lunar ramblings: September 2008

By the
time we reach middle age, if we are paying attention, we usually have
a pretty good layering of experience from which to make some
hypotheses about what we are about. This is the time to stop getting
through, start enjoying the moving strands we find to play about in.
Life/virtue/work are all their own rewards. Waking up and feeling
alive is what gives life value.

I have faith in my own set of precepts, not those of the religions of "the book" which seem much too contradictory both internally and to my own life experience. When I look to my inner voice or ask the Goddesses with whom I co-create for help, it is always there. No Jesus involved at all.

Come on, people. Get over the "race" thing. We are all human; that is our race. Also, get over the fundamentalist religion thing, all the hateful divisive things that have nothing to do with working together to make a world we all have a positive stake in keeping real.

Let us find the secret land before Babel, before the gods divided us, when we were young and full of wonder.

If you feel defeated,
lost, alone without comfort
unheard, unseen, unrequited
leave this arid wasteland
that never was your home

Its the end of the world as we know it (and I feel fine?) that is predicted. The Mayans had a very sophisticated calendar/oracle system in which there were cycles within cycles that took millennia to play out. The end of the calendar foretells a new kind of cycle, previously unknowable.

If you, as I, understand a difference in the concepts of "world" and "planet" -- world being a social construct while planet is the physical Earth -- the end of our world might well be due to a new construct being formed.

liars, liars
in theaters shouting "Fire!"
dousing all desire
for what could bring us higher
not left or right
always pushing for a fight
not admitting any rights
not approved in today's soundbites
it's not a race for human good
just a bunch of rabid hoods
punishing with hype and shoulds
keeping us from what we could
be learning, doing, working well
wresting heaven from your hell
before you ring that final bell
echoing the lies you tell

Hey kids, let's all go out and vote ourselves some super-human disciples to rearrange our national perception of reality! Think of the Christian paradise they could make us all believe we see in our daily puppet lives.

It's worse than the "Choice" issue because that is just the tip of the iceberg of choices that today's power elite right want done away with. Their agenda is to entangle us all in their weird cult's definitions of reality, morality, and acceptable American lifestyle, while singing away about being the land of the free. Meanwhile, change agent Obama is working to bring back the home of the brave.

I was just thinking in regard to the pro-Hillary contingent who now say they will vote for McCain/Palin: if you do see yourself as adhering to the principles/platforms of the Democratic Party, just what is it you are so afraid Barack Obama will/won't do that Hillary would have done differently? Just what do you think McCain/Palin will/won't do that would be those actions you fear Barack Obama won't? Isn't this anti-Obama stance actually prejudice, and I don't mean racism, but sexism?

One would think even ignorant citizens would welcome more thoughtful, intelligent, responsible leadership rather than voting for a least common denominator so they could feel they are just as good as the folks in the front office. I blame the incredibly poor public education we have allowed to devolve.

McCain is not another GWB. It's worse that that. McCain is a man who has given over his principles and immortal soul to try to win favor with the Republican faithful.

Yeah, getting shot down and captured is wonderful experience to pass on to our troops. Notice how a clear definition of "victory" has not been offered for this invasion and occupation of a sovereign state which was not in any way threatening us (the most powerful nation in the world, btw with the technology and talent reduced to picking on little nations?) So, if McCain so badly wants victory in Iraq, he can just proclaim it. As it turns out, Obama's call for redeployment is apparently looking much better to everyone involved.

Yes, how dare we questions a war hero who spent so much time imprisoned (like those hapless folk at Gitmo, but with more back-up), unlike John Kerry who turned his back on the Vietnam insanity after serving valiantly? How dare we presume that getting shot down and tortured would not be the experience we need in a world leader?

5 years of torture in a foreign cell makes one eligible to be US President -- hey, all you guys at Gitmo, listen up!

This is what I keep trying to explain to the naysayers, the "Obama the Savior" cynics, the "Barack Star" or "elitist" accusers. It's not about him; it's about us. Obama is offering us the chance to take back our country from those who sold us out. It is not that he can do that himself; it is that he can give us the inspiration and the leadership to do it for ourselves.

Like people in most professions, lawyers run the gamut from purely evil to amazingly wonderful. I have known some truly dedicated humanitarians who earned law degrees to help them help others.

Regardless of political gain to the Democratic candidates, these allegations against the Bush administration really do need to be clarified, fully investigated, brought into public scrutiny, in the ways we a civilized nation do these due diligence responsibilities. Otherwise, how can we present our nation to the world as worthy of moral respect?

Bentsen definitely had it all over Quayle. However Dukakis (and I loved him as Governor) was too much the tight-wound technocrat who didn't understand connecting with the people, much like John Kerry in 2004.

And they laughed when Nader said none of them were on our side. Maybe if the press was still providing oversight? Maybe if we the people could get our act together and work in our own best interests? Maybe if politics were something other than a game?

No one who is seriously supporting Obama is doing so because "he gives a good speech." It is the content of what he says, what he does, how he approaches government and public service that are meaningful.

I suppose if you are voting based on physical attractiveness, Obama/Palin would be a good ticket. If you are voting based on years of experience, perhaps McCain/Biden would be your choice. I would be a lot more comfortable with Biden in the wings when McCain strokes out. However, if you want to vote based on who will work with us to bring our country back and move forward, please listen to those speeches and vote Obama/Biden.

People who consider themselves Democratic, believe in the general Democratic platform, and say they are voting McCain as a protest against what the big bads did to their Hillary are obviously not thinking with their own or their country's interest in mind. You want to protest, write in Hillary, vote for Nader or another third party candidate, yell scream, protest. But don't be stupid.

It's a horse race. We love to pick our team and cheer, including hate speech and dumping rotten fruit on the other side. The media pundits really egg it on. They were all saying how Obama had to go negative on McCain at the Convention to show his strength. I, apparently like you, do not see strength in metaphorically throwing rotten food or picking on little blemishes or misstatements to roar in like a rabid lion. We do seem to forget that this country is supposed to be about us. We are electing representatives to do our work, to give our face to the world, to set the agenda for our benefit. This only can work if we turn our energy, not toward negative characterizations and nasty catcalls, but toward the future we want to make our home and how to work together to get there.

I see the most important issue as being that of we the people's loss of rights and respect during the Bush Neo-con administration. In my opinion, Obama is the leader who can inspire the courage and vision needed if we are to regain our nation.

We have school choice, as much as we want, as much as we take responsibility for. I am, I admit, getting tired of everyone clamoring for government to do it for them, then complaining about big government and big taxes. We can homeschool, send our kids to private schools we can afford or with scholarships, form community alternative schools whether charter schools or collective private schools, have alternative programs to teach what we wish on nonschool hours, get active in our parent-teacher organizations and local school boards, need I go on?

I keep seeing people complaining about the either/or choice without taking the responsibility to broaden choices by voting third party, or even promoting third party candidates who may have views closer to their own. Self-fulfilling prophets much?

You want impeachment on the table:

Do the research:

find out which congressional reps are up for reelection in November

Do the outreach:

find like-minded people in each of those districts/states and tell them to write/phone/fax/email those reps insisting that no impeachment process started, we'll be voting third party

Do the organizing:

work with your like-minded others to put together protests marches, petitions, advertising, letter-writing to all the media, blogging, monkey warfare

Reapply, rinse and make your voice heard.

In a sane world we would have one life, fluidly moving from task to task within social contexts, within family community work play healthful activity meditative inactivity, the whole enchilada.

There are folks always saying the market will take care of it. Maybe yes, maybe no, but we do not (and never really did) have a free market. There are not only regulations, tax advantages and disadvantages, but also fiduciary commitments, tricks of marketing that disallow real consumer choice, and inequities in resource distribution that limit options for those most needing services. It's a mess. I remember the whole healthcare thing being much simpler. Get sick, go to the doctor, get treatment, pay the bill. If the bill is too high, work out a payment plan. For major medical have major medical insurance, which can be reasonably priced because most of the insured get by most of the time without needing the service. For the poor, free clinics, docs doing pro bono work, communities organizing services and payment through fund-raising activities, grants, philanthropy. This ain't brain surgery, even if that is sometimes the required result. With the computer number crunching/spreadsheet power it can be rather simple.

I was watching a debate on PBS about the right to health care. None of the debaters on either side came up with what I consider an underlying argument for some kind of universal healthcare -- not that people are dying without proper care, or that people are being cheated by insurance companies that don't come through when needed, or that government is inefficient and should not be in charge of healthcare, but that the healthier the general population, the healthier the nation in every way.

I remember during the Congressional hearings on credit companies a representative on the side of a banking institution spoke of having some kind of review policy for their customers who had become delinquent in their payments because they were in a coma. Does anyone else find this hilariously macabre?

People often resort to insults when too angry to think clearly and thereby engage in actual conversation. Blame after Blame is not a game that is going to clear any thought processes.

You know who the real "terrorists" are that you need to fear in the every day? They are your neighbors gone completely crazy from the stress and disdain they endure until they no longer have endurance.

I don't think you understand. These are not insects, nor off-world creatures. You are speaking of human beings as if you share none of their needs or aspirations or expectations of dignity and respect. Was your Mom bitten by a Mexican?

I don't know what idiot devised a "terrorist" list by name, as if each name is unique. I've heard the list can be bypassed by simply spelling one's name differently. Hey, terrorists, I bet you can find several possible ways of spelling or presenting your name. Meanwhile, young children, disabled people traveling for medical attention, people with common names traveling to visit dying loved ones or to find out of state jobs or for the jobs they have finally acquired or for any of the reasons we travel through our free country find out they share names with terrorists, which means they are no longer free to travel. Somehow I think this makes us less safe.

What's wrong with us is that we sincerely believe that vital resources are finite. What goes to you is taken from me. Therefore, I must do what I can to destroy you and yours that me and mine have enough.

I don't think the people "on the ground" care about formal definitions of recession or depression or improving economic outlook or whatever the academic spin. People are scared, angry, concerned, desperate because of the lousy economic outlook in their own lives.

a crisis is both a wake up call and an opportunity

Kuhn's main point was that we as human thinkers evolve through taking on greater knowledge which allows us to move into new paradigmatic boundaries that allow us to discover greater truths.

mutual admiration, respect, attraction and enjoyment, that's romance
romantic moments are made of those little remembrances, celebrations, and grand acknowledgements of these

To be able to truly love others, to have the full measure of love to give, you must first love yourself. This is actually true, not just a homily. You have to build the inner strength to be your own best friend, advocate, admirer. Sometimes a loss is an emptying of space to make room for a greater gift.

living by our own values keeps us more alive than trying to be what others want

I find it interesting that people who claim to believe in the benefits of marriage, to those involved and society in general, would rise up in disgust and divisiveness against people peacefully entering into loving commitments.

We all wear masks
because we cannot naked face
a world indifferent to our pain
a world that asks us to refrain
from asking
for true civility and grace

I have been taking up the study of the benefits of dance for several years now. You can dance right where you are, even to music in your head, without anything but your body. It's free, always available, wonderfully enjoyable, and good for mind, body, spirit and developing energy, strength, balance, grace. You get the benefits of exercise, meditation, often social interaction, and momentary vacations from stressful situations. I think school children ought to be encouraged to dance for a few moments next to their desks between lessons to keep them alert while working off the excess energy built up through sitting quietly.

There are so many wonderfully effective "alternative" therapies, yet everyone seems to be getting hooked on pharms. Is it that people are too lazy to work for their health, and would rather pop a pill? Is it that people are not adequately made aware of these more healthful therapies because big pharm advertising is so in your face ubiquitous? Is it that medical professionals don't have the time to do much more than write a prescription rather than explaining these therapies? Is it that medical insurance won't pay for them?

People are angry, seething, bitter for a variety of personal reasons, but also because these emotions are not appropriately vented. People getting tied up in overwhelming stressful lives with little time for recreation or reflection, bumping into other people fuming away on all sides, turn into crucibles of anger. I suggest large doses of expressive art therapy, time alone in nature, and joyful social interaction, wherever we can fit these in.

These monetary valuations have nothing to do with the values we claim to honor such as hard work, sacrifice, ethical behavior, love of family, loyalty, neighborliness, even good grooming. Money lives on another spectrum, the one of power. Those with monetary power get to make the rules and put us in our hierarchy. The happy secret is, we don't have to pay attention to the man behind the curtain. We can live according to the real values, thus enjoying real lives.

When people of several minds make prohibitory laws against what they want to do, it all becomes a mess. Laws are best when direct, simple, and few.

Atheism may well be a religion, for those who practice devoutly in a community of their faith. That's what religion is -- not a set of precepts or pages from a book, or the exhortations of ministers. Religion is a yoking of people into community based on openly professed beliefs and rituals. There is nothing wrong, or even not right, about that. It's when people use their beliefs as rules to judge others that the complications come in.

The fork that turned me into lead
played with the marbles in my head
left me bleeding, almost dead?
It took me.

I have no problem with Palin's gender. I have a big problem with her
ideas about "God's plan" and management of Earth's resources, as well
as her extreme "pro-life" position. Far from a feminist icon, Governor Palin proudly
represents the extreme Christian Right, especially including their
insistence on enforcing a woman's sacred primary duty to the productive
value of her womb.
Rather than be concerned with someone's
race, gender, national origin, sexual preferences or other
demographics, I am concerned about who I feel best represents the
direction I am hoping for our country to be taking. Of course, your
opinions on issues may be quite different from mine. That's why we
have elections, and not just consensus rule.

This country was created on liberal principles. I fail to understand how it is honoring the vision of the Founding Fathers to denigrate their political philosophy.

There is a vast difference between a "maverick" and a "reformer." A maverick is a creature that moves separately from the pack. A reformer is someone with powers of thoughtfulness, ability to see the big picture, and a will to change what does not work for and with the community.

It really burns me when I hear about needing to give all these breaks to the upper crust so they will give us poor slobs jobs. As if they give anything not absolutely required (and then find ways to get out of those). Working people are the true heroes, the true creators of wealth. Yet, we get no respect.

We the tax payers are responsible to fund every crazy scheme the governmental/financial complex can dream up. Then we get vilified as stupid, lazy, irresponsible when we can't scrape up enough to pay the outrageous prices for our more and more minimalist lifestyles.

Giving to the wealthy does not work. If we want a thriving economy, it has to come, like a thriving polity, from the mutual benefit of the trade on the commons. Enlightened self-interest knows that win-win is ultimately the most profitable philosophy.

Whether we consider financial markets a fine game to join in or somebody else's stupid hobby, or theft from the common wealth, we get to underwrite the whole fiasco.

If we are helping to pay to bail out these companies, doesn't that mean we are stockholders in these companies just like any investor?

We are the fodder of the neocon-corporate state. Close your eyes and repeat until you feel sufficiently enslaved.

Abortion choice is not about birth control or killing, but about having control over, and therefore responsibility for, our own lives and choices. You want to make abortion less likely, make not only birth control, but general control for women over our lives and bodies and availability of the means to well provide for our children more likely.

The word Conservative (like the word Liberal) has been co-opted by people who are not about conserving or valuable values at all. There are those living in some fascist sci fi consciousness in which America must be Super Power, with all citizens in service to the machine. There are those who think that "big government' is all that is keeping them from financial utopia, without realizing that government is bigger and stupider under recent Republican administrations. There are those who are just mean, and want to legitimize their prejudices and fake superiority. There are those who are just easily led by anyone extolling God and Country. Every little once in a while there are real Conservatives with their fairly reasonable, logical, back to basics world view. I would welcome seeing more of those.

It is crazy the way big pharm is taking over our health and lives. I watch those tv ads telling me how I need this drug to have a happy life like the actors, never mind about those possible fatal "side-effects" so I can be a little more comfortable, when there are simple exercises, nutritional supplements (or actual nutrition instead of fast foods) which could safely make me so much healthier.

It was explained to me that the oil prices going up now because of the gulf hurricanes causing gulf refineries to be shut down is temporary. But this did bring up the fallacy of drilling, since the actual limitation to more oil production is refinery capacity. It was further explained that the big oil interests don't want to build more refineries, a substantial financial investment, unless there is enough oil being drilled to assure profit. The time, energy, and other resources going into oil would so much better be spent on renewables, on creating a sane energy policy which would also be a blessing to a future US economy.

There is a vast difference between faith and religion. Those who cling to religious dogma out of a need for structure or security are allowing their lives to be dependent on said dogma, thus making rational thought more of a threat. Those who have faith in some set of underlying principles, whether spiritual, rational or other, are able to work with those principles in concert with the lessons of actual experience.

It is so incredible the way industry is allowed to poison and otherwise destroy people and our common resources. Someday maybe we the people will wake up and take back our lives. People have done before, various times and places. It could happen here.

Sarah Palin gets a great laugh line from comparing her work as mayor with Obama's community organizing. However, looking at their compared resumes, the mayor job for her would be comparative to his time representing Chicago in the Illinois State Legislature. The community service job for him would be comparative to her time as a hockey mom on the PTA.

She is a successful governor only in that her state is rich in natural resources for her to exploit. Giving everyone a hefty tax rebate because of taxation of big oil companies is bound to make anyone popular. Big oil, meanwhile, gets to make all that extra profit with only a minor kick-back to Alaska. Everybody wins. What's she going to sell out in the greater America when she has that power?

She may be a pawn/cheerleader, but she is far from insignificant. She seems to have real grit, a pugnacious spirit, and a velvet-gloved mean streak, plus wit and charm. She is energizing the right-wing base in a way McCain couldn't, because they knew he was not genuinely one of them. She knows how to play the cameras and the audience, to say just the right amount in just the right way without being specific enough to give the opposition an opening. I was earlier watching the Alaska Governor's Debate from 2006 on C-SPAN. She seemed to have a strong grip on certain issues which she stridently presented as "the" right way to go and vagued out charmingly on the issues her opponents seemed to better grasp, all the while keeping up a screen about how it was the people's right to vote as they might choose. Apparently her big claim to fame was negotiating an oil pipeline that was already well in the works. The big issue she kept harping on (I guess you have to be Alaskan to understand the implications)

If big oil were taxed appropriately, instead of enjoying their sweetheart deal with the neocons, there would be more economic incentive for all the energy entrepreneurs. If you people really believe in the market system at all, why not let it work for us for a change?

The drilling not only misses the point, it is counterproductive. Resources wasted on drilling for minimal long-range return will not be available for creating and marketing the energy solutions that will make the future oil availability moot.

It's the stupidity of the stupid economy making us all stupid. Never put lipstick on a pig. It won't change the economy; and it annoys the pig.

"Pigasus for President: All hail the reincarnation of the fatted pig!"

Sorry, I got carried away. 911 and out

We are who we are at every point of life. Childhood is not a staging area or waiting game. Children are living their lives, everyday, just as adults, and the old. People with mental difficulties, physical challenges, social anxieties are not in some holding pattern while it gets worked out. They are living out who they are. We are not only human beings, worthy of respect, when we fit some limited idea of who we should be.

When we all live in the Tao, there is no thought of rulers.

lunar ramblings

Saturday, September 27, 2008

Virgo candles

Wednesday, September 24, 2008

toxicity

Monday, September 22, 2008

Virgo voices

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