Moths, Castaneda, Synchronicity

[Dorjezigzag]

A while a go there was quite a few threads on spiders and now it seems that moths are becoming a bit of a theme, I did not know whether it fitted better in the moth man prophecies thread or the butterfly thread that is actually a moth so I have decided to make a separate one as it is dealing with different themes.

Anyway on the whole moth theme I have an interesting story and this also relates to a book that speaks of moths. In my early 20s I had thrown myself into experiencing those things we are conditioned not to experience. This was energizing but sometimes more than I could handle.

I enjoyed the Carlos Castaneda books and I know there is a whole debate as far as their potential danger and authenticity but the experience I will share is one that leads me to have some respect for the excellently written books.

Anyway I was reading the fourth book in the series called Tales of Power which on my particular copy features a rather large moth on the cover.



It does mention moths several times in the book I will cut and paste below some particularly relevant snippets. Anyway while I was reading this book while living on the south coast of England, Moths began to arrive at my room, as it was summer the window was open and they would come in. There had been no moths before I begun to read the book then more and more begun to arrive. They got bigger and bigger and more and more exotic and beautiful until the final moth that arrived was massive. It had intricate wings and it must have been close to 50cm.

No one else in the house I was sharing with friends or indeed the people I knew on the street was getting these visitors.

As people in the Uk will tell you it is very unusual for large moths to be seen in the UK. Let alone the many and the final one that I saw. I guess you could speculate that perhaps there was some breeder close by or they could have come on a cargo ship as we were within 10 miles of a cargo port. But why particularly come to my room while I’m reading that book about Moths being bringers of knowledge.

Probably about 10 people saw the final moth and many ran as soon as they saw it they found it seriously scary, but I found it stunning as did some others and I have looked for its type and have never found anything quite like it. I visited Kew gardens and they had what they referred to as the largest moth in the world (Atlas Moth) but this was nowhere near as large or as impressive as the one I saw, and the one I saw had very different shaped wings.

I guess this is the time where people will start saying I don’t believe you where is the evidence, but I did not have a camera at the time and never actually thought to take a picture. It was a different time then before everyone had a camera phone and I was always travelling at that time and only had one small bag of possessions.

There was all sorts of crazy stuff happening at the time which was intense but which I look back in fondness.

I have done a search now and I have seen that someone in 2012 had a Atlas moth turn up in the windowsill in the UK, but as you will see from the article this is very rare

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england...ester-20066917

Anyway below in quotations is some relevant snippets from Tales of Power in regards to Moths.

"You didn't see a man!" he said emphatically. "Neither did you see a bird. The silhouette in the bushes and what flew to us was a moth. If you want to be accurate in sorcerers' terms, but very ridiculous in your own terms, you could say that tonight you had an appointment with a moth. Knowledge is a moth."

"What do you really mean when you say that knowledge is a moth?" I asked.
"I have no other meanings," he replied. "A moth is a moth. I thought that by now, with all your accomplishments, you would have had enough power to see. You caught sight of a man instead and that was not true seeing."
From the beginning of my apprenticeship, don Juan had depicted the concept of "seeing" as a special capacity that one could develop and which would allow one to apprehend the "ultimate"nature of things.

Over the years of our association I had developed a notion that what he meant by seeing was an intuitive grasp of things, or the capacity to understand something at once, or perhaps the ability to see through human interactions and discover covert meanings and motives. "I should say that tonight, when you faced the moth, you were half looking and half seeing,"don Juan proceeded. "In that state, although you were not altogether your usual self, you were still capable of being fully aware in order to operate your knowledge of the world."

"From then on every time we've been in the mountains or in the desert, even if you didn't notice it, the moth always followed us. All in all then, we can say that for you the ally is a moth. But I cannot say that it is really a moth, the way we know moths. Calling the ally a moth is againonly a way of talking, a way of making that immensity out there understandable."

[Mike]

There's also a thread about ayahuasca floating around, so Synch's are everywhere ( then again, DonJuan used peyote, right?)

I love the Casteneda books. My mind altering drug stage ended almost as swiftly as it began, with me on an acid trip, sobbing uncontrollably into a snow bank, unable to come to terms with a breakup with a girl I was deeply in love with. This was over 15 years ago, but I still think about it and cringe - I was at a party and there was quite an audience. Ouch! It was a freezing night, but my friend Neil walked with me the entire night, comforting and keeping me company. Thanks Neil!



But now, many many years later, I'm open to the experience again. In the same way its difficult for me to read Bukowski without a beer, reading Casteneda sans a mind altering substance leaves me feeling slightly unsatisfied. Under the proper circumstances, i think I'd definitely give it a shot.

The moth, a harbinger of doom...or is it? Perhaps its trying to warn us of the doom ahead of time? Who knows? There is some discussion of Jungian archetypes in the Mothman thread, and I can't help but think of them here as well. I believe everything represented in this 3d reality is a metaphor of something that exists at a deeper level. Perhaps what is represented of the moth here is but an infinitesimal fraction of what exists on deeper levels. Perhaps its power is profound.

[Dorjezigzag]

There's also a thread about ayahuasca floating around, so Synch's are everywhere ( then again, DonJuan used peyote, right?)

I love the Casteneda books. My mind altering drug stage ended almost as swiftly as it began, with me on an acid trip, sobbing uncontrollably into a snow bank, unable to come to terms with a breakup with a girl I was deeply in love with. This was over 15 years ago, but I still think about it and cringe - I was at a party and there was quite an audience. Ouch! It was a freezing night, but my friend Neil walked with me the entire night, comforting and keeping me company. Thanks Neil!



But now, many many years later, I'm open to the experience again. In the same way its difficult.for me to read Bukowski without a beer, reading Casteneda sans a mind altering substance leaves me feeling slightly unsatisfied. Under the proper circumstances, i think I'd definitely give it a shot.

The moth, a harbinger of doom...or is it? Perhaps its trying to warn is of the doom ahead of time? Who knows? There is some discussion of Freudian archetypes in the Mothman thread, and I can't help but think of them here as well. I believe everything represented in this 3d reality is a metaphor of something that exists at a deeper level. Perhaps what is represented of the moth here is but an infinitesimal fraction of what exists on deeper levels. Perhaps its power is profound.

Don Juan rarely used anything, if indeed he actually existed, what he usually prepared for Castaneda though was datura, also known as the devils trumpet, or sometimes angels trumpet.

In Israel their is a datura plant in the same family called the thorn apple, some people believe that is the apple offered by the snake.

Anyway the reason that apparently Castaneda needed the datura was because his western mind was to concrete and logical, which he needed to clear to see the sorcerers world.

You are right the whole psychedelic thing is a huge minefield, look at all the acid victims from the 60s, I have seen so many unfortunate victims as well and it is just heart breaking.

Saying that I have also seen many people on a highway to hell who have had there life's turn around by profound experiences usually from experiences in a ritualized and respectful not escapist manner.

I think you are not refering to Freud but Jung and yes his work on archetypes I believe has immense value as does his work on the collective unconscious. Jung believed in a soul, Freud did not

What i found fascinating about the two moth threads was that one was coming from the idea that the moth is a harbinger of doom, the other that it is a bringer of luck. When in fact these signs are neither good or bad, it is merely knowledge beyond good and evil.

[kenaz]

I had one small little moth that intrigued me.
Nothing like your Atlas moth, wow so cool...
The edges of the wings look like snakes from the side.

[Ioneo]

I saw quite a few Atlas moths when I lived in the Philippines. They are so big and heavy that they have trouble flying!

[Arc]

What a great synchronicity to my own recent moth experience 2 days ago!

The other night I was sitting in my living room with the back porch glass sliding doors open since the weather was pleasant. I had the outside porch light on which is right next to the screen door. I heard this loud flapping noise and glanced at the screen door to see the a huge moth flying right by the lamp near the screen.

I could not believe how big it was, about the length of my hand, and how loud the sound of it's wings were flapping. It was not your typical little ubiquitous gray moth. It landed on the top of the screen and I ran up to look at it. I can't explain, but I was so excited about it. It was not scary or icky to me at all, but fascinating.

I was really excited by the possibility that my little porch garden may have helped attract it, as I have been hoping to attract butterflies, bees, other pollinators this year. Of course the lamp attracted it, but in the many years where I did not have a porch garden, I never saw one of these even with the lamp on. Then I gave the screen a gentle tap again to see how amazing it was as it flapped around again. It landed and hung around on my screen for another hour or so.

I only wished I could have seen the wings in the light. And, guess what? I got my wish! The next day I went out to my porch and noticed him hiding on the wood beam between a couple of my garden pots, right there near the door. It was so amazing looking, yellowish with brownish, almost grey-purplish spots. I kept thinking of how the markings looked like an old banana peal when it begins getting the brownish spots over it.

I ran to grab my camera, and unfortunately, my camera stopped working (what a time to find out I need a new camera! - darn it). But, I started searching the net to find out what type of moth it was.

Turns out it is an Imperial Silk Moth!! Here is the picture that I found to identify it (not my picture, but from web site below). I am in northern Illinois in US, and never saw one of these my whole life here. Pretty cool stuff!!





http://schmidling.com/silkmoth.htm

[lookbeyond]

Ive always liked moths, rescuing them as a child and taking them outside, they seem so much more sturdy and plain compared to the butterfly, and yet what do they know?, how to stay safely camouflaged in the everyday world and yet always seeking the light...

[Gardener]

Today in the cabin in the garden, I am reading Walter Russel 'The Secret of Light', and a moth appears and flits about. Mid day so quite unusual, just a little synchronicity for the thread. It could have been any book but it was Russell.

[SEAM]

Posted by kenaz (here)
I had one small little moth that intrigued me.
Nothing like your Atlas moth, wow so cool...
The edges of the wings look like snakes from the side.

You see snakes... I see Hawks Beaks.. perception - quite a tricky thing.. according to Mr. Matus...

[Dorjezigzag]

Posted by Gardener (here)
Today in the cabin in the garden, I am reading Walter Russel 'The Secret of Light', and a moth appears and flits about. Mid day so quite unusual, just a little synchronicity for the thread. It could have been any book but it was Russell.

I must confess I have never heard of him but the ideas behind that book sounds intriguing, do you recommend it. His work sounds like ideas that I have been exploring in a video I am making at the moment, which I guess is another piece of synchronicity

Talking of books I picked my son up to come and visit me for a bit and we had both just got new books to read for the journey

He is an obsessive Dr Who fan and he had just got Whoology, while my book was titled Angleology, so as he pointed out two ology's

[Gardener]

Hi Dorjezigzag,
Yes I can recommend it, from what I have read so far. I had a few aha moments, but I am only about 50 pages in for now so not really qualified to comment yet. Some paragraphs really stood out one of which gave me some insight into the Gnostic teachings of Sophia and the archons, the balance principle. It's definitly deep and I get the feeling whilst reading it that 'yea sounds right'.

[onawah]

Mike, you have a way of posting heart-wrenching images!
"Sobbing uncontrollably into a snowbank"...that makes me want to do this again:


I was deeply into Castaneda's books for a number of years.
There were so many inexplicable things happening to me along my spiritual journey, and only Castaneda's books, which just seemed foreign and outlandish to most people, made me feel like I might actually still be sane, and possibly even...tuned in....in some strange and arcane way...
When I was living in the country, renting a trailer from a Native American elder (also my close neighbor) who was very gifted in his own way-- he could find mineral deposits just by sensing the energies--I had a very formative experience with a Luna Moth.



I was reclining and reading in the bedroom of my trailer one day, and I had left the front door open to let in the breeze.
A luna moth flew inside and landed right on my thigh.
It was quite large, and I felt it land, put my book down to take a look, and watched it for a moment, just clinging motionlessly to my leg.
I don't know whether it was just my imagination (from having read Castenada's account of his experience with the moth) or if it was actually happening, but I had the sensation that the moth was making an eerie sputtering, buzzing sound.
I got so creeped out, I shuddered, cried out and leapt to my feet, upon which the moth flew back out the door and away...
Then I went through hours of wringing-hands mortification and remorse for being such a wimp when Power was obviously trying to tell me something.

What I concluded years later, when I discovered that the Luna Moth is a symbol for the Goddess, is that the Divine Feminine energies were giving me notice that there was an energy on that land that was inimical to me, something which I had been feeling, but could not understand, or trace the source of.
I finally moved after discovering that my Native American landlord was actually quite fundamentalist Christian and had been giving his adult lesbian daughter a very hard time about her sexual orientation for most of her life, and was very domineering and patriarchal in his attitude toward his other daughter and his wife.

I always wished I could have another experience with a Luna Moth, and prove myself to be a braver soul than I had the first time.
And last summer, a Luna Moth appeared, clinging to the windowsill of the community room of the duplex complex where I live.
I got very close to it and just watched it for awhile, but didn't feel anything in particular except deep appreciation for it's beauty and grace.
I was kind of hoping that its life cycle was ending and that I could harvest its body for framing if it was, but when it flew away eventually, I felt no regret.

I put a commemorative image of a luna moth in one of my collages, though, and it adorns my living room wall, along with another animal, Crane, which has also been an important medicine animal in my life.
You can see a rather overexposed photo of it here:
http://spiritualwomen.org/collective1.php?a=14

[DNA]

Posted by onawah (here)
was deeply into Castaneda's books for a number of years.
There were so many inexplicable things happening to me along my spiritual journey, and only Castaneda's books, which just seemed foreign and outlandish to most people, made me feel like I might actually still be sane, and possibly even...tuned in....in some strange and arcane way...

If you practice the teachings given in the Castaneda books and turn off your internal dialogue and get a little seperation between you and your personal history, amazing things happen.
I personally believe there is an ancient Antlantean connection to whatever the Don Juan being was who presented Castaneda with this information.

[lookbeyond]

Posted by onawah (here)
Mike, you have a way of posting heart-wrenching images!
"Sobbing uncontrollably into a snowbank"...that makes me want to do this again:


I was deeply into Castaneda's books for a number of years.
There were so many inexplicable things happening to me along my spiritual journey, and only Castaneda's books, which just seemed foreign and outlandish to most people, made me feel like I might actually still be sane, and possibly even...tuned in....in some strange and arcane way...
When I was living in Hot Springs, Arkansas, renting a trailer from a Native American elder (also my close neighbor) who was very gifted in his own way-- he could find crystal deposits just by sensing the energies--I had a very formative experience with a Luna Moth.



I was reclining and reading in the bedroom of my trailer one day, and I had left the front door open to let in the breeze.
A luna moth flew inside and landed right on my thigh.
It was quite large, and I felt it land, put my book down to take a look, and watched it for a moment, just clinging motionlessly to my leg.
I don't know whether it was just my imagination (from having read Castenada's account of his experience with the moth) or if it was actually happening, but I had the sensation that the moth was making an eerie sputtering, buzzing sound.
I got so creeped out, I shuddered, cried out and leapt to my feet, upon which the moth flew back out the door and away...
Then I went through hours of wringing-hands mortification and remorse for being such a wimp when Power was obviously trying to tell me something.

What I concluded years later, when I discovered that the Luna Moth is a symbol for the Goddess, is that the Divine Feminine energies were giving me notice that there was an energy on that land that was inimical to me, something which I had been feeling, but could not understand, or trace the source of.
I finally moved after discovering that my Native American landlord was actually quite fundamentalist Christian and had been giving his adult lesbian daughter a very hard time about her sexual orientation for most of her life, and was very domineering and patriarchal in his attitude toward his other daughter and his wife.

I always wished I could have another experience with a Luna Moth, and prove myself to be a braver soul than I had the first time.
And last summer, a Luna Moth appeared, clinging to the windowsill of the community room of the duplex complex where I live.
I got very close to it and just watched it for awhile, but didn't feel anything in particular except deep appreciation for it's beauty and grace.
I was kind of hoping that its life cycle was ending and that I could harvest its body for framing if it was, but when it flew away eventually, I felt no regret.

I put a commemorative image of a luna moth in one of my collages, though, and it adorns my living room wall, along with another animal, Crane, which has also been an important medicine animal in my life.
You can see a rather overexposed photo of it here:
http://spiritualwomen.org/collective1.php?a=14

Beautiful Onawah

[Lakeofmarch]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taira_clan
"The moths are the heralds or, better yet, the guardians of eternity," don Juan said after the sound had stopped. "For some reason, or for no reason at all, they are the depositories of the gold dust of eternity." -Carlos Castaneda, "Tales of Power"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beetlejuice
The full name is a corruption of the Arabic يد الجوزاء Yad al-Jauzā' meaning "the Hand of al-Jauzā'", i.e., Orion...In Japan, the Taira, or Heike, clan adopted Betelgeuse and its red color as its symbol, calling the star Heike-boshi, (平家星), while the Minamoto, or Genji, clan had chosen Rigel and its white color. The two powerful families fought a legendary war in Japanese history, the stars seen as facing each other off and only kept apart by the Belt.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betelg...cal_attributes
---
Moths-Beetlejuice-The Master's Hand. And such it may yet prove.
https://gnosticwarrior.com/hand.html

[Jaronamo]

The moths brought me here to Avalon 😁

[wegge]

Yeah! I’m currently writing a novel and a moth also makes a short appearance there:

„As the journey crossed the threshold of eternity, a gigantic moth passed by and offered us a ride. “Sure,“ I thought and we came on board. Bye lady diamond!
The fluffiness of the moth‘s back reinforced our thoughts of laying down, so we, tired from the trip, slowly collapsed. Dreamlike coziness, combined with the moth‘s soft levitation, put me and Malinda into a deep slumber. The dreambodies of our dreambodies transitioned to another dream realm...“

[kfm27917]

great site on Castaneda: http://www.sustainedaction.org

also
The Wanderling
This used to be a series of stories related to Zen Buddhism and personal growth, united by a strange system of weblinks on a site called Angelfire. Somehow this site died.
However today I found an other entry point at http://the-wanderling.com
I quote from his website

One more tidbit is the domain structure. The Wanderling has undertaken to create his project in free website places, assembling a myriad of apparently different sites, but all interwoven. As the free website places fold and merge and change their rules, he shifts accordingly, thus a migration happens on this level as well. [Correction 2006: The Wanderling informs me that some of his material is now hosted on paid servers. And Update 2009: The Wanderling has scratched my back in return in his blog (June 14, 2009 entry) at MySpace.]

I found most of Castaneda's books at
http://bookparadise.online/pdf?title...%3D&src=google
https://pdfslide.net