So here I was listening to Sleep’s “Holy Mountain” while compiling a statement of cash flows when I decided to learn more about the band. One of the original members left? To become an Orthodox monk? And started what is surely the most metal zine ever created by Christians, let alone monks? Wow…
To be involved in the economy is to be materially implicated in corruption, destruction, and any number of evils. There are no morally pure enterprises. Follow the money long enough and you will find the corruption.
There is no standpoint of purity. What you can do, however, is keep your conscience alive. You will still be implicated in evil, but you will at least face the fact and do what you can. While it will never feel like enough, it’s better to struggle than to become one of the herd animals.
Sometime it really pays off to be a perpetual student of religion and the occult. Travel, especially, can be unexpectedly transfigured if you equip yourself with a well-honed sacred radar, especially one tuned to animist and esoteric frequencies. With this sort of spirit-tech in hand, or in mind, even banal and hyper-touristy environments can pack a spectral punch.
[… T]he sacred is in the eye of the beholder. I’ve also had convulsive epiphanies at Amsterdam’s Van Gogh Museum, the gritty bare-bones ruins of Eleusis, and a James Turrell Skyspace in Seattle. There is a lesson in this for the sacred tourist: the entire earth is filled with portals.
Lovely post from Elizabeth Oldfield on “the ordinary grandeur of the ways we love each other”
My “make things, not content” t-shirt gets a surprising number of compliments. The number of people who see the sickness in the usual mode of life online and the need for a more embodied experience is not small.
Two ecosystem services provided by humans: gratitude and awareness.
Martin Shaw, Bardskull:
They say the best way to die is to let go of everything. To lack a centre. To lack self-centre. That if you spent a life putting others first then it’s easier to go. I’m not sure I qualify for that sort of ease, but I think I believe the suggestion. And that’s hard for a pagan romantic. I love attachment, I adore it, I sink my fangs into the rump of attachment. I am sensualist, I am driven, I reach out to the world. And one day I will have to reverse that behaviour.
I liked this section but the book was too opaque for me and I didn’t finish it. Which isn’t to say it’s a bad book; it’s just not for me.
Master Hsueh, as quoted in Road to Heaven by Bill Porter:
You can learn the basics anywhere. There are books. As to learning the inner secrets, when your practice reaches a certain level, you’ll meet a teacher. But you can’t be in a hurry. You have to be prepared to devote your whole life to your practice. This is what is meant by religion. It’s not a matter of spending money. You have to spend your life. Not many people are willing to do this. If you’re ready to learn, you don’t have to look for a teacher. A teacher will find you. Taoism is very deep. There’s a great deal to learn, and you can’t do it quickly. The Tao isn’t something that can be put into words. You have to practice before you can understand. Lao-tzu teaches us to be natural. You can’t force things, including practice. Understanding is something that happens naturally. It’s different for everyone. The main thing is to reduce your desires and quiet your mind. Practice takes a long time, and you have to stay healthy. If you have a lot of thoughts and desires, you won’t live long enough to reach the end.
Be patient. Be natural. Reduce your desires. Quiet your mind. Stay healthy.
Taoist and Buddhist shrines in China. Shinto shrines in Japan. Catholic shrines all over Europe. These all fascinate me. Not a lot of shrines in southern Indiana. I want a landscape filled with shrines. I’m not even particular about which gods or spirits. And, no, Walmart and Starbucks don’t count.
Master Hsieh, as quoted in Road to Heaven by Bill Porter:
Lao-tzu said to cultivate tranquillity and detachment. To be natural. To be natural means not to force things. When you act natural, you get what you need. But to know what’s natural, you have to cultivate tranquillity. Huashan has long been famous as a center of Taoism because it’s quiet. There used to be a lot of hermits here But now the mountain has been developed for tourism. The tranquility is gone, and so are the hermits.
In a recent essay, Bob Turner (local Presbyterian pastor) quotes Gordon Hempton (acoustic ecologist) on the difference between silence and quiet:
Real quiet is not the absence of sound [which is the definition of silence] but the absence of noise.