On the night of the Leo full moon in Gregorian 2012 a vintage 1970’s organ showed up in front of the time capsule bench on the Chokmah Mound. My camera’s flash wasn’t working, it was devilishly cold out, and by morning the organ was gone without any documentation of this playful Punch Drunk Love-ish offering to The Tree.

On the same night I noticed a pentagram drawn into The Binah Swirl. The Kabbalistic Tree of Olympia is waking up and people are using it for magick. Bless them!

In New York City at The Sync Event on January 31st, a coin which had been sitting on the lip of the tip The Statue of Yesod (see The Value of Offerings section of “How To Walk The Tree In The Moonlight”) went to a virgin-resonating ballerina from Virginia. She asked a question about the meaning of her recurring teen dreams about losing her teeth. The Pop Oracle’s answer for her was my rendition of Shmushkin’s song, “Punkin Lovin’”.

The SYNC event included discussions of Blue Monkeys (resonating with the 13 Moon Natural Time Calendar)

and me getting called an asshole onstage…twice by Alan Abbadessa-Green, who earlier that day told an old lady on the subway to “Fuck-off… Now you fucking hear me!!” It was all refreshingly New York. Olympia’s nice but sometimes its niceness becomes oppressive and one yearns for some open hostility. And NYC provides it. A city where you need to hit some tobacco to get a breath of fresh air, but you won’t get cancer from keeping your emotions in your gut.

The whole Sync gang, as far as they were able to make it, were great at summoning up the sync. Rammer, Jen, Peg, Douglas, Kevin & Kyle, The Mask of God Dancers. Good stuff all around, and Alan held it together like a great director; wearing his stress well. Steve Willner (Labrynth of the Psychonaut) and Rogan Russell Marshall (The Attic Expeditions) each Skyped in to ask a question to The Pop Oracle and by the end of the night, as it always does after getting really uncomfortable, it all made perfect sense, and more so all the time. The event was filmed and at least some of it should find its way onto the web at some point.

Later that week in LA, GATE (Global Alliance for Transformational Entertainment) held their yearly live event featuring, among others, Eckhart Tolle, Jim Carrey, Marianne Williamson, Edward James Olmos, Barbara Marx Hubbard and Lili Haydn (who stole the show). There had been talk earlier in the year of incorporating Radio8Ball as a part of the event but it didn’t work out this time. Next time perhaps.

Fans of The 13 Moon Natural Time Calendar will note that we began what that calendar refers to as a galactic run on Friday, Feb 3 (the day before the opening of The GATE.) It ends today; Sunday, Feb 12. This phenomenon has been described to me by people fluent with the calendar as a time when the veil is thinner. For me the themes of this galactic run have been very challenging; disappointment, sorrow, futility, oppression, cruelty. It’s the Tower card from the Tarot, as February always is, only this year “the world is ending” or at least that’s what hovers at the edge of our consciousness. You can either let these portents of doom scare you off your path, or allow them to inspire and refine what the Nam-Myoho-Renge-Kyo Buddhists call your ichinen, or will.

The GATE, as well as being a great metaphor, is an ambitiously-intentioned organization. On the day of their event in LA I woke up in Boston and flew all east coast day to Seattle. I watched the event live online into the wee west coast hours from my bed in Olympia. It was mostly riveting viewing, aimed at inspiring Hollywood to recognize the market for consciousness raising content. The existence of this market is proven out by the huge sales for really bad films like The Secret and What The Bleep Do We Know? The value of the consciousness raising aspects of these two egregiously awful films in particular, made them worth watching despite their low production value; kind of like porn or instructional guitar playing videos, except that The Secret and What the Bleep did much bigger numbers, and across a wider spectrum of humanity, than anything Yngwie Malmsteen or Jenna Jameson ever churned out. Why? Because Americans are hungry for whatever enlightenment we can get. The argument to the capitalist powers in Hollywood, that they would do well to recognize this large and ravenous audience, clearly serves Radio8Ball’s case for inclusion in the mainstream media landscape, so I’m down.

For me the two events (SYNC in NYC & The GATE in LA) were woven together within whatever larger spell Accidental Initiations is a part of because Linda Balaban (Curb Your Enthusiasm) was there as a guest of Lili Haydn on behalf of Radio8Ball. My ghosts were giddy over this alignment, especially the spirit of my old Boon bandmate Josh Clayton-Felt. Josh and Lili and Linda and I ran in intimate youthful circles back when we were all bouncing around in LA and Boston; pre-death, pre-fame, pre-alcohol. And here we were, together again at The Gate.

Lili’s mom, Lotus Weinstock, who was my adopted mother when I moved out to LA as a teenager, and who died a couple of years before Josh, joined my gang of ghosts as I ran my Tree that day. While her daughter made like Jimi at Monterey and showed the old warriors and new initiates at The GATE what consciousness-raising art is all about, I could feel Lotus and Josh and my father all gathered around me to enjoy the show. Hovering on the edge my being as I sent my intentions out through The Tree for… RADIO8BALL… RADIO8BALL… RADIO8BALL… RADIO8BALL… RADIO8BALL…

It’s my consistent prayer and offering, “I serve it as it serves me. The land and the king are one. Radio8Ball on TV!”

Balaban met one person of note at The GATE as far as R8B is concerned; Tom Shadyac.
Tom is the director, most recently, of the documentary film “I Am”;

all about his spiritual quest for meaning after suffering a brain injury in a nasty bike accident. I can’t help but think of Warren Beatty’s “Heaven Can Wait”.

Before the accident Tom was the director of huge money making middle of the road comedies like “Ace Ventura”, “The (Eddie Murphy) Nutty Professor”, “Bruce (And Evan) Almighty” & “Patch Adams”. After the accident, Tom pulled a “Sullivan’s Travels” and re-made himself as a kind of Beach Blanket Bingo angel; giving away most of his possessions and moving into a trailer on the beach, devoting himself to learning and teaching.

Before all of this, in the late 20th century days when Josh and Lotus and my father still walked the earth, Tom was my acting teacher. His impact on the man I would become was great, as I documented in Accidental Initiations. That he would show up in response to my prayers and intentions on this auspicious evening, felt just right, if only so I could get his address so I can send him a copy of the book. In truth, I can’t help but hope my old teacher, big-hearted Tom Shadyac, recognizes that his “I Am” path and that of Radio8Ball are one and the same. I want to join forces, like old times. It’s a good wish that leaves me filled with all the hope and disappointment bred of years of reaching for community in the Hollywood fear factory.

And so I balance here. Hanging in the central pillar of my Tree with my heart out there for all to see. It’s February, in the shadow of the thaw, and the days are dark and pregnant. The omens are incessantly negative with overwhelming moments of inspiration sprinkled in like raisins in a boring cookie, or out-of-place organs deposited in the sephiroth of the Tree. I sit in my apartment like a drunken spider in its winter web, barely living but still vital, waiting for Accidental Initiations to drop and do whatever magick we have been called to.