G. Michael Vasey's Blog: The Wacky World of Dr. Vasey, page 9

The Quality of Humanity

I saw a post on a musicians forum today – it was a meme pointing out how many likes a female selfie got versus a song someone spent hours working on. Another person commented maybe it was the quality of the music?

I was scrolling through instagram last night and I noticed how some twenty something had posted a selfie of herself more or less naked. 22k likes. A photographer had posted a beautiful picture of a church. 2 likes.

Sums up the modern world really doesn’t it.

Artistry and talent – 0 Pointless nude selfie – 6

I wondered what that meant about quality, people and their values.

I went back to the musicians forum and posted my thoughts – What does it say about the music? Nothing. It is what it says about the quality of humanity that worries me.

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Is there meaning in chaos?

Just recently, it seems like everywhere I look, people are trying to give meaning to current events. ‘It’s a plague on humanity, punishment for some collective crime’, we are told by some. It’s a plague sent by God to punish us for some other collective sin’, say others. Frankly, I grow weary of all of this. Did anyone stop and think that perhaps we live in a chaotic system and this is what chaotic looks like? Does there have to be a reason for these events? Does there have to be a super power or deity behind them? And, if there was a deity or intelligence behind these events – what meaning would that have? Surely, to us, it would be chaotic and unknowable? Why do we even ask these questions? Surely, the meaning people seek isn’t to be found in the chaos at all but in how we react to it?

I do happen to believe that all is One Thing and interconnected. There is even something of a model for this and its called the Tree of life. The tree exists with three pillars – severity, mercy and balance. I consider that one must always try to seek the balance, but that may be another post. The fact is that this model – the tree of life – it has dualities (in fact there are at least 3 polarities – see The Mystical Hexagram) – but let us look at Geburah and Chesed in particular as it is instructional. In any closed system like the Tree, there must be a mechanism for destruction and it is found on the pillar of severity at Geburah. I like how this website describes Geburah,

This is the sphere of Severity. It is most singular in its purity. Like a Shire horse at work, it is blinkered and intent upon its path. This nature of evil is revealed here, in adversity and temptation; the Great War rages.

Whereas Chesed is described by the same website as follows,

This is the sphere of Mercy and Majesty. Here is the perfected nature of governance, and the highest God known to man. Compassion, cooperation and consensus are here. In the number four the power of earth is revealed, though the sphere is given to water for its passive and receptive qualities.

 

These statements remind me of how some commentators see the current situation. There are those who see the deaths as just old people dying who would have died anyway – no big human tragedy and certainly not worthy of threatening the whole of humanity via a depression (Geburic) versus those who mourn every lost precious life and see a tragedy beyond its true reality (Chesedic). I try to approach the problem in as balanced a way as I am capable. The fact is that, in this system, Geburah fulfills a very necessary function. We can call it evil because it looks that way to us but maybe it is the tough love that is sometimes needed to improve the whole. What is evil anyway?

There is an aspect of evil that is relative to our perspective and the story “Moses meets his master Melchizedek” (Comte de Gabalis, Discourse II Commentary) gives a very good taste of this. In the story, Moses asks to follow Melchizedek who readily agrees though says that if he is questioned by Moses, he must go. On the walk, Melchizedek does several things that Moses does indeed question as they seem to him to be evil acts. Melchizedek chides Moses and sends him away after explaining the higher purpose behind each of his acts. We often see creation as order and chaos and the battle between them. But who is to say what is chaos and what is order?

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So, it annoys me to see people descending to simple superstition and seeing a punishment by God, Goddess or whatever, in the events we see around us. I’d rather see it as the ongoing order and chaos dichotomy – as an example of how the system works as seen in Geburah and Chesed. It may well have divine origins, but it is not punishment though there may well be a lot of karma worked out. It is a trial, a tribulation designed to have each and everyone of us reflect and learn. It is an opportunity to grow spiritually – not as seen by the tedious political nonsense of today in arguments about ideology (climate change and the like) – but in terms of the whole system resetting itself.

I often see the outer world as a reflection of the inner self. When the outer world is chaotic, should it not perhaps cause us to ponder a little on how our internal spiritual make up is? In reflecting a bit on what the current situation, and a reset, may mean to us, we should be strive to find inner peace and balance. Perhaps in doing so, we will help to restore peace and balance in the world? We might see the current scene as an opportunity for spiritual growth. A lesson yes, but not one taught by a harsh and angry God/Goddess. No –  more like a bit of tough love.

Again, there are those who write of magnificent outcomes. New worlds and new orders and a lot of other such nonsense. Again, isn’t this just man trying to imagine being God and projecting self onto deity and the unknowable? The One Thing isn’t out for revenge and the outcome is actually likely to be more of the same, but slightly different. It is likely to be a bit less fluffy and a bit more focused on the realities of living. And a few might have experienced a bit of a wake up call along the way about what is truly of value. This will be of a personal nature to them, but I do suspect many will discover that things they had thought important never were and some things they took for granted were as precious as gold.

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What Works? My Inability to Lose Weight

Although in lockdown, we are allowed out to walk dogs and take walks – so long as we are only one or two people and wearing a face mask of some type. So I still get my daily exercise and combine it with my bicycle and weights. According to my apple watch anyway, I am burning 3500 or so calories a day. Neither do I think I am over eating – although there are days I have a bit. But, this last 2-3 years, I slowly gain weight.

It doesn’t matter what I do. I have tried;

Low carb
No carb
Carb cycling
Eating only in a 6 hour window daily
Breakfast/No breakfast
Fasting
Swimming a km every day
and more …

Nothing works!

I believe I eat less calories than I use most days – I even ordered food up to 2500 calories to see – and yet, I gain weight. Slowly and inexorably.

I hate it. Any suggestions????

 

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Being Creative in a Time of Negativity – Reblogged from Peter C. Whitaker

My wife reminded me lately that I once said that if I could have a couple of months of work then I could write another book! Prophetic words. I have not exactly had a couple of months to dedicate to writing another book, I am a key worker, but I have recently had a couple of weeks at home due to changing priorities at work and during that time I have written absolutely nothing!

I am not suffering from writer’s block. I have plenty of ideas. In fact, I even started writing a new novel despite telling myself that I would not commit to such a project so as to give myself more time for marketing endeavours. Although I have tried to sit down and continue this work I found it very difficult to get started again. I just lacked the enthusiasm for it. In response I carried out a review of my idea to see if there was a flaw with it, a problem that was causing me to hesitate, but it was not the story or the plot or the basic idea itself. I realised that my disinclination to write fiction was inspired by the high levels of negativity that have overwhelmed us lately.

On an unconscious level I think that I already knew this. I have been self-isolating from social media. When I researched the science of climate change one of the things that I discovered was that many people have no interest in facts, evidence, theories supported by logic, or even in the idea of having a reasoned discussion. The same held true for the outbreak of Coronavirus. People seem to prefer panic and hysteria to knowledge and understanding. The media have been largely blamed for stoking this almost world-wide distress and I think that it is a fair judgement. Even now, the figures given by various news outlets are centred on the number of people who have died, not those who have recovered. Certainly, there is no attempt at establishing a perspective by using a comparison of figures for the percentages of the population dying from other causes than Covid-19.

Today, my natural optimism reasserted itself. I woke up feeling like I want to write again. My first thought was of my latest story. In truth, it has never been very far from my mind. Even when I was struggling with the negativity I was still thinking of ways to develop the plot, create interesting characters, and all the other things that go into writing a book. It is escapism. Fiction has always been about escapism, but when it comes to doing the actual writing that is as much an escape for me as reading the finished novel is for the reader.

Beyond doing what my day job requires of me it feels like there is very little that I can do about the current situation that the world finds itself in. I am not a medical scientist so I cannot help develop a vaccine. I can, however, avoid feeling helpless in such a situation. I can resist the negativity and immerse myself in something creative, and that is what I plan to do. I doubt that my book will change the world or the current health crisis, but it might serve as a small beacon of hope in someone else’s darkness and that, I think, is a good thing in itself.

[image error]Peter C. Whitaker – originally posted here

Peter C. Whitaker is an author and fellow Hull-born writer. Please visit his site and his books are very good.

He is on Amazon too.

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Life is Fun. Live it.

There are times when people make snide remarks to me like who do you think you are? There are others who think that my interest in certain topics is a reason to make fun of me. Some marvel at the range of things I do – ‘how do you find the time?’ they ask. It has been like that all my life and when I was younger, the unkind words hurt and wounded me. Even now, there are times when I realize that whatever it is inside of me that drives me, it often puts me counter to mass thinking, fashion or ideas. But sometime around 20 or so years ago, something clicked. It was this. It is my life. I have one shot. Whatever is going on around me, whatever is in the news, whatever the latest end of the world prophecy, I am not going to fret. Nope. I am going to live. I am going to do things I want to do and express myself. I’m on my own and I have to be responsible for me. No one will ever take care of me as well as me.

In the last few months, a number of people have sent me messages or said to me privately, you know you have balls to say the things that you do and I privately I agree with you…. but, I could never say so. I would lose friends, my job etc. etc. It made me realize that I am still the odd one. The one the mainstream would take the piss out of. Even my ex would tell me sarcastically it was a waste of time to meditate on Pinocchio – taking the piss out of my interest in myth, legend and fairy tale – which I believe hold deep vat fulls of esoteric knowledge and guidance and are well worthy of meditation and more.

And you know, I have been successful at what I do. Writing, making music, poetry, photography….. business. Not in the sense that I am famous or wealthy, but in the sense that I have done it. Stretched myself, explored myself and the world around me and had the guts to do what people told me I could not or should not do.

 

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I have made mistakes and my life has taken pathways I never expected. I have lived in the UK, USA, Europe. I am somehow stateless these days. I live alone. I have kids in Texas and in the Czech Republic, family in England, a girlfriend in Hungary and friends around the globe. I have been rich and I have also had nothing but a suitcase with underwear and a pair of gardening jeans. And you know what – it didn’t matter a jot! Happiness doesn’t come from things or even other people. It comes from within.

I have met famous people and hung out with billionaires. I have partied in San Francisco and shivered in Aberdeen. The only major city I never visited in the USA is Portland – perhaps another day. I have lived in a huge sprawling home with 3 Benz in the driveway and a 50m pool and Jaccuzi in the back yard and also in a single room not big enough to swing a cat. I have experienced being flown out to meet the CEO to convince me to stay in a job and fired from one that I gave my all to. I have built my own PR and marketing business and sold it. I have been deep in debt from a business idea gone wrong. I have published peer reviewed papers and PhDs and stacked shelves in a supermarket as mop manager. And I hope that I have much more time to do more, be other places, meet new people and continue to dream this wonderful dream.

It’s not that I am singing my own praises here. I am just realising that being different. Seeing ghosts. Seeing the Goddess step out from behind a stone. Seeing the spirits inside a tree. Hearing music in my head. Seeing a sword emerge from the water. Imagining alternate universes…… all of these things. They have proven to be gifts. At the age of 60, even with a pandemic going on around me, I can say I may never have been happier. I realise that I am alive. I live. I do what I think and I think what I think. And that is how it should be. More than that – I am equally happy alone as I am with friends or relatives. I have endless things to do – be it researching the slavic Gods, trying to bump into the local shaman who leaves his stones around my area, building my business, writing another book, meditating on Pinocchio or thinking about science or just listening to music.

Life is fun. Live it.

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The Dream

Can you play a tune or

Strum a chord

Sing a harmony?

Can you close your eyes

And see a vision or

Hear a song

And sing along?

And if you can then

Do you know what is real

What is solid to the touch

And what will disappear

If you look too much?

And when you dream

Do you dream within that dream

Is there some trick

So that life is my dream

And the dream my life?

Turned inside out

Perhaps you doubt

What is real and what is not

Are you just like me and think a lot

About what and who you are?

Where you came from

And where you might go?

When this dream is over

 

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The Joys of Spring

Winter is a fading memory

Veles is once again defeated

As life breaks forth

The cycle has repeated

The point of balance passed

And Earth is bathed in light

Life emerges and thrives

After sleeping through the night

The Mother expresses her joy

In the play of vital life

Sol rides his chariot higher

Hoping to glimpse the maiden

The Goddess of love

Spied on from above

The dance has begun

Fertility and fecundity springs

Maiden will become Mother

Pregnant with potential

To spawn another cycle

Of life and death

 

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Perun

How mighty thou art O’ God of the skies

Endlessly chasing the horned God of lies

An endless cycle of endings and beginnings

And this is the meaning of the World

It’s the darkness stealing the fire at night

And the first glowing dawn of light

It’s the creation of many

Tested in the fires

Some are destroyed

Others forged in steel

It is an ever turning wheel

The cycle of life

And death

To begin

We must have an ending

And somewhere

There is balance

In the shifting sands of time

The fleeting balance

Of a line in creation

A crack of thunder

A line of light as

Perun makes all right

 

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The Slavic World Tree Myth and the Hexagram

Several years ago, Sue Vincent and I wrote a book about the Hexagram. The book explores that symbol. “Not from some scholarly or deeply complex perspective, but seeing it as a representation relating to life and living. The forces and pressures that are associated with the hexagram are, after all the forces of life at both practical and Universal levels. By exploring and beginning to understand the symbol, we are able to learn and discover more about ourselves.” On the website for the book, I have occasionally pointed to how the hexagram is a key of sorts to help unlock deeper mysteries in many different occult symbols or methods. In the last few months, I have been exploring the Czech landscape – the slavic landscape to be more precise – and I came across yet another example.

 

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The Mystical Hexagram

In slavic myth, the world is seen as a tree – a tree of life if you will. In fact, it may be that the ancient Slavs worshipped trees and the Gods associated with them. So imagine from this slavic perspective that creation is a tree – a huge and ancient Oak. The huge Oak reaches up to the sky and its branches reach up to heaven while its solid roots reach to the underworld. The trunk is the world. Now, atop the tree and the ruler of heaven is the mighty Perun – God of thunder and lightening. Often symbolized by the Eagle and storms. A mighty warrior wielding a mighty battle axe riding a chariot. His weapon is lightening or golden apples that he throws at his enemies. He is representative of Fire and Air. Beneath him, ruling the underworld is Veles, a trickster, a shapeshifter and symbolized by the serpent. He is often pictured as having the head of a bear and the body of a serpent and he punishes with disease. Veles is representative of Earth and Water.

 

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Perun

 

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Veles

In the myth of the slavic world tree, Perun and Veles are in constant battle. Veles comes up and steals Perun’s cattle, wife or children. Perun chases Veles shooting lightening at him in the end killing Veles. Of course, Veles always comes back to life and the the process is repeated. In fact, Perun is often shown as a figure on horse back spearing the dragon Veles – just like St., George or probably more closely – St. Michael.

 

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8th Century image of Perun defeating Veles

There are many levels to this myth obviously but one suggests the cycle of the year with winter and summer – light and dark. It is the story of balance – balance of the seasons, balance of the cycles, life and death and so on. It is also another version of the hexagram. As Perun is Fire (and Air)  overlaying Veles’ Earth (and Water). When placed one on top of the other – hey presto – a hexagram with its central point of balance……..

The mystical hexagram is everywhere…….

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Hey Mr. Shaman

 

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Hey Mr. Shaman

What is it that you do?

The signs that you leave

What is their meaning?

Are you welcoming spring

And letting the year begin?

Pebble patterns all around

The silent drum beat

In surround sound

What is the meaning?

What is your intent?

Neighborhood shaman

Shadowy magic maker

Operating in plain site

Yet no one notices your

Pebbles and tobacco

No one questions

What it is you do

Except me

And Im curious

You see

 

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