I’m utilizing this broken wrist “time off” to clean my room, one hour a day, one busy shelf at a time, redistributing all sorts of formerly “essential” stuff to those near and dear to me.
Yesterday, I cleaned and reorganized the shelf containing several Tarot decks, the I Ching (but where’s my Wilhelm version?), and Runes, plus various books that reference them, some of which I kept, some not.
The day before, on top of my file cabinet, various purses, one of which I gave away, but not before removing this beloved, now tarnished, token from its leather hide:
Which immediately brought me back; just had to watch for probably the tenth time what may be Bill Hicks’ most famous monologue, which ends . . .
And we can explore space, both inner and outer . . . together . . . in peace.
Hicks is so right. LOVE or FEAR. These are our only choices. Either trust enough to expand, expressing fully into the world — or expect the worst — recoil and contract, deny — or project, as hate . . .
My mantras:
Joseph Campbell: “Follow your bliss. The universe will open doors to you where there were only walls.”
Dane Rudhyar: “When you don’t follow your nature there is a hole in the universe where you are supposed to be.”
Then, when I went to bed last night around 9:30 PM following a 20-minute tornado watch siren with subsequent tremendous thunderstorm that lasted intermittently for four hours, having secured trembling puppy Shadow by my side — since the noise and flashes of light rendered me unable to sleep, I found myself re-watching the Bill Hicks story. Nearly two hours long. Watching intently. Not just listening.
What an astonishing human being. So much life inside him that he simply had to get it out. Fast. Like a barreling tornado in a thunderstorm.
I, a triple Sagittarian, now notice that he was born only three days prior to my December 19 birthday, on December 16, 1961, with five planets in fiery, philosophical Sagittarius, three of them within one degree of one another at 23°-24°: Sun, Mars, and Mercury. No wonder he felt like a supernova, burning himself out by age 32, during a too-short life continually relighting his fuse to explore, illuminate, and express infinite depths inside/outside — fueled by pent-up energy that, when not in check, edged into rage, and/or eased/released/relieved by alcohol, drugs, cigarettes, LSD, mushrooms.
. . . And yet, if this biography is on target, he always used each of these substances, at least at first, before it took him over, to further fuel his relentless Sagittarian drive for universal enlightenment, with psychological, social and political satire as brilliant asides.
So now we might ask, since his death, in 1994, what has changed since 30 years ago, one Saturn cycle ago.
Answer: Not much. And everything.
The U.S. is still pretending to be the imperialistic warmongering egomaniacal global hegemon, and substance addictions still rule the roost in most households, with the addition (both alone and surreptitiously added to other drugs), thanks in part to cartels, of the synthetic opioid fentanyl, over 100 times stronger than morphine.
Oops! Forgot to mention the startling increase in obesity, thanks to addiction to fast, processed food.
And now, voila! — it’s pharmaceutical “cure,” Ozembic . . .
What has changed is not only that every awful thing is so much worse, but: because or worsening conditions, more and more people are “waking up.” At least that’s the hopium.
As an American, I grew up an addict, too. In fact, I didn’t manage to stop smoking until half a lifetime ago.
As an personality, I was addicted originally, to catastrophe (i.e., nuclear war, which I feverishly feared and sought as a five year old in daily newspaper headlines). And yet now, except for ongoing root addiction to “the news,” I consciously choose positive addictions: Walking, yoga, chikung, taichi. Not even coffee anymore. No marijuana. A bit of alcohol maybe twice a month, during social situations.