2002: Hella Kool

How much cynicism is too much cynicism? What do you find, rather than think? These are the questions.

(updated: 24 April 2024)

Pre and post clubbing photos in early 2002 in front of the new webcam.

[ src | 2 ]

So I spoke to Ella Hooper briefly when she sat down in front of me at the Saint Hotel.

That was most probably in 2002 and most likely on a Sunday, I think.

[src]

At that moment, I was probably by myself – a sign of strength, I would say.

In 1997, Jack Alan liked The Saint too, and everyone would see whoever walked in due to the open plan and elevated corner entry. Good for people who worked out.

So Hooper was wearing a small “one star” badge with her all-male crew around her.  I said something vaguely like “that looks like an unfinished American flag” and she responded like “I don’t know what it means, I see it as representing one world.”

I would’ve kept speaking but her friends all took off and she left too… because I was about to hit it off with her, non?

Initially, perhaps she missed her own dark brown, wavy hair and was aligned with the whole “one-world/age-of-enlightenment” thing too.

[src]

I still am, but it needs to be balanced with a big, hard dose of conspiracy theory/fact – saints versus sinners.

Moreover, “Lightworkers” are known to commit suicide all too easily, because when the darkness hits them, they can’t handle it. And Bonnie, who I remember from school presumably did just that in July, 2020 during covid lockdown.

[ src | 2 ]

But I don’t know enough about her individual case to make a concise comment, but it is so very sad nevertheless. And as Morgs told me at the 2021 reunion something like “life isn’t smooth sailing for everyone, and not everyone makes it.”

They crop themselves (or others) out. The last time I had spoken to her was at the Chevron in 1997 and I was too tipsy and too distracted (and it was too loud) to have any meaningful interaction. In October 2019 I drove through the Tweed Coast and probably should have reached out, but I thought, what’s the point?

So The Saint has a good vibe and is still running to this day, albeit heavily renovated. There’s a good chance that I saw the late Paul Havea singing on the same night that Hooper came through. He was in Eden‘s K for Kool band and instead of clapping my hands, I would click both my fingers and that was kool to Paul and he started grooving all the same. On another Sunday, the DJ came over to me and kindly put me onto Mark Farina and I bought the CD afterwards.

It might’ve been the last CD I ever purchased. My favourite track is at 32.48 and the one after is alright. The rest of it I can pass on.

I saw Simon Grey there once around that period too. He wasn’t playing but he was with his pals and his plans for eternity. I had already recorded some drums at his studio (or was about to) and he played me a track pre-release through the monitors – I think it was this one but am not sure.

Abby died a few years later too due to liver issues, I think. Very sad loss too.

It’s also worth noting that during Grey’s 2018 Pledge Music appeal, on the forum I suggested that he do more “Jazz House” with a swing feel and some months later a Crackazat remix appeared which I included in Ormus King.

Incredible breakdown at 3.25 — Simon Grey – The Galáctica Suite (Crackazat Remix)

So there was another chap of African-descent who, like me, was a regular at James Ash‘s 2-Step night at Salt Nightclub in the sideroom in 1998. I saw him at The Saint at that time and mentioned something about having a girlfriend and he said, “well, if there’s a girl around, then’s there’s one around, and if there isn’t, then there isn’t. It doesn’t bother me that much.”

I was vegan at that point and was going through what was almost certainly the early stages of a Kundalini awakening, which is considered a feminine energy anyway, so his sentiment was (and is) aligned with my own basically.

Moreover, in Tsfat, Israel 2005 along with other students reading ancient Kabbalistic texts, I learned that a wife is ultimately about enabling a man to find his own inner feminine.

[above left and middle – Ascent Hostel]

How easy. But it made sense. I told Hart about Kundalini and he said something like “we think we’re humans but we’re really just monkeys thinking we’re human.” Yet Kundalini doesn’t mean much to people in Tsfat, but Shekhinah (שכינה) or Ruach HaKodesh (רוח הקודש) does. When I did mention something at  Shalom Rav shule about Kundalini (a Sanskrit word,) someone pointed me to a chapter about Abraham’s gifts going to the east.

src

And so it should be noted that Solomon was already prepared for to this.

src

But with myself still locked into Baal, and without Solomon as my wingman, I wasn’t sure I had found my wife-to-be as yet and even donated my copy of Bahir to another student while I waited to be illuminated and shown the way.

Anyhow, back in January, 2002, I wrote this in one of my essays.

“The Kundalini-type energy engulfed my whole brain. The sensation was like standing up against a tidal wave without moving an inch! When I made the effort not to resist or judge the energy, BAM! A hit of power went to my central brain and my whole being shuddered. My typical mundane awareness had crashed into an ocean of dense consciousness that seemed to underlie the physical universe. A consciousness wave splashed out from my body and passed through the bedroom walls. It looked like an animation strip. Soon a flashback came to my mind. I saw the empty chamber which exists in the centre of the Death Star as seen in the film ‘The Return of the Jedi.’ This was symbolic for my head – an empty space enclosing a God powered fusion reactor in the middle. In this space the ‘light side’ of the force had just attacked my concept of death in order to bring about immortality. However, the attack was not complete because the death star was not fully destroyed! (film scene below)”

src

It’s worth noting that I had a very dramatic internal experience like the one above after going quad biking in New Zealand that year on the north island (Paihia). And that’s 2000 years of pain, unworthiness, misery and torture from Jewish exile being cleared. I struggled on the bike and even lost the group in the forest but by the end was trailing the instructor and was winning (if that’s the right word.) It was also the first year of Heartcarving as done on Ruapehu and there were people attempting to copy my style without poles. So NZ, it seems, was the emotional precursor for me to leave Australia and eventually go to Israel but I didn’t know it at the time.

It was heavy-going stuff, and in the West it was very left-field and prior to that I wrote to the Datre channel in late 2000 and got some answers about Kundalini, specifically directed to me.

1 2

I summarised that answer (above right) in October 2002 as follows:

“Datre are said to exist as a collective of souls whose messages are spoken by ‘human channels’. They view the fully-fledged Kundalini experience as a “crash course in trying to understand what physicality is all about” but with someone not necessarily becoming “a grander person if they have gone through the Kundalini.” Kundalini causes a “re-alignment of the physical construct” and “when that alignment is finished, you will see things differently.” The difficulty is that after a re-alignment it may take “a long time to be able to assimilate the information from that point on” because often the Kundalini can cause “an opening of a flood gate of information” whereby one might have to “grab a hold of themselves and stop it [the information], because if they didn’t they would have gone mad.”

Good to know. That summary was part of my research that I was doing into spirituality where I came up with 3 essays in 2002 and for them, composed some diagrams.

But the “Wisdom Cycle” diagram has gone missing. Looking back now, a transformation did indeed take place. For example, I would lie in bed awake and think in only English words and generally only about the future. That sort of changed and my inner-space deepened. “English words” doesn’t mean hearing voices, it just means normal, day-to-day thinking.

So continuing, another person I spoke to at The Saint was Mieke (below far left.) I actually spoke to her outside while we were leaving (but not together) and ended up saying something like “there are good and bad people wherever you go.”

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by Mieke Baxter (@miekejade)


It was an accident that I saw her outside and I had already spoken to her a few times at Saratoga nightclub prior to that where she was working behind the bar, and we both knew the owner there Goofyfoot/Brett who was on Groovetip. Brett was also there that night at Saint and I think there was a function going on at the time. There was also another chap that night that really liked her (one of her co-workers) it seemed and it was an awkward situation for me. Having Jack around would’ve helped but I’ve always enjoyed talking to Brett, though. In fact, I met Cadell and helped get Best of my Love remixed a number of months after that – a song Brett penned.


I never saw Mieke again except on a modelling agency website along with a couple of other people I knew. There was such a strong resonance between us (at least that’s what I felt) that it blew my mind. Sometimes the fuse just blows and it is never reconnected as was the case there. She may not remember me of course, but I’d be curious as to when (and why) she left ‘Toga where she said something like “I saw you burning up the dancefloor” –  I wish.

[src]

I remember first meeting Helen and her guy friend at ‘Toga around that time but I didn’t speak to her for long and I’d be curious if she remembers that night too – but it was likely 2001, though. I even gave them a lift to Greville Street station in the Hyundai Excel and let them use my Nokia 3310 which I disliked due to how much EMF it produced and felt tingly as a result.

[ 2000 ]

Helen dressed like Aaliyah and was so hot I paid her a compliment saying she must “stick out like a sore thumb” at her school and there was a brief interaction about age: I presume the two weren’t underage for the niteclub but I didn’t ask for their IDs – she mentioned something about a birthday. I don’t know her surname but remember the school the pair went to and it wasn’t mine.

By chance, I saw her again at Mink Bar a few weeks later standing at the bar with some other fellow, but much older, he may have been Greek (I’d never seen him before or after) and yet she appeared excited to see me at which point he placed his hand on her jeans just to rock the boat. It looked like she was trying to dress-down rather than up and maybe she was in overalls yet was naturally blonde. I never saw her again – even upstairs at the Prince Bandroom that was in the same building. Wasn’t stuck-up at all.

It’s crazy how a girl can be with a guy and completely ignore him if there’s another guy she likes or is interested in more. Something like that happened in Byron Bay at La La Land with Anoushka and her boyfriend, both from France at around that time. I’ve also seen girls get with guys just to get close to one of the guy’s friends and project that like onto him. Only a theory. But a lot of girls would flick their hair when I looked at them at ‘Toga. My guess is that it was hard to find younger guys that liked and danced to House music, with a fashion sense and outside of a pub (or rave) context.

[2002 – at a birthday funktion]

I mainly bobbed my head to the off-beat.. so simple… who would’ve thought? I only taught myself actual dance steps over a decade later because I wanted to learn the Melbourne Shuffle. But the best place for me to go on a date was a nightclub… for sure.

A guitarist buddy Kiran told me on MSN messenger that the key there is having detachment. Good guy too and amazing player with some type of Shakti thing happening.

That Eclectic Ladyland show was in 2004 at Dizzy’s and was a follow-up to the Human Interest album launch there.

[src]

The venue had a Friday jam session and it was easy to meet people. I also met keyboardist Adam Rudegeair who spins Black Wax on PBS and Harry before The Cat Empire became an empire. I actually took a guest spot on Rasta Radio on PBS in 1997 with Sinatro. Oddly enough, I found myself starting a reggae band after playing in Skaface, and the promoter shuffled me upstairs to meet him.

A couple of other Rasta guys also came in for an interview and I didn’t understand a word they were saying as they sat across from me. There was an interesting scent around too.

src 2 3 4 5

I was answering the phone to ascended listeners and playing my Songs of Freedom box set as well. Then, almost 20 years later I was playing reggae on the streets of Zion with Yoha and listening to his songs of freedom.

I got into RnB by listening to PBS every Tuesday and Saturday and 1994 was just Da Bomb in terms of tasty beats but I didn’t know anyone that was into it as well.

[src]

Eventually, I wound up at an RnB night at the Warehouse/Salt to see it all for myself. It was so gnarly. I got so much female attention. I was probably the only white guy there.

Anyway, I had posted pics of Kiran on Groovetip with a female companion and I ended up having to take them down because I’m pretty sure it caused a female ex of his a lot of stress, and subsequently him. I’d have to double check. Anyway, best of luck to Mieke and her family. Having Facebook around back then and much cheaper digital cameras would’ve helped.I read in the Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle some years after its release in 1997 that females have a very active “pain body” from millennia of rape and abuse by men, and it’s very difficult for them (and their men) to work through, but they should.”Apart from her personal pain-body, every woman has her share in what could be described as the collective female pain-body — unless she is fully conscious. This consists of accumulated pain suffered by women partly through male subjugation of the female, through slavery, exploitation, rape, childbirth, child loss, and so on, over thousands of years. The emotional or physical pain that for many women precedes and coincides with the menstrual flow is the pain-body in its collective aspect that awakens from its dormancy at that time, although it can be triggered at other times too. It restricts the free flow of life energy through the body, of which menstruation is a physical expression. Let’s dwell on this for a moment and see how it can become an opportunity for enlightenment.” – P158So a year or two later after speaking with Hooper, by chance she walked passed me by herself on the footpath and looked at me, smiling away.I think she had a boyfriend at that point, so live without it… like the rest of Australia!

 

 
✓ 3 weeks ago

Japan Gets Real

Along with new voices.

(updated: 28 April 2024)

I’d always known about Japan. From a very young age, I saw the Japanese characters on the back of soy milk cartons, along with Astro Boy on television. In 1988, I learned Japanese. My dad’s good friend had a Japanese wife. Also, we had some Japanese neighbours in the apartment building in 1987 whereby Mikito Fujimoto and a bunch of us would go to the Fun Factory and blow our coins on Double Dragon and Dragon Ninja.

Mikito was an only child and his dad was a hairdresser. I’m pretty sure their visa application was rejected and they returned to Japan. He brought over his Famicom and used it here and that was amazing to me. He struggled with English but we all made it work somehow and he was a lot of fun.

Back then, we had a Honda Accord and on my way to learning Karate in 1995, I learned Tae Kwon Do at the time too.

Yet mostly I dreaded Thursday’s Tae Kwon Do class because at 2 – 2.5 hours, it was so tiring and stressful. It was also a fair drive to reach the Camberwell Civic Centre. One time, the car ran out of petrol and literally rolled into the servo next door. And that’s the way the class made me feel so often.

But, under the guidance of Jack Rozinsky, I ended up with a yellow belt and two stripes before stopping. Karate in 1995 was with Sensei Joe, which I preferred.

I won an award “Most Spirited Senior” that year and was somewhat sad to give it up due to study commitments and a desire to change my physicality.

1 2 3

I threw away the trophy recently (late ’22) due to it dropping, but should have a photo of it somewhere. I remember sparring competitively with another Jewish guy double my age (Jonathan?) at the second-floor venue in Cato Street.

One of my school friends Peter was doing Chikara style Karate at the time but at a different association and when he found out about the commonality on a lunch break, he played me Pantera in his walkman. He was into the game Street Fighter II a few years earlier and used to emulate the moves he saw and take on the whole theatrical effect.


I went to Japan in December that year too and for the first and only time, I bleached my hair with Tina in Greville Street for the school holidays.

[pic 4: Kobe post earthquake ??]

That trip was with Jun whose immediate family lived in Japan and I knew him from Geelong Grammar, Timbertop.

[ Jun on bottom bunk, in front of Use Your Illusion II poster ]

He slept in the bed next to mine and in fact, on about 3 occasions  in the middle of the night I heard (and saw) him sit up and speak a completely alien language to me.

[ At the interstellar departure gate. ]

No one else witnessed it, and he knew nothing of it personally. At the time, he was on the top bunk, not bottom. So Song and Jun must’ve switched.

[ Song and Andy ]

It wasn’t just a few words either, the monologues would go on for 2-5 minutes and were very fluent. They really should’ve woken up other people but did not.

And Jun was very often the last person to make the breakfast line-up, right after me. Re-orienting with illusion?

The lingo used for sleeping back then was “spine-bashing” and “departured” and it was a favourite pastime for many.

Today, very rarely I might hear music in my dreams – if only I could access it in waking life, like Lenny Kravitz. Perhaps people access past lives too: and languages. I had a massive download in a sleep in Jerusalem in 2005 – maybe that was Jun’s?

I should’ve tried sleeping on the roof.

Another school friend Sascha (brown jacket below) and Jun’s cousin (pink jacket) also made it over to Japan as Jun is Australian/Japanese.

There was a lot to take in including skiing at Tenjindaira with incredible amounts of snow (compared to Mount Buller) and at one point Jun and I spent 45 minutes looking for a ski. I took a fall in the powder and somersaulted and the ski was at the top of landing spot, not down the hill where I stopped. I also recorded a video of me skiing to the base of the mountain, but the camera was on full zoom so it came out poorly.

Anyhow, in Tokyo, January 1996, I checked out the the Elvin Jones Special Quartet with Wynton Marsalis at the Tokyo Bunka Kaikan. I missed Jamiroquai by a few weeks light years.


But, by chance Prince came through a night-club that I was at with his massive entourage. I had last seen him in concert in April 1992 for Diamonds and Pearls. He played a number of shows in Japan also in January 1996. I’m not sure if he came through after his concert but I did see him from about 10 meters away despite me not trying to get a glimpse as he strutted across the dance floor to his next destination.

I bought a number of CDs as well: R. Kelly self-titled, (What’s the Story) Morning Glory? (on Sascha’s recommendation,) Jesus Wept and Back from the Raggedy Edge. All these albums came out a few months prior to me arriving. I really was very fortunate to be able to make the trip to Japan and am very grateful for it.

Continuing, I started Bagua and Yoga in 1997 and became vegan for a period of time. I also gave Pilates a few sessions.

But was I heading in the right direction with my menu? I was using a book to learn some of my Yoga poses. Was it enough?

I was still eager to find new voices, even if I didn’t understand them at first.

So via Sugihara, Japan provided a lifeline for my grandparents during the war on the way to Australia, so where was the next stop? Back to Japan?

TLC released great tracks in 1995, which I first heard in Japan, and I mashed up in Israel in 2013.

So is that where I would find flow?

The plot thickens: how do Israelis find flow?

alike:

1 2 3 4

✓ 2 weeks ago

1997: Don’t Sell Yourself, I Say!

Rather buy into your more authentic self.

(updated: 13 May 2024)

In the first half of 1997 I was weightlifting and eating a lot of red meat. I gained about 10% in body weight at my peak.

Because turning 18 wasn’t just about driving and drinking. It was also about weight training, clubs and effortless attraction.

My brother Luke was also going to the gym.

My gear above is 26 Red. The rugby top above is Blanc Bleu. The red/brown shorts are also 26 Red. The white shoes are Air Max 96 and black trainers are Puma. Luke’s top is Ministry-of-Sound (MOS) from London.

Anyway, as part of a uni assignment, I put up a personal page about myself (pic 3 below) and that’s not me in the hammock.

[ 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 ]

So in 1997, the notion of “selling myself” wasn’t really a thing. You buy into me, I decide if it’s worth it, we make it happen, and that’s it.

Anyway, nothing resulted from that page. But a couple of years earlier I put up a page on my high school site (above right) about myself and a few girls emailed me about it. I didn’t know who they were and didn’t reply. That was my first web page. For this next uni page, I think I wanted to avoid strangers contacting me because the idea of “selling myself” online wasn’t a thing. Who was the person behind the email?

So I had a taxi driver and Deakin University economics lecturer pal Jack Alan who was also weightlifting and was 10 years older. He was of Persian descent and arrived from Buffalo, New York. He had a PhD (or Masters) from New York University regarding stochastic methods in economics and he personally knew Peter from Monash, who Luke also knew, but not personally like Jack.

Initially, Jack drove my dad and I back from somewhere at night in late 1996 and we ended up inviting him into our house for further intellectual discussions. We played tennis and hit the pool at my uncle’s place nearby and Jack had another buddy of his come along to join us for the game. We made a number of homemade videos of us cruising around listening to G-funk, sometimes in his red Mazda 121 and other times in my green/blue Nissan Bluebird.

pic | CC

(self-portrait (2024) insertions, car insertion)

Unfortunately the video tapes were thrown out after selling Washington Street in 2006.

[ ’06 ]

The camera I used to film was below, and like below, I did record another 21st party or two for friends at the time.

[ 1998 ]

The videos were kept in the wooden cabinet if anyone has a time machine! Perhaps some of those videos I took may be floating around somewhere. I think Jack had kept one for himself.

I worked as a busboy in that year at Carousel, (Albert Park) delivered pizzas and controlled the dancefloor lights at Silvers (now Jacksons). I also did mobile DJ’ing with a computer (see pic above) and general event promotions work like dropping flyers and passes. One was for the Whisky aGoGo Friday night at Silvers for the organiser Warren, and I brought Jack to that, and a couple of female friends I knew at the time also came to Silvers. That club was around the corner from Washington Street.

I spoke to Warren initially at Jac’s Bar (upstairs at Silvers) and he was a landscape gardener by day. The “Whisky” night had a few female dancers in hot pants dancing all night on podiums. There was also one guy dancing too.

Additionally, I was rehearing at home with guitarist and school friend Noah, and also upright bassist Lucy but we didn’t do any gigs together. I was also rehearsing at Revolver (when it was a music store) with Kon and Nik after responding to a street press advert and we did do a number of gigs together.

[ src | jamming at home 1997| eating out 2007]

[home recording ~2000]

I pushed off a lot of old school friends in order break my comfort zone at the time. Very difficult to do. I don’t know what happened to Jack, maybe he went to the Gold Coast. He was selling protein powders too at the time and was really bulking up. Fun times. We swung by a lot of clubs together. Once at Silvers, he saw some of his own students from uni and they went bananas.

One standout track we bumped was “This DJ” and we considered ourselves as Ticks [1:36: “So I hops in the van with my homie Tick”]

1997 wasn’t all peaches and cream. I failed Accounting and repeated it again in summer. Failing a subject wasn’t something familiar to me. I also cut out alcohol consumption as the hangovers were bad and could knock me about over the next day. Also, I could never fall asleep drunk.. I would just lie awake with my head spinning. I do miss the beer goggles though!

Moreover, I came to the conclusion that drinking was just a way to spend one’s “happiness credits” that would accrue naturally over the week. So being “happy drunk” meant a loss of happiness someplace else during the week during sobriety. In 1997, I explained this to someone drinking at the bar at the Arcadia Hotel and they sort of agreed with me. Lucky I didn’t get kicked out!

[at the downstairs bar, 2022]

The theory explains a lot of why people crave the weekend so badly – just another theory, though.

Yet, at Club Med, Val d’Isere in 1992/93, another skier Matthieu said in a French accent regarding women that “You must attack!”

 

He was around 15 at the time and had a girlfriend, so that was his tip on how to get one because he asked me if I had one and I said ‘no.’

Whatever the case, I still enjoyed playing drums.

 

And that led to new introductions and interactions. But Club Med had “clubs” anyway for young people to meet one another easily no matter who they were and people met in ski lessons too.

Yet what I think he meant was to be confident.

In Bali, 3 years later I played with some other guys too at a hotel.

And also met a macaque driven by desire.

Yet, it’s about more than just music and confidence though, but goodwill.

So Matthieu was a great skier and good companion, and on our last day we went off-piste, I think even crossing into Italy, and then took a long bus ride home to make it piste-off.

“Women need a reason to have sex. Men just need a place.” – Billy Crystal

Speaking of forthcoming, on 25 Jan 1997, I went to the Big Day Out music festival. I rolled up alone and without a ticket in the evening. At the gate, someone was leaving and sold me their ticket for $5. Win. After entering, I said hello to an extended family member who I saw by chance (person I was filming at top in front of fireplace) but then kept walking to the main stage alone. People were all sitting down. Then a girl – complete stranger – walked up to me, paused for about 3 seconds and said: “Do you want to have sex with me?” I became the rock star.

She was attractive too – around my age. I had long hair at the time and still had a tan from schoolies week. But I hesitated. I think I said “I don’t know” and then she said “well do you?” and then I was silent and then she walked off permanently. The whole interaction was easily less than 20 seconds. I can’t fully recall the dialogue, but I told a school mate Cam about it a couple of days later.

So later that night, I saw Marc at the main stage and checked out Soundgarden and started moshing which really wasn’t that enjoyable.

In August 1997 I started listening to Be Here Now by Oasis, and in March the following year I was fortunate enough to attend the one and only Oasis concert in Melbourne. But I preferred to stay tight lipped over it, because of the bad reviews as Liam was so wasted and Noel sang for most of the show.

[ Sydney ~2000 ]

So much for goodwill around the world, but at least they finished the Melbourne show. “Goo goo k’choo.”

Oasis were huge in the 90’s when music and media blended so well and labels had larger sets of artists that they would develop and promote.

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by St. Lucia (@stlucia)

Incidentally, I spoke to a random chap in ’97 (maybe the next) at Silvers and he said that he would wait until closing time and walk around the room and keep asking females the same question “Do you want to go home with me?” (or something similar) until he got a yes. It worked for him, and he said that people that hang around that long are all there for the same reason and would rather have something than nothing. I don’t think he was much older than me either. Each to their own – a spoonman.

Nevertheless, I’m not sure if I had planned to meet Marc at the BDO. Also, the bizarre thing about Marc was that we first met by chance at a beach hotel in Goa, India in the late 80s [below right, at left].

Note – this is not skateboard Mark although he still might be interested.

I even went out on a rented yacht with his father after failing at windsurfing, unlike Marc.

(1 2 3 4) 5

Around 5 years later he ended up at Wesley College, lived close to my house and we became good friends. He was from New Zealand. Then one day while at home, it all clicked that we had met before and I showed him my diary from India and it even had his name written down. Wild moment but I haven’t seen him in decades as of April, 2024 – like many of my other friends from growing up and these memoirs are a way of retuning myself with the past and upcycling consciousness, whilst corporations monetise them on the sly.

“The irony is that what most people are trying to imitate is authenticity.”

[ Marc at left from 2016 ]

Our school motto was “Dare to be wise” (Sapere aude) but how about “Dare to be different” in a world where fashion can easily become tyrrany?

But this is what’s really in fashion right now: growing old… so can I upcycle out of it using marvellous profundity? Will that activate the etheric 12-strand DNA? How do I bring nourishment into the thousand-petaled lotus and stop the fountain-of-youth from crumbling away?

But that’s only for the yogis and believers in pseudoscience. I’ll take real science any day.

Does growing old have to be about getting old or getting on? Can’t it be about having an indefinite shelf-life like honey and rather growing wise and kind? I’m already part of an unbroken chain back to the patriarchs/matriarchs, so perhaps I am part way there anyway.

Heroes are made, not born, one should hope!  Is life about “God versus the devil” or “God includes the devil?” Is enlightenment about having all questions being answered in a single moment?

Anyway, so a few days after BDO, I saw Silverchair at Festival Hall with Michael and found myself amongst masses of screaming girls. I think that gig was an overflow gig for the Palace show as a result of high demand and is unlisted. Otherwise I went to the one in December.

Daniel might know.

Anyway, it is worth noting in Victoria that: “It is an offence for a licensee or permittee to supply liquor to a person in a state of intoxication. It is also an offence to permit drunken or disorderly persons to be on the licensed premises, or on any other premises where we have authorised licensees to serve liquor.” source

And in that respect, in 1997 during uni Orientation Week, one night after leaving Prince Alfred Carlton adjacent to Melbourne Uni, I was told something like “come back to see us during the day” as I stepped through the door on the way out. I asked why and the bouncer just said to come back. And the exact same thing happened again in March 2019 for reasons unknown to me – I wasn’t even drinking alcohol then, but I didn’t ask the bouncer why.

In ’97, I wore a pair of blue, velvety Diesel pants (drum pic below) and red, suede Vans skate shoes a lot back then – so was it for a photo shoot? The demand really irked me after a good night out and I never went to the venue properly ever again, until 2019 for moment of déjà vu. I was phasing out drinking as well in early 1997, another reason I never returned except for a gig in October.

[pic 3 – Sydney, late 2000]

1

The band was named after the book The Celestine Prophecy from 1993 but I never got far into it. Some great quotes can be found here. We even had a song called Celestine.

I did read Siddhartha and saw the film at the Trak (underneath Silvers.) I also read CwG Book 1 and ended up reading most, if not all in the series.  I also liked the Osho website and could download his talks.

[src | src 2 ]

I also read a Sivananda book brought back from India for me that covered Kundalini much to my interest.

“If Kundalini is awakened before he attains purity by Asanas, Bandhas, Mudras and Pranayama, he will come across the temptations of the other planes, he will have no strength of will to resist these temptations and will have a hopeless downfall. It will be very difficult for him to climb up again to the original height which he climbed in the ladder of Yoga. Therefore the aspirant should try to purify himself first. If perfect purity is attained through Japa, Kirtan and constant selfless service, Kundalini will awaken by itself and move towards the Sahasrara at the crown of the head to meet Her Lord Siva, the trident-bearer of Mount Kailas, the store-house of wisdom, bliss and peace.” – src

[ 1 | 2 ]

Notice he implied people should strive for purity rather than to awaken Kundalini. Interestingly, I ended up handing many of my books to Toby, including that one, and we recorded music as well in 2003. Toby put me onto the incredible The Wisdom of Ramala which mentions purity 26 times.

Kundalini in 2023 has 37K subscribers (Dec, 2023) on Reddit and it doesn’t interest me at all, but there’s interesting stuff on Marginalia.

[ 12 Jan 2024]

I suspect Kundalini-Shakti is as important today as it has ever been because it is more intelligent that any AI because it knows the future due to its incredible presence. In 2001, there was an issue of What is Enlightenment? called Can Enlightenment Save the World?

[ src | 2| 3 | Jan 2024 ]

All great content, including White’s description of Homo Noeticus – the next stage in human evolution. Says White above: “Enlightenment is the only thing which can save the world. The only thing.” And that “Homo noeticus is the term I use to designate what I see as a higher form of humanity emerging on the planet now, characterized not by genetic changes but by noetic changes.” So researching these topics kicked into high gear for me in 2001, my last year at university that began in 1997. It was my unofficial degree I suppose, and how can you sell someone the future – it’s already been bought!?

Another channelled take on Kundalini alongside Datre (book) was St Germain from 1999 and I remember printing the whole amazing interview out and reading it in a park.

“The thing is that everybody is different, in terms of the clarity of that moving through the body. Some people do kundalini in a clear way, some people don’t, then it comes right up, causing the mind to shift – burns out the mind, in some people’s cases – but when it is balanced, it just is an addendum to your life, it just adds in. It doesn’t really awaken, it opens your capacity to function with your spirit through your body rather than through your mind and through your imagination. If you’ll notice, people who really stand in their knowing and have a truth mechanism in there, it’s because they experience it in some fashion in their body, not in their mind. So energy when it moves in the body is identified as Shakti, as kundalini, everyplace has a different name.” – src

I also found a Gene Kieffer interview in the same journal.

[src | 2]

Also, Maitreya (another channel) covers the topic here in the following snippet as related to sexual energy, and it actually dates back to 2003:

[ 1 | 2 ]

Incidentally, at the time I remember the artist formerly known as Terence Trent D’Arby becoming Sananda Maitreya – I wondered if he was channelling himself.

(goto 1:35) And he says “a new spirit has become a part of my experience.”

So Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras date back almost two thousand years ago and address the same topic of preparing for, and enabling the dissolution of the microcosm. And today there is a lot of Kundalini information and people on Quora, although I prefer to avoid using that Sanskrit word for something that is so universal and undefinable – it also opens someone up to being labelled, condemned or even idolized . . . Shakti is at least more specific.

[ 8 Dec 2023 ]

For the doubters, just because someone doesn’t understand something or can’t access it (often due to fear or pain,) doesn’t mean it’s not true. Although one could say: “you don’t awaken your Kundalini, it awakens you, and until then, forget about it.” And interestingly, in 2022, an English translation of Abraham Abulafia’s Light of the Intellect from 1285 appeared on Patreon.

[8 Dec 2023 – links above]

For one person’s Samadhi may be another person’s Active Intellect, and the translator above is a Jewish Indian.

Anyway, from 1997 onward I walked passed PAs everyday for years, being at the end of Bouverie Street and on the way to the main Parkville campus. I saw groups of people – uni students – ejected from that premises at certain times to fill up the footpath outside. Perhaps selections are made via CCTV from a back office – that bizarre scenario is not to be ruled out. Like many others, I think I was ejected back in 1997 but can’t fully recall what happened. Maybe I wasn’t. Why do they even stay open during O-Week? You keep drinking, and when you’re spotted (apparently) inebriated, you’re thrown out, just as the the law states. But why are you asked to return the following day? Nice interior, though.

Continuing, as with PAs, I used to spend much time looking at the Arcadia hotel in my prior school years waiting for the tram ride home and readying myself for a tertiary education somewhere and a trip into the “real world.”

[Oct 2002 | Dec 2018]

But the past got pissed!

K-Ci & JoJo – You Bring Me Up (Remix) ft. Snoop Dogg (1997)
– includes mashup

1 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15

✓ 21 hours ago

Earth, Wind & Fire – Can’t Let Go (Dave Lee fka Joey Negro Elevated Mix) (2018)


alike:

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by Louis Vuitton (@louisvuitton)




✓ 2 years ago

Kundalini, Crowley and The Secret of The Golden Flower! (2021)

[46:35] It does me. It's doing a lot of physiological work all the time.

I am fairly coherent approaching an elderly age. I can sit down and write for hours and it actually makes sense. I am my own best critic.

My role is to be a writer and to live it, and keep going.

I just finished a 540 page novel. I call it a Kundalini novel that never once mentions the word Kundalini. But from the flow of action, you see the main character being funneled towards that end. There's no final stage... everyone's different.  

But me personally, I feel that's my role... much the same as Gopi Krisha was... he was a writer.

If you Google 'Kundalini' you get umpteen pages... thousands of websites and still the greater public doesn't know much about it. Contrast that with my experience in 1972, there was one book.. Kundalini: the Evolutionary Energy in Man and I happened to find it.

~JJ Semple

✓ 3 years ago

2016: Living Dangerously with Billboards and Posters!

People may ask: “What’s your angle?” My reply: “The Right angle!”

(last updated: 7 April 2023)


And eventually someone was bitten!

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by GUCCI EQUILIBRIUM (@gucciequilibrium) on


 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by BILLIONAIRE BOYS CLUB/ICECREAM (@bbcicecream) on

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by GUCCI EQUILIBRIUM (@gucciequilibrium) on

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by P9 (@special____project) on


✓ 3 years ago

Tera Kòrá X CHAMOS – I Do Ft. PRVTE (2020)

Follows from a few days earlier

– The photos above are to assist with camera framing whereby the sunlight, fence, book and sign indicate unconscious motifs at work.

“The idea of a Sacred Tree, or World Tree, ie Tree of Life, was found in religion and artwork with appropriate cultural depictions throughout the ancient world. The Sacred Tree is seen in ancient Mesopotamia/Sumer by the fourth millennium BCE, and by the second millennium BCE it occurred in ancient Egypt, Greece and the Harappan Culture of the Indus Valley, which would give rise to the Indian gods. The Tree of Life was often associated with the goddesses, such as the Sumerian Inanna, the Egyptian Hathor, and the Canaanite Asherah and would subsequently find expression in later religions and spiritualities such as Buddhism, Christianity, Islam, Judaism and Kabbalah, and even in the Norse world tree Yggdrasil, and the world tree found in many indigenous cultures.”

d’Este, Rankine (2010) The Cosmic Shekinah [page 124]


pics
pixabay.com/illustrations/wooden-sign-home-sweet-home-grass-4000126/
pixabay.com/illustrations/woman-portrait-female-feminine-4515320/
✓ 3 years ago