Sugarloaf gondola - from James Bond 'Moonraker'.
The “Frozen Popsicle” Universe is resonating with me again. See Watching For Snakes and The Chronoliths for earlier musings. A block of space-time is said to be “frozen” because it does not change. The universe is essentially made up of these frozen space-time ice cubes of varying sizes - some nesting within others - a Crystalline Entity where everything is possible and yet everything is pre-ordained.
While our egos experience reality as a stream of nearly random, happenstance events, what is actually occurring is that our sense of perception is moving from one immutable block to another. Our progression through these space-time blocks resembles the path of a snake, a river or film strip. This nature of reality is often experienced during an LSD trip: the “strobe effect”.
The strobe light was popularized on the club scene during the 1960s when it was used to reproduce and enhance the effects of LSD trips. Ken Kesey used strobe lighting in coordination with the music of the Grateful Dead during his legendary Acid Tests. --wikipediaMy own Varen had a visionary experience when he was but a wee lad about the “shape of the universe”, which was a series, not of cubes, but of diamond-like (dare I say pyramidal?) blocks of space-time that interlock into a matrix of stunning complexity, beauty and infinity.
Taking the next obvious step, I wonder why MY egoic space-time experience ride is not quite as fun as say... Brad Pitt’s? (who’s big break came in “A River Runs Through It”). We seem to be spirits of egoic “being” trapped in our own little cell blocks. Maybe Hercule Poirot’s “little grey cells” are entirely too accurate a description. I’m calling this the “gondola theory” of egoic space-time experience: we inhabit our little gondolas, all strung together by a thread of ego consciousness. I’ve known some people who are on pretty nice gondola rides, but I also know more than a few who have taken the cancer ride, and worse. In fact, there are so many bad rides available in the theme park called Earth that it makes you really just want to get the fuck off the merry go round and go find a better theme park!
Mats Roger Jensen - Norwegian Speed Skater, via Neverland blog
Which is why I’m rather attracted to the concept of the “ice skater” - someone who, metaphorically speaking, is able to skate from one frozen block of space-time to another. Maybe that’s the reason why Santa drives a sleigh? His presents are frozen space-time blocks of pleasant experience for good little boys and girls. The rest of us get coal.
I’m reminded of the TV series “Sliders” who travel from one time block to another. The Winter Olympics are full of “sliding” sports, and it may be that the slalom skier winding through his “gates”, or the tobogganer flying down his “track” are perfect examples of ego running through a pre-destined series of space-time blocks.
Which is all fine and good, unless maybe you wanted to jump tracks? More to come.
2 comments:
This was a fantastic article Michael!!
Varen's experience also sounds so incredibly interesting!!
i have wondered about stuff like this before too- altho not in the same way of course-well kind of- when I was going thru my "terrible" alcoholism phase around 1990-93 I used to think about suicide all the time- but even in my darkest (i did make one weak attempt) moments something told me that I would just do "Devin" over and over again - not necessarily like Nietzshe-but same type of person/situations- I still feel like I havent learned a great deal in this life- and I also feel like I am kind of close to the end- hopefully not-but I feel it on an intuitional level somehow- when my aunt went in for hip replacement surgery in February -I just had this feeling- "I won't see her alive again" she was up and moving the next day-even walking i think and I was like thank God-a prayer answered-but of course a matter of days later she got an infection and died on the first of March-
I am reading a book right now called "The Lost Secret of Death" by Peter Novak -it has been fascinating with some insights-if his hypothesis is "true" of course he is speaking from a somewhat different angle (i have about 100 more pages to go) he theorizes that the reason (if one believes in reincarnation, past life regression etc) that we don't "learn" much between lives is because our conscious and unconscious split at death-not to be reunited again until the next birth- so any learning that takes place isn't remembered by most -as in most people the two are so very split -sorry to go so off-kilter to the main theme of your article!!!
Ibogaine is another drug that some (according to Pinchbeck anyway) "freeze-frames" time
well sorry also for the overlong comment - (my over "volubility" if that is even a word:-) is even worse with insomnia and i take paragraphs to say what could be said in a couple of sentences
best as always to you and Var!!!!! hope the weather heats up there (i will try to send u some of ours) and i will continue to try to get caught up here- fascinating article once again!!!!!!!!!
Thanks for the comment, Devin. Its a fascinating subject, and thanks for the ibogaine reference. Salvia Divinorum is also supposed to create the "freeze-frame" effect.
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