Dog Poet Transmitting.......
‘May your noses always be cold and wet’.
I’m not inclined to sell anyone on the idea of Astrology. The science is a pristine and marvelous thing but then you add an astrologer to the mix and you can get problems. This isn’t a knock on the practitioner; it’s just that human limitation and error are a constant in all mediums. We’re a trial and error experiment, where failure is the rule and success is the exception. Once again, that’s mostly due to the age we are in. There’s more deception and dishonesty and that creates an atmosphere of uncertainty about yourself and your fellows. After all, once you’ve made the decision to lie, the first person you lie to is yourself. It has to begin there. That’s also where it ends so... the cure is more immediate and available than people might initially anticipate.
The thing about lying is that it’s habitual. The problem with lying is that it alters your existence to fit the lies and eventually you are surrounded by them. This is what happens in insulated realities like Wall Street; the military, religion, entertainment. In both Wall Street and the military, the end justifies the means. This is how you get a certain kind of amoral psychopath, a flesh pressing gladhander; much like a politician. The stock market is a lie to begin with and relies upon a mysterious sort of trust. You see that when the trust is challenged or fails at its purpose that the system has a crash. Politicians are the indirect liars. They’re all about money too but they’re feathering the nests of their future; a nest they foul upon arrival.
Religion and entertainment are very similar. In the one there’s a convenient god whose will dovetails with the needs of the people running the show. In entertainment, the actor is god playing a role that goes contrary to every tenet that supports the tent of the mysterious traveler, which is why they never see him. People think you can look somewhere that what you seek can’t be found and have it appear by demanding it. What you get is a construct that fits the needs of self interest. God’s the pit boss in life’s casino. Luck and Love are similar in a certain regard. Luck is fickle. She’ll walk into the room on one man’s arm and walk out on someone else’s. Love will do that too because... you are fickle.
Due to what I said earlier, it’s easy for military personnel to start killing civilians; anyone who happens to be around. Because the whole thing is based on a lie, you’re in a rage builder mode. Lies make us angry because we refuse to admit their presence and so the truth, whose job is to liberate, becomes a tormenter. You can’t get away from your conscience, even if you don’t know what it’s trying to tell you. This is why the world enrages us, why manners have disappeared and why confrontation on so many levels is simmering beneath the surface. It’s all a lie and some part of us knows that. Lies are the origin of bondage and freedom is our natural state so... that’s why everyone is angry or indifferent. Of course, indifference is just another mask that gets worn to hide the anger.
One thing about lies is that they increase your vulnerability in undesirable ways. The fruit of this is fear. Knowing that you are vulnerable makes the boogeyman real. A part of you knows that you are in trouble because you’ve sacrificed your protections for something that has little or no value. Now you’ve got fear, anger and contempt. As I’ve said many times, alcohol is the perfect fuel for these emotional states and that’s why it’s a state sanctioned remedy. It certainly doesn’t work. It certainly makes things worse and that is the source of a multitude of economies from the Medical Industrial Complex to the private prison industry.
One of the things that depart (and there are several of them) when you inevitably give in to the gravitational pull of self interest is gratitude, after that compassion is by the side of the road with its thumb out. We cease to care about our fellows because we are in survival mode and the conditions worsen or temporarily improve according to the actions of those pulling the strings. You had a lot of people with 401K’s and pension plans that were connected to the economy and what happened was... Aloha. Some of these people worked their whole life; only to see the predators that had already made their life so fearful and uncertain, walk away with their future.
About fifteen years ago I was doing dinner theatre. It was an upscale operation in the Kaanapali area of Maui, where the money goes to vacation. We had our own restaurant. I worked for a real operator named Wolfgang. He was a German and a unique character; a P.T. Barnum sort. I still hear from him occasionally. He’s back in Germany, near Hamburg, with his first wife. When I met Wolfgang he told me he’d been a mortgage broker in San Francisco. He hired me as an extra/understudy and flew in professional actors from LA and SF to play the two leads. That got a little expensive and it wasn’t very long before I was playing the detective, to the chagrin of everyone else who wanted the job. That’s because there are only two stars and they get paid ten times what the other players got. So I was making a good living and so was the host but the rest of the crew was at subsistence level. I didn’t realize the under current of jealousy and backstabbing that was going on. Back in the day I seldom saw these things. They were there though, as I found out, but... that’s another story.
As I said, it was an upscale operation and we would get congress members and all sorts of high flyers. About ten percent of the show was scripted and the rest was improv because the audience became part of the show. I used to annoy Wolfgang no end by interjecting political commentary and whatever I felt like. I’m talking loose canon territory in suit and tie land. Still, it was entertainment and I must have been worth it because I kept that job until I quit.
At one point, Wolfgang came to me and said, “Look, Visible, you’re not getting any younger. You need to think about how you’re going to take care of yourself later on”. I told Wolfgang that I was always taken care of and it wasn’t something I had to worry about. He couldn’t get his head around that but he didn’t register or believe in what I do, so it didn’t make any practical sense. The fact is though, that was fifteen years ago and things have only improved since. Whatever happens, I’m covered on basic subsistence for as far as I can see and that’s fine with me. I don’t actually need more and when you can get your head clear on that you are in much better shape than those being hounded by anger, fear and contempt; not to mention the absence of gratitude and compassion.
I believe I understand the real value of these qualities; compassion, gratitude, integrity etc. They are a kind of protective armor which is much more effective than Dragon-Skin. Most people do not see how incredibly valuable these things are. They might have some idea that these are components of good character but the magical efficacy of it escapes them. These are powerful forces. As Lao Tzu once said, “Compassion is a weapon from the sky against being dead.
This is the worst thing about the disposable culture in which we live. Meaning has been lost. Nothing means anything and why go through so much trouble to obtain these qualities, when you can just pretend to possess them? There is trouble and sacrifice involved in getting these items, make no mistake about that. It will cost you but... not having them will cost you a great deal more.
If you are going in a certain direction; the opposite of the people swimming in the other direction around you, you encounter these qualities as a matter of course. They present themselves along the highway and its challenges. In the one direction you earn money, position, power, fame etc. In the other direction you earn the qualities and then get the rest of that stuff gratis AND you understand their dangers and uses because ‘the qualities’ give you the ability to see into another world. They’re like magic glasses, the cape of invisibility, wings. You get the Sword of Truth. It’s an actual sword and it cuts through lies like a sharp knife through hot butter. You may think this is all allegorical and to some degree it is but, not entirely. That’s what all those myths are about and the gods are polymorphous expressions of these qualities. Their character and job description, as indicated in the myths and legends, are expressions of the different qualities. If you’ve read about Theseus, Jason and Odysseus, you know what I’m talking about. A great deal of truth is hidden in those myths and the fables and nursery rhymes, which conceal any number of profound verities.
What happens, if you follow the highway I’m talking about; “walking in all things contrary to the world” is that you wind up in a magical landscape, where all sorts of things are possible. If this world has its sad magics then every world has corresponding forces and conditions, which are unique to the zone you are in. Simple lines from ancient books often contain much more than the surface or intellectual meaning, “in the world but not of it”. You’re here but you’re not here. The world looks a lot different to you and sign posts talk. Trees can speak out loud. Everything is alive. In the other world everything is either hiding or sleeping because it’s a dangerous place for everyone, not just us.
Danger is relative to the degree of your fear. Fear is magnetic. It attracts. So does Love. One displaces the other. Lose those shortcomings and gain those qualities and see what kind of an investment that is, as opposed to the usual bank account. Remember, you can’t miss them on this highway I’m talking about. They’re the point of the highway and the origin of the powers of increased vision that make it possible to see through what is not there to what actually happens to be.
End Transmission.......
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