Crooked Path to Bodhi

Leanne, Traditional Witchcraft & Luciferian. Influenced by: Buddhism, Anarchism & Feminism.

[luciferianbuddhism]

I haven't logged into this blog in forever. It's probably going to be even longer before I do it again. I hope everyone is well.

[luciferianbuddhism]

How do you handle a soul deep wound?

My mental health collapsed back in November of 2021 (last year as I write this). It’s easy to say hey it’s a toxic job, a lack of support system, stress of doing to much (full time college, full time toxic job, a new relationship), and well financial stress too. Sometimes your bucket gets too full.

Months later, I am still dealing with what happened. I want to be better. I know I can do better. My partial hospitalization therapy program would say “have patience with yourself, you don’t get better overnight.” I know this for a fact. I do a lot of self-reflection. Somewhere I had the realization in December of what was going on but it was not fully realized at the time. I quit facebook and honestly quit most social media. I only just today logged back into tumblr. I think I might pick it up again but just to journal and get my thoughts out but start a private one.

I say my wound to my psyche is soul deep at this point because it is troubling me so deeply. I have good days and then the bad days....they are very very bad. Sometimes so bad I should be back in the psych ward. I’m focusing on one day at a time. Trying to improve my life bit by bit, tackling it in small chunks. I left the toxic job, my partner is fantastic throughout all of this, and when I have my bad days and I can’t get out of bed, he is there, my parents are there, and the more adorable doggies are there.

I know I have a handle on it, but it is not easy. It takes time and some things? There are no easy fixes.

[forbidden-sorcery]

“It is in the nature of Greek myth to seize upon the basic forms of that which has being. These forms appear in a clear and distinct light with all of the freshness of the elemental. All modifications which come from a soul that has been moved, all of the excesses which come from a spirit that breathes defiance remain at a distance. The primitive world looks out from and breathes from the living form. Goethe, as he examined the horse’s head on the pediment of the Parthenon, was overcome by the impression that here the artist had created a primeval horse. This says something of unusual importance about the perspective of the Greeks and their forms. The primeval is that which is most alive-in fact, it alone is truly alive. It is not the subjective talent of the artist which gives the creations of Greek myth their incomparable vitality, quickening man’s pulse as they have through the ages; but it is the appearance of the primeval world, which these creations have been able to evoke. It is for this reason that the polarities of that which has being appear here, too, in all their colossal proportions, in mutual confrontation. No arbitrary concept, no desire for salvation reconciles them. It is only in the opposite of all agreement, in supreme tension, when the antitheses become wild and infinite, that the great mystery of oneness is pro-claimed from the very depths of being. Nor is it just pro-claimed. Oneness itself is revealed to Greek myth and cult as the deity who is mad - as Dionysus. His duality has manifested itself to us in the antitheses of ecstasy and horror, infinite vitality and savage destruction; in the pandemonium in which deathly silence is inherent; in the immediate presence which is at the same time absolute remoteness. All of his gifts and attendant phenomena give evidence of the sheer madness of his dual essence: prophecy, music, and finally wine, the flamelike herald of the god, which has in it both bliss and brutality. At the height of ecstasy all of these paradoxes suddenly unmask themselves and reveal their names to be Life and Death. Dionysus, who holds them together, must be the divine spirit of a gigantic reality, an elemental first principle of being in whose essence lies the reason why he, himself, is called a madman, and why his appearance brings madness with it. But before we follow this line of thought, we must test the hypotheses which have been advanced recently to explain Dionysiac madness).”

— Walter F. Otto - Dionysus: Myth and Cult

[thoughtkick]

“I am a different person to different people. Annoying to one. Talented to another. Quiet to a few. Unknown to a lot. But who am I, to me?”

— Unknown

[dolcemania]

[leviathan-supersystem]

90% of arguments about media could just be solved by saying “different people like different things in their stories” and leaving it at that

[fakeosphere]

this person probably humanizes cops/racists, rape, child abuse, incest etc as long as its fictional lol

[judygemstone]

this is a good and normal leap in logic to make from this post!

[wetwareproblem]

I certainly hope they do, and not just when it’s fictional. Humanizing them is an important step in stopping the actual real-world harm.

If you recognize that they’re human, then you can understand it’s an issue of rationale and perspective, not Inherent Evil - and you can learn to think like an adversary. This is the first step in developing a good security mindset. That mindset, in turn, is the first tool you need to build functional safety measures and protections for your community.

There’s an added bonus, too - if you recognize that they’re people, you’ll notice that not many people are villains in their own narratives. They aren’t choosing to be evil, they’re rationalizing their harmful choices. And you start asking questions.

If you recognize that cops are people, you learn to ask yourself “Am I being reactionary, authoritarian, and needlessly violent?”

If you recognize that racists are people, you learn to recognize and unpack the racist lessons you were taught.

If you learn that rapists are people, you learn to actively verify consent.

By recognizing that terrible people are not Inherently Bad, but choosing to do terrible things for reasons they think justify them, you get better at protecting yourself from them - and protecting everyone around you from your worst tendencies. It’s a difficult and ongoing process, but it’ll protect you far better than any list of specific Bad Things to watch out for.

[wetwareproblem]

There’s a flipside to this, of course, and it’s important:

Anyone who tells you that your enemies are inhuman monsters is using you.

Either they’re trying to convince you that they couldn’t possibly be an Enemy because they’re a normal person… or they’re trying to keep you from noticing the little rationalizations. To convince you that atrocity is okay when you do it.

Don’t fall for either lie.

[sleepysera]

"We should not be afraid of suffering. We should be able to hold our suffering and look deeply into it, hold it tenderly, and learn from it."

- Thich Nhat Hanh, Your True Home (2011)

[lifeofdai-deactivated20240527]

For I do not exist: there exist but thousands of mirrors that reflect me. With every acquaintance I make, the population of phantoms resembling me increases.

— Vladimir Nabokov

[virginpv]

[shituationist]

My favorite “Great Moment in Moderate History” was when Abraham Lincoln called John Brown a lunatic for trying to end the expansion of slavery through violence and then five years later ended slavery through violence.

[fed-detector-deactivated2018030]

The moral of the story is violence becomes morally acceptable the moment the powers that be approve of its use and not a moment before.

[anarchotolkienist]

I had an angry row with my dad over John Brown (because this is what my family is) after listening to John Browns Body. His arguement was that ‘John Brown was a crazed fanatic, and he murdered people’, and my response was ‘Yeah, it would be a shame if slavery had to be abolished through violence or something. Good thing they stopped that crazy fanatic John Brown and then didn’t fight the bloodiest war in human history about it just afterwards and instead just abolished it peacefully’, to which the response was ‘No, that’s different’ - because one sort of violence upholds the state and is legitimised by it, and the other undermines it. State ideology is strong.

[freyjaofthenorth]

“if a private person should be guilty of the same things the government is doing all the time, you’d brand him a murderer, thief and scoundrel. but as long as the violence comitted is “lawful” you approve of it and submit to it.” ~Alexander Berkman

[anarchblr]

“The state calls its own violence law, but that of the individual crime.”

-Max Stirner

[kabaks]

the fact that rich western countries send their plastic waste to poor countries in the global south so that they can pat themselves on the back for being world leaders on sustainability or woo environment or whatever the fuck makes me INSANE

[kabaks]

neoliberal globalization is a nightmare literally a nightmare

sources:

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/jun/17/recycled-plastic-america-global-crisis

https://www.politico.eu/article/europe-recycling-china-trash-ban-forces-europe-to-confront-its-waste-problem/

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/may/19/turkey-to-ban-plastic-waste-imports

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/jun/17/recycled-plastic-america-global-crisis

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-48455440

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/may/10/nearly-all-the-worlds-countries-sign-plastic-waste-deal-except-us

[forbidden-sorcery]

““Poisonous” plants and creatures can be invoked as protectors, protectors of place. Within a bioregion, they protect the deeper forest and are allies to their ecologies. As allies of human beings, they protect against drowsiness and insensitivity, preventing us from charging through fragile terrain with a heavy foot and blind eye. They teach alertness and respect as we interact with place. They also evoke certain qualities within humans. One can like the jaguar stalk and enjoy the night, blend with the environment and disappear into its body. Protectors teach humans to sing like wolf, to go inside like bear, and to relax like snake. Human beings have for a long time destroyed the protectors of the wild regions. For many humans, these plants and creatures are dangerous and mean suffering or death. They represent something evil in the world, on this Earth, that should not be ignored. They excite the impulse to eradicate, to kill. Their power both fascinates and intimidates. Here is the enemy! And wolf and mountain lion are shot; coyote is poisoned. That which requires one to be more careful, more mindful, is eliminated. And with the passing of wolf and rattler, poison oak and thorn, passes the integrity of the habitats they guard.”

— Joan Halifax - The Fruitful Darkness: A Journey Through Buddhist Practice and Tribal Wisdom

[closet-keys]

Reformist Reforms vs. Abolitionist Steps in Policing by Critical Resistance

Image description under the cut.

Keep reading

[forbidden-sorcery]

“Symbolic thought run wild can create minds radically separate from the indexical grounding their bodies might otherwise provide. Our bodies, like all of life, are the products of semiosis. Our sensory experiences, even our most basic cellular and metabolic processes, are mediated by representational—though not necessarily symbolic—relations. But symbolic thought run wild can make us experience “ourselves” as set apart from every-thing: our social contexts, the environments in which we live, and ultimately even our desires and dreams. We become displaced to such an extent that we come to question the indexical ties that would otherwise ground this special kind of symbolic thinking in “our” bodies, bodies that are themselves indexically grounded in the worlds beyond them: I think therefore I doubt that I am. How is this possible? And why is it that we don’t all live in a constant state of skeptical panic? That my sense of anxious alienation dissipated the moment the bird came into sharp focus provides some insights into the conditions under which symbolic thought can become so radically separate from the world, as well as those under which it can fall back into place. I do not, by any means, wish to romanticize tropical nature or privilege anyone’s connection to it. This sort of regrounding can happen anywhere.”

— Eduardo Kohn - How Forests Think: Toward an Anthropology Beyond the Human

[abiding-in-peace]

“Around us, life bursts with miracles–a glass of water, a ray of sunshine, a leaf, a caterpillar, a flower, laughter, raindrops. If you live in awareness, it is easy to see miracles everywhere. Each human being is a multiplicity of miracles. Eyes that see thousands of colors, shapes, and forms; ears that hear a bee flying or a thunderclap; a brain that ponders a speck of dust as easily as the entire cosmos; a heart that beats in rhythm with the heartbeat of all beings. When we are tired and feel discouraged by life’s daily struggles, we may not notice these miracles, but they are always there.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh

[queeranarchism]

Thinking or how capitalism replaced ‘we are all sinful and unworthy of paradise and we must repent and serve god our whole life because of it’

With ‘we are all lazy and unworthy of basic necessities and we must scrape by and be productive our whole life because of it’

And now there are segments of social justice culture, especially of liberal social justice culture, that want to replace that with ‘we are all guilty of climate change and systematic oppression and unworthy of compassion and we must sacrifice everything that gives us pleasure and throw ourselves fully into the fight against these systems because of it’.

And like, that is bullshit. We were not born guilty. Pursuing pleasure and resting are good actually. But more importantly: in all three cases, this line of thinking is designed to control people. Which is a very good reason not to trust anyone peddling guilt like that.

[a-krogan-skald-and-bearsark]

The Puritans got kicked out of England for a reason and that reason was they were shit.

[queeranarchism]

The puritans took it to a whole new level, sure. But this stuff is aaaaaalll of christianity, from the Catholic concept of original sin to the protestant ‘work ethic for God’. Guilt and never being good enough is baked into Christianity generally.

[lazyyogi]

Give up defining yourself – to yourself or to others. You won’t die. You will come to life. And don’t be concerned with how others define you. When they define you, they are limiting themselves, so it’s their problem. Whenever you interact with people, don’t be there primarily as a function or a role, but as the field of conscious Presence. You can only lose something that you have, but you cannot lose something that you are.

Eckhart Tolle