Woe to the folly!
We dance in streams and circles
Woe to jolly!
Hatred filled eyes beckon a torn sun to weep
But woe to all!
For the abyss has never stopped grinning,
and alas, the turtles upon which we sit
smile eternal!

Great Goddess so loved the world,
She danced in and out between the land, air and sea,
She danced in and out between the lives of the animals,
Trees and beings that walked, swam and flew.
She sang the voices of the thousands who were born,
And cried the tears of the thousands who were lost,
She so loved the world, her dream,
And over a thousand dreams, a hundred times over,
doubling into infinity that was timeless,
she tumpled into a blissful amnesia,
her gift to the world,
always present would she be,
and always forgetting.

to both be the fisherman,
and the fish,
to both be 'thing' and 'no thing',
she whispered,
between the dreams,
her gift, present and forever,
she was and she was not,
and all the while the fisherman sat by quiet shores,
and the tides rolled on
in dazzling sunlight stream.

A message cleverly written by Incubus, contained in the song Agoraphobia (The fear of being caught in an embarrassing or awkward situation, with no hope of escape). You could say that this one line, apart from the others, caught my attention. I had immediately imagined our ancestors, the ancient primates who took the first steps, not of the bipedal, but of the imagination. Of the self. When the first beasts emerged from their instincts, a self that had slowly been developing looked at itself in the mirror.

"I am," had at last emerged. Yet were we truly, distinctly different from the forests, from the beasts we hunted; those great mammoths of the snowfields, the illustrious birds and now-distinct species of mammals which once blessed earth with a strangeness to modern on-lookers. Or where we, quite simply, the ape with the ego trip? The beast that stared in the mirror, and quite distinctly realized its 'self'. Its mind, it's body, it's emotions. From instinct arose the natural ability to self-realize. From the selfless to the self, and do we yet again return to the selfless? Has the ape with the ego realized both ape and ego are simply being?

As young beings, first born in this world, we are incapable of selfishness or of selflessness. We are. No personality. Bare instinct. Then, surely, a self emerges. In fact, this self cannot see past the mirror - like the ego in its infancy is utterly in love with itself. Quickly, others emerge, and so the 'family' is born. It is no longer the child's needs, but the family's. And the child grapples with mother, father, brother and sister.

Others emerge into the self's awareness. Community and friends are born into the reality of youth. We encompass them, partially as the ego-reality. All things are MY objects, my THINGS, my FRIENDS. Yet, through this whole evolution, what has significantly, fundamentally changed?

We love our ideas, we love our minds, we love our bodies and our families. Our attachments become great and produce wonders. Indeed, humanity has woven wonderul civilizations. It has also produced mindless nightmares; all from the power of self, its ability to label, judge, separate, differentiate, its ideal of 'owning'. Yet, what is there to own? Is it not just our attaching to objects as they rise and fall out of awareness? All that we reach for slips away, both beauty and beast.

There is a simplicity in that. We, the apes with ego trips, wonderfully mastering mind and matter, we now come face to face, quite literally, with the idea of 'self.'

Is there a self? Perhaps there is no problem at all, and the very belief there is a self has produced both wonder and tears. Can wonder be without the self? Beauty is there when you are not.

Or, as philosopher Wei Wu Wei put it quite succinctly;

"We do not possess an 'ego'.
We are possessed by the idea of one."

Perhaps these primates, these apes with ego trips have forgotten that yes, the "self" notion arose from nothing, and as deep as you will dive, you will find no infinite wellspring, no certain root. The self, in all its beauty and finity, is just as impermanent as time, objects and all the manifest world. And perhaps these egos are not so terrifying after all. They are not something to be cast out, attacked or tamed. For how can you tame a dog that doesn't exist?

Would that not be making an object to chase after? Are you not chasing after your own tale?

These apes run around in circles, utterly engrossed in the daydream of the ego, and this is the trip. The cycle of wealth and ruin that comes about by such a trip is our samsara, forgetting the dance and engrossed in each movement. The flow never ceased. The apes never stopped swinging. The jungles have never ceased calling. "Up from Eden" is indeed a climb, but to where do you think we are going? Is there anywhere else to be? The primordial instinct which we have been earthed dances on, and we have not once, for a moment, left it. Indeed, when the wind curls the pond into ripples and distorts the ape's reflection, it will see the impermanence, but will it suffer at the loss? Or will it grin, smile just a little, at the moon, which, also stirs gently in the breeze?

And the prayers fell like snowflakes on God's mind,

Mind? The time in soft rivers rafting, up a stream of,

Consciousness, rejuvenation, relaxation and meditation,

In accordance with the divine law beyond the flaws, we, dogma,

Oh tainted and preserved,

Religion, the Opiate of the Masses? Or formaldehyde of carcasses,

We once called Spirit.

We're drifting now, still, remember?

Like snowflakes in December,

Aloof in our crystalline world, ignorant of perfection,

We gleaming jewels born and die in an instant,

We live and life flows,

We die and "death not ends it", so Morrison Echoes,

From gravestones, and bones sink the question,

Upon his: Immanent arrival at the Pearly Gates? Unquestioned.

But no Heaven or Hell nor archetype can match the pristine nature of

Kosmos,

Left or right,

Up,

Down,

Top or bottom.

We are divine jewels,

But treasures are forgotten.

Traded wings and flight for Cadillac's,

Your fluffy cloud, my fluffy cloud, just another dream aloud our,

Pontiacs and iPods.

Not to mention iHeaven, iHell, iJesus, iSee, the world is more than what

Meets the i

I? Eye?

Is awakening

Now not more than ever but before your very face,

Was flattered by the smile of a child,

It was mine, and ours,

We were cosmos,

Divine matter

Divine mind,

Wrapped sweet before time.