BWB's Cinco de Playa Worldwide Clean Up is taking place this weekend:

http://tinyurl.com/4xknmr



Should be a lovely spring afternoon here in Austin, and we'd love for you to join us!



date/time: Sunday May 4th, 3-5pm



location: Cherrywood Green Park @ Cherrywood & 34th St

http://maps.google.com/maps?q=Cherrywood+Rd+%26+E+34th+St,78722



This is a check-up/maintenance visit, so expect the clean-up to just take a couple hours

(& afterwards, many of us will be going to the Warehouse for DaFT projects)



Just bring your smiling selves and work-gloves if you got 'em...

Saturday Night @ 10pm, I will be playing a gig with Hipnautica... As usual, we have a rotating lineup: this incarnation also features Luke d'Loop on digeridoo and Michael Austinmoore from VAST on bass!



LunaFestATX



What: Multi-Media Festival Art-Music-Fashion-Burlesque-Spoken Word

When: Saturday May 03, 2008

from 10:00 AM to 2:00 AM (all day long & half the night...)

Where: United States Art Authority

2906 Fruth St. (29th and Guadalupe) next to Spider House

Austin, TX 78705

This year @ Burning Flipside, you will be able to find me @ Camp Atlantis...



"Where humanity gets it wrong by your time, is in imagining Atlantis as having any kind of quantifiable existence. Which of course it hasn't; not in the way they imagine anyway. There have been quite a few Atlantises, will be quite a few more. It is just a symbol. A symbol of the art. The true Atlantis is inside you, just as it's inside all of us. The sunken land is lost beneath the dark sea, lost beneath the waves of wet, black stories and myths that break upon the shores of our minds. Atlantis is the shadow-land, the birth-place of civilization. The fair land in the west that is lost to us, but remains forever, true birthplace and true goal."

- Spoken by The Mage-Lord of Atlantis to Timothy Hunter, from "The Books of Magic," by Neil Gaiman & John Bolton (q.v. pp. 27-29)



Starting @ Sunset (8:08pm) next Tuesday (April 29th, 2008), I will be hosting a weekly salon-style discussion group (@ my house: 1702 Romeria Dr. Austin, TX 78757) in order to explore some of these ideas! I have had some great experiences with gathering of, oh... 5-23 people every week to exchange diverse perspectives on the esoteric & mystical realms. For instance, after some searching in late 2004, I began participating in a weekly spirituality discussion group called The Mojo Meeting... which was started by Bean & !Bob (who had a lovely wedding, this past weekend) at their house, and eventually moved to the Warehouse. We started extremely free-form, but we eventually developed a structure where each week, people would show up around 7:30-7:45 & we would start a brief meditation @ 8:00... then, we would discuss a new topic (chosen at the end of the previous week), and after two hours of discussion, we would choose a new topic for the next week, and end with a brief closing ceremony.



So, to suggest a topic to begin with, next week... I thought we might enjoy sharing our fantasies with one another!





--





On that note, I would like to share these words of Randolph Carter, from "The Silver Key" by H.P. Lovecraft:





"Calm, lasting beauty comes only in a dream, and this solace the world had thrown away when in its worship of the real it threw away the secrets of childhood and innocence."





--





And finally, I will close with this contemporary poem in a Neo-Elizabethan tone from Donald Sidney-Fryer, the romantic poet and arcane scholar who "uses the myth of Atlantis as a springboard for both art and artifice"





A Symbol for All Splendor Lost



"Abides nor goal nor ultimate of peace,

Nor lifts a beacon on the cosmic deep

To guide our wandering world on seas sublime . . ."

George Sterling, Sonnets by the Night Sea, I.



No more, no less than Plato's quaint conceit, –

Atlantis, – more than myth, this memory

Of a paradise we may once more complete,

This image of an island empery

Supreme in wealth, extent, antiquity, –

Has now become my own arcanic lore,

But more, a torch deep in eternity,

A symbol for all splendor lost, and more,

A sign for all of loveliness evanished evermore. . . .



Forevermore? Perhaps there shall rise yet in far-off time,–

Beyond this bleak, blind interim of now and nevermore,–

Many a new Atlantis form "the cosmic sea sublime". . . .



And there, perhaps, in future gardens marvellous and vast,

Shall bloom again all splendor and all beauty lost and past.

...:::explored the SF Bay Area, toured Hawaii, sacrificed everything in Phoenix, participated in the Burners without Borders community picnic in Pearlington, and now i'm back in ATX to work with the Burning Flipside Design and Fabrication Team:::...



Before I left Austin, I managed to simplify my life. It took me over two months to do so. In that time, many of my goals metamorphosized. By the time I reached San Francisco, I was completely open for whatever the fates had in store for me and I was energized with enthusiasm. I found a rideshare through craigslist to get out to the West Coast. He was eventually headed back up to work on the Buffalo Field Campaign, and he had adventurous spirit inspired me to trust in my own skills and adaptability to survive and thrive in whatever circumstances I encountered.



So, when I arrived in San Francisco, I was ready for anything. I certainly didn't expect to hook up with a group like The Tantric Circus! As I have said before numerous times, I truly felt honored & blessed to work with such a talented group of individuals. But, after using all of my skills & abilities to the nth degree for three weeks in Hawaii, I felt rather stagnant in the Bay Area. I continued to devote myself to work in the temple space in Oakland that I lived in; but I craved more expansive projects.



The next thing I knew, I was talking with Carmen Mauk, Co-Director of Burners Without Borders, about the plans for a community picnic in Pearlington, Mississippi (where BWB originally went to do disaster relief in 2005, after rebuilding the Vietnamese Buddhist temple in Biloxi), and I knew that I had to go there and participate. However, there weren't any people driving from the West Coast, and I didn't have the money to fly at such a late date. However, there was a group of folks from Austin headed out there!



I met "Oopey, The Evil Superhero" through Craigslist rideshare, and we set out for Austin in his Subaru station wagon. Before we even reached LA, the damn thing started overheating. We took it to a mechanic in CA & they said that they fixed it; but it overheated again around 7 or 8 hours later... about midnight on Easter, while we were driving through Phoenix.



We called AAA & a tow truck took us to the nearest mechanic. All of my luggage was stolen while it was in the lot at the mechanic, waiting to be fixed. There wasn't anything with any real street resale value in any of my bags, but it will cost me thousands of dollars to replace everything... my khaki utilikilt, my Stewart clan weathered hunting tartan & black Prince Charles jacket... my red & blue daishiki... Guatemalan textiles from my Grandmother... my black Marmot hiking jacket with a DPW patch on the left shoulder, a BWB patch on the left breast, and an Antarctic exploration patch on the right shoulder... two tailored dress suits, all of my ties, dress shoes... sigh.



Well, I suppose I needed to make a sacrifice at the crossroads in order to prepare myself for the next phase of my journey... I finally arrived in Austin to meetup with the BWB:ATX crew & headed out to Pearlington MS for the community picnic.



While we were out there, I helped the BWB project to build a bathroom addition for an elderly gentleman who had spent the last couple of years helping other people recover from Katrina and had developed health issues that made him unable to help himself anymore.



Our Pearlington adventures were often quite delightfully surprising... I certainly didn't expect that I would be singing "Ring of Fire" with harmonies from the one-and-only Action Girl, and our videographer, Rob! After our first day of work, we all went out to sing karaoke together in the most delightful dive bar you could imagine, "Turtle Landing" (I must pause to recall that during the BWB:ATX Canyon Lake Cleanup, we encountered Turtle Medicine). I had also never before conceived of, much less tasted fried ravioli... mmmmm, spicy!



The next morning, Tom Price & Pharaoh gave a pep talk to the Americorps volunteers & some of the local youth who were in attendance, and then they proceeded to create burnable art for the next few hours, with the assistance of IQ (another volunteer who came with us from Austin). They made a humanoid effigy, a boat, a castle, a spiral staircase, a really awesome dragon, and finally, they built the scales of justice.



That evening, we had a delicious community potluck with ample meat provided by Patrick... including BBQ brisket & his famous signature Ginger Chicken



We hosted the premiere screening of the final edit of "Burn on The Bayou" to a crowd of about 200 locals, who were overjoyed to see their story displayed on the big screen, when so many people from disaster relief organizations & the media have overlooked them... and no matter what sort of constructive criticism I may be able to provide about any aspect of The Burning Man Project: these people's laughter, tears, and gratitude confirmed for me that this mission was indeed a success.



You can read more about the BWB "Return to The Bayou" project in entries written by Patrick & Carmen @ the Burners Without Borders Blog.



--



One of my best friends had shared a story with me before I left that seems all too real to me, now: Cruising Blues. Perhaps this is not too dissimilar to the lesson that Candide learns at the end of his adventures, "We must cultivate our garden." Or, more to the point, maybe this is an illustration of the essential moral in the Hobbit's tale, "There And Back Again" ...that one can appreciate home all the more after a long adventure!



However, I have always said that home is where my boots are, and I am still feeling a strong nomadic pull in my life. I suppose that I really just want to feel useful, and I will go anywhere I need to in order to participate in a productive project. I have definitely learned much about the human condition and my own particular processes & goals in my recent endeavors, and I will continue to write about these experiences for some time...



In the meantime, I will be devoting myself to the Burning Flipside Design and Fabrication Team, as well as working on some of my own personal projects (and courting a certain special someone ;~}). Last Night's fundraiser for Camp Atlantis was a smashing success, and I look forward to seeing how that project will continue to transform...



--



Before I left the SF Bay area, I attended the premiere screening of Antero Alli's new film, The Invisible Forest. I picked up a copy of the workbook, "Towards an Archeology of the Soul", and I gifted him a set of the divination deck (which I just happened to have with me) that I had created with some friends using his Neuro-Tarot formula. I asked him some questions and he gave me some answers that I will have to describe in another post, entirely...

Tie on your sexiest sarong and come out to Kama Sutra!

Original transglobal electronic music by Govinda and Exstus.



Smoking DJ sets by Ram-Z and Chadman.



Mesmerizing bellydance by Angela Nations, Rania, Angie & Cyndi Seven.



Special beatbox performance by Maestro.



When: Saturday April 5, 2008

Where: Ayers Mansion, 2311 Rogge Lane, Austin TX

$10 donation at the door, BYOB

I am so excited, I can hardly contain myself!

So, I am just staying as busy as I can until I run off & join The Tantric Circus in Maui, HI from February 22th to March 2nd... and then to the Big Island from March 3rd to March 10th!!!

One of the events in which we are participating begins @ 7am on Friday, Feb 22nd, 2008 and ends on Sunday, Feb 24th @ noon:

SOURCE is an interactive art, music, healing and educational celebration of loving community, which will take place on the northeast coast of Maui @ the YMCA Camp overlooking the Keanae Peninsula:



I feel completely honored and blessed to work with The Tantric Circus... I have always been willing to allow my dreams to manifest, yet still accepted whatever the Cosmos had to offer me.

I think that it is in no small part due to this non-attachment to my desires, that I have finally achieved such a serendipity.



I am curious to hear from anyone else out there who wonders if there's something crucial that we're still missing today about the structure of the Universe, or our own bodies... that once we figure it out will someday seem totally obvious to school children?

Once, people were convinced that the Earth was the center of the Unverse; but now we know better... don't we?





Human models of our own solar system have gone through profound transformations throughout time: Ptolemy (Geocentric), Copernicus (Heliocentric with circular orbits and epicycle cheats), Kepler (Heliocentric with elliptical orbits), Newton (Gravity), Einstein (General Relativity)... and it seems to me that the concept of Dark Matter is a rather crucial new development in our understanding of how our Universe functions... perhaps we can also re-Evolve our comprehension of the interaction between our individual bodies and the Cosmos?



With these kinds of paradigm shifts in mind, please enjoy this trailer for Divine Nectar, the film directed by and starring members of The Tantric Circus (If this video is safe for your work, then you have an awesome job):







--





Finally, here are some random notes from my divinations that seemed pertinent, today:





--





This poem is related to Hexagram 50 in "I CHING - The Shamanic Oracle of Change", Palmer, Martin, Ramsay, Jay, Xiaomin, Zhao, Thorsons, London, 1995.





Offering Up:



And can you let it go?

Can you let it be beyond you?

Can you offer it up?



It is hidden in your heart, and your heart knows

This is the sacrifice, and you are it.



Feel it. And it is burning

With the clear flame we call love

That burns off what doesn't belong to it.



Feel it, and it is a jewel

It is the most precious thing you have.



And it is yours - because you gave it.



The flame burns rose in your mind, like wine.



It is the best you have, and you gave it. Can you?





--





This section is from the Judgement of Hexagram 50 (Richard Wilhelm's and Cary F. Baynes translation "I Ching: Or, Book of Changes" [3rd. ed., Bollingen Series XIX, (Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press, 1967, 1st ed. 1950)])





"While THE WELL relates to the social foundation of our life, and this foundation is likened to the water that serves to nourish growing wood, THE CALDRON refers to the cultural superstructure of society. Here it is the wood that serves as nourishment for the flame, the spirit. All that is visible must grow beyond itself, extend into the realm of the invisible. Thereby it receives its true consecration and clarity and takes firm root in the cosmic order."

ok, now i am completely prepared to let go of my material attachments... i am hosting a benefit sale & auction for Burners

Without Borders, all day today & i will be burning a bunch of stuff, tonight.



you are welcome to come over anytime today or tonight... and please bring donations for the flames!



1702 Romeria Dr. ATX 78757

As I have been preparing to leave for the SF Bay Area, to work with Burners Without Borders (BWB), there are a couple of other current events that have prompted me to reflect on my motivations:



...my father is one of the Three Shoes Posse, who have been supporting Ron Paul's presidential campaign.

...some other people I have spoken with are talking about going to help The Republic of Lakota.



(bonus points to anyone who knows the ironic tie these two movements shared in 1988)



--



I have been reflecting upon what it was that I found unsatisfying about political demonstrations in which I participated during the late 80s & early 90s:

...whether I was advocating sex education with ACT-UP...

...or protesting the Gulf War...



It always seemed very difficult to find a way to communicate with large numbers of people about these crucial issues in a way that held their attention (whether it was the media characterizing demonstrators as idealistic hippies or the public reacting to shocking news with complete apathy or adverse fanaticism). So, I retreated to my proverbial ivory tower, in an attempt to devise a method for my messages to reach the widest audience, and still be able to prevent my signal from being jammed. At first, I thought that it would be best to work in secrecy to maintain clarity of the signal; but eventually, I tired of the short range and small audience of hermeticism (although it does have lasting effects). Correspondingly, it seems that attempts to shift the dominant paradigm often meet with distortion and other adversarial reactions. So, I have generally opted to just focus on emphasizing people's similarities and encouraging evolving cooperation. Although I do have friends with a wide variety of worldviews, and I do quite enjoy a reasonable argument... as long as we can agree to disagree concerning our ultimate differences of opinion.



I have definitely had fun working in music, theater, and various festivals in Austin. I have participated in some awesome salons and charrettes. I even had profound experiences of participating in the evolution of ritual in this community, some intentional on my part, and others I discovered serendipitously. As much as I have enjoyed working with creative projects, I still felt that there was something missing. Eventually, I thought that going back to college might feed my desire to contribute to The Great Work; but an opportunity to work in health care (as a patient care coordinator for a psychiatrist specializing in child & adolescent treatment) was too good to pass up (and I felt that I would not be able to simultaneously attend school while working in such a position, with the degree of devotion it required).



Although I have immensely enjoyed my job for the past couple of years, I have still been searching for a method to help build a universal bridge for cultural evolution. I understand that it is difficult but possible to achieve a successful paradigm shift, in which such esoteric goals can be synthesized with the exoteric processes.



I have always been inspired by Thoreau's ideas of civil disobedience, which directly inspired Ghandi's Satyagraha movement in South Africa & India, as well as MLK's contributions to the US civil rights movement. One of the things that seems to have been most important in these movements is that people have some kind of shared world-view. One of the things that I have found most appealing about Burners Without Borders, is that there is at least some sort of a general agreement between us concerning burn culture's principles (aka the "10 most popular" guiding concepts). It seems that this general agreement helps Do-Ocracy really work! Although perhaps it also has something to do with the very nature of emergency management, and the personalities of those who engage in it. But I must say that I appreciate the overall respect which is prevalent in our relationships with those with whom we interact, as well as the environment. I was reminded of the "Turtle Medicine" from the BWB:ATX project @ Canyon Lake, when I read the BWB Peru FAQ, and I noticed a pertinent section... specifying that volunteers are "invited and expected to contribute as you would if you were putting on a family reunion - where everyone is participating in making it happen. This is a disaster area and the needs and actions change constantly. You will need to be flexible and adaptable to changing situations. We will expect you to come with your problem-solving hat on and encourage you to take initiatives when appropriate." I rather appreciate the opportunity to engage in mutually beneficial and self-organizing systems... and BWB will definitely continue to provide such opportunities!



For instance, in order to help provide relief from the recent earthquakes in Peru... so far, we have raised over $5,000! Our project manager, Sam Bloch, said that (among many other needed items), we need a flatbed truck, which costs $5,000 (having this valuable resource would make the biggest impact at this time). We also need a cement mixer that will cost $2,000 (this will get people into homes a lot quicker).



If anyone out there is willing to donate even $5-20, I will happily supply you with a box full of awesome treasures from my personal collection (which I am liquidating in order to help generate funds)... these donations could add up quickly and really make a difference!



Please come by my house on Sunday, for the auction to benefit BWB or just to visit, and I will happily gift you all kinds of things in any case!

Okay, so I have a great deal of treasures left & I want to let go of my material attachments before I move to the San Francisco Bay Area.

So, I have decided that the best thing I can do at this point is to auction things off for charity.

And since I am moving the the SF Bay Area to help Burners Without Borders, anyway... I figure that I might as well show up with a donation for the cause!



I am going to pack up everything that I am keeping this week, and auction off whatever is left over (there will be a great deal remaining).

The way the auction will work is that I will set a reserve price for an item (or lot) @ approximately 20% of it's fair market value... & if the reserve price is not met, I will give it away to a local charity! And if the charitable organizations won't accept the stuff, I will burn it!

I'm serious.



What sort of items am I talking about?

How about:

...an original drawing of Captain America by Daniel Johnston, that hung behind the counter @ Record Exchange (aka Sound Exchange) until they closed their doors (current highest bid $200)!

...all three issues of the comic story arc in which The Silver Surfer & Galactus made their first appearances, Fantastic Four #48-50 (reserve $86)!

...a stack of the actual underground paste-pot propaganda used to promote the film, Slacker... including an attached chunk of wall paint with graffiti of J.R. "Bob" Dobbs' sacred pipe (reserve $69)!

...an entire shelf of James Joyce literature & academic analysis (current highest bid $42)!

...a vast array of Cthulhoid Tomes, Artifacts, & Relics (current highest bid $23)!

...practically all of the toys that were made of Queen Amidala from Star Wars: Episode One... The Phantom Menace (reserve $16)!

...a Yamaha SHS-10 keytar, perfect for circuit bending (current highest bid $23)

...a vinyl picture Disc of Boy George & Culture Club's "Colour By Numbers" Album that is begging to be made into a clock (reserve $5)!



Deadline for the Auction is next Sunday, January 6th, 2008 @ Sunset (5:45PM).



I am still sorting through many more things, much of it beyond your wildest imagination (...including books, games, music, videos, comics, cards, toys, clothes, posters, zines, electronics, musical instruments, kitchen wares, furniture, etc...), which can still be simply outright purchased from me before the auction (in fact, if you come over & help me sort through some of it, I'll be happy to give you stuff!); but once I post a specific item online asking for bids, its status as an auction item is final! All of it must go by Sundown, next Sunday! I will be leaving once & for all, later that week.



If you are interested in seeing anything in person, I will host an open house from noon until sunset on Sunday, January 6th, 2008 (at my house: 1702 Romeria Dr. ATX 78757).



Until then, I will accept bids & inquiries by email (aethyrflux -=at=- gmail -=dot=- com), by phone (my number is five billion, one hundred & twenty-five million, seven hundred & thirty-six thousand, four hundred & seventy), or in person (you can even come & see stuff @ my house by appointment). But, please don't wait until the last minute to bid... just tell me what you're willing to pay and by what increments you would like the price increased by & I will keep track (just like that well-known online service, but without the fees!)... I will even post the current highest bids, as soon as I receive them! If you bid earnestly but you don't win something you really wanted, I'll be happy to give you a consolation prize. So, let's be reasonable, shall we?



All proceeds from the auctions will be donated to fund disaster relief efforts & other contributions to sustainability through Burners Without Borders!



If you don't want any of my valuable treasures, but you still want to donate to Burners Without Borders, just click here for Paypal:

And thank you!!!





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1995 Crown Victoria: 101K miles

White w/ Blue ragtop



It runs, but the automatic transmission slips intermittantly.



Otherwise, the power windows aren't working, there's no stereo, and there are a couple of dents in the body.



I am moving to San Francisco, so I won't need a car; or I would fix it up!