"It is almost as if, once the empire bites a person, the perception falls off its healthy love, and the person goes on high alert and moves to the frequency of the empire."
🎯
keep the populace terrorized and they can never elevate their thinking beyond fight-or-flight
i went out after listening to that hymn and found myself humming it! what's the source?
Wow, thank you Stegiel! I was fond of his writing as a kid (with a caveat), I don't remember any of his works now. And here is the caveat: Some years ago, I found my old diary from when I was a teen, and there it was, in big letters, "Nietzsche's mistakes," followed by a numbered list. :)
All so-called civilized societies and almost all cultures tie the individual in knots, at least internally, to cause him or her to fit within very narrow parameters, which have to do with dominance and hierarchy, a pecking order. The pecking order can be capitalist, socialist or communist, it remains a pecking order.
One might think that pecking orders are natural and unavoidable, but it is not so: the natural world provides as many examples of cooperative and egalitarian organizations in the animal kingdom as hierarchies. Most civilized cultures chose hierarchy and patriarchy, that is to say dominance, power, authority and control, while a few other cultures, most notably many Native Americans, chose freedom.
In my own experience, liberation, both inner and outer, comes with literally living as far away from civilization as possible, not just physically, which is becoming ever more difficult, but much more importantly, mentally.
It comes with regurgitating, completely vomiting all of one’s conditioning and programming, that is to say discarding everything civilization taught. It comes with reclaiming one’s place within the natural creation as a person who belongs there, wholly and in totality, who was born free and is meant to live free, and by free I mean entirely sovereign, as sovereign as any wild animal.
It comes with reclaiming one’s innate wildness, which is the ultimate form of purity and authenticity. You might notice that everything the Creator created is wild. The Creator did not create civilization, people did, and enslaved themselves and each other in the name of a false sense of security, order and safety.
Yet as all that opposes nature, both human nature and the natural world, civilization ultimately creates ever more chaos, inner and outer chaos.
If you seek actual order, that is to say balance and harmony, lasting peace and actual freedom, go into nature alone, as if you were going on a vision quest. Stay as long as you want, discard civilized time, such as the clock and calendar. Return to infinity and eternity. There you will see the imprints of the Divine most clearly and directly. And you will be liberated by the very presence and energies of a Divine creation that is all around you, below you and above, and ultimately within, and that does not demand that you bow down to anyone of anything, that you make yourself smaller to fit into any box, but instead calls on you to spread your wings completely and fly and ever expand, and dance with a free and wild, and beautiful unending creation.
Touch the sky and the earth, far from civilization not only physically but, above all, mentally, and go back to the origin, the source of your being and of all life. This source is not a government, it is not society, it is not a city, it is not even your parents or ancestors, who were merely conduits. It is hidden by civilization yet clearly visible in the unspoiled, untouched natural creation, and it is there waiting to be acknowledged and loved, and embraced as your own.
There you will find your place, you will belong, and you will come to know, to remember who you are. Wild, free and sovereign, and meant to live as such, as all that was created by the Creator, in beauty.
Liberation does not come with seeking the Truth but discarding all that is false, at which point the Truth, which was always there but suppressed, emerges from within.
Thank you Tessa, I shared my own experience/path because I relate to your experience...having also grown up in a culture that glorifies (more precisely romanticizes) emotional pain, sadness, deep despair and suffering (the "nobility" of suffering) to some degree.
I also rebelled against all of this, and the US were a breath of fresh air for me as well, initially, a much more positive culture on the surface, if one did not look at what was always hidden yet is today becoming ever more evident, mental illness, hopelessness, addictions.
Thank you Tessa for the article and the heart-felt prayer.
If I was in your shoes, I will ask the simple question: What if in my previous incarnation I WAS WEARING THE BOOTS? If this is the case, I learned my lesson then (or not), but in my current incarnation I need to learn my lesson also.
I think the lesson is how to love unconditionaly (divine Love).
Beautifully written. I suspect a Russian would have a much more advanced understanding of this than an American. I think you have to experience the pain before you can understand how to rise from it. Post-war America was like a dream, flush with cash and fueled by relatively benevolent policy. My parents’ generation, the boomers, dared to dream of the end of suffering. It hardly even mattered that the empire was lying to them and murdering people in other places (and sometimes here); the bottom line was rising and all boats would eventually be lifted. They were workers and producers, and this country produced a bounty unrivaled in history. But if you go straight long enough, you’ll end up where you started. It all had to end; everything does. My generation, the millennials, are the ones who must experience the dammed up pain. All the lies and murder and deceit, on top of all the cavities and obesity and selfishness and cancer, came crashing down on us like an avalanche. Our suffering is the price that must be paid to balance the ledger, and I pay it gladly. I was born for it. But I try not to predetermine the path my 8 year old will take, and though I am an Angel born of pain and darkness, I try not to impose that on her. In my time, daring to venture into the darkness was the way to find what was true and righteous because the world had become false and depraved. I am not a child of her time, only mine.
Thank You, Tessa. the feel I get all the way through your essay, about the land of your birth, the people who came before you, and a perversion/twisting of that nation, is evoked for the land of my birth by this Vietnam-War protest song by Steppenwolf, "Monster" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sk3sURDS4IA
As time goes on humanity in general has more tolerance of others and eventually realizes that there need not be a hierarchy which profits by gambling on labor and commodities.
The chains will break in time.
They tried to chain us with COVID, thankfully they failed!
Tessa, what a wonderful testimony and synthesis combined, not an easy task. The soul is liberation at its fundamental essence. It is a white light, we are the slave/tyrant who extinguishes it. But through the Underground Railroad where the slave can have that in between place in the dark; the road to liberation can be illuminated. I really appreciate how you write about your experiences as a child, what you have experienced and learned and the wisdom impart. I also love how you honor your past and relatives/ancestors.
Fascinating. Pain is a very worthwhile topic and so is your exploration of intergeneration pain. I hope one day to read to what you bookmark here as conversations for "another day". I share your "outsider" feeling.
I have not been within your stack for a little while, a wonderful piece to read upon my return. You had a little break too by the looks of it & upon your return there is to me, a visible maturity in the way that you can touch our heart & soul.
"It is almost as if, once the empire bites a person, the perception falls off its healthy love, and the person goes on high alert and moves to the frequency of the empire."
🎯
keep the populace terrorized and they can never elevate their thinking beyond fight-or-flight
i went out after listening to that hymn and found myself humming it! what's the source?
Thank you!! The source is Russian folk music. :)
you mean the greatest songwriter of all time, анонимный ?
:) I sang what I felt going into the roots
you got the power!
We all do :) thank you!
Nietzsche in his essay The Use and Abuse of History For Life came to mind reading your essay.
Wow, thank you Stegiel! I was fond of his writing as a kid (with a caveat), I don't remember any of his works now. And here is the caveat: Some years ago, I found my old diary from when I was a teen, and there it was, in big letters, "Nietzsche's mistakes," followed by a numbered list. :)
The essay came to mind due to your discussion of memory in family and. memory in country. https://www.thoughtco.com/nietzsches-the-use-and-abuse-of-history-2670323
All so-called civilized societies and almost all cultures tie the individual in knots, at least internally, to cause him or her to fit within very narrow parameters, which have to do with dominance and hierarchy, a pecking order. The pecking order can be capitalist, socialist or communist, it remains a pecking order.
One might think that pecking orders are natural and unavoidable, but it is not so: the natural world provides as many examples of cooperative and egalitarian organizations in the animal kingdom as hierarchies. Most civilized cultures chose hierarchy and patriarchy, that is to say dominance, power, authority and control, while a few other cultures, most notably many Native Americans, chose freedom.
In my own experience, liberation, both inner and outer, comes with literally living as far away from civilization as possible, not just physically, which is becoming ever more difficult, but much more importantly, mentally.
It comes with regurgitating, completely vomiting all of one’s conditioning and programming, that is to say discarding everything civilization taught. It comes with reclaiming one’s place within the natural creation as a person who belongs there, wholly and in totality, who was born free and is meant to live free, and by free I mean entirely sovereign, as sovereign as any wild animal.
It comes with reclaiming one’s innate wildness, which is the ultimate form of purity and authenticity. You might notice that everything the Creator created is wild. The Creator did not create civilization, people did, and enslaved themselves and each other in the name of a false sense of security, order and safety.
Yet as all that opposes nature, both human nature and the natural world, civilization ultimately creates ever more chaos, inner and outer chaos.
If you seek actual order, that is to say balance and harmony, lasting peace and actual freedom, go into nature alone, as if you were going on a vision quest. Stay as long as you want, discard civilized time, such as the clock and calendar. Return to infinity and eternity. There you will see the imprints of the Divine most clearly and directly. And you will be liberated by the very presence and energies of a Divine creation that is all around you, below you and above, and ultimately within, and that does not demand that you bow down to anyone of anything, that you make yourself smaller to fit into any box, but instead calls on you to spread your wings completely and fly and ever expand, and dance with a free and wild, and beautiful unending creation.
Touch the sky and the earth, far from civilization not only physically but, above all, mentally, and go back to the origin, the source of your being and of all life. This source is not a government, it is not society, it is not a city, it is not even your parents or ancestors, who were merely conduits. It is hidden by civilization yet clearly visible in the unspoiled, untouched natural creation, and it is there waiting to be acknowledged and loved, and embraced as your own.
There you will find your place, you will belong, and you will come to know, to remember who you are. Wild, free and sovereign, and meant to live as such, as all that was created by the Creator, in beauty.
Liberation does not come with seeking the Truth but discarding all that is false, at which point the Truth, which was always there but suppressed, emerges from within.
Thank you for a thoughtful response, Raphael!
Thank you Tessa, I shared my own experience/path because I relate to your experience...having also grown up in a culture that glorifies (more precisely romanticizes) emotional pain, sadness, deep despair and suffering (the "nobility" of suffering) to some degree.
I also rebelled against all of this, and the US were a breath of fresh air for me as well, initially, a much more positive culture on the surface, if one did not look at what was always hidden yet is today becoming ever more evident, mental illness, hopelessness, addictions.
Thank you Tessa for the article and the heart-felt prayer.
If I was in your shoes, I will ask the simple question: What if in my previous incarnation I WAS WEARING THE BOOTS? If this is the case, I learned my lesson then (or not), but in my current incarnation I need to learn my lesson also.
I think the lesson is how to love unconditionaly (divine Love).
Were you? And I agree that this is the lesson!
Beautifully written. I suspect a Russian would have a much more advanced understanding of this than an American. I think you have to experience the pain before you can understand how to rise from it. Post-war America was like a dream, flush with cash and fueled by relatively benevolent policy. My parents’ generation, the boomers, dared to dream of the end of suffering. It hardly even mattered that the empire was lying to them and murdering people in other places (and sometimes here); the bottom line was rising and all boats would eventually be lifted. They were workers and producers, and this country produced a bounty unrivaled in history. But if you go straight long enough, you’ll end up where you started. It all had to end; everything does. My generation, the millennials, are the ones who must experience the dammed up pain. All the lies and murder and deceit, on top of all the cavities and obesity and selfishness and cancer, came crashing down on us like an avalanche. Our suffering is the price that must be paid to balance the ledger, and I pay it gladly. I was born for it. But I try not to predetermine the path my 8 year old will take, and though I am an Angel born of pain and darkness, I try not to impose that on her. In my time, daring to venture into the darkness was the way to find what was true and righteous because the world had become false and depraved. I am not a child of her time, only mine.
Thank You, Tessa. the feel I get all the way through your essay, about the land of your birth, the people who came before you, and a perversion/twisting of that nation, is evoked for the land of my birth by this Vietnam-War protest song by Steppenwolf, "Monster" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sk3sURDS4IA
Thank you yet again, Brother John! It seems like empires tend to do this.
I haven't heard this song until just now. Thank you for sharing it!
It was a big hit. I sent you the long version.
Absolutely beautiful and well written.
Thank you so much, Michael!
You're welcome.
I left the USSR when I was only 4 years old but can still very much relate.
How beautiful! May we all dance in freedom!
And may this conquered freedom warm the hearts of both the ones that came before us and the ones that come after us.
Yes! Thank you, Daniela!
As time goes on humanity in general has more tolerance of others and eventually realizes that there need not be a hierarchy which profits by gambling on labor and commodities.
The chains will break in time.
They tried to chain us with COVID, thankfully they failed!
https://robc137.substack.com/p/covid
Thank you, Rob! For the link as well...
Hi!
They say "two Russia's, Moscow & the rest of Russia"
In the realm of what you share with us, maybe it would be concidered one Russia?
As a north american living in russia over 8 years, i am forced everyday to see the differances my original rose colored glasses kept from me.
Peace
Tessa, what a wonderful testimony and synthesis combined, not an easy task. The soul is liberation at its fundamental essence. It is a white light, we are the slave/tyrant who extinguishes it. But through the Underground Railroad where the slave can have that in between place in the dark; the road to liberation can be illuminated. I really appreciate how you write about your experiences as a child, what you have experienced and learned and the wisdom impart. I also love how you honor your past and relatives/ancestors.
Fascinating. Pain is a very worthwhile topic and so is your exploration of intergeneration pain. I hope one day to read to what you bookmark here as conversations for "another day". I share your "outsider" feeling.
I have not been within your stack for a little while, a wonderful piece to read upon my return. You had a little break too by the looks of it & upon your return there is to me, a visible maturity in the way that you can touch our heart & soul.
Love what you do. LL.
"And I still don’t have answers other than praying for wisdom, confidence, calmness, and the best understanding of love."
Yep. What else is there?
Beautiful prayer-song ...
Beautiful piece, Tessa. And the photo of your grandfather is a knockout.