It's suddenly raining very heavy, lightning started around 10, and thunder is echoing slightly. We haven't had too much time between rain lately. Fay came through and brought us maybe 2 feet of much needed water, then there was more rain after those three days, and the ground might have just been drying on the top. The air running along the floor feels so cool to my feet after being so hot and humid all evening. I hope the humidity helps my throat stay moist through the night- I'm tired of my body being sick, first pouring sinuses, then clogged sinuses and pouring, then sneezing and coughing, and today mostly just a righteous croup remains.
I have been reading White Noise by Don DeLillo, my first DeLillo novel. I'm perhaps halfway through this book that is one-third set-up for this middle-class, white family made up of children from previous marriages, insecure parents and the "white noise" of everyday materialism. One chapter the main character just decides he wants to go shopping, and his wife and daughters become caught up finding him things to buy at the mall, and he just basically has this pseudo-religious experience with his family while spending money without care. He actually says he comes to realize that he is above money, doesn't need to worry when spending it, has credit to back him up! Anyway, here is a quote, as it relates to the other book I'm currently working through (Dreamways of the Iroqouis):
"The power of the dead is that we think they see us all the time. The dead have presence. Is there a level of energy composed solely of the dead? They are also in the ground, of course, asleep and crumbling. Perhaps we are what they dream."
This other book by Robert Moss is called Dreamways of the Iroqouis, in which he explains the cosmology of these specific Native North Americans, as well as active dreaming and a return to the dreamworld as our connection to the rest of reality. To the Iroqouis, dreams are communications from our souls to our thinking selves, to our bodies- they are meant to help us, heal us, to show us what we really desire and need. They are reminders of things we already know, and our ancestors speak to us through them. The Iroqouis practiced dreaming religiously, and all dream wishes and desires they attempted to fulfill as a means of keeping the community in harmony as much as fulfilling each persons needs on this planet, on this journey, in this life. They dreamed deeply and often spoke to animal familiars and ancestors. Adept dreamers found deer in winter and acted as sort of psychologist/healers.
I will now attempt to tell the story of creation among the Iroqouis, as I recall it from my one reading of the oral history in writing, and once telling it all the way through for Mike. This may be long. :)
Long ago, there was a village of folks who dreamed. The father of one woman had died, he may've been a chief, and she dreamed that he was placed in the branches of a tree. When she woke, they did this, and his soul inhabited the tree. From then on, she spoke with the tree as her father, and he spoke to her with the moving leaves and branches, in the swaying of his trunk. He told her to go and prepare food for her husband-to-be, a very powerful being in a far-away land.
The and her mother painstakingly made a perfect loaf of bread, and she set out on the journey, remembering her father's words that it would be a long, treacherous journey, and that she should stay strong and remember not to express any pain or suffering. She moved from the hip, running across the land, and she quickly arrived in the place her father had described, much more quickly than she ever got to the berry patch outside her village, so she went back. Her father said, yes, you arrived in the right place, and you are coming now into your true powers.
She set out again, once more arriving very quickly, and found this being who was her husband-to-be. He was the most beautiful wild cherry you can ever imagine, not unlike the Tree of Life in Kabbala, he was a tree of Light and so old you could no longer tell if he had any gender at all! He was unimpressed with the woman and her dinky loaf of bread after having lived so many years and having had so many wives, said she must make him corn soup, enough to feed a mid-sized village. She set to the task, finding all the chores of harvesting and pounding the grain to be easier and easier when she put her thought to it.
She made a giant vat of corn soup, chunks flying out and making huge wounds in her arms and legs- but she did not wince, not once. The Tree of Light was a little impressed by this, and he told her to strip naked so that his servants could heal her wounds. She did, and men like dogs, dog-headed men, came out and began to lick her violently from head to toe with their sand-paper tongues. Eventually this became a sort of voyeuristic experience for the Tree of Light, perhaps, as the dog-men healed her wounds and moved onto more intimate licking. When the orgy ended, he made her a bed and did not touch her, only breathed deeply on her.
The next morning, the Tree had the woman fill a magic deer-skin bag with dried and quartered deer meat for her people. This she did, herd after herd of deer going into the bag, and when it was close to full, the Tree had her push hard down on the contents. When she did, they slipped back down to halfway, and she continued to fill. The Tree told her before she returned to tell her people to remove their roofs that night. When she returned, extremely tired from lugging the mountain-heavy bag, she told the people to remove their roofs. Having seen the enormous gift from the Tree, they did, and that night the stars seemed to come down and hover above their homes. Those stars began to fall softly into them, like light hail, until everyone's house had been turned into a grain silo filled with the most beautiful white corn kernals.
When the woman returned to the Tree of Light, her husband, his leaves had begun to turn yellow, and he said, "You are carrying the gift of life inside you," and he went to dream. When he awoke, he said he had dreamed the most preposterous thing! and he started to dig around the roots of the Tree of Life/Light, and his dog-men began to help, as the woman stood and watched in disbelief at the beautiful tree being uprooted in front of her. It followed that she began to help dig, and eventually they arrived at an opening! The space was not unlike a tunnel, midnight blue and empty. He told the woman that she had to jump into the hole beneath the tree. So she did, into the void, carrying with her the baby she had already given birth to, but returned to the amniotic fluid of her mother's womb for this journey.
She fell a long, long time, and for this we'll call her the Woman Who Fell From the Sky, or Sky-Woman. A long, white light helped her for most of the fall, a white lion being, who assisted this beautiful woman being. Soon she came to Earth, where all the creatures of the water already existed, like beaver and otter and turtle. She asked the creatures if they knew where to find any earth, and they asked her what the hell that was. She motioned as if picking up clay and forming it into balls, then patted her stomach and grabbed her breasts. Beaver and Otter both said their ancestors had each once gone so far under the water that they'd come to something they couldn't identify that seemed like this thing called "earth." After several attempts to dive down to the bottom and a few near-death experiences, I believe it was Beaver who came up, almost dead, with just a bit of clay lining his limp hands. Sky-Woman took this earth and asked where it might go so that she could build land and grow a child. Turtle said, "Use my back, as you're using it now to stand upon." She rubbed the clay on his shell, then danced a beautiful, spiral dance, quickly making land spread out before them.
Here she raised her daughter, who became ripe and harvested many things. This woman was one day visited by a cloud-being, an enormous and charming being, who rightly seduced her with two very capable penises, making her body explode with pleasure. From then, she was pregnant with twins - one light, one dark. The light one said one day, to the dark one, "It's time we left this place, I think I see a river out of this amniotic ocean where there is a waterfall at the end- I'm pretty sure that's the way out," and he left. The second on, the wily, crooked one, with shards of glassy ice circling his head, not to be outdone, decided he would just break right out of this place by boring a hole from where he was. This worked, however his mother was dead on his arrival.
Their grandmother, Sky-Woman, asked who had done this horrible thing, and the dark twin said it was the light, Elder brother who had actually taken the right path out. She believed him and coddled him from that day forward. However, the Elder twin was the Light brother, the Sky-Holder, the one who remembered where they had come from, from the sky, and he was thus endowed with the gift of Life. He created valleys and fields, deer and humans of all colors, while the second twin could only create fucked up shit, and needed to steal the gift of life to give life to his warped creations. They, however, led to the increasing complexity of life.
To sum this up, the Light brother eventually kills the Dark through a sort of too-much-righteousness thing in conjunction with a request that they duel from his father (who turns out to really be turtle/the cloud being!). The Light brother gives life back to the Dark eventually, and they end up being married in a sacred ceremony where they realize that they are actually one being, and the source of all their disharmony came from the separation they mistakenly felt.
This is the first part of the story. The story of the Awakened being and Hiawatha waits for another day.
The aim of all religion seems to me to be, by and large, the spiritual freedom of folks. Let's remember that and strive toward this freedom in the deepest parts of our souls and psyches. We are free, and that is what Jesus and Hiawatha came to tell us.
a new link:
http://www.submedia.tv
I have been reading White Noise by Don DeLillo, my first DeLillo novel. I'm perhaps halfway through this book that is one-third set-up for this middle-class, white family made up of children from previous marriages, insecure parents and the "white noise" of everyday materialism. One chapter the main character just decides he wants to go shopping, and his wife and daughters become caught up finding him things to buy at the mall, and he just basically has this pseudo-religious experience with his family while spending money without care. He actually says he comes to realize that he is above money, doesn't need to worry when spending it, has credit to back him up! Anyway, here is a quote, as it relates to the other book I'm currently working through (Dreamways of the Iroqouis):
"The power of the dead is that we think they see us all the time. The dead have presence. Is there a level of energy composed solely of the dead? They are also in the ground, of course, asleep and crumbling. Perhaps we are what they dream."
This other book by Robert Moss is called Dreamways of the Iroqouis, in which he explains the cosmology of these specific Native North Americans, as well as active dreaming and a return to the dreamworld as our connection to the rest of reality. To the Iroqouis, dreams are communications from our souls to our thinking selves, to our bodies- they are meant to help us, heal us, to show us what we really desire and need. They are reminders of things we already know, and our ancestors speak to us through them. The Iroqouis practiced dreaming religiously, and all dream wishes and desires they attempted to fulfill as a means of keeping the community in harmony as much as fulfilling each persons needs on this planet, on this journey, in this life. They dreamed deeply and often spoke to animal familiars and ancestors. Adept dreamers found deer in winter and acted as sort of psychologist/healers.
I will now attempt to tell the story of creation among the Iroqouis, as I recall it from my one reading of the oral history in writing, and once telling it all the way through for Mike. This may be long. :)
Long ago, there was a village of folks who dreamed. The father of one woman had died, he may've been a chief, and she dreamed that he was placed in the branches of a tree. When she woke, they did this, and his soul inhabited the tree. From then on, she spoke with the tree as her father, and he spoke to her with the moving leaves and branches, in the swaying of his trunk. He told her to go and prepare food for her husband-to-be, a very powerful being in a far-away land.
The and her mother painstakingly made a perfect loaf of bread, and she set out on the journey, remembering her father's words that it would be a long, treacherous journey, and that she should stay strong and remember not to express any pain or suffering. She moved from the hip, running across the land, and she quickly arrived in the place her father had described, much more quickly than she ever got to the berry patch outside her village, so she went back. Her father said, yes, you arrived in the right place, and you are coming now into your true powers.
She set out again, once more arriving very quickly, and found this being who was her husband-to-be. He was the most beautiful wild cherry you can ever imagine, not unlike the Tree of Life in Kabbala, he was a tree of Light and so old you could no longer tell if he had any gender at all! He was unimpressed with the woman and her dinky loaf of bread after having lived so many years and having had so many wives, said she must make him corn soup, enough to feed a mid-sized village. She set to the task, finding all the chores of harvesting and pounding the grain to be easier and easier when she put her thought to it.
She made a giant vat of corn soup, chunks flying out and making huge wounds in her arms and legs- but she did not wince, not once. The Tree of Light was a little impressed by this, and he told her to strip naked so that his servants could heal her wounds. She did, and men like dogs, dog-headed men, came out and began to lick her violently from head to toe with their sand-paper tongues. Eventually this became a sort of voyeuristic experience for the Tree of Light, perhaps, as the dog-men healed her wounds and moved onto more intimate licking. When the orgy ended, he made her a bed and did not touch her, only breathed deeply on her.
The next morning, the Tree had the woman fill a magic deer-skin bag with dried and quartered deer meat for her people. This she did, herd after herd of deer going into the bag, and when it was close to full, the Tree had her push hard down on the contents. When she did, they slipped back down to halfway, and she continued to fill. The Tree told her before she returned to tell her people to remove their roofs that night. When she returned, extremely tired from lugging the mountain-heavy bag, she told the people to remove their roofs. Having seen the enormous gift from the Tree, they did, and that night the stars seemed to come down and hover above their homes. Those stars began to fall softly into them, like light hail, until everyone's house had been turned into a grain silo filled with the most beautiful white corn kernals.
When the woman returned to the Tree of Light, her husband, his leaves had begun to turn yellow, and he said, "You are carrying the gift of life inside you," and he went to dream. When he awoke, he said he had dreamed the most preposterous thing! and he started to dig around the roots of the Tree of Life/Light, and his dog-men began to help, as the woman stood and watched in disbelief at the beautiful tree being uprooted in front of her. It followed that she began to help dig, and eventually they arrived at an opening! The space was not unlike a tunnel, midnight blue and empty. He told the woman that she had to jump into the hole beneath the tree. So she did, into the void, carrying with her the baby she had already given birth to, but returned to the amniotic fluid of her mother's womb for this journey.
She fell a long, long time, and for this we'll call her the Woman Who Fell From the Sky, or Sky-Woman. A long, white light helped her for most of the fall, a white lion being, who assisted this beautiful woman being. Soon she came to Earth, where all the creatures of the water already existed, like beaver and otter and turtle. She asked the creatures if they knew where to find any earth, and they asked her what the hell that was. She motioned as if picking up clay and forming it into balls, then patted her stomach and grabbed her breasts. Beaver and Otter both said their ancestors had each once gone so far under the water that they'd come to something they couldn't identify that seemed like this thing called "earth." After several attempts to dive down to the bottom and a few near-death experiences, I believe it was Beaver who came up, almost dead, with just a bit of clay lining his limp hands. Sky-Woman took this earth and asked where it might go so that she could build land and grow a child. Turtle said, "Use my back, as you're using it now to stand upon." She rubbed the clay on his shell, then danced a beautiful, spiral dance, quickly making land spread out before them.
Here she raised her daughter, who became ripe and harvested many things. This woman was one day visited by a cloud-being, an enormous and charming being, who rightly seduced her with two very capable penises, making her body explode with pleasure. From then, she was pregnant with twins - one light, one dark. The light one said one day, to the dark one, "It's time we left this place, I think I see a river out of this amniotic ocean where there is a waterfall at the end- I'm pretty sure that's the way out," and he left. The second on, the wily, crooked one, with shards of glassy ice circling his head, not to be outdone, decided he would just break right out of this place by boring a hole from where he was. This worked, however his mother was dead on his arrival.
Their grandmother, Sky-Woman, asked who had done this horrible thing, and the dark twin said it was the light, Elder brother who had actually taken the right path out. She believed him and coddled him from that day forward. However, the Elder twin was the Light brother, the Sky-Holder, the one who remembered where they had come from, from the sky, and he was thus endowed with the gift of Life. He created valleys and fields, deer and humans of all colors, while the second twin could only create fucked up shit, and needed to steal the gift of life to give life to his warped creations. They, however, led to the increasing complexity of life.
To sum this up, the Light brother eventually kills the Dark through a sort of too-much-righteousness thing in conjunction with a request that they duel from his father (who turns out to really be turtle/the cloud being!). The Light brother gives life back to the Dark eventually, and they end up being married in a sacred ceremony where they realize that they are actually one being, and the source of all their disharmony came from the separation they mistakenly felt.
This is the first part of the story. The story of the Awakened being and Hiawatha waits for another day.
The aim of all religion seems to me to be, by and large, the spiritual freedom of folks. Let's remember that and strive toward this freedom in the deepest parts of our souls and psyches. We are free, and that is what Jesus and Hiawatha came to tell us.
a new link:
http://www.submedia.tv
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