An Apotheosis Of Roses (or Brooklyn Now And Zen)
June is Rose month… and It’s been said that by looking deeply into the shape of a rose, you can see the mind of god… so that seemed worth trying and the Brooklyn Botanic Garden is free on Tuesdays… the following is a meditation on time, space, and as always the duality of man, but it is also a sort of rose binge, as I keep seeing them everywhere and staring at them and then they keep showing up on the blog… Maybe I”ll get it out of my system by tantric excess.
June 15th, 2005 at 7:20 pm
i have been having an ongoing metaphysical dialogue with my australian beau who i have happily recognized as my muse and soulmate and the love of my life. he’s starting to get used to the fact that simply asking me what kind of engagement ring I would like turns into one of my long discourses on the semiotics of marriage and rings and my growing desire to reject our consensus reality and seek nonconformity at every turn. i have been pondering the big questions and writing about them for the past couple years…i believe i am writing some sort of opus but i’m not sure what form it will take…so many media to choose from.
i believe the first step is to question everything and free your mind and soul by recognizing that much of what we call “reality” is in fact an illusion. (this is the essence of the gnostic/esoteric/mystical teachings) the second step is to recognize that “G-O-D” or the “cosmic energy” or ‘LOVE” or whatever metaphor you want to choose is within and we are all part of a single whole or “collective.” the third step is to dare to love from the soul in a ego-trapped world that dismisses true love as a quixotic fantasy. experiencing the bliss of soul-love leads to the third step which is understanding that heaven and hell are right here.  many of us live in depressive “hells” where we suffer and it is only by choosing to understand and alleviate that suffering do we discover our own heavens and approach enlightenment.
your dream with its ties to philosophy & spirituality & tantra (and your ongoing meditations on the nature of love) tie into an email i sent my man in Oz early this morning after reading today’s NYT piece “The Science of Crazy in Love” about how love “sears the brain” and manifests as “mental illness.”
subject: thoughts on a tuesday morning…
how sad that science still thinks everything can be measured with a machine. how tragic to reduce love to a brain illness without any mention of the mysterious spiritual component that has inspired great art and action throughout human history. can a situation where we are medicated away from this “mental illness” a la “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” be far away? (how dangerous it would be for the war-mongering authoritarian dictatorships of the world if we all “joined the resistance and fell in love”: http://www.crimethinc.com/library/english/join.html
yet another sign that I need to mount another production of OPERATION KNOCKOUT)
I say the “madness” of love is the awakening soul fulfilling its destiny. the yearning of the soul to love…to converge with the collective…to tap into the eternal love energy by connecting with another soul is what drives us to love. but few people understand that it is this unconscious drive along with the desire to create meaning in the meaningless void and attempt to alleviate the suffering of loneliness we all feel as orphans from our collective parentage. most of us are creatures who yearn but we know not what we yearn for.
we may express our love in different ways but rest assured it is true soul-love that I feel for you.  I marvel at the beauty and power of this awesome phenom and it is with great sadness I realize how few people understand the essence of love.  i know it is something that must be cherished and nutured and I am committed to doing so. I am fascinated by this thing called “love” but I approach it as an explorer and philosopher…not a scientist.
so we have “love chemicals” in the brain…the question still remains why do we have such powerful chemicals such as dopamine & hallucinogenics in our pineal gland? is it our internal modem that allows the orphaned soul to communicate with the collective unconscious? I have a couple of fascinating books on the ties between spirituality and hallucinogens…i think this all has to do with allowing the ego to comprehend alternate realities…to live from the soul is to exist in multiple realities simultaneously.  it’s like dialing up to a psychic internet where the information flow is very strong. there is a reason why many artists & shamans have been drawn to these substances…
true love comes from an awakened soul but few people take that love energy and complete the transformation. they fixate on another and reduce their soul passion to ego desire and when the relationship falls apart they embrace the negative energy without ever understanding how close they were to the divine. There is a vast difference between living and loving from the soul and living and loving from the ego. The questions remain…is it “love” if it comes from the ego and not the soul? This article seems to assume all love is ego love and self-deceptive and is destined to end.  And perhaps that is the only healthy resolution for that type of love. Perhaps ego love is meant to lead us to soul love. Perhaps we must learn the lessons of false unfulfilling love before we can appreciate true love.
{note: the blogmaster can attest i was quite mad before i fell in love. the nature of existence is that there are multiple truths…that’s part of the joke.}