I’ve been listening to Game of Thrones on Audible for more than a year, although I did take several months off when L.A. Fitness was closed. Today I’m getting a visceral sense of what the violence in stories like this does, psychically, and I’m wondering why I should want to do this to my friends who are interested in shamanism. Even though I’d love to write a novel, I have one planned out, and I think I can do it, why do I want anyone to feel the way this novel makes people feel? What about this was supposed to be important? I loved my fantasies so much I thought it would be paradise to make them real, but this world is so awful (and the HBO series of Game of Thrones was so awful) that it doesn’t make any difference to me anymore. How can this be spiritual? I can only transmit the light that it is my part in the cosmos to transmit, but is that something I really care about when all it does is expand this filthy, ugly world full of horrible people? In some ways I’ve made myself into nothing in this world because I despise the human experience. I think that was one of the reasons I loved rock music – because it’s so harsh it can annihilate a person’s individuality for a brief moment. I wanted to annihilate my individuality in rock – it’s very Piscean. The Piscean element of my personality holds this world in a positively medieval contempt. What’s the solution? I don’t know but there has to be a way to manage it, and writing this post did give me some insights into where these thoughts belong in relation to the rest of my personality, and even some ideas about what to write that might satisfy my contradictory hungers for life and death.

I’m having an interesting experience this morning, as though the dark and light sides of my life are merging, the side that perceives spirit clearly and the side that feels all alone in the world and doomed. I’m allowing the doom but I don’t feel so bad because I perceive the spirit world relatively clearly. I’m not getting triggered, it’s all just a murky pointlessness in this world. I’ve been hearing the voices of my angels more clearly. They speak in complete sentences more and more often now. This has been an exceptionally long void-of-course for the moon. At 12:05 it ends when the moon enters Virgo, which is always the most fun, magical sign for the moon to be in for me. So I’m just going to dwell in murky darkness until 12:05 PM, and see what happens. Will my mood suddenly get better? Will this psychic quagmire get resolved? I’ll post back later tonight with results of my experiment.

I posted that on Facebook and already I’m in a very interesting turmoil. I’m continuing to write on my blog because part of the turmoil is about the boundary between public and private. I’m glad King Spa is opening tomorrow. Something’s “on” me and even though it’s scary because I feel like I have no future, there also seems to be some door opening that may lead me to the total immersion in higher worlds that I have always sought. Is there some presence here with me?

I know that even if I get killed, it’s worth it because it will end the confusion of my imagination. I was always just a person, I guess. I had some strange thing going on in my mind that made me think differently.

9:33 AM – I’m having hope that I can be a genuine person, that I can go back into the world after social distancing in one piece, instead of feeling cut off from reality has I have been for 25 years or so. I’m seeing in my mind’s eye all the strange images of the past that have been in some kind of alternate reality, and I’m accepting that there are things that did actually happen, but my interior story is not accurate, so some kind of inner space is “filling out” or “collapsing” – and yet it wasn’t a meaningless space. Something magical happened because of it, some change to the world was made.

I just finished a Zoom circle with Sacelli, et al. and I am wondering what I could write about it that will be useful to read in 13 years.  Turning 50 is bringing me to the single-pointed focus I always wanted.  I went back to nights when I lived at Jarvis, feeling safe & cozy on circle nights, knowing my bedroom was upstairs, there on the edge of bohemia, going to work for a large corporation.  There were specific layers of energy I experienced, specific points of contact with the higher realms, and of course all the evenings socializing around the table in the dining room.  It meant a lot but when John moved to Mexico it was all over for a year.  What did it mean?  I still had to find my place in the world.  Now my own spirit contact is much more stable.  But what is specific about tonight?  So much time spent on this “scene” in Chicago, and it means nothing.  Nothing comes of it.  “Society” is worse, there is no beauty, no honor.  Only the spirit world matters.  And I don’t even want to think about the wreckage of crummy relationships.  But there was all that work, all those readings and meetings…something happened.  I got over a lot of bullshit, occultism and black magic, pretentious assholes, narcissists.  I got clear.  So I want to enjoy the nostalgia.

I’m picking up the continuity of my life now, I just got done with an amazing circle and now I can feel the spirit forces aligning in my life.  The drama of social distancing is ending.  I crossed the line from being someone who leads two lives, working during the week and seeking shamanic visions on the weekend, to feeling like a unified human being, working to bring the light and dark sides of my vision into one place.  I have so many visions, and they are all ecstatic, they are all fun.  But there are so many, the golden light is so blissful and expansive that I have to struggle to bring them down into something productive.  Because at the same time that I am having these ecstatic visions I have many exciting projects to undertake, many modes of expression available in the world.  How do I choose?  How do I organize?

I have to stick with the 8th Habit.  Modeling, I have to move through this chaos to what my soul wants, and at this stage that would be the pathfinding, wouldn’t it?

So if I’m finding a path through chaos, what is the goal?  Where am I going?  I have a lot of specific projects, but I guess the main purpose would be to get a handle on it.

It’s a while later, my dashboard says this post above the line was saved two hours ago.  I feel fantastic but it is very difficult to get my mind together.  I stopped there and took a picture of my Sirius Black wand, as a symbol that I am going to try to create something that will somehow coalesce my wild imagination into clarity.  I have lots of fantasies and daydreams about popular culture, and yet I am imprisoned by the forces of Saturn, the Dementors of corporate entertainment.

The issue isn’t “getting to work”, it’s finding something constructive to do with this state of my imagination.

So I’m going to experiment now with the persona of Sirius Black.  This is my photo of official Harry Potter Merchandise, the Sirius Black Wand.  Sirius the star was sacred to the Egyptians, and the Egyptians called their country “Khem” which means “Black”, so I had this whole fantasy that the Black family were the ancestral lineage of the Pharoahs.  I made up a whole adventure where Sirius goes to Egypt to play the Game of Fate, and Bellatrix LeStrange follows him.

But that was just to get me started.  On a deeper level I’ve decided to explore the imaginal space of Mafdet, the Egyptian cat goddess, and while I’m at it I’ve included a couple of pictures I use as reference points for my guardian angels.  I’m going to get around to photoshopping some interesting stuff about them soon.   

I don’t know what any of it means, but at least I did something I can remember when I reread this 13 years from now.  I’ve started to find a path out of chaos.

Jason Cunningham works with an angel named Kara to give advice on life issues in terms of spiritual growth and soul purpose.  He reads auras and uses astrological information to illuminate patterns of behavior, and also has attunements in Reiki, All Love, and Reconnective energies.  He has taken classes with [someone] and [someone else], and he is also a member of the Chicago branch of the International Association for Near-Death Studies, for which he is the bookstore manager.

So he could see the red angel sitting across from him, with all the other people sitting around playing games.  She had something to say and she was coming through clearly, which made him feel good, but then there was this other aspect of himself that was confused and sad, that had developed in his mind a conspiracy of the Moons of Saturn, Mimas and Pandora, also Prometheus, I think.  But it was very like the tremendous fantasy he had had of that other time.

And then he had a bunch of memories that didn’t make any sense about conversations that had never happened in Grand Rapids, and a bunch of very weird things that had never made any sense, and also a lot of really stupid, ugly people who were never entertaining at all, and some place he could have gone to do something but now he was here instead and he had known a lot of people who were really revolting and seen a whole bunch of stupidity and suicide.  And he was going to get paid some more but there was some deeper magic happening also that he had some faith in, it was like he had emptied out his life and now he was going to go on into the future as something else, with something else.  And there had been a very dramatic daydream about the moons of Saturn, Tethys, Calypso, Telesto, etc.  And perhaps he should be thinking about Mimas.

So one the one hand, everyone was full of shit, but on the other he had just accomplished something and now a Red Angel was appearing to him. She reminded him of S. B. who had forgotten about him long ago.  And why was all the chaos? He wanted to ask.  Why was it important to see these monsters, to assimilate to their filth under the influence of phrase?  What was he supposed to be — and here he felt some flunky wanting to assimilate the same tired bullshit about choice and responsibility.

There was a car chase, indeed!  He had been replaying that conversation with E. S., thinking about the W. a bit.  It was working out for him, but he had to come up with a way to do it in the middle of this disturbing game of conservatives.  Earlier he had seen a whole parade of them and learned to say good night.

The channeling was picking up speed and he was indeed John Constantine, prowling around the night with a trench coat and a switchblade.  Then the tiredness came upon him, and it was like an episode of Star Trek, but he could look forward to the next weekend when it would all begin again.  It had never made sense, but he was going to get completely away from it and not have to deal with the dislike and the stupidity again.  At last he had gotten what he wanted, but of course he had to get a hold of Juliet.

“I don’t know if this is Buffy Redux, but by making yourself do this you seem to think you will regain what you lost.  We are totally uninterested in these things.  We are interested in your assistance.”

“I need a kind of clarity in the upper right quadrant of my mind.  I need a solid frame of reference against which to test and surrender ego.”

“Quadrant 2 or Quadrant 4.  You will find.”

“Where are we going?  We’re going home.”

“Let’s have fun,” she said.  “And then there was some really great music on the radio.

“We’re going to figure this out, we’re only good and  bad.”

Movement of imagery.  “So you wanted to write fiction.  You are exceptionally stubborn.”

Obviously there’s someone here and I’m very happy.  “We are beginning.” Spiral, obelisk.

Light, dark.  Neil Gaiman, children, this sort of thing, a place in the world.  The other dimension became very thick.  There was nowhere to go.

All was dark, but the loft was vast.  “These are the aspects.”

The voyage, step by step.  They did indeed do these things.  It’s time for a big change, we can go back over it later.  Then the other spirits were there and they needed to make some kind of metaphor.  They live in cities.

And the energy came pouring in.  There was a sense of displacement.  It was his struggle to record all  that he had seen.  “I’ve seen attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion.”

“We’re going to get this done, and we’re going to go farther.  We need a process to review this.”  “What are we building toward?”

Juliet.

The long, low, dim hall and there is Spike, growling about the future.  And then Shatner is talking about what is necessary to maintain order.  “And they are all terrified but this is an exciting movie, so of course they screw it up.”

George Kennedy is around.  Thinking about talking about about.  Thinking about the Archer and the Sorceress.

I don’t care about any of these things.  Martin Landau did some terrible ritual magic with James Dean?  No, I don’t know.  Where is the secret cult?  There isn’t one.

Then I was talking about the Stromkirk and the Stromgald.  Anthony Hopkins and all.  Who gives a shit?  What is this order?  The Bureaucracy.

Well, we need to be moving toward something.  I can’t be wasting my time moving toward this fucking crap.  I have to have some order here.  So the order is Kara?

I guess I have to straighten out something about Saint Germain.  And then I have to get clear what I’m doing here.  I start contacting Kara and then my awareness of Sandra gets stronger.  What if the Occult Bookstore crowd put black magic on me?  One of the illusions is of movement.  All right now, I’ve got to do something with this.  Martin Landau.  I wish I knew the fucking purpose.  The purpose is discovery!  Shouts whatsisface.  Where is the target in all this vagueness?  Juliet?

They were all together.  “Man, this is exhausting.”

“We have to clear this out,” said Carl.  “It will change.”

“I hate boredom.  Juliet Landau is watching me.  Of course everyone is watching everyone, but I have a task. I am a psychic.  I am approaching the infinity of Buffy.”

“I can’t believe you said that,” said Beth.  Outside, the wind howled.

“It’s just that something’s cracked and broken in my mind.”

“Well, what am I supposed to do about it?  We have to go deeper into the night.”  The wheels were spinning in his mind.  “We have to kill the enemy.”

“Well, let’s go find him,” said Beth.  So they were out the door and down the street, looking for a man of evil, knowing that Zane was ready for anything.

“Buffy, I love you,” said Giles.  “I will be by your side forever.”  But it was only causing her turmoil because she knew he would never love her the way she needed to be loved.

“Well, fuck it, we need to know what we’re going to do, anyway.  We can’t wind beack the clock, but we can do something about the memory gaps.”

“It’s changing him too dramatically.  That’s why he does this and does that.”

“There’s some kind of compression, and it’s getting better and better in that direction.”  The scenes of the past were beginning to become real to him.  Hopefully there would be some other energy and things would feel better, but I read for this guy an hour and a half last night and it went extremely well.  I heard Humberto talking about me, but I don’t think it matters too much.  The spirit world is going to be there for me and with me so I need to make adjustments to that.

“I love you, Jason,” said Willow.  “We’ll be able to get a handle on these experiences.”

“But we have to find the villain,” Giles reminded them.  “I think it has something to do with suffering, but how would I know?  My depictions are based upon something else.”  So what happens to the junkies?  It doesn’t matter.  I just wanted to do the forgiveness thing, and now to some extent I’m involved in this other silliness as well.

Ho hum.  At least we’re all together.  That was important to me, not knowing how to belong to anything.  But then the white light came down, and the strange, distorting energy.  He could see other lights making themselves known as well.  Well, what are they all going to do, I wonder?  The point was that he was in the midst of a difference and he couldn’t tell anyone what it was.  However, he could do something darker.  Then the energy swept down deeply.

“We have to find a new language,” he said, “Or do we?  Maybe it’s Juliet Landau.  Maybe I’m supposed to talk to her.”  All he could hear was “Kiss on My List.”

Oh, and there’s stern, ugly Nancy who thinks she’s going to bark her little bark now.

Giles was always there.  Timmer was, too.  They had some drinks and they were listening to music.

“I think we may get killed at some point.”

“So what if we did?  We’re heroes.”  The light of souls was blazing.  “She’s trying to tell you something.”

The Angel of Candlelight Orange had a couple of things to say.  She was glowing beautifully bright as she emerged from another dimension it seemed almost as though she had simply stepped out of the back hall.

“‘Chicks With Sticks’ is a cool name.” she said.

“Okay, you can call yourselves Chicks with Sticks.”

“Thanks, daddy,” lisped Amy.

“Now we have issues to deal with.  We have some kind of mission, right?  The power is coming down.”

“You have more decisions to make,” said Kara.  “You can go anywhere and do anything with this.”

“Well we have to understand Buffy.  Buffy is a clue to the big mystery.”

“I don’t mind watching Buffy for the rest of the year,” said Beth.  “But you’re going to have to get a handle on your own dreams.  You can’t keep wandering around like that.”

It was a hot night.  The windows were open, the radio was playing.    “It’s his memory,” said Giles.  “His dreams have been bleeding into the world and now we have to bring them into focus.”

“Did I forget everything?” he asked.  “Is it all pain?”

“How long have we been friends?” asked Amy.  “Seriously?”

“About five minutes in another dimension, or something.”  Then there was a dark pressure again.  “I have to go, I’m sorry.” he put his hand to his head and got up to go.  He passed down the long hall and out into the night.  Through the window, he could hear the radio in the library playing “Texas Radio”.

The zombies were on the sidewalk that led into the woods behind the school.  “God damn it, not zombies again!” he groaned.

He leapt forward and kicked one in the chest, it fell back with a groan and the other tried to grab him.  The angel appeared in a pillar of fire, bearing his sword.  Taking lithely he spun and decapitated the one that was coming behind him.  The next he stabbed in the throat so that it staggered into the trees.  The first still lay on the ground struggling to get up; he kicked it down and stepped on its head.

“Jason, I’m sorry!” it was Beth calling from behind him.  “I’m sorry this is all happening to you.  I just think you should know that.”  Crying, she came forward from the shadows and into his arms, he held her.  “I’m sorry it has to go on like this.”

“I’ll be okay, I guess.” he said.  “At least I’ll be able to figure out where I’m going.   Thank you.”

“Your perceptions will expand.” said the Angel.  “It’s best to try to sleep now.  Thank you Beth.”  Beth kissed his cheek and went back into the school.  He continued along the path, out into the night.  He thought about watching “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” on his phone.