I haven't written much in a while. I have not given up on the endeavor, or on Steemit, though during the past couple months, I found my mind returning to a state that I didn't find very conducive to the sort of trance needed to turn these thoughts into a coherent stream of words.
Instead, I found myself in a familiar pattern, consciousness bifurcated between two realms. At the higher end, I reach toward the astral zone, where mind floats free from the constraints of the physical universe, perceived by this conditioned self as mundane reality, reeking of dystopian vibes. Journies to the astral plane being among my favorite pastimes, of course I often desire to return whenever the opportunity is available.
One of the easiest, quickest ways to do this, in my experience (though certainly not the only way), is to inhale a nice hefty dose of my old friend, the green devil weed.
Though I may sometimes attempt to put off my return to the mundane as long as it seems possible, in embodied reality, survival needs ivevitably kick in sooner or later, pulling the mind back into the morass, especially if the physical body signals urgent needs that require tending. Sensations such as hunger, pain, or cold tend to have that effect.
I have been fed. I have had comfort. I have been surrounded by warmth. All the body's immediate survival needs have been met. Under such conditions, the lower animal self can go on a sort of auto-pilot, while the mind literally "spaces out".
In the body realm, why would I bother to do anything more? Because I have awareness, based on experience, that if I do not take action, one or more of these forms of sustenance may be lost in the future. So I go back to "work" in an effort to ensure that they will continue. Survival consciousness.
There I was, back at work. On the clock. And here I am, off the clock, attempting once more to manifest another alternative. Drudgery, if it exists, is all in the mind. This is all a story.
From the astral zone, all these words and narratives become... just a bit alien.
Right now, I sit somewhere between, in mind, in awareness of the physical surroundings which anchor this physical body as it types on this keyboard, yet fading in and out of astral. Go too far into astral, and there will be no writing at all, no making sense of it, no comprehension or even any desire to comprehend these mundane patterns of linguistic construction. Because in the astral realm, words are not needed at all, and thus do not exist.
It doesn't have to make sense. Or does it? Trying to write about what lies beyond both the realm of language, and the sensation of physical existince, can be a bit difficult, to say the least, yet this challenge is what mystical writers have been attempting since time immimorial. It's pure thought that hasn't been broken down into the stream of words and classifications.
This can sometimes make it seem very much like sleep, especially as memory of the astral realm can fall away and fade from accessible memory, like when one wakes up from a dream, leaving only fragments. Usually, trying to speak or write linguistic messages from the consciousness of the astral zone results either in statements that seem trivially simple, obvious, or incomprehensible.
UNLESS... one can cultivate the discipline and strength of mind to keep both modes running at once. It's almost like existing as two different selves simultaniously, one that can't talk at all, and the other with an extensive vocabulary, but can only access the experience through this sort of remote, telepathic communication channel with the self that cannot speak, then trying to translate and articulate the messages from the wordless half.
This is what I am attempting to do at this very moment. Truth be told, I've made a few previous such attempts during the past few weeks, and the result has been either a big blank canvas after staring blankly for hours, or a stream of fragmented ideas so incoherent as to amount to a stream of incoherent gibberish.
But today, I managed to slow my mind back down just enough to get what seemed a fairly clear signal from which to launch this illusory stream again.
Then doubt creeps back in. This doesn't make any sense. These words are still an incoherent mess. No way around it. Does this mean I give up, throw this, another pile of words that don't quite measure up, back on the scrap heap?
Perhaps my editor self will later fix this mess up, remove the boring parts, and out of all this maybe something more coherent can be put together tomorrow. But right now, I find myself getting very, very sleepy again.
The framework of assumptions upon which to base this logic have begun to fall apart. So tired, so very tired again. I'm taking a break. Will do some more with all this later, perhaps...
...
[Note from my editor-self, several days later, from the middle realm of earth, between upper world and underworld, after many hours chanting mantras morning and night, and receiving lots of love and support from coven friends in helping me reconnect with the human world in a more positive way, I came to the retrospective conclusion that during most of the the past several months, my consciousness has been in a state commonly known as "depression", from which I now find myself emerging. With this revision of the narrative, I feel as if this writing now stands on its own, flawed though it may be. I need to either complete this piece and put it out there, or throw it into the scrap heap. I keep finding myself going back, reading and re-reading the paragraphs above, making minor revisions and tweaks for clarity, but it never seems quite good enough through these eyes. Enough energy has been spent here now. It will never be perfect. Not wanting to sink more energy into perfecting the mess, I shall surrender this text to the Steemit blockchain, so I can just let this go and move on.]