Tuesday, February 22, 2011

tasty bits 2/22/11

exorbitant flavor with subtle bite
exquisitely rendered
tasty bits
to entice and bring in
 
for celebration, inauguartion, ceremony, praise a cronie, explain a gaffe, contain a laugh, decry oppression, make a suggestion
 
 
 
threading the needle to curtain the stage
singing cherubs bounce and curtsy
orating sage twinkle-eyed flirts,
he touches his nose, wrinkles his toes
calls to his wand's to and fro sewing
all recite into song
weaving their music along
 
 
 
Silver bracelet of Moonlight
shines in night's prism of serene
delight
casting breath, luminescent desire
emboldened in reflection
 
 
 
There is nothingness enough in all of negation
Be a thing, many things, all things, some things
Be a source of action
Be the essence of dissatisfaction
Be the smiling taste of flies
upon the tongue of lotus-wise old toad
Be bliss in amazement
of egoic reflection on all this
Nothing is never ALL
 
 
 
Revolution comes when it is ready
The spark that lights the fire can be seen
oh so many times
Only when the tinder is sufficiently arranged
will the fire take hold
It burns with clear fidelity to dramatic interlude,
to the cry of an erupted moment
After images, ash sparks in the twilight,
take flight, swirl within echoed breeze
Readiness,
relative to the free winds of chaos
Revolution is but a shared anthem,
parts of anger and revenge,
parts of reaching toward a new religion
In the aftermath of chaos,
what bright vision will sustain?

Sunday, February 20, 2011

psyche and sagacity for early Pisces (raos)

You are living your life right now. What are you doing?
 
 
 
I do think spiritual living begins with a conscious movement toward impeccability of word and action.
 
 
 
Science is not some overarching god. It is the ongoing historic and combined acts of conscious beings attempting to develop a system of labels and experiments to better understand our environments. Experience is the reality we are attempting to "know" by categorizing and developing structures of information. We do well to remember: "The map is not the territory."
 

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.
 
 
 
Time for dancing in the street to relieve stress
Time to take a peaceful revolution to the people
Time to recapitulate the 60's in the light of greater hindsight
and foresight
and vision
to demand true freedom
first of ourselves
then with each other
people
united
to wrest our best hopes
from reality

Sunday, February 13, 2011

valentines

True Romance

The choices we fall into for romance
Must be why they call the moon-touched lunatics.
We let all sense escape us, give in to chance
Seduced, junkies, into hunger for a fix
Belief, a bedfellow strange to reason's well-trod path,
In fairytale ever after lovers twain
Well-schooled, trained in logic, adept in math
Yet we shed it all to hop that mythic train
Expose our tender souls to cruel deceit
And maybe violence, maybe wounds that slowly kill
Yet we run into destruction, foreswear retreat
For the chance, the hope, the ecstasy, the thrill. 
 


poets' challenge of love
 
the challenge of love, ah clever poets sing 
bells of the ages like weddings' ring-bearers 
tending to the tender souls who challenge love. 

first there is awe and laughter 
first there is oh so sweet petals of 
eternal Spring 
first there is me boyo, me flicka, me enameradae 
first there is passion unmet in this measure before. 

I love like a mountain gale 
sweeping goats and dales and moonshine 
into camaradic array, like daffodils 
sun-shine through miraculous fields 
meeting you here where no two have quite met 
like this, to kiss, to touch, to taste, entwine blissful 
like none have done in all of the days of wo/man. 
seas of rapture sway and spray and rock us 
into unsung epic destiny. 
Yet love unwinds, 
unmakes us, 
ruins us for life. 

And life descends so empty 
on the drying seeds of 
now spent love. 


Be My Valentine


If the greatest virtue we can aspire to is love
And the greatest follies in our lives are due to love
And we can't cure ourselves of the pain and malady of love
But all sages exhort us just to love
And pure poison is generated by loss in love
And pure bliss is ours in lovely love
And what about those horrid beings we just can't love
And what about that horrid feeling of being unloved
So what in heaven/hell is love?


There is love that sends you dancing
into romantic lunacy 
that feels so right and free
There is love that burns so hot and cold
you never know
quite where you are
There is love that holds a whisper
in the corner of your mind
makes you smile in
that secret special way
makes you want to linger
in a lover's fantasy
makes your day
There is love that hurts and hates
and kills any chance of saving
face or heart
burns the bright flame of your being
into ash
leaves you bleeding, pleading
for any drug or thrill to kill the pain
There is love
indistinguishable from insanity
in any way your twisted mind
will go
There is love that lets you know
you have a soul
because it's growing 
magically
Which love are you offering 
to me?


I offer you a human love
not constrained to simple prophecies
Part need for another face
in which to see my reflection
Part need for nurturing solace
in uncertain days
Part need to be hero, adored
shining spirit in your eyes
Because you are the adored vision 
in mine
You send my boundaries
leaping,
You in my life inspires me
to make that leap, creating
a greater vision of me
encompassing we
Crawling into each other's 
place of repose,
breaking borders,
It doesn't matter where
I am
when I'm with you.

The change happens quickly
as in a feature film,
or excruciatingly prolonged,
a soap opera romance 
slowly dying
new characters may intercede
archetypal stories may
cross our stars
navigating our lives
in different directions
We grow complacent, calcified,
disinterested
Angry words burn us inside
smoldering
Heat no longer a welcome
participant of romance
Your little ways
My little ways
imps of annoyance
Is there Hope in this
box of pain?
Over and over
yet never over
in the bodies and souls
of humans
experiencing love.


love poem by moonlight

I told you my heart was wrapped in bloody
newspapers, ripe with the stench of 
long and brutal battles.
I tried to deny you entrance 
when you rang while I was
entranced in the respite,
the invisibility of sleep.
Yet I fell open as you touched me,
eyes melting into eyes,
lips melting into ecstasy.
Your fingertips feathering,
so soft and warm, along my
long parched skin.
I want so to believe again
in two hearts beating wholeness.


Dreams of Love

She is there, in my room, waiting.  Silent as I close the door, turn out the light, turn out the world.
I feel her presence behind, reaching to touch my clavicle, soothe vagal impulse to turn.  I feel her hand, supple, strong, heating through in contact, healing in that sacred touch fortified with love.
We kiss, we melt, we swirl like cotton candy, sweet, sticky, surreal.  We touch into solidity to feel, each exquisite synapse response a remembrance of permeability.  We taste.  There are no words.

I know I said (I prayed):

To be adored beyond embarrassment
To be she who can do no wrong, because beloved
To be gifted accurate reflective critique
as superlative reviews, with just a tweak suggested

To fall securely into open arms and heart
expecting only me
Each blessed day to start
gazing into shining eyes that see so deeply,
so wisely, my precious wondrous being
I have never had from lovers,
brothers, Mom or Dad
what I have taught myself severely
I can never have
Too bad.  So sad.  Can't let fantasy 
keep me from my daily dance with debt.
Dreaming freely receivng
love
never to be met.

We meet secretly, in places that can't be mapped or tethered.  She embraces me in bursts of rapid movement, seductively slowed from motion to subtle traces of desire.
I am emotively charged ecstasy, pulsing electrically beyond space/time.  She is imaginal fluid gently shaping eternity.  We are ouroboros, ancient fantasy, modern physics.
This is the charm I need to cast the spell, to open the fortress, to open my eyes adoring sensation.  I become energy as she feeds me the ambrosia of her essence.  I become beloved.


Goddess Dreams of Love
In a far off land, across a careening sea
Beauteous Damsel made a brave decree:
"I am the monarch, the dominant She
Who Must Be Obeyed."
Then she smiled a million miles
Sunshine bright for days.
A sad young thing on a lonely cloud-strewn beach
Looks longingly on a face he cannot reach.
If he had the words he knows he could beseech
her with noble speech. He prays
to the Goddess of Miracles:
"Please, show me the way."
On a cloudless, moonless night redolent of dreams
Towering waves inundate sand, glowing streams
Showering pure delight, igniting those gleams,
A golden thread together sowing their seams
Silent day arrives, crescendos to song
She glides the beach, feeling fit and strong
"Lithe leaping lyric carries me along."
Her eyes reach onto the beach
To the lapping waves
Where he, dreaming, plays.
Out here, deep in the sea, wild and blue
Do you dream of romance, poignant and true?
Afraid when you awake nothing is new
Swimming eternally free, nothing but you?
Singing your song along a lonely beach
Knowing not who or where it's beauty may reach
Strong is the monarch, sure in her speech,
In her reign
Goddess caressed, you are blessed
for all of your days.


For Leda and Her Lover

Slow, languid romance
Gliding, alive in the dance
Coyly exchanging glances,
lithe, feather touches
hand to hand, to waist, to loin.
Enjoying little licks, lovers' gifts,
luscious lips,
tender whispers, savory tasting, 
lingering kisses, tingling
skin, tangling hair, 
intently aware, intensely
THERE
amazed, amused, 
enrapt, enthused in grace,
in sharing,
playfully
joined


Diamonds and Rust

"Diamonds and Rust" like Joanie says
memories, I mean
lovers.
I saw you tonight with your San Francisco cut
and that old double-edged blade
went piercing through my heart
leaving me bleeding
memories
long through this autumn night
of no-sleep blues and golds
and rusty burnished reds
that cut like diamonds.

I call to you in fevered dreams  
that leave me gasping,
haunting all through the dreary day.
Can't escape that sudden urgency.
Just like days gone by.  You don't answer.
You don't hear me through all that mass
-- your own driving imperative.
We meet so seldom
separation so long.
We are like strangers.
Yet times we have touched, one to one,  
to perfection,
have been one strength and impulse
have known such intimacy . . .
I call to you now,
Hearing your voice in every song of romance.


Reflections

Walking long mornings into sunrise
You stood by and took the earth into your arms
like grainstalks
I called you my Degas print.
You spoke of the moon.
21 days and nights we tarried.
Almost single, almost married.
I loved you.
You spoke to me in words of magic.
Will you speak to me again?
Hollywood houses and Paris cafes bowed to us.
You said you needed work and companions.
I cursed you in my mind, and went off
seeking other follies.
The days look longer now, feel somehow strange.
Love is like a looking glass, reflecting change.


Neptune in Libra

I catch clouds and hold them for awhile in my mind
they keep me drifting.
I catch minds and let them float behind my eyes
They keep me sifting through thoughts and moods.
I catch you for awhile, drifting through my mind.
I catch your smile, your thoughtstreams, your
ups and downs.
I catch you for awhile and let you linger through
my moments.
I catch clouds and shape them to your form
they keep me drifting.
I dream forms and demons and fleeting glimpses
of your mind.
I dream while clouds drift away into formless
wispings.
I catch your eye in the corner of my mind
In drifting, shifting dreams that float away,
Yet stay -- yet linger,
Always thinking you.


Little Love Poems
I.
Passion Plays
Sidewalk street scenes
Commercialized love-ins at the five and dime.
It's getting so you can't speak of intimate feelings
Without sounding like a third rate flick
Or pocket novel.
So we go cold in protest
And that is the evil
Of obscenity.

II.
I fell in love once
Now they just take on different
Faces and Forms,
These objects of my passions.
It's all the same fucking merry-go-round
Of rapid pulse beats
And hot and cold flashes
And none of it seems very real or sane
Or even, at this well-worn point,
Romantic.

III.
You said you loved me,
And it made my world.
I called you my lover,
And felt secure in the race to conquest.
Yet lately, when I'm alone
I feel an urge to leaving;
And when I'm with you,
I'm not there at all.

IV.
Love is a word people use a lot.
I love you.
Maybe not tomorrow, maybe not five minutes,
But right now
You touch me
Through a look, a phrase, an expression,
The way you stand so firmly on your ground,
And I respond
With the hot flush of love
In a smile.

Friday, February 11, 2011

11/02/2011 Day of Hope

Fascinating to see the astrology of revolution we have been foretelling playing out before our eyes. 11/02/2011
 
 
 
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.
 
Government is an unwieldy structure, not meant to be change. Humans are adaptable and able to reason, communicate, take action and inspire.
 
Democracy at its inception was seen as an experiment. Hopefully, we are still experimenting.
 
The march of human history seems to be moving toward greater individual liberty within a more empowered collectivity.
 
 
This is a time of crisis from which events will flow. Thus, it is a time when labels matter. If we come at this from a place of differentiation (nation, religion, political agenda, demonization of any kind), we will be building distrust and opportunity for despotism. If we come at this from a place of the people of the world striving for common freedoms, it could be a real revolution into an age of Man. (with perhaps less hyperbole, I suppose)
These revolutionary objectives are and have been about human desires for freedom, self-determination, and opportunity. They become twisted into religious-affiliation camps when they are so defined by some colonial-era hangover paradigm that needs to lose its false eminence.
 
We don't need to help the fundamentalists by playing into their propaganda. We need to show our ability to reason, and to relate to the aspirations of seekers of freedom -- not our irascible idiocies of paranoid prejudice and siding with entrenched authorities, certainly not our cynical kneejerk hatred.
 
I am becoming sickened by the seeming disturbing lack of respect for the Egyptian people, and by implication all people working for self-determination, by so many who speak worryingly as though their partisan interests were what is of real importance rather than the interests of those who will be Egypt's (and the world's) future.
 

Perhaps it is not so much that we ought to temper "bad temper" but turning it to creative energy rather than destructive.
 
The US attitude toward Iran helped to legitimize the influence of radical Islamic fundamentalist propaganda.
 
 
blah-blah-blah Sharia Law blah-blah- Israel - blah - blah - security - blah - blah - US interests - blah
 
Get your head out of the blahs.
 

The Muslim Brotherhood is a hot button soundbite to give us the cold rush down our spines and demand US intervention. Whether these people as such (and not just extremists as in any group) mean to somehow take over Egypt from the internet savvy, educated without jobs, economically disadvantaged young Egypt, they are unlikely to end up more than a minority voice.

It's not about the Koran or Islam. It's about a people's reaction to the devastations of colonialism and its turbulent aftermath -- realpolitik, not religion.

If we want a Middle East to hate, to ratchet up anger and bloodshed, to take on the worst attributes of our phobic fears, we will act as if this is about religion. If we want a more democratic, fair and peaceful world, we will honor the Egyptian cause, the cause of any people who want that world for themselves.
 
The US must advocate for US interests. Our interests, of course, change with the fluidity of world situations. Looking toward future best interests, we do well to encourage better democratic institution in the Middle East. The world is moving out of the shadows of the era of colonization and its aftermath in that region. The populations are mostly young, and motivated to greater self-empowerment. We do well to forge bonds of friendship for mutual social and economic benefit.
 
 
 
 

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.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

I do think spiritual living begins with a conscious movement toward impeccability of word and action.

Saturday, February 5, 2011

revolution for the people (raos)

profound beauty in the everyday is beyond price
 
 
 
Newton, seeking God, found physics.  Are quantum mechanics, seeking physics, locating "God"?
 
 
 
I judge everybody, humans included, on one criteria: How do you treat me?
 
 
 
Imagine the berater as a raging hardon
 
 

Loughner seems to have been an avid seeker -- desperately trying to find a way to make sense of his life.
 
Most mentally ill people, busy with internal demons and external harassment, are not violent against anyone but themselves. Those who prove dangerous we incarcerate -- in jails or mental health facilities. There was talk that the Columbine crazies were on anti-depressants known to affect cognition of harm and increase propensity to violence. The evidence on mj re mental health is mixed. Many find some degree of relief to better manage their symptoms, as with many "physical" diseases. Marijuana use does not cause mental illness. It may increase confusion, which can display a previously undiagnosed condition. Mental illness is a catch phrase for a variety of situations: learning disabilities, the autistic spectrum, schizophrenias, mood disorders, personality disorders -- none of these are well understood. They are different ways of processing information from the norm, which has no fixed definition. Problems are often about concomitant social illnesses -- people treated as "other" kept out of the mainstream through their own confusions, overwhelmed sensitivities, the responses they get from those around them. We need more public dialog to better understand the dissociative and delusional thought that, really, we all experience at times. A recent tv ad talks about how important friendship can be. Various studies indicate that real, honest human interaction can be better than treatments that do not adequately show respect for the mentally ill person's humanity and healing ability. We often feel uncomfortable around people who appear "strange." Perhaps we need community safe havens where people can relate in more meaningful ways than is usual.
 
 
You are not suffering bad luck as such. You are suffering the wrath of an unbalanced human. You might try going through local law enforcement if they can do anything -- at least you will have your complaints on record. You might try getting yourself into a position of calm, open, awareness and see if you can have quiet conversations with this person that might help them to understand and move toward cooperation. You might best find a champion -- someone with power, spiritual, secular, financial, physical -- someone who can come to your aid. More importantly, you can come to a clearer understanding of the dynamics involved and find ways to reach a more comfortable outcome.
 
 
Ultimately healing comes down to personal responsibility, to figuring out how to go on from here better. The stories we tell ourselves need to be malleable, adaptable to the life we truly desire. I think, ideally, the therapist is a resource to create a space in which this figuring out can be done, to give guidance as to how that can be done, to give an audience for the trying out of these adaptations that can be trusted, and to be the strong positive presence that helps to instill resilience.
 
 
What is wrong with bringing up upsetting emotional material? How else might one learn to become calm in upsetting emotional situations? It seems like we all want instant everything and blame the messenger when it is not forthcoming.
 
 
The disease is not the addiction -- that is the person attempting to ameliorate their pain. Thus, the cure would need to apply to the pain, which would end the need and thus the hold of the addiction.
 
There are all kinds of environmental and health policy issues affecting health. Perhaps our well-touted high cost of healthcare ought to be ameliorated by sufficiently taxing those who contribute to unhealthy conditions.
 
This would in fact be a laudable solution to the "drug problem" obviating a desire for yet another "war" mentality booster.
 

 
 
 
I have forgotten the sweet, sickly poetry of the Nile
Ever moistening the fecund fields
No need to hold to ancient fantasies
Great Caesar has left the realm
Dear Cleo weeps no more,
carrying dark Godhead into her
Nile cooled lips for a brief whisper
before pyramids shudder
before the Nile sleeps
before I dream a guileless day
 
 
 
 
 
Falling from dream to the day
Memories drift in to say "Hey, sweet
dreamer, remember me?"
 
As to Caesar, a silly old soul
His greeting is more:
"Enjoying the flow?"
 
 
 
Nothing IS true. Everything IS permitted. "True" and "Permit" are human constructs, and not even natural state human constructs. They are social constructs which artificially limit our understanding of or relationship with the real. The law of nature does not "permit" or worry over "truth." It is pretty much: Do what you will; and see where that gets you. The realities are not normative, but immediate.
 
 
 
In my quite unscientific way, I was recently musing about the Pluto in
generations. The Boomers -- Pluto in Leo -- we were playing out children's
roles, questioning authorities, impudently laughing at the elders, looking for
express ourselves creatively and with arrogance.
 
Oh, disclaimer: I am talking about the general mood; of course individual
mileage will vary.
 
Pluto in Virgo got to be critics, of the Boomers and the parents and themselves,
looking at health and jobs, our place as stewards, with critical faculties.
 
Pluto in Libra seem to love to socialize, harmonize, look at partnerships from a
what? more practical? more balanced perspective?
 
Little Pluto in Scorpio, oh how you delve, bringing dark matter into light.
They do seem sexually active in your face; they will be the aftermath of this
transforming era, leaving behind the dross (hopefully). They will also be
looking at death, sex, regeneration, more deeply.
 
The children with Pluto in Sag -- oh what adventure awaits, revisioning the big
picture, perhaps traveling beyond the Solar System.
 
And the babies with Pluto in Capricorn: the new world order to come?
 
 
 
 Living in the building of a structure for fulfillment
is magic, well practiced.
 
 
 
I am familiar with the stranger
catch her image as I pass
mirrored walls
Easy to love,
easy to lie away
unquestioned afternoons,
bare and silent
Equivalences, valences, vacant stares
pass without comment
Stranger than I or my love
ghosts wander,
merge,
insubstantial
 
 
 
There is a difference between systems of governing and systems of wealth distribution. "Right - authoritarian" or "Left - libertarian" governments can govern societies with pretty much any kind of economic system. Individual, free people can decide to share the wealth for their mutual benefit, even if some might prefer to tip the scale to those better able to corral resources and hold them for ransom and solidify their gains with a Plutocracy.
 
It is time that we put together a working world economy and currency. Since we people never like to change without a serious crisis, I guess that is what will have to happen.
 
There is messaging from an oligarchy that wants plenty of labor to keep costs low and plenty of consumers of their products, and plenty of anxiety to keep folks mindlessly working and buying. It makes the sin not reproducing (taking the philosophy of religion from a time when the human population was not certain and when "social security" was children that lived to grow up). Once you pop the kids out, of course, they couldn't care at all how you manage.
 
 
 
That does seem to be the philosophy. Money is not an inventive tool created to help us live better -- it is the be all end all. Where did this idiocy come from? How can we send it back?
 
Money doesn't even exist apart from our invocations. We have the power; we just don't bother to use it -- complacency, you know.
 
There are forms of ineffectiveness, outdatedness, inefficiencies that probably most would see as obvious. Perhaps if these were laid out in simple language where anyone could easily comment, such salient information would emerge.
 
 
If the big business interests are so concerned about taxation and the economy, shouldn't they be putting big investments where their "concern" is?
 
 
Of course it would be best to avoid an economic collapse (total or partial) by getting back to understanding the basics of economy -- distribution of resources and expansion of resources through creative work. There are so many models being played out in various micro-communities. We each and all can contribute to revitalizing our shared economic future, from which governmental bodies can also benefit. Trickle down was an abysmal failure. Building up makes so much more sense.
 
 
 
This is a time of crisis from which events will flow. Thus, it is a time when labels matter. If we come at this from a place of differentiation (nation, religion, political agenda, demonization of any kind), we will be building distrust and opportunity for despotism. If we come at this from a place of the people of the world striving for common freedoms, it could be a real revolution into an age of Man. (with perhaps less hyperbole, I suppose)
 
 
What is hope without adversity to bring it to the fore?  Times of crisis necessitate change, since we humans seem to be too lazy or scared or content to make important changes without crisis.
 
 
 
I don't like the hate; but I'm really bored by the whining.
 
venting is not whining. There is a strong qualitative difference. When we vent our frustration and anger, it is therapeutic; and may encourage others to join together in common cause. Whining is blaming, or falling into self-unempowerment, giving up responsibility or opportunity to make a useful difference.
 
 
 
We so easily go for the hyperbole, when the problems we face are so much larger than the extreme. We don't have to worry about the dead. What they have suffered is done. What needs to be addressed, faced, dealt with, are all those heapings of unnecessary miseries we the living visit upon each other and thereby ultimately ourselves.
 
 
it's sad how the political media/political professionals latch on to the talking points of the moment, as if suddenly they have seen the light, which will go out again when the cameras leave.
 
 
Policies like greater public surveillance, anger management classes, anti-bullying measures, and probably longer sentences for violent offenders probably have something to do with lower murder rates. The point is not to deny legal access to guns, but to keep a balance between freedom and responsibility with public regulations. You know, like the argument for legalizing currently illicit drugs.
 
Maybe we ought to have some serious contemplation and discussions about just what we want from criminal law. Yes, we want to be free of the fear of criminal activity interfering with our lives. How can be better achieve that?
 
 
 
 
Let God be God. Did you really think He's been waiting all this time for you to arise and speak for Him?
 
 
 
There are always crazy folks, angry folks, easily manipulated folks, desperate folks, people without meaning in their lives who act irrationally irresponsibly and outrageously. Gods have nothing to do with it.
 
You're not going to find God looking in the wrong places. God is not somewhere out in the cosmos, but in you, and you, and you, and me, and that tree, and that cat, and that mouse, and that blade of grass. Why are so many so intent on separation?
 
You're are looking at this all wrong. God is not so much omnipresent, omniscient Creator (or a "He" or "She" or "They" or "It"), but all of time, all of knowledge, all of Creation. All of the material/spiritual multiverse is God's manifestation. Not "in" minds and hearts, but the essence of minds, hearts, blood, skin, DNA. Mountains do move in the course of time. Mustard seeds do grow. Not outside reality, but reality itself. God does not need believers, nor need, nor want, nor any human attribute, while being all attributes.
 
 
 
 
 
I agree that the prospect of giving up profits is a big attention getter. Maybe a scheme of taxation to pay for the negative results of products to the general welfare might be possible.
 
 
 
 
 
 
It's not about discipline, but information. We get so many mixed messages about health and how to promote or occlude it. We could eat all kinds of tasteful, satisfying foods, even gain weight above our "ideal" if we keep in mind nutritional facts and keep moving appropriately. Yet the pinnacle of our culture seems to be plastic food in front of the telly.
 
 
 
For jobs to be created, people, everyday people, have to create them. Governments are cutting jobs to address budget shortfalls. Jobs are created when people figure out what they can sell of their skills or products and go out and do it. If the business takes off, more work than the individual can or wants to do, they hire others, and so on. It's not rocket surgery.
 
There seem to be some kind of common knowledge that a job is THE means to a livelihood, to be somehow extracted from the wealthy. Rather a job is just leasing your skills to a customer which is an established business with a system of payment in place for bureaucratic convenience.
 
 
 
The sop they gave us to get the bail out through was that this money would be used to invest in getting American businesses back to work. We, the American electorate, need to move our revenues back to ourselves rather than giving tax breaks and subsidies to businesses that screw us.
 
 
 
It wasn't so much war as having a national project that ramped up industry. Changing over to alternative energy is the project most often suggested for today.
 
There is no saving ourselves out of the deficit. The only way out is up. The problem then is how best to grow the economy. The psychology of austerity is shrinking, not expanding. What we really need is a strong psychological uplift to get individuals and groups excited about growing.
 
 
 
 Of course many people are not of the personality profile to start businesses; but those who are can certainly figure out how to use the talents and skills of those who are better laborers than employers in local, small businesses based on the actual local market.
 
 
 
As well as ending breaks and goodies for big multi-nationals, the government could look to simplifying, clarifying and updating regulations to better serve both business and the general public.
 
 
 
What these free-marketeers fail to take into account is that government is very much part of the market.
 
 
 
Nothing like austerity to get us to question our motives and results.
 
 
 
stop and think, next time Rand's heroes of industry get applauded: Does the person extolling these virtues of independence and vision exhibit those qualities? How would these "Randians" make out in a real Rand-based world?
 
 
 
"Obamacare" is a Congressional mongrel -- not at all what the President had proposed after all the grandstanders got through pissing in it. And yet, the electorate in general knows were are better off with this than without it.
 
 
Rather than destroyed or truncated, Medicare (or something like it with a different name, if that would help) ought to be expanded with the opportunity for paid subscriptions by those who prefer a government plan. In fact, why not just open Medicare to the public as one insurance plan option with the gov't. picking up the tab for the aged and poor? Before you start foaming up about unfair competition, the prices could be in line with the costs.
 
 
 
The march of human history seems to be moving toward greater individual liberty within a more empowered collectivity. I seem to remember this as explained in the Dialectic.
 
 
 
Morality is not at all about love, though they are certainly not mutually exclusive. Morality is about living well with others, and with oneself. Love is much more mystical.
 
It is simple enlightened self-interest -- no need for any outside sources of morality. Morality is not about anything mystical, spiritual, or authoritarian.
 
 
 
Religion, or the religious views prominently normative in an era, are very much affected by the sociology and politics of that era. Religion is not some mystical otherworldly overlord. It is political and based on conventions of social interaction.
 
 
 
 If we want a Middle East to hate, to ratchet up anger and bloodshed, to take on the worst attributes of our phobic fears, we will act as if this is about religion. If we want a more democratic, fair and peaceful world, we will honor the Egyptian cause, the cause of any people who want that world for themselves.
You are equating the conditions in the United States to those in Egypt? Egyptians are protesting because they want it to be there more like it is here in terms of political power for the people.
 
Of course the US must advocate for US interests. Our interests, of course, change with the fluidity of world situations. Looking toward future best interests, we do well to encourage better democratic institution in the Middle East. The world is moving out of the shadows of the era of colonization and its aftermath in that region. The populations are mostly young, and motivated to greater self-empowerment. We do well to forge bonds of friendship for mutual social and economic benefit.
 
 
Violence, blood sacrifice, conquering and enslaving -- these were normative values in the "dark" ages -- and to some extent, still today. It's not about religion. The religious banners are just there to convince the people that their God is watching out for them as they do battle to increase the resources and power of their kin group (or nation).
 
The reasons for world problems are not in the domain of religion, but in the domains of biology, sociology, and politics.
 
It's not about the Koran or Islam. It's about a people's reaction to the devastations of colonialism and its turbulent aftermath -- realpolitik, not religion.
 
Do you even bother to look at the history of why these predictions and rationales were written in the Koran? It was a time when the people of Allah were being murdered and brutalized by outsiders bent on conquest. In the Old Testament, the exhortations to kill Jehovah's enemies were more about being the conquerors to take land and kill the inhabitants.
 
 
 
No need for big conspiracy theories or ancient cults -- today's power elite are simply about power, today.
You can find threads through history to prove any convoluted theory if you keep blinders on to the wider fabric.
 
 
 
 
People are angry, lives upset, messages confused. Taking to the streets in the sense of having a big old singing, dancing, speechifying, party with street vendors and buskers galore would be wonderful. Taking to the streets to yell vague slogans and rouse up righteous indignation would get us nowhere. Real improvement takes actual work, sober thought, rallying together for common uplifting rather than whining or divisive protest.