There is chatter amongst the spiritualists about laws of abundance, visualizing wealth and such. The underlying truth is that attitude, beliefs, thinking we can and acting from that, do matter, do create real world change.
you've gotta love the lurkers
Of course allowing public dialog to be overwhelmed by hatefulness does nothing to usefully address common problems or improve politics. No need to give up distrust, just keep the priorities about finding solutions, not spitting bile.
Gnats, fleas, mosquitoes, biting, buzzing
can inflict disease beyond their size
or intellect. Best to discover and cover with repellant
to quell their appetite for terrorizing we they see
as tempting treats of invigorated blood.
When we speak of mental illness, for the most part we are looking at different ways of processing information from the norm. And the norm is not really normal or any kind of fixed definition.
The problem is not with mental illness, but with the often concomitant social illnesses -- people treated as "other" and kept out of the mainstream social maelstrom both through their own confusions, overwhelmed sensitivities, and such and from the responses they get from those around them. This is also often a problem for the "gifted" or creative individual, especially in the school years when they are viewed and treated as not the norm. Thus, many people grow up twisted in the sense of having an underlying compulsion to follow several masters -- never able to truly feel at peace with their own "differences" nor able to "be normal". Anxiety and depression seem logical outcomes.
People with "mood" disorders, chronic pain, and many other conditions have been functioning without medication for millennia. Many function quite well, even now with all our media medication hype, with, you know, counseling, meditation, learning how to cope.
I do it with mindful meditation. I don't dismiss a feeling, but look to what it is telling me. I look for solutions within the problem.
I have a hunch that many "mood" disorders are reactions to chronic pain.
Too many parents keep themselves from their children -- out of some need to maintain authority, or fear of being rejected, or lack of insight into themselves or their relationships, or getting too caught up in keeping life going, or whatever ...
Children do not need to be taught to fear. Nor do they need "happy" childhoods. Children, people who are not yet of an age to care for themselves, need to be taught to take care of themselves, to learn about danger, to learn about self-defense, to learn to adapt to new situations, to learn to have confidence in their own abilities, to learn useful skills and ways of interacting. Children are not oh-so-cute-little-playthings meant for shielding from life. They are alive, growing, and better able to do those well with appropriate role modeling and teaching about the world in which they live.
Seeking for the power of wisdom Multiple paths converge on star points Pierced by light, taste of blood in darkness Feed on what feeds your blossoming
I don't think it is "greed" in the sense of territorial compulsion to own. It is more about insecurity, misplaced loyalty, lack of understanding of enlightened self-interest or really self-interest at all. People often shop as a kind of drug, hold on to possessions because that is all they can trust, act as though the point of life is to own all the toys rather than enjoy playing. Sorrow is more the appropriate response than outrage.
While not specifically an expression of personal sovereignty, this kind of crisis, of break-out activity, can certainly turn minds otherwise engaged in habitual behaviors to become aware of such conflicts and concepts. The myth is not just for the future. Reality is being remade.
There is no standing under There is moving among
Fascinating to see the astrology of revolution we have been foretelling playing out before our eyes. 11/02/2011
In the instant of this dawn (not those others we spoke of before) the hush of emergence the selecting of colors to fade from midnight to day I heard you say: "Is this love?"
Our brains are set up for pattern recognition. We will look for patterns where none exist until we apply an appropriate framework. Astrology is such a framework. It doesn't mean it isn't useful. Most of the frames we end up using are, which is why they persist.
"shadow" -- baser instincts? stark reality? use your metaphor.
things have to change because we feel the change revving up within and without. It's a whirlwind, catching up whatever is not well tied down.
Nature is neither good nor evil. Those rules do not apply. Nature is.
"Global Warming" certainly isn't my fault; but I'm willing to take the blame if it will make you all feel better.
By giving up our power to these shadow boogeymen, you are giving up the light. To be empowered to reach the understanding of any kind of enlightenment, we need to be able to see much more clearly that all these "evil" conspiracies are nothing, dust, the incoherent babblings of idiots instead of acting as if it is important that we accede to their power, that we give them the power of believing in them.
My theory is that Glen Beck is doing a "Stephen Colbert" but more deep cover.
Bullies, harassers, whooping your ass-ers, laughing at pranks, escalating school angst
So much fun to cause harm, makes me feel all warm, 'cause the only charm I can find
in this hell of my mind is to make you all suffer even worse: "Ha, Ha; I've paid forward my curse."
Democracy at its inception was seen as an experiment. Hopefully, we are still experimenting.
The economy cannot expand enough to float all boats if we are mired in slow, noncompetitive technology. The place of the government in our economy, as many Republicans seem fond of saying, is to provide for security and infrastructure within which business can effectively take place.
The problem with "multiculturalism" or for that matter "politically correct" is the emphasis on differences rather than blendings. When we are overtly demanding recognition of the various ethnicities, we are not simply learning to interact human to human. It is important (at least in liberal society) to have equality under the law. That equality ought to be blind to these kinds of differences, concentrating on the social contract.
It's so silly and sad. These people get all hyped up about nonexistent threats and cause real threats to their own self-interest.
I wonder if there is a way to let our heroes who were vilified in their own time know how history will honor them.
Requiring insurance, or at least proof of the ability to pay in case of damages, is incumbent on many businesses and ownerships. The difference with health insurance is that we have no choice about owning a body. Personally, I don't want medical professionals messing with mine unless I am hit by that proverbial truck, which ought to have truck insurance. I ought to be allowed to opt out. Rather than force us to buy private goods, why can't we just have an opt in on Medicare? Let the insurance business get their own customers by providing a service their market desires.
Requirements for insurance/proof of ability to pay are not about us paying for our own needs, but for our possible harm to others. Thus, it would make sense in the Second Amendment debate to require arms insurance, like car insurance, to pay expenses in the case that said arm harms another.
Unfortunately a lot of people are intent on believing that an unregulated free market economy can exist. It will be regulated -- if not by "government" than by "might is right". The logical extension of unfettered competition is to go right past trying to compete based on such consumer friendly metrics as price, quality and service and to go instead to accumulating and winning power thus to dictate to the consumer.
Somewhere there must be a primer on US Government for all the ill-educated among us (or just those who have forgotten their grade school civics classes).
Elected government work, ought to be temporary, not a lifetime job. More people ought to be involved, with furloughs available from their regular employers; and campaigns conducted by volunteers -- no money. Those who serve get minimum wage and staff (who get salaries commensurate with their jobs descriptions).
We would be better off with a more parliamentary multi-party system, in which coalitions would have to form issue by issue. Why not even have a two-party national executive race and multi-party congressional races run by the individual states if that would be an easier interim measure?
Tales of whispered words hypnotize
wrench veils between dream and sleep
Deeply darkened mists of memory
prismed in poetry
arouse such imagery
Be at peace
Breathe in wintry wind
to warm in secret private seasons
Breathe out
a better world
religion is about community. It is about holding people together within a common framework based on shared mythology. As such, it can provide all manner of benefits social, psychological, spiritual, economic, and entertainment -- you know, community. However, community is not only about religion. Community can come together based on any shared mythology, or simply shared space and interests.
Religion is but a bead in a collection that comes together kaleidoscopically. It is one aspect of power. Religion is not about spirit. Religion was how people were brought together for control in many societies, but only to the extent that other forces have also been used. "Science" is used similarly, as a faith, in many contexts. These are not the sources of our thinking, but blinders. But then, there are none so blind as those who are convinced that they are seeing from a clearer vision
How ironic that in the ever more world wide internet age, when the rules of communication and coming together are so magnificently changing, our government is held by politicians so mired in a perceived need to acquire money and wealthy supporters. Playing out the Pluto restructuring, the cracks from Uranian lightning, the archetypal drama.
The worldwide yet intimate aspect of the internet allows for much greater niche marketing. Indeed, finding one's voice and finding one's audience may be conflating.
It has come to my attention that the reason for all this hype about Sharia Law and how we have to protect our Christian nation by legislating against it may well be an attempt to further institute Christian Law (anti-abortion, anti-gay, pretty much anti, with maybe perks thrown in to give over social welfare to the Church).
The problem with Israel is not Israel but what it represents as the stronghold of the old colonization paradigm. These youth revolutions may well be the death knell of that era. Then, it will be up to the current government of Israel to develop peaceful, even mutually beneficial relationships with the new Middle East -- if they can look beyond their arrogance.
Science is not static, not one thing, not something apart from other forms of knowledge. Science, like knowledge from any source, is what you make of it.
If we are being honest self-determiners, not helpless victims, we learn that we need no man. We learn that human relationships need not be about power or oppression or pain. We learn to take in from each we meet that which calls to us from them, and take responsibility for what we keep.
Corporations are fictional people, so maybe they should have fictional free speech.
They act like savings would be difficult and need to be on the backs of the working class and poor. In reality, we could do so much better by being so much saner.
In this time of economic craziness, we certainly can't afford to keep spending to investigate, arrest, adjudicate, incarcerate, and send back on the street with less ability to get a tax-paying job people who self-medicate. Now, if we legalized and taxed on top of the (very serious) savings, we would also have a great many new tax-paying jobs and a great deal more funds in the state coffers. Seems like a no brainer to me; but then that's probably what most of our legislators are.
Hemp is not pot. Same basic plant, different genetically enhanced aspects. Hemp is incredibly useful, renewable, biodegradable, generally Earth friendly. It used to be required to grow it in the American colonies -- and not for psychoactive purposes. The fact that hemp is conflated with drugs is just another example of the stupid insanity around these issues.
Do not continue to spread the lies about Social Security. Medicare and defense are big wastepools. Medicare, though, could be easily fixed by opening it to paid opt in for those who can pay, and actual policies to improve health care (not health insurance). Defense, of course, could easily be brought into line with reality by requiring actual defensive measures, not wars of ideology (or is that idiology?).
If we built a strawhuman with exactly the traits we consider normal, there would be no real human that could identify. Each of us has "abnormal" characteristics, which ought to be a clue that these characteristics are perfectly normal human traits. Embedded clannishness was probably a useful survival trait back in the cave days. These days it is becoming a war of all against all. Perhaps it is time to grow up.
Being proactive is not living in fear; but living in fear is not being proactive. You never do know what might occur. Therefore, flexibility, adaptability, open mind with clear eyes on the world, are the appropriate methods to be prepared.
Jesus would not organize a Church to tell people how to live and create greater opportunities for hatred.
Wish we would get a post-Christian mindset.
Gross intolerance is rampant on pretty much any issue. Yet, we could do so much better about solving common problems by working together, brainstorming without naysaying, turning our energy to finding what works rather than to beating each other down.
Personal responsibility assumes personal freedom to act responsibly. People getting together to work out common problems, like funding health care, are acting out of personal responsibility. Shared risk is intelligent social interaction. Socialism is an economic theory which seems to get new definitions daily -- hard to keep up.
Why do you assume that private health insurance is the only way to pay for health care, or that the only issue in health care is paying for it? I want my personal freedom to responsibly protest an industry I find abhorrent. I want other options to medical treatment than those promoted by mainstream politics. I certainly don't want this whole government-corporation complex.
The point is well made that "health care" ought not be made synonymous with "health insurance". If we really had a sane health care policy, we would not be so in need of health insurance except for unexpected catastrophes.
It wasn't so much greed as the market model -- which seems to pervasively underlie all kinds of mischief. It's not so much compassion that will get us out as enlightened self-interest. When we get to the core of the problem, it is about people getting the services they need to live in health, not about people getting insurance. I understand that meanwhile this payment issue is causing a lot of bad outcomes that have to be dealt with expediently. However, we do well not to forget the difference between market-based insurance and reality-based health services.
we need to look at what is causing our huge medical expenses, and get the real health bandits to pay -- which includes all the pollution and other health destroying practices many businesses now see as usual.
There is nothing wrong with legislation preventing government funding of abortion. In fact, government ought have nothing to do with abortion whatsoever. There are so many reasons why free clinics, or at least sliding scale with free services for those without means ought to be made available generally. If that is too big a project for right now, certainly funds could be set up to pay for abortions (or other medical needs) of those without means, apart from government involvement and restrictions.
travelogue of the crescent sky
Tonight, draped in cloud cover,
She briefly bowed, a bowl of mist and mystery
as brave Jupiter gave obeisance from above
as, briefly, protective clouds allowed
I have been noticing that quite a bit of what everybody knows, or everybody says, is just plain not true.
It is not so much can we deal with the truth, as can we hear it in the midst of all the noise.
