Our patterns of motivation, subconscious and conscious, are qualiadelic. They might be emotions, they might be memories, they might be dreams, they might be a complex of all these, the choices we make, or the ideals we inherit.
In any case, whether conscious or unconscious, internal qualia seems to have a life of its own. The unconscious ones, like archetypes, seem to have been steering us and growing throughout time. We pass through archetypical landscapes, just as we pass through a forest.
And just forests, and ecosystems are alive, so are these archetypes. So all this qualia exists within us, providing landmarks and pathways that lead (or, if necessary, lure) us onward.
Naturally, we’re more comfortable in familiar landscapes than bushwhacking through new territory. But getting out of the known into the unknown requires ritual. Ritual allows us to navigate new landscapes, and to solve the problems that need to be solved.
We can consciously ritual with ideas, with dreams, with archetypes, reading, learning, teaching, experiencing. Always we are going off the familiar paths and into the unknown.
We can’t say for sure which patterns really define us. We play with the qualia that presents itself to us. When it works it gives us some trust, some confidence, some sense of control which allows us to play further, to bushwhack more deeply into our inner landscape.
These new, inner landmarks and pathways connect us with ecosystems. When we begin to develop qualiadelic relationships with the other beings in ecosystems, we will find our place.
We make choices in our lives, we go with them, and while we’re on that tangent we’re find other beings who are on a similar tangent, and sometimes they become lifelong friends. Sometimes they disappear as their, or our, tangents change.
There are qualiadelic beings out there (or in here), and as the qualia we attach ourselves to becomes more meaningful, it attracts other qualia, and qualiadelic beings of the same ilk.
In all this, it is the arc we are moving in that matters. And where is it leading us?Does it move us toward ecosystems, or circle us back to the distorted human landscape from which we started?
The answer depends upon whether or not we have the courage to know these qualiadelic beings. They are like strangers in a forest. They are like old crones, with the gifts that we need if we are to succeed in our heroic quests.