THE CLOSET MYSTIC

that sensation of absolute freedom that I felt last night! what was us dancing in the grass but a celebration of simply being alive? what was us running in a circle, creating a “portal,” then jumping through with screams of silly glee but us living as children yet again? what were we doing but playing? how healing that was for me. to dance, dance, dance like a maniac, without a care in the world! we really did enter a portal that night, didn’t we? it felt like another world, another realm within our own, life felt like a movie, oh, I recall dancing with what felt like grace but more likely looked like insanity, and thinking that we were literally living art. I think Mother Earth likes it when her children do what we did, I think Mother Earth has a heartbeat, and us dancing wildly in the grass in the festival was us syncing our steps to her pulse — I think our heartbeats linked to hers, then to each other. I can tell you truly that just as a bee fulfills one of its purposes by pollinating, a flower by blooming, the Sun by shining, so too do I fulfill my core purpose by letting myself experience the degree of freedom I felt last night. 

I can tell you that dance itself is a reclamation of self-love. To dance truly, to truly dance, to allow what you feel to move your body without a care for how it looks, to know full-well you might look like an idiot but to do it anyway simply because it feels right, this… this is such a beautiful act of self-love. This is an attitude that can guide you through life, to do what brings true joy, to do what makes your inner child light up and come to life, even if you look silly — this is what one must do if they wish to bring in their soul tribe, true friends, a partner who loves you for you — to be your truest self is to allow those who are looking for you to find you. 

Last night felt like allowing myself to live my life to the full. We drank from the fountain of youth, and I feel renewal coursing through my veins.

I feel like I just conceptualized in my own head how/why time works (edit: found some flaws in the original idea that i address in the comments)

I think time and energy are one and the same. Time and heat are one and the same (if we make energy synonymous to heat).

So, for me, my spiritual practice is basically my honest pursuit of coming to better understand the universe. Time is a concept oft contemplated in a variety of different spiritual circles, as, for some reason, one comes to contemplate time and its mysteries — and have related realizations and epiphanies — when contemplating oneself/the inner mysteries.

A conclusion I’ve often arrived to when asking myself “what is time?” is that time is a measurement of change. At the atomic level, one can only measure time by measuring how much change has occurred within any system. Again, at the atomic level, everything is always in flux, always moving, constantly. Even if you look at an object and it appears still, the closer you look, the more you realize that nothing is ever truly still. 

However, if that were not the case, and things were truly, at the atomic level, completely frozen, then time would also stand still. When things move, time passes; when things stay the same, time would also be frozen. Again, when I say “things,” I mean at the most microcosmic of levels possible.

So, in this way, time and change are one and the same. We measure time by measuring change; change is only possible through the passage of time, because time is change and change is time.

Now, if we consider in Einstein’s theory of special relativity how time dilation works, we learn that the closer one gets to the speed of light, the more time appears to slow down. An hour passed for someone traveling near the speed of light may be 7 years for the rest of humanity. In this way, they’ve accomplished time travel. 

This is also the case for gravity. The closer one is to an object with a massive gravitational pull, such as a black hole, the more time appears to slow down for them relative to others not near that source of gravity. An hour passed for someone near a black hole may be 7 years for the rest of humanity. In this way, too, they’ve accomplished time travel. 

Let’s consider Einstein’s equation E = mc^2. The energy (e) of an object equals its mass (m) times the percentage of speed of light (c) squared. In this way, my premise appears to be substantiated. My premise was that the greater the energy of a given object, the faster time goes. Of course, in this theory of special relativity, the greater the mass or greater proximity to the speed of light an object is, time is said to “slow down” for them — however, consider yourself from the position of the person traveling near the speed of light or the person orbiting a black hole. If an hour passes for you, then you slow back down, or leave the pull of the black hole, and you go and join the rest of humanity, and find that 7 years passed within the span of an hour, did time appear to speed up for you? The answer is, of course, yes. To the rest of humanity, time passed slower, but to YOU, time passed quicker.

This, I think, seems to support my premise, that time and energy are one and the same, interrelated. If mass increases, one experiences time dilation. Additionally, if mass increases, according to Einstein’s equation, so too does energy. Consider too that if one’s proximity to c (lightspeed) increases, one experiences time dilation. Additionally, if one’s proximity to c increases, so too does energy, according to Einstein’s equation. Therefore, as energy increases, so too does the passage of time. For this reason, it would also hold true — if I am correct — that as energy decreases, so too does the passage of time decrease. 

Energy = time.

This, I think, is how humanity might accomplish time travel one day — through the modulation of velocity and/or mass. I don’t know if travel back in time would be possible?

I also wonder, then, if “becoming light,” and hitting c — widely considered impossible — would also involve exiting time?

Anyway, again, to rephrase: my assertion at the beginning was that time is energy and energy is time. The more energy, the more time — the less energy, the less time. No energy = no passage of time at all. If you go back and read from the beginning, that’s basically what I said.

So, then, if you look at Einstein’s equation, we learn that — for example — as velocity increases, so too does energy, and so too does time.

This, I think, might prove that time and energy work in proportion to one another. What if escaping death is about becoming light? If you hit c, you are technically light, and then the passage of time would become 0, because you can’t slow down your passage of time relative to the rest of the world any more

What does it mean to “be oneself”? What else can you do! 

I think it means to allow what comes naturally to come naturally — the less in accord with the pull of your heart you are, the less you will enter states of flow — a life of authenticity will produce more frequent flow states. Your heart is a river. To jump in is to enter flow. If the world tells you to swim in the opposite direction, you will suffer, and you will eventually lose

I am one with the wind, the air feels charged, do you feel it too? An electric current infuses the very wind, I look out and it simply does not compute, does not make intuitive sense that I am not sprouting wings and taking to the skies — ah, don’t you realize that in my dreams every night I do so, don’t you realize that this is how I feel, and yet, I know not if it is my own wings that allow this to happen or if it is the hands of angels that hoist me up, perhaps it is both, but ah, this is how I feel, and what I’ve learned is that my wings are fueled by joy. The deeper my joy, the higher I soar. So much possibility! So much life to be lived! So much love to know! Such heights to explore! Such depths to crash down to, to simply dust it off and laugh and soar again! 

Nature — wow. What an intricate system. It is so astonishing to contemplate the functionings of the natural world. All of nature, all of the natural world, it is a system, a machine. That is not to reduce it, not to make it seem cold and lifeless — no, obviously it is anything but — rather, it is to reflect on the interconnectedness of all life, the intricate workings of the natural world, how it is all set up so perfectly, both a house of cards and a brick house, set up so meticulously and… seemingly intentionally… every card as important and crucial as the last… yet it is so resilient… it is like a house of cards, in that the removal of a single card compromises the whole — all for one, one for all — and yet, life always finds a way. Life always finding a way reminds me of the universal dominance of goodness over evil, for no matter what may befall our Earth — even by our own hands — oh, life finds a way, life always finds a way. 

I think the greatest of machines, the greatest of inventions, the most potent of artificial creations, they should not be a step away from nature — rather, they should be modeled off of the laws of nature. The greatest human systems should seek to imitate the functionings of the natural world, for the recipe is right around us, right underneath our noses. I think this of all things. I think to model a company, one should reflect on what natural system their company structure should seek to imitate. I think in psychological work, one should view their very own psyche as elemental. One should view one’s own psyche as a garden, as a field. One should contemplate how the field and soil of one’s own mind should be worked. The mind is composed of nature — we are stardust, we are dust, we are Earth, we are Sun, we are Moon — therefore, we must work on it as we would work on nature. How much etheric water does my mind need today? How much etheric Sun? Am I honoring the cycles of the etheric Moon in knowing when to plant, when to harvest? Am I honoring the role of etheric death in the cycles of my mind? How else can the soil of my mind be fertilized, how else can life anew be created? 

What, then, do you think the role of alchemy in all of this is? Spiritual alchemy is the understanding of this principle — we use the very laws of nature, of the real natural world, upon ourself. Again, the recipe is right in front of us. The inner is the outer, the outer is the inner. How would you begin transmuting lead into gold? How is that done? Of course, without a flame, that cannot happen. Do you have an etheric fire to begin to transmute the lead of your own psyche? 

What is this all to say? This is all to say that separation is an illusion. The separation between inner and outer, self and other, nature and human, natural and artificial — no, we must not treat any of these as different, take an egalitarian approach to life itself. To heal one is to heal the other, the way you heal one, you heal the other. 

To understand this is to forge the Philosopher’s Stone.

what if the universe itself is one condensed thought, what if thought is matter that is not yet condensed? If thought becomes action, and action becomes reality, are we not all, then, magicians, for the ability our thoughts have to modulate matter itself? We view this basic ability as crude, mundane, lacking in mystical “sparkle,” but this is only because we’ve known it as long as we’ve lived. 

If we were to be stripped of basic mobility, to be robbed of such essential and core potency, then were to rediscover it after a period of being held, tied, bound, we’d view what is taken for granted by most beings as a wondrous, marvelous, great gift, as a ticket to adventure and the most precious form of freedom possible.

Perhaps magic is defined only by perceived limitations. What is magic to one is mundanity to another. 

I think we all have the privilege of rediscovering the magic that is omnipresent merely by shifting our perspective. It reminds me of these song lyrics from Ghost Inside Our House by Cloud Cult:

“Please send us a miracle so I know that there is meaning —

I said I think that it’s a miracle just to be breathing.”

Take in the magic of every movement. You are magic. You are a wondrous, complex, beautiful biological machine, you are a force of nature, take into account the very majesty and miracle that is your consciousness itself, the workings of your brain, your heart, your ability to perceive and interact with the world —

How on Earth could we ever take any of this for granted?

Part of my spiritual practice, in this way, is about sensitization and subtlety, for it is through subtlety that one becomes sensitized to the grandeur that is omnipresent. To be an eternal youth is to permanently see the world anew. Spiritual enlightenment and eternal youth is to be forever captured by awe and by wonder, for once these die, so too does one’s youth — and I am sorry, but we have no excuse to ever let these things go, for the expanses of this very world, all of its variety, all of its different peoples, potential experiences, the art, the music, the virtually-infinite expanses of this universe — if we have lost awe and wonder, that is an “us” thing. We’ve no excuse to live in any other way than with glee and excitement

I often feel like definition is created through binaries. Think about how something is defined: a border of what it is must be drawn, no? Therefore, one also defines, then, what it is not. Whenever we assign a descriptor and adjective to any given thing, we are not merely commenting on what it is; moreover, we are also implicitly commenting on what it isn’t.

That is my wind up to comment on the following: 

There have been times where life, or even my very sense of self, does not feel real. Often, this is associated with the experience of being dissociated. It is often described as an anxiety response, the brain’s way of protecting the conscious mind from stimuli that it cannot adequately process. However, are there times, too, where this feeling of “not real” is created via duality, through discovering something else that is decidedly “more real”? If we know that something feels “unreal,” are there instances in which there is something else that can be immediately perceived that is “more real”? 

I had a moment a bit ago where the experience of looking at myself in the mirror was accompanied by a certain intrinsic sense of knowing, as sure as the blueness of a clear sky: it was the knowing that I am not my vessel. The body, I suppose, didn’t necessarily feel “unreal,” but there was definitely something that felt more real (perhaps, then, realness is a gradient). 

What, then, was that something? What was that “something” that felt more real? 

Well.. how can I take a stab at this? 

I suppose if my very physicality is what felt “less real,” then the associated opposite, the associated binary that lends to definition itself, would be nonphysical, immaterial… something like ether, spirit, mind, both not limited by the body but also within the limitations of the body.

I am not one — at least anymore — for completely discarding physical experience. There are some New Age spiritualists who forget that the physical still exists. We are manifest in the corporeal world for a reason. I simply believe in holding both opposites as true simultaneously. I am not a fan of discarding the spiritual in favor of the material, nor am I a fan of discarding the material in favor of the spiritual. I do believe that the immaterial is superior, however, though I’m not certain of the exact split of importance. Perhaps 51/49? 52/48? I do not know. 

So, all of that being said, I just wanted to write to comment on the feeling of “unreality” that is sometimes felt. I know there are instances in which it is a feature of psychological imbalance; however, I’ve also had a multitude of experiences where it was not set on by a stressor, but rather via simple observation leading to awe. 

Today, it felt clear as day that my physical body was not totally me, but rather that it was an illusion, a veneer, and, for some reason, an awfully humorous one at that. It felt like a mask I don, potentially deceptive, for my real self hides — not by my own will, but rather by virtue of what my real self is, something… invisible. It is invisible, at least, to the physical senses, but may be perceived by those who have their nonphysical faculties of perception in working order. It can be felt, it can be intuitively known, and then, perhaps, translated into symbol or metaphor.

Let me make this clear: it was not the experience of looking in the mirror and not recognizing myself. Rather, I felt like I was refreshingly recognizing myself — my true self — perhaps for the first time.

It was not my physical vessel.

…

This is going to sound concerning — I swear I was lucid and fully present with the road!

But I had a moment while driving, perhaps yesterday or the day before, where I felt like my mind reached some sort of… null field. How can I explain it? I felt like my mind was exercising this faculty that I’d associate with the scientist: to view all of reality, pleasure and pain, the very experience of being a living biological organism, as an experiment. It felt like this… dimension of myself, this… archetype? Character within the psyche? I know not the perfect word — regardless, it felt like this dimension of myself was fully capable of viewing all of my perceived experience and all sensations as experimental, thus finding perfect equanimity. If something created pain, it could view it with curiosity and discovery. If something created pleasure, it could view it with curiosity and discovery. It felt like… some sort of “zero point” or “null field” where it was perfectly centered and impartial between all dual polarities of experience and existence itself. There is, however, something awfully lonely about this means of experiencing the world. It almost makes my heart ache just considering that way of living.

I’d associate this faculty of mind, without the temperance of compassion and ethical boundaries, as perfectly capable of committing great atrocities in the name of science — so without heart, so without feeling, that any being experiencing severe pain for the sake of an experiment could be looked at with cold analysis, without compassion, without care. It feels incapable of forming deep relationships with implicit meaning, at least as we understand them. This wasn’t what I experienced, mind you — rather, I felt like I could intuitively understand how this state of mind has led to cruelty in the name of science in the past.

However, all things have their use in balance. This state of mind also feels immensely potent in liberating oneself from the experience of being inundated by sensation. It… feels like the experience of immense clarity, when the course of action becomes so clear, one can focus solely and entirely on their destiny and their destiny alone. It feels like the state of mind after something has died, after one experiences a great trauma that then can lead to great strength. It feels like the experience of being in the world and simultaneously beyond it, not of it. 

I want to see all beings, I want all beings to feel seen. This is the Stone forsooth, this is the panacea, this is the remedy of all remedies, this is the medicine of all medicines, the elixir, the ambrosia, the nectar — it is love, it is the love of loves, it is the holiest of holies, it is the chalice, the Grail. 

To love the world is to conquer the world, to love the world is to overcome the world — to hate is to be conquered, to hate is to be overcome. There is no greater victory than to love.

There’s so, so much love freely available to us all. Why, why do we hurt? Why should we hurt? Suddenly, I feel an outpouring of mercy and compassion, its source unknown, but its a strange desire to love the world, to heal the world, a desire to love the broken, a desire to love those who have been misunderstood. Those who have been condemned. Those who have acted out and lashed out to others. I see the hurt beneath the surface. I want to love them through it, this world needs so much love. This world needs an outpouring of love, far greater than I myself am capable of, I am no Atlas, but I will help carry the load, and I know there are others out there prepared to carry the burden with me, and if enough of us band together, we’ll only need to hold out a pinky, with enough of us, it’ll be lighter than a feather

Tell me, oh tell me,

What more should I want for?

All of these beating hearts to which mine is linked by love’s tether —

Double the amount of loving arms willing to offer an embrace–

Tell me then,

What more should I want for?

None of Eden’s fruits are forbidden –

I’ve a life abundant in fruits of the flesh and spirit alike.

Full stomach. Full heart, hands filled by the hands of friends.

Why should I want for more?

This is my daily bread:

Laughter, which I’ve found to be the fount of youth —

Hugs, for which I’ve never been starved, lest it is I who, by some folly, have chosen to fast from– never unwillingly deprived, always given if I should only ask —

A single breath taken extra mindfully, to savor the air’s taste, suddenly present to the miracle that is creation — 

Do you know what I’ve learned about breath, by the way? I’ve learned that the voids most of us carry within, the voids that most of us seek to fill, somehow, with more emptiness — can disappear if we would simply fill our lungs totally and fully. Fill the void with breath — you’d be surprised what a gift it is to breathe at all.

What else is my daily bread?

Music, one of the closest things to a nexus point between humanity and divinity that I can fathom,

My kittens, a reminder of purity and simplicity, their gaze capable of melting whatever ice has formed over my heart that day —

A glimpse of nature, the chirping of a bird, the Sunlight cast over my face, Moonlight caressing my cheek, the smell of the ocean somehow doubling the capacity of my lungs, 

Books, literature, directly or indirectly telling me of the daily bread of other souls,

The celestial, the cosmic, reminding me of the interconnectedness of all of creation, the planets the pulse and beating hearts of the universe pumping through us, its veins —

Ad infinitum.

I am love. I am in love with being.