This is an honest account of why I wear a shirt with an upside down cross on it, or rather the whole of what it represents to me be it foolish or wise. I think it is obvious people use christianity or various other intellectual systems to justify their own desires be it hatred, judgement, control, even an honest desire for "helping" someone. They use it for other reasons too such as helping themselves with their own struggles, and desires. To me, there is a danger in succumbing to an intellectual system be it christianity, science, islam, even buddhism (although it would have to be a distorted form). I will outlay the reasons in the following paragraphs as to why I feel there is danger in succumbing to intellectual systems and hopefully this can shed some light as to why I wear what I wear and stand for what I stand for.

I believe succumbing to an intellectual system gives you power, of course, especially a successful (or rather popular) system such as christianity. This power just as all power is used (usually) for control or an enabling of the expression of power. This can be good in certain circumstances such as self empowerment to lead to a goal or support. I think christianity is an interesting twist on human psychology and this gives it the momentum it has had throughout history. It is a self generating meme, it is spread by societal force because in its followers very "accepting" of it they must give up any intuitive questions they might have about it shutting off further inquiry and closing the mind to it's own ends. In other words if you believe in "God" you must accept the tenants which are writ as well as whatever societal folkways are sold with it. Humans as a whole have a desire to be accepted (as we are social animals) and because of christianity's very persuasive twist on thought it says basically "accept the word of god or you will be unaccepted by me and my family". This power I speak of has enabled millions of people throughout history to control countless peoples lives and has worked to domesticate people as a whole very successfully. Just as a slave doesn't rebel from his physical enslavement for fear of physical violence, many christians don't rebel from their mental and spiritual enslavement for fear of societal violence or "not being accepted". Power breeds violence and violence breeds more violence. There is always a hierarchy to violence and the further down the hierarchy you go the more violence is obvious.

I believe christianity is also a hinderance on spiritual growth. I find as someone that deeply believes in the spiritual growth and potential of a human they must find their own path to their "self realization", "nirvana", "enlightenment", "heaven", etc.. If each person was exactly the same many modern paradigms would work such as capitalism, christianity, nuclear family, modern school curriculum, etc. But alas as we have found time and time again throughout history this is not the case, there are many archetypes of people, at the VERY least. Thus the concept "every man is created equal" is wrong, and a system that pits everyone against each other with this concept as its backbone is doomed to failure. That is a different rant though. Christianity specifically assumes the path to heaven is the same for everyone and thus you must follow this path laid before you or of course you will go to hell. Oh and just so you know hell is REALLY hot and scary. Really though more than anything christianity steals a path that should be laid forth by you from your experiences and inner questioning, in this bandaid, capitalistic world believe it or not but you are not the car you drive, just as you are not the spiritual belief system you supposedly hold. As a replacement for your own spiritual growth the christian (generally) wears the meme as though it were a robe and it makes life just sooo much easier. This is a falsity as they find later in life as they realize it isn't enough and feel hollow (assuming they felt whole from christianity at all). The path to my own happiness, I have found, lays in my own self created values based on my own psychology and spiritual growth that may be influenced by various intellectual structures but as a whole is my own path and everything I accept as a truth or rather "true enough" is informed by my own intuitive questioning and wasn't pressed on me through a violence hierarchy. This is why when questioned about what kind of moral choice I would make or what informed my actions, I don't have to look at a book, I can tell the person with complete honesty why I did what I did and thus the confusion from lies, power, control, and applying other peoples ideas doesn't hinder me and I live a more true to myself life as a result.

I wear the upside down cross for various reasons, those mentioned above, but probably more immediately the fact that my favorite music displays it and various other cultural symbols in various ironic, and sarcastic ways. This I am whole heartedly in support of because destroying cultural symbols of power by repeated desecration of these symbols takes the power away. I also believe swearing as much as possible takes away the power of the words. Black culture has almost completely taken power from the word nigger by repeating it into oblivion in their own subculture. In power comes violence hiararchy and so you have a pyramid. In the top of this pyramid is mainstream culture, and as you continue down this pyramid it is easier and easier to see the violence inherent in these positions. "Rights" don't come to these further down systems, they must be fought for, or the whole system needs to be discarded. This has always been my route but, I am allowed to get away with it, sometimes though I find I have to fight for my beliefs and violence social or otherwise that is pressing on me and instead of just ignoring the violence I must fight back. I suppose wearing the shirt is a manifestation of my intuitive need to fight back, just as others may pierce themselves or wear tattoos or various other behaviors that go against mainstream culture. I fight against the dominant system and always will if it is assuming each person must conform to it.

All in all this was more of a feeling until I tried to express it in words and I am not editing this so it is what it is, and I am sure it is not perfect but "true enough".

Transformation

The silhouette painted across the sky, a calling, a sign, the weary traveler finally sees it, finally he has a reason to move forward. He drags charcoal over the concrete, the black dust rising in clouds as he furiously scribbles his spells. He divines a path, yet it is dependent on guards, long paths, long perilous paths, and his courage will be tested. Silver shimmers in the image, overlayed and painting the edges of the shadows, and he sees he can make it. This shape against the clouds, so seductive, so powerful, it may be the most powerful image hes ever seen. The weight of the meeting sends shock-waves back in time and has been hitting him ever since he caught a glimpse of it. His bright white tendrils sprouting from his back, white that is both hungry and pouring over with light. His shadow almost completely destroyed by the light giving tendrils, only obscure splinters of shadow remain. His eyes glow radiant and a song of jubilee is on the tip of his tongue as he tastes and savors the waves of the impending impact and raises a white wall of protection around him. The wall grows high, closing at the top like a dome and static like ghosts, with their constantly zig zagged staccato silhouettes claw in his eyes when he closes them. His fingers reach up to feel his face and they start growing long and white like the tentacles on his back. He mashes them against his face lacking in any kind of subtlety and grace. His body wiggles and shakes becoming more jellylike, his bones melt away and the skin turns white and rubbery. Melting through his now absent clothes he slides forward in his new form, forgetting his human existence slowly, and a smile, cosmic and beyond form paints his now shifting skin. He finds he can float through the air, and glides toward the silhouette longingly, its prismatic holographic beauty painting pure joy over the new skin that now shows what he thinks.

The Calling Song

The man, wearing war rags, multicolored holy things monsters puking color all over them, walks down this concrete path. Industrial grey, dead buildings sprout all along the path black pumping smoke settling in between the grizzly boxes. Here the numbers get thick, pushing his legs through the numbers breathing in the black smoke, he fights forward. Faces pop out of the smoke all without pupils, smiling a death grin, numbers in big stink clouds pouring from their mouths and eye sockets. Animated by insanity they prattle forward selling their numbers, "fear must have hollowed out their eyes", he thinks.

He pushes forward again, seeing glimpses of light in the distance, it looks like trees, and he can hear the birds chirping in the morning in a voice. A sweet voice with life pouring from its syllables, reaching into his hair, pulls his skin with an image, a door, a symbol, shimmering in the heat from the road. The long slender white hands reach through space grabbing his tired shoulders, pulling them forward, light cracking from the touch shooting prismatic rays painting the grey walls with color. A voice so smooth, a long tongue sliding through his ears into his heart, his eyes drip light, pouring liquid light down his cheeks and his neck burying into his clothes. His movement slowed by dark black sounds ghost-like, he listens enchanted. His body slides through the thick melodies, rolling over him and melting through him.

As he wills his body forward, he notices the black fog is broken by a kaleidoscopic, shimmering and reflective fog, the damp chilling condensation pinning on his skin tightens his flesh. An image, a shape on a door, he can see almost through the haze sometimes, pushing through walls of hands and eyes that appear behind the silver fog. The sounds get louder as he walks and he sees a shape, "maybe the symbol from before on the door" he thinks. It looks black to him initially but he realizes its far deeper, almost bottomless, its calling him, a color that includes all, yet turns black to white depending on the light, and yet it seems to leak its color to the air surrounding it, as though it is beyond color, as though it is the source of color. There is a shape, he can tell this, but his mind cant focus on it long enough to discern it. His chest drips this light, this blood red light, green vines growing in their trails as they escape down his body. He hears the voice again. It is calling him, he pushs toward the symbol, needing it, fighting through the concrete number sludge at his feet.

The sounds give him new life, he fights the fog and pushes the gibbering number mouths out of his way. He smiles and knows he will make it, the sound is too strong, the voice too clear, he will enter the symbol, to his home.

The Lost

Preface

The protagonist of this story feels like he has come from a mysterious place, far away. He is getting messages from “the universe” so he thinks. Dreams haunt his waking self, and he feels almost as though there is something on the tip of his tongue, just around the corner of his understanding, always fleeting.

The 1st Chapter

The adamite blue/gray crystalline royal hallways lit refracting shimmering fibers when his hand reached through dimensions. Placing a 3 dimensional shadow representation of himself on the Zeluderian planet known as “earth” to its inhabitants, he projects himself here through a process known as “birth”. The life there seems to organize into more and more novel forms, as is the normal process, and is in a state of acute disarray.

He, aboard a hyper dimensional cruiser wrapped in a dimension on the edge of the silver thread, wakes in a shaking mortal body. This body hes known seemingly forever responds to his will instantly. Waking within his human shadow he moves slowly, straining to recall the experience he just had.

“I had a dream I was in a futuristic vessel at the edge of a forest” he says.

“What happened?” a voice asks.

“I was in this little vessel and I saw a gathering of people in the forest, it was getting dark, and I could see light flickering through the trees. I could hear them carrying on and eventually saw them exiting the forest. I had this feeling I needed to activate the invisibility cloak on the ship to not be seen, so I did. I got into the back seat and leaned back hoping they couldn't see me. I then heard this voice in my head. It said “I drive you as you drive me” The voice terrified me and had this eerie truth to it so I reached back through the link that was created by whatever it was that was talking and almost grasped it. I soon realized it was far too big and I couldn't contain it with my hand so I let go. All of a sudden the ship was surrounded by hundreds of people all pointing and laughing, looking into my eyes as though it were funny, hysterical, and I was in on it. I didn't see the humor in it but they kept laughing. I was scared of course so I tried to wake myself up and teleported away, but I was still surrounded. I couldn't wake up, every time I thought I was awake it was just another layer and there they still were, laughing, surrounding me. I could see them even when I woke up completely for a moment.”

Chapter 2

In this universe, the scales seem tipped even when appearing to be completely balanced. This is because of change, time, context, and tonality. Bright psychokinetic energy pulses from the green, self-consuming snake queen whose shadow is that of planet earth. Pulling from the future, pushing from the past, its shadow moves in the divine moment. His small shadow walks upon her with his goal in mind: to understand what he's supposed to know.

“There is a door here” he says

As he wakes, he realizes the journey will be longer than anticipated, or rather it feels like an eternity, but he thinks there has to be something here. It seems to him to be pointed to by dreams and intuition.

Walking down the street, he knocks on doors, casually and lost. The sound echos in his ears. Knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock. The sky doesn't seem to help but, he wonders about stars, maybe their alignment has something to do with it, maybe its some other planet, he might be on the wrong one. The ocean seems to call him mysteriously, but he thinks it may be just his imagination. The planet curves so smoothly, so subtle, and yet sometimes so sharp. He wonders about the dreams he's been having. What it all could mean. He thinks about the tunnels of energy swirling past him, genetic pillars through time, energy wave mountains in the hilly planes. Consuming and changing energy, they border the physical universe into something farther away, something more strange. Humans, he thinks, are such enigmatic creatures. The green mother snake speaks in strange ways, he thinks, what a queer planet, yet it is where he is.

Bull masks worn by the commoners to ward off threats, their ring nosed horn heads shaking lifeless in front of their faces. These viruses of memes, all programmed to do various strange actions through a day and night. All dragging forward they move through time, poisoned, limping, at the edge of dream. Suits of memes keep them weighed down, shuffling under the weight, each meme a puppeteer making them move through the day with their strange number driven, actions. He thinks, “how can a make someone take a meme off?”. He curls his fingers into his palms and squeezes.

3rd Chapter

He is with her, in this high platform, wind blowing by these strange buildings, the ground almost like a parking lot. They were walking against the wind, it pushing them back a few steps, forward a few steps. Buildings like mazes, walking around corners, more corners, more walls, more corners. The sky looks gray to him, swirling gray and black, it is hard for him to make out the colors. They both don't know why they are here or what this is for. The buildings finally open up, and there is a moving, shifting key. A man with a green necklace, a snake-like necklace, that spirals around his neck like the ring around a planet stands on this building, hair whipping in the wind.

The sky crackles and lightning strikes his hands. The man and women both reach into his chest, plunging into his ribs. A golden key comes out clutched in their hands making a holographic reflection in the eyes of the two people.

Suddenly the man finds himself in a field. He looks at the beautiful deep blue sky, and almost blinded by light, finds himself walking down a stream. Cold water splashes against his legs as he pulls a wooden cart. He looks out into the blindingly golden field, light eminating from it, a clear blue sky above, meeting gold and blue clearly, distinctly. He sees the water surrounding his feet is crystal clear, shimmering with a sparkling iridescence with the shifting surface. It seems too real too him, too bright, too beautiful to be real, too crisp. “I must be dreaming” he thinks.

Like a warrior he attempts to keep the image. A plastic sheen starts coating everything, and he can see the darkness encroaching from the horizon. He tries to fight it but realizes its all falling apart. The image collapses faster and faster, blackness eating everything he can see. He opens his eyes wide, startled, but sees a face, dark, real, in his face. Startled, he wakes again and sees four black shadows of humans, one bending over him, reaching toward him. He can see the room he was asleep in but it is changed. There is a scale over his dresser hanging from the ceiling, emptry, untipped, just a culcrum and two empty plates.

This universe is constant in its fluctuation. Change is the will of the cosmos. Cyclic dynamo's in constant flux. Habit and novelty in the ebb and flow like waves upon the sand.

The Chapter Four

He starts again, dies and yet is resurrected every night and morning, fears melting away and reforming. The birds he sees seem to be swirling around in what appears almost spell-like in its deliberate patterns. He wonders their true motives as they spiral around each other, in their seemingly playful way.

He thinks he sees a glimpse, “maybe it was my imagination” he thinks. He can't let go of the idea, he thinks about how these things have happened in his past, glimpses of something. “They feel important, real, more real than everything else.”

Walking through images, living through symbolic representations, he questions who he is. Who controls this display of images that seems to dominate his view. Living through symbols, he uses these images to live, to be lived almost.

He is in a field now, on a dirt road and sees through the eyes of someone else. This person seems to him to be a police officer, dutiful and innocent. He views a faded and rusty wood paneled station wagon in the field some 100 feet or so from the road, and threes silhouettes of females that look to be dancing around this car.

Feeling a sense of obligation, the man investigates. Walking up to the car he sees the figures are female, they seem to dance around in a purposeful way to him, as though their movements were some arcane gesture meant to conjure some kind of magic. They have no color to their skin, and it seems to be whiter than white, almost glowing. Their heads are bulbous, large in the back, and clear skinned. There are swirling, morphing colors where the brain should be. He notices they keep about their dance as he approaches, seemingly ignoring him.

The man shines his flashlight on them, trying to focus on their shifting forms, hypnotically swirling around him, fog surrounding them all, enveloping them. His flashlight's light paints the wall of white smoke in a 10 foot radius around them. He spins in a circle desperately grasping for any kind of understanding of these enigmatic creatures. When he sees one of their heads he notices it has hair, white and stacked in the old style. Their eyes glimmer, almost glowing as they hypnotically sway and swirl in a graceful and elaborate dance around him.

The policeman his consciousness is inhabiting, asks the creatures a question. “Why do you give all of your power to him?”

Suddenly there is an image, a black crescent against a blood red sky. The image seems perfect to him, an aesthetic ideal, something perfect in its form. His view also includes a black silhouette of a castle against the deep red unnatural sky. But this crescent seems so perfect to him. It seems powerful in its simplicity and placement, black in its mystery. The crescent, like a scimitar as black as void against the blood red sky cleaves the color in two. There is intention in its perfection, a kind of strange awareness surrounding it, as though it knew how perfect its form is and is arrogant with its display.

His view expands and he sees that the crescent is a stinger, scorpion in its shape, black bulbs interlocking down the tail. He sees a mans torso as his view expands, now head, the man seems aware of the viewer, and glances, glaring deep into him. The scorpion man has a cape he holds up with his hands and there is an overwhelming sound of the click clacking of spanish music, staccato and harsh. The clapping in short intense bursts fills the air. The scorpion man with a wild passion in his eyes demands smoothly and seductively “Look” He sees the cape is actually more than just a black fabric, it is multidimensional in its shifting colors, forming three dimensions, now more, somehow these images pull him in and he feels a deep power. “I could lose myself in this very easily” He thinks. The forms detach and disassemble, and he returns back to the man, his smile sharp and almost painful in its power. He sees a child, ancient seeming, yet a child all the same, with tall white hair and an elegant white dress. She holds a wheel with bizarre symbols, archaic in its ornate design and mysterious. He sees her spin the wheel and it seems to stop on a symbol. She says in his head a town's name. He feels the power in the towns name, he feels it must be true. “She divined something impossible” he thinks, and it hits him with immense inevitability.

He seems to innately understand in this vision yet, its transient understanding is fleeting and he cannot recall what gave him the feeling of the inevitability and even the name of the town. The impact of the statement is all he can grasp upon recall and alas he is stuck with its feeling and not its reason.

Time slips away just like mental states, and understanding is always temporary. In this ocean of awareness, what is one to do except be the wave, crashing upon the shore of novelty attempting to reach ever higher, but yet retreating in the end only to do it again, the habit of movement.

The scorpion mans voice cuts through the reverie like an arrow. “You think that is impressive, just watch what she can do.” He says.

The wheel is spun again, and this time the child speaks in his mind the name of a girl. He gets the feeling that this must be true, and its truth overwhelms him, powerless to deny it. Confused he struggles to gain meaning but just as before it slips away from him and he is left with the feeling and nothing more.

He awakens, this time on a bus. There is a girl cuddling next to him, hanging on to his arm. He feels a familiar love with her. He says to her knowing her questions “It can't be true, how could this child know” She agrees trying to convince him and even herself to deny the divination. She speaks aloud “Nobody can take this away from us” But no matter how hard they try to hold on, there is something slipping away between them. It seems so unbelievable to him that this could happen and yet it is.

He feels compelled, seeing her falling away from him, the glue holding them together disintegrating. Her image in his head shrinking into the distance, he stands from his bus seat. Fear envelopes him as he reaches out in his mind toward the girl but them both knowing the inevitability of it. He turns around and struggles to stand as the bus is moving, bouncing between the seats, and walks toward the back, toward his fate.

The Last Chapter

He then wakes again, the sound of music in his ears, abrupt and jarring him into cognizance.

The archaic meaning of dreams is ever fleeting, and yet the mystery survives, staying within his mind struggling to be articulated. There must be something there, something unseen.

Where does he go now? Where does the flow of time take him, the current of movement and change. The ocean of dreams wakes and sleeps, drifting him along like a melody.

Why can't he remember the name of the town? The girls name? What did it mean? Was it real? The town might look ambiguous but the name of a girl? Is it real or a fleeting carrot eternally dangled? He thinks, there must be a reason he is here, maybe something not articulated. The pretense to a statement finally made crystalline through the ether of understanding. This feeling he has, it calls his name like a siren, drawing him in his rawest form. His heart shrieks and wails, an understanding at his most vulnerable layer, and he feels like bursting into tears, if he only knew how. This is why he was born here, that feeling, the suffering of all animals, of all life, and the rejoicing in that understanding of the feeling. What does it mean? Does this result in a scientific breakthrough? Is it the goal of humanity? Is it the taste of our realized potential seeping down to us in the moment from the future? The name of this, humans maybe have glimpsed this and called it love, but the word has been used for so many things it's been lost in translation. He is only left with questions, yet more questions the more answers he finds.

He feels the call of another place, there must be another town, somewhere else to search and maybe help his articulation of this mystery. He takes the journey and moves toward the future, he takes a leap into the unknown, even if it is divined by some strange child and her wheel already. He takes the terrifying leap into the darkness, by himself.

This universe rewards courage, the plunge into the unknown is the only way to fly, if you don't hit the ground first. Each human is a hero in their own story, the protagonist, on a precarious ledge, in a flux between being about to die, and growing wings.

Infinite potential in finite bodies, like the infinity between 1 and 2. The twilight of the moment just understood yet over with. Always grasping for something to hold on to, always wishing a moment would crystallize, stay, free from the tearing uncontrollable river of time. Frozen in the infinity between 1 and 2.

The silver skies yawn and stretch their metallic mouths down to me, their blue lips dripping water and life. Wheels rolls me down the paths again. Sometimes it gets warmer for a while, even when the horizon is covered by thousands of trees blocking my vision. The cages of my desires follow me like blind spots in my vision, and my dreams overlap the images of trees causing a faint shimmering much like a magic eye. I hope for one day to share this white path with another traveler to relieve some of this weight. Dreams are much stronger when shared into the morning.

Chaos, a warm tornado made of skin and hair. Did the lights turn red again, or is that the blood in the air. Distorted sounds filling the feelings until spilling over, seeing that light but grasping through, as though it wasn't there. The confusion of the primal nature, earth calling me toward the dirt, sky drifting away while I stretch trying to keep horizon together. When its gone spun around in circles a new tornado to spin into an ocean.

Spiraling down the drain the colors that painted our potential sank dripping light from the faucet and going away through byzantine pipes like the words that are lost in the signals through our synapses. Unrealized lack of communications destroying potentials albeit bad or good, life and lack of continue muddily. I would assume a position of lunacy would it afford me a front row seat in the game that seems to be played with hearts. If no peace then the silence must come from the noise maybe clarity on hold for some dreams to take over. I wonder why fear destroys such potentials when lack of fear can crush them just the same. It is a strange path between the clumsy and the careful, let us now fall back awake and dream of cups of golden mead and basking in color surrounded by light, even if it be delusion