Glossolalists Anonymous

In Tangles

2011-02-26T23:07:00.000-08:00

I was searching for something, I was crying out loud,
Something has the strangest hold on me.
I was strung out on nothing, I was flickering out,
Stars and eyes and angels in the sky.

I can't wish it all away,
I've been clutching at my side again.
Holy hands shake.

No one will believe in you now.

In the morning when you rise and I'll be the first thing on your mind.
Why do you think of me all the time?

I called your name in the middle of the night and you heard me. You heard me.
I called your name in the middle of the night and you heard me.
Why am I always on your mind?

Tyrant

2011-02-18T02:25:00.000-08:00

There's a big black bomb at the center of the Earth,
Yeah it's tickin' till it's turn.
All the people want to talk about something that they heard,
They're just tickin' till their turn.

I don't know, I don't know.
When you hold me, I forget about all the terrible things.

Earthquakes and hurricanes and tidal waves
The world, the stage. The world the stage.
Is this the final act? The final act.
And who's behind the curtain drawing back.
It's drawing back.

All the kids say "Fuck your kingdom, fuck your crown!"
Skinject micromanagement, holographic pricetag
Every leaf of grass.
All the kids say "You've gotta tear that fucker down."

Shaking in the dark in tears, in terror,
I don't know how to integrate my fragmented selves.
The drugs, the drugs they only disappoint me now.
The drugs, the drugs they only disappoint.

If I could be distracted by the writing on the wall
I would dedicate me life to the cause,
But all the worldly crisis is reflected in myself
And perhaps it is the other way around.
Do I have the courage to pull the tyrant down?
Do I have the courage to pull the tyrant down?
Fuck your kingdom, fuck your crown.

The Body Electric Collective Initiatif 2-6-2011

2011-02-10T05:48:00.000-08:00

Because different people come to the T.A.Z. every time, The Body Electric is also different every time. It stands to reason then that the only way to survive or be happy or have a good time in such a temporary autonomous zone is to forgo any and all expectations about how you think the night will go and just let things happen around you and through you. That being said, any expectations that I did happen to let slip through my mind before the night got underway were all far surpassed by the awesomeness of the jams and the art and the people who all came and contributed. Once again, we had a magical night and it has been my pleasure to compile and highlight the evening with this little diary entry so we can all look back and see how all those different elements came together so beautifully.
Since I'm kind of off kilter and into symbols and signs and coincidences and all that jazz, I like to look for themes that might be running through my life in a given day as if I was some unwitting character in a book or on a T.V. show who always has some kind of lesson to learn every episode. I noticed a couple strange themes running through this T.A.Z. while compiling all the material and it got me thinking, I wonder if every night of The Body Electric might have subtle themes or vibes that just spontaneously arise out of the many different combinations of people who participate. It might be something fun to ponder and look for if nothing else. It's actually in the looking for the theme that we are being creative, so the more creativity the better right?
The theme that I noticed which arose most prominently out of all the recorded material was Death. Just as Josh and Marielle started getting strange on the spontaneous (later named) "Perpetual Nothing in a Black Coffin" someone fittingly hit the light switch and the mood of the room changed drastically. I'm not lying when I say it was uncomfortable to sit there in the dark and listen to this jam, and that uneasiness was not lost upon my stone age tape recorder that was unfortunately placed in a terrible spot. Nonetheless, if you can stomach this noisy track I recommend giving it at least one listen. It's creepiness has a way of growing on you. It's one of my favorites now. Mad props to Josh for bringing the strange. The song is posted below these pics...

Perpetual Nothing in a Black Casket (Live) The Body Electric Collective Initiatif 2-6-2011 by Body Electric Collective

Adrienne Noyes came by and not only brought her Cello along but also a freakin' xylophone.

Not only did she provide the Body with new sounds including her song voice, but she also picked up a paint brush and contributed to the artistic side of the Body. If only we

Later in the night we had another spontaneous jam guest starring Jason Miller on his maiden voyage with the xylophone. Adrienne was singing and then passed the microphone to me. The first words that popped into my head was, "Listen to the voices in the graveyard."

Voices in the Graveyard (Live) The Body Electric Collective Intiatif 2-6-2011 by Body Electric Collective

Not only did Josh Hartz make it out for the first time but Daniel Wall finally made the trek from Orlando. As it happens, The-Best-Spontaneous-Made-Up-On-The-Spot-Song Award ( which I won last time for "Sugar in Your Mouth" and I don't mind saying so) goes to him for the evening with the song I took the liberty of titling "I Was Afraid to Fall" because those are the first words he yelps out. I think it's an amazing song and I wouldn't mind hearing Danny pick it up and turn into a proper track and record it studio style.
It occurred to my mystical mind after looking over the name again, that the title of this song could also easily be seen as an allusion to death, whether death in the traditional sense or death by transformation because of something like "falling" in love or any other such thing that brings about metamorphosis. Of course, I'm having fun analyzing this, but it got me thinking that maybe we shouldn't be afraid to fall, which is implied by the song Danny's singing because anyone who says "I was afraid to" is making a statement that is somewhat tinged with regret. It's usually always followed by "I should have just..."

I Was Afraid to Fall (Live) The Body Electric Collective Initiatif 2-6-2011 by Body Electric Collective

Alex Hull was a life saver and took on the roll of official photographer for the evening. She did and excellent job and even got pictures of some the indigenous population who are known for their aversion to cameras.

Stevie Raine introduced the brilliant idea of hijacking all those annoying attorney fridge magnets and painting over them to make beautiful art all over the flabby face of the man.Take that Rue and Zifra! I think this may be start of a beautiful tradition for The Body Electric. I propose that every T.A.Z. should have a Magnet Force who paints little magnets until we all have magnets made by our friends all over our home fridges.

Stevie's Magnets:

Other members of Magnet Force include:

Jessica Record

David Clontz

Daniel Wall

And whoever made this do tell me:

Taylor Rae also made it to her first Body Electric and found the time to make some lovely art for us too.

This one is entitled "I Left My Mark"

And she is a world class hugger.

The jams that transpired were just totally awesome once again and I got lots of great tunes on recording.

Connor and Mark, who are rapidly becoming the main guitarists of the Initiatif, were killing it as always and Adam Hull took on bass guitar duties which he always does quite well.

We also had some young blood on the six string who wailed. Ladies and Gentleman: Alex Page.

Something really great happened. I would tell you that The Body Electric Collective Initiatif attempted to play "House of the Rising Sun" but even that wouldn't be accurate. What happened instead was a 16 minute long jam that was trying to be that song and very rarely did it succeed in doing so. The result was an epic sound orgy that basically involved everyone. There are some epic moments herein, and if you brave the listen you will hear Marielle singing out. Goosebumps. Thanks for bringing this, Adam.

There Is A House (Live) The Body Collective Electric Initiatif 2-6-2011 by Body Electric Collective

The Glorious Appearing (Live) The Body Electric Collective Initiatif by Body Electric Collective

No Other Way (Live) The Body Electric Collective Initiatif 2-6-2011 by Body Electric Collective

Jam Sauce (Live) The Body Electric Collective Intiatif 2-6-2011 by Body Electric Collective

Machinery Entranced (Live) The Body Electric Collective Initiatif 2-6-2011 by Body Electric Collective

It just so happens that "Mirror Party" ends up being one of my favorite songs from the whole session. Now, I know it's a Holy Human song, and I know it is written and sung by my girlfriend, but even with those points against my credibility, I think that it turned out marvelously.
Actually this recording of "Mirror Party" does happen to be very special because this is the first time since the song was written and recorded that it has ever been played live before people. Marielle and I had never actually sung and played the song together before, except for the night before when we fiddled around to see if it could even be done. Out of all the Holy Human songs that were written by me (which is every other one), I think I might just like the one she wrote the best.

Mirror Party (Live) The Body Electric Collective Intiatif 2-6-2011 by Body Electric Collective

And of course there's the dreaded...

Whiskey Dick Blues (Live) The Body Electric Collective Intiatif 2-6-2011 by Body Electric Collective

I walked into my bedroom and stumbled upon a Separatist jam going on acoustically. I ran and grabbed my tape recorder just before I jumped into a song with David, Cory, and Alex where we caught on recording David Clontz singing in front of people for THE VERY FIRST TIME. Let it be noted also that he was actually making up these words as he went along. Quite impressive.

Never Be (Live) The Body Electric Collective Initiatif 2-6-2011 by Body Electric Collective

One of my favorite things to do with these jams is to throw a Radon Moon song or a Holy Human song into the mouth of the Body Electric to be torn by the teeth of the spontaneity. I love the mangled new thing that comes out.

Rabbit Cage (Live) The Body Electric Collective Initiatif 2-6-2011 by Body Electric Collective

The poetry of The Body Electric Collective Initiatif is easily the most profound aspect thus far of these little events. Up to this point we had really only one poet ever share his work, Evan Altes, but his poetry has been so powerful and extraordinary.

I was pleased to find that we had not just one poet but three in Evan's absence. (Although Evan, you and your poetry were missed).

The three poets who spoke were Cory Hoffman, Mark Murray and David Clontz. Their works will be featured in that order. I have included transcriptions for all that was read, but trust me, you'll want to hear the deliveries too. They all did very well with that part of it.

Cory began reading a selection from a book by Eckhart Tolle and then he preceded to read selections from his own writings. Both Mark and David shared only their original poetry.

I think there may have been something wrong with my recorder while Cory was reading so there may be some missing words. It's best to read along with that one so you can fill in the blanks.

Cory Reads Tolle (Live) The Body Electric Collective Intiatif 2-6-2011 by Body Electric Collective

Cory Hoffman:

Eckhart Tolle/ A New Earth- Awakening To Your Lifes Purpose

WAR IS A MIND-SET-
In certain cases, you may need to protect yourself or someone else from being harmed by another, but beware of making it your mission to "eradicate evil", as you are likely to turn into the very thing you are fighting against. Fighting unconsciousness will draw you into unconsciousness yourself. Unconsciousness, dysfunctional egoic behavior, can never be defeated by attacking it. Even if you defeat your opponent, the unconsciousness will simply have moved into you, or the opponent reappears in a new disguise. Whatever you fight, you strengthen, and what you resist, persists.

These days you frequently hear the expression " the war against" this or that, and whenever I hear it, I know that it is condemned to failure. There is the war agianst drugs, the war against crime, the war against terrorism, the war against cancer, the war against poverty, and so on. For example, despite the war against crime and drugs, there has been a dramatic increase in crime and drug-related offenses in the past twenty-five years. The prison population in the United States has gone up from just under 300,000 in 1980 to a staggering 2.1 million in 2004. The war against disease has given us, amongst other things, antibiotics. At first, they were spectacularly successful, seemingly enabling us to win the war against diseases. Now, many experts that the widespread and indiscriminate use of antibiotics has created a time bomb and that antibiotics-resistant strains of bacteria, so-called super bugs, will in all likelihood bring about a reemergence of those diseases and possibly epidemics. According to the Journal of American Medical Association, medical treatment is the third-leading cause of death after heart disease and cancer in the United States. Homeopathy and Chinese medicine are two examples of possible alternative approaches to disease that do not treat the illness as an enemy and therefore do not create new diseases.

War is a mind-set, and all action that comes out of such a mind-set willeither strengthen the enemy, the perceived evil, or, if the war is won, will create a new enemy, a new evil equal to and often worse than the one that was defeated. There is a deep interrelatedness between your state of consciousness and external reality. When you are in the grip of a mind-set such as "war", your perceptions become extremely selective as well as distorted. In other words, you will see only what you want to see and then misinterpret it. You can imagine what kind of action comes out of such a delusional system. Or instead of imagining it, watch the news on TV tonight.

Recognize the ego forwhat it is: a collective dysfunction, the insanity of the human mind. When you recogize it for what it is, you no longer misperceive it as somebody's identity. Once you see the ego for what it is, it becomes much easier to remain non reactive toward it. You don't take it personally anymore. There is complaining, blaming, accusing, or making wrong. Nobody is wrong. It is the ego in someone, that's all. Compassion arises when you recognize that all are suffering from the same sickness of the mind, some more accutely than others. You do not fuel the drama anymore that is part of all egoic relationships. What is its fuel? Reactivity. The ego thrives on it.

DO YOU WANT PEACE OR DRAMA?-
You want peace. There is no one who does not want peace. Yet there is something else in you that wants the drama, wants the conflict. You may not be able to feel it at this moment. You may to wait for a situation or even justa thought that triggers a reaction in you: someone accusing you of this or that, not acknowledging you, encroaching on your territory, questioning the way you do things, an argument about money........ Can you then feel the enormous surge of force moving through you, the fear, perhaps being masked with anger or hostility? Can you hear your own voice becoming harsh or shrill, or louder and a few octaves lower? Can you be aware of your mind racing to defen its position, justify, attack, blame? In other words, can you awaken at that moment of unconsciousness? Can you feel that there is something in you that is at war, something that feels threatened and wants to survive at all cost, that needs the drama in order to assert its identity as the victorious character within the theatrical production? Can you feel there is something in you that would rather be right than at peace?

Also, I wish I could type up his entire book because almost every single sentence in it is so deep and moving, but here's one more that I truly loved and I've always said.
"Words reduce reality to something the human mind can grasp, which isn’t very much. Language consists of five basic sounds produced by the vocal cords. They are the vowels a, e, i, o, u. The other sounds are consonants produced by air pressure: s, f, g, and so forth. Do you believe some combination of such basic sounds could ever explain who you are, or the ultimate purpose of the universe, or even what a tree or stone is in its depth? "

you might want to copy and paste it onto Word and do a spell check, but you dont have to. and please dont forget to send me any pics you find of me. hasta luego, amigo.

Cory Reads Selections from His Original Work (Live) The Body Electric Collective Intiatif 2-6-2011 by Body Electric Collective

Burnout Corner-
It was called the burnout corner, we'd only get high. Far from other people, reality, and time. The absence of a life can possibly change something. A person, a place, or it can change nothing. For some loss has no effect, for some its hard to cope. Some are left with questions, and some are left with hope. Blistered beauty has brought my attention to this dying convention. Justice is just another word for getting fucked and an open heart is all that has surfaced after nearly drowning.

True Light-
My idea of love hasnt always been true, but a new light has shined and that new light isn't you. Free me from my entangled mind and bless these thoughts that have come. Thoughts of inspiration. Thoughts of a new perspective. If I am a symbol I represent faith. Faith from a new source. A source from a realization of one's self. Finally. Fresh air, green skies, blue grass. I'm finally free; dont fuck it up. If one must take advantage, one must be alone.

Brass Borough-
Down in the depths like the hell down below, is where I sit in my brass borough. Where I go is where I want, and what I do is what I please. I keep the entrance tightly closed as to not let invaders in. My borough is maleable only with MY hammer of unbelievingness. I can mend, bend, shred and tear what is unsatisfactory. ...............I'm buried, again. Buried by myself, again. .....help?!

Queries of my Mind-
What's it like to conquer great trials? How can we beat ourselves? If I say I know myslef then why can't I see myself. What have I become to my sweetesr friend? The worst part about the end is...............you could have done something different. Or is that the worst part about life?

Mark Murray:

Mark Reads Original Work (Live) The Body Electric Collective Initiatif 2-6-2011 by Body Electric Collective

undecagonic beasts
slit you between the lines
with your petty space-time
a human conscious feast
you just KNOW you're dreaming, which you perceive as sleeping
your grey doesn't matter, for you've gone too deep

*instrumental*

but can your stomach take it, will you allow your mind to fake it?
you do not know how to wake up... boy, this isn't for the meek
prehistoric precision long ago set to motion
terrestrial cortexes drown in cosmic oceans

neck deep in delusion
drag out the safety nets for your mindscape intrusion

twelve harmonic protrusions translate to all eleven
missing eight times the syncopation it's the language of the "heavens"
so don't you go and worry your pretty little head
how can you proudly bear those scars ,and glorify what's dead?

David Clontz:

"Somewhere Under the Rainbow"

Somewhere Under the Rainbow by David Clontz (Live) The Body Electric Collective Initiatif 2-6-2011 by Body Electric Collective

"Somewhere Over the Rainbow"
by David Clontz
Out there, the world, the people...hypocryte, fag, stereotype, liar...I am part of and am all of these and so is every person i've encountered. I watch those of you who have a self entitled sense of pride and exuberance and think that I'm not so bad after all. I think of all the things I've done "wrong" and in comparison those events aren't much worse or quite better than any actions of others that have projected some sort of negativitity onto the world. I know it's the most obvious statement, but sadly no matter how much good we do or how many people we screw over, deep down we're all the same.

Bravo, and see you all in the Body. Amen, Amen.

The Body Electric Collective Initiatif 1-30-2011

2011-01-31T18:38:00.000-08:00

What an outstanding Sunday! We had so much talent involved with hours upon hours of crazy jams and songs and art and poetry. This was undoubtedly the most well-balanced of all our T.A.Z.'s yet, as far as art mediums go.

I took the liberty of naming many of the jams below with some rather whimsical titles for the sake of organization and such. I'm sorry if any of these songs actually have names already, and I'll be happy to correct any mistakes that irk any of the singers in the recordings below.

I decided to include a lot of jams that may or may not be interesting to anyone but I figured it was better to have them than to not. There are, in my opinion, quite a few moments of spontaneous brilliance from the night when things really did come together in unique ways. Perhaps you may find such moments and others too in the songs I posted.

Of the many recordings from this session I find that I am most excited about Evan Altes and his poetry reading. This was certainly one of the more powerful moments of the evening.

My big regret so far is that I don't have any recordings of Clay Jackson's amazing session towards the end.Even though we recorded his tunes I must have snatched the wrong mp3 off the handheld because I found that I had two copies of the same file instead of two files. I am still currently looking through tapes to see if his songs managed to get recorded on there, and I am crossing my fingers that perhaps the digital recorder falls into my hands sooner than later. If those files exist and I can get my hands on them I will edit this post again to include those songs as well.

All in all, Marielle and I have been so pleased with how things have been going. Thanks to everyone who has been coming. You make this thing what it is.

"Adam's Honey"
Adam's Honey (Live) The Body Electric Collective Initiatif 1-30-2011 by Matt Wall

"On Time"
On Time (Live) The Body Electric Collective Initiatif 1-30-2011 by Matt Wall

"Something"
Something (Live) The Body Electric Collective Initiatif 1-30-11 by Matt Wall

"Don't Think Twice"
Don't Think Twice (Live) The Body Electric Collective Initiatif 1-30-2011 by Matt Wall

"Sugar in Your Mouth"
Sugar in your Mouth (Live) The Body Electric Collective Initiatif 1-30-11 by Matt Wall

"Sympathy for the Reverend"
Sympathy for the Reverend (Live) The Body Electric Collective Initiatif 1-30-2011 by afternoondance

"Sunflower Chapel"
Sunflower Chapel (Live) The Body Electric Collective Initiatif 1-30-2011 by afternoondance

"Miss Sinister"
Miss Sinister (Live) The Body Electric Collective Initiatif 1-30-2011 by Matt Wall

"Red Dread"
Red Dread (Live) The Body Electric Collective Initiatif 1-30-2011 by Matt Wall

Evan shares some of the poetry he wrote while in Haiti along with a few selections from one of his favorite works.
Evan Speaks Poetry (Live) The Body Electric Collective Initiatif 1-30-2011 by Matt Wall

"Evan Sings"
Evan Sings (Live) The Body Electric Collective Initiatif 1-30-2011 by afternoondance

Marielle and Amanda finally bring some long awaited visual artistry to the Collective.

M:

Matt and Ryan get together and make some sweet jams later in the night. I'm sure everyone agrees that is a band that needs to exist.

"Sonic Spacejam Tk.1"
Sonic Spacejam Tk.1 (Live) The Body Electric Collective Initiatif 1-30-2011 by Matt Wall

"Sonic Spacejam Tk.2"
Sonic Spacejam Tk.2 (Live) The Body Electric Collective Initiatif 1-30-2011 by afternoondance

"Backwards 5/4"
Backwards 5 4 (Live) The Body Electric Collective Initiatif 1-30-2011 by afternoondance

Jason debuts his new hit single
"Whiskey Dick Blues"
Whiskey Dick Blues (Live) The Body Electric Collective Initiatif 1-30-2011 by afternoondance

Night in Ocala

2011-01-31T15:36:00.000-08:00

Rambo Plays Before the Fire by Matt Wall

The Body Electric Collective Initiatif 1-23-2011

2011-01-27T08:44:00.000-08:00

Well it would seem that every Sunday is getting better and better. This past T.A.Z. was off the charts and the energy levels were all turned up to eleven, or you could say everyone's controls were set to Jupiter and Beyond.
The best moment for me of the whole night was when I finished playing a spectacular jam session with everyone using my song called "A Gathering". In all the years since I had written I had never heard the song sound so right in both spirit and style. That tune was meant for Mark's guitar licks.
After finishing the jam I looked at Anthony and said, "Boy, I wish we'd been recording that."
Anthony looked at me and smiled, "We were." He pointed to a little red light shining out from the book shelf in the wall. Well done, Anthony. Well done.

The following links are the various jams from the evening. The songs played all happen to be from the "Child of the Earth" album I had been working on in my head for over three years. This day was a very special day also because I had finally found out how to tie the whole album together. The last pieces of the puzzle had fallen into place and I felt like playing these songs and with new zeal.
We did Scaffold twice on here because Matthew wasn't around for the first take and I wanted him to hear the song. Now that I'm hearing these tunes recorded I wish we had played more of them, but hell, I'm thankful that Anthony the trickster had a recorder up his sleeve to save the day along with the memories.

A Gathering (Live) The Electric Body Collective Initiatif- 1-23-2011 by Matt Wall
Scaffold Tk.1 (Live) The Body Electric Collective Initiatif- 1-23-2011 by Matt Wall
Scaffold Tk.2 (Live) The Body Electric Collective Initiatif- 1-23-2011 by Matt Wall
Rowdy Beatdownz (Live) The Body Electric Collective Initiatif 1-23-2011 by Matt Wall
Black Magic Rainfall (Live) The Body Electric Collective Initiatif- 1-23-2011 by Matt Wall

"Child of the Earth" Track Listing and Lyrics

2011-01-27T00:46:00.000-08:00

Disc 1:

1. Witchcraft Tavern
2. Song of Samuel
3. What He Said
4. Tragedy
5. Welcome to Redemption
6. The Spark that Starts the Fire
7. Dirty Gospel
8. A Gathering
9. Baptized Bodies

Disc 2:

1. Your Father's House / Upside-Down
2. Storm Moves
3. Sympathy for the Reverend
4. Black Blood Rising
5. Afraid
6. Scaffold
7. Black Magic Rainfall
8. Jailbreak on the Mountain
9. Battle for Redemption

Lyrics:

Child of the Earth
Disc 1:

1. Witchcraft Tavern

Fireside at the Witchcraft Tavern
Evil site of the blackest coven
Glory, glory of the Darkness,
I'm breathing the night
And it's lovely.
I'm drinking in the wake
And I'm singing in the dust
The dust of American Magick
Give me... give me your curse.

2. Song of Samuel

There was a boy who was born
With an evil heart.
He had a soul that was soaked
All in soot black tar
But our boy was meant to be a hero.
Our boy was meant to be redeemed.

Wrestle your angel and limp through the dark.
Carry your cross and your curse to the start.

3. What He Said

Well you can tell 'em bout how you was struck by the sound
Of the loveliest laugh that you ever did hear,
How she took your pain, held your darkness at bay,
All your hatred and fear, how it all disappeared.

But it's just like your daddy said,
If you're believin' in love, than your believin' in nothin'.
Cause be it death or difference there'll come a time when it's gone
There ain't no way you can stop it
It's just like your daddy said,
If you're believin' in love, than your believin' in nothin'.
Cause be it death or difference
There'll come a time when it's gone.

Samuel:
Oh come on, my love, you're all I've got
And I don't understand why there's any doubt,
You know the moment you leave it's gonna break in me.
All the locks and levees, baby, gonna be released.

But it's just like your daddy said,
If you're believin' in love, than your believin' in nothin'.
Cause be it death or difference there'll come a time when it's gone
There ain't no way you can stop it
It's just like your daddy said,
If you're believin' in love, than your believin' in nothin'.
Cause be it death or difference
There'll come a time when it's gone.

4. Tragedy

Samuel:
My whole life has been a tragedy
My whole life has been a tragedy
Why can't the good Lord do a little good by me.
My whole life has been a tragedy.

Mama drowned in the lake
And I watched my father drink himself into the grave
The Prattle sisters, bless their souls, they took me in
But the townsfolk said they was witches and they burned at the stake.

My whole life has been a tragedy
My whole life has been a tragedy
Why can't the good Lord do a little good by me.
My whole life has been a tragedy.

You should see the way the townspeople look at me
The reverend and his superstitious sheep
They say I'm cursed, and lately maybe I agree,
And so I go to church and I pray and read and sing
I sing and I sing and I sing.

My whole life has been a tragedy
My whole life has been a tragedy
Why can't the good Lord do a little good by me.
My whole life has been a tragedy.

But when the clouds part, yes, it must be the Divine
A hand that wipes the tears out from your eyes
You are the only blue sky I've ever seen
Oh, the most beautiful eyes I've ever seen.

5. Welcome to Redemption

The Reverend:
We built this town on solid ground
Sing Hallelujah, Sing Hallelujah.
Every tongue, every knee shall bow.
Sing Hallelujah, Sing Hallelujah.

Welcome to Redemption.
Welcome to the rest of your life.

We bound the devil, he was casted down
Sing Hallelujah, Sing Hallelujah
We found his hornets nest and smoked them out.
Sing Hallelujah, Sing Hallelujah.

Welcome to Redemption.
Welcome to the rest of your life.

Where there's fear in your heart
There is land for the seed to be planted.
If we toil together
The harvest will come by and by.
Is your house built on sand?
Is your family well and protected?
There is refuge for you and your kin
If you walk in the light.

There are lines you must walk
You must walk
Always walk in the lines.

6. The Spark that Starts the Fire

The Reverend:
All the plans that we made together
Walking through the trees
They still haunt me in my sleep
They still come to me in dreams.
I remember picking flowers to put them in your hair
You told me you were scared of something touching you at night.
Something isn't right.

She said, "It feels so much darker in America at night.
Let's not stray too far from the light."

She started having dreams about a storm flooding the town
It always made her cry to even speak of it at all.
Visions of the church collapsing in upon itself
The only place to hide with all the prisoners breaking out.
She always held me tight.

She said, "It feels so much darker in America at night.
Let's not stray too far from the light."
I said, "It's hard for me to know when you don't look me in the eye."
Let's not stray too far from the light

Sometimes in a flash you understand why you were born
All the children in this town are so afraid.
No, the children they should never be afraid,
Oh the children they should never be afraid.

7.Dirty Gospel

Samuel:
Now honey, I know you ain't been here before,
But there's some truth I've gotta show you
There's some gospel that you've gotta know,
As I evangelize to your inner thighs.
The way my hand's movin' up real slow
The way my fingers loosen up your belt
The way that liquor trickles down your throat.
The way it feels to just let it go

It's alright to just let it go
It's alright to just lose control
It's alright, I'm here to let you know
It's alright, you know you gotta let it out

Now don't be surprised if you feel guilty tonight
It's just the way you was raised and it's a damn crime.
I'm gonna show you the way I like it too now,
I'm gonna show you a secret you should do now.

It's alright to just let it go
It's alright to just lose control
It's alright, I'm here to let you know
It's alright, you know you gotta let it out

It's alright...4x
Now lemme sing it in your ear
Lemme sing it real sweet
S-s-s-sing it real sweet.
Just, j-j-j, just.
Just, just, just, just
Alright.

8. A Gathering

We have gathered you all here,
To tell you the time is drawing near
When we shall walk the streets again
And be a people without sin.

Look at all the sad, sad people,
Dragging their feet across the hard ground.
Carrying their heavy burdens
As the good Word drags them down.

One day nature will cover over
All your temples, churches and synagogues.
All the pretty steeples gonna come, come tumbin' down.

Unto us a child is born
So human, so divine.
Unto us a kingdom comes like rays of sun
Through the twisting of the vines.
It's time.

One day nature will cover over
All your temples, churches and synagogues.
All the pretty steeples gonna come, come tumbin' down.

Yeah, we're talking bout the weight of guilt
And the weight of God,
The weight of sin
The weight of law. 4x
Well lay your burdens down.
It's time.

9. Baptized Bodies

The Reverend:

In the Name of the Name of the Name of the Name of the Name of the Name of the Name of the Name of...

You've got to baptize the bodies
Till all the sin is good and gone.
You've got to lay him under water
Till all the black breath bubbles up.
You've gotta shake up that old man
Till all his habits break apart.
You've gotta hold that sinner down
Till all the fight in him goes out.

If the breathing doesn't start
There was no good left in his heart.
You better hope when you are drownin' boy,
The the Lord sees somethin' in you that is still worth saving.

You've got to baptize the bodies. You've got to baptize the bodies.
You've got to hold that sinner down till all the fight in him goes out.

There'll be no thrashin' or flailin' in the Kingdom of God.

Samuel:

And lying in the noontime in a field upon the grass
A sudden wind, a flower falling, landed on my wrist,
So soft and white and delicate and crumbling to the touch,
I don't know why it happened but I thought of Mother then.

Sometimes I can almost remember...

Like shadows in the doorway
Or the voices in my head
My father saying, "Everything is always in God's hands."
Sometimes I can almost remember.

Child of the Earth
Disc 2:

1. Your Father's House / Upside-Down

Samuel:
Sometimes when I reach
You pull your hand away from me.
That's when I know
You've been spoken to again.

The burning in your eyes and chest,
The shortness in your breath,
Oh yes, I know,
You've been spoken to again.

If it's your father's house and father's law
That comes between our love,
What if we ran off into the sun?
Surely there are worlds beyond the limits of this town,
Maybe there's a place where we can make up all the rules
For ourselves.

I can't stop my every thought's of you now
I try to wrap my mind around the truth and the distance.
Everything I thought I knew was wrong.
I'm so glad you came along
And turned me upside down.

All my sense is running out my head
I'm breaking every rule and all the boundaries that I have set.
Everything I thought I knew is wrong,
I'm so glad you came along
And turned me upside down.
You turn me upside down.

Lilith
All of the darkness that's surrounded you,
Well I may not be the light,
But I can share it too.
And maybe we could leave together.
Well, I wouldn't rule it out.
You turn me upside down.

2. Storm Moves

The Reverend
See the clouds moving down from the mountains,
Ghosts on the breeze.
Hear the sound of a thousand voices
Caught in the trees.
I can't understand why the Lord had to take her from me. 2x

Oh Redemption,
Redemption...
I know that I have been chosen
For such a time as this.

I can be your shelter
I can be your friend
I will be the voice that's calling you
Back to the place you began.

4. Sympathy for the Reverend

The Reverend
I saw your face in the fire
And I won't let it go.
Now anything you require,
I have to make it so.
While the people sleep tonight,
I walk through the valley alone.
There's a demon seed in the sky
I'm not gonna let it grow.

You placed a snake within the garden,
For some reason I can't see
Oh would, that you should let this cup
Now pass away from me. 2x

You placed a snake within the garden
Now we're eating from the tree.
Uncertainty.
Uncertainty.

Now all the clothing in the world can't cover us. 2x
Uncertainty.

No, I won't let it go.

4. Black Blood Rising

Samuel
I caught madness
I caught madness
I heard the conversations
I caught the madness.

And so my mother made a covenant
And I was born in the blackest sin
I was baptized in witches' spit
And I can't get it out of my head.
Oh God, Oh God.

I can feel the madness creepin' up
Into my head.
I can see the black blood seeping out
Of my skin.
I don't know what I did
But I let you in.
It's not what I wanted
Not what I bargained for.
Oh God. Oh god.

There is a darkness growing in my mind,
There is a serpent wrapped around my spine,
I ate from the bread
I drank from the wine
But my teeth are on edge
And it trembles,
It trembles inside.

I heard the conversations
I've got the madness, I've got the madness.

5. Afraid

The Reverend:
There is a way that seems right to a man
Please listen my child and know
It is written, it is written
This is the path that leads the soul to it's destruction
Please listen my child and know
It is written, it is written.

Don't listen to your heart it will deceive you.
The heart is darkness,
Dark above all things.

And you used to think you belonged here
You used to think you should stay
And you used to be afraid to walk away.
Now your afraid to stay.

Lilith:
And I used to think I belonged here
I used to think I should stay
And I used to be afraid to walk away.
Now I afraid to stay.

Samuel
Where have you been?
I've been searching the streets now for days.
Your face, your face,
Yes, your holy, holy face.
I can see a change in you
A change in me
A change, I see
A change that's coming through.2x
I can see the change, change, change, change
It's changing me
It's changing you.2x

Lilith:
The reverend said we cannot wed
You're not the one he says,
And we both know all the signs
And the directions they've been pointin'.
Should we still be trying to close our eyes,
I have been trying so hard to keep my eyes closed.

Can you feel the wind tonight?
The racket and the branches breaking
I'm scared of you, I'm scared of you and me.
The wind is roaring, roaring through the trees.

I'm sorry, Love but I have to leave,
I'm sorry, Love, but we both know I have to go.
I cannot sleep anymore, He's always watching me.
His eyes are never closed,
The Lord, He always knows.

6. Scaffold

Samuel:
There was a sound in the dark
I started freezing.
I heard it coming down the hall,
I stopped breathing.
There was a shaking in the wall
The pictures fell and shattered.
Oh God, it's finally happening.
My god, it's finally happening.

Well the devil's in the wilderness,
Or so I've heard.
Well, I think I'm gonna go and have a word.
Cause I've had my fill with that narrow road.
And the minister's black veil is weighing heavy on my soul.

Young Goodman Brown,
You'll never make love now,
You're scared to death of everyone.
Scared of your own shadow.
When you woke up from your dream.
Saw that things weren't as they seemed.
That should have been your cue.

Well, there's a Shadow in the woods,
They say he's got a book,
Filled with names of lost souls and the like,
Well I'm signing up right on the dotted line.
And you can sign your name right below mine.

Take me to the scaffold,
I want to see the scaffold.
You can put me on display but I ain't ever gonna change.
Take me to the scaffold,
I want to see the scaffold,
Put me to the stocks I'm tired of fighting it
And I've got something to say...

Oh, the children, they should never be afraid.

7. Black Magic Rainfall

Samuel
I lost your fingers our last touch just by the old oak
You walked down the mainstream but ran when you turned the corner.
But still your ghost is ever near,
I see your face in every storefront glass.
Down in the brook by Potter's field
Or in our secret spot behind the old tavern.

I've got an itch where my fingers can't reach into grab it,
I've got a secret, I'm spitting, I'm kicking, I'm cracking.
I want to wipe you from the bricks,
From every person that you've touched or spoken with,
I want to wash out every street that has ever borne the shape of your footprint.

Black magic rainfall,
It ain't gonna stop until I say so.
Let the rain fall,
Until we're clean.

Drown all your sorrows, I'm drowning my sorrows with laughter,
This town is a shipwreck, and I am the face of disaster.
And all the corpses float along,
Their bloated bellies in the moonlight shining,
And I can feel it in my blood,
The taste of everything that I've been fighting.

Black magic rainfall,
It ain't gonna stop until I say so.
Let the rain fall,
Until we're clean.

8. Jailbreak on the Mountain

Samuel:

Villains and murderers and bad ideas,
Get in line and tell me why you're here.
All the bars of your cages are melting into your stripes
You're free to go, but there's gonna be a price.

Exercise your liberty,
You're just the same,
You're just the same as me,
Have you ever felt so free?

Backwards up and down the stairs,
You won't believe just where they go,
It's gonna be the worst kind of show.
It's gonna be a hard night to get through
A hard kind of fight but that's the way it goes.

Do you feel that chill, yeah?
Do you feel it, Lord, because I know I do.
Do you feel it, Baby, 'cause I feel it too.
I feel it yes, I feel it too.
The wind is blowing, let it roar, let roar.

The Battle for Redemption

The Reverend:

There was no hope for the righteous
Not for beast, nor child, nor man
There was no hope for Redemption
When the sky came crumblin' in
I could spread my wings at an eagle's breadth
But they still wouldn't cover this town.
Oh God, you have forsaken us
You have let your people down.

Child of a black conception,
Child of the earth,
You were born of powers dark and ancient
Blasphemous and cursed
I can see your rise like Babylon
I can hear the waters churn,
But from dust your skin was wrapped around you
And to dust it shall return.

Samuel:
Like dark on the face of the waters
Like black in the formless and void,
My spirit moves across the surface,
Moon sliver in my eye.
Moon sliver in my eye.

I am a god in my new creation.

Reverend:
From dust your skin was wrapped around you
And to dust it shall return.
To dust you shall return.

The Writing on the Wall

2011-01-21T01:47:00.000-08:00

"God is the Imagination"
William Blake

The disembodied hand writing on the wall lets fall the simple lines in burning red that say:
Man Created God.

The villagers flash and flail, so much recoiling and I-told-you-so-ing. Some stare at the floor: grave robbed and crestfallen. Others angrily wave flags, the words congealing into montras on chewed up tongues. A call to arms, a call to argument, a song of negation. "We won, we won, there is no God."

But the writing on the wall never said there was no God. This was only assumed after such powerful a statment.

An artist carefully steps over the bodies and makes her way to the front of the chaos. She raises her hand to gain the crowds' attention. She pauses in silence then puts forth the question, "Isn't this rather a cause for celebration?"

The believers scream "Nay!" till they're blue in the face.
The negators shout "Yay!" Then they "nay" and negate..

As the noise dies the artist continues to say,
"Look at the beautiful mirrors we've created.
Are they not pictures of ourselves as ourselves creating?
Look at the rendering of furrows and wisdom,
The insight and pain and the loss and forgiveness.
Look at the lightning and darkness and terror,
The suffering and irreverent flaunting of power,
Listen now to the tenderness flowing in water.
Over rocks and through mountains: the sounds of surrender.
Look at those rules that were made to be broken.
And look at these broken rules fixed upon motion.
Our many eyes peek through the time stretched beard lines
All tangled with ghosts and chimes
Endlessly looking out from their positions
Along the double rhyming skeletal spirals that snake rootward towards depths unfathomable.

Listen my child, lay down thy sword.
Take up thy quill, and thy staff, and thy scepter.

Put your pen at any a point on a blank piece of paper.
Where is the line between the made and the maker?
There is only one way and God is a circle,
Walk any which wangle you're bound for returning.

The Lord is my paintbrush, the Earth is my canvas.
She angles me my valleys and shadows
She sets my horizons and lines of perspective.
The Lord is my center, my vision, my dot.

Follow this line and you'll find streets of gold,
The Kingdom of Heaven, the philosopher's stone.

Bala's Quest : A Touch that Catches

2011-01-21T00:53:00.000-08:00

Departure Toward the South Brings Good Fortune

2011-01-20T09:26:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I finally became a believer in magic once and for all.

I said to Marielle on the phone while I was driving, "No longer will I waste my time in awe of the existence of what is labeled by many as the supernatural, instead I will use my time to learn how to work with it and understand it and myself. No longer will I waste my time trying to defend the existence of what is labeled by many as the supernatural, those energies do not need defending, nor do they care if they are believed in or not. What pride I had to have ever thought it was my job to prove such existence?"

Marielle said back to me, "Yeah, those energies are just there. They are there for those who chose to look for them. They are there for you."

While going to Publix this morning I thought to myself as I looked around at the people in the parking lot, "My God, if people only knew the power they had available to them!"

But this knowledge has been suppressed. I just know this somehow. We have been oppressed and lied to about who we are. History has draped a heavy cloth over our eyes so that we cannot remember.

Remember: We are all witches and wizards. We are all gods and goddesses.

Our powers and our magic work in the realm of thought. We can bring forth something out of nothing and then bring that something into this world. The war for power has always been waged over the freedom of our thoughts. We are forced as children down certain lines of thinking. We learn language and words to corral all deviations. We sit in classrooms and we're snapped and punished if we color out of the lines. As we get older we fall into habits and we forget the magic we had, the magic of the imagination. We forget about possibilities. This is why some are drawn to psychedelic drugs and smoking weed. These often serve to derail one's thinking from the lines of habit that have been formed by themselves and others. Most people however just learn to accept the lot that was chosen for them and go seek entertainment and distraction.

But what are we seeking distraction from? What is society trying to distract us from doing? The simple answer is, we are being distracted from creating. And for those who are extra creative, their creativity is often enslaved and used for only certain things. We are told explicitaly from our youth the only appropriate areas where our creativity is allowed to go and restructure. The young boy wearing mother's make up or playing with dolls is quickly corrected. Topics like gender and God and the way things are often breached by the child's creativity, and the teachers and parents quickly turn somber and steer the conversation away. What would a society look like if everyone was creatively restructuring their views on everything they saw and not just manipulating lines on paper or notes on a staff? What if people went off road and used their creativity everywhere? How could a people like that be controlled? How could you sell them entertainment, and drugs, and ideas, and advertisements? The would always be entertaining themselves and everyone around them and they would make everything their own.

Our symbols and tools have been stolen and hijacked, banned and made blasphemous so that others could use them against us. The signs, rhythms, colors, symbols, patterns and archetypes that are the very command prompts and lines of coding that define the human consciousness software/hardware interface have been wrenched from our grasp and used on us daily in the form advertisements and propaganda by corporations, religious institutions, governments and various other forces that possess the resources to do so.

We may have forgotten the ancient tools but others have not.
Why does the Catholic church still use astrological dates and symbols in their current ceremonies?
Why do most child psychologists go into advertising?
What are all these brands and logos about?

It's time to pick up our tools again. It's time to remember. We are far more powerful than we have been told, trained, raised to believe: we knew this as children and this is why there is a sacredness in the eyes and words of every child. There very presence makes all around feel closer to each other, and closer to some kind of source.

Unless you be like these little children you will not enter the Kingdom of Heaven. There is so much more to chose from than what has been presented to us as options.

We are all magicians if we want it. I do. And so I am.

My, myself and I Ching: My first experience with the Oracle

2011-01-18T12:04:00.000-08:00

Inspired by an incredible new paradigm that I have been moving into for some time now, I have finally found a way back to both religion and magic, the mystical practices of both enchantment and divination, or prayer and prophecy if one happens to prefer more Christian terms, have both taken on new significance to me now that I understand the all encompassing importance of the nature of our perception and how we construct reality. Enchantment, or magic spells, can directly effect our perception of reality, or rather what we look for and how we shape the way we, respond and shape the meanings around us, by pointing us in certain directions. Magic spells and guided meditations appear to me now as having some kind of similar functional purpose. Both are willful attempts by the individual to send the mind off in a certain direction through the use of tools.

Divination, which at first might seem slightly less appealing, now appears to me to occupy a position of more significance than enchantment. If one considers the divorce or rift in every person that exists between the conscious and unconscious, or the masculine and feminine, or the above and below, or that which is perceived and that which is, than any practice that can mend, even somewhat, this rift will be a practice that imparts great wisdom and insight.

My first question put forth to the I Ching was this: What can you tell me about my relation to the music I make and what should I know about?

The hexagram the coins delivered to me on this matter was number 3 or Chun which means Difficulty at the Beginning.

The following is a more detailed description of Chun:

The name of the hexagram, Chun, really connotes a blade of grass pushing
against an obstacle as it sprouts out of the earth—hence the meaning,
"difficulty at the beginning." The hexagram indicates the way in which
heaven and earth bring forth individual beings. It is their first meeting,
which is beset with difficulties. The lower trigram Chên is the Arousing; its
motion is upward and its image is thunder. The upper trigram K'an stands
for the Abysmal, the dangerous. Its motion is downward and its image is
rain. The situation points to teeming, chaotic profusion; thunder and rain fill
the air. But the chaos clears up. While the Abysmal sinks, the upward
movement eventually passes beyond the danger. A thunderstorm brings
release from tension, and all things breathe freely again.

THE JUDGMENT

DIFFICULTY AT THE BEGINNING works supreme success,
Furthering through perseverance.
Nothing should be undertaken.
It furthers one to appoint helpers.

Times of growth are beset with difficulties. They resemble a first birth. But
these difficulties arise from the very profusion of all that is struggling to
attain form . Everything is in motion: therefore if one perseveres there is a
prospect of great success, in spite of the existing danger. When it is a man's
fate to undertake such new beginnings, everything is still unformed, dark.
Hence he must hold back, because any premature move might bring disaster.
Likewise, it is very important not to remain alone; in order to overcome the
chaos he needs helpers. This is not to say, however, that he himself should
look on passively at what is happening. He must lend his hand and
participate with inspiration and guidance.

THE IMAGE

Clouds and thunder:
The image of DIFFICULTY AT THE BEGINNING.
Thus the superior man
Brings order out of confusion.

Clouds and thunder are represented by definite decorative lines; this means
that in the chaos of difficulty at the beginning, order is already implicit. So
too the superior man has to arrange and organize the inchoate profusion of
such times of beginning, just as one sorts out silk threads from a knotted
tangle and binds them into skeins. In order to find one's place in the infinity
of being, one must be able both to separate and to unite.

I really could not have thought of a more appropriate answer based on what I already know about the relationship in question and this experience has left much food for thought.

Substance Without Form

2010-12-29T06:38:00.000-08:00

My God I've found the Alchemist's Stone,
Sunlight on my windowsill turns marble into gold,
And yes, I know a trick of the eye,
It was always in that trick of the eye.

All tangled limbs and panicked thrashing in the sticky film of sticky time,
With swollen clumps of language gumming up gasping passages,
Some kind of disease and breeding festers in the murky waters of the eye,
It binds. It blinds. It multiplies. Cell windows crack and crystallize.

Secret knowledge, secret light, secret handshakes in hidden doorways.
Secret whisperings out of secret lips that ask secret questions like "Do you want gold?"
Yes there are secret codes and secret controls,
And they've always had secret operations manuals in vaults under Rome.
But what could these do for their fear of the unknown,
"We need more soldiers, more land, more control,"
A new kind of drug, an addiction was born.

Aged white knuckles grip the stone,
The structure cannot hold.

Piscean talismans adorn the Millennial Priesthood in their hallowed halls,
While outside, their sparkling jewels splash bluish light off their raised scepters,
Measured and calculating, declared by turning compasses within the precision of lines,
It's a beautiful day for a blood sacrifice.

Opposite reaction.

What slouches now toward Bethlehem,
The spiraled clock hands turning back,
Lost gospels rise up from the sands,
Released by Time as if by plan.
Hey Judas, Thomas, Magdalene!
Come out, don't hide your faces another day,
You're just in time for the Information Age.
Return, rejoin, with voice and visions.
Rejoice! Rejoice in new perspectives.
Did Jesus tell you something else?
The shattering of ice and bells,
Angelic songs and trumpets sound
Nerves numbed stiff twitch to awaken,
The rooster stabs through your dreams.

See the starry eyed man on the road with his clothes?
Pray that you might become like him.
You don't know the wealth that he carries and owns
Let him stop you a second, let him tell you some jokes.

Pray that you might be like the traveling man,
Electrocuted, shocked and senseless.
Forgetting always what you were doing,
With eyes like the moon in the afternoon.
Let your temples center star processions
Mother and Father's orbiting arms.
The center is where the center is,
Where is it that gravity's tugging you now?
That round shape in your mouth is pulling everything down,
Give birth with it, say "now", "now", "now".

But no? Such terror of the void and formless,
Do we always need someone to speak and fill the emptiness,
Our chosen: our Priests, Kings, Philosophies.
Speak, please speak, we beg of you, please.

On second thought, be silent.
You've been talking too long and you've said enough in your time,
There is a sound that was before you and a sound that will be after,
A sound we were always hearing behind you.

Young woman, young man,
The heavy heap of culture you carry keeps pulling you forward and backward,
It's so rare that you just let yourself be where you are,
You know it and and you drug it and sometimes you try to find a way to escape,
And so you run to the library to try and read your way out.

Look up at the sun and stop!
That blinding light is you.

Finger the scales that bind your perception,
There's no knowledge of trees if there's no one to listen
There is no up or down in outer space.
And the planets do not know their names.
The seasons and stars do not know the shapes that we have given them
Why are the animals pulling away?

Make love and remember, sing songs and recall
The rhythm in your dancing has been telling you all along.

Pray

2010-12-29T04:39:00.000-08:00

I'm whispering prayers to a nameless god,
Because I know that all the names are wrong,
It's like a lightning bolt etched into the sand,
It's like the voice of thunder trapped inside of a glass
Can you hear it cracking?

When useful names begin to lose your trust,
And written words are fading from their parchments into dust
I will sit beneath the stars and speak in tongues
I will raise my arms to heaven in the way that a child
Asks its mother to be lifted up again.

You are my only hope.

I'm whispering prayers to the names of God,
Because I know how all the names are wrong,
Just like the love that's spoken breathes flame into the fire
If ever a spell be broken, what language is required?
I can hear it cracking.

My only hope.
You are my only hope.

May helpful laughter now collapse you into gratitude.
There's nothing softer than the touch that gives and gives and gives,
By its surrendering water flows through everything,
Carved canyons,rocks and stones they cry aloud.

Highway

2010-12-29T04:06:00.000-08:00

The highway is a tired metaphor.
That I cannot bring my car to crash,
To sleep in a hospital bed
As storm clouds roll over each other in my gut,
Like morbid children scrambling up shoulders
To witness some sick event over the neighbor's fence
Fills me with a feeling of helplessness
Like I'm not really at the wheel
Like I mistakenly thought I had anything to do with
The person who steadily holds to the line.

An Other

2010-12-29T04:03:00.000-08:00

There is an entity in your voice,
A cold frequency I can't recognize
Like nighttime air fastened to your breath,
A bad new static that slowly ascends.

Covert in these strained, hollow pauses,
A stanger's shadow extends,
Filling in the empty spaces,
Where love or trust have failed to tread.

Suddenly,
In a battle.
Home sweet home.
Subtly losing ground.

The wind
Inside a bottle,
Ghosts of ghosts
A sound is still a sound.

A thought becomes a thing once it is conceived.

Cloudbusting

2010-12-29T03:56:00.000-08:00

When you told me about it I laughed,
But then I sat on the grass,
In the sun on the hill,
With my feet in the fountain,
Guitars and chatter bending in the breeze,
Swirling over my skin,
And I tried it.

Then everything was a little different,
Like after a protestant baptism,
When the riverwater dries,
And you actually feel like something died,
And was left in that river,
But it's good and you're lighter,
Like a freshly pruned tree,
That just realized it had been touching the sky all along.

"The Artist is the Brush"

2010-12-29T00:11:00.000-08:00

Circumstance creates art.

The artist as a conduit,
For the outlet of materializations,
Brief solifications,
Of the culmination of events, time and places,
Or a piece of that brief culmination.

The artist as a recorder,
Capturing the sound of a moment,
So in that moment they are that moment,
Embedded in the context,
So they and their works are a piece of that moment,
A tangible explosion,
A Pompeian shadow frozen on stone,
Sculpted in stone, carved in stone,
On canvas, paper, poem.

Look at that moment, the sound,
The color, the feeling.
The artist opened the gate and it came through.
Now that moment's frozen,
This moment touching that moment,
Time bending as moment touches moment,
Something clicks like the echo of wholeness
As the many, by the smallest degree, becomes a little more one.
A little less separation, touching in more places.

Holy Human- "No Mountain"

2010-05-22T07:51:00.000-07:00

No Mountain by Matt Wall

Heaven could not bribe me
And hell could not break me.
Do you remember what it's like to be a child
Before they taught you all their symbols and their signs?

All false gods will fall before me
All false gods will fall.

I know you tried to crucify me,
I know you tried to crucify me,
Of all the times you crucified me
I'm back, I'm back from the dead.

After all the times you hypnotized me
And all the pins you stick inside me
And all the words you lay above me
I'm back, I'm back from the dead.

There is nothing to fear now,
There is nothing to fear
There is nothing to fear now,
There is nothing.

All false gods will fall before me
All false gods will fall.

Well I'll push your face into the wall
Until nobody can hear you call
And all your snake tongued litanies
Smeared to incoherency.

All false gods will fall before me
All false gods will fall.

There ain't no doctrine gonna organize me,
There ain't no sickness gonna victimize,
There ain't no mountain gonna move to hide me,
I see the sky and I know why.

Do you remember what it's like to be a child?

Holy Human- "Loving Lady Lilith"

2010-05-13T20:11:00.000-07:00

Loving Lady Lilith by Matt Wall

Silence, be still and hold on and be still.

I've got to exercise all of my demons,
I've got to get them all back into shape,
I'm on a new path of destruction,
I've got to tighten up my game.

I'm gonna get down under your skin girl
I'm gonna push my fingers deep inside,
Until I figure out just how you work now
Until all your little secrets are mine.

Until there's nowhere left to hide.

They always said boy your time will come,
Relax be patient, still and hold on,
In everything a pattern a flow
It sounds like nonsense until you know.

Mirror, Mirror

2010-05-10T01:35:00.000-07:00

People will do anything, no matter how absurd,
in order to avoid facing their own soul.
~Carl Gustav Jung

It seems more likely to me now that there isn't exactly one truth to be found out but rather a creative interplay between the viewer and that which is being viewed, both of these simultaneously undergoing constant change and restructuring. The image of a dust storm comes to mind: an immense and shapeless mass expanding indefinitely into chaos, and yet somehow for just a brief moment, a piece of the cloud becomes aware of itself and does everything it can to hold some solid shape, desperately denying that it is itself a part of that big, empty cloud.

Holy Human- "Mystery Island"

2010-05-07T19:40:00.000-07:00

Mystery Island by Matt Wall

Mystery island hover over you now,
The black tide is rising gonna cover us all under it.
Blue eagle eyelid wide and never blinking
He circle all around while the Holy Ghost is listenin' in.

And in the space that's left I feel the shape of a throne,
I know, I know what I don't want to know.
And in the space between I see the shape of a queen,
All arms outstretched like a family tree.

Green temple pyramid, unholy iris,
It gaze upon the ages with talons and a serpent tongue.
Black magic thunderclouds are rolling over,
They cover up the sunlight and we forget the way we are.

And in the space that's left I feel the shape of a throne,
I know, I know what I don't want to know.
And in the space between I see the shape of a queen,
All arms outstretched like a family tree.

Shoot first and make your enemies later,
Shoot first and make your enemies.
Shoot first and make your enemies later,
Shoot first and make your enemies real.

Anonymix 3

2010-04-29T10:19:00.000-07:00

1. Gayngs- The Walker
2. UNKLE- Natural Selection (feat. The Black Angels)
3. The Radio Dept.- Never Follow Suit
4. BANDJO- You & the Sun
5. We Are the World- Goya Monster
6. Denj- Make a Mess
7. HEALTH- USA BOYS
8. oOoOO- Hearts
9. Yoko Ono- Give Me Something (Junior Boys Remix)
10. Broken Social Scene- Chase Scene
11. Effi Briest- Mirror Rim
12. Explore This- UFO22 (feat. Silent Funk School)
13. Crystal Castles- Violent Dreams
14. Primary 1- The Blues (feat. Nina Persson)

Download: Anonymix 3

"Earthquake" by Rob Dunning

2010-01-21T08:07:00.000-08:00

Donate to American Red Cross:
https://american.redcross.org/site/Donation2?idb=244100697&df_id=4437&4437.donation=form1&JServSessionIdr004=24t5ynx0t1.app234b

"Earthquake"

God ordered this?

A tiny bluish island nation's great disaster.
Rocked by shock waves and a sharp quake.
Irresistible natural history on the frontier.

Great poverty tonight's tradition.
A witless country vanished and stopped
Like nothing.

The fearsome cracked earth made bad
Music and screaming junk.
Dwelling men and women lost in a complete
Mess.

The flattened injured and dead lingered
On a terminal gurney.
Our dear ones experienced a mumbling
Homicidal earthquake.

Pudgy people bounced like a scientist's
Brain.
We need boxes of beloved food and sparkling
Fountains of pouring water.

Victims roamed the streets in desperation.
Flashing lights blossomed on the spattered
Ambulance.
The useless prison and little nunnery crumbled.

General prayer by flocks of jittered priests.
Crazy hell in dangerous Haiti.

We are obliged to be reborn.

15th January 2010 / Rob Dunning

The Demon Lobotomist

2009-12-25T00:26:00.000-08:00

The last demon dream was nothing compared to the one on the following night. It was as if the little bastard had an older brother who got WAY pissed off about me singing him to sleep the way I did. (And by sleep I mean a permanent state of residual ectoplasm under my shoe.)

My brother and I were in our front yard with my friend Matt discussing a situation Matt had just gotten himself into that made him into a fugitive. He had opposed some kind of terrifying authority like the police but with more supernatural or cosmic empowerment and he was hopelessly on the run. He needed our help. We agreed to help any way we could.

Just then, an unmarked boxtruck comes roaring up our driveway almost hitting us. Matt shrieks, "He's here!!!" as we dive out of the way. "Who's here?!" I screamed back.

Out of the driver seat leaps a youthful and sprightly fellow wearing a white labcoat and a head mirror. In his hand we saw the gleaming of a blade... it is a scalpel.

We are all frozen now as this fantastic character approaches us and begins to speak. He is charismatic and funny, as he speaks I find myself liking him, and I want him to like me. He explains to us quite apologetically that he has to lobotomize our friend Matt, because of the things he has done and laws he has broken, but that in the end it is really for the best and he explains why with flawless reasoning and we all believe him, even Matt.

My brother and I go inside, upon his suggestion, and wait for him to return Matt to us. We sit inside the house both pleased and happy with the way things seem to be going... even a little excited for this great thing that is about to happen to Matt. Sitting sedate in the dim afternoon light, I suddenly snap back into reality and think, "Who the fuck does this guy think he is!" This shakes Danny out of his state and he blurts out, "We can't let him do this to Matt!"

We know that we're up against something big and we know that by trying to stop the lobotomy we will incur the same wrath upon ourselves as well, but all I can think is that this person, or the institute he stands for, has no right to physically and mentally alter someone for disobeying a rule.

Danny and I each grab a baseball bat from the closet and head out the door. We rush out into the street and start beating on the sides of the boxtruck. We scream out loud, making sounds like native war cries. I can see that all that we are doing is making small dents and rocking the frame on it's axles. But it apparently it is enough to at least get the lobotomist's attention.

The metal siding of the truck melts away beneath our blows to reveal the demon lobotomist shaking his head and looking down at us with an almost sympathetic expression as if to say, "Oh now look what I have to do to you."

Fighting ensues. A blur of confused violence and I lose track of my brother and Matt and where I am and what is even happening. I know at some point I realize I'm in way over my head and I'm bounding down hallways fleeing for my life only to hear the slow steady footsteps of the lobotomist approaching at the same slack, self-assured pace. Black claps of leather echoing coldly in the hallway telling me I can never stop running and he is always gaining.

I jump inside a bathroom and lock the door. I turn around and realize that the bathroom has two doors and I lock the other door behind me as well. I'm now standing between two locked doors in a small space just wider than my shoulders. Just then, the entrance doorknob is gripped and starts to shake with frantic, rabid urgency. I grab onto it and try to fortify the lock, just as the other doorknob behind me comes to life. Instinctively I reach across with my other hand to grip that doorknob when I suddenly realize that this is impossible for both doorknobs to be doing this. How could the lobotomist be too places at once?

I realize that he is, and he is so much more than anything I've ever dealt with. I recall my other dream within this one, how I sang a demon to death by reaching the silver note. I realize that this singing would not work here. This lobotomist was of another breed.

With arms outstretched, fully flexing, I hold the position and hear a small voice in my head whispering percussive prompts, "Stay. Hold. Wait. Tight. Twist. Hold." I realize, just like in the last dream, that the demon is shrinking outside. He is breaking upon my makeshift fortress. The same voice softly explains that sometimes the demon is such that you must hide and wait... you must know when you are outmatched and act accordingly.

I learned to be in rhythm with the demon and predict his moves. If I twisted right when he twisted left, our forces would cancel each other out, and the lock would be preserved. I did this with both hands knowing that if I kept my locks intact, he would eventually be worn down or leave. I protected my locks.

I woke up with a start in my bed, a crazy buzzing all over my skin. Terrified and squirming, I couldn't shake the feeling that maybe that bathroom was a real battleground... maybe it was the last safe place in my head from an invading entity who was trying to enter me in my sleep.

Demmmmon Dreammmms

2009-12-18T00:30:00.000-08:00

    Last night there was a demon in my dream. I felt a pair of soft palms slide up my back and shove me gently toward the sliding glass door. My brother and sister come rushing up behind me, panic-stricken and hellbent on exiting the house. We all collide in a confused tangle of limbs and deflecting shoulders. Again I feel a soft push from a pair of invisible and disembodied hands.
Deafening terror seizes me as I grasp for the sliding glass door and yank it open. I turn to the blank space of the dining room and attempt to address the demon directly but my voice is stopped up as if with phlegm. I begin to aspirate, my throat clogged with dull, black clay, yet somehow I manage to cough up the word "Jesus". This just barely clears my throat enough for me to rasp, "Demon, leave this house immediately!"
    We all three stare at the opening to the back yard and I growl... "Demon, Leave."
     The door slams shut.
   Shimmering, diamond eyes blink at me as the light flickers.
     Anger now instead of fear as I suddenly realize what must be done. Stepping into the center of the room, I see my own figure from without, a figure that seems suddenly taller as he raises his right hand high above his head, palm inward. After inhaling deeply, I let out a sudden, ascending melody that wavers and sputters out again like a wounded bird trying to take flight. This is it I think, this is the way... I clear my throat and begin again. A melody erupts smoothly and flawlessly to an uncanny, supernatural frequency and holds, maintaining at a volume and pitch that seems to hiss cold, metallic and shrill like the edge of a blade. My voice takes on qualities that seem both angelic and machine-like at the same time, resounding now with strange harmonic accompaniment.

I cannot see this, but I feel the demon shriveling at the sound of my voice, shrinking like a tumor. It takes all my strength and focus to carry this song to it's end, knowing full well that this entity must be dissolved to bits lest he regain strength. I persist.
    There is a sudden breaking, the way resistance gives way when overcome, and I stumble forward just a step. There is a smear of white paste on the wood floor.

But the magic is in my skin...

2009-12-17T01:05:00.000-08:00

Psychic synchronicities abound in multiples daily now. If I've learned anything from these strange coincidences in the past, then I should know that change is on the way. And by change I do not mean merely physical or material change (yet in that respect I may have some clue as to what), but more importantly... a change of perspective or some new mental structure is crystallizing.

So many little miracles are happening all the time and we are hardly paying close enough attention to notice them. Finally I am slowing down enough to see the little clues suggesting the interconnectedness of reality everywhere I look, and in return, it appears as if some kind of intelligence is waving at me through the seeming randomness of events. Is it my own psyche projecting narcissistic nonsense? Or is my consciousness effecting the randomness of the apparent chaos around me and self organizing coherence?

Today at work, I started thinking about a conversation I had with a woman about Jesus and the Devil at a show we played a few nights ago. I thought to myself, I ought to write about our little discussion. It wasn't more than five minutes after thinking this when I heard someone requesting to sit in my section and be served by me. It was the same woman.

My nights have been long the past week... I have been spending them with an old book on philosophy I read in high school called Sophie's World. There probably isn't a more important book to my development since the Bible, yet I hadn't returned to it in almost ten years. Two days ago I picked it up again. At work the following day, a filmaker/author named Heath Jones whom I admire and who often frequents the diner, introduced me to his young daughter whom I had never seen or met in the year or two that I have known him. Her name was Sophia. She looked up at me and said jovially, "Hello Matt."

Sophie says hello.

Maybe I'm a schizophrenic with a positive outlook so it's of no consequence. This is always possible too. But when I pick up a book it's talking about the same thing that I was thinking about, or someone was just talking about the thing on my mind as it plays on the the T.V. simultaneously. Last night I read in Sophie's World about Logos and the early Greek philosophers Parmenides and Heraclitus. Taking a break from that book, I switched to another book I have already read by Daniel Pinchbeck called 2012:The Return of Quetzalcoatl. As it happened, the pages I crossed within the next ten minutes happened to touch upon Parmenides, Heraclitus and Logos.

Of course, the first thing that I think is that on some level I must have known that both of these books talked about these philosophers and concepts, being as how I've read both of them already, even if on a conscious level I had forgotten this. The natural conclusion would be that some part of me, my subconscious perhaps, was leading me to read these things at the same time. And immediately I ask, is this no less a miracle?

If we are to accept that the subconscious works is such subtle ways, utilizing and weaving practically forgotten knowledge, and we take seriously the Jungian notion of collective unconsciousness... well, then we might have a new context in which we see these strange occurrences called coincidence. Might they not be evidence of the subtle weaving of an even larger, all encompassing Mind? Is it not possible that on a micro level such as the case of my mind leading me to read two books that align with the same concept, that it might also occur on a macro level, where people, things or events might be brought together for some greater subconscious purpose?

Bah! But what's to come of it? I don't know. If it's not all hogwash and there is meaning to it, then what, what, what should we do? There aren't any clear mandates from the great Mind, that coherency that elusively slips in and out of focus. In the end, the only response I know to give is that of wonder. I am amazed by it and I recognize it, and I have noticed that this response of wonder, this recognition, makes the synchronicities appear more often. And it just may be that this wonder is the most important response we can feel, because it reminds us that this life and this world is sacred and worthy of our full attention. I could hardly think of a more important mandate than understanding that.

Yeasayer- "Ambling Alp"

2009-12-13T23:40:00.001-08:00

Reintegration

2009-12-13T13:19:00.000-08:00

My favorite kind of dream is the death rehearsal.

Today my nap was rudely interrupted by astral indigestion and a glorious epiphany that got mostly lost again on the way back to waking consciousness (as is usually the case).

These things are impossibly hard to record, and words are impossibly weak, but I will try to mark it down anyways:

I will say that I was floating somewhere in my bed but under my covers was a sea of stars and moons and planets. In this twinkling, cosmic space scape I began having a conversation with myself, speaker to listener.

But first I must point out that I felt completely weightless and strangely clean, as if I was me in pure form, without all the baggage of my superficial thoughts and identifications. This was confirmed by the speaker (who was me) who began saying something like, "This is the you behind you, the seer, the awareness that is always there while you are alive and that survives death when the ego and body pass away." Simultaneously an image of consciousness flashed in my mind, an analogous display of my awareness as being a stream of flowing blue iridescent water filling and flowing through a particular shape or vessel, that shape being my human form as I knew myself in the world. The speaker says, "That container is your body and the shape that the water takes within it is your ego or your sense of self. Death destroys the body, and therefore the particular shape that consciousness had as it was flowing through it ceases to exist as well... however, the consciousness itself... the actual part of you that is aware and observing, that returns to a larger flow of consciousness and you realize, or remember, that you have always been so much more than that temporary shape. What you thought of as yourself was only a small part of a much larger identity that you had forgotten."

Again, a flash of understanding as I suddenly imagined how the flow of consciousness was funneled or injected into the incredible smallness of the human form. I also understood that it was a willful choice of consciousness to do this, knowing full well that it would forget its own identity and be confused, once isolated from the whole. This was a brave and adventurous endeavor on behalf of consciousness and I felt a reverence for every living thing which in turn, included myself. This was followed by a feeling of legitimate pride, not the ego self-congratulatory type, but a healthy feeling akin to self-worth. I realized that by just existing in the human form, I have been accomplishing a brave and powerful feat. This was true of everyone I knew.

This is what I get for reading all the weird books and spiritual texts that I do. They would obviously inform my dreams at some point. Nonetheless, to experience such things so lucidly, as more than just concepts, well that is something to behold.

Reintegrating with the whole, the reunification of consciousness, if it happens like this, seems to me to be very similar to what Christians view as going to Heaven: ultimate and eternal communion with God, reunion with loved ones, and full understanding of the nature of things.

And if this is true, maybe it can be said that Hell or purgatory at least, is something like that process of watching the you who you thought you were being burned away, which would likely be an excruciating or terrifying experience, especially if one was extremely attached to that particular shape one had assumed throughout their life. (With this in mind, one might view the senility or dementia of old age as being a kind of blessing in disguise, the preparation for such a process, a kind of graceful disengagement from the self.)

The most important part of this dream that I am left with though, is that feeling of demarcation between what you might call my spirit and my soul (to use terms from the Christian cosmology.) If I sit right now and concentrate, I can still feel, if just briefly, that baseline awareness beneath all the outward thoughts and associations that comes with engaging with the world and the human condition. I imagine both life and death would be easier if you could achieve this state of awareness regularly.

“Please Lord give me strength
to be nobody
’cause I am not my thoughts.”

Akron/Family

Anonymix 1

2009-12-09T22:43:00.000-08:00

1. The Circulatory System - (Drifts)
2. Starflyer 59 - She's The Queen
3. Syd Barrett - No Good Trying
4. Candy Claws - Catamaran
5. OOIAH - OOIAH
6. Lost in Lava Town - Seat of Wisdom
7. Four Tet - Clouding
8. Sean Lennon - Dead Meat
9. Yoko Ono and the Plastic Ono Band - Moving Mountains
10. Bear in Heaven - Drug a Wheel
11. Radon Moon - Secret Space Invasion (Demo)
12. Entrance - Stranded in a Clearing

Download: http://www.mediafire.com/?ktzhmmw1gmi

Diner

2009-12-02T21:24:00.000-08:00

It has happened before, often when a storm or fog rolls in and the roads empty of cars and the streetlights shine weirdly in the hazy dark outside. Customers stop coming and soon the restaurant is completely empty. Standing inside Denny's looking out, I begin to feel like there is no other reality beyond the dimly lit parking lot, as if the very ground ends abruptly into black nothingness at the edge of light. It is in these conditions, where I can trick or convince myself, that I have died and am now in some kind of middle world... a spirit trapped in purgatory or some strange no-place.

Leaning against the counter, I think to myself, this is all there is or ever will be... any thoughts of home or my after work life I imagine as being just dreams or some long ago memory... the only reality is this diner and I am a ghost trapped inside.

I have played this little mind game more than once. I played it tonight when those strange storms came through. And more than once I have thought, maybe there is some truth to this fantasy. Maybe my overextended employment at Denny's is some kind of penance or sentence that I have been ordered to carry out. Maybe I am paying for certain sins of my past. Perhaps it is a Karmic balancing in this life as opposed to the next, or maybe I am being purified before I move onto the next stage of my life.

The diner is a strange place to be stranded. It has a special loneliness that can only occur in places of transit. Because, when it comes down to it, a diner is most often a place one eats out of necessity and not mainly for pleasure: it is a place between places, not usually a destination. There are always exceptions, but this is the general way of things.

Tonight a shade from the past came to visit me. His sole reason was to see me and visit with me, but there was an unnerving air about him. We chatted across the table for a while when finally he says, "You know, I never saw you waiting tables... is this where you thought you'd end up?"

Leering faces of old friends, lovers and enemies have been paraded before me for the past three years of this job. Even in some of my closest, oldest friends, I have detected a sinister gleam and gloating flashing behind their eyes. A hissing suggestion of, "And you thought yourself so special..."

I have been a right bastard in my day. So much pride and stupidity in my youth. I thought myself a savior. I thought myself a genius. I thought myself above so many people. Maybe it's that pride that's being burned off.

Perhaps my stay in purgatory is drawing to an end. I have to stop now and work hard to remember the person who I am paying for, because that person is no longer me. So much change has acted upon me and in a lot of ways, I am a different person altogether.

All of these thoughts swirled around me today as I cleaned the back dining room, preparing to go home for the night. Catching my reflection in the window I thought to myself, but how much longer do I have to stay here and repay my debts? And immediately the thought: as long as you think it takes.

Because in the end, it was always my choice to stay.

GEMINMYEYE (by Marielle DuToit)

2009-11-23T12:34:00.000-08:00

>

Drawing Day (A While Back)

2009-11-23T12:14:00.000-08:00

I'm posting these pictures to remember a special day

Beck and Charlotte Gainsbourg "Heaven Can Wait"

2009-11-18T10:16:00.000-08:00

Let's Talk About Evil

2009-10-31T00:32:00.000-07:00

The other night, Marielle and I went to see "Paranormal Activity" and we both found it to be exciting, nerve racking and kind of terrifying. There were many people in that theater who clearly felt the same way, such as the girl who was sitting next to me with her boyfriend who spoke out at one of the characters saying something like, "Don't you do that! You're opening up the door and inviting it (the demon) in!" Marielle and I smirked when we heard this, but and I admit, we both cringed every time the camera resumed it's midnight position on the sleeping protagonists... where shit always went down.

Then of course, there are those who have found this movie to be totally dull, over-hyped, and disappointing. This was seen in our theater too, where, at the peak of the movie's suspense, a piercing snore burst from one of the rows, followed by a young man's voice saying loudly,"What'd I miss? Did I miss anything?"

Well, I don't know if that kid was putting on like he was sleeping as commentary on the movie's pace or if he actually had fallen asleep and woken up confused and embarrassed, but either way, the point is the same: for some people, this movie wasn't even close to being scary.

Which is exactly what my dear friend Kate said to me the other night before I went to see it. She said even her little sister found the film boring, and she, as Kate put it, is a total wimp.

This puts me in a strange position, somewhere below wimpy, dare I say, wimpier than wimpy, because I felt my skin crawling for a little while even after the movie ended and I'm certainly not alone in this experience, being as how the movie has been so successful in climbing to the top of the box office from having started as an underground, independent film doing the festival circuit two years ago.

There are no doubt countless of reasons why some people find it scary and some people don't, many of which cases probably have something to do with a certain defensive stance people take towards anything that has gathered hype or good reviews. People like to assert their individuality by not liking something that is generally liked. Perhaps for many others, the movie didn't live up to the usual horror flick qualities that are the norm, such as blood and gore and jumpingoutfromcorners killers and monsters with red eyes and people getting killed while being naked
(which I've always hated for obvious reasons). But even with those things which are certainly all valid reasons, there was something that Kate had said that stuck in my mind for a while after seeing the movie. She said, "Well I've never believed in demons anyway, so it wasn't scary."

Maybe this is the key to why this movie is scary for some and totally not for others. I was raised to believe in demons. Marielle was raised Catholic, which of course, is the religion that has certified priests who are exorcists. In fact, in the short time since I've seen the movie and to the few people who I have talked to it about, I have seen that the ones who have found it scary were mostly raised as Christians or in Christian homes.

Slipping into a secular perspective, I'd have to say that this is an upsetting situation. Essentially, it means that parents, pastors, priests and teachers within the church are teaching their children that the monster under their bed is, in fact, real. Or in most cases, they are actually the first to tell their children that there is a monster under their bed at all. Just picture the children's Sunday school lesson where adults sit in a circle of young, impressionable minds, explaining the Christian cosmology of demons, Hell, and the devil. Of course, there are many discerning adults who gauge the maturity level of their listeners and preach/teach accordingly, but this is the stuff that has to be taught to young Christians eventually, just as it was taught to me. Implanted... injected.

And that's the whole thing. There is a fear that is created, so that the shelter or safety is necessary. This is the same with guilt. Christianity creates guilt (original sin and so on)... so that the cure is justified or necessary. These are the psychological mechanics of Christianity, regardless of whether demons and the devil or sin are actually real, the concepts themselves are very important as functions that create the whole atmosphere that is Christian belief.

When it comes down to it, God needs the devil, good needs evil, Heaven needs Hell. Elementary stuff: how could we know the nature of what is good if there wasn't some kind of opposite by which to compare it to? Opposites work against and with each other to create a certain balance that is necessary to this perspective. And I'm not saying that this perspective, the Christian perspective, is bad or wrong or evil, but I'm afraid that in creating the necessary dichotomies, Christianity and many other religions actually create evil in order to create good.

If, as I believe, the mind is a powerful, reality creating tool... then believing in demons, evil, hell, or original sin actually makes these things so (at least to the believer). And being as how the human mind is so much more complex and capable than we are fully aware of, it is kind of an unsettling thought to consider what could happen when we go creating entities in our heads that can take on a will of their own and are capable of horrible atrocities.

"Psychic Snares"

2009-10-24T17:13:00.000-07:00

Psychic Snares by Matt Wall

Sometimes an ugly song...

Lyrics:

The sun already set upon it,
All the reasons long forgotten,
All the details blurring into space.
I don't need to talk about it,
Heaven knows I've thought about it.
Penance in the mirror, owning up to my mistakes.

So I don't have to listen to a word you say,
You've already taken up more time than you deserve.

When you see me, don't you speak to me
Don't you look at me
Don't you think

And I don't have to listen to a word you say,
You've already taken up more time than you deserve.

I'm no longer worried about what's right,
I'm no longer worried about what's right.
I know what I need
And I know I don't need your forgiveness.

Town Hall Goat Convention

2009-10-20T23:23:00.000-07:00

I was on my way to the library the other day and I happened to glance at the TV screen on my way out the door. The news was on and to my surprise, I saw the face of a lady I recognized who comes in all the time to Denny's for a bite to eat. She and her family often come in before or after church on Wednesday night and I have often noted to myself that they were well-mannered, well-dressed,and well spoken; a pleasant break from the burping hordes of typical Smyrnans that fill up many a booth.
With this being said, I was arrested by the clip on the screen, because the woman here was nothing like the elegant, graceful one whom I have spoken with time and again. Here she was enraged and flailing in front of the reporter's microphone, the apparent spokesperson for the angry mob behind her at the town hall meeting opposing the nationwide health care reform that has been causing such a stir these days.
At the moment I was passing she was saying, or rather screaming, "For them to get health care when they haven't been paying in, well, it's, it's just plain wrong!"
I left the house and drove down to the library. It's just plain wrong. Wrong. Wrong, wrong. For them to get healthcare, wrong. Wrong.
I kept thinking about her words and how forceful and angry she was. The attractive forty-something looked hideous in that clip. They say that television blows you up or adds pounds to you unflatteringly, but this woman had looked frailer than usual, the bones in her face seemed hard and pronounced, her bony jaw clipping off every word.
I thought to myself, how could you say someone getting health care is wrong at all? How could those words come out of your mouth without you stopping them on their way? You are essentially saying that money is more important, more real to you than the health and well being of another, who would be, no doubt, less fortunate than yourself. How terribly embarrassing it would be to reveal a darkness like that on television.
This same family has invited me to their church in the past,and I remember thinking that they were an exception to the rule; a nice deviation from the intrusive, often offensive church crowd that I am exposed to as a waiter, the crowd that tends to leave evangelical tracts on the table where the tip should be.
Wrong! And it's starting to look like this stance of not granting healthcare to every American who needs it is the "proper" stance for the American Christian to take.
Now I'm really trying to wrap my fallen, logic corrupted mind around this strange twist of fate. These people who call themselves "Christ-ians" apparently have no idea what Jesus was talking about when he said "Love thy neighbor as thyself." I mean, I was kind of under the impression that Christians were to follow in the footsteps of Christ, a man who sacrificed himself and his personal well being for the good of the whole in an opened arm symbol of all embracing compassion.
I guess I shouldn't be confused or surprised by any of this though. Exclusionism is more of a virtue of Christianity than even charity. Most Christians define themselves by what and who they are not rather than what they are. There is a whole history of bloodshed and persecution to back that statement up. Another case in point that Jesus was not a Christian.
In the end, there is a person's religion and than there is the person's economical(and thus, political) position in the real world. The words of Christ, the whole religion, in fact, is only useful in as much as it profits the person using it. So many Christians quick to quote Romans 1 or the ten commandments or any other law and righteousness passage do so because it gives them a position from which to condescend... and this feels good for them. Meanwhile, the words in red, the words of Christ who is the very cornerstone of their religion, go largely ignored. Words like those don't sit well in the mind. They itch and agitate.
But then again, Jesus did do some excluding, picking and choosing after all. This unnerving parable shows the nature of what he valued...

"When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his throne in heavenly glory. All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.
Then the King will say to those on his right, 'Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.'

Then the righteous will answer him, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?'

The King will reply, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.'

Then he will say to those on his left, 'Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.'

They also will answer, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?'

He will reply, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.'

Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life."

Matthew 25:31-46

"Dreamers"

2009-10-19T23:20:00.000-07:00

Collaboration with my brother Danny...

DReaMERs by digmachine

"Every second, I drink another cup of my own blood wine.
Every instant, I break an empty cup against your door.

I reach out, wanting you to tear me open."
--Rumi

Lyrics:

You turned on the light when I was sleeping and then it was over
You turned on the light when I was sleeping and then it began
And so I said I have surely seen this face before
Surely this is someone that I know

Is it a dream?

There is always more.

Step into my office, Baby

2009-10-16T10:56:00.000-07:00

"Sunflower Chapel"

2009-10-11T02:37:00.000-07:00

Sunflower Chapel by Matt Wall

Lyrics:

Stay in a daze
In the place
Where you wanted to remain
In a bed that you made
In a golden glory haze.
It locks you up inside
All your brittle bones and joints
Becoming calcified
But it always was a choice.

Are you afraid of growing old?
Worried your memory might go?
What if your grip slips on the grudges that you hold?
What if the pain that has defined you
Slowly dissolves and falls behind you?
Would you hold on to what's familiar just because?

Gray, in a way
You became
And you let the colors drain
From your face
And your gaze
Became fixed upon a point.
Or could you look me in the eye
Or is there always somewhere else
Off to the left or right?
Only echoes of my voice.

Are you afraid of growing old?
Worried your memory might go?
What if your grip slips on the grudges that you hold?
What if the pain that has defined you
Slowly dissolves and falls behind you?
Would you hold on to what's familiar just because?
Would you hold on to what's familiar because it's all that you got?
I guess you better hold on
If you need somthing to hold on to, hold on...
I guess it's what you need.

Sea shell fingernail scratching at me

2009-10-07T22:05:00.000-07:00

Are my special moments your special moments too? Are we having the same dream? I'd certainly like to think so. And since I'd like to, I will.

Lately I've been thinking that the act of carving out your own myths is the same as analyzing and searching for the truth of everything, except it's way more fun to do the first and you are allowed so much artistic freedom.

Let's make something beautiful together.

Maybe One Day You'll Stop and Realize the Throne that You Serve Is Dead

2009-10-05T23:02:00.000-07:00

"History is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake."
-Stephen Dedalus

A common misunderstanding is that all of those who have turned away from the faith, have done so out of rebellion or a desire to indulge in the sins of the flesh. The image of the prodigal son is called upon and applied to those wayward souls who have left their Father's house to gorge themselves hedonistically on Earthly pleasures, yet ever mindful of their Father's presence and love awaiting them upon return.

However, there are others, myself and some of whom I know personally, who have witnessed the entire collapse of God and faith from within their Father's house. For some it was a slow process, a series of small events and questions piling up; and for others it was one monstrous moment, perhaps a stark, potent image... maybe a small coffin fit for a child. But I digress...

What becomes obvious to one really looking, isn't so much proof positive or negative as to the existence of a God, but rather that the church and the people around you have created a god in their own image, a vain reflection of all that is specific to their culture including fears, prejudices, values, standards and so on. A god painted on a ceiling, obscuring the sky. A mirror. A projection.

Of course, many would argue against this, saying that the understanding of God and the Christian faith is built upon the Scriptures. I have two things to say about this. The first is that from every sect of Christianity down to every person who calls themselves a Christian, there exists a process of picking and choosing, a filtering of how and what is accepted(and excepted) from the Bible. And what are the deciding factors? The person's discretion is based upon their own cultural values, peer relations and personal experiences. The Scriptures are another mirror. Secondly, there is the palimpsestic nature of doctrine and interpretation specific to each sect or denomination. Upon this ancient collection of Jewish and Greek Literature that we call the Bible, there are overwritten new narratives that have been transmitted and expounded upon from priest to priest, pastor to pastor, father to son, and cult leaders to the credulous. After centuries of parallel developments and ill-motives (such as political) obscuring the histories and intent of the Scriptures, it becomes almost impossible to read the Bible without all of these prepackaged meanings jumping between you and the text.

So what does all this equate to? Well, it means that some are going to conclude that the God they were raised with was simply an image or embodiment of the culture they grew up in. And this is hardly a cause for celebration. Forlorn, many will throw themselves headlong into hedonism now as a result of this, maybe some of these will claim that there is no God at all and search for truth now along the more substantial avenues of science and materialism. One can hardly blame them for this.

So yes, there are those who have slipped out of church attendance to a life of sin, probably without a thought to what and why they do what they do, and they were probably ignorant and apathetic all the same to the inner workings of the Christian faith while in it. But then there are those who could no longer live with what they saw as a sham. They had to go. They had to throw their arms in the air and admit humbly that maybe they don't know what actually is going on. Whether they chose to believe in a god or not, they must continue in the search for truth and will seek along what paths they deem authentic or legitimate. While the Christian from within the church might picture the prodigal as grossly rolling in endless orgies, he or she might never imagine the horror and aloneness of that moment when the existential weight of responsibility descends upon one who is coming to grips with his place in an unfamiliar, unexplained universe. And beyond this, he or she could not imagine the freedom that follows.

And in the words of Ralph Waldo Emerson:
"The foregoing generations beheld God and nature face to face; we through their eyes. Why should not we also enjoy an original relation relation to the universe? Why should not we have a poetry and philosophy of insight and not of tradition, and a religion of revelation to us, and not the history of theirs? Embosomed for a season in nature, whose floods of life stream around and through us, and invite us by the powers they supply, to action proportioned to nature, why should we grope among the dry bones of the past, or put the living generation into masquerade out of its faded wardrobe? The sun shines today also. There is more wool and flax in the fields. There are new lands, new men, new thoughts. Let us demand our own works and laws and worship."

His First Blogpost

2009-10-05T21:55:00.001-07:00

I would like to take this moment to thank everyone who has helped me get to this point, the great shoulders I have stood upon, the bodies I have eaten, the blood, sweat and tears of my loved ones and mentors throughout the years who have greased and lubricated all my various points of contact with the world. You have all done so much... So much sacrifice.

It's understandable that you might be a little frustrated, having seen no evidence of the fruit of your labours. But alas! I have finally decided to participate and contribute to the world around me; at last my highly anticipated skills and talents will bloom forth and declare the greatness of myself and all those who have come before me. I, Matthew Wall, hereby introduce my blog and in dispassionate, glottle frillian: I mean, yeah, it'll probably change your life.