Greece 2

 A hawk flew over me as I lay there, alone on the deserted beach, hovering in the air, my anima. It's a good omen for me, I've always thought that, ever since i was a child. Any bird of prey that appears is a good omen.

Wandering through the pine groves, how can I keep from singing? I'm not actually singing as I walk but my body is singing from the hike.

The mountain is silent in the midday sun. The trees have their own song and I'm listening now. The heat is really getting to me, I'm sweating profusely but my mission is to reach the chapel, the white unblemished chapel. 

I'm not thinking as I climb higher and higher, its steep but I'm on a strange pilgrimage to the little chapel. No pain, no thoughts. The sea is disappearing from sight below me. The essential oils of pine and thyme are rich and heady in the air. My body is singing and sweating as I climb. I'm on a pilgrimage. I have to get to that holy place.

My breath is heaving, sweat is pouring out of me as I get slowly closer. This could be dangerous, there is no one for miles around, no one knows I'm here. The heat shimmers in the air around the rocks, a lizard scuttles off the path where I set my feet. The hawk is nowhere to be seen now, there are no birds, the white walls of the chapel can be seen up ahead.

The church is not particularly pretty, I have been to a few already on the island. This one is small and hidden away high on the mountainside, secluded by stately pine trees, the path up to the courtyard is paved. The stone is worn down by the years, slated by the seasons, by the salt carried in on the wind. 

Who knows when last anyone visited this sacred place. I open the blue door and the air inside is old and stale but the light falling in through the window illuminates the far wall of icons. There are various portraits of the saints, Jesus and Mary, just like in any other Greek church but there is something different about this one. 

I practically collapse onto the stone floor from exhaustion. I made it. The silence of the place is disturbed by my labouring breath, I need to regain my composure. A soft breeze flows in through the open door, cooling me somewhat. I lye there on the chapel floor, the saints are watching me from the walls but they are not judging me. 

I sit up, the place is only a couple square metres wide. Simple chapel, made with dedication, plain upholstery, no glamour and yet there is an ambiance pure, true, honest. It fills me with respect which startles me, I rarely feel a reverence such as this and I start to pray, kneeled on the floor. 

I pray for my family, I pray for my friends. I beseech the icons to watch over them. I thank the saints for the life I have lived, I thank them for the consolidation. Here where i am no longer mystical. Here where I am no longer clairvoyant. Here I pray silently and in earnest because I feel I must. 

I do not pray about the many years, I do not pray about the pain. I do not question my fate. Then I just sit there, alone in the remote chapel, alone on the remote island. 

For a moment I hope to die there. Its been a long time since I thought about death. There was a time when an ending was always on my mind. I want to die there on the floor of the tiny church in the arms of the icons, in the arms of the Mother Mary. I want to die for the love that is lost though its not a bitter or wretched feeling at all. Just a kind of surrender. 

Ayla Schafer - Music Plants Trees

What the Media Won't Tell You About King Charles III: Coronation Edition

                                What the Media Won't Tell You About KING CHARLES III

Boards of Canada - Audiotrack 01

You get billed for awakening

Life has a price-tag

You get billed for awakening

Trying to explain that

Evil is entropic

Polarity integration

Is its own reward

Save you a lot of tears

Tares in the aura

One doesn't exit the matrix easily

Its a debtors prison

You're all ears now

Just as I get to the part about consent

Greece 1

 I'm ordering my takeaway at the street bar, one pita gyros and a Greek salad, the young guy recognizes me from earlier in the week and the older guy comes over and pats me on the arm, just for a moment his hand gently squeezes my shoulder. He smiles affectionately at me but it's as if I'm the stranger who you can't place in that scene. The stranger who you want to be close to but know you cannot. I'm touched by his gesture somehow. 

The younger guy asks whether I need a fork while a woman, probably the mother throws a salad together and I ask for two forks even though I am alone. I could have had a girlfriend waiting at the hotel, the salad could be for her. I don't know why I would want to give that impression and to be honest I don't. I'm not embarrassed to be on the island by myself. The woman asks her son if I want a lot of olive oil on my salad and if I want crushed oregano. Just a bit please, I say it twice for both condiments. 

I'm standing there on the street waiting for my food, smoking a cigarette and I glance around cautiously for an ashtray but there is none. A middle-aged Greek sitting at the bar has been watching me. You can just put your cigarette out on the street he motions. See nobody cares! I laugh self consciously and stub it out by my feet. The moments there stick in my mind as I walk back up the streets to the hotel with my meal in my hand. The evening is setting in.

While eating on the balcony, I look up at the stars, I'm trying to make out the constellations. The big dipper is the only one I recognise. I'm reminded of Germany, laying out in the field at night with my sister and her then husband. My sister always calls it: the saucepan. Suddenly I'm determined to learn the other constellations, that is to spot them. I look on my phone and recognize the names, Draco, Cassiopeia, Orion, but there is too much light pollution even from this small village around me. I keep leaning out peering up at the night sky, then checking my phone but I give up after a while. Not as clear as in South Germany here. 

I'm strangely not philosophical, not mystical as I used to be. I'm not intimidated or even intrigued by the vastness of life. Not questioning my purpose or 'soul searching', that term makes me cringe a little. I feel consolidated and calm as I move from moment to moment. Making tea in the evening has become a tiny ritual, I smoke and read and watch some YouTube videos on my phone. 

My home is here now where there is no news, no energy price hikes or warmongering. Just the rituals of my days. I'm immune to the Dutch and Scandinavian tourists, sometimes they stare, sometimes they bustle, they carry some of their country with them. Their grey lives hang on them, linger in their aura's. Fortunately they are few, its mostly just me. 

The girl at the café starts making my decaf frappe as soon as she sees me. Just a hello is enough now whether in the morning or afternoon. It's like clockwork. I'm consolidated. Walking around the semi-deserted bay in the heat of the sun is like a meditation. I'm always immersed in the blue of the sea. I could spend hours going over the pain and trauma of the last few years but I'm untouched by them, I'm not bitter here. I'm pain-free now. I'm long lost. 

Holding the Light

Earliest use of hallucinogen Ayahuasca detected in Andean mummies dated to 750AD

Analysis of hair from 22 mummies found in southern Peru has revealed the earliest known use of San Pedro cactus, a source of mescaline, and the psychoactive plants that make up the drug ayahuasca. The majority of the mummies were unearthed in Cahuachi, a religious center used by the Nazca people starting around 100 B.C. Coca plants and the Banisteriopsis caapi plant, better known as the liana vine, are among the substances detected in the mummies' hair.

The plants are not native to the region and were probably transported across the Andes Mountains. Researchers found that the drugs of choice changed over time. Ayahuasca and mescaline became less favored and coca consumption became more common after the Wari Empire conquered the Nazca around A.D. 750.

This shift may indicate changes in religious rituals surrounding human sacrifice. The find included four trophy heads, including one belonging to a child, who were sacrificial victims, but there is very little evidence of what role psychoactive substances played in the rituals. Bioarchaeologist Dagmara Socha of the University of Warsaw believes the antidepressant effects of the drugs may have been an important reason for their use. "In the case of the children that were sacrificed," she says, "they were given Banisteriopsis caapi, probably because it was important for them to go happily to the gods."

https://www.sott.net/article/477499-Earliest-use-of-hallucinogen-Ayahuasca-detected-in-Andean-mummies-dated-to-750AD

Experts say she will end humanity. Here's the fix, w Elon Musk, ChatGPT, AI robots.

How to earn money and make people smile at the same time?