The journey of healing can sometimes bring us little in the way of comfort. But we don’t journey to gain comfort. We do it to become whole, to become real in the face of whatever we encounter. It can be a bare-knuckled challenge, a conflict of seeming polarities that have to be faced and reconciled, by looking at the brutality of the world directly in the face and acknowledging it, encountering it in all the ugliness, the chaos, and the beauty. Opening to a divine light that reveals our identifications, agreeing to, and receiving, all that is, as we dis-identify from illusions and become transformed. This transformation can be hard-fought and hard-won. It is what distinguishes us from those unable to return to and abide in a fluid state of being.
No matter what we encounter along the way, as we navigate through the festering tar-pits of our individual, ancestral and collective human psyche, what spurs us on is the knowing that beyond the pain and suffering of the world, there is a tangible sense of something else that is ever present, a destination of eternal becoming that is our birthright; that loves us, comforts us, holds and embraces us, and ultimately transforms us.
This is the polarity of human existence. There is no division. Only a continuum of unicity. And in the transformation, we find ourselves landing exactly where we already are, but transmuted into the essence of the cosmos and bathed in newness. An uncompromising celebratory dance of life. A perpetual genesis birthing an eternal nirvanic love. We are the light of the universe. We are Shiva and Shakti – unmasked!
Image: Will Lull
Photo: Carbon 18
Black Friday is not just black; it is dark and contains our shadow. It reflects the age of which we are currently living in the centre. It is the end-of-days of consumerism. A loveless, running, a trampling of our fellow humans, and that’s just the videos we see of shop doors opening for the sales. Everyone for themselves. We are carbon life forms, and we are living in the age of carbon. A world created for the most of organic compounds. How do our inner and outer lives manifest now the organic compounds have so insidiously become part of us, as individuals and of society?
The primary motivation we have for the use of organic compounds is to obtain money. Carbon-based products make up over half of the world’s finances. I used to work in oil and gas, and I experienced this first hand. I had been managing a care home for ex-institution clients at the time, but someone met me and asked that I join them. I got to experience first hand how energy is moved around the planet. I worked alongside the political leaders of Russia and the new countries of the former Soviet Union. I facilitated energy and defence companies such as Halliburton, Raytheon, Texaco and Mobil. The power sources of the planet and the controllers. I learnt how energy is harboured and exploited for greed and profit, and how the powerful mask their motivations, cover their tracks and write the version of history that suits them. If you ever meet someone who refers to themselves as a philanthropist, be curious, and make sure to ask them how they amassed their wealth.
The age of carbon makes us put our greed before all else. We exploit the environment. We want things to be cheaper, and we throw many things away after just one use. We want to save time, and to speed things up. We hate to wait. Organic compounds are the driving force of society and stimulant of speed. We must hurry. And we are in denial. We ignore our impact on the planet. We make ourselves willfully ignorant. We ignore the cost that the goods that we buy will have on our health, even when the product labels are spelling it out. My teenage daughter buys perfume from Victoria’s secret that contains endocrine disruptors. What she desires to make her appear more female on the outside is doing the exact opposite on her insides by inflicting physiological damage.
Do you have a Sharpie marker? They used to just come in black, but now come in all the colours of the rainbow, and we buy them for our children because they are pretty. They contain neurotoxic aromatic hydrocarbons, which means they directly poison brains. Science knows this. We know this. It’s a toxic fucking rainbow.
Almost all of our fuels, cleaners, lubricants, dyes, glues, explosives, pesticides, plastics, penetrants, refrigerants, corrosives and our medications are perpetually combining. And they are having a detrimental and devastating effect on our mental state.
We are becoming more confused and disoriented. Unfocused and wandering. Lost. Vacant. Our identities are getting confused. We lose a clear sense of self. We may feel that we have a dual existence. We may compensate by seeking out ‘non-dual’ experiences and teachers of oneness when all we may be suffering from is organic compound toxicity. We feel dull. We feel heavy. We can become mild, flat, unnoticed, invisible. Unimportant. A vacancy of identity. We feel exploited, or have a strong feeling about exploitation, or a shocking indifference to exploitation. And we know all this but cognitive dissonance kicks-in when we get our next new toy. And the current one is still working. But it’s not enough. We don’t really care. All that plastic comes from oil. We need more. We can have anxiety about finances, often mixed with urgency and industriousness. We can be self-sacrificing, trying to find our own fundamental value in the world. We feel worthless. We lose our vitality. People never used to be this sick. Sinking or falling. Losing position. Confusing true self-worth with prosperity and money. A haziness around cognitive function. Concentration difficult. Mental wheels spinning around without traction. An increase in cognitive dysfunctions, dementias and Alzheimer’s. Difficulties in formulating the answers we need to survive and succeed, as a race on this Earth our home within space. Abundant ideas and yet weakness of memory. Isolation and separation. Living next to each other and not knowing anyone. Does anyone love me? Do I truly love anyone? Solitude and indifference. Explosiveness. Apathy. Dreaminess and lacking presence. Nothing but sitting. Why can’t I just get what I want? But still caring for others. A profound loss of vitality. Empty-headed. Ghosts and constriction, as the toxins entwine with us. An immature sexuality. Delusions of autonomy. Our reliance on drugs. Not maturing. Living in shock. Floating and flying. The feeling of dying. Anaemia, Cancer. Reactions to the environment. Ongoing collusion with ourselves and others, as we pursue our cravings for alcohol and sugar. Sudden complaints hitting us, right out of the blue.
Black Carbon organic compound toxicity Friday.
The almost dead but just alive day. The let’s celebrate our emptiness day.
Black Friday, this oh-so-dark day.
If you can let this in, it’ll be break your heart day.