good night, Irene

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K6dK2JBPoJU

 

 

 

 

Pluto Transit

 

like a hurricane

like a natural disaster

wind and rain laying waste to my life.

tossed, torn, left astray and a stranger

in the way, or at least not the norm.

a sad wastrel left adrift in the storm.

sing my wanderers' song tonight.

let the wind carry my fading melody

off onto wind-whipped ports of call.

my breath's been carried out to sea

nothing left to become of me

once the hurricane has passed into the day

the foggy, rainy day . . .

I gaze upon the ragged sea.

 

 

 

Where's the fun
in hiding in the eye
of the hurricane?
I want to be bodysurfing
the storm,
madly dancing in the rain,
cast off from restrictive form ...
I want to taste sweet grapes
break crisply;
Embark on a journey of ecstasy
to be all I have
thought to be;
Yet safely reside
in a place deep inside
away from the prying norm.
I want romance in the sense of
sensation inviting and free.
I want a chance to believe in magic.
And I want what I want to be
crazily in love with me.

 

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=My2u2QyvyF4

August of fire (raos)

Without true connection to our self, how can we be truly connected to any? Without true connection, how can we live effectively?

 

God will not cause people to share when they see no advantage.  Atheism does not keep people from sharing because there is no big, bad dad or wise grandfather urging them to share.  What we need is an understanding of enlightened self-interest, which would give to us the wisdom to see that by sharing we actually increase the benefit to ourselves in a great many ways.

 

Atheism, as such, is simply a nonbelief in a God.  Human values are for humans, not gods.  Atheism, and religion as such, for that matter, is irrelevant to a belief in human values.  Even if we believe in God, that god's values may well not be our own.  It is so much more important to give people a stake in human community, human caring, human support.  Our job is not to speak for God, but for ourselves.

 

Self-valuation is a cultural and personal positive.  A transcendent source or standard need not be theological in nature.  There are ethical thinkers who can give transcendent standards by their stature and obvious truth.  In fact, when we look to theology we do not observe the standards of God, but those of the men who have interpreted Him.

 

It may well be that "crap happens". However, when we take the Lord's Name in vain, in effect blame Him for our bad actions, He is expected to get testy.

 

 

It is up to us as human actors/thinkers/reasoners to understand our responsibilities to ourselves and each other.  When we try to pass that responsibility off to someone or something outside of ourselves, that is the deconstruction, the faulty value.

 

Scared to death of a flawed human construct. That's what is keeping us from moving forward successfully.

 

A firm basis of belief in some kind of stable world, some kind of stable structure be it family, community of friends, ordered work environment, or simply a discipline of meditation, is conducive to mental (and physical) well-being.  A community of believers (in anything) serves this.  Religion at its best is a community of like-minded people who give each other place, belonging, a basis of security.  The problem is when somehow that security gets perverted into war of our people who are THE people, and those people who are NOT US.

 

There are many who claim their religion as basis for all kinds of what can easily be agreed to as evil.  This is, as I'm sure you would say, a perversion of religion.  Yet, any belief can be perverted to sick aims, diseased world views.  The way to health is in the individual, with good community back-up in the best of possible worlds.  That community is best when it embraces a philosophy of loving acceptance, of willing good for all of its members and those who live beyond its boundaries.

 

There are a great many possible bases of community belonging, of people banding together to make life better for all of them.  This is best achieved when we do not deny our humanity, our temporality, our physical/biological place on a living planet.  If our eyes are always on heaven, we will not be appropriate stewards of the reality upon which we live here and now. 

 

The problem with apocalyptic Christianity is that when one's purpose is to bring on the end of the world and God's Judgment, there is little to negative incentive to work to improve conditions in the here and now, or for the future.

 

Sometimes it may be the sense of deprivation that is misplaced. Perhaps this is a time to look outside the bounds of such values as love and money, to find the deeper connection with one's own self-valuation. It is not so much about trying harder or better as it is an

 

"Something" may not come from "Nothing," in fact cannot. However, that does not create a need for a "cause". Something could be eternal, changing, without "cause," but rather process, movement.

 

 

Sometimes sharing burden can be as much a gift as sharing joy.  It allows us to connect in our fullness of experience.  It allows to all be imperfect.  It allows us to grow, individually and together.  It can be an opportunity to stop trying and figure out where one actually wants to be, then figure out how to get there -- not effort but understanding.

 

 

When we feel seen, listened to, brought in, we are better able to see, listen to, bring in and share our own magic.

 

 

In my opinion, leaders are those whom others will follow. A strong component of leadership is charisma. However, self-confidence, exuding an air of competence and calm, can be very charismatic. This can be learned.

 

 

 

 

If you want people to spare the time/energy to be concerned, it is your responsibility to be fascinating.

 

 

 

Cops shoot the innocent everyday (somewhere), and no riot. What was in the powder keg ready to spark?

 

 

 

The nature of 21st Century American democracy seems to be about the voice of money and its agents. The hope is that a candidate that looks rational and nonconformist will help people to galvanize our own rationality and creativity -- if that energy is actually available.

 

 

 

It is the ordinary people who actually create the great bulk of jobs.  Mega-corps may smile and twirl facial hair to disguise that the work they offer for pay is not the everyday small business jobs, even as small as individuals trading their services, skills, products to customer bases they create.

 

The real way out of this mess is to take back our individual and small business initiative and show the oligarchs we don't need their stinking jobs.  It is they that need our labor and consumption.

 

 

What we have been calling the right seems to base their eco/politics on a theory of government being the problem, while what we have been calling the left seems to want to create solutions based in governmental authority and large scale social projects. If we could simply discuss various merits and detriments, we could perhaps find ways to agree and move forward. Rather, though, we spend our resources of time and public debate on squabbling. Wouldn't it be lovely if we could in general grow up?

 

Let's get over this question of whether we need government or not, accept that we have it, and do the work to make it serve us effectively.

 

 

People act like the money goes into some giant bin called "government" to rot. The money is circulated right back through as government pays its bills to private contractors, low income consumers, basic research, infrastructure, and so forth.

 

Of course it won't hurt investments -- paying taxes is an investment in our country

 

 

 

 

Schools, for the most part, seem to be not organized and in practice for the benefit of the students, but for the adult practitioners. It's not just kids with (you know some kind of disability) but kids generally that are made less rather than more by standard schooling.

 

Somebody needs to take over the schools and get them functioning or find another paradigm to education.

 

 

 

 

What society needs to be sexually healthier generally is to stop treating sex like sin or woo-woo or a dirty secret. Bring sex back to its rightful place as simple biology. Bring people back to the understanding that we are biological beings. Now, once the shouting is over, let's have a clear, open, grown-up conversation about how my freedom to express ends where your personal space begins.

 

 

 

My feeling about bipolar is that it is about energy fluctuations, perhaps something to do with brain sugar levels.

 

 

 

 

If we think of addiction as habitualized behavior based on reward feedback rather than some scourge or disease, we can do better by all of us. In fact, we can find better addictions with real rewards to replace those latched on to in panic or other arduous emotion.

 

(In an aside, it occurs to me that a lot of the uncomfortable behaviors we associate with addiction are more about the strain of the addict hiding who he is from family and friends, feeling more comfortable with other addicts with whom he can feel more revealable.)

 

 

 

We may like to blame feel good excuses like "children need fathers" "need religious upbringing" "need old fashioned discipline". What children need is the stability and encouragement of caring, involved, self-confident roles models in their everyday lives. The culture of despair that leads to and exacerbates the problems of poverty and dysfunctional homes is more about perceived powerlessness, and the passing on of mental illness both genetically and socially that keeps individuals, families, communities mired in dissociative confusion. Healthy individuals, families, communities can tolerate wide ranges of cultural norms.

 

 

 

There is no good nor bad. There is what is, and what we make of it.

Eve of Hecate

As we approach the 13th of August

August celebration of the Dark Moon Goddess

under the light of this August Full Moon

Aquarius bears the Water, carries the way

along the electro-virtual waves

shining Moonlight, Faery Queen or fabled harlot

stirs potent night blooms, expelling myths of

what we cannot bear, cannot overcome

Feel in the electric falling starlight

Spells of renewal, of power to look back

upon our falterings, to find the seed now grown

yet changing still and ever, able,

willing, co-creating in the illuminated shadow

invoking the peace of dissolving twilight

of midnight's hopeful resurrection

of the hinting flame that lightens before the dawn

take peace into each breath, each incantation

from the strength to align impeccably

with your deepest truth

August times (raos)

I am tending toward the view that the Universe as we know it is a platform devised by and for futuristic gamers.

 

 

 

the information flows through me and leaves the inspiring bits for reworking through my imaginarium -- not a distraction but traveling suggestions from the dance

 

emotional extortion

 

If your life is a lie
and the lie is alive
tell me true:
what is your love?

 

 

 

The world is speeding up. People are anxious. Many people are finding it more and more difficult to maintain their accustomed lifestyles, or to feel secure. Anxiety breeds anger. Anger breeds violence.

 

 

 

apparently the religious-mind is often very small

 

 

 

There are Christian sects, some quite prominent at least in the US right now, whose avowed purpose (like the avowed purpose of some of their Congressional Reps. is to destroy the Obama presidency) is to end the world, bring the End Times of Revelations, asap.  Of course, if their goal is an End to the Earth, they have no interest in making anything better.  It seems to me that these people are mistaken when they accuse others of Satanism, because the God they worship is the God of Evil, Destruction, Death, and Despair.  They have no interest in being loyal and good stewards of God's Creation.  They feel entitled to destroy it.

 

 

 

I'm all for free will; but I had understood that when you take the Lord's Name in vain, He is meant to get testy.

 

 

 

When you learn to hate, you learn to hate the world you see every day.

 

 

 

Of course feelings come before thoughts.  Feelings are hard-wired, natural chemical reactions.  Thoughts take thought and time to muddle through.

 

 

 

the sky just emitted a symphony of waves, then shyly retreated behind the Sun

 

 

 

You are mistaken if you believe Democrats as such have progressive consciousness. The Democratic Party of today is centrist mainstream, and only "progressive" in relation to the far right pull of Republicans.

 

 

 

There are none so blind as those with shit in their eyes

 

 

 

Renunciation of the self, of the physical, of the material, of the sensual, is renunciation of the gift of life. Yes, we are better when we see through the social propaganda, the guilt trips, the veil of lies that we tell ourselves because they have been presented to us as truth. Yet, to throw away the lessons and playground of conscious human life as if that were the true goal, to destroy the gift of what we can do with our senses, our physicality, our time, would be a mistake, a lie, as well.

 

 

 

I shimmer at the thought of you aglow in imagination's shimmering light

 

Rather than impose intrusive chemical enforcers to change inappropriate thinking, we can learn to think in ways productive of better brainwork.

 

 

 

People tend to take their health for granted while they are healthy.  If they think there is a quick fix to be had if they should get sick, that is what they want.  How is the idea of a healthy lifestyle to become normative without outcries about "health gestapo" fears?

 

 

 

I don't have to be a mental illness denier to believe that there are better methods of treatment than the administration of potentially quite harmful chemicals. I am more in line with the believe that the mind can heal itself when appropriately encouraged.

 

 

 

The natural constituencies for political contenders is not the wealthy who represent too low a number nor the truly poor who have serious issues keeping them from the polls, but the wide middle of the Bell Curve who do all the actual work that keeps society humming.  However, those of the wealthy few can easily prevail by cynically coopting the energies of the anti-intellectual elite.

 

 

 

 

 

Stocks don't suffer. We do. "The market" is an emotional index (though apparently rather bipolar) of our own devising, not a separate entity (or objective reality). People act en masse more on emotion than reason. The thing is, when stocks nosedive anyone with sense has a marvelous opportunity to buy low and make a fortune when the collective feels better.

 

 

 

When we insist to each other that poetry does not sell, that poetry is not valued by the mainstream, we are encouraging a self-fulfilling prophecy. Ask performing artists. They can't just do their job and expect applause. To even get seen they must develop an ardent audience. Once people are clamoring for your wares, finding people eager to sell them is a no brainer. What we need to be doing is not lamenting, but going out and finding, exciting and expanding our audience.

 

 

 

confidence - "with faith"

 

 

 

The ego is our organizing principle within our self.  To try to make it more or less, to denigrate this hard and loyal worker, to destroy that which allows us to usefully interface with a chaotic world, or to elevate it beyond its functional realm are serious mistakes.

 

 

 

We sing Epiphany All the holy, all the empty, all the sorrows filled with poetry, with charging beasts of challenge and slip ping back words I hear the Angels sing of Earth as mud as muck, as f'in' murder in the womb, as luck would have it, as black streaks redacting the wounds of Heaven I hear the demons laugh, dancing spades akimbo hunker down to limbo to lindy hop upon the prophet's breath Such noise Such annoying brays and cagey whispers I would sleep, snore, evermore if they would but diminish, allow silence to enfold Instead, the dream takes over, dissolves all sanity no morning (mourning) (see, I can pun without baring to the Sun, without dimension)(dementia -- did I mention?) felled in heap of clay

 

 

 

 

 

Amazingly, after much initial despair over the US/world/individual angst, I seem to be going all philosophical and feeling personally empowered by letting the world go to Hell on its own -- not callousness, relinquishing responsibility for others' twisty paths

 

 

 

poetry mice
nibble nimble syllables
feed on grainy meaning
scamper renewed, enlarged

 

 

 

Get out there and dance!

 

 

 

That God has not clearly and loudly condemned those who do dreadful deeds in His name seems to me adequate proof of His nonexistence.

 

 

 

Of course, when you try to explain the benefits of meditation, that is abhorred as heretic doctrine.

 

 

 

We really need to have this public conversation about the insanity of "safety" procedures that first do harm.

 

 

 

There is no saving ourselves out of deficit/debt. New industries with excitement and job growth are on their way every day. The route is not shared pain, but shared endeavor, to be educated and open to the new.