Friday, August 15, 2008

Hail ManniMoonYin (2.20.08)...

I wasn't cold. I remember being surprised by that. Floating in outer space, thousands of miles above Earth, I somehow expected I would feel cold. But, then again, I wasn't in my body just then, either. It was only my astral body, my self-image, a mental projection of my Self, that was hovering there in the darkness; surrounded by a pseudo-spaceship of geometric forms woven from my own ch'i, the three Black Lotuses flowering at my tan-t'ien connected by a line of ch'i in the loop of the microcosmic orbit, the Chaosphere slowly rotating counter-clockwise in the center of my mind, and my form firmly attached to the glowing, white light of the infinite Axis Mundi passing straight down through my head, my spine, and out to the ends of everything.

I also hadn't expected the Moon to be so goddamned big. It was ENORMOUS! It filled almost my entire field of vision and appeared to be much larger than either the Earth or the Sun behind me. I had apparently arrived just in time for the eclipse, as there was only a sliver of glowing white Moon left visible on the left hand side of its face. Behind me, the Earth was ringed in a corona of fire, as it was positioned directly between the Sun, and myself and the Moon. I was left awestruck at the beauty of these sights, and I just floated there, overwhelmed, as the shadow crept westward across the surface of the Moon. As it inched closer and closer towards the westward edge, towards the totality of the eclipse, my anticipation grew. I eagerly awaited that penultimate cosmic moment when the eclipse would zenith, and the heavenly bodies would align, and the vibratory frequency of the universe would begin to resonate "harmony", "balance", and "Tao". I didn't know what to expect, exactly, but I knew that was the moment I was waiting for, that was the event I was working towards. Finally, the big moment arrived, the shadow moved that final inch, the Moon completely disappeared beneath the shadow of the Earth, and...absolutely nothing happened.

I sat there for a few moments, waiting for something, anything to happen, but nothing did. The sensation was very much as if a symphony had just worked up to its climax, and then everyone had suddenly just stopped playing; no cannons booming, no cymbals crashing, no horns crescendo-ing, nothing. At first, for a moment, I was simply confused. How could this be happening? But quickly I transitioned into disappointment. Once again, I felt like a fool. I'd gotten my hopes up, but once again, I'd ended up just talking to myself. I felt useless and stupid. As the shadow began to move off the westward edge of the Moon, and the first crescent of white light appeared on its eastward edge, the eclipse now ending, I decided it was time for me to leave, to return to my body and go to bed. But just then, I heard a voice in my mind, completely distinct from my own internal monologue, say:

"All things that are, are change."

I knew this was the Spirit of the Moon. The Spirit of the Moon, speaking directly to me. And for some reason that I still cannot explain, instead of being completely elated by this turn of events (after all, this meant that I hadn't failed, after all; that I wasn't just talking to myself out here), instead I felt bitterly disappointed by what the Moon Spirit had said. It was a paraphrase of Heraclitus: "All things that are, are Fire." And it was an idea with which I was intimately familiar, and had been for a long time. So, yeah, the Moon Spirit was talking to me, but it still didn't change anything; it was just telling me what I already knew. It was telling me that the only constant is change. That nothing lasts forever. That everything is mutable. Basically, the philosophy that had guided me for the past ten years. And so I sarcastically replied back to the Spirit:

"Yeah. Tell me something I don't know."

To which it immediately replied, "You cannot be good. You cannot be bad. You can only be."

The realization of the truth of this statement hit me like a hammer blow. It was as if God himself had just personally forgiven me of all my sins; had told me, in fact, that I could never have even sinned to begin with. Of course, I can't be good or bad! How had I not realized that before? "Good" and "bad" are arbitrary concepts; ideas that each individual person defines for themselves in any given situation based on their own experience and point of view. That doesn't make them real. The only thing that's real, the only thing I can be certain of, is that I exist. Cogito ergo sum. That doesn't mean, "I exist because I think." It means "The only thing I can be certain of is my own existence, because there has to be some thing existing to think of the question in the first place." "I am" is the only universally true statement. Everything else is relative.

I really hate to resort to the cliché "it felt as if a weight had been lifted off of my chest," but in this case it's absolutely true. I physically felt lighter, as though I had finally dropped a weight of chains that I had been carrying coiled around my body for months now. I knew something with certainty again. What an incredible feeling! I had found one tiny piece of solid ground to stand on, after being adrift and lost in an endless void of empty questions for so long. And I wasn't a bad person. And I wasn't a good person, either. I was just Michael. The months of self-abuse, of giving in to my desires, of escaping into selfish pleasure, of hurting the people I Loved most just because I didn't know how to care about anything else...none of it mattered. It was done, and I couldn't undo it, or make up for it. But it didn't make me who I am, either. What's done, is Done, and in any given moment, I am free to define myself as I see fit, regardless of what has come before. I am only who I decide to be. I wept uncontrollably with joy, and relief, and the overwhelming knowledge of all the possibilities inherent in life.

As I wept, dazed and dumbfounded, the Moon Spirit continued:

"Your new mantras will be 'Look on the bright side.' and 'Make the most of it.' This is the only life you get. 'You walk but once among the living, so no regrets, and no forgiving.' And since 'there's nothing good nor bad in this world but thinking makes it so,' then find the good in everything. Even your mother's suicide was a good thing when you figured out how to look at it the right way. Choose joy, and you will be joyous."

And again, the sheer force of the truth of the Moon Spirit's words drilled right to the core of my Self. My mother had been right. In fact, she was the only one in the situation who had been right. With her repeated suicided attempts, she was telling us that she had to go. She kept trying to leave, but we wouldn't let her. It's not just that she couldn't take the constant pain and depression any longer. It was that she knew that she was destroying our family; dragging all of us down with her into her madness and into the agony of her slow death. Her suicide wasn't a selfish act. It was a self-less act. It was an act of Love. The ultimate act of Love, in fact. She had given her life so that we wouldn't have to suffer. She'd died to save us. All I have to do to see the truth of this is to look at our family now, and then imagine what it would be like if she were still here. Looking at where each of us is now, and the lives we have, there's simply no denying that we wouldn't have anything we have now if she were still alive and suffering and mad. Our lives are better in every way now than they were then, and things would only have continued to have gotten worse for everyone if she hadn't died. She would've gotten sicker and sicker, and crazier and crazier, and fallen deeper and deeper into addiction and abuse. And we all would've gone crazy ourselves trying desperately and futilely to help her and to keep her alive. It sounds so horrible to say that our whole family is better in every way because our mother committed suicide, but as horrible as it might be, that doesn't change the fact that it is also unarguably true. She was right. She was trying to do what she needed to do to save her family. But we wouldn't listen to her. We wouldn't let her go. We wouldn't even let ourselves entertain the possibility. "How can you think that? What's wrong with you? How can you say those things? You have to live! You have to stay with us!" As though she didn't have any choice in the matter. As though she didn't have any say in how she lived her own life.


We were the bad guys here. She was the hero.

So then, that would mean that the part I played in bringing about her death was a good thing, too, wouldn't it? My intent had never been to kill her. My intent had been to "end her pain, and bring her peace." And isn't that exactly what happened? She wasn't suffering anymore. And neither were the people she Loved. Yeah, it hurt a lot when she died. But we're all better off now because of it. I didn't want to hurt her. I Loved her. As crazy and abusive and fucked up as she was, she was also wonderful and caring and thoughtful, and I Loved her. My ritual that night had been as much an act of Love as her suicide had. I just didn't want her to be in pain anymore. And obviously, she felt the same. So what's the point of beating myself up about it? Yes, I could truthfully say "I killed my mother." But I could also truthfully say "I saved my mother, and our entire family from a slow, painful death." It all depends on which side of the street you're standing on. And if they're both true, then why would I choose to view it from the side that makes me into an evil monster, when I could just as easily view it from the side that makes me a powerful savior?

I knew then, that everything would be different from here on out. I knew, with absolute certainty, that nothing is good, and nothing is bad. Everything is both good and bad. The only thing that changes, is our perception. So I would "look on the bright side." I would "make the most of it." I would try to find the good in everything from now on, and not let myself get depressed or miserable or angry when things didn't go the way I wanted. I'd know that, in those situations, there really isn't anything wrong or bad to be upset about; it's simply my point of view that would make it appear that way. So I would change my point of view. I would choose to be joyous.

To say that I was overwhelmed at that point (as I've said several times already here myself) would be a gross understatement. I felt absolutely transformed, transfigured, transmogrified! I felt changed on a genetic level. I could feel my focus slipping, my grip on the mental image beginning to loosen under the effects of such a deep and profound catharsis. Sensing that it was time to go, I bowed low to the Moon Spirit, in deep gratitude and sincere appreciation, and thanked it profusely for showing me so many truths. As I began to descend along the Axis Mundi back to my body, the Spirit said to me:

"There is one more thing you should know before you return. You are amazing. And so is everyone else."

Aleister Crowley said, "Every man and every woman is a Star." Jesus said, "Let he who is without sin, cast the first stone." We are all human. We all live the same human lives, on the same planet, spinning through the same universe. Just as "good" and "bad" are merely points of view, so, too, there is really no such thing as a person who is "better" or "worse" than anyone else. Think of all that we are capable of! Memory. Emotion. Reason. Language. Consciousness. Science. Magick. Each and every human being is a truly magnificent and amazing thing. The probability of our coming to exist at all is basically nil, and yet here we are, doing the most extraordinary things. The idea of another person being better or worse than me is just an illusion created by the angle of my view. And I also can't let myself forget, that I am one of these amazing monkeys, myself. No matter what I do, no matter how I fuck up, no matter how down on myself I might get, I am still amazing. Just the mere fact of my existence is miraculous, in and of itself. So I won't beat myself up when I don't live up to my own standards. And I will count every human being as my brother or my sister. And when they do something that hurts me, I won't consider them inferior to myself; I will remember that I have done similar things myself, that everyone has, and that in a similar situation, I could appear to someone else just as they appear to me now. And when I meet someone who seems greater than myself, I will remember that they are just a person, like me, and while they may be able to do some things better than I can, there are also surely many things that I can do better than they.

Still reeling from the weight of so many epiphanies experienced so quickly, I descended through space, through the clouds, down to Earth, and back into my body. It felt as if I'd been gone for at least an hour. I removed my mindfold and looked at the clock. It had been only 20 minutes.

That night I slept peacefully and deeply and contentedly, in a way that I had forgotten was possible.

But it didn't end there. Over the next few days, this experience, and the four truths I learned here, would continue to challenge and change me, and lead me to even greater discoveries and epiphanies, which would result in the most profound personal transformation I could ever have hoped to experience. Until then, remember, You Cannot Be Good, You Cannot Be Bad; You Can Only Be.