wrathful empathies – An appalachian Saṃsāra

 

vag·a·bond
[ˈvaɡəˌbänd]

NOUN
a person who wanders from place to place without a home or job.
synonyms:
itinerant · wanderer · nomad · wayfarer · traveler · gypsy · rover · tramp · [more]

Abu Hamid al-Ghazali

“You only truly possess that which you cannot lose in a shipwreck.”

― أبو حامد الغزالي

If this is true, aren’t we all just vagabonds in life?  Truly, I say that without possessions to differentiate ourselves, we are all the same.    Yes, I am channeling Zarathustra for those who are wondering.

Here are some vagabonds with little to no possessions.  Cue the connection to the Great Trail thru hikers, Pilgrims on the Golden Path and the Kindred who wander across the pages of my book.

 

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We are all vagabonds in life but we just don’t know it.

This video is long at 46 minutes but enlightening.   Dr. Kreeft captures exactly why and how American intelligentsia (Marxists)  “disappeared” this Russian thinker and prophet.  The Kremlin was happy to see this speech knowing that their most troublesome dissident had effectively destroyed himself with the American left (mainstream culture).  Sorry there is no video but just audio.  I find it entertaining nonetheless.

The disappearance of such a great author from modern society reveals the much larger manipulation of history.  His criticism of East and West is critical to the advancement of civilization.  However, he is a non person now.   Hardly anybody talks about his ideas anymore.  His ideas were not approved.  They were too dangerous.  It happened in front of our eyes.  The thought controllers expunged him from acceptable discourse and by default our perspective on the world.

The character in my book, DB Cooper, pursues his curiosity about the similar historical treatment of John Brown. While he is not disappeared from history, the intelligentsia have properly placed him in a harmless state.  No longer a proponent of direct action against evil, he is treated as an enigma.

“Someone who is mysterious, puzzling, or difficult to understand.”

Indeed, he found slavery incompatible with our Constitution and the bible.  No mystery there as to his motives and impatience with democracy.

 

 

Memory
The role of memory is central to the Marcel Proust (French: À la recherche du temps perdu) novel, introduced with the famous madeleine episode in the first section of the novel and in the last volume, Time Regained, a flashback similar to that caused by the madeleine is the beginning of the resolution of the story. Throughout the work many similar instances of involuntary memory, triggered by sensory experiences such as sights, sounds and smells conjure important memories for the narrator and sometimes return attention to an earlier episode of the novel. Although Proust wrote contemporaneously with Sigmund Freud, with there being many points of similarity between their thought on the structures and mechanisms of the human mind, neither author read the other.[5]

The madeleine episode reads:

No sooner had the warm liquid mixed with the crumbs touched my palate than a shudder ran through me and I stopped, intent upon the extraordinary thing that was happening to me. An exquisite pleasure had invaded my senses, something isolated, detached, with no suggestion of its origin. And at once the vicissitudes of life had become indifferent to me, its disasters innocuous, its brevity illusory—this new sensation having had on me the effect which love has of filling me with a precious essence; or rather this essence was not in me it was me. … Whence did it come? What did it mean? How could I seize and apprehend it? … And suddenly the memory revealed itself. The taste was that of the little piece of madeleine which on Sunday mornings at Combray (because on those mornings I did not go out before mass), when I went to say good morning to her in her bedroom, my aunt Léonie used to give me, dipping it first in her own cup of tea or tisane. The sight of the little madeleine had recalled nothing to my mind before I tasted it. And all from my cup of tea.
Gilles Deleuze believed that the focus of Proust was not only memory and the past but the narrator’s learning the use of “signs” to understand and communicate ultimate reality, thereby becoming an artist.[6] While Proust was bitterly aware of the experience of loss and exclusion—loss of loved ones, loss of affection, friendship and innocent joy, which are dramatized in the novel through recurrent jealousy, betrayal and the death of loved ones—his response to this, formulated after he had discovered Ruskin, was that the work of art can recapture the lost and thus save it from destruction, at least in our minds.[citation needed] Art triumphs over the destructive power of time. This element of his artistic thought is clearly inherited from romantic platonism, but Proust crosses it with a new intensity in describing jealousy, desire and self-doubt. (Note the last quatrain of Baudelaire’s poem “Une Charogne”: “Then, O my beauty! say to the worms who will / Devour you with kisses, / That I have kept the form and the divine essence / Of my decomposed love!”).[citation needed]

My novel “Wrathful Empathies, The 2nd Raid on Harpers Ferry uses narrative story telling to reverse the destructive power of time.  The character of Los is desperate for a second chance to recapture his lost love Enith (some word play here).  He will go to the ultimate extreme to do so.  Similar to Proust’s story (most assuredly not as well), I explore the sensation of searching through the past.  Unlike him, I describe what a second chance to go back in time and recapture it might look like.  Actually, I go a step further in my story telling to say that it is never too late to  change the outcome of events. What is time?  I believe it can be manipulated.   I created the Golden Path to allow just such time travel.  All the other hiking trails are metaphors for this ability.  Think about it.  When you hike through nature, give up almost all of your possessions, and live outside society, this becomes a form of time travel.  Soon enough, you freely disassociate from the normal patterns of life.  A minute becomes an hour, an hour and day and a night an eternity.

Was I successful?  Only time will tell.  Warning to time travelers:  The past might not have been what you thought it was.  Exploring the mechanics of this attempt is one of the major themes of my trilogy.

I had a strange dream sequence recently.  Can’t get it out of my head.  Or, the universe won’t let me forget it.   This is not unusual for me.  That the universe won’t leave me alone that is.  It happened during the writing of the first book of the Wrathful Empathies trilogy.   It was like a tapping at the window, knocking at the door, or subtle nudge of the wind on my shoulder when there was no breeze.   It can be an eerie sensation that calls my mind to listen, to focus, to think and then record my thought.  Seemingly random images drift into my conscious through a thin barrier from a darker subconscious reservoir.  Like a breeze blowing through a screen door, the force is barely diminished but clearly coming in from outside.  Anyway, I am now trained to think about these images.  To mull them over and over.  Often, they reappear but advanced, evolved, transformed into constantly new variants of an ever clarified image.  Maybe my mind is taking the raw stimulus and focusing it into a sharper image.  Or, I believe, quite shockingly, that I am my own shaman capable of dream interpretation.

A couple nights ago I had a terrible nightmare.  I woke up sensing real fear.  Over the next couple days and nights, it returned but in less frightening ways until finally I had an epiphany of sorts.  Here it is:

A campfire is blazing in vast forest.  The night sky is visible between the barren tree tops.  It is a dark magenta but bright enough to distinguish tree branches overhead.   They are swaying in a gusty breeze above the bare dirt campground.  I am there.  Standing back away from the fire ring of stacked stones, I am a witness to the scene itself.  Flames leap up towards the sky.  A wide circle of light illuminates a collection of folding camp chairs, some are empty and some have family and friends sitting in them.   Everyone is laughing, talking and maybe even signing.  Some people are drinking beer and rapidly getting drunk.  I approach the campfire and greet everyone.  I notice a chair is situated just past the edge of the circle of light from the campfire.  It is occupied by someone but I can’t tell who.  Only their feet appear visible.  From the waist up the person is in shadows.  Whoever it is, they appear to be enjoying the atmosphere of friendship and partying.   I can see a silhouette nodding its head with the rhythm of the music playing on the boom box.  I call out to them.  “Hey, who is there?”  No answer.  I approach and my headlamp shines on their feet.  Something is not right I suddenly realize.  I don’t see shoes, boots or sandals.  They are not feet at all.  Instead, they are cloven hooves.  What I am seeing makes no sense.  My mind is in disbelief.   I raise my headlamp upward.  The person is wearing typical outdoor gear, I even recognize the brand.  My headlight shines on its face.  The creature reacts badly to the bright light.  Its face is covered with hair.  Bloodshot red eyes show alarm.  With the light in its face, the creature bares its fangs, drops its beer can and leaps backward into the darkness.   The camp chair tips over.  I scream and wake up, probably screaming more.  The vision was horrifying.  A terrible creature was sitting so close to us, in our midst, yet we didn’t know it.  We were in danger of having our throats ripped out.  I eventually went back to sleep on the couch in the basement.  Another dream frightened me again.  The creature returned but this time it was in my house.  I could not tell if I was asleep or awake.  I heard footsteps on the stairs.  I opened my eyes and watched the same creature descend into the basement.  It confronted me in the darkened room.  The street lamp outside the grade level window framed its hairy horned body.  I could tell it was staring at me.   It opened its mouth to talk but I could not hear anything.  It turned and walked away through the wall.  I froze in fear.  My fear subsided quickly.  I spent the next day thinking about these two dreams.  The creature had evolved somehow.  It seemed less demonic, less wild, more controlled and more intelligent.  I had only to wait one more night for its transformation again.  Sleeping in my bed, I suddenly sensed something in the room.   This time I was on the fourth floor of our townhouse.  There is a small patio deck beyond a full sliding glass set of doors.  It was illuminated by the light of the full moon.  A shadow moved.  From the edge of the curtain, the creature returned.  This time I felt less fear and a strange sense of familiarity.  I knew this being.  It was not the wild demon from the campfire dream but something from deep in my past.  I sensed a very, very, very old acquaintance.   Half stranger, half kindred.  There was no fear.  I got the impression the creature wanted me to come with it out into the night.   I had been here before.  In high school and college, my friends would appear outside my window baying at the moon and asking me to run wild with them through the glass.  Typically, I would ignore them.  Eventually, they would utter curses and attack my manhood but slink back to their car.   I would lie in bed and hear their drunken giggling and laughing up the drive.  Car doors slammed and I was alone again.   This was a very similar feeling with the creature.  The creature was simply asking me to come out and play.  I declined, of course.  It stamped its hooves in disgust and disappeared.  I had work the next day, lots of meetings, a presentation, employee appraisals and a long commute to and from the city.  I turned in my bed, snuggled into my pillow and tried to fall asleep.  The cries of foxes racing through the moonlit yards of our subdivision kept me awake.  Their shrieks sounded like babies crying.   The sounds echoed from every direction.  One minute it was up the street, then down the street in another minute.  Eventually, the noises of the their battle faded away.  In my mind’s eye, I saw them retreat into the leafy woods which glistened in the light of the full moon.  A much larger creature was in pursuit.

So, after a little reflection, I lay in bed, stared at the ceiling and wondered if the supernatural was talking to me.  The evolution of my dream was complete.  The demon at the edge of the campfire, had become a wild wolfman, which then transformed in a Pan like creature from Greek mythology and finally took its last shape as the Celtic god Cernunous.   Memories of a wild, misspent youth came flooding back.  Those were really good times.  I was wild and free.  What happened to me.  I suddenly felt confined as if in a cage.  I smiled at the memory of being free.  Of course, other thoughts approached me.  I thought about my choice of image for Kindred bumper sticker.  Why did I pick an image of a deer head on a human torso?  It came to me while scrolling through pictures.  It had to be both man and animal.  I always saw the Kindred as something with ancient origins.  How else do you describe the deep everlasting connection of blood relations?  The image I chose came to mind instantly.  Also, I realized that the image I picked for my Vagaries Tavern t-shirt revealed yet another ancient message.  The man at the edge of the wood, intoxicating (from wine or nature?) leaning against an old bent tree.  My choice of image has an uncanny resemblance to the image of Pan and the reclining woman I found months later researching this post.  I wonder if Pan was invisible to me in the original picture.  There but not there.  Only after continued searching of what lies hidden in the subconscious can I see his presence.

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In my book, I envision an alternative stream of spiritual plasma flowing just above the Shenandoah river. It is invisible to the naked eye of the average person.  Only through the heart can it be seen.  It is fed by the sadness and woes of generations of departed denizens of the Valley.  Unlike the river water below, it does not pass through the mountain gap across from Harpers Ferry but instead sinks below the water surface and into hidden caverns within the mountain.  The Kindred suspects that this powerful supernatural force is being somehow being manipulated by the Authority as part of its control system.  A rebel mission is assigned the most skilled rock climbers and spelunkers to enter the mountain through a heretofore hidden cave entrance.  The team follows a ghostly apparition within the mountain.  They don’t realize it but the ghost is the metaphysical manifestation of Los.  He made the ultimate sacrifice to lead this mission.  The cave terminates above a vast cavern.  A phosphorescent lake is formed by the flowing plasma river.  Strange alien creatures hover near its banks.  They dip nets of some sort into the water with their grey willowy arms.  Straining the contents into an artificially engineered aqueduct, they send it flowing with another natural water source into the mountain.  The spirit of Los hovers over the lake.  He rescues the soul of Enith.  A million other souls escape their confinement of the plasma and surge upwards towards freedom.  Except Los and Enith. Together, they fly through the manmade passage towards the underground government complex called Mt. Storm.  The Kindred crew stays behind and plants explosives that when detonated will blast a hole through the mountain and divert the Potomac River  into the tunnel leading to Mt. Storm.  It will flow like a flash flood through the tunnel until it burst into the 7th underground level of the federal complex 8 miles to the South.   Within seconds, the flooding will submerge the power station exploding the transformers with devastating results.

 

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If a golden path existed that allowed humans to transit not only a infinite narrow band of wilderness but time itself, what might guard its portals?  In my book, I describe a hearty band of pilgrims that have transcended the physical dimension we exist in through a process of illumination, epiphany, and/or realization of ultimate reality.  Some souls of the departed and angels also tread this path.  It offers not only a new perspective on reality but a transit all along the continuum of past, present and future.   This path of the spiritually enlightened enjoy safe passage from the totalitarian government that has taken over America.  They are safe as long as they transit the Golden Path.  They are invisible to evil Authority agents that attempt to locate their position.  Safety, however, only exists on the path.  The moment these travelers exit back in the physical dimension, they become visible.  Historical events and places all have their own portal that allows such passage.  They are fog enveloped side trails off the Golden Path that lead to misty marshes until finally to the edge of an eerie swamp.  On the other side is the physical dimension they seek to re-enter.  Crossing the swamp is treacherous enough but the cosmic sentinel guarding the barrier is extremely dangerous.  They demand something to eat from each trespassing pilgrim.  If no food is offered, they eat the person whole.  At first, these sentinels appear as cloak shrouded entities but once angered transform into their true monstrous presence.

 

 

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Distance means nothing if love is strong.   Anybody up for a night hike?

 

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On top of a lonely mountain there sits a shelter from which you can watch the mist rise and the Kindred emerge.

Spending a night alone in a shelter produces many emotions in me.  First, I like the security of thick walls should a tree fall during a storm.  Second, the level floor is dry and flat.  I really do think it amazing how incredibly uneven the bare ground can be.  Third, the roof offers protection from the rain.  Fourth, the coziness of the shelter is reassuring compared to the vastness of the forest wilderness.  Fifth, I find it a bit unnerving to lay in my sleeping bag and try to sleep knowing that at any moment a person or persons may stamp in from the dark night.  Not scary but just anxious that the communal space may have to be shared at any given moment.  The sense of vulnerability that I must cohabitate with total strangers in such a confined space leaves me a bit uneasy whilst I try to fall asleep.  Lastly, the same walls that comfort me with their protection from the elements and falling debris also leave me blind on three sides.  I cannot see anyone approaching until they are literally right in front of me.  Bears included.  This is where your sense of hearing becomes a bit amplified.  The sound of clicking metal trekking poles, leaves rustling, boots thudding against stones, and the blasting wind that sounds creepily like a woman singing keeps me from a sound sleep.

 

To ensure truth is secured across generations and the prophecy is monitored, the Kindred maintain a genealogist to trace the family trees of each surviving member of John Brown’s raid on Harpers Ferry.  Lost Mungo spends his life hiking the Great Trail to secretly record this information from hiker journals secured within each shelter all along its 2,100 mile length.  He meticulously documents each family tree on decades old scrolls.  Confident that he has captured the latest family information cryptically entered into these journals by undercover rebels disguised as backpackers, Lost Mungo packs them away in weathered leather cases.   He clutches the scroll case tightly at the sound of approaching footsteps echoing off the rocky trail that disappears beyond the illumination of his headlamp.   Someone is descending the wind ravaged mountain ridge looming above the battered wood shelter at 3:30 in the morning.

Continue reading “Genealogy Scrolls”

Tibetan tradition  (I will strike thru obvious communist Chinese propaganda)

Following the Buddhist belief in the principle of reincarnation, the current Dalai Lama is believed to be able to choose the body into which he is reincarnated. That person, when found, will then become the next Dalai Lama. According to Buddhist scholars it is the responsibility of the High Lamas of the Gelgupa tradition and the Tibetan government to seek out and find the next Dalai Lama following the death of the incumbent. The process can take a long time. It took four years to find the 14th (current) Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso. The search is generally limited to Tibet, although the current Dalai Lama has said that there is a chance that he will not be reborn, and that if he is, it would not be in a country under Chinese rule. To help them in their search, the High Lamas may have visions or dreams, and try to find signs. For example, if the previous Dalai Lama was cremated, they can watch the direction of the smoke to suggest where the rebirth will take place. When these signs have been interpreted and a successor found, there are a series of tests to ensure that they are the genuine reincarnation of the previous Dalai Lama. They assess the candidate against a set of criteria, and will present the child with various objects to see if they can identify those which belonged to the previous Dalai Lama. If a single candidate has been identified, the High Lamas will report their findings to eminent individuals and then to the Government. If more than one candidate is identified, the true successor is found by officials and monks drawing lots in a public ceremony. Once identified, the successful candidate and his family are taken to Lhasa (or Dharamsala) where the child will study the Buddhist scriptures in order to prepare for spiritual leadership.[4]

In my book, there is a death scene in Chapter One which describes how I imagine Lord Fairfax dies in Winchester, VA.   He collapses in the dirt street, after a vigorous journey from his log cabin at the base of the Northern pinnacle of a mountain ridge within which lies the hidden “valley within a valley.”   An urgent angelic voice spoke to him during the last night of his life.  The 80 year old man suddenly felt a compelling need to set something straight about a particular real estate transaction conducted during his long and colorful life.  He felt a trip to his attorney’s office in Winchester was essential before he passed away.  Too late, his heart gave out and his soul left his body.  I describe a gust of wind picking up a clump of leaves from the street next to his body and carrying them aloft into the sky. They stream on an invisible jet towards the upper reaches of the great Shenandoah Valley.   What lies that direction you ask?  Why, Harpers Ferry of course.  Now, what would his soul be doing flying towards the heights of that old river town?  

Statements by Chinese government
In 2015, the Tibet regional governor Mr. Padma Choling (白玛赤林) stated:
“Whether [the Dalai Lama] wants to cease reincarnation or not … this decision is not up to him. When he became the 14th Dalai Lama, it was not his decision. He was chosen following a strict system dictated by religious rules and historical tradition and also with the approval of the central government. Can he decide when to stop reincarnating? That is impossible.[9]” 
Choling’s statement disregards that indeed the Dalai Lama can decide whether to reincarnate or not as that is essential part of the Bodhisattva concept. The irony that an atheist Marxist government is involved in the afterlife and re-incarnation did not go unnoticed,[10] As joked by Jonathan Kaiman for the Los Angeles Times: “In China, it’s not easy to become a “living Buddha.” First come the years of meditation and discipline. Then comes the bureaucracy. (…) Although the ruling Communist Party is an officially atheist organization – officials are barred from practicing religion – it is perennially uncomfortable with forces outside of its control, and has for years demanded the power to regulate the supernatural affairs of Tibetan Buddhist figures, determining who can and cannot be reincarnated.” [11]
On August 3, 2007, State Religious Affairs Bureau Order No. 5 was issued by China which states that all the reincarnations of tulkus of Tibetan Buddhism must get government approval, otherwise they are “illegal or invalid”. [12]

Keep in mind that Wrathful Empathies is all about an evil authoritarian government that attempts to control the reincarnation of its citizens souls by implanting fear into their subconscious during life.    Again, I thought I was writing a fictional novel.  Yet, here is this Wikipedia quote where a communist government is dictating the very reincarnation of the next Dalia Lama.  Unbelievable.  What else could be happening to these Tibetan Buddhists?

Oh yeah, the story of this small boy is eerily reminiscent of the character Orc from my novel.

Gedhun Choekyi Nyima
The 11th Panchen Lama in 1995
Born
25 April 1989
Disappeared
17 May 1995 (aged 6)
Lhari County, Tibet Autonomous Region
Status
Missing for 23 years, 4 months and 29 days

Title
11th Panchen Lama
according to the 14th Dalai Lama
Predecessor
Choekyi Gyaltsen
Gedhun Choekyi Nyima is the 11th Panchen Lama of Tibetan Buddhism as announced by the Dalai Lama on 14 May 1995 but rejected by the search team appointed by the State Council of the People’s Republic of China.[1] He was born in Lhari County, Tibet Autonomous Region. After his selection, he was taken into what the PRC government described as protective custody[2][3] and has not been acknowledged in public since 17 May 1995.[2][3]

 

There is a scene in my book Wrathful Empathies about a late night college radio disc jockey who is murdered in his studio while broadcasting an anti government speech.  I thought readers would think this a crazy scene that could not possibly imitate life.   Well, the below video shows that I am not that far off the mark.  This Chinese dissident was arrested during a live Voice of America radio interview.  Police actually break down his door and storm into his home.  Just like it is described in my book, you get to hear the action as it happened.