Monstaville Book III. Chapter 11

11

“Intoxicated with the madness, I'm in love with my sadness.”

- Billy Corgan (from the lyrics of ‘Zero’ by the Smashing Pumpkins, 1996).

Two of my favourite t-shirts are cheap copies of the Smashing Pumpkins ‘Zero’ t-shirt (associated with the seven-track EP of the same name which came out in 1996) which I bought on a market stall in Camden years ago (the second one I bought after forgetting to take a t-shirt to work with me for my martial arts class in the evening). The word ‘Zero’ is printed in silver capitals across the chest above a silver star. I love these t-shirts because they always fitted me comfortably. I love the design and I really dig track seven on the CD in particular, which is a wild, 23-minute instrumental named ‘Pastichio Medley.’ It’s a “pastiche of madness,” as Corgan told Guitar World in January 1997, comprised of riffs and giraffes and kangaroos and gnus from over 70 mostly unreleased songs written for the Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness double album. I love this album, as well as the two that followed, Adore and Machina. So many good songs…’To Forgive,’ ‘A Bullet With Butterfly Wings,’ ‘An Ode to No one,’ ‘Love,’ ‘Galapogos,’ ‘Muzzle,’ ‘Porcelina of the Vast Oceans,’ ‘Bodies.’ My favourite song on this album is still ‘By Starlight.’ It’s hauntingly sad and beautiful chorus has touched my soul many a time.

There is certainly much beauty in sorrow but without sufficient love, power and exuberance to lift it into the Light, beauty itself becomes rather a sorry, solitary figure lost in sorrow, a slender, black silhouette that looks out of place outside of the shadows in which it is customarily concealed.

Smashing Pumpkins Machina Artwork: 'In All Things'

One might say that life is not merely a dream alone but also a search for inspiration on the way to awakening. Life itself, when oriented either in the third or fourth dimension, is a process of transformation during which we regurgitate memories of our soul and wrestle with past experiences. We have curled ourselves up into cocoons suspended from branches on the Tree of Life. All is dark. We are in a state of crisis, in a death state in which we have forgotten the Light, the Truth and the Love of our Reality in the divine realms. We may naturally gravitate to the past both because we seek to recover what has been lost and because familiar experiences in this world bring us a sense of comfort and belonging. Finally, in this long, dark tunnel of self-denial, we realise that we are in too deep and that there is no turning back. All of our efforts to escape from the unconscious by getting out the way we came in simply create delays to our path and often prolong our pain. Once we finally opt to face our unconscious fears, past-life blockages and whatever, we make our way steadily towards the light at the other end of the tunnel. The contrast and individual, conscious awakening make this a transition from light to Light as we also discover our power as co-creators. We find our wings.

“The experience gained in darkness sheds light on the whole being and through this experience we are irrevocably changed and empowered.” – Tsultrim Allione.

Not that being in the tunnel and facing ourselves is a joyful experience, mind! Darkness is darkness. The process of allowing those fears and blockages to surface is even more painful than holding on for dear ‘life’ to denial. However, whilst our denial, our escapism and confusion, conjures a vague recollection of light, this new realm of suffering is accompanied not by fleeting illusions but by the promise of Indeed, of eternal life. “Ye must be born again,” as ‘our Jeshua’ once put it: “Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. Nicodemus saith unto him, How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter the second time into his mother's womb and be born? Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again." (The Bible, John 3:1-7).

 Smashing Pumpkins Machina Front Cover Art

This crisis is a quest for our true identity as Spirit. The caterpillar, with its dense body, experiences light through its food and through that which is cast upon the dirt all around it. The butterfly, or dragonfly, awakens to the Sun and is essentially detached from the earth. Its body is much lighter. Indeed, all the habits, repressed emotions, fears, thought patterns, attachments and grievances that related to experiences, needs, projections and ambitions in the physical realm have been transmuted. Much higher, subtler energy has been freed up so that one’s experience and focus in life generally the sun and the wind rather than the soil and mud regardless of circumstances. One may still get caught in the rain even as one endeavours to remain perched upon the vibrant flowers of love and creativity. The butterfly’s rich colourings themselves indicate that this beautiful, winged creature is an embodiment of sunshine, as Light expressed clearly and consciously through form. The separate ego, which is a temporal and illusory state, has been shed and Spirit has been embraced. The One has replaced the many – although there is an infinite variety of expression of the Source whereas the many beings that have cut themselves off from the Creative Source are rendered dull and cumbersome by their low frequency of energy, beset by limitation and besieged by endless illusions and concerns.

“Sometimes my feelings get so big that I just want to swim out into the darkness. Just jump off the end of the world. Sometimes I want to dig, right down to the bones of everything. Sometimes when you dig, you dig up stuff you might not want to find. But that’s where the good stuff lies.” - Cecil Castellucci (Beige).

Guido (Marcello Mastoianni) to the beautiful actress Claudia (played by Claudia Cardinale): “Could you leave everything behind and start from zero again? Pick one thing, and one thing only, and be absolutely devoted to it? Make it the reason for your existence, the thing that contains everything, that becomes everything, because your dedication to it makes it last forever? Could you?” - 8½ (directed by Federico Fellini, 1963).

Smashing Pumpkins Machina Artwork: 'Empowered the Lovers Negate the Binding Brilliance of Love'

('The Crying Tree of Mercury')

The caterpillar is reborn as a butterfly. It becomes zero through the chrysalis phase and embarks on a completely new life, in an unfamiliar environment. Symbolically, it becomes a multi-coloured and multidimensional being. It is both nothing, in terms of worldly form and values, and everything, as an expression of the One Creator wholly dedicated to its divine Being and purpose in the realms of Light, the planes of Reality.

No doubt Guido, In 8½, Federico Fellini’s film about crisis of inspiration, dreams of a spaceship waiting for him at the end to whisk him off so he can deny everything and escape conclusively to a higher plane of life just as Fellini himself might have pined for higher dimensions with which he may have been more familiar. For, some people have had more lifetimes in other parts of the galaxy than this mortal realm which, by comparison, resembles a box, or coffin, in which we are thrown into total darkness once the lid is shut. We lose all memory, not just of who we really are, but also our lighter existence in the astral planes. However, in the end, Guido comes to accept himself and his life the way they are, here on this planet. He gets on with the job of being in this world and doing the best he can. His forays into the past might also have triggered a deeper memory of coming and going freely with the use of spacecraft and teleportation devices in the distant past. By the same token, this might also reflect a prophetic anticipation of returning to Earth during the new Golden Age when the advanced technology and spiritual ways of ancient Lemurian civilisation have been re-established. He is starting to wake up from the dream after numerous encounters with earthly existence.

"Crisis is the time for truth." - Chellis Glendinning.

Smashing Pumpkins Machina Art: Alchemical Hand

Like Guido, Fellini envisions the spaceship but, alas, foresees no more than this. The film has to be called off because there is insufficient substance or storyline. The opportunity to make a new film after his previous success (perhaps reminiscent of the success of La Dolce Vita) avails Guido of the opportunity to reflect on his life, to explore his subconscious and confront his fears and accept limitations with a sense of peace and humour. The Wikipedia page for Carl Jung describes how the director “brought to the screen an exuberant imagery shaped by his encounter with the ideas of Carl Jung, especially Jungian dream interpretation. Fellini preferred Jung to Freud because Jungian psychoanalysis defined the dream not as a symptom of a disease that required a cure but rather as a link to archetypal images shared by all of humanity. (The Films of Federico Fellini - p.94 - by Peter E. Bondanella is cited as a reference here). Again, on the page for Fellini, it is explained that, “What Fellini formerly accepted as ‘his extrasensory perceptions’ were now interpreted as psychic manifestations of the unconscious.”

Of course there is no spaceship, just a ridiculous (and expensive) structure whose design is suggestive of this eccentric dream being realised. The immense half-finished set, which is made of scaffolding, however, is also symbolic of the importance of this dream, or this ancient memory, that Fellini feels it is due. It has made an impression on him for one reason or another and most certainly represents the distant, improbable event of an ending to this film, this bizarre yet charming sham. Of course we are stuck and cannot take off when we want, or leave for more radiant spheres of consciousness. Nevertheless, that Light at the end of the tunnel beckons. Fellini himself is obliged to settle for life as it is…for now, at any rate. But, you see, he is a creative genius and entertains himself (and us) by exploring his own consciousness on camera. He is also seeking to complete his ninth film (hence the mysterious title which was originally ‘A Beautiful Confusion’ – another fine mess, Stanley!). Such self-absorption serves only to bring out the beauty of his own inner life and to inspire others thereafter…even as I sit here pondering the imminent event of First Contact and the sense relief and fulfilment that will no doubt mark Fellini’s next incarnation on Earth!

Completing such a dream, such a life, such a film, such a journey, is neither possible nor relevant since Fellini is concerned with the process along the way, the quirky deviation from the rational, linear standard for film-making which Daumier, the film critic, promotes. Daumier feels that he has been proven correct as he watches Guido abandon the project, the experiment, and run away from the confused mess he has impishly and irresponsibly left the financiers, producers, actors and actresses in. It was never about them but about his own personal reflections which he had hoped would provide the inspiration for his next success. After all is said and done, however, Guido is but a character in a film whereas the games that Fellini himself has been playing both with himself and other people, do, in fact, lead to what is arguably the best film ever made. Finally, Guido’s hope of seducing the beautiful actress on the pretence of offering her a part in his promising film turns to dust when she makes it apparent that she can see right through him. Fellini, on the other hand, succeeded in luring the most beautiful actress in history (in my opinion) to star in his experimental extravaganza, his circus of the subconscious, his kaleidoscope of caricatures! [1]

Smashing Pumpkins Machina Artwork: 'The I of the Radio'

Another reason for enjoying these ‘Zero’ shirts (no, I haven’t ‘taken off’…yet…boom boom) is the connection between nothing and emptiness and the transcendental, transformative, alchemical value of dying to one’s personal ego to feel the infinite Oneness of the Dao, or Goddess. A reminder to flow with the universe and allow the universe to flow through me. “Nothing is perfect. I am nothing; therefore I am perfect,” as the saying goes. I rejoiced in this sharing message more profoundly during my studies of Daoist alchemy and general celebration of ancient Chinese culture. I was also truly in the chrysalis stage of ‘Zero’ (see below), rooted in darkness, struggling to be reborn into Light, finding my wings but as yet lacking the strength required to actually take flight and free myself from my bonds. Yet, proud of my status as a zero and the subliminal message it sent to all those people who thought they were someone important or aspired to be and failed to see themselves reflected in me.

Aleister Crowley informs us that, in the Tarot, The Fool is derived from a tradition that was common among nearly all primitive people: “They respect the wandering lunatic, for it may be that he is a messenger of the Most High. ‘This queer stranger? Let us entreat him kindly. It may be that we entertain an angel unawares.’” (The Book of Thoth, Samuel Weiser, MA., U.S., 1944, p.57). The Fool is both the father and the mother, he says; male and female as an inseparable whole. As the first card in the Tarot deck, its number is zero. As such, it is, according to Crowley, the newborn Sun. “The connection between foolishness and holiness is traditional,” he explains. “It is no sneer that the family nitwit had better go into the church. In the East the madman is believed to be ‘possessed,’ a holy man or prophet. So deep is this identity that it is actually embedded in the language. ‘Silly’ means empty – the Vacuum of Air – Zero – ‘the silly buckets on the deck.’ And the word is from the German selig, holy, blessed. It is the innocence of the Fool which most strongly characterises him.” (ibid. p.55). 

Smashing Pumpkins 1991-98 Front Cover

If he is not a clever man, he is probably emotionally intact, or at least open. Muddleheadedness is often needed to unlock the soul, bring one’s Inner Child out to play and kindle the imagination. As the great surrealist artist Salvador Dali once observed, “You have to systematically create confusion, it sets creativity free. Everything that is contradictory creates life.” In our modern society, we have lost this precious pearl, this piece of priceless wisdom. It is as though the clam has been tightly (and forcibly) shut. Indeed, this is what has happened. People have been turned into zombies who can never wake up, slaves who are unable to live up to their full potential because they are only using a tiny part of their brains. It sounds ironic doesn’t it? Question: What is the most effective way to dumb the people down? Answer: Praise and reward the intellect so that people rely on it for everything, even their values! We are conditioned from such an early age to identify with our intellects. It used to be religion. Now it’s rationalism. We used to rely on religious authorities to define reality beyond our personal experience and understanding. Now we rely on academic authorities. It is the monster to which Aristotle gave birth long ago. It is the curse of Sophism all over again. The spell, in fact, was never broken even though great men and great women since the days of Socrates have continued to have a crack at it and break the shell to reveal more awareness, more Light.

Conventional wisdom has been narrowed down to rational materialism and reality left for the left-brain to define - and confine. The intellect has become a coffin for all that exists beyond the squareness of the individualistic ego. Identifying with this instrument distracts us from feeling in the heart and yet it is there that our true Being is to be found: our eternal spirit, or higher Self. And then, of course, an all-encompassing beast of a System, with an entire hierarchy (which is largely sustained through control and fear, or what is commonly known as ‘livelihood’), has been constructed to ensure that anyone who thinks for themselves, or thinks outside of the box, is outcast. They are considered mad and their intuitive or heart-centred thoughts and ideas are deemed worthless, or even dangerous.

Smashing Pumpkins Machina Artwork: Union of Opposites Hermaphrodite Promo Litho

"According to the Pleiadians, the first wave path‑pavers completed the 'universal clearing phase' on 9/9 and from now until 12/12 we will be undergoing the cellular re‑patterning needed to vibrationally align with our divine blueprint...or quantum anatomy.

This basically means that our bodies really need our love right now because every single cell is being attuned to what I am hearing as scalar wave patterning...or zero‑point neutrality...and what the invisibles keep referring to as our new vibrational ‘home’ in consciousness.

This is why we are still enduring so much physical clearing and it's the clearing part that really has us feeling so manic...basically, because bliss hurts. Rather, bliss is always followed by the resurgence of all that is not bliss in the expansion/contraction process of purging and integrating any darkness (fear) in our lives and bodies.

Let me explain: each time we climb to a new vibrational level in consciousness and let more bliss (God/Christ consciousness) into our lives and bodies, our DNA is then activated on a higher level to transmit information to our cells to match that vibration...which means healing anything that is not aligned with bliss.

Most times this 'bliss' download forces old buried fears to rise to the surface to be transmuted and released (meaning, we quickly and temporarily relive our pain), which amounts to us feeling pretty awful for a short period of time. When it's over, we feel great again, sometimes better...which can easily be confused with mania. Our true (quantum/christ consciousness) state of being is kind of like the blue skies behind storm clouds...always there and consistently beautiful and clear...despite any passing weather fronts...and reemerges each time a storm clears out...

In spiritual/esoteric terms, we are transcending karma...in scientific/quantum terms, we are neutralising polarity...in pop culture terms, we are becoming Jedi Knights...all with the ability to manifest new potentials from the unmanifest scalar wave field of pure potentiality."

- Lauren C. Gorgo ('Vibrational Upgrades & New Beginnings: 1010, 1111, 1212,' 9 October 2009,

www.consciousco‑creationalcoaching.blogspot.com/2009/10/vibrational‑upgrades‑new‑beginnings.html).

So many people today would rather have a polished pebble in their hand than a whole mountain to admire and ascend. They are happy for their consciousness to be reduced to a shallow material worldview than one that extends far and wide and journeys everywhere without moving because it reaches all the way up to the Reality of the illumined sky and the Source which is represented by the Sun. Yet, we must die to this world of illusion if we are to rediscover Reality. We must lose ourselves and sacrifice our egos if we are to let go and hatch out of the shell as angels in our spirit body, our Light body, or fire body which is solar. We must open our hearts and surrender. The Light, the Goddess, returning to Earth now is loosening the grip of that shell and removing the dark masters who have been in control since the end of Atlantis. Let us prepare for revolution, then, by healing ourselves and facing the truth. Let’s rejoice in the imminent dismantling of the corrupt Capitalist Establishment as it is slowly subsiding as more and more people refuse to play the game and be slaves of the System.

“An alchemist is one who transforms everything with love.” – Emmanuel.

St. Germain noted that the Zero t-shirt and EMO ‘Love’ badge I was wearing on the day of my personal appointment and subsequent ‘Attunement’ is a good combo. ‘Ah, a zero with love in the middle,’ he noted approvingly. I suggested that this was perhaps where I was always heading since the zero always seemed to represent my elusive Daoist aspirations. St. Germain, however, was more aware than I of the spiritual rebirth I am going though at the moment and I seem to remember that he even likened me to a newborn infant. After that I succeeded in finding two ‘spanking new’ official ones with shinier, more permanent silver motifs plus a silver SP heart on the left sleeve.

Smashing Pumpkins 1991-1998 Back Cover

According to St. Germain, the fiat of the Light is ‘Create!’ And the work of alchemy demonstrated by the Masters is a “fiat of universal freedom”:

“Thus the works of the alchemists of the Spirit beckon the souls of men to forsake their attitudes of self-condemnation, self-pity, self-denegation, self-indulgence and overreaction to the errors of the past. For when men learn to forgive and forget their own mistakes, their hearts will rejoice in the acceptance of the word from on high: ‘What God hath cleansed, that call not thou common.’

Recognising, then, that the potential of every man rests in his immersion in the great soundless-sound stream of living light-energy form the heart of the universal Christ, we say: Let the power of the Holy Spirit, worlds without end, exert its mighty cosmic pressures upon the soul of the would-be alchemist until he emerges from the fiery furnace pliable, whited and pure in the willingness to obey the fiat of the Lord to create first a clean heart and then to renew in self a right spirit.

God is Spirit; and as the Supreme Alchemist who has the power to work change in the universe, he is able to convey his passion for freedom to the soul of any man who will accept it…

Then the kingdom will flower and men will perceive that they need not engage in struggle or seek by violent means to obtain that which God is ever ready to give unto them.

The lingering fear in the worlds of men is of the dark, whereas faith, hope and charity are the great triune of light who exalt reality and lead men toward the light.”

                - St. Germain (channelled through Mark L. Prophet, Intermediate Studies in Alchemy, Summit University Press, L.A., US., 1962, p.10-12).

Through the insights of St. Germain and Osho it has been revealed to me that my life experiences for several incarnations on Earth have been largely rooted in, created and crippled by a death wish! A desire to escape. More a lack of will to live than an eagerness to awaken to eternal bliss in the flesh and attain self-mastery although, evidently, I have been working towards remembering and realising these states too, known and lost as the world has tightened its grip. In other words, a reaction to what I don’t want as opposed to creating what I do want. And, so, with these repeated rejections of life, and the Inner Child, and emotional body, perhaps it was inevitable that I would survive not only being stillborn but several other near-death encounters in this lifetime. In addition, that is, to the general fatigue and terminal attention difficulty that have resulted from childhood trauma and which are symptomatic of a deeper condition whether it be some form of glandular toxicity or energetic bombardment of my brain or both! Oh, and the shitty neighbours banging on my coffin of course. While I laugh and cry, dance and wave goodbye. One way or another, I’m destined to die. But, as Abraham Hicks says, this is an expanding universe, so we can just go on increasing our Light and extend our lives indefinitely if we choose, if we believe, if we wake up from the dream of limitation. Then, all that dies is the old way of thinking, the fear, the weakness, the inertia. And that is rooted in experiences dating back several lifetimes as, like many others, I was prevented from revealing my Light and as I fought in reaction to those in positions of power who sought to extinguish it. Finally, after being killed for such positive and loving expression and also feeling ashamed of my own actions that were prompted by anger and fear, including violence, insecurity and distrust resulting from wars, I retreated, gave up, hid, shunned the world altogether. Lives go by and there is just too much heaviness and pain deep inside to face. Yet, it weighs us down all the same. This is how I see it.

Smashing Pumpkins Machina Artwork: Hermes the Alchemist

I purchased these t-shirts around the time of the first of three eclipses that were said to form a ‘galactic portal’ during the Summer of 2009. They facilitated an “intense influx of energy” from our “celestial brethren” in other words, as ‘The Team’ explained (July 2009 channelled through Peggy Black, www.peggyblack.com). “This is an opportunity to bring balance and healing to the masculine and the feminine energies in all aspects of your planet and within your own field,” they added. [These energies, which are being experienced directly and anchored by the first ascension-wave folk, were explained in depth by Archangel Michael. See Appendix V]. While I was looking on Ebay, I also found a long-sleeved shirt being auctioned which bore a motif related to the Smashing Pumpkins Machina album. I managed to acquire it at an affordable price. I could not see the motif on the front clearly from the photo provided in the listing but, when I opened the package a couple of days later, I found that it was the image from the cover of the Pumpkins’ related single, ‘Stand Inside Your Love,’ which is a drawing, loosely, of a human figure with a male head and a woman’s head wearing one golden crown between them. Somehow, I ended up looking on the net and found the artist's website. I discovered that the image is based on a medieval portrayal of an androgyne; that is, the balance between male and female within the alchemist. My birth chart shows this to be the primary focus of growth for me; hence, this was an important time, particularly for me. I was responding to the new energies arriving on Earth and I was also receiving al the assistance I could need from the Ascended Masters and other beings.

Billy Corgan’s own ‘alchemical journey to perfection,’ notes Brad Jaeger, is expressed artistically though the “central character (Glass), who adopts the role of a prophet after hearing what he perceived to be the voice of God through the radio. As such, Glass is quite literally an instrument, or mechanical vessel to channel the spirit of God.” (www.nachtkabarett.com/SmashingPumpkins/Machina). Vasily Kafanov, who created all the artwork for the Smashing Pumpkins album MACHINA/The Machines of God, explains that, in Western alchemy, skeletons and white bones in general are often used to signify birth into Light. Their hidden whiteness can finally be revealed upon death. The inner Light can finally shine forth once the outer personality has been putrefied and overcome. The Machina imagery is mostly based on archaic alchemical imagery. Jaeger explains that the four major stages of the alchemical process are known as Albedo. The end result is spiritual rebirth, “the emergence of the ‘silver ghost’ (a metaphor for pure and unbridled spirit).” He continues: “The personal or spiritual death that the alchemist undergoes in Nigredo is the necessary precedent for the arising of Albedo. Albedo (Whiteness) overcomes Nigredo (Blackness), when darkness surrenders to the light and new life emerges. While Albedo is the beginning of new life, it is important not to confuse this with enlightenment or attainment of oneness with divinity, as this is not the case. Albedo is still a life unfulfilled, and a great deal of time in the Albedo stage must be spent washing away impurities and returning to our naturally hermaphroditic and androgynous state from which we are born. Lyrically, Billy/Zero/Glass' desire to continue on, even after suffering the blackest black personal and spiritual death   allows the formation of a new life worthy of enlightenment and unity with the divine:

I want to live

Don't want to die

I want to live

I want to try.”

(‘Machina Imagery and Album Artwork: Plate III: The Chemist Brings Spark,’ www.nachtkabarett.com/SmashingPumpkins/Machina/ArtworkIV?PHPSESSID=bce3587522f61a6d9b852c94ef646a08).

Smashing Pumpkins Machina Artwork: 'Agrippa Hand'

As Corgan explained, his lyrics are like a painting. The first half of the lyrics to the song ‘Glass And The Ghost Children’ (written by Billy Corgan, 2000) relate in some way to Smashing Pumpkins fans. It has been suggested that there are references to David Bowie’s Ziggy Stardust and Glass Spider songs here. Regardless, I am left, personally, with the feeling of a partial cosmic download, which is how such songs are often inspired, at least initially. A downloaded revelation that, just as the long lost children of the Goddess, or the Mother-Father God (the female aspect relating to universal wholeness at least), have missed home and struggled to make it on their own, so too (however it may seem) are the arms of Infinite Oneness, the Divine Mother, always open. And now that the Source is calling us home and reaching out with threads of golden Light, it is time to free ourselves from that phony mother who enslaves humanity as her children (Welcome to the Machine) and time to realise that we have become trapped because we have forgotten how to truly live. We have forgotten what it is like to feel truly alive. If we are Zeroes, it is to experience ourselves as darkness in order to awaken to conscious Light, to fill our minds with layers of illusion so that, when emptied and cleared, renewed and restored to Light, we too, like Glass, will know ourselves as Infinite Oneness, as expressions of Divine Love. Mother and child respond to each other simultaneously. The mother’s return corresponds with the chick’s call. All is Oneness.

“…you know that if you take a rubber band and pull it back and let it go, it shoots off in another direction - the opposite direction. The idea of the degree to which you have chosen to experience limitation and darkness on your planet is actually a beautiful thing because the degree to which you experience the darkness is the degree to which you will also experience the Light. The rubber band analogy is that the further back you pull the rubber band into the darkness, when you finally decide to let go, that’s how much further and faster it will shoot on the other side. Because you’re giving it all that momentum, all that energy by pulling it so far back into the darkness. So when you do reach critical mass and you do cross the threshold and you do finally let go after straining for so long to hold it back here in the darkness, it will shoot very quickly onto the other side and go that much further into the Light.” – Bashar (channelled through Darryl Anka, www.bashar.org).

The darker the night, the brighter the stars,

The deeper the grief, the closer is God!

- Fyodor Dostoyevsky (Crime and Punishment).

And, yes, the consensus is, ‘I want to live. I don't want to die. I want to live. I want to try.’ I want the freedom to explore new possibilities. I want to embody multidimensional consciousness. I want divine nourishment to feed my soul. I want to be part of the collective awakening. I want to deepen my heart to know “the fullness of the love within me, the love that surrounds me, the love that animates me,” as St. Germain eloquently expresses it (through Ashamarae). I want to stop poisoning myself, for I now know that it leads only to perpetual pain, waiting for me at every turn. I want to clear away all my old karmic patterns, my old fears, my expectation of sorrow, my resistance to joy. I surrender to purification that I might know Reality amidst the illusion and awaken from the dream. I want to contribute to the creation of a Golden Age, to be part of it. I am an angelic being of Light and I embrace happiness for myself and for all life. I arise from the ashes and spread my wings in remembrance of my original nature. I am a god. I am a god of love…just like you.

Smashing Pumpkins Machina Artwork: 'Torn Inside Machines of Light'

“A new world unfolds in you and all around you. It has begun; a new Earth is emerging. And the old, the reality of the old Earth, as you can see, is falling apart and collapsing. You can see this happening every day on the news, in the events that occur on a global level, and also in small ways in the people around you who are in crisis. They are caught up in personal disasters, in financial matters, in relationship matters, or in matters of health, seemingly due to circumstances beyond them.

All these events work as catalysts, as wakeup calls, which force you to go very deep inside and start looking for what is really there. What do you find there, and what actually grounds you in yourself, and how solid are you? What security is there to be found that belongs solely to you, and which is independent of what happens to you from the world outside you? Do you find a solid base there within, or do you seem to fall into a fathomless depth of uncertainty, fear and despair? That is what a crisis, a real crisis, does to someone. You are deprived of all certainties and everything is put at risk in your life. This is what the development of consciousness is doing with people in this era, at both the macro level, in global politics, economics and culture, and at the micro level, in individuals and in yourself. For you all have experienced this in yourself, and some of you are still experiencing how everything is shifting in your life. This is an era of intense change, and therein comes the arrival of the new – already visible…

                Feel how you actually already know everything, and feel you are there, because you are there! You stand there and, within your earthly being, you carry the Light of your soul. Feel it in your heart; you have your Star Light anchored here on Earth. Your desire for inner liberation and awareness now translates into a New Beginning, and let it carry you through life – trust in life.

                - Jesus/Jeshua (channelled through Pamela Kribbe, ‘The New Era has begun,’

11 July, 2012, www.jeshua.net).

“Become an alchemist.
Transmute base metal into gold,
suffering into consciousness,
disaster into enlightenment.”

- Eckhart Tolle.

“A spiritual alchemist transforms the world with love.” – Joe Eigo.

St. Germain told a MySpace friend (whom he introduced to me for some telepathic support during a challenging time), "Lighten up, daughter of light! Have fun and enjoy the ride, for it is not all as serious as you would like to believe...laugh once in a while and enjoy your time of waking up! Life is not a funeral!"

The Surprising Adventures of Baron Munchausen, Publishing house of book seller Bitepazh, St. Petersburg, 1872-1896

Foot note

1. In his commentary on the DVD (The Janus Films Director Introduction Series. ‘Terry Gilliam on Frederico Fellini’s 8½’), Terry Gilliam explains that he and the Italian maestro shared the same background as cartoonists (whose job it is to ‘stretch and distort’ the world, he says). Although Gilliam aspires to bring the same weird and wonderful magic to the screen that is where the resemblance ends for me although The Fisher King (1991), which I found inspiring enough to watch three times, is an admirable attempt. I found the uniqueness of Brazil, his take on Nineteen Eighty-Four (apparently, he was even considering the title 1984½ as a nod to his idol since it was this year in which he made the film!), very engaging albeit, perhaps, because he had never actually ventured to read George Orwell’s novel! (I have watched this film a few times over the years too). With similar disregard to ‘reality,’ Gilliam suggests: “Clearly what happened here is that Fellini was working on a movie, he didn’t know really how to finish it and it wasn’t really coming together, and so he wrote a movie about making a movie about a director who doesn’t know how to make or finish his movie.” Hasn’t it occurred to the former Python animator that Fellini surely received the inspiration to make such a film some years earlier whilst experiencing difficulties during the making of another film and also whilst enduring periods of creative block (Wikipedia states that “Fellini first outlined his film ideas about a man suffering creative block” in a letter to his colleague Brunello Rondi in 1960”)? Lost in La Mancha (2002), in which Gilliam plays a director who fails miserably to finish a film about the death of Don Quixote, goes down as the worst film I ever paid to see at a cinema. I am a fan of every film Johnny Depp has starred in except this one. Just as reality interferes with that jinxed project, Gilliam’s role in this ‘frivolous venture’ is clearly a reflection of his own wake-up call that, like Guido, he ought to have quit while he was ahead and accepted his limitations! Another ‘squalid miscarriage’ in which Gilliam was involved is The Adventures of Baron Munchausen, which he directed in 1988. I can’t tell you how horrified I was to find that one of my favourite films of all time, Münchhausen, had been butchered and cheapened so in this appallingly mediocre rendition. Gilliam, apparently, did not like this wonderful German version of the story (which is based upon Rudolf Erich Raspe ‘s book Baron Münchhausen's Narrative of his Marvellous Travels, first published in 1785). Twelve Monkeys and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, on the other hand, which Gilliam directed in 1995 and 1998 respectively, are, really, the films that define Gilliam as a progressive and mature director for me (although he did also direct Monty Python and the Holy Grail back in the 70s apparently). ‘You win some, you lose some.’ So, let’s end this on a positive note: “As Gilliam's fans are well aware,” writes Liz Ohanesian, “the filmmaker's body of work is marked with stories of dreamers and rebels whose lofty ideas stand against the conventions of their world. They are the heroes of non-conformity, embarking on quests that may seem ludicrous to some, much like the artist himself.” (13 August 2009, www.blogs.laweekly.com/style_council/film/terry-gilliams-visionaries).

The Surprising Adventures of Baron Munchausen, Publishing house of book seller Bitepazh, St. Petersburg, 1872-1896