“I have always believed, and I still believe, that whatever good or bad fortune may come our way we can always give it meaning and transform it into something of value.” – Hermann Hesse
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So, Hey There!
Hopes this finds you and yours well.
Life flows on at Caer Llwydd. Mornings and evenings are particularly sweet, sitting out back sharing a drink with my beloved. The evenings are my favourite as a chill breeze comes up from the river as the crows settle in to the great cedars that ring our home. Every moment holds magick it seems, and blessings as well. We are together, and all seems right with the world. As we sit in the gloaming, I feel the world shift…
A couple of weeks back I went into surgery. Nothing major, but the healing process is something else. I was always a quick healer, but that seems to have slowed up as of late. It gives one pause, and makes being in the now that much more important. I find the phenomena of going under to be, well disconcerting. Hopefully never again!
Lots of stuff on this entry, I hope you enjoy. Launching 3 projects… Check ’em out!
More updates on the site… including Eye Candy, and Writings as well!
Cheers,
G
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On The Menu:
Projects/Updates…
The Links
Miranda Lee Richards – Golden Gate
The Dharma Eye of d.a.levy
The Orange Drop – Make It Her, Forever
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Projects/Updates:
I am very excited to be announce that Invisible College Publishing is now offering various publication services for the Creative in mind. We are offering the following:
- Editing Services
- Publication Services
- Promotional Services
Currently we’ve been working on an artist exhibition book, a book of poetry, and several other ventures. We happily will work with you on any of your projects in whatever aspect that will help you along the way. We bring nearly 40 years of graphics and design to any creative endeavour. Find Out More Here! Publishing Services!
In conjunction we’ve started a web hosting and web construction service for Creatives as well. It’s called Black Rabbit Graphix. Having played with the idea for a while, and this seemed like a good time to jump into these waters. The thought was born out of the idea that artist, writers and other Creatives have to take time out of their projects to build, launch, and maintain websites, which frankly if you are not fully prepared for it can be a real black hole for your creative efforts. With that in mind, we purchased space on a server, and now offer the following services:
- Web Hosting: Hosting sites for the creative community. Reasonable rates and special services.
- Word Press Site Construction: We can take the worry and bother out of your hands, designing, constructing your site for you, and
maintain it if you like. - Graphic Arts & Publishing Services: Editing, graphix, layout of publications, online & printing through Invisible College Publications as well as promotions for your printed works.
So, check out the services that we are offering now. Drop us a line on the Contact form on either site. We can certainly be of service.
Thanks,
G
And This:
The Invisible College, Ninth Edition:
“Summoning The Muse”
The Groundwork for the 9th edition of The Invisible College is now being laid. Bringing together artist, writers, visionaries in a celebration of the creative spirit. Submissions are now being accepted. Join The Dance. Go to the link below, and fill in the form if you have a submission!
The Invisible College Ninth Edition!
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The Links:
An Atlas for the End of the World
Do We Matter In The Cosmos?
Rupert Sheldrake Article (older, but good)
Country-specific effects of neonicotinoid pesticides on honey bees and wild bees
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Miranda Lee Richards – Golden Gate
(Support The Artist!- Existential Beast!)
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One of the great unsung Poets of the last century. My friend Morgan turned me onto him a decade or so ago. I am late to this parade, but that is okay as well. Gary Snyder lays d.a.’s work out nicely. Enjoy.
G
The Dharma Eye of d.a.levy
by Gary Snyder
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d.a.levy – Darryl Levy – I try out his names, reaching to know the man; his poems, his polemics. I feel brother to Levy not only as poet but as fellow-worker in the Buddha-fields. Levy had a remarkable karma: he saw who he was, where he was, what his field of activity was, and what his tools were to be.
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“if in the past
i was of the black
and sat at night
in cemeteries
& silence
even that
was transient”
In Indian thought the truth/law/absolute is called the Dharma. The Buddhadharma (“Buddhism”) is the Dharma as transmitted by a line of enlightened men and women. Gods exist, but even the Gods are subject to the laws of karma; and because of their tiresomely long omnipotent lives they are somewhat handicapped in the achievement of liberation. Gods have been known to gain insight by attending little talks given by poor wretched mendicant human wise men. There are religious-minded people who strive for purity and solitary illumination, to be “God” like-but the Dharma is without dualism. Great Buddhist yogins of the past often sat through the night in graveyards, meditating while seated on corpses. Some of these yogins in their exhaustive search through all the components of mind and transformations of thought-energy became “of the black” – showing no dualistic distaste for “impurity” – and hoping to reach the depths where there is the basest lead, the raw material for the alchemical transformation into “gold.”
“it was feb. 63 when i had enough money to buy a 6X9 letterhead hand press & type. Spent al most a year at my aunt and uncles printing sometimes 8 to 16 hours a day for days and days. . .”
The “right-handed” yogins and mystics have been an integral part of the conspiracy of civilization to degrade women and mis-use nature. They have become “established religion” living off of money provided by the state, or the pious gifts of workers and peasants.
The yogins of the left-hand, both women and men, have lived in the world doing their work and supporting themselves by crafts or labor. The Tantric siddha (“powerman”) Saraha was an arrow-maker. Naropa’s teacher Tilopa was a pounder of til seeds. Many were poets. Long apprentice ships were spent, in the mastery of a craft.
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“i have a city to cover with lines”
His hometown, Cleveland, that he wouldn’t move from. Like the Sioux warriors who tied themselves to a spear and stuck it in the ground, never to retreat. Why? An almost irrational act of love–to give a measure of self-awareness to the people of Cleveland through poesy.
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“you will not confront yourself
so you leap to the aid of others”
–Levy’s self-criticism also. But the Bodhisattva view does not imply that first, you perfect your selfrealization and second, enter the world to “cure illnesses and loosen bonds.” The waterwheel swings deep into the water and spills it off the top in the same turning.
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“in the background i sense
clannish emasculated
masonic mafia rites”
You’d think a hard-working young printer and poet would incur no particular wrath and blame. Or would you. The problem goes deeper than the celebrated American anti-intellectualism or guilt-filled prurient repressive over-permissive sexual attitudes or the compulsive accumulation of X
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“Really”
the police try to protect
the banks – and everything else
is secondary”
(Luther’s outhouse a national institution.) The problem goes back to when the powers, beauties, and deep knowledges of the age-old women’s traditions were supplanted by military-caste mystiques & the accumulation of heavy metals. The poet/yogin still speaks for that other, saner, consciousness. The Occidental poet, with his “Muse.”
_________
“lady you have to be realistic
sending all your poets to the looney bin
ain’t helping the profession very much
your blue hair in the wind
& yr eyes full of diamonds.”
Not an easy row to hoe. Nature a network of de-pendent transformations and the Muse can be Maya, mistress of the ecosystem of delusion; who will perpetually keep tricking, or be the means of seeing through (herself) – a challenge, Levy’s Cleveland is not, exactly, his adversary: but his witch-Muse he needs must convert to the Path (more paying-back for spooky experiments in previous lives – that muse -)
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“What form of energy is used to
create the original thoughts?
Try to become THAT!”
This takes us to the heart of Levy’s strength. All manipulations of politics or magic – things, images, from inner or outer worlds; reduce down to this mustard seed that blows away when you try to look at it.
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“Cherokee, Deleware, Huron [sic]
We will return your land to you”
It is curious how even a glimpse of the Mind-essence creates such primal respect for the land and for the dignity of men who live lovingly in the web of life – the primitives-
“it is not a Cathouse of the rising sun
or the deathwagon of the beat
generation, but a bridge of clouds
to a new culture.”
Traditional orthodox Buddhists are not concerned with building new cultures any more than they are interested in nature religion or girls. Poets must try to get them together – playing a funny kind of role, today, as pivot-man, between the upheavals of culture-change and the persistence of the Single Eye of knowledge. d. a. levy finished up his karma early – “reborn as a poet in an industrial society” but he did his job well.
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“the traditions we follow
make the gods look young”
Thus the name of Padma Sambhava’s line of Tibetan Buddhism, Ning-ma, means “Ancient Ones.” The sophistications of Mahayana metaphysics harmonized with archaic and primitive systems … Goddesses; sexual yoga. Too rich to manage without the bitter tea of Zen as well – and here in North America, Turtle Island, we begin now to look for the next switchback in the path: something drawing on the wisdom traditions of Asia, incorporating the profound lore of our Semitic, Celtic, African, & Germanic roots – something that walks with the land and animals of Turtle Island in “a sacred manner” as the Indians do.
Levy gone up ahead, with that tinkle of bells (which is also how you hear the dakini approaching)
“when riding the winter pony
one
leaves
a trail of bells
soft/y ringing
deep in the mind
& if one listens
perhaps this sound
will guide
the young rider through the
falling
snow”
Gary Snyder
4.V I 11.40071
(Reckoning roughly from
the earliest cave paintings)
NOTE
Books by d.a.levy – find them where you can –
ukanhavyrfukncitibak. Cleveland, Ghost Press 1970.
Suburban Monastery Death Poem. Madison, Wis., Quixote Press, Vajrayana Reprint Series #1.
The Tibetan Stroboscope. Cleveland, Ayizan Press, 1968.
and, issues of The Buddhist Third Class Junk Mail Oracle.
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The Orange Drop – Make It Her, Forever
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“The call of death is a call of love. Death can be sweet if we answer it in the affirmative, if we accept it as one of the great eternal forms of life and transformation.” – Hermann Hesse
