Recent Blogs in the Box

The Evolution of Human Consciousness

In the past couple of months, perhaps because it is a new year, I have had several requests to read the Tarot. It is true I could do with cash that would be generated, but both my intellectual and intuitive sense is that the Tarot has had it time as a blueprint for understanding the human condition. On an intellectual level, having conducted some fairly rigorous research of my own, at a push, the cards chosen are accurate only 40% of the time: three cards chosen for each day of the week over a three-month period were accurate only three out of seven days. On an intuitive level, I sense the patterns and processes for relating that have governed human beings are rapidly disintegrating.

The most important aspect of the Tarot is the Major Arcane, the archetypes that govern possible ways of being and relating and the consequent patterns of power that arise therefrom. With the shift in consciousness, with human beings opening their eyes to the lies they have been expected to live by those who presume to be in control of this realm, the patterns of relating or archeyptes are losing their power.

The Emperor has lost his clothes even if he insists there is no need to repair for a damaged global economy; the Empress has works in a sweat shop so that she can feed a brood whose father disappeared; the Magi is blunted by the waste around him and retreated to a cave; the High Priestess has transformed into the Whore of Babylon, selling her insights in order to survive; and the Hierophant or Pope is doing damage control around child molestation charges. The slaves are refusing to be slaves and bringing down governments, demanding democratic rights, and refusing to budge until they have their say and way. The Youth is no longer willing to be led, but instead, setting the course of history.

The Minor Arcane, the collection of four suits, are also based on a particular understanding of process, a three-by-three synthesis of opposites with a moment of completion before the story of the Suit begins again, be it on an intellectual, emotional, physical, or spiritual level. Technology introduced the possibility of immediate gratification, undermining the patience required for processes to unfold. The Mayan calendar suggests Time stops on 22 December, 2012. When time dissolve, proccess no longer unfold.

In short, the understanding of the Tarot is based on the old energy, the old paradigm and way of making sense of human consciousness. The Tarot is based on a time when processes unfolded rather than the world changed in an instant, like it did with 9/11 and now with the Egyptian people's liberation. The gods of mythology and their patriarchal power plays have been revealed as corrupt, dark, and rather desperate.

In response, a new animal is emerging, a creature that reaches beyond the power of the patriarchs, homo universalis. To read the Tarot would not only mislead people about the possibilities before them, but also lock them into the paradigm that is long past its sell-by date, the old energy and its principles, the world of Time and homo sapiens. In good conscience, I can no longer do that. So I encourage those seekers to become Dreamers, to take up the challenge of taking the next evolutionary step of evolving into homo univesalis, in an instant.

Observations about Transforming One's Life

The personal growth industry is big on encouraging people to let go of their beliefs, negative thoughts, and ultimately, the ego, as if the ego is the problem rather than the power human beings invest in it. While it is necessary to let go of beliefs about ourselves that stand in the way of who we would like to become, just letting go leaves a vacuum. So unless we replace old beliefs with something that serves the new vision of ourselves better, in other words, more constructive beliefs, we tend to attract and reconstruct our lives according the beliefs we have let go of, or worse still, attract the negative dross of others have let go of;  inevitably, we create the same or more alien conditions and challenges. In other words, deconstructing the ego is not enough to ensure transformation: deconstruction of the ego without reconstructing it is death.
        Transforming one’s life requires reconstructing the ego based on beliefs and scripts that would serve us better. It is best to make sure that for every belief you let go of, you put a more constructive belief in its place and remember that in the process of transforming yourself, at some stage, you might choose to replace that new belief.

Goodbye to Gluten

For some years now, I have been intrigued by why, whenever I eat an even a modest meal, 20 minutes later I find myself struggling to focus as my stomach pulls my eyes shut. I do not mind so much: I work on my own time and power naps generally produce powerful dreams, but it can be a mite embarrassing when out for dinner and one falls asleep at the table.
        After being mindful about my sources of nourishment, I realized that if I toasted the bread, the urge to sleep was not as powerful, and if I simply ate salad, I had no urge to sleep at all. The answer was obvious: my body is gluten sensitive and literally crashes in order to process the toxin.
        For those who do not know, gluten is that gluey substance that holds bread together and thickens sauces, but it is not restricted to wheat products.  In fact, I have discovered that it difficult to find a grain or processed food that does not contain gluten. As I said a fond farewell to muesli and the oats that lowered my already low cholesterol levels but ensured sufficient fiber in my diet, I thought cornflakes would be a safe alternative, being maize based. Unfortunately, cornflakes are flavored with malt, which comes from barley, which contains gluten. I tried sorghum, but the tiredness still washed over me because the added selenium they brag about is wheat based. Even the spices and soya sauce I use to ensure a sufficient salt intake, to mediate against low blood pressure, includes "cereal," which means wheat starch, which means gluten. Now I know why people call beers "job stoppers." It is not alcohol at all, but the malt and barley that shut people's systems down or give them heart burn or migraines.
        Finding alternatives to gluten based and infused foods has proved challenging, mostly because producers in this country do not indicate whether their products contain gluten. My increased waking hours are spent wandering down the aisle in supermarkets wondering what on earth I can eat. On the upside, I have discovered a perfectly natural cure for insomnia and lost the kilograms of gluten stored around my middle.

Greed and Nuclear Energy

I am fascinated by how the debate about whether nuclear energy should be pursued or not in the light of the disaster in Japan is framed. Repeatedly, I hear the experts say that all sources for creating energy involves risks, and unless the USA continues to pursue nuclear energy, it will not be able to compete with China. That is exactly the point: Why on earth, literally, do these nations feel the need to compete with each other? Do people in the West not already have enough things to hoard and throw away in their pursuit of the next newest thing to fill their emptiness? Has human greed no limit?
        Apparently the human race does not. Even with my own means to earn a buck to sustain myself, I see leaders being expected to do and be more for their followers; they must not only be intellectually and emotionally intelligent, but also culturally intelligent. In turn, employees are being expected to do and be more for the companies that pay them, often for less and less to sustain them. Likewise, I am being expected to be more and do more for the students I help write more eloquent academic papers for less and less return. Once upon a time, one could submit a thesis in long hand, and  it was the quality of one's argument that was assessed. These days, the quality of the argument has been sacrificed for a presentation with all the bells and whistles but no real substance. In the end, most of the so-called knowledge produced these days is just more and more of the same rehashed ideas more prettily presented.
        Karl Marx, the father of Communism, suggested that technology would liberate us to enjoy our afternoons wandering in the forests writing poetry. Instead, technology under Capitalism has trapped us in a world consumed by greed that expects more and more for less in an effort to win a race that can only end in the destruction of the ground on which we compete.
        Dear God, I really do hope time stops on 21 December 2012; it might just be the only chance human beings possess to return to their essence.

Dreams Within Dreams

This month fellow dreamer asked what it means to dream within a dream. To dream within a dream can be confusing, for one dreams one has awakened only to find one is still asleep and must awaken again. Initially, upon awakening from a dream within a dream, I struggled and sometimes even panicked because I assumed my body was awake, but the body did not function-I struggled to move until I realized my body was still tucked up in bed, asleep and suspended in consciousness.
        To dream within a dream means the dream body is sleeping and dreaming. In other words, the dream body or soul is dreaming and then awakes into the dream of the physical body, and then the physical body must awake into the world we call real (which is also a dream at some level).
        The dream within a dream offers important information about the nature of consciousness. First, it indicates the soul also sleeps, like the physical body, in order to replenish. Second, it suggests there are realms beyond not only the body, but the soul. Most dream occur in what is called the astral plane, a belt of archetypes and magic that can keep people entrapped because they do not realize there are realms, many realms, beyond images. Perhaps most important, to dream within a dream is also the first step toward lucid dreaming, or the ability to become conscious within and direct our dreams.
        In most instances, dreams happen to us. We find ourselves in spaces dealing with events with little conscious understanding of how we arrived in that space to deal with that particular situation. In a dream within a dream, we realize we are dreaming, and having awoken from the dream into a dream, we realize we must still awaken into the 'real world' of time and space. The realization that we are dreaming within a dream suggests consciousness, and the effort to awaken from the dream suggests a decision and choice, an intentional consciousness: we are directing our way and participation (or nonparticipation) in the dream rather than the dream just happening. 

Fear and Insurance

I have always been suspicious of insurance; insurance, by definition, is based on a fear mentality: the fear that a future that does not yet exist will leave one destitute. In buying into the mentality, one draws that possibility into existence; one invests one's energy in a particular vision: the possibility of lack. One then feeds that vision on a monthly basis.  So, I only have insurance on my car because my car is still financed. This week I gained insight into yet another crazy value upheld by the insurance industry.
        I have a very good comprehensive insurance record. I drive with care; the most I have had in the last 20 years are parking-lot incidents at a time when I was not insured. Last week, I had the occasion to enquire about what to do with respect to a windscreen chip and the implications of claiming for my insurance policy. I received such tardy service that I changed my insurance, only to discover on letting the ex-insurer know I had organized alternative insurance that the now ex-insurer could drop my insurance fee by almost half because I had "earned all kinds of bonuses."
        Why did they not inform me of those bonuses as a matter of course? Why must I do a song and dance before an insurer admits it is ripping me off? Why does one have to jump up and down to be offered an honest and fair exchange? What insurers do, in nutshell, is insure the car for its original value, on the mistaken assumption that a car is an asset. If I totalled the car, of course, only the book value would be paid out.
        It is a sad fact that we live in world where the accepted business practice is to exploit and take as much as possible before people wake-up and give voice to their worth. 

A Bunch of Bumbling Bureacrats

When our esteemed Mayor bragged about the achievements of the Kouga region (Kouga News, December 2010, p. 1), he was obviously not factoring in the Traffic Department in Humansdorp.
        I took a trip to renew my license mid-December. "No," said Wellington and Tannie Anne, "It only takes a month. I should come back in mid-January." I duly did so, arriving at 1 pm, form in hand, to face a queue that was 15 people deep and moving at a rate of one every half hour. I estimated I had a 7-hour wait.  Then I was told the cashier closes at 3 pm, which would mean I would have return the following day to wait as long again behind people from Port Elizabeth who use our resources because theirs are overburdened.
        While the vast majority of the indolent masses that inhabit this country prefer to sit in the sun doing nothing, even when being paid a salary, I earn based on the work I actually do and produce, so sitting around waiting upon the whims of bureaucrats means I lose income.
        In the interests of pointing out the inefficiencies of the operation, something I am well-qualified to do, I approached members of the hierarchy. I had to make the same points four times before I reached someone with enough power to make a decision. The decsion was, after I jumped up and down enough, that all those in line when the cashier closed shop would be processed that day, regardless of how long it took.
        Suddenly, it was taking only 10 minutes to process license requests and renewals. It makes one think, doesn't it? It would be a great deal pleasanter to live in the Kouga region if one did not have to crack the whip to have people do what they are paid to do.

Is Nature Becoming Conscious?
I have been thinking about where the natural disasters are occurring, contemplating the metaphors and their implications for human consciousness. On the level of natural disasters, Japan tops the pole with an earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear disaster that has poisoned the earth for all who inhabit her for the 7 million years*. Japan is also the nation that hunts the highest form of water-borne consciousness: whales and dolphins.
        On the other side of the world, the nation that poisons the air with its use of fossil fuels and other chemicals and refuses to commit to reducing its emissions is the same nation progressively being torn apart by tornados streaking across inhabited areas.
        With respect to disease, an e-coli bug that would not even make the news in Africa, rocks Europe; I would be tempted to call it a terrorist attack, but terrorists always brag about the chaos they have caused. This process is stealthier. The popular media suggests the bacteria are the product of "manure mutations," and I see conspirators against fertilizer companies making some mileage out of that possibility. Was the plot actually that of sinking the Spanish economy still further so the IMF could buy up yet another patch of Europe?
        The sea is taking vengeance against a people who slaughter creatures perfectly adapted to their medium; the air, in a chaotic spiral of rage against those who poison her, takes it out on those who consume the products that generate the toxins. Human beings have created a world in which they depend on others for the most basic of needs, food. Is it possible microbes are fighting back to survive being irradiated? Can anyone question the fact that nature is conscious, intentional, intelligent, and sick of the way human beings have raped her? 

* Luckily for those of us sitting on the Southern tip of Africa, the currents and wind patterns will not bring the fallout into the southern hemisphere for at least a few generations. I can also offer a note of hope:  According to a report in the Science Daily, "Scientists are reporting that a substance similar to resveratrol -- an anti-oxidant found in red wine, grapes and nuts -- could protect against radiation sickness." It seems those who frequent pubs might have the best chance of survival; ironic that....