum experience is not unlike experiences I've had in the past, however the pace at which salvia divinorum triggers these experiences is frighteningly fast: the most intense part is over in the first 5 minutes, and after 10 more it's completely worn off. The short duration along with the physical immobility during the deepest part may be why such a potent herb such as salvia has managed remained legal in most of the entheogenphobic United States (Missouri being the exception).

After the journey, I made a map...


We are waves emanating out from Unity. We perceive other waves as other selves.

At Unity we become all waves, all things. There is no self at Unity.

Between the everyday sphere of perception and Unity lies a domain where the waves are not united and a self still exists in some form, however the waves interfere with each other. This interference can show up in a variety of ways, including sensory phenomena (hallucinations, patterns, distortions, etc.) and/or disorganized thinking.

When viewing an autostereogram, focus of the eyes travels from normal focus to the adjusted focus where the 3D image is visible, the focus travels through an intermediate stage of visual clutter and interference. Traveling to Unity is like refocusing your eyes.

The Universe is alive and the very particles that make up your body have free will. Our level of existence does not deny theirs, nor does their free will deny ours. In the same manner, our free will does not deny the Universe Its free will nor does the Universe's free will deny us ours. We are part of the God just as the particles that make up our bodies are part of us. Existence is not limited to our size or our view. Action, thought, even consciousness happens below and above.

Happy Solstice

Today, I thank Sol for providing the light that has guided my days, kept warm the air I breath, allowed grow the food I eat. The center of our spinning system, our little plot in the Universe. Your glory will continue to shine billions of years after I'm gone.

Though there are many others of your kind, you are the caretaker of my world and therefore I honor you above your siblings. You hold a place in our sky and our hearts. Thank you.

Is God benevolent or malevolent? Does God love us? Is God wrathful?

These questions are fitting to ask of some man with a flowing grey beard that lives in the sky, but they are unanswerable as to God as All.

God is not only the sky above and the ground below and all that dwells in those places. God is not only everything we can touch, God is more.

God is all creation all destruction. God is life and and God is death. God is the bleeding wound and the passionate kiss. God is the roar as well as the silence.

God is all beliefs and doubts. God not just the concept of heaven and hell, but the concept that there is an above and below. God is the ideas we think as well as the air we breathe.

God is all emotions. God is all love and all hate. God is all benevolence and all malevolence. God is all wrath and all forgiveness.

God is our mathematics and our law. Our fears and our courage. Our arts, our poetries, our languages and the metaphors behind them. The truth as well as the lie.

God is energy and matter. God is the motion of the falling rock as well as the rock that falls.

God is the Happening that is the Becoming. God is what was, will be, and has been. God is even that which is not, has not been, and will never be; if what is not, has not been, and will never be is but thought.

God is the All of Everything, the Universe of Universes. This is why there can be nothing greater than God. No threat needed, no coercion. There can be none greater than All that Is, because anything else is simply part of the Everything.

I am thankful for the chance to have seen not just one sunset, but hundreds. To be able to bear witness to some small part of the Glory of the Universe. Sure, sometimes I do ask for more, sometimes I am impatient and even jealous. But, that is my own failing. I must be more mindful of what I have. I have tasted fire and touched wind, what more should I want?

"Do I have a purpose?"

"What is the point any of this?"

"Does it matter?"

Individually and collectively these are often driving questions and people take myriad of paths to seek answers. Some throw up their hands and proclaim there is no point or purpose while others plainly see their purpose. Still others will spend their lives looking for that purpose, often tormented by the lack of having one. I for a long time fell into the last category, until I came upon a sparkling thought: One need not know what their purpose is in order to have one.

That realization has been freeing. I no longer search or seek my purpose. It may not be for me to know and from my vantage point it is fully likely that i would be unable to understand if somehow shown. I am part of the weave of the Universe and no part of the Grand Structure is pointless or unnecessary.. Every person's existence has meaning even if they never know what that meaning is.

the Universe is neither fair nor righteous nor good
fair and righteous and good are human concepts
subjective judgements

it's likewise flawed to say things are the way God has meant them to be
as intent is a human concept itself

if you believe God listens to and answer your prayers
do you know what listening and answering is to God?
do you think God listens or answers in anything close to the human concept of those words?
when you ask in your prayers for what you believe is needed
do you think that you know more than God what is needed or that God shall not act until you ask?

God is the grain of sand
and the beach the grain sits on
and the shore the beach is found on
and the ocean the shore borders
and the world which holds the ocean
and the star the world orbits
and the galaxy the star lives in
and the cluster the galaxy resides in
and the universe the cluster exists in
God is the Universe of universes
everything that is anywhere
in time and space
and outside time and space
there is not anything which is not God
God is the All the Universe the Everything

we are so removed from the level of the All that we cannot hope to understand It
It is beyond our vision
beyond our place
but we can know that things are
and things are because that is how things are
and all things are part of the All that is all things
and the All that is all things is God
and that is enough

no prayer will save you
no angel is coming
no level of consciousness will lead from here
none of us can ever leave
we are bound to this place
because we are this place
we are you
and we are me
we are the rocks and the oceans and trees and the mountains
we are the beyond the veil and we are the veil
there is nothing that is not this place
as there is nothing is not us
we are this place
we cannot leave ourselves

the truth is never as it seems and is at all times subject to change
this is not a cynicism
it the state of the universe
the states of existence
the state of all

questions without answers
and answers without questions
we are lost in the eternal flux

the ground we walk upon
the very earth
is mostly not there
empty space with some ephemeral probabilities
we are the stuff of nothing
and together we form everything
the universe is our nothing god
the collection of all the might be
could be
should have been
the directed will of thinking void
we are its thoughts
consciousness manifest
a small part of our own deception

determinism
can i say it is not so?
we are what we were meant to be
it's all been worked out
we've gone through the pattern a thousand times
and a thousand more well shall play this out
nothing ever changes

free will
where is this not?
no force of action
we free to move and shape our lives and our destiny
where we go, we choose to go
we effect change
we are always in flux

neither view is exclusive of the other
the universe is of both place
both "realities"
we are bound to our destinies and the shapers of them
future is unwritten and yet pre-scripted
we can neither change nor can we stay the same

look upon lies, there you will find the truth
look upon the broken, there you will find the hope
look upon nothing, there you will find everything

I've been in a sour mood lately
I'm fighting the demon eyes.
The demon eyes are too easy to retreat into into and so hard to take off.
I do not like the demon eyes
I do not like myself when I wear them.
I must work on not
I must find my center again.

the days are long now
i still drift among the lost
wander still

if i trusted psych people at this point
i might consider checking myself in to a psych ward
i'm doing that badly in my head lately
it is time for me to refocus
to work on bringing myself back to balance
i've lost touch with the big picture
and when that happens i am lost
mindfulness is hard to keep
and i need to go back to that mindspace

I strongly dislike the ingrained genderedness of the Divine prevalent in many modern religions and societies. God is the All and the Everything, to try to apply a human level concept such as gender to God is foolishness. However, the patriarchally attached maleness of God is so ingrained that it is hardly noticeable when God is referenced as male. Even people who see the Divine as beyond gender occasionally slip up and use gendered pronouns in reference to God. The genderedness of God is so pervasive that it is exceedingly difficult to escape the concept.

This is one of the reasons people may reject the Divine, one of many ways patriarchal dogma taints religion. But, I do not believe that one must reject God the All in order to reject the token God of the patriarchy. I will not reject the Divine on the basis of the patriarchy's many corruptions and lies. To do so on that basis would be letting the patriarchy dictate my relationship with the Divine just as much as if I were to follow their dogma, and that is not acceptable to me.

I feel very good right now. A lot less dissociated than I have been for a while. I had a cigar then went down to Spy Pond. I sat near the shore and meditated. I have drifted back away from mindfulness in my life, and I have forgotten how wonderful it is to find that place. To look at the amazing that exists all around me.

I do better with short to medium length meditations spread throughout the day than I do with longer ones. No matter how hectic any day is, no matter what else I have to do, no matter where I am, I must do these meditations. They are better than any psych med ever was.

My mind gets lost in loops and I lose the path. I become distanced from myself, those around me, and the Everything. But, it is okay that that happens. It is the way I am. The best I can do is keep to the path as best I can and accept my limits. I am the way I am for a reason, and I must take my problems with my blessings.

i am in the dark places now
split apart from where i feel is what i know
i know these dark places are not all there is
but i feel now that i shall not see beyond
farther down, i know none of this is real
but it is there still
and there is nothing else

i must learn to see the always beauty
even if it is always hollow
i must learn to merge what i know with what i feel
even if neither are true
i must accept that the universe is infinite in wonder and bliss
and infinite in darkness and despair

there is nothing good nor bad
there is nothing wrong nor right
there is just experience
forever and always
never ending and never beginning

to wander below stars
and try reach them
some day to be them
they are where we're from
and where we're going to

nothing more is here than was here before
and nothing less
it never changes and never stays the same

again i meet the riddle here
the truth which is the lie
forget this all as nonsense
muttered by the mad
i cannot tell you where this is
but only that i will never leave

do you think you are so fucking holy that you can leave this place?
do you think you are any less trapped here than everyone else?
there is no way out
there is no escape
because you cannot escape that which you are
and you are this place
you are you and you are the trap
there is no way out
death will not free you
enlightenment will not free you
god will not free you
nothing will free you
you cannot be freed
the most we can do is try to make the best of this place we are all trapped in
because we are going to be here forever
and forever, as they say, is a very long time