Iron Butterflies (or, Varying Perspectives on the word “Senbonzakura”)

Back at the beginning of the summer of 2017, I read Ivan Throne’s The Nine Laws. Several days after I completed reading it, I posted the following review to Amazon.

I would call your attention to the second paragraph, where I list books from my library. Naturally, I recommend all the books listed there, but for those with some knowledge already of either Mr. Throne and/ or dear St. Therese, there might be a bit of puzzlement. You note that I mention they are stunning juxtapositions, and that were I a teacher, I would recommend reading both and then reconciling the two. Perhaps, you might yourself wonder, “But Z, how do you reconcile these two? They are as different from each other as night and day!”

Exactly. Yet both night and day are the same sky, the same depths of space around our little planet, each every bit as real and true as the other. Let’s step back a bit, rewind a bit for context.

In the Beginning, was the Word (or Kether, or Taiji), which resounded into the Void. This resonance was then here and there (Heaven and Earth, or Binah-Chokmah, or In-yo). Every metaphysical philosophy that survives for more than generation places Polarity right there at the beginning: (+) / (-),  1/0, Yes/ No, Male/ Female, Order/ Chaos, Outward/ Inward, Light/ Dark. From this primal polar duality, came all interactions that followed: the Tree of Life, The Elements, all the little bytes that together are the sum of Creation.

[This is, of course, why I am so taken with the Electric Universe theories– because they fit right in with all that metaphysicians have always insisted. Polarity, magnetism, the flow of energy from pole to pole, the dance of the poles at all levels. Good stuff. Anyway, moving on. . .]

So, if we want to have an accurate view of Reality, of That Which IS, then we must see with both eyes, the Eye of (+) and the Eye of (-). Only with both eyes open, do we have a chance of perceiving the Depths.

St Therese’s Story of a Soul is the most thoroughly (-) book I have ever read [Do not read (-) as “negative-bad”, but rather as “inward”, “yin/ in”, or as “negative polarity”]. The Little Way is, if properly understood, a revolutionary strategy in spiritual warfare. Consider: For various natural and understandable reasons, spiritual warfare and battle is often seen as Michael getting into it with Satan, or Raphael with Asmodeus, or Mary with the Serpent. We read of the great deeds of the prophets and saints, the Martyrs, great men and women who endured great suffering, or were great reformers, or great this or that. But how many of us are great? How many of us can be Great? We have mortgages, children, boring, tedious jobs, and though we volunteer with our church, we make no great ripples. How can we score great blows for Christ when we are, well, us?

This is where the Little Way comes in. St. Therese says, you need not do great things, merely small things with great love. One needn’t renounce the world to sacrifice, merely one’s hubris. The Little Way shows that Love manifests as sacrifice, so we sacrifice for those we love. We wash the dishes for Mom, we care for our aging Dad, our infirm neighbor. We reach out to our brother or sister who struggles. We say “I cannot save everyone, maybe I cannot even save you, but I can at least hold your hand and help steady your step.” Every moment of every day is a chance to find some small sacrifice, some manifestation of Love.

You may nod at this point and say, “Well, that’s very nice and all, but how is that revolutionary?” Good question. Think of it like this: Every time we allow these small manifestations of Love, the small, constant sacrifices, it’s like a butterfly, flapping its wings. Flit-flit. Flit-flit. And what do the beating of so many butterfly wings create?

Hurricanes. The Little Way is Chaos Theory Spirituality. Flit-flit BOOM!

It’s probably a good thing we little butterflies never see our storms, because it helps us avoid hubris. The ignorance (while living within Time) helps us keep our equilibrium on the narrow path of Virtue. In terms of Spiritual Warfare, it is, for Evil, for Satan, Death by a Thousand Cuts. Each little sacrifice for Love is not a nuke, or a JDAM, or a grenade, but a slender bo shuriken to the face, or a caltrop in the foot. It is tiny, crowd-sourced spiritual warfare. The kind that every child, housewife, farmer, or office drone can take part in. Everyone can then get in the fight, millions upon millions of butterflies beating their wings in time. Millions upon Millions of Ninjas of the Lord raining down caltrops, kunai, and shuriken against Satan every moment of everyday, while those few called to bigger acts still lob their bombs and missiles. A million tiny stars shining together into the darkness.

Do you understand?

Now, compare that to what I wrote about Mr. Throne’s book in the third paragraph of my review above. The Nine Laws is about our fallen, physical world, the unpleasant truths about how the currents and storms of this world manifest, and how to make your way through them. If The Nine Laws is “How to Keep the Ship of Self Afloat and Going”, then The Story of A Soul is “How to Smuggle Our Lord into Enemy Territory in a Fully Armed Galleon While Looking Like a Little Fishing Vessel.”

The first is an amoral operations manual, full of knowledge that once was commonly known. In the past decades, however, many of us been living in luxurious fantasies about reality and the nature of Nature. You cannot help your brother, your family, your neighbor, if the currents of the world keep dragging you under. You cannot choose to Sacrifice for Love if you are not able to Freely Choose. Therefore, the knowledge in The Nine Laws is the essential foundation for anything else one would pursue, be it wealth, power, or Heaven itself.

The Nine Laws has both (+) and (-) elements but I would say that overall, is a very (+) book, because it is very concerned with the nature of the World Around Us, the outward, the Yo. It is Super Masculine, in much the same way that the Story of A Soul is Super Feminine. Together, with the (-) of Story of A Soul, one can start to dimly perceive the Profound Depths of Creation. Both are True, both are Real.

You must see with both eyes.

Advertisement

Dignity, Discernment, and the Importance of Borders

I wanted to tell you a bit about my first story. “Auntie’s Magnificent Bricks” was written specifically for the MAGA 2020 anthology. I took a good look at the call for entries and said to myself, “Sure, I can give that a shot!” Here’s what the call for entries said:

MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN. Create a Utopian future that was brought to us by President Donald J. Trump. How big will the wall be, and will it make things better? Will the UN & NATO be replaced by something better? Will Russia & China become our new allies, help us destroy ISIS, and get Iran & North Korea in line? Under Trump will we colonize in space, will The Smithsonian divulge secrets of ancient cultures, will the celebrities move out of the USA, or will we see Hollywood lose its grip on America?

TRUMP HATERS NEED NOT APPLY. Looking for the futurist perspective, peering years ahead, give us your take on what America will be like after Trump PUTS AMERICA FIRST. Will he unify the nation despite attempts to undermine his Presidency, restore America’s economy, end partisan politics, or maybe connects us with extraterrestrials? But this is a positive perspective on Trump being President, so don’t be negative.

I took this call for entries at its word, and the result is something a little more political and jingoistic than I might otherwise have written. After all, I’m a no-name just starting out on this writing thing, so I had to be sure that my story fit what was being requested to have a shot at publication.

That said, it’s not all politics and meme-culture (although Kek help me, there is some meme culture). I took the idea of the Wall, and pondered the idea of borders, barriers, and boundaries. There’s this idea in our culture, for as long as I’ve been alive (so, since at least 1980), that boundaries are inherently bad– that they only serve to be broken. Whether the lines are in a coloring book or on a map, there’s this idea that people should not be constrained (oppressed!) by these lines, but rather should take hold of their human freedom and break through these boundaries, thus breaking the chains of their own oppression!

The philosopher Stefan Molyneux states that “the basis of morality is essentially property“, a statement with which I find myself completely in agreement. [If this doesn’t immediately strike you as true, watch the video at the link, and explore some of his other related work.] Going a bit further, one of the key principles of property is borders, the definition of the property.

All of the greatest crimes that we as a (barely) functioning society recognize have to do with violations of property: Murder, Rape, Theft are all violations of borders. The first two are violations of bodily autonomy (a human’s primary property), the third is the violation of one’s things: one’s land, one’s objects, one’s food, etc. Kidnapping is theft of the person itself, which adds a bit of the extreme personal borders violation of murder or rape, likewise involuntary servitude (slavery). Pedophilia is the rape (or desired rape) of those who have not yet grown enough to be able to assert their own rights, which is why it is so particularly reprehensible. It’s rape².

Thus, to have a functional society, all the members of that society must have a firm grasp on this: Where does the property of one end, and another begin? What is “mine”, and what is “not mine”?

This question is at the bottom of every major policy question of our day. For example, Pro-Life advocates argue that the artificial termination of a pregnancy violates the borders of the bodily autonomy of the small human growing in a woman’s womb. Pro-abortion advocates proclaim that a woman has a right to do with her body whatever she wills, declaring that there is no other party, property, or border to be thus violated. This is why the one side sees murder where the other only sees “a medical procedure”.

It’s not just a modern question, however. In fact, the entire Bible is a history of God asserting His property rights over the world, of God instituting borders and telling His humans: “Don’t cross these lines!”, “This is your area,” and “this is Not you area”. This theme begins in the very beginning of Genesis: God has created Everything, including Humans, and has placed Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. God tells them: “I’m giving you the whole Garden, all of it, to be yours, to eat from and enjoy, except this one tree, here. Don’t eat anything from this one single tree. This one tree is Not Yours.”

So naturally, Eve eats from that one tree and convinces Adam to do the same. They willfully violate the one border God set up. Why? Greed, envy, curiosity, the inability of women to respect the personal boundaries of other people, who knows? The fact is, they violated that border: this was the original sin. Yes, it was disobedience as we are so often taught, but that disobedience came in the form of a border violation. This is then further compounded when both Adam and Eve try to shift responsibility for this transgression away from themselves. The man blames the woman and the woman blames the serpent. Not only have they now violated the border between what is theirs and what is God’s, but now they are denying their own bodily autonomy, denying the basis of their own property. This completes a complete inversion of God’s Creation, this is the actual Fall, not the consequences later described. Adam and Eve are basically telling God “All things are ours, except our own beings, which are beyond our own control.”

This sounds familiar. Ever notice how some people demand all things from all people, but never take responsibility for their own selves? It’s the same story, since the beginning. The violation of borders is the core of what makes a sin, a sin. One cannot violate the borders of a country without sinning any more than one can rape without sinning. They are the same sin, only at different levels of personal closeness.

This is the concept I was dealing with when I wrote “Auntie’s Magnificent Bricks”: the importance of barriers and walls at all levels. Our protagonist, Jada, learns of a past where the borders and barriers necessarily to live as civilized beings were broken down, and the struggle of the previous generation to re-establish the much needed psychological, social, and physical barriers needed for civilization. She comes to understand why her aunt (and others of her generation) are always harping on “Dignity and Discernment”, and why The Wall is so much more than just a wall.

Yes, there is some political window dressing, but the main thrust of the story stands on its own, as a call for all people to practice Discernment and reclaim their Dignity.

ANNOUNCING MAGA 2020 AND BEYOND!

It is with great pride and excitement that I present to you, my select audience, the formal announcement of the anthology containing my debut work

MAGA 2020 and Beyond

MAGA 2020 and Beyond is being published by Superversive Press, an up and coming powerhouse of Science Fiction and Fantasy publishing, free from the stifling political correctness that is killing the rest of the NY City based publishing houses. Today, Subversive released their official notice that this anthology will be released this upcoming 8 November 2017. Pre-orders can be made for the kindle edition at this time, and this post will be updated once the paperback link is up.

My story is called “Auntie’s Magnificent Bricks”. It’s about a young lady learning about dignity, discernment, her family’s past, America’s past, and the importance of borders both physical and psychological (yes, including THE WALL).

I will post more between now and November, including what I know of the other stories. I’ve heard rumors about Barron Trump piloting a mecha, which I hope are true, because I will read the crap out of that! For now, go forth and pre-order your own copy today!

So much writing! But not here

I’ve not been on, lately, because I’ve actually finally started to make a bit of headway with the fiction writing. Yes, there will be updates. One later today, another in a couple weeks, and we’ll see from there. There will also be some more sprucing up the joint, taking out old links, adding new friends, etc . . .

So for now, stay tuned!

Clean up in previous entry

So, I just edited an older post: “How to Spot a Fake-Azz ‘Occult Expert’ in Two Words” had a comparison in it that, a few years later, no longer works. I updated this comparison, left a note, the previous words just just struck through. But, I wanted to note this, for the sake of transparency. So there you are. Yes, I changed it.

FYI sort of Update

While I’m keeping this blog for eventual longer essay-posts, the blog format in general is too . . .big . . . for the type of post I’m usually doing, which is seeing something cool/ interesting/ etc, and passing it on, maybe with a comment or three of my own. So, i’ve been trying to figure out some other platforms, and I think Tumblr is really better suited toward that.

So, if interested, you can find me more regularly at: http://zophielmalfoy.tumblr.com/

WARNING: In addition to most of the stuff you’re used to seeing, you’ll also be explosed to 1) Fangirling over many things and 2) Random thoughts. Some of it is serious, a lot of it isn’t. So, er, FYI.

How to Spot a Fake-Azz “Occult Expert” in Two Words

I just subjected myself to one of the worst blog entries I’ve ever read. Which, knowing the internets, must be pretty bad. As it seems that riling me up is the only way to get me thrown headlong into the blogging process these days, here I am, full of disappointment and irritation yet again, as some well-meaning, but ultimately ignorant and unqualified person attempts to speak the Truth About The Occult, only to unknowingly make a fool out of them self and drive away the souls most in need of conversion.

Let me be clear– while I do try to swallow my irritation on most matters, in this case a person is not only misrepresenting the Catholic Church and Christianity, they are further alienating and pushing away many souls that, I rather rashly assume, they would deem most in need of saving and conversion. I am not writing this to Defend This Person or That– although in this case it may seem that way. I am writing this because I am concerned about good, devout people getting scammed again and again by frauds. I am concerned about these frauds (and their believers) unintentionally causing scandal to the Church. These things help no one, and cause great harm.

So, to my credentials for this subject: Yes, I am familiar with the occult. More than a passing acquaintance, though somewhat distant these days. Yes, I am currently a practicing Catholic, yes I go to Confession and sing in the Choir and read my Bible and bicker with others about the Traditional Latin Mass vs the Novus Ordo. So it is that I am just as familiar with Dion Fortune as I am with St. Therese of Lisieux. I am just as read in Manly P. Hall, Israel Regardie, and dear Frater Albertus, as I am with St. Bernard of Clairveaux, St. Hildegard von Bingen, and dear St. Francis de Sales. To be fair, I haven’t read Blavatsky, but neither have I read all that much Vianney. I have enjoyed puzzling through Agrippa and St. Albertus Mangus. Moreover, just as I can go to Mass, Confession or Adoration with little to no need for a “cheat sheet” (I am fond of my iConfess app), likewise can I navigate the standard LBRP, Middle Pillar, or Rose Cross Rituals with no need for script or index cards. [For the record to passing occultists: I leave out the SBRP and the LBRH because in the case of the former, I am uncomfortable with the Analysis of the Keyword and, for the latter, it uses Enochian, which I avoid, due to my conviction that not only was Dee deceived, but Kelley tried to tell him so and he (Dee) wouldn’t listen.] Finally, since it is near impossible to read any of the above occult authors without also having familiarity with Garnder, Starhawk or, Gawd-help-us, Silver RavenWolf, I have a more than passing familiarity with Wicca and modern Witchcraft, and mild knowledge of other, more traditional “Low Magic” traditions. (And yes, I have read Crowley, and I’m never getting those hours of my life back. . .)

So yeah . .

There was work. . . and Balticon . . .and work! Ugh. But I might be getting a handle on things again. In the meantime, I’ve updated the blogroll a wee bit. Added a very brand new blog written by two of my dearest friends: http://theo-pop.com/

You may or may not be interested. More soon. Probably. (I’ve a slew of drafts awaiting finishing. . .)

24 April 2014 – News & Sundry

Powerful Asteroids hitting Earth more frequently than expected.

Army wasting money on a system that doesn’t work, People Dying.

My first thought is this: Those who work in Army Acquisitions know that if there is a commercial product that supplies a need, that they are to use that product and not spend money on developing something new. This is the default setting for purchases. In order to not go with the commercial solution, there must be a solid reason for not using it.

In this case, they would need to document why, exactly, Palantir does not meet the Army’s requirements. Or, why they cannot do business Palantir Technologies. They aren’t currently disbarred, so there would have to be some other reason. All of that should be documented somewhere, and they should be pulling those documents out at this point and reviewing them.

That said, I agree with a lot of what Hunter said. It is a huge bureaucracy, needed because the Federal Acquisitions Regulations, Defense Supplement, and Army Supplement to the Defense Supplement, plus all the other executive orders and policy statements are so numerous and vast, that you need all those people to make sure that purchases are done legally. If you want to trim the number of people, you need to gut the regulations and paper-work requirements. I don’t know how it is in other offices, but in the one I work at, we’re overloaded with work, mostly because it takes so long to get things done, due to the regulatory requirements.

Cult of Moloch alive and well in the USA. Sometimes, I have trouble praying for Him to be merciful to the US– I can pray for mercy for the slain, for the women deceived, even the doctors who are so lost they cannot see what they are doing. .  but for the nation as a whole? How can I ask such a thing in the face of such evil committed– burning the bodies of murdered children to recharge our iPhones? So I find myself praying for Him to be Just or Merciful as He deems best. Because simply praying for mercy, in this case. . .  the words stick like needles in my mouth.

And then I check on my supply of water and canned food, and count my ammo.

Allen West asks a question that rather answers itself, I’d think.

Troops deployed to Eastern Europe. Because the Cold War is over, doncha know?

Speed Limits, Drinking Ages, and other Needless Gov’t Interventions. Grunt Opines.

Post-Easter News and Sundry

Because, we all know this is what Earth Day is really about.

22 April News:

So, now they say they might have been looking in the wrong place for that missing plane. You don’t say? It’s not like everyone on the internet has been saying so this whole time . . .

Wild Pacific Salmon restored to amazing numbers, carbon sequestered, Native Populations getting to maintain their way of life . .. and some people are trying to complain about something. What is wrong with these people?

What in seven hells even is “mansplaining?”

Matt Walsh: Christian Women-Feminism is not your friend.

Will 2014 be a Year Without a Summer?

Also, finally saw the new Captain America movie today. It was pretty rad!!!