A Cult Classic for the End Times
Review by Ora Uzel

After reading this beautifully artistic prose, I find myself at a loss for words. Indeed, this story tells as much about the author’s world as it does mine. I, myself, am beginning to encounter this culture in various realms of my life, and in the previous year have gained enough knowledge that I am satisfied I’m picking up 90% of what’s shared in the hidden meanings and symbolisms of the eloquent writing presented in Blues 4 Kali.

This book definitely isn’t for everyone. Some knowledge of counterculture is necessary. More specifically, readers would be at an advantage to have knowledge of post-20th century hippie counterculture.

As suggested by the author, speed-reading would not do this story justice and, in fact, I read many passages multiple times. Thus readers will be treated to the literary value of two to three books in this single volume. Furthermore, the philosophy involved is not a simple counterculture viewpoint “against the man.” The story, narrated from the point of view of a reluctant skeptic, yet thoroughly involved activist, incorporates the viewpoint that dominant popular culture is clueless, but also that mainstream counterculture is under scrutiny for practices that strangely mirror the culture it so much protests.

An instant love for the protagonist burgeons as counterculturist and skeptic alike are exposed to her personality immediately upon entering the story. Meanwhile, readers are treated to phrases and cultural symbols in a delightfully witty manner that brings them subtly yet quickly into the essence of the characters’ environment of “festies” and west coast counterculture.

All these thoughts can be raised from a single paragraph of this dense florid prose that connoisseurs of 21st century counterculture literature (if this genre even yet exists) will find equally entertaining, witty, insightful, and, in a single-stroke, profoundly yet curtly inquisitive.

Certainly past generations have had their Kerouacs and their Robert Anton Wilsons. Our generation has neither yet. In the search for contemporary meaning, we look to the lesser known writers for our guidance. Hidden among the vastness of the internet, out in somewhere unknown possibly on the west coast, a writer speaks out with fervor, tenacity, and a very healthy dose of humor about her own search for meaning through a not-so-simple façade of “everyday” counterculture experience.
Rather than telling us what counterculture is about, Blues 4 Kali intimates to us why it is, why we’re drawn to it, and why we have so much trouble in believing something we want to believe so badly.

-Ora Uzel

Preview at www.blues4kali.com
Reviewer copies available!

The materials are laid out before you: cards, stones, coins, even the stray leaves in your teacup. You puzzle over the swords, cups, wands, and circles, or perhaps an unfamiliar alphabet, or even something as seemingly simple as a series of lines, broken and unbroken. And let’s face it, of all the world’s most perplexing mysteries, certain questions assert themselves at the forefront of our thoughts: Does he/she still love me? Will I get a promotion? How can I improve my health? Where will this road take me? They’re personal issues, the stuff of daily worries, the building blocks of our days.

But is this sort of divination really about the future or is it about now? Divinatory tools are triggers. We begin by recognizing its symbols, picking out the ones that resonate with us first. Some tools already comprise a sophisticated and complex language. When you learn its symbolic alphabet, you can begin to read its message, which is really a message from you to you. While the same symbols may present themselves to you or another reader, how you build the sentences from these esoteric words is yours alone. And by bypassing the language you use daily to communicate the mundane, it’s possible for you to leap from left brain to right, delving into personal truths that are beyond mere logic.

Cafe Nation: Coffee Folklore, Magick, and Divination

Before casting runes or dealing cards, ask yourself what it is that you are seeking of divination. Determine whether or not you will only see what you want to see. What will change about your outlook or your actions if the answer is the opposite? Will you repeat your reading until you find what you were hoping for? Or are you truly ready to take what is given and accept the fact that what you hope for may not be what is best, that the problem you hope to solve likely has its answer within yourself rather than without, and that no matter what promises you perceive the cards to have given you, you still have to live with your reality today. Divination, in other words, is not an escape. It is not an easy way out. If used mindfully, it will help you to see the mountains you must climb, not avoid them.

Once you have accepted this, the method you choose for divination is largely irrelevant. There is no one way that is better than the rest. Ultimately, you need to go with the form that resonates with you most. While it may seem like an ambiguous statement, you will know what form is right for you. Don’t belabor the issue. You are not tied to this deck or this method for the rest of your life. If something feels right, go with it. At a later point, more likely than not, this will shift and change, probably many times.

Folk art and Artist series by the author of this article

The most popular forms today are probably tarot cards (in one form or another) and Norse runes. Divination tools, however, are diverse beyond imagining. You can divine with almost anything. In ancient times, there were those who found truth by looking at the fresh entrails of a newly slaughtered beast, so if you want to find answers in the specks of fat dotting your breakfast sausage, go to it. A few more common methods include cartomancy, divining with cards; palmistry, analyzing the lines and contours of the human hand; tasseography, divining in a tea or coffee cup; phrenology, the analysis of the human head; and bibliomancy, finding answers by choosing random passages from the bible or another text.

The key to successful divination is to achieve an almost meditative state before your chosen instrument. For this reason, the practice of meditation in general is a valuable habit to acquire. Essentially, you are seeking to achieve a waking dream state in which your mind is not chattering on in its normal manner, preoccupied with sundry worries, and begin a journey of free association and storytelling with a willingness to let your mind go wherever it chooses to take you. No matter how unrelated an image, idea, or word may seem when it first flits across your thoughts, do not fight it. Don’t get in your own way. Your mind knows where it is taking you.

If you are an artist, this state of mind is familiar to you. It is that place you reach when you are not consciously choosing your colors or where the next stroke of paint will go. You are simply flowing along with it. Like driving a car, the minute you stop to analyze what you are doing, the process becomes awkward and ultimately detrimental.

The answers come from within yourself. Let them come.

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New Age book aficionados are able to choose from a massive list of titles treating different aspects of the myth of Atlantis, both from a scholarly perspective and fiction. The topic is frequently associated with past lives, and is part of the mythos of Awakening Movement prophecy.

The Greek philosopher Plato originally wrote chronicling a sunken civilization, called Atlantis, during the height of his own Athenian civilization. He believed the lost Island had been in the Atlantic Ocean and met a fateful end approximately ten thousand years before his time.

Prolific author Edgar Cayce described the island as a a huge expanse, approximately equal in size to Europe. According to the prophet’s florid version, the people of Atlantis were accustomed to powerful telepathic talents and technologies, and were the progenitors of the strangely reminiscent pyramid building civilizations of the early Sumerians and the Empires of native America.

Conjectures regarding the position of this culture’s remains stretch from the Indonesia to the Americas, although the most popular options, of course, are European islands, particularly the Azores and Malta.

It might never be certain the real history, but one thing seems clear: human kind has attained great levels of sophistication, before the initial spark of what we usually reference being the dawn of civilization.

Currently featuring:

Transmigrant Blues by Indi Riverflow

Is it the story of a girl having flashes from her past life?
…or a writer imagining his future destiny?
Is the girl insane? Is the writer vain?

A metaphysical mystery and paranormal romance spanning across two lifetimes Transmigrant Blues explores identity, reincarnation and madness.

One page per day will appear from this previously unreleased early novel by Indi Riverflow.

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