An article by Sha'Tara, local writer and friend.

Remember the Present

[thoughts from ~Burning Woman~ by Sha’Tara]

We know about remembering the past, and some can even go into the future, that being another kind of remembering, but what about the present? There are the modern gurus who keep reminding those who spend their money on their so-called teachings, or on their books, to stay in the present. “Be in the now” they enjoin, and a whole whack-whack bunch join in to hear the sound of their own voices echoing something they completely misunderstand.

The problem with the world is not that people spend their time in the past or the future, it’s that they live in the now; in a little circular ‘now’ solidly fenced in and from which they don’t know of the possibility of escape. Even when they peek into the past, it’s usually through some kind of physical reminder, like sharing memories with old friends, or looking at pictures, home movies or videos, or reading old magazines, that sort of thing. But all the while they are firmly in the now, their awareness of past or future relegated to evanescent emotions, not to life-changing choices. Being in the now is exactly where the Matrix wants people because the now is a predictable and relatively comfortable place to be. The now is safely boring. The now is going endlessly through the same motions expecting different results, with of course, nothing changing. The now is for the living dead. The living dead make the best Wal-Mart shoppers. (Voters, fans, patriots, lovers, religious fanatics and mobs.)

Believe. Do what you’re told. Live out your programmed life. Die. Go to heaven, go to hell, go nowhere: it’s all the same in the end because everything is recycled. But of course, as long as you remain safely in the now, you won’t ever become aware of this, though you may begin to suspect things may not be quite as advertised.

Unless.

You break the programming by adding something of your own to the simmering present brew to make it more palatable, and possibly healthier. The now can be spiced up. It can have ingredients added that the Matrix Soup Company didn’t intend for it to have.

So don’t eat it out of the can; put it in a pot and think of “illegal” ingredients to add, things you know you’re not supposed to have in your soup, or your stew. Things like sasquatches, for example. UFO’s. Intelligent alien life or anything alive from outside this planet. Faeries and elves are out, as are giants, trolls and witches—unless they are Disney caricatures or tabloid sensations. Unicorns? No. How about a black Goddess called Lucifer? Now there’s a seriously condemned substance. Self-empowerment? In your dreams. Service to others? If attached to an institution. And so it goes. Of course it’s not illegal to spend money on all those things. In fact you are encouraged to do so because as long as you are looking at ingredients in glossy magazines and 3-D movies, or going through the motions within an approved order there is no danger you will be ingesting any of them.

The present belongs to the Matrix, to the System. If you are a presentable person you will fit in. Somewhere. You will be rich and famous. You will be in the Army. You will have a job, or you will draw a pension or welfare check. You will be in government, be a reverend or a doctor. You will go to church and will attend sporting events—any and all such events. When you plan your weekend, your wedding, your baby shower, your new home, it will all be within a tightly controlled range of predictable factors.

In short, you will be somebody tick-tocking your pointless, unchanging life along with billions of others. The wizard behind the curtain will be happy and all will be, if not well, at least as it should be.

Those who break free (and there must be some, I can’t be the only person on this planet aware of this, living this) are those who teach themselves to travel the time lines. Time is not real, of course, but then nothing really is, therefore to the initiate everything becomes real. When you read a well-written piece of history you literally enter into that time—and the funny thing is, you don’t care whether it’s factual or not if it really pulls you in. The point is to believe it enough to enter. Once in, it matters not at all that the piece of “history” be factual. In fact, it can’t be factual because it only exists on the timeline, and that isn’t real either. But it’s a tool to coax the mind to travel. Good futuristic science fiction serves the same purpose. It is fictionally true . It forces the mind to “boldly go where no mind has gone before” by taking you to the end of its timeline and dropping you there, not back where you started from. Ever notice that? Ever had that lazy thought, “I hope she writes a sequel so I can find out what happens next?” Well, I’m what happens next. I’ve already “intruded” in the story and travelled with those others to where the writing mind changed direction without inviting anyone to follow. Now I’ve got all these new friends, new vistas, a mother ship full of possibilities, including a captain who is noticing me finally and having gone through some truly hair-raising experiences with them, why not continue?

There are some reading this who are astute enough to have realized something else in this. Something interesting and very important. About faith. I’ve discussed faith before. More than one side of it. Well, here’s another side, based on the above. The beginning of any movement that bases itself on faith is all about timeline travel. It’s all about believing, not about any facts. It’s believing that explains itself from a distant past and completes itself in a certain future.

Faith can only manifest where there are no facts to contradict it. Many modern day believers do not know this to their own confusion; hence why they appear so silly and utterly inept in any discussion with those who claim to have the facts, such as scientists or economists, for example. Faith requires unquestioning adherence to an unprovable past and an equally unprovable future. “Faith is the substance of things hoped for; the evidence of things not seen.” (Book of Hebrews, the New Testament). The moment you introduce any fact into your faith, you completely dilute it. It becomes nothing but smoke and mirrors. Faith saddled with fact makes the poorest kind of magic act imaginable. They will run you off the stage and demand their money back.

When I speak of traveling the past and future timeline to empower the present, to move out of the zombie state most will live their lives in, I speak of faith, but not the modern illusion of religious faith. I speak of tying my life, my safety, my comfort, my freedom, my sanity even, to something that has no proof; something that can never be earth solid. It must always remain fictional. And that makes it a perpetual virgin, full of promise, never tarnished. It can never age, never die, but it can change faster, more completely, than any chameleon. And when it changes, I change with it.

That’s what I mean by remembering the present: to create an ever-present present by using ingredients existing in the past and in the future, traveling unencumbered by facts back and forth along my infinite timelines, my personal highways, collecting and collating. Anyone can do this, of course, but it’s not what the Matrix, or the Time Lords desire. Those who truly travel the timelines know this isn’t a lark or a walk in the park. There are very real dangers there. The main weapons of the Time Lords to confuse, discourage or prostitute the traveler are doubts (that cannot be!), “factual” offerings (I read that in the Bhagavad-Gita!) and delusions of grandeur (I was Helen of Troy in a past life! … or a New Agey classic: I Am God!).