long time getting here

[openlyhidden]

hello. this is my first post. i am going to be 63 and have been "searching" since i was two or three years old i swear when i "woke up" screaming in a closet because i realized i was trapped in a body again. so this understandably didn't get me off on the right foot in rural iowa society but i am still here farming and things have turned out well for me. but still i have experienced very weird stuff occasionally since then....i used to think i "leaked" or something. but whatever, i am a reasonably normal, but really private not noticed person, a long time married farmer with grown normal kids living around here too and nobody, but nobody but my wife knows about this spiritual obsession thing of mine....which she could care less about as long as it doesn't interfere with our casino jaunts a couple times a month.

 

so basically i have spent my entire life doing all the different religions and philosophy and literature and myth i could. that is what i really do. and "How i got here" is a long story. too long. last year i was reading elaine pagels book "The Gnostic Paul" which eventually led me to Stephen A. Hoellers book "Jung and the Lost Gospels" and his other Gnostic Christian books which led me to re-exploring some Jung again for the first time in probably 30 years and that led me to buy most of the wonderful, wonderful books by Jungians Marie-Louise Von Franz and Edward F. Edinger and "Inner Work" by Robert A. Johnson about Jungian dream work and doing Active Imagination. and just today UPS delivered the books "The I Ching" by Wilhelm/Baynes and "Understanding the I Ching" by Hellmut Wilhelm and Richard Wilhelm and "The Secret of the Golden Flower" by Richard Wilhelm. i would not have bought these translations but Richard Wilhelm somehow was a jungian before there were jungians!

 

and i am back to Taoism again....actually my favorite. and I never bought the old Wilhelm books about Taoism because they were so old. so i have "I Ching" with Concordance by Rudolf Ritsema and Stephen Karcher.....and "The Complete I Ching" by Taoist Master Alfred Huang and also "The Numerology of the I Ching"....and i know a few more on my shelves too.

 

I also have all the Taoist translations by Thomas Cleary and all the books by Eva Wong. i must have thousands of books about this "stuff" from Douglas Harding to Richard Rose to Mirdea Eliade and Authur Avalon and innumerable Buddhist and Hindu books especially advaita vedanta and tantric yoga and theosophy and lucid dreaming and the sufi books by Cleary also and Fred Allen Wolf and the zero point field, christian science, Homer and all of the Mesopotaian Texts and shamanism and hermeticism and especially the wonderful "Science of the soul research center" in New Delhi, India. and most of the books by the original christian church fathers plus eveything re-discovered after millennia in caves in the desert after world war two.

 

gads. i must have spent a fortune in my life on this stuff i still have three full bookcases and cabinets full of books and i gave away two truck loads of superfucial books and i burned another truck load of really disappointing books. and i don't do anything with any of it but try and learn my lessons and practice alone.

 

and here i am. i have only posted comments to one web site in my life and i have never joined any group online or in person except for MIU transcendal meditation back a lifetime ago for awhile. and here i am.

 

heh. carlos castaneda. i forgot carlos.

 

and in my community, i have absolutely nobody to visit with about any of this. indeed, the congregation of my local methodist church would shun me completely if they suspected what it is i do and of course, my fellow republicans would declare me not patriotic in the least. but actually i haven't voted for anyone since the first gulf war .... and i guess i quit going regularly to church decades ago too because i didn't want to harm anyones faith in my simple little farm community church.

 

so hello. i don't even know what i am looking for here, but we will see. thank you.

[Trunk]

O.Hidden,

 

I find that one of the really really fun things here is to read introductions.

Welcome!

 

Trunk

[Aetherous]

Welcome to the forum. I have a lot of respect for your experience, and choices.

[Ninpo-me-this-ninjutsu-me-that]

I'm very new here too

 

Reading your post I really get how you must have felt through your life, it's not easy being something inside that on the outside you have had to hide. I always thought that in America most of these kind of subjects were more openly received than elsewhere, but I guess in Iowa not.

 

This site is very interesting. I'm sure you will enjoy it and it will provide a much needed release for you. It certainly does for me.

[Marblehead]

Hi Openlyhidden,

 

Welcome!

 

May you enjoy your time here.

 

Needing to keep your beliefs hidden isn't all that bad a thing. You can still freely practice internally and when intereacting with others you can still be open as long as you don't reveal any details.

 

Enjoy your quest!

 

Happy Trails!

[Yoda]

so this understandably didn't get me off on the right foot in rural iowa society

 

 

Openlyhidden,

 

Welcome to Taobums! I love your story!

 

Additional sites that might be of interest to you: advancedyogapractices.com, Trunk's alchemicaltaoism.com, and daoismworld.com.

 

Thank goodness for the internet, huh?

 

Your pal,

Yoda