The most beautiful people we have known are those who have known defeat, known suffering, known struggle, known loss, and have found their way out of the depths. These people have an appreciation, a sensitivity, and an understanding of life that fills them with compassion, gentleness, and a deep loving concern. They are the beautiful angels living among us. ~ Elizabeth Kubler Ross

fear & loathing

'We are all wired into a survival trip now. No more of the speed that fueled that 60's. That was the fatal flaw in Tim Leary's trip. He crashed around America selling "consciousness expansion" without ever giving a thought to the grim meat-hook realities that were lying in wait for all the people who took him seriously... All those pathetically eager acid freaks who thought they could buy Peace and Understanding for three bucks a hit. But their loss and failure is ours too. What Leary took down with him was the central illusion of a whole life-style that he helped create... a generation of permanent cripples, failed seekers, who never understood the essential old-mystic fallacy of the Acid Culture: the desperate assumption that somebody... or at least some force - is tending the light at the end of the tunnel.'

Among other things, you’ll find that you’re not the first person who was ever confused and frightened and even sickened by human behavior. You’re by no means alone on that score, you’ll be excited and stimulated to know. Many, many men have been just as troubled morally and spiritually as you are right now. Happily, some of them kept records of their troubles. You’ll learn from them—if you want to. Just as someday, if you have something to offer, someone will learn something from you. It’s a beautiful reciprocal arrangement. And it isn’t education. It’s history. It’s poetry. ~ J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye

prism'd
under ancient spirals of light
I am earth
I am hope
I am love
I am omnipresent
I am

I am infinite. I am.

his breath folded eternity onto my lips..

...he left my love to die in the mo(u)rning light
as if I was only meant to be no more than a memory
my tired eyes glazed in onyx corseted fire
shattered in whispers
scarlet lips humming in the tones of black

time colors the perception of memory

Power, Freedom & Grace. chapter 2 - who am I?

we are infinite consciousness with a localized point of view. & yet our whole system of thought divides the observer from the observed; it divides the infinite consciousness into a world of objects separated by space & time. the intellect imprisons us in a cage of fictitious images, a suffocating web of space, time & causation. as a result we lose touch with the true nature of our reality, which is powerful, immortal & free.

we are all prisoners of the intellect. & the intellect's mistake in one simple sentence is this: It mistakes the image of reality for reality itself. it squeezes the soul into the volume of a body, into the span of a lifetime, & the spell of mortality is cast. the image of the self overshadows the unbounded Self, & we feel cut off or disconnected from infinite consciousness, our source. this is the beginning of fear, the onset of suffering, & all of the problems of humanity, from our minor insecurities to our major catastrophes, such as war, terrorism, & all other acts of human degradation. to one who is trapped in the prison of the intellect, all is indeed suffering. but the cause of suffering can be adverted. ignorance of our real nature causes the inner self to be obscured, but when ignorance is destroyed, the powerful, unbounded nature of the inner self is revealed.