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Blue, Black, Silver, Water, Moons, Death & Ghosts Charleston, West Virginia Music & Songs Videos

Park Man (Video)

A song… I guess… about my love for men who are boring on the outside but shady* on the inside- like detectives… or maybe it is a song about my love for the gray clouds and fog that hang over West Virginia in the early spring. All I know for certain is that I wrote this song while thinking about the constellation Scorpio in a bathtub… sometimes when I am feeling down or lost I will choose a constellation to think about to cheer me up… and the moon was in Scorpio at the time, which is why I chose it, maybe. I was in the bathtub because it was the only bathing device in the house, the house being from 1907. However, a shower head has just been installed, so life is more normal now.

*Secretive, I mean. I secretly admire people who have that quality, because I usually end up spilling all the contents of my mind, whether I mean to or not.

You could be my dark man
Stranger in the park man
Standing in your trench coat flashing
Stars above but somethings crashing down

You could be my shady friend
Standing where the street lights end
Shadows fall always behind you
No one seeks and no one finds you now

Clouds stretch so far away
Endless worlds of endless grey
Walk before me and I’l follow you
This road leads us to tomorrow, true?

Clouds takes shape but they always lie
We’ll get bored but we’ll never die
Lay your hand upon my head now
Lead me through the fog and dread now

You could be my shadow man
To offer me your white bread hand
Shelling peanuts with your finger
A dusty feeling I remember now

Life can be so many things
Sometimes swirling like a dream
Sometimes flat I’m trapped inside it
Close my eyes but they won’t hide it

Half alive but that’s okay
The other half is filled with gray
Eyes are reaching through the fog and lace
From another world I can almost place

You could be my answer man
A book to dull to understand
A slice of bread upon my plate
The rusty and forgotten gate to now.

Get MP3 here… Park Man

Do you see what I mean? It is like this a lot. West Virginia is a nice place for fog lovers.
Categories
Charleston, West Virginia Uncategorized Writings

What are Values?

Values live on top of a person’s head. They are sometimes confused with goodness, but no set of values can make a person good. In fact, an excessive focus on values can separate a person from the actual seat of goodness- their heart.

The heart is good, but not Good. It is the fuzzy mammalian instinct we have to empathize with and help others. The heart is caring, but not Righteous. It doesn’t care because it should, but just because it is naturally furry and soft. It might not even be aware that it cares; it just reaches out a warm hand to others automatically. The heart expresses her warmth through actions.

Values, on the other hand, are cold and harsh. You could compare them to stars guiding a person through the desert. They offer no warmth nor coziness, but can provide austere guidance and possibly exhilaration. We turn to stars when we are lost and travelling through barren, inhospital places- such as the ocean. It is the same with values. If our whole life were a walk through a rose garden, they might never cross our mind at all. We think of them most when we have nothing else.

Values are useful so long as you choose the right ones. Like stars, values encircle the globe, existing at all locations. They are infinite, and all have polarities- opposites- which are equally valuable. Honing into the right value can help a person to stay focused on their spiritual purpose- like a soldier tuning into Bravery or a salesman into Enthusiasm. There are Soul Values which guide us throughout our life and relate to our deepest purposes, and other values which we may plug into temporarily to navigate an obstacle. Adopting the wrong values, however- such as a soldier plugging into Empathy- could make it impossible to fulfill our mission.

There are two ways to adopt a value. One is to mentally accept it as an idea that you *should* live by it. In this case, it is generally a value derived from our peer group. This can create strong feelings of anger as the foreign value and our nature continually clash. Eventually, this anger may be projected onto others whom the person sees as lacking the value, relieving the guilt they feel in being unable to live up to the value themselves. Ultimately, of course, the angry person needs to question the value of their value and likely trade it in for another, more suitable, choice.

In other cases, a person tries to actually live by a chosen value. I am not sure how common this is, but all our heroes, for example, are people who at least seemed to embody one value or another.

The beauty of a value is that it can unlock supernatural powers. By choosing to follow a value, you are connecting to a living set of higher powers who will set things in motion around you. If you choose the right value, they will be like winds that carry you to your destiny. Choose the wrong value, and it will be an exhilarating ride that leaves you dashed against the rocks.

Shopping with Slippers.
Categories
Blue, Black, Silver, Water, Moons, Death & Ghosts Charleston, West Virginia Music & Songs Red, Soldiers, & Fire

Fall

For a sign
Some people complain about time, boy
I could always see what was mine, boy
I could stand for ever and just watch the stars unwind.

For a name,
A piece of gold to hold in the rain, boy
So buy up all the land you can claim, boy
I will stay behind you in the darkness and I’ll pray-

Pray to men that live in water, men that live in dreams
Show me how to love and conquer, show me what it truly means to

Fall
Show me how to fall.

For a dream
To chase after that glittering gleam, boy
Though things will never be as they seem, boy
Diamonds in your hand evaporating into steam.

And a fate
You can’t stand beside the water and wait, boy
Not many in this world who are brave, boy
I will stay behind you in the darkness and I’ll pray-

Pray to stars that keep us shining, pooling in the night
Stars of love and stars of violence, show us how to truly fight and

Fall
Show me how to fall.

Then the mist
It will flow around you like this, boy
Your thoughts will start to garble and twist, boy
Feeling with your hand to find the something you have missed.

Then the night
It starts when you get used to light, boy
Things will start to dim but not quite, boy
Feeling with your hand you realize that you are dying…

But are you dying from asphyxiation, dying from a flood?
Dying for a drop of luster, dying for some blood?

I will hold you in my mind then, shining like a dream
Emerald lights upon your shoulder- shining like an emerald king and

Fall
Show me how to fall.

Categories
Charleston, West Virginia Music & Songs Purple, Magic & Sorcerers Red, Soldiers, & Fire Uncategorized

Little Red

Little Red consults with a red magician.

Here, have a seat.
Have a treat.
Do you like my library? Let’s talk

About life
One day you’ll be someone’s wife-
You’ll need knowledge to guide you, my girl.

Little Red, Little Red, Little Red
Little Red, Little Red, Little Red

There on the street
You will meet
First you’ll look in his eyes then you’ll dream

Of a touch
Thinking it means something much-
Now you’re already bleeding, my girl.

Little Red, Little Red, Little Red
Little Red, Little Red, Little Red

First
Only smiles, only dreams
With his blood flowing wild through your veins

Then a ring,
Thinking it means the same thing-
You’ll need magic to guide you now, girl.

Little Red, Little Red, Little Red
Little Red, Little Red, Little Red

Fade, like a dream
So you’ll scream
But there’s no one to catch you now, girl

To the lake-
There you can feel your heart break
You’ll need water to guide you now, girl.

Little Red, Little Red, Little Red
Little Red, Little Red, Little Red

So, now we’ve talked
Now you’ll walk
When I open this door on your own

Even so
Please take a cookie to go
For your blood is an angel, my girl.

Little Red, Little Red, Little Red
Little Red, Little Red, Little Red

Categories
Charleston, West Virginia Music & Songs Red, Soldiers, & Fire Videos

Fly Away (video)

Categories
Charleston, West Virginia Earth, Pink, Mothers, Love Music & Songs

Runaway

You filled my mind up with gold
Until my mind I gave away
Hidden nights, filled with spite
Left me numb in my left leg
But that’s life- I never wanted to be anyone’s wife.

Even breath, even life
People throw these things away
Even breath, even dreams,
More than this you’ll sacrifice just to stay.

You gotta move now, nothing is real
Into the woods now, we’ll make a deal
In the footprints of a runaway, you’ll find gold.
In the footprints of a runaway, you’ll find gold.

Why are you still talking to me?
Take this fucking eggs away
Black inside, black inside
So many things you have to hide just to stay.

You gotta move now, nothing is real
Into the woods now, we’ll make a deal
In the footprints of a runaway, you’ll find gold.
In the footprints of a runaway, you’ll find gold.

Grey figures surround me now
Dangling there by a string.
Soft voices slip under the door
To talk about everything.

Shadows of the leaves at night
Things we’ll never rise above
Plants upon the window pane
All the simple things I came here to love.

You gotta move now, nothing is real
Into the woods now, we’ll make a deal
In the footprints of a runaway, you’ll find gold.
In the footprints of a runaway, you’ll find gold.

Download Mp3: Runaway

 

Categories
Charleston, West Virginia Writings

A couple more questions about sex…

Recently, I have been thinking a lot about sex. Not the act itself but the force that drives it. What is this red thing and what is it trying to do? What is happening when a person gets aroused? What does it mean? Why can people be turned on by things that are dark and dirty, things which they themselves find disgusting, and never by ice cream cones? Or the Mona Lisa?

I think understanding sex drives is the new frontier of psychology and will shed new light on many things. One of which is men. Currently, if something arouses men it is said to be attractive, as though beauty itself is what men find stimulating. This causes women to base their own femininity on their ability to give men erections. But, is it possible, that if they understood the actual factors at play in sexual desire they would no longer consider this a worthwhile goal?

There is also the question of whether sex is always sex, or if the dick can perform multiple functions with only a superficial resemblance. Just as the mouth can eat or throw up… just as words can threaten or seduce… is it possible that an orgasm can be either an expression of desire or an act of elimination, an attempt to rid oneself of negative feelings and attachments?

Why can we feel a strong charge towards certain people, but not to others? What does this charge mean? What happens during a sexual encounter and how does it change us? Is there a lingering bond between people who have once had sex? What kind of bond is it?

What does it mean when someone has a sexual encounter in a dream? Does sex impact men and women differently, with men gaining energy through random encounters and women losing it? What makes a person gay or causes them to have a foot fetish? And why is sex important? Why does it make people lose their minds and take risks they wouldn’t take for other forms of pleasure? And is it even a pleasure or something else entirely?

Until recently, I wouldn’t have considered sex to be a significant factor in most people’s lives. But once I turned my focus onto it, I started to notice it operating more and more, as a covert yet powerful force in human affairs. Like a light in the center of the earth causing all roots to secretly dig towards it. Why? What are we really looking for?

Categories
Astrology Charleston, West Virginia Writings

Projection

Although you probably hear the word “projection” being thrown around a lot, if you are like me (or at least the person I was until yesterday) you might not have a clear idea of how psychological projection works.

I vaguely saw projecting as the act of imagining others to have qualities they don’t actually possess. But what I’ve realized is that projecting is more about actively trying to dissociate from a specific part of yourself, which you then try to see in others. But seeing this quality in others is more of a side effect. The heart of projection is trying to detach from a part of yourself.

Another aspect of projection is that you don’t realize you are doing it. And while it is easy to imagine other people doing things unawares, it can come as a shock to realize you have been doing this yourself.

Yesterday, I experienced this shock when I became aware of a projection I have been carrying on throughout my life. I realized I have always tried to divorce myself from being in any way intellectual, educated, or sophisticated. Instead, I would project these traits onto others and feel in awe of their cosmopolitan qualities, despite the fact that they would frequently be people less “cultured” than myself.

This may seem like a strange aspect of oneself to project, since many people view sophistication as a desirable quality. Astrologically, though, it makes sense. There are a few factors in a person’s chart that determine which parts of themselves they desire to offload onto others. For example, the qualities of any planet opposite to Venus at the time of birth, will tend to get projected. I was born with Venus opposite Jupiter, who rules higher education, philosophy, wealth,  and the high brow parts of a culture in general. Therefore, I would want to see scholarly, urbane qualities in others, but never in myself.

I grew up wealthy and as a child my identity was the smart, intellectual one, which never made me feel especially cute. Perhaps this is why I dreamed of being an uneducated hayseed from the country.  When I first read Rousseau, his glamorization of the Noble Savage went straight to my heart. I wanted so badly to be that natural, lovable person, uncorrupted by human culture. And it seemed to me that poor people were somehow closer to Rousseau’s ideal.

Eventually I began trying (subconsciously) to associate myself with everything the opposite of the wealthy world I knew.  My favorite wine had to be Boone’s Farm, Strawberry-Kiwi. I tried to read harlequin novels and listen to cheesiest forms of country music. I attempted to become a secretary, a stripper, a worker at KFC. Some of which are noble jobs, but to the culture I came from, they were shocking and inappropriate choices. Especially secretary.

It was probably this same projection which caused me to move to West Virginia. I remember as a child how Kentucky (where I lived) was generally ranked second to last in everything. This made me proud. But West Virginia was always dead last in education, wealth, etc, which made me jealous. Being in last place made West Virginia pure. Beautiful.

And the more I convinced myself that I was, in fact, a rube, the more I would take pleasure in being wowed by the wealth and sophistication of those around me. If someone spoke a few words of another language, attended an art gallery, or took a plane ride to another country, I would be floored with admiration. Impressed. Delightfully intimidated. Feelings that gave me an almost sexual thrill. It made me feel warm and rosy to be a nothing, looking up in astonishment at someone else. Again, this was happening subconsciously, at the reptile level.

Over time, the projections grew more extreme. At first, it took a person’s trip to Africa to impress me. Eventually, their trip to the Olive Garden would do the trick. There was a point when I came close to being institutionalized for  mental retardation, while just a few years earlier I had been getting scholarships to Ivy League schools. So why did I feel such a desperate need to separate myself from the gloss of education and wealth? What was I trying to gain?

I don’t know. Maybe I felt more feminine and lovable as a simpleton. Maybe I felt restricted by my identity as a smart person. One drawback to being tagged intelligent is that you can only keep that label by expressing ideas that other people find intelligent. While for me, the ideas closest to my heart usually fall into realms which society finds fruit loopy, or sometimes just too far our and individualistic to be considered at all.

Maybe I felt confined by growing up wealthy. When your dinner chairs are valuable antiques, you can’t paint purple polka dots on them when the mood strikes. No one glues dinosaur figurines to a brand new Mercedes. It always seemed as though “the poor” had more options for how to express themselves. Of course, now I see things differently. Whimsical life choices are far more appealing when money is all around. When you are really poor, you don’t want to glue dinosaurs to your car.

Or it could be that we project aspects of ourselves as a response to external pressure. Another person convinces us to leave parts of ourselves behind so he can feed off them. After all, my obsession with being lowly made me eager to give away anything of value that I did possess, and to treat those around me like nobles. Maybe there were people encouraging me.

Causes aside, it is easy to see the damage this sort of projection can cause. Of course, people can project their “negative” qualities as well. If, for example, someone has a testy planet like Mars or Pluto opposite Venus, they will tend to see anger, hatred, and manipulation in those around them. Nonetheless, these projections are still damaging to the one doing them, because we can’t project our aggression onto someone else without giving them our power and agency as well.

*

So, that is all I have to say. My hope is that by sharing my longstanding pattern of projection with the wide and faceless world, it will be harder for me to keep doing it! 🙂

 

 

 

Categories
Blue, Black, Silver, Water, Moons, Death & Ghosts Charleston, West Virginia Writings

The Reptile is the Magician

Sometimes I have the urge to go to seed- to just drop my identity and normal pursuits and be nothing. That is the state I have been living in so far this year and in that state I have nothing to express. Hence no posts or new songs.

One thing, though, that has been coming more and more into my mind is the importance of our reptile brain. The brain that rules sex, survival, rage, murder, and also (I think) magic. I see this brain as residing somewhere in our genitals. Its counterpart is the mammalian brain which lives in our heart and is concerned with love, relationships, and goodness. We tend to identify much more with our mammalian self while viewing our reptile as some crude, simplistic biological piece that exists primarily for breeding and the continuation of the species.

This I do not agree with. Although the reptile speaks the language of sex and survival, these are not his true goals, much less the survival of the species (which I seriously doubt any organisms give a f-ck about.)

The reptile is our connection to the black world of death and magic. He isn’t afraid of death, because he always has one foot in death’s alternate reality. Our reptile is connected to the primordial (but hardly primitive) ooze of pure knowledge that created us and he shares this ooze’s magical powers. He has the ability to transform and recreate reality at its most fundamental and even material levels.

There are multiple parts of us that connect into different realities. Different spiritual realities, for lack of a better word. The black world of death is just one of these. Each one of these worlds contains its own symbolic language. Sex and violence are the language the world of death speaks. Violent and sexual desires that come into our mind- especially when they are not in line with our heart- are messages from the world of death. This world can also speak to us through creativity and dreams (although both of these can emanate from other worlds as well.)

There is way more to say on this subject, but I am just beginning to figure things out. All I want to get across right now is this message: The reptile is far from a simpleton. He is a magician.

Categories
Blue, Black, Silver, Water, Moons, Death & Ghosts Charleston, West Virginia Music & Songs Purple, Magic & Sorcerers Videos Yellow, Gold, Kings, Fathers, and the Sun

Paradise (Video)