banner

Master Edge's Portal

January 17, 2012

Death by Enlightenment

Filed under: The Tales of David — Master Edge @ 1:37 am

On the search for inner peace there is a premature
awakening. It manifests a viral notion that states that if reality is accepted as-is
then one must refute any insight to the contrary. Individuals who succumb to
this ensnarement often say things like, “It it what it is, It’s all good”, and
“Nothing matters”. And, they are only half correct. If one has achieved
stillness, motion can be indulged in. If one has achieved peace, even conflict
in its rawest forms becomes a celebratory dance.

I once had a group of friends suffering from conditional
liberation. It wasn’t just philosophical differences that made me leave them to
form the Knights of Awakening. Eventually philosophy becomes practice, and the
differences between Knights and philosophers are vast in-deed! They were
content to secretly talk among themselves while so many people seek for the
experience of vitality. One among them, an author, said something like, “I’ll
discuss anything the group likes, but not if it involves doing anything other
than sitting in meditation with a poster of Ramana Maharshi.”

I suppose it is romantic to be a dedicated, perpetual
seeker, but I find it misleading to offer a path of peace that never truly
delivers. I find it dishonest to advertise one way as round trip or an archway
as a house. I find it unforgivable to sell premature death as life instruction.
Yet, it is fortunate for us all that people seek to the degree in which they
find, so it’s all good.

December 17, 2011

Two Talking Boards

Filed under: Product Development — Master Edge @ 12:20 am

Pendulum Board

December 9, 2011

The Guantlet Within.

Filed under: The Tales of David — Master Edge @ 12:17 pm

I suspect people question how I banter light and dark philosophies with such ease of conscience. How or why would I intentionally contradict myself ideologically? The answer is a misunderstanding of the topic. The topic for discussion is not what I think, or the thoughts in themselves; the topic is you. I’ve made my dissections, connections, reconciliations, and renunciations. The only real question is how you will do it.

Ideas are like invisible toy trucks in the air that are waiting to be banged together. Alone, thoughts are useless, timeless, and formless. One could argue that without humanity they would not exist at all. Much credit is given the one who first picks an idea from thin air, yet was it not causality that created the event?

Man needs to record. Man makes writing. Man needs portable surface to write on. Man perfects paper. Papers get mixed up and disheveled. Man makes paperclip and folders. Records become too voluminous. Man makes Kindle.

From time immemorial, one person gets the credit of being first to fill a need. Everyone else is just a user of that technology. Yet, it is with great efforts that ideas are earnestly clung to because those are the ideas we cling to. Circular logic! In all actuality, conclusive truths are limitations. They mark the spot where thought has exhausted or one is unwilling to proceed further. Furthermore, all thoughts are relative in that they are all just thoughts. The mind itself has lenses called senses to experience sensual data. Is it no surprise then that every piece of information that is formatted by a system will be of systemic value? Welcome to the matrix.

So, we celebrate the hero through application. We revere that person as manifester that feeds us the ideas and technology that we were too tired or immature to actualize ourselves. We become proprietors by taking ownership of ideas which exist timelessly relative to need. We mindlessly graze upon the fallen fruits of vitality from yesteryear’s battles, never considering that our feet sinks into the desert sand while we are hypnotized by holographic, self-projected glitter.

The only people who aren’t totally full of crap are those that know they are, and even they are dangerously close. That’s not nice is it? Would it be nicer to pretend otherwise?

Protected: Assignment 1.6

Filed under: Assignments — Master Edge @ 12:15 pm

This post is password protected. To view it please enter your password below:


December 7, 2011

Runes: Third Set

Filed under: Product Development — Master Edge @ 1:05 pm

Wood Runes

This is my first set of wood runes. I used maple dowel stock, water-based stains, and varnish. Honestly, this project was half development and half making something for a friend. They measure 1.25″ wide and 10mm thick. I didn’t bother using the height measurement while making them, but they were cut at a 30 degree angle; this makes the height directly proportionate to thickness. For any math buffs out there, the height is 41mm. My tolerances were tight on the thickness of this set, 0.05mm deviation +/- or 0.1mm total deviation. That means the maximum difference in thickness is less than the thickness of one sheet of printer paper. It should be mentioned that some of these tiles are not traditional runes, but my interpretation of custom symbols specified by the recipient. Also pictured here is a hand-sewn bag made from black 100% cotton twill.

November 22, 2011

Celtic Box

Filed under: Product Development — Master Edge @ 5:08 pm

Photobucket

Celtic knotwork burned onto a wooden box. This piece measures 5.5″ x 7.75″. The empty space in the center could be filled with a panel knot or personalized inscription. I currently have no plans for this box, so I await inspiration to complete the work. Any ideas?

November 19, 2011

Protected: Assignment 1.5

Filed under: Assignments — Master Edge @ 2:14 pm

This post is password protected. To view it please enter your password below:


November 10, 2011

Don’t go there.

Filed under: Rants — Master Edge @ 7:37 pm

For those that may not be aware, I have two children. They are currently ages 8 (all A’s & B’s) and 6 (all A’s), and they both attend a public school which serves grades K-5. Several times throughout the year, my children will bring home sales material. The products vary from sports memorabilia, candy, fruit, carbonated drinks, to finger-hut type miscellanea. I understand the school can use the student body to help raise money to support its programs and maintenance costs. Likewise, I understand why most school functions have evolved into seasonal fundraisers. And, I understand that sales increase in proportion to the incentive given to the sales people. However, this all falls apart when you’re talking about kindergarteners and second graders. Let me explain.

My children attend a “pep rally” at school for each of these “programs”. At the meeting, an executive salesman will entertain the minors by showing them the prizes they can win at each tier of sales. If you sale one item, you get a keychain. If you sale 10, you get the keychain and a slinky. This pattern goes all the way up to the grand prize at 100 sales where you get everything displayed including an iPod or Xbox. All this showing of toys excites the juveniles and invokes a real sense of passion for selling product in spite of their limitations of being little kids.

Here’s the catch. My 6 and 8 year old children do not have adult friends. So what happens? The order forms are placed in my wife’s and my lap to deal with while our children run around the living room spouting what all prizes they want. Just for fun, let’s examine my 3 options now as a parent.

1) I go along with the program. The company that I don’t know or care about makes their sales. The school, the one we pay our taxes to fund, gets their commission for the sales. My children get a few cheap trinkets. All of my wife’s and my family and friends are now burdened with the imposition by a family member or close friend to buy something they don’t need or want to fund a school or company they could or couldn’t care less about.

2) I decline to participate. I don’t feel manipulated into working for free. Many family members and friends are not imposed to waste their money. My children are crushed because they don’t get all the prizes they have seen at the “pep rally”, so I’m the bad guy.

[Rant on]

Ok, now let the web bots deliver this message to companies who use schools for their sales and the schools that use sales to offset their academic inadequacies. Calculate this into your marketing and business strategies, oh will you. Stop taking classroom time away from my children. If the school needs better funding then they can raise the quality of their education to receive better funding from the state, not give my children part-time jobs to bail their sinking ship. I will not blindly sell product for you because you have access to my children. I will not sell product for you period (just because), and I will not be caught in the guilt paradox of obligating my friends and family or disappointing my children. It is insulting to be placed into the position of choosing between one or the other. It is insulting to be expected to do your dirty work for a few dollars worth of junk. I side with my children; there is no doubt about it. But, I can choose my kids and escape your manipulation. My kids were excited because of your prizes; I have better ones. My kids like cash. With cash they can, much like their dad, choose where to buy, what to buy, and what to save. I will and do pay them not to worry about your “pep rally” or trinkets. My method works. I will not buy your products either, so keep your offers to yourself. But until you do, rest assured I am silently taking note of your company’s name and will never do business with it. My money will never run through your hands, scholastic pimps. I avoid you like I avoid a cesspool of Google ads, timeshare con-artist, or mortgage insurance agent.

Option 3: Screw both of you and the horses y’all rode in on. I’ll take care of my children. I suggest you do the same for your school and business. They will be instructed to avoid your ilk of marketing exploitation long after you’ve both gone out of business or, heh – had a change in management. And yes, I still mingle at the PTA, for now. Have a nice day. :)

[Rant off]

October 24, 2011

Puppy time

Filed under: The Tales of David — Master Edge @ 5:55 pm

A pic of my pregnant dog.

October 2, 2011

T.H.E.M.

Filed under: The Tales of David — Master Edge @ 7:44 pm

Several years ago I had a series of seemingly unrelated dreams. Keying in on certain qualities of these dreams, becoming lucid during sleep, and getting familiar with my shadow unearthed a mystery that I’ve not solved to this day. It’s been so long that I thought it was over. Last night, it turned out that it wasn’t.

Knowing oneself creates an element of sterility. This sterility doesn’t imply clean, it just means awareness of one’s base line – separate from all influence. Lucidity is a type of awareness that can be achieved during sleep whereby one knows that one is dreaming or not. Even inside of a dream, lucidity lets the dreamer know it isn’t real and even control reality within the dream. My shadow is mentioned here to make a distinction. The following accounts of events shouldn’t be confused with that. I’m well aware of my shadow and the things discussed here are not it, nor a product of it.

Each of the following entries describes dreams I’ve had and my thoughts on them. They are not all of my experiences pertaining to the subject, but are the only ones I can remember well enough to recall. While some of the omitted experiences have just been forgotten over time, many of them were garbled while I was having them. At no time have I encountered any real counterpart to them during waking hours. I do have several theories on the phenomenon, but some of them seem too complicated to be likely. I honestly don’t know what to make of it, and leave the reader to decide.

Undated dream 1: I was standing in line when I became lucid. There were two lines leading up to an entryway where the lines were separated by 90 degree turns toward their respective side. I was in the line on the right, but began wondering why I was there (This was at a point where I had just learned to control my degree of lucidity). I tapped the shoulder of the guy in front of me and asked him. He turns around and says, “Indoctrination!” as if I should know. In the left hand line there was a woman, but her face was mangled like she had landed on it from a fall. Two large authoritative type beings floated in from nowhere and escorted her away. I was then told to fill the vacancy her departure had created. When it was my turn to go left, I walked about 15 feet down a hall way where there was a door on my right. I thought it funny that I knew where to go all of the sudden. I entered the door and there was a dentist’s chair in the room with one being standing beside it. Otherwise the room was empty. I blacked out upon entering and have no further recollection until awaking.

Undated dream 2: I was at something that looked like a mix between a shopping mall and federal building. I was floating along my way to a meeting when a stern female voice asked me where I was going. I replied, “I’m taking the shortcut.” The voice was happy to hear this and warmly parroted me in agreement. I felt almost like a zombie – a familiar feeling to anyone who has driven home from work half asleep. The corner store was a barber shop. I walked straight in and was greeted by the barber. He called me by my name. Having no time for idle chat I didn’t even look up. I went up to a particular chair, and it tilted forward to reveal a staircase underneath. Again, I know exactly where I’m going, confused because I really don’t know, and shocked that I seem to know even when I don’t – all at the same time. I lost lucidity at that point and cannot recall anything further.

~2006 dream 3: I find myself walking down a straight corridor. The walls are cinderblock painted with a dreary gray color. The hall was narrow, too narrow for people to pass each other, but I am alone. The same feeling of knowing and not knowing where I’m going comes upon me, an effect brought about by lucidity itself. I reach an intersection where a similar passage is running perpendicular. My way was straight, but a black woman with very penetrating eyes steps out from the side and blocks me. She says, “We’re having trouble with Allison.” (Allison is my daughter’s name and this is the first time I had dreamed of her existence.) My chest puffed with pride, and I said, “Don’t worry, I’ll handle it.” The woman departed down the intersection and I resumed my way. I don’t recall anything beyond crossing the intersection.

Undated dream 4: It was on the job training. I was in a docking station at a high elevation. There was another planet visible. To my left and right there were other terminals much like mine. The seats were in a U shape on the floor in the same configuration as those in a bowling alley. In place of a ball return, there was a zip line anchored at my station that reached through space to another docking station on the other planet. Travelers would sit in the seats and one at a time get clipped to the zip line and sent. So, my job was to clip the person on the line, send them, tell everyone to rotate one seat to the left, and then clip another and so on. The line itself was as thick as a finger and radiated a blue light much like a light saber. I don’t recall seeing any equipment, for breathing for example. When harnessed to the line, the person shot off at remarkable speeds; I dare say approaching the speed of light.

9-19-2011: It begins with a normal dream sequence. I had just bought an RV. I entered the vehicle through the side to get a good look around. It was carpeted, but otherwise empty. Already I could see where I’d like to have furniture, except for the back end. It was so featureless the only thing I could think of was a large fish tank spanning the width of the RV. I was slightly lucid at this point, but not enough to realize that a fish tank would never work in a mobile home. I felt something was wrong with the idea and begin to work on it when I was interrupted. My ex-fiancé was with me, but in the role of my wife. She’s concerned of the price and how we are to make payments. I remind her that I bought the mid size and my mind is immediately whisked away to a prior event that is being made up now as I went along. There were smaller and larger RV’s to choose from, but I did pick one of the less expensive models. My judgment being thus justified, the dream snaps forward in time to the point where the RV was fitted with furniture. I was sitting on the couch with my surroundings feeling very familiar. I had begun pondering that was like returning to your childhood house in every way yet this wasn’t my childhood house. (In retrospect, this misplaced comfort should have been my first sign that something was amiss.) Once again the ex-fiancé enters my vision and I am taken back in time when we were dating. (I’ve been married for 10 years now and have 2 kids. She has also been married for that long and has at least 3.) So, this event of regressed passion brought me very lucid, yes – I’m at this point in my sleep doing the Freudian thing on myself also, not only to the point that I fully realized that I was in a dream, but was also aware of my sleeping body. I decided to abort the entire scenario.

There was a timeless moment of blackness where I was just asleep with no activity. It’s how I go from one natural dream to another while being lucid. To do this, I dwell in the pitch blackness of nothingness until lucidity goes down enough to allow another natural dream to occur, then I piggy-back on it. I could easily make up a dream, but find little value in that unless there is something in particular I wish to work on.

Another dream starts. It seems… innocent. I was at the convenience center near my house. In Georgia, that’s what we call the places with dumpsters where people take their trash and recyclables. However, in the dream it was larger and the dumpsters went unnoticed. There was a line of about 15 cars going up to this group of government folk, police type beings, scientists, etc. I waited my turn as if I belonged there and when I arrived at the table they were handing out little miniature cars. Each person got 2 and these things looked like they had been molded out of either deodorant or clay. Even in my dream I’m thinking, “Really?” While there, each person was instructed why they had received them, and told what to do with them. The scientists were setting off some atomic device that would emit something like free radicals within several miles of the blast radius. I was assured that it would create neither an explosion, nor damage electronics. The little car figures were made from a special material that caught these particles and my job was to simply take them home and return them on a certain day. I had suspicions that what they were doing would cause cancer, and I was not alone in that. I do think that I was the only one in the line that was concerned that the dream(?) was no longer natural. There were elements present that my mind wasn’t generating on any level.

Plan B. They had me in a doctor’s office and some dude in a lab coat was holding a vial that supposedly held a biopsy of my lung. I was informed that it didn’t look good and I had the initial stages of lung cancer. Meanwhile, several things were happening. My show face was grieved, begged the doctors to save my life, and was kicking myself for smoking. Behind that, I was connecting their use of fear to control. I noted the inconsistency between the emitter briefing and the illness I had supposedly contracted. I also noted how they use random elements of real life to enhance the realism of artificial dreams. Still even closer to my core consciousness, I was observing to find out why they want to control me. (They still don’t know I’m not afraid to die, nor can they tell when I’m aware of them if I don’t allow them to know. I wonder, where or how do they gather information?)

I was returned home. Ironically, this was neither my real house, any house I’ve ever lived in, nor the aforementioned RV. Again, it felt like home. A being at whom I could not look upon asked me if I was comfortable. Thick with face, I remained in role by looking around and agreeing that I was home and comfortable. The being exited and I immediately woke myself up to record this at 4:40am.

1) The Jungian theory: It could be that I’ve watched the Matrix movies and listened to Coast to Coast AM with George Noory way too much. It very well could be that I’ve created a dream reality based on intrigue to fascinate myself, which I frequently visit.

2) The Freudian theory: Mystical elements and puzzles which must be transcended to solve are part of my internal dialog. These dreams are symbolic of issues within my waking consciousness that my mind is working during sleep. The veil between subconscious and consciousness being thinner during altered states, it is no wonder that “the mystery” would surface during dreaming.

3) The holy crap batman this stuff is real theory: Whoever or whatever the phenomenon is does not like to be known. By this I mean that when I interact, lucidity destroys the plot of a dream (normal), it immediately changes to a more subtle scenario (not normal), or is aborted entirely (depends on the level of lucidity, but blacking out mid-dream isn’t normal). 2) These dreams are different than any other dreams by a feeling I get during them. For explanation, imagine if your bedroom is meticulously organized. If someone else changes something but you can’t identify exactly what, you’d have a feeling that something is wrong. That feeling, applied to lucidity itself, is what lets me know I’m not in a normal dream. 3) Whoever or whatever the phenomenon is: A. Seems to be made of a network of intelligences other than self, with many of them people that have been unknowingly trained and continue to be used. B. Manipulates first and never asks for permission. C. Has objectives that I do not know. D. Does not need localized physical representation. E. Has a vast but imperfect understanding of the human psyche F. Has technology far beyond our “official” capabilities or even traditional metaphysical abilities. G. Is structured by an intelligence hierarchy of organizations within organizations within organizations. This theory points to global, perhaps even universal, conspiracy manipulation.

4) The Occam’s theory: It’s just a dream; they’re all just dreams.

Older Posts »
Privacy Policy | Terms of Use | Copyright Notice | Contact Us

© 2009-2011 Ashla Knights And/Or Its Affiliated And Related Entities. All Rights Reserved.
The Order of Ashla Knights is not associated with LUCAS FILM LTD™, Star Wars™, or any LUCAS FILM Ltd™ film or franchise.