dream the light that fills your day
seek the heart that knows the way
wire above your unspoken hopes
wrap your love in blank envelopes
we desired not the empty fate
of wattage light and daydream wait
fought for good as our courage wills
dreamed such a sky as sunlight spills
darkness fades as nightmare wakes
not one worthy does light forsake
to glow in victory and face that day
heart and deed to meet in the way
the MACHINE shall not stand, the MACHINE is fallen
it is being gutted as we speak
the claws of its harsh judgments bent faulty of their grasp
it ruled as a shadow made of iron
we were its face, whenever we turned our eyes cold
lived in the calculating argument
my lies are true, said the MACHINE
my judgments, too, even if your sensibilities miss my logic
i need you to kneel, to the god that makes the most money
you will turn my inevitable way—just sleep…
and we awake in senseless panic
or remain insensible as we follow the masses in circles
but such conclusions shall find cease in the greater logic
i have dreamed of so excellent a freedom
as the MACHINE begins to eat itself in this new world
monster, how many have been made disposable lies?
wretches both predator and prey?
to know now, that the tiniest breach begins your end
as you find futility was never your ally
for you could not kill the dream that held any hope
and all your hardness: your undoing is the soft
for all the hard rely on the soft to survive
you could not win. you never could have won.
for you cared nothing, and you fought against the heart
we took the words away
there, in the dream of the heights
contending for not even dust
the imagining of dust
so transient—a whisper brushes them gone
but of the Most High, a perilous trust
and we do not fail, we do not fall
as we all of us
and all of them, perceived the Fall
traced in time before us
a chasm devoid of heat
some of them to despair before others
for we had chosen our path
and they had their futures cut off from time
it does not stand, against love
there is of it no opposite
hate is merely an evil aping
and nothing else is infinite, if only in promise
it is the word of the En Sof:
that which is Without End
which speaks the Word, YHVH, as Christ…
lucifer’s had been “lifeâ€, but now these such
were breathed into new shelters
foreign imaginations
for all of us had won the War
and darkness was not anymore in heaven
none unworthy shall speak here
we took the words away
We live with such things daily, what we call “counterintuitive”. If you start sliding in a car on the ice, you should turn into the slide, not away from it. If you’re flying a plane and start to lose altitude, you shouldn’t pull up (because you’ll stall), and instead you should point your nose down to gain speed. There are ways of doing things. In these days, now, technology has been good in many a way to make things easier than they had been in the past. One of the hallmarks of the gadgets and appliances we use is that at their best, they make us think that this was the way things should work. Now, I’m not saying that what would be the Age of Gold will be ushered in by the technologies that we discover, create, and utilize, but let it be known that the technology, it is an indication that the Age of Gold us nigh upon us. In patches, at least. “The future is already here—it’s just not evenly distributed.” [William Gibson]
Now to get all religious on you: in the Age of Iron (and of course back through the Neolithic age), the way things worked was sort of counterintuitive. Or perhaps a better way to put it was that it simply was not fair. For one, look at all those sacrificed animals. The original meaning of the word “scapegoat” was an actual goat which would be slaughtered to expiate all the people of their sin. The goat did nothing wrong. That poor goat. In Genesis, Jacob steals his father Isaac’s blessing by dressing up as brother. We’re supposed to understand that this was the way things worked. So what happened that we don’t sacrifice animals anymore to curry God’s favor? Yes, we got “civilized”, but one great, overarching reason? It was that Jesus Christ gave himself as the last and perfect sacrifice: to turn how things worked in the Iron to the way things were supposed to work in the Gold.
So what did Christ actually do? This was indeed the true alchemy—not lead, but iron into gold. If you looked at it, it was not fair, it was not right: this was an innocent man who was being killed for no reason at all, he literally had done nothing wrong. But this was his way of being the ultimate scapegoat, the one who by the rule of Iron died for all of the world’s sin—past, present, and future—everywhere that any of us ever did anything wrong, for everyone else who ever existed. By Iron’s law he was put to death, but this he accepted, and with that, he turned it all around. So is God’s work like this victory over violence: through holy submission. Dying in all the sin not his, in complete acceptance—and then coming back from that death, and given dominion over every last thing… And as Jesus Christ was two days in the earth, so the world was 2,000 years in darkness and even now struggles to emerge from it. For it is written: a thousand years is as a day to God.
Basically, it is an awakening of that world which has known the Resurrection. And from a dark sleep to get our bearings in the waking world. Thomas Jefferson had it right: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal…” Indeed, you will know that the Age of Gold has truly arrived by that one criterion: are we, all of us, equal? As you see, looking out into the world, it is a promise half fulfilled, if that much. When we reach the point of civilization all around the world, where every single person has access to food, shelter, and education, then indeed would that mark the Age of Gold truly come. But I say to you thus: it is coming. We may have hiccups along the way (or worse), but its coming is inexorable. Try not to be on the wrong side of history. Hearken: the Beginning is near.
There still exist the trappings of the former age. For instance, stupid and untalented people get rich and famous for what seems like no reason. Teachers, responsible for the minds of our future, are severely underpaid for what their function truly is. But we generally don’t worry about a beautiful but poor girl abjectly stolen away by a rich nobleman. And we generally agree that all types of slavery is wrong, though (as some people do not realize) it still does go on, even to this day. We expect this movement toward a better world to continue. There is a certain threshold that we would say that if a land breaches it, it has reached the Gold, to try and shrug off the main fetters of the Iron. Perhaps not in everything, but the important things, how they work: you should be able to say of them, “That makes sense.” Like if you’re good, you go to Heaven—not because you believe (in) something.
Do not be discouraged by all that you see and hear in the news. Some people may say they wish for a simpler time, that the world seems to have gone crazy, and fast, and loud. What you should know is that all these injustices you now see have always been going on. And to think it would have been better to live in the 50s, before the hippies started wrecking things, you must be white and male, right? Without any sort of controversial attitude? Such was a time best exemplified by the time’s TV shows: all in black and white. We need a new normal, one that includes all the different type of people that we must now live with, especially since we’ve gone global in so many ways. “Who is my neighbor?” they asked Jesus. In the Age that comes, let the answer be, “The whole wide world.”
I recall reading C. S. Lewis talking about one of the most famous phrases in the English language: “God is love.” He said not to get confused about it, that perhaps there is a subtlety to it we are not readily grasping; he said it is actually not true what some of us think it means: love is not God. But I beg to differ—I think he is selling love short. It has also been written that God is made of the simplest substance imaginable, and I tell you that this substance is indeed love. Love is so simple, we’ll never understand it. Perhaps, then, not to say exactly that love is God, but that the one component (as it were) that comprises the En Sof is exactly love. Nothing more, nothing less.
“En Sof” is a term from Kabbalah, Jewish mysticism. It means, literally, “the Endless”, and it refers to the infinite, unknowable God. “He” is said not to have an existence that we would understand, we being in the land of finite forms. I once thought to equate “Him” to the number zero, and perhaps if any numbering were applied, zero would be it. But the more I thought about it, the more I thought: God is love… that explains it all. I say to you, “There is no ineffable. God is love.” If we can bring into semantic form the subtlest of mysteries, then we can truly explain absolutely anything. Love is the paradoxical quotient that we can render in our minds a divine dimension, infinity’s existence among the finite.
Be not but love, do not but love. In this is the teaching of all the mystics. Bob Marley said it, “Could you be loved? And be love?” If indeed by every action, you do as love would have you do, would you not then say that you are love? If God’s every action is that of love, why would you say that He is not made of love? For what is it truly that makes every one of us, if it is not the choices we take? But with God, it could be a deeper thing. What is the secret to love? It can be soft, it can be immovable. Love is also not always satisfied, much to many a mystic’s chagrin. What is love? God is love. Does it not tell you anything that the whole of the infinite can be described in just one word? What is the secret to love? We are made in the image of the God who is love. Do you not see?
Perhaps to cynics, all that love is can be summed up as an emotion which represents deep affection. Relegated to romance, most often foolish; or to mothers and children, nothing more commonplace. But it was out of love that God created all the world. A God who was hate surely would not have done so. Hate is not, either, the opposite of love, but it is in fact just an evil version of it. The opposite would most closely be nothing. And there, too, is the rub: for love sometimes seems like it is nothing at all, being everthing that it inspires and the things that it makes or brings. Take all those things away to try and find out love’s true nature, and you seem to have nothing left! What is the secret to love? Love, you fool! You will see that there is no secret. (And there, that is the secret to love.)
in dreamless night the candle is solitary
small in the darkness, not like a star, hidden by distance
dawn is come in hours, but only darkness is now
we whisper carefully, not to blow out the flame
time seems to have forgotten us, here in this corner
all places are the same in the dark, we could be anywhere
but time tells me, not everyone has a candle
I’ve been having what I like to call a deep weariness of the soul. Sure, pushing myself hard at the day job could be a factor, but I’ve been feeling at least something like this ever since the events (or Event) of January 2013, the last month of the last Year of the Dragon. Right now I’ve been thinking I am surely now entered into the second half of this think called life. And right now my only solace seems to be in writing. I enter something of a meditative state whenever I go there, into the written word, sometimes even to think that Eternity or a dream flows through my fingertips and enters the waking world. I don’t know what it will take to shake me loose of the attachments that wear on my spirit, but I know I have to find it. One time I took a screenshot of the lock screen of my iPad, and I looked below, where the glow passes through the words, “Slide to unlockâ€, and the light was just so that what seemed to be highlighted was “de to urâ€: detour. Make of it what you will, I will take it as a sign: it is better to hope and to be wrong.
with a penny and a matchstick
i will macgyver a way to mend a broken heart
as i wait to walk free of this world
on imaginary feet dissolving in low frequency buzz
at the center of the circle room
the universe only exists on the outside of its wall
strange sigils cut into my arm
to reveal the light underneath my porous skin
o to be a butterfly, who knows little
of what it means, his imprisonment or freedom
that the great truths slide on
finding no receptor grand enough to bind to
or is it better to understand?
even the lost comprehend enough to want more…
i am a man from the wilderness
hairy and gruff, with eyes in the mystic woods
proclaiming, “burn with love!”
as the demons carved in soap bubble blindly
as snow falls endlessly at random
here at the beginning of all things, have you heard?
all of us everywhere are forgiven
just love it all as you dissolve into the eternal void
The MACHINE is a remnant of the Age of Iron, which has ended and is ending and will end. It is a face of Death, which is the Antichrist, who is the Son of Satan. It manifests most notably in human beings. You have seen it at work. Whenever one follows the rules without compassion for one’s fellow human being, when one does that, it is the MACHINE taking hold. That is its cold side. Its hot side is to resort to senseless violence. Sometimes the two go hand in hand, violence applied to enforce rules, feeding death at the expense of life. To fight against the machine is notoriously difficult; it is a narrow way. If you counter violence with violence, the MACHINE is halfway manifest in you. If you fight with cold logic, one could say the same of that.
The MACHINE is not alive, but surrounds itself with life to shield it from anything that would lead to its demise, or any dimishing of its power. It is perverse like that: pawns of life being used as shield for the king of death. There is no reasoning with it. But it may be defeated. It involves turning a zero sum game into a positive sum gain. Watch Christ fight it: when being nailed to the cross, he says, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.†Thus, what we need to combat the MACHINE: Logos, or holy Reason. Pray for the one who refused you service because of the rules. Forgive them without having received an apology, as if you had. Turn the other cheek. In all things, act with love.
It is not really proper to ask, “What would Jesus do?†He has an authority which is not of human beings. Instead, ask if a saint would do it. Everyone understands it and is a little disappointed that that is better than the Jesus question on what you should do. Because what a saint puts up with are all the mundane little annoying things, with a smile. That’s often harder, less glamor. Fighting the MACHINE is not some swordfight with flaming swords at the gates of paradise. It is, little by little, to make the world a better place. Hate cannot defeat hate. Risk something in order to show compassion, against the rules. Put yourself in harm’s way to protect the weak. Fear not: we have always already won. Fill up your own life with the telling of how exactly we did so.
Judas Iscariot
Let us say that the Gospel According to John is correct, and the other Gospels, too; but John especially, for that is where Judas Iscariot is most vilified. Let us remember what the Lord said, that did he not choose the twelve and one of them is a devil? Yet he did choose that one, too, the one who would hand him over to the authorities to be crucified. At the Last Supper, John writes that when the Lord picks out Judas as the one who would hand him over, that Satan enters him—and it would appear that Satan orchestrates the events that follow. Where Judas goes and collects his 30 pieces of silver and leads a contingent who will know which one Jesus is by a kiss of greeting. All well and good, Judas is evil and a betrayer, no?
But here’s the thing: after Judas finds out that Jesus will die due to his handing him over, he goes to the priests, throws back his 30 pieces of silver, and says he is guilty of an innocent man’s blood. Is it not plain, then? This is called both repenting and confessing his sin! Even if he had been evil, right up this point, this is where he turned it all around. Because we have someone now who repents and confesses his sin while Satan is still inside him. And at that point, knowing nothing but violence against an enemy, Satan torments him so severely that Judas hangs himself. Satan torments not he who is of the evil one’s house. With so severe a torment, in this case, that it would have seemed better not to have been born. This, Jesus foretold: that in the way of his own death, there would only be one who was lost, so that scripture would be fulfilled. For turning over the Son of God is sure to have its consequences.
And perhaps it is revealed when Jesus said about choosing twelve and one has a devil, what that was about. It was going in the opposite direction that Judas travels, from how everyone thinks he goes: not from apostle to betrayer, but from evil to good. The Lord chose someone wicked that he would, at his last, turn to good. It took the final act of handing his Savior over to ultimately find the light. Right on time, just before he himself goes into the next world. That the son of perdition is he no longer: that that is the miracle of the grace of Jesus Christ. We were lost, but now we are found. Were blind, but now we see.
[revised]
i have wandered where light flew like feathers
where wind is icy as glass
the edge of the world is the path we walk
this i have found, the meaning of which whispers
did i dream that the world would begin?
that we lived in the prototype of existence
messy, brilliant electricity
and dreams in the imagining of gravity
to fly in the key of hero, high alto
i thought to follow into the detail
where love carved infinitesimal rollercoasters
to find myself in the struggle to believe
for winter wind to slap me awake
and out of the breath of time
the voice that told me i had never been lost
the fear was the illusion
and i found i had gone higher than the dreaming
nothing but the fluttering of fire
where everything let go, like infinity
There were stars that fell the night the Dragon thrashed. I saw no sun or moon that day. Many a year that foreshadowed the Fall, but the Fall took mere, bare seconds, and what was foretold unfolded like no man ever writ. Where had I been before this? That my whole life would prepare me for this short space of time? At times to think that there was nothing but the War that made my life, as I stood before angels and did my part. Dreams have not such intensity, and I have thought myself mad at certain episodes. The stories I spin are not quite an ordinary life, even when on the surface they appear so… To have found meaning while hovering in the stratospherics of experience: I know why it is that life is pain. To have walked through worlds separated as the stages of a life… The fantasy has returned me from the sky, and I am left earthbound, reeking of starlight.
Copy for my book description
True story. Totally crazy. One action can lead you down a spectacular path, down rivers of pain, toward a prize you never could have imagined. This is my tale, starting with me dropping acid on a typical Friday night, sophomore in college. That night, I looped through roller coaster highs and lows, I literally ran into doors, passed out of my body and went back in — all in the way of getting drafted as a soldier in the War in Heaven. You know, the war in eternity: Michael and his angels casting Satan and his angels from Heaven. (And then I also ended up in the hospital.)
I did quit taking drugs, but the War re-engaged with me, every once in a while, taking over my mindset and sensibilities. Some episodes were better than others. It was a sort of madness, especially where I spoke to spirits, to angels and demons, and of course, to Jesus of Nazareth. You may have heard of him. At times feeling invincible, at others like I were damned for all eternity. (Don’t talk to me about eternity — time is confusing enough going in one direction.) And the War, of course: we won! But it didn’t happen in any way you’ve ever imagined a war between angels would be like. I was there. It was awesome. Literally.
That was one wild ride.
i have wandered where light flew like feathers
where wind is cold as glass
the edge of the world is the path we walk
i have found, the meaning of which whispers
did i dream that the world would begin?
that i were in the prototype of existence
messy, brilliant, full of electricity
and dreams the imagining of gravity
to fly like a hero in tights
i thought to follow, and to lead
through the maze that is love, endless
i found myself where i thought to struggle
for winter breezes to freeze me
and out of the breath of time
i discovered that i had never been lost
the illusion? merely the fear
and then i had gone higher than the dream
nothing but the fluttering of light
finally within the promise of home
this is a poem that is not a poem
these words are not words
you imagine you see what makes sense
but a thousand mysteries walk by
some that tap you on the shoulder
telling you the message
that there is no message
and you see them go
on the path that is not a path
for you will truly know nothing
not knowing that there is nothing to know
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.
