sean

I only have "Book of Secrets", but frequently when I am in a book store I will pick up anything I see of his and flip through it.

RedKooga, you would love this "Stealing the Fire from Heaven" book I am reading. I'll lend it to you when I'm done if you'd like. Did you ever get into Austin Osman Spare? A good chunk of the book is about his methods. What I'm finding fascinating about the book is that the author lays out a method by which you can tap into your own unconscious to unearth it's personal symbols/archetypes without needing to first learn, internalize and empower a codified external symbol-set. Eventually (or so is claimed) a complete system tailored specifically to you as an individual can be explored and elaborated upon from the riches of your own individual psyche. Unfortunately going this route lacks the built-in balance encoded in time-honored systems such as Qabalah and Taoist Alchemy so it's a bit more dangerous in this sense. The author recommends achieving Knowledge and Conversation first, so that your HGA can help you traverse this terrain without a map and without becoming imbalanced or insane. (sorry this is OT neimad, but this topic raised an interesting point about map vs. terrain)

Fascinating comment Mr. Falk. I tend to believe the same. I am reading a terrific book right now called "Stealing the Fire from Heaven". It's coming mostly from a Western magickal/alchemical perspective and there is a section on the power of approaching energy centers of the body as "spirits". The author describes how you can, for example, create/discover personified forms for each of your chakras which then allow you to relate to your interal alchemy as the interplay of spiritual beings instead of just energy mechanics. I tend to be of the belief that much of this work is metaphorical. That we actually shape our energy bodies by the way we approach relating to them. It's been an important belief on my journey that helps prevent dogmatism, taking systems too literally, mistaking map for territory, etc. On the other hand I've also noticed it keeps me somewhat stand-offish from delving deeply into any one system, perhaps preventing fuller results such as those that you have beautifully achieved by really delving into and working with Winn's shen-organ framework. Sean.

Earth-Sun-Moon Triangle Connect to the earth in a relaxed standing pose, knees bent and palms down. Breathe in cool blue energy through soles, palms and perineum. Store in LTT. 5-10 minutes. Bring focus to sacrum. Picture a bright full moon behind you shining on your sacrum. Color of Moon is silvery white. Breathe moonlight into sacrum into the sexual center with the blue energy, and at the same time draw sexual energy inward by pulling up on sexual organs, perineum, anus. 5-10 minutes. Bring attention to third eye. Picture bright golden yellow sun in front of you. Feel chi on face. Absorb light into third eye and bring down to heart. Mix yellow sun energy with red heart love. Make Heart sound to clean and balance heart energy. 5-10 minutes. At a certain point heart will open deeply. Then, on inhale, bring the blue sexual energy in through the sacrum into the sexual center and simultaneously bring the golden/yellow sunlight into the third eye and down to the heart center. On the exhale condense these two energies in the center point behind the navel by pushing the blue/silver/white energy up and the red/golden/yellow energy down. 5-15 minutes. Bring the kidney and sexual energy up through the vena cava and the heart energy down through the aorta. Mix both in the LTT. (If this is too specific and difficult, let the two energies come together naturally in the LTT) When the love and sexual energy are combined in the sexual center, a soft orgasmic feeling will start vibrating in the LTT. When the Sun and Moon energies are combined, their force is multipled. Start slowly. If you feel too hot, practice the Six Healing Sounds. Next move the energy from the LTT down into the perineum and up into the MCO. Put the emphasis on the following points and connections, stopping at each of these points to feel the external connection: Perineum - Earth Sacrum - Moon Crown - North Star/Big Dipper Third Eye - Sun Circle the energy around the MCO 9-18 times. Then gather the energy in the LTT and rest. Observe your body and energy in this resting state. Notice where the energy is moving. 5-15 minutes. End with Chi self-massage. From Taoist Astral Healing which I just picked up.

Have you tried repressing your desires? Ok, maybe I'm coming from left field on this one. It's a strange concept that I've been exploring lately; a more aggressive version of "getting out of your own way". You always hear that repression doesn't work and that it actually makes your desires manifest more explosively, because you've pent up all this energy around them. Why not harness that force? This is just my random thought of the week, but I've found that I have the shittiest days ever when I wake up and try to pump myself up full of positive thoughts about how great life is. Because then when the tiniest thing crappy happens my whole bubble bursts. Perhaps I just have a really dark, inverted outlook on life. But when I wake up in the morning and firmly tell myself that life is complete bullshit, that everything sucks and that I will make sure to do my best to avoid being happy, I can't seem to wipe the smirk off my face the whole rest of the day no matter what goes wrong. Sean.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO THE LEZLIE!

More thoughts. Here are some things that clicked for me last night and today. I think they're relevant since this topic is called the Practice of Everything although I think it may going in the opposite direction of what Peter Falk is suggesting, since it doesn't really attempt to distill essentials from the many, it just organizes the many into a doable approach. I decided to create a Practice Recipe Handbook. This book will be divided into major chapters Jing, Chi, and Shen. Inside these chapters will be complete descriptions of every practice I've ever seen, read or heard about in enough detail to describe how to do it, complete with pictures if necessary. So I can open up to the table of contents in the beginning, flip to "Chi" if that is the current phase of my training routine (more in this in a minute) and quickly decide what kinds of things I want to work on during that training, with complete references to remind me how to do the practice if I've forgotten or never even learned it. Re: training routine phase. In order to ease my mind from perpetually wondering, ruminating, and critcizing potential imbalances in my practice routine (and also of course to prevent being hurt by them), I've decided to implement a three phase training routine. The three phases of my training are (drum roll) Jing, Chi and Shen, which will correspond not only to overtly alchemical/spiritual practices, but also to other areas I want to include, such as my strength, flexibility and general fitness goals. This aspect is almost completely inspired by how Scott Sonnon has structured his latest training journal.. Notice how easily his categories of Strength, Flow and Rest mesh with Jing, Chi and Shen? (To me at least) At first I think it will be pretty straightforward; just a step by step to-do list for each day of my training; keep it really simple and easy to do without having to think to much. But eventually I will refine it more into where Jing-Chi-Shen become open suggestions for what category of practice to pick from that day; either from my mind or my handy dandy Practice Recipe Handbook. Two other important ingredients. Detailed training journal and Weekly Review. Keeping generous notes about my experiences keeps me in touch with my development and let's me see patterns and trends with this work over time, ie: let's try more Shen this week and ratchet down on the Jing training because I'm noticing xyz. Of course the journal is a somewhat of an artificial "middleman" to a truly open and communicative relationship with your bodymind. But for me I think it's an important bridge to developing this relationship more deeply. The Weekly review brings it all together. Every Sunday I'm going to sit down for an hour or two and review my notes and journals and give my self some space to re-evaluate. I'm hoping that my unconscious can appreciate this time-to-judge I am offering, and can loosen up on the perpetual judgements it shares with me at often inappropriate times, ie: while I'm practicing. If my inner family knows it will have a chance every week to analyze my experiences and critique my progress and also have my full attention perhaps it will relax in it's persistent and aggressive attempts to nag me daily with me what is most likely useful information, just poorly timed. So, what do you think? Feels like a personal POE to me? Or at least the seeds of one. The Handbook is a three ring binder bible which can continue to be expanded upon/refined so as to describe any actionable ritual. I have a trusted ancient methodology, Jing-Chi-Shen, for structuring my whole approach to training. A captain's log for recording my experiences. And summit meetings every Sunday to argue over the direction of my evolution. Sean.

Couldn't help you. I only ever drink the pee pee nowadays after I've eaten extremely high quality organic food that I feel my body probably distilled into something useful; in particularly after consuming sushi-grade raw fish. I just can't bring myself to drink pee after a night of bar pretzels and binge drinking, in other words about 5 or 6 days of the week.

I think the desire to find a POE is somewhat the impulse for the creation of religion. Which I don't intend as a criticism because I think we "spiritual" types tend to over-demonize the idea of religion. Probably because many of us have had bad experiences with Western religion. But religion at it's best is just the exoteric manifestation of spiritual beliefs and I think it serves overlooked functions, especially socially. It's the outer cauldron where people can meet and share experiences together in the safety of some defined common ground. As an aside, I've frequently thought one of the reasons the hippie New Age movement fizzled (in many ways) is that it resisted any type of religion-building and eventually became too diffuse. Which maybe was what it needed to do; perhaps not the right time, I dunno. Anyway, obviously the problem comes in if you discover and articulate you and your group's POE and gradually blind yourself to the fact that it is not really the POE, it's just you and your tribe's POE. Also, "The tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao." Any practice named is automatically not the Tao (and also of course it is completely the Tao and is not not the Tao in no way whatsoever. heh). Any practice can be overemphasized and overdone thus leading to imbalance. (right?) Personally I tend to be more cerebral and "high-level" in my approach to mysticism and life in general which basically means I spend more time brainstorming and organizing than actually getting anything done. But really what I'm getting at is the Jing-Chi-Shen trinity itself strikes me as a nice open-ended, agnostic high level POE-generator. Stick a circle around it and it's a decent POE-mandala even. I mention this because for me it seems to boil down to creating a harmonious relationship between Jing-Chi-Shen, both in the literal sense of substance transformation and circulation and also metaphorically in the sense that Jing-Chi-Shen can symbolize different elements and aspects of your mind, your life, etc. that this life is a struggle (a playful struggle *slapping forehead*) to bring into harmony. I guess what I'm driving at is that (obviously) a POE is subjective, personal and most importantly, always in flow. Also, I think perhaps A POE may be poorly represented linguistically and better suited for geometric (or even pictoral) visualization. Ie: the Yin Yang is a good one ... it's pointing at a POE of living in harmony better than a thousand books. All of this said, on a more practical level, and in light of my most recent melodramatic burnout at this point I'd have to say that the inner smile and heart awakening are at the crux of what I currently believe my spiritual POE should contain and focus on. Great topic. Sean

This following two articles clarified a lot of things for me regarding "hard" vs. "soft" debates: http://www.circularstrengthmag.com/21/sonnon2.html (I know I keep posting http://www.circularstrengthmag.com/21/sonnon5.html Excerpt from the latter article (emphasis my own): (I know I keep linking to Sonnon related articles, but they really help make things click for me.) The reason why I want to start with BJJ is because it's full body, I believe it will help me develop the level of proprioception I am interested in, and it will give me immediate feedback on my effectiveness. I think there is a danger in practicing only "soft" martial arts in that because full resistance sparring is frequently kept to a minimum, you can become overconfident in your abilities and .. well, get your ass kicked in a real situation basically. Fortunately the BJJ school I found and am thinking of attending has an excellent philosophy: And I found an excellent Internal CMA academy close to me that also appears to have it's head screwed on right. I'll probably end up taking a few classes there as well if I find myself really drawn to round out the "martial" side of my training. But frankly I'll probably end up transitioning into dance ... particular "break" ... I've always wanted to pull off a windmill actually. Sean. PS: Check this out: http://putfile.com/media.php?n=wushu

Sungazing References in Early Taoist Alchemy After the invasion of China by nomads from Central Asia, Daoists of the Celestial Master tradition who had been living in the north were forced to migrate into southern China, where Ge Hong's version of Daoism was strong. The mixture of these two traditions is represented in the writings of the Xu family. The Xu family was an aristocratic group from what is today the city of Nanjing. Seeking Daoist philosophical wisdom and the long life it promised, many of them moved to Mao Shan mountain, near the city. There they claimed to receive revelations from immortals, who dictated new wisdom and morality texts to them. Yang Xi was the most prominent recipient of the Maoshan revelations (360-370 CE). These revelations came from spirits who were local heroes named the Mao brothers, but they had been transformed into deities. Yang Xi's writings formed the basis for High Purity Shangqing Daoism. The writings were extraordinarily well done and even the calligraphy in which they were written was beautiful. The importance of these texts philosophically speaking is to be found in their idealization of the quest for immortality and transference of the material practices of the alchemical science of Ge Hong into a form of reflective meditation. In fact, the Shangqing school of Daoism is the beginning of the tradition known as "inner alchemy" (neidan), an individual mystical pursuit of wisdom. (From: http://www.iep.utm.edu/d/daoism.htm) The term Shangqing itself refers to the heaven of Highest Clarity inhabited by celestial immortals of the highest rank. The Shangqing texts are quite eclectic, but are distinguished by a preoccupation with several important themes: * The stellar deities of the big dipper who are the closest to the Supreme Ridgepole (Taiji) around which the heavens revolve * The central administration of the underworld (Fengdu) that governs the fate or destiny (ming) of human lives * Absorbing the spiritual essence of the sun and the moon to refine the body into an ever more diaphanous and spiritual body * The internal visualization of gods in the body. The goal of all these practices is to become a perfected person (zhenren--a term we first encountered in the Zhuangzi). What this "perfection" actually entails can be gleaned in part from the hagiographies of those perfected beings who revealed the corpus of Shangqing texts, and from the hagiographies of those who were revered by the transmitters of the Shangqing corpus. ... One important hagiography that was cherished by the Xu family was that of the Perfected Purple Yang, who was born Zhou Yishan in 80 BCE. Although Zhou predated the Shangqing revelation by four centuries, his life was held as exemplary by the original Xu family. For this reason it gives us a valuable insight into what the early recipients of Shangqing scripture considered to be an exemplary Daoist life. According to the hagiography, as a young man Zhou Yishan practiced the daily salutation of the sun and would soak up the dawn light. When his father caught him in the act and inquired as to the type of cult that he was practicing, Zhou replied, "I, Yishan, from the bottom of my heart love the sunlight and the splendour of its eternal radiance." (From: http://www.taorestore.org/guestspeaker1.html) Emphasis in the above cited quotations are my own. Sean.

THANK YOU EVERYONE! I'm slavin' away at work right now so I can't say much, but I appreciate y'all thinking of me. Fortunately I have off Thursday and Friday so I get a nice four day weekend which I will fill with strippers and midgets on unicycles and cotton candy filled rooms you have to eat through to get to the other side, etc. .. to make up for having to work on my birthday.

I'll probably be working up the nerve to sign up for classes at this great local BJJ academy soon: http://www.opendoorbjj.com/ ...

In the morning I take a MegaFlora Probiotic on an empty stomach. About an hour after breakfast I take a "Mood Factor" (by Country Life) that is a nice mix of things I used to take separately, but this product is much cheaper. I also take a "Think Clearly" by SuperNutrition and a "Vegetarian Green Multi" by Nature's Life. I try to get a little Garden of Life "Perfect Food" every day or so, in a shake with a bunch of other stuff, including some "Udo's Oil". I put Flax in my oatmeal and sometimes I'll just cut up slices of banana and shake them up on a plate of flax and eat 'em. At night I take Inositol and 5HTP. If I am really restless I take this great sleeping formula the name of which escape me right now. More importantly than any of this though, probably, is food. I'm doing the "Potatoes Not Prozac" food program. Still only on step 5 though technically. I drink lot's of water and I try to eat raw fish or meat at least once a week.

My retention is all over the place also Yoda. I've found S.Biel's Fire and Water Technique very helpful. And I just started delving into the key sound more seriously and really getting into it this time around. Sean.

Thanks, I added the image. The images are pulled randomly from a folder so that's why it reloads every time. I guess. (?)

http://www.circularstrengthmag.com/33/jones.html

Interesting thoughts Chris. Frankly I don't know enough about his work to say one way or the other. I didn't find the pre/trans fallacy to be a rejection of wicca, taoist alchemy, shamanism, etc., but you probably know a lot more about it than me, I've only just read excerpts like the one above on the net and contemplated them briefly, never any of Wilbur's actual complete works. I just took it as a fair warning that things aren't always as they seem on the surface.

Hey, the board actually crashed for about five minutes today. Pretty scary. I'm looking into the issue with my hosting company. I believe the problems are due to the fact that they have been bought out and are making some server changes. If you notice anything strange, let me know. Someone already mentioned to me some permissions errors on uploading which I'm looking into. No need to panic and think TaoBums bit the bullet though if it goes down for a few hours or even a full day. I keep backups and believe me I'll be frantically pouring over lines of code in the background trying to get it back online asap. Sean.

Hey, so what did everyone think of the time, 1pm PST? Does this completely not work for anyone?

I am transitioning into only eating whole grains via Kathleen De Maisons program and so have slowly been weeding out white flour breads, pastas, cookies, etc. It's a detox roller-coaster but it's worth it in the long run.