The Nature of Mystery

The Tao Te Ching
Book I. The Character of Tao

1. The Absolute Tao

The Tao that can be told of
Is not the Absolute Tao;
The Names that can be given
Are not the Absolute Names

The Nameless is the origin of Heaven and Earth;
The Named is the Mother of All Things.

Therefore:
Oftentimes, one strips oneself of passion
In order to see the Secret of Life;
Oftentimes, one regards life with passion,
In order to see its manifest forms.

These two (the Secret and its manifestations)
Are (in their nature) the same;
They are given different names
When they become manifest.

They may both be called the Cosmic Mystery:

Reaching from the Mystery into the Deeper Mystery
Is the Gate to the Secret of All Life.
------------------------------------------------

The Tao Te Ching is a fundamental mystery teaching. It clearly states that the Absolute Tao is beyond our human comprehension. For example, we humans have created an origin myth of the Big Bang. Our astronomers tell us that something exploded 13 billion years ago. It is a mystery exactly what exploded. Science can provide no answer. All attempts to name the origin of all things are not the Absolute Names. The Nameless is the origin of Heaven and Earth. I rest in Mystery all the days of my life.

___________________________

I realize I am taking a chance posting this thread. It matters to me to state my beliefs. I have no desire to debate these beliefs. I respect that others have different beliefs, and I am respectful enough to avoid arguing about or criticizing matters of belief on threads devoted to such different beliefs. I ask for the same respect. I think there may be others in Waccoland who hold similar beliefs and I decided to create this thread for us to join together to explore and expound on our experience of Mystery.

Peace, Love, and Blessings, Star Man

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Posted in reply to the post by Star Man:

Oftentimes, one strips oneself of passion
In order to see the Secret of Life;
Oftentimes, one regards life with passion,
In order to see its manifest forms.

These two (the Secret and its manifestations)
Are (in their nature) the same;
They are given different names
When they become manifest.

They may both be called the Cosmic Mystery:

Reaching from the Mystery into the Deeper Mystery
Is the Gate to the Secret of All Life.

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I have disclosed before that i found my spiritual home in the traditional native American sweat lodge many years ago. The sweat lodge is not for everybody. It is the place where I strip myself of passion and find the secret of life. If I choose to see the manifest forms I walk among the roses regarding life with the passion of smell and color or I sit in my friend's orchard and listen to the birds and watch them displaying their beauty in the sun. For me, when I leave the domain of the manifest forms and enter the lodge and the flap comes down and there are nothing but the elemental blackness and heat pouring off the Stone People, then is when I pass through the gate to the secret of all life and enter into the cosmic mystery and surrender to the deeper mystery beyond. Aho Mitakuye Oyasin

Star Man

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Posted in reply to the post by Star Man:

I have disclosed before that i found my spiritual home in the traditional native American sweat lodge many years ago. The sweat lodge is not for everybody. It is the place where I strip myself of passion and find the secret of life. If I choose to see the manifest forms I walk among the roses regarding life with the passion of smell and color or I sit in my friend's orchard and listen to the birds and watch them displaying their beauty in the sun. For me, when I leave the domain of the manifest forms and enter the lodge and the flap comes down and there are nothing but the elemental blackness and heat pouring off the Stone People, then is when I pass through the gate to the secret of all life and enter into the cosmic mystery and surrender to the deeper mystery beyond. Aho Mitakuye Oyasin

Star Man

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From "The Inner Chapters" by Chuang Tzu (commentary on the "Tao Te Ching" by Lao Tzu)


"This Mighty Mudball of a world burdens us with a body, troubles us with life, eases us with old age, and with death gives us rest. We call our life a blessing, so our death must be a blessing too."

Star Man

The Lessons of Tao

8. Water

The best of men is like water;
Water benefits all things
It does not compete with them.

It dwells in (the lowly) places that all disdain--
Wherein it comes near to the Tao.

In his dwelling, (the Sage) loves the (lowly) earth;
In his heart, he loves what is profound;
In his relations with others, he loves kindness;
In his words, he loves sincerity;
In government, he loves peace;
In business affairs, he loves ability;
In his actions, he loves choosing the right time.

It is because he does not contend
That he is without reproach.
___________________________________

Star Man

The Lessons of Tao

10. Embracing the One

In embracing the One with your soul,
Can you never forsake the Tao?
In controlling your vital force to achieve gentleness,
Can you become like the newborn child?
In cleansing and purifying your Mystic vision,
Can you strive after perfection?
In loving the people and governing the kingdom,
Can you rule without interference?
In opening and shutting the Gate of Heaven,
Can you play the part of the Female?
In comprehending all knowledge,
Can you renounce the mind?

To give birth, to nourish,
To give birth without taking possessions,
To act without appropriation,
To be chief among men without managing them--
This is the Mystic Virtue
_______________________________________

This verse could inform the times we're living in if only people were aware of it. "Playing the part of the Female" means being receptive, passive, and quiet. We live in a time when rulers govern BY interference. We live in a time when few public figures have any sense of purifying their Mystic Vision. Most of the rulers attempt to manage men rather than to act without appropriation.

Star Man

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Posted in reply to the post by Star Man:

In embracing the One with your soul,
Can you never forsake the Tao?

To give birth, to nourish,
To give birth without taking possessions,
To act without appropriation,
To be chief among men without managing them--
This is the Mystic Virtue

Star Man

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Meditation for today: How do you embrace the One with your soul? What is your daily practice? How do you live in Mystic Virtue? These are difficult times in which to practice.

Star Man

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Posted in reply to the post by Star Man:

Meditation for today: How do you embrace the One with your soul? What is your daily practice? How do you live in Mystic Virtue? These are difficult times in which to practice.

Star Man

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There is so much loss in the world today. Loss of lives--Sandra Bland, George Floyd and so many more--and loss of birds, loss of the Amazon, loss of clear water and clean air. There is very little Mystic Virtue in the civilization that humans have created. We have little pockets of Mystic Virtue, the sweat lodges and ashrams and yoga studios and covens; the surroundings seem to be polluted by what the Indigenous people called wetko a contamination of the soul with greed and insatiable murderous rapaciousness. We who hold to the ways of Mystery celebrate through ritual and prayer the Mystic Virtue. What is the purpose of life after all? It is to always do the right thing. Do no harm. Celebrate the beauty of the planet we've been fortunate enough to evolve upon. We humans comprise the self-aware self consciousness by which the Universe recognizes the beauty and wonder of its own existence.

Star Man

I understand you as a self described atheist. Yet your writing embraces mystery. If we are just animals with no soul our thoughts have no meaning in the universe. I believe in something greater than me because of my experiences in this life. My spiritual practices are baised in the beauty of this planet, i am a radical enviromentalist, who cries at each butterfly i crush driving my beater truck to help people live better sustainably. And i am a witch who works with gods and goddesses to bend the evil of the world around me. As an animimist, as i clean my world i appreciate each thing i touch, honor its history, as i help it on. My guide to action is karma, dreams, and vision. I remember past lives, and work to achieve the one ive chosen to be the next. As a anarchist, most of my challenge comes from govenment, since i don't need it.

Who are you starman? Are you an atheist?

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Posted in reply to the post by Star Man:

There is so much loss in the world today. Loss of lives--Sandra Bland, George Floyd and so many more--and loss of birds, loss of the Amazon, loss of clear water and clean air. There is very little Mystic Virtue in the civilization that humans have created. We have little pockets of Mystic Virtue, the sweat lodges and ashrams and yoga studios and covens; the surroundings seem to be polluted by what the Indigenous people called wetko a contamination of the soul with greed and insatiable murderous rapaciousness. We who hold to the ways of Mystery celebrate through ritual and prayer the Mystic Virtue. What is the purpose of life after all? It is to always do the right thing. Do no harm. Celebrate the beauty of the planet we've been fortunate enough to evolve upon. We humans comprise the self-aware self consciousness by which the Universe recognizes the beauty and wonder of its own existence.

Star Man

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Posted in reply to the post by rossmen:

I understand you as a self described atheist. Yet your writing embraces mystery. If we are just animals with no soul our thoughts have no meaning in the universe.

Who are you starman? Are you an atheist?

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I have indeed described myself as an atheist. I AM an atheist. An atheist is one who does not believe in the existence of a god. The idea of a "god" is a supreme being or creator who created the universe. I embrace the Taoist concept of Mystery and the Mystery teachings of many spiritual practices. I utterly reject the idea that being an atheist means I have no soul. I am a spiritual being. Spirituality is an experience. In all the places where I experience spirituality--in Nature, in my sweat lodge, in rituals, in requiems--I experience a deep emotionality, a swelling in my chest, an uplifting throughout my body. Every morning I look at the Astronomy Picture of the Day and marvel at the enormity of the universe. Our galaxy is but one of 8,000 in the local group. That's a Mystery. I accept that the origin of the universe is unknown and perhaps unknowable. I do not need to invent a "god" in order to feel awe at a river or waterfall or fern or hummingbird or a baby or a mother's expression of love for her infant. I and others like me are the means by which the universe experiences awe, love, marvel, and joy at its own existence. We have evolved to celebrate the beauty of what is. That is who I am. I am a medicine man, by the way. I celebrate in the sweat lodge and every day of my life. We're not all that different except that you appear to need a god to give your life meaning. I do not. My life has the meaning I give it through my thoughts and actions.

Star Man

You misunderstand me. I do not need deity for my life to have meaning. My problem is, dieties speak to me. This first happened when I was nine, learned to pray in my mother's church, and jesus told me to get out of church. Maybe I'm mildly schizophrenic? Only recently has jesus spoken to me again, when I was trying to get the church ladies to sell me the church facility for environmental reasons, welcome back brother. They sold the land to the school instead, very short version of the story. I have kind of a Zoroastrian relationship with diety.

As a spiritual and religious person I struggle to understand atheism. To me soul is beyond life. I understand atheists as believing in only this life, at death the candle is blown out. I feel sad about this because I believe that what we believe happens to us after death is what happens. Ie we get to choose. I came to this understanding as a young man living as a hermit after dropping out of Berkeley. Its the only thing i understood from reading the bagadavita.

My current wife is atheist, this is it for her, and she is very afraid of death. I questioned her about her belief for the first few years together till she told me to stop. Now when she talks with spiritual knowing I just smile and nod.

What is your understanding of soul?

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Posted in reply to the post by Star Man:

I have indeed described myself as an atheist. I AM an atheist. An atheist is one who does not believe in the existence of a god. The idea of a "god" is a supreme being or creator who created the universe. I embrace the Taoist concept of Mystery and the Mystery teachings of many spiritual practices. I utterly reject the idea that being an atheist means I have no soul. I am a spiritual being. Spirituality is an experience. In all the places where I experience spirituality--in Nature, in my sweat lodge, in rituals, in requiems--I experience a deep emotionality, a swelling in my chest, an uplifting throughout my body. Every morning I look at the Astronomy Picture of the Day and marvel at the enormity of the universe. Our galaxy is but one of 8,000 in the local group. That's a Mystery. I accept that the origin of the universe is unknown and perhaps unknowable. I do not need to invent a "god" in order to feel awe at a river or waterfall or fern or hummingbird or a baby or a mother's expression of love for her infant. I and others like me are the means by which the universe experiences awe, love, marvel, and joy at its own existence. We have evolved to celebrate the beauty of what is. That is who I am. I am a medicine man, by the way. I celebrate in the sweat lodge and every day of my life. We're not all that different except that you appear to need a god to give your life meaning. I do not. My life has the meaning I give it through my thoughts and actions.

Star Man

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Posted in reply to the post by rossmen:

What is your understanding of soul?

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Thank you for asking. Soul is not a "thing." Soul is a process. My friend gave me a box of apricots on Wednesday freshly picked from his orchard. When I reverentially experience one of these fruity miracles, smelling it, sensing as many of its taste notes as I can as I bite into it, and when I prayerfully accept the gift of the universe that is the apricot and linger over my gratitude, I am in the process of soul. Next weekend I will visit the orchard as I have many times and I will walk among the apricot trees and touch their limbs and trunks and express my gratitude and when I am doing that I am in the process of soul. When I am in my sweat lodge singing and drumming and praying and honoring and celebrating, I am in the process of soul. Life is process. The meaning it has for me is the meaning I give it. The solar system, the galaxy, the local group of galaxies, the universe are all process. I participate in that process. I am one with that process. All of this that I have said is Mystery. I am relating my experience of the Tao; I am "Reaching from the Mystery into the Deeper Mystery (which) Is the Gate to the Secret of All Life." I sincerely hope that I have transmitted my understanding of soul.

Star Man

Dear Waccophiles,

I and a few members of the fellowship of Humanity Rising will be in the sweat lodge on Saturday night and Sunday morning living and practicing our spirituality. In the lodge we celebrate on behalf of All Our Relations which means every living thing whether animate or inanimate, everything that ever was, is now, or ever will be. We will be manifesting our Soul Process for the well-being of this poor abused mud ball we call our home and praying for an end to abuse of Our Mother The Earth. The practice is done without expectation of any particular outcome. Doing the practice is the reason to engage in the practice. Aho Mitakuye Oyasin.

Star Man

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Posted in reply to the post by Star Man:

Dear Waccophiles,

I and a few members of the fellowship of Humanity Rising will be in the sweat lodge on Saturday night and Sunday morning living and practicing our spirituality.

Star Man

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Humanity Rising celebrated the Summer Solstice in the Great Mystery Lodge on Saturday night June 20 and Sunday morning June 21. We humans and all life on the planet evolved in a specific planetary environment where due to the precession of our planet in its orbit around the sun the days are shortest in the northern hemisphere in December and longest in June. The planetary environment conditioned our diurnal cycles and the expansion and contraction of our cognitive, emotive, and spiritual cycles. Humanity Rising teaches that at the Winter Solstice the portal into Mystery is widest open and at that time we prayerfully intend that in our shamanic journey we will receive "information" from the universe that will influence our mental, emotional, physical and spiritual lives in the ensuing six months. Consequently, at the Summer Solstice we each have an opportunity to say what has "come to light" over the course of the previous six months. This practice helps us develop insight and the ability to see the larger arcs of our life process.

What is described here is the Nature of Mystery. Mystery is a process like soul and is meant to be lived from moment to moment. Welcome to the experience of Mystery.

Star Man

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Posted in reply to the post by Star Man:

The planetary environment conditioned our diurnal cycles and the expansion and contraction of our cognitive, emotive, and spiritual cycles. Humanity Rising celebrates the lunar and the solar cycles. This practice helps us develop insight and the ability to see the larger arcs of our life process in relation to the environment in which we evolved. What is described here is the Nature of Mystery. Mystery is a process like soul and is meant to be lived from moment to moment. Welcome to the experience of Mystery.

Star Man

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Early Sunday morning the moon will reach the peak of its 3-day fullness for this month's cycle. This moon was called the Buck Moon by Indigenous people because male deer's horns were beginning to appear at this time. In those days the cycle of seasons were correlated with natural events. I will sing the Full Moon song on Saturday, and if you want to hear it go to my website and scroll down to the Humanity Rising page. What does the full moon mean to you? How do you celebrate the fullness of our lunar companion?

Star Man

Here is a poem by Mary Oliver entitle The Buddha's Last Instruction. It speaks to the nature of Mystery. Star Man

“Make of yourself a light”
said the Buddha,
before he died.
I think of this every morning
as the east begins
to tear off its many clouds
of darkness, to send up the first
signal-a white fan
streaked with pink and violet,
even green.
An old man, he lay down
between two sala trees,
and he might have said anything,
knowing it was his final hour.
The light burns upward,
it thickens and settles over the fields.
Around him, the villagers gathered
and stretched forward to listen.
Even before the sun itself
hangs, disattached, in the blue air,
I am touched everywhere
by its ocean of yellow waves.
No doubt he thought of everything
that had happened in his difficult life.
And then I feel the sun itself
as it blazes over the hills,
like a million flowers on fire-
clearly I’m not needed,
yet I feel myself turning
into something of inexplicable value.
Slowly, beneath the branches,
he raised his head.
He looked into the faces of that frightened crowd.

Some of Michael Lapham's thoughts, that I'd title,
Nature Reveals Mystery.....

:heart:
"The moment when a hummingbird is observed hovering mid-air, as it retrieves nectar from the flower, evokes a feeling of a mysteriously beautiful revelation. We may wonder, how does it seem to float without effort, then in quick direct movements, penetrate into the depths of the chalice of the flower to sup?

"Looking upon this mechanistically, we may discover that the rotation of the wings, balletically beating in a figure of eight, and the energy needed for its movements, almost depletes the bird, so that it is constantly searching for sustenance for its right to live. It lives at the threshold.
"What we experience before us, what we behold, is a beautiful cosmic thought. So unified between flower and bird that each seem designed to exist for the other; the bird does not doubt its purpose: its own action to seek food; the flower is the crowning glory of the seed it once was, opening its chalice to the sun to be fructified by the bird.


"For this one moment, we behold the revelation of a perfect thought. A divine whole.


"Our human soul is a deep mystery to us. We act out of many impulses: some from the air, others from the earth. How often are we conscious of the source of these impulses? When called to do the good, the right thing - a moral action - are we clear about its source?
We are still consciousness-becoming. We are not yet a complete or perfect thought.


"...How do we do this?



"...With thoughts.

"Light-filled, received from the divine heights, nourished with the warm beat of our heart - they work in us and through us - to build a new body of perfect thought, with its substance. "Moral substance.
"Our body will be filled with moral substance.
A new world in which the completeness of Divine thought will be made whole.


"...Flowering words flow up in us - ‘change your way of thinking’ - ‘open your heart thoughts to the divine’ - and the hovering bird of spirit descends to this chalice to nourish and to fructify. Divine thoughts received by us, develop into moral substance within us - if we do something.

"If we act out of our becoming-consciousness.
"If we act out of divine thinking.


"Then we transform our body into a translucent new body, where all our impulses are known.
Nothing is hidden.
All is revealed.


"A perfect cosmic thought.
A divine whole."

(excerpts from) Michael Latham

offered with Love, for All,
gaiasophia:earth::rose1::heart:

A poster on FB asked "Is there anything we can do to reverse the course of destruction of our planet?" I responded:

No nothing can be done. Tipping points passed. Polar ice melting. 100 degrees in the arctic. It is time for us to dance our own version of the Ghost Dance that Indigenous people danced when they realized their millennia-old civilization was utterly destroyed. Let us stop everything and read aloud the great poems our culture has provided. Let us walk in quiet reverence through the last of the great forests and offer ceremony to the remaining unpolluted water. Make amends to grizzly and coyote and wolf and koala. Do it now, because when the daily temperature is 130 you will be too exhausted to do it. Let us leave a monument saying "Look around you. The devastation and pollution are monuments to greed. This is what happens when a civilization makes Capitalism its state religion." Let us conduct a requiem as I suggest in my book Requiem to a Dying World.

Star Man

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Posted in reply to the post by Star Man:

A poster on FB asked "Is there anything we can do to reverse the course of destruction of our planet?" I responded:

It is time for us to dance our own version of the Ghost Dance that Indigenous people danced when they realized their millennia-old civilization was utterly destroyed. Let us stop everything and read aloud the great poems our culture has provided. Let us walk in quiet reverence through the last of the great forests and offer ceremony to the remaining unpolluted water. Make amends to grizzly and coyote and wolf and koala. Do it now, because when the daily temperature is 130 you will be too exhausted to do it. Let us leave a monument saying "Look around you. The devastation and pollution are monuments to greed. This is what happens when a civilization makes Capitalism its state religion." Let us conduct a requiem as I suggest in my book Requiem to a Dying World.

Star Man

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When a person accepts that death is inevitable and is approaching, that person signs an Advance Health Care Directive. The Directive prescribes how the person wants to be cared for in their final days. How do we want to spend the final days of our civilization? We are a civilization founded on denial. The nation appears to be in denial about climate change, just as it is about COVID-19. Attempts to frack even more gas are like the "heroic measures" that are sometimes used to keep a person alive for one more day. How would it be if we acknowledged that we poisoned ourselves and destroyed our environment and overpopulated our living space and exterminated the animals and plants we had once shared the living space with? No colony on Mars will save us. We had a colony on Earth, and we've ruined it. We have encountered a deadly force more powerful than we are. That force is us and our greed and exceptionalism. Let us consider leaving with a little class.

Star Man

Dear StarMan, and All who read this:


Remember, even Einstein said something like:
'You can’t solve a problem,
by using the same thinking,
that created the problem.'


I (GaiaSophia)
am a humble white womyn,
I am Thankfull to be trusted by many Wise Elders:
Pomo, Miwok, Lakota, Dine, Yoruba, Hawaiian, Tlingit, Haida, Congolese, and more..
all in touch with their Indigenous Wise Ways...


Wise Elders say,
“It is Time to Listen to, to Honor, to be led by the Wise Women!
The Wise Mothers!
The Wise Grandmothers!


"It is Time for All
to Purify Our Hearts!


“All must continuously
Cleanse Our Hearts of fear, hatred, hopelessness, depression, powerlessness!


"We must think, pray, whisper and sing, dance, and drum to


Thankfully:


Fill our Hearts with
Love
Healing
Strength
Joy
Hope
Courage
Fierce Love Power!


"Activism Yes!
With Our Pure Hearts!"


This is good medicine, offered to me by Wise Elders, who trust me, who know the Truth of the Ghost Dance —
not what has been written on this thread, about the Powerful Ghost Dance!


Hopelessness is not Truth,
Hopelessness poisons the Hearts and Minds of the People…
leads to depression and suicide...


Yes!
Make everyday a good day to die, with a pure Heart…


But cultivating death is sewing seeds for more death.


There is more in this world, than “western culture” knows…
Much to learn, from other Cultures’ Wise Ways...


*************************************************************************
Now…

breathe.

Listen, behind the factory noises of your panic


the Birds are Singing again.


The Air is clearing,


Mother Nature is Alive, and


We


Are


All-ways


encompassed by


Love...

Open the windows of your Hands!


of your Heart!


of your Soul!


and
though you may not be able
to touch

across the
empty
square,


Sing!


Sing in the Sacred Circles!


Sing through the Sacred Spirals!


Love! Hope! Healing! Courage! Wisdom!
Ancestors, please hear Our Songs!


~~Richard Hendrick (with many changes by GaiaSophia)

Offered Respectfully , and Lovingly, to StarMan and All,
GaiaSophia:heart:

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Posted in reply to the post by Star Man:

A poster on FB asked "Is there anything we can do to reverse the course of destruction of our planet?" I responded:

No nothing can be done. Tipping points passed. Polar ice melting. 100 degrees in the arctic. It is time for us to dance our own version of the Ghost Dance that Indigenous people danced when they realized their millennia-old civilization was utterly destroyed. Let us stop everything and read aloud the great poems our culture has provided. Let us walk in quiet reverence through the last of the great forests and offer ceremony to the remaining unpolluted water. Make amends to grizzly and coyote and wolf and koala. Do it now, because when the daily temperature is 130 you will be too exhausted to do it. Let us leave a monument saying "Look around you. The devastation and pollution are monuments to greed. This is what happens when a civilization makes Capitalism its state religion." Let us conduct a requiem as I suggest in my book Requiem to a Dying World.

Star Man

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Posted in reply to the post by gaiasophia:

Dear StarMan, and All who read this:

Truth of the Ghost Dance —
not what has been written on this thread, about the Powerful Ghost Dance!


Hopelessness is not Truth,
Hopelessness poisons the Hearts and Minds of the People…
leads to depression and suicide...

---

So I hear you saying that you know the truth of the Ghost Dance. I don't mind if you say you know the truth of the Ghost Dance for you, but you have no right to criticize what I believe the Ghost Dance means for me. I forgive you and I believe you owe me an apology. If you cannot apologize, then we will never discuss this subject again.

Now, when a dog, a person, or a culture is dying, there is a time when the veterinarian, the physician, or the shaman says, this pet, person, or culture ia dying and cannot be saved. That is not hopelessness. It is Reality. All the love in the world will not bring back the polar ice caps. All the love in the world will not lower the temperature in Arizona to livable levels. All the love in the world will not cleanse the rivers of pollution or restore the glaciers or restore the Amazon rain forest. The patient is dying. That is why I wrote Requiem for a Dying World. It is time for a ceremony to celebrate what was. What we had and have lost.

Star Man

Standing strong against the dance of death:

https://scontent-dfw5-2.xx.fbcdn.net...da&oe=5F35FADC

Death and rebirth go hand in hand. The old making way for the new. Mother Earth has unlimited recuperative powers although humans may not. The plague marked the end of the Middle Ages and the start of a great cultural renewal. Could the coronavirus, for all its destruction, offer a similar opportunity for radical change? Stay tuned.

I believe that the meaning of life is the meaning that each of us gives to life. Personally, I believe the meaning of my life consists in expressing gratitude for the gifts that Mystery provides. I live simply, yet the gifts are abundant. One of the gifts is the food that sustains me. Every morning as I am preparing my cereal I offer gratitude in this form:

Oh, Mystery I come in a grateful way
Join me Mystery in thinking and feeling deeply on this food and the ways and means by which it is coming
Join me Mystery in considering and feeling my merit in receiving it
Join in my prayerful intention to improve my merit and to protect against error
Oh, Mystery I eat lest I grown lean and die--physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually
Oh, Mystery I accept this food in the certain knowledge I am one with the food as I am one with All My
Relations, as I am one with Mystery.

O Mitakuye Oyasin
________________________________

Star Man

Begin the day with gratitude. Here is a mantra you can use upon awakening. It can be sung.

Good morning, Grandmother,
Hey ah nah Hey an nah Hey ah nah hey
Good morning, Grandmother,
Hey ah nah Hey an nah Hey ah nah hey
I'm grateful for this beautiful day
Hey ah nah Hey an nah Hey ah nah hey
I'm grateful for this beautiful day
Hey ah nah Hey an nah Hey ah nah hey

Good morning, Grandfather,
Hey ah nah Hey an nah Hey ah nah hey
Good morning, Grandfather,
Hey ah nah Hey an nah Hey ah nah hey
I'm grateful for this medicine way
Hey ah nah Hey an nah Hey ah nah hey
I'm grateful for this medicine way
Hey ah nah Hey an nah Hey ah nah hey

Good morning Mystery,
Hey ah nah Hey an nah Hey ah nah hey
Good morning Mystery,
Hey ah nah Hey an nah Hey ah nah hey
I'm grateful for this life I live
Hey ah nah Hey an nah Hey ah nah hey
I'm grateful for this life I live
Hey ah nah Hey an nah Hey ah nah hey

O Mitikuye Oyasin

Star Man

Mystery teachings have long told us that we have a connection to the universe and to every living thing. Science is demystifying, at least to a small degree, the nature of that connection. The element calcium appears to mediate that connection as astronomy is clarifying.

The element calcium is essential to many biological functions. Probably everyone is aware that calcium is a central component of bone. The bones of a 180 pound man will weigh about 25 pounds and will contain around 10 pounds of calcium. Calcium is also involved in nerve conduction and in both animals and plants calcium is essential to the functioning of cell membranes.

Last spring astronomers discovered a remnant of a supernova known as SN 2019bkc. This remnant was unique because it was rich in calcium, very rich. My 10 pounds of calcium and yours and all of the calcium in all of the animals and plants originated in supernovae that occurred again and again over the 13 billion years since the big bang. This event got me thinking about the role of calcium in my connection to every living thing. When I sit with a tree, say the enormous cedar tree on the street where I live, I wonder if part of the resonance I experience with the tree might arise from a shared calcium atomic vibration. There's a lot of calcium in the stone people we use in the sweat lodge. When we heat them up, the frequency of the atomic vibration of the calcium increases, and I wonder to what extent that increases the depth and power of the shamanic journeys we undertake.

Science is always expanding our understanding of Mystery. Calcium was only discovered in 1808. Calcium in supernovae was discovered much more recently. Before the 19th century the composition of bones was a mystery and supernovae had not been identified. When we study life in the laboratory or through telescopes and satellites we are "regarding life with passion" to use the words of the Tao Te Ching. When we sit with a tree, or in the lodge with the Stone People, or on top of a mountain at night contemplating the Milky Way we are stripping ourselves of passion, which is when we see the Secret of Life.

Star Man

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Mystery teachings have long told us that we have a connection to the universe and to every living thing. Science is demystifying, at least to a small degree, the nature of that connection. The element calcium appears to mediate that connection as astronomy is clarifying.

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Astronomy has shown that all of the elements of the periodic table originated in cosmic processes. Here is a link to a chart of the periodic table showing the origin of each element. (I tried to post the table but it is too large for WaccoBB to handle.)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nucleo...odic_table.svg

This chart fascinates me. Only hydrogen and helium originated in the big bang. We are each of us 13.5 billion years old. Star Man

Today I completed 82 revolutions around the sun. Tomorrow I begin my 83rd. I am exceedingly grateful for the time I have had here on this beautiful planet in this astonishing solar system in this incredible universe. I am grateful that my path led me to the sweat lodge and to the practice of shamanism. I am grateful for my wide experience that I draw on for my writing. Since I closed my psychotherapy practice three years ago I have devoted myself to writing. In 2018 I published On Condition Of Anonymity, in 2019 I published Requiem for a Dying World, and on Monday my latest book, Murder Chronicles, was listed on Amazon. I am grateful that I lived long enough to discover what gives me joy. I was a mystery to myself and the meaning of life was a mystery to me as well. I am grateful to have lived this long and to have discovered for myself who I am and what the meaning of life is for me. Beginning my 83rd cycle around Sol, I look forward to "Reaching from the Mystery into the Deeper Mystery (which is) the Gate to the Secret of All Life." Star Man

Living in Mystery requires development of a sacred sense. The wonder seen in children shows us that we are born with a sacred sense but it is rarely encouraged and can be quickly lost through disuse. The basis of sacred sense is self-aware self-consciousness. Awareness of self--one's thoughts, emotions, feelings (the sensations that tell us what emotion we're experiencing), and actions is the basis of self-awareness. Self-aware self-consciousness provides awareness of the self having those thoughts, emotions, feelings, and actions. Meaning-making adds a layer to the self-awareness and self-consciousness. Sacred sense provides the ability to sense, to know, to be aware of the experience of other organisms. Go and sit with the redwoods at Armstrong Woods. Sit quietly. Allow yourself to enter a meditative state. Allow your awareness to expand from your own experience to take in the experience of the redwood. Be curious. What is the redwood's experience of its own massiveness? You were taught in school something about the enormous root system of the tree. Allow awareness of that root system to arise in you. Let the tree communicate with you. You will not hear words--probably--but you may get images, senses. The longer you stay with the tree, the more deeply you will know the tree. What is its experience of the birds who inhabit its upper reaches? Just allow the knowing to arise. With practice you will be able to enter into communion with the tree. You and the tree will begin a mutual resonance. The awareness of the redwood is redwood awareness, it is not human awareness. Become aware of your own feelings for and about the redwood. Notice the effect that sitting with the redwood has upon you. Do you feel more calm, more grounded. We humans walk on the earth. The redwood unites earth and sky. Notice the appearance of reverence in you. Now you are directly experiencing the nature of Mystery. Aho!

Star Man

Requiem is one of the means by which we can enter into oneness with Mystery. A requiem is a ritual celebrating what has been lost. In 2019 I wrote Requiem for a Dying World which focused more on the genocide of Indigenous people and enslavement of African people. Here I read an article on destruction of the permafrost and this piece emerged. It is best rendered as a chant. If you have a drum beat slowly and repetitively as you intone the phrases.

We Requiem

We requiem for the trees burned up in wildfires. We requiem for the squirrels and rabbits and deer and porcupines and snakes and owls and doves and crows who were burned or fell from the sky because their lungs were too poisoned by smoke from the fires to breathe. We requiem for the buckbrush and alder burned to death. We requiem for the loss of acorns. We requiem for the immolation of medicine plants like buckbrush and what the native people calledthumkhat and we renamed pennyroyal. We requiem for the loss of polar ice caps and glaciers and permafrost.

We requiem for bees poisoned by glyphosate greed and Round-up rapaciousness. We requiem for an environment stabilized by diversity. We requiem for moose and mice. We requiem for wolverines and wolves burned out of their habitat and murdered in their dens out of sheer cruelty and the murderers’ fear of their own deaths. We requiem for the destruction of billions of years of cumulative evolution. We requiem for the ruination of a calm, predictable, self-supporting environment and for regular rainfall and regular seasons that assured the maintenance of life from century to century and eon to eon.

We requiem for the loss of mindful and kind spirituality where human beings understood themselves as one with nature. We requiem for the loss of the idea of stewardship. We requiem for the loss of mutuality in which humans ritually celebrated their oneness with every living thing. As the planet transforms from a lush, complex, polymorphous garden into a Mars of endless deserts and arid expanses, we requiem for the loss of wisdom and intelligence and learning and self-awareness. We requiem for what we had and destroyed. We requiem for the knowing that had we better cared for our home it might have survived intact until at last the sun blew off its outer layers and became a white dwarf.
Star Man

What is the nature of the universe? What is the nature of time? These are two central questions that must be investigated in order to understand the nature of Mystery. These two paragraphs offer some information that can help us understand Mystery. "Laniaka" means immense sky and is the name given to the aggregate of 8,000 GALAXIES in which our own galaxy resides. Enjoy. Star Man

The theory of the biocentric universe can help understand why it is that the image of Laniaka reminds us of a neural network. You can read about the theory at https://www.discovermagazine.com/.../the-biocentric... According to this theory consciousness creates the universe. We humans (here on Earth anyway) are possessed of self-aware self consciousness and we project our consciousness and then believe there is something we call a universe that exists separate from our selves. I believe this is the next great development after quantum physics.


Einstein developed Relativity on the mistaken belief that time is what is measured on a clock. Neuroscience is currently demonstrating that time is a neural function of memory. At time = 1, an event occurs and subsequently a second event occurs and the brain compares the two and observes the events are different. The brain calls that difference "the passage of time." What a different physics will emerge from that awareness!!

Our species suffers from a profound spiritual sickness. The religion of capitalism with its practice of greed and cruelty toward each other and the environment has displaced oneness, respect, and adoration of the natural world. Indigenous people lived harmoniously with Mother Earth for eons. Europeans have destroyed that harmony in 500 years. The plague of capitalism has spread around the world far faster and with more disastrous results than COVID. Nothing will change until we heal the spiritual wound.

Star Man

Psychoshamanism
by John Omaha
Copyright, 2020-2021 by John Omaha All Rights Reserved

Psychoshamanism unites the science of psychology with the spiritual practice of shamanism. Psychology studies human behavior. It attempts to understand how human behavior develops, what the forces are that influence its development from prenatal to early childhood through adolescence and early adulthood. Psychology identifies stages of development and what the effects are in later life if there are challenges in an early stage. For example, parental neglect in childhood, whether maternal or paternal, imposes patterns of dysfunction on that child in adolescence and in later life. Psychology studies the effect of trauma on a child’s development. One useful evaluation tool, the Adverse Childhood Experiences scale, is a survey of childhood maltreatment that assesses emotional, psychological, sexual, and physical abuse. Psychology has developed skills and tools—protocols—for treating and resolving the adolescent and adult dysfunctions that result from trauma or developmental challenges. Psychology is concerned with the emotional, physical, mental, and behavioral dimensions of human experience.

Shamanism is concerned with the spiritual dimension of human experience. Shamanism orients a person toward the numinous dimension of their experience. According to the shamanic world-view, everything is alive and interrelated that is articulated in the concept of “every living thing.” Not all living things are animate, rocks for instance are living things that are not animate. However in the shamanic world-view rocks—or stone people—are living beings and in the shamanic state of consciousness stone people can and do communicate. Water is alive and communicates as the photomicrographs of Dr. Masaru Emoto demonstrate. Plants and trees communicate. Animals of all kinds communicate. Shamanism teaches openness to our oneness with every living thing, and it provides training and techniques for communicating with the entirety of living things. Shamanism shows how to bring the enormous power of the non-ordinary world to bear on human, ordinary-world challenges. Shamanism is an adjunct to psychology for understanding and healing the personal problems we humans often encounter. In this article I will report on how psychology and shamanism—psychoshamanism—can work together to provide relief for human suffering, in this case my own challenges with depression and the negative thoughts that caused it.

Human brains are constantly active. The conscious mind comprises those activities we are aware of, and the unconscious consists of the brain activities that we are not aware of. We can be aware of thoughts, feelings, and memories—for example the thought “I have to go to the store today” accompanied by the memory of the last time I went shopping a week ago, and by the feeling of anxiety, nervousness about getting the chore done. That’s the operation of the conscious mind.
Attitudes and judgments that affect decision-making are often held in the unconscious. If the shopper hates shopping because they were punished in childhood by a parent while on a shopping trip, those memories are often held in the unconscious, out of awareness. From their position in the unconscious those experiences affect current behavior. The adult resists doing the chore without knowing why. The adult feels uncomfortable about going shopping and resists taking care of the chore because of the discomfort.

The brain begins recording experiences from before birth onward. In infancy and early childhood the part of the brain that forms narratives has not yet formed and so experiences before the age of about five are not recorded. Nonetheless the experiences exist and affect current behavior. The adult is unable to recall or remember what happened in early childhood that gave rise to a particular adult behavior. To continue with the example of the woman who dislikes shopping, she may not be able to recall being shamed in a crowded store in front of others when she was three, but that childhood experience influences her adult behavior. She resists doing the chore of shopping because of painful feelings held out of awareness in her unconscious. One of the core tenets of psychoanalytically informed psychotherapy is that by observing adult behavior we can deduce what the person’s childhood experience was.

A depressed adult feels sad, even anguished, much of the time and resists activity, especially activities that formerly brought happiness. In my book Murder Chronicles, I described my own depression as self-murder. I murdered my self through my resistance to writing; refusing to do an activity I am good at and that I enjoyed. By observing my resistance to writing, which was unconsciously motivated, I was able to uncover what happened to me in childhood. In my own therapy I realized how little I was praised in childhood and how often I was criticized and shamed for not behaving as my parents required. On top of that I was punished for self-expression. My parents were trying to train me to be obedient and to be the person who satisfied their needs for a son who brought praise to them. Creative writing was not an activity they approved of. All of these childhood experiences rose like bubbles of methane gas from the depths of the ocean floor when I decided to close my psychotherapy practice and devote the remainder of my life to expressing myself through authorship. My resistance to writing and the anguish it caused, which manifested as depression, helped me understand what happened to me in childhood. The unconscious reveals itself in adult behavior and also in dreams. Freud called dreams “the royal road to the unconscious,” and it is that road I want to explore in this essay.

Psychological dream work and shamanic practice come together in working with dreams. For thirty years I have been practicing shamanism in sweat lodges, vision quests, and shamanic journeys. Those years of experience prepared me for a powerful dream I received and for the use to which I put it. In the dream I was conducting a sacred ceremony in a very primitive backwoods setting. A group of ten or so people were assembled and were attentively listening to me. Suddenly a bunch of bikers showed up. They were loud and disruptive. I realized that if I asked them to respect the ceremony they would turn their anger toward me. I would become the focus. Instead, I told them that I had a song that wanted to be sung to them. I had my drum and began to sing the song. Now I was not the focus. The song had said it wanted to be sung to them. The song was the focus. As I began to sing, the bikers joined our circle, sat down and listened respectfully.


Combining psychology and shamanism this is the meaning I made of the dream experience: The primitive setting reveals that the dream concerns the deep levels of my mind, the place where the unconscious resides. The sacred ceremony suggests the mental state I strive to inhabit in my life and in my writing. The bikers represent the negative thoughts and attendant feelings that drive in from my unconscious and disrupt my self-expression. The dream showed me how to soothe the unruly, intrusive thoughts and feelings. I need to sing a sacred song to them!

Writing is not the only place where the disruptive unconscious thoughts show up. One of the most unpleasant used to occur almost nightly as I was dropping off to sleep. Psychologists call it the hypnogogic state where the conscious mind is powering down and the unconscious can reveal itself before the brain goes completely into rest mode. In this state I often found myself teetering on the edge of a hundred-story building or poised on a steep precipice. The experience was terrifying. I had never had any means to intervene. That was my first target; it was the first of the unruly bikers. As I was moving into sleep mode the night after the biker dream, I was once again standing unsteadily on the railing on the roof of a skyscraper. The moment I became aware of what was happening, I began to sing the sacred song to the intrusion. I did not try and stop the intrusion,, because after years of trying that had never worked. Instead I sang to the intrusion. I sang the song a few times and gratefully realized I was no longer teetering on the edge of the building. I felt enormous relief. Since then I have used the skill to write. When negative thoughts try and intrude, tell me I am an awful writer, and stop the sacred ceremony of my authoring, I sing the song and then I am able to effortlessly write. Over a few weeks the intrusions have diminished in all areas of my life. Most importantly I write, and I feel less depressed. I used this skill when I began to work on this very essay this morning.

The behaviors that trouble our adult lives usually have their origin in adverse childhood experiences or in subsequent trauma. These troublesome behaviors can include addiction, overeating, bulimia, anorexia, alcoholism, anxiety, and as in my case, depression. When we act out these behaviors we are “doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results,” which is one definition of insanity. Psychological problems cannot be resolved at the same organizational level at which they were created. To heal, we must shift to a higher level than the problem. In the case of my difficulty writing, the song is a shamanic intervention, and that is a higher level of organization than the problem of depression. You can access three of my shamanic songs on my website, and I will happily snail mail you a CD with 13 songs if you will compensate me $15.00 for the cost of the CD, the transfer, and the postage. In this essay I have described and illustrated psychoshamanism and offered a means for readers to use it. Create an altar, a sacred space, in your home and start healing.

Aho Mitakuye Oyasin
John Star Eagle Omaha

Star Man