The Menhir is the current events/update page for Nemeta—like a campus bulletin board you find in the “student union” building. Entries posted in reverse chronological order can be found with most recent at the top for fast access.

The Menhir

The Menhir is the unique page in Nemeta that tracks and displays the ongoing activities of the School. Here you find the announcement of updates on newly added material, completed Blocks, revisions, talks and texts in progress, proposals of projects, events and meet-ups, and more. This introduction continues below the updates.

Please note: Ensure you are enrolled on the relevant courses to obtain direct access to internal unit links published on The Menhir.

Faculty and guests may have noticed that theme songs have been chosen for some but not all courses. For the School itself, the Maine Professor has chosen THIS ONE.

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LO QUE SALTA 2.0

Remember that this forum topic is for posting random, sudden insights and observations, or questions and topical issues noted in brevity, that come up spontaneously. It is not the place for extended back-and-forth in a particular topic. If such a topic arises, dedicate another thread to it. Otherwise, start tight and fast. Use this feature as you would if we were hanging out in person and something hits you. “It just occurred to me…” Like that.

Tuesday 19th November 2024: Yesterday the school was offline due to interference by a nefarious Bot. Lord Michael worked all day and night to resolve the issue. Thank the goddess for our Lord Michael…

Sunday 17th November 2024: The Nav reporting with some breaking celestial intel. As you know, I have practised skywatching for a good many years. Between March 2011 (Fukushima event at a supermoon) and March 2104, I conducted the GNE which was an experiment in following the course of the mothership through the galactic arms. You will find a summary of what I and others learned in those three years in this talk:

I advise you to re-listen to that talk in preparation of the new navigational intel that I will only preview here as it will require more time and attention to get out in full. The new intel concerns how the mothership sets her bearings by the yaw to the bow (apogee of moon) of the ship, and to the stern (perigee of the moon, following tide). I gave the above talk at a moment in August 2021 when I detected that the yaw at 11 Libra @ 190 in the head of the Virgin aligned with the south lunar node at 6 Libra @ 186 in the same location. At the 17th of August three months ago the two were closer, converging in 6-9 Libra. Remember that the nodes PREcess, moving backwards against order of the zodiac, and they indicate the roll of the mothership. The perigee advances but erratically, like the thrashing tail of a dolphin.

Now compare: On August 3, 2021, the date of that talk, I noticed that alignment with the north node and the apogee both in 5 Gemini @ E 65 in the head of the Bull, near the Hyades and the Pleiades. So there were two precise moments when yaw and pitch combine, then and now, about 3 years and 3 months apart. That means we now know that the mothership takes her bearings at roughly that interval, over and over. Finally, while you are taking this in, remember that a vessel takes its bearing according to instructions the nav gives to the pilot, and the pilot keeps the vessel “on course.” But the bearing is not the destination of the course, the heading. It is only the adjustment of advance in direction that keeps the vessel on course.

Apsides :: yaw, swerve of the bow and stern : the bearing of the mothership
Nodes :: roll, the rocking up and down from one side to another
Pitch: to be described (Look for anomalies in the northern sky, especially with the Big Dipper)

What’s rocking the boat is the effort of the the mothership to release the earth from the capture of the planetary system.  That’s “Alignment.”

What I can preview right now comes from my virtuosity with prescience. Often when my rigpa delivers an insight or idea after having worked it over for along time, it happens so that it brings my attention to something in the celestial sphere that proves to be exactly pertinent to what I realize at that moment. Here is the current example: Last evening I remarked to Ceridwen that the lunar apogee has been in a stall for an uncanny amount of time. Usually, as we learned in the GNE, a stall of the apogee may take 2 and 1/2 to three months, or a little more. That is already a long stall. Well, I checked the navigational parameters and it turns out that the apogee has been stalled in the same place since mid-August. That’s running on more than three months, not two. The location of the stall is 10 – 14 Libra @ E 190-4 aligned to the Grail Cup. I have been perplexed by the persistence of this stall. Then, this evening, I did the calculations and realized, as noted above, that the apogee in stall aligns to the southern lunar node.

In a more complete comment, I intend to describe what pitch is and how to detect it, and see if I can define the navigational parameter for the course, the heading of the mothership by contrast to her bearing. To those of you who may be intimidated and baffled by the technicalities here, I assure of this: The nav knows all that so that you don’t have to master it, and the purpose of explaining it to you is to prompt you to make the real-sky observations that prove what the nav is telling you.

At this point in time, coming through the 10th year since the GNE ended in March 2014, In find that the scope, detail, and precision of navigational observation available is astonishing. Steady as She goes…

Friday 15th November 2024: Recently Ceridwen discovered a couple of units in metahistory.org that had not been copied into Nemeta when we launched the site. They are:

4 The Gnostic Picture Gallery ONE

4 The Gnostic Picture Gallery TWO

In a notable incident of synchronicity, The Art YT channel released this video today.

Last month or so, I made the exception of contributing to the Patreon account of The Ark so that I could send a short message to the creator. The reply was even shorter, almost like a shrug. He acknowledged that it was good to see that were are working at the same intent, or something like that. Now think about that. What can you make of it? What do you hear listening to his commentary? Does it sound like an echo of someone? I am not accusing him of plagiarism or copycat tactics. I have no information of his background or where he is coming from. It would be hypocritical or me to question why he does not reach out in the attitude of alliance. I myself don’t have that attitude, as you know. I believe that my views on the revival of Paganism can stand independently of corroboration or even endorsement from like-minded people. Nevertheless, I can’t help thinking that the proximity of The Ark’s message and my own is exceptionally close. What to make of that observation, I can’t say. What do you think? Respond in Lo Que Salta 20 or start a dedicated thread in the PT Forum.

Look at the entry page for his Substack. Given that he has the same attitude as myself, that his work is a stand-alone venture, I find myself asking this question: If alliance is not an option on either side, does that leave competition as the default setting? I can’t see what to do here, or if there is anything to be done. I certainly cannot approach him on my own behalf. That never works. But I don’t mean to suggest that anyone else do it for me. What sticks in my ribs is the question, If two independent platforms are this closely aligned on the paramount issue of our time, how could the authors not be in touch with each other? Does it come down to the selfish concern for losing subs by bringing attention to someone else’s work? I really can’t figure this one out.

Friday 8th November 2024: Today I am releasing from private setting a number of units on Celestics and Dialectic Astrology (DA). It may have slipped your attention that a while ago (October 2023) I introduced a new Course, 14 DA, dedicated to what I formerly called ASB, Astrology for StarBase: HERE There are currently only two units in that Course. My hesitation so far in releasing that material is due to two considerations: First, I am reticent to drag you into DA which is a massive program equal in scale and technicality to Celestics. Secondly, any work put into the presentation of DA is extremely time-consuming for me.

And it gets worse. You may also have noticed that Course 14 Celestics has been on private for quite a while. Often I don’t know if I am on the landing page for that Course, or in a unit of the Course, or in the complementary Course 14 DA, or in the material I am developing for the new platform on StarBase (see below). I face redundancy between the material on Celestics on Nemeta and on the new platform. So, I have cut some units in the former Course, but left others open. The Block on Cameos is spotty and incomplete. I enjoy doing the cameos but they really take my attention away from other, more immediate tasks. It’s an indulgence to look at Celestics Cameos. That Block is on hold for the indefinite future.

A PRIMER OF STAR BASE and REAL-SKY PARABLES are open, but many other units remain on private while I sorting out what goes on Celestics on Nemeta or on the new platform — all the original Celestics Training Courses (CTC), for instance. Also, the THE FIVE GREAT TABLEAUX  is incomplete and on private. It’s a boundary issue! In the future, some of what you have previously found in Course 14 Celestics HERE will be OVER THERE. I cannot maintain both delivery systems at the same time.

As for the block ORIGINAL RELEASE introducing forensic astronomy in January 2014, I will use that material for the new platform but leave it open to you as a gesture of courtesy. Imagine me rewriting and organizing all that past work to build the new platform.

The recent unit on virtuosity goes in Course 14 DA. Now I have to see how to manage that material in a way that will benefit you and not overwhelm me. Unit/pages in DA 14 are on release but also in revision.

The issue here is how I measure the time required to balance Celestics on Nemeta with the new platform which you can preview HERE. For about three months Ceridwen and I have been working intensively to launch this new WordPress platform. My intention is to release it soon with all menu pages, and only those pages, in free-access to introduce Celestics and offer the Sampler publicly for a fee of $25. All material in the drop-down menus will be held back until I see the response to this offer.

In view of the recent activity on the StarBase Celestics FORUM, it appears that I’ve got some ‘splaining to do.  I had completely forgotten there was a forum for SB. The organization of this ensemble of materials — Course 14 Celestics and its forum, the 14 DA Course, the new Celestics platform, the back-end source code for StarBase 5.0, the front-side delivery app for StarBase, and now the issue of using DA to detect virtuosity —  is monumental and often throws me so that it’s hard to tell what I am working on at any moment.

In view of this situation, I have posed a new thread on the Celestics Forum HERE where you are currently discussing the three-point proposition of Valediction – Imaginal Role – Virtuosity. It’s clear that you are somewhat confused on the basics of DA and the horoscope format. The new thread in the forum goes to a unit dedicated exclusively to finding virtu from the planet ruling the rising sign: 14 DA The Mark of Virtuosity: HERE. I ought to have made that a separate unit in the first place so I will attempt to correct that error. I have written the title of that unit is large green lettering to display on my monitor so that I remember it. I have given myself 48 hours to get it done.

You might bear in mind that I am currently writing a screenplay, “The Gnostic Love Triangle”, and completing a definitive 30-page essay on the astronomy of the Grail Legend. Now I have to dive back into DA to extract the procedures that will be helpful to you in assessing the factor of virtuosity. Right now I don’t even know where to find that material. Some of it going back to lessons I gave decades ago is not in electronic format.  I am massively over-tasked at the moment…

Monday 4th November 2024: New unit published in 14 Celestics:

14 Valediction, Virtu, and the Imaginal Role

Sunday 3rd November 2024: New unit published in 7 Poetic Craft:

Fomenko’s Rival: The True King of Time

Saturday 2nd November 2024:

Day 1 BodhiMa Shift 2024

New moon on Friday the 1st in 10 Scorpio @ E 220 in the Cache, Treasure Chest. Today, Saturday, Nov 2 = D1 of the BodhiMa shift. The moon has 14 degrees to go before it appears around E 234 in the left pan of the Scales. Chances of sighting it in the Scales from Europe are low, and further west in the USA it will already have slid into the Scorpion by sunset. This event typifies the nuances of calling shifts. It could be said that for viewers in the USA, it goes to Kamala/Scorpion. Due to various factors, I stand on the call for BodhiMa.

Self-arising wisdom is the natural base of mind.
The five negative emotions are virtual intensities.
Seeing emotions as wrong and undesirable is an error.
Letting emotions find their own level, like water,
Is the poise of the Diamond Sky Dakinis.
Surpassing both fear and hope is the result.

Dog Zen instruction of BodhiMa

Venus is in the Snaketamer on the 20/20 line, high and large in the western sky. On the 4th the crescent will be very close to it.

Tuesday 29th October 2024: Unit added to 4. Gnosis Today:

How the Mysteries Died

Sunday 27th October 2024: For everyone’s convenience, a scroll up/down button added to Nemeta, see bottom right-hand side of all pages:

Thursday 17th October 2024:

LO QUE SALTA 2.0

While writing the two units released today (see below), a talk with Gregg Braden came up in random feed.

It turns out this interview hit close to home because “Levi” is reacting to a long vid on Inspired, the channel run by Jean Nolan who happens to be an off-and-on colleague of Frank Jacob who created the TimeCapsule webinar. You only need to listen to 5 minutes to get the message Braden is delivering. This is a true gem of wisdom treasure coming from a spiritual guru. With the evangelic zeal of a hair care product salesman, Braden declares the shampoo-rinse-repeat dogma of human divinity, “a force we can all access within ourselves.” [Admin: original interview here Bad Blowdry Braden]

In the new unit on the Parable of the Cache and the complementary unit on the Parable of the Scales, I introduce the Formula of Discovery. Against Braden’s pompous claim, I arrogate: All right, fine, that is the wisdom treasure you have discovered and now intend to share with the world. But how did you discover it?

By now you are familiar with my intensive and long-standing argument against human divinity, the Christ within, Christ consciousness, whatever. It is a fundamental human error due to miseducation about what we are, contrasted to who we are. When left uncorrected, this error supports and fosters many lies and fantasies which give the advantage to human evil and deceit. It strikes me as felicitous for this illustration of the Formula to appear exactly when I am writing about it. One could get into many arguments discussing this new cage/theological claim with Braden or others who hold it. But if you know the Formula, you can go straight to the error and disarm the claimant with a Socratic tactic of dialectic that cannot fail. Either the claimant cannot explain how he or she made the discovery, or, in explaining how, they reveal the specious, deviant,  and inauthentic basis of the claim.

Two new units published in 14 Celestics:

14.100 The Parable of the Cache

14 100 The Parable of the Scales

Tuesday 8th October 2024: New unit in 9 Biomysticism:

9 The Diaphonic Circuit

Monday 7th October 2024:

Course Forums are accessible through the Faculty drop-down menu: https://nemeta.org/forums/forum/courses/

LO QUE SALTA

Wednesday 2nd October 2024: Attention faculty and registered guests to a new feature in the School. Some time ago we added a list of forums for each of the 12 Courses, which now appears in the right-hand column of all units. The intention was to encourage comments specific to each Course. After a while I noticed there was no activity and eventually I concluded that this was a good thing. Here’s why.

The mission statement for Nemeta says that this platform is “the on-line portal to a range of in-life experimental learning paths.” My intention from the start was not to propose a program of education in the virtual, but merely to provide a virtual portal for practices in real life (as it is now quaintly called). That being so, I encourage you to take what you find here into your lives as suits your disposition and circumstances. I am confident that you do so. And again, that being so, I find it not surprizing that there has been no activity in these 12 forums.

If I were either a registered visitor or faculty member, I would not be inclined to expend my precious time in virtual keyboard interactivity. The admin tells me that all members read the threads in The Treehouse, but only a handful respond. Again, this is correct and consistent with the way the School operates.

I have decided to address this issue of avoidance of virtual interactivity by adding a unique forum thread linked here on the Menhir: LO QUE SALTA. In the future you will find it at the top of The Menhir posts as seen above. You can ignore the other forums, but, if you are disposed to make an immediate comment on ongoing posts on The Menhir, there is where to go. This way there is a kind of daily hotline where you can respond to what ever jumps at you, “lo que salta,” when you come to The Menhir for an update. Think of it as sharing a flash with the Lash and his entourage.

The post opens with a paragraph I wrote intending to put it at the head of each of the 12 forums to encourage participation. The meme: “lo que salta” comes from Paco de Lucia who used it genially to describe the spontaneous jolt of Duende in Flamenco, or any genuine art form: what jumps out at you, what startles you in the moment. It is likely that each of you who come to The Menhir may have an immediate response to new material or to something in your circumstances, a striking event or brief insight, a thought or quote for the day, whatever. If so, click immediately on the link and make your comment. Make it fast and easy. In future, I rely on this thread in the Rookie Room as the foremost and perhaps sole facet for virtual interactivity, apart from what members want to discuss in The Treehouse.

Tuesday 1st October 2024, next to the last day of the first Shodashi shift. Next new moon 6:68 PM  UTC, October 2nd, the New Hunter’s Moon. A couple of weeks ago I came across the channel linked below. Watching a couple of clips, I wondered if the content was plagiarism or merely excellent parallel work. I still don’t know. I made the exception, first time ever, to contribute $20 on Patreon and wrote a polite note of introduction. Crickets.

There is no question who bought and paid for Peterstein. Be sure to read the comments which are as revealing as the content. I do not suggest that anyone try to contact The Ark in my behalf. I insist that you don’t. I am resigned to exclusion, not only from grifters like Jay Weidner, but even by presumably sympathetic parties who appear to share my orientation and goals. Nothing to be done there. 18K subs is 10K more than me. I can’t explain that but then I don’t need to. It’s a relief not to care.

Sunday 29th September 2024: New unit in 14 Celestics:

14 My Hollywood Valentine

Friday 28th September 2024: In completion with Shodashi. Recently in the mood of this shift I had occasion to revisit a poem by Rilke, Wendung, “Turning Point.” I was looking for a citation he added to the poem which was rare as he almost never did this. It came from the works of his lifetime friend, Rudolf Kassner:

The road from intensity to greatness passes through sacrifice.

Odd, really, because I have never throughout my life thought of anything I’ve done or attempted to do as a sacrifice. It’s an alien concept. But it turns out that I am thinking a lot about that concept right now. Does the revelation of Beauty require sacrifice for the one who reveals it? When I chose to break the vow of silence of the Mysteries, it never for a moment crossed my mind that I would face anything like that. But it turns out after all that I do.

… Whatever the case, the link to Rilke led me to this upload. It is not easy to read and pronounce what Rilke said in the language of German — which, as some astute critics have noted, he made into a language of his own, as if there is the German language as such, and then there is what Rilke wrote in German, and it is his own distinct creation. I find that the linked upload is a pretty good rendering in English of what he wrote. It consists of extracts from various works in poetry and prose. I hold it as a version of the Credo of Shodashi, the Thrice-Beautiful One, Tripurasundari. Make of it what you will, however it pleases and suits you, or not.

Monday September 23rd 2024: Five minutes of Celtic Dreaming.

The modern-day inhabitants of Galicia in northwest Spain do not consider themselves to be Spanish except in a loose  frame of national identity. Rather, they are Celtic. Gallego, the local dialect, is a long way from Castilian Spanish and almost unintelligible to non Gallego speaker. It sounds more Portuguese than Spanish. Although signs of Celtic presence such as dolmens are rare, having been uprooted and ploughed under by farmers, the older ethnic flavor lingers like a vapor over the landscape which itself can be reminiscent of Ireland, Cornwall, or Wales. And there are places to the west and north where the mountains meet the sea. As here:

The drum is a gift from the Maine Professor to Xose. The lilt of the Celtic air is unmistakable, poignant, almost tragic, yet “gay.” Enjoy five minutes of Celtic Dreaming. And remember the opening line of Aurelia by French Romantic Gerard de Nerval: Le reve est une second vie. “Dreaming is a second life, another life.”

Friday 20th September 2024: New unit in 12 Ideosophy with one talk and a second in preparation:
The Infliction of Suffering and the Frontier Code

By the way, regarding the previous message here, I’m not going anywhere soon in any sense.

Wednesday 18th September 2024: On this day, I find an incoming message, “Come Home.” (See below, The Friendship of Strangers). Well, Spain is my home in exile, but not my native home. The ledges around Martin’s Point, the colors of the autumn leaves, those pathways in the stillness of the Maine woods… you see what made the child who would come to bring Gaian Alchemy to the world.

Heath’s upload is so timely. It is right around this time in Maine in mid-September when the leaves turn in the alchemical wonder of metallic transmutation of colors, proof of the power of the Aeonic Mother to materialize before our eyes. And by October 10th or so, as if timed to exactitude, comes the melody of the sudden autumn wind (Akikazi No Kyoku) that blows them all at once to the ground, one pentatonic note at a time.

I have been feeling the call to come home for some time now and with compelling escalation. The questions are, when, how, and where? This song captures the feeling.

“Oh babe, I hate to go.” Oh Babe, My Fucking Spain! I hate to go but I have to go. To stand on the land of my country and speak its language. To go off-side and off-set in the land of my natural birth, contrasted to the land of my supernatual birth in the obliterating beauty of Spain.

The Big Beautiful Goodbye

Correction: 24m. Sems = mentation, ordinary mind. Sems-nyid = mind-itself, which is equivalent to rigpa, not the Void. Tsong Pa = void.  Tsong pa-nyid == Voidness. The Tsong Pa Kid.

1st Shodashi Shift 2nd-3rd September 2024: 12 Virgo @ 162 in Lion, crescent at head of Virgin

2nd Shodashi Shift 1st-2nd October 2024: 10 Libra at the Grail Cup @ 190, crescent at the knees of the Virgin

BodhiMa Shift 1st-2nd November 2024: 10 Scorpio @ 220 in the Cache, Treasure Chest at Kambhalia, crescent visible fleetingly in the Scales shifting toward the Correction Zone

Scorpion-Snaketamer Shift 1st-2nd December 2024: 10 Sagittarius @ 250 near Antares in the Scorpion, crescent visible in the Snaketamer

The song strikes a lot of themes, some quite personal or pertinent to myself, that you will decode immediately without even thinking about them. But no, it goes wrong in the end  — the “indigo child ” is a spurious and delusional new age meme — the Earth will not forget me or  you, ever.  As long as your divine mother remembers you, you stay with her, sail with her, even in death.

Tuesday 17th september 2024: To celebrate the opening of the 7th year of Nemeta, you will find a revision of the organization of all material in DOG ZEN, with some new text in certain units and text in process on others. All in all, there are 27 unit/pages, each with a talk. Previously, a unit/page could carry more than one talk, which was extremely confusing. In the new organization, there are 5 BLOCKS with all talks on their pages distributed in a more or less orderly way.

View of the Zen rock garden of Ryoanji at “the temple of the dragon’s respose,” in Kyoto.

You perhaps will have noticed that there is a playlist on DOG ZEN on my YT channel. To enter the 7th year of the School, I am repurposing that channel to promote projects and products coming from Nemeta with the intent to generate revenues for the continuance of the School. The DZ uploads are the final material I am posting for free on that channel. So far, two have been released. Three or four more will follow, and that’s it. They are teasers.

You may have noticed that Dog Zen was on and off the private setting recently. That was due to work in progress. The new organization required changing some URLs so you may not find those units if you saved them as bookmarks or favorites. However, you can find all units easily from the course landing page. Complementary to Dog Zen, there is a new feature titled “The Maitreya Up Close and Personal,” due to be released soon.

Lunar eclipse in 356 Pisces at Matangi Point in the lunar increment near Saturn.

Remember that the lunar increment is that unique moment every month when the Aeonic Mother tightens and directs the tensegrity of the biospheric web — comparable to an archer pulling the bow to its highest tension before release. Considering what some rumors say about what’s happening or is about to happen in the world drama, this is significant timing. Note also, that after sunset Venus is clearly visibile at Spora in the Virgin.

One can always expect the worse from the enemies of life, of course. But their game is wearing down and they are running scared as the inversion/Aikido tactics of Matangi come into definition in way that cannot be ignored or concealed. Whether or not there is an election in the USA in November, the president has already been selected. I suspect that DT may not make it to the finish line. His handlers have enforced their deal on him and he is not happy about what they demand. In exchange for following their orders and agenda, there is probably some option for him, leading him to believe he will live to see it out, but the chances of them backstabbing him on the deal are very high. No one wants Commie Kamala, even the handlers.

It remains to be seen what hilarious, and possibly destructive event they have in mind on that issue. Brace for an horrendous shitshow. Don’t get caught off the back foot by incoming trauma.

Whatever the case, I invite you to consider that the lunar eclipse at the Matangi Point on the eve of the 7th year of Nemeta is an omen of failsafe. Reflect on what that might mean.

********

Sunday 15th September 2024: Tibetan master Dzongsar Khentse recommends for first reading of Buddhist literature the same two sutras highlighted by Lama Luv Mutt, The Diamond and Heart Sutras.

“Shunyata-oriented texts”: Shunyata = voidness, translated by LLM as the co-presence of the dual and the nondual, and/or the union (coupling, not unity) of your presence in the world-setting with the presence of the world-setting. The Tibetans have as many definitions of “Void” as the Inuit have words for snow. I initially got keen on Void from reading German-Canadian Buddhist H. V. Guenther (The Life and Teachings of Naropa, 1963) who gave it an existentialist spin. He proposed that void/voidness not be misconceived as emptiness, rather as the plenum of contingency in which all things and acts are interdependent with all other things and acts.

Contingency is an existential trope related to the ethical concept of engagement. D’etre engage, to be engaged, is moral and situational commitment to the awareness that everything done, every act performed, including mental acts, and even sensations, arises in a plenum of contingency which itself is empty of dependencies even though it provides the ground of all dependencies. In some later works (such as Ecstatic Spontaneity, 1993), Guenther took the existentialist spin too far and over determined its application to Vajrayana syntax, leading to tongue-tangled garble. Yet when he did hit the mark, he hit it in the bullseye.

I cited Guenther in Heart Drop Medicine and other essays in The Tantric Conversion (October, 2008).

Friday 6th September 2024:

For those of you who have had good viewing conditions, here is the trajectory of the sunset crescent for the current Shodashi shift. The new moon @ E 162 (12 Virgo) occurred in the loins of the Lion so that first sighting of the crescent would have been in the throat of the Virgin and then again down the length of her body. The succeeding new moon will fall @ 190 (10 Libra) on October 2nd, aligned to the Grail Cup (Vindamaitrix, 11 Libra), which means that the first sighting can be as early as 190 + 14-16, around 205 (25 Libra) aligned to Spora in the sheaf of Wheat. Hence a second Shodashi shift.

This poses the prospect of a second Shodashi shift running until November 1st with the new moon @220 (10 Scorpio). This is in the Cache or Treasure Chest at the knees of the Virgin, E 218 – 224 (8 – 14 Scorpio), at Kambhalia, the Alchemist’s Star. From that longitude the sunset crescent can appear at the earliest @ 220 + 15 = 235, in the Scales on the left side. So, there is a prospect of two Shodashi shifts followed by a rare Bodhi Ma shift starting on D 1, November 2nd.

Revised syntax for PT:

“Some of you who have been on board with my work for a while may recall the Kalika saying,

“The highest desire of the Diamond-Sky Dakinis is that you command them — by pleasure.”

It happens that coming into this Shodashi shift, my rigpa directed me to that statement and highlighted a detail of the syntax. It specifies the Diamond-Sky Dakinis, doesn’t it? Those are the five Dakinis on the florette: 11 Swan Deva, 12 Tantra Mother, 13 Kurukula, 14 Vudasi, 15 BodhiMa. They are distinguished as liberationist agencies, contrasted to the ten Devatas on the oval, which are desideristic agencies. This difference is essential to confidence of practice with the Shakti Cluster.

In the traditional schema of the Mahavidyas derived the cult of Shri Vidya (Auspicious Wisdom) of southern India, the desideristic powers “grant boons” and confer personal favors and benefits, such as wealth, health, beauty, abundance and more; and they also can curse, harm, and disable personal enemies. If they stand distinct from the Diamond-Sly Dakinis, would the familiar saying above also apply to them? No, not exactly. Consider this:

“The highest pleasure of the Mahavidyas is that you command them — by your desire.”

It’s the same formula with terms transposed in accord with the different powers of the two groups.  The formula for the Mahavidyas asserts that it is the strength of your desires that commands them, and gives them pleasure as a result. On the other hand, pleasure is not the result of commanding the Diamond-Sky Dakinis, it is the requirement, and in that manner their highest desire is satisfied. Until now, I had not made this distinction totally clear in my mind. If you get it, you can see how it changes the dynamics of interactivity. The liberationist agencies hold as their highest desire that you command them by pleasure — but the pleasure of what? The answer resides in the character of the liberationist powers by which you liberate your own mind from everything that impedes its innate enlightened activity. It is the pleasure of mastering your own mind that commands them and invites them to enter, inform, and direct your mind through the prompt of rigpa. Such is the revision of that original syntax.

From The Tantric Conversion, I:

Earth-Touching Mudra

In the last sentence of her book, Buddhist Goddesses of India, Miranda Shaw expresses the hope that, “in view of its extensive female pantheon, Buddhism may rightly take a place among the world’s goddess religions.” I noted in the introduction of Planetary Tantra that I will not be citing scholars or backing up my outrageous claims with textual quotes and statements from the experts. But I would crawl across Times Square at rush hour to kiss the feet of Miranda Shaw for the gift of this book, and the follow-up to her equally magnificent offering, Passionate Enlightenment. Shaw is one of a small band of fearless woman scholars who are breaking Buddhism out of its patriarchal mold and liberating the goddess elements. She is a champion of the Divine Feminine.

Buddhism as a goddess religion? How can this be? Well, Shaw opens with an argument that can hardly be refuted, if you ask me. She recounts the classic legend of the enlightenment of Shakyamuni, focusing on the theme of victory over Mara, the lord of illusion. Various biographies describe how the earth goddess, called Prithivi or Sthavara, intervened to dispel the illusions of Mara, leaving Shakyamuni in the perfect concentration required to attain enlightenment. Still, there came a moment of confrontation. Mara claimed that the Indian prince had nothing to show for his alleged superlative acts of generosity, not a single witness to attest that he, the man who would be a Buddha, had benefited humanity in any way. In other words, Mara accused Shakyamuni of being a narcissist, hung up in a self-centered quest for liberation.

Shakyamuni replied to this challenge by the words, “Let this great and solid earth be my witness,” and by a movement of his hand, the bhumisparsa mudra, the gesture of touching the earth.

Miranda Shaw says that, because the “seat of enlightenment” is the earth itself, the earth goddess supports enlightenment. Through 519 pages she elaborates on a wide range of Asian earth goddesses who represent enlightened wisdom in ways that correlate to the Gnostic Sophia, without however once mentioning Sophia by name. This oversight does not mar the book. Rather, it clears the atmosphere and prepares reception for the Tantric conversion.

Wednesday 4th September 2024:

Day 1 of Shodashi Shift 2024

Tuesday 3rd September 2024: JLL on YT: Freedom Dawning: A Terrible Beauty Is Born

August 2024 School Activity now archived to The Menhir’s curriculum units: The Menhir August 2024

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The Home Story (FGS)

For the Fallen Goddess Scenario (FGS) free online course in 9 episodes, visit Sophianic Myth | The Fallen Goddess Scenario

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Dog Zen

DOG ZEN

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Introduction to The Menhir, Continued:

Notifications sent out via the Mailing List to both Members and Subscribers will also inform you of these ongoing activities. This page mirrors those periodic announcements by email and in some cases alerts you to new content, be it talk or text, that gets omitted from the announcements due to the rapidity and fluidity of John’s ongoing efforts to amplify the curricula, refine and reframe the content, and provide clear and “simplific” direction for your studies.

Announcements at the Menhir consistently track progressing content throughout the School and in 16. Planetary Tantra, free to all. It will also signal content on 18. Breaking Nous, and 17. The Terma and the Terton, available to Members only.

The sacred groves where the Mysteries were originally performed were sanctuaries of natural beauty where rocks and mineral formations were carefully observed. There might be a special rock at the boundary of the sanctuary, as there was a “stepping stone” on Infinity Ridge:

There it was a flat stone (barely visible in this photo) on the left at the base of the wild olive standing offside the welcome grove. When you stepped on it you formally entered the ritual space of the Ridge, then proceeding through the gracious arboreal corridor to the Devi Tree. (Sierra del Hacho, Andalucia. Sierra de Libar to the right, northwest)

In many cases, sacred stone markers were erected in the wild sanctuaries. A single standing stone was called a menhir (Brythonic maen, “stone” and hir, “long”). An arresting geomagnetic marker in the force field of the nemeton, the menhir had acoustic properties as well. Touching it, you could hear differently. Sitting in contact with it would deepen the shaman’s reach into the Nagual. It also served as a geodetic marker for placing the local site in the setting of seasonal cycles, aligned to the solstices and equinoxes, the cross-quarter days, and the rising and setting of prominent stars. Hence, it was a multi-purpose tool of orientation.

It is advisable to check the Menhir for orientation on Nemeta from time to time. Below you will find entries listed in reverse chronological order, most recent at top for easy access. This list will grow and morph in the course of each month. At the completion of each month, the activity recorded will be archived in the curriculum panel: “ARCHIVES”

One final word: I do wish to keep Nemeta supplied with occasional fresh input, additional to what it requires of me to maintain the burgeoning structure, the ongoing organization of the Blocks, editing, revision, etc. But I can only do what I can do, and as it pleases me… Time is at premium for me now and I have undertaken a writing project, the consummation of my life’s work and the closing revelation of my mystic journey.

Teach as you learn

– jll Autumn Equinox 2018

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