Ka-mander on (r)evolution

My parents are from the Baby Boomer generation, the same generation as the hippies, though my folks were not hippies. But, like the hippies, they are very interested in government, and how we as a people can make a change if we vote and stay up on the issues. Both of them, though divorced now, are extremely passionate about our political representation. It gets me to thinking. I don't care about it at all. What brought me to this? It's something I often think about when I'm at home. My dad's a republican and he hates Obama. My mom's a democrat and she hates Bush. So either way, there is no peace for either of my parents.

I think there's a reason why I have been given this dichotomy to see.

I love both my parents. I don't care what they believe politically or otherwise. All that matters is the love we share. They of course wonder where they went wrong that they were not able to instill a political sense in me. But I think I am a product of my generation, and therefor a product of the culture we stand to one day inherit. Can you IMAGINE? This is the world we've been born into. Obama is sending more troops to Afghanistan. In regards to the war, which, WHY THE HELL IS IT NOW IN AFGHANISTAN?!!!! One of those old political fogies today was quoted a borrowed quote from Winston Churchill "This is not the end, but the end of the beginning." Oh GREAT! So this war is gonna continue, and continue and continue. And people like me, we keep living our lives in America, ignoring the fact that in other parts of the world, our political representatives are sending soldiers to fight eachother over some kind of ancient ridiculous human disagreement.

But what can we do? Doesn't seem like there is much we can do besides live our lives and find our own peace. Because obviously our government, which "represents the people," doesn't want peace. They're not fooling us!

We measure our history by wars and conflicts. Our economy is collapsing. Our health care system SUCKS. If you don't have money, and if you get hurt. Too bad. My dad often yells at the TV about how everything is messed up. Today I finally said something. I said... Ya know what? The only thing that will change this is for the rest of us to decide enough is enough. Einstein said you cannot change something with the same thinking that created it. And so, there needs to be a new revolution. But I don't mean it in the sense that we have been raised with. We are bred for violence. Even our entertainment; movies, TV programs and video games are violent. We are just being taught to be like them. I personally can watch death and destruction on TV, and I am totally de-sensitized to it. There is something innately wrong with that.

The revolution I'm talking about is an evolution. A total break from the way it has been set up.

This is the only way out.

This is about us stepping away from and refusing what we have been given.

My generation was taught to hate the hippies. Most people I know are offended if they're referred to as a hippy. But let's face the facts Jack, hippies changed the world. They dared to suggest that peace and love are the answers. And they were punished for it violently by our government. But they were missing one key element that we have. They tried to change the system USING the broken system that already exists. They believed in the government. And so now they are all absorbed into the system, and we are their children. But we don't care about the system. We instead dream of another way. If you want to argue with me about Hippies being aligned with the system think about it like this: Their idea of trying to create change was to have protests and sit ins. Our idea is to ignore it completely. If you drop off the radar, you're not participating at all. I'm sure a lot of them are also this way now. They have seen the err of their ways. They have dropped out of view.

The Gen X counter culture is a breed all its own. And the really funny part is that mainstream society has no idea it even exists. We were taught that we cannot express ourselves by what happened to the hippies, and so we don't share what we do with the rest of the world. Rave culture came out of this. These are secret parties in secret locations. If you seek to find the signs, you will find them.

We were raised on anger. Our counter-culture movements in the 80's and 90's were punk and heavy metal and grunge and anti-hippies. And it's even worse now with hip hop glorifying gangstas and guns and killing. But electronica is a different branch of all this. The taking of ecstasy and dancing all night has taught us to open our hearts. Sometimes at great expense to our health, but who cares right? Who needs to live forever in a world like this? Right?

I have always been a person who just plain cannot figure out what in the world this place has to offer me. I just don't believe in it. I have always felt alone in this. But in my travels as an adult, have come to realize that I'm NOT alone. There are a LOT of creative individuals who have always felt the exact same way. I've come to realize that in creating a generation that has been de-sensitized to violence and anger and hatred, an interesting adaptation seems to be happening. We've seen it enough to where we just aren't interested anymore. And so, we move on to something new. And most of us are realizing that we CAN set ourselves free by choosing to be kind, and have peace and love in our hearts.

The people I know who are evolving past this rave ecstasy scene are becoming a new breed of "hippy." A generation that is beginning to choose peace and love. Not as a doctrine to be preached, but as a deep seated way of life; a sort of Christ-like consciousness.

This political apathy stretches across entire generations. We're all lumped into the term generation ME. Because we don't care about this world we stand to inherit, and so we focus on our own happiness. And of course our parents and teachers tell us we should pay attention, and that we will never be able to change anything unless we get involved. I say horse shit. The world they want us to be involved in is unfixable. Even if we believe we're voting for a president who really cares... regardless if he cares or not, the system is so fractured, he can barely do anything about it.

If we have to keep this system, how about getting rid of every career politician and elect people who are just normal every day people? Whatever be the case, something drastic has to happen. But if you ask me, nothing short of intervention from GOD on high, will fix this planet as seen by the reality which has been created for us.

And so we create our own reality. That is the only way. This reality will have to be created by a gathering of like minds. The new tribes, the old tribes, the jedi, the ascensionists, the burners, the hippies, the native Americans, the elders... everyone who wishes to see this change. We all must unite, and we all must decide to inherit the earth. Enough people need to decide this to where we create a tipping point/ a critical mass. Of course it doesn't seem possible. Everyone is too selfish. But I have seen something amazing emerging out of generation ME. We are choosing to evolve. We are choosing to believe. And we are choosing peace and love over the anger we have been raised with.

And so the (r)evolution can be as simple as everyone gathering together, whether physically or online, and gently choosing another way. No wars. No disagreements. Just happiness and dancing and celebration, and having a good life, and spreading peace and brother/sisterhood. It all starts with a simple choice. And that choice is in our own hearts. I say "Thank you very much politicians and all you forefathers who created this fractured system that is eating itself alive, and keeping us from attaining happiness. You have done what you can. You can continue to do what you think you must. But we're gonna go over HERE, to live the way we wish. Your world will shrink, and we will simply be."

I was taught by a revolutionary from the 60's that the instrument of change is innocence. There is no way to fight innocence. And so therefore the meek shall inherit the earth.

"He that is unjust, let him be unjust still: and he which is filthy, let him be filthy still: and he that is righteous, let him be righteous still: and he that is holy, let him be holy still. Dan 12.10"

Imagine there's no heaven
It's easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people
Living for today...

Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace...

Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world...

You may say I'm a dreamer

but I'm not the only one

I hope some day you will join us

and the world will live as one.

Every year when I go to Burning Man I can't help but brutally examine my life. Ahhh Burning Man. That city on the edge of forever made of art and dreams and freedom! How can the life of a rebel be so satisfying without such a devastating crossover into elemental realms where humans are not meant to dwell? Is it so true that we as a subculture have chosen to exile ourselves to a barren wasteland where nothing is fertile? Where everything looks like the scene of a world war two museum replica, all covered with great ash from the fall out of our collective psyches?

I have been in an artistic fever since coming back from these out-lands, wondering what my life has been worth this past year. I am haunted by the question; for what have I been working since the last time I crossed into the Playa and decided to stay put in LA for as long as I could? My yearly pilgrimage to Burning Man has always been paired with a somewhat shamanic intention. There I have my own ritual. Insert intention a. on the fire of the man, circling three times with all those techno-paganic hooligans who always circle the "wrong way" three times around the inferno. For manifestation, one is supposed to circle clockwise, and yet without fail, the circle always mills counter-clockwise. So, while the ones who think they know these things with such dogmatic superiority, they choose to mill through the crowd shouting out "you're all going the wrong way!" To which responses of confusion erupt on the faces of those who know naught of such magical workings.

Such is the way of humanity as we go against the tides of nature. Humans are always going against the current, saying it's wrong, trying to change it. But in my life, the way of a singular human mind is a drop in the ocean of consciousness whereas if a large group of people all intuitively move in one specific direction, that is representative of the flow of nature. So if one person sits in a crowd yelling "you're all going the wrong way!!!" And yet the crowd continues to go the "wrong way," is that just not indicative of what it's like to try and change the flow of a river's current? Is it not natural if a whole bunch of people intuitively feel that way is right? Or are we just lemmings? So why do we even bother to go against it? In my mind, if everyone chooses to make a counter clockwise circle around the man, then the magic we all intuitively create together is that of destruction. We unintentionally create magical ripples of change. And so I always throw scrolls of things I want to delete from my life into that fire. So I go with the flow of nature as much as I can.

This year I decided that I am not really on the right path anymore. A part of me has been circling counter clockwise, and the other part of me is yelling "you're going the wrong way!!!" And so I have stopped and taken myself off line. Hit the old proverbial "Reboot" button. In a sense I have been breaking down old patterns that don't serve me anymore. And now I have achieved a state of emptiness that I have not felt before. But this is a new kind of emptiness. This is an emptiness that is ready to be filled as opposed to the emptiness I have been experiencing that just wants to be empty. I have been able to successfully cut off all the fat I don't need anymore, and that voice who likes to yell out "Hey dip shit! Wrong way!" has silenced itself. Instead I know now what I want to manifest, and so I am ready to circle clockwise. If I decide to just plain ol' circle clockwise, and lovingly accept that everyone else is going counter-clockwise until they're good and ready to come along with me... I can just be content to go my own way without feeling like everyone else is a lemming. They are just following their collective instinct. Whether that is right or wrong still remains to be seen.

The Crossing

This is Fiction. I promise you that. And if it weren’t, what good is the world unless seen through the eyes of a poet? And then again, what good is her verse without the eyes of a stranger to behold it? And so it came to pass on to you. You decide if my words are true...

She was an elemental sorceress who lived in communion with nature’s unending cycles, and the faery realms; a dancer of the gypsy flame in the Borderlands of this world. At night she held audience with nobles and queens, parades of gypsy warrior dancers leading armies to battle with war drums' call! Parting rainstorms and triple rainbows, Pirates' cannon echoing across the valley punctuated by shouts of "aaaarrrrrr." She danced with rays of sunshine as her light-show; forests, deserts, hills and valleys as her stage. All the world in costume and pageantry through the days.

She received her magic from the elements; initiated into all five, but fire was her master, and she his mistress.

Trained by shamans and revolutionaries, she was also a channel, and was placed by unseen angels to wield the flames of change, and destroy the old energy vortex surrounding the planet. This power was bestowed on her by nature, and in return, it gave her the gift of dance to feel the shakti flames of bliss as she wove spells of destruction with the gypsy fire, while simultaneously weaving the framework and anchor points for a new light grid to be built in its place.

In her training, she faced the tests of ego. To do that, one must face all pain and fear and judgment; all obstacles that would be recognized and fed off by demons, lest one be tempted to the dark magics as well. Her virtuosity was destruction, because her passions were fueled by generations of anger and vengeance through bloodlines and histories of evil and separation and persecution. It was her birthright to wield this dark destructive magic for the good of the world without succumbing to its destructive powers.

She held the darkness of the world in her heart, transforming it, shaping it, trapping it, the whole time able to protect the liquid love source at her very core. She carried this foul seed of darkness in a Frodo-like manner, guarding it with her very innocence, keeping it in a holding pattern until she could find a way to overcome it.

But she would not always be so strong, and sometimes the very magic she carried would overwhelm her, and she would be forced to fight it. As long as she carried the seed, the demons saw her. They prodded at the darkness in her soul. The anger she had was a weak spot to them. They tried to control her through it so they could wield her destructive powers.

After her work was done, the elders of the Faery borderlands saw that it had become time to destroy the seed and find a way to heal the darkness she carried. As the seed's hold on her tightened, they cast her from the dragon valley. Alone, she was initiated into journeyman status; solitary sojourner. The seed whispered seductively, offering her dark powers to mirror the elemental powers she already possessed. Defiantly she stood to her birthright, and returned her gifts to the four directions, thanking them reverently, and asking for her mortality back, so she could hide, and pray for guidance.


Part 2

But this would not be the last she would see of her elemental friends, for the fire, her eternal lover, had other plans for her. He would not see her fail her task alone. He led her to another world; one out of space and time. Here they paid homage to him, and gathered in yearly reverence to his destructive/re birthing powers. Ashamed of her exile, and buckling to the dark seed's hatred, she insisted she enter without the help of her luminescent fire love. She would instead humbly find a way to dispose of the seed, and earn the right to again do nature’s work, if not to initiate to something else.

This land out of time and space had a doorway that opened but once a year. It was an intergalactic crossroads on another planet, but on the face of the Earth. Here each year, she would take a pilgrimage to pray upon the holy fires; each time releasing a piece of herself that served the dark seed. Each year she came back to this spot and prayed to be free. Each year she returned and shed a new layer of skin until her radiance began to shine through.

On the fourth year, after great turbulence breaking free of the chrysalis she had built around herself, her heart had been finally filled with peace and gratitude, and she had nothing left to pray for.

As a result, her desire to cross into that place had diminished. She sat with herself, trying to figure out what she needed to shed at the crossing. She looked into her heart where the dark seed had been for so many years. Most of it had transformed into nothing at all. She resolved not to go, and sat peacefully inactive, meditating as the excited scramble to prepare for the crossing bubbled up around her.

Without warning, the tiny shards of dark seed that had not yet changed to nothing, reached out again from inside, prodding her to go this way and that. Yet the stillness inside proceeded, despite the seed’s attempts at reaching what little pain she had left. She waited for a sign from source, and not from the seed.

Her fire lover’s voice appeared from the liquid center of her soul repeatedly. “Come and be close to me! I have something for you.”

“But I have nothing more to give of myself,” she answered. “I am sufficiently empty and content, and the dark seed does not rule me anymore, and I am in no need of anything in return. I am content to sleep in a sun beam where I have come to live for a time by the sea. You can touch me here through the radiant rays of the sun while I sleep in a comfortable place without the wind and the earth to hassle me, and where the water is only in the vessels I carry. I cannot be bothered with such a labor.”

She had become lazy in her exile, the power of the elements remained dormant as she stayed indoors, away from their call. But the call of a fire lord is fierce, though she had many dealings with his touch, she had come to a place where his call was not her command. Out of love for him, she agreed to listen to the liquid center of her soul, and waited, foregoing any preparations, until just before the doors would open, and the crossing would commence. And she received messages from source. Not once. Not twice. Not thrice, but four times. Four. A good solid, stable number. The same number that her crossing would be.

And then like lightning she understood all at once. The dark seed would not be gone until it had transformed completely. Her work had not yet been completed… The final destruction had to commence to make room for her Renaissance, and that path could also be found from there.

And to the dessert wastelands she is summoned yet again. And it matters not that she has nothing to give anymore. The vessel has emptied, and the seed itself is but an empty husk. Its carcass to be cast upon the flames of the fire lords, and a prayer for the evolution of all is invoked. The channel shall open again, this time cleansed and ready to be born anew with new inspiration, and a new sense of connection to source. The empty vessel shall be filled. The elements return out of space, out of time, out of need, out of intent. From a place of total transformation, and with eyes that can see, the sleeper awakens.

Celebration. Initiation. Invokation. Evocation. Evolution.

Journey to the Savage Lands

In a time of plastic containers and shopping malls, street lights and angry drivers, it's easy to get caught up in the illusion we've all created and perpetuated together. It's really ok that we've, in essence, been manipulated to build our own prison. We are taught all our lives that this is the way it is, and every molecule of our body is programmed to believe it to be so.

But what if I could be so bold as to propose that we are all little aspects of our source, and we have the ability to create our own reality. That being said, the more little aspects of source that come together at once and create something else, the more chance we can have at change. All it takes is a good leader... A good cause and a good method.

I'm not a leader, per se. It may seem so because I have been called Commander for the past five years. But all that sets me apart is I'm not afraid to speak up, and once I get on a roll, I am a relentless power machine. Okay, maybe I am a leader. Perhaps I just haven't accepted that, and one day I may jump up on a chair and make a speech, and everyone will listen. I don't dream of being the center of attention. I dress outlandishly. I carry around a little pink box that I've since learned is like what strippers carry around in the clubs. I am really just a big dork who should have been a pirate way back in the day when it was necessary to rebel against a tyrannical crown.

My family raised me to be patriotic. I am essentially a true American; a daughter of the revolution. And when you boil down the American dream, it's to battle for life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. GIVE ME LIBERTY OR DEATH! Yes, I would die for such a cause. I would witthold my right to even procreate because I do NOT accept the consensus reality that has been shoved down my throat, and I do not wish this for any child of mine. I've tried. But ultimately, I just can't accept it. What a tragedy, right? Almost 40. Still single. Unable to really deal with the world. Unwilling to. But I'm not alone. Welcome to the crux of my generation!!!

And so I find my refuge in art... which is what brought me to the Savage Lands of Los Angeles. By Savage Lands, I mean downtown LA. What a far cry from the faery forests of the SCA! This place reminds me of some kind of post apocolyptic mad-max escape from New York city in the future. The bums of Skid Row wander the streets at night, lumbering like zombies. The streets are caked with years of filth. The air is aweful to breathe. But I LOVE the empty foggy orange-lit nights. There's a blank canvas feeling that stirs my soul.

My road to the Savage Lands came after opening the portal to Burning Man; that temporary desert city made of art, and peopled by artists from all over the world who, coincidentally, numbering in around 40,000, also cannot accept the consensus reality. After my first Burning Man, I was spiritually summoned to Los Angeles. I went home to Colorado, dumped all my accumulated shit in the trash, and drove to LA, crying and miserable. I came here to face my paralyzing fears once and for all. And I have been raked through the coals since I came here. I have since burned off all the crap that has held me in a holding pattern of self-created stories, self-designed to keep me in a mental prison, and therefore able to be a citizen of the consensus reality.

The more I experience the sharp contrasts of fear and despair and pain... the more I release it, and understand what it means to be unhindered by the stories I've created, the more I understand what my power as an individual member of the whole is. I am here as a reflection to you... a bridge to your own self-mastery. I have many a tale to tell.

A pocket full of magic

This is a tricky world in which we exist.

I gave up on the pursuit of money a long time ago. In many ways I am not equipped to handle living in this world, and yet I have somehow miraculously made it to the ripe ole age of 37 human years. When I graduated from High school my intention was to run off with the Renaissance Faire and become a healer. Well, I made good on that promise, and spent about 10 years playing in the SCA (Society for Creative Anachronism) www.sca.org. This is basically a HUGE group of geeks dressed in garb, bowing to royalty, and doing what we called "living the dream." In many ways I was born in the right era, yet in many ways I belong in a simpler time. But I eventually accepted that I was too intense for this modern Renaissance, and allowed my character to be burned at the stake, which is what would have happened to me back then without a doubt.

So, the game was over.

A good friend of mine recently posted on my Facebook page... "How do you quit the circus? Where do you go from there?" This has since been my quandary. Not that SCA was actually a circus. It more felt like existing alongside this dimension in a traveling, morphing idyllic village, sort of like Mount Olympus, but not. My specialty is in searching for pockets of other worlds that are not THIS world. I would much prefer for magic to be real, and so I choose to believe in it. I want to find that special illusory break in the brick walls leading to Harry Potter land. And I keep believing one day I will find it. The truth is, what changes reality is when a group of people get together and decide to believe in something else. This is what I call Critical Mass.

My life all through my twenties was an adventure novel, to say the least. I often change my name to help myself believe I am finding my way through this illusion. My names are often descriptive. In the SCA I was The Faery Princess. And boy, did I wear that name well. My world was a novel of swords and sorcery complete with portals to the faery world, Alien abductions, "odd" weather patterns, rainbow halos and even demonic invasions.

If you look at my life in terms of achievement, I am a HUGE crazy ass looser. But as a writer, what counts as currency is experience, and in that, I am a millionaire. I could sit and write about my life for the next decade, and call it fiction just for the hell of it, cuz ultimately, who really believes in magic?!!! Yay me! Only someone named The Faery Princess for 8 to 10 years could really believe in magic, right? So then here's my assessment, perhaps one of the greatest lessons I could pass on to you at this moment before I really get into the nitty gritty of the matter...

What matters in life is not WHAT you Achieve, but HOW you lived it. Spiritually I have hit the jackpot!!! I will carry on the knowledge that I have overcome GREAT sorrowful odds to become a person who has laughed almost every single day since the day I was born. I have discovered the key to happiness. And in that, I am ready to reach a new level in my training as a self-master... or JEDI if you will.