...and they lived happily ever after. Smith & Lady: poets, artists, photographers & adventurers.
Our relationship was forged to the soundtrack of Yoko Ono's magic,
frenetic, love-laden song, "Walking On Thin Ice." ( play song )
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What kind of man advocates murder to make a better world?
I had a disturbingly weird converstaion last month that’s still eating at me, except it wasn’t a conversation so much as a snake in the grass with an apple saying “Take a bite, it’ll be good for you; and if not a nibble, how about a little lick just to test the texture and taste; or at least hold it a bit and admire its sweet round redness awhile. (Book of Genesis, Garden of Eden anyone?)
I was standing in a crowd enjoying the sun and feeling good about seeing such a large outpouring of the young in their articulate awareness protesting all that’s wrong with our current economic and ecological systems, when a dude behind me said this is all well and good, but it won’t accomplish anything because working inside the system will never bring fairness and equality; in fact even letting us vote was just a trick to make us believe we had a voice in the process. (Unfortunately he has a point.)
I said we at least had to try, and that there were some encouraging signs of hope — for example, the Occupy Wall Street movement was growing explosively around America as well as the world, and it was already changing the minds and perceptions of millions; he poo-poohed it, said the cities will shut them down for their rich masters (again, he has a point), that the very system had to go — we needed a revolution to first destroy the current unworkable system, then rebuild a fair and equitable society.
Told him violence was not necessary, especially now that the internet and social media were wakening people to what’s going on, both the good and the bad of it all, and that the good was expanding. He said no, the government can cut off social media anytime they want (which is true — Egypt did it, as did San Fransisco). He went back to insisting we had no choice but to bring down the system, then rebuild.
I explained that even as angry as I was at the system, I was non-violent and tried (with great difficulty) to walk the path of Gandhi and Martin Luther King. Then I asked him the obvious question: “Won’t your revolution kill thousands, maybe even millions of people?” ‘Yes,” he replied, “but not as many as would die if we don’t, so actually we’d be saving lives”.
“So basically you’re advocating murder.”
“I don’t like to use that word, it has such negative implications. I prefer to say killing.” Oh great, that’s supposed to make me feel better? I told him killing IS murder, even when sanctioned by governments, and he was just playing word games. He saw I was disgusted and moved on.
But his statement still chills me. How can anyone rationalize murdering people to make a more moral world?
Even if you set morality aside (as our Government seems to have no trouble doing in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Somalia, Latin America, the USA, etc), exactly how do you go about killing a government composed of millions of people, an armed forces of millions, cops of millions? Do you kill their secreteries and chauffers too? What about their wives and kids and pets? Who chooses who dies, who decides who lives? And just where and when and how does your more moral and better world result from you becoming the very thing you’re fighting? How can a pure and fair Utopia rise from your neighbor’s decaying flesh? It certainly hasn’t worked very well in Libya.
Yet I can see his point. In one way, it’s simple self-defense.
I think I could kill a person who was attacking my wife; and I would defend myself were I physically attacked, be the attacker robber, rapist, soldier, policeman, or random chanced upon mentally disturbed individual. I can’t know this for sure untill I’m put in such a situation, so on one level it’s all a mind game; but no one has the moral or legal right to harm my wife or myself, so morally I believe I could would and should defend my family from actual immediate attack.
And as a people, we ARE being attacked. The corporations are killing us with their products, their processes, their prophets of profit, their purchased prostitution of our government which keeps sending our soldiers overseas to kill brown-skinned people for their oil and political beliefs.
So yes, our system is literally killing us, and killing the earth as well with greed and corporate global toxins. But you can’t fight force with force, especially when they have a much bigger force than you do because then you’ve changed nothing . . . you’ve either just been wiped out yourself, or else you’ve successfully killed them and then you become them and then you await the next them-to-bes who will come after you when they don’t like the way you’re running things.
You can’t defeat force with force because when you use force to overcome force you become the very force you’re opposing, as the past 3,000 years more than adequately proves.
No, you oppose wrong with awareness, education. You open people’s minds with words and actions and examples and humor and being the change you seek.
It is our job — the artists and poets and musicians and singers and activists — to open people’s eyes, to expand their minds and hearts, to help unite spirit and flesh, to raise their moral awareness and get them in touch with their inner Buddha/Christ/Cosmic Consciousness within each of us.
This is the real revolution, the revolution of minds opening, eyes seeing, ears hearing, hearts listening, people helping, sharing, coming together in tribe community family friendship patience compassion hope need and consensus.
You cannot enforce morality with a gun. You cannot make you, the world, or another better by killing people. This is true whether you’re government, soldier, policeman, or revolutionary. As we’ve seen over and over again, when our soldiers overseas kill people in government sanctioned murder, they damage something essential inside themselves, warp their basic humanity, making them shells of shame and rage when they return to the “civilized” societry that hired them to kill.
It’s scary because things are getting more complicated much faster, maybe approaching bad beyond fixing, and if we don’t come together immediately and start doing something right now, then the dude will get his wish – there will be blood in the streets in a vicious violant class war clash and the whole mess will start all over again because power and ego will continue to corrupt the winners and we’re back to “Go Directly To Jail, Do Not Pass GO.”
You don’t fight evil with evil. You don’t fight wrong with wrong. You don’t fight killing with killing. You can’t create a paradise while sleeping with slime.
And yet it looks to me like that’s where we’re heading. And all the blood and violence and death and destruction will not do one iota to help solve our problems of greed, ego, financial inequality, racism, worshipping Mammon, and global warming.
Or wait, I may be wrong. Maybe if we do hasten the process and start killing each other off in the name of right and God and morality, we’ll rid poor Mother Earth of our diseased stench that much faster and she and whatever animals we haven’t yet extincted can get on with healing themselves.
So maybe the dude’s right.
But count me out. As much rage as I have within due to the crimes against humanity and Mother Earth constantly committed by our Cioporate controlled Governments, I still have to try to walk the path of light and right, just so I can bear to look at myself in the mirror.
Dear Friends New and Old, Family, Artists & Poets…
On behalf of the spirit of compassion, kindness, unity (yet with infinite individual voices), I ask for your help (via direct participation, spreading the word, and/or thinking and meditating) on three events pertaining to two seemingly distinct movements:
1) The Climate Issue, especially at this moment the Keystone XL Pipeline(stopping the building of and very soon, the extraction of oil from tar sands).March and Rally Sunday, 1 pm, starting at CSU.
And please, there’s this event Monday from 6-9 pm near Case Western to help people understand nonviolent civil disobedience (the event Sunday probably does not involve civil disobedience). Even if not planning civil disobedience in the future, if you have a friend or family member who might be, this training is useful because people who do participate in civil disobedience benefit from having help if they are incarcerated.
2) The #OccupyCleveland movement today and/or tonight, Friday, Oct. 21.
Please Occupy Today and/or Tonight. Occuping Tonight helps, as the “permit” for using Public Space is being expired by people who have no actual authority to expire it, as all space is Public Space, particularly Public Square. There is a group of overnight occupiers who need our support as there is the possibility that they might be arrested tonight for civil disobedience. Main events start at 1 p.m. and include food, music, and speakers. At 10 p.m. the curfew at Public Square starts.
And if you are not able to Occupy Public Square tonight (like me), then Occupy Today. And if you are not able to be seemingly physically present in Public Square today, please spread Word. And if you are too shy to spread Word, please think kindly about everyone on the planet.
A value of the Occupy Movement is that it tends to maintain a visible, persistent presence of concern. The people who are actively participating in this presence ask for time and for consideration of the complexity of this unity in which we live. I ask on behalf of you as my friends and acquaintances to please understand that we who identify immediately with the Occupy Movement and who are working for it are working with two main ideals of process which might seem to at first to be opposing poles. The two main ideals of process are individuality and unity. The end results desired are happiness, health and sanity. The intermediate vista involves as much kindness as possible while grappling with complexity and seeming contradictions, such as how does one deal with the concepts of unity and class consciousness simultaneously. The bounds are time and practical deadlines of effective thresholds with respect to particular tangible issues the movement can help.
Fundamentally, at a scientific level, all this that “you” see before you is unity–buzzing unity
We can see ourselves not only as margins, but as centers. We are each at the center of a canvas. We are the centers. We are the center of a moving canvas. Our skins are illusions which trap identity temporarily. Skin is just a focal point for movement of temporary persistence. Fundamentally, we are very much interconnected, very much one. Even if talking about spirituality makes one nervous, one must admit that the human animal is a bundle that extends into the air, into the water, that the human bundle is not so much a bundle as a smear of leaf in rain. That the smear is a pigment dot in a pixelist painting. That the smear is related to all the other smears. That if one opens ears and sees with eyes and remembers and perceives, one can see that the wind of sentiment is a universal wind with currents and eddies and turbulence–or maybe even a river. Many metaphors apply.
Having said all this shtuff, I feel that it is our very real responsibility to deal with the news that a person might have been raped by another person while staying overnight last Saturday night.
I believe in the ideal of truth and transparency, and I believe in full disclosure to an ethical threshold based on faith and reason.
I also believe in appealing to a greater understanding of complexity and human frailty.
I ask for compassion and help.
I ask for compassion and help and I have witnessed much compassion on the part of people who are participating daily and nightly in the Occupy Cleveland movement. I visit the overnighters every morning to bring hot water and sometimes food, and to get news for the daily digest as best I can given the complexities of humans.
I’ve witnessed overnight occupiers give homeless people shelter under the main tent so that homeless people can get out of the wind. I’ve witnessed overnight occupiers helping homeless be part of the movement and regain responsibility and participation.
Tonight is Robert Ritchie a.k.a. Dickhead’s celebration of life service. Smith and I are attending. Robert Ritchie was a friend of Daniel Thompson. Daniel Thompson was intimately involved in humanitarian issues and grappled with complexity. There are metaphors that apply to this situation–some themes: involvement, passion, heart, complexity and simplicity, and life and death. LIVE!
I ask you all, poets and artists, to be part of this movement in a very tangible way. LIVE!
Poets and artists are part of the divine, and a tradition of the divine, and a tradition of being carrier waves and ways of change. Be part of this voice and action, and understand it, and grapple with complexity. LIVE!
This is my personal appeal on behalf of the universal and immediate.
This is a reposting of information compiled by ironboltbruce (he said anyone can repost). He’s mentioned this list of 15 issues that the Occupy Movement has created and has had a creative, personalized take on each of the issues. Am very glad to see this kind of thinking and would like us to think locally in addition to nationally and globally. So I’d like to create my own take on the issues following his example (coming soon). But meanwhile, here’s what he’s said:
The steering committee of the “October 2011 Movement” – the patriots presently occupying Freedom Plaza in Washington DC – published a summary of the 15 issues which are the focus of their protest here:
ISSUE #1. “Corporatism – firmly establish that money is not speech, corporations are not people, only people have Constitutional rights, end corporate influence over the political process, protect people and the environment from damage by corporations.”
ISSUE #2. “Wars and Militarism – end wars and occupations, end private for-profit military contractors, reduce the national security state and end the weapons export industry. War crimes, crimes against humanity and crimes against peace must be addressed and those responsible held accountable under international law.”
ISSUE #3. “Human Rights – end exploitation of people in the US and abroad, end discrimination in all forms, equal civil rights and due process for all people.”
ISSUE #4. “Worker Rights and jobs – all working-age people have the right to safe, just, non-discriminatory and dignified working conditions, a sustainable living wage, paid leave and economic protection.”
ISSUE #5. “Government – all processes of the three branches of government should be accountable to international law, transparent and follow the rule of law, people have the right to participate in decisions which affect them.”
ISSUE #6. “Elections – all citizens 18 and older have the right to vote without barriers, all candidates have the right to be heard and to run and all votes should be counted.”
ISSUE #7. “Criminal justice and prisons – end private for-profit prisons, adopt evidence-based drug policy, prisoners have the right to humane and just conditions with a focus on rehabilitation and reintegration into society, abolish the death penalty.”
ISSUE #9. “Education – all people have the right to a high quality, publicly-funded and broad education from pre-school through vocational training or university.”
ISSUE #11. “Environment – adopt policies which effectively create a carbon-free and radio-active free energy economy and that respects the rights of nature.”
ISSUE #12. “Finance and the economy – end policies which foster a wealth divide and move to a localized and democratic financial system, reform taxes so that they are progressive and provide goods, monetary gain and services for the people.”
PUBLIC NOTICE: No talking heads on Comcast/GE’s NBC/CNBC/MSNBC speak for us. No talking heads on Murdoch’s Faux News speak for us. No talking heads at the Kleptocracy’s Compliant News Network (CNN) speak for us (no matter how dull, deliberate or subtle their delivery). No talking heads in the lamestream media speak for us, period. And neither do ANY of the 537 bought-and-paid-for Kleptocracy puppets in Washington DC who will soon be joining our legions of unemployed!
I am upset that due process was not followed, and I can not understand how you, a liberal, compassionate man, can let “Realpolik” dictate your actions to this extent such that you seem very much like the previous administration with its war-mongering ways.
Please find your heart and compass and restore meaning to the concept of “hope” on which you campaigned. This is why I voted for you.
The uneven line twixt right and wrong – foto by Smith
I played a Youtube video and an ad appeared offering me lawyers to handle a bad hip replacement. Just exactly how does Youtube know I got a hip replacement four months ago?
I click on a restricted movie trailer ad which asks when I was born and I lie and it tells me sorry, no such person exists in your zip code with that birth date. How does a movie mogul know my address and age without me telling them my name?
Think about it – they know who you are, where you live, your sex and age, most your interests and friends, and pretty much everything you’ve purchased lately . . . and they know it IMMEDIATELY. They don’t have to go search a data base after you type in your birth date because as soon as you sign on, they tag you, link to your database entry, follow you every click you make on every page you view — all in real time. And they do this simultaneously with millions, perhaps billions of people EVERY SINGLE SECOND OF THE DAY WITH ALL OF US AT THE SAME TIME.
The commercial hardware and interconnected linkage required boggles my mind but what really blows me away is the software programming involved — first, how do they know it’s me when I sign on? Isn’t that invasion of privacy? I mean, I know they can track my IP address which according to the internet “can often be used to identify the region or country from which a computer is connecting to the Internet. An IP address can sometimes be used to show the user’s general location.” But we have two computers here on one cable port — just how do the hip replacement advertisers know it’s me and not my wife signing on?
There are a lot of laws protecting our privacy, and I don’t believe the computer people or the bankers or the ad agencies or any government agency is obeying a single one of them. They know who you are, your health-medical-financial-purchasing history, and probably what time you get up and how long it takes you to brush your teeth. And if you blog, they keep a record of keywords in case you’re either a potential future customer or terrorist. In a 1994 interview, Mark Weber asked me, “*Do the walls have ears?” “Not as many as the TV and the telephone. If you come to THEIR attention, you’re dead meat.” I replied.
Our Government and our Corporations are pretty much one and the same thing — law-breaking, spying, thieving, bullying thugs in bed together licking each other in ecstasy as they roll abound in the illegal data they’ve siphoned from us in their never ending hope of sucking up all our money and killing every single anti-authoritarian thought we might have.
These people are not nice, not moral, do not have any interest in our best interests, care for nothing but the stench of raw unbridled power and the stink of mooooooore money, too much money, money on top of money, money fluxing money most foul, and all the useless shallow surface stuff it can buy.
Of course bottom line this 1984 Big Brother and BIGGER CORPORATIONS world we live in is not going to go away or get better or ever become a lawful endeavor because the genie cannot be put back in the bottle. The only hope for folk now is to be born out of a hospital and spend the rest of their life off the grid — no registering for school, electricity, voting, credit cards, insurance, magazine subscriptions – no IRS or Medicare or Social Security . . . and even if you can pull that off, they’re still going to capture your face in their data base with their biometric and face-capturing software via the millions of surveillance and secret cameras hung everywhere in stores, banks, on streets, etc. . . . and once your face is theirs and they see no official government tags attached, they’ll slap you in a special interest file and track you down and eat you just for practice.
Welcome to the new world, much stickier wicket than the old world.
On a lighter note, what do we the consumer people know? My cell fone just rang. I replied with a cheery Hello. Long pause until a polite middle-aged woman said cautiously, “Is this K-Mart?” “No,” I replied, laughing joyously, “it’s not.” She apologized sweetly and I left her with a chuckling “No problem.” Then I sat and laughed, glad I wasn’t K-mart, glad she was so nice, glad I was gentle, and hopeful my morning laughter NOT at her expense rides with her throughout the rest of the day making her just a wee bit happier . . . because if that happens, my joyous laughter raising her sprits could spread a little extra lightness to whomever she interacts with the rest of the day. After all, we’re all ripples on the cosmic pool.
The Corporate Mean
The promised land of milk and honey
Hides the men of scars and shame
Who came they say to slay their dragon
Yet slayed to stay the same
Sleep creeps like Jason’s wool
Down shelf enchanted eyes
Devolved from Mammon’s muse
These self selected wise
Inside their phantom rooms
In fairy tale castles
Devoid of viable dooms
As integrated assholes
They sway
Illusion’s lies
I attended a moveon.org meeting last weekend about the “American Dream” movement they are building. Although associated with Democrats, I think this movement also encompasses progressive ideals. Everyone in the room was concerned about sustainability, the environment, peace, universal health care, good work, etc. Several people were very discouraged with some of the things President Obama has done, so there was a lot of conscientiousness and self-examination in the room.
They are trying to raise taxes on us and cut taxes on the rich, and cut Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. But we aren’t going to let them.
For young people reading this, these things might seem like things that don’t immediately matter or that it is useless, but they do, and there is hope that we can change things. I’ve seen the standard of living deteriorate and expectations deteriorate significantly over the past ten years. It is not unreasonable to see this turn around and become healthier. We have the resources and talent to turn things around. I had the pleasure of seeing a Democrat in Wisconsin get reelected last night after having made phone calls to do this; I’ve seen us raise over a million signatures for putting Ohio’s anti-collective bargaining SB-5 bill on the ballot so we can overturn it when we only needed to raise 230,000… I have been involved in these campaigns and it does help and it does matter.
One of the action items of last week’s meeting moveon.org is to find five friends who will also participate in the movement to a small or large extent. As we are in such a time of flux, I think this is an important opportunity for people to engage and thus am providing this information with the thought that you’ll consider this and participate if you can. You can sign up for some information here: http://ourfuture.org/blog (newsletter signup on the right column of the screen.)
I understand that we live in a fast-paced society, but I think in this time of flux it is especially important to help ensure programs like Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.
I think also we’d seen a kind of deterioration in community life over the past twenty years, and now people are rebuilding community with local food movements, poetry, music… and activism is another way to rebuild and heal and socialize. I think that many have felt apathetic, estranged and horrified by the insanity of some of the stuff going on in the political realm. A way through this is to step into it and be part of healing via activism.
I appreciate the headline name, “Rebuild the Dream.” I think we need to rebuild the dream and I am glad that commondreams.org is focusing more on positive action rather than despair in this headline.
In the video, Van Jones said, “We are being lied to.” I can sympathize with where I think he is coming from. I think he means well. But I think the phrase “we are being lied to” is a phrase that seems to arouse anger. I can understand why one might wish to feel anger. And I can understand that people seem to want to strike back at injustices.
On a spiritual level, I wish for anger to not be aroused, but instead, cooperation, healing, transcending labels and fixing the situations in this country and the world. I also think that it is appropriate to discuss things in a more complete manner and have sound “bits” rather than “bites.”
I understand the challenges of communicating in a more complete manner though! So, I wish for Van Jones to be successful in engaging people to focus on dreaming, and I wish for these people to be able to transcend anger and feel compassion so that they can engage even more people and help heal our country and the world. I am also not sure that Jones’s points are entirely accurate, but I know he has good intent.
It is understandable why many would perceive the words, “America is broke” as accurate considering the deficit and debt of the United States. On a spiritual and fundamentally practical level, though, the United States has the ability to heal its situation–I believe fairly quickly–by stopping funding of the military and military contractors and/or transforming the military and military contractors into agencies and businesses that implement sustainable infrastructure in an ethical manner inside the United States.
Also, were the United States government to make reparation payments to the countries of the world it has invaded, these countries could also develop sustainable infrastructures for themselves.
There are more complications to the phrase, “America is broke” when one considers the history of actions, debt and deficit in terms of parties that are in power in the legislative and executive branches of the U.S. Government, and the particular institutions and corporations and areas that the parties seem to want to invest in and/or fund. However, I am reasonably sure that most reading this particular page are aware of this history so I will not go into it now.
On a metaphorical level and practically implementable level, I love the phrase, “America is not broke.” Jones goes on to point out that were the rich to pay a fair share of taxes, this would help the economy. I believe this to be true and good within a practical threshold of understanding.
The second “lie” Van Jones addressed is the sentence, “Asking the super-rich to pay taxes hurts America’s economy.” Based on the history of economics worldwide, I agree with Van Jones in that that sentence about the super-rich is not accurate. The disparity of wealth that the United States is experiencing has harmed the vast majority of people living in the United States, and has had a significant harmful impact on the people living in other countries as well. I ask for the extreme disparity to be removed. I also ask for free trade agreements between countries to be removed, and instead for fair trade to be implemented. But I ask that the fair trade is implemented in such a way that the biosphere can survive, heal and thrive–in other words, for sustainability.
“Hating on America’s government – and wrecking America’s infrastructure – is patriotic” is the third idea Van Jones calls a lie. I can understand where he is coming from. From a peace perspective, though, I have seen that criticizing the government and wishing for peace has been called “unpatriotic” and “hateful to the United States” as well. I do not believe that criticism of the government and wishing for peace are hateful or unpatriotic.
I do believe that wrecking infrastructure can be hateful, but also can clear the way for a new, sustainable infrastructure that we need. We need an infrastructure for public transportation that has a negligible impact on the environment. We need a new and/or revitalized infrastructure for affordable healthcare for all people. We need for the disparity of wealth between the CEOs of insurance companies and the people who need healthcare to be reduced.
I would prefer it were the health insurance companies disbanded, but with a transition plan for the people who are employed by the companies so that they can obtain more ethical, sustainable work. I want for the CEOs of all companies who are rich to just decide to opt out, retire at a reasonable income, and stop exploiting people. So basically, I want a graceful, gentle parachute for the CEOs so that they and their families are not frightened. Preferably Gaia would provide this naturally for these people so that it just happens without a hitch.
I wish Van Jones success in getting people to engage in rebuilding the American Dream in a sustainable manner and with the goal of long term sustainability, and I ask that this vision include kindness, forgiveness, and that rebuilding include sustainability in terms of wages, health, and especially the environment.
I have sympathy for many of the organizations that Van Jones mentions: AFL-CIO, SEIU, MoveOn.org, etc. I have volunteered for an effort that SEIU has helped with, and have contributed to moveon.org even though I’d seen moveon.org as being aligned with the Democratic Party. I have great sympathy for many who vote for the Democratic Party but I also have a lot of criticism for the corporate funding and militarism promoted by the Democratic Party. However, I realize that the heart of progressives is still represented in many ways within the Democratic Party, and that the heart of good people is also represented in the Republican Party albeit manifested in unfortunate ways within both. We must recognize common ground, and in a way that is beneficial to the health of most, if not all people and the environment!
On July 5th, Van Jones invites us to go to rebuildthedream.com and share ideas. I think this is good.
There is criticism based on the history of political campaigns and parties, and this is mentioned in the threads of comments below this video but I think we also have to recognize that opportunites are born in mixed circumstance, and that action and progress can transcend circumstance.
Spiritually I like the words, “Contract for the American Dream.” I can see it as a way of making a covenant with a dream, a process similar to “making a covenant with God.” And I also see “reality” as a long dream, one that needs to be repaired, one that can be repaired.
I would like us to transcend “they” and “our” in the phrases “their turn” and “our turn” that Van Jones says. I would like “them” to be “us” and “us” to be “them.” I know this is so in so many ways. “We’re going to rebuild the movement that stands for liberty and justice for all,” Van Roy says at the end, and I think the “all” part if this is good and the intent is good. I’d also like for us to consider mercy.
So this is my long, yet brief analysis of this video!
It seems too much of my reality is rear view mirror hindsight. I see a clue, then I see its reflection later in some outcome, word, action. Many of these reflections and clues hint at the old myths, the old dreams, the old magic.
I’ve too often had a worried view of the future, a post-apocalyptic mechanistic expectation that this planet is going to become uninhabitable for many species.
I’ve been thinking of ways to visualize and coax and heal rather than expect the worst. It’s worked for me in some ways, at least according to my perception, and is a bit fun. I’d like to dare to dream and be irrational, because it seems more fundamentally rational to be conventionally irrational than to be conventionally sane.
According to some, all this is a gauzy dream, a reflection in we scriven. I’d like to make offerings to the reflection, promises to the dream.
All this comes with a caveat. My caveat is that I must perform ethical and joyous actions within conventionally rational domains in order to show commitment to the dream. This is what I consider my contract with the Universe-God-It-Ess-One-All-Thing.
“In Wicca and Ceremonial magic, practitioners use several magical tools including wands for the channeling of energy—they serve a similar purpose to the athame although the two have their distinct uses. While an athame is generally used to command, a wand is seen as more gentle and is used to invite or encourage. Though traditionally made of wood, they can also consist of metal or crystal. Practitioners usually prune a branch from an Oak, Hazel, or other tree, or may even buy wood from a hardware store, and then carve it and add decorations to personalize it; however, one can also purchase ready-made wands. In Wicca the wand usually represents the element air, or sometimes fire, although contemporary wand makers also create wands for the elements of earth and water as well. The wand is most often used by modern Pagans, witches, Shamans and others in rituals, healing and spell casting.”
Here’s the quote you fed me this morn from my daily “Today’s Inspiration” newsletter:
“Concentrate all your thoughts upon the work at hand. The sun’s rays do not burn until brought to a focus.” – Alexander Graham Bell
That said, I should probably make this morning’s letter brief, stop thinking about phones, phenomenology and philosophy, and focus on work. I do not wish to feel a lot of anxiety this morning. It used to be that my flaming thoughts, the flaming creative thoughts, were mostly a joy. Now I see them as:
1) manna storms from the divine
2) manic storms
I get a lot of good thoughts from these manna manic storms. But I feel physically ill. My stomach hurts. I worry about the appropriateness of what I express. Please, let me be appropriate. Is there such a thing as appropriateness, or does the concept stifle? I think sometimes that expression is very important in making the Universe a more humane place to live.
Oh, that I would obsess over art! But I do not feel I have time for art. I feel hurried. I feel that I must chug out a large portion of work and promise for cash flow and karma, respectively.
Dear Universe-God-It-Ess, I need focus. I need only some obsession. Obsession is like focus. But obsession is compelled focus, whereas focus without obsession seems a tad more healthy. Can’t I give myself over to the manna storms sometimes? Aren’t they part of my participation in divinity?
I need to compartmentalize and to be productive in many areas, don’t I? Is the conventional wisdom wise? Why do I feel the need to hurry? Do I need to hurry? I have a list of promises I’ve made. I made one more promise yesterday as well but I’ve got a year to start working on it.
I’m being buried under my own creative compost and good intent.
. .
I have been thinking about memes and dreams. Memes are the fruits of processes, the underlying history not always obvious. I have been thinking that memes are valuable evaluated on their own. But then the underlying history can help one evaluate the consequence of spreading the meme–the underlying history is encoded in some memes depending on the sophistication of the meme’s exploiters and recyclers. These memes are fruits wrapped in vines. On what lode load rests a meme?
I cannot throw everything out because of tainted history. Even the concept of taint is repugnant to me–it requires conformance to some kind of virgin ideal.
This is the huge problem in human reason right this moment, I think. The fear of slippery slopes. The inability to think through complex things in a sequential order, shuffle it, think through it again, shuffle it, etc. We’ve got to get smarter. We’ve got to stop playing to an assumed “lowest” common denominator. We’ve got to assume that most can rise to a threshold that’s going to get us through our severe biosphere problems.
There’s a ridge one can walk for easy ethics, I think. And then there’s utility in footholds on the sides of the ridge. This is called moderation. Walking the ridge is called fear. Dualism is fear. The two-party dichotomy is fear. Either/Or is fear.
The history of memes, how they’ve been used in the past… is the history enfolded in the meme’s fruit on a quantum level? Does it depend on the mindset of the person eating the fruit? Does it depend on the mindset of community? I think so.
“One has to develop a memory,” I told Smith.
“I just stole mine from the Five & Dime,” he answered.
One also has to develop a dream…
. .
Dear Universe, thank you for everything, especially the sky and the lawns and the trees and the woods and the raw uncut metaphorical swaths that are left, the metaphorical wilderness that I’ve not yet explored. I’m thinking particularly about country music as a context in which to understand Smith more, as a springboard for another context in which to understand his biography (one of the projects I’m working on now.)
Dear Universe, thank you for my health, my intelligence, my luck, my love.
I am writing to let you know that I am concerned. I do not wish suffering for people. But of course I choose biosphere over people, if that choice has to be made in that way.
Perhaps extreme weather events are the only way we’re going to change, and perhaps people in the U.S. in particular need to be awakened to extreme weather events and their cause.
I think the best thing we can do is stop driving cars unless necessary, stop eating meat, unplug everything we can, and live within the rhythm of sun, moon and birdsong.
It’s reputed that meat, the desire for meat, is the cause of much suffering on this planet, both to our biosphere and to massive amounts of people and animals.
It takes so much more water, fertilizer, land space, vegetable matter to raise a pound of beef than, say, an equivalent amount, calorie-wise, of asparagus.
Forests are being clearcut in the Amazon to grow things to feed cows and to grow biofuel so that people can have luxurious lifestyles. The Amazon is the greatest area of lung on this planet. Please help us cease this clear-cutting by making wiser choices as ethical people and by creating better, more ethical opportunities for the people doing the clear-cutting as a vocation.
I am making incremental changes in my lifestyle to try to consume less, eat more locally, eat less meat, etc. Three weeks ago I bought four bags of magic beans. Two weeks ago I cooked two different things in the oven at the same time to save on energy consumption. The week before I learned how to make a healthy, inexpensive and tasty variant of hummus. This past week I’ve started to make my own bread.
I’m buying cage-free eggs from local farmers. The vendor at the West Side Market showed us pictures of the chickens. They are beautiful. They laze about in tall beautiful expanses of green grass. The egg yolks are bright, rich yellow, and I swear they taste extra fine.
I am soon getting half a share of produce from Geauga Family Farms. Pick up points are not limited to Geauga. There are points in Cuyahoga and Lake County as well.
I have doubled up duty on car rides. The two days I commute to work, I also do something special with Grandma. And I’m doubling and tripling up other car trips as well. I’ve started to consider only going to entertainment and poetry events in my local community as much as possible. My near goal is to commute with friends to get to events that are further out to minimize our impact on the environment and pocketbook. I aim to do everything I can do, within reason, yes, yet stretching my idea of reason to something that can effect change and help me live in a more joyful and reverent manner.
So what I’m asking you is to ease up on the floods and tornadoes, Universe. Have some faith in us and help us keep the faith by making immediate changes where we can perceive possibility for change.
Other prayers of note:
I pray for moderation, yet I pray to be possessed when I should be possessed.
I pray that I am ethical, calm, joyous, productive, and the same for Smith.
I pray that a certain family member starts writing a poem every day.
I pray that I finish my commitments so that I can feel more free to follow through on commitments to myself.
Thank you for the many, many blessings and miracles I receive daily from you-me-It-Universe.
Some private thoughts, hopes, thanks, prayers as well…
Love, Awomen and Amen,
Lady
LADY’S HUMMUS RECIPE
1# chickpeas, soaked overnight, rinsed, boiled in lightly salted water 1-2 hours until soft.
2 heads of garlic, roasted at 350 degree Fahrenheit 1/2 hour.
1/4 – 1/2 cup of your favorite vegetable oil (olive oil is a hoax perpetrated on the masses)
1/4 – 1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper
Squeeze roasted garlic out of its skin and mash in large bowl with fork, then blender. Squeeze cooked chickpeas between fingers as much as possible and put in the bowl as well. Add the other ingredients. Mix as much as desired (I like little chickpea bits left in mine.)
