Try to tell a knight in gold
he's to blame
A promise made, a dream will come,
it's all the same.
In this strange land
this strange land
Said within he had his heart,
I lie in part(??)
Death and danger is defied,
my lover in light
In this strange land
this strange land
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=slMQkgWn1I8
...or for the longer, lingering version with lovely scenery & mystically bits (from the tv series Robin of Sherwood)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OnkWvh1pvU8
Despite the media, 'mental vaccinations against creativity' known as schooling & all other ongoing methods of factual assault, I think there are at least some sane moments when we shake our heads to clear the fog a little & say "bloody hell, life is strange."
I don't have nearly enough of these moments, but I'm working on it.
Public enemy No 1 in this battle, IMO, appears to be 'knowing' - caused by the parasite (L. knowitallus smartarseus) which burrows deep into the brain where it proceeds to shut down the 'wtf' (L. wotthefucus) function of the prefrontal/backal neo (& not so new) cortex of the brain that formulates question marks.
Interestingly, knowitallus smartarseus cannot gain access to our brains without our approval. Indeed I must admit that all too often, I open the doors, roll out the red carpet & throw a party for the little bastard. Well you see he does have his uses - in say, Trivial Pursuit or pub quizzes - those moments of sublime glory when you know THE answer & all glory, power & honour is yours for ever & ever (or at least 15 seconds).
The problem, or so it appears to me, is that knowitallus smartarseus is not so much a parasite as more of an obsessive compulsive construction worker. When he moves in, he comes equipped with one of these...
and proceeds to do this
to this
...and God only knows the degree of infestation that led to the creation of the image from hell below. (For anyone not familiar with my views of the new church of cancer - look for previous articles with the word 'knickers' in the title).
Although I am not a medical expert I do believe that rubbing cement (concrete) onto ones mammary glands would certainly lead to unsightly lumps.
Anyway to return to being a know-it-all.
I have found that when I know something, I stop asking questions because, well ... the case is solved, the evidence has been proven, the jury has voted unanimously, sentence has been passed & everyone has turned out the lights & gone home...
and thus the known quantity passes into the Hall of Facts.
Interestingly the etymology of the word 'fact' looks like this - "1539, "action," especially "evil deed," from L. factum "event, occurrence")." hmmm perhaps that should be the Hell of Facts.
As I seem to be carrying far too much concrete round in my head, I have been pondering what to do about this, without resorting to a jack hammer.
If knowing is the 'welcome mat' for our parasitic cement-truck driving brain cell-mate,
then what would be the effect of 'not knowing'?
From my own personal experience the best place for me to re-look is back over the four overseas holidays I've had in the last two years (don't worry I'm not going to get out the holiday snaps).
None of these were for me what I'd been taught holidays are supposed to be - on the contrary they stretched my world enormously. Here's a visual clue
Now before I go on there is a little bone that needs picking clean.
Who made up the phrase 'comfort zone' & someone please tell me that this person has since been dipped in molasses & sent naked to Perth, the home of Rambo flies.
Even worse, why oh why has anyone bought shares in this stupid, stupid phrase?
Humanity is not & never has 'lazed' away in a 'comfort zone', - they are drugged there - no un-drugged human being (ok I'll allow there may be other species living among us) would put up with the terminal monotony of a life that consists of tv, shopping malls, work & whatever vice they need to keep just this side of the edge of sanity IF they weren't in some kind of drugged stupor.
Each time I made the decision & travelled I dazedly stepped outside this drugged zone & reclaimed some sense of life, by being thrown into an strange world - where one or more elements were 'foreign' or 'alien' to me.
Like driving on t'other side of the road in Hawaii - perhaps easy for you, but I can't tell my left from my right & nearly ended up driving onto the motorway on the 'NZ' side of the road.
In Japan I couldn't speak the language, let alone the sign language.,
in Perth I went to stay with someone I'd met over the internet
...and in Sydney I was locationally re-united with my ex husband for 5 days & struggled daily with homicidal tendencies
Each of the places I visited was strange to me. I swear the moment I stepped out into each of my unfamiliar, short-term homes, my body woke up, like a dog let out of the car after a long trip. The air was different, so was the landscape, the temperature, the local accent, the plants & trees - a whole new strange world. Somehow by being thrust into this strangeness & dealing with all that came along, something in my soul started singing again.
In trying to keep with what I have gained through travelling, I have adopted a practice of 'not knowing' when I can. If I feel the need to get out of the house I will grab my car keys but 'not know' whether I will drive or walk. As I pass my car, if I feel the urge to drive I will get in, if not I will walk. Each turn I take, whether walking or driving, will be taken as I reach it. I can not say that I find this really easy to do as I see how planned & known my life has become. What I can say is that EVERY time I have ended up somewhere I could not or would not have imagined if I had pre-planned it. In the past couple of months I have continually found places, even near my home, that I never knew existed.
These amazing finds & journeys that I've taken, have not (yet) created an excitement about this 'not knowing' process - there is still a lot of concrete-pouring parasites in my brain that insist it's sooo much better to know in advance what I will be doing.
...A small wild theory just to hand: What if knowing allows control of our lives by other worldly entities ... just say there are nasty entities existing alongside & even feeding off us - I'm quite sure they would be able to read our 'knowing' & follow along with us wherever we go (or be waiting for us when we predictably arrive) - 'knowing' could perhaps be seen as a tracking device, while 'not knowing' could be an invisibility cloak allowing us freedom for a time from the little blood suckers (if they exist, of course!).
Last week I went on a different kind of journey. This time I followed someone else. I read Ellis Taylor's book Dogged Days. It has a subtitle "The true diary of an Otherworld itinerant." This time I stayed home, but travelled nonetheless to a strange land. In my whole life I have had one strange otherworldy experience (at least that I remember).
I have had some correspondence with Ellis since I've been blogging, so there was a more personal feel to reading his work than say through a book I picked up at the library. He also has an earthy style that allowed me to travel wide eyed but grounded through his strange life. I journeyed out of time & place & was thoroughly REminded that this world is a very, very strange place that does not make (five) sense(s) at all - how strange it is that we should think otherwise. In another time or place, Ellis & others like him would be called seers & their visions would be valued, in fact they would have been taught from a young age how to hone their gifts so they in turn would teach others.
The old days & ways of superstition at least indicated a people aware of the great strangeness in which we live ...
... I mean honestly we don't even know why we're here! Why would we think we can explain anything else without understanding that most fundamental question of our existence.
I have a feeling that the cunning agenda of media, religion, education is to create a 'known' world, where ALL has been dissected, investigated & (apparently) expertly or spiritually revealed (a little variation on a theme is allowed to give the impression of choice). If humans can only see what they know, then all any sensible power hungry meglomaniac needs for ultimate power, is to control & direct the information made up oops sorry I mean, available...hmmm so I guess that would come through media, religion & education.
Yet these institutions have not answered the basic question - why are we here?
So why do we buy their 'facts of life'. Let him (or her) who has answered that question cast the first 'answer'.
And how about in the meantime we go back to some primitive not knowing - look around and say 'wtf' at least six times before breakfast...oh yes & get that damn knowitallus smartarseus 'welcome mat' changed.
Note to Julie in Perth - of course I never really thought you might be an axe-murderess :)
