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WAY OF THE SEVEN STARS


Response To That Final Question:

Ignorance is the Bane of Man.
At a distance removed,
Dimly remembered, and
Still not seen distinct,
But yet somehow felt;
What we do sense
Is not reality; is not the Real Thing.
This World is hologram.
Then; for lucid sleep;
For it's just a dream
Within another dream
And we are not awake.

Seven Stars' Song of Revelation

Ignorance is a jail where no escape
Is possible but through knowledge.
Don't fear nor spurn. Dare to learn:

Assent to and accept this world as it is
Before attempting ascent to any world
Aspired to or wished for. Life's glorious!

That That Is can be known but by few.
Not space, not time, not gravity exists;
But as Extension from Field of Thought.

Be subject to neither church nor crown.

Dread naught. Disdain none: Not One!
Absent That That Is, there's Nothing.

That That Is, IS. That That's Not, IS, too.
That That's Not makes That That Is: IS.
That That Is makes That That's Not BE.

By rowing to That That Is, I become "I."
Wind + Water = Wave. As THOUGHT is
The Heart and The Nave of The Wheel.

Worlds are created from Thought alone.
That which we will do is because of that
What we are. We'll become who we are.

Charity, courtesy, civility, compassion,
Are cardinal spokes making civilization;
Chivalry forms center, hub's circle core.

IS is! Be not the slave of some other's I.
This, Creed of our Seven Stars Society;
This, The Teaching of the Seven Stars:

No man can be happy if he should choose
To be exile from his own nature and soul.
ALL IS THOUGHT ILLUMINATING BEING

Precognitive Prescient Prophetic Poetry by WILLIAM O'CONNOR

Friday, October 30, 2009

The Sword Hand

In martial arts training, there are many myths.  Most of what one sees in films and on the TV, both in use of weapons and in the use of bare-handed techniques, is total nonsense as it's totally lacking in real commonsense principles.  This is why when one enters into the military, one is taught to discard whatever one has previously learned in the usage of firearms and to begin training anew from scratch; as combat is so very different from recreational use of weapons.  The same applies to all of martial training.  What one sees in sport fencing isn't how swords are actually used and what one sees in the mixed martial arts type competitions isn't how one actually fights.  Combat is very different from any sport.  Let's take a small example and see how this all works.  Bare-handed techniques come from using a sword.  Sword thrusts are considered to be finishing moves and are always proceeded by cutting applications to the tendons and arteries; so that the enemy is rendered weak and vulnerable, before the final actual thrust is made.  A sword thrust is made with the sword blade horizontal and never vertical.  Why?  Because, in order to get power for the thrust, the shoulder and elbow (thrusts are made through the elbow joint and not through the wrist joint as in sport fencing), the elbow and shoulder must be descended and not be raised.  If the thrust is delivered with an elbow turned outward (as it would be if the thrust were made with the sword in a vertical position), the tendons and the arteries on the inside of the arm would be exposed to a parry by the opponent.  So, a thrust is made with the elbow turned downward and with the sword horizontal.  This position then allows the body to descend under the opponent and also gives a much greater reach to the lunge for the thrust.  The strike that's delivered by the fingertips in bare-handed fighting follows the principle of the sword thrust.  Fingertip strikes are usually delivered to the bladder, kidneys and throat.  Regardless of the target, the strike ought to be delivered with the palm up and in a horizontal position.  Just like the sword!  Let's perform an experiment.  Try striking with your fingertips at some imaginary opponent.  Do it with your palm turned in many different positions.  You'll find the only position causing your whole body to slide forward while you're performing the strike is with your palm facing up and horizontal to the ground and with your elbow descended.   As the sword is used, so shall the limbs be used.

Perception and Redemption

One of the many problems with perception is that it is notoriously unreliable, and that's why in all criminal cases, corroboration of facts is necessary by deposition in order to present a case to any grand jury.  No matter how impartial any witness might seem to be, his or her perception will be prejudiced.  Everyone perceives differently, but no one perceives accurately.  There is a genetic basis to perception and that basis causes any perceiver not just to see what is happening, but also to see it very narrowly based upon the observer's past experiences.  The result is every observation has to be verified before it can be taken as the truth.  In other words, any observation has to be confirmed and redeemed by experiment and other observations before it could be accepted generally.  Of course, for the individual, in his or her every day affairs, his or her observation is more than sufficient.  That is the difference between opinion and fact.  Everyone has opinions and those opinions are always especially strong on emotional topics like religion and politics, but they are simply opinions.  They can't be considered to be facts.

Wednesday, October 28, 2009

What is and What is not

Since perception and experience are necessarily limited, they can't be relied upon to give a true picture of reality.  What can?  If one relies on others' perceptions and experiences, on collective perception and experience, the picture is the same; as just because many see something some way, there is no guaranty that their collective sight is accurate.  In fact, it won't be.  It won't be because collective sight is collective and most will modify their vision so as not to violate cohesiveness.  The only solution then is to sharpen one's own sight to make that sight clearer.  That's the goal of meditation and contemplation.  To make one's vision clearer so that the perception of reality is better, is enhanced.  The goal goes beyond that however.  The reason one aspires to a clearer picture of reality is to change it: to have the power to change what is.  Most waste their lives wanting to change what is not, in some futile wishing they had the power for changing something that doesn't really exist, the power to change something that could never exist.  Usually that something is the past and the past does not exist. What was is what is not now. This futile wanting to change what can't exist in the NOW is the human delusion, and that's why we meditate and contemplate; so as not to caught up within the net and by the trap of others' and of our own delusion.

Tuesday, October 27, 2009

Autism and Society

Autism is on the rise in all societies.  Since autism, in all its many forms, has a genetic basis; one would suppose that evolution would cull members of societies that demonstrate severe social dysfunction, the most obvious sign of autism.  Instead, the numbers of autistic individuals has grown.  The reason it has grown is; like most genetic-related psychic conditions, autism is directly related to the environment.  Societies have themselves evolved and their social evolution has been tending in a direction that actually favors severe social dysfunction.  Many of these tendencies are technological, the more obvious ones being the internet and television, which actively encourage social isolation.  In effect, societies have themselves become autistic. Since the autism condition exhibits inability to empathize with others because it lacks an ability to identify their emotional states, autistic societies similarly lack ability to identify the psychic states of other societies; thereby greatly increasing the likelihood of conflict.

Monday, October 26, 2009

Selfs and Souls

There is a common misinterpretation of the nature of the Soul.  The Soul equals the Self and the Self has many aspects in many dimensions.  One of the problems with those belief systems that profess multiple souls is that the souls are considered sequentially and not simultaneously.  If one thinks of the Self as multiple, many selves co-existing and congruent; if the goal of the belief system is to dissolve the self, the act of attempted dissolution encourages division amongst the various selves that co-exist.  This attempt at dissolution has immediate physical consequences.  Such an attempt is one of the psychic causes of cancer (cancer has many physical non-psychic causes as well of course, but psychic causes have very real disruptive physical cellular consequences).  The objective of any system of belief ought to be salient integration of the selves in other dimensions with the self that is co-existing in this dimension, and never the dissolution of the self in this dimension.  Such an attempt at dissolution is slow suicide.  It literally is a cause of cancer. 

Internal vs. External Energy

The question of internal vs. external is a common one in the martial arts world.  There is only internal energy.  What is commonly called external energy is simply force, which is never ever the proper response to any attack.  The proper response is to direct the energy used in the attack back into the attacker.  You use your opponent's limbs as weapons against him or her.  This can only be done if the defender assumes an oblique angle against the attacker and issues the response to the attack in an arc rather than a straight line.  This is why in the Celtic systems, arm strikes are delivered from the opposite shoulder and leg strikes are delivered from the opposite hip.  The strike is delivered in such a way that the striking limb of the defender deflects the opponent's strike while simultaneously delivering the defender's own strike into the opponent.  As in all the Celtic systems, the response comes from the use of the sword.  In sword play, the goal is to cut without being cut; to strike without being struck.  This is the same goal as all other martial arts.  It does you no good to deliver a blow and to suffer a blow; to simply trade blows.  That's external and it's frankly stupid.  By delivering a strike from the opposite side of the body of the limb being utilized to deliver the strike, the body must turn; the torso must twist.  This turning and this twisting is what gives power to the strike.  It also moves one's torso out of the way of the opponent's strike, thereby allowing the opponent's striking limb to bypass the defender's torso.  The defender's torso has evaded the opponent's strike.  That's the internal power and it's the only kind of power that ought to be used in any combative situation.  That's the reason power in the Celtic Systems resides in the knees and elbows.  Even though the strikes are mainly delivered with the forearms and the shins, the forearm is used as an extension of the elbow, while the shin is used as an extension of the knee.   The strikes are windmill strikes, with the axis at the elbow and the knee and the blade at the forearm and shin.

Tuesday, October 6, 2009

Westie Way Revolving Arms

Our planet is crowded.  Too crowded.  There are too many people and too few jobs. The only entities still hiring are armies.  Many are poor and desperate.  Desperation leads to despair and despair leads to violence, both against one's own self and against others. Violence is often both psychological and physical. Since so many are in such great despair today, best to prepare for the violence that's to come.  It's coming and that's why we study martial arts.  Remember, no martial art that closes the hip and shoulder joints has any value whatsoever. Watch what the masters of the martial art you propose to study actually do with their shoulder and hip joint when performing.  Study only those arts that require the hip and shoulder joints to be open and that emphasize elbow and knee strikes, as that's the real way fights are actually done. To throw and lock any person, movement of the waist is essential; so the art that is studied must always employ waist movement.  Your elbows and knees are used like windmills in fighting.  In order for this windmill motion to take place, the waist has to move to give power to the revolutions of your limbs.  Always note that whatever system one chooses to continue studying, the study must be active.  You actually have to do it. Videos and books are certainly very useful as pedagogical devices for correcting whatever you are doing wrong; but to do it right, you actually must do it. Arm revolution in the boxing style I learned as a child is very different from that of other boxing styles.  My boxing style comes from the use of the Celtic sword, which has an unusual shape. The Celtic sword is a saber. It's about the same length as is the cutlass, but its blade arc curves opposite to the curve of a scimitar, the Near Eastern sword.  The curve of the Celtic sword is shaped more like the Gurkha knife, in that its cutting arc is shaped inwards, like a sickle. The shape originally came from the knife used by fishermen to gut their catch. Unlike other sabers, both sides of the curving portion of the blade are kept at a razor sharp edge---giving swordsmen opportunity to cut with either side.  This is the reason all the strikes in Celtic boxing are delivered with shins and forearms.  The shins and forearms are used like sabers. The non-curving straight portion of a Celtic Sword isn't sharp...it's kept purposely dull...thereby allowing swordsmen to assume double-handed grips whenever it's necessary.  In the Celtic boxing style, the inside hand (called the "shield")  revolves in the opposite direction from the outside hand (called the "sword"). Think of raising up with a shield to block an opponent's lunge while striking simultaneously down with a sword.  Note blocks are delivered vertically (and not horizontally), usually against an opponent's tricep or bicept, to temporarily paralyze the opponent's arm. Since the Celtic stepping footwork requires assuming a forty-five degree oblique angle on the diagonal, towards the opponent (the diamond-stepping), the inside hand's function is slashing the opponent's attacking arm or leg.  This slash-block causes the opponent's limb to pass by the defender's body, opening up the inside line for attack.  Celtic boxing allows for attacks with the legs very similar to savate---Irish Step-Dancing evolved from sword usage.  To give an example, say the opponent throws a punch straight at a defender's heart wih his right fist:  the defender's inside arm slashes the opponent's arm slightly above his elbow joint, either upward in a clockwise direction or downward in a counter-clockwise direction; so that the defender's front foot can step to the outside of the opponent's front foot, thereby allowing the outside arm ability to attack the opponent's flank from a position that doesn't readily allow the opponent to counter with his other arm (because the defender's torso is now beyond an opponent's reach with his other arm).  Strategy here is to close in on the opponent from an oblique angle to prevents him from easily replying to any attack. Again, it all comes from sword-work.  Of course, the opponent could then spin, but the spin would expose his back and spine as he revolves. Celtic boxing allows attacking the back of an opponent (the entire body is a target). When I was growing up on tenth avenue in Upper Manhattan, this particular boxing style was called the "Westie Way" because it was practiced along the far West Side of Manhattan in the bars that mainly serviced the Irish stevedores who were working the docks.  It originated in the counties of Cork and Kerry around the South-West coast of Ireland, and was carried to America by Gaelic speaking immigrants fleeing the Great Famine shortly before the American Civil War, and then was carried back to Ireland by Irish veterans of that same US civil war, founders of The Brotherhood, Clan of Gael ( which was originally started in Five Points), predecessor to the IRA. They were deported because of an aborted attempted invasion of Canada, then British crown owned.  On most Friday nights in Manhattan when I was a boy, in the West Side Irish Bars, there would be "sawdust bouts" where fierce betting was done on the bare-knuckle fights, all strictly illegal of course; but the cops were all Irish and "on the Pad," their protection from any inquiry being paid for by the pub owners.  Police were poorly paid then and needed the extra pay from bar owners. This post concludes the answers to all the queries received from the few readers of my two Kindle books.  Hopefully, both books and this blog have been of help to some.  I've tried to explain how things are the way they are and why things are the way they are, as well as give a glimpse of the future.  I have visions and most don't.  As for physical training, the Celtic Martial Arts classes are given once each week at 440 Lafayette Street in New York City, downtown Manhattan at Astor Place, from one to 3:30 on Sunday afternoons in Studio# 4C on the fourth floor. Charge is $20 per class session.  Related videos are under HEARTHEALING on YouTube.  Just to let subscribers to this Blog know, I'll only be posting poetry on the blog from now on...life is a quest to find one's true destiny; then, once found, to fulfill it...this I've done--I can write now as well as anybody ever coud; so now I'm busy working on my paranormal fiction future fantasy series, entitled:  "In Dreams They Are Remembered." Anybody who has read both my books and this Blog will already be familiar with the mythology background for the series. They contain the answers and solutions to everything, and I do mean every-thing!  It shall be available on the Kindle for a price of less than nine dollars per novel. Amazon Kindle receives instant wireless access around the world, so anyone anywhere interested in the fantasy series can download all the series' books at any time. The fiction fantasy series is a paranormal romance and an action-adventure set in the future, dealing with the impact from a revelation of ancient mysteries from the Upper Palaeolithic Age of Old Europe.  But to return to the crowded planet statement (projected to be over nine billion), ever since the nineteen-forties warnings have been issued concerning uncontrolled population growth which very few nations have heeded, with the most prominent exception being mainland China. Today there are too few jobs to support the burgeoning population in some countries, the United States being an obvious example: In the US, twelve percent of teen girls become pregnant and give birth before being eligible to graduate from high school; and this is now occurring while the US national unemployment rate exceeds ten percent. The result is: eleven percent of the US population depends solely on governmental social services to pay for its shelter and upon receipt of food stamps to pay for its sustenance. Another four percent of the American populace is either incarcerated and confined within a prison or is out on parole or on probation, or was previously incarcerated and now unable to find work because of a long history of incarceration; making a total of a full fifteen percent of all Americans who are presently supported by government, whether that be at the state or federal level (usually both).  The result of all this support is a national debt that exceeds thirteen trillion.  Any state whose govenment doesn't pro-actively fund the promotion of sterilization, abortion and birth control can't survive. This is because, inevitably, its employed tax base drastically decreases, while appropriations of monies for more and more social services in support of its indigents and its unemployed greatly increases. This scenario is what's happening in America now; it's the reason behind America's problems, so look for the future of humanity elsewhere. America has terminal dementia! Why?  Aside from this failure to control and curb its population growth, America's continuing fruitless engagement in stupid, foolish, unnecessary, pointless foreign wars means it's losing the better, bolder, more courageous portion of its populace. Bankruptcy in states isn't just monetary, it's moral too.  America is dead.  It's moribund, a zombie nation. It's lost its best. And when any state loses the best part of itself, it's done. It's gone. It's time has past. Where then should we go...recommendation: Nova Scotia. Move to Canada. There you could employ the very best strategy there is for fighting, which is: to avoid it!  Well, that's one location I would recommend---Nova Scotia means New Ireland. If you believe you've got just one life only, you're mistaken; as you've got so many...life isn't an "or" thing; it's an "and" thing...so live them all. NOW!

Thursday, October 1, 2009

Belief Systems and their Validity

The cause behind the current economic crisis, the longest one in seventy years, was the steadfast reliance by the financial institutions on an economic model called value-at-risk (VAR). The VAR model deals with the probabilities of possible default by lenders, loans being banks' primary assets.  Economists place blame for the crisis upon the VAR model, stating it to be inherently faulty; so very faulty in fact, that reliance on it inevitably led to the crisis. But all models of economic activity are faulty whenever they are believed. The belief in the model, and the consequent reliance on the belief, is what makes the model invalid; no matter what the model might be. It is the belief that causes the invalidity. No matter what future model is developed, however clever, once that model is believed, it becomes invalid; as it's "belief" itself that is the real problem...not the model. Bankers need to rely upon multiple factors when making decisions and not upon acceptance of any single model. This reasoning applies to every area of human endeavor. As a Druid, I often get the question: What do Druids believe? The short answer is: "No-Belief." Obviously a belief in no-belief is still belief, but what it means is that; in order to have power of any sort, in particular psychic power, a belief system, any belief system, restricts brain function while having the belief in no-belief enhances brain function. Restriction is dangerous to creativity. Behavior is the result of belief. To free behavior one needs to be free of belief.  Druids think of man as being innately good, but capable of bad behavior. Bad behavior derives from bad belief.  The problem is this: every ethnic and linguistic group believes other groups' beliefs are inferior and absurd, if not outright evil. Free yourself from belief. When one doesn't care what others may believe and/or practice, one gains the power to accomplish anything.  Since we are all about what we believe, when we believe in no-belief; we shall become more than what we were. By the way, this is why it is so important to ascertain what others believe as what they believe compels them in their daily actions. We may not care for what they think but what they think might prove harmful to us and to others, as any student of history knows. In our brains, facts and beliefs are both treated the same way and what we might think as being a fact is simply a belief. What you believe is what you are. Really. The candles of knowledge were never lit by models but by men. This Druid technique of "no-belief" is not the same as the technique of no-mind practiced in the East. Druids are not interested in the annihilation of the Self---the death of the Ego---just the opposite.  The Mind becomes trapped by belief.  The Torah, the Koran and the Bible are catalogs of cruelty and recite what's worst about humanity because they rely on sacrifice and submission.  The rationale behind the no-belief technique is to find the true Self, the real Self. That can be done by liberating the Mind from all those belief systems that custom and culture have employed to imprison it. Only then can the Self be set free to be transformed. Transformation is the goal and sole objective of the soul. The Druid isn't interested in living in the NOW, as that's taken for granted.  He or she is interested in creating the NOW in which to live, by a conjoining of dimensions so they'll become congruent; thereby creating a condition for continuity of consciousness, a place for all existence.  It's what gives the NOW consistency, a secret causality.  It illustrates why OicheShamhna (Halloween) became a popular celebration in the World; as now you have just glimpsed into a wicked little conundrum, it's this:  Any faith system becomes invalid once it's believed, including this statement and the faith in "no-belief."  When you're able to solve that small puzzle, you shall be Druid too!  The rest is poetry.

WILLIAM O'CONNOR

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