I'm a little nervous…
In two weeks I'm gonna be going on a podcast—a pretty popular para-political podcast—to talk about this project: Ki to the City.
This podcast I'm gonna be going on is right up my alley, in terms of subject matter. You see, I've always been interested in “the occult”—although I like to refer to it as “the metaphysical” so it doesn't sound like I'm trying to be spooky.
I'm not into Aleister Crowley, or anything like that.
My dogged interest in such matters probably mostly stems from my mother’s death when I was young. I've always wanted to know what happened to her spirit/if I'm ever going to see her again. So, if there needs to be a psychoanalytical explanation for my interest in the spirit world, that would be it, I suppose.
My father generously supplying me with books and conversations on such topics also surely kindled the flame of my interest in the supernatural, but I don't really need to get into all this right now…
Now I want to talk about the responsibility I feel going on this podcast to talk about what I'm gonna be talking about.
At the beginning of this year, I had a vague urge—a new idea.
I’d been writing protest songs—songs against tyranny, songs against technocracy, songs against greed-fueled sociopathy under the guise of ideology, songs protesting cyber serfdom…anyway—you get the point… And I found myself shamelessly trying to promote these songs on Twitter, or X, or whatever you want to call it—and I just really didn't like the feeling…
So I thought—or something thought through me—I just want to focus on Aikido, something positive for a while, see what that does, see what that does to my mood, my mind—because I was depressed. I mean, I've always kind of battled with that lower pole—so this is nothing new—but I was depressed in a hyper-dystopian way that was starting to really wear me down.
And I don’t want to just be a critic of what’s wrong with society. I want to offer a remedy—give hope to the situation—and the therapeutic activity that I've stuck with for the longest in my life—the thing I'll never skip or quit—is Aikido.
And so, I wanted to share this gift of Aikido somehow.
I’ve also developed the habit of listening obsessively to podcasts centered mostly on themes such as I mentioned at the beginning of this piece—even dabbled with (the last few years) publishing my own cryptic critiques in a spoken prose poem format, so it seemed natural to continue with this style of communication.
So far, the universe seems to be pleased with me following this path. And I'm not here to displease the universe.
So, when I go on this podcast, what I really want to talk about mostly is Aikido as a spiritual practice, But I'm still a little scared to admit—because I don't want to sound like a complete lunatic—that I genuinely believe the gods gave us Aikido practice as a way to endure what we’re going through now.
The gods gave us Aikido as a therapeutic remedy for this sedentary lifestyle. This detached, screen-looking, nonstop mental disassociation, android, schizoid, paralytic punishment, banishment, technetronic wasteland it appears we're headed towards has got to be affecting us—even if it’s just on the subconscious level (that I would probably just call ‘spiritual’ because I don't care, but…)—that feeling of dread from knowing that the robots are taking over (not really the robots but the people who are making the robots) and all we can do is just… hold our breath to get through it—until it's over. I guess.
So, the gods know the future—right?—at least to some degree—and they saw what was coming. The past centuries were full of prophecies—of course, there’s always charlatans and con artists pretending to be prophets—but that doesn't mean that there weren’t—aren’t—some bona fide divinely prescribed messages delivered unto human society.
So I'm going on this podcast as an ambassador of Aikido to appeal to the more esoterically attuned—to let them know that there's a physical exercise—a living, breathing, moving, theurgical exercise—they can do that’ll help put them back in sync with the cosmos again.
I know it's not the only way to get back in sync with the cosmos again, but it's one of the most dynamic four-dimensional fun ways to do it… and you learn how to throw people, and be thrown - gracefully, and you learn how to get back up, and you gain some flexibility, you gain some core strength, you gain some balance, feel a little bit better about yourself when you’re walking around…
If you still walk around…
