floods

So much has happened since i last blogged, death of realtionship, floods in brisbane and more. I am couch surfing so rarely able to get to a computer. Theres a backlog of writing sitting inside me. The main reflection I have is that Brisbane has been wounded, the soul of the city is wounded and and hurting and needs strong medicine. This is the moment of alchemical carnivale. I beleive its the communitty healing process that has arrived at the right moment. Lets wait and see as I knock on doors. I can foresee a renaisance, a rebirth , a creative eruption coming from this moment.

death my teacher

I have never brought the myth of rationalism. I have just had too many experiences that point to a larger power at work that can not be comprehended by the rational mind. On numerous occasions i have just known something that subsequently proves to be true. I think this knowing comes fro m being close to death. Death is perhaps the greatest teacher. By the time I was 18 I had come close to death 5 times. During my birth, when I was about 3 years old and was hospitalised for gastroenteritis, twice in the same day whilst surfing at 15 and whilst driving at 17.


The last 3 shook me to my core in different ways and sent me on a search for meaning and purpose in life. If I could be wiped off the face of the earth so quickly at almost any moment what was the point of life. Why bother keep going? It struck me that no amount of strength or money or anything really made any difference. Life was intensely precarious and could end at any moment. I begun to read spiritual and mystical literature that was in the air at the time. Jonathon Livingstone Seagull stands out.

At 16 I had a big dream. I was standing on a large headland looking out across a bay. It was a Summers day and the air was hot and dry. I was surrounded by tall gum trees. I looked across the water to the other side of the bay. Perhaps a kilometre away I heard a loud cracking, crashing noise and watched a avalanche of trees fall down the slope on the other side of the bay. Instead of falling into the water they were carried by a wind across the bay towards me. This is full sized gum trees being blown across the water likes they were dry leaves. I stood rooted to the spot mesmerised. The wind and trees came up and over the top of me. Gum trees cartwheeled across the sky above me. I was awestruck and completely terrified and woke my chest wet with sweat.

Perhaps a year or so later I read the New Testament and came across the passage in the Acts of the Apostles where on the day of Pentecost the Holy Spirit come like a loud rushing wind. At that time I felt that I had met this wind myself. Now I would interpret it as Uranus but we will get to that later. It affirmed the commitment I was making to Christianity. I knew the Holy Spirit and its power. Then perhaps a little later I read through the Old Testament trying to make sense of what my role was within the christian faith. I felt energised and on fire but I was unsure how to express myself fully.Then I read the first chapter of Jeremiah.

Before I formed you in the womb I knew you,

And before you were born I consecrated you: I have appointed you a prophet to the nations.

Then I said Alas Lord God!

Behold, I do not know how to speak, because I am a youth.

But the Lord said to me,

Do not say, I am a youth.

Because everywhere I send you , you shall go,

And all that I command you, you shall speak.

Do not be afraid of them,

For I am with you to deliver you, declares the Lord.

Then the Lord stretched out his hand and touched my mouth, and the Lord said to me,

Behold , I have appointed you this day over the nations and over the kingdoms,

To pluck up and to break down,

To destroy and to overthrow,

To build and to plant...

Later I read the prophet Isaiah and a passage that says,

Behold I will do a new thing , can you not yet perceive it?

Both these passages seemed to resonate with something already inside me. I felt that they spoke to me. I am basically a shy person and even at that age I knew this was not the sort of thing you spoke about in public. In twenty years I shared it with only two people. In the past ten years its been about 3 more people. The last time was about two years ago with two African pastors. I had left the church twenty years ago and lost my faith. Under pressure in relationship I attempted to build a bridge back to Christianity. The Africans certainly have more life and vitality in their church but scratch the surface and the same rigid bullshit that seems to strangely pervade Christian institutions is there. Naive me shared this dream and they both interpreted as being about witches? Totally missing the point. It wasn't about flying trees(witches) it was about the wind! The powerfully focused wind. It wasn't a out of control cyclone destroying the landscape. It was more like a performance! Hey look at what I can do, I can scare the living daylights out of you I am so powerful!

Anyway I have ignored my prophetic calling as I call it it for years at a time, tried to rationalize it away, psychologize it away. But it wont leave me. I didn't get a booming voice or a white light, nothing, just a inner knowing that has never left. Keeping it secret has almost sent me to the edge of madness. It has prevented me from living a conventional life and enjoying many facets of life that are there to be enjoyed. It has felt like a curse that has set me apart from other people. It has pulled me up and out of life attempting to get that wider perspective: over the nations. Crazy!! Really crazy! No work, no matter how challenging, interesting or well paid has fulfilled me because always in the back of my mind or pushed down into unconsciousness is the nagging sense that, no this is not my true work, my true work is to be a prophet to the nations or at least something larger then counselling or teaching or just making money like 99% of the people. No have this crazy calling I have to follow, that wont let me go! Its brought poverty, marriage and relationship breakups. My family, my kids cant work it out. I haven't been able to keep friends or get close to many people. Its stopped me from travelling and doing so many things that I would of loved to do. And how do I explain without sounding like a complete religious nut.
Maybe if I was born in another culture or time this calling would of been recognised and celebrated but in secular postmodern sceptical Australia I have chosen to keep quiet about it.

No more.

First Jungian and then archetypal psychology and archetypal astrology has helped me to make sense of it and finally now accept it. The biggest thing that has helped me was reading Paranoia by James Hillman the fantastic Jungian Psychologist. Everything he writes is great. In this work he discerns the fine line between madness and revelation. Madness is taking this stuff literally, revelation is approaching it poetically. No I don't have the power given to me by Yahweh to destroy nations. I have never felt that and I have always recognised that if I believed that I was a complete fruitcake. To take it seriously in that fashion would set me on the path to being another Hitler or to end up in the Psychiatric ward. Poetically I have finally begun to be able to live with it. I was born i n1962 when the sixties really came alive. Uranus the revolutionary God also a wind god and ruler of electricity(my dream was shocking!) and sudden erratic changes etc was coming up close to Pluto the god of the underworld, Volcanoes, death and rebirth, transformation. My Sun in Leo known for being into big dramatic statement is sitting right behind Uranus and on the other side is mercury the one who translates all this energy and transmits it into words and stories and images. Its one hell of a combination. I've always been shy about talking about it . But it just is.Its been a great curse so far and its time to turn it into a blessing. My ego that want to say but I am a youth, I don't know what to say...wheres the money going to come from, what will people think of me ...blah, blah, blah...has finally died or gotten enough out of the way to let the larger self or really the Gods to work together cooperatively with me. To be philosophical I have been lucky I had such of a God damned, stubborn, granite hard, ego that been able to hold this much power and energy at bay and not flip over into complete madness. I survived! Phew.

Deep breath Jeff ...you can do it.

So that brings me to tonight. The new moon in Capricorn falls almost exactly on Australia's Sun -Saturn complex. On one side is Pluto slowly moving bringing death and transformation and rebirth on the other side is mars, fiery warrior energy as well as all the other stuff happening at this moment in our collective zeitgeist. Pluto squaring Uranus and Jupiter. Uranus and Jupiter married in Pisces. Neptune and Chiron married in Aquarius. Its a full on moment in time and the energy is focused like a laser beam on Australia. I never know how these things will work out but everything in me says this is my moment and its a unique moment in Australia's history and lest we forget world history.
I drowned my bible today all except the Jeremiah passage. I got he idea from Shakespeare. I read the Tempest years ago and in the end Prospero the sort of power mad magician breaks his staff and drowns his book. To me its about making the literal metaphoric or loosening it up. The bible is soooooo heavy! No wonder no one wants to read it these days and we need to read it but in a new way Astrologically and alchemically.... And then I will bury it. Or I think of it it as feeding country. It contains all those stories from another place and my bible carries all my mana, my handling of it, my hopes and dreams that its fed. I want to feed it back into the earth and let it transform . To form a circle that's larger then me. There's a truck load of symbolic stuff in there that I think will unfold over time. Then I believe my true work can begin. I don't want to go around calling myself a prophet, the name doesn't matter its the accepting of the work. Stepping into the role that's important. besides i think Jeff the Catalyst sums it up for me. I think the ritual will free me to begin my true work , my calling. I think finally, finally , finally, after a thousand false starts and dead ends it can begin.

social electricity

I started my working life as an electrician but was no good at it. Now, many years later I think a lot about our addiction, our lust for more power, electricity. I wonder if we need to focus on creating social and cultural electricity. The electricity, the buzz that happens between people. I see Alchemical Carnivale as being a space to create social electricity. To turn up the buzzz between people. That buzz is contagious and life enhancing.

maps

Walking to a friends place in New Farm last night I stopped and asked 3 tow truck drivers if they knew where the street was. Now the odds are fairly high that a tow truck driver will know the area like the back of his hand, much like a taxi driver. I asked and no immediate recognition of the name...thats cool one of them is sitting in the drivers seat with a small global positioning system GPS in front of him. Now I am not a fan of the GPS as I would rather find my own way and look around the enviroment for landmarks as I go. Once I have found my way once its much easier the next time. I forget names and numbers but I never forget landmarks. The places enter my internal map. The map in my brain I guess. But on this occasion ...its thank God for the GPS the problem should be solved in seconds. No, he types in the name and then stares at the screen ...and stares at the screen. It must be complicated and out of the way I think. A back street that needs endless turns, right, then left, then go two streets then right again and go around the roundabout twice backwards, say the majic word etc.
I think about asking can I have a look on the screen but I dont feel too invited into there space. I make small talk with the others. One says joking we are top class tow truck drivers we only use GPS.
I get pen and paper ready for a set of complex instructions.
One of them mentions theres a street directory in the other truck. Noone moves to get it. Eventually after what must of been an awkward ten minutes Mr GPS says, ahhh its close by just walk up to next set of lights turn left(its Brunswick street a mainroad) and then keep walking you will hit it.
And it was simple to find. I will never forget how to find it.
I am convinced we are giving away skills, abilities and ways of thinking and remembering to our technology. Technology has become a drug that is blinding us to our living, breathing world.

burial

I buried the magpie in the garden. It was being kept in a esky in the garage (the alchemical shed)whilst I thought what to do with it. A friend, shamanic Sheridan, said I should ask for permission to work with it and then cut it open and dry it out with salt and not let anyone else touch it. I had thought of getting another friend Kristy to make jewellry with the beak and talons and feathers. Sheridans suggestions sounded good, respectful and deepening of my relationships with the spirit of birds.

In the space of 4 days I discovered it was crawling with maggots and leaking very stinky fluid. This was in a sealed esky? I had contemplated Sheridans idea and decided a burial was more fitting. I respect traditions and laws especially sacred ones and rarely follow them. I tend to trust my intuition to guide me and I like to improvise. The burial was to be more elaborate and at a vacant block up the road But it became swifter. With a kitchen spoon I dug in the garden. Rich black soil full of black ants. Laid the bird down then added a Frida Kahlo mask that had been leaked on. It was made especially for my friend and indigenous artist Megan Cope. It seemed fitting and perfect. A few flowers and dirt on top and a ritual pissing. Finished with a concrete paving stone I had painted laid on top. Done. It felt complete.

To the once and future rule breakers

Ive had a book about my vision and hope for Australia brewing for a solid ten, 15, 20, perhaps 30 years now. I've made a number of serious attempts all to no end. Its been a learning process. This time feels different. I feel ripe.
I feel that I have found my voice.
On New years eve I went to Southbank with my two nephews to watch the fire works. I've thought about what it would be like to be the King of Australia, like Ulysses and to have been in exile, or in jail perhaps for 30 years and then to return unknown. To look at everyone, every single person as someone in your care. Not to take literal responsibility for everyone like a pseudo saviour no thats the sure sign of a psychosis. No...I am just Jeff and I was imagining what it would be like. In Astrology the King or the Queen is symbolised by the Sun. We all have a part of us that feels royal and is royal. Though I must admit I dont really associate much with that word.
In the chart of Australia, the Federation, the Sun is in Capricorn. It's conjunct Saturn which is a bit like having your King, your royal part in chains. Theres more to it then that and at the same time this seems to fit for Australia.
So I was wondering what if I let my Sun, the energy thats central for me expand and join the Sun of the nation. Its like a marraige, a commitment to work together and keep the larger whole in mind. I looked at people differently. I felt a mixture of things. I certainly didnt feel above people. Their seemed to be a connection with the death of the magpie, the death of the bird like part of me that likes to fly up and stay above the fray of everday life. It felt right and has freed me to write. Its flowing.
Then next day I was reading the Oddysey and theres the part where he has returned to his family home and its under a sort of seige by a bunch of dickhead suitors. He is enraged, to the point where his blood is boiling and his skin is peeling like a burnt sausage. I could relate to this rage, this fury. The world let alone Australia is going down the plughole and our leaders are pontificating in management speak. Our children are being moly-coddled indoors, kept safe from all signs of dirt and danger. Spoon fed technology. Most of us are sucking on the technological tittie, twittering our lives away in front of a screen whilst the real life twittters and twerps of living species is ignored metres away outside.
I could continue but I dont want to rave about the stuff I hate, I'd rather focus on what I love, and what I hope and dream of the future. The volcanic eruption of all our buried shit is the beggining and we have a lot of it in Australia. This year the eruption will begin. Its begun. The writing of the book will be a small part of that and only then can the healing and the new direction emerge or maybe they are more intertwined?
The title Australia: To the once and future rule breakers, came to me this morning. It feels right. I will use the blog as thinking out loud. I want to get a draft done in one month and the final version done in 3 months. I need a tight time frame. It will be an astrological , alchemical reading of the moment and Australia's potential role in the future world order. I will weave my own biography, stories and theories. Just gotta do it.

erupt

The Mysterius Doctor Mercurius has officially declared 2011 as the year of the volcanoe.
Its time to erupt folks, spread the word its time to erupt.
Bring on the Australian eruption!