Spiritual Dreams

I had great dreams sleeping in the back of my truck miles from civilization in El Valle de los Gigantes and again in El Gran Desierto de Altar. I don't remember what they were other than that they were frantic and frightening while they happened yet gave me a great feeling of serenity once I awakened, as if the fact that my truck was stuck in the sand was a mere physical obstacle that could be easily overcome as long as all was aright on the metaphysical plane. And this proved to be so. I never had any organized religious influence in my life so I do not see Saint Paul or even Saint Francis or Padre Kino; all I got is this hippie earth mother shit.

I'm not Catholic. Is he typically vengeful? Is he the Charles Bronson of saints? Is he the guy that interpreted Jesus's shit to read all right-wing and patriarchal or was that some other Paul?

Until the dream I never thought about St Paul. All I knew was that he persecuted christians, got struck by lightening, and became christian. Then I found out he was some Jew that told Christians that they should be circumcised shortly before being arrested. My theory is that the Romans hired Paul to infiltrate the Christians and try to Judaize them for some reason that would make sense then (maybe to class them with the jews or put them into previously understood categories--nobody likes new ideas). So this guy comes in and tells Christians to be more like Jews before he is spirited off to "prison" -- more likely a Roman holiday. Having served his purpose, he did the rest of the damage by letter.

while he and Patrick Henry were making time with some drunken hussies in a vineyard!

on the rare occasion that I am not dreaming about the ritualistic, fetishistic slaughter of precious human life, I dream in arabic about firebombs and dead GI Joe Mens.

I had a dream in which I moved from Mexico to North Africa with the greatest of ease. The scale of everything was somehow smaller and/or more accessible -- Mexico to Morocco was a two-hour ferry ride, it was easy to hop a train in Tangier and take it all the way along the south rim of the Med. The overall sense of the dream was one of amazement that travels I had presumed to be too arduous to undertake were in fact accomplished swiftly and easily. I became obsessed with going through the Khyber Pass but it took me waking up to realize that couldn't work because the Khyber Pass is between Afghanistan and Pakistan. What I take this dream to be telling me is that these things aren't as difficult as I have thought them to be and I should get off my ass and just go.

"To be truly challenging, a voyage, like a life, must rest on a firm foundation of financial unrest. Otherwise, you are doomed to a routine traverse, the kind known to yachtsmen who play with their boats at sea... cruising, it is called. Voyaging belongs to seamen, and to the wanderers of the world who cannot, or will not, fit in. If you are contemplating a voyage and you have the means, abandon the venture until your fortunes change. Only then will you know what the sea is all about. 'I've always wanted to sail to the south seas, but I can't afford it.' What these men can't afford is not to go. They are enmeshed in the cancerous discipline of security. And in the worship of security we fling our lives beneath the wheels of routine - and before we know it our lives are gone. What does a man need - really need? A few pounds of food each day, heat and shelter, six feet to lie down in - and some form of working activity that will yield a sense of accomplishment. That's all - in the material sense, and we know it. But we are brainwashed by our economic system until we end up in a tomb beneath a pyramid of time payments, mortgages, preposterous gadgetry, playthings that divert our attention for the sheer idiocy of the charade. The years thunder by, the dreams of youth grow dim where they lie caked in dust on the shelves of patience. Before we know it, the tomb is sealed. Where, then, lies the answer? In choice. Which shall it be: bankruptcy of purse or bankruptcy of life?"
--Sterling Hayden, Wanderer

I always felt as if Sterling Hayden was indicting me personally with this. Also, it was easy for him to do this shit because he was Sterling fucking Hayden.