union of the opposites

Last night, this beauty flew into my dreams, landed on my daughter's shoulder and told us he was hungry by attempting to peel our grapefruit with his beak.  He then waited patiently while we sliced him a piece of the juicy, pink fruit with a gigantic bread knife.  I was skeptical, sure that "owls don't like grapefruit", but he did and as he ate his feathers slowly turned snowy white and I boldly mediated a tense conversation and the child and the grandmother finally began to communicate.  Just like his feathers, everything was softened.

As soon as we are fully conscious we discover loneliness. -C.S. Lewis 

art by Saya Woolfalk

When the alarm went off, she was in the middle of a vivid dream.  She was at the cusp of non-self, in a state of pure, contentless sensation.  Her soul had been dissolving back into the smallest molecules.  These molecules broke apart, smaller than single cells, smaller than the smallest thing possible and atomized out into the atmosphere.  The atmosphere of non-atmosphere.  Just before the alarm sounded, she heard a voice.  In the dream, the voice no longer had a home in the throat and the thought no longer had a home in the brain.  The voice was also a thought. There was no distinction between a voice and a thought in the non-atmosphere.  She listened, but the listening was also experiencing because listening doesn't happen with non-ears, but experiencing does. This was really not so complicated, but rather quite simple and natural.

The non-voice spoke in non-words to the non-ears across the non-atmosphere and also inside of her: "so, this is what it is like to be no one, nothing.  So, this is what it is like to not exist."

The alarm brought consciousness and her dream was quickly translated into words.  Just to keep up the routine, the most important parts were swept away by the flood of her conscious mind and all she has of it today are these little, unexplicable non-feelings.  But she did remember this much. And she remembered how it felt.  And she remembered that it felt good. And she remembered that good and bad do not exist. And then, there was nothing to be afraid of.

 art by John Malta

children of the sun, begin to wake

What direction is human evolution moving in?
I've been speaking to others about becoming strong lately. Everyone wants to be strong. Yet culturally we are moving away from our bodies and toward our networks. Two people drew me pictures about becoming strong this week. One was a lion tearing apart and eating a human body. He lay on his belly and chomped on a bloodless leg while various body parts were strewn around him. The second was a robot shooting another robot with a gun. The robot shooting the gun was a female robot, with breasts.


It is difficult work to become strong. It hurts to do strong things like make conscious decisions, wait, and take responsibility for our tiny lives. Are you attending to the things that will help you be strong? Not just as an individual, but as a member of a culture that needs all the conscious strength it can get.