A Dark Night of the Soul?

I wrote of attending Daniel Pinchbeck's talk at the Somara conference on Friday February 5th, 2016 in this post - 
Are the Owls What They Seem?

His talk was titled, 'Breaking Open the Future of Humanity' and while I enjoyed the talk, I couldn't help thinking that the tone of it mirrored so many groups that I know of and reflected where they all seemed to be heading in 2016.

Daniel Pinchbeck's  

How Soon Is Now (excerpt)

Most of the so-called "groups" I'm writing about here, while showing tremendous promise a few years back seem to be fragmenting and stagnating and questioning their way forward as a group in 2016.

I couldn't help thinking of the #16 Tower tarot card being a good representation of the year 2016, as a lot of groups seemed to be falling apart, or trying to rebuild themselves in some way, with a hint that they may not be able to or want to put themselves back together.

When I had bought my Somara weekend pass a few weeks ago at early bird prices and booked my motel room on the beach at Byron Bay I thought I was in for a really good uplifting weekend, but after the Pinchbeck talk and because  of a rescheduling of the talk after Dan's I thought that was enough for the night, as far as Somara goes, and I would have an early night and head back to my motel room and try to finish the two books I had bought down with me for the weekend to try and finish.

My two books on my motel beside table

The book I really wanted to finish that weekend was Lightning in My Blood, a book on shamanism, the other was a book on Synchronicity that was recommended to me by someone who hadn't even read it.

The funny thing to remember here though, before I go on, is that before I saw the Dan Pinchbeck talk that night I got to view and buy some tremendous artworks that were on display at Starseed Gardens.

They mostly involved images of transformation themes and I quite liked the blue dragonfly and butterfly prints, but I had a bias towards the dragonfly for many reasons, some were because the dragon is my Chinese zodiac, and also my wife loved collecting butterfly and dragonfly nick-knacks and putting them together as images of transformation and I thought it was ironic because dragonflies eat butterflies, and since she walked out on me I now see the dragonfly as my symbol of "he who has the last laugh", while transforming into something much stronger in spirit. 
And my favourite colour is blue, although a more turquoise shade of blue than the shade that the dragonfly print is on.

I also couldn't help thinking how the planted winged seed that was the symbol of Somara this year, looked like a dragonfly.

With the rain bucketing down outside my motel room and the prospect of a walk along the beach in the morning seeming unlikely, I looked through my Saturday programe for the Somara conference and thought none of those talks looked interesting to me and I wasn't going to go.

The Saturday programe for the Somara conference

Instead, I had decided since I was down here that I would head 23 kms down the road and visit the town of Ballina, if the rain eased up a little.
I wasn't even sure if I was so interested in Sunday's programe either, now in the gloomy mood I was in, but I wanted to pick up a print from the art shop, so I decided that I would go Sunday.

Sunday's programe

And looking out of my motel room at the rain falling I couldn't help but feel I was like one of those caged owls looking out of my own caged life, at the moment.

Are the Owls 

What They Seem?

I picked up my book on shamanism and started reading and although I had enjoyed most of the book so far there was one chapter where James talked about a visit to a "shaman" in Peru who rubbed a black Guinea Pig all over him and then skinned it with a knife, just to fix James' hurt back, or some minor pain. 
This really pissed me off when I read this barbaric act which to me was NOT an act of shamanism, but primitive superstition, which I could in no way condone. 

Guinea Pigs at the Animal Farm on Friday

As coincidence would have it, I had come across some Guinea Pigs that day at the Animal Farm and had already read a bit of the chapter about the Guinea Pigs before heading to Byron Bay the night before.
This just pissed me off even more that James would include this act in his book on shamanism.

I threw James' book on my bedside table and picked up the other book on Synchronicity that I had purchased and started reading that instead and read through the old Jung and the scarab beetle story which I had heard about a thousand times in my life already.
Chris Mackey explained that the scarab beetle was a sign to Jung of transformation and in my dark mood with the rain pouring down and my air-conditioner wining away, and me not even being able to hear the soothing waves crashing on the beach not far from my motel room, I thought I was sick to death of reading about Jung and his stinking dung beetle, why couldn't it have been a butterfly that Jung saw instead of that stupid beetle, or better still a butterfly being eaten by a dragonfly? 
Now that would be some symbols of transformation I would take notice of after tonight.

I put that book on my bedside table and just stared at the blank TV screen thinking why did I think I was guided down here this weekend to the same motel that held some truly great memories and started me on my sync journey? 
Behind the Door at Byron Bay
To me this weekend (apart from the zoo visit) was turning into the exact opposite of my past visits to this motel.
The TV reminded me of the Monolith out of 2001, so I took a picture of it and with my reflection in it thinking mankind is just still a bunch of apes even with all this so called technology and I can't see much hope for humanity at present with the way things are going on this planet.

I decided that I had had enough of reading for the night and didn't feel like turning on the idiot box to try and find something to watch for the sake of watching something.

So, I got up to turn off the overhead light that I had been reading under on the bed and noticed the painting over the bed of the beach I was hoping to walk along tomorrow morning, if the rain eased up (which it didn't by the way).
More irony I thought, just keep taunting me why don't you?

My motel room with the lights out

In the darkness of the room, I couldn't help thinking how funny it was that the blue light on the air-conditioner and red light on the TV were like something was offering me the red or blue pill choice like in the movie The Matrix.

I couldn't sleep, so I got up and turned the overhead light on again and read some more of the synchronicity book.
Chris Mackey then was relating about Joseph Campbell and the praying mantis in his book which reminded me of my unusual experience when reading about that story about Campbell when I was reading Grof's book, which I wrote about in this post linked below -
When The Impossible Happens ... to Me
That brought back memories of when I thought life was on track and was heading me somewhere through all this weirdness. 

My praying mantis sync

I was tired of reading and decided to put the book back on the bedside table and turn out the light once more, but as I put the book on the bedside table, I caught something out of the corner of my eye and at first thought it was another praying mantis, but it was a baby dragonfly just sitting on the wall.

The baby dragonfly next to my bedside table
 in my motel room.

I thought if I should try and take a photo with my cell phone before it flew off, and really thought that I had no chance of getting a shot off.

It just stayed put, letting me take as many pictures as I liked, flash on, or flash off.

Even when I awoke at eleven past three in the morning the dragonfly was still on the bedside table and still alive.
But by morning the dragonfly was gone and I couldn't find it anywhere.
Normally I would have taken the dragonfly outside, but because it was torrential rain outside for most of the night I left the dragonfly where it was, as I thought it would fare better inside the room than outside.
It's a mystery to me whatever happened to it, though.

And by morning the weather had not improved much at all, certainly not for a walk on the beach.
I didn't bother going to Somara on the Saturday, I headed to Ballina in the rain hoping the rain would blow away.
And it did briefly, but was soon back to its torrential self, so I bought a six pack of beer and headed back to my motel room and watched my team the Sharks progress through the Auckland Nines football tournament, since my room had cable, which I didn't have back at my house, so the day wasn't a total loss after all. 

And while my team did alright on the Saturday in Auckland I was still on a bit of a life downer, so it made me chuckle to see the sponsor of the Nines was a company named Downer;-)

Oddly enough, when I was writing about the Auckland Nines I found a notification about Halfasheep's new You Tube on occult Auckland, so I thought I would include it above, as it was a bit of a synch although I haven't even had time to watch it yet.

Sunday, leaving my motel and
heading for the last day of Somara

So, Saturday was spent in my motel room all day watching football and reading books and come Sunday I left my beach-side motel without ever setting foot on the beach, but I did head back to the Somara conference and spent most of the day there before heading back to Brisbane ... but that's for another post.

Sunday heading to the Somara conference
 in glorious rainy conditions.

Izzy Ivy Art

http://www.izzyivy.com/

Oh ... and if you would like one of those cool dragonfly prints then Izzy Ivy is the artist who makes them.

My new desktop background for my computer