(B03C02) Chapter 2: The View From the Other Side of Mourning

Not Too Specific Beatific Vision

“DARKNESS AND LIGHT ARE BOTH OF ONE NATURE, DIFFERENT ONLY IN SEEMING, FOR EACH AROSE FROM THE SOURCE OF ALL. DARKNESS IS DISORDER. LIGHT IS ORDER. DARKNESS TRANSMUTED IS LIGHT OF THE LIGHT. THIS, MY CHILDREN, YOUR PURPOSE IN BEING; TRANSMUTATION OF DARKNESS TO LIGHT. HEAR YE NOW OF THE MYSTERY OF NATURE, THE RELATIONS OF LIFE TO THE EARTH WHERE IT DWELLS. KNOW YE, YE ARE THREEFOLD IN NATURE, PHYSICAL, ASTRAL AND MENTAL IN ONE.” – THOTH/HERMES TRISMEGISTUS

When I began this story, I was admitted to the mental facility at a nearby hospital. However, I did not necessarily feel that I needed any help or assistance with my mental health. There were no crucial warning signs or threats of personal harm, nor did I feel that I was a danger to anyone else. The reason I checked in to be observed was primarily to appease my mother.

At the beginning of my 36th year, I had a vision that shook me to my core. It was as if I was taken to a certain plane of awareness where I had complete clarity. With total recall I was able to reflect back upon every moment of my life—the good, bad, and the ugly. The images I had seen in a matter of seconds was far more than I could have ever known throughout multiple lifetimes. I was able to see every expression of physical energy—creation, action, karma, and time—with absolute ordered perfection. From this perspective, there were no accidents; everything was specifically arranged in such a way that would lead me to a state of awareness where I was both creator and creation. In a sense, I felt the entire universe was made for me, by me. Not only was this universe observed through my own eyes, but also through the eyes of every other living creature on the planet.

Whenever we hold onto our preferences and limited perspectives of what we would like our lives to be, that creates the potential for those illusions to be broken. When we primarily operate from lower, more dense states of awareness, we are not able to negotiate with the forces of nature to determine the ways in which those illusions will be confronted or called into our environment. However, the only way that we can experience grace is to transmute what once lived in the dark corners of our mind, lacking awareness. When we are not able to transmute our experiences and escape a victim mentality, those events just keep on being attracted into our lives.

The vision that I received was, in a sense, a wake-up call. The entire expedience was a gift of vision that far exceeded anything I previously believed to be possible in the physical reality. It was well beyond anything I could even dream. In less than a few minutes, I felt the accumulation of every single emotion that I have ever felt in my life. Moments of intense bliss were mixed in with the sharp pricks of unfathomable trauma, regret, and sadness. It was as if I had woken up while I was still dreaming. In this dream; however, I had full command of my body, mind, and soul.

Killer Movies that Went Straight to Tape

“DID YOU HAVE A GOOD WORLD WHEN YOU DIED? ENOUGH TO BASE A MOVIE ON? I'M GETTING OUT OF HERE. WHERE ARE YOU GOING? TO THE OTHER SIDE OF MORNING.” – “THE MOVIE” BY JIM MORRISON

This vision had restored me, clearing away neural pathways that opened up vibrations in the folds of my brain. These vibrations released memories that were so long-lost that they seemed foreign, like vague memories from a movie. Although strange in sensation, I felt safe in solitude. In fact, the last time that I had felt this comfortable within my own skin was before I saw the La Bamba movie and was traumatized by seeing the on-screen plane crash. That single moment where I tasted death seemed only to last a few minutes when I was sitting in the theater as a young boy. What I did not realize was that the ego death that I experienced in that moment was linked to a point in the future that I had no idea I would have to relive under a completely different set of circumstances. However, as far as time is concerned, linearity becomes somewhat irrelevant once you poke your head outside the veil of spacetime.

My entire life existed between these two points that hung loosely inside the construct of time and space. Both child and man are linked—the father and son of the ego self—tied together with the strings of momentary trauma: the taste of death. This shared energy, albeit a fire that burned with absent favor, was the wellspring of purity from which I would draw upon at any moment I felt lost in a world that seemed unable to accept me in my highest truth.

“THE SOUL AGES FROM THE END TO THE BEGINNING. THAT’S WHY CHILDREN ARE FILLED WITH WONDER. BUT AS OUR BODIES DO DECAY—THEY DO—WE NEGOTIATE ABSOLUTION, HOLDING US UNDER.” – “ABSOLUTION” BY JD STAHL

Every human eye holds the energy of both birth and death. Trapped deep within the photons that color our irises, messages of both fate and free will are negotiated. Between both points in time and space, electrons are shared, gently guiding us back to the path that will deliver us to the moment of our creation. In same way, the death of our genius is a product of the birth of our ego. From the first moment where we were traumatically ripped from our true selves, we become the creators of our own illusion. In this cave, we paint the walls with our persona and give names to the shadows that we cast into the corners of our psyche.

Unfortunately, any attempt to control our illusion can only ever be a fractal of the bliss we previously knew to be absolute truth. After tasting fear, the doors to our hearts close. The air that once flowed through us becomes trapped, blowing open the windows to our soul. As our eyes open, in pours the opium of our very first addiction: the splintered sunlight that sparkles upon our materialistic illusion. Each of the photons that are broken apart must create distance. Distance creates time. Time establishes its requisite separation, divining what was once whole into fragments. In order to “make sense” of our physical environment as children, we allow ourselves to be pulled by the energy of our environments. We take on the amalgam of our non-self in order to create that which has subjectivity (the self).

“MAN SUPPORTS HIMSELF ONLY ON THAT WHICH RESISTS. SO EARTH MUST RESIST MAN ELSE HE EXISTETH NOT. ALL EYES DO NOT SEE WITH THE SAME VISION, FOR TO ONE AN OBJECT APPEARS OF ONE FORM AND COLOUR AND TO A DIFFERENT EYE OF ANOTHER.” – THOTH/HERMES TRISMEGISTUS

It is the development of our false self/person/ego that both helps and hinders us. Without our ego, we would have no subjectivity; however, with our ego as a dominant force in our lives, we are not able to expand beyond subjectivity. Therefore, our entire identity is merely a tool, one that is created only to be destroyed. The planned obsolescence of our ego is what allows us to merge our personal trinity into that which is not limited by time or space: the creator/creation paradox. Until we are able to create and destroy our individuality while still recognizing its utility, we fall into greater densities where our capacity to transmute energy and eliminate suffering is significantly more difficult.

As long as we rely on time to heal our wounds or traumas, we will still remain attached to separation. Through our faith, we should always seek the ideal: immediate transformation. In less than a second we can change the entire course of our lives—with respect to this and every other previous incarnation. However, because we have placed our faith in physical time and space, we are unable to take full advantage of these transformative visions and experiences.

Our definitions of reality are merely a collection of subjective visions—a collective psychosis that is the side-effect of a long-term addiction to density. In a sense, we have traded truth for acceptance, forcing us to create biased attachments to the physical world. Under the blanket of our own subjective illusions, our souls cry “tiers”—creating separation and forcing subconscious projections into the physical world. Eventually, after enough denial, we forget that we are lost. In time, we remain lost until we are born again.

This birthing process forces us to re-experience our trauma until we are no longer defining ourselves by that which is limited by physical time and space. On the other side of the veil, none of these karmic energies exist. All that is left is what we truly were, are, and will forever be: unconditional love spoken through unique bodies carrying authentic expressions of unbearable compassion. Without our physical density, we return to these states—both creator and creation. The paradox, expressed without limits, is our true “home.”

Grooving to Black Light Posers in the Agon Arena

“WATCHED, IN ORDER TO BRING FORTH A NEW AGE. CREATED OF SCORCHED EARTH AND FREEZING RAIN. PAINTED IN THE NIGHTTIME, THROUGH THE BLACKNESS, WITH COLORS BLED LIKE THE EBB AND FLOW OF GLORIOUS PAIN. DON’T BE CRIPPLED BY THE CONSTANT CALLING AND THE CHARACTER IN THIS STORY YOU’VE BEEN MARKED TO PLAY.” – “GHOST WRITER” BY JD STAHL

As long as time endures, we are offered an infinite number of moments where we are able to awaken and be reborn anew, washed in the blood of our highest truth. These moments, however, do not always arrive upon us in the most pleasant circumstances. Furthermore, in order for them to “work” and break us free from our illusions, they must come upon us unplanned. In a sense, it is like getting the hiccups. In order to break us out of repetitive loops that we are stuck in, something “else” has to startle us. If these moments of surprise are great enough, we are released from our mental prisons—at least long enough to reset our metaphysical patterns, attachments, and addictions.

During these moments of awakening, however, we often negotiate our reality. For most of us, our natural tendency is to restore things back to the “order” which we previously knew to be “sane” or most conducive to our feelings of control, predictability, or rationality. Though doing so may seem like the only option that will ensure our survival, renegotiation our temporary break from the illusion of collective psychosis only to return back into the same groove is like trying to give yourself the hiccups on purpose, just because you lived with them for so long.

If we look deep enough into each and every moment, the hands of our highest self is attempting to guide us back to health and clarity (transmutation of duality). Frightened by the prospect of the unknown, we often turn from the darkened corners of our own mind, afraid that we could be injured by our own secrets. Instinctually, we swat away the hand of our salvation simply because we have been taught to believe that darkness is equivalent to evil. Yet, without facing the darkness, we cut ourselves off from the only truth that wishes to guide us back to the fullness of our spirit. Instead of transmuting the energy of darkness into truth and light, we close our eyes and return back to our previous state of ignorance and dependency.

“YOU WERE FOOLISH TO THINK IT WAS ONLY LIGHT THAT DROVE YOU FROM YOUR BED AT NIGHT. THE COMBINATION OF BLACK AND WHITE IS YOUR TRUE POWER AND BIRTHRIGHT. WHEN THESE TWO MEET WILL BE THE DEATH OF EACH. AND IN THE FLAMES YOU WILL FORGE A SINGLE FORM. THIS IS NOT THE TIME FOR PARADISE PICTURES. THIS IS THE MOMENT THAT YOU WILL DIE TO BE REBORN.” – “RISE FROM THE ASHES” BY JD STAHL

When we release the addictions that we once knew to be our only hope at happiness, well-being, love, safety, and security, we will undoubtedly be shaken to our core. However, this exchange of suffering is the very process of transmutation that will convert what once was once dark into the light of our higher state of awareness. Our resignation to suffering—knowing that it is necessary for independence—is the currency exchange of our soul that will free us from the chains of ignorance, duality, favor, and illusion. This exchange will return us back into the paradox—awakened in our own blood, sweat, and tears. Oddly enough, these conditions are the same as when we were first brought forth from our mother's womb. Therefore, these seemingly unfortunate conditions are no less that the perfect environment for miracles to occur. In our mirrors, we can see the evidence staring back at us.

At the dawn of every day, we are offered a universal gift—a renewal period to begin again and again. Just like the light of the sun that rises upon the horizon on a clear day, our souls are given back to the light. The invisible hand that reaches for us is drawn forth from within, filling our bodies with the prospect of effervescent forgiveness. As our eyes open and our mind wakes, time itself attempts to claim the distance between fate and free will. If we are able to release our attachments to the nonexistent past or future, our lives can be rewritten. Through forgiveness, our hearts can reopen. As the breath of truth returns to us from within, we are again filled with the grace we once traded for a temporary feeling of absolution.

Waiting for the Morning

JD Stahl (02/20/2019) I never used to have regrets. Until the day I woke up in sweat. Your face pasted on my memory. My time, I grabbed back. My soul wished to be free. I travel these lines between The decisions I’ve seen, and the means, Which I chose to navigate the river. Streams...light! Back and forth, to the moon in the night. Begging on knees to replay the dreams That I had written for me that day in the dark. Now I wish to embark 12 years back. To attack these insecure needs. Hair color and blood streams, Are all quite the warning—or flags. So I battle the past, while my current future drags. And I kiss the youth while I boast my own rags. Then I shall wait...and tap my right foot. I’ll try to stay put until I catch up to now. While my vision—like paint—it flows And mixes like rain, in the church like a saint. And stretches what I see. Like a color from what’s near. Like I cut off my ear. Because madness is all that’s left. Like morning oatmeal, I hunger for the plain. Pick up pieces of pain and thrust into frame. My writers have all been prayed to you, And my ego has too far to come through. Stuck between the bars of the jail, I shout and quiver to fail. While I wait. Bright days. Insane nights. By morning, the colors will settle. And I’ll be able to look at you. And act—like I belong. Like I’m one of you. Like I’m me.