Hypnonautics

The artwork is provided by my friend Shellie Summers The stars are ready The night is clear Through eons of Nyx They quickly appear All crowd to witness  The flight of paper things ____ Paper wings in moonlit skies How Boldly They soar over heaven Wings reflected beneath them. So Lonely The space between stars so few take the leap Diving into the night Chasing paper dreams Woefully Reaching through the stars  yet never making it However This is the way some think Thus they drown in heaven never reaching the stars I like to describe depression as a series of conversations, sweet-talking me towards my own demise.   The paper wings represent a hope that is frail and mortal. A mortal hope will die a mortal death; it is the way of mortal things. Immortal things never die, and thus hope in immortal things becomes immortal. Diving into the night, seduced by Shinigami. At times placing hope in a destination, only death seems to know the way towards. Beneath the depths of its pow...

The artwork is provided by Isabella Baker August 26 In last night's dream, I found myself standing around an unnaturally deep pit in the backyard of a house. This pit looked completely bottomless. Somewhere far below was a being known as "the Wandering Mountain," my dream informed me. The image of a desert in the middle of a sandstorm came to mind; a huge mountain dominated the horizon. The mountain was moving slowly away; it was alive, it was sleeping, yet it was walking. This was only one of many that were down in this pit. Soon my body followed my mind into the pit where I found myself face to face with Nephilim, as they were servants of the Sleeping Mountain. There were maybe 25 Nephilim in all; they looked like tall hairy men with long white beards. A gate separated them from the mountain, and though it was sleeping, the mountain approached our tiny cage like a shark sniffing out hidden prey. B y conjuring a human form, the mountain began to walk among us.  I do not...

Photo by Fabian Blank on Unsplash August 21st  So yesterday I had a dream wherein I found myself working with a company on some big project. I held the companies financial psychologist's position, whereas another young guy who was around my age held a different, equally important position. I feel as though we were interns or something, but I honestly don't know. Both of us had the purpose of advising the company heads in the direction that they should move to increase profits. "As all services and commodities are seasonal due to psychological and environmental reasons," my boss surmised. My job was to know what season we were in so that we could best reach potential customers with our variety of products. We were the youngest on the team, and my boss knew everything that I knew, so I found myself questioning why I was even there. He had the other young guy and me seated just behind him while the other executives sat in front of him at his table. I felt honored and e...

What is the Purpose of the Law? God impacts the way in which people live their lives so radically that the eyes of the world turn towards His children and thus they witness His work and this establishes His own credibility and exalts Him in the eyes of the witnesses. Pre-law: Deuteronomy 4:3-8 is a pretty good example of this; “ Your eyes have seen what the Lord has done in the case of Baal-peor, for all the men who followed Baal-peor, the Lord your God has destroyed them from among you. But you who held fast to the Lord your God are alive today, everyone of you.“See, I have taught you statutes and judgements just as the Lord my God commanded me, that you should do thus in the land where you are entering to possess it. So keep and do them, for that is your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the peoples who will hear all these statutes and say, ’Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people.’For what great nation is there that has a god so near to it as is the L...

Photo by Nong Vang on Unsplash August 20th ; ( My Perspective ): Last night, I had a dream where my family was getting ready to host relatives from out of town at our house. Our family was coming to help celebrate my autistic dream sibling's birthday in the next 2 days. My little brother loved sleeping downstairs on the floor, buried under stuffed animals with a dark blue blanket. He slept right next to a Christmas tree that was fully lit in this small sitting room. He chose the floor over the couch. ( Not My Perspective ): Meanwhile, the Home Alone movie guys went next door to try and rob our neighbor. She was presumed to be out of town; the timing was no less than perfect. As they slunk through her backyard and slowly approached the backdoor, it had a warning on it in big letters. "Thieves stay away" was scrawled in big letters on the door. They decided to ignore this first and only warning. The door slowly creaked open, and for just a second, a tall and pale woman loo...

Photo by Emiliano Vittoriosi on Unsplash August 18 ;  In a dream last night, I found myself walking down a dirt road with spiders on either side of me. I don't like spiders; needless to say, I was careful to walk along the center of the narrow path to avoid any and all possible contact with the creepy crawlies. One thought that came to mind when I reached the waking world was how thin the road must be between extremes. I like to think that I was walking in a grey zone. This grey zone path I had been on was so thin that it was not wide enough for a company of two to walk side-by-side with each other. Not a problem though, I was alone there. With spiders scattered along either side of the path and the sun's light fading, where I was might have been the right place for me, a sanctuary of patience and indecision blended together so enticingly that even now, I still can't refuse it. Maybe that's cowardly, possibly even heartless, that's fine by me. In a world where rig...

The cultural language of the bible can be partly deduced through the covenant that God made with Israel and their forefathers. I say partly because much of Israel's behavior was also heavily influenced by neighboring people groups within the land around them. This is why Israel at times practiced polytheism in place of the covenant that they had been given . The book of Exodus, Judges, and Hosea are great examples of this cultural back and forth that is prevalent in Israel's history. Ruth, the widow/foreigner, is a great pair of eyes to use in order to witness the covenant they were given. In Ruth 1:19-22, scripture say to love the foreigner as your own and do them no wrong as you yourselves know what it is like to have been foreigners, Exodus 12:49, Exodus 22:21-24, Exodus 23:9, Leviticus 19:33-34 and Deuteronomy 10:18-19. Ruth 2:1-7,8-19; leave food behind for the poor or the foreigner in your land, Leviticus 23:22, and Ruth was both. If you take a deeper dive into the law...

Photo by Jason Dent on Unsplash On August 12th, I awoke from a dream where I had been inside an elevator; consequently, I was reminded of my strong fear of the metal contraptions. I sat curled up in a ball in the dream, much like how I did when I was younger, and began to silently panic.  As the dream continued, the scene became more ridiculous with the introduction of a heavy couch, followed by a king-sized bed with an old lady in it, and also a bunch of people, all of which made me increasingly uncomfortable. Upon waking up, I began to contemplate that, despite my fear, elevators will always be a major part of my life. The reason being is simple; my fear of elevators is trumped by my desire for the convenience that they provide. I have literally gotten into elevators that had tendencies to free fall multiple floors time and time again, even with the memories of the screams of others at the back of my head as the doors slid shut. Despite the slips' frequency, I would find myself ...

Photo by Kate Hliznitsova on Unsplash The Tithe Before the Law, offerings of an unspecified amount were given to the Lord out of one's own free will and reverence. The offerings were a portion of crops, fruits, and cattle just as it was later commanded in the Law, and it was to be collected from the land of Israel. The offerings were burned up in fire and were a soothing aroma to the Lord, and it is in this way that people gave offerings to God. These offerings go all the way back to Cain, Abel, and Noah, all of whom brought offerings to the Lord without compulsion and of an unspecified amount. Later, Abraham would be seen tithing as he divided 10 percent of the spoils of war with an individual called "Melchizedek." Abraham's son Isaac had a son named Jacob, and Jacob promised to dedicate a tithe of all he owned to God. Whether he did so or not is not recorded; in both cases of tithing seen above, they are mentioned as one-time offerings. All of the above can be foun...

Art is courtesy of my friend, Shellie Summers. Thank you, Shellie! Lately, my dreams have been filled with werewolves, vampires, necromancers, and other monsters.  The fights are full of magic and are incredible to behold. However, I have not learned anything of value from them. Unless, of course, one is looking to find a way to keep a vampire from killing you.  I don't think knowing that using light magic as a possible weapon instead of dark magic (also called filth) would be of any use to anyone in real life. Thats why today I have decided to post about a dream I had some time ago that I think back to every once in a while. ”Some time ago” is short for "I can't remember when, but I know it was likely this month or last month." I have forgotten most of this dream, but I do remember the most significant part to me. In the sky was a gigantic sphere; inside that sphere was another Earth that I was constructing with awesome power. However, as the new world grew bigger, o...

Art Is Courtesy of Shellie Summers. Shellie, you rule! Why Racism Might not be the Right Word : In my last dream post titled " Tempest or Zephyr ," I, as an African American, found myself wrestling with the word “racism” after waking from that dream; it seemed to me that it may have lost its meaning. Let me explain; the definition of racism is based not solely on the color of a person's skin but on the ethnic and racial group that that person belongs to. For example, there is a difference between being born among the Wind-Riders as a Zephyr Wind-Rider instead of a Tempest Wind-Rider. They are both Wind-Riders, but they are different tribes. Perhaps, Tempest-Riders are best known to be very strong and potentially dangerous, so if they see me, a Zephyr riding the wind without any investigation, it would be easy to assume that I am potentially a dangerous Tempest-Rider. These concepts crossed my mind as the dream gave me memories that said Wind-Riders were bound...

Kami no Michi, (Japanese for "the way of the Gods"). It would seem that the only way to know where gods are going or what they are doing is if they themselves reveal it to us. This is exactly what God has done for us throughout the bible. For example, in Amos 3:7, the bible says, “ Surely the Sovereign Lord does nothing without revealing his plan to his servants the prophets ” (NIV), and in Isaiah 46:10 it says, “ I make known the end from the beginning, from ancient times, what is still yet to come. I say, ‘My purpose will stand, and I will do all that I please .” (NIV) We can clearly see this in action by reading Genesis 15:12-21 where we see God doing this when He tells Abraham about Israel's 400 years of hardship that was to come in Egypt and the Exodus that would follow; therefore, the book of Genesis predicts the book of Exodus. In Deuteronomy 32:1-43, we see an incredible foreshadowing of exile, sin, redemption, and curses which, as we read it,  carries the story a...