notes to a friend....

---

Monetary exchange is a form of trade [ yes its a capitistic tool, I'm not debating that, and don't get me started, thats another topic ] but indeed you need to trade your time and experience, like any author, mechanic, brick layer, it is of the same nature.

it is indeed your choice to or not to accept anything for you skill.
but no one, not your sangoma, not your boys or friends can tell 'you' what you are worth, nor what you chose to do with your skill.

my advice is to aquire the skill [if thats your calling], and then decide what 'price' is the right one. Do not let others dictate your worth or freedom. Your time is yours to do with as you please.

I'm a scholar first.. I've studied a lot of things, it allows me to help others the way 'I' choose and often the way they need help.
[ I think I'm selling myself too cheaply, but what ever ]

other traditions.. excuse my bad summary.. but you asked..

mexican brujos have a very long and hard tradition of study, many of them are heabalists and healers, but they spend often a lot of time with their 'student' teaching them and helping them through grueling life tests. the Ancestors and Guides are very dangerous and the Student can be in constant danger. it takes a long time to Survive and complete this training really.

Native American study mostly varies.. Medicine Men or Women often live out side of the Tribe, and go on many Jouneys to help get wisdom from Animal and Ancestor Guides. Often Shamans were Chosen by Council, their Parents were shamans, or Ancestors/Spirits guide students to being a Shaman. Again, many of them are Herbalists and go through tests, like survival alone for many days/weeks without food or water.

Siberian shamans and other Medicine men of the Artic region, I'm not fully certain, but they are very close to Native American. they're beliefs may vary but many of them believe in a spirit world and inter-connection of the universe, a web of knowledge in all things, spirits, and ancestors.

Asian studies often are more of a hierachy of masters and students, and is based on balance, eastern medicine, and an internal connection to the universe. Body, Mind, and Soul are integral to inner happiness and being productive in the world. Not explaining it all, but Reiki, Yoga, Martial Arts, etc all have these disciplines underlining their codex.

Western Occult Traditions are more mathematics, science, and Nature pratices. Tarot, Ritual, and other Divinitory studies are in the mix... the Celts would be more natural and shamaic like, again herbal lore and rigorous wilderness survival, and storytelling are mostly what apprentices would be subjected to.

I hope this ranting helps, it very basic and I know each region will always vary, but it should give you some info to ponder.

cheers love,
+laine+

[ .nite.and.skin. ]

all the lights
out in the night
are watching slits
(observers watching)

lamp posts preen down
seedy traffic & guttral tail-lights
feasting and burning up
heavy sky to wet street

far off dirty dull bulbs
in apartment kitchens
look questioningly
at you and me

all these cuts glaring back
their sharpening sentience and
spear-like eyelashes are hungry
prepaired to rend meat from bone

impatiently waiting
their stark naked glare
so fresh on your supple
nitemare skin

© Bryan McLean, January 29 2007,
excerpt from The Syndrome Papers
Book III : The Epoch Wake

To the Tune of "Silk-Washing Brook"

This garden of hundred acres is half covered in moss.
A white stream meanders before the gate.
But who can come here and enjoy this quietude?

In covered walkways through the small courtyard spring is silent, silent,
just mountain peach blossoms, a few apricot trees by the stream.
For whom do they drop petals, for whom do they bloom?

___________________

Mooring My Boat at Guazhou

Jinkow and Guazhou are separated by water.
Bell Mountain is just behind a few mountain ranges.
Spring wind has greened the south bank of the Yangtze again.
When will the bright moon light my way home.

Wang Anshi
(1021-1086)

Wang Anshi (Wang An-shih) was born to a modest family with a history of government service. Although Wang Anshi started out as a provincial official, under the Emperor Shenzong (reigned 1067-1085) he became the most important politician of his time, a reformer who sought to regulate many aspects of Northern Song culture, from education to the military.

When the conservative forces in the government opposed his reforms, he fell from favor and resigned. He was a protege of Ouyang Xiu, who praised his work, and like Ouyang saw literature as in the Confucian tradition of promoting moral and social improvements.

His collected poems consist of more than 1500 pieces, and a number of his prose pieces also survive. He is known for the simplicity and clarity of his poems, especially for those written in the regulated verse form, and as one of the Eight Masters of Song and Tang Dynasty Prose. : source :

[ .cclvii. : two hundred and fifty-seven days ]
[ .reading: WE, zaimaitin, Communist Anarchist, berkman. ]
[ .listening: city.and.colour, neverending.white.lights ]

" I'm afraid...to sleep because of the way you haunt me.
I know you can make me fall apart so softly
And know you turn away so easily
And leave me all alone "
~dallas green

Late night.. my hour, really. slept till 4pm today.. I'm not well, I suppose this shouldn't be a surprise, need to work less perhaps.

I'm on my last run with my meds. weaning myself off them this next two months, so I'll see how this goes. I know I still have down days, and feelings I cannot account for. thoughts are still imbalanced I should say. I'm not sure I'm ready to be off them, but its procedure. I'd rather be free of it, but I have been more settled and productive with them. the honeous should be on me, and not the meds, to control my moods.

my relationships have been lacking I suppose. I find I'm on different schedules than everyone.. no one gets back to me.. I'm trying to be free for others in my life, but it seems this just isn't the time. it never seems like my time, to speak up and be selfish, to get what it is that I want... I just don't want to chase anyone anymore.. its been fruitless, and all kinds of signs say not to give up, to carry on.. but thats what I've been doing a long time. do I get to lay my head down and rest? cuz I don't want to wait a whole life to get something that should be so simple.

how much faith is left to waiting?

*sigh*

well, its bed time for demons..

+lost.laine+

Quoting freelove: don't you think life is easier to bear if you have a "meaning" or "purpose" to motivate your action? if you believe that everything you do is pointless in the grand scheme of things, it's pretty hard to get motivated ... and it is fairly easy to prove things are pointless, because at the end of the world, all of this thriving life will be reduced to nothing ... making every act as if it were nothing ... (rant all you like... ;))

[ .clenching.mine. ]

gray matter
and the stain & strain
of broad daylight
slicing through
each slit of window
its cutting my patience
where hands only shudder
over our eyelids in the dark
and drain down fingers
over cheek, bone, & lips
these fingers
that miss your palms
clenching mine

© Bryan McLean, Jan 15 2007

[ .ccxlviii. : two hundred and fourty-eight days ]
[ .reading: WE, zaimaitin, Communist Anarchist, berkman. ]
[ .listening: rage.against.the.machine ]

" All because of you, I haven’t slept in so long.
When I do I dream, of drowning in the ocean,
Longing for the shore where I can let my head down. "
~rise against

So, its twothousandandseven .. *blink* Yup, its started.

been busy, mostly reading and getting more disillusioned lately.

I suppose studying anarchy isn't really meant to settle one's being, perhaps.. but duely noting capitalism's grasp on western culture, it forces me to consider appropriate solutions or even actions to take.  

Betterment of Man... Equality... Value of the individual or the laborer's fruits.. all remain fantastic concepts, but adjusting society to attain these ideals creates a bit of a structural issue.

I guess you can't re-make a building without dismantling its interior at least. Someone needs to mail me the 'modern guide to living as a wage slave'.. its frustraiting reading documents nearly ninety years old, and to realise that nearly nothing has changed.. dispite the societal fruits of 'many' women & men... those silenced or heard.

Has no one considered that identifiable mental illnesses are on the rise? Minds are indeed trying to be free of a system that steals our wealth and teaches us that it is right and just.

Pretty strong irony in a system that provides approval to the medication its masses need to stay stable.

I guess this makes the media pedagogues of our time the most prominent bourgeoisi e...

...more later
anger is a gift

+lost.laine+

propaganda, consider : 

The time of that realization will depend on two factors: first, on how soon existing conditions will grow spiritually and physically unbearable to considerable portions of mankind, particularly to the laboring classes; and, secondly, on the degree in which Anarchist views will become understood and accepted.

Our social institutions are founded on certain ideas; as long as the latter are generally believed, the institutions built on them are safe. Government remains strong because people think political authority and legal compulsion necessary. Capitalism will continue as long as such an economic system is considered adequate and just.

The weakening of the ideas which support the evil and oppressive present-day conditions means the ultimate breakdown of government and capitalism. Progress consists in abolishing what man has outlived and substituting in its place a more suitable environment.

Excerpt From: Alexander Berkman, Now and After: The ABC of Communist Anarchism, New York: Vanguard Press, 1928-29.

[ .lovers, I. ]

like teeth tucked back
hidden in the shelter of gum & maw
where it's one more for the lovers
in their six o'clock shroud
nothing cuts more
than ending a sleepless night
in the rising a.m.

© Bryan McLean, Dec 31 2006