May Eyes

these issues are very disturbing. I would hope they would be, to anyone. Reminds of that quote which I can't quite place about if you don't like my answers, stop asking such dangerous questions. In this case the dangerous questions are constantly being asked by real life circumstances. We who hear do feel compulsion to answer disturbingly. If we hide from all disturbance of our status quo and our self-taught lies, how are we to change the horrific realities?



It is not up to us to decide what a god will condemn. We, each of us, make our own equations as to what falls to good, neutral, evil. Situations can be quite complicated, or facile and obvious. To my mind, we are here to learn who we are and how to act accordingly. I believe in peace and cooperation among humanity as the most useful and mutually beneficial course. It is not necessary to condemn in order to work toward the perceived goal. It is much more useful to treat each other with compassion and familial concern. Yet we all know there are often bitter arguments within families when strong emotions are evoked. In a universe there is room for it all.



I agree that Pastor Wright's statements are true, and applaud him for his public valor and spirit. This does not mean that Obama is false when he proclaims that he split with his pastor because they are promoting vastly different messages. Pastor Wright got it right (again) when he said that pastors and politicians answer to different bosses. Wright is telling a deep set of truths and fighting an ongoing battle. It is a different set of truths and a different battle from Obama's.

Obama's core message has been from the start not about historic wrongs, but present necessities and the need for unity among the diverse peoples of the U.S. He rightly understands that Wright's message is acting as a divisive distraction from his call to put aside our differences in favor of working for our common goals and common good.

It is not necessary to condemn one side in order to uphold the other. Both men, both messages, are important. They are only conflictual when pushed into combat by the public cry for either/or logic. There is more than enough room in this wanting to be great country for good people to find their individual vocations at various points in the overall fabric needing to be mended.



So sad that we have to go through pain to understand how pain is gone through. No need to leap into homilies or even thoughts of healing in the first throes of emotion. If we allow the emotion to feel its way all through our being, we can merge and go forward, having grown. It doesn't have to be a lesson in the sense of schooling. It is what we learn because that is how we are made.



What I don't get is why lenders didn't work out new loans for their defaulting customers which would be within the home buyer's means. That way, everyone could have gotten what they ostensibly went into the loan to get: the home buyer a home, the lender a return on their investment. The government would not have had to get involved, and the US financial situation would be less immediately dire.

In regard to the threatened Bush veto, he is also expecting action on Iraq War financing. If the Congress had the cojones we pay them for, why not insist the housing bill be signed before they agree to any more funds for Iraq? Although, if they want to give their constituents what we want, that funding needs to be minimal, with the idea of getting troops out, not extending their stay.

If we had reasonable laws against usury we would not be in any kind of financial mess like this. I understand getting a return on your risk, but anything over say 12% a year for credit cards is ridiculous. Mortgages ought to have a reasonable time to pay off/interest ratio so that mortgage payments stay well within the means of the buyer. Financial institutions, like so many institutions, seem to act based on some theory of divine right to profit, rather than as a service organization getting paid for providing good social benefit. We have no free market here, so letting the market make its magical corrections is not only dubious theory, but not an option. The market is obviously and unapologetically manipulated for the benefit of corporate interests even though these manipulations in fact destroy the whole conceptual basis to the benefits of capitalism. If we were intelligently designing our market system, restrictions would be on the corporations for the benefits of the consumers, the environment, the social structure and public good in general, and the lower level workers who actually do the productive work.



People are complaining that corn is being used for fuel rather than animal feed, but the companies buying the corn for fuel are probably doing a two-for-one because the process to make alcohol uses the sugars, not the proteins. The proteins can then be used as animal feed. What is lost is the high fructose cornsyrup.



What is "science"? It's not what scientists do, or what we have learned in science class. It is a method to achieve knowledge. As is astrology, which may be classified as a proto-science by some. There is observation and notation and calculations and theorizing and observation, etc. What your average astrologer is doing, like a cook, is using "scientific" principles in practical commonplace application.



Interesting that they are so concerned with possible effects of "illegal" drugs on the aging brain, when the real ill-effects of highly touted pharmaceuticals get little attention. It would be nice if we could all be made aware of the risks and benefits and make our own choices of recreation and medicine. Did you see the Bill Moyers program exploring the scam of big pharm? Did you see the effects they showed in older folks who had been scammed into taking Detrol for a made-up disease? I just saw a very aggressive Detrol commercial on network tv, with none of those effects even mentioned. They made it seem like any side-effects were slight and unlikely, and this wonder drug would make life so much better. It's all a matter of who is getting the money, and how well they lobby Washington.



There is good reason, though, for those who are victimized in this sense to change their actions not in the sense of adding to their powerlessness in regard to the larger system, but to change their cognition and actions toward understanding the political aspects of their "personal" situation. Thus, with encouragement toward this attitude, powerlessness can be overcome by a new understanding of power as the politics of standing up for our own well being.




I have been working to reframe my "depressive episodes" as fluctuations in energy -- no blame, in fact a message to go within for a while to recharge.



Have you seen the documentary on Depression currently being aired on PBS? I watched last night and was appalled. Their first line of defense against cognitive/behavioral issues was these dangerous drugs, which they admitted they don't really understand but just experiment patient by patient taking advantage of confusion and misery. They even touted electroshock. Yet, when we saw the results in the lives of the people whose stories they were following, the best result was for a young black man who refused to take drugs and transformed his life by engaging with an older woman activist and working for a community support group, along with talk therapy to work out his early life traumas and resultant ptsd. The white well-off parents of depressed teens talked about how they hated to send their kids away for treatment and now the kids are back home and doing better on daily drug cocktails, but you can see what was destroying these kids was lack of intimacy in their lives so they always felt they had to play a role to be acceptable. Nothing at all was mentioned about complementary or alternative therapies, such as expressive therapies, though it was pointed out that regular exercise helps keep depression at bay. What they did keep emphasizing: "This is a disease and therefore treatable." I may have it wrong, but I didn't know there was treatment for every disease, even postulating these basically faulty software issues to be "disease", but I digress. Of course, the major point was that poppa Psychiatric Association knows best, and what we know is you gotta take your medicines, no matter what the ill-effects, because we have more medicines for those.

Of course what works for you works for you. There is no reason why you should not do what is best in your individual circumstance. I am objecting to all the forced/coerced/drugs first phenomenon. People's lives are being ruined because they are misdiagnosed, given harmful treatments (side effects are just some effects created by the mixture of the chemical and the body, not side at all) and made to feel disempowered by dependency. My take is that we should be given all the information, easily available and digestible, and allowed to choose. Kids should not be coerced into these kinds of treatments. A big part of that information we need is about the alternative and complementary therapies, and alternate ways of framing "symptoms."




I was dreaming that I was walking along a verdant highway shoulder with my brother and his wife. She was asking about my mental health issues. I explained to her that I was coming to the realization that I was no longer "sick." I had gone through a long healing process. Now I was not a sick person healing, but a new person I had not been before. My task now was to learn how to be that person effectively.

As I was saying this last bit, she let us know that we needed to cross the highway here, to get to a place she wanted us to enjoy in the woods on the other side. She and my brother raced across when she said: "now." However, I got caught by traffic that came up on my too quickly. I have a recurring dream situation in which I am trying to get across a street or some such and find my feet somehow glued or tarred, unable to move. I remembered that and expected this situation to ensue. However, to my surprise, I found I was able to, lane by lane, cross the highway after waiting for the oncoming traffic in that lane to clear. I woke up before reaching the other side.



I have been musing on my current Pluto transits, the idea of transformation being about a permanent change. People often look at transits as temporary conditions that we will get over,
but the influences of life's experiences make us something new. The challenge and the gift is to embrace the changing and dance with it, not static "beings" (though I do understand that that is a verb-alization, implying movement) but amazing ever-becomings.

All the in your face political "news" here in the US seems to be reiterating that epic story about crises trying to knock us out of our comfort zones into more creative usefulness of changing conditions, and more useful change to move us beyond stagnant stubborn facts.

All the epic conditions, the magicks and miracles and heroics, great conflicts, tragedies, comedies, ironies, classic adventure and philosophic enlightenment do exist in the everyday. Every and all of us is forever being given opportunities to rise above, become more, understand and relate better, create ourselves as ecstatic evolving art.



Ralph Nader is an astute student of politics and society, a rare practical idealist reformer, a member of the best of what America is about. If it comes down to Hillary v. McCain plus Romney in the Fall, I'll be voting for him again.



So ex-Republican Congressman Bob Barr has become the Libertarian Presidential Candidate for 2008. He claims he split with the Republicans over the Iraq conflict, and that now that he has been taken in to the warm bosom of the Libertarian Party, he has seen the light and repudiated laws he once helped to pass, such as the US PATRIOT ACT, and the Defense of Marriage Act.

I can see that the Libs are non-foolishly taking the chance to get some big name recognition. Personally, I would have preferred Steve Kubby, to get the mmj issue front and center. You know all those sick pot-smokers in prison can't be helping the economy or the cause of social justice.



This is what America is all about: freedom of expression to promote ideas and counter promote, and find out what matters to each of us and perhaps ways to make it all intertwine effectively (though we could probably do better without the blaming and invective).



Registering voters is an important part of the process. However, there is a lot of educating of citizenry that needs to be addressed. I am constantly being amazed by how little "we the people" generally seem to know about how our government is supposed to work. No wonder it rarely does.



Congress never seems to get "it" in I guess some kind of mindless groveling to some imagined public view. I saw Newt Gingrich on tv today promoting prizes for innovative solutions to such concerns as energy and healthcare. I don't know if that would work, but I like the idea of innovative solutions to finding innovative solutions. I think a diverse open set of possibilities being worked on would be best.



Is evil jungle law
slavering jaws crushing life
to live
and what of love
sucking souljuice exquisitely
redeemed by mutuality



Of course, politics is a sporting event for the fans wherein the sportscasters explain the plays and we get to cheer and boo for our team.



Whichever utopia/dystopia or bit by bit moving along the time track we find ourselves a part of, real life is not just blinding science window-dressing. Real life is day-to-day relationships and figuring out paths to personal goals.



So many don't get it. "God" the almighty, ineffable, allthatis, is not some grandfather in the sky. It is All That IS, including the entire physical universe, the entire spiritual realm, all of us and all the techniques we discover to figure out bits of "reality." Eternity is a process; for humans, a learning process.



The purpose of religion is to bind people together into a community. Unfortunately, a lot of people get the whole concept twisted.



My right to move my arms should only be limited at the point of your body -- freedom, liberty, equality under the law seem to be eroding under the pointy heal of self-righteous would-be-demi-gods in their effort to bring human fate into their rulership. This is nothing new.



You know, it would be a freer market if government didn't support some industries over others. It would be a fairer market if people trying to create new resource paradigms, or better ways of distributing a variety of solutions to such problems as "energy" had better access to r&d funding. It would be a much more useful market if diversity of small solution operations were encouraged.




It would certainly help to stop giving subsidies and tax breaks to companies that are not making the effort to employ Americans. It would also help if Americans were more entrepreneurial, not dependent on these companies to create jobs.



We are operating out of a faulty paradigm when we think of healthcare as being about profit rather than about keeping the population optimally healthy -- the latter proposition being ultimately much more to the benefit of the overall economy. No, there is nothing wrong with making a profit. It is what business is for. However, there are other models than having healthcare run by the insurance industry.



Yes, anger overcomes reason, and love. But why are people angry? Do they feel unheard, and therefore a need to scream?



I am in favor of getting all the votes in from all the states. I am in favor of the candidates touring all the states, interacting with the people, getting their messages out widely and narrowly and in each and every crevice. I also see the campaign spending state by state as bringing needed funds into shriveling economies. This is all good.




I don't mind people having different views/ideas/rationales/policies. I enjoy mind-expanding dialog, getting a chance to get deep into what I really think, or what may be misconceptions. I am happy to be inspired by others' thoughts and experiences. What I can't deal with is the angry meanness, the ad hominems and cutting remarks meant only to deflect from real engagement.




Hearts of hope and passion
broken on the wheel
of disregard



These days if a kid should show real creativity, they most likely will have it drugged out of them.



Words, those slippery static bits
of hapless evocation
I learn again the meaning of language
losing words of specificity
finding my true calling





Even if those pro-Clinton people who have threatened to voted for McCain, which is unlikely given that he is not campaigning to their interests, there are not enough of them to matter. McCain is a very weak candidate, with little support in his own party. He is not the straight-talking McCain of 2000 who could pull large support from independents and Democrats. Obama is the much more the uniter. Once the lines are more clearly drawn in the Fall, most of the "Hillary supporters" who are not just voting against the black man, will see where their interests lie.

I'm worried about John McCain. He seems to be fading into some kind of senile dementia in which he can't remember what he said or believed when in his right mind.



The problem is, there isn't an "ever after." We are happy in a moment of bliss, then sad or mad or fearful or numb or any other state we may enter for that moment.



Our brains are constructed to create order. We find order in the randomness, and feel more in control. We create an ordered reality in which to move based on where our attention is placed. We build up a world view of cause/effect/control through an unconscious ordering of our experiences. When it all falls apart, we blame rather than understanding our mistake.



All that is or ever was or can occur
Exists in whirling mists, a cosmic blur
To set out bit by bit a brilliant poem
Weaving eternally our common home



It is perfectly normal (or at least it better be) to think for oneself. Therefore I am normal though I disagree with quite a bit that is considered to be the norm.



When we mature we realize the remarkable contradictions of being human. Mom and dad had to live their lives and figure it out as we are. It's not about finding a perfect person to emulate. It is about figuring out our own path, imperfect as we and it and they may be.



Chilling, and so sad.
Mothers are meant to be
comfort, salvation,
the rock from which to launch
the ships we harvest
Mothers closed in on
dreams never opened to
mere children
Laying offspring on
sacrificial altars
appeasing long-held
griefs and anger
take and lose far too much



The middle way is neither narrow nor restrictive, but takes in all that can be



In the physical universe nothing is created or destroyed, everything changes



playing in the mist of cinema
reckless images thrown from the screen
which shall we carry?



those quiet digestive interludes,
going into the depths to find the light
so ethereal, fragile, belying
the strength implicit in the search



Can you imagine a world of work in which people do their jobs and get paid without having to submit to indignities and lack of respect? Can you imagine a welfare system that actually helps people to resolve the issues that keep them from being able to work and get paid without having to submit to indignities, lack of respect, and paychecks too small to cover their daycare/travel expenses/other work related expenses/healthcare/rent and other basic living expenses?



Of course the truth is that people create jobs. People, in fact, have created the whole concept of "job". Ideally, what we are talking about is dividing labor in an efficient way so that all the
work we want as society to be done gets done. Then, you bring in the theory of capitalism with investors and markets and homage to the great human trait of greed. I have been wondering about this. Is greed made more dominant because of this homage? If we devised an economic system based say on usefulness of work done, or a love of beauty and grace, or active compassion, or just a balance of work and play, would greed become irrelevant? They say it is what we give our attention that grows, or something to that effect.



As I watch commentary on the election and hear people's thoughts about the candidates and the process, I realize how very ill-educated the vast majority of American people are about our political system, how our country is run (or supposed to run) and what their responsibilities and place is within the structure of "we, the people"



I have been thinking about this idea of dignity in relation to remarks about depression as a result of powerlessness.

I am postulating that here in Western society this powerlessness is more often against the social world than the world of nature. Looking over my life experiences, and those reported by others, there seems to be a strong bias in our methods of education and socialization toward shame, expectation of ambition toward specified areas of success, class structure based on denying personal power which acts oppressively in ways to exacerbate internalized aggression and
hatreds. There is a tamping down of what could be creative resources in individuals. The value of keeping young children still and quiet for most of their day discourages energy and natural enthusiasm. In such a frame, rampant depression makes sense as the norm. It is our denying of the dignity of each and all of us that sickens us societally and individually.
So, it is not just about maintaining dignity in the face of mental illness, but even more fundamentally about the desirability of promoting the value of dignity as a prime preventive measure, to maintain sanity defined as the meta condition of health.


The Earth screams
People die before their time
Or never get much of a life
Species die, their music silenced
Crazy theories of wealth
belie obligation or simple seeing
the laws of consequence
Scream Earth!
Pierce the cosmos with your
terrible cry
Acid rain burning through gold
falls




I am thinking about starting a Yahoo Group Writers' Circle. Would you be interested in joining such a group? Would you like to help to form it?

community investment plan

I am working on the beginning inklings of a theory for a much more rational economic structure. Instead of the current system wherein profit is expected to be maximized due to fiduciary responsibility to investors, we could all become micro-investors in businesses that we believe would improve our communities. Thus, the person/people having the idea for solving a community need would create a business plan with all the pertinent information of exactly what, how, where, who, and how much start-up would cost. They would post their information to a web-site set up for this purpose, where people could shop for where they would like to invest very small sums. Like the online small contributions to political campaigns, small amounts each from large numbers of people would grow into useful capital. The amounts would be so small, that if the business did not make a profit, not much would be lost. If the business happily succeeds, a percentage of the profit would be distributed among the investors based on their individual investment shares. Or is this already being done? If so, please send me the link.

If not, please let me know what you think, in detail. I want to explore, expand, and work out the kinks for this.

libramoon42@mindspring.com

Shortbus Response
(for JCM)

So poignant, so sweet,
fragile & human
We yearn to love
to be real in recursive
delight
Pushing, pulling, exploding
tears & laughter
physical, immediate,
spontaneous
emerging from buried shadows
So simple, so hard, so basic
vulnerability
easier to grow from love
than loneliness
Does peace begin here?
Where we dare lower jealous arms
to embrace in full emotion?

(c) May 25, 2008 Laurie Corzett/libramoon

post-modern Depression

Have you seen the documentary on Depression currently being aired on PBS? After the Bill Moyers Journal expose of the pharmaceutical industry http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/05162008/watch2.html , I was appalled that PBS would so blatantly embrace "big pharm". Their first line of defense against cognitive/behavioral issues was these dangerous drugs, which the psychiatric professionals interviewed admitted they don't really understand but just experiment patient by patient. They seemed oblivious to the torture they imposed or that they were taking advantage of confusion and misery. They even touted electroshock. Yet, when we saw the results in the lives of the people whose stories they were following, the best result was for a young black man who refused to take drugs and transformed his life by engaging with an older woman activist and working for a community support group, along with talk therapy to work out his early life traumas and resultant ptsd. The white well-off parents of depressed teens talked about how they hated to send their kids away for treatment and now the kids are back home and doing better on daily drug cocktails (as if combatting HIV), but you can see what was destroying these kids was lack of intimacy in their lives so they always felt they had to play a role to be acceptable. Nothing at all was mentioned about complementary or alternative therapies, such as expressive therapies, though it was pointed out that regular exercise helps keep depression at bay. What they did keep emphasizing: "This is a disease and therefore treatable." I may have it wrong, but I didn't know there was treatement for every disease, even postulating these basically faulty software issues to be "disease", but I digress. Of course, the major point was that poppa Psychiatric Association knows best, and what we know is you gotta take your medicines, no matter what the ill-effects, because we have more medicines for those.

These issues are very disturbing. I would hope they would be, to anyone. Reminds of that quote which I can't quite place about if you don't like my answers, stop asking such dangerous questions. In this case the dangerous questions are constantly being asked by real life circumstances. We who hear do feel compulsion to answer disturbingly. If we hide from all disturbance of our status quo and our self-taught lies, how are we to change the horrific realities?

So sad that we have to go through pain to understand how pain is gone through. No need to leap into homilies or even thoughts of healing in the first throes of emotion. If we allow the emotion to feel its way all through our being, we can merge and go forward, having grown. It doesn't have to be a lesson in the sense of schooling. It is what we learn because that is how we are made. But the pace of modern life, the expectations of us all and within us all, doesn't allow for time to go through, to fully experience.

I have been thinking about the idea of dignity in relation to understanding depression as a result of powerlessness. I am postulating that here in Western society this powerlessness is more often against the social world than the world of nature. Looking over my life experiences, and those reported by others, there seems to be a strong bias in our methods of education and socialization toward shame, expectation of ambition toward specified areas of success, class structure based on denying personal power which acts oppressively in ways to exacerbate internalized aggression and hatreds. There is a tamping down of what could be creative resources in individuals. The value of keeping young children still and quiet for most of their day discourages energy and natural enthusiasm. In such a frame, rampant depression makes sense as the norm. It is our denying of the dignity of each and all of us that sickens us societally and individually. So, it is not just about maintaining dignity in the face of mental illness, but even more fundamentally about the desirability of promoting the value of dignity as a prime preventive measure, to maintain sanity defined as the meta condition of health.

I wrote the following poem after watching the Depression documentary, to help calm my anger:

Thanks for sharing

Thanks for sharing
your intimate secrets
guilty despair
"How can anything matter?
I am unacceptable -- too dark,
no fun to be with."
It is not a birthday without
cake and good wishes.
I am incurable without
a get well card,
outside courage
from caring hearts.
I have no rhyme, no rhythm,
no choir to enchant me
into soft eiderdown healing.
Smelly potions,
shocking wires,
disconnection from
harried soul
cannot weave wholeness.
Kind touch, accepting and
reveling in shared humanity
gives a loving pattern
for integration,
re-merging body and soul
healthy fulfillment.
Take a creative leap!
Multi-hued singing fountains
rejoice to new found dancing.

(c) May 22, 2008 Laurie Corzett/libramoon

* I see, know, give to any willing to receive

Taurus Candles 2008

Self-Defense

The calmness of the night
with no one
but me
and the cat and the music
Sentient spirits
out of reach, out of time
feel my yearning
for soft waves, perfumed
in ozone
on a moonlit beach
Gentle, wafting breezes
carry me
Paradise is a state of mind
warm, loving seas
caressing care and callous
into quiescence
Some are born to battle
to die sadly on rocky
foreign terrain
If I could give them peace
If I could discover
words and gestures
to bind us all
in peaceful, happy
equilibrium
I would so gladly reach out
so far my arms would break
I would sing above the fray,
sweetly, soulfully,
mesmerizing
I would open the walls
of Paradise
Would you enter?
Would you swim these delicious streams,
drink the nectar of precious dreams?
Would you be so happy
to play
swept away
in sweet music?
Or grumblingly never
look past the sign:
No Weapons Allowed
?

(c) April 20, 2008 Laurie Corzett/libramoon



Prairie Wind

Aching times
Ghost singers on the prairie
Snug little home, peace
against raging winds
hearthfire warm
in stone and sacrifice
Timestorms erode,
leave ghostly sentinels
Far, in green glade mists
where ancient hymns are born
balm and salvation
extend glad hands
Cleansing flame brings dreams
scented summer secrets
respite of brilliant rainbow
diffusing softly
into twilight

(c) April 25, 2008 Laurie Corzett/libramoon


Graduation

And so it came to pass
Times were grim, grimey,
evil happily at play
We told ourselves
thus has it ever been
cancerous slime feeding
on starving misery,
beating, drawing the blood
from our calluses
with rusty spiked sticks
"Dance for us
Such beautiful rigor
Learn to please like poppety
puppets
we shelve or play with
willfully, we the special
chosen wunderkind of wealth"
Dancing, jerky minstrel clowns
dressed to allure Poppa's friends
taught by whip to angle
through our paces
until contorted organs
breathe no more
The rituals of sacrifice
bring no balm, no water
Manna, gathered by shackled slaves
packaged and sold
to the highest bidder
Empty children suckle
on hypnotic commands
But it came to pass --
not to become eternity
Lessons to be learned, surpassed
as, class by class
we commence
beyond class

(c) April 27, 2008 Laurie Corzett/libramoon



biography

It's always others' stories
Adventure, Romance, Mystery
Moments trickling from my past
have no structure
collage snippets
crumpled in dust
Was I born full grown as Athena?
Crying for Father's misfortunes,
Mother's lies?
Let me tell you wondrous dreams
My childhood companions
never live 'til morning

(c) April 27, 2008 Laurie Corzett/libramoon



The Enemy

Hiding from bombardments
Thick, black water
No thirst is worth this
indignity
Running through rubble
recently devolved
homes, commerce, community
Extended families
aunts and cousins
good neighbors
valued friends
devolved to shattered corpses
Wailing at the wall of freedom,
of humanity
Chaotic prophecies whisper
Hell reigning upon
modern Earth
Policy statements fly
in protective formation
"We can not give in to
the enemy."

(c) May 1, 2008 Laurie Corzett/libramoon


Life Plan

Wash the starlight from my eyes
Get a gig that pays
turning in my days
for reality
I've got nothing to say
that isn't already commonplace
so lacking in grace
as to be laughable
unphotographable
a disgrace to any cause
Time to take up the party line
Soon, it will all be fine
Or, if not, there's always drugs
well within the laws
Get it right
There's more than fight or flight
There's learning to keep my size
in proportion to demand

(c) April 28, 2008 Laurie Corzett/libramoon


Poems for Sale

Pimping to Main Street.
Boobs and balls for
me ma'ams and gents,
sweetly dipped in excrement
for your shocking awe;
packaged in plastic, curse
of dinosaur extinction.
Consumers of distinction
may choose leatherbound,
even snakeskin.
Aiming to please the crowds
who adore confusion
in profusion
as long as it makes them
look real fine.
I set myself a task
in childhood
to learn great secrets
unobscured by truth.
But what I learned was
shameful and so sad.
I understand why so few
would listen.
No clever, teasing entertainments
enrich my humble wares.
Pay a pretty penny dipped in heartache;
I will sing to you your native tongue.

(c) May 4, 2008 Laurie Corzett/libramoon



Formulations

Without valence and inert
riding the sands slipping by
unattached to wishes,
the disappointments of human life
I would love to be overcome
by emotion
drowning in relentless ocean
of gluey tears
binding eyes, thoughts, nerve centers
of pain and resistance
Gently dripping through the
hour-glass
dissolved and unbound
from my own tale
of loneliness
I would happily bind myself
to molecules of ink
and imagination
slide giddily through time
in love with the secret
of beauty and grace
if I could learn to divine
that formula
in the shifting sand

(c) May 7, 2008 Laurie Corzett/libramoon

Scorpio Blue Moon

Scorpio Blue Moon - May 19, 2008

Snakes & stones
& Dr. Bones.
Worlds of lies
within my eyes.
A chance to fake
a drunken wake
for romance forsaken.
Doorways to more ways
to choose
Fool's paradise.
Ritual demands payment
naked supplication
rhymes intoned thrice
for Momma
for Poppa
for babes wandering in the woods
from salvation.
Deep in enchanted mist
touch the veil
along the cortex
dissolving reason.
Points detach from
space-time-memory.
The puzzle reformulates.

Pangea Day tribute

my tribute:

Pangea

My country is Peace
People of Peace
are my compatriots
Warriors of Peace
move human energy,
resources, time, minds
with weapons of art
active compassion
respect for the dignity of each and all
Words of Peace
speak beyond structured language
sharing profoundly
in joy
graceful dancing
to music of each dawn
enlivening Peace

May 10, 2008 libramoon



http://www.pangeaday.org/

The Pangea Day Mission & Purpose
Pangea Day is a global event bringing the world together through film.

Why? In a world where people are often divided by borders, difference, and conflict, it's easy to lose sight of what we all have in common. Pangea Day seeks to overcome that – to help people see themselves in others – through the power of film.

The Pangea Day Event
Starting at 18:00 GMT on May 10, 2008, locations in Cairo, Kigali, London, Los Angeles, Mumbai, and Rio de Janeiro will be linked for a live program of powerful films, live music, and visionary speakers. The entire program will be broadcast – in seven languages – to millions of people worldwide through the internet, television, and mobile phones.

The 24 short films to be featured have been selected from an international competition that generated more than 2,500 submissions from over one hundred countries. The films were chosen based on their ability to inspire, transform, and allow us see the world through another person's eyes. Details on the Pangea Day films can be viewed here.

The program will also include a number of exceptional speakers and musical performers. Queen Noor of Jordan, CNN's Christiane Amanpour, musician/activist Bob Geldof, and Iranian rock phenom Hypernova are among those taking part.

What Will Happen After Pangea Day
People inspired by Pangea Day will have the opportunity to participate in community-building activities around the world. Through the live program, the Pangea Day web site, and self-organized local events, everyday people will be connected with extraordinary activists and organizations.

Many of the films and performances seen on Pangea Day will be made available on the Web and via mobile phone, alongside open forums for discussion and ideas for how to take social action.

A Pangea Day documentary will be created to catalyze future activities, and dozens of talented filmmakers will make strides in their careers.

History
In 2006, filmmaker Jehane Noujaim won the TED Prize, an annual award granted at the TED Conference. She was granted $100,000, and more important, a wish to change the world. Her wish was to create a day in which the world came together through film. Pangea Day grew out of that wish. Watch Jehane Noujaim’s 2006 acceptance speech now.

http://www.pangeaday.org/pangeadayFilms.php

http://www.pangeaday.org/filmDetail.php?id=101

April follies

Sometimes I feel as though I have died and reawakened into the world subtlely changed.



I saw on C-SPAN an interview with a Muslim-American woman, co-author of a book based on worldwide polling about attitudes of various peoples about issues such as war and peace and the issues behind them. She brought out that polling showed about an equal percentage of US Christians and Islamic country Muslims thought their religious texts ought to form the basis of their countries' government. Also, that the vast majority of people were totally against targeting civilians in attacks. Christians and Muslims seem to have cross-misunderstandings, members of each group often attacking the other for the same misperceived faults.

Someone suggested to me that the idea of War and Peace as opposites keeps that paradigmatic system alive. Perhaps the story might better be about consciousness and cooperation.

I do know that a theme I keep running into recently is about dignity and respect for all as the underlying basis for real progress for humankind.



I've got to wonder how it is that all these Christians (and I know it is not all Christians, just these who are interested in quickening the Day of Judgment) are in such a hurry to have the story end. What are they so desperate to escape? If life is about worship and doing God's will and perfecting our souls, aren't we ever so happy to be here? Are we so concerned that Justice be served quickly that we rush to Judgment before all the evidence is in? I am somewhat persuaded of the opinion, in regard to Jerusalem, that it is a holy place for several faiths and ought be treated as such, like a sanctuary zone where everyone is free to practice their rituals in peace. Perhaps appropriate accommodations, infrastructure and business practices could be put in place to set it up for religious tourism as a sort of cottage industry and sole trade resource to preserve, protect, and maintain the holy city.



currently I am caught up with Captain Jack Harkness of Torchwood, the reluctant immortal filled with love for all conscious life, yet ruthless in the extreme when he believes it's warranted, burdened with his long life of experiences and those he's lost, cute, cheeky, irreverant, occasionally bordering on wise -- great hero material



I don't know where the humans are racing to, but we really need to slow down and think it through. We destroy our very livelihood, our basic resources, our chance for meaningful joyfilled lives for plastic war toys and healthless treats. Yet many of us are doing the best we can with very little, struggling for survival.




I think quite often we are not well taught about how to fulfill our appetites. We are fed empty calories, sugary treats, junk diets, and learn to live on these expectations.



Big black, cawing along my path
entertaining thoughts of gothic plains
endless emptiness of sky and sorrow
but for portents of doom, despair

Life is not always sunny days and pop songs
Times come and go of pain so overwhelming
breath is a miracle unloved, unwanted

Nature would want us to prevail
procreate
find our fittest stance
until our time of devourment
by her latest darling

Crows, noble in their mundanity
keep time in cacaphony
know the ancient secrets of
flight and carrion-bearing
life



We each do create our own reality in that we are each operating on
our unique systems of experience and self. We perceive based on
these systems. We have no idea what "reality" in some objective
sense would be. This does not mean that we create everything that
happens. There are many, many realities operating out there, and
they interact in sometimes unpredictable ways. Like astrology (as
above so below) wherein there are all these bodies and angles
interacting and acted upon by even more forces than those of which we
are aware. We look, interpret based on our own level of perception,
but can never account for all the factors.





Yes, we can visualize and brainstorm and get into the zone and find a way, figure it out, make our dreams come true. This is indeed a very "real" possibility. We can carry our vision so strongly that each step we take is a step in the direction of achieving that goal. We can see the obstacles, the utter lack of some essential ingredient, the social barriers and immense gap between here and there, and we can persevere, find the little chink through which to slip into where we need to be. It can happen. It doesn't always happen. For a great variety of reasons, people get trapped, they get discouraged, they give in to despair, they die without achieving their goal, they get too ravaged by disease or starvation or denigration, too overwhelmed by responsibilities or an ever rising bar or the demand for qualities they do not possess. It is not clear sailing, and often our ships capsize. Sometimes the fickle fates then give us liferafts or send the Coast Guard, sometimes not.

I have often heard it said that happiness is not about getting what you want, but wanting what you get, being grateful for the blessings that show up along the way. I am not looking for happiness (well, sometimes, but you know how fickle minds can get), but for that bliss place, where every step is a dance and every obstacle is a wall to paint beautiful visionary murals and a capsized ship is a chance to learn merskills. This is a place promised by the mystics of every faith of which I am aware. I do not judge my fellows who have no idea nor perhaps even interest in such a place, who seek happiness in all the wrong places, who see their capsized ship as an opportunity to drown in a sea of tears. I don't even know for myself how to stay in that place the times I find it. That fact is that I do find it, so I know for me at least it is real, and the only true reality where I feel all those warm safe supported elated wonderful feelings that actually are my goal.



I found the transcript of the Obama "bitter" comments in response to a question from an audience in San Francisco here:

http://volokh.com/posts/1207972981.shtml

Yet another supremely stupid tempest in a political teapot. Interesting the way this statement is almost a Rorschach. People twist it to mean whatever fits their image of the Senator. To me,anyone with an inkling of sense understands that, speaking to a more elite, liberal San Francisco audience, Senator Obama was working towards his underlying goal of bringing people together. He was explaining to those who might harbor ill-will against what they perceive as failings of small town working class Americans as "gun-toting" or "gun-loving", ignorantly Bible-thumping, homophobic, racist, unaccepting of those unlike them, that their classist perceptions were off-base, that people (any people) cling to what they know, to the values of their childhoods and families and clans when they feel hopeless, unheard, overwhelmed by factors so far beyond their control. It was a heartfelt, compassionate, sympathetic plea for cross-cultural understanding, fellow feeling, let's all get together to make our collective lot better without falling to the falacies of judgementalism. So, obviously everyone calls him "elitist" and "divisive." Yet again, the evil of politics as usual is twisting truth to gain power. It is ugly, this manipulation of the electorate through divisiveness.



The general election has not yet started. McCain gets to slide for a bit while the Democratic debate goes on. Please, realize, it is still a very long way to November. Many voters do not even engage until the Fall of the election. People may or may not be "bitter" but are generally quite busy, which is why a lot of soundbites get repeated "on the ground." Pound on Senator Obama all you like. He is no John Kerry or circa 2000 Al Gore (who gave up on being President after being challenged). He keeps saying he can't wait to debate McCain on the real issues. I can't wait to enjoy that.

As to the "debate": I was quite "bitter" watching the first almost hour in which nothing of substance was addressed. The political media are just too taken with themselves.

The game is politics, so we know to expect all these divisive messages to be sent around, canting whatever "evidence" can be found to rally against the opponent. I really don't care that a young Michelle pre-Obama worked hard to discover what she thought was important about her world by working through ideas about race, class, history, in light of her personal biography. Or rather, I understand that as being an indication of her deep caring and intellectual searching for justice.

I do care that Senator Obama has the support, still, of people like Samantha Power and Rev. Jeremiah Wright -- who personally know him and what he is about. I care that the message is not about politics as usual, or even cleaning up government as usual, or hate this or that group (for those who fear demagogues or fascist incitement), or pie in the sky. It is a cogent, reasonable, let's hang together or we'll surely hang separately, hey we know how to do it right so let's make it happen, appeal to commonality, commonsense, commonwealth. You act as if we are electing God, or Emperor of All who can waive a wand or send forth a commandment and all is as He orders. That's not what a President is. He is a politician, a negotiator, a dealmaker, a voice exhorting the nation to excel, a commander in chief watching over his troops and the mission but backed by the rest of us, who really ought to be doing our own watching over the public policies and taking care of the business of citizenry.



I have been saying for decades that it would solve so many problems to have factories/schools/offices pretty much all businesses, working on the 24-hour clock. People could work the hours best for them. Rush hour traffic would cease to exist. As you point out, more efficient use could be made of resources otherwise locked down and useless for all those hours. There would be no need for unemployment due to lack of jobs, since this would effectively triple the amount of work hours. For the hours we are not working, we would have the convenience of the services we want to use always being available. There would be a lot less job stress if the workload were more divided. That's just a few of the advantages.




The important result would be giving people incentive to work out imaginative yet practical ideas with a chance to implement them. Even if they did not acquire a specific grant, they would have the program worked out and ready to find sponsorship.



There need be no predestination involved as far as Judas' actions, nor betrayal. I see Judas as a hero. Without the crucifixion and resurrection, Jesus was just another prophet. Without Judas or someone playing that role, there would be no Christianity. It was a divine act, meant as such, out of devotion and loyalty to the Christ.


Having thought myself plagued by bipolar disorder since my teens, I am
learning that often these behavioral symptoms (note, not physical evidence
in the body nor specific microbial attack) can actually come from a variety
of causes. I have been reading about behaviors common to gifted people that
can be confused with so-called bipolar symptoms, as well as such early
childhood stress reactions as personality disorders, and behaviorial
disorders of unknown causastion such as those on the autism spectrum.
Psychiatric professionals to a large extent are just guessing, especially in
regard to the drug treatments they recommend or order. My readings in
regard to treatment seem to indicate that both the safest and most effective
treatments are the cognitive behavorial therapies in which the person
suffering from their apparent social maladaptions learn to think and behave
in ways more suited to their goals.



words flow into meaning
or not
who interprets
who defines
meaning
I have been touched
as if by you
each moving on
realigned
subtlely
changed



This is where it starts. This is where we lose the chances to do better, to create a politics more in keeping with humane values. We think we are protecting children by pablumizing the content of our world. The function of childhood is not to be some fantasy of illusion. It is to learn how to become a functioning member of our world. We would do so much better to expose children to these complex ideas, along with caring, mentoring older people who help them to make sense of a multi-dimensional world. The history Rev. Wright is preaching, is teaching, is important for our children to learn. We don't need generations of "God Bless America, and God Bless Me for being American" or other chauvinistic simplicities. We need thoughtful, well-educated citizens who understand that diversity of views and backgrounds, complex interactions historically and currently, hopes and fears and angers and reconciliations are all part of America, and the rest of our places and peoples. We "cotton-paper" our world at all our risk and none of our benefit.

Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis famously opined that the cure for bad speech is not no speech, but more speech. Open dialog needs to start with our first words.

that is our job, as the "fan club," to deflect obvious untruths, exaggerations, twisting of facts and words. It's not only the Republicans' fans that can attack, defend, show up with effective ads and issue statement placement.

Everywhere I look in this campaign, we the people seem to act like we are electing a god; and that the way we choose god is who can go most negative. A President is not a deity, nor a dictator, nor an All High Emperor, nor a miracle worker. A President is merely a head of state. His/Her power comes more from words than deeds, and completely from the power acceded by those who listen.

We call our governing system a democracy, but we give away our people power to professional persuaders and throw up our hands as if we have no choice.

Rev. Wright strikes me as a very honorable, intelligent, caring, social activist. These are the people I at least want to encourage to prosper, to have open microphones that we might hear and be made more, to be the role models we are craving, and to help lead us to peaceful prosperity and justice for all. Rev. Wright needs defending at least as much as politician and honorable, intelligent, caring, social activist Obama. In fact, ultimately what we, if we truly care ought to be working towards is opening that message out into the streets and blogs, churches and classrooms, Senate and House, with whatever individual and collective power we the people can muster.