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dreamscape writing 29 Mar 2018

3/29/2018

During the dream this morning I was bicycling to a familiar location, making my way through a crowded city. Halfway to my destination I decided to use a different bicycle, as the one I was on wasn’t going fast enough. I turned around and started heading back to where I kept my other whip, which turned out to be a big locker with a two-storey-high glass and steel roof built into a long strip of grass that ran down the middle of two major avenues. The locker was surrounded by a wood and steel fence that I accessed through a gate that I could open by running into it with my front tire.

As I was passing back out through the fence on the new, racing bike, I held the gate for a young woman wearing a baseball cap atop long brown hair, who thanked me on her way into the enclosure. In order to get back to the road that was leading to my destination, however, I had to mount a spindly metal platform (that was suspended over a pool of water built into a depression in a steel-ribbed glass structure ) then wait for a stream of people to climb a steep metal slide (which was below me and to the left). As I was waiting, an attractive young Han Chinese woman wearing a peach-colored shirt and stonewashed jeans who was mounting the slide made eye contact with me and smiled, which sent my heart to racing. Then there was a lull in the crowd, I grabbed the railing with my left hand and the bike with my right, announced my intention to leap, then jumped down onto the spindly metal walkway below, my bike narrowly missing a group of people who were waiting at the bottom of the slide.

The walkway was narrow and so I had to hold my bicycle out over the water as I squeezed past people. At one point, my buttocks were pressed up against the face of a young woman with dark hair and a red shirt, and I apologized to her verbally, trying to explain away the size of my buttocks by saying ”Sorry I have… jungle butt.” Someone in the crowd said “yo that’s racist,” at which point I stopped to apologize, then turned back to find a dark-skinned man with a hi-top fade afro haircut and round spectacles giving me a peculiar grin. I smiled at him then opened the glass door to the tunnel that would lead be back out to the street. Into the tunnel was built a food-court that was packed with people. On a row of tall stools on the left-hand side sat a dozen people wearing red shirts and white hats who all looked up at me as I came inside. Holding my bicycle aloft with my right hand I started easing my way through the crowd. A male figure behind complained out loud that I had touched him with the bike, his girlfriend reaching out to soothe his anger by putting a hand on his chest. The man got madder as I kept walking away from him, to which I responded by telling him “I’ll be outside by the curb in about two minutes. If you want to make something of it, meet me there.” I finally made it to the sidewalk, made sure everything attached to my bike was still in place as I waited for a minute for the man to come out, the rode away.

[ americanifesto / 場黑麥 / jpr / urbanartopia / whorphan ]

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March 28th, 2018

3/28/2018

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March 27th, 2018

3/27/2018

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Stayed in bed this morning until 713 am, having snoozed my alarm clock twice before disabling it. Once up, I did my morning supplications then sat down to meditate for nearly a half hour, building qi energy in the dantien and slowly clearing the mind until it was under my control. Then, did my travel yoga routine with standing poses. Sat down for breakfast at 855 am.

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returning for Wotan

3/21/2018

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The successes of yesterday have continued into today. I awoke early, made my bed, said my supplications, did all 12 steps of QIgong meditation, and then did most of the first half of the first course of Ana Forrest Daily Intensives. Sitting down to write, I noticed that Vishuddha was still hot and bright, even though I had tried working with and breathing intensely into it during my yoga practice. (Perhaps the reason it was so bright and hot is because I was working with it during practice.)

Encasing it in a box of loving swastikas changed things, as did a conscious effort to define the area of the 5th chakra and keep it from overwhelming (primarily the left-hand, rear quadrant of) the Anahata or 4th chakra. Since confining the Vishuddha the rate at which self-shaming and self-loathing thoughts occur has dropped considerably from a few every minute to one or two an hour. The intensity of the self-sabotage has changed as well, moving from mind-enveloping strength to easily ignored numbness.

Part of my shift in self-perception has been thanks to Chapter 8 from the Tao Te Ching (translation by Jonathan Star): The best way to life is to be like water For water benefits all things and goes against none of them It provides for all people and even cleanses those places a man is loath to go In this way it is just like Tao. This morning’s dreams included many people sitting around talking in a large wooden courtroom, with at least three of the persons present being closely watched over by uniformed guards (who were always positioned in such a way as to have their backs turned toward me).

[ americanifesto / 場黑麥 / jpr / urbanartopia / whorphan ]

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updates from Monday

3/20/2018

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Yesterday was rough going until about noon. I was experiencing considerable shame and torment over the call with my sister the previous night, feeling terribly about how it seemed that my foul spirits had ruined her good mood. Upon sitting down to meditate I couldn’t even hold my concentration in the Dantien for more than a few seconds before my attention leapt back up to the Vishuddha / Ajna for a round of vicious abuse of myself or others. Using Inner Child exercises outlined by Gloria Steinem as well as strategies for dealing with Stuck-Energy as taught by Ana Forrest (in the Forrest Yoga teachers’ manual), I started consciously probing into the 2nd and 3rd chakras. Once I had gained a sense of what type of energetic being was inhabiting each zone (they differed from one another greatly, the one in the Manipura moving from a dark cloud to a curled-up child, the one in the Swadhisthana being nearly impossible to pin down beyond a sense that there was something there) I imagined moving loving energy down into the area from the Anahata while clearing out its smoggy bits using sharp exhales. Speaking out loud and directly into the 3rd chakra, on my sister’s suggestion I examined all the consequences of my tendency to self-sabotage, the hurt and pain and suffering it causes. Also, I acknowledged the various pieces of information stored in or coming from the Manipura while asking myself from whom I had learned to speak to myself primarily (and others secondarily) in such an angry, spiteful, and cruel way. Without ado the answer came: my father had spoken to me in said manner and I have been perpetuating his initial programming lo these nine years since he passed away. I then took the time to thank the element within the Manipura for doing what it thought was necessary while also letting it know that I will support it as it lets go of that learning and adopts new strategies for coping with life’s shifting demands. Immediately after this work I became very tired, physically and mentally. (This work took place at roughly 3 pm.) On the evening of the 19th I was able to meditate for a good fifteen minutes, my concentration hardly wavering from the region of the 2nd chakra. I decided to quit using my nicotine vaporizer with the first day of spring, mostly for health reasons but partly because I’m out of fluids and don’t want to spend money on buying more. On the morning of 20 Mar 2018, I had a succession of dreams during different periods of sleep. The first dream occurred in the period before my alarm went off at 444 am. I was in a tall, intact tower (built of glass and steel into at least seven sections), with a young person who at times wore the face of my nephew. Each section of the tower was essentially an open-air, glass-walled balcony hanging from a central torus. We were getting ready to move from the 3rd to the 2nd section of the tower via the elevator when I lost him in the crowd of people. Once on the elevator I was desperate to get down to the 2nd section, hoping I’d find him there, but a woman was using her left foot to block the door. I would lean down to hammer at the ‘close door‘ button, and each time I stood back up again, less of her was in the car until she was finally outside fully and the car was heading downward. A part of me knew she was waiting for a handicapable person who needed time to get to the lift but another part of me was frantic to find the young person I’d misplaced somewhere. Then, suddenly, I was on a grassy hill a half-kilometer from the building glassing it with binox, talking with an unseen figure sitting to my left rear about where the young person could be as I swept the building looking for his face.
The second dream occurred after I had been up for a half hour drinking green tea and getting ready to meditate. I was listening for information from the 3rd and 2nd about what to do when I got this clear message: We need rest; go back to sleep. Soon after laying back down I was dreaming of flying over a volcanic landscape in a makeshift winged bus with several other people. I was sitting in the way back watching the scarred landscape pass by below us, a great field of circular eruption-sites made up of hardened black lava. We were coming in for a landing on the main road of a small country town sitting atop a steep hill. On the road in front of us was horse-drawn cart that was trying desperately to get out of our way. The driver of the bus was yelling and cursing, at the horse-cart, which made clear just in time. Out makeshift airplane touched down barely a couple of hundred feet before the end of the road and a line of tall trees. At the last moment the pilot steered the plane to the right and brought us to a halt, which prompted me to applaud. The rest of the people in the airplane applauded with me but some of them asked why I had started at all, and I explained that his last-minute turn to the right had saved us. The others were not impressed.

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some Sunday successes

3/18/2018

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Instead of snoozing my alarm clock at 444 am this morning I mistakenly disabled it. With pleasure however I experienced intensive dreams until I finally awoke at 620 am. In my dreams I was in a familiar structure having powwows with various aspects of my psyche and awoke of my own accord. Upon getting out of bed I immediately made it (success #1), did my morning supplications in Balinese ceremonial gear (success #2), then sat down to have a cup of hot green tea with salt and honey (prepared the previous evening). A quiet part of me was noting the time and urging me to skip meditation but I sat down anyway at roughly 640 am to work through all twelve steps of Northern Taoist Qigong meditation (success #3). Due to having finished out my dreaming my mind was relatively clear and I could with ease bring my attention and Qi out of the 6th (Ajna) and 5th (Vishuddha) chakras back down where they belong, to the 2nd (Swadhistana ) and 3rd (Manipura) chakras.

Once that was finished I sat back down at my desk to have another cup of (now less hot) green tea. Without much inner conflict about what time it was or whether or not I had enough energy for yoga I plugged in the external loudspeaker, booted up my netbook, and started the 5th day of Ana Forrest Intensive yoga classes (which is discontinued; for available classes, see here for DVDs or here for streaming ). I was able to make it 45 minutes into the class, just before the 3rd round of salutations, before inner struggle overwhelmed me and I shut the computer. Though I didn't do the full class I still consider the practice a success (#4).

After feeding and walking the dog I made breakfast of one chicken's egg fried in Canola oil with white onion as well as 1/2 cup of crunchy raisin bran with 1/3 cup of granola from Aldi topped with a tablespoon of quality peanut butter. At 900 am I finally sat down to write. Huzzah!

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update of today's successes

3/16/2018

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This morning I hit the snooze button twice, starting at 4:44 am. I'm using an alarm clock application that requires me to solve two mathematics problems (83 - 44 = ?) before being able to snooze or disable the alarm, which forces my brain to work as soon as I'm up and prevents me from blindly going back to sleep.

After making my bed (success #1) and donning my Balinese ceremonial gear in order to perform morning the standard supplications (success #2), I sat down to compose myself. Very tired due to unresolved dreams (and debating whether or not to go back to sleep), I had my pre-meditation cup of green tea (with salt and honey), refrained from using my mobile phone, then sat down to meditate at 5:30 am. After finishing all twelve steps of the Qigong meditation known as Lien Ching Hwa Chi, i.e. Turning Ching Energy Into Chi Energy (success #3), I had a second cup of tea and again refrained from using my mobile phone. As I had barely made it through meditation, my mind consumed with concerns about present, past, and future, I was at a struggle point and upset with myself for not living up to my full potential. Eschewing a full Forrest Yoga class I spread out my mat and did my travel routine: forward bend, 2 twists, 3 rounds of abdominals (8 times each), bridge, dolphin, suns (8), pigeon, spinal twist, Achilles stretch, and corpse pose (success #4).

By 8:05 am I was out making breakfast - one egg fried in Canola oil with white onions, 1/2 cup of raisin bran with 1/2 tablespoon of quality peanut butter. Then, I made more green tea with salt and honey, voided my bowels, and sat down to write until 11:30 am, at which point I'll prepare my lunch then go blog at the public library while it cooks in the rice cooker.

Mahalo, and aho!

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dreamscape writing 1 Mar 2018

3/1/2018

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[This dream occurred after I had gone back to sleep following my morning thankfulness ceremony, having eschewed my morning meditation practice due to poor sleep and being in a foul mood.]

I and a handful of others were in a steam locomotive working our way through a long system of tunnels. We’d come far already, having traveled a great distance under what felt like a vast mountain. Reaching a fork in the path, the train split into two part, each with its own locomotive. From an initial position at the front of the first loc my perspective switched to the cow-catcher on the second engine, from where I could see and hear the engineers running them talking to one another. The first loc was driven by a dark-faced man, the second by a woman with dark hair. They were both wearing World War 1 style doughboy helmets and had to duck back into their compartments repeatedly due to the tightness of the translucent white tunnels through which we passed. (The tunnels were open at parts, bisected here and there by pillars that seemed organic, as if they’d grown into place.) The trains rapidly decelerated, and the female driver informed her counterpart that the tracks stopped just up ahead.

At least five people left the trains and walked into a large cavern located at the tracks’ terminus. Both tunnels opened up into the cavern via vaulted passageways. The rear and side walls of the cavern were of rough-hewn, living stone about five meters high and ten meters wide. Its ceiling was shored up by rough timber scaffolding and sloped in a rounded fashion downward from the rear wall forward, which I could see had a door of wooden planks set into it, locked with heavy iron chains. (The cavern was shaped like the quarter of a cylinder.) I and the others began to explore the cavern, finding a running spring to our left (protected by a rusted iron fence whose gate stood open) and four separate raised garden beds, two on each side with a shallow trough running between them. I began planning out where we could sleep and in which beds we could plant crops. As the others continued to explore, I floated over and examined the locked door, at which point I discovered that some of the planks had fallen aside, revealing through a square of intact mosquito netting (set into a framework painted red) a suburban street beyond (the street was one located on a hill above UCLA in Westwood, CA). Our group rejoiced upon finding that our journey was nearly complete.

Using a power-drill I then began to try to pull out the large screws that secured the chains to the crude planks of the door. They were slotted screws and my bit kept slipping, as I was using a Phillips-head. Suddenly, I and two other unseen presences were sitting on a vast mudflat which stretched ahead of us for at least five hundred meters, terminating in a coastal road with tall green mountains rising above it. The screws I was trying to undo secured not a door but chains wrapped around a gambling machine the size of a 1980s boombox. The machine had slots for coins and bills, the jackpot being a million dollars. I asked one of the others for a dollar to feed into the jackpot slot and was rebuffed. Attached to the rear, right-hand side of the gambling machine were various removable implements such as a multitool and an old-fashioned label maker, both of which slotted neatly in grooves designed for them. (The label maker was marked with the numbers, 1, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13, 19, and others.) I was attaching a slotted screw-bit to the multitool (for some reason, it featured a low-quality, full-sized steak knife), removing other tools so that I could manipulate the screws using the short bit. At that point the seawater started to rise around us and I patted my left pants pocket, dismayed to find my mobile phone located there. The unseen others and I grabbed the gambling machine and scattered tools and rushed for a mound of mud behind us, at which point I saw at least two others, the dark-haired woman and a man, bathing in a pool of blood-red liquid to our left. (We became halfway submerged before reaching the mound, which caused me to fear for my mobile phone and plan for ways to dry it out using rice.) Once reaching higher ground, a blond-haired woman jumped carelessly into the aforementioned, gated spring, which now filled a deep basin of tan sandstone, the roof and one of the sidewalls of the cavern having disappeared. The dark-haired woman, still dripping with red fluid, entered the pool as well. When she resurfaced her hair was also blond. I turned to look at the far shore and reckoned it would take us at least an hour to swim over to it, the mudflats upon which we’d been sitting have been entirely filled up by the sea.

[ americanifesto / 場黑麥 / jpr / urbanartopia / whorphan ]

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dreamscape writing 29 Mar 2018

March 28th, 2018

March 27th, 2018

returning for Wotan

updates from Monday

some Sunday successes

update of today's successes

dreamscape writing 1 Mar 2018

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