Hiya angels, it’s eclipse season & I got a little riled up in the comment section this week over the field of belonging & the nature of reality 😊 & I made something for you. I know it is long. Yesssss, we can be sweet & deeep. It’s for everyone, so feel free to share with your loves & if you wanna get some inside scoop on your own realities, become a paid member for deeper astro dives, personal tarot salons & morning practices (next sadhana beginning on October 19) Andddddd there’s also a yummy list waiting for you at the bottom of the well 🤍 I love you.
The other day I posted a video of Keanu Reeves commenting on kids that don’t know about his role in The Matrix or about the Matrix at all and when he tries to explain the concept that there are two realms: what is ‘real’ and what we think is ‘real’ and the kids are basically like why? Why do you care what is real? And Keanu (& myself) thought this was ‘awesome.’ It caused a bit on a scene in the comment section, people reacting (not just a few) as to how sad it was that kids today don’t care what is real. How much this is a sign of the decay of the mind, of the world, how these kids will never lead us in ways that the world will so desperately need.
Not just one comment, but people doubling down, getting angry, getting toxic, writing DMs not only to me but to other people commenting positively on the video.
I mean at this point, particularly in the 11 months since October 7, this kind of extreme fracas in the comment section is pretty much de rigueur but I can’t stop thinking about it. About how sure some people are about what is reality and what kids should know about reality, what the status quo of reality is, that there should even be a status quo of reality at all. The idea that we can tell someone else, someone that we might know but do we really know them, what reality is.
I was speaking with someone with a couple of children under 10 the other day and they were telling me, with a sense of wonder, how sometimes they need to ask their kids if what they are speaking of is in the past, present or future. The children respond with a sense of responsibility to their parent to clarify things but this communication appears to slow their inner process down a bit.
I am reminded of this book, DON’T SLEEP THERE ARE SNAKES by Daniel Everett, a memoir of his work in the Amazon as both a linguist and a missionary. His original MO, arriving with his wife and three children, was to learn and understand the language of a small tribe, the Pirahã, so that he could teach them the Bible. The Pirahã have no counting system, no fixed terms for color, no concept of war, and no personal property. They also do not distinguish between what we would refer to as visions or some kind of spiritual awakening and well, what we would maybe call, um, reality???
I mean, how else can I describe the way we (western civilization) would counter that: a sense of the concrete? The material? The present moment? None of these seem adequate and as I search for something, some word, that would represent my daily sense of truth, I feel foolish and beyond that some kind of killjoy or, even worse, a cop.
When Everett translates many of the lines from Piraha to English, they are terse and simple. But they also shed light into the very different ways there are of viewing the world.
Also noted: They don’t have depression. They don’t seem to have a lot of things that other people might think are required for a society or language. Everett was so impressed with their peaceful way of life and deep continuous relation with the spirit world that he eventually lost faith in the God he'd hoped to introduce to them. He not only left Christianity, he remained in Brazil with the Pirahã, while his wife chose to return to the missionary world with his children.
Heading back to the Matrix, I have to preface any discourse with the fact that I only watched the first one and only once. I didn’t really get into it, my own chaotic life was far more surreal (and overwhelming) and I was a little like those kids, thinking wow, ok, people are just figuring this out, that there are many layers to what we see and what we know. Even though I was going through some fairly intense challenges, one thing I didn’t question was that there was usually way more going on than what I was experiencing with my eyes, or any of my senses actually. And I found that incredibly soothing, like at any moment god could be present, or some divine entity that could shift things on their head in a nano-second.
It was years later, within elegantly run indigenous plant spirit rituals, that I would see this more clearly. Rooms where only a few people would show up when originally there were many, tiers of angels adjudicating global and universal energies, scrims of what had appeared concrete and material dissolving before my eyes into more expansive landscapes of possibility.
I can feel you rolling your eyes. I know. I know. But I also know we have all been here before.
Finally after a rabble rousing 24 hours in the comment section, there was one voice that brought up the nascent understory of the Wachowski’s gender journey:
Friendly reminder that although the other understandings of the matrix are fascinating to look at, to ignore the inherent transcoding and gender/sex conversation is a denial of the point of the film per the directors! One of the biggest illusions we live in daily is the patriarchy, not AI or some far off tecno or spiritual concept.
Lilly Wachowski has referred to dysphoria of any kind as “a splinter in the mind.” “When you talk about science-fiction, which is just about imagination and world building, the idea of the seemingly impossible becomes possible.” Wachowski refers to the character of Switch in the first film. Initially Switch was meant to switch genders, male to female, while traveling between the real world and the Matrix. Warner Bros mandated, however, that Switch’s gender identity stay stable. “The world wasn’t quite ready yet,” Wachowski says, “the corporate world wasn’t ready for it.” They settled by casting Belinda McClory, an androgynous woman, dressing her in a stark white amongst the sea of black.
Both Wachowski sisters were pre-transition at this time, so this quote alludes to a reality that is personal and fluid, one that no one can name but the Wachowskis themselves. In the first Matrix film there is a phrase “the desert of the real,” which Žižek later used as the title of his 2002 book on the events of September 11, 2001, saying among other things, that Americans are trained to be libidinally invested in Hollywood catastrophe films and that it is through this lens that the spectacle of 911 was created by global capitalism.
I am way over my head here. Way over my head. What started as a light meme parade has turned into a week’s worth of scrolling, searching, following threads. I will continue. I am placing all of this here to begin a dialogue and also to prep you all for the upcoming Virgo/Pisces eclipse cycle (first partial lunar eclipse on Tuesday September 19) which will result (hopefully) in an internal expansion of your capacity to take in multiple realities and at the same time discern illusions. And as astrology always operates in a micro/macro lens, this period will lend itself to exposure of several schisms or dysphoric “splinters” in global realities.
It’s already happening.
It is so reasonable that, at a time of this much upheaval, you may feel the need to shut down avenues of diverse understanding as just too much noise. Bhikku Bodhi, one of the few Buddhist scholars who have spoken out for a Free Palestine is quoted as saying “Security lies on the side of truth.” For me that seems both insane but also hugely comforting. It takes a lot of practice and commitment to feel your way through the static to the truth. I get so tired most days but I still get turned on by seeking regardless, by allowing growth, by going where my fear is pointing, by not being afraid of the question(s). Pretty sure you do too.
We are less alone than ever before. Thank you for your efforts. Thank you for showing up. It means so much.
More on the eclipses coming soon!
And, if you have made it this far, here is a little yummy list for you 😇 😈
I am reorganizing my DEVOTIONAL TOOLS shop, focusing more on products I make myself & while we are still in transition, I wanted to give you all the possibility of getting my new Love Elixir 2.0 which is actually a combo of the traditional formula (roses, cacao, damiana) with my dream elixir (blue lotus & motherwort). I am renaming it THE ALIVENESS & that is exactly what it is, a heightened awareness on all levels (heart healing/dreaming/
libido/connection to nature) . . . & the reason I am rushing this to you, is that this first batch is made with my beloved Rosa Rugosa, gathered with my sweet granddaughters out in the dunes . . . After this batch runs out, I will be back to my usual source of organic rose petals. Order now!!!
I am also throwing around the fact that I am a surfer & I do that, no shade, to brag lol but also to be bold & to claim it cause the fact is I didn’t start surfing until I was 62 & it has been hardddddddddd & I wanted to quit so many times & it’s taken me this long (4 years) to even begin to grok my relationship with the water & the sky & my body & it is happening. I couldn’t have done it without the Sugar Surf crew, a bunch of badass women that go up against the dude surf culture to empower EVERYONE. They just wouldn’t let me quit & yes I am stoked & hope I get to surf til I am 100. Even if you are not near the Cape, you can do this, shoot me a message & I can hook you up with femme/queer teachers around the world.
I love Cody Cook-Parrott, not gonna lie. They have changed my work & life in so many ways with their creative counseling but this summer I woke up & started seriously writing in ways that I have always pretended I was, due to Cody’’s Landscapes, an online writing studio. There are a lot of Zoom writing spaces but this one captured me. I feel held in love & you could be too. Check it out.