Ever have a dream only to realize you've had the very same dream at least once before? Yeah, I had one of those last night. Forewarning, there be vampires here. I have a lot of dreams indicative of being an outsider, don't I? For the record, I don't like vampires and really don't think I'd like to be one.
So I'm a vampire, dawg. Yet I've forgotten pretty much everything about my previous life. I used to have a brother? Well he's trying to kill me now and I don't know why. I used to be in choir? Well I don't know any of our songs and find the whole thing scientifically fascinating to think about instead of simply a joy to sing and listen. This girl from the choir is holding my hand? I don't know who she is or why she's touching me, but what an interesting passing fancy! We're playing a game that I don't understand and some older guy cheats to help me win? I ... sort of remember that. There's a castle set on stage... THIS I remember for sure somehow. Very fanciful and extravagant. I DO remember this. But from where? Is it from my waking life or is it from a dream?
The side panel of the set opens up to reveal a pool. This is the secret lair of all those who wish to kill me. I guess I could have realized it was a dream there, but whatevs. I wait in the shadows. People show up. Things get awkward quickly. I leave. I'm noticed by a latecomer in a black hooded trenchcoat who brandishes a pitchfork set-prop and comes to stab me. She grazes me on the forehead, but I throw her into a wall (ok it was more like she jabbed the pitchfork at me and I tried to roll backwards and kick her over me, but I ended up falling to the ground almost impaling myself with the pitchfork and THEN throwing her, but I wanted to sound cool). More approach.
Time passes and I have all of them tied up to chairs and I'm forcing awkward conversation with them. It's begrudging conversation, but at least they aren't trying to kill me anymore. I'm no closer to figuring out why everyone wants me dead than I was when I started the dream.
I go home and on the way, I get stopped by choir folk who pull me in line to sing. We are singing with a band. We are in the background. Our chords are every bit as intense and accurate as I feel they need to be, but the focus is all on the lead singer and his guitarist. I ponder this for a while as I mimic the boy whose energy is leading his peers.
My hand becomes warm. Someone is grabbing it. I don't know why. I assume she likes me, but ... I don't know her. I don't know of a girl who would open up like that if she knew I didn't know. I sing along for a bit and things descend into chaos. I leave.
But I can't, everyone is gathering in a game. I'm winning because someone is cheating to help me. He cheats for me even when I'm up against his children. I don't know how to think. I leave without claiming a prize.
I'm at home and the lead singer of the band (in this dream played by Juaquin Phoenix) is chasing after me. His intent is to kill me with his bare hands. Does he know I'm already dead? He tries to drown me. I fake a little and come gasping up for breath (lol) and tell him that he KNOWS me, how could he do this. Assassination attempt after assassination attempt, I keep calling to his conscience and not fighting. I don't know him. But I know I know him.
My whole life seemed a forgotten deja vu in this dream. But then I woke up and I remembered again. Yay.
2013/02/26
2013/02/21
dream ufos
I had a dream I was homeless with my cat. We were roaming the streets looking for a place to sleep. Restless, a strange occurrence fell on me. I felt like I KNEW I was going to get picked up by aliens so at some point in my endless travels, I collapsed down to a knee, then down to my hands and knees, then the mere inches to the Earth's warm embrace. I knew it was all going to be ok somehow.
Lo and behold, I was abducted by aliens. I cannot quite explain the feeling associated with this experience, but it is somewhere between fear and wonderment. It is somewhere beyond real, yet it pulls you closer to the truth. It is somewhere utterly awful, yet all superhero stories start out that way. I've spoken with others in my waking life about that feeling and while I know that words will never reach what my heart feels, I look into their eyes, open the door between our hearts, and I know this feeling is identical. Which is utterly unique in all my experience. It seems most everything has slightly different emotional meaning based on the past of an individual... but not this.
Placed back on Earth, I had a new network of friends in the same circumstance. Much time passed and we were able to communicate directly through thought-pictures over distance to each other. This connection brought me off the streets and into the light. I was doing ok. Until one fated day.
We were on the ... somewhere between floor 6 and floor 20 ... of a building in a city. Myself, another female abductee, and a few other bystanders were in a conference room. I was presenting. Suddenly, all of us abductees were together in the realm of color. The realm of color is like this... vast infinite room with nothing in it ala the matrix in white-room mode except instead of white it looks something like THIS. We all stood there for a moment looking at each other in confusion and possibly panic. Suddenly, direct emotional transference occurred from some unknown source. We were shown a vision. Malice like the desire to watch a man starve to death while eating. Hatred, like an immortal living thousands of years without love because of one stupid asshat. Fear, like being born. Despair, deep as Hell and cold as Heaven. But then Hope, like a small candle bringing mother and daughter together in a storm that brought the lights out. It was too much, the other abductees were on the floor. I alone remained standing, I alone had made it to the end of the message. I alone knew what it meant.
We were back in the conference room as if nothing had changed. My colleague was on the verge of collapsing. I stopped my presentation. She kept thoughting me questions about what just happened and I couldn't explain. I didn't know how. I didn't know what to do. After a few breathless moments, I stopped my presentation and said that we all have to evacuate now.
Her face appeared in my head. She was worried, out of the loop, and needed an answer... I realize now that we do not need words to express these thoughts, the truth is in the eyes, and even deeper in the doorways opened between our hearts... I responded in the only way I knew how. The whole room's eyes were on me. I took a deep breath and spoke to everyone on the planet I could with a single image ingrained in me as a child. I pointed out the window.
After a moment that lasted forever, a nuclear bomb exploded out over the water.
<Lots of shit happened>
TLDR, this race of connected individuals was able to reforge the world in a way barely conceived by man today. Once the current system died (thank god), rebuilding occurred. With such communication and emotional understanding, ideas were exchanged seamlessly, new thoughts were conceived, new ways were formed and spread, trades were made, needs were met, trusts were formed, and slowly these individuals became spiritual leaders. Connected on a plane far above realizing that the only truth is just below us.
--
More on this later? I have to work.
..
hey, this is my blog now so I'm gonna swear: fuck. Yeeeeah.
Lo and behold, I was abducted by aliens. I cannot quite explain the feeling associated with this experience, but it is somewhere between fear and wonderment. It is somewhere beyond real, yet it pulls you closer to the truth. It is somewhere utterly awful, yet all superhero stories start out that way. I've spoken with others in my waking life about that feeling and while I know that words will never reach what my heart feels, I look into their eyes, open the door between our hearts, and I know this feeling is identical. Which is utterly unique in all my experience. It seems most everything has slightly different emotional meaning based on the past of an individual... but not this.
Placed back on Earth, I had a new network of friends in the same circumstance. Much time passed and we were able to communicate directly through thought-pictures over distance to each other. This connection brought me off the streets and into the light. I was doing ok. Until one fated day.
We were on the ... somewhere between floor 6 and floor 20 ... of a building in a city. Myself, another female abductee, and a few other bystanders were in a conference room. I was presenting. Suddenly, all of us abductees were together in the realm of color. The realm of color is like this... vast infinite room with nothing in it ala the matrix in white-room mode except instead of white it looks something like THIS. We all stood there for a moment looking at each other in confusion and possibly panic. Suddenly, direct emotional transference occurred from some unknown source. We were shown a vision. Malice like the desire to watch a man starve to death while eating. Hatred, like an immortal living thousands of years without love because of one stupid asshat. Fear, like being born. Despair, deep as Hell and cold as Heaven. But then Hope, like a small candle bringing mother and daughter together in a storm that brought the lights out. It was too much, the other abductees were on the floor. I alone remained standing, I alone had made it to the end of the message. I alone knew what it meant.
We were back in the conference room as if nothing had changed. My colleague was on the verge of collapsing. I stopped my presentation. She kept thoughting me questions about what just happened and I couldn't explain. I didn't know how. I didn't know what to do. After a few breathless moments, I stopped my presentation and said that we all have to evacuate now.
Her face appeared in my head. She was worried, out of the loop, and needed an answer... I realize now that we do not need words to express these thoughts, the truth is in the eyes, and even deeper in the doorways opened between our hearts... I responded in the only way I knew how. The whole room's eyes were on me. I took a deep breath and spoke to everyone on the planet I could with a single image ingrained in me as a child. I pointed out the window.
After a moment that lasted forever, a nuclear bomb exploded out over the water.
<Lots of shit happened>
TLDR, this race of connected individuals was able to reforge the world in a way barely conceived by man today. Once the current system died (thank god), rebuilding occurred. With such communication and emotional understanding, ideas were exchanged seamlessly, new thoughts were conceived, new ways were formed and spread, trades were made, needs were met, trusts were formed, and slowly these individuals became spiritual leaders. Connected on a plane far above realizing that the only truth is just below us.
--
More on this later? I have to work.
..
hey, this is my blog now so I'm gonna swear: fuck. Yeeeeah.
2013/02/20
Tools
So my skyrim character is a tool. Willing to help with any problem. This can be dangerous, for the tasks of men are scarcely without harm to others. I ran across a camp in the woods. The men had lost their keep to bandits. The leader, an older man known as the father, told me his family was being held captive inside. I decided to help.
No family being held in the keep. A bandit cooking. Many more merrily making jokes over the first fine meal they'd had in months. A leader fierce in study at his desk (good book, I swiped it and read it while he was investigating a strange noise in the hallway).
I reach the roof and open the front gate.
The keep is flooded with militiamen. The merriment becomes mayhem. The father is now wearing a bloody mask and his vengeance is wrought on all in sight without remorse.
The fires clear and I cautiously approach the father. He rewards me with a book and some gold. The book is the same book the bandit leader was reading.
In my tool-ish and blind quest to help, I unleashed carnage on this day. Did I make the right choice? I don't really think I did.
No family being held in the keep. A bandit cooking. Many more merrily making jokes over the first fine meal they'd had in months. A leader fierce in study at his desk (good book, I swiped it and read it while he was investigating a strange noise in the hallway).
I reach the roof and open the front gate.
The keep is flooded with militiamen. The merriment becomes mayhem. The father is now wearing a bloody mask and his vengeance is wrought on all in sight without remorse.
The fires clear and I cautiously approach the father. He rewards me with a book and some gold. The book is the same book the bandit leader was reading.
In my tool-ish and blind quest to help, I unleashed carnage on this day. Did I make the right choice? I don't really think I did.
2013/02/18
Skyrim deaths 1
Without killing people, finding enough money to get by is interesting. Especially with the mod I got which makes eating, drinking, and sleeping necessary and also makes the lighting much more realistic. With eating and lodging as well as shiny new robes and needing to bribe bandits to make them stop harming townsfolk, I had to find some form of income. Picking pockets is great. Just a few gold here and there as I can't sell stolen goods, but I have no weapons to buy, no armor to repair, very few spells to keep up on, just sustenance and enough money to make the world a better place. Picking pockets in town is bad. I found that out pretty quickly but served my time in jail.
I was rescuing a young girl. She was guarded by some occult worshipers of some kind or another. I'm not quite sure of their origins and history yet, but I did find something very interesting... One of them was called a "briarheart shaman." An intense name for sure. I was picking his pocket as I passed through. He had some gold, a mace, and an herb called a briarheart.
I swipe the gold, swipe the herb, I'm getting good at this!
The shaman's chest explodes in a bloody mess and he falls to the ground, eyes rolled back into his skull.
I don't even know what to think.
I look down at the corpse of the briarheart shaman. I look to the briarheart in my hand. Briar. HEART.
... I have to say it:
KA---LIII---MAAAAAAAAAHHH!
...
<ahem>
The girl is shocked. I doubt she caught the movie reference. We sneak out to the roof. I take her into my arms and cast "feather fall." The sheer face of the tower I climbed alone shines in the moonlight as we descend gracefully together, the wind whipping our faces. The nameless guards of the tower continue their rounds as I claim my reward many miles away. Perhaps one of them has found their shaman heartless on the floor by now. I buy myself some clothes that aren't covered in blood.
I was rescuing a young girl. She was guarded by some occult worshipers of some kind or another. I'm not quite sure of their origins and history yet, but I did find something very interesting... One of them was called a "briarheart shaman." An intense name for sure. I was picking his pocket as I passed through. He had some gold, a mace, and an herb called a briarheart.
I swipe the gold, swipe the herb, I'm getting good at this!
The shaman's chest explodes in a bloody mess and he falls to the ground, eyes rolled back into his skull.
I don't even know what to think.
I look down at the corpse of the briarheart shaman. I look to the briarheart in my hand. Briar. HEART.
... I have to say it:
KA---LIII---MAAAAAAAAAHHH!
...
<ahem>
The girl is shocked. I doubt she caught the movie reference. We sneak out to the roof. I take her into my arms and cast "feather fall." The sheer face of the tower I climbed alone shines in the moonlight as we descend gracefully together, the wind whipping our faces. The nameless guards of the tower continue their rounds as I claim my reward many miles away. Perhaps one of them has found their shaman heartless on the floor by now. I buy myself some clothes that aren't covered in blood.
SKYRIM
So it's the weekend and I'm playing video games. I got turned onto Skyrim recently, an elderscrolls game where you just get to ... roam. It's a vast, open world filled with beauty and magic. You can do whatever you want however you want to do it. My roomie is going around like fucking she-conan with a bastard sword messing up everyone. There are various schools of combat, magic, stealthy arts, arts of the craft, persuasion, you name it. I decided to take a completely different approach.
I made my kitty-person and started off in the forest. A wandering monk spreading the word of Dibella peacefully. Yes, peacefully. I decided I would do no harm.
I woke in the night to terrifying sounds and found a nearby town attacked by a dragon. I rescued a poor soldier from the rubble and helped him to the nearest town. There, I roamed. I began settling disputes, doing odd-jobs, and becoming a messenger and bard across Tamriel. Speaking of bards, I even learned a spell that summons an illusory lute-wielding bear.
As my skills developed, I began doing some more interesting tasks. A band of mercenaries were held up in a cave and had stolen a man's family heirloom sword. Where the game wants you to storm in and kill them all, I flowed in and out silently. A few pockets were picked (dirty bandits having only like 5 gold in their pockets), a single chest was empty (the sword), and all the wine was missing from the shelves. What kind of monk would I be if I wasn't a drunkard like Rumi?
And getting into all kinds of trouble. I got in a drinking competition with a man from the South. I woke up in a chapel of Dibella (OF ALL PLACES) and had crashed the joint. Not remembering anything, I returned to the roads of Tamriel a legendary partysmith. I had apparently married a goat? Awesome.
The pacifism thing was working out swimmingly. There were a few things that I couldn't do though. I knew I would never be able to become the dragonborn. In order to learn to shout, I had to find a stone tablet. The stone tablet is carried by an undead nord... and you cannot retrieve it unless you kill him. I tried pickpocketing it. I tried searching for an alternate means, but it's one of those things set in stone. No worries. There was more than enough to do in this vast world than shout so loud you earn powers such as teleportation and the ability to send tables and men alike across the room.
Like being a ghostbuster! The innkeep spoke of a house haunted by ghosts. Eff yeah, let's roll. I went in with a local militiaman, Tyranus, as the quest set us up to do. The doors locked behind us and the warm setting became unsettling as all manner of objects began flying across the room. A daedra spoke. Kill or be killed, there are no alternatives. The militiaman said he had no hard feelings, but I had to die. I used my illusion magic to scare him into a corner. I hid. I searched every barrel. I poked around every pocket of his pants. I scouted every corner of that godforsaken house. That demon had completely locked us in here and after about 20 minutes I was finally found out and the militiaman shocked my energy away. I could no longer fear him away. I could no longer hide. I did what anyone would have done in that situation. I took arms. I tore at his flesh and set him to rest on the bed.
I stood there for minutes over his corpse going... fuck. I tried so hard to be a pacifist and now my combat log will forever show one murder on my hands.
I stopped playing for a while.
Then I realized a fun activity. Play through the game. Live the life of the young Dibella monk. Bring peace where you can, but realize that sometimes you just can't avoid it-- after all, it is a silly video game. I decided to honor each being I kill with a drawing and/or a blog post. That way, the weight of death will still lay heavily upon my hands enough to dissuade me from killing a whole family of bandits, yet I won't be so easy to turn away from a quest because I fear there might be some bloodshed involved.
Til next time, yo.
I made my kitty-person and started off in the forest. A wandering monk spreading the word of Dibella peacefully. Yes, peacefully. I decided I would do no harm.
I woke in the night to terrifying sounds and found a nearby town attacked by a dragon. I rescued a poor soldier from the rubble and helped him to the nearest town. There, I roamed. I began settling disputes, doing odd-jobs, and becoming a messenger and bard across Tamriel. Speaking of bards, I even learned a spell that summons an illusory lute-wielding bear.
As my skills developed, I began doing some more interesting tasks. A band of mercenaries were held up in a cave and had stolen a man's family heirloom sword. Where the game wants you to storm in and kill them all, I flowed in and out silently. A few pockets were picked (dirty bandits having only like 5 gold in their pockets), a single chest was empty (the sword), and all the wine was missing from the shelves. What kind of monk would I be if I wasn't a drunkard like Rumi?
And getting into all kinds of trouble. I got in a drinking competition with a man from the South. I woke up in a chapel of Dibella (OF ALL PLACES) and had crashed the joint. Not remembering anything, I returned to the roads of Tamriel a legendary partysmith. I had apparently married a goat? Awesome.
The pacifism thing was working out swimmingly. There were a few things that I couldn't do though. I knew I would never be able to become the dragonborn. In order to learn to shout, I had to find a stone tablet. The stone tablet is carried by an undead nord... and you cannot retrieve it unless you kill him. I tried pickpocketing it. I tried searching for an alternate means, but it's one of those things set in stone. No worries. There was more than enough to do in this vast world than shout so loud you earn powers such as teleportation and the ability to send tables and men alike across the room.
Like being a ghostbuster! The innkeep spoke of a house haunted by ghosts. Eff yeah, let's roll. I went in with a local militiaman, Tyranus, as the quest set us up to do. The doors locked behind us and the warm setting became unsettling as all manner of objects began flying across the room. A daedra spoke. Kill or be killed, there are no alternatives. The militiaman said he had no hard feelings, but I had to die. I used my illusion magic to scare him into a corner. I hid. I searched every barrel. I poked around every pocket of his pants. I scouted every corner of that godforsaken house. That demon had completely locked us in here and after about 20 minutes I was finally found out and the militiaman shocked my energy away. I could no longer fear him away. I could no longer hide. I did what anyone would have done in that situation. I took arms. I tore at his flesh and set him to rest on the bed.
I stood there for minutes over his corpse going... fuck. I tried so hard to be a pacifist and now my combat log will forever show one murder on my hands.
I stopped playing for a while.
Then I realized a fun activity. Play through the game. Live the life of the young Dibella monk. Bring peace where you can, but realize that sometimes you just can't avoid it-- after all, it is a silly video game. I decided to honor each being I kill with a drawing and/or a blog post. That way, the weight of death will still lay heavily upon my hands enough to dissuade me from killing a whole family of bandits, yet I won't be so easy to turn away from a quest because I fear there might be some bloodshed involved.
Til next time, yo.
2013/02/17
Rumi 6
"
Don't be satisfied with stories, how things have gone with others. Unfold your own myth, without complicated explanation, so everyone will understand the passage, we have opened you.
Start walking towards Shams. Your legs will get heavy and tired. Then comes a moment of feeling the wings you've grown, lifting.
"
Shams is the silence, the darkness, the emptiness, the end of life. Walk towards it with the determination of Fire. Be as the Earth-- take what comes and give birth to what will be without reservation. Nurture it and listen to the music of the world like Water. Then, like the Wind, fly away. I totally didn't mean to do that, but fuck yeah, Avatar.
"
You are not a drop in the ocean.
You are the entire ocean in a drop.
"
Again, Shams rears her head and says, 'yay, what is separation but an illusion? What is death but the undoing of all separation? It's far too late for me to be talking about all of this. Instead, I'll respond with a video.
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