In Defence of Sleep: Regenerative Sleep Cycles of Archaic Man

“In the age of the rude beginnings of culture, man believed that he was discovering a second real world in dream, and here is the origin of all metaphysics. Without dream, mankind would never have had occasion to invent such a division of the world.” From Nietzsche’s Human, All-Too-Human, aphorism no. 5 

 There's a great lesson I have learned during the writing of this arts weblog resting on the role of the unconscious in the creative life. Firstly, let it be said that this weblog is a compendium of writings, research and dialogue on the wealth of inner inspiration that all of humanity possesses by the sheer facts of physiology: we dream. 

I have learned this basic lesson: sometimes in a person's life, they must be allowed to rest. Occasionally, every person must be allowed to sleep to bear witness to the whole nature of their lives inside and out, to witness the natural course of their consciousness as it dips and lingers in unconscious and semi-conscious states. Are we prepared for this timeless need? 

Truly, depending on the individual, one may require years of extended sleep cycles, to allow the mind to explore the natural caverns of its own self-regeneration through the deep psychic image-language of our internal/eternal life that lies exposed only when the body is at full rest. I can imagine that in more matured human histories and traditions, the seed power of meditation engages the body/mind in a life of inner exploration, even more profoundly restful and intuitive than the subconscious dream state. 

As we are not keen, and even unable, to allow the natural course of our inner lives to take hold and draw us inward for much needed psychological rejuvenation, there is imbalance in the world. So, we are guided by a higher power we sometimes call fate, or even God, but in both realities, is actually the seed of our own imaginative creativity too deeply buried to receive the light of our conscious recognition, reflection and inspiration. 

The old, or second world, that Nietzsche refers to in Human, All Too Human, has been divided and cut off from human life in an age of serious neglect, ignorance and escape from our own inner natures. Thus, there is imbalance, and we continue to deny that we are human, all too human. 

___________

What a massive elevator! I arrive at a doorstop to a metallic behemoth of elevation. Inside, a group of stewardesses welcome with open smiles. As I step inside, I am filled with anxiety. Am I ready to ascend to such heights? The levers at the side of the door are reminiscent of a plane cockpit. With a hefty forward heave, one lady initiates our ascent. The ground of Earth is suddenly imbued with an all-pervasive light. 

Light Paint by Rjcastillo

Huddled in a corner, fearing for my life. I notice the elevator has stopped rising. Has it been hours? Days? Years? I had gone blind, deaf and nearly faced death by astonishment as the incredible rise continued unceasingly. I am weak. I can barely look out into the world, whatever world lies beyond the doors at this elevation. The stewardesses are machine-faced, and continue to smile with an unsettling clone-like smirk. I need to descend. This is not my stop. My brain and face go brittle with overstimulated light energy pouring in through the walls, and it's overwhelming. Suddenly, I can't breathe. I am stunned. 

abstract photography by Getüm

Mysteriously, I am back at ground level in the blink of an eye. Looking into the doors of the elevator, the stewardesses welcome with their inhuman smiles, pasted like ice sculptures under their empty eyes. Do I board again? Can I rise this time? Or, return to the world? 

____________

Observing the skull-emancipated wisdom,
Risking vertigo and the sure endless night
Bringing sugar, tea and a companion’s brethren tide,
Bracing a felt language

excerpt from "Manual speech, a felt language"

To War or To Peace? Dream Meditations of Cicero

The Young Cicero Reading by Vincenzo Foppa

"Here I had the following dream, occasioned, as I verily believe, by our preceding conversation—for it commonly happens that the meditation and discourse which employ us in the day time, produce in our sleep an effect somewhat similar to that which Ennius writes happened to him about Homer, of whom in his waking hours he used frequently to think and speak.

My ancestor Africanus, I thought, appeared to me in a shape, with which I was better acquainted from his picture, than from any personal knowledge of him. When I perceived it was he, I confess I trembled with consternation—but he addressed me, saying, take courage, my Scipio, be not afraid, and carefully remember what I shall say to you.

...put an end to a most dangerous war."

The Reluctance of Scipio by Sebastiano Ricci

From the final surviving fragments of Cicero's Republic, translated by Francis Barham in where Cicero concludes the great struggle encountered by Scipio Africanus or Scipio the African to defend Rome from Hannibal's Carthage, when through his dreaming, he contemplates in himself the rivalries of human glory, outmatched by the revelries of spiritual splendour at witnessing the great battles raging in the firmament above, whose harmonies and glories far surpass the slight human presence on Earth in relative light.

I could not help casting my eyes every now and then on the earth. On which, says Africanus, I perceive you are still employed in contemplating the seat and residence of mankind. Now if it appears to you so small, as in fact it really is, despise its vanities, and fix your attention for ever on these heavenly objects. Is it possible that you should attain any human applause or glory that are worth the contending for?

Through a spiritual humility and an intellectual prowess, Cicero aligns with the famous wisdom of Blake, where he echoes, "all deities reside in the human breast" from Cicero's prose, "Know, then, that you are a god—for a god it must be that vivifies, and gives sensation, memory, and foresight to the body to which it is attached, and which it governs and regulates..."

A Dream by William Blake
___________

Absolutely ridiculous head of hair, a laughable explosion of tangling fibers, uprooted death spindly and matted, and it grows. Within seconds, my entire face is hair and the dimming light of two eyes, buried in a mishmash of unwashed, lifeless ending. My half-toothless smile goes unseen.

Nebuchadnezzar by William Blake

And at the spring, a fellow isolate, pioneer of the mountainous wood, leads me with caution to the entrance of a water-born cave. A sable hollow, overrun with an immense flooding, an abundance of water only rivaled by my superfluous crown. The mountain cliffs, almost as sheer as leant towers of the modern world, embrace my energetic merriment as I peer over the rapid face and into the swallowing gorge ahead. Here, I know the meaning of possibility, losing my reflection over the quickened flow.

__________

What shared outpouring wore down the iris and pupil
of the already blind
          And cut out of the legs from the paralyzed
          street of ghost walkers
                   Who hang onto passerby cars
                   with historical envy and thick desire
                             In the burning legs
                             that carry our men and women home
                                        From the taxes of war
                                        In terrorist fires
                                                  Exploding
                                                  across the Fourth of July

                                                  skies

                                                  Crying for Chinese tears
                                                  to put out the flame
                                                           With workhorse hands
                                                            Bleeding
                                                            over the Maoist grave
                                                                      A permanent red

To divulge in a communal sense of suffering
           With the Islamic world
                     Now enmeshed in divided hatred
                     with their Asian brothers

- excerpt from "Improvisational Brevity in the Public Eye"

To Dream Is To Conceive An Other

"I had a dream also before you were conceived which was quite interesting, there was a being there standing in the corner, it was a male, and said to me in the dream, said, 'please will you give me a place in your body.'" - Mother of Tulku, from the film by Gesar Mukpo

I have a friend whose named their first son a Tibetan name after she reportedly had seen the child himself appear in full bodily form prior to conception, asking if he could be born through her. Is he a Tulku? What does this say about the mother? Do you have any similar experiences, first-hand or otherwise? 

As a reclusive student of Buddhism, who became delightfully initiated into Green Tara devotions with a Rinpoche Geshe Lobsang Tsetan at a chance meeting, and in that series of meditational initiations befriended a forest hermit who's been a lifelong supporter of my work ever since, I will add my opinion on tulkuhood (please see my Green Tara Post for more). 

In my reading and meditation, I see Buddhism as an enlightened practice of seeing, in the way that Joseph Campbell saw myth as creative perception, and the way that Terrence McKenna saw shamanistic hallucination as an archaic mode of seeing through the phenomenal nature of human subjectivity.

In other words, I see tulkuhood as a universal expression of a natural phenomenon that is experienced every day, in every moment, by every one always. That easily said, without having redacted with much scholarship on the matter, I can humbly reflect on the notion that a Tulku is simply the ancient wisdom of indiscriminate practice, which resides in all social and personal forms, within all sentient beings. 

_______

We met in bars, malls, cafes, and sidewalk parks. The entire time, it was as though we met in the privacy of his home, even more, in the secrecy of his mind. He had let me into his imagination of himself. The way he was so sweet, surreal. Figments of smiles and laughter lit up our shared space as from a shared brain. He spoke with a borrowed voice.

The duplex works well for me, a single man on one side, my best friend and his family on the other. One day, they show me their leaking roof, a madhouse of water and anxiety. Unable to help, we attend a nearby gathering, an awe-inspiring array of human diversity, as an earmarked page in an unassuming book. A busker presents his CD release. On a new accordion, he plays the delight of all, while my best friend retreats back into our house, ready to subsume the difficulties of an entrenched domestic struggle. I continue on through the peopled havoc, stirring blindly with blissful listening and warm-hearted aspirations, to embrace the heart of our local culture and be drawn into its imperfect cultivation.

This is the last day, he said. No visitation, no indrawn temptation, not a flicker of need. What happened? I decided to see for myself, the state of this new loving presence, his shape-shifting personality beckoned me, although I had not seen another side, I knew his face does change.

Entering his house, no one welcomes me. Walking up the austere mahogany stairway, the banister is buffed and shining with inestimable taste. The doorway to a study is slightly open. A deep, unwavering silence overtakes my curiosity, I am driven through with the pain of loss, a reality I had known all along, though served so politely, mind-to-mind by the loving acquaintance. He sits at a high leather chair, bearded as not before with elder white beard, square-faced and unmoving. His countenance, exposed in the antiquated sepia light, is only recognizable as an acrid tinge of sentiment and memory, subtly issuing as from within, between our speechless minds. The instant is nigh, as he looks at me, stone-faced, an unseen floodgate opens from his untamed eyes. Then it fades and I leave, pained with eternal mystery of who.

_______

Age

"To dream of age, portends failures in any kind of undertaking." (iDream)

When I read the dream above, I immediately think of McKenna's statement, "you become unrecognizable to yourself" 

_______

donating beautiful soundless hearts
through world music motion

our one universal language emotion
& the commonly evolved ground broken through violent social awareness

meant to survive generations
with the traumatic blessing of the great earthly groan

from
MA, virgin, temptress,

my Kuan Yin

- excerpt from "I drank in the stupor"

On another poetic note: check out my latest publication, a very buddhistic haiku posted today on Marco Polo Arts Mag

Weathering Tornados from The Lover's Music

Vi An Music

"If we go somewhere on foot, we know the way perfectly, whereas if we go by car or airplane, we are hardly there at all. It becomes merely a dream." 

Excerpt from "Meditation in Action" by Chogyam Trungpa

_______

On my way to see my Love! She’s giving a presentation in a high tower, what a glorious teacher she is, a teacher in secret, with hidden wisdom and enlightening prophecy leaking clean out of a package of such humble eloquence.

The road is dry in the warm, new summer air. I see a woodwind shop to my left. A Xaphoon, hanging in the wall! Why, I do have one at home, but that one looks so beautiful today! I have been enjoying this instrument so very much, but I think I’ll have to buy another for the special occasion that is this day. In the shop, a saleswoman is short with me. No extra conversation ensues despite my attempts after I’ve decided on their only functioning Xaphoon. For the $30 I walk away with my new instrument, smiling quaintly in sweet visions for the day, gaily in love.

I arrive to the towering silver building. Strangely, I decide on the stairs. Massive windows bedeck the entirety of the walls, the low plains stretch as a mercilessly singular mural throughout. I find the room of my love’s presentation. There she is; a ghost of decadence, beauty, a word in her honor, is unready for its true name. In her presence I am light with the fresh gold of summer dreams. Her hair is bunched and flowing, the gargantuan black mass swells and streams down her side as a mythical waterfall of visceral lust, untouched and unrivaled by any substance beside. As I move in closer to her, weary as not to interrupt her occasion, a mirror image of her hair in the sky appears!

A black, icy fleece of cloud boils upside-down into the gleaming pasture, a wild tornado approaches! “This is a building of glass!” I scream weakly and run alone back into the stairwell to find sanctuary. The tornado crashes violently. A 9/11 of natural law brews gravely in the high destruction. The crude aftermath burns with electric ash as the ruins fume, awaiting the ever-darkening sky for yet another whiplash. Too afraid to return above, I journey onward outside of the city core, with instrument in hand, I dreamily invoke the unmoved trust of community in the survivalist reign of mounting fear from the shape-shifting sky above. Human vibrancy responds coolly in the aftermath of lost pain.

_________

Tornado

"If you dream that you are in a tornado, you will be filled with disappointment and perplexity over the miscarriage of studied plans for swift attainment of fortune...Tornadoes in dreams suggest you are very angry about a current situation and are afraid to express your feelings - which you need to do - for fear of hurting others."

________

Echoes from the polar wisdom of our earthly rotation
unraveling the truth in the thousand-worded letter
and pictographs of ethereal meaning
climbing through the bowels of a holy mountain
to the void of spiritual absence
in the land of prophets
unheard since ancient words lifted
to the ceiling of the temple built before time

On the sands of the strong & fuming,
leaving no one to posit an older order of belief

In sky temples & borders that signal friendship
enmity awaits in the selfish vine
a mark where the western mind strayed too far
to become its own enemy
in the reflexive mold of war
for basic rights.

- excerpt from "Royalty of the Weird" 

Dream of Phra Khru Bah Neua Chai Kositto

Buddhist art in Cambodia by Pwordissony

"I only remember the times I lost...I lost only four times. Most of the time I won with a knock out. I must have had many hundreds of opponents. But I became tired of fighting...for many different reasons. Tired of the whole scene.

And then one of my closest friends was killed in a car accident...and I started to wonder when it is my time to die...would I have achieved peace of mind?

The last time I boxed...was on December 20th, 1990. A month later...after having a vivid dream...I became a monk.

The moment I became a monk, my heart and mind changed...I felt a great calm that I just couldn't explain...I ended up sitting on a rock for 15 days and 15 nights.

I felt such a peace...and then a swarm of bees...built a nest around me and I couldn't move.

It was like a dream in which...the forest was filled with wise men...who taught me their Buddhist ways...When I finally awoke after the 15 days...the sun was bright and the bees were gone.

So I walked further into the hills and saw the villages there. I saw how poor the hill tribe people were.. and I saw their drug addiction. And I asked myself why were their lives so difficult?...why did they have such sorrow?"

from the documentary film "Buddha's Lost Children"