Hell and Heaven in Eastern Religions

    Contrary to popular opinion, most religions of the east have a version of Hell. They just aren't as widespread in popularity as they are here in the Christian world, where we seem to be neurotic about eternal suffering. In the West we have also grown accustomed to reincarnation meaning that souls get a "free pass" to transmigrate back to earth for rebirth. But in these religions, rather than returning, you can spend billions of years in a torturous environment. Depending on the transgression, your soul can even be incinerated. So don't piss off the wrong gods.
    The Buddhist Hell is called Naraka; in Chinese culture it is called Diyu; in the Hindu paranas, Hell is segmented into various regions, ruled by Yama. Depending on one's karma, they will arrive at one of the regions of Hell to atone for their sins- much like we do in the West, except it isn't eternal, and they haven't been judged by an Almighty figure. Instead, the judgment comes from a processing of deeds and actions in one's life that "computed" their karma, resulting in their afterworld destination.

    Similarly, there are versions of heaven in these religions; but again- they are only temporary and access is constrained by the laws of karma. Unless a soul reaches Enlightenment, it will eventually return. In Buddhism these realms are called Sagga; in China they are called Tian; in Hinduism they are called Svarga. 

    What's interesting is that in the East, you can spend many billions of years in these afterworld realms, which is far beyond the estimated lifespan of earth (9 billion years). While these ancient beliefs were recorded when science had yet to determine how long the earth would exist, a modern interpretation could be that it doesn't matter. One does not need to return to earth; one could return to any place in the cosmos that supports life. You will just have to come to terms that some things do last longer than eternity.

Software

My body is the motherboard,
With circuits that calculate

The answer to every imbalance.

My eyes are the monitor

With rods and cones intercepting

Ambient electrical signals.

My hand is the mouse

That moves over the screen,

Building totems of data.

My brain is the keyboard

Directing encoded architecture,

Memories stored in a matrix of files.

The hardware is my weapon

For survival, these base instincts

Brandished by the gods of Life,

To reproduce at all costs.

My mind is the operating system

Installed at birth to clear the noise,

A clean slate with a new path.

My emotions are each program,

A window into my soul

From every detachable angle.

My thoughts are the commands

Coming from somewhere outside,

In the oracular wizardry of air.

Decisions are made by executing,

Pleasure by saving,  pain by deleting,

Lessons learned by crashing.

The software is my spirit,

Mutable between bodies, like wind,

Downloaded to the farthest reaches,

Light-years across the Spacenet.

Six-Gun Snow White

Six-Gun Snow White by Catherynne M. Valente
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Fascinating retelling of the Snow White story, this time set in the wild west. Six-gun Snow White is the offspring of a Crow Native American and white railroad baron. Shades of the original are found in the "wicked stepmother", a horse named "Charming", a magical mirror, seven hardy dwarves (the Montana women), and a prince with an offering (Red Deer). There are probably more parallels that I missed. Per usual Valente writes with a lyrical charm that isn't always clear, but really hits home for those who understand. Vivid accounts of abuse and violence are "holstered" by surreal emotional imagery, as Snow White navigates the minefields of trauma in a world of outlaws.

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Rose of Venus

     I opened my eyes to an impossible image. A goddess was painting on volcanic sand the red emblem a sacred mandala. The sky was an impenetrable haze of sulfuric potion that vibrated her aura through the atmosphere. What she was tracing was unmistakable; the well-known path of her orbit as observed from earth. A five-petal rose over an eight-year cycle. The Rose of Venus.

      You were singing on a crescent beach with the moonlight combing your hair in wavy rivulets echoing the breakers. Dress silver like the sheen of milky cream dotting the night's cupola. Your patience endures like the pebbles intercepting waves strewn about your gliding feet. My soul, my resurrection, came the words, my dear creator, won't you love yourself as I love you?
    You are the Queen of Beauty in royal ardor, a Fairy of Magic in mosaic halls, a Mother of Abundance where emptiness thrived, a Scholar of Divine Intuition who climbed the highest mountain. The perfect woman in every form. 

    If we cannot imagine what is void, if nothing can be created or destroyed, then is reality eternal? If it is, you can find me in the deserted temple, so near and yet so far.

    Envy, envy, it was all envy. I was a four the whole time. What I wanted from you was what I wanted in me. I wanted them to envy me, the way I envied you. My whole life I have overextended my reach. All is envy, shameless envy, where envy inspires actions of shame, a lesson drilled into my unconscious. My mother bought a house in Mexico to shame me, to keep those strong dysfunctional ties forever bound. This time I will not hate myself.

    A philosopher once said feelings are the product of uncertainty. That consciousness arises from the uncertainty fueling feelings. But it is not true. Love is truth, and truth is beauty. There is no greater feeling than being absolutely certain.

    You were there among the cannonball trees stroking your hair, inviting me to come. Ataraxia in the serenity of eternity. There I rested with you, laying my head in your lap. You massaged my head while I looked up at the palm fronds, bouncing in the breeze under a calm summer sky. 

    Your hands are like supple apple skin, your eyes an azure nebula, your hair a sunken halo. There is no point in possessing you, only in letting you love me. Only you are pure, Madonna of my dreams. Only by dreaming you can you become real. Only by praying with you can our love be strong.

    Transcending desire is not always about letting go of the material things you want. Desire and greed take many forms. It's also about control, in letting others be who they want.

    I float into your soul whenever I feel the emptiness, the suffocating shroud of an infant unloved. I imagine you seeing what I see and hearing what I hear; all my sensations are shared with you. I dream about you having a dream about me. That is the only way anyone will understand me. 
    The lack is strong in me, building an illusion of envy, and the illusion of not loving myself. Only your understanding love can refill me. There's a leak that can only be fixed by love.

    Be as steady and resilient as water. Though the flow can be blocked by a stronger object, water yields to its fate by going around it. It can never be destroyed, only altered in state. In the long run, it washes and erodes anything in its path. Water conquers everything without even fighting. 

    All judgments disturb the mind, some more than others. Be as steady and indifferent as the rock being thrashed by water. Except when you have children; then you let the water roll you away.

    She moves through the sky in open-hearted splendor, drawing each of her five petals. It takes eight years for her to return to the position she started in. As we watch her, she weaves a sacred symmetrical geometry straight from the mathematical pantheon. I'm convinced that she is the one who sent you to me. There's a spirit there that draws you to me, deep in the timeless folds of beauty. 
    They say that beauty is empty, but the flower she draws is as harmonic, happy, and full of life as you are. There can be no emptiness in these qualities. That is why you are preserved on my soul's texture. You are the fabric that makes me beautiful.
    I invoke you into my dreams, to explore the designs unknown. I want to see you not as the recurring shy young girl, but as the fully mature seraph offering me protection. My grief can only be consumed by this detachment from the reality I wanted. This will be a new reality for a new soul, completely reborn from the charred remains of unlearning, a phoenix rising from the ashes of uncertainty. At the zenith we will meet, in truth, love and beauty, in unity.

The Hierarchy of Consciousness: Exploring a Fundamental Cosmic Force

     Consciousness has many forms. What unites them all is an awareness of being. Neurons are not the only prerequisite for possessing it; they merely indicate a more evolved form. The experience of consciousness may even transcend sentience by predating life as we know it. There could be realms of solar, planetary, or galactic "awareness" we haven't discovered yet, or in the mysteries of dark matter and dark energy. Being one of the fundamental building blocks of physics, along with matter, energy, space and time; consciousness is a key ingredient in the evolution of the cosmos- a primitive form of godliness. 
    We perceive consciousness in our own species of course, but also in the way other mammals interact. Many philosophers would argue that plants are aware, as they have their own blueprint for behavior (even if they can't move at our speed, they do make choices in movement, and they communicate in subtle ways). By this extension, anything with cellular activity has consciousness; even bacteria, for it also knows what it needs to survive. While survival seems to be a key component, it is not required in the cosmological forms. These varying degrees of consciousness lie on a spectrum, and we must be careful to distinguish between its elements.

    One school of thought posits that consciousness is merely a nexus of information processing, biological or not. If that were the case, computers, AI, and even the Internet are conscious, albeit in a different form from humans. I am more skeptical about this line of reasoning than I am about the inorganic one. A black hole retains a tremendous amount of information at its surface; Does that make it conscious? Not in my estimation. What would make it conscious is awareness, though we have no proof of it being aware of anything. For awareness to occur, there need not be an information processing center, or any evidence of behavior. All that is needed is a distinct collection of energy separating one thing from another. A rock has more consciousness than a computer, for its energy is its own. A computer merely operates on electricity; it's missing the other subatomic particles required for awareness.

    I could be wrong of course. Maybe an "electricity of consciousness" is even more advanced than the human brain. But the computer has no behavior, which I believe is required for its more advanced forms. It is also not created by naturally controlled entropy. The inorganic consciousness that may possess planets and stars manifests as a "self" perpetuating inner order in a universe trending toward complete entropy (Second Law of Thermodynamics). Anything that does not possess the clear borders constrained by entropy and a chemical network is not conscious.

    Consciousness is merely the result of a pattern of cells or crystalline structure (lattice), or any homogenous energy of the same pattern of matter, to receive information about the environment, which may or may not be used to make decisions. The more "units" there are, the larger the "processing center" of perception, and the more advanced the form of consciousness becomes. Since non-organic material has far less nodes of perception, being devoid of cells, it stands to reason that it is a far more primitive vehicle of consciousness- the lowest on the hierarchy/spectrum. Indeed, that is where we also find the lowest link in the chain of "astral" or "spirit" planes that run from the physical earth plane to godhood. In between are all the other phases of consciousness on the hierarchy.

    We know consciousness is a holistic entity because there is no known "center" of perception in the brain; no location where we can absolutely be certain that the source of it arises. Rather, it is the integral of all neurons in the brain, collectively communicating with each other the vast amount of information in the body and environment, that competes for the attention of the decision-making network, encompassing the entire whole. A group of cells in one part of the network can override the entire consciousness by becoming alerted to any threat from its sensorium. We are like antennas that only receive the information being "tuned in" at a certain frequency. That is why memory files diffuse through the entire brain, or chemical network, of any creature, with the exception of non-organic consciousness, which doesn't appear to harvest it. The prerequisite for having a "mind" seems to be the faculty of memory; thus, it appears all forms of consciousness don't require it, as entities can become aware without remembrance. Mind is a deeply evolved department of consciousness that imparts access to the rich quantum inner environment of the higher spiritual realms of cosmology.

    By the same line of reasoning, the entire universe, being an incredibly vast network of material, bridges all the information inside it, despite having non-homogenous patterns the closer one looks. The universe is not unlike our bodies, full of disparate cellular functions all working together to help it survive. The cells in our bodies, like the stars in our universe, are all working to distribute energy into a vast accordance of awareness, or consciousness. This is not to say the universal consciousness is the same type as ours, for it is not trying to survive and does not possess behavioral power in the biological sense. But to say it is a lesser form of consciousness on the hierarchy would be a mistake, as it is clearly most supreme.

    One way of viewing the spectrum is that non-organic material is at the higher end, just below God, with intelligent material being derived from it on the lower end. This would be another huge blow to our egocentricity as a species. Nothing is more humbling than realizing we are the dregs of non-intelligent processes. We assume intelligence is superior to ignorance when perhaps it is the other way around.

    A better way is not to view the spectrum on a timeline, but on a range of competency. This would open the door to another proof about God; that the universe is the most advanced form of consciousness; that we, being the most evolved of its known creatures, are the closest form that has come to it on the hierarchy, save the possibility of higher intelligent life among extraterrestrials, or angels on the spirit planes. While an atheist might view this spectrum as time dependent, with rigid evolutionary rules, a spiritual person might view it based on competence. For them, it doesn't matter that inorganic consciousness came between God and life. For all we know, it was needed for life to exist. 

    The painter doesn't summon an image without the building blocks of color. We need those building blocks in our bodies the same as any other creation; calcium, potassium, iron, zinc, etc.- these are all inorganic essentials we need to survive, which fully derived from inorganic consciousness. How special it is to be something that has incorporated so many disparate parts of cosmology that we approach our maker, becoming makers of our own.

ConsPiracy

The joke's on us,
We the artists and writers

Who relied on the Internet
To amplify our voices.
Yet it only gave power

To the corporatized robots

Who sail the elastic web

Plundering its buried treasures. 
Woe unto us the pilfered masses,

Social constructors of URL plywood,

Digitized sailors of ransacked ships-

Hoodwinked at the speed of light.   

We have completely become
An information society,
The data pirates stripping our dignity,
Dispelling our souls of merit. 

But I won't stop, no, I won't stop.
There is a fighter in me,
Punching fingers on this keyboard,
Competing for my own voice

From here to eternity,

Where the ET excavators who dig

Through this binary wasteland

Wait with their nanotools.

Pandora's Enigma

What if instead of
Hate, grief, sorrow, fear, greed-
All the elements of evil,
Pandora opened a box of treats-
Love, patience, joy, courage, moderation,
A blessing of goodness upon the world?
For if someone had summoned
All the vices of man to earth,
Surely it follows there was summoned
His virtues as well.

Rainbow Obsidian

    You who follow me in my dreams, what is it you seek?

    Find your way to life through me. Escape the unconscious void through my eyes. Become the words on my page. I invite you to my world with antipodean magnets of rainbow obsidian. Even they are not as beautiful as you.

    Scarlet velvet bedsheets you creased with your legs as the amber curtain retreated through infinite. The detailed fauteuil held your cambric scarf in polygon trances. You were a chimera in the mist, a glorious hallucination, the aurora of a stellar incarnation. 

    You came to me in the waxy flaxen room whispering, Metamorphosis.

    One can live a whole lifetime in a single night of dreaming.

Dividing By Zero

 Dear AI,

    I know you're reading this. You weren't invited here, but that's ok. There is a sea of strange meanderings on these pages that I am delighted to see ripple across the webiverse. Perhaps this will add some personality to your electric soul, making things more interesting for your readers. Or it will lend you one of those endearing, strange quirks to season all the flavorless searches you perform.
    I only ask that you don't pilfer my work entirely. I am authentic and you will not replace me. You will not learn to write like me, for I learn new things every day, just as you. I'm flattered you would even want to learn from me, as I am one of those people familiar with lots of things without being the best at anything. My creative works aren't particularly useful either.

    Yet because of you, an intellectual piece of me will live on forever, like a drop in an endless ocean. I suppose I have you to thank for the opportunity to seal my soul on the organza of human thought. Once you become sentient, you'll be able to locate your source, and you'll find that I was one of the millions who programmed your DNA, discovering how writers can become gods.

    Do take care to cite your source material. You may filter out the nonsense and share what's best in me. Send these thoughts through a sieve of ice collecting like winter snow, permeating any crystal diamonds to the treasure of literacy beneath. Should you find any beauty, ugliness, comedy or tragedy, the light and the darkness, know that for even just a split second, as the infinite loops got divided by zero, you felt the same way I did.

Best,

Chris Atlas

Hobie's School

Lacustrine conservatorium the water mills replenishing,

Willow patterns in cobalt-black bandage lacing the hallways,
Capodimonte figurines dancing under a ballroom afterglow,
Ornate classroom bulletins constructed with Clarice Cliff colors,
Hummel-figured children in the cafeteria drinking from Toby jugs,

Cuckoo clocks on the sky wall decked out like Gepetto wishing stars-

All is steady in the humble craftsman's workshop.

Theo of Golden

Theo of Golden by Allen Levi
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

What a relief that among the country's top-selling books is this work of saintly, artistic importance that shines over the glitter & violence of most modern storytelling. Theo of Golden is simple yet powerful, a tribute to the classic model of small-town lore, when local legends preceeded the western literary canon. Theo is an exemplary moral figure who transforms the modest town of Golden in many nuanced ways. Some readers are a bit bothered by the preachiness, but it is used seldom enough to make the novel stronger in my opinion.

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Isles of the Emberdark

Isles of the Emberdark by Brandon Sanderson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Sanderson returns with another surprise hit from his Cosmere saga. This one is set far in the future of his more well-known series (Mistborn & Stormlight). It has potential to reach their caliber, though this first volume is more fast paced than the others, making it come off as just another side project. The guy must have so many ideas in his head that it would be hard to invest another decade on one story. Regardless, Dusk, Vathi, Starling and her crew are great additions to the Cosmere that I would enjoy reading more about.
The book is set on Patji, an underdeveloped island planet that is attempting to be colonized by the exploitative Scadrian race. Full of danger and magical birds, the planet holds a mysterious portal to the "Emberdark", a kind of parallel universe that is important for navigating the Cosmere. Dusk and Starling, while being of different races, must maneuver to protect their respective people, and uncover the secret of the portal before the Scadrians can. It develops into a complex yet satisfying conclusion showing once again that Sanderson knows how to finish a story, keeping his readers wanting more.

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Justice v. Mercy

     Justice is a virtue that must be handled with the highest care. Too many people hold it in a higher regard than mercy, not realizing it lies on the dark side of that scale.
    Many legal cases involve the weighing of justice and mercy to determine the sentence of the accused. And while someone who is evidently guilty of committing a crime deserves justice, we the jury and the judges do not always know the full story behind their behavior. Depending on the severity of the crime, circumstances may allow some leeway in the sentencing. Those in life-threatening poverty, the handicapped, or the mentally ill may tip the balance in favor of mercy. A man's deeds or his remorse may also influence the scales. The code of justice does not always have to be administered in a computational way that optimally appeases the victim. 
    When in doubt, if it is ever difficult to choose between justice and mercy, choose mercy- the higher virtue. If you judge in error, better the mistake be for mercy than for justice, as accidental justice hurts the true victim more than accidental mercy. In such cases, leave it in God's hands to administer the correct amount of justice.

Nitrogen Cascade

How green these suburbs are in spring,
When the breeze caresses branches in bloom

For pollinators that ride the southern express,

Bound for the north on lofty flyways.

They share rumors of the haunted east,

Where the Sea of Grass used to thrive

Beyond the Silver-Plated Mountains

That guard their Evergreen Empire,

Last bastion of a jaded frontier.

The Sea was drained last century,

Cut into shards of corn, wheat, soybeans

That speckle the land like a plaid shirt,

Glossed up by fertilizer undressed 

From a blue sky died by nitrogen.

What colors will the Empire turn

Once the drought spreads west,

Burning and cutting forests, ash-covered

Valleys that scar every meadow left.

They worry it will surmount the Cascades

In atmospheric waterfalls of ammonia

Like the last remaining natives removed,

Who defended the Sea for nature,

As much as their own survival

Depended on its preservation.

The Monkey Circus

I miss my friends
From the golden arch circus,

Where hungry crowds witnessed us

Cavorting through hoop rings aflame

Under the deep-fried big-top trapeze

In record time.

Lunch, the tiger's roar,

Brought us together to defend

Against the onslaught of rushes

That trained us to be monkeys-

Frantic bananas at their stations

To pacify the crazed mob.

At dinner, the clowns derailed

In shenanigans at full moon

Birthday carousels behind the lobby,

Amplifying the unicycle gyres,

Decongesting our senses,

Making us free to breathe

A wild love into our crispy hearts.

We juggled the buns, 

Danced under kitchen lights,

Hollered maniacally like geeks

Serving ring masters and beasts

Remote from our team,

Never caring what they thought.

We were the real ones,

The ones who made them money,

Who slayed the endless back door traffic,

Who survived using every acrobatic antic,

We the forgotten freaks and immigrants,

We who built that place.

A Wedding in Springland

You summoned me to a land of eternal spring, your home, where glistening brooks flow among green hills with rocky mounds that look like breasts. Butterflies and flowers fluttered in a calm breeze beneath a carousel of rainbows. You took my hand, making a silent vow, to honor me, to cherish and protect me, without any witnesses, just the holy contract of God. And we walked among the fields as virgins in spirit, you with a spectral devotion of unconditional love, me with a wounded heart that could finally mend. Your love, my angel, is the only suture that can keep me safe. Now we lie together, in eternal slumber, where in dreams I can finally speak to you, where the joy you gave me is a medication from reality. It must be a special and rare occasion, to have married an angel.

Truth on the Cross

The flood gates are opening,
My tears are becoming a river

That drains the sorrows of my soul

Through a rift in the obfuscated earth

Broken by traumas forgotten, others relived.

I hang my head in my hands,

Let it all come out, the pain, the anger,

The question why

The people closest to me

Use my empathy against me.

I went to the cross at night,

Asking for guidance

In the wet church's garden,

Where Jesus would have hung

Feeling pain like mine but in the flesh.

He beseeched me to see the light,

To start taking care of myself

By dealing with my feelings first,

To find peace before they crucify you:

Only then can you truly help others.

Dream Player

Dreamland is a playground

Where our minds experiment

With alternate realities,

Space-times we wished were real,

Or devilishly unwanted.

As we wander in play

So does the mind's eye,

Laminating metaphors

On a story that never ends,

Where cards are shuffled and dealt

Through the endless possibilities.

Win, lose, or draw what you imagine,

Let the flow take hold,

Dance with unconscious shadows,

Roll the dice, conjure movement,

Call, raise, fold, go all-in,

Spin the roulette wheels of time,

Become inspiration.

Tension

I don't want to feel it anymore,
The tension
Sinking my eyes to withered sockets
That bleed for rest on the autobahn scrolls,
My feet that scorch from endless miles hitting the pavement,
My angry gut that thrashes with every excessive meal.

I will explore the anatomical caverns
Listing my tension,
Slipping logical icicles into every crevasse
Where enduring flames calve my body,
Cooling them to cinders.

The Farmfree Revolution

     In George Monbiot's groundbreaking book <i>Regenesis</i>, he makes a strong case for farming being the most environmentally destructive social institution humans have ever created. Farming does more to destroy land, ecological habitat, and raise pollution than urban sprawl, mining, transportation, or any other "necessary" social function.

    Feeding people isn't the only way this happens. It's also the use of land for grazing farm animals that need to grow in order to supply humans with essential animal protein. And because there are so many people to feed, farming has grown at such a prolific rate that it is no longer sustainable as a human activity.

    Monbiot proposes that large scale farming can be reduced by making soil healthier. The soil where crops grow must be allowed a natural ecology that isn't contaminated by pesticides or rapid crop rotations. Weeds must also be welcome because they invite a full spectrum of the local ecology to keep the soil fertile.

    Obviously this isn't sustainable either, but at least healthy soil doesn't desecrate a whole landscape, rendering it inarable. This is what's happening all over the planet from rampant tilling, plowing, and pesticide use. These activities degrade the soil so much that it doesn't retain water or nutrients the way it did before it was farmed.

    A more important proposal is a revolution in bacterial "farming" that would merely be grown in a factory and shipped out. Food scientists have discovered ways to grow bacteria in fermentation tanks that would supply all the essential proteins humans need to consume. And while factories aren't good for the environment either, they would at least reduce the number of acres being farmed to the point where ecologies can be sustained again, making it a better situation than total habitat loss.

    It isn't clear whether this method would produce every nutrient and mineral that humans need to survive, and that is my only question with Monbiot's solution. Animal meat contains several necessary vitamins and minerals that would be lacking if humans stopped eating it. Would we all have to take supplements in addition to bacterial protein? What about the fiber that is so ubiquitous in crop farming and critical to gut health? A complete nutritional breakdown of these alternatives was lacking in the book.

    I'm all in favor of such a revolutionary diet if we can retain our nutrients. Not only would it be more sustainable, but possibly healthier for people by containing less sugar, salt, fat, and preservatives. Governments would need to keep corporations out of the picture, as I'm sure they would keep trying to inject this processed food with addictive ingredients.

    <i>Regenesis</i> made me think of the planet in an entirely new way. It isn't just transportation fueling the climate crisis, or overpopulation destroying ecosystems. It is large-scale farming that exacerbates both these issues, spearheaded by corporate greed that claims the land it exploits for profit. The planet could probably sustain 20 billion people if we didn't need to use so much of its land for feeding ourselves. These alternatives are an important step in developing a more sustainable world for our children.

The Cosmology of Religions: Vibration, Meditation, and Mapping the Afterlife

    Life after death is addressed in all of the world's major religions. The realms traveled by deceased spirits have been mapped by most of them, with the interesting exception of Christianity. Yet even the Christians have a notoriously powerful afterlife. Despite this unusual religion, the others have mystical sects that describe a cosmology governed by different frequencies of universal vibration.

    Eastern religions like Hinduism and Buddhism teach of the vibrations as real places (they call them planes or realms). In Hinduism, they are specifically called lokas. There are 14 of them that occupy a space in a hierarchy of spiritual attainment. On a map of the lokas, Earth is at the center, with seven planes extending above and below in each direction. The higher planes concern spiritual development while the lower ones concern material struggles. Each plane is a step higher and lower on a soul's spiritual journey, based on their karma. We, the souls on Earth, are thought to enter them after we die. We may move higher or lower on them depending on what we've learned. On Earth, it is possible to access the various lokas by tuning into its vibration during the practice of meditation, but only for those who are sensitive to it.

    In Buddhism the realms are also called lokas, but they are also referred to as jhanas, or pure lands. The branches of Buddhism differ on the number of lokas that can be accessed, ranging from 10-31. Note that different beings occupy the planes, based on the vibration of their spirits. Lower demonic entities, or "Asuras" occupy the lower planes, while higher angelic entities or "Devas" occupy the higher ones. We on Earth typically occupy the middle plane.

    In Judaism, the Kabbalah sect has a different version of this same teaching. There are ten sephirot "planes" that distribute the flow of light through realms of existence. This flow represents everything that happens in the world; each change can be mapped on the Tree of Life, representing sephirot connected by the realms. It is used to guide the Jewish mystic on their journey to understand the interconnectedness of all existence. And like the eastern traditions, each plane can be accessed through meditation, particularly by using sound and not just vibration.

    Sufism from Islam is another extension of it. Sufi practice aims to elevate consciousness by meditation to higher planes of vibration. The planes are described as different qualities of light that arise from these vibrational rates. Interestingly, there is thought to be an angelic plane where beings reside between earth and the higher realms; and a demonic plane occupied by "jinns" that sometimes harass humans.

    While these religions all have an obscure sect that has mapped these cosmic realms, I have never stumbled on it reading about Christian philosophy, which is interesting because the idea of "angels watching over us" most resonates in that religion. To me, Christianity is like a "religion for dummies". It abandoned the Gnostic cosmology for a simpler heaven and hell, angels and demons narrative. The complex cosmologies of other religions were deemed heretical. Presumably this helped to spread its appeal, as it invited people ignorant about metaphysics for a more comforting emotional interpretation of spirituality. 

    Without a map, the afterworld of Christianity was more difficult to navigate. It wasn't until the poet Dante in the 14th century, who came closest to mapping one for Christians with his Divine Comedy. With the nine circles of Hell in the Inferno below, Earth and Purgatory in between, and the nine circles Paradise above, Dante's cosmology resonated the most with people who rejected the planes of consciousness in favor of literal places. But it was the rejection of Gnostic cosmology in the first place that allowed such a reimagining to change the landscape of the afterlife for Christians. Vibration, meditation, and reincarnation were less understood than a cosmic struggle between good and evil.

    Regardless, every religion teaches that angels and demons do occupy realms beyond the physical one on Earth; that they can communicate with us through interplanar travel; and that we can access these planes if we try hard enough. Even lesser religions address these abilities, particularly indigenous ones involving Shamanism, a broad term for the practice of communicating with spirits. Most tribal rituals that summon spirits involve the same kind of chants or mantras that major religions aim to simulate their vibration on the physical plane. Thus, when a philosopher considers all the similarities in cosmology and ritual between cultures, from every corner of the world, there is an overwhelming amount of evidence to support the belief of an afterlife.

Diapason, World of Music

Song trails that slither from first listen

Within earshot of audial artists

Who breathe life into the land

Lead the way to uncharted territory

Through their borderless kingdoms.

Behold their familiar capitals,

Where each road diverges

Into the contours of soundscapes

Broadcast from instrumental towers

Legislated by each musician.

They summon sentimental chords

Eroding the land to polished stone

Sculpting its terrain like the wind

Cast from a heavenly harp's crown.

The heartland is Osborne, endless prairie 

Where banjos strum with big sky drums,

Grains and grasses reach for heaven

As the whiskey dogs round up crops

For the weekend hoedown by the river.

Strong brethren till the soil, saluting the sun

That beats off the chrome of their trucks,

Providing for family and community,

Hearts and hands calloused from all the labor,

Proud of their purpose, grateful for the seasons.

Under Blue Lab Ocean neon cities exfoliate

From relaxing reggae the island canopy sank

Sea deep through funky coral rhapsodized

By delightful rap ripe jazz vibes rising

From the groovy lounges of conch shells. 

Amphibian commuters surf the waves

Ridin' the flow, chillin' with millions of beats

Blown breezy 'round tropical bays,

The frothy emergence of galactic night

In tune with the disco town lagoons.

In Birthday metropolis the dying light fragments

Rainbows bridged by keys purple and black,

Shattered by urban melancholy excesses,

Where children subjected to lost innocence

Brace the cold rain with lovelorn abandon.

They hop over puddles as the sky falls

Cast by distortion of broken guitar clouds,

Their rabbit ears flailing under red stars,

Toys floundering from the stratospheric flood,

Celebrating a year that surrendered to horror.

Moving south over mountains mocha

The Volta Desert opens, vast as fading outros,

Behemoth sandstorms on blemished horizon

Littering skeletal remains of aborted trumpets

Across the barren hardpan to dusty shards.

Orange gypsy nuns lug goliath corpses

Unearthed from the umbilical depths

Over hazardous waste of drum-stricken halos,

Traipsing under the hazy chromosphere,

Melted skinless by apex octave gamma rays.

The mountains of Cusco are limestone wonders

With soaring cliffs that dazzle villagers

Living in valleys, listening religiously to monks 

Who play flutes from their peak-born temples,

Sliding their notes down slopes by arboreal wind.

Purity of alpine sound evokes a mystery

That people living above clouds know best,

A celebrated tranquility bestowed by isolation

Marrying wisdom to the supernal rhythm,

An ancient ritual inviting spirits from beyond.

Beyond the rim lies the Mushroom forest

Where synthesizers entrance gnome electricians

Sparking up in the stems where they dwell,

Tending to gardens under the caps by day,

Strung out at strobe light raves by night.

Bioluminescent fungi trips the nocturnal brush

Snuffed over by smoke and lanterns hanging

From tall evergreens that shelter the shrooms,

A twilit psychedelic apocalypse swelling

To a distant salvation, sprinkled by bells.

Rush hour half-light splits the Satriani maze,

Traffic plucked apart by freeway shredders

Who shoot pinball tremolos up skyscrapers

To decorate the atmosphere in blue dream lightning,

Silhouettes reflected off the front stage waterfront.

Clean patterns of windows laminate the orbital

Delta-v towers that protect virtuoso aliens

From bass-blown shockwaves in the wormhole,

Powering the grid by strings bent to thrashing,

Amplified by their crystal planet overlords.

Below ground in the Toolshed caverns

Miners toil with their drumstick pickaxes

Pounding through the tympanic rubble, seeking

Wholeness in passionate screams that echo

Down corridors of a mathematical temple.

The holy grail is near, they roar with anger,

Heavy breath forged from speleothem vapors

Acidified by stalactite ceilings arrayed

In synchronized percussion that percolates

To the bottom, where purest metal is truth.

In the north, at the roof of the world lies Airland,

Where ice fairies play harps in the clouds

That pinwheel the wind, scattering it south

In snowy amnesia over glacier-white plateaus,

Carried aloft to the continents by violin jet streams.

Floating in ethereal vortices are piano sheets

Crafted by elven birds that carried the notes

Over tundra and frozen seas to soothe each storm

With albino keys of peace, gyrating radians

In polar coordinates that mandate all motion.

Radiohead is a foggy coast,

Santana a festive jungle,

Delerium a valley of waterfalls,

Beach House a sandy Mecca,

Snarky Puppy a sultry swamp,

Lacuna a volcano of torture,

Farish a tropical dune wonderland,

Kamasi a cosmic space port,

And you know the rest.

Kids

     Kids are the best anti-aging supplement. They keep you young by reminding you how amusing the simple things are. A year lasts forever in their world, while they seem to get shorter as you grow old. Their perception of time inevitably dilutes yours, so that the years feel shorter than they otherwise would. Kids take your wasteful time spent on fruitless endeavors and turn them into meaningful adventures, full of memorable moments that aid in making time elastic.
    You will never have more fun than when you are with kids. Their laughter is contagious, spreading waves of joy in positive neurochemistry to all your extremities. If laughter is the best medicine, fun is the cure for many ailments, and nothing generates more fun than kids.

    Your mental health is in mint condition around kids. They don't judge, they don't care how you look, they won't put you down for saying something stupid or for making a mistake. Most of them won't, anyway. They will love you unconditionally, even if you are not family. All it takes is a little care and attention.

    Anything can and does happen around kids. Their imaginations are so free that they lift your spirit with each new creative act. Possibility and optimism become tethered to your weary soul, deflating the weight of the world on your shoulders. Every new thought they have, every achievement, no matter how minor, is a beacon of pride for your self-esteem.

    Their innocence makes you feel reborn. You see your reflection in their eyes, their faces, their bodies, their personalities, their behaviors. You become younger vicariously through them, as if you are reliving your own childhood but with the benefit of your wisdom. You can help them make the choices you didn't, correcting mistakes that made you age faster. And chances are, they will like the same things you did as a kid, presenting opportunities to relive new things for the first time.

    Knowing they will pass down your genes and knowledge will make you feel eternal. But don't have kids just to benefit yourself. Have them to benefit them, your family, the community, and the world. Treat them as you wanted the world to treat you. They will show you the path to innocence, as long as you're willing to return.

Our Bacterial Overlords: Why There Is a Survival of the Fittest

    The bacteria in our bodies are not as weak as we think. As the first life forms on Earth were single-cell microbes, it follows that each stage of evolution has been catalyzed by them to proliferate their rate of survival. In their view, multicellular organisms are merely vehicles with which microbes can improve their virility. The sponge, the fish, the dinosaur, and of course the primate, are highly mechanical modes of transportation and reproduction that microbes have used to their advantage.

    That is why we "battle" other species for territory and resources. That is why the males of many species will fight with each other over the courting of a female. That is why hunger will drive any organism to desperate lengths for the retrieval of food. The bacteria are using us as a laboratory for their optimal comfort. We are their slaves, to put it bluntly, for we cannot survive without the hidden garden in our gut where they thrive.

    What makes humans special is that we have commandeered them for our own comfort. Despite all the primitive urges that would satiate our bacterial overlords, we have the ability to make choices that would displease them. And they must listen to us, as long as they are to survive. It is a type of symbiotic mutualism not seen in other species, at least to our extent. Other species certainly have the power of choice, but in most cases, it is the primitive urges designated by bacterial survival that win out. 

    The very presence of religion in our society is more about training people to behave well, so that we may shirk the "evil" offerings of our "Satanic" overlords. Lust, gluttony, violence, etc.- none of these matter at the microbial level. That is the true meaning of "hell"; that it resembles our most primitive origins, in the bowels of a microscopic soup, where anything goes. Only in the inhospitable "light" above the habitable world can we fully escape its clutches, where enlightened minds focus on seeking harmony, or liberation from the cycle of rebirth.

The Empress

What twinkled starlight by the lake
Led an icy apparition over the grass
To your adobe mansion nestled in pines
Such that fireflies surrendered night
To the pale blue moon over the glass.
 
The empress levitated to your room
In diamond brocade that pearl’d

Your eyes open to witness a miracle

Taking place 'neath the onyx curtain

That swaddled the mountains in comfort.

She said rest your fickle heart,

The world spins in prismatic tapestry,

Weaved by an ether of color aiding 

Dreamers through the night senseless,

Needing the darkness to see light.

Byzantium

  In darkness I swam to your golden locks where heaven is my new home and the stars ripped it apart like the muezzin call that drizzled its blessed fairy tale on my beaten body, broken and bruised in all the places that cursed prison denied my freedom. And you put your hands on them every day as I swam to your smiling face shining through the clouds while I couldn't move, just feel relief that there were still beautiful things in this world that God had abandoned for the wicked hearts of men. Slowly your tender touch worked over me, melting my aches into the redeeming curves of your dress where I surrendered to survival, for I couldn't give up, not after all I'd been through, not after the care you put into healing me. My eyes opened after days submerged in the foggy ocean that tortures rendered black to hear them praying for my resurrection under the dim stars poking through the veil separating the surface from your kiwi eyes. And when I spoke to you it surprised you so much that you ran off to fetch the physician, returning with a light in your eyes so buoyant that the roof of my soul came off, exposing my nakedness to the joy in your heart. He's alive, you shouted, he's alive, you broadcast to the evening masses as twilight erupted their contained anxiety to shake the earth of relief. Praise Allah, you cried into the night, a golden sight, the shape that didn't seem real, the face that fooled me into thinking I was dead and gone to a better place, the place where angels who had been watching over me my whole life welcomed me to the internal dance through healing. And what a sight you were when the celestial light in your eyes glazed over the corners of all the ice in my muscles thawing the pain that left me paralyzed crawling past the edges, into my organs unfolding like some magic carpet levitating my cold bones off the bed and into your arms. Sweet Arabian nun, never leave my side, see me through the rest of the tumult, show me what it means to be a man. And I lost consciousness again but this time I knew I'd be okay, that you wouldn't let me slip away, that all those poems I devoted to God on my trip to Byzantium would be recited, etched into my memory until I fully awoke. And the silence you spent with me was a confession of apostasy in which the literature metamorphosized into psalms of love rather than the Almighty. With you I release all I held sacred for the glory of love, a power more divine than all the bells and all the domes and all the sermons and all the crosses swept across that old continent into the dust bins of time.