silent thunder

I adore being able to project into alternate universes and explore. Particularly in some of the games that allow for many players to mingle from around the world. When I was crippled for a period of years and am one of the few % who are immune to morphine and most pain relievers, so to deal with the pain, I'd spend time in video landscapes. Eventually this lead to me becoming a level designer (when I thought I'd never regain the ability to walk, I chose to do in video games, what I thought I'd not be able to keep doing in real life- which was building scenery). My connections in various massive online games led to some life long friendships with folks in far away places like Isreal, Europe, Asia, Russia, South America. Folks I'd have never met otherwise. I can see where it could interfere in life or become out of balance in some cases... as with anything we enjoy. But I've always pushed back on the notion that video games are useless. I've found them to be the opposite. Creative and connecting. For my son, throughout the pandemic, being locked in our home with just his parents for nearly two years of distance learning and isolation (due to mom being high risk) I watched him enjoy many hours of connection, being able to hang out with his friends in discord chat, or all playing in the same posse on pc, xbox or ps. Many of these games require teams to complete their objectives and each team member must have tactical and specialized skills used at certain times in conjunction with others, in order to succeed. It's impressive to listen to them coordinate. I still penpal with some of the folks I used to raid weekly with in Lord of the Rings online. And my wife at this moment, is gaming with a small group of 50 somethings in Elder Scrolls Online on our ps4. I've only dipped my toes in the waters of the Oculus I got my son for his birthday a couple years ago... I can only imagine what will develop out of that! I say cheers to you mate. You found something you love. And it's a deep and wide venue that you can make a very potent career out of while loving what you do; though watch out for yourself. I won several awards for my levels made to support games that were released and was recruited by two big companies and almost changed careers. But thankfully I recovered and returned to making scenery in the real world. As I explored it and developed a few independent games myself with small teams, I found the work in that field is highly unregulated, un-unionized and have heard many personal stories of how some of these companies treat their contract employees (cough Ubisoft, Blizzard I'm looking at you) are horrifying. Hopefully that sector organizes for protection and benefits soon. I wish you well and if you keep tabs on yourself, you'll not stray too far out of balance I bet. Just keep some irons in other pots of interest as well to keep some diversity and remember to switch it up once in a while. I still deeply appreciate advice I heard in my 20's. One should have three hobbies at least, in life. One that makes you money. One that keeps you healthy. and one, purely for joy. peace mate, thanks for sharing.

I found the WOD cosmology fascinating, complex and well formed. Surprising depth and breadth of philosophy and detail. I read nearly everything they published in their table top rpg sets from the 80's to 2000ish. Ran a few storylines and played in another that lasted some 7 years. I found their Wyld Weaver Wyrm triad of creation/dissolution particularly elegant and flexibly expansive and suited to explaining modern psyche and mystery. I'm sure Joseph Campbell would have appreciated many aspects of their symbology. A modern mythos that provided me with many interesting perspectives and countless hours of entertainment and pondering fun. Haven't cracked any of those books in a couple decades, might revisit again. Thanks for sharing @Shadao

I was radically affected by the shift. I had an experience Friday morning in the hour just before Dawn. Life changing; Peak experience. One of the rare gifts of my life. It was another Encounter with The Norns, several Awakened Elders and my first encounter with Mistress K herself. I had no idea it was a dream until I woke shaking in joy and awe. It was experienced as real and tangible as sitting here typing this. I'm still swimming in awe and holding space for the images, sensations and insights. Stunned with gratitude and deeply humbled.

*wanders in Anyone see a leather cheerio roll through here? I carried something hella heavy this morning and I think I blew my O-ring out and it rolled out my pant leg... Anyway, I'll be wanting that back if anyone does come across it. *wanders out

You hit right on it. It was one of the first things that came to mind when I joined GameCrafter. I might finally have a method to store and enjoy lots of my paintings without a house full of canvases. If I'm drawn to one I've done, print it to card form, and still be able to repaint the canvas again. Sets of paintings... themes that work as a deck... it's a whole new medium. I have a version of the tao to ching in haiku format. Have done many paintings on that theme over the years. Might explore an image/haiku tao deck.

Agree. No guarantees anywhere in life that any of it will be pleasant, or wished for, psychedelic, or sober; which is why I shared and highlighted this quoted bit in the opening of my reply to Salvijus.

Aye, if they had no purpose, there would be no interactive mechanism with which to engage with them. We grew into this world alongside these fellow living things (indeed without fungus, there would be no forests and no us) and the various receptors that allow us to process and engage with these living substances seems a pretty clear indicator that they do have a palpable use and a place in our process. Much of our development seems utterly intertwined in our relationship with them through the epochs. As you say, shamanism is at the foundation of spiritual exploration/development and human culture as a whole. Your recent topic on Mushrooms and Shamanism would be good to link to... I can't seem to find it with the site's search.

@remod I've never really shared my work. My family sees them as I do them and a few hang in our home. I just love getting lost in the doing, it's play and it's transcendent. My sketches fill notebooks that lay in drawyers and mostly tend toward architectural and geometric... details, it's all about getting lost in the details. My paintings are nearly all abstractions, purely playing with color, flow, shape and expression. I keep a couple dozen or so canvases and perpetually repaint over them. I've come to recognize it now as a form of cultivation which is what initially drew me to your work on these cards. Imbueing the energy of presence through the medium. Simple stuff. I adore the process of mixing colors then mingling them on a blank surface into an expression of shapes and flow. I laughed recently while staring at a freshly poured acrylic piece when I realized I'd been sitting there, mesmerized for who knows how long literally watching paint dry. like i said... simple stuff. Here's one I shared here in my ppd long ago. It's inspired by an experience while studying and sitting with Wang Li Ping.

Yea, he's pretty rigid, though he has his moments of lucidity and being on point. Just not in this case. I know folks are aware, but I feel compelled lately to push back against such and give clear counterpoints. Something in me refuses to remain silent as I so often used to. That old Reagan-esque thinking is rife in our culture and needs to be countered and balanced when encountered; this has become increasingly crucial in recent years to me.

Disagree entirely. First off, work does not need to be labored, difficult, hard or even serious to be merit filled. Only sincere. And often playfulness brings access to layers of insight precluded by overly serious approaches. To return to the state of childlike (*awe, wonder) this is an inroad to Tao. You project with your certainty claim on wisdom. Perhaps you've not experienced insight or derived wisdom in this method, perhaps you've never even tried it and this is fine, but this does not make you an authority on the topic. Nor does it mean it does not occur for others, so that claim is projection/illusion. And as to addictive properties. Hallucinogens do not carry these markers. It's well documented and hallucinogens after 50 years of ostricization by the psychiatric community is finally being brought out again clinically, to great benefit in trauma healing/end of life/terminal diagnosis treatment. After any travel that way, I have always reacted by wanting to process what I've experienced and another trip is never desired. Months and years pass between the calls to travel. To each their own mate.

hearty +1 from me. well said.

Agree wholly with Stirling's advice. Also this came to mind early in my explorations. Take pains with the environment you will travel in. I preferred nature settings, but that's not always helpful. Safe, settled and secure place to explore from, is the name of the game. And if you plan on traveling that way in a day, pay close attention to any triggers that may happened in the hours leading up to the trip. I've noticed that if anything had occured recently and been brought to mind shortly before dosing, they were highly likely to figure keenly in the subsequent experience. Once some doors are opened, they remain open for some time. There were a few times I decided to forgoe a travel until some triggers has resettled, if they were too intense.

Wow mate. I'm rather stunned. I will treasure these. And thanks for the pointer to the site. I signed up with GameCrafter and am instantly mulling over making a variety of card decks from some of my paintings I've long held onto. It's a remarkable site. I had no idea such a thing existed.

I went with Ancestry and have been impressed by their results. My results almost exactly mirror what I learned of our history and make up from my parents, uncle and grandparents. And from time to time, they ammend the results as they garner a deeper data base and/or refine their technology. It's fascinating and has been rewarding to be able to trace back to early 1400's to specific farms, graves and county sites. All the names derived from having access to international records has been really amazing and specific.

And @Taomeow, though she's palpably here. I miss reading her in sharing mode.

They are stunning. I will happily say yes to your offer. I'm unfamiliar with MPC or GameCrafter, but will happily look into that as well. and I hadn't seen any of the cards on your DeviantArt link until now... WOW! The imagery on the additional cards there is pure awesome. You are very talented. Respect!

My opinion. Wow. That quote is piercing. Thanks for sharing.

Entheogens have aided/challenged and rewarded me very potently. Most notably psilocybin mushrooms. My experiences have been beneficial. Have no idea how they would react to anyone else. And I wouldn't know how to begin offering any sort of advice to any other as to how, when, or if they should engage with these energies. But it was undeniable for me. It was a clear simple call. A piercing thought. And one from within... that I trusted inherently. It felt absolutely simple, small yet penetratingly unshakable. I knew I'd find myself with the opportunity and when I did, I inherently knew to go with it. It felt in my case, not just right but necessary. Of my various travels in those ways... two of them were clearly driven by approaching insights that as I see it now, were the driving force behind that call. Something in the unconscious was preparing my flashlight awareness for the wave that had already started cascading long before and that these entheogens were catalysts in that process. Both of these experiences were realizations of life shifting insight; realizations about deep aspects of my behaviorial self and they revealed patterns through which I had been interpreting the world that once seen, altered my experience of awareness from then on. assumptions of the nature of reality revealed as mist... and release so simply... notions of self that previously lay beyond my awareness unfolded in such potent simplicity they resonate still. Both of these experiences were bolts of vajra. Blinding flashes of insight so simple can calmly, utterly true, they were unignorable. Undeniable. A sudden awareness of my nature and of an aspect that had been with me always, yet never before noticed/acknowledged. And once seen... accepted, released, healed, dissolved, everpresent. The result was permanent shift in both cases... immense potency, resilience of essential true nature. but utterly calm, simple unassuming small and unobtrusive. Like a tiny quiet almost invisible bird that is inside so expansive, it houses all the winds of the world within it in a calm ruffle of feathers. Deep acceptance acknowledgement shifted and energies released, radical release on both occasions resulted in shifts of awareness that impact me to this day, are central to who i know I am. They arrived with such penetrating simplicity and potency. It's paradoxical. They were so simple, that they utterly shook my previous worldview. Like a fish becoming aware of water when before there was no concept. Insight like a Flash of Lightning, so True, its Undeniability is as Hard as Diamond. Vajra.

Any update @rocala? Did you give it a shot?

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i got two of em since @360 a pop, i can travel in 720 hdr.

23 and me was shown to have failed to identify siblings in a test run by a media push some years back. Could worth sending in another test under another name to see if you get same/similar results to be more certain. Course, being mostly for entertainment... does it matter?

Aw Thanks nungy mate... but, not my type.

@BaguaKicksAss @shanlung @GrandmasterP

I look forward to moving back up North when I retire and living through the Seasons again. Here we get only two seasons. Summer and Summer's coming.