THE SALIERI SYNDROME (revisited)

F. Murray Abraham as Antonio Salieri

I saw Miloš Forman’s film of Peter Shaffer’s Amadeus five times at the same cinema. And I’ve watched the VCD at home at least three times. What impressed me most was F. Murray Abraham’s oscar-winning portrayal of Antonio Salieri, court composer to the Hapsburg emperor Joseph II.

Today everybody agrees that Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was a divinely inspired genius. A few of us know he died a pauper at 35 and was buried in a mass grave – and that his monumental musical legacy lay largely forgotten for more than 70 years - until Ludwig von Köchel published a descriptive catalogue of the 626 works Mozart composed in his short but intense career.

Portrait of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

In Shaffer’s fictionalization of Mozart’s story, Salieri’s professional envy of the gifted upstart becomes the central motif of the drama. Salieri is one of a small handful of academic musicians with sufficient savvy to appreciate the full extent of the man’s extraordinary talent; but he chooses to thwart Mozart’s destiny in every way possible. Nevertheless, Mozart succeeds in seizing a brief burst of popularity with his vibrant operas.

The pious Salieri eventually loses his faith in God, and murders Mozart by posing as an anonymous Count and commissioning a Requiem, with an impossible deadline and a monetary reward Mozart couldn’t possibly refuse (being in heavy debt, owing to his hedonistic habits). Salieri thereby pushes the already frail genius beyond the edge of exhaustion to an untimely demise.

For his efforts, Salieri ends his days in an insane asylum, where he pontificates about the rectitude of mediocrity and blesses his fellow inmates for their lacklustre and wasted lives. Two centuries down the line, nobody remembers a single melody written by Antonio Salieri; while Amadeus triggered a worldwide Mozart revival which would have made Wolfie posthumously richer than Lord Andrew Lloyd Webber, Sir Paul McCartney, and Sir Elton John combined.

"God bless the mediocre!"

The theme of genius unrecognized and unrewarded, I must confess, has obsessed me for the greater part of my early life. In my schooldays only three teachers noticed I was a precocious kid – and one of them happened to be a Peace Corps Volunteer from Baltimore. This may have encouraged me to spend a year in the U.S. as an exchange student, and it was then that I finally received the ego nourishment my soul craved. Ironic that the glitzy culture that spawned Coca-Cola, McDonald’s, and “pre-emptive” war has also provided me with the greatest amount of positive feedback. Perhaps the land of superlatives got that way by giving its kids the hearty encouragement all kids require, to grow up brimming over with initiative and innovative chutzpah. My own initiation into adulthood in Malaysia taught me not to bother applying for a government grant unless I snip off my foreskin.

Which brings us to the Malaysian Dilemma: here we are, a feudal society abruptly thrust into the Digital Age by “market forces” that emphasize competition over cooperation. No matter how often we yell “Malaysia Boleh!” - and no matter how much official sponsorship is invested in some guy who sails solo around the world to claim his Datukship, or that well-heeled lady who solo-trekked across the Antarctic, only to have her victory inundated by the most spectacular tsunami within memory – we’ve shot ourselves in the foot so many times, one could remark that our national ego has clay pigeon feet. At least we can brag about our fantastic marksmanship: it’s no mean feat, you know, to shoot your own foot when you have to crane your neck just to see where your feet are. Well... burp... there are no starving hordes in evidence in Potbellyland – and that’s something we can be proud of without even trying!

So... are we really doomed to remain a mediocracy forever? Is there no cure for the Salieri Syndrome? Indeed there is. You only have to take a stiff swig of this ancient Chinese prescription: “One does not grow taller by chopping off other people’s heads.” That’s right, folks. Ego insecurity breeds jealousy. Which is the root of all evil.

For that matter, one does not grow taller by wearing platform shoes either. But that’s an entirely different disease called TLFC – The Lord Farquaard Complex – which can be easily treated with a little bit of dragon magic.

[Originally published in the April 2005 issue of VIDA! First posted 8 January 2007 & reposted 9 July 2014 & 6 April 2017

The Fatal Curse of Tempurungism (reprise)

They say an idle mind is the devil’s workshop and this is especially evident in the case of Malaysian bureaucracy in general and the Jabatan Hal Ehwal Orang Asli in particular.

I have resided in and around Kampung Pertak since 1992. During this period I have witnessed how the Orang Asli Affairs Department favors diabolical initiatives that strengthen their psychological and political control over the Orang Asli - while creating opportunities for stuffing their own pockets.

Whether it be logging concessions, dam projects, turning ancestral lands into leasehold lots, or tarring roads that lead nowhere (except to environmental degradation), the JHEOA invariably finds a sneaky way to corrupt, oppress, intimidate, exploit and ultimately devour the Orang Asli.

Sagong Tasi of the Temuan tribe wins a landmark lawsuit (courtesy of Suaram)

The JHEOA ought to have been dismantled and abolished 20 years ago, following the surrender of the Malayan Communist Party in 1989. Instead, it became a tool to assimilate the Orang Asli into mainstream Malay culture - by pressuring them to embrace Islam and systematically pillaging their ancestral lands under the guise of kemajuan or “progress.”

Recently there has been talk of the JHEOA being “corporatized” into the Perbadanan Orang Asli (Orang Asli Corporation) using the Federal Land Development Authority (FELDA) as a model. Blurring the boundary between business and politics facilitates hanky-panky on a massive scale. As we have seen in the case of FELDA, feudal-style top-down management by aristocrat-politicians results in the ignorant peasantry being robbed totally blind without their knowledge. In most cases the public only finds out when it’s already too late because the thefts occur in remote rural areas.

Photo: Colin Nicholas/COAC

This, of course, has been UMNO’s modus operandi since the era of Mahathir and Daim. Leveraging on an atavistic appeal to bangsa and ugama to promote the fascistic notion of Ketuanan Melayu, UMNO warlords have siphoned off a great deal more than 30% of the nation’s wealth since the nefarious NEP was launched in 1970.

The JHEOA – like so many government agencies – has long served the UMNO agenda instead of the Orang Asli’s genuine interests. That’s nothing new. What has become alarmingly obvious is that they no longer bother concealing their narrow self-interests and their deeply ingrained racism.

Photo: Antares

During the Ulu Selangor by-election that ran from April 17-25, 2010, the JHEOA openly stage-managed the Barisan Nasional campaign in Orang Asli communities throughout the region. In one or two villages the Orang Asli batin (headman) called the police to prevent Pakatan Rakyat campaigners from entering their settlements.

In Kg Pertak the JHEOA facilitated the entry and encampment of dozens of UMNO campaign workers recruited from various ethno-fascist groups like Pekida and Perkasa. They were annoyed to find Pakatan Rakyat insignia proudly displayed in a couple of houses. What irked them even more was that a bunch of pro-Rakyat bloggers were comfortably embedded in Kg Pertak’s “diplomatic enclave.”

The JHEOA/UMNO faction reportedly handed RM7,000 in cash to one of the village security officers with instructions to distribute it amongst 70 registered voters as incentives to vote BN. I later heard complaints that the money never left the security officer’s pockets. This is how UMNO corrupts the Orang Asli via the JHEOA – by dragging them into the politics of greed, betrayal, and xenophobia.

Photo: Max Koh

On the eve of the by-election, the UMNO contingent instructed a few young Orang Asli to set up a roadblock at the entrance to the village. Later a skirmish broke out and one of the pro-Rakyat bloggers was assaulted by a Pekida thug. When the police arrived on the scene 30 minutes later, the UMNO thugs were nowhere to be seen. This small outbreak of violence was reported in Malaysiakini the next morning. In terms of negative publicity, JHEOA/UMNO came out with a black eye and began plotting revenge.

Xenophobia can also be called tempurungism – a regressive psychomental condition akin to acute jingoitis that commonly afflicts those who have never left the provincial and parochial confines of a monolingual, monocultural matrix. Those suffering from xenophobia have great difficulty accepting people with different linguistic and cultural imprints as close friends or family. They tend to label others as pendatang (immigrants), orang asing (outsiders), or Mat Salleh (Caucasians).

Working through a couple of Orang Asli agents, the JHEOA reactivated its xenophobic agenda by pressuring Asli families who had rented out their houses to “outsiders” to evict their tenants. The Asli were given to understand that the houses they were living in was government property – when in truth it was the dam developer that built the houses.

What the JHEOA had done in 2004 was to cheat the Orang Asli of their ancestral hunting grounds by issuing them 99-year leases instead of formally gazetting the whole area as a permanent Orang Asli Reserve (as promised in 1965). The Orang Asli have never seen a land grant in their life – nor have their ancestors. They don’t understand what a 99-year lease means – but they do know they have very little power over their own destinies as long as the JHEOA exists as an extension of UMNO.

[First posted 2 August 2010]

I'M THE SLIME (repost)

I'M THE SLIME (music & lyrics by Frank Zappa)

I am gross and perverted
I'm obsessed 'n deranged
I have existed for years
But very little has changed
I'm the tool of the Government
And industry too
For I am destined to rule
And regulate you

I may be vile and pernicious
But you can't look away
I make you think I'm delicious
With the stuff that I say
I'm the best you can get
Have you guessed me yet?
I'm the slime oozin' out
From your TV set

You will obey me while I lead you
And eat the garbage that I feed you
Until the day that we don't need you
Don't go for help ... no one will heed you
Your mind is totally controlled
It has been stuffed into my mold
And you will do as you are told
Until the rights to you are sold

That's right, folks ...
Don't touch that dial

Well, I am the slime from your video
Oozin' along on your livin' room floor

I am the slime from your video
Can't stop the slime, people, lookit me go

I am the slime from your video
Oozin' along on your livin' room floor

I am the slime from your video
Can't stop the slime, people, lookit me go

I'M THE SLIME BY FRANK ZAPPA

Meet the late great Frank Zappa, arguably the Most Intelligent Human That Ever Lived, rated the World's 4th Best Guitarist by New Musical Express readers in 1975!

BONUS FEATURE: Stinkfoot - live!

STINKFOOT (1974)

If you enjoyed that, how about the Ultimate Drum Solo? Here's a brief clip of Zappa's infamous The Black Page performed by the one and only Terry Bozzio!


THE BLACK PAGE (DRUM SOLO BY TERRY BOZZIO)

[First posted 29 March 2008]

Sweet Memories of My Dear Mama (revisited)

I found this comforting image on Google (no, I never did photograph my mom in the nude, and I don't think my dad ever did either, though he spared no effort documenting the vital statistics of other femmes).

My mother had big, beautiful brown nipples. They used to fascinate me long after I was weaned off her breast. I believe she was in too great a hurry to go back to work (she taught in a Chinese school). Babies ought to be given as much time as they need to wean themselves - or else they tend to grow up orally fixated like me.

Come to think of it, I don't really know that much about my mother. She was the second of three beautiful daughters born to Dai Chui Lian and Siew Sum Chee. The eldest, Moong Yang, was born 18 October 1916; my mother, Moon Loy, was born 23 March 1918 in Sitiawan; and I have no idea when my aunt Moon Wai was born, but she certainly outlived both her sisters. (The three sisters originally carried the middle name "Moong" but my mum hated the spelling and sensibly dropped the 'G' as soon as she could. Her younger sister quickly followed suit. M.Y. tried out the "Moon" for a while but finally reverted to the original spelling.)

My aunt Moong Yang (or M.Y., as my mum called her) was better known by her married name, Grace Lee. Of all the sisters, Grace was perhaps the most outgoing and sociable. She loved literature and recorded many stories from her childhood, which I helped edit for publication in 1994, in a collection called In Those Days. It was from my aunt Grace, the family storyteller, that I learnt everything I know about my mother's early days.

My mother in 1958

Apparently, my mom was regarded as a traditional beauty, a veritable porcelain princess with a melon-seed face, and received plenty of attention from young men in her adolescent years, which she haughtily ignored. Her elder sister responded quite differently to male admiration - she reveled in it.

My grandmother Siew died at age 38, trying to conceive a male offspring for her husband. My mother, only 15, took the bereavement very badly and went into acute depression. Her elder sister Moong Yang had successfully applied for a teaching post in Johore Baru and was scheduled to begin work in a matter of weeks. Seeing how distraught her younger sister was, she suggested that Moon Loy take her place instead. Perhaps a change of scene would help her recover from the shock of losing their beloved mama.

And so my mother relocated to Johore Baru and began her career as a teacher. It was there she met her future husband, Lee Hong Wah. I often wondered if my aunt Grace would have been a better match for my dad. They were extremely fond of each other and had a great deal in common. After they were both widowed, I tried to persuade Grace to move in with my dad, and she seemed receptive to the idea, but neither took the initiative, and so it never happened.

When I think about the adults that featured in my early childhood - many of them were my parents' lifelong friends - one thing they had in common was that they were all good-looking couples. They all loved ballroom dancing and took the trouble to learn how to foxtrot, tango and waltz properly. I suppose there must have been a fair amount of good-natured bottom-pinching on the side, but people seemed to have really enjoyed life in those halcyon post-war days.

My parents were on the guestlist of the ANZAC officers stationed in Batu Pahat and I recall they were in the habit of dressing up for gala dances at the Bandar Penggaram Recreation Club at least once a month. One Kiwi officer named Sam Gilhoolie had the hots for my mom. He often visited her in the afternoons and never forgot to bribe me with little gifts - including a teddybear that became the patriarch of my teddybear family and which I cherished till it became too grungy and mangy to keep.

I looked forward to Sam's afternoon tête-à-têtes with my mom, mainly because he always arrived in an army jeep with his Fijian driver, a friendly black dude named Lala, who allowed me to sit at the wheel and pretend I was driving his funky vehicle.

Mom called Sam "Bullethead" on account of his short-cropped hair - and I suppose he was the archetypal "bullet-headed Saxon mother's son" referred to in John Lennon's famous song, "The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill."

Decades later my mom continued to receive Christmas cards from Sam Gilhoolie, who must have passed on by now. I have no idea if Sam's passion for my mother was ever requited - but it was certainly an enduring friendship.


The above isn't a picture of my mom - but this could have been how she appeared to others (especially men) before she gave birth to me at age 32. It's hard for children to view their own parents as individual humans - with their own secret fantasies and unfulfilled dreams. Now that my parents are both gone, I find it much easier to view them as others might have seen them - two sexy adults who enjoyed life to the hilt and suffered their share of sorrows and disappointments.

My dad at 75 and my mom at 73, posing with a prospective Syrian-German daughter-in-law named Yasmin Wakil. They approved but Yasmin's mom apparently didn't. She recalled her daughter in November 1991 and I haven't seen Yasmin since, though she occasionally sends me a sweet analog letter (with no return address because her boyfriend might get jealous).

 

If I ever harbored Oedipal feelings towards my mother, they were probably minimal and receded shortly after I reached puberty. My bedroom was connected to my parents' by a door they usually kept bolted. But one morning they forgot to bolt it and, for some reason, I opened the door and saw my dad making love to my mom. I don't think they noticed me but I had the good sense to quietly close the door and leave them to it.

The effect this had on me was liberating. From that moment I regarded sex as something people do simply because it's pleasurable - no right or wrong attached to the act, and no shame or guilt either. How can one possibly be ashamed of an act by which one was conceived?

I must have been 11 at the time and just beginning to appreciate my morning erections, though I don't recall having any wet dreams except, perhaps, once or twice. However, I became aware of my parents' sex lives because I often heard them quarreling about questions of fidelity. It was a small, provincial-minded town full of brainless gossipers and word of my dad's erotic derring-do occasionally would reach my mother's ears.

My mom tried to recruit my services as a spy. She would send me to my dad's office, a 10-minute walk from home, to check whether he was at his desk. Initially, feeling self-righteous as hell, I did her bidding.

However, I resigned from that task after I returned unexpectedly one afternoon and found the front door mysteriously locked. I had gone to the cinema to catch a matinee screening but discovered there had been a change of program, so I turned around and went home. Entering the house by the back door, I padded over to my parents' bedroom and found the door also locked. So I peeped through the keyhole and saw a guy in his underpants clutching his clothes and scurrying out through the bathroom, which opened out to the garden.

I was shocked and furious but managed to keep my cool. It was that dirty datuk, another of my mom's not-so-secret admirers, and now he was coming around from the back garden, smiling at me sheepishly and saying, "Hello! You're home early!" I gave him the dirtiest look I could muster and ignored him. My mother didn't bother to explain and I didn't bother to question her. After pondering what I had witnessed, I concluded that grown-ups were just a bunch of hypocrites. If my dad could scatter his wild oats freely, why couldn't my mom have a bit of fun on the side too?

A few years down the line, when I was old enough to drive and take girlfriends to quiet areas where we could "talk in private," I discovered my dad and I thought alike. It was actually hilarious when we both ended up in the same "make-out" spot one afternoon. My dad grinned bashfully at me as he reversed his car to make way for me - and I managed a loud chuckle as I waved conspiratorially at him and tried to identify the young woman beside him. At the time I felt smug that I had slightly better taste in women than he did.

Anyway, my parents managed to remain "happily married" for nearly 60 years till my mom's death on 14 July 1995. During the distressing years of her declining health - she suffered from heart palpitations, high blood pressure, diabetes, and renal failure (which required her to undergo dialysis thrice a week) - my dad nursed her with a loving dedication that revealed the incredible depths of his love.


Indeed, he would dutifully drive her to the hospital three times a week and sit outside reading the papers and dozing off for 4-5 hours while her blood was mechanically filtered and cleansed. This routine went on for at least four years - and if my mom had lived another six months, I believe dad would have succumbed to exhaustion and checked out before her.

Mom loved traveling but not my dad. On a rare vacation together to the US, 

with a Hawaiian stopover, in 1983.

Three years after my mom's death, I visited my dad with a beautiful Japanese girl in tow - and he became instantly besotted with her. Indeed, the only time dad ever visited my jungle abode was in 1998, when Keiko agreed to accompany him and me on the train from Johore Baru. Dad was 82 then and Keiko only half his age - but that didn't deter him from behaving like a lovestruck puppy.

He repeatedly told me Keiko reminded him so much of my mom when she was in her prime. It was perhaps the last major passion of his life, although he did succumb a year or two later to the undisputed charms of my sister's Filipina housekeeper - a red-blooded 28-year-old named Lourdes I would have happily dated myself.

Looking back at my parents' lives and my own, I just have to laugh at how alike we actually are - when all pretense and outward appearances are stripped away.

Does she look like my mom just before I was conceived?
More like my grandma, I guess, but melon-seed faced nonetheless...

My beloved mom would have celebrated her 107th solar orbit in 2025. She probably would be totally embarrassed and annoyed by the stories I have told about her and my dad. But, then, she wasn't very happy either when she read the family history recorded by her sister Grace.

"You know how M.Y. loves telling stories," was mom's only response.

Yes, but at the end of the day, what do we have except our stories - our experiences, our memories, the beautiful mystery of our very existence? And if we distort the truth and deny the facts of our lives, do we not become less than pure fiction, do we not become non-existent entities?

At the end of time - which isn't very far from now, going by most prophetic accounts - all we are left with is the innocent truth of our being as humans. If we continue to spin and lie and conceal, rather than reveal, we end up in a limbo of our own making. And I want to see you in paradise - not as my mother, but as the compassionate, forgiving, angelic soul you have always been

This is my birthday present to you, dearest mom, I am resurrecting you in my memory as a beautiful and desirable young woman - with secret admirers and romantic fantasies and adolescent dreams. And a wonderful, passionate, fun-loving husband who loved you till the very end, though his genes were perhaps a lot more adventurous than you would have preferred...

Behold, mom, your 4 surviving children - plus 9 gorgeous grandchildren and 17 great-grandchildren - who absolutely adore you and celebrate your goddesshood!

[First posted 23 March 2011, reposted 23 March 2014, 23 March 2016,  

22 March 2019, 23 March 2022 & 23 March 2025]

EVOLUTION BEGINS WITH EVE (reprise)

Roger Vandersteine, Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, 1975

THE GENESIS MYTH yields a rich harvest of illuminating insights. Eve is blamed for the Fall. The Serpent directs his sales pitch at her and she takes the first bite of the Forbidden Fruit which endows her with sudden self-awareness. She offers the Fruit to Adam but as he sinks his teeth into it, God's voice comes booming out from concealed loudspeakers, causing the original attack of Fear and Guilt.

"Gulp!" bleats Adam with a chunk of "apple" stuck in his throat: "She made me do it!" What else can you expect? The scriptures were authored by MEN.

From the evolutionary viewpoint, however, the Serpent is a metaphor for the Vital Force (which yogis call kundalini); and Eve is the principle of curiosity, receptivity, adventurousness. In other words, the spirit of scientific research. What about Adam? He robotically obeys his programming until encouraged by Eve to experiment. But before he can swallow and digest the Experience, he goes into a total funk and tries to pass the buck.

Quite despicable and most unmanly (or should I say unwomanly?) - but fairly typical behavior in male-dominated power politics. To cover up their moral cowardice men perform assorted acts of physical bravado. As a child Saddam Hussein had his cheeks pinched by all his aunts and uncles, but just look at him now: SADDAM! Even his name sounds like the pounding of great big guns.

People used to call George Bush a sneaky little wimp. Not any more: BUSH! and there's a great big crater in the desert. Being extremely horny may be a nice macho feeling - but it's no excuse for rape.

I know two well-circulated feminist jokes. The first is about the astronaut who encounters God in deep space. On his return to Earth he's asked to describe God and he just laughs and says: "Boy, have I got a surprise for you. She's black!" The other joke has it that women are superior to men for the obvious reason that God is a perfectionist who learns from his mistakes; when God decided to create Woman he was a little more experienced.

Consider next the structure of the sex chromosome: females are double X-rated while males result from XY combinations. Geneticists say the Y chromosome is really just a deformed and undersized X chromosome. Sorry, guys, but facts is facts.

Did I hear Harry yell, "Traitor!" Hey, I'm not undergoing a sex change. I'm quite happily male, thank you, and the preceding polemic is essentially a scheme to improve my chances of getting laid. Seriously, though, I do have genetic memories (or at least vivid fantasies) of having lived female lives and I'm convinced that individuals often switch genders in the course of their earthly incarnations. They also tend to experiment with a variety of ethnic and geographic combinations - so let's all hurry up and outgrow racialistic-nationalistic nappy-rash jingoism. It's not so cute anymore.

And while we're at it, let's declare a general armistice in the Battle of the Sexes and put sexism to bed where it belongs. Here, you can wear the pants. I'm quite comfortable in my sarong.

Another aspect of the Feminine Principle that fascinates me is the dramatic transformation that Motherhood brings about: from lithe and slender flowerbud to bulbous huge ripe pear state is an awesome procedure. And when they spring right back to fantasizable size, it's another miracle all over.

I know the institution of Motherhood is sacrosanct (after all it's a vestige of Goddess worship) and it brooks no criticism - but I can't help noticing the psychological stranglehold that so many mothers seem to maintain on their children. Somehow the influence of the Father appears easier to shrug off.

Not in every case, I agree, but the number of middle-aged men and women who can be plunged into depression with just one Christmas phonecall to their dear Momsies far outweigh those who continue to recoil from their Daddy's wrath when they're 45 years old. I'm curious to know what the sons of Deng Xiao-ping or Lee Kuan Yew have to say about this. (Pardon me? Can't hear you, the tanks are too noisy...) which leads me to wonder if humans might not fair better reverting to oviparous reproduction ("Quick, Dicky, the egg's getting cold!"); even so I can picture how some mothers may suffocate rather than incubate their offspring.

Smothering beats mothering! ("Oh oh, here comes Mum with the pillow... mmmpfff!") I can't speak from personal experience on this - but does the pain of childbirth leave permanent scars on a mother's brain, causing her to be ambivalent thereafter about her kids? Perhaps our conventional approach to obstetrics should be thrown out with the bathwater: I have friends who have given birth in a tub of warm water with surprising ease and no complications. And no nightmarish fluorescent lights or forceps or masked strangers who rudely snip your cord and spank you for the crime of being born. Surely we're not all too busy being neurotic to think about a few fundamental issues of life-and-death importance?

Anyhow, I'm of the opinion that Motherhood is vastly overrated: it should be gently phased out soon after the child is weaned (yes, I'm all for breastfeeding but that's about as much mothering as anybody really needs, I think).

Have I shocked anyone? Don't misunderstand: every child thrives on tender loving care and lots of attention unstintingly given. And that must come from more than just one source - especially if that one source happens to take the role of Mother too seriously, too dutifully (and perhaps resentfully too, since she seems to have no choice whatsoever).

My real point is this: anyone of any gender can play the role of Mother for a while. Such a vital role demands a platoon of stand-ins; no one should insist on hogging it. Most clear-thinking and farsighted mothers will applaud this trend of thought. But first, we humans have to learn to let go. Insecurity makes us clingy and possessive. Kahlil Gibran said it best:

Your children are not your children.

They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.

They come through you but not from you,

And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.

You may give them your love but not your thoughts,

For they have their own thoughts.

You may house their bodies but not their souls,

For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which

you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.

You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you.

For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.

You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth...

Get thee back to the grave, Confucius! Respect for our Youngers is what I preach, and I do try to practice it. Respect, in any case, has to be mutual and spontaneous. Or else it's pure intimidation.

Now, coming back to the idea of Woman as the manifestation of the Goddess. I happen to view ‘chastity’ and 'wantonness' as equally seductive attributes. The Virgin and the Prostitute. Surefire marketing concept, Ms Ciccone aka Madonna. Men, be honest and admit that you desire both these qualities in your women.  Opposites aren't necessarily contradictory; usually they're complementary. Innocence and Experience attract each other. Virgins are still being sold to the highest bidder. Prostitutes work at union rates, negotiable on cold nights. Over here we have a loose woman with tight lips and over there an uptight one with loose lips. Take your pick, brother.

The Goddess is nurturer and destroyer in one. Before the birth of the Cosmos, there was the Cosmic Womb which the Egyptians called Nuit, goddess of Night. Others call it the Primordial Chaos. I call it the Matrix of Infinite Possibilities. Maria or Kali, Fairy Godmother or Wicked Witch: she can soothe and she can torment. Like the calm or raging sea, like life or death, the Goddess is not a static reality. She is not rigid with rationality, though she can be entirely reasonable or unreasonable as it pleases her. 

The practice of automatically assigning God the masculine pronoun Him is disturbing, perhaps even dangerous. Our only chance of making it through these apocalyptic times is to restore the Feminine Principle in our religious reckonings; to acknowledge that the sphere of awareness implies a concave as well as a convex dimension, an inner and an outer form.

And most cogently, to realize that the two are an interchangeable oneness in perpetual dynamic equilibrium. Without this understanding, we shall continue to inherit a world governed by overgrown little boys with dangerous toys.

That's right. Don't you be fooled by that funny mustache. He's got a pea-shooter in his pants. And a hot date with Mae West. Or, as visionary historian William IrwinThompson puts it:

"Civilizations, like the penis, rise and fall, and when the towers and the battlements crumble into the earth, they return to the embrace of the Great Mother."  

Pretty Oedipal, eh?

[Written 6 January 1991 and subsequently published in The Star. First posted 18 May 2013. Reposted 15 August 2016 & 28 June 2023] 

UNDERSTANDING ASCENSION (revisited yet again)

HARDWARE/SOFTWARE = BODY/MIND-SOUL
by Antares

"They are among us now. In the streets of our cities there are already citizens from other worlds. They are here as messengers of the Light to fulfill their mission on the planet Earth." - Willaru Huayta, Chasqui Sun Messenger of the Incas, in the Mayan Solar Year 7 Eb of the Itza Age (1996)

CAUGHT UP in the daily grind, hacking away for pay in some partitioned cubicle in a centrally airconditioned highrise office block... it's so easy to forget that we're all already seasoned travelers in Outer Space.

Zoom out from wherever you are right now and picture yourself as a glowing whirl of vibrant atomic particles, a pinpoint of awareness on a dazzlingly beautiful watery planet, spinning a bit wobblingly around our sun Ra, on the remote fringes of the Magdalenian Galaxy (commonly known as the Milky Way) - which is herself pirouetting majestically round a Supergalactic Central Hub somewhere deep, deep in Boundless Space.

But there's a lot more to "space travel" than meets the eye. Too often we forget that Inner Space is just as vast and mysterious as Outer Space. A would-be Interdimensional Traveler must intuitively understand the subtle process of "inside outing." He or she or it must boldly defy conventional definitions of Body, Mind and Soul!

Where does the physical end and the metaphysical begin? How can we separate one dimension from another? Reality comprises multi-layered webs of interwoven energy and consciousness vibrating at different frequencies, so how can we expect to comprehend the workings of the Whole System simply by analyzing its myriad minute parts? Without our physical brains and the billions of neural interconnections in our nervous system, can we possibly experience Mind? Without this phenomenon called Mind, would we require all the sophisticated hardware that so many of us have fallen into the habit of identifying as "ourselves"?

And what about this mysterious essence we call Soul or Spirit? In an age that doubts and questions the soul's very existence, can we trust our materialistic sciences to uncover transcendental truths? Yet we can complain that the food or music we're being served is "utterly soulless" and be perfectly well understood.

The age of computers has given us access to powerful new metaphors that effectively wed the world of dense matter with the realms of spirit. Today we can think of the physical body and brain as a computer server system: the hardware which can be taken apart, repaired, modified, reconditioned, or junked. The Mind would thus be the vast array of software programs the system can operate - anything from simple calculations to multimedia transactions using superfast chips that function at near lightspeed. Soul would then be the original inspiration (the indwelling Spirit) behind and within and beyond all this - the ultimate arbiter of the cosmic shelf life of both hardware and software.

Take your personal computer. With the power off it's just a hunk of hardware, mere furniture. Turn it on, install a word processing or graphics program. Now... you're ready to produce an exciting piece of electronic art, write a 50,000 word thesis or best-selling novel, produce some funky techno-trance music, or insult a few fellow nerds on the Net. But where do you, as the Operator, feature? It is your intention, your will, your aspirations and desires that the computer serves (though cynics might aver that the only person whose will is genuinely served by computers is Bill Gates).

Extending the Mind-as-Software metaphor a little further, we can understand how our Thought Patterns are determined by our Mindsets - which obey the genetic, social, cultural and religious formatting (or preconditioning) we're all subject to. However, once we're aware of our programming, it's possible to break through to the level of the Metaprogram whereat we may radically alter the operational pathways of our Biocomputers. A good example of this is when a yogi learns to control his metabolism through pranayama (the discipline of fully conscious breathing): he can then keep his body in suspended animation indefinitely, while his Mind-Soul moves freely in any chosen direction or dimension.

This is the approach to space travel - or, more accurately, interdimensional travel - taught in ancient Mystery Schools, whether in Egypt or the Andes or the Himalayas.


Peruvian chasqui (spiritual messenger) Willaru Huayta (pictured above) says: "Many noble people in South America have conquered infinite space, visited other worlds, and have brought knowledge back to benefit humanity. They travel without the necessity of space ships. Some Indians in the Andes travel to distant planets and learn much about the universe, while official science still investigates the superficial level of the material plane. Investigations in three-dimensional reality are always incomplete."

Note that Willaru describes these spaceshipless travelers as "noble people" - NOT "technologically advanced" or "militarily powerful" or "economically privileged."

Does he mean that a prerequisite of interdimensional travel is Moral Quality? Perhaps the capacity to feel openhearted compassion and freedom from finicky ego trips? The implications are, if one seeks to travel Beyond, one needs to travel Light!

Now, in Drunvalo Melchizedek's Flower of Life teachings, the same emphasis is placed on "nobility" - though in this instance, the necessary state of being is described as "Christ consciousness." Drunvalo, like Willaru, states that spaceshipless interdimensional travel (known as Ascension in the Bible, as well as in New Age circles) doesn't negate the existence of UFOs or Flying Hardware. But we are gently reminded that just as Troy fell for the old Wooden Horse ploy, modern humanity is susceptible to being bamboozled by extraplanetary "Greeks" bearing gifts.

INDEED, THE WORST HAS ALREADY HAPPENED!

Apparently - or, rather, not-so-apparently - a bunch of fetus-like aliens popularly (or unpopularly) known as the Zeta Reticulan Greys made contact with high-level military officers and politicians many decades ago (in the 1930s, some say, but the truth is, such contacts with extraterrestrial Trojan Horses have been occurring on Earth for hundreds of thousands of years). After the expected exchange of pleasantries, the aliens ordered a top-secret closed-door conference with a handful of extremely influential Earthians whereby a Memorandum of Understanding was signed. The Greys offered their services as "technical consultants," giving elite members of the human race access to hitherto undreamed-of scientific secrets that would enable certain humans to conquer space and time. In return they only wanted the right to conduct genetic research on this biologically diverse planet. Of course, this Special Project required absolute confidentiality.

The public must never hear of this. If any word leaked out, it had to be quickly smothered by massive disinformation campaigns. It sounded fair enough at the time. After all, vivisection and animal research are commonly practiced in our own research laboratories. So are secret experiments with viral warfare, genetic cloning, social engineering, ideological imprinting and so on. What the kids don't know won't alarm them.

All very Faustian, don't you agree? Where did Christopher Marlowe and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe get their inspiration for Mephistopheles from? An archetype, you say? But of course. Seems like it's the same everywhere in the universe, archetypical behavior! Anyway, the Greys began to feed the Inner Core members of the Pentagon-sponsored scientific cabal with very interesting information - but they kept the flow gradual.

"You need time to absorb all this high-tech stuff," the Greys intoned. Meanwhile, they went on a rampage with their genetic research. Cattle mutilations, human abductions, crossbreeding experiments.

Crossbreeding? That's right. The Greys knew they were doomed as a species. Their destructive technologies had laid waste to their home planet and made every man jack of them incapable of fertilizing even a toad's egg.

They needed hospitable human ovaries to produce a viable hybrid Grey-Earthian, a veritable Neo-Tech Man, that would quietly and efficiently take control of the planet and turn our future Bleak and Grey.

Only a few weeks ago at the local night market - and later aboard the Tanjong Malim bus - I saw people wearing black and grey T-shirts that gave me quite a start and prompted a sardonic smile. They featured an embossed depiction of fetus-like creatures, with the legend: "Alien Workshop Mind Control Laboratory." Ha! I see they're ready to advertise their presence. However, please don't panic. The Movie isn't over yet and some of us are betting on a Happy Ending.

I realize this is beginning to sound like an allegory of our times.

LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, THIS IS NOT AN ALLEGORY OF OUR TIMES!

This is bona fide information which has been effectively kept out of your school curricula for decades, if not eons. Due to certain mitigating circumstances and mysterious factors in the cosmic scheme of events and schedules, the information is now DECLASSIFIED. But it may do little good, considering how resistant human egos have grown to any news that threatens the Status Quo or, worse still, jeopardizes Economic Growth.

However, I am encouraged by my optimistic Higher Dimensional Aspect to discuss it openly with you without fear of rejection or reproof.


Remember, I started out explaining how the boundaries are blurring between the operational parameters of Body, Mind and Soul. How the lines between Hardware and Software need to be redrawn, so that we shall be less willing to sacrifice the Spirit for the Form - and vice versa, since it's never either/or but always both/and.


Messengers like Drunvalo Melchizedek and Willaru Huayta are only here to remind us that we have a divine birthright to reclaim, which entitles us to craft our own 'lightships" from pure intention married to fully conscious imagination - rather than depend on a sneaky, secretive mafia of rocket scientists.

Freedom from hunger, envy, fear, jealousy, poverty, discomfort and suffering does not entail a multibillion-dollar budget. It requires the cultivation of "a noble spirit" in all humanity. "Noble" does not mean "snootily aristocratic." It means something far humbler. The readiness to lay down arms and surrender to the inspiration and guidance of our own "higher nature" - to heal our wounded hearts so that we can FEEL again. To redirect our attention and energies towards the Whole, towards the Total Unity of Life - rather than remain paranoically fragmented behind security alarms and barbed wire and steel-plated doors.

To address our highest integrity towards maximum honesty and openness, and our greatest ingenuity towards restructuring our lifestyles and values so that we shall once more tread gently, lightly, lovingly - creatively rather than destructively - upon our gracious Mother Earth, our living goddess, our once-and-future Garden of Eden. In the course of moving in this general direction, we shall find ourselves ascending as a collectivity - as well as individually. We shall be moving not so much from "here" to "there" but from a coarser to a finer vibration, from the gross to the subtle frequency bands.

Yes, call it a major Change of Octaves that's impending. Happy travels!


[First published in JOURNAL ONE, February 1997. Reposted here 12 September 2008, 1 January 2014, 19 March 2016, 12 June 2017, 9 March 2020, 4 June 2022, 24 July 2023 & 12 March 2024]