Pagan Times…

“There is something Pagan in me that I cannot shake off. In short, I deny nothing, but doubt everything.” – Lord Byron

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Running a bit late, painting our bedroom late into the night…

Hope you enjoy,

G

On The Menu:

Balkan Beat Box

The Links

Road-spraying ‘releases spirits’

Indigenous Poetry: Eskimo and Others…

The Art: Lord Frederick Leighton

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Discovered this highly original band the other day. Turns out they have been getting lots of attention, only I seem to have been in the dark about them… anyway, here is there web site addy:

Balkan Beat Box Web Site

Go check out their music!

Great Stuff!

It is a marriage of several distinct streams, and truly danceable…

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Balkan Beat Box Live Video…

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“Great God! I’d rather be A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn; So might I, standing on this pleasant lea, Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn; Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea; Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn” – William Wordsworth

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The Links:

Experts Reconstruct Leonardo Fingerprint

A Stunning New Look At Déjà Vu

Icelandic Museum of the Occult & Witchcraft

Bizarre deep-sea creatures imaged off New Zealand

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“Scratch the Christian and you find the pagan – spoiled” – Israel Zangwil

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Road-spraying ‘releases spirits’

A police-led initiative of spraying water on state highways to release the trapped spirits of those killed in motor crashes has been declared a success.

Yesterday a special police convoy carrying Maori elders sprayed 10,000 litres of Waikato River water on SH1 and SH2 in a bid to free the spirits of crash victims.

Dick Waihi, iwi liaison officer for the Counties-Manukau police district, today said the operation had been successful.

“About 35 people turned up to support us,” Mr Waihi said. “It was very successful.

“It was a first for the country and we have had some really good feedback.”

Maori elders consider the combination of blessed river water and prayers to be a trigger for the release of the spirits of those trapped by violent deaths on the roads.

Water was pumped from the Waikato River into a tanker at Tuakau by the New Zealand Fire Service.

From 5.30am the convoy drove south from Mt Wellington to Mercer on SH1, and then along SH2 to Maramarua.

The ceremonial spraying was interrupted at Mercer and Maramarua, where a karakia was performed.

Mr Waihi said the 2½-hour exercise was cost-free, with people donating labour and resources.

Despite the prayers, Mr Waihi said the exercise was non-religious and not just for Maori fatalities.

“Some people don’t have an understanding why we are doing it. They should find out more about Maori protocols before making comment.”

Waikato road policing manager Inspector Leo Tooman had no problems with the initiative.

“Anything that helps is worthwhile, isn’t it?”

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“Popular culture is the new Babylon, into which so much art and intellect now flow. It is our imperial sex theater, supreme temple of the western eye. We live in the age of idols. The pagan past, never dead, flames again in our mystic hierarchies of stardom.” – Camille Paglia

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“Christian Hell, fire. Pagan hell, fire. Muslim Hell, fire. Hindu hell, flames. According to religions, God was born a grill-room owner.”– Victor Hugo

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Indigenous Poetry: Eskimo and Others…

spring fjord

(after Paul Emil Victor, Poèmes Eskimo)

I was out in my kayak

I was out at sea in it

I was paddling

very gently in the fjord Ammassivik

there was ice in the water

and on the water a petrel

turned his head this way that way

didn’t see me paddling

Suddenly nothing but his tail

then nothing

He plunged but not for me:

huge head upon the water

great hairy seal

giant head with giant eyes, moustache

all shining and dripping

and the seal came gently toward me

Why didn’t I harpoon him?

was I sorry for him?

was it the day, the spring day, the seal

playing in the sun

like me?

the old man’s song, about his wife

(after Paul Emil Victor, Poemes Eskimo)

husband and wife we loved each other then

we do now

there was a time

each found the other

beautiful

but a few days ago maybe yesterday

she saw in the black lake water

a sickening face

a wracked old woman face

wrinkled full of spots

I saw it she says

that shape in the water

the spirit of the water

wrinkled and spotted

and who’d seen that face before

wrinkled full of spots?

wasn’t it me

and isn’t it me now

when I look at you?

song of the old woman

(after Paul Emil Victor, Poemes Eskimo)

all these heads these ears these eyes

around me

how long will the ears hear me?

and those eyes how long

will they look at me?

when these ears won’t hear me any more

when these eyes turn aside from my eyes

I’ll eat no more raw liver with fat

and those eyes won’t see me any more

and my hair my hair will have disappeared

moon eclipse exorcism

(after Leo J. Trachtenberg, Alsea Texts and Myths)

come out come out come out

the moon has been killed

who kills the moon? crow

who often kills the moon? eagle

who usually kills the moon? chicken hawk

who also kills the moon? owl

in their numbers they assemble

for moonkilling

come out, throw sticks at your houses

come out, turn your buckets over

spill out all the water don’t let it turn

bloody yellow

from the wounding and death

of the moon

o what will become of the world, the moon

never dies without cause

only when a rich man is about to be killed

is the moon murdered

look all around the world, dance, throw your sticks, help out,

look at the moon,

dark as it is now, even if it disappears

it will come back, think of nothing

I’m going back into the house

and the others went back

—–

what the informant said to Franz Boas in 1920

(after Franz Boas, Keresan Texts)

long ago her mother

had to sing this song and so

she had to grind along with it

the Corn People have a song too

it is very good

I refuse to tell it

the little random creatures

(after William Jones, Fox Texts)

Found a hole with a light in it, and saying

Whose?

set a trap

with a bowcord for a noose.

A giant of light, something alive, dazzled the path

on its slow way up, blinding

the little random creatures

o something alive was dying in the bowcord and it said

Allow me to choke to death

And you’ll have night forever

and they let the Sun go

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Treat the earth well. It was not given to you by your parents, it was loaned to you by your children. – Ancient Native American Proverb

Red Lands…

Maldito (cursed)

Within the Love of the world

I sing about you

for the love of mankind

I sing about you

And those who take the

mickey out of us

the love of mankind

how dare they talk?

Who those powers make

us suffer?

we’re sick of submitting…

-Orange Blossom

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The Saturday Adventures

Our day on Saturday started off with Mary and Sophie discovering that we had a new resident in the house, namely Mr. Squirrel. I was on the phone to our friend Mike Crowley at that time, laughing away when Mary pointed out our new resident. Mike proceeded to tell me the time that he rescued a baby squirrel only to have it chomp on a digit when he went to fish it out of his shirt…

Mary first suggested that we try to coax it with peanuts, and I pointed out that it had already finished off the dog food… it was looking rather plump but in a paranoid sense of mind… But I gave it a try. As I went towards the peanuts the squirrel made a break for it, over my feet into the dining room past Mary and her dry-mop, then past us again into the corner where it freaked for awhile…

We finally got the poor sod out to the enclosed front porch and I opened the door assuming he would leave.

When we checked an hour or so later, there he was, digging up the plants looking for nuts or something. It ended with me coaxing him out the door….

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I picked this album up….

ORANGE BLOSSOM – Everything Must Change:

French Algerian Leila Bounos’ provocative vocals, and PJ Chabot’s attacking punkish strings give this real drive from the outset: blending a catchy, dark upfront mixture of West Africa, Europe, Mexico and the Middle East.

There’s no easing-in period either. Everything Must Change, released eight years after the group’s first album, kicks off as it means to continue, ‘Habibi’ breaks out into a rock versus electronica standoff, clashing heavily overdriven guitars battling the incessant electro-beats, building into an intense wall of sound. ‘Souffrance’ — the only French track — is full of sadness, soft and meditative, and one of only a few pauses for breath the album takes, a moment of calm in a storm of an album.

Infectious melodies and Bounos’ sensual and soaring Arabic vocals as well as some haunting samples such as those on ‘Cheft El Khof’ make it music to get lost in. The beats and sequencing are reminiscent of Leftism, but there is so much in here.

If Everything Must Change, then it sounds as though it will be done with much clashing, conflict and unease. If you have been waiting for this follow-up to Orange Blossom’s first release it will definitely have been worth the wait.

www.wrasserecords.com

—Wyl Menmuir

Listen To Some Of Their Music Here!

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I discovered Orange Blossom at my local Music Store: Timbuktunes. Andy runs it, who is quite the devotee to world and ethnic music.

I got to play the album for these characters….

Bryan, Spencer, Jah Lizard, Andy…

Bryan and Spenc came down from Seattle to meet up with the Lizard and Andy… They visited for awhile before heading out to see New Model Army at the Fez Ballroom.

It was a great visit!

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The evening ended up with our friend Tom coming over, having some dinner and some drinks after.

A great day all in all!

Pax,

Gwyllm

On The Menu:

New Book By Dale Pendell: Inspired Madness: The Gifts of Burning Man

The Links:

Cities of the Red Night – Foreword

Cities of the Red Night

Poetry:Revisiting Hafiz

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Dale Pendell: Inspired Madness: The Gifts of Burning Man

I haven’t seen it yet, but here is a short Publishers Comment:

Publisher Comments:

In part a nonfiction discussion of the Burning Man festival, in part a poetic romp through Nevada’s Black Rock desert, Inspired Madness is both an irreverent introduction for those curious about the notorious event and an exhilarating reminiscence for veteran “burners.” Loosely structured around a week at Burning Man, the book combines a history of the festival with personal stories and social commentary, juxtaposing images and stories to capture a sense of the wild and unpredictable nature of life on the Playa. Throughout the week, readers are taken on a memorable ride, exploring the festival itself and meeting Owl, an eccentric beatnik and one of the organizers of the Delphic Delirium Camp: Lolo, Jah, Scarlett, and other larger-than-life figures. Interweaving dialogue, anecdotes, and stream-of-consciousness narrative with historical, sociological, and political observation, Inspired Madness evokes the half-waking, half-dreaming quality of the Burning Man experience.

If you want to pick it up, just find your way there through our link at:

Click on The Powell’s Banner…

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The Links:

Study: Marijuana may affect neuron firing

ONE MORE NIGHT AT THE BARICADES – BRAD WILL (1970-2006)

Study Shows Better Quality Marijuana Preferred by Patients

Startling Discovery: The First Human Ritual

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Some of you may have read this a few years ago… What we have is the foreword to Cities of the Rednight, and a bit of the book itself. I fell in love with it again, couldn’t help myself… Anyway, enjoy the read.

Cities of the Red Night – Foreword

The liberal principles embodied in the French and American revolutions and later in the liberal revolutions of 1848 had already been codified and put into practice by pirate communes a hundred years earlier. Here is a quote from Under the Black Flag by Don C. Seitz:

“Captain Mission was one of the forbears of the French Revolution. He was one hundred years in advance of his time, for his career was based upon an initial desire to better adjust the affairs of mankind, which ended as is quite usual in the more liberal adjustment of his own fortunes. It is related how Captain Mission, having led his ship to victory against an English man-of-war, called a meeting of the crew. Those who wished to follow him he would welcome and treat as brothers; those who did not would be safely set ashore. One and all embraced the New Freedom. Some were hoisting the Black Flag at once but Mission demurred, saying that they were not pirates but liberty lovers, fighting for equal rights against all nations subject to the tyranny of government, and bespoke a white flag as the more fitting emblem. The ship’s money was put in a chest to be used as common property. Clothes were now distributed to all in need and the republic of the sea was in full operation.

Mission bespoke them to live in strict harmony among themselves; that a misplaced society would adjudge them still as pirates. Self-preservation, therefore, and not a cruel disposition, compelled them to declare war on all nations who should close their ports to them. “I declare such a war and at the same time recommend to you a humane and generous behavior towards your prisoners, which will appear by so much more the effects of a noble soul as we are satisfied we should not meet the same treatment should our ill fortune or want of courage give us up to their mercy…” The Nieustadt of Amsterdamn was made prize, giving up two thousand pounds and gold dust and seventeen slaves. The slaves were added to the crew and clothed in the Dutchman’s spare garments; Mission made an address denouncing slavery, holding that men who sold others like beasts proved their religion to be no more than a grimace as no man had power of liberty over another…”

Mission explored the Madagascar coast and found a bay ten leagues north of DiИgo-Suarez. It was resolved to establish here the shore quarters of the Republic – erect a town, build docks, and have a place they might call their own. The colony was called Libertatia and was placed under Articles drawn up by Captain Mission. The Articles state, among other things:

All decisions with regard to the colony to be submitted to vote by the colonists; the abolition of slavery for any reason including debt; the abolition of the death penalty; and freedom to follow any religious beliefs or practices without sanction or molestation.

Captain Mission’s colony, which numbered about three hundred, was wiped out by a surprise attack from the natives, and Captain Mission was killed shortly afterwards in a sea battle. There were other such colonies in the West Indies and in Central and South America, but they were not able to maintain themselves since they were not sufficiently populous to withstand attack. Had they been able to do so, the history of the world could have been altered. Imagine a number of such fortified positions all through South America and the West Indies, stretching from Africa to Madagascar and Malaya and the East Indies, all offering refuge to fugitives from slavery and oppression: “Come to us and live under the Articles.”

At once we have allies in all those who are enslaved and oppressed throughout the world, from the cotton plantations of the American South to the sugar plantations of the West Indies, the whole Indian population of the Amreican continent peonized and degraded by the Spanish into subhuman poverty and ignorance, exterminated by the Americans, infected with their vices and diseases, the natives of Africa and Asia – all these are potential allies. Fortified positions supported by and supporting guerilla hit-and-run bands; supplied with soldiers, weapons, medicines and information by the local populations… such a combination would be unbeatable. If the whole American army couldn’t beat the Viet Cong at a time when fortified positions were rendered obsolete by artillery and air strikes, certainly the armies of Europe, operating in unfamiliar territory and susceptile to all the disabling diseases of tropical countries, could not have beaten guerrilla tactics plus fortified positions. Consider the difficulties which such an invading army would face: continual harassment from the guerrillas, a totally hostile population always ready with poison, misdirection, snakes and spiders in the general’s bed, armadillos carrying the deadly earth-eating disease rooting under the barracks and adopted as mascots by the regiment as dysentery and malaria take their toll. The sieges could not but present a series of military disasters. There is no stopping the Articulated. The white man is retroactively relieved of his burden. Whites will be welcomed as workers, settlers, teachers, and technicians, but not as colonists or masters. No man may violate the Articles.

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Cities of the Red Night

The Cities of Red Night were six in number: Thamaghis, Ba’dan, Yass-Waddah, Waghdas, Naufana and Ghadis. These cities were located in an area roughly corresponding to the Gobi Desert, a hundred thousand years ago. At that time the desert was dotted with large oases and traversed by a river which emptied into the Caspian Sea.

The largest of these oases contained a lake ten miles long and five miles across, on the shores of which the university town of Waghdas was founded. Pilgrims came from all over the inhabited world to study in the academies of Waghdas, where the arts and sciences reached peaks of attainment that have never been equaled. Much of this ancient knowledge is now lost.

The towns of Ba’dan and Yass-Waddah were opposite each other on the river. Tamaghis, located in a desolate area to the north on a small oasis, could properly be called a desert town. Naufana and Ghadis were situated in mountainous areas to the west and south beyond the perimeter of usual trade routes between the other cities.

In addition to the six cities, there were a number of villages and nomadic tribes. Food was plentiful and for a time the population was completely stable: no one was born unless someone died.

The inhabitants were divided into and elite minority known as the Transmigrants and a majority known as the Receptacles. Within these categories were a number of occupational and specialized strata and the two classes were not in practice separate: Transmigrants acted as Receptacles and Receptacles became Transmigrants.

To show the system in operation: Here is an old Transmigrant on his deathbed. He has selected his future Receptacle parents, who are summoned to the death chamber. The parents then copulate, achieving orgasm just as the old Transmigrant dies so that his spirit enters the womb to be reborn. Every Transmigrant carries with him at all times a list of alternative parents, and in case of accident, violence or sudden illness, the nearest parents are rushed to the scene. However, there was at first little chance of random or unexpected deaths since the Council of Transmigrants in Waghdas had attained such skill in the art of prophecy that they were able to chart a life from birth to death and determine in most cases the exact time and manner of death.

Many Transmigrants preferred not to wait for the infirmities of age and the ravages of illness, lest their spirit be so weakened as to be overwhelmed and absorbed by the Receptacle child. These hardy Transmigrants, in the full vigor of maturity, after rigorous training in concentration and astral projection, would select two death guides to kill them in front of the copulating parents. The methods of death most commonly employed were hanging and strangulation, the Transmigrant dying in orgasm, which was considered the most reliable method of ensuring a successful transfer. Drugs were also developed, large doses of which occasioned death in erotic convulsions, smaller doses being used to enhance sexual pleasure. And these drugs were often used in conjunction with other forms of death.

In time, death by natural causes became a rare and rather discreditable occurrence as the age for transmigration dropped. The Eternal Youths, a Transmigrant sect, were hanged at the age of eighteen to spare themselves at he coarsening experience of middle age and the deterioration of senescence, living their youth again and again.

Two factors undermined the stability of their system, The first was perfection of techniques for artificial insemination. Whereas the traditional practice called for one death and once rebirth, now hundreds of women could be impregnated from a single sperm collection, and territorially oriented Transmigrants could populate whole areas with their progeny. There were sullen mutters of revolt from the Recepacles, especially the women. At this point, another factor totally unforeseen was introduced.

In the thinly populated desert area north of Tamaghis a portentous event occurred. Some say it was a meteor that fell to earth leaving a crater twenty miles across. Others say that the crater was caused by what modern physicists call a black hole.

After this occurrence the whole northern sky lit up red at night, like the reflection from a vast furnace. Those in the immediate vicinity of the crater were the first to be affected and various mutations were observed, the commonest being altered hair and skin color. Red and yellow hair, and white, yellow, and red skin appeared for the first time. Slowly the whole area was similarly affected until the mutants outnumbered the original inhabitants, who were as all human beings were at the time: black.

The women, led by an albino mutant known as the White Tigress, seized Yass-Waddah, reducing the male inhabitants to salves, consorts, and courtiers all under sentence of death that could be carried out at any time at the caprice of the White Tigress. The Council in Waghdas countered by developing a method of growing babies in excised wombs, the wombs being supplied by vagrant Womb Snatchers, This practice aggravated the differences between the male and female factions and war with Yass-Waddah seemed unavoidable.

In Naufana, a method was found to transfer the spirit directly into an adolescent Receptacle, thus averting the awkward and vulnerable period of infancy. This practice required a rigorous period of preparation and training to achieve a harmonious blending of the two spirits in one body. These Transmigrants, combining the freshness and vitality of youth with the wisdom of many lifetimes, were expected to form an army of liberation to free Wass-Waddah. And there were adepts who could die at will without nay need of drugs or executioners and project their spirit into a chosen Receptacle.

I have mentioned hanging, strangulation, and orgasm drugs as the commonest means of effecting the transfer. However, many other forms of death were employed. The Fire Boys were burned to death in the presence of the Receptacles, only the genitals being insulated, so that the practitioner could achieve orgasm in the moment of death. There is an interesting account by a Fire Boy who recalled his experience after transmigrating in this manner:

“As the flames closed around my body, I inhaled deeply, drawing fire into my lungs, and screamed out flames as the most horrible pain turned to the most exquisite pleasure and I was ejaculating in an adolescent Receptacle who was being sodomized by another.”

Others were stabbed, decapitated disemboweled shot with arrows, or killed by a blow on the head. Some threw themselves from cliffs, landing in front of the copulating Receptacles.

The scientists at Waghdas were developing a machine that could directly transfer the electromagnetic field of one body to another. In Ghadis there were adepts who were able to leave their bodies before death and occupy a series of hosts. How far this research may have gone will never be known. It was a time of great disorder and chaos.

The effects of the Red Night on Receptacles and Transmigrants proved to be incalculable and many strange mutants arose as a series of plagues devastated the cities. It is this period of war and pestilence that is covered by the books. The Council had set out to produce a race of supermen for the exploration of space. They produced instead races of ravening idiot vampires.

Finally, the cities were abandoned and the survivors fled in all direction, carrying the plagues with them. Some of these migrants crossed the Bering Strait into the New World, taking the books with them. They settled in the area later occupied by the Mayans and the books eventually fell into the hands of the Mayan priests.

The alert student of this noble experiment will perceive that death was regarded as equivalent not to birth but to conception and go in to infer that conception is the basic trauma. In the moment of death, the dying man’s whole life may flash in front of his eyes back to conception. In the moment of conception, his future life flashes forward to his future death. To reexperience conception is fatal.

This was the basic error of the Transmigrants: you do not get beyond death and conception by reexperience any more than you get beyond heroin by ingesting larger and larger doses. The Transmigrants were white literally addicted to death and they needed more and more death to kill the pain of conception. They were buying parasitic life with a promissory death note to be paid at a prearranged time. The Transmigrants then imposed these terms on the host child to ensure his future transmigration. There was a basic conflict of interest between host child and Transmigrant. So the Transmigrants reduced the Receptacle class to a condition of virtual idiocy. Otherwise they would have reneged on a bargain from which they stood to gain nothing but death. The books are flagrant falsifications. And some of these basic lies are still current.

“Nothing is true. Everything is permitted.” The last words of Hassan i Sabbah, Old Man of the Mountain. “Tamaghis … Ba’dan … Yass-Waddah … Waghdas … Naufana… Ghadis.” It is said that an initiate who wishes to know the answer to any question need only repeat these words as he falls asleep and the answer will come in a dream.

Tamaghis: This is the open city of contending partisans where advantage shifts from moment to moment in a desperate biological war. Here everything is as true as you think it is and everything you can get away with is permitted.

Ba’dan: This city is given over to competitive games, and commerce. Ba’dan closely resembles present-day America with a precarious moneyed elite, a large disaffected middle class and an equally large segment of criminals and outlaws. Unstable, explosive, and swept by whirlwind riots. Everything is true and everything is permitted.

Yass-Waddah: This city is the female stronghold where the Countess de Gulpa, the Countess de Vile, and the Council of the Selected plot a final subjugation of the other cities. Every shade of sexual transition is represented: boys with girls’ heads, girls with boys’ heads. Here everything is true and nothing is permitted except to the permitters.

Waghdas: This is the university city, the center of learning where all questions are answered in terms of what can be expressed and understood. Complete permission derives from complete understanding.

Naufana and Ghadis are the cities of illusion where nothing is true and therefore everything is permitted.

The traveler must start in Tamaghis and make his way through the other cities in the order named. This pilgrimage may take many lifetimes.

William S Burroughs

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More of those guys, with me poking my head in… 80)

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Like a well of cool water, there is always joy in return to the poetry of Hafiz. Here is a bit for you to dwell over, to drink in, and to submerge yourself if you so desire…..

G

Poetry: Hafiz

Ghazal 12

The bright moon reflects your radiant face

Your snowcapped cheekbones supply water of grace

My heavy heart desires an audience with your face

Come forward or must return, your command I will embrace.

Nobody for good measures girded your fields

Such trades no one in their right mind would chase.

Our dormant fate will never awake, unless

You wash its face and shout brace, brace!

Send a bouquet of your face with morning breeze

Perhaps inhaling your scent, your fields we envision & trace.

May you live fulfilled and long, O wine-bearer of this feast

Though our cup was never filled from your jug or your vase.

My heart is reckless, please, let Beloved know

Beware my friend, my soul your soul replace.

O God, when will my fate and desires hand in hand

Bring me to my Beloved hair, in one place?

Step above the ground, when you decide to pass us by

On this path lie bloody, the martyrs of human race.

Hafiz says a prayer, listen, and say amen

May your sweet wine daily pour upon my lips and my face.

O breeze tell us about the inhabitants of city of Yazd

May the heads of unworthy roll as a ball in your polo race.

Though we are far from friends, kinship is near

We praise your goodness and majestic mace.

O Majesty, may we be touched by your grace

I kiss and touch the ground that is your base.

Ghazal 22

When you hear the lovers’ words, think them not a mistake

You don’t recognize these words, the error must be your take.

The here and hereafter cannot tame my spirit and soul

Praise God for all the intrigue in my mind that is at stake.

I know not who resides within my heart

Though I am silent, he must shake and quake.

My heart went through the veil, play a song

Hark, my fate, this music I must make.

I paid no heed, worldly affairs I forsake

It is for your beauty, beauty of the world I partake.

My heart is on fire, I am restless and awake

To the tavern to cure my hundred day headache.

My bleeding heart has left its mark in the temple

You have every right to wash my body in a wine lake.

In the abode of the Magi, I am welcome because

The fire that never dies, in my heart is awake.

What was the song the minstrel played?

My life is gone, but breathing, I still fake!

Within me last night, the voice of your love did break

Hafiz’s breast still quivers and shakes for your sake.

Ghazal 35

Keep to your own affairs, why do you fault me?

My heart has fallen in love, what has befallen thee?

In the center of he, whom God made from nothing

There is a subtle point that no creature can see.

Until His lips fulfill my lips like a reed

From all the worldly advice I must flee.

The beggar of your home, of the eight heavens has no need

The prisoner of your love, from both worlds is thus free.

Though my drunkenness has brought forth my ruin

My essence is flourished by paying that ruinous fee.

O heart for the pain and injustice of love do not plead

For this is your lot from the justice of eternity.

Hafiz don’t help magic and fantasy further breed

The world is filled with such, from sea to sea.

Ghazal 41

Though the wine is joyous, and the wind, flowers sorts

Harp music and scent of wine, the officer reports.

If you face an adversary and a jug of wine

Choose the wine because, fate cheats and extorts.

Up your ragged, patched sleeves, hide & keep your cup

Like this flask of wine, fate too bleeds and distorts.

With my teary eyes, I cleanse my robe with wine

Self-restraint and piety is what everyone exhorts.

Seek not your joy in the turn of the firmaments

Even my filtered clear red fluid, dregs sports.

This earth and sky is no more than a bleeding sieve

That sifts and sorts kingly crowns and courts.

Hafiz, your poems invaded Fars and Iraqi ports

It is now the turn of Baghdad and Tabrizi forts.

A Visit With A Mutual Friend

Those who understand history are condemned to watch other idiots repeat it.—Peter Lamborn Wilson

This Entry is a small stroll down memory lane…

November was a good month for Turfing.

With encouragement from readers, I was able to reach into the stash bag and find wee joys and novelties. Big Thanks to all who wrote in with suggestions, and thanks for the kind compliments.

Much Appreciated.

Here is our first entry for December.

As it is the fading season, I thought a visit with a mutual friend would be nice. (I miss his wit and wisdom!)

The Mazatec Poetry from the Rituals are especially wonderful, read past the glossing over, and there are wonders to behold!

Bright Blessings,

Gwyllm

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The Links

The Quotes

Such Things Are Memories Made Of: A psychedelic trip up the ladder of evolution

Poetry:Shamanistic Songs Of Roman Estrada

Art: Alchemical Arts… Poetry Section: Bruce Rimell – “At The Edge Of The Milky Way”

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The Links:

Ancient body prompts new theories

Older than the sun, The meteorite scientists call ‘the real time machine’

Rocketeer Captures Strange Ariel Object

Astrology 101: Researchers see link between moon cycles and stock market

<img width='450' height='540' border='0' hspace='5' align='left' src='http://www.earthrites.org/turfing2/uploads/zodiacus03.jpg' alt=''

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The Quotes:

“It has been my experience that folks who have no vices have very few virtues.”

“There is no pleasure in having nothing to do; the fun is in having lots to do and not doing it.”

“We are at the very beginning of time for the human race. It is not unreasonable that we grapple with problems. But there are tens of thousands of years in the future. Our responsibility is to do what we can, learn what we can, improve the solutions, and pass them on.”

“To err is human; to forgive, infrequent.”

“Hard work never killed anybody, but why take a chance?”

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A psychedelic trip up the ladder of evolution

This article culled from The Independent On Sunday, a ‘quality paper’.

Read, be entertained and enlightened, or whatever. 11th July 1993

I think we should deal only with the facts when we talk of Terence McKenna, don’t you? I mean the Californian scholar with the theory about psilocybin mushrooms and the development of human consciousness – that the psychedelic experience triggered sentience in foraging, omnivorous apes and led them, in the evolutionary wink of an eye, to put rockets on the moon.

Mr. McKenna contends that hallucinogenic fungi inspired our primate forbears to develop language, boot-strapping us up the evolutionary ladder to the brink of self-realization, and that this humble mushroom is now ready and waiting for us to complete our ontological correspondence course, if we would only tear ourselves away from smack, crack, coke, caffeine, tobacco, alcohol, sugar, cocoa, uppers, downers and all the other bad substances we are addicted to.

He believes that hallucinogenic-plant gnosis is the lost key to our intellectual, moral and spiritual development as a race; that all subsequent drug abuse is merely an attempt to satisfy our primeval urge for psychedelic union with nature (‘an itch we cannot scratch’); and that cataclysmic change or certain extinction awaits us. His theory states : ‘No perception without hallucination.’

We are in a small house in west London. There are 40 people sitting on cushions around the room, which is large and airy, full of plants, and dominated by a huge skylight. We all face McKenna, who sits cross-legged on a black leather armchair, wearing a pair of baggy no-brand jeans and a T-shirt that says ‘DMT’. This stands for dimethyltriptamine, the strongest and fastest-acting organic hallucinogen known to man (Mr. McKenna will defend only DMT, psilocybin and marijuana – nothing man-made). His Birkenstock sandals are placed neatly nearby, and he wears black woollen socks.

Terence McKenna

A bearded academic type, Mr. McKenna does not need fashion to prop up his arguments. His learning and powers of language slowly unwind and coil around us, until eventually we are mesmerised, our token resistance crushed by the irresistible force of his rationale. History and nature; the psychedelic experience; prohibition of same by religion and capitalism; human proclivity for ‘altered states’; Oriental and Western philosophies; it is everything you have ever read and more.

Botany, biology, mathematics, quantum and Newtonian physics, chemistry – if you had trouble with it at school, he is sure to be au fait – all trip lightly off his tongue, along with classical quotations. This is the McKenna ‘rap’, the reason why people have paid $30 a head to be here. ‘Hallucinogens are data about reality,’ he says. ‘They are as dependable and as ‘true’ as any other source.’

‘We have to recognise that the world is not something sculptured and finished, which we as perceivers walk through like patrons in a museum; the world is something we make through the act of perception.’ He talks like a man reading out his own thoughts in essay form; at one point he actually says ‘paragraph break’. Only he has no notes, no prompts.

Things move gradually at first but accelerating all the time as his imagery resonates more powerfully. When he answers questions his words are vivid and his thinking clear and unhurried. He describes the Logos, where language is visible, a higher form of communication, a type of linguistic and spiritual evolution and I’m damned if you are not getting a glimpse behind the dusty old drapes of ‘meaning’ and ‘reality’ even as he speaks.

And it looks very appealing, this alternative world he imagines for us, this higher form of consciousness to which we are all party but which we so rarely explore, largely because of our cultural taboos and farcical drug laws.

As we break for food and drink, I realise how fast his argument has proceeded and how far we have climbed, until we are right at the peak of this man’s thinking, way up there, floating off and gliding over such dense concepts. And he has taken us all this way without so much as a cigarette paper in sight. Forty people, soaring on one man’s imagination, logic and humour. Two hours have passed like magic. ‘But the point is not to listen to Terence McKenna,’ he says. ‘The point is to go home and get loaded.’ You don’t need telepathy to know that forty people are thinking : that’s my kinda guru.

After the break Mr. McKenna resumes with his theories about our evolutionary path, involving a lengthy description of communication between octopuses. It is dark, and on the wall behind him our host Danny, who runs an audio- visual company called Project Love, is screnning sub-aquatic imagery. ‘Stronger doses, more often,’ is Mr McKenna’s chilling, or, if you prefer, exhilarating advice.

You probably know what I found most disturbing about Mr. McKenna’s lecture – apart from his voice, nasal yet piercing, a laid-back call to reckoning. What bothers me is that, as a tax-paying professional, with Significant Other and five year-old daughter, great friends, a good home and neighbours, I certainly do not think of myself as a radical. So I was worried because nearly everything he said seemed to make sense.

Somehow I knew he would dare me to act on my beliefs, and he did. Commitment, that is what he wanted. ‘When are we going to come out of the closet?,’ he asked. And that is where I finally saw reason. I could get in a lot of trouble if people thought I took hallucinogenic drugs. Ha, the psychedelic experience! But he almost talked me into it. Phew, that was close.

Alix Sharkey

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SHAMANISTIC SONGS OF ROMAN ESTRADA

(Bruce Rimell – “At The Edge Of The Milky Way”)

Translation from Mazatec by Alvaro Estrada

Translation into English by Henry Munn

Medicinal herb, remedial herb

Cold herb, Lord Christ

Free this person from his sickness

Where is his spirit trapped?

Is it trapped in the mountain?

Is it enchanted in some gully?

Is it trapped in some waterfall?

I will search and I will find the lost spirit

Ave María!

I will follow his tracks

I am the important man

I am the man who gets up early

I am he who makes the mountains resound

I am he who makes their sides resound

I am he who makes the spirit resound

I make my tracks resound

I make my nails resound

Christ Our Lord

Lord Saint Martin is present

The Lord of the Dry Tree is present

The Lord of the Lake is present

Santa María Zoquiapan

I am the dawn

I am he who speaks with the mountains

I am he who speaks with the echo

There in the atmosphere

There amid the vegetation

I will make my sound felt

Father Saint John the Evangelist

We see how the dolls and eagles

Already play on the mountains

Already play between the clouds

Whoever curses us won’t do us any harm

Because I am the spirit and the image

I am Christ the Lord

I am the spirit

The serpent is present

It is coiled up

It is alive

I give relief

I give life

I am the tall and handsome one

I am Jesus Christ

I am Lord Saint Martin

I am Lord Saint Mark

In whose dominion there are tigers

Whoever curses us has no influence on us

I give strength to the sick

I am the medicine

I am the damp cloth

Come back lost spirit

I will whistle to guide you

[He whistles]

Return!

May there come with you

Thirteen deer

Thirteen eagles

Thirteen white horses

Thirteen rainbows

Your steps move thirteen mountains

The big clown is calling you

The master clown is calling you

I will make the mountains sound

I will make their abysses sound

I will make the dawn sound

I will make the day sound

I will make the Jar Mountain sound

I will make Mount Rabon sound

I will make the Stone Mountain sound

I will make the Father Mountain sound

I am the big man

The man who gives relief

The man of the day

It is time for the sick one to recuperate

It is time the miracle happens

The miracle of the Holy Trinity

Like the miracle of the creation

Like the miracle of lunar light

Like the miracle of the starlight

Of the Morning Star

Of the Cross Star

The dawn is coming

The horizon is already reddening

There is nothing bad outside

Because I am he who gives relief

I am he who gives the dawn

Santa María Ixtepec speaks

Santa María Ixcatlan speaks

There is the drought and the thorn

This is only a small part of the chant of the Wise Man. He has told me that the day his initiation ended — Roman explained this in Spanish — he received a diploma from the hands of the Principal Ones.

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