Category: Quotes

Dawn and Decay (March 2018)

 

Invent yourself and then reinvent yourself,
don’t swim in the same slough.
invent yourself and then reinvent yourself and
stay out of the clutches of mediocrity.

invent yourself and then reinvent yourself,
change your tone and shape so often that they can never categorize you.

reinvigorate yourself and
accept what is
but only on the terms that you have invented
and reinvented.

be self-taught.

and reinvent your life because you must;
it is your life and
its history
and the present
belong only to
you.

-Charles Bukowski

 

Reinventing ourselves, challenging who we are in order to become more, is a necessity. No matter what stage of life we are in, we should never surrender who we may become for the day to day.

 

Click on images to see full-sized:

 

Bringer of the Dawn (Redux) by GAR

 

Visions of Decay by GAR

 

Some Hard Won Lessons Said by Others Better Than I Could (March 2018)

 

Trivial Note: Am I one of the few people not surprised or outraged by the fact that data that we share on FB got used badly? Anything that we share publically (or even far too often privately) runs the risk of being shared further. This is true of gossip, art, or personal data. All too often very few of us show little or no caution in these matters. Indeed many of the people outraged at Facebook and Mark Zukerberg are the same who post jokes about the government listening in to our phone calls and Alexa tracking our every recipe request.
Facebook and other Social Media are these free gifts that were provided for us. They are also businesses out for profit and their product is us. Everything costs, whether it be our time, our money, or our data and things that appear free too often tend to be the most expensive of all.
I have said often that I believe in personal responsibility (and have been recently surprised at how provocative those words can be). We can blame Zuckerberg, Facebook, Cambridge Analytics (etc) for illicit use of our data. Would they have that data if we didn’t offer it in the first place?
Which is a nice lead in to what I intended to be a blog entry consisting entirely of quotes:

 

“Gospodin,” he said presently, “you used an odd word earlier–odd to me, I mean…”
“Oh, ‘tanstaafl.’ Means ~There ain’t no such thing as a free lunch.’ And isn’t,” I added, pointing to a FREE LUNCH sign across room, “or these drinks would cost half as much. Was reminding her that anything free costs twice as much in long run or turns out worthless.”
“An interesting philosophy.”
“Not philosophy, fact. One way or other, what you get, you pay for.”
–Robert A. Heinlein, The Moon is a Harsh Mistress

 

“The recommendation for warriors is not to have any material things on which to focus their power, but to focus it on the spirit, on the true flight into the unknown, not on trivialities. Everyone who wants to follow the warrior’s path has to rid himself of the compulsion to possess and hold onto things.”
–Carlos Castaneda

 

“Nothing of any importance can be taught. It can only be learned, and with blood and sweat.”
–Robert Anton Wilson

 

Click on images to see full-sized:

 

Inner Reflection by GAR

 

Woodland Sinistral by GAR

 

Black Lotus Visions (March 2018)

 

“Whistlings of death and circles of muffled music make this adored body rise, swell and tremble like a ghost; scarlet and black wounds open in the magnificent flesh.”
— Arthur Rimbaud, Illuminations

 

Ancient exiles, tell me about your seas…
— Arthur Rimbaud

 

Click on images to see full-sized:

 

Black Lotus in the Storm (redux) by GAR

 


 

Solitary Roads (March 2018)

 

“Nothing of any importance can be taught. It can only be learned, and with blood and sweat.”
― Robert Anton Wilson

 

If we’re honest we cannot accept another’s path without losing our own,
We can learn from others and even seek an understanding of their road but when it comes to our own path, it is a forging of the way. No one can walk it for us and we have to do our own work. It is we who interact with our deities and demons and we will have to meet them all along the way.
“seek to shine darkness
not reflect another’s questionable light
and laugh …
if everyone, man, demon, or deity turned away
you would be left with a clear screen
find that empty hole in yourself
and throw yourself in
there you will find me.”

 

Click on images to see full-sized:

 

Beacon by GAR

 

Kephera (redux) by GAR

 

Echoes of Sheol by GAR

 

Changed Channeling (March 2018)

 

The more you invoke
the more of a connection
the more you read of books profane and energized
the more dark seeds you plant within
that is not success
on this path
it is through inner development
and actions that these seeds are nurtured
we engender the changes
overcoming the inertia of past patterns is up to you
with each word spoken, with every action or in action
with every thought you strenthen your new self or old
your becoming or your being

your inspired dark self writes these words
based on your understanding

Your bones are what we replace
they are your structure and properties
your heart is your identity’
the blood that it pumps
becomes envenomed
by our touch
thus the heart changes as you will
but it is you that changes it
as you ask for our touch
and our venom

In here are clues to the ripping of the veil
on the side of the veil you reside in
you become our bones and our venom

 

 
“…the basic law, the inherent tendency of each individual, is toward that total transformation of himself from the limited entity that he believes himself to be, to that which he really is in essence, i.e. a transcosmic, extra-terrestrial and – ultimately – ultra-dimensional /absence/.”
— Kenneth Grant

 

Click on images to see full-sized:

 

Entering the Abyss (Abaddon) by GAR

 

Psychopomp #2 (Shimaelok) by GAR

 

Through Imagery Into Shadowed Places (March 2018)

 

“Our will operates in spite of our indulgence. For example, your will is already opening your gap, little by little.” “What gap are you talking about?” “There is a gap in us; like the soft spot on the head of a child which closes with age, this gap opens as one develops one’s will.”
― Carlos Castaneda

 

Discomfort yourself,
avoid the sunny places that you know
I offer no safe wonderland
nor is that my intent
I want to ping your shadowed selves
and awaken the seed of potential
that lives within you
if only momentarily
something that you can nurture
into a dark mirror
whose image will help you grow.
Click on images to see full-sized:

 

Awareness of the Moment by GAR

 

Movement in the Shadows by GAR

 

Rage’s Liberation (March 2018)

 

Click on image to see full-sized:

 

Intellectual despair results in neither weakness nor dreams, but in violence. Thus abandoning certain investigations is out of the question. It is only a matter of knowing how to give vent to one’s rage; whether one only wants to wander like madmen around prisons, or whether one wants to overturn them.
— Georges Bataille
Raging at stasis
wanting to rip down structures
and watch them burn
in chaotic beauty
tear down this fleshy existence
on the return to pure spirit
Liberation to a better world
on the decaying bones of the old

 

Partial Setian Masque by GAR

 

Chromatic Rage Redux by GAR

 

Perspectives on Shadow (March 2018)

 

Listen to the shadows
as they speak to the fears
that drive you
and block you from your paths

Learn from the shadows
knowledge you’ll gain
nowhere else
ancient gnosis rediscovered
will further your journey

Become your shadows
manifest the hidden parts
you’ve avoided
and so evolve

Emanate Shadows
the process of becoming
never ends

 

““Be silent and listen: have you recognized your madness and do you admit it? Have you noticed that all your foundations are completely mired in madness? Do you not want to recognize your madness and welcome it in a friendly manner? You wanted to accept everything. So accept madness too. Let the light of your madness shine, and it will suddenly dawn on you. Madness is not to be despised and not to be feared, but instead you should give it life…If you want to find paths, you should also not spurn madness, since it makes up such a great part of your nature…Be glad that you can recognize it, for you will thus avoid becoming its victim. Madness is a special form of the spirit and clings to all teachings and philosophies, but even more to daily life, since life itself is full of craziness and at bottom utterly illogical. Man strives toward reason only so that he can make rules for himself. Life itself has no rules. That is its mystery and its unknown law. What you call knowledge is an attempt to impose something comprehensible on life.”
― Carl G.Jung
Click on images to see full-sized

 

Shadow Casting (redux) by GAR

 

Shadow Casting (ALT) by GAR

 

Odd Thoughts in the Black Sun’s Light (March 2018)

 

“We wanderers, ever seeking the lonelier way, begin no day where we have ended another day; and no sunrise finds us where sunset left us. Even while the earth sleeps we travel. We are the seeds of the tenacious plant, and it is in our ripeness and our fullness of heart that we are given to the wind and are scattered.”
— Kahlil Gibran

 

Learn to be alone without loneliness
To feel every emotion without action or dwelling
and in action be swift, on-point,
and merciless in execution.

 

On instinct, I mistrust those who speak of self-knowledge and then express new age platitudes of beauty and sunshine. At our core there is beauty but ugliness and venom as well. There is selfishness, greed, love, violence, power, wrath and everything else conceivable. Acting like its not there won’t change it. Acknowledging, even honouring it makes us if not whole, more wholly ourselves.
Of course when it comes down to it, the snapshot of ourselves matters not nearly as much as that we become…

 

Click on images to see full-sized

 


A Tableau Within by GAR

 

Black Sun Ascending by GAR

 

Passage Through (March 2018)

 

“The Black Lord of the Witches, the Dark God of the two Horns, is the archetypal initiator-psychopomp who separates the subtle essence of the soul from the coarse material image of the body and who grants the extasis of night-transvection in the ‘living death’ of magical trance. When darkness covers the world and all are asleep in their beds, he is the dark-robed Master who summons forth the Wise to go out of themselves, riding on the turbulent storms and tempests over brake and thicket, ditch and dale to the realms beyond. As the Great Sorcerer and Lord of the Dead, the Horned One enables such translations into the spirit and opens the Devil’s Road to the High Sabbat.”
–Nigel Jackson

 

Click on images to see full-sized

 

Bring me to the edge and through
Devour my organs and
crush my bones
leaving my old ruined flesh behind
rip the shards of my being and memory
and guide my passage into the darkness
I hear nought but your dark wings as
I gain clarity with each step
I return to emptiness through your guidance
continuing as existence fades away.

 

Entering the New Land by GAR