Solstice
You can have your equinoxes
cross-quarters.
The Solsti, days of extremes
Sun to Earth
Cardinal points of worth,
symbolic mining, enchaining
rock to sea
kinetic energy
displacing space and time
twixt ecstatic Saturn
and brother Moon, sublime.
Secreted in esoteric lore
a wealth of stories
everyday glories and
exotic songs
evoking ancient memories.
I dream a shining university
upon a sparkling hill.
If wisdom can save us from
the illness of slavedom,
I bow to wisdom's will.
(c) June 20, 2008
Of course you come to listen
My tales tell your secrets
scryed from vivid crystal
whispered ancient code.
You must remember
Spring day walking
along a rocky roadside
sandy hair, gritty eyes
fallen
into silent reverie
song singing hallelujahs,
brilliant paranoias.
Sprinting across,
little images.
Listless children whine
"Why does no one let us play?"
A world of sullen children
overdue for naps and coddling,
blueberry jam at teatime.
It can't be a secret
if nobody's listening.
But, listen:
places in your mind
will answer.
Midsummer Evening
Floating on cool jazz
Enjoying mellow wine
My own little garden party
'midst the flowers of my mind.
Back from the rabbit hole.
Back from New York City, Boston,
Detroit, LA ...
from every day unfolding another
everyday grind.
Finding time to play, haunted
by happy memories
exhorting starlight.
Midsummer twilight,
fairytales brought back from sleep.
No longer keeper of my brethren's dreams,
I don mischievous costume,
dancing out power, glory,
love gentle as a summer evening's rain,
blossoming countryside,
dandelions and clover,
bounty of Earth, whispering stories
flowering prophets,
delectable, potent, wise
in the ways of demons,
oracles, gypsy Queens.
Escaping into sacred muse-ways,
every day a new day,
standing ground against a grind
each day more distanct
Insighting sound, opening vistas
vastly
flowering.
(c) June 21, 2008 Laurie Corzett/libramoon
Fish Tale
I didn't know the fish would die
flapping on sun-warmed metal.
Peacefully domestic afternoon.
Children discover death
and other worlds.
Sitting by the well
to draw inspiration.
Spinning yarn, weaving words.
Dusty work. Flakes of skin
embed the fabric.
Struggling through childhood,
the tales get twisted.
Little boys & little girls
separate language.
We think we know our place,
our destinies,
from the games we're given,
the words we've learned to say,
rhymes, reasons, rituals.
Imbibing passion body to body,
we awaken rules of blame.
The woman tempts.
The hero conquers.
The sad boy desires a
self-fulfilling fantasy,
stomping upon his heart to
start the flow of real blood,
real rage.
Out of water, out of earth,
out of air
flopping upon some inert surface
the tale mechanistically repeats.
What world can we discover
nurturing life?
(c) June 23, 2008 Laurie Corzett/libramoon
Under a Piscean Moon
Gods have their reasons,
dramas, power plays,
aesthetic necessities,
ecstatic passions.
Our concerns are of another realm,
born responsible for managing our fate
until it overwhelms.
Job thought himself holy,
was doing fine, not realizing
his role as fool.
Hitler, too, saw his glorious plan
unfolding, paradise on Earth.
Did he think "They will equate my name
with evil." ? What is worth eternal life
as history and myth?
If I could have one answer
assured to be True,
what would be my quest?
Is there one Truth, above the rest?
Selection is a process,
winnowing down.
My quest:
How do I encompass
all that will make me strong and wise
in one easy lesson?
Walking along evening
a darkening, unknown road,
smell the blooming lilacs,
ease eyes upon gentle beauty,
each next step
taking itself.
(c) June 25, 2008 Laurie Corzett/libramoon
Oceana
Irritants
about which pearls spin
beauty, eerily opaque.
Mer-songs quiver as crystal
radiating frequencies
captured in time.
Darkness calls from slumber.
Oppressive gasping,
titillating air and sea
may erupt in symphony
loud and raucous
as life.
Cutting through strong silken veils
to inept, naked truth,
pearl adornments break,
settle upon ocean floor.
Seadivers ply their trade,
pretty gems for pretty pennies.
Everything recycles.
Every soul is saved.
(c) June 25, 2008 Laurie Corzett/libramoon
Generation
In my experience
people have kids as
a side-effect of
heterosexual activity.
During said activity, they
are not thinking about
having kids.
After said activity, they
often think about
not wanting to have kids.
Somewhere along the line,
the kid gets had.
That's life: the kid gets had --
the easily fleeced gets to
take the fall until
we learn the rules
of conquest.
Thus generation recapitulates,
replacing those who've gone before
in function if not form.
This is why mythology
binds us.
Blind lead blind across
vast desert expanse,
telling stories of past
glories and bemoaning
treacheries, exhorting faithful
adherence to ancestral code.
Not DNA, hardware glitches
more likely herald mutation.
Software code
may glitch hilariously,
malapropriately,
otherwise betray conventional consciousness.
Why take on responsibility,
anchor to roles or
take part in the tale?
Do you believe in fate?
Do you believe we learn from
each other in relationship
how to become our own story?
A chance we take, or are given,
chisels out a bit of
who we are.
Does it matter?
I guess we each get to decide.
(c) June 27, 2008 Laurie Corzett/libramoon
Soul Food
Poetry they call you,
writing from the soul,
beyond the bounds of fiction,
more will-infused than fact.
I can only tell you
secretly, in private language
chemical smells guiding
we of a kind to prey.
Feasting upon amygdala
potent in emotion.
Coming into fruition
as the salt of tears.
(c) June 27, 2008 Laurie Corzett/libramoon
Indigenous
Legend tells stories
we live
not in here and now.
Dancing together,
grasping fact from fiction.
Once there lived a taler,
a minstrel, a bard
intent on spinning villagers
into his yarn,
carrying each essence
on his trail throughout
the kingdom,
even sailing to far-flung
shores when occasion
allows. Spreading stories,
like disease, infecting
whole populations who evermore
clamor for the bit of soul
his stories capture.
Listen, o' children, o' brethren,
ancestors walking their journeys
tuned weary minds to songs
of battle and adventure.
Our minds, our tasks,
our journeys can be our own.
(c) June 29, 2008 Laurie Corzett/libramoon
avoid blinding (by science)
It is an association
not clear cause/effect.
I smile.
You smile.
Each enjoying a private joke
or hiding embarrassment.
We who claim the primacy of reason
need to give care,
avoid the chasms
of treacherous conclusions.
Open to the highest odds
while grounded on earthly
perspective
go forth ye brave young heroes.
Learn the secrets of
subtle sacrifice
and divine glory.
Just take care the sayer
of your sooth
worships vows of purity.
Even so, keep on your quest
exploring for wealth in
possibilities
not yet discovered.
(c) June 30, 2008 Laurie Corzett/libramoon
46664
Caging the Beast
"call me after the Rapture" I
post on religious social network
sites.
Have you read Yeats' "Second Coming"?
After the prophecy
After the hard, hard rain
after the rainbow
Call me. We should get together.
(c) July 1, 2008 Laurie Corzett/libramoon
A long and twisty journey
to find myself where I started
never having gone at all...
Half a Page of Scribbled Lines
Stone cottage in enchanted forest
Magical fireplace flickering stories
old and new
Giants and waterfalls
Flighty energy sprites
casting luminescent nets
betwixt, between.
Walking sedately
subliminally aware of
unobtrusive omnipresent
surveillance.
Sending out psychic feelers
sweeping for malevolent intent.
Brain shaking data bombardment
tiny spinal fractures emit
memory, reason, the capacity to love.
Realities Doorway
I am free to wander
all the stories that
could ever be,
choose the ones I
like the best
to tell myself
in sleepy morning
smiles.
The sacred doorway stands open
my little house surrounded
in gentle blue heaven.
My landscape bold and bright
with soft-hued bubbles
for enchantment.
Voyages, stories
siren call
to blessed stones of serenity,
eternally
sea-washed
sun-warmed
adhered to by playful
sparkling sands.
Anytime you ask
I will send you my stories
to dream on, to
interweave, to enhance.
Just outside my doorway
there are eternities more.
(c) July 5, 2008 Laurie Corzett/libramoon
Loving Meditation
If there are visions
you feel missing
from your life
perhaps you don't know yourself
as well as duty tells you.
Instead of forcing codes and
ritual, care-challenged wishes
Look! Watch vivid panorama
of you from early memories,
each significant nexus
along the way
to now.
What is missing from your life
is not meant for others to fulfill.
Love you give yourself
expands 4-fold
You give yourself more to give
You give the world ripples
of your love
You give the eternal spirit within
essential energy
to create what is great
within you
You give to mankind an example
of true humanity.
Do not be afraid to love.
Do not be ashamed to love the
one closest to you.
Learn the meaning of loving charity.
It's not about dying for your sins.
It's fulfilling yourself
through your own loving kindness.
Living a vision of love.
It is all illusory to some senses
while being exactly what it is
(c) July 6, 2008 Laurie Corzett/libramoon
Child of War
My daddy died saving our country.
My mommy cries, so sad and lonely.
But I can see, she's also scared.
Our neighbors spit our names like swears.
I try to be respectful and kind.
They curse out threats, scream "We're not blind,
you people are evil, your faith makes you kill."
Sometimes if I stand, eyes closed, so still
I can hear my daddy say "Be strong,
my beloved child. Those people are wrong.
Wars aren't decreed by Gods from above.
War is the sad fruit of the failure of love."
(c) July 7, 2008 Laurie Corzett/libramoon
Lesson of The Great Depression
The machines stand patiently
ready to act on human command.
Workers expectantly arise
to resume their duties.
Tools, systems, routes, logistics
lined up for service.
Plants to sow and reap; structures
to build, maintain, repair, replace;
commodities to be united with
their markets; music to be played;
enchanting murals to paint;
shows that must go on; coffee
to be made; errands to run;
endless activities and professions
imposing order on entropy.
Teach the curious,
heal the sick or broken,
enforce the law,
tend to the poor.
Society's capillaries clogged by
a powerful voodoo. All is
needing to be done, but stopped
dead or cancerously
receding from living
for want of the magic beans,
the mysterious force of money,
a social construct gone mad,
constricting the flow of life.
(c) July 8, 2008 Laurie Corzett/libramoon
Elitism
Hand over mouth Mensa laughing
Elitism, unlike battling upward,
hand over hand,
always mindful of the lessons.
Courtesy and respect -- never forget.
In courts of old, fair
maids and noble men knew
twas best to hide
animal cunning, raw humanity
in flourishes and restrained manner.
Semaphore signaling
We know the game.
But respect, that is earned.
I respect that live flicker of
power, if I am smart,
I perceive behind the mask
of court or street corner.
Hard knocks do not make a fighter.
Hard times do not make a leader.
Surviving, learning the angles,
enjoining with compassion
along the way, while
keeping that edge keen and deadly,
improve chances
for rising above,
getting on the shortlist.
Neither evolution nor divine design,
but some essence common to both,
and the brilliant stories
dreams are made of.
(c) July 9, 2008 Laurie Corzett/libramoon
Common Ground
They say them liberal critters
Got their heads up in the clouds.
They haven't got a clue to how
to live here on the ground.
They give hand-outs to criminals.
Can't tell a foe from friend.
They're scared of guns and gumption
so ready to amend.
But there's something we agree on
If we're all on common ground
You help folks if they stumble;
don't kick 'em when they're down.
(c) July 12, 2008 Laurie Corzett/libramoon
8th House
Sex and Money
Inflation, deflation
spitting on sacred values.
Once there was balance
Libra and Scorpio united as one.
There was a natural order
of love, respect, deep abiding
loyalties, a code of honour.
Inflation. Manic enterprise,
chasing a dragon to ride
her tail.
Deny caution her voice,
plunging into
prospects of wealth or
rampage.
Deflation.
Making jest of
what is most precious inside us.
Expecting gold to fall
from magic seeds sown
in moonlight.
Shallowly expecting pardon
for wisdom shunned.
Great eagles fly farseeing,
Succor their young, defend their nests.
On the ground, snakes hiss
in startled anger.
Shedding their skin, they move on
cold-blooded
seeking warmth.
(c) July 13, 2008 Laurie Corzett/libramoon
The Beauty
It's all I really care about
Beauty
Libramoon, you know.
It's not that I'm callous.
I can do compassion with
the best of them.
I can wring out my soul
onto dimestore paper.
The agony, the ecstasy.
Okay, hypomania
but a peak experience is still
standing on treacherous
mountaintop
exhausted, sore, torn here and there
from long arduous journey.
Yet, there is no pain
in ecstatic glory.
My Deity, the view
precious, exhilarating,
sense overwhelmed with pleasure.
(c) July 15, 2008 Laurie Corzett/libramoon
Capricorn Full Moon reflection
Archetypes
Walking the streets, riding
subways --
subterranean consciousness,
ethereal siamese twin
to the everyday.
Shadow and substance
entwined as before
the invasion.
I long to tell you,
yearn to tell you,
but only if you truly listen.
I cannot say these things twice.
Memories seep through,
acquire form.
Stand straight and true
as soldiers or Marines
giving full allegiance
to any who will take that load.
There are Gods lying in excrement
begging relief in the form
of sacrament
potent and deadly.
There are Angels and
Demons waging war,
dice from a grail
foresaging trial or comfort.
Hungry Ghosts wail.
Vampires and Creatures
of the night
seek shelter before the
travails of daytime
break them.
I saw the Morning Star
wink salaciously.
In my kingdom
all manner of creatures
thrive.
Eagles soar.
Lions roar.
Whales sing.
Humans open a
veiled third eye.
The World rejoices.
(c) July 18, 2008 Laurie Corzett/libramoon
Reeling
Hitting bottom
Broken against rock
shale and limestone
Unable to piece together
warm from cold; new from old.
There are children in the valley
Look at them huddle and scatter
there, in the landscape
over the mantle
hiding in plain site.
Eons and eras hurtle through space.
Mesmerized by the flickering flame,
cites are built, collapse,
rubble to sand.
Princes, despots, CEOs
try their luck,
flex muscles built from
effluvial dna --
blood, sweat, tears
milled from the faithful
and fear-filled.
Tempers rise and fall.
Life and death take turns in
ascendancy.
The fall, the anticipation,
ravages eternally.
Touching base, falling into
a plane of rest and re-creation
at the bottom of the sea
at falling's end
There are silent songs to sing
in celebration
on the long trip upward.
(c) July 20, 2008 Laurie Corzett/libramoon
Sunny days,
Moon enchanted evenings
Romantic believings
make life the stuff of dreams.
Savor, from bubbling streams
to musty loam
Bringing what matters home
How does your garden grow?
Shining in nature's grace.
July 22, 2008
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
Moon Month reflections
If we are presupposing a consciousness which purposely creates all that is, why would we in our limited experience have any way of apprehending that purpose? If we presuppose a growing spirit, expanding into all of creation as a manifestation of pure energy, there is no need for a conscious purpose.
We shape ourselves, chiseled
from inherent potential
with the cutting edge
of life.
My belief system pretty much includes all possible belief systems, yet probably most would disagree. The basic point is, we each create our own reality out of the combination of personal experiences as they accrue throughout our lives. Our brains function such that we take in information and process it based on previously developed categories that we have built up from past experience, back probably before birth. Then, by acting on our own experiential world, we impress it further into our psyche and build on further. Thus we create our world, our belief system, our feedback loop and our methods for building on these, each individually. Yet, we as collective create group realities which our interactions and mutual belief structures impress upon us collectively.
Anyway, this is the basis. I would be happy to discuss further.
There are personality types all along the spectrum, from a need of order to a need of chaos. These are not symptoms of disorders or problems in life skills. These are life skills as we each find what kind of environment is most comfortable and conducive to our individual work styles. However, there is nothing wrong with breaking pattern to see where that goes for you.
We each do create our own reality, in a very real, yet totally
subjective, sense. We each perceive reality through our own filters
and experiential networks. The reality we perceive being, generally,
the reality we react to and work with, we continue to create that
network, which we nonobjectively control. Thus, by paying attention
to certain ideas/objects/desires/possibilities we bring them more
actively into our lives. We skew our world view to reflect what we
expect and interpret consequences and events in the way that keeps us
in that frame.
As to the experience of "enlightenment," that is part of this whole.
No matter where or how or by what means we get to such an experience,
it is a valid experience of enlightenment in that we experience and
self-validate it as such.
We are all all-important, and of no importance at all.
You live your own experience, no matter how many have lived similar experiences, because yours is unique to your uniqueness. You have that very serious conversation with yourself that never ends, and put the pieces here and there until you see them arranged in that very personal puzzle, which you continue to puzzle out into your own eyes, mind, voice, creative expression.
Everything that ever was or will be is all happening eternally. We, with our limited senses, see the birthing and fading as disappearing in time. Nothing truly ends, but ceaselessly changes.
It is not about punishment or God's glory, or because you are being tested or otherwise denigrated. Life is a learning experience of all that you do and perceive here on planet. Some of those lessons are very, very harsh indeed. Some are pleasant and fun. And I don't mean lessons so you can become say more compassionate or more cynical or more anything. These are experiences for your soul to become just more. Some of these experiences may well break you, even kill you. We all experience death, though. Again, some more pleasantly than others. It's not that you get more of the good stuff or more of the bad based on "karma" in the sense of payback. It's that you get what you need to become all you potentially are, not in the ways that we measure these things, but in an eternal sense.
childhood is so fraught with tragedies, deep disappointments, traumas that haunt dreams for a lifetime, every little day.
People seem to have kids for all kinds of reasons or nonreasons. Perhaps that is as it "should" be so that a good mix of humans abound? I don't know that asking the kid in advance would matter if they need the Earth School experience for whatever cosmic/karmic/comic reasons. It's not so much about parenting as such, I think, but the whole relationship model that needs reassessing. If we made the effort to be the kinds of people who are good parents, good friends, good stewards of the Earth, good to ourselves, it might make childhood, adulthood, humanhood a whole lot better, don't you think?
This Obama-is-a-Muslim smear campaign honestly ought to be attacked on the front of those it most abuses. There is nothing wrong with being Muslim and a US citizen and a US presidential candidate. Of course Obama is a committed Christian. I clearly see in his public appearances the shining faith, spiritual humility, deep love of public service that I have always seen in the best true Christians that I have known. Of course many Americans have crazy notions about Muslims, mindlessly blaming people for political situations totally outside of the lives of the vast majority. Think blaming the Christians for Hitler. My point, though, is if candidate Obama is serious about wanting to mend wounds and get beyond rancor to a country of people who can work together for common good, he could well respond on some level to these attacks by showing disdain for those who attack him on the basis of a nonissue. There is nothing wrong with being Muslim, Christian, Jew, Buddhist, Pagan or any other faith. We have a First Amendment (Number 1!) to our Constitution guaranteeing that. We have what is meant to be a proud tradition of religious tolerance, of people emigrating to the US (and previously the Colonies) for religious freedom. This is one of the precious freedoms we say we fight for.
There may be a component of bliss in love (or not). There may be a component of love in bliss (or not). These are subjective experiences.
Love, however, has to do with relationship.
Bliss has to do with nonrelationship -- with an experience beyond any duality or division.
"Love" is problematic. The definitions are long, varied, self-
contradictory at times, amorphous. Awareness of what is is a
continual evolving awareness, unattached to preconceptions, language,
or individuated consciousness.
In eternal multi-verse where all exists, manifestation
comes in infinite array.
The medical model is not the only or necessarily the best one for people suffering from cognitive-behavioral disorders. Drugging the problem away does not fix it, but makes the "patient" dependent, unempowered even more. Using drugs judiciously while working with people to figure out better ways of coping is fine, but our easy fix society often lets the important part of that equation go.
I think what we do is get the best we can from the benefits and stave off as best we can the harms by keeping well-informed, alert, aware of the potentials all along the continuum. Can I get the results I want with fewer harmful considerations with say diet, exercise, lifestyle changes, meditation, noninvasive treatments, a little bit of pharm along with any/all of those, and so forth? If I am using pharmaceuticals, which for me would have the best ratio of benefit to cost? Do I really understand what this drug is doing to my system? Am I aware of possible interactions with other chemicals, foods, environmental factors, lifestyle choices? Just what exactly is the result I am looking to achieve?
So many people take dangerous pharmaceuticals to correct conditions that essentially they allowed by not being well enough educated about dietary options.
Of course it is not the map we are looking for, but the territory. Yet, especially in this insurance ruled medical culture, the almighty label which brings forth the largesses of healthcare payment takes charge. Then we have a realm worthy of Lewis Carroll in which the label is treated, the child ignored.
Childhood is massively anxiety producing. Many children suffer all manner of abuses and deprivations, but even for the lucky ones with good homes and lives, they have no real control over much of anything. The world can be a very scary place, for everyone. Adults, at least, have some control and a lot more life experience to back them up. Kids just get to have nightmares and scary thoughts that they have no idea what to do with. Exactly, drugs are not going to give them the skills they need to deal with a scary world. They need loving conversation, education, and safe outlets for expressing their fears and learning to have more control over what is controllable.
You don't need fancy labels or psychiatric diagnostics. People act out when needs are being ignored. Kids forced to spend most of what should be a very physically active time constrained to seats, facing an authority, expected to maintain silence except when given permission to speak, and we insist they need drugs to keep them in line because they are "sick"? People ignored or used as family system scapegoats, or dealing with lifelong abandonment issues, ptsd, no useful feedback to learn appropriate behaviors, put into double-bind positions where unprocessed anger percolates, made to feel unwanted or less-than by those around them, over-stressed from too much work/too little recreation/way too much responsibility without the necessary authority/traumatic life situations which are never appropriately worked through -- eventually these people often crack. This doesn't make them a "crackpot" or "crazy" or anything but human.
I have read on the website of Dr. Thomas Scheff, a retired psychotherapist, his theories that the only really useful way to treat people who have "cracked" is with real live personal relationship, helping them to learn better coping mechanisms while learning that they are indeed worthwhile and worth knowing. You don't need a degree to give this help.
There was a conversation on another venue about whether children should have a right to weigh in on whether they want to be torn out of paradise and born into life on Earth. Some say we do choose our lives, others that we are paying for past karma, others that god wants us here for some unfathomable reason, and so forth. Basically, I see it as a learning experience. Many lessons are quite harsh. Some are so very lovely. I think it helps when we are willing to learn, not tied into restrictive thinking.
Of course, what god provides us is the universe, unfolding, unfolding. We make what we can of it, bit by bit. I do have confidence that humankind, a very clever bunch, will search out the solutions in time to keep us going, searching out further solutions. We are at the very infancy of our scientific understandings. Ultimately, once it is sorted out, I believe the whole system is quite simple, elegant, and easily accessed for use. We are moving toward that whole system theory now that we've had some millennia to sort out discrete bubbles of information.
I too have stories
unbelievable as fiction
creeping through dream imagery
holding dripping red candles
broken bits of mirror
tiny rips in red, red fabric
bleeding
I cannot breathe this story
I cannot hold a heartbeat
or a cogent thought
or pulse to a level
bearable
Beaten into rubble
crazed in simple sunlit
afternoon as if a moon
were racing in
stolen arteries
We all have known this story
What is "terrorism"? It's not an ideology or a sovereign entity or a loosely affiliated group or a religion or even a tactic. It is a frame to place around whatever you think or feel might be, well, terrifying.
The acts which might be listed under a fairly mainstream definition of "terrorism" also have another frame. They are crimes. There are criminal codes, laws, procedures, penalties and individual words for these acts. The defense against them necessitates no special agencies or exotic twistings of law or mores of decency. All we need do is understand these acts as we do our normal terrors of street gangs, organized criminals, crazed seekers of revenge and other outbreaks of violent paranoia. We protect ourselves best by being alert to danger and keeping our minds and bodies agile.
If the media dictates what we believe and who we vote for, where are our minds and personal responsibility? The media folks are doing their jobs, selling their products, working for their marketshare. We citizens need to do our job, or stop whining and admit we are governed by popular media.
Lots of people complain that watching tv is lowering our cognitive abilities because we passively watch pabulum and emotionally charged cheap thrills. There is plenty of annoying, boring, mind-numbing, or otherwise petty programming. However, there is plenty of intellectually challenging, informative, engaging, and even beautiful programming. You need to figure out which channels or programs are most likely to be worthwhile for your viewing.
I am all for self-protection, family protection, community protection. I even have situational ethics about private violence. I am totally, irrevocably, passionately against giving the government (you know, the guys we always joke about not getting anything right) the right to murder us, no matter the offered justification.
Imagine that you are you, going about your normal business. Imagine that someone who has some vague similarity of appearance, or even name, has done something horrible. Everyone is up in anxiety, blood vengeance, mob rule. This is why we have a rule of law, because sometimes it can make a difference, or at least the thought of it can give alternative to unthinking reaction.
It bothers me, often, the black magic of making profit (an imaginary concept, as is money itself) killing the real reasons for trade. Sure, if you want to play this game of sticks and carrots, rich and poor, speculator and government back-up vs. condemning the monetarily challenged, then play you will. I just want a parallel track for those of us who have other goals and motives for our energy and time.
Religion is not specifically about believe or faith. It is a tool to hold together tribes over distance and larger than face-to-face numbers through a system of ritual and mythology. Belief, in any case, is self-reflective, a nonobjectively existent creature of conscious interpretation of unknowable reality. Agnostics, as far as I have experienced these, seem to be about taking a stand against orthodox beliefs through a clever device of rationalized exchange of "belief" for "knowledge" -- "I don't know that your beliefs represent reality."
The thing is, there is no "God" in the sense of some great white-bearded grandfather in the sky telling us all how to behave with appropriate rewards and smiting. So, to deny knowledge that such a construct is true is an equivocation. Instead, truth here and in this whole realm, is attempted to be defined metaphorically, since objective truth is beyond language. Then, the metaphor is treated as if it were the truth, the map taken for the territory. In truth, we are all agnostic: we don't KNOW; we speculate and create religions within which to lay our questions to rest.
I feel the movement
pain and resolution
caught in the pattern
released in the dance
It's not the blaming that is the problem. It is natural to blame, and sometimes appropriate. But that is only step one in a process of rectification. The South Africans in the time of transformation from Apartheid understood that bad blood would fester from evil done but not acknowledged. They created a Truth and Reconciliation process to allow people to confront those who had sinned against them, and for the sinners to admit what they had done and apologize. This is going along a process toward change. We admit our culpability, even without denying the culpability of others. Then we can start the triage: changing what we can, in ourselves and in the system; recognizing what we have no power over, and finding ways to ameliorate those influences; learning to work through our emotional reactions to pain and powerlessness until we are ready to look squarely at where we are and where we want to go so we can map out the journey.
Sometimes we can't afford to forgive without first being given acceptance of guilt, sincere apology, and comfort from they who have offended because our hearts are naturally too soft.
The mindset behind the violence is not Bush's fault. It started long before he bumbled into the Middle East. It is not Mohammed's fault either. It is not about religion, but politics, not a struggle over beliefs, but power. A heavenly reward can be reached after a full and well spent life. Suicide is about despair; suicide bombings about despair and anger.
One of the reasons I was originally interested in Obama was George Soros's support. Soros is a brilliant man, maverick high-stakes capitalist with deep thinking ability and follow-through. He has lived a long and colorful life, including intellectual and social contributions to society. His Open Society Institute funds projects in the interest of promoting freedom. Anyone denigrating George Soros, and by implication of association Barack Obama, obviously has grave ignorance (I am sorry)
The problem is not McCain changing his mind, it is his giving over his mind to campaign expedience. Yes, they all do to some extent, but McCain is really over the top here. I really appreciated the "straight-talking" 2000 McCain, would have voted for him had Karl Rove not given him the shiv. Apparently he has come to believe that he can win by lying, but not by sticking to his outside party politics gumption. I don't want to encourage that.
People seem to enjoy hating, any group they can define as some way not them. Thus, the issue of immigration degenerates into name-calling, hate speech, ranting and raving about some big bad them who turns out to be some hardluck hardworking poor folk, or even sick little children or otherwise non-enemies. There's plenty of work to be done for everyone, which is why these people get jobs, which is why they come here looking for work. We who are concerned about low wages, poor working conditions, or economic ripples of illegal practices need to work toward solving these problems. I said work toward solving problems, not propagate hate.
People do not exist for the benefit of some social system, but rather social systems, in theory, are meant to exist for the benefit of the people? What people do for their private gratification with other consenting adults is their business. It only becomes the business of society if their behavior is blatantly harmful to specific others -- not because it may be seen as wrong, or mimicked by the young, but because their is actual, definable, articulable, harm as would be easily assessed by reasonable people without an axe to grind. Even if individual members of a definable group do some harm to some others, that does not indict all members of that group. For instance, apparently priests evidence a high incidence of child molestation. This does not mean priests as a group need to be condemned and thrown out of society -- only those who actually do harm.
Libertarianism is not taking on ideas of Democrats or Republicans. They have a firm grounding in personal freedom on which they base their platforms. In that sense, they are more true to the vision of America as a land of the free governed by the people, for the people.
The idea of an economy in which the costs to the natural resources, the workforce and the general well-being are included at its base is being explored by many people from many background perspectives. This is not about "love" but enlightened self-interest, and an understanding that these costs are always paid, usually in the least comfortable way at the worst possible time if they are not honored upfront.
Happiness is not a place to arrive nor prey to pursue. It is a state of mind, sometimes fleeting. It is not happiness that can be given or guaranteed, but the opportunity to find those activities and ideas that reward us with that emotional lift. Thus, what can be offered by the social construct to the individual is the greatest possible freedom within which to find one's own rewards.
If we really want to be good self-governing citizens we would do well to incorporate into our required public school curricula a multi-disciplinary/multi-year course including history, sociology, psychology, and political science covering what citizens really ought to know to take back our responsibility and power. Race would be one of a great many issues to be covered, in a general background of history, as well as immigration policies, analyses of Supreme Court cases, legislative histories, the vast panorama of power struggles, political philosophies, and daily analyses of stories in the current consciousness.
Far from spoilers, they are preservers of what democracy is meant to be. Candidates not of the major parties do know their likelihood of getting the job is kind of on par with the election being cancelled due to an asteroid hit on D.C. They understand that it is their job as activist citizens to enlarge the scope of the political conversation, to bring positions further from the center to take in minority views, to look beyond conventional wisdom for solutions, to bring more excitement to the mix by bringing more to think about.
Why were some drugs made illegal? Because of ignorance. It would save orders of orders of magnitude more money, effort, and a whole host of really bad "side-effects" to do away with the "War on Drugs" policies and mentality and treat people with problems like people with problems, addictions like the easily medically solved nonissues they could well be, and let consenting adults have their sought after experiences in a reasonable atmosphere. We could work out nonpublic areas for this kind of behavior to avoid offending passers-by.
Privacy is a big issue, and complicated. There is no "right to privacy" in the US Constitution -- the 4th Amendment being about security in papers and possessions which can't be taken without proper judicial oversight. Yet, we tend to believe in a very basic right to be left alone, to have private inviolate spaces in our lives, both physical and mental. In fact, this can be said to be the very basis of freedom.
I totally disagree that privacy is about lack of trust or hiding. It is simply about personal integrity in the sense of having a personal life not given to the public. We tend to like private relationships, private activities that we share with specific others rather than having to be open to any and all who might want to impose their definitions. Maybe this is one of those extrovert/introvert things.
In the West, privacy has been related to freedom because we had to come together as private people to overthrow public rulers who denied our rights. Asia, no doubt, has different history, and cultural norms. Western democracy still depends on interest groups coming together privately to work out policies for that group. Freedom depends on privacy that we really have the space to work out our private thoughts and create our own inner independence. Look at Winston Smith in _1984_ starving for privacy to be his own creature rather than just another puppet.
As to the safety issues of modern anonymous society, of course lack of relationship leads directly to fear and hostility. If we can only guess about who these others might be, what might motivate their actions toward us, how can we open into trust and mutuality? Yet, like in everything, the middle road calls. We can keep our privacy private and our community life communal if we understand the benefits and act accordingly.
It is disgraceful and incredibly disrespectful that grown-up people are subjected to such gross indignity for the "privilege" of working way too hard for hardly livable wages and "benefits' that nickel and dime you into an early grave. No, people who get government checks should not be subject to such indignities for the privilege of being allowed to survive, whether those checks are wages or Social Security benefits (which we pay for in our employment taxes instead of getting that money as wages to pay our bills) or Unemployment benefits (see comment on SS benefits) or programs for the needy. This is just another of the endless examples of government overriding our Constitution-given and basic human rights for their little games of gotcha or bogus terror tactics to keep us begging for any little freedom. May I go to the bathroom, please, oh great leader, without you watching?
There are plenty of slovenly workers with or without drugs. There a people who take prescription medications for conditions they may not want advertised. There are also lots of people who use drugs recreationally (including alcohol and tobacco) on their own time, without any impact on their jobs. The big debilitatetor that no one seems to think or talk about is lack of sleep, which, with pressures of too much to do in too little time, is overwhelmingly common.
As I understand, they are finding health improving qualities in wine all the time, and occasionally in coffee, and most especially in chocolate. Perhaps we enjoy these because they are good for us, despite popular myth based on the follies of overconsumption.
They say history is written by the winners, and for the mainstream this is probably true. These days, however, there are many enthusiasts who delve into the primary material and find much more diverse histories, which give a greater range and more useful stories for we who look to lessons from the past.
I was recently pondering the strange and contrary views and behaviors surrounding sex in 21st Century America. Of course, these have roots back to the religious sects of original colonists, and branches going out to a diversity of absurdity. It seems to me that if we had sane ideas, policies, and communication regarding this fundamental biological and social commonality, there would be much less dangerous coercive and outright outrageous acting out.
Of course you can have it both ways, or as many ways as there are. We can believe it is wrong to kill, including an unborn human, yet understand that there are situations in which it is less wrong than the alternatives. We make these distinctions all the time.
You know what, they have not yet made computers that are also transporters or giving the ability to move body parts through into someone else's laptop. Your kids may be in danger online from learning about inappropriate matters, or more likely learning harmful misinformation. They are not in any kind of physical danger (except for maybe eyestrain and the degradations of lack of exercise). You want to keep your kid as safe as possible? Always keep an open dialog, without prying or judging.
On C-SPAN there was a panel talking about foreign aid from the perspective of poor nations, and how the current method is bad for everyone. Apparently the donor nations or UN work out deals with the leaders of the country getting aid involving legal and political machinations worked out with no real thought to the result. Of course, leaders get the money and use it for their own projects or whims, while the poor get poorer. The solution offered was to set up a process whereby a certain sum is designated for a region, but each village gets the money for their project only after they have a direct democratic process within the village to designate a project leader, decide upon what project is their most important need, devise a plan to create the project to fulfill the need, and deliver their plan, budget, and project leader to the offering agency. This method would result in much fewer funds being needed, real useful projects being developed, local people creating jobs for themselves and growing the local economy, the people who need the funding being the ones deciding how it will be used and getting empowered to fix the problems in their own region.
We have been warned and tested in the late 70s and warned about depending on foreign oil, or fossil fuels in general. Being human, mostly we only actually get creative en masse and do something meaningful when our backs are at the wall. There have been breakthroughs and research and useful ideas about all manner of alternative fuel sources, which are only alternatives and not just fuel sources because of a foolish dependence on a cheap supply which is no longer cheap or certain or ours.
The only reason we use petrochemicals to fuel cars is that at the time when cars were first being designed commercially, oil was really cheap. People of an engineering persuasion have been examining other possible fuels for years. I would think that there are all kinds of useful methods of transportation to be worked out, tried out. It could be alot of fun. Maybe a good reality tv show promoting such inventiveness would help?
Energy is being harnessed from within the Earth in various locales and projects. There are many sources of energy which can be tapped. If we use each as it is best used, we are less likely to tap out any source and more likely to make more efficient use of diverse resources. The thing in any creative endeavor is to not get boxed in to "the way it is done."
We all have the God-given right to spread false information. I forget why God gave us that right, but quite obviously She did.
Jews, Christians, Muslims, Mormons, maybe others worship the same upstart minor Middle Eastern god who took the Jews out of Egypt to get them to fight his enemies and do his bidding. He grew in power as he gained more and more worshippers.
The New Testament was written by different people at a different time from the Old, but there were a great many writings that never made it in to the Bible. Whose message got told, whose censored can tell us about the politics of those times.
it is so easy to each be our own purveyor of truth, to step out of the circle of lies and obfuscations, and simply live.
Journals are certainly a medium of infinite expressive and creative potential. Interestingly, to me, I have been creating a character who is becoming a friend through her journal entries, which of course I create, but from another part of me. By letting her express freely by journaling, I am giving myself opportunities to look at my views and such recreated from another life perspective. I don't have to own her attitudes, because they are hers not mine. Thus, I am exploring these perspectives in some sense objectively, in some sense subjectively.
I've learned it's not just you (me), it's everyone. Every kid had something others could pick on. Glasses, a strange-sounding name, overbearing parents to make fun of, overbite, overweight, underweight, lisp, stammer, limp, stringy hair, frizzy hair, large nose, large ears, short, tall, too smart, not smart enough goes on forever.
People talk about the healing of love, the beauty of love, the great goodness and higher power of love. That love is all for you. Each and every you (me) can learn the power and beauty and healing of our own love.
The sky hardens
pinpoint diamonds
Ivory flowers
jungle grown
softly converse
knowing the sharp hardness
of thorns
Diamonds cut deeply
through psychic skin
like sweet flower scent
Hardness does not protect
gem, rose, or heart
We shape ourselves, chiseled
from inherent potential
with the cutting edge
of life.
My belief system pretty much includes all possible belief systems, yet probably most would disagree. The basic point is, we each create our own reality out of the combination of personal experiences as they accrue throughout our lives. Our brains function such that we take in information and process it based on previously developed categories that we have built up from past experience, back probably before birth. Then, by acting on our own experiential world, we impress it further into our psyche and build on further. Thus we create our world, our belief system, our feedback loop and our methods for building on these, each individually. Yet, we as collective create group realities which our interactions and mutual belief structures impress upon us collectively.
Anyway, this is the basis. I would be happy to discuss further.
There are personality types all along the spectrum, from a need of order to a need of chaos. These are not symptoms of disorders or problems in life skills. These are life skills as we each find what kind of environment is most comfortable and conducive to our individual work styles. However, there is nothing wrong with breaking pattern to see where that goes for you.
We each do create our own reality, in a very real, yet totally
subjective, sense. We each perceive reality through our own filters
and experiential networks. The reality we perceive being, generally,
the reality we react to and work with, we continue to create that
network, which we nonobjectively control. Thus, by paying attention
to certain ideas/objects/desires/possibilities we bring them more
actively into our lives. We skew our world view to reflect what we
expect and interpret consequences and events in the way that keeps us
in that frame.
As to the experience of "enlightenment," that is part of this whole.
No matter where or how or by what means we get to such an experience,
it is a valid experience of enlightenment in that we experience and
self-validate it as such.
We are all all-important, and of no importance at all.
You live your own experience, no matter how many have lived similar experiences, because yours is unique to your uniqueness. You have that very serious conversation with yourself that never ends, and put the pieces here and there until you see them arranged in that very personal puzzle, which you continue to puzzle out into your own eyes, mind, voice, creative expression.
Everything that ever was or will be is all happening eternally. We, with our limited senses, see the birthing and fading as disappearing in time. Nothing truly ends, but ceaselessly changes.
It is not about punishment or God's glory, or because you are being tested or otherwise denigrated. Life is a learning experience of all that you do and perceive here on planet. Some of those lessons are very, very harsh indeed. Some are pleasant and fun. And I don't mean lessons so you can become say more compassionate or more cynical or more anything. These are experiences for your soul to become just more. Some of these experiences may well break you, even kill you. We all experience death, though. Again, some more pleasantly than others. It's not that you get more of the good stuff or more of the bad based on "karma" in the sense of payback. It's that you get what you need to become all you potentially are, not in the ways that we measure these things, but in an eternal sense.
childhood is so fraught with tragedies, deep disappointments, traumas that haunt dreams for a lifetime, every little day.
People seem to have kids for all kinds of reasons or nonreasons. Perhaps that is as it "should" be so that a good mix of humans abound? I don't know that asking the kid in advance would matter if they need the Earth School experience for whatever cosmic/karmic/comic reasons. It's not so much about parenting as such, I think, but the whole relationship model that needs reassessing. If we made the effort to be the kinds of people who are good parents, good friends, good stewards of the Earth, good to ourselves, it might make childhood, adulthood, humanhood a whole lot better, don't you think?
This Obama-is-a-Muslim smear campaign honestly ought to be attacked on the front of those it most abuses. There is nothing wrong with being Muslim and a US citizen and a US presidential candidate. Of course Obama is a committed Christian. I clearly see in his public appearances the shining faith, spiritual humility, deep love of public service that I have always seen in the best true Christians that I have known. Of course many Americans have crazy notions about Muslims, mindlessly blaming people for political situations totally outside of the lives of the vast majority. Think blaming the Christians for Hitler. My point, though, is if candidate Obama is serious about wanting to mend wounds and get beyond rancor to a country of people who can work together for common good, he could well respond on some level to these attacks by showing disdain for those who attack him on the basis of a nonissue. There is nothing wrong with being Muslim, Christian, Jew, Buddhist, Pagan or any other faith. We have a First Amendment (Number 1!) to our Constitution guaranteeing that. We have what is meant to be a proud tradition of religious tolerance, of people emigrating to the US (and previously the Colonies) for religious freedom. This is one of the precious freedoms we say we fight for.
There may be a component of bliss in love (or not). There may be a component of love in bliss (or not). These are subjective experiences.
Love, however, has to do with relationship.
Bliss has to do with nonrelationship -- with an experience beyond any duality or division.
"Love" is problematic. The definitions are long, varied, self-
contradictory at times, amorphous. Awareness of what is is a
continual evolving awareness, unattached to preconceptions, language,
or individuated consciousness.
In eternal multi-verse where all exists, manifestation
comes in infinite array.
The medical model is not the only or necessarily the best one for people suffering from cognitive-behavioral disorders. Drugging the problem away does not fix it, but makes the "patient" dependent, unempowered even more. Using drugs judiciously while working with people to figure out better ways of coping is fine, but our easy fix society often lets the important part of that equation go.
I think what we do is get the best we can from the benefits and stave off as best we can the harms by keeping well-informed, alert, aware of the potentials all along the continuum. Can I get the results I want with fewer harmful considerations with say diet, exercise, lifestyle changes, meditation, noninvasive treatments, a little bit of pharm along with any/all of those, and so forth? If I am using pharmaceuticals, which for me would have the best ratio of benefit to cost? Do I really understand what this drug is doing to my system? Am I aware of possible interactions with other chemicals, foods, environmental factors, lifestyle choices? Just what exactly is the result I am looking to achieve?
So many people take dangerous pharmaceuticals to correct conditions that essentially they allowed by not being well enough educated about dietary options.
Of course it is not the map we are looking for, but the territory. Yet, especially in this insurance ruled medical culture, the almighty label which brings forth the largesses of healthcare payment takes charge. Then we have a realm worthy of Lewis Carroll in which the label is treated, the child ignored.
Childhood is massively anxiety producing. Many children suffer all manner of abuses and deprivations, but even for the lucky ones with good homes and lives, they have no real control over much of anything. The world can be a very scary place, for everyone. Adults, at least, have some control and a lot more life experience to back them up. Kids just get to have nightmares and scary thoughts that they have no idea what to do with. Exactly, drugs are not going to give them the skills they need to deal with a scary world. They need loving conversation, education, and safe outlets for expressing their fears and learning to have more control over what is controllable.
You don't need fancy labels or psychiatric diagnostics. People act out when needs are being ignored. Kids forced to spend most of what should be a very physically active time constrained to seats, facing an authority, expected to maintain silence except when given permission to speak, and we insist they need drugs to keep them in line because they are "sick"? People ignored or used as family system scapegoats, or dealing with lifelong abandonment issues, ptsd, no useful feedback to learn appropriate behaviors, put into double-bind positions where unprocessed anger percolates, made to feel unwanted or less-than by those around them, over-stressed from too much work/too little recreation/way too much responsibility without the necessary authority/traumatic life situations which are never appropriately worked through -- eventually these people often crack. This doesn't make them a "crackpot" or "crazy" or anything but human.
I have read on the website of Dr. Thomas Scheff, a retired psychotherapist, his theories that the only really useful way to treat people who have "cracked" is with real live personal relationship, helping them to learn better coping mechanisms while learning that they are indeed worthwhile and worth knowing. You don't need a degree to give this help.
There was a conversation on another venue about whether children should have a right to weigh in on whether they want to be torn out of paradise and born into life on Earth. Some say we do choose our lives, others that we are paying for past karma, others that god wants us here for some unfathomable reason, and so forth. Basically, I see it as a learning experience. Many lessons are quite harsh. Some are so very lovely. I think it helps when we are willing to learn, not tied into restrictive thinking.
Of course, what god provides us is the universe, unfolding, unfolding. We make what we can of it, bit by bit. I do have confidence that humankind, a very clever bunch, will search out the solutions in time to keep us going, searching out further solutions. We are at the very infancy of our scientific understandings. Ultimately, once it is sorted out, I believe the whole system is quite simple, elegant, and easily accessed for use. We are moving toward that whole system theory now that we've had some millennia to sort out discrete bubbles of information.
I too have stories
unbelievable as fiction
creeping through dream imagery
holding dripping red candles
broken bits of mirror
tiny rips in red, red fabric
bleeding
I cannot breathe this story
I cannot hold a heartbeat
or a cogent thought
or pulse to a level
bearable
Beaten into rubble
crazed in simple sunlit
afternoon as if a moon
were racing in
stolen arteries
We all have known this story
What is "terrorism"? It's not an ideology or a sovereign entity or a loosely affiliated group or a religion or even a tactic. It is a frame to place around whatever you think or feel might be, well, terrifying.
The acts which might be listed under a fairly mainstream definition of "terrorism" also have another frame. They are crimes. There are criminal codes, laws, procedures, penalties and individual words for these acts. The defense against them necessitates no special agencies or exotic twistings of law or mores of decency. All we need do is understand these acts as we do our normal terrors of street gangs, organized criminals, crazed seekers of revenge and other outbreaks of violent paranoia. We protect ourselves best by being alert to danger and keeping our minds and bodies agile.
If the media dictates what we believe and who we vote for, where are our minds and personal responsibility? The media folks are doing their jobs, selling their products, working for their marketshare. We citizens need to do our job, or stop whining and admit we are governed by popular media.
Lots of people complain that watching tv is lowering our cognitive abilities because we passively watch pabulum and emotionally charged cheap thrills. There is plenty of annoying, boring, mind-numbing, or otherwise petty programming. However, there is plenty of intellectually challenging, informative, engaging, and even beautiful programming. You need to figure out which channels or programs are most likely to be worthwhile for your viewing.
I am all for self-protection, family protection, community protection. I even have situational ethics about private violence. I am totally, irrevocably, passionately against giving the government (you know, the guys we always joke about not getting anything right) the right to murder us, no matter the offered justification.
Imagine that you are you, going about your normal business. Imagine that someone who has some vague similarity of appearance, or even name, has done something horrible. Everyone is up in anxiety, blood vengeance, mob rule. This is why we have a rule of law, because sometimes it can make a difference, or at least the thought of it can give alternative to unthinking reaction.
It bothers me, often, the black magic of making profit (an imaginary concept, as is money itself) killing the real reasons for trade. Sure, if you want to play this game of sticks and carrots, rich and poor, speculator and government back-up vs. condemning the monetarily challenged, then play you will. I just want a parallel track for those of us who have other goals and motives for our energy and time.
Religion is not specifically about believe or faith. It is a tool to hold together tribes over distance and larger than face-to-face numbers through a system of ritual and mythology. Belief, in any case, is self-reflective, a nonobjectively existent creature of conscious interpretation of unknowable reality. Agnostics, as far as I have experienced these, seem to be about taking a stand against orthodox beliefs through a clever device of rationalized exchange of "belief" for "knowledge" -- "I don't know that your beliefs represent reality."
The thing is, there is no "God" in the sense of some great white-bearded grandfather in the sky telling us all how to behave with appropriate rewards and smiting. So, to deny knowledge that such a construct is true is an equivocation. Instead, truth here and in this whole realm, is attempted to be defined metaphorically, since objective truth is beyond language. Then, the metaphor is treated as if it were the truth, the map taken for the territory. In truth, we are all agnostic: we don't KNOW; we speculate and create religions within which to lay our questions to rest.
I feel the movement
pain and resolution
caught in the pattern
released in the dance
It's not the blaming that is the problem. It is natural to blame, and sometimes appropriate. But that is only step one in a process of rectification. The South Africans in the time of transformation from Apartheid understood that bad blood would fester from evil done but not acknowledged. They created a Truth and Reconciliation process to allow people to confront those who had sinned against them, and for the sinners to admit what they had done and apologize. This is going along a process toward change. We admit our culpability, even without denying the culpability of others. Then we can start the triage: changing what we can, in ourselves and in the system; recognizing what we have no power over, and finding ways to ameliorate those influences; learning to work through our emotional reactions to pain and powerlessness until we are ready to look squarely at where we are and where we want to go so we can map out the journey.
Sometimes we can't afford to forgive without first being given acceptance of guilt, sincere apology, and comfort from they who have offended because our hearts are naturally too soft.
The mindset behind the violence is not Bush's fault. It started long before he bumbled into the Middle East. It is not Mohammed's fault either. It is not about religion, but politics, not a struggle over beliefs, but power. A heavenly reward can be reached after a full and well spent life. Suicide is about despair; suicide bombings about despair and anger.
One of the reasons I was originally interested in Obama was George Soros's support. Soros is a brilliant man, maverick high-stakes capitalist with deep thinking ability and follow-through. He has lived a long and colorful life, including intellectual and social contributions to society. His Open Society Institute funds projects in the interest of promoting freedom. Anyone denigrating George Soros, and by implication of association Barack Obama, obviously has grave ignorance (I am sorry)
The problem is not McCain changing his mind, it is his giving over his mind to campaign expedience. Yes, they all do to some extent, but McCain is really over the top here. I really appreciated the "straight-talking" 2000 McCain, would have voted for him had Karl Rove not given him the shiv. Apparently he has come to believe that he can win by lying, but not by sticking to his outside party politics gumption. I don't want to encourage that.
People seem to enjoy hating, any group they can define as some way not them. Thus, the issue of immigration degenerates into name-calling, hate speech, ranting and raving about some big bad them who turns out to be some hardluck hardworking poor folk, or even sick little children or otherwise non-enemies. There's plenty of work to be done for everyone, which is why these people get jobs, which is why they come here looking for work. We who are concerned about low wages, poor working conditions, or economic ripples of illegal practices need to work toward solving these problems. I said work toward solving problems, not propagate hate.
People do not exist for the benefit of some social system, but rather social systems, in theory, are meant to exist for the benefit of the people? What people do for their private gratification with other consenting adults is their business. It only becomes the business of society if their behavior is blatantly harmful to specific others -- not because it may be seen as wrong, or mimicked by the young, but because their is actual, definable, articulable, harm as would be easily assessed by reasonable people without an axe to grind. Even if individual members of a definable group do some harm to some others, that does not indict all members of that group. For instance, apparently priests evidence a high incidence of child molestation. This does not mean priests as a group need to be condemned and thrown out of society -- only those who actually do harm.
Libertarianism is not taking on ideas of Democrats or Republicans. They have a firm grounding in personal freedom on which they base their platforms. In that sense, they are more true to the vision of America as a land of the free governed by the people, for the people.
The idea of an economy in which the costs to the natural resources, the workforce and the general well-being are included at its base is being explored by many people from many background perspectives. This is not about "love" but enlightened self-interest, and an understanding that these costs are always paid, usually in the least comfortable way at the worst possible time if they are not honored upfront.
Happiness is not a place to arrive nor prey to pursue. It is a state of mind, sometimes fleeting. It is not happiness that can be given or guaranteed, but the opportunity to find those activities and ideas that reward us with that emotional lift. Thus, what can be offered by the social construct to the individual is the greatest possible freedom within which to find one's own rewards.
If we really want to be good self-governing citizens we would do well to incorporate into our required public school curricula a multi-disciplinary/multi-year course including history, sociology, psychology, and political science covering what citizens really ought to know to take back our responsibility and power. Race would be one of a great many issues to be covered, in a general background of history, as well as immigration policies, analyses of Supreme Court cases, legislative histories, the vast panorama of power struggles, political philosophies, and daily analyses of stories in the current consciousness.
Far from spoilers, they are preservers of what democracy is meant to be. Candidates not of the major parties do know their likelihood of getting the job is kind of on par with the election being cancelled due to an asteroid hit on D.C. They understand that it is their job as activist citizens to enlarge the scope of the political conversation, to bring positions further from the center to take in minority views, to look beyond conventional wisdom for solutions, to bring more excitement to the mix by bringing more to think about.
Why were some drugs made illegal? Because of ignorance. It would save orders of orders of magnitude more money, effort, and a whole host of really bad "side-effects" to do away with the "War on Drugs" policies and mentality and treat people with problems like people with problems, addictions like the easily medically solved nonissues they could well be, and let consenting adults have their sought after experiences in a reasonable atmosphere. We could work out nonpublic areas for this kind of behavior to avoid offending passers-by.
Privacy is a big issue, and complicated. There is no "right to privacy" in the US Constitution -- the 4th Amendment being about security in papers and possessions which can't be taken without proper judicial oversight. Yet, we tend to believe in a very basic right to be left alone, to have private inviolate spaces in our lives, both physical and mental. In fact, this can be said to be the very basis of freedom.
I totally disagree that privacy is about lack of trust or hiding. It is simply about personal integrity in the sense of having a personal life not given to the public. We tend to like private relationships, private activities that we share with specific others rather than having to be open to any and all who might want to impose their definitions. Maybe this is one of those extrovert/introvert things.
In the West, privacy has been related to freedom because we had to come together as private people to overthrow public rulers who denied our rights. Asia, no doubt, has different history, and cultural norms. Western democracy still depends on interest groups coming together privately to work out policies for that group. Freedom depends on privacy that we really have the space to work out our private thoughts and create our own inner independence. Look at Winston Smith in _1984_ starving for privacy to be his own creature rather than just another puppet.
As to the safety issues of modern anonymous society, of course lack of relationship leads directly to fear and hostility. If we can only guess about who these others might be, what might motivate their actions toward us, how can we open into trust and mutuality? Yet, like in everything, the middle road calls. We can keep our privacy private and our community life communal if we understand the benefits and act accordingly.
It is disgraceful and incredibly disrespectful that grown-up people are subjected to such gross indignity for the "privilege" of working way too hard for hardly livable wages and "benefits' that nickel and dime you into an early grave. No, people who get government checks should not be subject to such indignities for the privilege of being allowed to survive, whether those checks are wages or Social Security benefits (which we pay for in our employment taxes instead of getting that money as wages to pay our bills) or Unemployment benefits (see comment on SS benefits) or programs for the needy. This is just another of the endless examples of government overriding our Constitution-given and basic human rights for their little games of gotcha or bogus terror tactics to keep us begging for any little freedom. May I go to the bathroom, please, oh great leader, without you watching?
There are plenty of slovenly workers with or without drugs. There a people who take prescription medications for conditions they may not want advertised. There are also lots of people who use drugs recreationally (including alcohol and tobacco) on their own time, without any impact on their jobs. The big debilitatetor that no one seems to think or talk about is lack of sleep, which, with pressures of too much to do in too little time, is overwhelmingly common.
As I understand, they are finding health improving qualities in wine all the time, and occasionally in coffee, and most especially in chocolate. Perhaps we enjoy these because they are good for us, despite popular myth based on the follies of overconsumption.
They say history is written by the winners, and for the mainstream this is probably true. These days, however, there are many enthusiasts who delve into the primary material and find much more diverse histories, which give a greater range and more useful stories for we who look to lessons from the past.
I was recently pondering the strange and contrary views and behaviors surrounding sex in 21st Century America. Of course, these have roots back to the religious sects of original colonists, and branches going out to a diversity of absurdity. It seems to me that if we had sane ideas, policies, and communication regarding this fundamental biological and social commonality, there would be much less dangerous coercive and outright outrageous acting out.
Of course you can have it both ways, or as many ways as there are. We can believe it is wrong to kill, including an unborn human, yet understand that there are situations in which it is less wrong than the alternatives. We make these distinctions all the time.
You know what, they have not yet made computers that are also transporters or giving the ability to move body parts through into someone else's laptop. Your kids may be in danger online from learning about inappropriate matters, or more likely learning harmful misinformation. They are not in any kind of physical danger (except for maybe eyestrain and the degradations of lack of exercise). You want to keep your kid as safe as possible? Always keep an open dialog, without prying or judging.
On C-SPAN there was a panel talking about foreign aid from the perspective of poor nations, and how the current method is bad for everyone. Apparently the donor nations or UN work out deals with the leaders of the country getting aid involving legal and political machinations worked out with no real thought to the result. Of course, leaders get the money and use it for their own projects or whims, while the poor get poorer. The solution offered was to set up a process whereby a certain sum is designated for a region, but each village gets the money for their project only after they have a direct democratic process within the village to designate a project leader, decide upon what project is their most important need, devise a plan to create the project to fulfill the need, and deliver their plan, budget, and project leader to the offering agency. This method would result in much fewer funds being needed, real useful projects being developed, local people creating jobs for themselves and growing the local economy, the people who need the funding being the ones deciding how it will be used and getting empowered to fix the problems in their own region.
We have been warned and tested in the late 70s and warned about depending on foreign oil, or fossil fuels in general. Being human, mostly we only actually get creative en masse and do something meaningful when our backs are at the wall. There have been breakthroughs and research and useful ideas about all manner of alternative fuel sources, which are only alternatives and not just fuel sources because of a foolish dependence on a cheap supply which is no longer cheap or certain or ours.
The only reason we use petrochemicals to fuel cars is that at the time when cars were first being designed commercially, oil was really cheap. People of an engineering persuasion have been examining other possible fuels for years. I would think that there are all kinds of useful methods of transportation to be worked out, tried out. It could be alot of fun. Maybe a good reality tv show promoting such inventiveness would help?
Energy is being harnessed from within the Earth in various locales and projects. There are many sources of energy which can be tapped. If we use each as it is best used, we are less likely to tap out any source and more likely to make more efficient use of diverse resources. The thing in any creative endeavor is to not get boxed in to "the way it is done."
We all have the God-given right to spread false information. I forget why God gave us that right, but quite obviously She did.
Jews, Christians, Muslims, Mormons, maybe others worship the same upstart minor Middle Eastern god who took the Jews out of Egypt to get them to fight his enemies and do his bidding. He grew in power as he gained more and more worshippers.
The New Testament was written by different people at a different time from the Old, but there were a great many writings that never made it in to the Bible. Whose message got told, whose censored can tell us about the politics of those times.
it is so easy to each be our own purveyor of truth, to step out of the circle of lies and obfuscations, and simply live.
Journals are certainly a medium of infinite expressive and creative potential. Interestingly, to me, I have been creating a character who is becoming a friend through her journal entries, which of course I create, but from another part of me. By letting her express freely by journaling, I am giving myself opportunities to look at my views and such recreated from another life perspective. I don't have to own her attitudes, because they are hers not mine. Thus, I am exploring these perspectives in some sense objectively, in some sense subjectively.
I've learned it's not just you (me), it's everyone. Every kid had something others could pick on. Glasses, a strange-sounding name, overbearing parents to make fun of, overbite, overweight, underweight, lisp, stammer, limp, stringy hair, frizzy hair, large nose, large ears, short, tall, too smart, not smart enough goes on forever.
People talk about the healing of love, the beauty of love, the great goodness and higher power of love. That love is all for you. Each and every you (me) can learn the power and beauty and healing of our own love.
The sky hardens
pinpoint diamonds
Ivory flowers
jungle grown
softly converse
knowing the sharp hardness
of thorns
Diamonds cut deeply
through psychic skin
like sweet flower scent
Hardness does not protect
gem, rose, or heart
Friday, July 18, 2008
Capricorn Full Moon reflection
Capricorn Full Moon reflection
Archetypes
Walking the streets, riding
subways --
subterranean consciousness,
ethereal siamese twin
to the everyday.
Shadow and substance
entwined as before
the invasion.
I long to tell you,
yearn to tell you,
but only if you truly listen.
I cannot say these things twice.
Memories seep through,
acquire form.
Stand straight and true
as soldiers or Marines
giving full allegiance
to any who will take that load.
There are Gods lying in excrement
begging relief in the form
of sacrament
potent and deadly.
There are Angels and
Demons waging war,
dice from a grail
foresaging trial or comfort.
Hungry Ghosts wail.
Vampires and Creatures
of the night
seek shelter before the
travails of daytime
break them.
I saw the Morning Star
wink salaciously.
In my kingdom
all manner of creatures
thrive.
Eagles soar.
Lions roar.
Whales sing.
Humans open a
veiled third eye.
The World rejoices.
(c) July 18, 2008 Laurie Corzett/libramoon
Archetypes
Walking the streets, riding
subways --
subterranean consciousness,
ethereal siamese twin
to the everyday.
Shadow and substance
entwined as before
the invasion.
I long to tell you,
yearn to tell you,
but only if you truly listen.
I cannot say these things twice.
Memories seep through,
acquire form.
Stand straight and true
as soldiers or Marines
giving full allegiance
to any who will take that load.
There are Gods lying in excrement
begging relief in the form
of sacrament
potent and deadly.
There are Angels and
Demons waging war,
dice from a grail
foresaging trial or comfort.
Hungry Ghosts wail.
Vampires and Creatures
of the night
seek shelter before the
travails of daytime
break them.
I saw the Morning Star
wink salaciously.
In my kingdom
all manner of creatures
thrive.
Eagles soar.
Lions roar.
Whales sing.
Humans open a
veiled third eye.
The World rejoices.
(c) July 18, 2008 Laurie Corzett/libramoon
Monday, July 14, 2008
Gemini Candles 2008
Birthright
Serpents and Eagles
terrorists and slaves
Enforcement through symbols
deciding who behaves
according to rules,
what is taught in schools,
which way the rivers flow,
the truth of what we know.
Mirror, mirror in the sky
tell me who; don't tell me why.
The winds of change are calling,
blowing storm clouds
into wild array.
"Awry" I say -- the whole world's
silly with it.
Newfangled weapons
of biblical proportion
"Zap it up, boys -- avoid the sins
of abortion and forbidden
love -- make War!
on every deviancy from the code."
Sleep safe and warm
absolved from all harm
by the goods you've been sold.
Re-selling a story of secondhand
glory, of the Man up above
who kills out of love
and how you most honor
His Name.
Squander your birthright for
a handful of shame.
Or, take back your soul.
Create your own meaning.
(c) June 16, 2008
Changlings Channel on Solstice Week
Of effervescent Mercury's directing
Charming trickster,
playing upon winds of change -- Quicksilver surfing
Exchanging old air for new
Inhale and whoosh
under the sea-change brewing.
Sentimental, far from gentle,
whirlwinds gasp lifelong ambitions.
Expected conditions,
wavering memory
catch and fly the breeze.
Blown out to undulating ocean,
forgotten gills respond --
mer-mind awakens.
(c) June 16, 2008 Laurie Corzett/libramoon
critical passage
A poem should tell a story
but better
straight out
no fluff or frills
Eyes locked to eyes
tongue to tongue
so there is no mistake
Drifting within concrete walls
Loving in isolate fantasy
Striving against phantoms,
wisps of ancestral winds
Neighbors scream
Rotting stench permeates
I find a safe crystalline village
Spin tales by the roadside
for change
Waiting for a chance to
exchange realities
Time was I slipped through the gate
fell upon hard ice
lost my bearing
Now I bare all,
howling into windstorms
waiting to fall again
and find myself home
(c) May 30, 2008 Laurie Corzett/libramoon
dis-integration
So pretty the crescent moon
fading into dark.
Quiet of night
merges with memory
I can not face,
can not see.
Soul tired, beyond aching bones
beyond any place called home.
Not a child of misery,
no one to blame, none to profit.
Flying after dreams,
treetop to treetop
laughing at clouds
in their droll
picture play.
It takes a toll, years in.
Naysayers saying "We reject
you, not of the body."
Injecting powerful medications
to prove their point,
their divinity.
Blissfilled moments
carry me hither and yon
upon some apocalyptic
journey.
Far short of any paradise, I surrender.
Soul tired, yearning for the Moon.
(c) June 8, 2008 Laurie Corzett/libramoon
Finding My Religion
Mind-burning drivel
filtered through raw, red eyes
filters through tears,
degrading emotion.
Flowers bloom in
secret sanctuary
bright purples and golds
keeping faith in beauty
self-evident and pure.
Moonlight, pale upon your face
gives me hope of salvation.
(c) June 6, 2008 Laurie Corzett/libramoon
hero
Pearls from the Sun
Diamonds from the Moon
Gold-dusted silks from
exotic worlds
Valued in danger, adventure
from there to here.
Fine old wood
mellowed with wisdom
tasting of Earth essence
silently regales with tales
old and pure.
Young Percival took knighthood seriously. To protect and to serve King and country.
The old King sickening, perhaps dying, soul sickness they said.
Crops failed. Floods and droughts, inopportune times. The peasants too sickened,
died, lived in dreadful poverty and despair.
In a dream, the young knight was shown the Grail -- shiny jewels upon a golden cup
self-generating elixir of immortality.
On awakening, he took off in the direction of adventure. He left the dying kingdom
to its own devices, in search of a promised land of magical curative power. He was
not thinking of King or country, but of a delicious ecstatic pounding he knew to be
his own heart.
Where do you ride, fair Percival?
Off to find the dreamer's Grail?
Learn your song and tell your tale.
Become a son of Sky and Earth
and rain
to return with all you gain
some wondrous day.
Break the spell.
Release the kingdom's pain.
He learned the ways of seers, demons, subtle sorceries and charms. Growing ever
stronger with healthy exercise and happy purpose, he made his way. Trial by
treacherous trial, he ever more closely approaches his prize.
These trials are the key. They test mettle while bestowing grace, confidence,
skill acquisition, glimmerings of wisdom. The prize glitters, shines, glows
brilliantly in the distance to maintain focus, a clear point, fixed star to contemplate
through twisting, turning, misty mythic pathways.
Sometimes the brick is yellow. Some paths are more intuitive, steps in the dark,
brambly forest.
Percival knows what a hero does. A hero perseveres. A hero scales the tower to free
the enchanted maiden, goes where others dare not because fear is a solid companion.
Daring, fighting, sometimes dazed, momentarily forgetting his cause, he perseveres.
He need but think to look to see his Grail shining, calling him forward.
Of course, he reaches the Grail, discovers the codes, incantations, disarms dragons,
ensorcels giants, generally blazes through to capture his dream.
Returning triumphant, he fixes the kingdom, drop-kicks the curse, cures the old King
of his soul malady, takes the throne to wisely guide into times of prosperity.
So the story goes.
(c) June 14, 2008 Laurie Corzett/libramoon
History
Underlying rights
beneath ideas like
freedom
equality under the law
rule of law
we find community
You
Me
and all our masks
and stories.
Wise elders of yore
devised ritual
stomping into Earth,
in communion
with planet, land
of ancestors, sacred lore.
I see your face,
study the lines and lessons
life has given.
Do you see the scarlet
streams of suffering
so unnecessary
missed cues,
fear itself,
unexpected consequences,
collateral damage?
If life were simple
childish agonies
dispelled with dawn's
bright kiss,
we would laugh
so happy to know
cross-purposes, cross-talk
easily sorted out in counsel.
Cast into sorted cells
with little thought to empowering;
we could harness the Sun, Moon,
birth of the planets,
simply
allowing our minds to grow.
(c) June [Friday the] 13, 2008 Laurie Corzett/libramoon [under the Libra Moon]
Meta-Science
Magical thinking
creating room for the power
of possibilities,
nuances, shades between,
molecular emptiness
unexplored, unexploited.
The magic of synaptic awareness,
unlikelihood of consciousness,
Dreams, Visions, Reveries,
ineffable emotions
too dear to deny.
See, smell, taste
chemical reactions,
hear reverberating air.
There is no limit
but that I impose.
Strict chanting and ritual
keeps reality in line.
(c) June 2, 2008 Laurie Corzett/libramoon
morning birds are singing
Welcoming the light
creamy purples into day
so swift the change
(when it happens)
from predawn mysteries.
Trees sway gracefully.
Morning birds are singing.
Primeval emotions
inveigle my dreams
before I remember
to whom my day is promised.
(c) June 13, 2008
Mother Love
Goddess, adore us.
We all want to be loved.
Children cast upon the world
unprepared.
Times past, we would pack together
exploring our abilities,
safe in numbers
small enough to give us each
room to grow.
Isolated in responsibilities,
playing grown-up
so easy to smother
in over-breathed air.
Come to each me, Goddess,
in quietly desperate hours
with praise and adoration.
Tell the stories of our lives
in radiant glory.
Mother, Queen, perfect lover,
give us what we need
to grow the seed
of your love.
6/5/08
quest
Deep in our ancient lives
Far from our daily chores
Hidden within our minds
With no bright line to follow
Could I be true?
Breathing, a mist so fine
sprayed from brave ocean floors
Seen in dreamlike design
shades dark and blue
Dawn's pink-purple hue
breaks through over time
while I wander in dreaming
What could be true?
Torn by my primal cry
how would you answer?
(c) May 26, 2008 Laurie Corzett/libramoon
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
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
translation
Wordlike fingers
touching my eyes and lips
emote my visions,
struggles for clarity,
ambiguity,
ecstasy.
Sights, sounds, smells
of memory
caught in endothermic
catalyzation
urging toward enlightenment,
musing entertainment.
We are the apes who speak
formalized syllables,
carry through centuries
in cuneiform or phonetic,
hold history in our hands.
Beyond words
we clutch or swing
brave emotion.
Caught like fireflies in a jar,
sending encoded signals
till light fades.
We hold, transmute, evolve,
learn to define.
My lips, my eyes immortalized
in metaphor, air upon ear,
tricks of the brain.
(c) June 1, 2008 Laurie Corzett/libramoon
Serpents and Eagles
terrorists and slaves
Enforcement through symbols
deciding who behaves
according to rules,
what is taught in schools,
which way the rivers flow,
the truth of what we know.
Mirror, mirror in the sky
tell me who; don't tell me why.
The winds of change are calling,
blowing storm clouds
into wild array.
"Awry" I say -- the whole world's
silly with it.
Newfangled weapons
of biblical proportion
"Zap it up, boys -- avoid the sins
of abortion and forbidden
love -- make War!
on every deviancy from the code."
Sleep safe and warm
absolved from all harm
by the goods you've been sold.
Re-selling a story of secondhand
glory, of the Man up above
who kills out of love
and how you most honor
His Name.
Squander your birthright for
a handful of shame.
Or, take back your soul.
Create your own meaning.
(c) June 16, 2008
Changlings Channel on Solstice Week
Of effervescent Mercury's directing
Charming trickster,
playing upon winds of change -- Quicksilver surfing
Exchanging old air for new
Inhale and whoosh
under the sea-change brewing.
Sentimental, far from gentle,
whirlwinds gasp lifelong ambitions.
Expected conditions,
wavering memory
catch and fly the breeze.
Blown out to undulating ocean,
forgotten gills respond --
mer-mind awakens.
(c) June 16, 2008 Laurie Corzett/libramoon
critical passage
A poem should tell a story
but better
straight out
no fluff or frills
Eyes locked to eyes
tongue to tongue
so there is no mistake
Drifting within concrete walls
Loving in isolate fantasy
Striving against phantoms,
wisps of ancestral winds
Neighbors scream
Rotting stench permeates
I find a safe crystalline village
Spin tales by the roadside
for change
Waiting for a chance to
exchange realities
Time was I slipped through the gate
fell upon hard ice
lost my bearing
Now I bare all,
howling into windstorms
waiting to fall again
and find myself home
(c) May 30, 2008 Laurie Corzett/libramoon
dis-integration
So pretty the crescent moon
fading into dark.
Quiet of night
merges with memory
I can not face,
can not see.
Soul tired, beyond aching bones
beyond any place called home.
Not a child of misery,
no one to blame, none to profit.
Flying after dreams,
treetop to treetop
laughing at clouds
in their droll
picture play.
It takes a toll, years in.
Naysayers saying "We reject
you, not of the body."
Injecting powerful medications
to prove their point,
their divinity.
Blissfilled moments
carry me hither and yon
upon some apocalyptic
journey.
Far short of any paradise, I surrender.
Soul tired, yearning for the Moon.
(c) June 8, 2008 Laurie Corzett/libramoon
Finding My Religion
Mind-burning drivel
filtered through raw, red eyes
filters through tears,
degrading emotion.
Flowers bloom in
secret sanctuary
bright purples and golds
keeping faith in beauty
self-evident and pure.
Moonlight, pale upon your face
gives me hope of salvation.
(c) June 6, 2008 Laurie Corzett/libramoon
hero
Pearls from the Sun
Diamonds from the Moon
Gold-dusted silks from
exotic worlds
Valued in danger, adventure
from there to here.
Fine old wood
mellowed with wisdom
tasting of Earth essence
silently regales with tales
old and pure.
Young Percival took knighthood seriously. To protect and to serve King and country.
The old King sickening, perhaps dying, soul sickness they said.
Crops failed. Floods and droughts, inopportune times. The peasants too sickened,
died, lived in dreadful poverty and despair.
In a dream, the young knight was shown the Grail -- shiny jewels upon a golden cup
self-generating elixir of immortality.
On awakening, he took off in the direction of adventure. He left the dying kingdom
to its own devices, in search of a promised land of magical curative power. He was
not thinking of King or country, but of a delicious ecstatic pounding he knew to be
his own heart.
Where do you ride, fair Percival?
Off to find the dreamer's Grail?
Learn your song and tell your tale.
Become a son of Sky and Earth
and rain
to return with all you gain
some wondrous day.
Break the spell.
Release the kingdom's pain.
He learned the ways of seers, demons, subtle sorceries and charms. Growing ever
stronger with healthy exercise and happy purpose, he made his way. Trial by
treacherous trial, he ever more closely approaches his prize.
These trials are the key. They test mettle while bestowing grace, confidence,
skill acquisition, glimmerings of wisdom. The prize glitters, shines, glows
brilliantly in the distance to maintain focus, a clear point, fixed star to contemplate
through twisting, turning, misty mythic pathways.
Sometimes the brick is yellow. Some paths are more intuitive, steps in the dark,
brambly forest.
Percival knows what a hero does. A hero perseveres. A hero scales the tower to free
the enchanted maiden, goes where others dare not because fear is a solid companion.
Daring, fighting, sometimes dazed, momentarily forgetting his cause, he perseveres.
He need but think to look to see his Grail shining, calling him forward.
Of course, he reaches the Grail, discovers the codes, incantations, disarms dragons,
ensorcels giants, generally blazes through to capture his dream.
Returning triumphant, he fixes the kingdom, drop-kicks the curse, cures the old King
of his soul malady, takes the throne to wisely guide into times of prosperity.
So the story goes.
(c) June 14, 2008 Laurie Corzett/libramoon
History
Underlying rights
beneath ideas like
freedom
equality under the law
rule of law
we find community
You
Me
and all our masks
and stories.
Wise elders of yore
devised ritual
stomping into Earth,
in communion
with planet, land
of ancestors, sacred lore.
I see your face,
study the lines and lessons
life has given.
Do you see the scarlet
streams of suffering
so unnecessary
missed cues,
fear itself,
unexpected consequences,
collateral damage?
If life were simple
childish agonies
dispelled with dawn's
bright kiss,
we would laugh
so happy to know
cross-purposes, cross-talk
easily sorted out in counsel.
Cast into sorted cells
with little thought to empowering;
we could harness the Sun, Moon,
birth of the planets,
simply
allowing our minds to grow.
(c) June [Friday the] 13, 2008 Laurie Corzett/libramoon [under the Libra Moon]
Meta-Science
Magical thinking
creating room for the power
of possibilities,
nuances, shades between,
molecular emptiness
unexplored, unexploited.
The magic of synaptic awareness,
unlikelihood of consciousness,
Dreams, Visions, Reveries,
ineffable emotions
too dear to deny.
See, smell, taste
chemical reactions,
hear reverberating air.
There is no limit
but that I impose.
Strict chanting and ritual
keeps reality in line.
(c) June 2, 2008 Laurie Corzett/libramoon
morning birds are singing
Welcoming the light
creamy purples into day
so swift the change
(when it happens)
from predawn mysteries.
Trees sway gracefully.
Morning birds are singing.
Primeval emotions
inveigle my dreams
before I remember
to whom my day is promised.
(c) June 13, 2008
Mother Love
Goddess, adore us.
We all want to be loved.
Children cast upon the world
unprepared.
Times past, we would pack together
exploring our abilities,
safe in numbers
small enough to give us each
room to grow.
Isolated in responsibilities,
playing grown-up
so easy to smother
in over-breathed air.
Come to each me, Goddess,
in quietly desperate hours
with praise and adoration.
Tell the stories of our lives
in radiant glory.
Mother, Queen, perfect lover,
give us what we need
to grow the seed
of your love.
6/5/08
quest
Deep in our ancient lives
Far from our daily chores
Hidden within our minds
With no bright line to follow
Could I be true?
Breathing, a mist so fine
sprayed from brave ocean floors
Seen in dreamlike design
shades dark and blue
Dawn's pink-purple hue
breaks through over time
while I wander in dreaming
What could be true?
Torn by my primal cry
how would you answer?
(c) May 26, 2008 Laurie Corzett/libramoon
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
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
translation
Wordlike fingers
touching my eyes and lips
emote my visions,
struggles for clarity,
ambiguity,
ecstasy.
Sights, sounds, smells
of memory
caught in endothermic
catalyzation
urging toward enlightenment,
musing entertainment.
We are the apes who speak
formalized syllables,
carry through centuries
in cuneiform or phonetic,
hold history in our hands.
Beyond words
we clutch or swing
brave emotion.
Caught like fireflies in a jar,
sending encoded signals
till light fades.
We hold, transmute, evolve,
learn to define.
My lips, my eyes immortalized
in metaphor, air upon ear,
tricks of the brain.
(c) June 1, 2008 Laurie Corzett/libramoon
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