The Diamond Island

The UFO is built and I’ve learned how the controls work. I pour myself a dark cup of pirate cider and have a trance-like out of body experience just sitting at the command chair, taking in the enormity of what has happened.

The psychological cauldron is bubbling and boiling. Something is cooking in the kitchen of my brain, an idea forming and coming into being which will require digestion of the multi-human level of experience: spiritual, physical, mental, emotional.

I realize then that I hypnotized myself into building and learning this magnificent Karavos of exploration. I’ve also been doing work in the valley of the skeleton trees with the sleeping sphinx while the rains fall in the desert of the farthest reaches of inner space. Killer bees are buzzing.

Now the time has come to fly this thing; to complete the journey and return to the real world so that this UFO may know me living in the ordinary world in a non-ordinary way. I intend to see this voyage through for the sake of all beings.

So I check out the message on my answering machine from the Dark Goddess. She reminds me to watch out for being a gross persecutor. I take this point to heart, knowing I have in the past been this very thing to her.

She then reminds me to look in my backpack. Everything I need is there, but I forgot they were there. Hurriedly, I open my backpack and find a glowing crystal star I’d found a while ago but forgotten, and a huge key; like a ceremonial city key perhaps.

This key is necessary to start my UFO, and the star is part of the power source for the navigational array. You kind of need a central operating unit to power this critical feature. I had not even considered this!

I regard the star, remembering what it cost me to recognize this marvel; the double broken heart, the traversal through the horrific sewers of human existence, and the impossible healing of monstrous wounds. Time to do this; I know where it goes now and why.

The key is inexplicable to me, being a combination of inner imagination and outer consolidated form. Gorgeous and intricate, but so small and light—I didn’t expect that. It comes off as huge and gilded, yet in use it has a dimensional quality of being very useable.

Indeed, I use the key and realize what a tremendous thing it is we all do when we put a key in a lock and turn. This is a bottom up symbology with great power that reaches the elemental core of how things work in space and time, as well as the complexities of psychological reality.

I think about the time the Tom Baker Doctor Who put the key to time in the time cannon.

There is a moment of profound night-tide belonging, and then I realize the time has come to name this UFO. It’s a moment that has been on my mind in its approach since I sensed it coming. How could I possibly know what to do?

The Sticker Stasher comes to my rescue. A sticker of a brontosaurus falls out of a book I momentarily move to the side. I recall briefly this dang thing traveling around my possessions for some time and never managing to find its way into my sticker box.

I name this UFO Brontosaur.

It comes from the greek word bronte, which means thunder, and has connotations of growling and roaring. Saur comes from the greek word sauros, for lizard.

Yesterday it rained for a few minutes for the first time all summer, and there was thunder. A week before that I heard thunder, and the clouds obscured the sun for an hour.

The time has come for departure from the valley of the skeleton trees. The killer bees are already swarming into the bulkheads and Lucerna is on deck, waiting to see how well my meager knowledge holds up now that the moment has come to put me to the trial.

The gigantasaurus Sphinx is in the hold, moved by mystical means I barely understand; the transposing of thoughts with methods of play that transcend our limitations of vision.

Here we go.

The valley of the skeleton trees is left behind, through a storm of rainfall in a desert at the edge of inner space. The emerald avenue is no longer needed. Instead, passage is through the ruby avenue. Now the task of flying this UFO falls to me.

The balloon is filling with bubble cola; liftoff is ON.

See you on the other side this journey!

The five year anniversary of this website was August 1st. I spent all of the month of August meditating on the meaning and my next course of action. I find it difficult to put in detailed words how this represents a closure and a new beginning.

The UFO is the end result of this five years of work—if you have been wondering where it all leads, there is your answer. All I can say is wow what a long-winded and intensely personal artistic endeavor!

Part of me wants to chuck everything into the furnace and burn it down to the ground. I have a strong urge to destroy artistic projects once I’ve accomplished them. Yet I feel this time is different. I have a new task to build upon using what I have created.

I’ve been examining the past material and reckoning with the urge to change and adapt. A new expression must arise as I take flight in this UFO. To mindlessly repeat seems inappropriate. To continue on without some response feels wrong.

Yet I have limitations. I feel right up against them. Is this where I push them aside? Or push aside what I believe them them to be? I don’t know!

I’m ready to throw in the towel if that’s what is required of me. Though, I can’t help but feel now that I am finally here maybe something amazing will happen. I’m back to the beginning of where I ran away.

This website will continue. In the meantime I will strive to figure out what it needs to be in the years to come, now that the foundations and groundwork have been laid out and put into action.

I’ve mentioned the illustrious Pizza of Doom before. However, I don’t think I’ve actually ever posted any pictures of the magnificence that is summoning your own personal pizza to serve you good tasting satisfaction. Well, worry no more my illustrious 1d6 non-bot readers!

I have yet to try the recipe since moving out to the Pacific Northwest wildlands, where bigfoots roam and beers beg you to drink them. How will the water and climate affect the dough rise and ultimate consistency? The cooking, if you allow for an oven variance, how long will it take and how will the crust turn out? Questions galore that refuse to be put off any longer!

I must practice my kung fu in a new way and in anew time zone cooridnate, solar systems are go and wooo!

Luckily, I am able to assemble the ingredients in an appealing manner. Pepperoni and cheese are whatever you can scare up, but because there is the Tillamook cheese manufacturing power in this area, i am able to score a grated cheese combo attack of mozarella, provolone, and parmesan all in three! Yowza. Feel the power.

Oh, and bonus. The package has enough to cover the pizza. Those other cheese conglomerates, always short you cheese such that you can never quite cover the mega-mutha. May they roast in profits hell. You see, these little details matter! One must always have access to the proper goodies. Every small ingredient, physical or mental, affects the space time continuum of crafting.

Came out well too. I like it when the ingredients sink nicely and the rim forms a good crispy final bite to a slice. Sauce was iffy since I had to go with the tomatoes I could and the pre-cooking of the sauce is a random variable I have not compensated for in the phase variance. But still tasty. I ate it. K ate it. Our tummies thank us.

But wait, there’s more! We also went picking triple crown sweet blackberries and brought some back for pancake toppings, general snacking, and cobbler. Alas, I could not translate my cobbler recipe so I had to crib from the internet. More work is to be done, yes I need to meditate on my cooking powers. But the topping was cooked well, and the blackberry sauce was delicious.

This thing will not last the week, I tell you. Iron rations for dungeon adventures in the Cascade range!  Eeegah, prepare for doom.

Another one of my friends has had a short story published. John Costello is a writer with kung fu literature skills he’s been practicing in secret coves for some time. He has finally started to come out of hiding to show us his unstoppable technique!

Check out “Giants” in issue 5 of The Quotable. I would characterize the story as daily life interpersonal conundrums with brutal honesty.

I am so happy to see my friend taking the plunge and putting his work out there! Holy cats what an exciting development. Yes, my wonderful friends, put your stuff out there so we can have STUFF!

Go John! Now is your time to show us what you can do; keep on shipping us your insights and passion from the far seas of the mind in which you’ve traveled.

A while ago I decided to explore my own Tomb of Horrors, thanks to some helpful exposure osmosis insights from my trusty Chimera friend Shanna Mann. After some meandering about with various ingredients I am starting to build a formula of exploration.

I was going to put out an ad for a psychological being to handle the specifics, but this dude came knocking at my door as soon as the commitment formed in my brain. After some dialogue of a sort using mysterious hand signals and lip reading apparatus I believe we have come to an accord.

We’ve leased some imaginary property from a psychic patron in a settlement suitable for our needs. I had no idea such a town was located near the Diamond Island! Hidden treasures everywhere you look, if you see with the eyes of joy.

Of course, the inhabitants are going to be mighty surprised to see all this sudden activity in their accustomed unconscious existence. What can I say, I am shining a candle in my own individual way and this is where it has led me. There may be benefits as well as difficulty.

I have decided to explore, through the exploits of my new found friend, the role of horror host. He will be doing this in his own particular way, according to his own individual stance. I will, of course, be responsible for his actions as his conscious manager.

To this effect I have created a secret door to our mutual venture. The password will be most easily obtained by those with the secret decoder wheel, which is part of my Sooper Fun Pak currently only available on my Facebook fan page. by request.

So stay tuned for more tidbits, and if you are one of the fortunate folks to have a password wheel at your disposal (or have a small microchip brain for ciphers) you may be entertained!

There’s this courageous and original artist I know who does good work. Her explorations are top-notch: She is by turns vulnerable, honest, out of the ordinary, and determined. Watching her struggle and make slow discovery is similar to witnessing a lone brilliance dig up the forms that future civilization will be composed of.

I draw a simple picture of a kind of expression she was dealing with. That of having to do with allowing yourself to let go of the parts of your life that no longer suit the direction it is taking.

This is no small thing!

To give yourself permission to jettison those things you no longer need? It can be a grim ordeal. You feel as if you are betraying something, or admitting to yourself that bad news has come to town for real.

Facing up to denial of the shadows in our lives is a heroic act, especially when the taking of action is crucial—to allow ourselves to experience the warrior and swing our sword is shocking. When the warrior destroys what is outmoded, corrupt, or harmful there is a rush of energy in our body.

I’m sure Rogue Priest would have a thing or two to say about that, being of the warrior spirit.

My Hek-sistah once told me that there are times when you take an action and you experience it as an act for the sake of all beings in the universe. Your wishing for the enlightenment of all beings is, in a single moment, the same as that actual moment because in that moment it is experienced as true.

Even if that’s all you do—act with the intention—that is a tremendous step forward that benefits all beings in the universe. If you can follow it through and continue onwards that is great, but if you can’t it’s enough to intend for it to be so.

I’ve let go of the crummy butt jerks and misery nightmare torture wagons I’ve been hauling for the last two years. This Pegesus has kicked them all to the curb and moved on to new life.

I’ve given myself permission to do this. Even though it feels like failure on my part, and I never like admitting to myself that I can think of myself over other people.

And I’m dedicating this to all beings in the universe. Yes, even the bums I’m leaving behind to stew in their own juice. We all need to be free from domination and control, and to find our shining in this world of suffering.

All you beings in the universe, for the sake of our enlightenment I’m sayin it as I move on: “See ya sucker!”

The other day UFO Girl delivered a pizza to my brainpan, compliments of the Naughty Louse. Wait, who? Might that be another name for my Bad Ronald?

I know he’s been out there in the world, breathing the fresh air and squinting at the sunlight. By owning up to my own problems and breaking free, I got him outside to a new dimension of life.

I guess he has UFO Girl’s pizza delivery number, and maybe even a coupon. Come to think of it, a redeemable coupon or token for UFO Girl delivery must be a highly unusual contrivance.

In any case, this information extravaganza inside my brainstem calls up all the necessary ingredients for moving along to the next step in the building of the karavos, this UFO I am participating in.

In order to fly a UFO it may be necessary to adopt a control panel or command module of some kind. Consciousness works by directing disparate and in-conflict parts unified by a tendency towards out-of-chaos-into-dance using the twin beasts of the chariot to carry us home.

Here, out of the past, from a child’s hand in a different sector of space and time, an adult calls forth the preserved image of a kind of desired control panel interface. Touch, and the universe responds with your intent. This, the Dark Goddess has shown me.

Drawing upon the active imagination of movement from one form to another, one might advance the shy and hesitant emergence of a beautiful treasure from the unconscious, adapt it with the ability to breathe air and switch modes of existence.

I use the small and slightly more mature tools of thought at my disposal to render another version of the control panel. Connected to the previous version, yet also individual. An eye opens, an eye blinks, and a moment passes. In the gutter of that moment is revealed another image.

For you see, in order for this to be a navigation tool to fly with, from which other panels might spring from, you need to know what reality you are in. One must take a reading, so to speak, of where one is in psychic existence in order to know your non-existence parameters.

Remember, nothing is where it calls from!

I mean…err…comes from. You will explore more fully the abyss seeking where the unknown is likely to be. And again, a map arises out of the wondrous imagination of a child’s natural witnessing of what is all around and within. This is the baseline from which springs the core of a UFO’s wanderings at play.

This is a dangerous proposition to consider. To generate a star chart of this comprehensive a manner requires a spirit of adventure, but it also requires a readiness to be changed by what you encounter. As Doctor Who would say, “Travel broadens the mind”, yet behind that one must also realize that to embark on a venture seeking new ideas is to be exposed to risk if those ideas are to be fresh.

The spoor and tracks of the supernal super-predator mean business, yo.

Since this is a newly emergent ancient UFO, the display panel from the adult perspective is blank for now. Anything and everything might emerge upon this nothingness. The fool’s zero begins our journey with a bronx cheer.

All that remains now is to materialize a starting point with which to begin our journey of the UFO. In this case, the input of another person is useful in suggesting that which we might ourselves be blind to, or lack the courage to tackle ourselves. A true companion is a great assistance in regarding those things we might lack the resources to reckon with fully.

Home is a good place to decide upon as a reference point. Departure, return is a cycle that matches the lifeforce of the universe. Breathe in, breathe out. Eye open, blink. Time and space appears in the vast indescribable eternity that runs with us wherever we are or aren’t.

A form, an interface, an occupant, a journey. All pieces are now complete.

The pizza has been delivered.

I want to thank Birdman for taking over hosting duties for a while. As it turns out, I’ve been consciously occupied with outside events of personal importance that have allowed for very little in the way of inward journeys. So, thank you Birdman, you have been a true friend in keeping this haven for me while I was away.

What happened?

K and I moved to the Pacific Northwest. This is something we have been wanting to do for a long time.

I quit my job, we donated or recycled a bunch of our belongings, and declined to renew our lease. We packed up Gamera with some luggage and a pair of cat carriers (one medium and one small), and then anything that didn’t fit in Gamera went inside a huge POD.

Loading the POD and emptying out ten years of stuff from a three story townhouse was a supreme ordeal. You need mad Tetris skills and nerves of steel from having studied several episodes of the TV show “Hoarders.” It took 38 hours, 27 of which was straight-on-till-morning, without sleep.

After making sure the PODzilla transport arrived (they had tried to call us to confirm, but our phone was already disconnected), we loaded the three cats Michael, Frankie, and Blink into their carriers. K and I made sure they had plenty of water, litter, food, and comfy blankees to sleep or throw up on.

With star charts in the crevices of the seats and jammed to the gills with food, bedding, clothes and computers we left Reston Virginia behind and embarked on our galactic voyage across the country. We still hadn’t had any sleep, but we were determined to reach our first stop in Toledo, Ohio.

Sometimes a heroic effort is necessary to break free of the octopus of the past.

We got stuck in traffic. The DC Foundry has a strong gravity well that can be formidable—in this case we spent an hour going 2 miles before we managed to escape. The temperature was brutally hot, but the AC held and the cats managed not to freak out until we were actually out of the jam.

Blink needed some calming medicine and the others a little petting. This was an adventure they had never encountered before! Then we were off again.

I don’t know where I got the strength and the will to go on, but I drove through the night until we reached our goal.  Despite the hotel directions being incomprehensible we found the place.

The hotel staff allowed us to check in late and stay in past check out (bless their hearts) so we could get a few hours extra sleep. 44 hours is a long time to go without sleep, let alone move like a beast and then drive ten hours.

The cats rolled with it.

Then, every day the same: Get up, pack the stuff and then load the cats, check out, get breakfast, gas up, drive to the next stop. Des Moines (Iowa), Cheyenne (Wyoming), Ogden (Utah), Boise (Idaho), and then Portland (Oregon). Six days of travel and full of danger and hilarity.

I didn’t know if I could drive for such long periods of time. That was always something my father did, and did with great skill and stamina. So in a way I have made my contribution to the Drive Yourself Crazy Club of which Ferguses are said to be members.

There is something of a meditation in having to be alert and discerning for endless hours of monotony. The body adapts to the external demands that the mind serves to navigate.

If there is one insight I come away from, having been 2800 miles of distance through the United States, it is that the country is a huge resource extraction wealth grab for the rich.

Corn fields in Nebraska as far as the eye can see, making corn syrup. Beef fields in Wyoming making ground beef for the franchise wars. Refineries processing coal for energy. All connected by roads and truckstops, with a slight nod to tourism (if you can afford it). All fenced in and owned or dominated by big business, with no signs of civilization or individuality anywhere.

When the cheap oil runs out and the diesel begins to strangle the truck lines all of this will die, blow away, leaving ghost towns and blighted landscapes full of nitrates.

It’s already happening—I could hardly believe how much construction was going on with the roads. A third of the roads I drove were in a state of repair, traffic redirected to a single lane for 25 miles at a time, again and again. And the roads that were new were composites—where is the asphalt? The quality of the roads is going to cheap materials as it breaks down faster, talk about surreal.

We passed a lot of wind farms, and that’s great, but you aren’t going to be running trucks or building roads or making fertilizer out of wind power. To see this country propped up like a house of cards with all wealth going to rich institutions with no thought of what comes after is to witness the triumph of mindless evil over decent human life.

As K and I drove through this desolation of self-destruction we encountered the elements. A thundering torrential rainstorm in Iowa that would become a roaring hurricane a few days later sweeping the east coast in a fury, destroying phone and power for millions.

The smoke clouds from the south as we drove through Wyoming were the beginnings of the massive brush fires that would destroy countless homes in Colorado, of a size to stagger the imagination in its scope. We drove through areas where the fire had burned everything to one side of the highway and then gone out when it met the road.

Some fires still blazed in their enclosed firetraps. I thought we were passing through a strip mine, when I realized the black earth was cinders covering the landscape of boulders that remained after everything else had perished. This is the future—nature crushing us back into the savage garden from whence we sprang.

Just remember, global warming is only a liberal hoax!

The vision is a horrific one, and beyond my small power to affect—yet I still ask what it is for and I will to will Thy will in my transformation. I shall remember this and express my own personal potion when the time is right, for do I not also contain a small spark of fire inside me, a thunder being holding a candle alight?

Then we reached our destination. It was as if we had stepped through the protective mists of Lothlorien, where some small craft, healing, and knowledge is preserved.

We stayed at a Buddhist retreat run by one of my oldest and dearest of friends, allowing the cats to stretch their legs and us to remember a little of what it means to be human beings. Eat, drink, walk, recover—our journey done and the real work of building a new home begins.

Our apartment is small, but perfectly placed for us to begin again. Everywhere are trees, ferns, lichens, mosses, and birds. There are secret and hidden places for me to discover new ideas and form new substance in the world.

As I attended college here, I went to the reunion to witness and regard the connections to the past that still shape my life today. There are ceremonies of the soul that cannot be shared, but of which there is great sensation and emotion pouring out into one’s life.

My old life is gone, destroyed by a thunder-fire storm of psychic change. I am nothingness, out of which may come the dawn.

Hello, you can call me Birdman. My real name is a series of squawks and cheeps, so for the sake of ease you can use a name others have utilized for their own benefit.

I have come to inform you that Paul Tristan Fergus is temporarily indisposed. Something about a UFO and dimensional engineering feats involving object packages. A whole lot of technical stuff that quite frankly is for the birds if you ask me. Give me some tasty snacks and a brisk wind on a clear sunny day and I am happy chickadee.

Some of you may have noticed a gradual slowdown in posts here, with a general focusing on bizarre psychological adventures. I assure you this has been quite normal and intended! My fine un-feathered friend has been subjected to a great deal of stress, the misery of which has required his utmost attention to transform into usable materials for the refinement of his quest objectives.

It’s perfectly understandable if some of you have wondered about the sanity or stability of our illustrious super fool. Fear not! Such chills and thrills appear to be part of the general program, or ride, or process. At least, if I’m not a bird-brain and have got it all wrong!

Hold tight, the suspense is in not knowing if the magician is really juggling anti-matter while eating peanut butter cups or is pulling your leg. Oops, is that a real bloody stump or ketchup?

Eeegah aieee ooooeeahh!

In the meantime, you may rely on me to keep the lights on and the oxygen scrubbers pulsating. I will do my best to be a good egg—I have ordered an extra pair of dignity pants so that when I go flying off the cuff I won’t be a dirty birdie! You are all in good talons, rest assured.

For now, kick back, and listen to the transwarp hyperspace jumpspice stargate mechanisms making for a Hek of a fabulous and fantastical display of transformational transmutation of a most winged kind.

Just the other day I got a message from the Dark Goddess. Since I got a message from my self from the future, I needed to write one back. Even though I’m in the moment, this stuff will end up being in the past and read in the future.

I’ve done this before, just didn’t really know it. Write messages to myself about my state of mind, my hopes and fears, and what I believe is going on or will go on. Reading some of these past messages can be a little embarrassing at times, and they can be pretty moving as I see how earnest I struggle to be bright.

So here goes nothing. It’s time.

Hey yo Paul Tristan Fergus, I got your message that I would make it, that I can do it, because I already have, that it will be all right.

All the stuff you showed me I have taken to heart and now know consciously. The understanding will come later. Thanks for sending this back to me. I never really realized how we’ve been supporting ourselves all this time, through time.

When I think about the last two years of absolute terror, humiliation, and defeat that followed the year of rest after the Haunted House it kind of blows my mind. I thought I would be working on my books and my workshop more, yet all I did was push the book out and move it along at a small and insignificant pace. Everything else has been emergency life support.

That must have been the proper and healthy thing to do, because all other resources went into the great change and building the UFO that you are likely experiencing now. I can’t even imagine what it must be like for you, because from where I’m standing it’s beyond my understanding. The battle of the galaxies was something I could scarcely conceive of at the time I realized it was approaching.

I noticed in the previous letter that I had grown a lot since the letter before that, when all was chaos and the sinking of my entire life. The shock of great self-destruction was so total I never realized I would survive and grow, even though that’s all I prayed for. Darkness and suffering for so long it was a real risk for me.

So now there you are, and you are doing the stuff I can only dream of right now. I’ve grieved, I’ve let go, I’ve healed, I’ve moved on. I’m fighting for my life now and I finally see what I’m to do. I know you and all the rest of us are doing our best with what we’ve got, and the nightchild is with us, is us.

I’m building what I can for you, just as I know you are sending me love and encouragement from where you are. We’re entering a new life of the kind it takes an entire lifetime to create. You know how I’m feeling for you and what you are doing right now.

And yeah, that time when we were surrounded by people we thought were glorps and we spoke from outside the light about our secret fire? I’m on it man. All the other stuff too, I’m stumbling along as best I can so you’ll be strong and true.

The awesome is so overwhelming I’m humbled. Keepin’ the Faith Initiated Bullshit while performin’ the secret sign of distress in a world of doom to the ultimate destructoid!

Be you soon,

Paul Tristan Fergus