Back In Time

(early February in Tuscany)

Several days ago my fiancee drove me to a very special city for my current journey: Ravenna. We'd already been to see great buildings, castles, churches and sculptures in the likes of Pisa, Florence, Fierene, Castagneto Castellini, Popolonia,and Siena..but Ravenna has been the first city that I've felt a part of, and I really felt a connection with its energy. Ravenna is a place where rituals hang in the air. It bears the stains of spiritual warfare. It's known for the intricate mosaic-scenes that cover the immense walls and domed ceilings of the old churches there, where tombs line the grasses out in the open.


Ravenna feels as if it has an openly realistic view of the "spiritual battle". For example, in many cities in the U.S., churches are austere, blank, plain buildings with a giant cross on top. They display no passion, no personality, little interesting architecture, no history.. while some boast the bizarre non-decorative architecture of the 1970s. In the above mentioned cities of Italy, churches are covered in intricate marble carvings, (sometimes like lace and like the ornate wood carvings of Indonesia with lots of animals and people) ..yet the carvings are anything but placid and idyllic. They display a jumble of life-sized popes and nuns, screaming angels, roaring lions, angry gargoyles, yelling monks, raging birds, and the like: the sculptures are like photographs that have captured moments of serious battle, where the carvings are in the midst of puffing out their chests to keep the "bad", or uninvited spirits away.

Ravenna accepts that all things spiritual contain both light and dark in this world of the relative, because here on this earth we do not live in a vacuum. To deny this is to deny this reality. Even in this modern age, where churches boast themselves to be perfect and above the rest of society, perfection is far from a reality, and in denial of their dark side they do not speak an authentic truth. The most difficult part on the path of a human being is to accept responsibility for one's own life and one's actions resulting in that life. To accept this responsibility is at once the beginning and the end for the human being. What you resist, persists. Accept what you dislike in your life, accept what is shit, accept what does not work in your mind..then use your thoughts to change it, to create it anew, to shape and mold and sing it alive in new ways of your liking. What you imagine, you can manifest. What you try to control, withers and dies. What you believe in will come to pass because when you choose to believe, all your thoughts then words then actions become efforts to make that belief manifest reality. So, be careful what you think, be careful what you believe. Take care of what is in your mind. You are responsible for its output. You are responsible to protect what's inside. Your body is your monument to your life's experience.



This is my battle, as I work my rituals on the beach every morning, summoning all the necessary angels and energies to protect me, my fiancee, my vision, and my life.