In the Dawn Light

Wake up before the sun
Paint the sky with clouds
Sail through light, through shade, through shadow, through mutating colors
Dance in the dawn’s friscalating sunrise
Wander aimlessly through shreds of your own memories, your own dreams, your own fantasies, the water below you a colored mirror of cloud, pandemonium on its lips, spectrums of chaos racing across its palate
You woke in an abrasion of morning anxiety, then sat in the back of the car and waited for it to disseminate into the sobriety of a midday spent waiting, waiting, waiting for the night to begin
Finally signaling and end to the relentless monotony of office life, of rote tasks meaninglessly executed
And all the petty fears, the petty annoyances, the hates, the burns, the frustrations, the stupid meaningless words and empty gestures that tie together this dollhouse, poorly stitched, in which we all play our roles,
Here we are again, watching the advertisements and secretly, unconsciously wishing we were them, that we had those retarded jobs, that we could take on those stupid roles at least once, just for a moment, and live that flesh fantasy
Like anything could actually approach the sexiness of a Hollywood projection
No, we will go on
We will thrash forward with something that bears resemblance to cold grey steel and concrete
Worn wood and leather, cold machines, working without wifi connections
No longer directed by the mother ship
No longer in communicado with our source
Cheap pants and shirts, discount jackets, jeans, ties, knit hats, cheap suits, scarves, 15% off MUNI rides, armpit hair, coffee breath, 2 for 1 dinner specials, frozen pizza, Netflix, Facebook
What more is a life composed of than these mundanities?
What more can we lay claim to—the things we fuel and cloth ourselves with, the tickets we buy and pin on our jackets
Our coat checks, our baggage claims, our incense carriers.
What more? What more? What more?
If the sun is bothering you, just let me know. Just let me know.

Ray and the Seal Pup on the Beach

Ray sat on the beach, looking out at the grey ocean beneath a gray sky. The incessant white noise of the surf created a hush in Ray’s ears that felt like a huge white cushion. Three pelicans sailed silently overhead, violently peaceful. They looked like travelling monks looking for penitents. Ray looked up at them and confessed silently all the ways he had damaged the world, all the sadness he caused, all the men he’d destroyed, all the women. So many women. So many homes he had broken, so much bloodless violence, internal explosions, passive aggression. Ray closed his eyes and listened intently to the crashing of the waves, the blue black curls annihilating themselves, over and over, making the tiny bits of sand into pudding.

Gulls inhabited a rock 40 yards out in the surf, the whitecaps reaching up to grasp them, angelic spray all around them like a wedding party. Why did they come out here, Ray thought. Why did I? He inhaled the scent of the brine. Slow exhale.

A lump looking like a dead body floated about 15 yards off shore. It bobbed unnaturally above the surface of the water, then disappeared for a moment. When it reappeared, he saw the silky wet head of a seal pup. It’s eye was a pool of dark, inky fluid reflecting the dull shimmer of the water. The eye moved slightly, giving the signal of intelligence. Ray realized the spirit of the creature. Where did you come from, he thought to the creature, but he received no response.

There was a wild, unadulterated power in that place. It permeated every molecule of the air he breathed, every rock structure there, every bit of sand matter. He could feel the ocean of prana washing over him. Ray realized then his place in the universe. He finally understood that the world was simply a universe of energy changing from one form to another, raising or lowering it’s vibration and frequency with each transmutation according to its level of intelligence.

Cal looked at the seal pup again and thought, what form have you taken in the past? Have we met in another life, or will we meet again in another? Perhaps next time, I will be the seal pup, and you will be sitting on the shore looking out onto the gray sea.

Ray closed his eyes and thought, the intelligence I possess is the same intelligence as that used to create the universe.  I have access to all the intelligence of the Creator… in the same manner that I have access to all the intelligence of the seal pup… I have only to reach inside my mind, tap into that universal intelligence, that Collective Unconscious, and I can take hold of that knowledge, I can wield that power.

Ray thought rain, and then he stared up into the sky. He concentrated as hard as he could, rain being the only thought in his mind. He concentrated on the way the word looked, the way each of the individual letters came together in a way that produced a sound… rrrraaaaiiiinnnnnnn… he imagined each of the letters 50 feet tall, 100 feet tall, 1,000 feet tall, he imagined them like sky scrapers, touching the clouds. Ray chanted the word like a mantra, over and over and over. Rainrainrainrainrainrainrainrainrainrainrainrainrainrainrainrainrainrainrainrainrainrainrainrainrainrainrainrainrainrainrainrainrainrainrainrainrainrainrainrainrainrainrainrainrainrainrainrain.

But not a drop fell from the sky.

He looked up into the sky, then closed his eyes once more, and reached out with his feelings. He reached up and outward, until it felt like his entire being had expanded to occupy the entire beach, so that his head was in the clouds and his toes under the water. He imaged himself as a huge, transparent body… and imagined feeling the rain fall from the clouds like a single tear from his eye.

And then, he really did feel it. A single drop from the heavens hit his head.

Ray stood up and brushed the sand off his dungarees. He walked down the beach back toward his car. Before he left the sand, he turned once more, felt the cold wind against his skin. The waves continued to crash against the sand in mellow repose. Three pelicans sailed slowly overhead, violently peaceful, then they disappeared beyond the granite cliffs, silent as sentinels.

The Meaning of Life, According to Sagan

"The Earth is an anomaly. In all the solar system, it is, so far as we know, the only inhabited planet.

"We humans are one among millions of separate species who live in a world burgeoning, overflowing with life. And yet, most species that ever were are no more. After flourishing for one hundred fifty million years, the dinosaurs became extinct. Every last one. No species is guaranteed its tenure on this planet. And humans, the first beings to devise the means for their own destruction, have been here for only several million years.

"We are rare and precious because we are alive, because we can think. We are privileged to influence and perhaps control our future. We have an obligation to fight for life on Earth — not just for ourselves but for all those, humans and others, who came before us and to whom we are beholden, and for all those who, if we are wise enough, will come after. There is no cause more urgent than to survive to eliminate on a global basis the growing threats of nuclear war, environmental catastrophe, economic collapse and mass starvation. These problems were created by humans and can only be solved by humans. No social convention, no political system, no economic hypothesis, no religious dogma is more important.

"The hard truth seems to be this: We live in a vast and awesome universe in which, daily, suns are made and worlds destroyed, where humanity clings to an obscure clod of rock. The significance of our lives and our fragile realm derives from our own wisdom and courage. We are the custodians of life’s meaning. We would prefer it to be otherwise, of course, but there is no compelling evidence for a cosmic Parent who will care for us and save us from ourselves. It is up to us." --Carl Sagan

34

cowards work for gold
when they have no heart in it
how do the brave eat? 

We Need Towels, Gently

I wanna try to be a young mom, she said
Recycled plastic bag worn thin at the knees
Bursting dead glass and toe-up cans
A concrete pigeon with two missing toes pecking at
Greasy pizza face smile
Restrooms out of order due to vandalism
A silver dread smiles shyly
Wanna buy half of two dollars?
Come try our melted european cafe kick tire sale
Come try our trusty wednesdays
Come try our famous hour
Handshake club, members only
We need towels, gently
Used men's t-shirts
and pants

74

stringy, spare trees
storm clouds harshing my buzz
spare some change, bro? 

712

I am a bubble floating in the middle of a fathomless ocean
I am the mist blown from the crest of a crashing wave
I am a single rain drop hurtling through a limtless sky
Falling through time
Separate but for a moment
Waiting for

Adrift in San Francisco

Adrift from Simon Christen on Vimeo.

Incredibly transcendent perspective on one of the most handsome cities in the world. 

Symphonic Fantasy

New tunes on the SoundCloud page...









https://soundcloud.com/chrisotchy

Alex Grey

"I see that everybody is a unique thimbleful of God Force. Every person is a Sacred Mirror." - Alex Grey

Great interview with him in Common Ground this month--his reflections on creativity, relationships, his art, and the progress of the soul. I went to his Chapel of Sacred Mirrors in New York when it was in the Meat Packing District years ago. It's now in Upstate New York, and more fabulously transcendental than ever, I'm sure. Truly blessed artist.

More about Alex Grey and his art at alexgrey.com.

Jimmy Page's Lucifer Rising Soundtrack

When Kenneth Anger was finishing his epic Lucifer Rising, he contacted Jimmy Page (who also has a cameo in the film) to do the soundtrack, consequently giving him his master reels to compose against. I won't go into details, but the whole debacle ended in disaster, Anger never got the music, and I believe he ended up having to re-shoot large portions of the film that Page never gave back to him. The final soundtrack composer was Bobby Beausoleil, who recorded what became the official soundtrack while still in jail for his affiliation with the Manson Family.

Jimmy Page's actual soundtrack has been one the most sought after bootlegs of film and rock-nerd history. I found (what I believe to be) Page's soundtrack--here it is. Enjoy the weirdness. 

More interesting details on the Page/Anger connection.  

Virgin Galactic Will Bring You to the Moon

Virgin is privatizing space travel—and these are some of the coolest photos from Virgin Galactic yet. Though very few will be able to afford it, it’s a bold move on the part of one of the most forward thinking companies of our age. Check it out.

 

 

Daft Punk + Giorgio Moroder = Beautiful Feel

Once your brain realizes that you’re dying, it releases DMT, one of the most powerful known psychedelics. This dilates your perception of time and allowing you to live inside your own mind for hours or even days.

For the Living

Dedicated to those we lost in 2012, especially Margaret Otchy, Chris Schorb, Jeff Lunger, and Adrian Pooley.

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For the Living

When you are sad and alone
Think of me
When you are frustrated by the world
Think of me
When you know that you are right, and that there is injustice that seems insurmountable
Think of me
When you are tired and weary and disgusted by your lot
Think of me
When the day is beginning, and you know it will be a struggle the whole way through
Think of me
When the day is drawing to a close, and you feel like you have achieved nothing other than driving yourself out of your mind
Think of me
When you think you have nothing left to give, and the world is unfair, and you have seen the worst of it
Think of me
When you think no one cares, when you are convinced there is no meaning
Think of me
When you don't think you have the heart to see another day, and there's nothing but pain before you
Know that I was there once, too
When there's nothing left but rinds and crumbs in the pantry, and a whole family waiting to eat
Think of me
When you think you've given it all you had, and still it is not enough
Think of me
I've been there, and I assure you, you are not alone
I am with you
How could I abandon you, my child, my brother, my sister, my kin,
My father, my mother, my lover, my friend?
You need only think of me, and I will be there
Where else could I be but in the presence of those I loved so dearly?
And will continue to love
Until we meet again