Solstice
You can have your equinoxes
cross-quarters.
The Solsti, days of extremes
Sun to Earth
Cardinal points of worth,
symbolic mining, enchaining
rock to sea
kinetic energy
displacing space and time
twixt ecstatic Saturn
and brother Moon, sublime.
Secreted in esoteric lore
a wealth of stories
everyday glories and
exotic songs
evoking ancient memories.
I dream a shining university
upon a sparkling hill.
If wisdom can save us from
the illness of slavedom,
I bow to wisdom's will.
(c) June 20, 2008
Of course you come to listen
My tales tell your secrets
scryed from vivid crystal
whispered ancient code.
You must remember
Spring day walking
along a rocky roadside
sandy hair, gritty eyes
fallen
into silent reverie
song singing hallelujahs,
brilliant paranoias.
Sprinting across,
little images.
Listless children whine
"Why does no one let us play?"
A world of sullen children
overdue for naps and coddling,
blueberry jam at teatime.
It can't be a secret
if nobody's listening.
But, listen:
places in your mind
will answer.
Midsummer Evening
Floating on cool jazz
Enjoying mellow wine
My own little garden party
'midst the flowers of my mind.
Back from the rabbit hole.
Back from New York City, Boston,
Detroit, LA ...
from every day unfolding another
everyday grind.
Finding time to play, haunted
by happy memories
exhorting starlight.
Midsummer twilight,
fairytales brought back from sleep.
No longer keeper of my brethren's dreams,
I don mischievous costume,
dancing out power, glory,
love gentle as a summer evening's rain,
blossoming countryside,
dandelions and clover,
bounty of Earth, whispering stories
flowering prophets,
delectable, potent, wise
in the ways of demons,
oracles, gypsy Queens.
Escaping into sacred muse-ways,
every day a new day,
standing ground against a grind
each day more distanct
Insighting sound, opening vistas
vastly
flowering.
(c) June 21, 2008 Laurie Corzett/libramoon
Fish Tale
I didn't know the fish would die
flapping on sun-warmed metal.
Peacefully domestic afternoon.
Children discover death
and other worlds.
Sitting by the well
to draw inspiration.
Spinning yarn, weaving words.
Dusty work. Flakes of skin
embed the fabric.
Struggling through childhood,
the tales get twisted.
Little boys & little girls
separate language.
We think we know our place,
our destinies,
from the games we're given,
the words we've learned to say,
rhymes, reasons, rituals.
Imbibing passion body to body,
we awaken rules of blame.
The woman tempts.
The hero conquers.
The sad boy desires a
self-fulfilling fantasy,
stomping upon his heart to
start the flow of real blood,
real rage.
Out of water, out of earth,
out of air
flopping upon some inert surface
the tale mechanistically repeats.
What world can we discover
nurturing life?
(c) June 23, 2008 Laurie Corzett/libramoon
Under a Piscean Moon
Gods have their reasons,
dramas, power plays,
aesthetic necessities,
ecstatic passions.
Our concerns are of another realm,
born responsible for managing our fate
until it overwhelms.
Job thought himself holy,
was doing fine, not realizing
his role as fool.
Hitler, too, saw his glorious plan
unfolding, paradise on Earth.
Did he think "They will equate my name
with evil." ? What is worth eternal life
as history and myth?
If I could have one answer
assured to be True,
what would be my quest?
Is there one Truth, above the rest?
Selection is a process,
winnowing down.
My quest:
How do I encompass
all that will make me strong and wise
in one easy lesson?
Walking along evening
a darkening, unknown road,
smell the blooming lilacs,
ease eyes upon gentle beauty,
each next step
taking itself.
(c) June 25, 2008 Laurie Corzett/libramoon
Oceana
Irritants
about which pearls spin
beauty, eerily opaque.
Mer-songs quiver as crystal
radiating frequencies
captured in time.
Darkness calls from slumber.
Oppressive gasping,
titillating air and sea
may erupt in symphony
loud and raucous
as life.
Cutting through strong silken veils
to inept, naked truth,
pearl adornments break,
settle upon ocean floor.
Seadivers ply their trade,
pretty gems for pretty pennies.
Everything recycles.
Every soul is saved.
(c) June 25, 2008 Laurie Corzett/libramoon
Generation
In my experience
people have kids as
a side-effect of
heterosexual activity.
During said activity, they
are not thinking about
having kids.
After said activity, they
often think about
not wanting to have kids.
Somewhere along the line,
the kid gets had.
That's life: the kid gets had --
the easily fleeced gets to
take the fall until
we learn the rules
of conquest.
Thus generation recapitulates,
replacing those who've gone before
in function if not form.
This is why mythology
binds us.
Blind lead blind across
vast desert expanse,
telling stories of past
glories and bemoaning
treacheries, exhorting faithful
adherence to ancestral code.
Not DNA, hardware glitches
more likely herald mutation.
Software code
may glitch hilariously,
malapropriately,
otherwise betray conventional consciousness.
Why take on responsibility,
anchor to roles or
take part in the tale?
Do you believe in fate?
Do you believe we learn from
each other in relationship
how to become our own story?
A chance we take, or are given,
chisels out a bit of
who we are.
Does it matter?
I guess we each get to decide.
(c) June 27, 2008 Laurie Corzett/libramoon
Soul Food
Poetry they call you,
writing from the soul,
beyond the bounds of fiction,
more will-infused than fact.
I can only tell you
secretly, in private language
chemical smells guiding
we of a kind to prey.
Feasting upon amygdala
potent in emotion.
Coming into fruition
as the salt of tears.
(c) June 27, 2008 Laurie Corzett/libramoon
Indigenous
Legend tells stories
we live
not in here and now.
Dancing together,
grasping fact from fiction.
Once there lived a taler,
a minstrel, a bard
intent on spinning villagers
into his yarn,
carrying each essence
on his trail throughout
the kingdom,
even sailing to far-flung
shores when occasion
allows. Spreading stories,
like disease, infecting
whole populations who evermore
clamor for the bit of soul
his stories capture.
Listen, o' children, o' brethren,
ancestors walking their journeys
tuned weary minds to songs
of battle and adventure.
Our minds, our tasks,
our journeys can be our own.
(c) June 29, 2008 Laurie Corzett/libramoon
avoid blinding (by science)
It is an association
not clear cause/effect.
I smile.
You smile.
Each enjoying a private joke
or hiding embarrassment.
We who claim the primacy of reason
need to give care,
avoid the chasms
of treacherous conclusions.
Open to the highest odds
while grounded on earthly
perspective
go forth ye brave young heroes.
Learn the secrets of
subtle sacrifice
and divine glory.
Just take care the sayer
of your sooth
worships vows of purity.
Even so, keep on your quest
exploring for wealth in
possibilities
not yet discovered.
(c) June 30, 2008 Laurie Corzett/libramoon
46664
Caging the Beast
"call me after the Rapture" I
post on religious social network
sites.
Have you read Yeats' "Second Coming"?
After the prophecy
After the hard, hard rain
after the rainbow
Call me. We should get together.
(c) July 1, 2008 Laurie Corzett/libramoon
A long and twisty journey
to find myself where I started
never having gone at all...
Half a Page of Scribbled Lines
Stone cottage in enchanted forest
Magical fireplace flickering stories
old and new
Giants and waterfalls
Flighty energy sprites
casting luminescent nets
betwixt, between.
Walking sedately
subliminally aware of
unobtrusive omnipresent
surveillance.
Sending out psychic feelers
sweeping for malevolent intent.
Brain shaking data bombardment
tiny spinal fractures emit
memory, reason, the capacity to love.
Realities Doorway
I am free to wander
all the stories that
could ever be,
choose the ones I
like the best
to tell myself
in sleepy morning
smiles.
The sacred doorway stands open
my little house surrounded
in gentle blue heaven.
My landscape bold and bright
with soft-hued bubbles
for enchantment.
Voyages, stories
siren call
to blessed stones of serenity,
eternally
sea-washed
sun-warmed
adhered to by playful
sparkling sands.
Anytime you ask
I will send you my stories
to dream on, to
interweave, to enhance.
Just outside my doorway
there are eternities more.
(c) July 5, 2008 Laurie Corzett/libramoon
Loving Meditation
If there are visions
you feel missing
from your life
perhaps you don't know yourself
as well as duty tells you.
Instead of forcing codes and
ritual, care-challenged wishes
Look! Watch vivid panorama
of you from early memories,
each significant nexus
along the way
to now.
What is missing from your life
is not meant for others to fulfill.
Love you give yourself
expands 4-fold
You give yourself more to give
You give the world ripples
of your love
You give the eternal spirit within
essential energy
to create what is great
within you
You give to mankind an example
of true humanity.
Do not be afraid to love.
Do not be ashamed to love the
one closest to you.
Learn the meaning of loving charity.
It's not about dying for your sins.
It's fulfilling yourself
through your own loving kindness.
Living a vision of love.
It is all illusory to some senses
while being exactly what it is
(c) July 6, 2008 Laurie Corzett/libramoon
Child of War
My daddy died saving our country.
My mommy cries, so sad and lonely.
But I can see, she's also scared.
Our neighbors spit our names like swears.
I try to be respectful and kind.
They curse out threats, scream "We're not blind,
you people are evil, your faith makes you kill."
Sometimes if I stand, eyes closed, so still
I can hear my daddy say "Be strong,
my beloved child. Those people are wrong.
Wars aren't decreed by Gods from above.
War is the sad fruit of the failure of love."
(c) July 7, 2008 Laurie Corzett/libramoon
Lesson of The Great Depression
The machines stand patiently
ready to act on human command.
Workers expectantly arise
to resume their duties.
Tools, systems, routes, logistics
lined up for service.
Plants to sow and reap; structures
to build, maintain, repair, replace;
commodities to be united with
their markets; music to be played;
enchanting murals to paint;
shows that must go on; coffee
to be made; errands to run;
endless activities and professions
imposing order on entropy.
Teach the curious,
heal the sick or broken,
enforce the law,
tend to the poor.
Society's capillaries clogged by
a powerful voodoo. All is
needing to be done, but stopped
dead or cancerously
receding from living
for want of the magic beans,
the mysterious force of money,
a social construct gone mad,
constricting the flow of life.
(c) July 8, 2008 Laurie Corzett/libramoon
Elitism
Hand over mouth Mensa laughing
Elitism, unlike battling upward,
hand over hand,
always mindful of the lessons.
Courtesy and respect -- never forget.
In courts of old, fair
maids and noble men knew
twas best to hide
animal cunning, raw humanity
in flourishes and restrained manner.
Semaphore signaling
We know the game.
But respect, that is earned.
I respect that live flicker of
power, if I am smart,
I perceive behind the mask
of court or street corner.
Hard knocks do not make a fighter.
Hard times do not make a leader.
Surviving, learning the angles,
enjoining with compassion
along the way, while
keeping that edge keen and deadly,
improve chances
for rising above,
getting on the shortlist.
Neither evolution nor divine design,
but some essence common to both,
and the brilliant stories
dreams are made of.
(c) July 9, 2008 Laurie Corzett/libramoon
Common Ground
They say them liberal critters
Got their heads up in the clouds.
They haven't got a clue to how
to live here on the ground.
They give hand-outs to criminals.
Can't tell a foe from friend.
They're scared of guns and gumption
so ready to amend.
But there's something we agree on
If we're all on common ground
You help folks if they stumble;
don't kick 'em when they're down.
(c) July 12, 2008 Laurie Corzett/libramoon
8th House
Sex and Money
Inflation, deflation
spitting on sacred values.
Once there was balance
Libra and Scorpio united as one.
There was a natural order
of love, respect, deep abiding
loyalties, a code of honour.
Inflation. Manic enterprise,
chasing a dragon to ride
her tail.
Deny caution her voice,
plunging into
prospects of wealth or
rampage.
Deflation.
Making jest of
what is most precious inside us.
Expecting gold to fall
from magic seeds sown
in moonlight.
Shallowly expecting pardon
for wisdom shunned.
Great eagles fly farseeing,
Succor their young, defend their nests.
On the ground, snakes hiss
in startled anger.
Shedding their skin, they move on
cold-blooded
seeking warmth.
(c) July 13, 2008 Laurie Corzett/libramoon
The Beauty
It's all I really care about
Beauty
Libramoon, you know.
It's not that I'm callous.
I can do compassion with
the best of them.
I can wring out my soul
onto dimestore paper.
The agony, the ecstasy.
Okay, hypomania
but a peak experience is still
standing on treacherous
mountaintop
exhausted, sore, torn here and there
from long arduous journey.
Yet, there is no pain
in ecstatic glory.
My Deity, the view
precious, exhilarating,
sense overwhelmed with pleasure.
(c) July 15, 2008 Laurie Corzett/libramoon
Capricorn Full Moon reflection
Archetypes
Walking the streets, riding
subways --
subterranean consciousness,
ethereal siamese twin
to the everyday.
Shadow and substance
entwined as before
the invasion.
I long to tell you,
yearn to tell you,
but only if you truly listen.
I cannot say these things twice.
Memories seep through,
acquire form.
Stand straight and true
as soldiers or Marines
giving full allegiance
to any who will take that load.
There are Gods lying in excrement
begging relief in the form
of sacrament
potent and deadly.
There are Angels and
Demons waging war,
dice from a grail
foresaging trial or comfort.
Hungry Ghosts wail.
Vampires and Creatures
of the night
seek shelter before the
travails of daytime
break them.
I saw the Morning Star
wink salaciously.
In my kingdom
all manner of creatures
thrive.
Eagles soar.
Lions roar.
Whales sing.
Humans open a
veiled third eye.
The World rejoices.
(c) July 18, 2008 Laurie Corzett/libramoon
Reeling
Hitting bottom
Broken against rock
shale and limestone
Unable to piece together
warm from cold; new from old.
There are children in the valley
Look at them huddle and scatter
there, in the landscape
over the mantle
hiding in plain site.
Eons and eras hurtle through space.
Mesmerized by the flickering flame,
cites are built, collapse,
rubble to sand.
Princes, despots, CEOs
try their luck,
flex muscles built from
effluvial dna --
blood, sweat, tears
milled from the faithful
and fear-filled.
Tempers rise and fall.
Life and death take turns in
ascendancy.
The fall, the anticipation,
ravages eternally.
Touching base, falling into
a plane of rest and re-creation
at the bottom of the sea
at falling's end
There are silent songs to sing
in celebration
on the long trip upward.
(c) July 20, 2008 Laurie Corzett/libramoon
Sunny days,
Moon enchanted evenings
Romantic believings
make life the stuff of dreams.
Savor, from bubbling streams
to musty loam
Bringing what matters home
How does your garden grow?
Shining in nature's grace.
July 22, 2008
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
Moon Month reflections
If we are presupposing a consciousness which purposely creates all that is, why would we in our limited experience have any way of apprehending that purpose? If we presuppose a growing spirit, expanding into all of creation as a manifestation of pure energy, there is no need for a conscious purpose.
We shape ourselves, chiseled
from inherent potential
with the cutting edge
of life.
My belief system pretty much includes all possible belief systems, yet probably most would disagree. The basic point is, we each create our own reality out of the combination of personal experiences as they accrue throughout our lives. Our brains function such that we take in information and process it based on previously developed categories that we have built up from past experience, back probably before birth. Then, by acting on our own experiential world, we impress it further into our psyche and build on further. Thus we create our world, our belief system, our feedback loop and our methods for building on these, each individually. Yet, we as collective create group realities which our interactions and mutual belief structures impress upon us collectively.
Anyway, this is the basis. I would be happy to discuss further.
There are personality types all along the spectrum, from a need of order to a need of chaos. These are not symptoms of disorders or problems in life skills. These are life skills as we each find what kind of environment is most comfortable and conducive to our individual work styles. However, there is nothing wrong with breaking pattern to see where that goes for you.
We each do create our own reality, in a very real, yet totally
subjective, sense. We each perceive reality through our own filters
and experiential networks. The reality we perceive being, generally,
the reality we react to and work with, we continue to create that
network, which we nonobjectively control. Thus, by paying attention
to certain ideas/objects/desires/possibilities we bring them more
actively into our lives. We skew our world view to reflect what we
expect and interpret consequences and events in the way that keeps us
in that frame.
As to the experience of "enlightenment," that is part of this whole.
No matter where or how or by what means we get to such an experience,
it is a valid experience of enlightenment in that we experience and
self-validate it as such.
We are all all-important, and of no importance at all.
You live your own experience, no matter how many have lived similar experiences, because yours is unique to your uniqueness. You have that very serious conversation with yourself that never ends, and put the pieces here and there until you see them arranged in that very personal puzzle, which you continue to puzzle out into your own eyes, mind, voice, creative expression.
Everything that ever was or will be is all happening eternally. We, with our limited senses, see the birthing and fading as disappearing in time. Nothing truly ends, but ceaselessly changes.
It is not about punishment or God's glory, or because you are being tested or otherwise denigrated. Life is a learning experience of all that you do and perceive here on planet. Some of those lessons are very, very harsh indeed. Some are pleasant and fun. And I don't mean lessons so you can become say more compassionate or more cynical or more anything. These are experiences for your soul to become just more. Some of these experiences may well break you, even kill you. We all experience death, though. Again, some more pleasantly than others. It's not that you get more of the good stuff or more of the bad based on "karma" in the sense of payback. It's that you get what you need to become all you potentially are, not in the ways that we measure these things, but in an eternal sense.
childhood is so fraught with tragedies, deep disappointments, traumas that haunt dreams for a lifetime, every little day.
People seem to have kids for all kinds of reasons or nonreasons. Perhaps that is as it "should" be so that a good mix of humans abound? I don't know that asking the kid in advance would matter if they need the Earth School experience for whatever cosmic/karmic/comic reasons. It's not so much about parenting as such, I think, but the whole relationship model that needs reassessing. If we made the effort to be the kinds of people who are good parents, good friends, good stewards of the Earth, good to ourselves, it might make childhood, adulthood, humanhood a whole lot better, don't you think?
This Obama-is-a-Muslim smear campaign honestly ought to be attacked on the front of those it most abuses. There is nothing wrong with being Muslim and a US citizen and a US presidential candidate. Of course Obama is a committed Christian. I clearly see in his public appearances the shining faith, spiritual humility, deep love of public service that I have always seen in the best true Christians that I have known. Of course many Americans have crazy notions about Muslims, mindlessly blaming people for political situations totally outside of the lives of the vast majority. Think blaming the Christians for Hitler. My point, though, is if candidate Obama is serious about wanting to mend wounds and get beyond rancor to a country of people who can work together for common good, he could well respond on some level to these attacks by showing disdain for those who attack him on the basis of a nonissue. There is nothing wrong with being Muslim, Christian, Jew, Buddhist, Pagan or any other faith. We have a First Amendment (Number 1!) to our Constitution guaranteeing that. We have what is meant to be a proud tradition of religious tolerance, of people emigrating to the US (and previously the Colonies) for religious freedom. This is one of the precious freedoms we say we fight for.
There may be a component of bliss in love (or not). There may be a component of love in bliss (or not). These are subjective experiences.
Love, however, has to do with relationship.
Bliss has to do with nonrelationship -- with an experience beyond any duality or division.
"Love" is problematic. The definitions are long, varied, self-
contradictory at times, amorphous. Awareness of what is is a
continual evolving awareness, unattached to preconceptions, language,
or individuated consciousness.
In eternal multi-verse where all exists, manifestation
comes in infinite array.
The medical model is not the only or necessarily the best one for people suffering from cognitive-behavioral disorders. Drugging the problem away does not fix it, but makes the "patient" dependent, unempowered even more. Using drugs judiciously while working with people to figure out better ways of coping is fine, but our easy fix society often lets the important part of that equation go.
I think what we do is get the best we can from the benefits and stave off as best we can the harms by keeping well-informed, alert, aware of the potentials all along the continuum. Can I get the results I want with fewer harmful considerations with say diet, exercise, lifestyle changes, meditation, noninvasive treatments, a little bit of pharm along with any/all of those, and so forth? If I am using pharmaceuticals, which for me would have the best ratio of benefit to cost? Do I really understand what this drug is doing to my system? Am I aware of possible interactions with other chemicals, foods, environmental factors, lifestyle choices? Just what exactly is the result I am looking to achieve?
So many people take dangerous pharmaceuticals to correct conditions that essentially they allowed by not being well enough educated about dietary options.
Of course it is not the map we are looking for, but the territory. Yet, especially in this insurance ruled medical culture, the almighty label which brings forth the largesses of healthcare payment takes charge. Then we have a realm worthy of Lewis Carroll in which the label is treated, the child ignored.
Childhood is massively anxiety producing. Many children suffer all manner of abuses and deprivations, but even for the lucky ones with good homes and lives, they have no real control over much of anything. The world can be a very scary place, for everyone. Adults, at least, have some control and a lot more life experience to back them up. Kids just get to have nightmares and scary thoughts that they have no idea what to do with. Exactly, drugs are not going to give them the skills they need to deal with a scary world. They need loving conversation, education, and safe outlets for expressing their fears and learning to have more control over what is controllable.
You don't need fancy labels or psychiatric diagnostics. People act out when needs are being ignored. Kids forced to spend most of what should be a very physically active time constrained to seats, facing an authority, expected to maintain silence except when given permission to speak, and we insist they need drugs to keep them in line because they are "sick"? People ignored or used as family system scapegoats, or dealing with lifelong abandonment issues, ptsd, no useful feedback to learn appropriate behaviors, put into double-bind positions where unprocessed anger percolates, made to feel unwanted or less-than by those around them, over-stressed from too much work/too little recreation/way too much responsibility without the necessary authority/traumatic life situations which are never appropriately worked through -- eventually these people often crack. This doesn't make them a "crackpot" or "crazy" or anything but human.
I have read on the website of Dr. Thomas Scheff, a retired psychotherapist, his theories that the only really useful way to treat people who have "cracked" is with real live personal relationship, helping them to learn better coping mechanisms while learning that they are indeed worthwhile and worth knowing. You don't need a degree to give this help.
There was a conversation on another venue about whether children should have a right to weigh in on whether they want to be torn out of paradise and born into life on Earth. Some say we do choose our lives, others that we are paying for past karma, others that god wants us here for some unfathomable reason, and so forth. Basically, I see it as a learning experience. Many lessons are quite harsh. Some are so very lovely. I think it helps when we are willing to learn, not tied into restrictive thinking.
Of course, what god provides us is the universe, unfolding, unfolding. We make what we can of it, bit by bit. I do have confidence that humankind, a very clever bunch, will search out the solutions in time to keep us going, searching out further solutions. We are at the very infancy of our scientific understandings. Ultimately, once it is sorted out, I believe the whole system is quite simple, elegant, and easily accessed for use. We are moving toward that whole system theory now that we've had some millennia to sort out discrete bubbles of information.
I too have stories
unbelievable as fiction
creeping through dream imagery
holding dripping red candles
broken bits of mirror
tiny rips in red, red fabric
bleeding
I cannot breathe this story
I cannot hold a heartbeat
or a cogent thought
or pulse to a level
bearable
Beaten into rubble
crazed in simple sunlit
afternoon as if a moon
were racing in
stolen arteries
We all have known this story
What is "terrorism"? It's not an ideology or a sovereign entity or a loosely affiliated group or a religion or even a tactic. It is a frame to place around whatever you think or feel might be, well, terrifying.
The acts which might be listed under a fairly mainstream definition of "terrorism" also have another frame. They are crimes. There are criminal codes, laws, procedures, penalties and individual words for these acts. The defense against them necessitates no special agencies or exotic twistings of law or mores of decency. All we need do is understand these acts as we do our normal terrors of street gangs, organized criminals, crazed seekers of revenge and other outbreaks of violent paranoia. We protect ourselves best by being alert to danger and keeping our minds and bodies agile.
If the media dictates what we believe and who we vote for, where are our minds and personal responsibility? The media folks are doing their jobs, selling their products, working for their marketshare. We citizens need to do our job, or stop whining and admit we are governed by popular media.
Lots of people complain that watching tv is lowering our cognitive abilities because we passively watch pabulum and emotionally charged cheap thrills. There is plenty of annoying, boring, mind-numbing, or otherwise petty programming. However, there is plenty of intellectually challenging, informative, engaging, and even beautiful programming. You need to figure out which channels or programs are most likely to be worthwhile for your viewing.
I am all for self-protection, family protection, community protection. I even have situational ethics about private violence. I am totally, irrevocably, passionately against giving the government (you know, the guys we always joke about not getting anything right) the right to murder us, no matter the offered justification.
Imagine that you are you, going about your normal business. Imagine that someone who has some vague similarity of appearance, or even name, has done something horrible. Everyone is up in anxiety, blood vengeance, mob rule. This is why we have a rule of law, because sometimes it can make a difference, or at least the thought of it can give alternative to unthinking reaction.
It bothers me, often, the black magic of making profit (an imaginary concept, as is money itself) killing the real reasons for trade. Sure, if you want to play this game of sticks and carrots, rich and poor, speculator and government back-up vs. condemning the monetarily challenged, then play you will. I just want a parallel track for those of us who have other goals and motives for our energy and time.
Religion is not specifically about believe or faith. It is a tool to hold together tribes over distance and larger than face-to-face numbers through a system of ritual and mythology. Belief, in any case, is self-reflective, a nonobjectively existent creature of conscious interpretation of unknowable reality. Agnostics, as far as I have experienced these, seem to be about taking a stand against orthodox beliefs through a clever device of rationalized exchange of "belief" for "knowledge" -- "I don't know that your beliefs represent reality."
The thing is, there is no "God" in the sense of some great white-bearded grandfather in the sky telling us all how to behave with appropriate rewards and smiting. So, to deny knowledge that such a construct is true is an equivocation. Instead, truth here and in this whole realm, is attempted to be defined metaphorically, since objective truth is beyond language. Then, the metaphor is treated as if it were the truth, the map taken for the territory. In truth, we are all agnostic: we don't KNOW; we speculate and create religions within which to lay our questions to rest.
I feel the movement
pain and resolution
caught in the pattern
released in the dance
It's not the blaming that is the problem. It is natural to blame, and sometimes appropriate. But that is only step one in a process of rectification. The South Africans in the time of transformation from Apartheid understood that bad blood would fester from evil done but not acknowledged. They created a Truth and Reconciliation process to allow people to confront those who had sinned against them, and for the sinners to admit what they had done and apologize. This is going along a process toward change. We admit our culpability, even without denying the culpability of others. Then we can start the triage: changing what we can, in ourselves and in the system; recognizing what we have no power over, and finding ways to ameliorate those influences; learning to work through our emotional reactions to pain and powerlessness until we are ready to look squarely at where we are and where we want to go so we can map out the journey.
Sometimes we can't afford to forgive without first being given acceptance of guilt, sincere apology, and comfort from they who have offended because our hearts are naturally too soft.
The mindset behind the violence is not Bush's fault. It started long before he bumbled into the Middle East. It is not Mohammed's fault either. It is not about religion, but politics, not a struggle over beliefs, but power. A heavenly reward can be reached after a full and well spent life. Suicide is about despair; suicide bombings about despair and anger.
One of the reasons I was originally interested in Obama was George Soros's support. Soros is a brilliant man, maverick high-stakes capitalist with deep thinking ability and follow-through. He has lived a long and colorful life, including intellectual and social contributions to society. His Open Society Institute funds projects in the interest of promoting freedom. Anyone denigrating George Soros, and by implication of association Barack Obama, obviously has grave ignorance (I am sorry)
The problem is not McCain changing his mind, it is his giving over his mind to campaign expedience. Yes, they all do to some extent, but McCain is really over the top here. I really appreciated the "straight-talking" 2000 McCain, would have voted for him had Karl Rove not given him the shiv. Apparently he has come to believe that he can win by lying, but not by sticking to his outside party politics gumption. I don't want to encourage that.
People seem to enjoy hating, any group they can define as some way not them. Thus, the issue of immigration degenerates into name-calling, hate speech, ranting and raving about some big bad them who turns out to be some hardluck hardworking poor folk, or even sick little children or otherwise non-enemies. There's plenty of work to be done for everyone, which is why these people get jobs, which is why they come here looking for work. We who are concerned about low wages, poor working conditions, or economic ripples of illegal practices need to work toward solving these problems. I said work toward solving problems, not propagate hate.
People do not exist for the benefit of some social system, but rather social systems, in theory, are meant to exist for the benefit of the people? What people do for their private gratification with other consenting adults is their business. It only becomes the business of society if their behavior is blatantly harmful to specific others -- not because it may be seen as wrong, or mimicked by the young, but because their is actual, definable, articulable, harm as would be easily assessed by reasonable people without an axe to grind. Even if individual members of a definable group do some harm to some others, that does not indict all members of that group. For instance, apparently priests evidence a high incidence of child molestation. This does not mean priests as a group need to be condemned and thrown out of society -- only those who actually do harm.
Libertarianism is not taking on ideas of Democrats or Republicans. They have a firm grounding in personal freedom on which they base their platforms. In that sense, they are more true to the vision of America as a land of the free governed by the people, for the people.
The idea of an economy in which the costs to the natural resources, the workforce and the general well-being are included at its base is being explored by many people from many background perspectives. This is not about "love" but enlightened self-interest, and an understanding that these costs are always paid, usually in the least comfortable way at the worst possible time if they are not honored upfront.
Happiness is not a place to arrive nor prey to pursue. It is a state of mind, sometimes fleeting. It is not happiness that can be given or guaranteed, but the opportunity to find those activities and ideas that reward us with that emotional lift. Thus, what can be offered by the social construct to the individual is the greatest possible freedom within which to find one's own rewards.
If we really want to be good self-governing citizens we would do well to incorporate into our required public school curricula a multi-disciplinary/multi-year course including history, sociology, psychology, and political science covering what citizens really ought to know to take back our responsibility and power. Race would be one of a great many issues to be covered, in a general background of history, as well as immigration policies, analyses of Supreme Court cases, legislative histories, the vast panorama of power struggles, political philosophies, and daily analyses of stories in the current consciousness.
Far from spoilers, they are preservers of what democracy is meant to be. Candidates not of the major parties do know their likelihood of getting the job is kind of on par with the election being cancelled due to an asteroid hit on D.C. They understand that it is their job as activist citizens to enlarge the scope of the political conversation, to bring positions further from the center to take in minority views, to look beyond conventional wisdom for solutions, to bring more excitement to the mix by bringing more to think about.
Why were some drugs made illegal? Because of ignorance. It would save orders of orders of magnitude more money, effort, and a whole host of really bad "side-effects" to do away with the "War on Drugs" policies and mentality and treat people with problems like people with problems, addictions like the easily medically solved nonissues they could well be, and let consenting adults have their sought after experiences in a reasonable atmosphere. We could work out nonpublic areas for this kind of behavior to avoid offending passers-by.
Privacy is a big issue, and complicated. There is no "right to privacy" in the US Constitution -- the 4th Amendment being about security in papers and possessions which can't be taken without proper judicial oversight. Yet, we tend to believe in a very basic right to be left alone, to have private inviolate spaces in our lives, both physical and mental. In fact, this can be said to be the very basis of freedom.
I totally disagree that privacy is about lack of trust or hiding. It is simply about personal integrity in the sense of having a personal life not given to the public. We tend to like private relationships, private activities that we share with specific others rather than having to be open to any and all who might want to impose their definitions. Maybe this is one of those extrovert/introvert things.
In the West, privacy has been related to freedom because we had to come together as private people to overthrow public rulers who denied our rights. Asia, no doubt, has different history, and cultural norms. Western democracy still depends on interest groups coming together privately to work out policies for that group. Freedom depends on privacy that we really have the space to work out our private thoughts and create our own inner independence. Look at Winston Smith in _1984_ starving for privacy to be his own creature rather than just another puppet.
As to the safety issues of modern anonymous society, of course lack of relationship leads directly to fear and hostility. If we can only guess about who these others might be, what might motivate their actions toward us, how can we open into trust and mutuality? Yet, like in everything, the middle road calls. We can keep our privacy private and our community life communal if we understand the benefits and act accordingly.
It is disgraceful and incredibly disrespectful that grown-up people are subjected to such gross indignity for the "privilege" of working way too hard for hardly livable wages and "benefits' that nickel and dime you into an early grave. No, people who get government checks should not be subject to such indignities for the privilege of being allowed to survive, whether those checks are wages or Social Security benefits (which we pay for in our employment taxes instead of getting that money as wages to pay our bills) or Unemployment benefits (see comment on SS benefits) or programs for the needy. This is just another of the endless examples of government overriding our Constitution-given and basic human rights for their little games of gotcha or bogus terror tactics to keep us begging for any little freedom. May I go to the bathroom, please, oh great leader, without you watching?
There are plenty of slovenly workers with or without drugs. There a people who take prescription medications for conditions they may not want advertised. There are also lots of people who use drugs recreationally (including alcohol and tobacco) on their own time, without any impact on their jobs. The big debilitatetor that no one seems to think or talk about is lack of sleep, which, with pressures of too much to do in too little time, is overwhelmingly common.
As I understand, they are finding health improving qualities in wine all the time, and occasionally in coffee, and most especially in chocolate. Perhaps we enjoy these because they are good for us, despite popular myth based on the follies of overconsumption.
They say history is written by the winners, and for the mainstream this is probably true. These days, however, there are many enthusiasts who delve into the primary material and find much more diverse histories, which give a greater range and more useful stories for we who look to lessons from the past.
I was recently pondering the strange and contrary views and behaviors surrounding sex in 21st Century America. Of course, these have roots back to the religious sects of original colonists, and branches going out to a diversity of absurdity. It seems to me that if we had sane ideas, policies, and communication regarding this fundamental biological and social commonality, there would be much less dangerous coercive and outright outrageous acting out.
Of course you can have it both ways, or as many ways as there are. We can believe it is wrong to kill, including an unborn human, yet understand that there are situations in which it is less wrong than the alternatives. We make these distinctions all the time.
You know what, they have not yet made computers that are also transporters or giving the ability to move body parts through into someone else's laptop. Your kids may be in danger online from learning about inappropriate matters, or more likely learning harmful misinformation. They are not in any kind of physical danger (except for maybe eyestrain and the degradations of lack of exercise). You want to keep your kid as safe as possible? Always keep an open dialog, without prying or judging.
On C-SPAN there was a panel talking about foreign aid from the perspective of poor nations, and how the current method is bad for everyone. Apparently the donor nations or UN work out deals with the leaders of the country getting aid involving legal and political machinations worked out with no real thought to the result. Of course, leaders get the money and use it for their own projects or whims, while the poor get poorer. The solution offered was to set up a process whereby a certain sum is designated for a region, but each village gets the money for their project only after they have a direct democratic process within the village to designate a project leader, decide upon what project is their most important need, devise a plan to create the project to fulfill the need, and deliver their plan, budget, and project leader to the offering agency. This method would result in much fewer funds being needed, real useful projects being developed, local people creating jobs for themselves and growing the local economy, the people who need the funding being the ones deciding how it will be used and getting empowered to fix the problems in their own region.
We have been warned and tested in the late 70s and warned about depending on foreign oil, or fossil fuels in general. Being human, mostly we only actually get creative en masse and do something meaningful when our backs are at the wall. There have been breakthroughs and research and useful ideas about all manner of alternative fuel sources, which are only alternatives and not just fuel sources because of a foolish dependence on a cheap supply which is no longer cheap or certain or ours.
The only reason we use petrochemicals to fuel cars is that at the time when cars were first being designed commercially, oil was really cheap. People of an engineering persuasion have been examining other possible fuels for years. I would think that there are all kinds of useful methods of transportation to be worked out, tried out. It could be alot of fun. Maybe a good reality tv show promoting such inventiveness would help?
Energy is being harnessed from within the Earth in various locales and projects. There are many sources of energy which can be tapped. If we use each as it is best used, we are less likely to tap out any source and more likely to make more efficient use of diverse resources. The thing in any creative endeavor is to not get boxed in to "the way it is done."
We all have the God-given right to spread false information. I forget why God gave us that right, but quite obviously She did.
Jews, Christians, Muslims, Mormons, maybe others worship the same upstart minor Middle Eastern god who took the Jews out of Egypt to get them to fight his enemies and do his bidding. He grew in power as he gained more and more worshippers.
The New Testament was written by different people at a different time from the Old, but there were a great many writings that never made it in to the Bible. Whose message got told, whose censored can tell us about the politics of those times.
it is so easy to each be our own purveyor of truth, to step out of the circle of lies and obfuscations, and simply live.
Journals are certainly a medium of infinite expressive and creative potential. Interestingly, to me, I have been creating a character who is becoming a friend through her journal entries, which of course I create, but from another part of me. By letting her express freely by journaling, I am giving myself opportunities to look at my views and such recreated from another life perspective. I don't have to own her attitudes, because they are hers not mine. Thus, I am exploring these perspectives in some sense objectively, in some sense subjectively.
I've learned it's not just you (me), it's everyone. Every kid had something others could pick on. Glasses, a strange-sounding name, overbearing parents to make fun of, overbite, overweight, underweight, lisp, stammer, limp, stringy hair, frizzy hair, large nose, large ears, short, tall, too smart, not smart enough goes on forever.
People talk about the healing of love, the beauty of love, the great goodness and higher power of love. That love is all for you. Each and every you (me) can learn the power and beauty and healing of our own love.
The sky hardens
pinpoint diamonds
Ivory flowers
jungle grown
softly converse
knowing the sharp hardness
of thorns
Diamonds cut deeply
through psychic skin
like sweet flower scent
Hardness does not protect
gem, rose, or heart
We shape ourselves, chiseled
from inherent potential
with the cutting edge
of life.
My belief system pretty much includes all possible belief systems, yet probably most would disagree. The basic point is, we each create our own reality out of the combination of personal experiences as they accrue throughout our lives. Our brains function such that we take in information and process it based on previously developed categories that we have built up from past experience, back probably before birth. Then, by acting on our own experiential world, we impress it further into our psyche and build on further. Thus we create our world, our belief system, our feedback loop and our methods for building on these, each individually. Yet, we as collective create group realities which our interactions and mutual belief structures impress upon us collectively.
Anyway, this is the basis. I would be happy to discuss further.
There are personality types all along the spectrum, from a need of order to a need of chaos. These are not symptoms of disorders or problems in life skills. These are life skills as we each find what kind of environment is most comfortable and conducive to our individual work styles. However, there is nothing wrong with breaking pattern to see where that goes for you.
We each do create our own reality, in a very real, yet totally
subjective, sense. We each perceive reality through our own filters
and experiential networks. The reality we perceive being, generally,
the reality we react to and work with, we continue to create that
network, which we nonobjectively control. Thus, by paying attention
to certain ideas/objects/desires/possibilities we bring them more
actively into our lives. We skew our world view to reflect what we
expect and interpret consequences and events in the way that keeps us
in that frame.
As to the experience of "enlightenment," that is part of this whole.
No matter where or how or by what means we get to such an experience,
it is a valid experience of enlightenment in that we experience and
self-validate it as such.
We are all all-important, and of no importance at all.
You live your own experience, no matter how many have lived similar experiences, because yours is unique to your uniqueness. You have that very serious conversation with yourself that never ends, and put the pieces here and there until you see them arranged in that very personal puzzle, which you continue to puzzle out into your own eyes, mind, voice, creative expression.
Everything that ever was or will be is all happening eternally. We, with our limited senses, see the birthing and fading as disappearing in time. Nothing truly ends, but ceaselessly changes.
It is not about punishment or God's glory, or because you are being tested or otherwise denigrated. Life is a learning experience of all that you do and perceive here on planet. Some of those lessons are very, very harsh indeed. Some are pleasant and fun. And I don't mean lessons so you can become say more compassionate or more cynical or more anything. These are experiences for your soul to become just more. Some of these experiences may well break you, even kill you. We all experience death, though. Again, some more pleasantly than others. It's not that you get more of the good stuff or more of the bad based on "karma" in the sense of payback. It's that you get what you need to become all you potentially are, not in the ways that we measure these things, but in an eternal sense.
childhood is so fraught with tragedies, deep disappointments, traumas that haunt dreams for a lifetime, every little day.
People seem to have kids for all kinds of reasons or nonreasons. Perhaps that is as it "should" be so that a good mix of humans abound? I don't know that asking the kid in advance would matter if they need the Earth School experience for whatever cosmic/karmic/comic reasons. It's not so much about parenting as such, I think, but the whole relationship model that needs reassessing. If we made the effort to be the kinds of people who are good parents, good friends, good stewards of the Earth, good to ourselves, it might make childhood, adulthood, humanhood a whole lot better, don't you think?
This Obama-is-a-Muslim smear campaign honestly ought to be attacked on the front of those it most abuses. There is nothing wrong with being Muslim and a US citizen and a US presidential candidate. Of course Obama is a committed Christian. I clearly see in his public appearances the shining faith, spiritual humility, deep love of public service that I have always seen in the best true Christians that I have known. Of course many Americans have crazy notions about Muslims, mindlessly blaming people for political situations totally outside of the lives of the vast majority. Think blaming the Christians for Hitler. My point, though, is if candidate Obama is serious about wanting to mend wounds and get beyond rancor to a country of people who can work together for common good, he could well respond on some level to these attacks by showing disdain for those who attack him on the basis of a nonissue. There is nothing wrong with being Muslim, Christian, Jew, Buddhist, Pagan or any other faith. We have a First Amendment (Number 1!) to our Constitution guaranteeing that. We have what is meant to be a proud tradition of religious tolerance, of people emigrating to the US (and previously the Colonies) for religious freedom. This is one of the precious freedoms we say we fight for.
There may be a component of bliss in love (or not). There may be a component of love in bliss (or not). These are subjective experiences.
Love, however, has to do with relationship.
Bliss has to do with nonrelationship -- with an experience beyond any duality or division.
"Love" is problematic. The definitions are long, varied, self-
contradictory at times, amorphous. Awareness of what is is a
continual evolving awareness, unattached to preconceptions, language,
or individuated consciousness.
In eternal multi-verse where all exists, manifestation
comes in infinite array.
The medical model is not the only or necessarily the best one for people suffering from cognitive-behavioral disorders. Drugging the problem away does not fix it, but makes the "patient" dependent, unempowered even more. Using drugs judiciously while working with people to figure out better ways of coping is fine, but our easy fix society often lets the important part of that equation go.
I think what we do is get the best we can from the benefits and stave off as best we can the harms by keeping well-informed, alert, aware of the potentials all along the continuum. Can I get the results I want with fewer harmful considerations with say diet, exercise, lifestyle changes, meditation, noninvasive treatments, a little bit of pharm along with any/all of those, and so forth? If I am using pharmaceuticals, which for me would have the best ratio of benefit to cost? Do I really understand what this drug is doing to my system? Am I aware of possible interactions with other chemicals, foods, environmental factors, lifestyle choices? Just what exactly is the result I am looking to achieve?
So many people take dangerous pharmaceuticals to correct conditions that essentially they allowed by not being well enough educated about dietary options.
Of course it is not the map we are looking for, but the territory. Yet, especially in this insurance ruled medical culture, the almighty label which brings forth the largesses of healthcare payment takes charge. Then we have a realm worthy of Lewis Carroll in which the label is treated, the child ignored.
Childhood is massively anxiety producing. Many children suffer all manner of abuses and deprivations, but even for the lucky ones with good homes and lives, they have no real control over much of anything. The world can be a very scary place, for everyone. Adults, at least, have some control and a lot more life experience to back them up. Kids just get to have nightmares and scary thoughts that they have no idea what to do with. Exactly, drugs are not going to give them the skills they need to deal with a scary world. They need loving conversation, education, and safe outlets for expressing their fears and learning to have more control over what is controllable.
You don't need fancy labels or psychiatric diagnostics. People act out when needs are being ignored. Kids forced to spend most of what should be a very physically active time constrained to seats, facing an authority, expected to maintain silence except when given permission to speak, and we insist they need drugs to keep them in line because they are "sick"? People ignored or used as family system scapegoats, or dealing with lifelong abandonment issues, ptsd, no useful feedback to learn appropriate behaviors, put into double-bind positions where unprocessed anger percolates, made to feel unwanted or less-than by those around them, over-stressed from too much work/too little recreation/way too much responsibility without the necessary authority/traumatic life situations which are never appropriately worked through -- eventually these people often crack. This doesn't make them a "crackpot" or "crazy" or anything but human.
I have read on the website of Dr. Thomas Scheff, a retired psychotherapist, his theories that the only really useful way to treat people who have "cracked" is with real live personal relationship, helping them to learn better coping mechanisms while learning that they are indeed worthwhile and worth knowing. You don't need a degree to give this help.
There was a conversation on another venue about whether children should have a right to weigh in on whether they want to be torn out of paradise and born into life on Earth. Some say we do choose our lives, others that we are paying for past karma, others that god wants us here for some unfathomable reason, and so forth. Basically, I see it as a learning experience. Many lessons are quite harsh. Some are so very lovely. I think it helps when we are willing to learn, not tied into restrictive thinking.
Of course, what god provides us is the universe, unfolding, unfolding. We make what we can of it, bit by bit. I do have confidence that humankind, a very clever bunch, will search out the solutions in time to keep us going, searching out further solutions. We are at the very infancy of our scientific understandings. Ultimately, once it is sorted out, I believe the whole system is quite simple, elegant, and easily accessed for use. We are moving toward that whole system theory now that we've had some millennia to sort out discrete bubbles of information.
I too have stories
unbelievable as fiction
creeping through dream imagery
holding dripping red candles
broken bits of mirror
tiny rips in red, red fabric
bleeding
I cannot breathe this story
I cannot hold a heartbeat
or a cogent thought
or pulse to a level
bearable
Beaten into rubble
crazed in simple sunlit
afternoon as if a moon
were racing in
stolen arteries
We all have known this story
What is "terrorism"? It's not an ideology or a sovereign entity or a loosely affiliated group or a religion or even a tactic. It is a frame to place around whatever you think or feel might be, well, terrifying.
The acts which might be listed under a fairly mainstream definition of "terrorism" also have another frame. They are crimes. There are criminal codes, laws, procedures, penalties and individual words for these acts. The defense against them necessitates no special agencies or exotic twistings of law or mores of decency. All we need do is understand these acts as we do our normal terrors of street gangs, organized criminals, crazed seekers of revenge and other outbreaks of violent paranoia. We protect ourselves best by being alert to danger and keeping our minds and bodies agile.
If the media dictates what we believe and who we vote for, where are our minds and personal responsibility? The media folks are doing their jobs, selling their products, working for their marketshare. We citizens need to do our job, or stop whining and admit we are governed by popular media.
Lots of people complain that watching tv is lowering our cognitive abilities because we passively watch pabulum and emotionally charged cheap thrills. There is plenty of annoying, boring, mind-numbing, or otherwise petty programming. However, there is plenty of intellectually challenging, informative, engaging, and even beautiful programming. You need to figure out which channels or programs are most likely to be worthwhile for your viewing.
I am all for self-protection, family protection, community protection. I even have situational ethics about private violence. I am totally, irrevocably, passionately against giving the government (you know, the guys we always joke about not getting anything right) the right to murder us, no matter the offered justification.
Imagine that you are you, going about your normal business. Imagine that someone who has some vague similarity of appearance, or even name, has done something horrible. Everyone is up in anxiety, blood vengeance, mob rule. This is why we have a rule of law, because sometimes it can make a difference, or at least the thought of it can give alternative to unthinking reaction.
It bothers me, often, the black magic of making profit (an imaginary concept, as is money itself) killing the real reasons for trade. Sure, if you want to play this game of sticks and carrots, rich and poor, speculator and government back-up vs. condemning the monetarily challenged, then play you will. I just want a parallel track for those of us who have other goals and motives for our energy and time.
Religion is not specifically about believe or faith. It is a tool to hold together tribes over distance and larger than face-to-face numbers through a system of ritual and mythology. Belief, in any case, is self-reflective, a nonobjectively existent creature of conscious interpretation of unknowable reality. Agnostics, as far as I have experienced these, seem to be about taking a stand against orthodox beliefs through a clever device of rationalized exchange of "belief" for "knowledge" -- "I don't know that your beliefs represent reality."
The thing is, there is no "God" in the sense of some great white-bearded grandfather in the sky telling us all how to behave with appropriate rewards and smiting. So, to deny knowledge that such a construct is true is an equivocation. Instead, truth here and in this whole realm, is attempted to be defined metaphorically, since objective truth is beyond language. Then, the metaphor is treated as if it were the truth, the map taken for the territory. In truth, we are all agnostic: we don't KNOW; we speculate and create religions within which to lay our questions to rest.
I feel the movement
pain and resolution
caught in the pattern
released in the dance
It's not the blaming that is the problem. It is natural to blame, and sometimes appropriate. But that is only step one in a process of rectification. The South Africans in the time of transformation from Apartheid understood that bad blood would fester from evil done but not acknowledged. They created a Truth and Reconciliation process to allow people to confront those who had sinned against them, and for the sinners to admit what they had done and apologize. This is going along a process toward change. We admit our culpability, even without denying the culpability of others. Then we can start the triage: changing what we can, in ourselves and in the system; recognizing what we have no power over, and finding ways to ameliorate those influences; learning to work through our emotional reactions to pain and powerlessness until we are ready to look squarely at where we are and where we want to go so we can map out the journey.
Sometimes we can't afford to forgive without first being given acceptance of guilt, sincere apology, and comfort from they who have offended because our hearts are naturally too soft.
The mindset behind the violence is not Bush's fault. It started long before he bumbled into the Middle East. It is not Mohammed's fault either. It is not about religion, but politics, not a struggle over beliefs, but power. A heavenly reward can be reached after a full and well spent life. Suicide is about despair; suicide bombings about despair and anger.
One of the reasons I was originally interested in Obama was George Soros's support. Soros is a brilliant man, maverick high-stakes capitalist with deep thinking ability and follow-through. He has lived a long and colorful life, including intellectual and social contributions to society. His Open Society Institute funds projects in the interest of promoting freedom. Anyone denigrating George Soros, and by implication of association Barack Obama, obviously has grave ignorance (I am sorry)
The problem is not McCain changing his mind, it is his giving over his mind to campaign expedience. Yes, they all do to some extent, but McCain is really over the top here. I really appreciated the "straight-talking" 2000 McCain, would have voted for him had Karl Rove not given him the shiv. Apparently he has come to believe that he can win by lying, but not by sticking to his outside party politics gumption. I don't want to encourage that.
People seem to enjoy hating, any group they can define as some way not them. Thus, the issue of immigration degenerates into name-calling, hate speech, ranting and raving about some big bad them who turns out to be some hardluck hardworking poor folk, or even sick little children or otherwise non-enemies. There's plenty of work to be done for everyone, which is why these people get jobs, which is why they come here looking for work. We who are concerned about low wages, poor working conditions, or economic ripples of illegal practices need to work toward solving these problems. I said work toward solving problems, not propagate hate.
People do not exist for the benefit of some social system, but rather social systems, in theory, are meant to exist for the benefit of the people? What people do for their private gratification with other consenting adults is their business. It only becomes the business of society if their behavior is blatantly harmful to specific others -- not because it may be seen as wrong, or mimicked by the young, but because their is actual, definable, articulable, harm as would be easily assessed by reasonable people without an axe to grind. Even if individual members of a definable group do some harm to some others, that does not indict all members of that group. For instance, apparently priests evidence a high incidence of child molestation. This does not mean priests as a group need to be condemned and thrown out of society -- only those who actually do harm.
Libertarianism is not taking on ideas of Democrats or Republicans. They have a firm grounding in personal freedom on which they base their platforms. In that sense, they are more true to the vision of America as a land of the free governed by the people, for the people.
The idea of an economy in which the costs to the natural resources, the workforce and the general well-being are included at its base is being explored by many people from many background perspectives. This is not about "love" but enlightened self-interest, and an understanding that these costs are always paid, usually in the least comfortable way at the worst possible time if they are not honored upfront.
Happiness is not a place to arrive nor prey to pursue. It is a state of mind, sometimes fleeting. It is not happiness that can be given or guaranteed, but the opportunity to find those activities and ideas that reward us with that emotional lift. Thus, what can be offered by the social construct to the individual is the greatest possible freedom within which to find one's own rewards.
If we really want to be good self-governing citizens we would do well to incorporate into our required public school curricula a multi-disciplinary/multi-year course including history, sociology, psychology, and political science covering what citizens really ought to know to take back our responsibility and power. Race would be one of a great many issues to be covered, in a general background of history, as well as immigration policies, analyses of Supreme Court cases, legislative histories, the vast panorama of power struggles, political philosophies, and daily analyses of stories in the current consciousness.
Far from spoilers, they are preservers of what democracy is meant to be. Candidates not of the major parties do know their likelihood of getting the job is kind of on par with the election being cancelled due to an asteroid hit on D.C. They understand that it is their job as activist citizens to enlarge the scope of the political conversation, to bring positions further from the center to take in minority views, to look beyond conventional wisdom for solutions, to bring more excitement to the mix by bringing more to think about.
Why were some drugs made illegal? Because of ignorance. It would save orders of orders of magnitude more money, effort, and a whole host of really bad "side-effects" to do away with the "War on Drugs" policies and mentality and treat people with problems like people with problems, addictions like the easily medically solved nonissues they could well be, and let consenting adults have their sought after experiences in a reasonable atmosphere. We could work out nonpublic areas for this kind of behavior to avoid offending passers-by.
Privacy is a big issue, and complicated. There is no "right to privacy" in the US Constitution -- the 4th Amendment being about security in papers and possessions which can't be taken without proper judicial oversight. Yet, we tend to believe in a very basic right to be left alone, to have private inviolate spaces in our lives, both physical and mental. In fact, this can be said to be the very basis of freedom.
I totally disagree that privacy is about lack of trust or hiding. It is simply about personal integrity in the sense of having a personal life not given to the public. We tend to like private relationships, private activities that we share with specific others rather than having to be open to any and all who might want to impose their definitions. Maybe this is one of those extrovert/introvert things.
In the West, privacy has been related to freedom because we had to come together as private people to overthrow public rulers who denied our rights. Asia, no doubt, has different history, and cultural norms. Western democracy still depends on interest groups coming together privately to work out policies for that group. Freedom depends on privacy that we really have the space to work out our private thoughts and create our own inner independence. Look at Winston Smith in _1984_ starving for privacy to be his own creature rather than just another puppet.
As to the safety issues of modern anonymous society, of course lack of relationship leads directly to fear and hostility. If we can only guess about who these others might be, what might motivate their actions toward us, how can we open into trust and mutuality? Yet, like in everything, the middle road calls. We can keep our privacy private and our community life communal if we understand the benefits and act accordingly.
It is disgraceful and incredibly disrespectful that grown-up people are subjected to such gross indignity for the "privilege" of working way too hard for hardly livable wages and "benefits' that nickel and dime you into an early grave. No, people who get government checks should not be subject to such indignities for the privilege of being allowed to survive, whether those checks are wages or Social Security benefits (which we pay for in our employment taxes instead of getting that money as wages to pay our bills) or Unemployment benefits (see comment on SS benefits) or programs for the needy. This is just another of the endless examples of government overriding our Constitution-given and basic human rights for their little games of gotcha or bogus terror tactics to keep us begging for any little freedom. May I go to the bathroom, please, oh great leader, without you watching?
There are plenty of slovenly workers with or without drugs. There a people who take prescription medications for conditions they may not want advertised. There are also lots of people who use drugs recreationally (including alcohol and tobacco) on their own time, without any impact on their jobs. The big debilitatetor that no one seems to think or talk about is lack of sleep, which, with pressures of too much to do in too little time, is overwhelmingly common.
As I understand, they are finding health improving qualities in wine all the time, and occasionally in coffee, and most especially in chocolate. Perhaps we enjoy these because they are good for us, despite popular myth based on the follies of overconsumption.
They say history is written by the winners, and for the mainstream this is probably true. These days, however, there are many enthusiasts who delve into the primary material and find much more diverse histories, which give a greater range and more useful stories for we who look to lessons from the past.
I was recently pondering the strange and contrary views and behaviors surrounding sex in 21st Century America. Of course, these have roots back to the religious sects of original colonists, and branches going out to a diversity of absurdity. It seems to me that if we had sane ideas, policies, and communication regarding this fundamental biological and social commonality, there would be much less dangerous coercive and outright outrageous acting out.
Of course you can have it both ways, or as many ways as there are. We can believe it is wrong to kill, including an unborn human, yet understand that there are situations in which it is less wrong than the alternatives. We make these distinctions all the time.
You know what, they have not yet made computers that are also transporters or giving the ability to move body parts through into someone else's laptop. Your kids may be in danger online from learning about inappropriate matters, or more likely learning harmful misinformation. They are not in any kind of physical danger (except for maybe eyestrain and the degradations of lack of exercise). You want to keep your kid as safe as possible? Always keep an open dialog, without prying or judging.
On C-SPAN there was a panel talking about foreign aid from the perspective of poor nations, and how the current method is bad for everyone. Apparently the donor nations or UN work out deals with the leaders of the country getting aid involving legal and political machinations worked out with no real thought to the result. Of course, leaders get the money and use it for their own projects or whims, while the poor get poorer. The solution offered was to set up a process whereby a certain sum is designated for a region, but each village gets the money for their project only after they have a direct democratic process within the village to designate a project leader, decide upon what project is their most important need, devise a plan to create the project to fulfill the need, and deliver their plan, budget, and project leader to the offering agency. This method would result in much fewer funds being needed, real useful projects being developed, local people creating jobs for themselves and growing the local economy, the people who need the funding being the ones deciding how it will be used and getting empowered to fix the problems in their own region.
We have been warned and tested in the late 70s and warned about depending on foreign oil, or fossil fuels in general. Being human, mostly we only actually get creative en masse and do something meaningful when our backs are at the wall. There have been breakthroughs and research and useful ideas about all manner of alternative fuel sources, which are only alternatives and not just fuel sources because of a foolish dependence on a cheap supply which is no longer cheap or certain or ours.
The only reason we use petrochemicals to fuel cars is that at the time when cars were first being designed commercially, oil was really cheap. People of an engineering persuasion have been examining other possible fuels for years. I would think that there are all kinds of useful methods of transportation to be worked out, tried out. It could be alot of fun. Maybe a good reality tv show promoting such inventiveness would help?
Energy is being harnessed from within the Earth in various locales and projects. There are many sources of energy which can be tapped. If we use each as it is best used, we are less likely to tap out any source and more likely to make more efficient use of diverse resources. The thing in any creative endeavor is to not get boxed in to "the way it is done."
We all have the God-given right to spread false information. I forget why God gave us that right, but quite obviously She did.
Jews, Christians, Muslims, Mormons, maybe others worship the same upstart minor Middle Eastern god who took the Jews out of Egypt to get them to fight his enemies and do his bidding. He grew in power as he gained more and more worshippers.
The New Testament was written by different people at a different time from the Old, but there were a great many writings that never made it in to the Bible. Whose message got told, whose censored can tell us about the politics of those times.
it is so easy to each be our own purveyor of truth, to step out of the circle of lies and obfuscations, and simply live.
Journals are certainly a medium of infinite expressive and creative potential. Interestingly, to me, I have been creating a character who is becoming a friend through her journal entries, which of course I create, but from another part of me. By letting her express freely by journaling, I am giving myself opportunities to look at my views and such recreated from another life perspective. I don't have to own her attitudes, because they are hers not mine. Thus, I am exploring these perspectives in some sense objectively, in some sense subjectively.
I've learned it's not just you (me), it's everyone. Every kid had something others could pick on. Glasses, a strange-sounding name, overbearing parents to make fun of, overbite, overweight, underweight, lisp, stammer, limp, stringy hair, frizzy hair, large nose, large ears, short, tall, too smart, not smart enough goes on forever.
People talk about the healing of love, the beauty of love, the great goodness and higher power of love. That love is all for you. Each and every you (me) can learn the power and beauty and healing of our own love.
The sky hardens
pinpoint diamonds
Ivory flowers
jungle grown
softly converse
knowing the sharp hardness
of thorns
Diamonds cut deeply
through psychic skin
like sweet flower scent
Hardness does not protect
gem, rose, or heart
Friday, July 18, 2008
Capricorn Full Moon reflection
Capricorn Full Moon reflection
Archetypes
Walking the streets, riding
subways --
subterranean consciousness,
ethereal siamese twin
to the everyday.
Shadow and substance
entwined as before
the invasion.
I long to tell you,
yearn to tell you,
but only if you truly listen.
I cannot say these things twice.
Memories seep through,
acquire form.
Stand straight and true
as soldiers or Marines
giving full allegiance
to any who will take that load.
There are Gods lying in excrement
begging relief in the form
of sacrament
potent and deadly.
There are Angels and
Demons waging war,
dice from a grail
foresaging trial or comfort.
Hungry Ghosts wail.
Vampires and Creatures
of the night
seek shelter before the
travails of daytime
break them.
I saw the Morning Star
wink salaciously.
In my kingdom
all manner of creatures
thrive.
Eagles soar.
Lions roar.
Whales sing.
Humans open a
veiled third eye.
The World rejoices.
(c) July 18, 2008 Laurie Corzett/libramoon
Archetypes
Walking the streets, riding
subways --
subterranean consciousness,
ethereal siamese twin
to the everyday.
Shadow and substance
entwined as before
the invasion.
I long to tell you,
yearn to tell you,
but only if you truly listen.
I cannot say these things twice.
Memories seep through,
acquire form.
Stand straight and true
as soldiers or Marines
giving full allegiance
to any who will take that load.
There are Gods lying in excrement
begging relief in the form
of sacrament
potent and deadly.
There are Angels and
Demons waging war,
dice from a grail
foresaging trial or comfort.
Hungry Ghosts wail.
Vampires and Creatures
of the night
seek shelter before the
travails of daytime
break them.
I saw the Morning Star
wink salaciously.
In my kingdom
all manner of creatures
thrive.
Eagles soar.
Lions roar.
Whales sing.
Humans open a
veiled third eye.
The World rejoices.
(c) July 18, 2008 Laurie Corzett/libramoon
Monday, July 14, 2008
Gemini Candles 2008
Birthright
Serpents and Eagles
terrorists and slaves
Enforcement through symbols
deciding who behaves
according to rules,
what is taught in schools,
which way the rivers flow,
the truth of what we know.
Mirror, mirror in the sky
tell me who; don't tell me why.
The winds of change are calling,
blowing storm clouds
into wild array.
"Awry" I say -- the whole world's
silly with it.
Newfangled weapons
of biblical proportion
"Zap it up, boys -- avoid the sins
of abortion and forbidden
love -- make War!
on every deviancy from the code."
Sleep safe and warm
absolved from all harm
by the goods you've been sold.
Re-selling a story of secondhand
glory, of the Man up above
who kills out of love
and how you most honor
His Name.
Squander your birthright for
a handful of shame.
Or, take back your soul.
Create your own meaning.
(c) June 16, 2008
Changlings Channel on Solstice Week
Of effervescent Mercury's directing
Charming trickster,
playing upon winds of change -- Quicksilver surfing
Exchanging old air for new
Inhale and whoosh
under the sea-change brewing.
Sentimental, far from gentle,
whirlwinds gasp lifelong ambitions.
Expected conditions,
wavering memory
catch and fly the breeze.
Blown out to undulating ocean,
forgotten gills respond --
mer-mind awakens.
(c) June 16, 2008 Laurie Corzett/libramoon
critical passage
A poem should tell a story
but better
straight out
no fluff or frills
Eyes locked to eyes
tongue to tongue
so there is no mistake
Drifting within concrete walls
Loving in isolate fantasy
Striving against phantoms,
wisps of ancestral winds
Neighbors scream
Rotting stench permeates
I find a safe crystalline village
Spin tales by the roadside
for change
Waiting for a chance to
exchange realities
Time was I slipped through the gate
fell upon hard ice
lost my bearing
Now I bare all,
howling into windstorms
waiting to fall again
and find myself home
(c) May 30, 2008 Laurie Corzett/libramoon
dis-integration
So pretty the crescent moon
fading into dark.
Quiet of night
merges with memory
I can not face,
can not see.
Soul tired, beyond aching bones
beyond any place called home.
Not a child of misery,
no one to blame, none to profit.
Flying after dreams,
treetop to treetop
laughing at clouds
in their droll
picture play.
It takes a toll, years in.
Naysayers saying "We reject
you, not of the body."
Injecting powerful medications
to prove their point,
their divinity.
Blissfilled moments
carry me hither and yon
upon some apocalyptic
journey.
Far short of any paradise, I surrender.
Soul tired, yearning for the Moon.
(c) June 8, 2008 Laurie Corzett/libramoon
Finding My Religion
Mind-burning drivel
filtered through raw, red eyes
filters through tears,
degrading emotion.
Flowers bloom in
secret sanctuary
bright purples and golds
keeping faith in beauty
self-evident and pure.
Moonlight, pale upon your face
gives me hope of salvation.
(c) June 6, 2008 Laurie Corzett/libramoon
hero
Pearls from the Sun
Diamonds from the Moon
Gold-dusted silks from
exotic worlds
Valued in danger, adventure
from there to here.
Fine old wood
mellowed with wisdom
tasting of Earth essence
silently regales with tales
old and pure.
Young Percival took knighthood seriously. To protect and to serve King and country.
The old King sickening, perhaps dying, soul sickness they said.
Crops failed. Floods and droughts, inopportune times. The peasants too sickened,
died, lived in dreadful poverty and despair.
In a dream, the young knight was shown the Grail -- shiny jewels upon a golden cup
self-generating elixir of immortality.
On awakening, he took off in the direction of adventure. He left the dying kingdom
to its own devices, in search of a promised land of magical curative power. He was
not thinking of King or country, but of a delicious ecstatic pounding he knew to be
his own heart.
Where do you ride, fair Percival?
Off to find the dreamer's Grail?
Learn your song and tell your tale.
Become a son of Sky and Earth
and rain
to return with all you gain
some wondrous day.
Break the spell.
Release the kingdom's pain.
He learned the ways of seers, demons, subtle sorceries and charms. Growing ever
stronger with healthy exercise and happy purpose, he made his way. Trial by
treacherous trial, he ever more closely approaches his prize.
These trials are the key. They test mettle while bestowing grace, confidence,
skill acquisition, glimmerings of wisdom. The prize glitters, shines, glows
brilliantly in the distance to maintain focus, a clear point, fixed star to contemplate
through twisting, turning, misty mythic pathways.
Sometimes the brick is yellow. Some paths are more intuitive, steps in the dark,
brambly forest.
Percival knows what a hero does. A hero perseveres. A hero scales the tower to free
the enchanted maiden, goes where others dare not because fear is a solid companion.
Daring, fighting, sometimes dazed, momentarily forgetting his cause, he perseveres.
He need but think to look to see his Grail shining, calling him forward.
Of course, he reaches the Grail, discovers the codes, incantations, disarms dragons,
ensorcels giants, generally blazes through to capture his dream.
Returning triumphant, he fixes the kingdom, drop-kicks the curse, cures the old King
of his soul malady, takes the throne to wisely guide into times of prosperity.
So the story goes.
(c) June 14, 2008 Laurie Corzett/libramoon
History
Underlying rights
beneath ideas like
freedom
equality under the law
rule of law
we find community
You
Me
and all our masks
and stories.
Wise elders of yore
devised ritual
stomping into Earth,
in communion
with planet, land
of ancestors, sacred lore.
I see your face,
study the lines and lessons
life has given.
Do you see the scarlet
streams of suffering
so unnecessary
missed cues,
fear itself,
unexpected consequences,
collateral damage?
If life were simple
childish agonies
dispelled with dawn's
bright kiss,
we would laugh
so happy to know
cross-purposes, cross-talk
easily sorted out in counsel.
Cast into sorted cells
with little thought to empowering;
we could harness the Sun, Moon,
birth of the planets,
simply
allowing our minds to grow.
(c) June [Friday the] 13, 2008 Laurie Corzett/libramoon [under the Libra Moon]
Meta-Science
Magical thinking
creating room for the power
of possibilities,
nuances, shades between,
molecular emptiness
unexplored, unexploited.
The magic of synaptic awareness,
unlikelihood of consciousness,
Dreams, Visions, Reveries,
ineffable emotions
too dear to deny.
See, smell, taste
chemical reactions,
hear reverberating air.
There is no limit
but that I impose.
Strict chanting and ritual
keeps reality in line.
(c) June 2, 2008 Laurie Corzett/libramoon
morning birds are singing
Welcoming the light
creamy purples into day
so swift the change
(when it happens)
from predawn mysteries.
Trees sway gracefully.
Morning birds are singing.
Primeval emotions
inveigle my dreams
before I remember
to whom my day is promised.
(c) June 13, 2008
Mother Love
Goddess, adore us.
We all want to be loved.
Children cast upon the world
unprepared.
Times past, we would pack together
exploring our abilities,
safe in numbers
small enough to give us each
room to grow.
Isolated in responsibilities,
playing grown-up
so easy to smother
in over-breathed air.
Come to each me, Goddess,
in quietly desperate hours
with praise and adoration.
Tell the stories of our lives
in radiant glory.
Mother, Queen, perfect lover,
give us what we need
to grow the seed
of your love.
6/5/08
quest
Deep in our ancient lives
Far from our daily chores
Hidden within our minds
With no bright line to follow
Could I be true?
Breathing, a mist so fine
sprayed from brave ocean floors
Seen in dreamlike design
shades dark and blue
Dawn's pink-purple hue
breaks through over time
while I wander in dreaming
What could be true?
Torn by my primal cry
how would you answer?
(c) May 26, 2008 Laurie Corzett/libramoon
Shortbus Response
(for JCM)
So poignant, so sweet,
fragile & human
We yearn to love
to be real in recursive
delight
Pushing, pulling, exploding
tears & laughter
physical, immediate,
spontaneous
emerging from buried shadows
So simple, so hard, so basic
vulnerability
easier to grow from love
than loneliness
Does peace begin here?
Where we dare lower jealous arms
to embrace in full emotion?
(c) May 25, 2008 Laurie Corzett/libramoon
Thanks for sharing
Thanks for sharing
your intimate secrets
guilty despair
"How can anything matter'?
I am unacceptable -- too dark,
no fun to be with."
It is not a birthday without
cake and good wishes.
I am incurable without
a get well card,
outside courage
from caring hearts.
I have no rhyme, no rhythm,
no choir to enchant me
into soft eiderdown healing.
Smelly potions,
shocking wires,
disconnection from
harried soul
cannot weave wholeness.
Kind touch, accepting and
reveling in shared humanity
gives a loving pattern
for integration,
re-merging body and soul
healthy fulfillment.
Take a creative leap!
Multi-hued singing fountains
rejoice to new found dancing.
(c) May 22, 2008 Laurie Corzett/libramoon
* I see, know, give to any willing to receive
translation
Wordlike fingers
touching my eyes and lips
emote my visions,
struggles for clarity,
ambiguity,
ecstasy.
Sights, sounds, smells
of memory
caught in endothermic
catalyzation
urging toward enlightenment,
musing entertainment.
We are the apes who speak
formalized syllables,
carry through centuries
in cuneiform or phonetic,
hold history in our hands.
Beyond words
we clutch or swing
brave emotion.
Caught like fireflies in a jar,
sending encoded signals
till light fades.
We hold, transmute, evolve,
learn to define.
My lips, my eyes immortalized
in metaphor, air upon ear,
tricks of the brain.
(c) June 1, 2008 Laurie Corzett/libramoon
Serpents and Eagles
terrorists and slaves
Enforcement through symbols
deciding who behaves
according to rules,
what is taught in schools,
which way the rivers flow,
the truth of what we know.
Mirror, mirror in the sky
tell me who; don't tell me why.
The winds of change are calling,
blowing storm clouds
into wild array.
"Awry" I say -- the whole world's
silly with it.
Newfangled weapons
of biblical proportion
"Zap it up, boys -- avoid the sins
of abortion and forbidden
love -- make War!
on every deviancy from the code."
Sleep safe and warm
absolved from all harm
by the goods you've been sold.
Re-selling a story of secondhand
glory, of the Man up above
who kills out of love
and how you most honor
His Name.
Squander your birthright for
a handful of shame.
Or, take back your soul.
Create your own meaning.
(c) June 16, 2008
Changlings Channel on Solstice Week
Of effervescent Mercury's directing
Charming trickster,
playing upon winds of change -- Quicksilver surfing
Exchanging old air for new
Inhale and whoosh
under the sea-change brewing.
Sentimental, far from gentle,
whirlwinds gasp lifelong ambitions.
Expected conditions,
wavering memory
catch and fly the breeze.
Blown out to undulating ocean,
forgotten gills respond --
mer-mind awakens.
(c) June 16, 2008 Laurie Corzett/libramoon
critical passage
A poem should tell a story
but better
straight out
no fluff or frills
Eyes locked to eyes
tongue to tongue
so there is no mistake
Drifting within concrete walls
Loving in isolate fantasy
Striving against phantoms,
wisps of ancestral winds
Neighbors scream
Rotting stench permeates
I find a safe crystalline village
Spin tales by the roadside
for change
Waiting for a chance to
exchange realities
Time was I slipped through the gate
fell upon hard ice
lost my bearing
Now I bare all,
howling into windstorms
waiting to fall again
and find myself home
(c) May 30, 2008 Laurie Corzett/libramoon
dis-integration
So pretty the crescent moon
fading into dark.
Quiet of night
merges with memory
I can not face,
can not see.
Soul tired, beyond aching bones
beyond any place called home.
Not a child of misery,
no one to blame, none to profit.
Flying after dreams,
treetop to treetop
laughing at clouds
in their droll
picture play.
It takes a toll, years in.
Naysayers saying "We reject
you, not of the body."
Injecting powerful medications
to prove their point,
their divinity.
Blissfilled moments
carry me hither and yon
upon some apocalyptic
journey.
Far short of any paradise, I surrender.
Soul tired, yearning for the Moon.
(c) June 8, 2008 Laurie Corzett/libramoon
Finding My Religion
Mind-burning drivel
filtered through raw, red eyes
filters through tears,
degrading emotion.
Flowers bloom in
secret sanctuary
bright purples and golds
keeping faith in beauty
self-evident and pure.
Moonlight, pale upon your face
gives me hope of salvation.
(c) June 6, 2008 Laurie Corzett/libramoon
hero
Pearls from the Sun
Diamonds from the Moon
Gold-dusted silks from
exotic worlds
Valued in danger, adventure
from there to here.
Fine old wood
mellowed with wisdom
tasting of Earth essence
silently regales with tales
old and pure.
Young Percival took knighthood seriously. To protect and to serve King and country.
The old King sickening, perhaps dying, soul sickness they said.
Crops failed. Floods and droughts, inopportune times. The peasants too sickened,
died, lived in dreadful poverty and despair.
In a dream, the young knight was shown the Grail -- shiny jewels upon a golden cup
self-generating elixir of immortality.
On awakening, he took off in the direction of adventure. He left the dying kingdom
to its own devices, in search of a promised land of magical curative power. He was
not thinking of King or country, but of a delicious ecstatic pounding he knew to be
his own heart.
Where do you ride, fair Percival?
Off to find the dreamer's Grail?
Learn your song and tell your tale.
Become a son of Sky and Earth
and rain
to return with all you gain
some wondrous day.
Break the spell.
Release the kingdom's pain.
He learned the ways of seers, demons, subtle sorceries and charms. Growing ever
stronger with healthy exercise and happy purpose, he made his way. Trial by
treacherous trial, he ever more closely approaches his prize.
These trials are the key. They test mettle while bestowing grace, confidence,
skill acquisition, glimmerings of wisdom. The prize glitters, shines, glows
brilliantly in the distance to maintain focus, a clear point, fixed star to contemplate
through twisting, turning, misty mythic pathways.
Sometimes the brick is yellow. Some paths are more intuitive, steps in the dark,
brambly forest.
Percival knows what a hero does. A hero perseveres. A hero scales the tower to free
the enchanted maiden, goes where others dare not because fear is a solid companion.
Daring, fighting, sometimes dazed, momentarily forgetting his cause, he perseveres.
He need but think to look to see his Grail shining, calling him forward.
Of course, he reaches the Grail, discovers the codes, incantations, disarms dragons,
ensorcels giants, generally blazes through to capture his dream.
Returning triumphant, he fixes the kingdom, drop-kicks the curse, cures the old King
of his soul malady, takes the throne to wisely guide into times of prosperity.
So the story goes.
(c) June 14, 2008 Laurie Corzett/libramoon
History
Underlying rights
beneath ideas like
freedom
equality under the law
rule of law
we find community
You
Me
and all our masks
and stories.
Wise elders of yore
devised ritual
stomping into Earth,
in communion
with planet, land
of ancestors, sacred lore.
I see your face,
study the lines and lessons
life has given.
Do you see the scarlet
streams of suffering
so unnecessary
missed cues,
fear itself,
unexpected consequences,
collateral damage?
If life were simple
childish agonies
dispelled with dawn's
bright kiss,
we would laugh
so happy to know
cross-purposes, cross-talk
easily sorted out in counsel.
Cast into sorted cells
with little thought to empowering;
we could harness the Sun, Moon,
birth of the planets,
simply
allowing our minds to grow.
(c) June [Friday the] 13, 2008 Laurie Corzett/libramoon [under the Libra Moon]
Meta-Science
Magical thinking
creating room for the power
of possibilities,
nuances, shades between,
molecular emptiness
unexplored, unexploited.
The magic of synaptic awareness,
unlikelihood of consciousness,
Dreams, Visions, Reveries,
ineffable emotions
too dear to deny.
See, smell, taste
chemical reactions,
hear reverberating air.
There is no limit
but that I impose.
Strict chanting and ritual
keeps reality in line.
(c) June 2, 2008 Laurie Corzett/libramoon
morning birds are singing
Welcoming the light
creamy purples into day
so swift the change
(when it happens)
from predawn mysteries.
Trees sway gracefully.
Morning birds are singing.
Primeval emotions
inveigle my dreams
before I remember
to whom my day is promised.
(c) June 13, 2008
Mother Love
Goddess, adore us.
We all want to be loved.
Children cast upon the world
unprepared.
Times past, we would pack together
exploring our abilities,
safe in numbers
small enough to give us each
room to grow.
Isolated in responsibilities,
playing grown-up
so easy to smother
in over-breathed air.
Come to each me, Goddess,
in quietly desperate hours
with praise and adoration.
Tell the stories of our lives
in radiant glory.
Mother, Queen, perfect lover,
give us what we need
to grow the seed
of your love.
6/5/08
quest
Deep in our ancient lives
Far from our daily chores
Hidden within our minds
With no bright line to follow
Could I be true?
Breathing, a mist so fine
sprayed from brave ocean floors
Seen in dreamlike design
shades dark and blue
Dawn's pink-purple hue
breaks through over time
while I wander in dreaming
What could be true?
Torn by my primal cry
how would you answer?
(c) May 26, 2008 Laurie Corzett/libramoon
Shortbus Response
(for JCM)
So poignant, so sweet,
fragile & human
We yearn to love
to be real in recursive
delight
Pushing, pulling, exploding
tears & laughter
physical, immediate,
spontaneous
emerging from buried shadows
So simple, so hard, so basic
vulnerability
easier to grow from love
than loneliness
Does peace begin here?
Where we dare lower jealous arms
to embrace in full emotion?
(c) May 25, 2008 Laurie Corzett/libramoon
Thanks for sharing
Thanks for sharing
your intimate secrets
guilty despair
"How can anything matter'?
I am unacceptable -- too dark,
no fun to be with."
It is not a birthday without
cake and good wishes.
I am incurable without
a get well card,
outside courage
from caring hearts.
I have no rhyme, no rhythm,
no choir to enchant me
into soft eiderdown healing.
Smelly potions,
shocking wires,
disconnection from
harried soul
cannot weave wholeness.
Kind touch, accepting and
reveling in shared humanity
gives a loving pattern
for integration,
re-merging body and soul
healthy fulfillment.
Take a creative leap!
Multi-hued singing fountains
rejoice to new found dancing.
(c) May 22, 2008 Laurie Corzett/libramoon
* I see, know, give to any willing to receive
translation
Wordlike fingers
touching my eyes and lips
emote my visions,
struggles for clarity,
ambiguity,
ecstasy.
Sights, sounds, smells
of memory
caught in endothermic
catalyzation
urging toward enlightenment,
musing entertainment.
We are the apes who speak
formalized syllables,
carry through centuries
in cuneiform or phonetic,
hold history in our hands.
Beyond words
we clutch or swing
brave emotion.
Caught like fireflies in a jar,
sending encoded signals
till light fades.
We hold, transmute, evolve,
learn to define.
My lips, my eyes immortalized
in metaphor, air upon ear,
tricks of the brain.
(c) June 1, 2008 Laurie Corzett/libramoon
Saturday, June 21, 2008
June communications
We need to stop bickering over labels like capitalism/socialism/communism and realize that a rational approach to resource management taking into account future generations, finite resources, renewable options, and mutual benefit can be worked out. Ultimately, this could result in greater personal freedom on other than financial dimensions.
The koolaid party of the current US administration would never have been able to wreak the havoc they have without the thoughtless cooperation of the US press and the US people. I know we 21st Century Americans have busy, hectic, stressed-out lives, but we do bother to voice our concerns all the time about all kinds of issues, petty and large. We just need to do it more strategically. That is, if we really want a more sanely managed union.
I find it very sad that politics so seriously gets in the way of doing the people's work.
What's important in a good fantasy is what's important in any story: intriguing plot that keeps you going; strongly delineated characters that you care about; tight, descriptive writing that doesn't get in the way. I hate that whole genre of cutesy fantasy or stilted language or self-indulgent adolescent revenge setting up one's alter-ego main character to be the oh so put upon oh so perfect.
Tell a story. Tell it well.
I was watching the oral arguments on C-SPAN last night. After hearing the stories of those imprisoned without access to justice (or what we use to pass for it), and the twisted interpretation of law used to allow for this, I was proud that our Supreme Court saw the error of these ways. But those dissenters, I have to question not only their humanity, but their loyalty to or even understanding of the significance of rule by law.
Ah commerce!
Put those quarters in the slot
paying for the privilege
of joining the social world.
The mind is a wonderful playmate
I recently watched a show about technology on PBS. A few decades back computers were huge mega-expensive instruments that did very little compared to today. People did the research, the engineering, the what-ifs and the try-this and how can we apply what we have found in more ingenious ways. Getting off the oil addiction is more a matter of attitude than anything. Doesn't mean we can't still use it where it works best, while freeing up limited nonrenewable resources using renewables wherever practical.
The big lie doesn't have to be so big. With the designer media, everyone going to the source of their side's talking points, truth is just another flavor in the mix, not even a favored one.
Let God be God. We don't have to condemn people out of misguided ideas of what God wants. God is perfectly capable of getting exactly what it wants. Apparently sexuality is more complicated than a means of reproduction. Seems like we are meant to learn lessons about being human with bodies and minds. Condemning those who seem different is not only a waste of time, but a waste of soul.
Astrology is not something to "believe" in. It is a system of knowledge, very complex, yet very simple. It can be a lifelong obsession. It can be a source of information to check out along with other information to make decisions or plans. Mostly, I like the insight it gives me into people's complex motivations and diverse ways of being.
It seems that the paradigm for discussion is to find the areas in which we disagree and then do our best to pummel, put down, vilify "you" for your stupid/unpatriotic/whiney/evil (Hitler-like?)/naive/name your insult ideas. You know what the obvious result is: divisive hateful war. If our true goal is to work toward policies of benefit to all of us, wouldn't the better paradigm be one of respect for the dignity of each and all, looking for the areas in which we agree, and building from there?
Basically, we are all bisexual, along a continuum. There is no big deal about trying out a kiss when there is a mutual attraction. Making a big deal about it is what can lead to emotional distress. The important points are in regard to how kids learn to be in relationship, that there is a great deal more to look for than attraction or sexual expression.
Why? Because the systems that were supposed to be in place to keep such an event from so easily occurring were obviously not appropriately in place. I'm not talking about surveillance (electronic or otherwise) of citizens or other people going about normal business, or about sending potent weapon messages to destroy designated enemies. I'm talking about simple everyday air traffic control, tracking airplanes to keep them from going off course without any corrective measures. I am talking about teaching aircraft personnel to handle unexpected, dangerous situations. I am talking about making sure there are appropriate exit strategies in case of fire or other disaster in high rise buildings. It's not about good or evil. The devil is in the details.
At the core of the economic crisis in the US are the funds being tracked to Iraq, but more fundamentally, the widespread unconscionable
culture of usury, eating at the backbone of the everyday workers who hold up society.
No one will give me a credible, intelligent answer. What does it mean to "win" in this Iraq invasion/occupation/destruction/disaster?
There is something to be said for sides coming in each with their entrenched position, and discussion/arguing/debating learning from each other and experts, moving each toward a more realistic position. I think they call this the job of the Congressional Houses in our democratic constitutional republic. The problem is, it's not even about entrenched positions that good people have come to in their quests to improve the lives of Americans. It is about being entrenched to be entrenched, to play to some constituency, when the constituency is supposed to be the American people, all of us.
Just think, after all the Clinton "vetting" and whatever the Republican hate machine does, all they can do is come up with specious sins of supporters or acquaintances, the old harangue about "no experience" and the general word-twisting we all know so well.
I have read that the most effective way to stop/prevent men from abusing women is to get them to understand that this behavior is in no way condoned or permitted. It amazes me that guys will stand around putting down some woman, implying or out right saying she deserves to be beaten or otherwise abused. These are not so-called "sick" weirdos, but normal guys having a few drinks (or not), letting off steam (or not). I see guys on the street beating on a woman or child and I go up and make an issue of it, while big strong men walk right by pretending not to see.
Get off the drug. Talk to the prescribing physician, or whatever dr. you are consulting and do what it takes, usually gradually decreasing the dosage. There are so many better treatments for depression than most of these drugs. Some drugs do work well for some particular individuals sometimes, but the argument has been you take the drug for a short term while working on the underlying issues manifesting as the symptoms you wish to lose. The drug is not a real cure, and it can bring on other effects that make life so much harder.
I keep wondering about the talking points everyone seems to want to get in on about Senator Obama's lack of experience. He may not have been President of the United States before, but looking over those who have many have not learned usefully. He has an incredible wealth of life experience? Have any of you done anywhere near what he has? Don't tell me we don't know anything about him. Read his autobiographies, listen to his speeches (on the web where they are archived), read his resume. Hey, pretend you are looking him over as a potential hire. Just exactly what "experience" are you expecting will give you a President who will work for us as we would wish?
The point of the American democratic system was to promote a continual stream of citizen activists who care enough about freedom to fight for it, not in war but in education and community involvement.
The point of the "change" in the Obama campaign is that we change our attitudes and get together to get done what is needed for all of us to benefit.
Learn to trust yourself as your one true spiritual teacher. It's all a journey. Of course, find fellow travelers along the way to share the moment. Learn what you can from each other, and each other as you meet.
I have been thinking that we as society are technologically at a point where we could seriously look at some underlying economic assumptions, how they have failed to benefit us and our ecosystems, and start the work of revamping. We have basically just let our economies, systems of goods/services creation and distribution, happen, based on political more than practical concerns. We need to move toward a system, or series of systems, or diversity of systems, directly addressing the well-being of people and planet. There is so much needless suffering, stupid destruction, and divisiveness to the points of war and genocide that could so easily be eradicated with appropriate thought and action.
His legacy was her destiny. It didn't matter that she never realized what he was about while he was alive.
The scent of lilacs would not let her think beyond the sweet times. She told herself it was a private journey, that this was just a rough patch. Walking memories of past action, resultant chaos, she was ready to contemplate a process of remapping, of moving the puzzle pieces into a new configuration. His ghost would not let her.
The root paradox of arousal and defeat that marked his life seemed to actively desire a continuation through her. Only by turning, facing who he had been, finding the beauty behind his agony, could she hope to move beyond his legacy, her destiny.
My experience is that so-called education (the formal kind) is about destroying native creativity in favor of teaching to standards and expectations. Yet, creativity is what we need to further both individual and societal problem-solving.
But there are so very many who do evil in the name of doing their God's will. People don't do good or bad because God/dad is watching. They do what they are given to believe by other people that they can get away with. Sometimes they do what they are given to believe will be applauded by their acknowledged peers or community, like torturing/murdering/destroying those deemed "not of us".
And we need to teach, not preach. We need to have real dialogs and listen to each others' concerns, questions, ideas and fears. We as adults need to understand that children are not a different species, but actual living human beings, right now, not just some pre-human preparing to join the race someday. We need to tell them the truth, and give them resources to find the truths we do not have ourselves.
Yes, turn on your black lights and groove
Tell those old blues to move on to the dance floor
What wonderful waste-lines to lose
For soft summer nights they made romance for
Eat, drink, make merry, rejoice
Never believe that you don't have that choice
blame the Lord, blame the children, blame the mad
find the fault that took away what we thought we had
yet this chaotic scrambling's not our fate
but the poisoned fruits we're fed as slaves of hate
It amazes me that so-called conservatives are so, well, profligate of our national resources. It is as if they are convinced that some major upheaval will turn all past to naught, perhaps Armageddon? In any case, we do need a new economic paradigm, outside the capitalist/socialist,communist box which actually addresses our needs as the human community dependent on the resources of our planet.
mirror neurons let you dance by watching others
motor neurons let you dance by moving to the music in whatever way you comfortably can
body/mind connection, ain't it wonderful!
We are not masses, though we may be mass. We are each individually educable, even in large groups. Mostly it's a matter of motivation, teaching from where we are using what we are already familiar with and then branching out making sure everyone is being carried along, eliciting any questions or confusions and addressing them appropriately, seeing what has been learned and what is still needed through appropriate applied knowledge projects.
Not to take these conditions of horror lightly, but women have been treated like excrement all over the world, including very much right here. We don't have domestic violence laws, shelters, counselors, and ptsd treatments because it is a rare occurrence. Women are killed every day right here in the USA by irate husbands, lovers, just plain stalkers. Women are raped by husbands, strangers, dates, bosses, family members, often seriously injured or killed in the process. Implying we have nothing more serious to protest about than "glass ceilings" is a macabre insult.
Hooray for you and your energy awareness. I know you will find a way to do it, starting with research and creating the best energy solutions for your situation. Perhaps you could even go on to spread the information you find, even make a business of it. You see how this information is valuable and not generally known. The way we, all of us, are going to get beyond the crises of the moment is to see them as opportunities are find our inner ingenuity.
Water is amazing. Like energy, food, and many other necessities it is becoming over-harvested and laid to waste. Purification and more rational systems of distribution need to be promoted. It's a lot more than a metaphor.
It is all about making money. Logically, we need to move toward an economic paradigm including costs to the environment, the populace such as health costs, and generally stewardship of resources in the costs of doing business.
Rather than tax as such, why not stop giving advantages to businesses selling these unclean energies and give incentives to clean energy alternatives?
I want the old 2000 straight-talking rebel McCain back. I want him back in 2000, as the Republican candidate, even the 43rd President. In fact, I was ready to vote for him back then. Then, evil demon Rove turned him into an also-ran, and apparently damaged his brain and integrity as well.
Is love a zero sum game?
Does anger over long division
diminish returns?
Is hope an emotion,
a mathematical possibility?
Will infinite sadness exponentiate
negativity?
Does it all add up
to experiential lessons
leading to a higher equation?
Have we ever had a conservative president? I guess that depends on who is doing the defining of "conservative" which seems to be up for grabs. We don't seem to want conservative values, just to force everyone to be virtuous according to selected principles involving sex and restricted speech. Oh, and it helps if they get us into totally stupid wars that drain our finances, kill our common-class kids, and let us look all macho.
Taking chemicals will not teach anyone to focus. I can see taking medication to combat infections, boost immune systems, dissolve obstructions, physical disorders with obvious cause/effect to indicate specific chemical aid. This explosion of ordering dangerous chemicals be taken by children for behavioral problems is just plain crazy. Cognitive/behavioral problems are best solved by education and exercises.
What if, indeed. What if we could actually have a marketplace, of goods/services/ideas that responded to each of our needs because we wouldn't have it any other way?
The God of the Jews, who later became the God of the Christians, Muslims, Mormons, and probably others, was a lesser Middle Eastern deity at the time that the Jews were slaves in Egypt. He was fully aware that there were other Gods, but exhorted his followers "thou shalt have no other gods before me." He was described as a jealous god who had his followers smite those who mocked him. Christians apparently worship both the Father and the Son, not seeing Jesus as a prophet, but as himself divine.
If you are speaking of the one pantheistic spirit that is manifested in all of creation, I am inclined to agree. However, note that these manifestations are sometimes of spiritual godheads, denizens of the spiritual world, which are worshipped by spiritual beings manifested in the physical world known as humans.
A lot of people don't seek professional help because they don't want to be in the system or coerced into taking dangerous pharmaceuticals. There are many treatments which are based more on respect for the dignity of those suffering. There are also other ways of framing what are otherwise seen as symptoms of depression. Sometimes people are so overwhelmed by lack of control in their lives that they in effect give in and die while still physically functioning. Sometimes people have energy fluctuations which they have not learned to understand and make room for in their lives. Sometimes people have chronic pain or illness which saps their energy. Often highly creative people will burn out on a project and need down time. Suicide is sometimes mistakenly seen as an appropriate transformation, when a spiritual transformation is taking place in a society that does not support that.
We so often jump to "it must be that ego; if I could be good and selfless I would reap the reward of virtue." We forget that virtue is very much its own reward, the virtue of actually accepting and living in the true joy always available to us. As you point out, we need our egos, and all our other parts. We are who we are to be who we are in the best sense, not to cripple ourselves by cutting out what we have come to mistakenly believe are unattractive parts.
Save the Economy; Save the Children
Create the 8th Grade Year Small Business Practicum to be available to all students in public schools. The first week will be one of general discussion of what is involved in starting and maintaining a business. Students will then brainstorm about what kind of business they want to start. Interspersed are exercises to get everyone to know one another's abilities, skills, strengths, weaknesses, interactive styles and personality characteristics.
The students are then assigned to research possible business options, which might best succeed in their environment, local needs that can be addressed, the resources needed to make their business a success. As the year goes on, the business is formed and maintained. Students are offered ways of locating resources to help them learn what they need to do along the way. A multi-disciplinary advisor group of teachers makes suggestions and are available for consultation and skills training. Local business people are recruited as consultants and to give guest lectures to the class.
The students decide how any profits are to be distributed. After the class year, any students who wish to may continue their businesses. They are also welcome to give guest lectures and act as advisors to subsequent classes.
Any graphic artists who would like to collaborate on my as yet graphic-less "graphic novel"? Without the graphics, it is merely a novelette.
http://www.gather.com/viewArticle.jsp?articleId=281474977172809&nav=MyGather
Any poetry [more] performers who would like to perform my poem, "strangling heaven"? [with great thanks to Divinity Rose and a virtual ovation!!]
http://www.gather.com/viewArticle.jsp?articleId=281474977282905&nav=MyGather
Any performance group who would like to perform my piece "Gaea"?
http://lunaramble.blogspot.com/2008/04/back-for-earth-week-gaea-ritual.html
Any visionary artists who would like to submit work to Emerging Visions visionary art ezine #12, theme title: "Jung @ Heart"?
Watch for the next call, expected shortly after the Solstice, for Emerging
Visions visionary art ezine #12, working theme title: Jung at Heart ~
hopefully emerging in deepest July (or the early light of August) ~
The working theme title for #12 is "Jung at
Heart". I find it easier to work the collage with a running theme.
They are usually associated with the astrological influence at the
time of "emergence" of the issue. #12 is due out during the
astrological month of Leo, around Jung's birthday. Leo rules youth
and heart. What I am hoping to get are works relating to fairytales,
youth archetypes, playfulness, creativity, childlike wonder, and
such. If you have something for the issue, please do send it.
http://emergingvisions.blogspot.com/2008/02/submission-guidelines.html
libramoon42@mindspring.com
The koolaid party of the current US administration would never have been able to wreak the havoc they have without the thoughtless cooperation of the US press and the US people. I know we 21st Century Americans have busy, hectic, stressed-out lives, but we do bother to voice our concerns all the time about all kinds of issues, petty and large. We just need to do it more strategically. That is, if we really want a more sanely managed union.
I find it very sad that politics so seriously gets in the way of doing the people's work.
What's important in a good fantasy is what's important in any story: intriguing plot that keeps you going; strongly delineated characters that you care about; tight, descriptive writing that doesn't get in the way. I hate that whole genre of cutesy fantasy or stilted language or self-indulgent adolescent revenge setting up one's alter-ego main character to be the oh so put upon oh so perfect.
Tell a story. Tell it well.
I was watching the oral arguments on C-SPAN last night. After hearing the stories of those imprisoned without access to justice (or what we use to pass for it), and the twisted interpretation of law used to allow for this, I was proud that our Supreme Court saw the error of these ways. But those dissenters, I have to question not only their humanity, but their loyalty to or even understanding of the significance of rule by law.
Ah commerce!
Put those quarters in the slot
paying for the privilege
of joining the social world.
The mind is a wonderful playmate
I recently watched a show about technology on PBS. A few decades back computers were huge mega-expensive instruments that did very little compared to today. People did the research, the engineering, the what-ifs and the try-this and how can we apply what we have found in more ingenious ways. Getting off the oil addiction is more a matter of attitude than anything. Doesn't mean we can't still use it where it works best, while freeing up limited nonrenewable resources using renewables wherever practical.
The big lie doesn't have to be so big. With the designer media, everyone going to the source of their side's talking points, truth is just another flavor in the mix, not even a favored one.
Let God be God. We don't have to condemn people out of misguided ideas of what God wants. God is perfectly capable of getting exactly what it wants. Apparently sexuality is more complicated than a means of reproduction. Seems like we are meant to learn lessons about being human with bodies and minds. Condemning those who seem different is not only a waste of time, but a waste of soul.
Astrology is not something to "believe" in. It is a system of knowledge, very complex, yet very simple. It can be a lifelong obsession. It can be a source of information to check out along with other information to make decisions or plans. Mostly, I like the insight it gives me into people's complex motivations and diverse ways of being.
It seems that the paradigm for discussion is to find the areas in which we disagree and then do our best to pummel, put down, vilify "you" for your stupid/unpatriotic/whiney/evil (Hitler-like?)/naive/name your insult ideas. You know what the obvious result is: divisive hateful war. If our true goal is to work toward policies of benefit to all of us, wouldn't the better paradigm be one of respect for the dignity of each and all, looking for the areas in which we agree, and building from there?
Basically, we are all bisexual, along a continuum. There is no big deal about trying out a kiss when there is a mutual attraction. Making a big deal about it is what can lead to emotional distress. The important points are in regard to how kids learn to be in relationship, that there is a great deal more to look for than attraction or sexual expression.
Why? Because the systems that were supposed to be in place to keep such an event from so easily occurring were obviously not appropriately in place. I'm not talking about surveillance (electronic or otherwise) of citizens or other people going about normal business, or about sending potent weapon messages to destroy designated enemies. I'm talking about simple everyday air traffic control, tracking airplanes to keep them from going off course without any corrective measures. I am talking about teaching aircraft personnel to handle unexpected, dangerous situations. I am talking about making sure there are appropriate exit strategies in case of fire or other disaster in high rise buildings. It's not about good or evil. The devil is in the details.
At the core of the economic crisis in the US are the funds being tracked to Iraq, but more fundamentally, the widespread unconscionable
culture of usury, eating at the backbone of the everyday workers who hold up society.
No one will give me a credible, intelligent answer. What does it mean to "win" in this Iraq invasion/occupation/destruction/disaster?
There is something to be said for sides coming in each with their entrenched position, and discussion/arguing/debating learning from each other and experts, moving each toward a more realistic position. I think they call this the job of the Congressional Houses in our democratic constitutional republic. The problem is, it's not even about entrenched positions that good people have come to in their quests to improve the lives of Americans. It is about being entrenched to be entrenched, to play to some constituency, when the constituency is supposed to be the American people, all of us.
Just think, after all the Clinton "vetting" and whatever the Republican hate machine does, all they can do is come up with specious sins of supporters or acquaintances, the old harangue about "no experience" and the general word-twisting we all know so well.
I have read that the most effective way to stop/prevent men from abusing women is to get them to understand that this behavior is in no way condoned or permitted. It amazes me that guys will stand around putting down some woman, implying or out right saying she deserves to be beaten or otherwise abused. These are not so-called "sick" weirdos, but normal guys having a few drinks (or not), letting off steam (or not). I see guys on the street beating on a woman or child and I go up and make an issue of it, while big strong men walk right by pretending not to see.
Get off the drug. Talk to the prescribing physician, or whatever dr. you are consulting and do what it takes, usually gradually decreasing the dosage. There are so many better treatments for depression than most of these drugs. Some drugs do work well for some particular individuals sometimes, but the argument has been you take the drug for a short term while working on the underlying issues manifesting as the symptoms you wish to lose. The drug is not a real cure, and it can bring on other effects that make life so much harder.
I keep wondering about the talking points everyone seems to want to get in on about Senator Obama's lack of experience. He may not have been President of the United States before, but looking over those who have many have not learned usefully. He has an incredible wealth of life experience? Have any of you done anywhere near what he has? Don't tell me we don't know anything about him. Read his autobiographies, listen to his speeches (on the web where they are archived), read his resume. Hey, pretend you are looking him over as a potential hire. Just exactly what "experience" are you expecting will give you a President who will work for us as we would wish?
The point of the American democratic system was to promote a continual stream of citizen activists who care enough about freedom to fight for it, not in war but in education and community involvement.
The point of the "change" in the Obama campaign is that we change our attitudes and get together to get done what is needed for all of us to benefit.
Learn to trust yourself as your one true spiritual teacher. It's all a journey. Of course, find fellow travelers along the way to share the moment. Learn what you can from each other, and each other as you meet.
I have been thinking that we as society are technologically at a point where we could seriously look at some underlying economic assumptions, how they have failed to benefit us and our ecosystems, and start the work of revamping. We have basically just let our economies, systems of goods/services creation and distribution, happen, based on political more than practical concerns. We need to move toward a system, or series of systems, or diversity of systems, directly addressing the well-being of people and planet. There is so much needless suffering, stupid destruction, and divisiveness to the points of war and genocide that could so easily be eradicated with appropriate thought and action.
His legacy was her destiny. It didn't matter that she never realized what he was about while he was alive.
The scent of lilacs would not let her think beyond the sweet times. She told herself it was a private journey, that this was just a rough patch. Walking memories of past action, resultant chaos, she was ready to contemplate a process of remapping, of moving the puzzle pieces into a new configuration. His ghost would not let her.
The root paradox of arousal and defeat that marked his life seemed to actively desire a continuation through her. Only by turning, facing who he had been, finding the beauty behind his agony, could she hope to move beyond his legacy, her destiny.
My experience is that so-called education (the formal kind) is about destroying native creativity in favor of teaching to standards and expectations. Yet, creativity is what we need to further both individual and societal problem-solving.
But there are so very many who do evil in the name of doing their God's will. People don't do good or bad because God/dad is watching. They do what they are given to believe by other people that they can get away with. Sometimes they do what they are given to believe will be applauded by their acknowledged peers or community, like torturing/murdering/destroying those deemed "not of us".
And we need to teach, not preach. We need to have real dialogs and listen to each others' concerns, questions, ideas and fears. We as adults need to understand that children are not a different species, but actual living human beings, right now, not just some pre-human preparing to join the race someday. We need to tell them the truth, and give them resources to find the truths we do not have ourselves.
Yes, turn on your black lights and groove
Tell those old blues to move on to the dance floor
What wonderful waste-lines to lose
For soft summer nights they made romance for
Eat, drink, make merry, rejoice
Never believe that you don't have that choice
blame the Lord, blame the children, blame the mad
find the fault that took away what we thought we had
yet this chaotic scrambling's not our fate
but the poisoned fruits we're fed as slaves of hate
It amazes me that so-called conservatives are so, well, profligate of our national resources. It is as if they are convinced that some major upheaval will turn all past to naught, perhaps Armageddon? In any case, we do need a new economic paradigm, outside the capitalist/socialist,communist box which actually addresses our needs as the human community dependent on the resources of our planet.
mirror neurons let you dance by watching others
motor neurons let you dance by moving to the music in whatever way you comfortably can
body/mind connection, ain't it wonderful!
We are not masses, though we may be mass. We are each individually educable, even in large groups. Mostly it's a matter of motivation, teaching from where we are using what we are already familiar with and then branching out making sure everyone is being carried along, eliciting any questions or confusions and addressing them appropriately, seeing what has been learned and what is still needed through appropriate applied knowledge projects.
Not to take these conditions of horror lightly, but women have been treated like excrement all over the world, including very much right here. We don't have domestic violence laws, shelters, counselors, and ptsd treatments because it is a rare occurrence. Women are killed every day right here in the USA by irate husbands, lovers, just plain stalkers. Women are raped by husbands, strangers, dates, bosses, family members, often seriously injured or killed in the process. Implying we have nothing more serious to protest about than "glass ceilings" is a macabre insult.
Hooray for you and your energy awareness. I know you will find a way to do it, starting with research and creating the best energy solutions for your situation. Perhaps you could even go on to spread the information you find, even make a business of it. You see how this information is valuable and not generally known. The way we, all of us, are going to get beyond the crises of the moment is to see them as opportunities are find our inner ingenuity.
Water is amazing. Like energy, food, and many other necessities it is becoming over-harvested and laid to waste. Purification and more rational systems of distribution need to be promoted. It's a lot more than a metaphor.
It is all about making money. Logically, we need to move toward an economic paradigm including costs to the environment, the populace such as health costs, and generally stewardship of resources in the costs of doing business.
Rather than tax as such, why not stop giving advantages to businesses selling these unclean energies and give incentives to clean energy alternatives?
I want the old 2000 straight-talking rebel McCain back. I want him back in 2000, as the Republican candidate, even the 43rd President. In fact, I was ready to vote for him back then. Then, evil demon Rove turned him into an also-ran, and apparently damaged his brain and integrity as well.
Is love a zero sum game?
Does anger over long division
diminish returns?
Is hope an emotion,
a mathematical possibility?
Will infinite sadness exponentiate
negativity?
Does it all add up
to experiential lessons
leading to a higher equation?
Have we ever had a conservative president? I guess that depends on who is doing the defining of "conservative" which seems to be up for grabs. We don't seem to want conservative values, just to force everyone to be virtuous according to selected principles involving sex and restricted speech. Oh, and it helps if they get us into totally stupid wars that drain our finances, kill our common-class kids, and let us look all macho.
Taking chemicals will not teach anyone to focus. I can see taking medication to combat infections, boost immune systems, dissolve obstructions, physical disorders with obvious cause/effect to indicate specific chemical aid. This explosion of ordering dangerous chemicals be taken by children for behavioral problems is just plain crazy. Cognitive/behavioral problems are best solved by education and exercises.
What if, indeed. What if we could actually have a marketplace, of goods/services/ideas that responded to each of our needs because we wouldn't have it any other way?
The God of the Jews, who later became the God of the Christians, Muslims, Mormons, and probably others, was a lesser Middle Eastern deity at the time that the Jews were slaves in Egypt. He was fully aware that there were other Gods, but exhorted his followers "thou shalt have no other gods before me." He was described as a jealous god who had his followers smite those who mocked him. Christians apparently worship both the Father and the Son, not seeing Jesus as a prophet, but as himself divine.
If you are speaking of the one pantheistic spirit that is manifested in all of creation, I am inclined to agree. However, note that these manifestations are sometimes of spiritual godheads, denizens of the spiritual world, which are worshipped by spiritual beings manifested in the physical world known as humans.
A lot of people don't seek professional help because they don't want to be in the system or coerced into taking dangerous pharmaceuticals. There are many treatments which are based more on respect for the dignity of those suffering. There are also other ways of framing what are otherwise seen as symptoms of depression. Sometimes people are so overwhelmed by lack of control in their lives that they in effect give in and die while still physically functioning. Sometimes people have energy fluctuations which they have not learned to understand and make room for in their lives. Sometimes people have chronic pain or illness which saps their energy. Often highly creative people will burn out on a project and need down time. Suicide is sometimes mistakenly seen as an appropriate transformation, when a spiritual transformation is taking place in a society that does not support that.
We so often jump to "it must be that ego; if I could be good and selfless I would reap the reward of virtue." We forget that virtue is very much its own reward, the virtue of actually accepting and living in the true joy always available to us. As you point out, we need our egos, and all our other parts. We are who we are to be who we are in the best sense, not to cripple ourselves by cutting out what we have come to mistakenly believe are unattractive parts.
Save the Economy; Save the Children
Create the 8th Grade Year Small Business Practicum to be available to all students in public schools. The first week will be one of general discussion of what is involved in starting and maintaining a business. Students will then brainstorm about what kind of business they want to start. Interspersed are exercises to get everyone to know one another's abilities, skills, strengths, weaknesses, interactive styles and personality characteristics.
The students are then assigned to research possible business options, which might best succeed in their environment, local needs that can be addressed, the resources needed to make their business a success. As the year goes on, the business is formed and maintained. Students are offered ways of locating resources to help them learn what they need to do along the way. A multi-disciplinary advisor group of teachers makes suggestions and are available for consultation and skills training. Local business people are recruited as consultants and to give guest lectures to the class.
The students decide how any profits are to be distributed. After the class year, any students who wish to may continue their businesses. They are also welcome to give guest lectures and act as advisors to subsequent classes.
Any graphic artists who would like to collaborate on my as yet graphic-less "graphic novel"? Without the graphics, it is merely a novelette.
http://www.gather.com/viewArticle.jsp?articleId=281474977172809&nav=MyGather
Any poetry [more] performers who would like to perform my poem, "strangling heaven"? [with great thanks to Divinity Rose and a virtual ovation!!]
http://www.gather.com/viewArticle.jsp?articleId=281474977282905&nav=MyGather
Any performance group who would like to perform my piece "Gaea"?
http://lunaramble.blogspot.com/2008/04/back-for-earth-week-gaea-ritual.html
Any visionary artists who would like to submit work to Emerging Visions visionary art ezine #12, theme title: "Jung @ Heart"?
Watch for the next call, expected shortly after the Solstice, for Emerging
Visions visionary art ezine #12, working theme title: Jung at Heart ~
hopefully emerging in deepest July (or the early light of August) ~
The working theme title for #12 is "Jung at
Heart". I find it easier to work the collage with a running theme.
They are usually associated with the astrological influence at the
time of "emergence" of the issue. #12 is due out during the
astrological month of Leo, around Jung's birthday. Leo rules youth
and heart. What I am hoping to get are works relating to fairytales,
youth archetypes, playfulness, creativity, childlike wonder, and
such. If you have something for the issue, please do send it.
http://emergingvisions.blogspot.com/2008/02/submission-guidelines.html
libramoon42@mindspring.com
Wednesday, June 18, 2008
channeling change
Birthright
Serpents and Eagles
terrorists and slaves
Enforcement through symbols
deciding who behaves
according to rules,
what is taught in schools,
which way the rivers flow,
the truth of what we know.
Mirror, mirror in the sky
tell me who; don't tell me why.
The winds of change are calling,
blowing storm clouds
into wild array.
"Awry" I say -- the whole world's
silly with it.
Newfangled weapons
of biblical proportion
"Zap it up, boys -- avoid the sins
of abortion and forbidden
love -- make War!
on every deviancy from the code."
Sleep safe and warm
absolved from all harm
by the goods you've been sold.
Re-selling a story of secondhand
glory, of the Man up above
who kills out of love
and how you most honor
His Name.
Squander your birthright for
a handful of shame.
Or, take back your soul.
Create your own meaning.
Changlings Channel on Solstice Week
Of effervescent Mercury's directing
Charming trickster,
playing upon winds of change -- Quicksilver surfing
Exchanging old air for new
Inhale and whoosh
under the sea-change brewing.
Sentimental, far from gentle,
whirlwinds gasp lifelong ambitions.
Expected conditions,
wavering memory
catch and fly the breeze.
Blown out to undulating ocean,
forgotten gills respond --
mer-mind awakens.
(c) June 16, 2008 Laurie Corzett/libramoon
http://emergingvisions.blogspot.com/
Serpents and Eagles
terrorists and slaves
Enforcement through symbols
deciding who behaves
according to rules,
what is taught in schools,
which way the rivers flow,
the truth of what we know.
Mirror, mirror in the sky
tell me who; don't tell me why.
The winds of change are calling,
blowing storm clouds
into wild array.
"Awry" I say -- the whole world's
silly with it.
Newfangled weapons
of biblical proportion
"Zap it up, boys -- avoid the sins
of abortion and forbidden
love -- make War!
on every deviancy from the code."
Sleep safe and warm
absolved from all harm
by the goods you've been sold.
Re-selling a story of secondhand
glory, of the Man up above
who kills out of love
and how you most honor
His Name.
Squander your birthright for
a handful of shame.
Or, take back your soul.
Create your own meaning.
Changlings Channel on Solstice Week
Of effervescent Mercury's directing
Charming trickster,
playing upon winds of change -- Quicksilver surfing
Exchanging old air for new
Inhale and whoosh
under the sea-change brewing.
Sentimental, far from gentle,
whirlwinds gasp lifelong ambitions.
Expected conditions,
wavering memory
catch and fly the breeze.
Blown out to undulating ocean,
forgotten gills respond --
mer-mind awakens.
(c) June 16, 2008 Laurie Corzett/libramoon
http://emergingvisions.blogspot.com/
Saturday, May 31, 2008
May Eyes
these issues are very disturbing. I would hope they would be, to anyone. Reminds of that quote which I can't quite place about if you don't like my answers, stop asking such dangerous questions. In this case the dangerous questions are constantly being asked by real life circumstances. We who hear do feel compulsion to answer disturbingly. If we hide from all disturbance of our status quo and our self-taught lies, how are we to change the horrific realities?
It is not up to us to decide what a god will condemn. We, each of us, make our own equations as to what falls to good, neutral, evil. Situations can be quite complicated, or facile and obvious. To my mind, we are here to learn who we are and how to act accordingly. I believe in peace and cooperation among humanity as the most useful and mutually beneficial course. It is not necessary to condemn in order to work toward the perceived goal. It is much more useful to treat each other with compassion and familial concern. Yet we all know there are often bitter arguments within families when strong emotions are evoked. In a universe there is room for it all.
I agree that Pastor Wright's statements are true, and applaud him for his public valor and spirit. This does not mean that Obama is false when he proclaims that he split with his pastor because they are promoting vastly different messages. Pastor Wright got it right (again) when he said that pastors and politicians answer to different bosses. Wright is telling a deep set of truths and fighting an ongoing battle. It is a different set of truths and a different battle from Obama's.
Obama's core message has been from the start not about historic wrongs, but present necessities and the need for unity among the diverse peoples of the U.S. He rightly understands that Wright's message is acting as a divisive distraction from his call to put aside our differences in favor of working for our common goals and common good.
It is not necessary to condemn one side in order to uphold the other. Both men, both messages, are important. They are only conflictual when pushed into combat by the public cry for either/or logic. There is more than enough room in this wanting to be great country for good people to find their individual vocations at various points in the overall fabric needing to be mended.
So sad that we have to go through pain to understand how pain is gone through. No need to leap into homilies or even thoughts of healing in the first throes of emotion. If we allow the emotion to feel its way all through our being, we can merge and go forward, having grown. It doesn't have to be a lesson in the sense of schooling. It is what we learn because that is how we are made.
What I don't get is why lenders didn't work out new loans for their defaulting customers which would be within the home buyer's means. That way, everyone could have gotten what they ostensibly went into the loan to get: the home buyer a home, the lender a return on their investment. The government would not have had to get involved, and the US financial situation would be less immediately dire.
In regard to the threatened Bush veto, he is also expecting action on Iraq War financing. If the Congress had the cojones we pay them for, why not insist the housing bill be signed before they agree to any more funds for Iraq? Although, if they want to give their constituents what we want, that funding needs to be minimal, with the idea of getting troops out, not extending their stay.
If we had reasonable laws against usury we would not be in any kind of financial mess like this. I understand getting a return on your risk, but anything over say 12% a year for credit cards is ridiculous. Mortgages ought to have a reasonable time to pay off/interest ratio so that mortgage payments stay well within the means of the buyer. Financial institutions, like so many institutions, seem to act based on some theory of divine right to profit, rather than as a service organization getting paid for providing good social benefit. We have no free market here, so letting the market make its magical corrections is not only dubious theory, but not an option. The market is obviously and unapologetically manipulated for the benefit of corporate interests even though these manipulations in fact destroy the whole conceptual basis to the benefits of capitalism. If we were intelligently designing our market system, restrictions would be on the corporations for the benefits of the consumers, the environment, the social structure and public good in general, and the lower level workers who actually do the productive work.
People are complaining that corn is being used for fuel rather than animal feed, but the companies buying the corn for fuel are probably doing a two-for-one because the process to make alcohol uses the sugars, not the proteins. The proteins can then be used as animal feed. What is lost is the high fructose cornsyrup.
What is "science"? It's not what scientists do, or what we have learned in science class. It is a method to achieve knowledge. As is astrology, which may be classified as a proto-science by some. There is observation and notation and calculations and theorizing and observation, etc. What your average astrologer is doing, like a cook, is using "scientific" principles in practical commonplace application.
Interesting that they are so concerned with possible effects of "illegal" drugs on the aging brain, when the real ill-effects of highly touted pharmaceuticals get little attention. It would be nice if we could all be made aware of the risks and benefits and make our own choices of recreation and medicine. Did you see the Bill Moyers program exploring the scam of big pharm? Did you see the effects they showed in older folks who had been scammed into taking Detrol for a made-up disease? I just saw a very aggressive Detrol commercial on network tv, with none of those effects even mentioned. They made it seem like any side-effects were slight and unlikely, and this wonder drug would make life so much better. It's all a matter of who is getting the money, and how well they lobby Washington.
There is good reason, though, for those who are victimized in this sense to change their actions not in the sense of adding to their powerlessness in regard to the larger system, but to change their cognition and actions toward understanding the political aspects of their "personal" situation. Thus, with encouragement toward this attitude, powerlessness can be overcome by a new understanding of power as the politics of standing up for our own well being.
I have been working to reframe my "depressive episodes" as fluctuations in energy -- no blame, in fact a message to go within for a while to recharge.
Have you seen the documentary on Depression currently being aired on PBS? I watched last night and was appalled. Their first line of defense against cognitive/behavioral issues was these dangerous drugs, which they admitted they don't really understand but just experiment patient by patient taking advantage of confusion and misery. They even touted electroshock. Yet, when we saw the results in the lives of the people whose stories they were following, the best result was for a young black man who refused to take drugs and transformed his life by engaging with an older woman activist and working for a community support group, along with talk therapy to work out his early life traumas and resultant ptsd. The white well-off parents of depressed teens talked about how they hated to send their kids away for treatment and now the kids are back home and doing better on daily drug cocktails, but you can see what was destroying these kids was lack of intimacy in their lives so they always felt they had to play a role to be acceptable. Nothing at all was mentioned about complementary or alternative therapies, such as expressive therapies, though it was pointed out that regular exercise helps keep depression at bay. What they did keep emphasizing: "This is a disease and therefore treatable." I may have it wrong, but I didn't know there was treatment for every disease, even postulating these basically faulty software issues to be "disease", but I digress. Of course, the major point was that poppa Psychiatric Association knows best, and what we know is you gotta take your medicines, no matter what the ill-effects, because we have more medicines for those.
Of course what works for you works for you. There is no reason why you should not do what is best in your individual circumstance. I am objecting to all the forced/coerced/drugs first phenomenon. People's lives are being ruined because they are misdiagnosed, given harmful treatments (side effects are just some effects created by the mixture of the chemical and the body, not side at all) and made to feel disempowered by dependency. My take is that we should be given all the information, easily available and digestible, and allowed to choose. Kids should not be coerced into these kinds of treatments. A big part of that information we need is about the alternative and complementary therapies, and alternate ways of framing "symptoms."
I was dreaming that I was walking along a verdant highway shoulder with my brother and his wife. She was asking about my mental health issues. I explained to her that I was coming to the realization that I was no longer "sick." I had gone through a long healing process. Now I was not a sick person healing, but a new person I had not been before. My task now was to learn how to be that person effectively.
As I was saying this last bit, she let us know that we needed to cross the highway here, to get to a place she wanted us to enjoy in the woods on the other side. She and my brother raced across when she said: "now." However, I got caught by traffic that came up on my too quickly. I have a recurring dream situation in which I am trying to get across a street or some such and find my feet somehow glued or tarred, unable to move. I remembered that and expected this situation to ensue. However, to my surprise, I found I was able to, lane by lane, cross the highway after waiting for the oncoming traffic in that lane to clear. I woke up before reaching the other side.
I have been musing on my current Pluto transits, the idea of transformation being about a permanent change. People often look at transits as temporary conditions that we will get over,
but the influences of life's experiences make us something new. The challenge and the gift is to embrace the changing and dance with it, not static "beings" (though I do understand that that is a verb-alization, implying movement) but amazing ever-becomings.
All the in your face political "news" here in the US seems to be reiterating that epic story about crises trying to knock us out of our comfort zones into more creative usefulness of changing conditions, and more useful change to move us beyond stagnant stubborn facts.
All the epic conditions, the magicks and miracles and heroics, great conflicts, tragedies, comedies, ironies, classic adventure and philosophic enlightenment do exist in the everyday. Every and all of us is forever being given opportunities to rise above, become more, understand and relate better, create ourselves as ecstatic evolving art.
Ralph Nader is an astute student of politics and society, a rare practical idealist reformer, a member of the best of what America is about. If it comes down to Hillary v. McCain plus Romney in the Fall, I'll be voting for him again.
So ex-Republican Congressman Bob Barr has become the Libertarian Presidential Candidate for 2008. He claims he split with the Republicans over the Iraq conflict, and that now that he has been taken in to the warm bosom of the Libertarian Party, he has seen the light and repudiated laws he once helped to pass, such as the US PATRIOT ACT, and the Defense of Marriage Act.
I can see that the Libs are non-foolishly taking the chance to get some big name recognition. Personally, I would have preferred Steve Kubby, to get the mmj issue front and center. You know all those sick pot-smokers in prison can't be helping the economy or the cause of social justice.
This is what America is all about: freedom of expression to promote ideas and counter promote, and find out what matters to each of us and perhaps ways to make it all intertwine effectively (though we could probably do better without the blaming and invective).
Registering voters is an important part of the process. However, there is a lot of educating of citizenry that needs to be addressed. I am constantly being amazed by how little "we the people" generally seem to know about how our government is supposed to work. No wonder it rarely does.
Congress never seems to get "it" in I guess some kind of mindless groveling to some imagined public view. I saw Newt Gingrich on tv today promoting prizes for innovative solutions to such concerns as energy and healthcare. I don't know if that would work, but I like the idea of innovative solutions to finding innovative solutions. I think a diverse open set of possibilities being worked on would be best.
Is evil jungle law
slavering jaws crushing life
to live
and what of love
sucking souljuice exquisitely
redeemed by mutuality
Of course, politics is a sporting event for the fans wherein the sportscasters explain the plays and we get to cheer and boo for our team.
Whichever utopia/dystopia or bit by bit moving along the time track we find ourselves a part of, real life is not just blinding science window-dressing. Real life is day-to-day relationships and figuring out paths to personal goals.
So many don't get it. "God" the almighty, ineffable, allthatis, is not some grandfather in the sky. It is All That IS, including the entire physical universe, the entire spiritual realm, all of us and all the techniques we discover to figure out bits of "reality." Eternity is a process; for humans, a learning process.
The purpose of religion is to bind people together into a community. Unfortunately, a lot of people get the whole concept twisted.
My right to move my arms should only be limited at the point of your body -- freedom, liberty, equality under the law seem to be eroding under the pointy heal of self-righteous would-be-demi-gods in their effort to bring human fate into their rulership. This is nothing new.
You know, it would be a freer market if government didn't support some industries over others. It would be a fairer market if people trying to create new resource paradigms, or better ways of distributing a variety of solutions to such problems as "energy" had better access to r&d funding. It would be a much more useful market if diversity of small solution operations were encouraged.
It would certainly help to stop giving subsidies and tax breaks to companies that are not making the effort to employ Americans. It would also help if Americans were more entrepreneurial, not dependent on these companies to create jobs.
We are operating out of a faulty paradigm when we think of healthcare as being about profit rather than about keeping the population optimally healthy -- the latter proposition being ultimately much more to the benefit of the overall economy. No, there is nothing wrong with making a profit. It is what business is for. However, there are other models than having healthcare run by the insurance industry.
Yes, anger overcomes reason, and love. But why are people angry? Do they feel unheard, and therefore a need to scream?
I am in favor of getting all the votes in from all the states. I am in favor of the candidates touring all the states, interacting with the people, getting their messages out widely and narrowly and in each and every crevice. I also see the campaign spending state by state as bringing needed funds into shriveling economies. This is all good.
I don't mind people having different views/ideas/rationales/policies. I enjoy mind-expanding dialog, getting a chance to get deep into what I really think, or what may be misconceptions. I am happy to be inspired by others' thoughts and experiences. What I can't deal with is the angry meanness, the ad hominems and cutting remarks meant only to deflect from real engagement.
Hearts of hope and passion
broken on the wheel
of disregard
These days if a kid should show real creativity, they most likely will have it drugged out of them.
Words, those slippery static bits
of hapless evocation
I learn again the meaning of language
losing words of specificity
finding my true calling
Even if those pro-Clinton people who have threatened to voted for McCain, which is unlikely given that he is not campaigning to their interests, there are not enough of them to matter. McCain is a very weak candidate, with little support in his own party. He is not the straight-talking McCain of 2000 who could pull large support from independents and Democrats. Obama is the much more the uniter. Once the lines are more clearly drawn in the Fall, most of the "Hillary supporters" who are not just voting against the black man, will see where their interests lie.
I'm worried about John McCain. He seems to be fading into some kind of senile dementia in which he can't remember what he said or believed when in his right mind.
The problem is, there isn't an "ever after." We are happy in a moment of bliss, then sad or mad or fearful or numb or any other state we may enter for that moment.
Our brains are constructed to create order. We find order in the randomness, and feel more in control. We create an ordered reality in which to move based on where our attention is placed. We build up a world view of cause/effect/control through an unconscious ordering of our experiences. When it all falls apart, we blame rather than understanding our mistake.
All that is or ever was or can occur
Exists in whirling mists, a cosmic blur
To set out bit by bit a brilliant poem
Weaving eternally our common home
It is perfectly normal (or at least it better be) to think for oneself. Therefore I am normal though I disagree with quite a bit that is considered to be the norm.
When we mature we realize the remarkable contradictions of being human. Mom and dad had to live their lives and figure it out as we are. It's not about finding a perfect person to emulate. It is about figuring out our own path, imperfect as we and it and they may be.
Chilling, and so sad.
Mothers are meant to be
comfort, salvation,
the rock from which to launch
the ships we harvest
Mothers closed in on
dreams never opened to
mere children
Laying offspring on
sacrificial altars
appeasing long-held
griefs and anger
take and lose far too much
The middle way is neither narrow nor restrictive, but takes in all that can be
In the physical universe nothing is created or destroyed, everything changes
playing in the mist of cinema
reckless images thrown from the screen
which shall we carry?
those quiet digestive interludes,
going into the depths to find the light
so ethereal, fragile, belying
the strength implicit in the search
Can you imagine a world of work in which people do their jobs and get paid without having to submit to indignities and lack of respect? Can you imagine a welfare system that actually helps people to resolve the issues that keep them from being able to work and get paid without having to submit to indignities, lack of respect, and paychecks too small to cover their daycare/travel expenses/other work related expenses/healthcare/rent and other basic living expenses?
Of course the truth is that people create jobs. People, in fact, have created the whole concept of "job". Ideally, what we are talking about is dividing labor in an efficient way so that all the
work we want as society to be done gets done. Then, you bring in the theory of capitalism with investors and markets and homage to the great human trait of greed. I have been wondering about this. Is greed made more dominant because of this homage? If we devised an economic system based say on usefulness of work done, or a love of beauty and grace, or active compassion, or just a balance of work and play, would greed become irrelevant? They say it is what we give our attention that grows, or something to that effect.
As I watch commentary on the election and hear people's thoughts about the candidates and the process, I realize how very ill-educated the vast majority of American people are about our political system, how our country is run (or supposed to run) and what their responsibilities and place is within the structure of "we, the people"
I have been thinking about this idea of dignity in relation to remarks about depression as a result of powerlessness.
I am postulating that here in Western society this powerlessness is more often against the social world than the world of nature. Looking over my life experiences, and those reported by others, there seems to be a strong bias in our methods of education and socialization toward shame, expectation of ambition toward specified areas of success, class structure based on denying personal power which acts oppressively in ways to exacerbate internalized aggression and
hatreds. There is a tamping down of what could be creative resources in individuals. The value of keeping young children still and quiet for most of their day discourages energy and natural enthusiasm. In such a frame, rampant depression makes sense as the norm. It is our denying of the dignity of each and all of us that sickens us societally and individually.
So, it is not just about maintaining dignity in the face of mental illness, but even more fundamentally about the desirability of promoting the value of dignity as a prime preventive measure, to maintain sanity defined as the meta condition of health.
The Earth screams
People die before their time
Or never get much of a life
Species die, their music silenced
Crazy theories of wealth
belie obligation or simple seeing
the laws of consequence
Scream Earth!
Pierce the cosmos with your
terrible cry
Acid rain burning through gold
falls
I am thinking about starting a Yahoo Group Writers' Circle. Would you be interested in joining such a group? Would you like to help to form it?
It is not up to us to decide what a god will condemn. We, each of us, make our own equations as to what falls to good, neutral, evil. Situations can be quite complicated, or facile and obvious. To my mind, we are here to learn who we are and how to act accordingly. I believe in peace and cooperation among humanity as the most useful and mutually beneficial course. It is not necessary to condemn in order to work toward the perceived goal. It is much more useful to treat each other with compassion and familial concern. Yet we all know there are often bitter arguments within families when strong emotions are evoked. In a universe there is room for it all.
I agree that Pastor Wright's statements are true, and applaud him for his public valor and spirit. This does not mean that Obama is false when he proclaims that he split with his pastor because they are promoting vastly different messages. Pastor Wright got it right (again) when he said that pastors and politicians answer to different bosses. Wright is telling a deep set of truths and fighting an ongoing battle. It is a different set of truths and a different battle from Obama's.
Obama's core message has been from the start not about historic wrongs, but present necessities and the need for unity among the diverse peoples of the U.S. He rightly understands that Wright's message is acting as a divisive distraction from his call to put aside our differences in favor of working for our common goals and common good.
It is not necessary to condemn one side in order to uphold the other. Both men, both messages, are important. They are only conflictual when pushed into combat by the public cry for either/or logic. There is more than enough room in this wanting to be great country for good people to find their individual vocations at various points in the overall fabric needing to be mended.
So sad that we have to go through pain to understand how pain is gone through. No need to leap into homilies or even thoughts of healing in the first throes of emotion. If we allow the emotion to feel its way all through our being, we can merge and go forward, having grown. It doesn't have to be a lesson in the sense of schooling. It is what we learn because that is how we are made.
What I don't get is why lenders didn't work out new loans for their defaulting customers which would be within the home buyer's means. That way, everyone could have gotten what they ostensibly went into the loan to get: the home buyer a home, the lender a return on their investment. The government would not have had to get involved, and the US financial situation would be less immediately dire.
In regard to the threatened Bush veto, he is also expecting action on Iraq War financing. If the Congress had the cojones we pay them for, why not insist the housing bill be signed before they agree to any more funds for Iraq? Although, if they want to give their constituents what we want, that funding needs to be minimal, with the idea of getting troops out, not extending their stay.
If we had reasonable laws against usury we would not be in any kind of financial mess like this. I understand getting a return on your risk, but anything over say 12% a year for credit cards is ridiculous. Mortgages ought to have a reasonable time to pay off/interest ratio so that mortgage payments stay well within the means of the buyer. Financial institutions, like so many institutions, seem to act based on some theory of divine right to profit, rather than as a service organization getting paid for providing good social benefit. We have no free market here, so letting the market make its magical corrections is not only dubious theory, but not an option. The market is obviously and unapologetically manipulated for the benefit of corporate interests even though these manipulations in fact destroy the whole conceptual basis to the benefits of capitalism. If we were intelligently designing our market system, restrictions would be on the corporations for the benefits of the consumers, the environment, the social structure and public good in general, and the lower level workers who actually do the productive work.
People are complaining that corn is being used for fuel rather than animal feed, but the companies buying the corn for fuel are probably doing a two-for-one because the process to make alcohol uses the sugars, not the proteins. The proteins can then be used as animal feed. What is lost is the high fructose cornsyrup.
What is "science"? It's not what scientists do, or what we have learned in science class. It is a method to achieve knowledge. As is astrology, which may be classified as a proto-science by some. There is observation and notation and calculations and theorizing and observation, etc. What your average astrologer is doing, like a cook, is using "scientific" principles in practical commonplace application.
Interesting that they are so concerned with possible effects of "illegal" drugs on the aging brain, when the real ill-effects of highly touted pharmaceuticals get little attention. It would be nice if we could all be made aware of the risks and benefits and make our own choices of recreation and medicine. Did you see the Bill Moyers program exploring the scam of big pharm? Did you see the effects they showed in older folks who had been scammed into taking Detrol for a made-up disease? I just saw a very aggressive Detrol commercial on network tv, with none of those effects even mentioned. They made it seem like any side-effects were slight and unlikely, and this wonder drug would make life so much better. It's all a matter of who is getting the money, and how well they lobby Washington.
There is good reason, though, for those who are victimized in this sense to change their actions not in the sense of adding to their powerlessness in regard to the larger system, but to change their cognition and actions toward understanding the political aspects of their "personal" situation. Thus, with encouragement toward this attitude, powerlessness can be overcome by a new understanding of power as the politics of standing up for our own well being.
I have been working to reframe my "depressive episodes" as fluctuations in energy -- no blame, in fact a message to go within for a while to recharge.
Have you seen the documentary on Depression currently being aired on PBS? I watched last night and was appalled. Their first line of defense against cognitive/behavioral issues was these dangerous drugs, which they admitted they don't really understand but just experiment patient by patient taking advantage of confusion and misery. They even touted electroshock. Yet, when we saw the results in the lives of the people whose stories they were following, the best result was for a young black man who refused to take drugs and transformed his life by engaging with an older woman activist and working for a community support group, along with talk therapy to work out his early life traumas and resultant ptsd. The white well-off parents of depressed teens talked about how they hated to send their kids away for treatment and now the kids are back home and doing better on daily drug cocktails, but you can see what was destroying these kids was lack of intimacy in their lives so they always felt they had to play a role to be acceptable. Nothing at all was mentioned about complementary or alternative therapies, such as expressive therapies, though it was pointed out that regular exercise helps keep depression at bay. What they did keep emphasizing: "This is a disease and therefore treatable." I may have it wrong, but I didn't know there was treatment for every disease, even postulating these basically faulty software issues to be "disease", but I digress. Of course, the major point was that poppa Psychiatric Association knows best, and what we know is you gotta take your medicines, no matter what the ill-effects, because we have more medicines for those.
Of course what works for you works for you. There is no reason why you should not do what is best in your individual circumstance. I am objecting to all the forced/coerced/drugs first phenomenon. People's lives are being ruined because they are misdiagnosed, given harmful treatments (side effects are just some effects created by the mixture of the chemical and the body, not side at all) and made to feel disempowered by dependency. My take is that we should be given all the information, easily available and digestible, and allowed to choose. Kids should not be coerced into these kinds of treatments. A big part of that information we need is about the alternative and complementary therapies, and alternate ways of framing "symptoms."
I was dreaming that I was walking along a verdant highway shoulder with my brother and his wife. She was asking about my mental health issues. I explained to her that I was coming to the realization that I was no longer "sick." I had gone through a long healing process. Now I was not a sick person healing, but a new person I had not been before. My task now was to learn how to be that person effectively.
As I was saying this last bit, she let us know that we needed to cross the highway here, to get to a place she wanted us to enjoy in the woods on the other side. She and my brother raced across when she said: "now." However, I got caught by traffic that came up on my too quickly. I have a recurring dream situation in which I am trying to get across a street or some such and find my feet somehow glued or tarred, unable to move. I remembered that and expected this situation to ensue. However, to my surprise, I found I was able to, lane by lane, cross the highway after waiting for the oncoming traffic in that lane to clear. I woke up before reaching the other side.
I have been musing on my current Pluto transits, the idea of transformation being about a permanent change. People often look at transits as temporary conditions that we will get over,
but the influences of life's experiences make us something new. The challenge and the gift is to embrace the changing and dance with it, not static "beings" (though I do understand that that is a verb-alization, implying movement) but amazing ever-becomings.
All the in your face political "news" here in the US seems to be reiterating that epic story about crises trying to knock us out of our comfort zones into more creative usefulness of changing conditions, and more useful change to move us beyond stagnant stubborn facts.
All the epic conditions, the magicks and miracles and heroics, great conflicts, tragedies, comedies, ironies, classic adventure and philosophic enlightenment do exist in the everyday. Every and all of us is forever being given opportunities to rise above, become more, understand and relate better, create ourselves as ecstatic evolving art.
Ralph Nader is an astute student of politics and society, a rare practical idealist reformer, a member of the best of what America is about. If it comes down to Hillary v. McCain plus Romney in the Fall, I'll be voting for him again.
So ex-Republican Congressman Bob Barr has become the Libertarian Presidential Candidate for 2008. He claims he split with the Republicans over the Iraq conflict, and that now that he has been taken in to the warm bosom of the Libertarian Party, he has seen the light and repudiated laws he once helped to pass, such as the US PATRIOT ACT, and the Defense of Marriage Act.
I can see that the Libs are non-foolishly taking the chance to get some big name recognition. Personally, I would have preferred Steve Kubby, to get the mmj issue front and center. You know all those sick pot-smokers in prison can't be helping the economy or the cause of social justice.
This is what America is all about: freedom of expression to promote ideas and counter promote, and find out what matters to each of us and perhaps ways to make it all intertwine effectively (though we could probably do better without the blaming and invective).
Registering voters is an important part of the process. However, there is a lot of educating of citizenry that needs to be addressed. I am constantly being amazed by how little "we the people" generally seem to know about how our government is supposed to work. No wonder it rarely does.
Congress never seems to get "it" in I guess some kind of mindless groveling to some imagined public view. I saw Newt Gingrich on tv today promoting prizes for innovative solutions to such concerns as energy and healthcare. I don't know if that would work, but I like the idea of innovative solutions to finding innovative solutions. I think a diverse open set of possibilities being worked on would be best.
Is evil jungle law
slavering jaws crushing life
to live
and what of love
sucking souljuice exquisitely
redeemed by mutuality
Of course, politics is a sporting event for the fans wherein the sportscasters explain the plays and we get to cheer and boo for our team.
Whichever utopia/dystopia or bit by bit moving along the time track we find ourselves a part of, real life is not just blinding science window-dressing. Real life is day-to-day relationships and figuring out paths to personal goals.
So many don't get it. "God" the almighty, ineffable, allthatis, is not some grandfather in the sky. It is All That IS, including the entire physical universe, the entire spiritual realm, all of us and all the techniques we discover to figure out bits of "reality." Eternity is a process; for humans, a learning process.
The purpose of religion is to bind people together into a community. Unfortunately, a lot of people get the whole concept twisted.
My right to move my arms should only be limited at the point of your body -- freedom, liberty, equality under the law seem to be eroding under the pointy heal of self-righteous would-be-demi-gods in their effort to bring human fate into their rulership. This is nothing new.
You know, it would be a freer market if government didn't support some industries over others. It would be a fairer market if people trying to create new resource paradigms, or better ways of distributing a variety of solutions to such problems as "energy" had better access to r&d funding. It would be a much more useful market if diversity of small solution operations were encouraged.
It would certainly help to stop giving subsidies and tax breaks to companies that are not making the effort to employ Americans. It would also help if Americans were more entrepreneurial, not dependent on these companies to create jobs.
We are operating out of a faulty paradigm when we think of healthcare as being about profit rather than about keeping the population optimally healthy -- the latter proposition being ultimately much more to the benefit of the overall economy. No, there is nothing wrong with making a profit. It is what business is for. However, there are other models than having healthcare run by the insurance industry.
Yes, anger overcomes reason, and love. But why are people angry? Do they feel unheard, and therefore a need to scream?
I am in favor of getting all the votes in from all the states. I am in favor of the candidates touring all the states, interacting with the people, getting their messages out widely and narrowly and in each and every crevice. I also see the campaign spending state by state as bringing needed funds into shriveling economies. This is all good.
I don't mind people having different views/ideas/rationales/policies. I enjoy mind-expanding dialog, getting a chance to get deep into what I really think, or what may be misconceptions. I am happy to be inspired by others' thoughts and experiences. What I can't deal with is the angry meanness, the ad hominems and cutting remarks meant only to deflect from real engagement.
Hearts of hope and passion
broken on the wheel
of disregard
These days if a kid should show real creativity, they most likely will have it drugged out of them.
Words, those slippery static bits
of hapless evocation
I learn again the meaning of language
losing words of specificity
finding my true calling
Even if those pro-Clinton people who have threatened to voted for McCain, which is unlikely given that he is not campaigning to their interests, there are not enough of them to matter. McCain is a very weak candidate, with little support in his own party. He is not the straight-talking McCain of 2000 who could pull large support from independents and Democrats. Obama is the much more the uniter. Once the lines are more clearly drawn in the Fall, most of the "Hillary supporters" who are not just voting against the black man, will see where their interests lie.
I'm worried about John McCain. He seems to be fading into some kind of senile dementia in which he can't remember what he said or believed when in his right mind.
The problem is, there isn't an "ever after." We are happy in a moment of bliss, then sad or mad or fearful or numb or any other state we may enter for that moment.
Our brains are constructed to create order. We find order in the randomness, and feel more in control. We create an ordered reality in which to move based on where our attention is placed. We build up a world view of cause/effect/control through an unconscious ordering of our experiences. When it all falls apart, we blame rather than understanding our mistake.
All that is or ever was or can occur
Exists in whirling mists, a cosmic blur
To set out bit by bit a brilliant poem
Weaving eternally our common home
It is perfectly normal (or at least it better be) to think for oneself. Therefore I am normal though I disagree with quite a bit that is considered to be the norm.
When we mature we realize the remarkable contradictions of being human. Mom and dad had to live their lives and figure it out as we are. It's not about finding a perfect person to emulate. It is about figuring out our own path, imperfect as we and it and they may be.
Chilling, and so sad.
Mothers are meant to be
comfort, salvation,
the rock from which to launch
the ships we harvest
Mothers closed in on
dreams never opened to
mere children
Laying offspring on
sacrificial altars
appeasing long-held
griefs and anger
take and lose far too much
The middle way is neither narrow nor restrictive, but takes in all that can be
In the physical universe nothing is created or destroyed, everything changes
playing in the mist of cinema
reckless images thrown from the screen
which shall we carry?
those quiet digestive interludes,
going into the depths to find the light
so ethereal, fragile, belying
the strength implicit in the search
Can you imagine a world of work in which people do their jobs and get paid without having to submit to indignities and lack of respect? Can you imagine a welfare system that actually helps people to resolve the issues that keep them from being able to work and get paid without having to submit to indignities, lack of respect, and paychecks too small to cover their daycare/travel expenses/other work related expenses/healthcare/rent and other basic living expenses?
Of course the truth is that people create jobs. People, in fact, have created the whole concept of "job". Ideally, what we are talking about is dividing labor in an efficient way so that all the
work we want as society to be done gets done. Then, you bring in the theory of capitalism with investors and markets and homage to the great human trait of greed. I have been wondering about this. Is greed made more dominant because of this homage? If we devised an economic system based say on usefulness of work done, or a love of beauty and grace, or active compassion, or just a balance of work and play, would greed become irrelevant? They say it is what we give our attention that grows, or something to that effect.
As I watch commentary on the election and hear people's thoughts about the candidates and the process, I realize how very ill-educated the vast majority of American people are about our political system, how our country is run (or supposed to run) and what their responsibilities and place is within the structure of "we, the people"
I have been thinking about this idea of dignity in relation to remarks about depression as a result of powerlessness.
I am postulating that here in Western society this powerlessness is more often against the social world than the world of nature. Looking over my life experiences, and those reported by others, there seems to be a strong bias in our methods of education and socialization toward shame, expectation of ambition toward specified areas of success, class structure based on denying personal power which acts oppressively in ways to exacerbate internalized aggression and
hatreds. There is a tamping down of what could be creative resources in individuals. The value of keeping young children still and quiet for most of their day discourages energy and natural enthusiasm. In such a frame, rampant depression makes sense as the norm. It is our denying of the dignity of each and all of us that sickens us societally and individually.
So, it is not just about maintaining dignity in the face of mental illness, but even more fundamentally about the desirability of promoting the value of dignity as a prime preventive measure, to maintain sanity defined as the meta condition of health.
The Earth screams
People die before their time
Or never get much of a life
Species die, their music silenced
Crazy theories of wealth
belie obligation or simple seeing
the laws of consequence
Scream Earth!
Pierce the cosmos with your
terrible cry
Acid rain burning through gold
falls
I am thinking about starting a Yahoo Group Writers' Circle. Would you be interested in joining such a group? Would you like to help to form it?
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