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Chronicles #14: A Group of Shamans

From Kirk and Noor of The Institution of Perception
Chronicle # 14: November 3, 2010
A Group of Shamans
When the shamans of antiquity entered into the ritual space of a dedicated cave, one of their party was responsible for the rock paintings integral to their ceremony. With resin charcoal in hand, the artist executed a Magical Pass upon the cave wall. They ripped open the solid stone with a drawn jagged line that was intended as the crack between the worlds. They added a small rectangular ladder symbolic of the climb into this unknown world, a tool to help access this foreign landscape.

In this drawing they saw themselves, a goup of shamans depicted in their triangular energy bodies. As they practiced their magical passes in unison, their luminous cocoons formed into a pointed vehicle for penetrating through the solid veil separating them from infinity.

We sat in the semi darkness, letting our internal phosphenes match the swirling dust of the external environment. We let our open eyes drift out of focus, gazing meditatively at the jagged lines floating in front of the wall before us. We traveled with our own energy bodies into the silence of the temples in Teotihuacan, up the sides of the Pyramid to the Sun and the Moon, leaping from the tops into the region of surrounding patterned sky, and further, much further through the stone wall.

Chronicles #13: The Spirit Temple

From Kirk and Noor of The Institution of Perception
Chronicle # 13: October 27, 2010
The Spirit Temple
The most important aspect of a magical life is using Death as an Advisor. The knowing of the impending appointment with death informed every action of the Toltec sorcerers who developed rituals and ritual centers involving this final passage.

Located in a remote valley, on a low mesa, we discovered rows of piled stones assembled with an ancient intention. Each row contained 20 individual rock mounds 10′ in diameter, aligned with a matching row of mounds, approximately 60 ft. away. Surprisingly, this large area was devoid of any desert flora, no cactus or other major native plants grew on this location, only low grass appeared between the piled stones.

The obvious conclusion from a traditional archeologist would be a communal grave site, however, our “seeing” revealed not only a physical burial site, but also an intended site for the afterlife. We saw “columns of energy” emanating upward from the rock foundation piles. These transperant “energy columns” connected the earth burial site to the spirit realm in the sky.

We were standing at the center of a vast cathedral with 40 columns holding up the sky canopy. This was a Spirit Temple. The community would gather in this temple to pay tribute to their dead, as well as to visualize their ascension into the spirit world.
Chronicles #12: The Shamanic Classroom: Magical Passes

From Kirk and Noor of The Institution of Perception
Chronicle # 12: October 20, 2010
The Shamanic Classroom: Magical Passes
The Sorcerers of Antiquity developed the Art of Magical Passes, an intended and precise set of body movements, used to open the doors of perception by redeploying the energy which we lose daily through worry and fear.

Performing these movements in a natural Power Spot, the apprentices gain a boost from the Earth as they align with corridors of Earth Emanations and the very heartbeat of the planet.

Different sets of Magical Passes were designed to mash, stir, collect, and then distribute energy to the vital centers of the body. Tubes of unused or latent talents were activated in the practicioners as they passed through windows into the second attention helped by this energetic boost.
The Magical Passes were passed down for a millineum, through personal training, and privately from master to apprentice. Contemporary Seers adapted and added new sets of Magical Passes to fit the particular modality of the time.

After practicing the passes in our Power Spot, we moved with the pulse of the Earth flowing into us through pottery chard libraries and the whispered instructions on the mountain wind.
Chronicles #11: The Shamanic Classroom: The Fulcrum

From Kirk and Noor of The Institution of Perception
Chronicle # 11: October 14, 2010
The Shamanic Classroom: The Fulcrum
Designated training areas for shamanic apprentices were located in natural power spots. These ancient areas were manicured and sculpted by the master shamans to demonstrate and assist in the understanding and activation of altered perception.

The Fulcrum was a shamanic technique that used “still eye gazing” to activate peripheral vision.
Using a wide boulder, master artists carved two identical holes in the outer edge and a scooped out seat at the center of this stone bench. A person sat in the center of the boulder, and the student, who was watching at a distance of approximately 40 ft. away, was instructed to keep their eyes “still” on this seated subject. By keeping their awareness on the seated person, a peculiar effect took place at each of the outer circular holes. The holes began to rise and fall, as if the seated person were the fulcrum of a gigantic stone teeter-tooter.

This up/down motion could not be viewed directly. The side movement was only activated by holding the attention on the seated person. The shamanic apprentice was plunged into another reality. A reality where the most stationery of objects, in this case a huge boulder, was seen to pulsate and wobble with energetic movement.

Chronicles #10: The Valley of The Eagle: part 2 (10-10-10)

From Kirk and Noor of The Institution of Perception
Chronicle # 10: October 10, 2010
The Valley of The Eagle: part 2
The rising sun was just striking the highest edges of the valley walls. The deep shadows helped to emphasize a particular vertical shaft of stone, around three stories in height. Even taking hundreds of years of intense weathering into account, this monumental work was still clearly defined.

We were looking at the features of a gigantic Eagle head sculpted into the huge wall. The long vertical stone had been sanded as the spectacular beak. Two identical caves on each side where clearly the two eyes, each about 5′ high by 12′ wide. The natural splits in the rock wall had been used as a template for this carving. I wondered how many artists were involved in such a grand scheme. This whole valley was under the watchful eye of the Toltec symbol for Spirit, the Eagle.

In order to make the dangerous climb to reach the eyes of the Eagle, one had to have sobriety, discipline, patience, and intention. These four attributes were the mark of a Shaman warrior. Once inside the eye cave, they were rewarded with a view of the world to the far horizon. Seeing like an Eagle, the Shaman had become the “overseer” for their community, gathering distant information essential to everyone’s ultimate survival both in body and in spirit.

Chronicles #9: The Valley of The Eagle: part 1

From Kirk and Noor of The Institution of Perception
Chronicle # 9: September 29, 2010
The Valley of The Eagle: part 1
We had reached the highest point in the mountains. We stood in amazement at the discovery of a hidden valley. The geological formation was akin to an extinct caldera, a depression at the top of the mountain peak. The huge rock walls that encased the valley kept it completely hidden.

At the center of this hidden valley was a single mammoth boulder. At the bottom of this boulder, four shoulder wide low arched passages had been cut as doorways leading into its’ center.

We crawled through. The interior was a perfectly smoothed dome, barely 5 feet high, it’s four doorways aligned with the cardinal directions. This chamber was used for intended ritual.

We closed our eyes and began to Dream. I had never felt so protected. It seemed impossible for this single stone sculpture to ever move due to it’s masterful tripod engineering and it’s immense weight.
The wind gathered outside and the night would be arriving soon. I could hear the last call of the Ravens. Somewhere in the distance came the high pitched voice of the Golden Eagle coming home to its own nest somewhere in the high valley walls.
Chronicles #8: The Red Grid

From Kirk and Noor of The Institution of Perception
Chronicle # 8: September 22, 2010
The Red Grid
The sorcerers of ancient Mexico, had “seen” that the makeup of everything in our universe was part of a dynamic web that they named The Red Grid. The Red Grid was “seen” as an overlay of colored energy lines that appeared to float over the entire blue sky.
It was those sorcerer’s Intention to “pierce” this fabric of the universe with their Dreaming Body. They would practice together to achieve an energy mass strong enough to go through the grid to access information from the mysterious area on the other side of the curtain.

Particular power spots on the landscape were used as launch pads into “seeing” and then moving through the Red Grid. On the rock wall of a special cave, an apprentice was shown a visual aid transcribing this glutenous matter. The master shaman drew the grid on the rock wall. His fingerprints were dabbed into the spaces between the red lines to demonstrate the proper passages. The apprentice was then given a special mixture of power plants to facilitate their visualization and Energy Body projection through the grid wall and into the realm of the Unknown.

It is no coincidence that this artist has framed the Red Grid inside a pyramid shape, as the traveling group of “seers”, similar to the v shape flight pattern of migrating birds, pierces the grid and travels to the unknown in the most stable formation, the pyramid. In the Tolteca tradition, the optimum number of warriors required to form an energy mass for the purpose of astral travel is Sixteen. As seen in this pictograph, the two nagual leaders are the brown dabs at the apex, five warriors in the center and nine more at the base of the pyramid shaped formation completes the energy core.
Chronicles #7: Winged Beings

Volume 7 in our ongoing feature with the fine people at Telemagica. Telemagica approached us to help them in their voyage to present their vision to the people who follow this site and are able to travel to the San Diego area where Telemagica Art and Music Festival is held and where the articles presented derive themselves from. This organization among many we are tied in with is one more vibration in this world of creation. We are here to express as many colors possible and are very proud to present the vision of Telemagica, an element of our site that will continue to flourish in more areas as time passes. We feel there is an emerging mass of people who are into the many juxtaposed worlds that art creates and are raising tolerance for understanding art as raw emotions that all humans connect to regardless of style or meaning. The doorways have opened and the bridge has been found for the mass influx of connected knowledge and growth for those who inhabit the internet world. The age of information is leading to the age of change, this change is already occurring right now. The expansion of the knowledge contained in the land that Telemagica inhabits is proof of this change, or rather a rights of passage back to the natural state of who we once were. This is a special time to live, a time of great expansion with a perfect balance of deconstruction, nano technology to wisdom seekers, the entirety of this world is changing and those unwilling to change will be left behind. ~ Erik Otis
From Kirk and Noor of The Institution of Perception
Chronicle # 7: September 16, 2010
Winged Beings
The Artists of Antiquity were obsessed with the desire to fly. They saw the birds as closest to the heavens. Spirit flight was the transformation from earth bound existence into the abstract energy body.

We were surrounded by grinding stones and pottery shards, evidence of an extensive village from ancient times. Upon entering one of the many caves, eyes adjusted, we detected an image in “silvery” lines positioned right above one of the grinding holes on the smooth rock ceiling. They were the lines of a human form: stick figure with outstretched arms and legs. What made this pictograph unique was the addition of two circular wings. For proper viewing, we had to lie on our backs, eyes intended upward, enhancing the feeling of looking into the firmament, watching this winged being take flight across a solid stone sky.

With our activated perception, we found more depictions of Winged Beings in the surrounding rock grotto. Had this been a ritual area for the intention/meditation of abstract flight? One of the canyon walls had been repeatedly carved with various hole patterning forming the shape of long carved wings, large enough to lift a human body skyward. On the same vertical wall were carved a set of open fat wings, heart shaped to match someone leaning their back into the boulder.

As if to test our own powers of perception, the final offering left by these magnificent artists of the past, was also a manifestation of their unified power of “will”. The cave area from which we had just exited was in fact a gigantic boulder that had been emphasized by years of carving into a colossal set of wings.

Chronicles #6: Shadow and Light

From Kirk and Noor of The Institution of Perception
Chronicle # 6: September 9, 2010
Shadow and Light
The Southwestern landscape is divided between intense bright sun light and resulting deep dark shadows. There is very little “lukewarm” in the desert. The desert animals burrow far into the Earth and cave for safety and shade. The cactus protect their internal water with thorn armor. The balance of shadow and light consumes all those who call this desert their Home.

It took us over an hour of rock climbing to reach the ridgetop of the Jacumba Mountains.
We took shelter from the blistering heat beneath a wall of boulders that acted as protective sunscreen. The assemblage point can be dislodged when fatigue and lack of water push one’s perception beyond it’s habitual location. Our eyes began to “see”.
A crescent shadow appeared to be moving into the solid rock wall in front of us! We jumped up.
An “eye” had been carved into the vertical rock wall, roughly 3 ft. in diameter, with the central pupil over 2 ft in depth. Each descending ridge of the iris was precisely carved to mark minute changes in the suns procession.

Had these ancient Artists intended a scientific time piece, or was this carving meant to be a meditative tool on the nature of “seeing” itself? We gazed upward into the blue sky. The dark masses and bright flecks of our internal blood stream floated across our open eyes. Everyday concerns slowly evaporated. A red grid began to form over the immensity until the lines of the universe crisscrossed in the panoramic sky.

Chronicles #5: Passages

From Kirk and Noor of The Institution of Perception
Chronicle # 5: September 2, 2010
Passages
Birth passages, life and love passages, death passages, and ultimate passages into unseen worlds, are all illustrated in the rock work of this magical landscape. The Ancient Tolteca Artists emphasized the rain sculpted Yoni passages, and used these areas for puberty rites.Women’s Caves were marked with womb red pigments. Those places in the mountainside that resembled vaginal formations were honored as places of power. They represented the Gateway from one world to the next.

The Circle of Life was depicted in stone circles designed on those power spots high in the mountains. A four directional rock compass was used as a midpoint stone portal connecting mother earth with father sky. Those Artists of Antiquity have left us their power circles as permanent evidence of their understanding of the sacred cycle of Birth to Life to Death.

It was late summer when we entered the Woman’s Cave, hidden at the base of an old waterfall. By early winter a stream of water would be flowing down the rock crevice at the rear of the cave, wetting the dormant moss into bright green life. We would then listen to the amazingly steady beat of water drops echoing off the narrow cave walls. The beat of life. A rhythm so precise and subtle, that contemporary musicians would have to silence their internal dialogue to appreciate her masterful song as an inspiration to their own symphonic creations. If we sat still and intended long enough, we would be able to watch the green resurrection of the entire desert.

Chronicles #4: The Artist’s Ear

From Kirk and Noor of The Institution of Perception
Chronicle # 4: August 27, 2010
The Artist’s Ear
We were sitting in the valley, eyes closed, listening. A 360 degree symphony swirled around us: cicada rattles, bursting quail flocks, and the wind moving through the branches. The flat boulder we were sitting upon showed rubbed areas that had been used for grinding.

Mystic Archeologists “see” much more then grinding stones, much more then depressions and holes created by mashing acorns and berries with stone pestle and stone mortar. They “see” that the ritual of hammering and stirring would naturally produce a textured Soundscape. The human ear is genetically drawn to an organized patterning of rhythm. A group of people intent on continuing their food preparation, would eventually construct an organized beat, develop a sound composition, that in turn would become a remembered pattern, a ritual as important for communal unity as the beat of their own human hearts.


Long ago these shamanic musicians were arranged in this concentric circle, facing one another, creating a vortex of sound, directed toward the center from their six positions on the outer ring. Someone in need of healing or ready for apprenticeship into astral travel, would lie down in the center, and be projected into deep Dreaming, following the beating cadence as a Sound Guide. The Six Players used long yucca branches or stone hammers to activate the echo cavities into a vibrating bed of sound .
Wind began to build in the surrounding desert, alerting sage and creosote tree, building quickly into a large Dust Devil, throwing stick and stone across the chaparral… a storm of Sound Magic
Chronicle #3: The Artist’s Hand

From Kirk and Noor of The Institution of Perception
Chronicle # 3: August 20, 2010
The Artist’s Hand
From the painted rock art in Europe, to the aboriginal caves in Australia, the Human Hand has been represented since the beginning of time.

One late afternoon, as we walked in the Jacumba Mountains through an area we had traversed many times before, the setting sun and its long shadows suddenly revealed an artifact of significant importance. Carved a long time ago, upon a small boulder was a replica of the human hand.

This carved hand, twice life size, was only the beginning welcome to a valley of ancient sculptures. As if this hand was designating a sitting spot, we stopped to scan the distant rocks that created a protective wall around the valley. As the sun continued to set, its’ light and shadow did indeed illuminate a far larger surprise.

Although much weathered from its western exposure to harsh rains for millennia, we saw the smoothed remains of a life size Guardian Rock. The Tolteca stone carvers were obsessed with depicting the Guardians looking skyward. When they carved a head or a human figure, their preference was a “looking upward” to represent astral flight. It was a defiant gesture, a salute created by a stone carver, determined to leave their monumental mark of humanness for future Seers.

The intended gesture of the artists’ hand, as they play an instrument or carve an image, is in some way more significant than the resulting art piece itself. Through the movement of the hand, the artist creates the “Butterfly Effect” around the world and through time.



























































































