Death Practice Dreams 010

stories that eat stories

T.H.IN.G.*IFICATION: The Game You Are Already Playing 

((*T.emporary H.olobiont I.N. G.ame))

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[[Some Voice Speaks, Entering The Space From Space Itself]]

The (ongoing) liberation of binary perception itself/themself 

leads to recognizing the potential 

for an infinite number of relational micro-options 

with all phenomena on all scales of engagement. 

‘Trauma’ or ‘healing’ become almost useless pseudo-labels 

that do not accurately describe anything at all.

(Except perhaps describing where the the binary perception is still un-liberated, and where the material conditions have not been tended.)

In doing this, we engage with material conditions as the site for liberation in all possible realities, but not as the limiter of liberation.

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An example: being so afraid of fear itself, we restrict our circulation and create patterns of dis-ease that are not caused by fear, but instead by our multiple autonomic & labyrinthian reactions to it — to what we think it is, to what we believe it means, to our unexamined beliefs around the cluster of phenomena that are linked to “it”, as a “thing” we have created, stuck in an imaginal space but tethered, located in the neural web of the body — in this case the body is but one site, one node, one material condition linked, networked to larger material conditions.

Just like we can become terrified in a sleeping dream, terrified to the point of having a stroke or some other pain in the body that lingers even after we “wake up”, there is no substantive difference in our so-called waking life — we are in fact, “dreaming up” reactions & psycho-somatic effects and/or “being dreamed” by xyz relational agents in many networked ways, via many sites. We just call this “life” (and mean it to be the opposite of death) instead of what it might really be.

We must recognize that we have a kind of “this-shared-reality” bias, which justifies that we “know” that alive & dead are opposed in fundamentally perceivable ways.

But if the exact same kinds of relational calls & responses are happening regardless of whether we are “alive” or “dead”, then we must contend directly with the reality that we are never “off the hook” and that the interactive reality we experience via dreams is perhaps an even more accurate way of relating with the capital C Continuity that exists throughout “life” & “death”. The actual is-ness of existence.

One way of integrating this is to imagine it like a speculative fiction, in which there are no concrete or “real” selves, no “hoo-mans”, but instead, in the Manifold Ether Fields there exist bio-synthetic clusters called HolobiontSentientEntities, (or ‘Sentientities’TM) — personality-amalgams that are referential, and can change (neuroplasticity, adaptation, learning). 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holobiont

These personality-amalgams dream-up (and are dreamed-up by) complex behavioral strategies such as opinions, preferences, beliefs, addictions, etc. They are fueled or powered by a kind of current called Qi, which is really just movement itself & takes on many forms, and the amalgamation creates a “t.h.in.g”, a Temporary Holobiont In Game called a soul or a shen, which the personality senses, feels & perceives in an obscured manner. This shen is both temporary & eternal, existing in its particular shape only because of the relationship of its “parts” — the amalgamated elements.

We know the thing called a shen is temporary because we can feel it, and we know it is eternal because we can feel that, too. These two qualitative aspects are not mutually exclusive & do not counteract each other. Each aspect proves the other. The paradox resolves itself by continuing to exist without disputing any of its qualities.

Thus, everything can be said to be “empty” (temporary) and/or “full” (eternal) in the sense that nothing is ever quite permanent enough to “be a t.h.in.g” depending on the scale of your perspective. On a smaller scale, some “t.h.in.gs” are real-enough to create material conditions which are a kind of constraint & which respond or pushback in a feedback loop, influencing the learning model of the personality-amalgam. 

From the point of view of the amalgam, these constraints are what stimulate the creation of the t.h.in.g called the personality which grows itself from the substrate of the amalgam.

The same process, but multiplied via a group of personality-amalgams, is called culture.

In turn, this culture — a dreamed-up set of strategies, narratives & beliefs about and in response to the material condition — begins to become part of the material condition, weaving almost inextricably into the neural webs/bodies of the personality-amalgams, their offspring, their operating systems & institutions. 

Learning new strategies, new beliefs & new behaviors only arises when a personality-amalgam risks a new shape, a new form on some scale of being & integrates the new shape as an option in its repertoire. Even though the personality-amalgam is “not real”, “empty” and temporary, its learning can influence itself & others. It can witness & engage with its neural web/body, personality & amalgam elements in new ways that free up stuck circulation, & it can do this with & for the larger networks it is an aspect of, thus changing material conditions.

Death could be considered to happen when the amalgam elements separate or take distance, thus causing a dissolution of the “shen” or soul (it only exists because of the temporary relational position of the elements after all). However, this does not mean that experiential reality “stops”. The personality, now unmoored from its amalgam, must reckon with its patterns, still making perceptual-relational choices in doing so. If the personality has not yet risked enough new shapes to know itself on many levels/layers, then this reckoning may be reacted to in a negative way. If the personality has been able to witness wider than the default cultural program, then this reckoning is an opportunity to re-balance some imbalanced Qi circulation in the larger, wider network, as the smaller neural web/body dissolves into it again.

This process is also possible every time the personality-amalgam enters what we call “sleep”. Every fish changes the Ocean, in some small but actual way.

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Death Practice Group #5 Ancestors, The Straight Dirt, is Weds Oct 19th 2022 4pm PST.

an attempt to remedy or at the very least give an alternate worldview about trauma, epigenetics, fate, karma etc.

we don't often learn this as kids, but we get to choose the narratives we believe in. and there are consequences to the narratives we choose about "How Things Really Are TM".

the west is wrong in many ways, many many ways, but that doesn't mean all indigenous interpretations are "correct" either. The path through the chaos-hurricane of sensemaking, cultural mythologies and socio-political anthropology is fraught with narcotic fantasies. 

we have new age cultists, spiritual capitalists, q-anon conspiritualists, right-wing hippies, sad lonely addicts masquerading as healers, all swirling around in the pit of hurt people screaming for help. many of your most favorite so-and-so's are not behaving in congruent ways outside the public performance of "the work". 

this would be bad enough on a material equity level, but the same kind of looney tunes propaganda prevents us from relating with our ancestors. we become so deluded that we believe the delusions about our ancestors are the real ancestors.

my message is it's time to cut the shit and become liberated now so we can get to work on mutual aid, not fantasy about healing, goodness and belonging. Belonging happens when we cut the shit and get to work (which is play) with the material conditions as the site for liberation, with our biology as the site of equanimity and reconciliation.

for those who are still angry/hurt/confused about why your life still reeks of ancestral issues, if you come to this course you will be given an opportunity to say BASTA! to the lies you have been complicit in spreading throughout your own experience and perception.

#deathpractice