It doesn’t take much imagination to extrapolate the current world situation into a scenario in which our actions or non-action could change the world and civilization into a state that will be unrecognizable. The more you examine the problems objectively, the date of 2012 becomes more feasible for the critical tipping point.

Say, we continue to approach these problems with the same mindset, the emphasis being on the acquisition of materials by the individual and by extension the nation state. My belief is if this type of greed and materialism continues, we will reach that tipping point and our climate will reach a point of no return; the earth will undergo such dramatic changes as to force us to adopt a new mindset.

The other possible scenario is our present mindset changes before we reach that point of no return; an understanding that sacrifice and cooperation among peoples and nations is our only hope. We will address these issues as the emergency situations that they are and our policies would reflect such.

I don’t hold out much hope for the second, my reading of history leaves me with the idea that the human species is reluctant to leave the comfort of routine unless his very existence is in question. It never ceases to amaze and confound me as to the ability of humans to continue in their comfortable routines while trouble is knocking at the door.

Now, I believe Americans hear the knocking, but will not respond to all the noise until their hair dryers and electric can openers are threatened. Many people seem to believe that there is no need for them to become overly concerned because surely our technology will deliver us and just as surely our leaders are working at the problem.

The question of leadership, in my opinion, is part of the problem. Our system means that no one making decisions for you and me and more importantly your grand kids (I say your, because I don’t have any) will be alive to face the future with the consequences of their choices now. I will never understand why every grandmother and grandfather in America is not in the streets demanding and snarling with an incredulous righteousness that only a grandmother can, demanding that her grand kids should be our priority.

As far as our technology, conjure on this 2012 fact. Our sun reverses its rotation on a cycle of every 11 years. Only the middle third of the sun undergoes this reversal, but that is enough to raise the incidence rate of what are commonly referred to as solar flares. Now, it begins to get interesting. In addition to the 11 year cycle a cumulative effect becomes a player in the plot. Let’s just indicate that the last time these two cycles came together was in1859. In 1859 the extent of our technology was the telegraph. A solar flare caused the need to replace every telegraph line in the world. It fried them along with causing the largest outbreak of fire events in modern history.

The two cycles come together again for the first time since that event in the year 2012. Stop, for a moment, and consider the dependance of our culture on technology today, particularly everything that utilizes electricity. Now imagine every piece of technology from satellites to your electric can opener fried and a period of three years before the electrical grid can even be restored.

Not saying it will happen, but it could, and wouldn’t it be an interesting experiment to see if we finally came together to address our shared futures or continued to destroy ourselves through short sighted policies. I’m just saying, that when you can’t go to a switch and make night into day there are going to be alot of desperate and pissed off people and maybe, just maybe, a few snarling grandmothers.

I have taken a survey among a small, but what seemed a relative accurate cross-section of the contributors to Blogstream. It consisted of a single question, “what would it take for you to re-examine your entire belief system?” This question among a group of college friends broke the monotony of picking the five people you would most like to have dinner with.

So I had heard alot of answers. I was surprised however at my responses from those contributors. I don’t want to sound “caustic” but from my responses most people don’t really want to change their belief system, they seem to be comfortable in their beliefs and the experience of those beliefs in their life. This is not a denouncing of comfort or confidence in one’s self

I enjoy the comfortable as much as anyone and desire a system that I can comprehend and exude a certain degree of confidence that I might be right, at least about a piece of the puzzle. With that said however I stand as a “freak” among you. I can not state this more emphatically than there is nothing I would rather have to do, other than to need to examine the most basic of my beliefs, because they might need changing.

I am not so ego-centric to think that this is an exclusive characteristic. This is perhaps why a number of responses indicate that their belief system is open and “morphing” constantly. Let’s hope that people are sincere about that, because I believe and propose that the entire planet must undergo a belief system change.

I find it hard to conceive that anyone could be living on the planet today and not feel in their heart that something is wrong. Even if one is not into the “worst case” scenarios it is impossible to look at the bitter divisions that separate rather than unite, and feel very good about the scenarios of the future, whatever they are. Only the fool would believe that civilization is served by such diffusion of intent.

We must come together and realize that diversity when focused gives us a strength of intent needed today. Science will re-integrate with aboriginal wisdom, rights will meet lefts, the carapace of modern technology will crumble as new support systems self-organize causing a major shift in human thought and values - from alienation to integration, from deformed and spatialized time to synchronic harmony, from either patriarchal or matriarchal dominance to true partnership, from ego based delusions to global telepathy. As a dialectical of Eastern enlightenment and Western curiosity - the Maya call this time the return of Quetzalcoatl, the feathered serpent.

Why do I invoke the Mayan civilization, Einstein said, “the history of an epoch is the history of its instruments. The modern mind instrumentalized time, fashioning it into a tool to shape the three-dimensional perspectival world and permit it to become a reality.” The Mayans certainly fit into this definition, with the most sophisticated and accurate rendition of time that has ever been conceived, in addition to the first phonetic written language, and certainly a special place in history for chocolate.

A way to get one’s head around how advanced these people were is to realize that, at a time when the Catholic church was trying to burn Galilee at the stake the Mayans had at least a thousand years before calculated the existence and location of the black hole at the center of the Milky Way and the fact that our solar system orbits this center, correctly calculating the time spans involved. (one more nail in what should be the coffin of the Catholic church)

On the winter solstice of December 21, 2012, the Sun will rise within the dark rift at the center of our Milky Way galaxy, an event that happens every 25,800 years. To the Mayan culture this alignment represents the “ union of the Cosmic Mother (the Milky Way) with the First Father (the December solstice sun.) Mayan hieroglyphs describe the center of this dark rift as the “Hole in the Sky,” cosmic womb, or “black hole,” through which their wizard-kings entered other dimensions, accessed sacred knowledge, or toured across vast reaches of the cosmos. In September 2002, astronomers using the Hubbell verified the existence of a massive black hole at the center of the Milky Way, naming it “Sagittarius B”.

This date is the culmination of what is called the “Long Count” of a calendar that consists of three counts proceeding simultaneously. A calendar that when compared to our Gregorian conjures up images of Mc Larens versus Model T’s.

This calendar when combined with temple architecture and hieroglyphs of the most important Mayan pyramids - the Temple of the inscriptions in Palenque, the pyramid of the Jaguar in Tikal, and the Pyramid of Quetzacoatl in Chichen Itza - represent a model of time from the origins of the Universe to the predicted phase shift on the December soltice 2012. This may not seem to some as extraordinary, but to possess knowledge that closely parallels our own understanding but perhaps 2,000 years ago cause me to ask, “what the fuck”

The Mayans indicated in what survives the Spanish that this knowledge was attained in a manner that stretches our modern concepts of knowledge itself. The kings and priests used psychoactive substances such as DMT-containing snuffs, peyote and psilocybin mushrooms, that allowed for direct perception of forces emanating from across the cosmos.

It may be easy for many to dismiss such knowledge, can you imagine “George” on peyote and mushrooms, that would be a state of the union gathering and speech that I would watch. Despite the present day perception of such activities causing one to dismiss such practices, it is impossible to dismiss how much they got right and how long it took us to catch up with people who lived 2,000 years ago.

See if you agree with the description of the time November 1999 to the present as described 2,000 years ago. The cycle of 13 tuns that began at this time reaches its zenith or “midnight hour” in November 2008. This time ruled by Tezcatlipoca, the lord of darkness...we will see the last desperate and at the same time forceful, attempt to secure control by the forces seeking to maintain dominance. That is a paraphrased translation from an inscription on the wall of a temple constructed 2,000 years ago. I’ll be damned if I can find words for a more apt description.

So, the Mayans have given us a picture of the universe as a 16 billion year journey of consciousness that portrays that consciousness being created in a hierarchal manner and that each advance stands on the foundation of another. That the culmination of that journey is the shift that is called for with the return of Quetzalcoatl, the return of “as above so below”.

Clearly, the shift to a higher form of consciousness could not happen passively. The transformation of consciousness requires not only personal work, but direct and surgically precise engagement with ecological, political, psychological, commercial, technological and spiritual aspects of reality - as Nietzche noted, the deed creates the doer, “as an afterthought.” It is inconceivable that movement to a higher state of consciousness could take place in a subconsciousness murk. Such a shift could take place in only one way: in the full light of consciousness.

To accomplish this would require our complete will and higher cognitive functions. We would have to decondition ourselves from negative programming, overcoming distractions and self justifications and egocentric goals - to “abandon abandonment” and “escape escapism.” At this moment, it is unclear how much sacrifice will be necessary.

If our current civilization were to disintegrate - a possibility that shouldn’t seem outlandish, considering New Orleans, peak oil theories and numerous ecological factors - we might face an apocalyptic passage, forcing us to evolve at a high speed. Breakdown and breakthrough may happen simultaneous.

All of my study into the premise that the earth itself is evolving. allows me some optimism, for this ,in my mind, tilts the table. If the system could go either way, a slight intervention to assist the convergence of the positive can tip the scales of evolution in favor of the enhancement of life on Earth. MAYBE. The return of Quetzalcoatl...

I thought I would take a break from the sermons and instead respond to a query. A query that has presented itself in many forms, my own self-doubt at times and from others trying to gain some insight into how they might avoid some of the pitfalls that accompany the choice to question everything.

In my experiences, I have fallen into every pit and then some, if someone desires this life or already on that path, my consul can only point to the rewards and perils. So, here are some admissions. Get ready to "suck it up" as they say:

- Nobody will ever understand you completely.
- You can only speak for yourself.
- There will always be a major distortion between what you know, what you will be able to communicate, and what people will then comprehend.
 - There is no such thing as perfect trust.
- Life does have no intrinsic meaning.
- Much of my life is directed by things preceding me and therefore out of my control.
- Your mind will always be polluted by public discourse (superego).
- We impact everything, but yet we are often powerless to control.
- Discursive opinion will often not match reality.
- Perspectives and living are ephemeral and temporary.
- There is no perfect truth (save for maybe Math)
- You will always be irrational.
- Your emotions will always interfere with your sense of truth.
- Life is composed of layers of visible and invisible cliché's and story lines
- We are ultimately subject to forces beyond us, natural selection, laws of accelerating returns, etc.
- There is no perfect break from some vaguely deterministic path.
- What ppl tell you or how others view you will inevitably affect you.
- No event or action is completely beneficial.
- You will always be an agent of some evil.
- You will never be beyond reproach.
- You will be the vehicle of stupid actions that are equally as inane as the sins of others
- You will always have bias.
- Outside of science, nobody knows. like politics. etc.
- We will always have to act on incomplete knowledge.
- There is no absolutely good action
- You will never be able to do precisely what you want to do
- There is no true home
- You can never be truly authentic
- There will always be so much more beyond your awareness.
- Not everything is possible
- You will always be part of an existing process
- You can never truly break from the trajectory, maybe nudge it around, but that'll ultimately be part of that trajectory
- Your weaknesses will always be betrayed by your actions at some point
- You will always be in some nature fake
- No event or meal or situation or conversation will be completely satisfactory
- Nothing will every be completely satisfactory
- You will never be completely comfortable
- Something will always be itchy
- The gravity of life will always be subject to potential subjection of risk to utter, stupid, and simple annihilation. Like a car accident.
- You will never have total control
- You won't be able to win them all. Someone will always hate you no matter what.
- There is no perfect art
- There are other lives within you that will carry on their own
- You won't ever be beyond your own embarrassment.
- You will never do the optimal thing
- There is no true external should.
- There will always be a kryptonite.
- You cannot escape your emotions.
- You cannot forget the past.
- Something will always haunt you.
- Nobody is beyond temptation
- Knowing and doing will always be different

This list is the result of the input of several friends. It represents many years of experience of walking off the beaten path and I’m always looking for more. anyone?

There is a great deal of lip-service given to the Native American cultures by the “new age” movement, but little else. Millions of dream catchers hang on walls, and probably an equal number of kachinas on shelves. Little has been done to address the wrongs done to these people, and I believe in these actions, we have hurt our chances to survive.

Who would you pick to teach you to survive with little water and how to grow crops in the conditions projected for much of the world in the not so distant future. My choice would be the Hopi. But instead of a dialogue of heart and mind we continue to pursue policies that seemingly insure their destruction.

Take water, central to the Hopi culture, a majority of there ceremonies are centered around it. They have survived, even thrived (before the white man came) in one of the harshest climates on the planet. You would think that their experiences might have some interest for us, but instead we (Peabody Coal) steals 1.3 billion gallons of water a year from their aquifer per year to transport coal cheaply in order to keep your electric can opener working.

It is a logical question to ask how something so important to the Hopi could, in the time of lawyers and law, negotiated away the life blood of their culture? Well, do you think it might have been the fact that the lawyers provided (pushed on) by the federal government to negotiate for the Hopi, were also on the payroll of Peabody Coal. That little tidbit wasn’t revealed until after the deal, and the company with the support of the courts will not address a new deal or the fact that the coal can be transported without water.

The ancestral wells of the Hopi are drying up, it is projected that they and the aquifer that this culture has depended on for 4000 years will be gone in the year 2011. There seems to me to be a pattern here, the concept of “justice for all” only applies if you don’t have something we want.

According to Hopi prophecy, at the end of the fourth world, the older white brother, Pahana, will return in a true exchange of hearts, as well as knowledge. From a totally unpatronizing perspective, we have got alot to learn from the Hopi and other traditional cultures.

A personal observation, that the materialism of modern civilization is paradoxically founded on a “ hatred of materiality”, a goal oriented desire to obliterate all natural limits through technology, imposing an abstract grid over nature. The spirituality of tribal people is rooted in a deep and unsentimental connection to the Earth, expressed through a careful attentiveness and reverence for particular plants, geographic locations or features, and local differences. This “disconnect” of modern civilization can be traced to the rise of religion, particularly the great monotheistic ones. In my mind we are paying the price for the desire to leave our plight, rather than seeking a harmony with.

If we are graduating from nation-states to a noosperic state, we may find ourselves exploring the kind of nonhierarchical social organization - a “synarchy” based on trust and telepathy - that the Hopi and other aboriginal groups have used for millennia. If a global civilization can organize from our current chaos, it will be founded on cooperation rather than winner take all competition, sufficiency rather than surfeit, communal solidarity rather than individual elitism, reasserting the sacred nature of all earthly life. Those who desire such a world will work to create it.

As the Hopi also say;
"We are the ones we have been waiting for."

In examining forty years of my quest for an understanding of consciousness I have gained and lost allot of what I thought I thought it was to be a human being. New has replaced old, and old has replaced new.

I learned that the consciousness of reality that we all hold is just the tip. Our consciousness extends so far, that when you finally glimpse it, your view of reality is altered. So much so that one will never regain that feeling of solidity.

My journey was guided by a man called Lone Eagle. He is the one who informed me that what I was looking for could only be experienced in the “dreamtime”. He taught me the skill of what many call lucid dreaming.

Most importantly, in one our journeys together he introduced me to a wolf. The wolf then became my teacher and companion in the dreamtime for 4 years. I can’t really explain that, but I have a list of questions that I received, in order to join the pack on the hunt.

wolf . . .
teacher,
pathfinder,
moon-dog of my soul,
howling,
singing,
teaching how to know.

This process within this evolution is not easy to verbalize, but in order to get a true feeling for what this implies, in terms of the wolf’s teachings, it may be helpful to look at it in the following manner: When you have come to grasp the meaning within the first question, through facing and conquering your challenges surrounding this question, your Dreamer then progresses you to the challenges that teach you the meaning inherent within the second question, and so on up to 33. Needless to say, no one lifetime is long enough to learn the “answers” to all 33 questions. Therefore these questions are progressively answered across many lifetimes, and once they have been answered you start again from the beginning, for now you have the knowledge to go even “deeper” still!

So the best approach to these questions, is not to try to “answer” them intellectually, but to grasp them at a feeling level, and then to compare your “answer” with your actual understanding of the teachings! In other words, you can use these questions to measure your grasp of the teachings in terms of how you are facing and handling your challenges within life. As you progress, you will also see how this “testing” helps to reveal the deeper meanings to be found in the Jewels of Awareness.

Questions:

1. What is the circle of my being, and where is its centre?

2. What am I?

3. What is destiny, and what is my part in it?

4. What are my duties?

5. What is power?

6. What is freedom?

7. If freedom is what I claim it to be, then why do I seek it?

8. What is justice?

9. Where am I going?

10. What is the meaning of the Wheel of Destiny?

11. What is my purpose?

12. What is the earth to me?

13. If the earth is what I claim it to be, then what is death?

14. What is awareness?

15. What is my relationship to the Darkness?
16. What is now my view of the world?

17. How will I take from the Stream of Life that which I need?

18. How will I proceed from here?

19. What constitutes the Sacred Grove?

20. What is life?

21. What is my vision, and what do I know now?

22. Is there one person on earth who has benefited from me being born?

23. Whom have I liberated by destroying his prison?

24. How often have I forced someone into accepting my view of the world?

25. If I have the power to move mountains, will I do so?

26. Why am I walking the Path with a Heart?

27. How often have I set myself apart from those around me?

28. How many people have had to bow down to my will?

29. How often do I rape another being physically, mentally,
emotionally or spiritually?

30. Is there anyone in my life whose freedom I have respected more
than my own wishes?

31. What idea do I consider fundamental to my existence?

32. Is my personal rhythm compatible to the rhythm of life?

33. Freedom. Pure white light.

The Jewels of Awareness, the dark jewels (I have found the dark ones are the most easily identified by someone interested in change.

Although people talk freely of change, there are few who really know how to bring about fundamental change within themselves. The external circumstances of people’s lives may change, and they may sometimes succeed in changing some or many of their habits, but all too often, when something unexpected happens, they find that the changes they believed were solid, are not, and they are back, in some strange way, at where they started.

What then constitutes true inner change?

Any valid pathway can result in change – as long as it is pursued faithfully. However, nowadays most people tend to pick and choose from out of a path what they like and what fits in with their current frame of reference. Yet, this tendency towards dabbling simply reinforces their existing beliefs and prejudices, rather than allowing for new knowledge.

True change requires; firstly, being open to learning, in its proper sense; and secondly, being dedicated to continuing to learn. This untiring dedication is vital, because learning about the self is the most frightening and absorbing pursuit there is. It is in recognition of this fact about the true nature of learning that one of the aphorisms of the teachings gives this warning: “True knowledge is ever incomprehensible, greater and more powerful than man. Consequently to walk the Path of Knowledge is to fight for survival; therefore if you come to this path to learn, then you must be prepared to fight for your life.”

Partly to force apprentices to fathom and live out for themselves certain fundamental truths, these truths in the form of aphorisms, like that above, are usually conveyed orally. These aphorisms serve to guide the seeker into a deeper insight in how to master his or her awareness. Thus all aphorisms have been designed to be both springboards into the unknown, as well as beacon lights within the unknown. For rather than meandering the byways of the known, the seeker of knowledge ventures into the unexplored realms of the unknown. This is the journey that leads to true change.

Egotism
Active Shortcoming: Self-importance.
Behavior: Self-opinionated, arrogant, self-centered, pompous, holier-than-thou, longwinded.
Passive Shortcoming: Self-pity.
Behavior: Victim/martyr, hard-done-by, unappreciated, fear of exposure, fear of being wrong, fear of criticism.

Destruction
Active Shortcoming: Domineering.
Behavior: Demanding, over-bearing, bossy, intimidating.
Passive Shortcoming: Subservient.
Behavior: Servile, seeking approval, groveling, docile.

Fear
Active Shortcoming: Obsession with having to control.
Behavior: Clinging, demanding, wanting to be right, worrying, being derogatory, volatile, defensive.
Passive Shortcoming: Escapism.
Behavior: Insecurity, avoidance, playing the Nothing Game, morbidity, indecisiveness, dishonesty, instability, timidity, lack of self-belief.

Temptation
Active Shortcoming: Defiance.
Behavior: Not listening, rebellious, closed, justifying.
Passive Shortcoming: Submission.
Behavior: I will do it BUT under duress, having a chip on the shoulder, I will suffer but YOU will pay.

Illusion
Active Shortcoming: Altruism.
Behavior: Kindness of heart, putting someone on a pedestal, blind faith.
Passive Shortcoming: Gullibility.
Behavior: Giving the benefit of the doubt, abnegating responsibility, do-gooder.

Resistance
Active Shortcoming: Stubbornness.
Behavior: Pig-headed, inflexible, dog-with-a-bone, aggressive, flippant, disrespectful, deflecting, defensive.
Passive Shortcoming: Obstinacy.
Behavior: Not listening, wanting life on own terms, insolence, unresponsive, stoicism, procrastination, denial.

Abuse of Power
Active Shortcoming: Cruelty.
Behavior: Imposing, insensitive, sadistic, vitriolic, aggressive, sarcastic.
Passive Shortcoming: Self-abnegation.
Behavior: Callous, cold, unnurturing, harsh.

Abuse Generally
Active Shortcoming: Oppression.
Behavior: Forceful, greedy, coercive, aggressive, playing the Blame Game.
Passive Shortcoming: Fixation.
Behavior: Infatuation, romance, fanaticism, narrow-mindedness.

Manipulation
Active Shortcoming: Lust for…
Behavior: Sexual manipulation, covetousness, lewdness, hunger for power, love of intrigue.
Passive Shortcoming: Corruptible.
Behavior: Easily seduced, fraudulent, degenerate, depraved, decadent, perverted.

Reason/Logic
Active Shortcoming: Bigotry.
Behavior: Dogmatic, disbelieving, intolerant, assumed understanding, selective perception.
Passive Shortcoming: Prejudiced.
Behavior: Discriminating against, harbouring preconceptions, distorting the truth, indulging.

Disharmony
Active Shortcoming: Inertia.
Behavior: Anarchy, nihilism, discrediting, slandering, gossiping, interrupting.
Passive Shortcoming: Entropy.
Behaviour: Apathy, indifference, carelessness, negligence, sloth, confusion,

This all was given to me orally by the wolf, and I have probably done them a disservice by not doing the same. But, something to chew on.