Revelation Chapter 20: Introduction and Outline

Adam Maarschalk: February 7, 2010

This post will serve as an introduction to Revelation 20, expressing some thoughts as we prepare to look more deeply into the period designated by John as “a thousand years,” popularly known as the Millennium. This post will also contain a mini outline. Here’s why:

Our Bible study group met last Wednesday (January 27^th), as we do on a weekly basis, and we completed our group study of Revelation 20 at that time. We generally take turns leading, so that each person only needs to lead the group study roughly every five weeks. This time, however, three of us each led a portion of the study. Dave presented on Revelation 20 from a postmillennial standpoint, Rod from a premillennial viewpoint, and myself from an amillennial viewpoint. All of us are leaning toward the amillennial viewpoint more than the other two, some with more conviction than others.

Due to time constraints, we only presented a fraction of the material that we could have presented. Over time, we’ll be posting more than we prepared for our actual study time. At least on my part, this will be a work in progress, and this post includes an outline to that end. This outline will be filled in (hyperlinked) as posts are completed. Of course, this same information can also be found where the complete list of all our chapter-by-chapter studies on Revelation can be found.

Here is the working outline for the posts that can be expected on Revelation 20 (it may be expanded in the future). Following the outline are some preliminary thoughts on the topic of reigning with Christ for a thousand years:

Revelation Chapter 20 Outline

1. Revelation Chapter 20: Introduction and Outline (this post)
2. John Piper Hosts “An Evening of Eschatology” (Subject: “The Millennium”)
3. Revelation Chapter 20: Premillennial Viewpoint
4. Revelation Chapter 20: Postmillennial Viewpoint
5. Revelation Chapter 20: Amillennial Viewpoint (Part 1)
6. Revelation Chapter 20: Amillennial Viewpoint (Part 2)
7. Revelation Chapter 20: Minority Viewpoints & A Discussion of Two Ages
8. Revelation Chapter 20: Two Views on Gog and Magog (Part 1)
9. Revelation Chapter 20: Two Views on Gog and Magog (Part 2)

Preliminary Thoughts on Revelation 20

Anyone who has read through the previous studies which we have posted on the book of Revelation will have noticed that on the whole we favor what is known as the partial-preterist interpretation. That is, we see a first-century fulfillment for the events written about so far, a good portion of which describes a pouring out of God’s judgment upon apostate Israel and Old Covenant Temple-based Judaism in 70 AD just as Jesus predicted (e.g. Luke 19:41-44, 23:28-31; Matthew 23:37-24:34). This is based not only on a wealth of internal evidence in Revelation, but also on John’s numerous statements announcing that the things he saw were soon to take place (e.g. Rev. 1:1, 3; 3:11; 22:7, 12, 20).

Now, I’ve also mentioned that, as a group, we seem to be leaning toward the amillennial interpretation, i.e. that the “1000 year reign of Christ” began in the first century and continues until today (whether this is taking place in heaven, on earth, or both, will be discussed in a couple of posts which are to follow). A combination of these two views—and it’s understood that many readers will not hold to this same combination—means that we (generally speaking) do not see the storyline of Revelation 20 as being parallel in time to the storyline of Revelation 1-19.

Many amillennialists do see Revelation 20 as parallel in time to at least the events of Revelation 6-19, most notably those who are also Historicists. We do not. I offer up this explanation for the sake of clarity regarding what is to follow. In this regard, I would like to quote a few excerpts from a publication written by Kenneth Gentry titled “Recapitulation v Progress.” This is a primer for a full-length, verse-by-verse commentary on the book of Revelation which Gentry is currently working on. This particular publication is #13 among his Revelation Commentary Updates so far. The following selected excerpts are from pages 2-9 of that publication, and I find myself agreeing with Gentry on these particular points:

Revelation 20 is probably the best known and most hotly debated chapter in Revelation. This is the chapter (the only chapter in the Bible!) that mentions Christ’s ruling and reigning with His saints for 1000 years… An extremely important issue arises as we move from Revelation 19 into chapter 20. The question arises regarding the relationship between these two passages: Is it one of recapitulation (i.e., repetition of the same events) or sequence (two different episodes with one following as a result of the other)?

The prevailing scholarly (non-premillennial) consensus today holds that the relationship between these two chapters is one of recapitulation. The recapitulationist sees Rev 20:7–10 covering the same ground as and repeating 19:11–21. That is, they argue that the final eschatological battle at the second coming of Christ appears in both 19:11–21 and 20:7–10. This, of course, destroys the premillennial argument that sees the second coming (19:11–21) leading to Christ’s subsequently establishing his millennium (20:1–10). Consequently, premillennialists insist on sequence rather than recapitulation.

Oddly enough, my evangelical preterist view agrees with the premillennialist regarding the relationship between these two passages — though with quite different results. I hold that Christ’s coming from heaven to wage war in Revelation 19:11ff represents His judgment coming on Israel in AD 70. As such it reflects the theme of the book found in 1:7, where he comes against those tribes who pierced him (the Jews). Consequently, 20:1ff presents the consequence of Christ’s judgment of Israel, Christianity’s first major enemy: the binding of Satan, the vindication of the martyrs, and the spiritual rule of believers with Christ in the present age.

By way of illustration, Gentry later makes some statements on the mention of Gog and Magog in Revelation 20:

R. Fowler White notes [that Revelation] 19:17–18 is “virtually a verbatim quotation” of Ezekiel 39:17–20 (1989: 326), and [Revelation] 20:7–10 specifically mentions “Gog and Magog” (Ezekiel 38:2; 39:1, 6), showing God destroying them with fire from heaven (cp. Rev 20:7–10; Eze 38:22; 39:6). Clearly then, John bases both “the Armageddon revolt (19:17–21) and the Gog-Magog revolt (20:7–10) on the same prophetic passage” (1989: 327)… both [Revelation] 19:19–21 and [Revelation] 20:7–10 allude to the same OT eschatological battle prophecy (Ezekiel 38–39).

Gentry notes that there are those who draw from these facts the premise that the events of Revelation 19:19-21 and Revelation 20:7-10 must therefore refer to the same historical event. However, he adds:

Though “significant correspondence” of a “highly peculiar” nature exists between Rev. 19 and Ezekiel 39, problems confront this interpretation: First, similarity does not entail identity. Simply because John patterns both the battles of Rev. 19 and Rev. 20 on Eze. 38–39 does not mean they are the same battle. Similar language is used because similar fundamental realities prevail: God is catastrophically judging oppressive enemies of His people.

Many scholars see AD 70 as a microcosm of the final judgment. Consequently, we may expect the same imagery to apply to both AD 70 and the end. For instance, of those first century events, Bloesch states: “The catastrophe that befell the Jewish people in A.D. 70 is a sign of the final judgment.” Morris agrees: “…[We see that there is] a theological unity between the two judgments, and that some of what Jesus says [in the Olivet Discourse] could apply equally well to both.” Second, as Bøe notes, John often makes double use of Ezekiel’s images (Bøe, 275). The imagery from Ezekiel’s scroll vision in Eze. 2:8–33 applies both to Rev 5:1 and 10:8–11; Ezekiel’s measuring imagery in Eze 40–48 appears in quite distinct passages in Rev 11:1–2 and 21:10–27 (Bøe 371).

…If John had wanted us to understand recapitulation rather than sequence in this passage [Revelation 20], John “did us no favor” by: (a) recasting the beast and false prophet (19:20) as Gog and Magog (20:8); (b) inserting a thousand year period between the two battles (20:2–5); (c) representing the period of Christian history from the first century to the end as “a short time” (12:12) and as “a thousand years” (20:2–6)… (d) offering no hint that Satan is bound before Rev 19:11ff while emphasizing his being bound before Rev 20:7ff; and (e) telling us that Satan will be thrown into the lake of fire where the beast and false prophet already are (20:10).

…[The judgment of] AD 70 (in Rev. 19:11–21) anticipates the final eschatological battle (Rev. 20:8–10)… It even seems that the NT emphasizes AD 70 more frequently — probably because it was looming in the near future, directly relevant to first century Christians, and of catastrophic significance in re-orienting their thinking regarding the flow of redemptive history… Indeed, it seems that the NT knows of only two great battles remaining in redemptive history: AD 70 which closes the old covenant era (and inaugurates the new covenant) and the Second Advent which closes the new covenant era (and history). Jesus certainly seems to link AD 70 and the Second Advent in his large Olivet Discourse… In addition, John limits Revelation’s prophecies to the near term (1:1, 3; 22:6, 10), which suggests a strong emphasis on AD 70.

Here in this last paragraph, Gentry has strongly hinted that the Second Coming is seen in Revelation only in chapter 20 (verses 8-10). This is my premise as well, and one can see that our study of Revelation 19 proposes that the Second Coming is not seen in that passage. Indeed, among those who are convinced of the partial-preterist position, this is a common viewpoint if they are also amillennialists (or postmillennialists, as Gentry is). This and much more will be discussed in the posts which are to follow on Revelation 20.

“It isn’t that a warrior learns shamanism as time goes by; rather, what he learns as time goes by is to save energy. This energy will enable him to handle some of the energy fields which are ordinarily inaccessible to him. Shamanism is a state of awareness, the ability to use energy fields that are not employed in perceiving the everyday-life world that we know.” ~ Carlos Castaneda

When Carlos Castaneda wrote his books he was trying very hard to find a word that would embody a multitude of modalities from the Shamanic realm.  He chose sorcerer because it exemplified knowledge, man of knowledge or one who knows and who was capable at accomplishing extraordinary feats.  He also lived completely outside of the box and steered clear of derivatives.

Carlos Castaneda was a genius.  The coolest thing about Carlos’ books is that he was generous enough to write them in a way that allows people to connect with intent and find their own “inner shaman”.  He not only shared his experiences, he provided the tools and practices through his wonderful stories that provide one with absolutely everything necessary in order to evolve from an ordinary man in the dominant paradigm and into a man of freedom in non-ordinary reality.  What is necessary in understanding his writing is to get out of your head and to “connect to the energy behind the words” because as he has stated, he wrote from second attention. He literally connected with intent and as a result was able to put his experiential understanding of the nature of things on paper. 

Carlos was, indeed, a man of knowledge and understood that knowledge is free and available to all who would seek it.  He was also a man of freedom and did not capitalize upon shamanism, like so many others do, by turning them into workshops for a fee and then providing “certification”. Yeah, let’s talk about this for a moment.  There are shamanic practitioners in the world who will charge you a hefty fee and provide you with a certificate suitable for framing upon completion of your course work. 

The majority of shamanic practitioners are by-products of Michael Harner who started the Foundation for Shamanic Studies in 1979. For over 30 years Harner and his devotees have been pumping out a shaman-a-minute and the majority of these shaman are merely talking heads.  They paid their workshop fees, have read the books, listened to the tapes, attended prerequisite drum circles to learn how to “journey” and became certified shaman.  Sorry but it isn’t a matter of how many tools and power objects you have in your box of tricks, it’s about being empty. 

I have met a great number of these so-called shaman.  Most of them have little, if any, actual experience other than their own process shared with their peers as part of a weekend retreat or monthly meeting.  They will tell you what they know through the experience they had based on the book that someone else wrote based on the experience someone else had and they will expect you to adopt it as your truth and to utilize it as a practice, because it is the right way to do it.  This is not shamanism, it is memorization headed towards becoming shamanic fundamentalism.  In the end it becomes just another attempt at providing salvation and mainstreaming the masses. 

As more and more people are returning to shamanistic consciousness, be wary of the ones who say they know it and will sell it to you.  You must, absolutely must have your own experiences.  And from the power of silence you will have your own experiences.  Your experience may be meditation, making a pilgrimage or traveling to the jungles of Peru, ingesting sacred plant medicine with an experienced guide, trance dancing, drumming, sitting quietly at the beach, on the mountains, in the forest or in your own backyard garden.  Connect to the Earth and plants and animals, to the sky and stars and planets, to the oceans and rivers and lakes, and trust yourself to be open to receive.  In so doing you will experience the truth.  Your truth.  And from it you can do amazing things and engage in a creative and original journey of discovery and personal power.

In The Power of Silence don Juan said, “You must understand that knowledge cannot be turned into words. That knowledge is there for everyone. It is there to be felt, to be used, but not to be explained. One can come into it by changing levels of awareness, therefore, heightened awareness is an entrance. But even the entrance cannot be explained. One can only make use of it.”

To become a shaman all you have to do is fully become yourself.  No one can teach you how to be a shaman just as no one can teach you how to become yourself, all you have to do is remember.  Use the tools Carlos offers of recapitulation, erasing personal history and connecting with intent.   Seek out like-minded people with whom you can deepen your knowledge and have meaningful conversation filled with ideas, experiences and possibility.  Michael Harner’s shamanism is one way, the natural world, plants, and elders present all of the others.

I find much of Vladimir Solovyev’s thought compelling and am not willing to dismiss it on the basis of disagreement with some of his premises, such as Absolute Divine simplicity. This inspirer of Dostoyevsky’s Alyosha possesses a universal outlook that is important. According to the excerpts found on this link of his book, Russia and the Universal Church, Solovyev believed that the western Church is part of a universal organism called the Church. He does not eliminate the distinctions between the east and west, but he believes that the east can learn from the west’s willingness to get their hands dirty.

St. Cassian [symbolizing eastern purists] need not become a different person or cease to care about keeping his clothes spotless. He must simply recognize that his comrade [symbolizing the western chuch] has certain important qualities which he himself lacks, and instead of sulking at this energetic worker he must frankly accept him as his companion and guide on the earthly voyage that still lies before them.

(bold unavoidable in copy and paste) I part with him on his validating the western Church as part of the universal Church, but I think he has a Christological, cosmological point. I believe Dostoyevsky parted with him too on this point or he wouldn’t have written “The Grand Inquisitor“. But there is a tendency among purists to dismiss those who do not live up to certain idealogical standards. These standards are well and good, and fully realized in heaven, but in humility we must accept that others may have a point or two to teach us, and not dismiss them out of hand. Solovyev’s statements about imperfection on earth are well taken, but I think the Orthodox Church on earth has preserved Orthodoxy in word, if not fully in deed. He does seem to disagree with the more isolated forms of monasticism, which seems too dismissive, but I think the criticism can still be valid regarding some isolationist views. It made me think of the cranky hermit monk in Brothers Karamazov. Dostoyevsky redeemed too extreme a caricature in Elder Zosima.

Regarding the universal Church as an organism, perhaps Solovyev uses the wrong term by defining at least Catholics and Orthodox as a single body. I’ll sidestep discussing whether every individual in the eastern Church comprises The Body of Christ. I’m focusing for the moment on the Incarnation, and what Christ joined Himself to in becoming “created”. In a sense Christ recapitulated the whole cosmos when he became and redeemed mankind (if I understand St. Maximus correctly). I’ve read a couple of statements about panentheism lately, but Wikipedia gives a more positive approach to it. God is not divorced from his creation, even those who are not baptized into His body (I may be minimizing the importance of baptism in this post, but that is due to neglect and not intention or personal belief in the unique grace of Holy Baptism). The opposite tendency is to believe in universalism which is not espoused by the Orthodox Church. This type of universalism deals more with salvation, which I’m not talking about. I am not responsible for determining if Catholics or Protestants, or even individual Orthodox, are “saved”. But being open to “others” teaching us how to be more like Christ is what I think Solovyev also espouses in his book. How could others teach of us if they are not connected to Christ in some way? I’ll not try to explain further how that can be so.

Solovyev’s not a gnostic nor an idealist! In the last section of Transfigurations of Eros he sticks with his Plato narrative and points out that he lost his shining moment when he diverted from love, which

in the sense of an erotic emotion, always has corporality as its proper object. Corporality, however, worthy of love, that is, beautiful and immortal, does not grow up of itself from the ground nor does it fall ready-made from heaven. It is acquired by the effort of a spiritually-physical and a divinely-human kind.

Immediately preceding this St. Maximus-like quote is another,

In this relation the whole man is concerned, and the true principle of his restoration is both spiritual and physical. But since it is impossible for the Divinity to regenerate the body and spirit of man without the co-operation of man himself, it is just as impossible for man to create super-humanity out of himself, for this would be like lifting one’s self up by one’s own hair. It is clear that man can become divine only by the active power of an eternally existing Divinity and not of one coming into being, and that the way of the higher love, perfectly uniting male and female, the spiritual and physical, is necessarily by its very principle a union or interaction of the divine and the human, or a divinely human process.

I love this book. I totally agree with his assessment of Plato’s Republic too (it’s the only work of Plato that I’ve read yet). Solovyev criticizes his sterile idealism, his diversion into politics, his promotion of slavery, and forcing women into the military thus disregarding the distinctions. Amen.

 Have you considered the power of your thoughts? Have you stopped at any one time and said to yourself what is going on here? Is there at this very moment a program running in your mind telling you that you are not good enough or that your life will never be abundant? Are you in reality creating your own limitations and in addition to those limitations you are arguing for them? Are you in fact co creating a world you do not want to live in? Have you accepted the fact that many, many years ago you accepted the fact that life was out of your control. that you are just one person in this great big world. Have you done this? have you accepted this? Is this what you are faced with now? Are you really just 1 person that can do nothing. I would like for you to just take a moment to ponder this. Think about what limitations you have set forth in your own life. No matter what it is. Also, think about situations where you accepted someone or something else’s words to program your mainframe. This is exactly what happens the moment something makes you feel less than a person. Less than the Lite Being that you are, you are accepting some other’s programming. If something in this world makes you believe that your tits are not big enough. Your bank account not large enough, your anything compared to anything doesn’t add up. Are you unconsciously or consciously running around comparing yourself to a world that does not care one fucking dime about what happens to you. Are you really doing this? Have you considered there is something deeper and truer to you than this mode of existing. 

  I want to move on to the idea of co creating. If this insane world has locked you into it’s matrix and is using your energy to perpetuate this reality isn’t it possible for you to “unplug?” The next time you turn on the television take a long deep look into what is going on. The people who create these programs (and it can be any program, i.e, news, reality show, celebrity gossip shows, lifetime for women) know exactly what is going on and they are intentionally setting the stage so that you will compare yourself to this reality. When you compare yourself against something that has more than you, you will of course see that they have more than you and that you do not have enough. This is all in line with controlling your thoughts. If you think you have not been brainwashed, get over it. You are abso-fucking-lutely brainwashed, and it is the most subtle of brainwashing. brainwashing that makes you brainwash yourself. GET OVER IT!!! I can not express this enough. I digress.  Did you know the main reason why you are not living the life that you want is because you do not exactly know the life that you want. You are so absorbed in the reality that you do not have an abundant life that you can not create anything else. The very act of this perpetuates this over and over again. You are creating your own Matrix which gives you time and time again the same set of problems. 

At this point I can go into what it is exactly that you can do to change your life. However, I want to make this as thoroughly clear as possible for you. I want you to absolutely understand what you are faced against. If you do not change this programming what’s the worse thing that could happen? What is going to become of YOUR LIFE? Are you going to continue this pattern that has beseeched humanity for so far back that one can only guess from where it came. If you do some research you will see that much of the recent systems that came into effect occurred in the 1930’s. If you do not “unplug” what is going to happen? What is going to become of YOUR LIFE? I have a few ideas and they are as follows. You will continue to perpetuate this reality and the end result is a you that you do not know and you never wanted. However, not using your own thoughts to manifest your reality and pondering what it is exactly that  you want from the universe only gives you more of what you do not want. You will also see a world in which everyone is in complete and total slavery and it will be no secret at that point. 

 Imagine the universe a  Genie in a bottle. Imagine that you are the one who holds the Genie bottle. See this completely in your mind. Now, with this image,, imagine that your intent is the hand which rubs the bottle and awakens the genie which is actually your intent energy. Now, the intent energy is awakened. It is clearly in front of you. At this very moment actually. The very act of reading these words awakens your intent energy. Now whatever is going on in that noggin of yours is what the genie is going to give you. No matter what it is. It needs to be stressed here that you will get whatever is in your thoughts. I hope at this point you can see how important it is to know your thoughts. If you want change but you do not know exactly what it is that you want to change. Then, you will get chaos and more than likely more of the same shit you do not want. The universe is a genie which delivers whatever you think. This is exactly the truth. The very, very truth of this world in which we live. Many people before us discovered this truth and developed scheme’s to control the people of earth. The truth is that we are not in fear of our darkness, we are in fear of our light. We fear what it could mean if we completely were to change ourselves. You see, when we change ourselves in this manner we change the world in which we live. 

  At present there is an accelerated time cycle which is happening. A momentum has formed that is sort of like the Juggernaut from X-Men. It starts slowly, builds and then there is no stopping it. It has not reached the point where there is no stopping it. This can change quite rapidly in fact. However, if you continue to live in your television world of limitations the juggernaut will continue its momentum and before long your slavery to this system will be complete and the world in which you live now will be an entirely different place. It will be a place where ghastly, ghastly things are happening. Right out in public and the people of the earth will not know what to do to stop it. And, indeed there will no stopping it for what power humanity has will have been surrendered to ego maniacal, self-indulgence which is hell-bent on killing off the people of earth and the ones which remain will be nothing but slaves to serve them.

Now, I hope that the picture is as well painted as possible at the consequences of allowing your mainframe to be programmed by outside sources. It is with my highest hope that you will hear these words. As there is a plan. There is a way in which you can effect this. Today. right now. At this very moment. I recommend however that you spend a good deal of time analyzing this and putting your thoughts on things happening in the world that you had just accepted as truth and reality. Do your YouTube research. Not everything there is viable though. However do your research and do it quickly. IT IS IMPERATIVE THAT YOU GET ON WITH IT. You see spending too much time thinking about the evil forces bent on your destruction will either immobilize you in terror which adds to the fear energy on a planetary scale. Or, you will say RIGHT… now, what can I do? This has to change. It has to change not just for myself but for everyone. The mothers and brothers and fathers and daughters everywhere. AND the planet on which you live. The very home that welcomes you daily and speaks to you through the wind though you do not hear. You do not hear because you are in a state of programming which has made you believe your individuality matters. And, it does matter. Just not in the way that you have been believing that it does. 

What can you do RIGHT NOW? First unplug. Quite literally unplug. Turn the fucking television off and save money each month from your cable bills. This means that you are going to deprogram yourself from the television. LET IT GO. You will in time return to a clear state. If you are a heavy TV user then it can take 6 months or more to come to your clean clear conscious state. You say but that is so long what am I going to do in that time. That my friend is up to you. You see because it is not about the 6 months. It is about the remainder of your life and reclaiming your fucking soul. I recommend using this time you have now. This whole new world that has opened up to you. I recommend you use this time getting reacquainted with your thoughts and reprogramming yourself. Make vision boards. Cut photos out of the things you find beautiful and would like to see more of in the world. Start a blog about your recent discovery and please, please tell everyone you know how important it is. However you must do this in a way that does not make them feel like they are on trial. This will only serve to make them turn you off and further protect their limitations. Do you want to be a fully evolved being with complete control of the universe in which you live? Can you imagine a world where you and your friends are creating the world together? This absolutely will happen. Time is short though. The plans of the insidious are fully underway and now too few are waking up. 

We must view this as CODE RED! 

There is no time to waste. We must get on with this. Anything you have that is not resolved needs to be resolved. You must go into your life and make apologies or reconnect with people you have cut out. If someone is no good for you than that is just the way that it is going to be. However, be honest with yourself. Be truthful about your own shit. Did you hurt someone, did someone hurt you? This must be reconciled quickly as this will free up more of your energy which will be very much-needed in your new life. Replay over and over again the events that you have found to be hurting for you and let it go. Do not put more energy into them. Just acknowledge it. Realize it for what it was and reclaim your energy. The very intent you have to reclaim your energy from that thing will take whatever energy you have vested in that thing to be returned to the original source from which it came. That my friend, is you. Reclaim your youth. Do not buy into telling people how old you feel or any of that nonsense. Aging is a social disease. It is all part of the program which has infiltrated your life. Clear your mind of these thoughts and replace them with: ”I am so happy and grateful for my eternal youth. The fact that I feel so great and alive overpowers me and propels me into action” My mind is so clear and happy. I am well and it is so amazing to see wellness in the world. I can feel my cells restoring moment by moment. They are so young and happy. I am so happy and healthy.” These thoughts will begin to shape you. Shape you in a way that you truly will be astonished by. ANY negative thought that begins to enter your mind (especially doubt) say FUCK THAT! Clearly in your mind say NOT FOR ME. NOT ME. Whatever you need to, to clearly make the program realize it no longer has power over you. That you are the decider of this journey and it is YOU who will make the decisions. Come up with your own affirmations that will take over when the negative thoughts trying to get in. Keep an affirmation running in your mind 247.

“My mind is clear and I am in control” “I am the decider of the world” I decided to be born therefore I control this. “I am so happy and so grateful for my ability to control negative thoughts and to squash them the moment they appear.”

I personally like any affirmation that involves gratefulness and happiness for this generates more of the same. 

  You are on your way to becoming a fully evolved conscious co creator of the very universe in which you are living. Amazing isn’t it? And it is 100% the truth. All else fails. Give it no more of your energy. Reclaim what has been taken from you and invest it in the total recreation of the world! If that doesn’t give you a sense of purpose I am not sure what will. If that doesn’t make you feel like at long last you belong, I am not sure what will. This my friend is that absolute answer to the problem. 

  Moving forward I will be talking about things that we can do to create a sort of cell division of the new reality with humanity. All it takes is for the new thoughts to take root. Imagine the new world in which you will be living. Free from tyranny and disease and lies. Full of caring compassionate powerful beings that share as if there is no tomorrow for in truth, there is no tomorrow. There is just today and today and today.

It is at this point that I would like to say to those who think one person can do nothing. Clearly this is not true. You have more power than you are aware of even to this very moment. You must simply reclaim your mind and yourself with the true you which is now beginning to blossom from this very moment in which you have read these words. If you have read these words, congratulations you are among the few who will soon be many shedding a new light upon the earth. If in fact that is what you choose. I sincerely and deeply trust this what you will choose. Alleviating the mothership earth of  her sorrow and pains, bringing about a new face for humanity. A day of utmost abundance and health for all. All of this will happen with the very power of your intent.

 I leave you with this:

Decide for yourself your reality. Act upon your decision and manifest upon this very earth the world in which you would love to live. Know it to be true and never ever waver from this decision. Afterall everyone’s life depends upon it. Including yours and generations to come. 

With the deepest love

-Marc

Author : GUSTIAWAN, TOFAN;

Perhitungan estimasi biaya untuk sebuah bangunan diperlukan ketelitian dan ketepatan. Oleh karena itu akan digunakan program komputer yaitu Sistem Informasi Estimasi Biaya (SIEB). Studi ini menghitung estimasi biaya sebuah rumah tinggal sederhana tipe 65 yang terdiri dari perhitungan volume pekerjaan dan harga satuan pekerjaan. Harga satuan pekerjaan dihitung dengan program SIEB, dan dilakukan uji kelengkapan program ini dalam memperoleh harga satuan pekerjaan yang dibutuhkan oleh sebuah rumah tinggal sederhana. Setelah dilakukan uji aplikasi program SIEB yang mencakup 333 jenis pekerjaan, ternyata tidak semua jenis pekerjaan pada proyek ini terlayani. Secara keseluruhan pada proyek ini membutuhkan 41 harga satuan pekerjaan, dimana 32 harga satuan pekerjaan mampu dihitung dengan menggunakan program ini, dan untuk 9 harga satuan pekerjaan yang tidak terdapat dalam program ini akan dihitung secara manual. Pada program SIEB ini juga dilakukan penyempurnaan faktor material dan satuan pekerjaan dengan melakukan koreksi guna memberikan hasil perhitungan yang lebih akurat.

Keyword : calculation sheet, bill of quantity, recapitulation, SIEB program

Sumber : http://repository.petra.ac.id/2812/

Es waren sehr aussergewöhnliche Sätze, die wir in unseren drei letzten Vorlesungen zur Bestimmung des Ortes der evangelischen Theologie gewagt haben . . . Wie kommt die Theologie dazu, den in diesen Sätzen umschriebenen, von aussen gesehen sozusagen in der freien Luft befindlichen Ort zu beziehen und zu halten?

Rekapitulieren wir in Kürze, um uns ihre Situation einzuschärfen: Wir wagten in unserer zweiten Vorlesung („Das Wort”) den Satz: es sei die in der Geschichte Jesu Christi zu ihrem Ziel kommende Immanuelsgeschichte als solche Gottes zu den Menschen aller Zeiten und Räume gesprochenes Wort gewesen.  Welch eine Geschichte—welches Wort!  In welcher Macht solche Geschichte und in ihr solche Offenbarung?

Wir wagten in unserer dritten Vorlesung („Die Zeugen”) den Satz: Es gebe eine bestimmte Gruppe von Menschen—die biblischen Propheten und Apostel—die das Wort jener Geschichte unmittelbar vernahmen und damit zu dessen authentischen und autoritativen Zeugen (wieder den Menschen aller Zeiten und Räume gegenüber) berufen worden.  Menschen wie alle anderen, nun aber ausgezeichnet zu solchem Vernehmen, zu solcher Verkündigung!  In welcher Macht wohl?

Wir wagten in unserer vierten Vorlesung („Die Gemeinde”) den Satz: Es sei in der Kraft des jenen ersten Zeugen gesagten und in den Mund gelegten Wortes ein ganzes Volk von Menschen entstanden: als Zeugen zweiter Ordnung auch sie, die Gemeinde zur Verkündigung des Werkes und Wortes Gottes in der Welt bestimmt und befähigt.  Ein Menschenvolk dieses Charakters!  In welcher Macht seiner Existenz und seiner Aktion?

Karl Barth, Einführung in die evangelische Theologie 6. Auflage 2006 (Theologischer Verlag Zürich),57-58. Used by permission.

One of the problems with discussions about patristic exegesis is that it is so easy to stay at the level of generalities and never get into specific examples of what the fathers did when interpreting the Bible. In this post and the two that will follow it, I will take a brief look at three passages from Cyril of Alexandria’s commentary on the gospel of John. Please feel free to weigh in with what you think is positive or negative about his exegesis.

The Wedding at Cana A typical example of Cyril’s exegetical method in which he displays his concerns for Christology and soteriology is his treatment of the wedding at Cana in John 2:1-12. Cyril begins by asking a question that would not even occur to most modern commentators – why would Jesus bother to go to a marriage feast? He answers that Jesus attended the wedding because he was invited, but, more significantly, he went to the wedding in order “to sanctify the very beginning of the birth of man.” That is, Jesus’ mission as the one who would recreate the human race was not simply to bless those persons already called into being, but also to bless those “soon to be born” through the marriage and to “make holy their entrance into being.” A yet further point relates to the marriage itself. Using Scripture to interpret Scripture, Cyril quotes the curse pronounced upon Eve in Genesis 3:16 – “In sorrow thou shalt bring forth children.” As the one who came to redeem mankind, Jesus removed this curse of the Fall and in so doing honored marriage and erased the shame associated with childbearing. Jesus undertook this action because God has loved mankind and is the “Delight and Joy of all.” Finally, Cyril uses another text to drive home his point. The theme of the recapitulation of the human race in Jesus Christ is supported by Paul’s declaration in 2 Corinthians 5:17 that if anyone is in Christ he is a new creature.[1]

Having stated the historical account of the text, Cyril begins his description of “what is therein signified,” that is, the spiritual meaning of the passage. He states the principle guiding his exegesis as “holy Scripture carries up language from human things to a meaning that is above us.” In other words, the language or ordinary human experience mirrors greater divine realities. The realities he has in mind are the description of Jesus as the bridegroom and human nature as the bride. Furthermore, the fact that the marriage occurred on the third day is significant, for “the number three gives us beginning, middle, end,” signifying the whole of time. It is for this reason that Christ was raised on the third day. Thus, Cyril uses the wedding “on the third day” in conjunction with several other texts (Hos 6:1-3; Gen 3:19; 1 Cor 15:20) to argue that on the third day Christ was raised from the dead and so “rendered all our nature whole, raising it from the dead in Himself.” Other elements in the passage also have spiritual significance. The fact that the miracle was performed in Cana of Galilee rather than in Jerusalem reveals that the Jews would reject Jesus, but that the Gentiles would gladly receive him. The lack of wine at the feast signifies the inability of the Mosaic law to bring perfection, and the fact that Jesus created wine even better than the first foreshadows the greater blessings of the gospel brought by Christ (relying also upon 2 Cor 3:6, a classic proof text of patristic exegesis). Finally, in Cyril’s exegesis the ruler of the feast becomes a type of the priesthood. Just as the ruler was given the wine first, so the priest should be supported by the church (relying also upon 2 Tim 2:6).[2]

[2]Ibid., 157-58.

Recapitulation. The individual becomes interesting at the moment their cruelty turns inwards because the species became interesting at the moment its cruelty turned inward.

In Star Trek the original series, “The Return of the Archons”, the crew beams down to a planet controlled by Landrew, who is an analogy of some people’s view of God. The unseen one uses telepathy and brain washing to control people through his monk-looking creatures who zap those “outside the body” with sticks to “absorb” them. After being absorbed into the body, also known as “the good”, one only knows a mindless bliss and says things like “peace, tranquility, love, paradise”. However upon encountering those outside the body who have free will, the members of the body can become hostile. Kirk’s speech at the end promotes free will and creativity as activities of the soul, and that Landrew has made his people soulless, and is thus evil.

This episode is an obvious confrontation of the creator’s idea of religion, and is justified in much of the critique the Orthodox have of the Catholic Church (see Energetic Procession which draws on St. Maximus) and subsequent Protestant Churches. If one does not understand the distinction between God’s Essence, which is Deity, and His Energies, which I understand is His Deifying love, then one’s view of union with God is one of absorption into His essence. The Council of Chalcedon decreed the nature between the divine and the human natures of Christ, which I believe can also be extended to our union with God,

“We confess that one and the same Christ, Lord, and only-begotten Son, is to be acknowledged in two natures without confusion, change, division, or separation (in duabus naturis inconfuse, immutabiliter, indivise, inseparabiliter). The distinction between natures was never abolished by their union, but rather the character proper to each of the two natures was preserved as they came together in one person (prosopon) and one hypostasis.”

Our human nature isn’t absorbed into God, but remains distinct in its union.

The Star Trek language about becoming part of the body was a little too close for comfort, but perhaps we can make another distinction in understanding the nature of a body. If one’s idea of God is a vague, disembodied Spirit, then the members of His “body” would also loose their distinctions. If we have a more incarnational view of the many parts of creation, then the recapitulated parts still remain distinct with different functions, as St. Maximus describes.

I’m still plugging away at Homer, which is interesting and engaging, but yesterday I decided to pick up Dr. Jones’ intro to St. Dionysius again. His discussion of how the cause remains in the caused is illuminating,

[St.] Dionysius gives a striking expression of this threefold structure of divine causality in his celebration of the divine eros. For the divinity is eros

manifest of itself and through itself, a good procession of the separated unity, a simple self-moved, erotic motion – active of itself, before be-ing, in the good, flowing forth out of the good to beings, returning again into the good; in this the divine eros is excellently manifested to be without beginning and without end. The divine eros is like an everlasting circle – moving around in unerring convolution through the good, out of the good, in the good, into the good, always abiding, proceeding and returning in the same, and according to the same. (Divine Names IV.14.712C-713A) (p.41 in the Introduction to The Divine Names and Mystical Theology)

I’m getting into the part about hierarchies now and am wondering about the Platonic principle of diminishment from the cause when the caused starts to cause.

SUMMARY OF FINDINGS OF THE STUDY

 The focus of my dissertation research study was, as you can see by the above title, an exploration of whether there is any relationship between the use of Pitocin (artificial oxytocin) to start or speed up labor, and the way children born with its use function individually and in their relationships when they are three years old. I was interested in Pitocin use because what I read suggested that around two-thirds of inductions are now for non-medical reasons, but there wasn’t a lot of research to tell us whether there were any specific consequences to the child of this use.

Before starting this research I first interviewed six therapists who work with babies, children, and adults to resolve issues arising from challenging prenatal or birth experiences. All the therapists had worked with clients who had been born with the use of Pitocin. The therapists told me what they had observed and learned about their clients and the role they thought Pitocin played in their functioning. I performed a content analysis on the interview transcripts, and about two years later, had a long list of “items” that eventually became the raw material for a survey to be conducted with mothers of three-year-old children. I sent this list to the six therapists with a voting form, and they helped me select which items best represented the various areas of functioning about which I planned to ask the mothers.

Eventually, this list became the survey that participants were invited to complete. Ultimately, I had 498 completed surveys that could be analyzed to see if Pitocin use appeared to be related to a difference in how three-year-olds functioned.  The following is a summary of the findings that were statistically significant.

1.      Receiving Pitocin resulted in more negative recollections of labor and delivery, suggesting that mothers who received it had a more challenging experience than those who didn’t. However, there was a similar finding for the use of epidural anesthesia and for pain medication, both of which tend either to precede or follow the use of Pitocin.

2.      Mothers who received Pitocin spent less time with their babies in the first hour after delivery, and were less likely to feed their babies exclusively at the breast in the first six months. In other words, babies who were born without Pitocin were more likely to be fed exclusively at the breast in the first six months than those born with Pitocin

3.      Two factors distinguished children born with Pitocin from those born without Pitocin.

The first was called “Assertiveness”, which describes a socially appropriate way that babies and children communicate their need for help and comfort when they are feeling uncomfortable or unsafe. Typically, crying, using facial expressions and physical gestures, and later, verbalizing their thoughts and feelings, elicits helpful responses from parents, who try to identify and meet the need the baby or child is expressing. However, babies born with Pitocin, whose mothers reported having had a more challenging time during labor and delivery, appear to have a higher need to be assertive because they seem to experience more discomfort, but are apparently less effective in asserting their needs and getting them met when they feel unsafe or uncomfortable.

The second factor was called “Need to Control Environment” and this summarizes what seems to be a higher level of discomfort or insecurity, particularly in response to “outside-in” influences (e.g., reacting to food with digestive problems or being picky eaters; problems coping with other people’s timing and structure, refusing help from others) and increased or exaggerated efforts to control their environment, resulting in behaviors that may be more challenging to their mothers/family. There appears to be some continuity of effects between infancy and age three: for example, children who were described as picky eaters, or as having digestive problems at three, were likely to have been colicky, fussy babies. Interestingly, the hormone oxytocin is very involved in the digestive process: it plays a role in the production of digestive enzymes and as we enjoy our meal, in a positive feedback loop, we produce more oxytocin.

It may be that a process described as “hormonal imprinting”, identified in a considerable number of animal studies since the 1970s, is the mechanism that accounts for these differences between children exposed to Pitocin and those who were not. Using Pitocin to initiate labor may “flood” the available oxytocin receptors in mother and baby, apparently affecting children’s internal comfort levels and how they interact with others, although how this takes place in the babies has not yet been studied. Since both mother and baby receive Pitocin during labor and delivery, it is as yet unclear to what degree each contributes to challenges in their mutual relationship.  

Santa Barbara Graduate Institute

July 2008 

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Do you ever get the feeling that you could be ahead of the game? That you could actually step a little further in your life and take claim of what is rightfully yours in the material world. There should be no shame in that and everyone should be free enough to be able to achieve this. Opportunity for everyone, but is opportunity the right word? Everyone should have access to the very same things. The material world could be a paradise where whatever you needed you could get on line and have it sent. Do you ever get the feeling that there is a part of you that is waking up? That there is something about you that makes you always believe that the best is still yet to come and you feel a certain connection with invisibility? 

A longing for something you have no name for and no real mental imagery either. Is it as if there were some great “thing” that you are waiting to be a part of. This longing/knowing is interesting how it is familiar to us yet we have not yet experienced it. How is this? We are the experience, we are not disconnected from the experience. We are merely sidetracked by this insidious game that has been playing out in the world, of which we all are a part. We are intrinsically empowered to illuminate the world. Yes, it’s true! We literally have abilities we are only just beginning to consider. The latent call of mother nature. Is it mother nature? I do not know what else you would call it. To be connected with the energy of the earth in such a way that you can sense it’s needs. Certainly you would. We have become so distracted by our civilized world that we can rarely hear the voice of the earth speak to us. Is the spirit of the earth the same as the spirit of the sky? 

If we were to really discover and understand completely what it actually is to be of our origins, we would live in complete awesome amazement at every moment of our lives. I think I am not alone when I say, it’s interesting how I just know that I am more than this body. Explaining something that just is, just isn’t easy. Here is where I hope to explore this sort of reality and to discover ways of expanding consciousness and total awareness of what you really are. To truly live as a light being in the material world. I suspect that the ability’s which exist on the astral plane must certainly be utilized here in the material world, and possibly vice versa. I think it is quite possible that we are orbs of consciousness who’s main goal and focus is to explore and manifest reality’s. Quite possibly galaxy’s. Did you ever wonder, who created all of this anyway? Have you wondered where all this is coming from, why are we so hard wired to each other? If this is the truth, how magnificent and mind blowing are we! Really, you mean I can and do manifest reality? It is interesting to see that if we can hold our focus long enough on one particular thing, it will with no doubt somehow appear in your life. It is this “knowing” of who you are and what you are capable of. Only most of us have been so dumbed down that we have no idea there is anything wrong. 

ALERT – TAKE ACTION NOW!!!  

3 simple ways to engage your true self

1.Turn off the TV / Go Outside

2.Get news from a reliable source

3.Do not engage in slanderous conversation or gossip of any kind

Just these 3 things will bring you in direct contact of the higher self, you will see that in time it will begin to speak for you and you will continually be aware of wether or not you were following your path. If you are on the right path you will love your life, if you resonate yes with it, then you’re doin’ it. Television deprogramming happens quickly, you will start to feel yourself more sensitive to your environment and a whole lot less questioning and worrying. When shows are broadcast especially the news it is filtered and everything you see is preprogrammed by thought control programmers. Images are used to suggest things for you. Ads for products in news casts cleverly disguised so the waking mind does not see it. 

Are we creating all realities and if so, shouldn’t we change a few things?

“Maybe everyone felt this way at some point, when one realized there was a depth to one’s life and emotions beyond one’s own significance.”

-Kiran Desai, the Inheritance of Loss

A week ago, I was lying in bed next to Ryan in a tin-roofed cottage in an orchid nursery on a steep hillside in Kalimpong, India, scribbling in my journal, thinking forward to our return to the states.  I began a sentence:

“I am trying to fathom”

and a power failure swallowed us in darkness.  They’re part of ordinary life in India—usually happening several times a day and frequently lasting hours.  I crawled off the bed and bumped around in the dark looking for the matches, which stubbornly refused to light when I struck them, as the dampness of August monsoon in the Himalayan foothills had softened their matchheads.  After a half-dozen, one sputtered into flame, and I lit the 4 candles we’d been burning across India.

I crawled back into bed in the candlelight, and we lay without speaking.  The forest was suddenly audible in the absence of the oscillating hum of the electric fan; now we heard the low buzz of thousands of crickets rubbing their legs together, the brushing of insects against the leaves and the echoing telegraph of the village dogs, passing messages in the streets.  Ryan returned to his book, and I picked up my journal again.  “It seems to me,” I wrote, “in the darkened silence, that we’re made aware of where we really are, this place it is we inhabit.  Suddenly it feels like we’re surrounded by jungle-forest, even though we’re only dwelling in its edges.  After all, it is vast enough, this thick green of the foothills of the Himalaya, that even roads and villages are little more than an interruption, and a small one at that, as all of this “civilization” could be washed into the river by the forest in the mudslides of of monsoon.  Listening, it seems the forest breathes between the paced exhalations of cricketsong, and having just read about the tigers of the Sunderbans [the mangrove-forested islands in the mouth of the Ganges River], I feel respectful and small in the dark.”

The lights and the fan clicked back on after only a short while, and I returned to the unfinished thought I’d begun before the power outage.

I am trying to fathom

I am trying to fathom what I’ll say to my dear ones next week, when they ask

so how was your trip

which moments will I select for recapitulation?  which observations will surface in my jetlagged disorientation?   I realize I am trying to fathom what This All Means.  These 32 days in India, living out of a backpack.

One the one hand, These 32 Days in India Living Out of A Backpack were nothing more than a collection of moments.   They can be reduced to a list, of places, and journeys between places: cities, airports, trainstations, rowboats, hostels, lodges, rivers, mountains, monasteries and restaurants, faces, pots of tea, meals and evenings and books and rickshaws and tickets and rupees and bad maps and alleys and signs in Sanskrit.

Then there’s the underlying emotional-intellectual-spiritual experience, which is harder to encapsulate in a 45-second anectdote, which is all the average asker is looking for.  Walkabout— wandering just for the sake of wandering— is an act that is, by its very undertaking, a fundamental unmooring from the Acccustomed, the Habitual, the Known, the Routine, the Familiar.  It is a submersion in entirely new waters.  You step out into the water, and suddenly you’re in over your head, bobbing up and down and rubbing the sting out of your eyes, as wave after wave of new smells, tastes, sounds, visions splash into you.  You are washed over by culture, history,  curious, probing stares, and new and ancient ways of doing things.  And as the hours pass and you get your footing, you start to recognize the universal currents flowing around you, human suffering, joy, art, commerce.  And you start to take stock of all you have carried with you from home: preconceptions, useless luggage (why this pair of pants? why that assumption?), and then the things that prove useful: patience, that orange pashmina scarf from Emma, that nail clippers, that gluestick, open eyes, open heart…

You begin to realize things about yourself, attitudes and prejudices and capacities, revealed over the passing days, things you never really understood before.  The country, the people, offer you a mirror in which to see yourself; your mannerisms, your skin color, your clothing, your privilege, your guilt, your joys, and the wellspring of patience that is infinitely deeper each time you dip into it.  It is the kind of mirror most Americans conspire to keep covered, because the reflection is not always flattering to our ego.  Yes, I see in the mirror of India, I am capable of racist thoughts.  Yes, I am capable of walking past a starving child, reduced to bones and skin and eyes, sitting next to his unconscious mother on a traffic island surrounded by a chaos of cars and rickshaws and buses belching diesel fumes, walking past and doing nothing.

There’s plenty of beauty too, too much to take in, enough to bathe in the memories of it well into my old age.  But I think the discomfort, the awkwardness, the truly unnerving took more fathoming, had more to teach me about myself.

Now I am home again, in the states, and my jeans and my music and my shower and my kitchen table and my house feel like a foreign country for the first few hours.  I am trying, again, to fathom

what I’ve brought home.  What it means to be here, to be of here, in my sweet kitchen, my backyard garden, the land of milk and honey, Michael Jackson and roads with lanes.

The dictionary of English etymology defines “fathom” as the length made by the outstretched arms, 6 feet.   It is a verb for measuring depth, getting to the bottom of.  In the act of fathoming, we metaphorically spread ourselves wide, stretching open our most vulnerable body parts to the dangers of the world, stretching our fingertips as far out as they will go, to measure what it is that lies at hand.

trying to fathom.

[wrote this listening to: \”First Breath After Coma,\” Explosions in the Sky

“Maybe everyone felt this way at some point, when one realized there was a depth to one’s life and emotions beyond one’s own significance.”

-Kiran Desai, the Inheritance of Loss

A week ago, I was lying in bed next to Ryan in a tin-roofed cottage in an orchid nursery on a steep hillside in Kalimpong, India, scribbling in my journal, thinking forward to our return to the states.  I began a sentence:

“I am trying to fathom”

and a power failure swallowed us in darkness.  They’re part of ordinary life in India—usually happening several times a day and frequently lasting hours.  I crawled off the bed and bumped around in the dark looking for the matches, which stubbornly refused to light when I struck them, as the dampness of August monsoon in the Himalayan foothills had softened their matchheads. 

Digression: the dictionary of English etymology defines “fathom” as the length made by the outstretched arms, 6 feet. It is a verb for measuring depth, getting to the bottom of. In the world of sailing ships, a fathom is the same measurement, and in the days before electronic nautical instruments, a rope was stretched along one’s arms, and knotted at intervals matching the human reach. Once this rope was lowered into a water of unknown depth, the number of submerged knots would give an indicator of how far down the bottom lay. Fathoming. The word has always reminded me of Melville’s sailors, staring fearfully into the dark of the ocean. I learned in college that Moby Dick was a metaphor as much as it was a whale, and so I suppose it follows that in testing the depths of that deep water, sailors were searching for meaning as much as literal ground. In the act of fathoming, we make ourselves vulnerable. When we stand with arms outstretched, reaching our fingertips as far out as they will go, we expose our vital organs to the dangers of the world. And it is in this way, and this way only, that we are able to gain some idea of what it is that lies at hand.

After I’d struck a half-dozen Indian matches, one sputtered into flame, and I lit the 4 candles we’d been burning across India.

I crawled back into bed in the candlelight, and we lay without speaking.  The forest was suddenly audible in the absence of the oscillating hum of the electric fan; now we heard the low buzz of thousands of crickets rubbing their legs together, the brushing of insects against the leaves and the echoing telegraph of the village dogs, passing messages in the streets.  Ryan returned to his book, and I picked up my journal again.  “It seems to me,” I wrote, “in the darkened silence, that we’re made aware of where we really are, this place it is we inhabit.  Suddenly it feels like we’re surrounded by jungle-forest, even though we’re only dwelling in its edges.  After all, it is vast enough, this thick green of the foothills of the Himalaya, that even roads and villages are little more than an interruption, and a small one at that, as all of this “civilization” could be washed into the river by the forest in the mudslides of a good monsoon.  Listening, it seems the forest breathes between the paced exhalations of cricketsong, and having just read about the tigers of the Sunderbans [the mangrove-forested islands in the mouth of the Ganges River], I feel respectful and small in the dark.”

The lights and the fan clicked back on after only a short while, and I returned to the unfinished thought I’d begun before the power outage.

I am trying to fathom

Like many sentences in my journals, this one had been abandoned half-finished, interrupted by a distraction. I stared at it for a moment, bemused that it might actually constitute a complete sentence. Subject, me. Verb, fathom. I had left myself standing there on the page, arms outstretched, reaching into the darkness. It was, technically, complete, I supposed. But what had I been reaching for?

I am trying to fathom what I’ll say to my dear ones next week, when they ask

so how was your trip

which moments will I select for recapitulation?  which observations will surface in my jetlagged disorientation?   I realize I am trying to fathom what This All Means.  These 32 days in India, living out of a backpack.

One the one hand, These 32 Days in India Living Out of A Backpack were nothing more than a collection of moments.   They can be reduced to a list, of places, and journeys between places: cities, airports, trainstations, rowboats, hostels, lodges, rivers, mountains, monasteries and restaurants, faces, pots of tea, meals and evenings and books and rickshaws and tickets and rupees and bad maps and alleys and signs in Sanskrit.

I could recount all those details, and it would be an exercise akin to measuring the depth of the ocean by making note of the quantity of seaweed floating on its surface, or the size of the waves.

The real measure of the experience has nothing—and everything—to do with the details. There is no fathom-rope deep enough to get to the bottom of 32 Days in India Living Out of A Backpack. It is an ocean of murky emotional-intellectual-spiritual experience (which is also made of observable things, like waves and seaweed). Walkabout— wandering the world just for the sake of seeing what it has to show you— is an act that is, by its very undertaking, a fundamental unmooring from the Acccustomed, the Habitual, the Known, the Routine, the Familiar.  Like a sailor setting out under the wind, you realize you are not entirely in control of where you end up. Like a sailor, you bring what you think you’ll need, the tools and clothes and bits of knowledge you think may best serve you. India, like the ocean, can change on you in a moment. Suddenly you’re in over your head, bobbing up and down and rubbing the sting out of your eyes, as wave after wave of new smells, tastes, sounds, and visions splash into you.  You are washed over by culture, history, and curious, probing stares. You are confounded by new and ancient ways of doing things.  And as the hours pass and you remember you never did have any control over all of this, you start to relax, and recognize the universal currents flowing around you, human suffering, joy, art, commerce.  You start to take stock of all you have carried with you from home: preconceptions, useless luggage (why this pair of pants? why that assumption?). You feel deep gratitude for the things that prove useful: patience, that orange pashmina scarf from Emma, this nail clippers you got past airport security, that gluestick, open eyes, open heart…

You begin to realize things about yourself, attitudes and prejudices and capacities, revealed over the passing days, things you never really understood before.  The country, the people, offer you a mirror in which to see yourself; your mannerisms, your skin color, your clothing, your privilege, your guilt, your joys, and the wellspring of patience that is infinitely deeper each time you dip into it.  It is the kind of mirror most Americans conspire to keep covered, because the reflection is not always flattering to our ego.  Yes, I see in the mirror of India, I am capable of racist thoughts.  Yes, I am capable of walking past a starving child, reduced to bones and skin and eyes, sitting next to his unconscious mother on a traffic island surrounded by a chaos of cars and rickshaws and buses belching diesel fumes, walking past and doing nothing.

There’s plenty of beauty too, too much to take in, enough to bathe in the memories of it well into my old age.  But I think the discomfort, the awkwardness, the truly unnerving took more fathoming, had more to teach me about myself.

Now I am home again, in the states, and my jeans and my music and my shower and my kitchen table and my house feel like a foreign country for the first few hours.  I am trying, again, to fathom

what I’ve brought home.  What it means to be here, to be of here, in my sweet kitchen, my backyard garden, the land of milk and honey, Michael Jackson and roads with lanes.

trying to fathom.

[wrote this listening to: \”First Breath After Coma,\” Explosions in the Sky

What is tragic about Michael Jackson’s death, by whatever physical cause is ultimately determined by the Coroner, is how it was the perhaps inevitable outcome of a perfect recapitulation of his traumatic childhood. He said that he never had a childhood, and was “terrified” of his father. He said that he felt safe onstage, where he could shine and feel loved by thousands of people at a time, and unsafe just about everywhere else. Behind the scenes, he faced a father who was abusive and experienced tremendous pressure to perform perfectly. He spent a lifetime trying to make himself over to please those he loved, and those who he believed loved him, and clearly found himself flawed.

At the end of his life, looking less than robust and possibly continuing a long-standing addiction to narcotics, once again he was under tremendous pressure to perform—in 50 concerts, for heaven’s sake! And again, by powerful, intimidating father figures in the form of his financial backers who expected him to sing and dance his way out of monstrous debt while making them a handsome profit. Whether these individuals were truly intimidating or not doesn’t matter: Michael would have experienced them that way—that’s part of the recapitulation. Terror induces trauma and similar situations may trigger trauma memories on a physiological level. The expectation was essentially to equal or surpass his performances at his prime—and make no mistake, Michael Jackson at 50 was no Mick Jagger at 64—the robust Jagger’s life story is a very different one. While he clearly longed to be back on stage and adored, and was working hard to prepare for it, perhaps Michael knew there was no way he could meet those expectations and struggled with the anxiety of attempting to do so, or perhaps he just “lost heart” for such a crazy endeavor and felt as trapped and helpless as the little boy he was when all this began. What fascinates me is how he managed to manifest such a sadly similar experience at the end of his life as he had experienced as a child. What a brilliant, shining star he was, and what a truly tragic life he lived! I really hope he is at peace now.

Here is a link to a related article describing Jackson’s life: http://www.cnn.com/2009/SHOWBIZ/06/26/michael.jackson.spotlight/index.html

The more we examine Mem Fox’s text, the more the rhythm seems to be central to the magic. Structurally I think we could model on a sonata movement in music. Here’s how the various tellings of Fox’s text could relate to the sonata movement structure:

• exposition

the shadow hat / the song hat

• development

the invisible hat

• recapitulation

the rhythm hat

• coda

finish with the song hat?

- ALI