All Text, Music, and Illustrations, including Paintings, Photographs, and 3D models, Copyright © 2022 by Jim Robbins.

 Poppies in February, Big Creek

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PENDULUM DREAMS:

THE GOLDEN SNAKE

   Not long ago, I drove through Los Angeles on my way to San Diego. At two in the afternoon, I was inching along and decided to consult SIRI to find another route. I ended up in the LA area for five hours. On every freeway and city street, gridlock was inescapable. For hours, on ten-lane freeways, thousands of us were creeping between one and five miles per hour as more and more traffic streamed in, and I grew more and more dumbfounded that millions of people have agreed to participate in this total insanity on a daily basis.
   Once, as the car came to a standstill for the umpteenth time, I remembered a Saturday when I was fifteen, sitting for hours in a lawn chair, staring at the wall, paralyzed by the realization that I could be obliterated any second by a nuclear weapon. What did the other members of my family tell themselves to keep from going insane? How did they maintain a sense of normalcy? How could anyone take life seriously if everything could end as smoke and ashes with one push of a button? How could we claim to care about each other and allow the threat of global annihilation—or the policy of mutually assured destruction (MAD)?
   When I was growing up my father compulsively changed jobs every few years, which eventually led him to make long commutes in the LA area. He would come home exhausted, filled with quiet rage after a long day at work and an hour and a half of maneuvering through traffic jams. He would occasionally vent his rage in long diatribes against communism. We escaped in the early 1970s by moving to Fresno.
   All of the men in my life as I was growing up usually remained silent, as if shocked into an inability to express themselves by some unspeakable trauma or defeat. My grandfather had survived being gassed by the Germans in World War I, then had lost his job in Chicago when the Great Depression hit. My father and uncles had grown up in rural Illinois and joined the military the first chance they got. Two of my uncles were shot down, one over Germany, the other over the Pacific. They both miraculously survived but remained traumatized for the rest of their lives. As I was growing up, the women in my family also rarely ever said a word, as if they were taking their cue from the men to remain silent. I am still not sure why they were so quiet, but it occasionally inspired me to question authority and say crazy things about global annihilation, especially at the dinner table.
   While fishing, I sensed my father moving beyond thoughts of raw prejudice that stemmed from fear and anger and frustration. I felt our connection as he cast his line in the water, the dark thoughts flowing away, the wind slightly ruffling the leaves and the surface of the river. I could sense his love for the water and the rocks and the trees—I could feel it in the same way that I know that friends are going to call or send a letter. Some people, even though they are silent or rough and intolerant form a bond with you that cannot be broken, a bond that transcends appearances and prejudices.
   My father has been dead forty-five years. In that time, humanity has edged even closer to the brink due to the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction combined with perpetual destabilization of economies and societies, as well as climate disruption, overpopulation, ecocide, dwindling resources, species extinction, pollution...and we keep scrambling around rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. The question remains: How can a society become sane?
   One day a few years ago, I was swallowed up by eternity in a vision: In the middle of the desert, the wind started whipping around the rocks, lifting away the sand. I was afraid that the wind would carry all the sand away, and suddenly there was nothing left, only a golden snake biting its own tail in a deep blue sky. Suddenly I was inside the snake. At first, I was afraid, but then the darkness comforted me. I realized that I could change my perspective anytime. With one thought, I could be outside of the golden snake again. When I was outside, I discovered that I was merely an atom compared to the snake and the sky, so after awhile I shifted back inside.
   Oddly, like most of my visions, but unlike most of my memories, the golden ouroboros remains crystal clear, as if symbols from the archetypal plane are more real and enduring than the experiences of daily life. That vision seems like a pretty good symbolic depiction of eternity, which suggests that maybe I shouldn't worry about the end of the world, but of course I don't currently live on the archetypal plane—I live with a family and a community that I need to protect, so the problem remains: How can anyone help their own culture get a little saner?
   I wasn't on drugs when I had the vision. Once, though, a long time ago, a friend handed me a tiny tab of paper as we were finishing a meal at a restaurant and commanded, “Put this under your tongue. It'll dissolve in a few seconds and will take affect in about ten minutes.” I was still young enough to try new things. The simple act of placing that tab under my tongue resulted in a crazy, indelible memory of an otherwise ordinary night in America. Oddly those few hours of insanity give me some perspective on what it means to be sane.
   My friend had never taken any drugs in front of me, nor had he ever shared drugs with me before, and I wasn't exactly sure what he had handed me, but we had just finished a grueling week of canvassing for environmental and social justice. I trusted him completely after struggling in the trenches with him for several months. After we left the restaurant, suddenly the breeze on my skin induced ecstasy. My friend drove us to a gas station, and it seemed like pumping gas was one of the most magnificent acts that a human being could perform. We ended up at a local club, and to me the rock and roll was astounding, every note absolutely perfect, lifting me into greater and greater heights of exultation.
   At the club, we hooked up with another canvasser, then drove out to a reservoir at about two in the morning. We kicked back in the car for awhile, and I noticed a fly between the dashboard and the windshield. I wondered what it was like to be a fly, and my sight suddenly broke up into numerous facets. I heard a great buzzing, which annoyed me until I realized the sound was coming from me—I was the fly, but my consciousness wasn't processing the fly's perspective in a way that made sense to me. However, even though I had become the fly, I didn't feel different, as if one overarching consciousness was experiencing life from countless perspectives. 

Pounding Stone:

Bottom of Pine Flat Reservoir

   I suddenly felt trapped, so I stepped out of the car, and human sight immediately returned to me. The grass was breathing, each blade aware of me. I hiked toward the woods and felt many eyes watching me in the darkness. I sensed a great hatred toward me, toward people in general, emanating from the forest. I didn't understand why until I turned back: The reservoir had eaten away the hillsides.
   I told my friends that I was going to the car because I needed sleep, and they nodded at each other knowingly. One of them chirped, “Okay, go ahead, but you're not going to sleep.” I stretched out on the back seat and realized that I was dreaming with my eyes wide open. I knew that I would not get to sleep for a long time. I would just have to deal with it, possibly, I remember thinking, for the rest of my life.
   When dawn finally arrived, we drove back to town. I stepped out of the car onto some gravel and suddenly understood that an absolute logic exists behind everything in the cosmos. Forces beyond my comprehension and control had operated throughout the ages, eventually depositing pieces of gravel on the dirt for a parking lot. Complex processes had occurred so that one piece of litter was resting upon the gravel at the exact moment that I stepped out of the car. Each atom was in a particular time and place for a reason that as a human being I would never be able to fathom. At the same time, I understood that all processes were linked and that I was part of everything that had ever lived or would ever live. I felt so exhausted that I almost lost my balance.
   Back at the apartment, I tried to sleep but started hallucinating. When I went to the bathroom, everything synthetic on the sink—hair brushes, toothpaste tubes, toothbrushes, combs—elongated and twisted and wiggled and bent as if the plastic in the bathroom remained in a perpetual state of frenzied insanity, unable to remain still for a moment. I went back to bed and finally fell asleep after many hours. The odd thing is that I didn't feel frightened by the hallucination, only trapped in a bizarre reality.
   My friend had subjected me to an acid test, which shook me to the core. I will never knowingly take LSD again because of its potential for inducing psychosis. I eventually came out of it, but others have not. However, if I had not placed that tab under my tongue, I would never have experienced some of the potentials of the human mind. I felt indescribable ecstasy while performing the most mundane acts, such as walking down the street and pumping gas. I experienced the reality of a humble fly and recognized that its consciousness is probably not very different from my own. I understood that all living things are sentient and perhaps keenly aware of the damage that people have done to this planet.
   While hallucinating, I understood that chemicals in my brain made all synthetic items seem alive and totally insane, just as before taking the drug, chemicals in my brain had provided me with “normal” human consciousness. My experiences seemed to be more than the result of a chemical reaction, though. The drug seemed to suppress normal brain consciousness and allow another dimension of my psyche to surface, some part of me that could experience absolute joy in the smallest acts and connect with the humblest of creatures and understand the absolute logic of the cosmos, a logic that extends all the way back to the beginning of time and will continue to the very end—if indeed there is a beginning or an end—an absolute logic that usually appears like randomness to my very limited human brain.
   I felt trapped in this strange reality for many hours, but then again I have been trapped in the bizarre, collective reality of the human race my entire life. I have trusted relatives, friends, teachers, politicians, doctors, capitalists, and authorities on this or that, believing in our accepted collective reality even as our species continues to lurch toward global destruction.
   After my "trip," I understood the meaning of “turn on, tune in and drop out.” In other words, tune in to the vast, living cosmos and drop out of meaningless behaviors. Cut through the bullshit and live a meaningful life.
   A psychic once suggested that the acid trip woke me up to the spiritual side of things. That experience, along with paranormal experiences that I've had since that time suggest that consciousness is essentially nonlocal. In other words, consciousness is not limited to what my physical senses perceive or to what my brain processes in one particular place and time. My soul can experience and know things that my physical senses cannot perceive, such as the consciousness of other creatures and people and spiritual entities, and the future and the past, and other dimensions of the cosmos.
   Based on my experiences, I must conclude that consciousness is limited by the physical senses and the brain, not created by the brain. The part of consciousness that transcends brain consciousness has been known by different names in different cultures throughout the ages: daimon, genius, holy guardian angel, higher self. If consciousness is limited to the functioning of the brain then the key spiritual experiences of my life are unreal and absurd, in which case many of my clearest, most meaningful memories are merely a sign of insanity.
   In quantum physics, nonlocality describes the ability of objects to know about each other's state, even when separated by large distances, potentially even billions of light years, as if the universe instantaneously arranges particles in anticipation of future events. The cosmos consists of field upon field of entangled, interconnected energy. Consciousness, like physical matter, is energy.
   Spiritual development should take place under the supervision of a master, just as the use of hallucinogenic drugs should only occur under the most controlled conditions. If one is not careful, authentic spirituality and drugs can lead to insanity. I, unfortunately, have experienced baptism by fire in all aspects of life, never affording the luxury of expert assistance. I do not recommend embarking on any journey into the unseen without at least the most dedicated commitment to the highest good, for anyone traveling through the unknown will sooner or later encounter evil or the incredibly bizarre. If you encounter angels you will more than likely also encounter devils, and when you do, you will need to choose your next step with great care.
   The genius or daimon (not demon) or guardian angel is the nonlocal aspect of the self that transcends space and time. Intuition, sympathy, telepathy, precognition, retrocognition, psychometry are all capacities of the higher self. I can't help but believe that we will edge closer to a sane society when the average person recognizes the transcendent aspect of the self and its connection to all things, past, present, and future.
   During a recent ritual, I was focusing on the feminine principle of the cosmos and suddenly envisioned the Tarot card known as Three of Swords, associated with the supernal Emanation of the Goddess. Then I saw the path of The Lovers extending from my heart center to the right side of my brain, the path on the Tree of Life from Tiphareth, the Christ center, to Binah, the supernal sphere of the feminine principle. Then I unexpectedly took on the God form of Raphael, represented on the Tarot card The Lovers, and the powerful living image has stayed with me everywhere I go. For the past few days, at work and at home and even at a restaurant, I have suddenly envisioned myself as the Archangel Raphael, with a golden sun at my crown, my hair on fire, and masculine and feminine forces balancing each other within my aura in naked white light, all doubt and suffering and regret cleansed from my mind. 

   Raphael means “Healer of God.” One of the most basic forms of healing is the integration of the self. During ritual as I move from one quadrant to another, I often recover a sense of the different dimensions of the self: the spiritual dimension, associated with the higher will (Fire); the conscious mind, associated with the intellect and spirit (Air); the subconscious mind, associated with the subconscious and emotions (Water); and etheric background energies of matter, associated with the physical body (Earth). But the Tarot card known as The Lovers reveals that there is another way to look at the self that includes a distinction between the lower self, the personality within a specific incarnation; the evolutionary personality, or soul, which develops over many incarnations; and the divine spark, or spiritual core of the individual. The card represents great healing—paradise regained—because the lower personality, the soul and the divine spark are integrated into a unified whole.
   As insane as it sounds, the living image of the Archangel Raphael has made me feel more sane than I have ever felt before. I feel integrated and free of negativity. How a living Archetype has such a powerful influence on me I don't exactly know, but I do have the sense that the Archetype chose to help me, and I was open enough to the possibilities of nonlocal consciousness to allow it to happen. I have always, at least since I found my spiritual path, felt a great kinship with Raphael. Perhaps, once the soul becomes entangled with healing influences from spiritual dimensions, they remain connected, just like a particle can remain connected over great distances with another particle, like one person can remain connected with another, no matter how far away they are.