Self-Directedness

Online Piracy and Solutions, from and Artists Viewpoint

2012-01-20T08:40:00.000-06:00

http://www.forbes.com/sites/larrymagid/2012/01/18/what-are-sopa-and-pipa-and-why-all-the-fuss/

Piracy is a big problem. Let’s take a step back from the hoopla and legislative and corporate over-reaching and admit that. As an artist, and not as a lawyer, I’m going to try to get people to understand why this is a problem.

The greatest threats of the recent legislation have been to what I will call for short, The New Media, YouTube, Facebook, Google, Wikipedia, and other sites where users have freedom, almost absolute, to post their thoughts, videos, graphics, and reactions to those things from others. This almost absolute freedom for users to create and upload their content extends by law to the service providers who are mostly immune from liability for what their users post (“content”). Often times, a user will post material, like a song in a video, or a movie clip, that to copy without authorization would be a copyright violation, with civil and criminal penalties in some cases, and the copyright owner may be compensated for the unauthorized copy, and a penalty for each and every instance of unauthorized distribution, plus attorneys’ fees. This is the way the law is now. What SOPA and PIPA did, although putatively well intended, was draconian. It gave the power of copyright enforcement to bureaucrats, and the power to shut down one of these sites in its entirety, if it suspected the site and a user to be violating a copyright. Some have argued that under these proposed laws, a mere written complaint from a third person, or the copyright holder, could authorize a bureaucrat to order a shut down of one of these billion dollar businesses. Never mind that millions of users publish on and use these sites legitimately every day. Certainly extreme in my view, and as an artist who uses these sites, it would threaten my new way of business, and millions of other artists as well.

The New Media holds itself out as an alternative to the oligopoly of old media giants, and this is certainly a valid point of view. The Old Media is roughly defined as the supporters and drafters of these bills, and the New Media the opposition.

As an artist, I am caught in the middle. Online piracy is the unauthorized, uncompensated distribution of works of art and trade (content), via an online, internet service provider, ie., The New Media, most often. Here’s what it’s like, and what happens.

Every time a songwriter writes a song, his work is automatically by law considered copyrighted. There are ways to protect it further, but we do not have to get into that. If she plays and records her work, that recording is also copyrighted. Sometimes the songwriter records her music herself, and pays for the reproduction of CD’s and digital copies (what we call mp3 recordings, for short). These CD’s can be distributed via services like Amazon.com, and others. The digital recordings can be distributed via iTunes and other online upload sites like “Megaupload” http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2012/jan/19/us-government-megaupload-piracy-indictment. Sometimes the artist will go to a company to have her recording done, published and distributed. In that case, the copyright ownership is split. That is too complicated to explain, but it’s this split that pits the big Old Media houses against the artists. The media house owns the copyright, and the writer owns a royalty interest in every reproduction the house makes and/or sells. This includes performance royalties and radio play royalties for each time her song is performed or played on the radio. The media house (say Sony for example) gets a cut of the performance and radio play royalty, and so does the artist. The percentages vary per the individual contracts between them.

Now, here’s where the New Media comes in, as well as the opportunities for online piracy.

Think of YouTube as a radio or TV station. Yes, I know. Archaic, but I used to actually have a radio AND a TV. Now, back in the day, when songs were primarily broadcast and listened to on the radio, every time a song was played, a royalty was owed to the copyright holders of that song. The going rate was .9 (nine cents) per play. Complicated statistical analysis was applied to figure out how much was to be sent to the registration and enforcement houses like ASCAP (www.ascap.com) and BMI (www.bmi.com), who would then forward the royalties to copyright holders. This is how artists made their most of their money if they recorded and published their works, usually through the big houses. The internet and advanced computers changed all that.

The independent artist using technology, can now record, mix, copy, and publish his works from the privacy of his home studio for a few thousand dollars of equipment. He could sell his recordings as digital masters to iTunes, Amazon, and other downloading services so that the public could by direct from him (save a few cents to the distribution services). Google, Yahoo, Bing, and other big search engines took care of the marketing expenses for him. Anyone could search these engines and find recordings of Joe Blow to purchase in about 5 minutes. The artist could create a video to his music, post it on YouTube, and through the miracle of modern online advertising, get paid for that, AND promote for FREE the sale of his CD’s and digital recording. Okay, understand so far?

Now, what would happen if someone bought Joe Blow’s digital recording, and created her own video to go along with that (the technology for that escapes my understanding, but it is what most often occurs), then this SusyQ would post the video with Joe Blow’s recording attached, onto YouTube. What if the song was the Rolling Stones’ “Sympathy for the Devil”, the copyright being owned (I think) by Sony? What if said video got 1000 hits the following week? A “hit” would be the equivalent of a radio play. Shouldn’t the copyright holder of the song get paid for each hit, as it is a reproduction and distribution of his song, the rights to which HE owns? That’s $900 dollars a week, folks. Multiply that by thousands of videos uploaded a day, and a hundred or so hits a day for the good ones. Somebody is going to be very upset that they aren’t getting paid a lot of money. Does YouTube owe a portion of this money? Does the uploader? Who? How much does the artist get, and how much does the publishing house get? What if YouTube cannot pay? How about the search engines that link to these videos? If I click on a Google link to a YouTube video, is that a “hit”, or a play, and does that make Google liable for a distribution?

What if a dancer writes a choreography to a piece of music she paid for, and performs it? Well she and the venue owe a performance royalty each time she does so. This problem has been well handled for years, mostly. What if she records a video of her performance to this song in her own studio? That’s perfectly legal. What if she sells that video on a DvD? Ah! Royalties are then owed per copy to the copyright holder of the song. That’s been handled previously under current law. What if she uploads the video onto YouTube? Here, we don’t have a recognized answer. Does she owe the song’s copyright holder for every hit? Does YouTube? Does Google? What if someone posts a bio of this dancer, and/or this musician/writer onto Wikipedia and posts an upload of this video? Who is owed, how much, by whom, if any?

What if a dancer performs at a festival or restaurant and a patron therein makes a video? That’s okay, as long as she doesn’t violate the rules of the venue/promoter of the event. (That’s not a copyright problem, yet.) What makes it a copyright problem is when the videographer sells the video to the dancer, uploads it online, and/or publishes it on a DvD. Complicating the matter further is when the dancer or other recipient of the video uploads or otherwise copies and distributes it. Who is owed, how much, and by whom, if any? As you can see....

THIS IS A “BIG PROBLEM”

SOPA and PIPA were and are centralized solutions to a BIG PROBLEM, with millions of people involved with billions of dollars at stake. BIG PROBLEMS like this are composed of thousands if not millions of little problems, and people with their livelihoods at risk. Like all centralized solutions to BIG PROBLEMS, they ignore all the little problems for one BIG SOLUTION. And, they are formed by the people with the most influence on the process, and in our political process that is usually by BIG MONEY (the supporters in the Old Media, mostly). My questions above are just a few of thousands of questions to be answered, and most were answered very badly, in my view, by the drafters of SOPA and PIPA

I’ve tried to explain in as simple of terms as I could the structure of the copyright system as it involves music. There are many other forms of art reproducible and distributable on the internet. There are many copyright interests in each. A centralized, bureaucratic solution just cannot deal with them, and when that solution is influenced by the mostly politically connected interests, one can scarcely imagine the intended and unintended consequences.

The way BIG PROBLEMS made up of little problems are best solved in my opinion is through the courts, one dispute at a time, using existing copyright law and theory, which has worked very well for a few hundred years. If precedent needs to be changed to fit the situation, that can occur as needed in the appellate courts. If statutes need to be changed to deal with a specific problem, let that happen, too. Like I always say, BIG PROBLEMS solved by BIG PEOPLE trample the individual rights of everyone, and that is Tyranny, an even bigger problem.

Tarab

2011-03-02T17:44:00.000-06:00

From my dancer friend, and ethno musicologist, Candace. This is why I <3 you guys.

Candace Bordelon 02 March at 17:33

The first time I went to Egypt was June 2005. I went with the TWU Dept. of Sociology and the UNT dept. of Anthropology. I brought my friend Rebecca Hardman who is a bellydancer and happened to have just gotten laid off. Her husband Kyle is a fabulous doumbek player and played with Isis for years with Sean, Matt, and others. Anyway, Rebecca and I were the only people interested in dance and music. We found a lovely man who worked as a driver to take us all kinds of places on our own. His name is Omar and he was very nice and protective. He charged us like $10 a day to take us places. He took us to restaurants that were not tourist places that served the most fabulous food, shops, mosques, etc. We ended up giving him a couple hundred dollars when it was time to go and he was just blown away and freaked out. Anyway, he took us to this wonderful essential oil shop owned by a man named Fathy. Fathy spoke very good English. His shop was not on the tourist path where the buses stop. We spent hours there, listening to music, drinking tea and the sweet red hibiscus drink. Omar became like our "uncle." They do this in Egypt--they "create" familial relationships to show others that you are under their protection, that no one should bother you or treat you with disrespect.

So my second trip to Egypt was in 2006, and of course I found Omar right away. He took me to his home (very modest) in his village and I met his mother, sisters, and daughters (his wife was caring for her mother who was ill). I brought his daughter a stuffed animal and gave his mother a bracelet made from semi-precious gems from Texas. I ate dinner with his family and tried to eat as much as his mother could feed me. Later, we went to visit Fathy at his oil shop. I was sitting with Fathy, allowing him to correct my Arabic, and there was a group of 3 elderly men sitting in the corner drinking tea and smoking. One of them had a violin. He started to gently pluck the strings, and it was Inta Omri--you probably know that part. I looked at him and said "Inta Omri!". He was so surprised that I knew the song. I asked him if he could play the song and he did. Then we talked about other Um Koulsoum songs--I told him which ones were my favorite. He told me he used to be a violinist with the Cairo Symphony Orchestra. I sat there for 3 hours, the only woman in the place, under the protection of Omar (his "niece") and this man played maybe like 6 or 7 Um Koulsoum songs. Every time he finished he asked "what you like now?" Finally, when I had to leave, I reached out my hand to him and for some reason I just knelt at his feet. I think I would have kissed his feet, really. But I tried to tell him in the most inadequate language how moving and special this was to me.

I will NEVER forget this. This is what Egypt is! This is what will be with me forever. Screw the pyramids.

I was so upset that when I went to Egypt to do my interviews in June 2010 I could not see Omar and Fathy. I was so far from Giza and only there 4 days. So I will go back June 2012, and hopefully see my friends again. Any maybe find someone to play Inta Omri for me again.

The Holy Land

2011-02-13T16:10:00.000-06:00

I say this with all the compassion I have. I wish peace be upon you. And I accept your feelings and beliefs on the matter. May they find some rest.

Every one has their side to pick, for their own reasons, which are perfectly valid. The things that people have done to each other there, for well over 7,000 years, have been both horrible and beautiful, and in between.

I am not Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Arab, Israeli, or a conquistador. Nearly all peoples of the Earth have some grievance against another that date from something that happened there.

To me, the area is sacred land, belonging to all peoples of the Earth. It is therefore what I call The Holy Land. I'm truly sorry for all the horrible things that have happened there. I am writing this under the title of We are The Holy Land, because when we identify something as us, we are more likely to stop messing it up.

If, and until, all peoples can let those grievances go to the past where they belong, and live in the present like the brothers and sisters we are, there will continue to be wars and rumors of wars, like the Good Book says, until the End of Days. There will never be democracy and peace in the world until, if, and when there is democracy and peace in The Holy Land.

NO SIDE can win in this. It's not possible. That is because it is not a place where anyone can win. It's either a place of peace or a place of war. That's the purpose we've given it. It is a focal point of cooperation or conflict for the whole world.

I realize that this is not acceptable. My people won't accept it, now, nor will the Palestinians nor the Israelis. My dream is that someday we all will. The Arabs are leading the way, with their democratic revolutions against their dictators. This must be accomplished, in Israel, and in all countries, first, so that the people can and will speak freely on this issue, without some leadership or interest group interfering to continue the conflicts.

I'm not picking sides in this because I've laid my hands on and kissed the foreheads of children on ALL sides. It doesn't matter if the child has burns from Israeli white phosphorous, or had half her face blown off from a Hamas suicide attack on a bus. NONE of this is justified. BOTH sides have to stop.

I thought when Arafat and Sharon died this would stop. I was wrong.

People on both sides have to come together like the people of Egypt and Tunisia did, and say STOP.

I"m sick and tired of this, people blaming each other, and the interminable blood vendettas. It starts and stops right at the front door of our hearts.

Every major government, religion and corporation in the world has sent money to all sides in this for the furtherance of this war, for thousands of years! NONE of it is justified.

When the the Muslim world is ready to hear that NONE of this is justified, they will stop. When the Israeli people rise up and say, NONE of this is justified, they will stop. When the Christians stop sending their money to further it, it will stop.
When all of the people are willing to say that this Holy Land belongs to no one and everyone, and NO ONE has the right to take a grain of sand from another, then it will stop.

When ALL the people say STOP all the money sent to pay for this blood and vendettas will sit unused in a bank account somewhere, until the People go get it to clean this mess up.

When the People have had enough, it will stop.

Wael Ghonim's Interview

2011-02-08T12:24:00.000-06:00

This is Wael Ghonim's interview on the web channel Dream TV 2 that took place last night. He is an Egyptian Google executive, working in the UAE. He was one of the Facebook organizers of the protests taking place in Egypt, and went there on January 28th to be part of the protests. On that day, he was arrested by the Egyptian secret police and held for 12 days incognito. He was released February 7, 2011.

http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=A90B1900FE67C0F5

Clearing the Past

2011-02-08T12:21:00.001-06:00

I got the impression last night, a really strong one, that we are going through a deep purge of beliefs, if purge would be the right word. That's why things seem to be so stuck in Tahrir Square. I too have been frustrated by the lack of progress. Many people went back to work on Sunday (the first day of the Egyptian work week). I think two days of going back to work, talking around the water coolers, has stimulated things again. My dog actually gave me the impression last night.

I had been reading, yesterday, some history on the Shah and the Mossedegh affairs, from back in 1951-1953. I had spent much of the day, reading and talking about it with an Iranian friend of mine, whose dad was in the police there and then. Last night, I was thinking about it, and had the thought, "We gotta let this old stuff go. Yes, it's important to know the history, but we have to stop being attached to it." About that time, the dog threw up.

Then, as the dog, as dogs will, went back to her vomit, I thought, "NO! Let it go!" People sometimes go back to their vomit, too.

Hence the word of the day, "Purge".

We do have a lot of past to clear.

Trust the process. #Jan25

NOT NOW, NOT EVER does racism and culturalism belong in this debate.

2011-02-07T14:58:00.000-06:00

Let's get this straight, real fast, people in the West:

It is one thing to disagree with the Muslim Bros. It's another to say that it's a monolithic party that doesn't have any redeeming social value, however erroneous that is. But when one denigrates the entire Middle East from Morrocco to Saudi Arabia by stating that ALL are fundamentalists, or worse, it is racism and cultural elitism, and something with which I will not put.

I can assure you that ladies would be welcome to dress in any of the large cities of the Middle East just as you would in any city in America that demands you do so with decorum. There are races of many different kinds that are welcome. I will make exceptions, unlike the racists, for some cities and countries, especially for example, Saudi Arabia, where liberty is not welcome, of any kind, unless you are wealthy and live in certain enclaves.

The People in Tahrir Square are fighting for their freedom, women along side men, children and old folks, from every class and religion in Egypt, praying, chanting, crying, laughing, and dying, for their own freedom, not ours, that has long been denied them. And sometimes, it has been denied them at our convenience. Women's rights, as well as men's, comes with democracy and freedom, not with Kings, Mubaraks and other dictators.

I will not put up with racism or bigotry in any form. PERIOD.

Don't make me be rude.

Racist Patronism

2011-02-07T08:55:00.000-06:00

I am so tired of the racists, elitist, patronism of the West, especially the arrogant Europeans and their sympathizing Ameropeans. This was posted on BBC:

"Nato's Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen warns that the unrest in countries such as Egypt and Tunisia could "have a negative impact on [their] economies, which might lead to illegal immigration in Europe". "So of course indirectly there may be a negative impact on Europe caused by the evolving situation in North Africa and the Middle East, but I do not consider the situation as a direct threat to Nato," he tells a news conference in Brussels."

Current Analysis of Egypt--Statecraft Being a Multilayered Chessgame.

2011-02-06T11:09:00.000-06:00

You can't explain Iraq, then, and Egypt today, using what the people said at the time. Politics and has always been a multi-layered game, and the understanding of which has to be parsed at different perceptual levels to be fully understood. What was said about Iraq at the time by the different politicians was and is like a multi-level chess game. How these statements would be perceived at the different levels was taken into account. For example, one of the main reasons we invaded Iraq and Afghanistan was to keep Iran surrounded so as to contain it. No one could say this out loud, though, but I can assure you Iran knew it.

I'm not saying that people who "aren't in the know" are less sophisticated or ignorant or just peons who have to be manipulated. I'm saying that the actors in the game all and each have their own perception frameworks and those are taken into account. And, explaining what you are doing in the game of political statecraft makes all levels aware, and frustrates the design of the play.

In today's current events, the activities in and around Egypt are also multilayered, which I've tried to point out in my posts for the last 14 days.

The real danger with Egypt is that the democracy protestors do not grow in their perceptions and hang to their demands without taking changing fact patterns into account. One area of big change--Since the beginning, the protestors have demanded that Mubarak step down. After yesterday's diplomatic events which I pointed out, and the activities of the secret police in the last few days of arresting media, opposition, and foreign human rights groups, it is apparant that Mubarak's retirement is no longer the important thing.

US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton said that Suleiman is the one in power; I quoted her from BBC yesterday on my wall. Suleiman was Intelligence minister, and is now Vice President and ostensively second in command. The Secret Police are run by the Intelligence Ministry, not the Interior Ministry that runs the street police. Mubarak is now just a figurehead, kept there by the cult of personality that is known in Egypt as "Pharoh Worship". Suleiman is the one articulating official government policy, negotiating with the opposition leaders and the Western leadership, and picking and choosing who he'll negotiate with, and what he'll negotiate about. The Western leaders and Israel want him there because security and stability are their Number One values---NOT FREEDOM.

It is more dangerous now than ever. The world leadership does NOT want freedom. It does NOT want an independent Egypt. It does NOT want individuals to communicate with each other independent of established, transperant networks that can be monitored and spied upon. The danger lies in not continually assessing who it is that we are dealing with, on what level, and knowing what they want and what they say they want are two or more different things.

It is incumbant upon us to get very much more sophisticated in our perceptions and in our playing of the game, growing in our knowledge and in our play. Otherwise, change won't happen. It'll just be different butts in the chairs, while someone else calls the tune. And that someone will not be us.

Changing the Debate

2011-02-05T09:46:00.000-06:00

Differences are good.

I want to change the words we use. The words "centricism" and "less partisanship", for example. To me, they imply that dissent and debate are not welcome. "Extreme" and "extremism" are other codewords of disparagement and rejection of differences. I don't even like "compromise" because that implies to many people that they must give away some principle or preference. I want to have different words, like collaborate, cooperate.

I don't like "centricism" and "less partisanship" for another reason--they imply opposites, duality, opposition, control, conflict. For example, I come from a position that says one cannot be extreme in applying the substance and prinicples of our Constitution. All interests, majority, minority, and individual are protected and reflected there. There is no center in the Constitution. There is no party in the Constitution. It is either within the substance and principles of the Constitution, or it is not. Liberty is another example. My liberty ends where your's begins, yet collaboratively we can both have it. As long as we apply oppositional constructs, or say that the center is a place of no opposition (which is a canard and false), we imply that differing views are illegitimate. I've had enough of that, thank you.

Your mileage may differ.

To the Friends of Democracy:

2011-02-02T18:44:00.000-06:00

Things have changed, completely and utterly, and we can feel it. It is utterly unfamiliar so we fear it. The Egyptians, it is said, have crossed the barrier of fear. We have to cross our own barriers of fear to understand and welcome this change.

How can we support Mubarak and support freedom and democracy at the same time? Yes, for a long time, the alternative was perceived to be worse. Now, we have an alternative that is infinitely better. What we can see here is self-directedness, self determination and an aware populace that is down with leaders, down with dictators, down with authority, and down with fundamentalism--in sum, a self directed majority that is not looking towards any doctrine, authority or leader to tell them what to feel, believe, do and think.

We fear this. We don’t understand. The people in our institutions, our “leaders” fear this and do not understand it. We are given questions by our media that are framed in words with conventional meanings and imply the answers that we are used to. Deep in our guts, we know what we are hearing just does not fit, anymore.

Here’s the new gig. The movements in the North African, Middle East and Central Asia world (NAMECA) are completely self generated and organic. Its shape is and ideation is self-deterministic. This is a completely ad hoc movement--"ad hoc" meaning from itself. Yes, there will need to be people to perform certain functions. In a truely independent way, each person knows what is needed and does it. It will not be about power, but about being an advocate for the individual, and each individual filling a need she or he perceives in others that needs to be filled. It is a cooperative movement based on mutual respect and representative of all portions of society.

The "we" that allowed Anwar Sadat to run Egypt in the 1970's was the same group that put Hosni Mubarak in power, and kept him there. Meanwhile, the People of Egypt kept looking for some shepherd to lead them, just as all peoples have in this era. As long as "we" are incapable and unwilling to lead ourselves, we need and want shepherds. This is the fundamental similarity between us and the people of the Middle East, up to this point. Here is where the people of Egypt have diverged from the West, today. And here is where we recognize we are going, too.

In our philosophy and culture, we are always given the dialectic questions: How do we differentiate between personal and collective consciousness and values, and is it possible to coalesce them? How do we balance the rights of the individual with the security and stability provided by the collective? What are the rights of the individual? What does the individual owe the collective? How does the individual know he is “right” (correct, moral)? How does an individual know that his rights are being protected by that security and stability that the leaders of the collective promise to provide? And since we live in a philosophy of dialectic, of duality, we rely on some sort of authority to tell us the answer, even if it is just mob, majority rule.

What inhibits our resolution of this dialectic? It is our innate belief in “A does not equal ~A”, the Law of Non-Contradiction. It is the Hegelian and Aristotelian belief in the construct of reality as a dialectic. It is not an "either/or" reality. It is an either/or construct of language. It is the belief in duplicity, in irreconcilable duality. We cannot fathom that reality is both, at the same time. We just cannot understand at the moment that what we are seeing in Egypt is a continuous connection of all individuals acting in cooperation to benefit their own interests, without pitting the individual against individual or pitting the individual against the collective. And this is so whether we are objectively aware of it, or not. Contrary to our beliefs, the world is not a zero sum game.

The interviewers on Al Jazeera and in the US media keep asking the same questions and implying the same answers: Who is organizing the protests? Who is providing the food and water? Who is giving them their marching orders? Who is cleaning up the waste? Who is providing and organizing the security? Who is driving the rock throwers? What we can’t get our minds around, what we cannot accept, because of our preconceived answers, is EACH AND EVERY ONE OF THEM.

I keep hearing and reading that the people of Egypt and the Middle East at large have no history of democracy, no history of self rule. I hear that they have had many opportunities to set choose democracy and have failed. This is narrow, and is not true.

The people of NAMECA have had the same opportunities of self determination as the West, and sometimes they’ve taken advantage of them, and sometimes they have not. Since the beginning, through ancient times, Roman times, Persian and Mongol times, the Ottoman Empire, through colonialization, through the turmoil of the 20th century, they have had one leader after another, secular and religious. Sometimes these leaders were imposed upon them from outside; and sometimes they rose up from their own generation. Their own leaders that they looked to betrayed them and became their lords. Even in Turkey today, they have the same sort of republican oligarchy that we have in the West.

Today, they have the same history we had in 1776 of self and republican rule. They have more. They are as closely related to the Greeks as we are, intellectually, and philosophically. They have had republics in their world just as we have had. For 500 years they preserved western culture while we lived in the Dark Ages. While we burned our libraries they preserved theirs. They have all of the history we have, plus some.

They have largely been educated in Western universities. To say the people in Egypt or anywhere else have no history of self-rule is ignorant, and the refusal to recognize their capacity for self rule is arrogant, patronistic, and willfully blind.

Since we and they are aware that much of NAMECA has been run since colonial times by the West and its different factions, there are certain conditions and attitudes that we and they have. NAMECA was run for centuries by patronistic authority of secular and religious doctrines, and always subject to some leader as authority. And the previous attitudes and beliefs have become nested within the Western ways. Because of three millennia of this, it is hard to fathom that this rebellion is not being organized and orchestrated by some "force" of leaders of some kind. But it is. That is where we are stuck, in the idea of leaders telling us what to do, what to think, their promise of security, jobs, stability. Mr. Mubarak’s speech on January 31, 2011, was termed almost exclusively as his duty to hold on for the sake of “stability and security”. The leaders of Israel and the United States are thinking almost exclusively in this way. This is what we all are used to. The idea of self-directedness is completely foreign to all of us. Not only do we not understand what is going on, we have an even greater paucity of imagination as to what to do.

I perfectly understand the fear of the unknown in the common man. Certainly, this is a part of the pro-Mubarak sentiments and legitimate protests. It's part of the fear in the US and its public, as well. Fear and lack of understanding are where we have always come from in our reactions. This is how we have created our reality for 3000 years. This is coming to an end and we just cannot grasp why. We just have to cross the barrier of fear, as the Egyptians are doing.

What the people in Tahrir Square are saying is "We have had enough! We don't need leaders. We don't need the old definitions. We don't need the old political parties. We don't need authoritative, fundamentalist religions. We can do quite well by ourselves. See what we are doing now!"

People all over are saying that Egypt, North African, and Middle Eastern problems were their own creations. And, I would agree to the extent they create their own reality. And the West has influenced those creations as well. Rehashing and answering history is not too much of my concern, because we have been doing that for 2000 years and where and what has that gotten us in the meantime? What I want to concentrate on is today. What are we doing today? Today, are we going to put up with the past? Are we going to live in the past and its grudges and enmities? Or, are we going to determine for ourselves what we are going to do, what we are going to think and believe and feel, and who our leaders will be, today? This attitude scares the East, Middle East, and the West. It scares Israel, it scares Hamas. It scares any power or person that obtains her, his or its legitimacy from the past. The past is what it is. Today is not the past. The Present is our point of power.

Economics Lesson

2010-02-25T18:43:00.000-06:00

There's an email going around that I've received that keeps economics simple. It's true as far as it goes, which isn't very far. I've added another layer to show what happens when the status quo changes, which it ALWAYS does.

It's a slow day in a little East Texas town. The sun is beating down, and the streets are deserted. Times are tough, everybody is in debt, and everybody lives on credit.....

On this particular day a rich tourist from back east is driving through town. He stops at the motel and lays a $100 bill on the desk saying he wants to inspect the rooms upstairs in order to pick one to spend the night.

As soon as the man walks upstairs, the owner grabs the bill and runs next door to pay his debt to the butcher.

The butcher takes the $100 and runs down the street to retire his debt to the pig farmer.

The pig farmer takes the $100 and heads off to pay his bill at the supplier of feed and fuel.
The guy at the Farmer's Co-op takes the $100 and runs to pay his debt to the local prostitute, who has also been facing hard times and has had to offer her "services" on credit.

The hooker rushes to the hotel and pays off her room bill with the hotel owner.

The hotel proprietor then places the $100 back on the counter so the rich traveler will not suspect anything.

At that moment the traveler comes down the stairs, picks up the $100 bill, states that the rooms are not satisfactory, pockets the money, and leaves town.

No one produced anything.. No one earned anything.

However, the whole town is now out of debt and now looks to the future with a lot more optimism.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how the United States Government is conducting business today.

That was how we all did business prior to 2007, when the price of gasoline went up.

Now, imagine this little change:

The rich tourist is now a banker, who had obtained a loan of $1000 to fund his bank. The banker loaned $200 to the innkeeper to add a room to his inn. The innkeeper paid $100 to the contractor to build the room, and the remainder was the $100 he owed the contractor, which was the $100 that circulates in the story. This worked fine before 2007 because in a year, the contractor was paid from the receipts of the inn's business. The banker did this 4 times, leaving only $200 to operate his bank and cover the 10% capital requirement set by law. He was supposed to get 6% percent interest on the $800 he loaned out, which is of little matter when you see what happens, next.

In 2007, the price of gas went up. Everyone deducted $10.50 from the amount they were given by the previous person. 5 X $10.50 = $52.50 leaving $47.50 to pay the banker when the note became due. No one could afford to travel because of the higher price of gas, so the other $100 was not paid, either. The note went into default, and the bank had to foreclose and sell the inn at auction. Multiply all the numbers by 2,000,000 (except for the price of gas). That number is conservative and arbitrarily set just for fun in this argument. Because 2,000,000 properties were foreclosed upon, the value of the collateral was cut by a third.

And now you know why we are in deep shit.

(And I won't make your brain really fuzzy by adding in the 4 times each loan was sold to a security maker at Lehman's, Golden Sachs, and Merrill Lynch, the insurance against default that was funded and underwritten (promised to pay) by AIG, and all the loans it took to buy the securities created by these investment houses to fund this scheme, PLUS the insurance against default that was purchased to cover these third and fourth layer loans. Not to mention the fact that every one of these securities was considered good collateral by the Reserve banks all over the world to secure additional loans to the commercial and retail bankers to give out more loans. The eye's glaze over.)

Some Practical Effects of Being Self-Directed, and Change in the World

2010-02-13T20:03:00.000-06:00

THESIS:

Let's take an issue commonly discussed and see how Self-Directedness might have some effects. We live in a world, currently, where everything has a political slant. We are shifting from an authoritarian perspective to a self-directed perspective. Most of us are still relying on government to fulfill some parts of our everyday desires. Politics is a belief system that we use to decide who gets what from the limited supply that government can provide. In that, politics becomes a duel between the advocates of different political viewpoints over who has control of the output into the media and other objective mass information systems, e.g. Is global warming man made from our technology, or is it a cyclical function of the Earth and our Sun? The viewers are seen to have no choice at all. No thought by the viewer is sought, nor deemed necessary. It's just a numbers game.

Well, I can tell you, gradually, this isn't going to work anymore. The internet is one reason. And another is that we ALWAYS make choices, subconsciously or consciously. Our subconscious is much more connected via our inner senses to other individuals than our conscious. And further, our subconscious is not so easily subvertable. Our conscious can be numbed, and can manifest in automatic responses. Our subconscious WILL not be. It may put up with the conscious robot, but it may not. I'm thinking that the mass subconscious composed of all the individual subconsciouses communicating together, will not put up with this much longer. We are getting bored with the same old dramas.

QUESTION:

"From a purely personal perspective, I agree completely. Unfortunately, I don't see a lot of outward evidence of this - at least not yet. There are a few folks out there not "putting up with it", but for the most part it just seems we live in a world of zombies & sheeple -now more than ever. So... I'd be curious to know when you think this change will come, and how. It's one of those things I truly want-to-believe, but every day I am disappointed."

RESPONSE:

Maybe you and I are seeing the same things, but interpreting and perceiving them differently. Nothing right or wrong with that. *smiles*

When it "will" happen is now, from two different perspectives. The first is from the "ever-present-now", where everything is happening at once. That's too flippant to be useful in they way I'm understanding your question. The second is it is happening now, the "now" being the present date, and linear time extending back a few decades and extending into the most likely future.

Most of what I'm seeing in relation to tiring of their beliefs is manifested in my perception as many, many people acting out their beliefs (social, political, religious, scientific, sexual and relationships, to name a few) to their logical ends. For example, Islamo-fascism is one example, a very easy one. This religion is very stark, very black and white, and its metaphors are meant to be taken very literally. The logical conclusion of which the total absolutism--God is great. There is no God but Allah. If there is anyone that doesn't agree, conquer him, convert him, and if he doesn't convert, enslave him, tax him, or kill him. No grey areas there. People are killing each other, infidel and fellow muslims, for no other reason than they celebrate or don't celebrate the right holidays. Many thousands of people are disengaging (dying), because this is something of which they will not put, and they don't see they have any other choice in fulfilling their values. Without value fulfillment, humans shall disengage, and experience somewhere else.

In the West, we are carrying our beliefs out their extremes, too. It started with the extreme individualism of the '60's, when people challenged and attempted to eliminate the beliefs they'd grown up with, that had served their fathers' fathers for generations. What they found, the Timothy Learies, the McKennas, the Castanedas, was that physical existence of the individual and the mass in the physical, and the environments we create, are wholly dependent upon our beliefs. Without any beliefs about our perceptions whatsoever, we burn from the fire within and go experience elsewhere, like Don Juan and his party. Nothing wrong with that, either.

Today, we are realizing that we won't be eliminating beliefs, because that's not possible if we are to continue creating and experiencing this physical dimension. We are instead experimenting with them. It's kind of like Dexter's sister's constant question, "OOOOO! What does this button do?" Button meaning belief. (Dexter's Laboratory is a kids cartoon my kids and I watch. It's very fruitful for deep discussions, believe it or not. LOL) Every time she presses a button, something explodes. We are doing this constantly. It's in every news cast: Take for example, smoking--Some mayor says we're gonna ban it from every restaurant. "No" cry the smokers and the people who say they are for choice. "What about my choice not to be around smoke or pay for the physical effects?" cry the puritans and the social welfarists.

Let's parse the belief systems in that one action and debate, and you may see what I mean:

"Some mayor (politics) says we're gonna ban (law) it from every restaurant (food/health/medicine, economics). "No" cry the smokers (health/medicine, science) and the people who say they are for choice (beliefs that distort what free will really is). "What about my choice (ditto) not to be around (relationships) smoke (health/medicine) or pay for the physical effects(science, economics, politics, and victimhood)?" cry the puritans (religion) and the social welfarists (politics, economics, religion)." And every belief in that scenario implies the judgment of right and wrong, the belief system of "duplicity".

People get polarized in their positions, manufacture absolutes in their perceptions, and create conflict. Conflict brings our beliefs into relief. I can guarantee you that in every conflict there is at least one person that has made one or more beliefs into absolutes. In relief, things are more visible. Change the light, and different details are observed. That's the whole point of this exercise in our present now. The "game" we live in is being raised to light and examined in detail, replayed in slow motion, from different angles, with color commentary in our dreams, individually and en masse. Those that are aware of this will teach the rest. All in this present now are participating in some form and to some extent. If not so choosing, they'll disengage.

Why on earth are we doing this? And, what's the result that may occur? Why is because, as I said earlier, we are tired of batting these same dead mice around, but we can't seem to stop. Insanity is doing the same things and expecting different results. So, we are examining what we are doing. In this, we are bringing to light all our beliefs, creating absolutes out of them, seeing how each one works, when, and for what, and how they don't work, in all their aspects. How shall we change the results if we don't know what we are doing?

If we are successful at discovering what we are doing, and have examined most of our beliefs and most of their many aspects, perhaps we'll learn where the power of beliefs really lies--within us. The power lies within us, not the dead mouse. Having already learned that without beliefs we won't have our attentions in this physical dimension, thanks to the pioneers before us, and having learned how to use the tools in the beliefs toolbox, maybe, perhaps, we'll accept them. Which means, we'll use them without judgment of right or wrong; they are just things to choose from.

For heaven's sake, and hell no we won't have a utopia. What fun is there in that? LOL! Consciousness thrives on drama. Drama is one of the ways consciousness explores itself. It's just that our games will be played with conscious intent. We'll be able to sit on the bench for a minute and watch the game, at any time. Sure there will be cheaters, and stupid refs, and morons in the cheap seats throwing batteries and insults. That's all part of the game, too. *smiles*

I have trust and hope because I've dreamed with people from one of our possible futures where/when beliefs are accepted. Yes, we have alternate futures. Nothing is set in stone, because we have free will. But, in at least one of them, we have learned to accept our beliefs and use them intentionally. Disappointments are sure to happen. We have expectations, and disappointments are frustrated expectations. Nothing wrong with that. Now if the same expectations are getting frustrated, maybe we could examine them and figure out where they are coming from. If we are so choosing.

TRUST YOURSELF--YOU CREATED THIS

2010-02-13T13:39:00.000-06:00

How do I trust myself when what I’m experiencing at the moment is not what I want, and what I’ve experienced in the past has been bad, and the future is scarey when I even think about it at all?

It is not easy to genuinely apply a trusting attitude when we have no idea how to accomplish what we want. I'm there a lot of the time. I'm new at this, and my understanding is fresh. For what its worth to you, I found a way around this conundrum that goes something like this--

Things are what they are in the present now. Accepting that Truth is hard but essential. Wishing I were somewhere else, doing something else, with a different set of circumstances is not helpful, mainly because the Present is My Point of Power. All things happen from here. Accepting things as they are means that they are perfect in the present now. I may not agree with them. I may not like them. But things are perfect the way they are because there is no other NOW that exists–nothing exists but Right Now. So, now is Perfect, and what ever I did to create it was rendered perfectly or NOW wouldn't exist. So, doubting the Present Now is futile, and persisting in doing that borders on being stupid, in my opinion. I'm stupid quite often! Hahaha! The absence of doubt is Trust. And there you have it--Trust.

Everything else proceeds via an expanding set of probabilities from the Present Now. To resolve those probabilities requires that I figure out what I'm doing, thinking and feeling now. Figuring out that nothing exists but the Present was easy. It's just logic. This part is real hard, and trusting myself out away from the present now is much harder to do. Gradually, I'm noticing more of my doings, and not just the objective doings. I generally know what I'm thinking; I'm pretty good at that. I'm gradually understanding more of my emotional language (this is very hard for me), and my other feelings, impressions and impulses haven't ever been that difficult for me to notice and understand. All this can be quite confusing, though, and overwhelming. Sometimes you just have to say, "What the F---!" and just do it. Ask forgiveness later, if necessary. Or laugh and say, "See? I didn't ask permission, and things turned out grand! Any questions?" Hahaha!

It all starts with Now.

I hope that helps. If not, try something else until you find what works!

Self-Directedness

2010-02-10T15:14:00.000-06:00

The idea that we have the power to direct our own lives without relying on authority, mass opinion, or the expertise of others to tell us what we should do. It is the practice of knowing ourselves, consciously creating our own reality, and being responsible for what we think, do and feel, especially for our own happiness. It does not mean independence, separation, that we do not attempt to understand others, or have empathy with them. It does not mean we use others for our own satisfaction. It means that we do not look to authorities to tell us what to do, what to think, what to feel; it means that we look inward for these things, because only we are responsible for those. It's time for the human species to grow up and leave the house.

Raven Mail

2007-10-24T06:20:00.000-05:00

In the searing sun, half way up in its journey to zenith, we arrived at the place of the ancestors, Chaco Canyon. The two short spirit ones in the Red Rocket Car (the MazdaSpeed3 that shot us here) are wide eyed with the intensity of the place, forgetting so soon their essence, and being reminded of the same in those same instants.

We stop at the Outpost of the Present Now, a/k/a the Ranger Station, to pay our respects to the gods of mammon, offering our electronic coin symbolized by the plastic in my wallet. Ambulating to the rocket where the elixir of life in the desert was stored, water, we had thirty minutes before the tour of the great kiva started. We walked to the start of the trail to a "lesser" kiva, and I noticed the remains of Raven on the ground. It was waiting for us, welcoming us in its post mortem sigil of what was and what remains. We didn’t have time for that path, and we weren’t ready for the message of Raven, just yet. Besides, Heyoka sat under an awning, humming that anti-melody that the simple-minded hum, as if to say, “Put it back. It’ll be here waiting.”

The names of the buildings matter not. They remind me of our own office campuses, built of interlocking sandstone. The largest 300 feet wide, their exterior walls were so smooth that they shine like obsidian glass. Time makes waves in what were once straight walls, reminding me of Schrodinger’s Equation. We discount our ancestors’ sophistication, as if to fool ourselves that we’ll be different with our manifestations, somehow more permanent. I trust we’ll understand that consciousness is eternal, no thing lasts forever.

The tour of the great kiva was enlightening, words of interpretation and science, speaking of coincidences that are not. The Sun is higher now, singing our hair peaking out of our hats. We drive the Rocket Car across the River That Was to another set of buildings. We walk among the ruins gingerly peeking at the foundations, as if we were looking for our own belongings after a tornado. It was a slow tornado that took a thousand years to blow down these walls. I half expect to find torn photos of grandparents, a child’s toy, and a broken toilet, which is the only thing capable of withstanding the broken wind of a millennium.

We find a restored communal kiva. The wind echos with the sound of drumming so deep you can’t hear it, thunder so distant that you can only feel it through your feet. I realize what these kivas are by the sound holes in the walls–drums. Ninety feet across, these drums were beaten by boys and men to sound the voices of Spirit that could build mountains of stone twelve thousand miles to the west, in a desert not much different in its vibrating silence.

Lunch of trail mix, “Poptarts” and water refreshes us. We celebrate Zenith in the shade.

Back at the Outpost of the Present Now, we gather in more interpretations of coincidences that are not. We see moving pictures of interpretations of the blood descendants of the Chaco People, and peruse the library of more interpretations, casseroles of beliefs written on paper, bound into books. We buy trinkets from the Priestesses of Mammon, blood descendants of the Chaco People and the nomad peoples who trade and raid them.

It’s "time".

We refill our containers of the Desert Elixir, Water, and we find the Raven’s sigil still clinging to the ground against the winds of time, still waiting for us at the trailhead. Heyoke’s gone. Now I gather up the sigil again, and feel the body of Spirit tingling in my hand. It still has bits of flesh attached to it that the ants have not found. I smell her blood at the same time her mate kronks his greeting from his gyre above the cliffs standing over us. Ravens mate for life. Humans don’t, but sometimes.

"It’s frikken hot," I say. My Spirit Children agree. We walk up the path to the last campus we’ll visit that day. When I head up the wrong way around the complex, widdershins, my son says, "Dad, that’s the wrong way."

"I know what I’m doing, Joe," I say against the blast of the desert furnace. I’m thinking of going backward in time. Spirit moves in mysterious ways, I’m fixing to tell him, in just the right place. In what remains of a room, looking to the south, across the metroplex of a thousand years ago, and a billion dreams away, I have us all remove our hats so that the pain of the same sun from so long ago will sear down to our numb hearts past our minds. We have to bow low to get through the door, forcing respect and acceptance of beliefs we’ve forgotten. We stand on a porch with a chest high wall, the wind parching our eyeballs like tomatoes in a convection oven.

I bless our selves as worthy of the ancestors. I scatter tobacco to the wind that seems to blow in eight different directions. How propitious I think with a smile.

"Greetings and thanks to our ancestors. I appreciate all that is here, and all that you’ve taught us today. We give tobacco in respect for your hospitality in allowing us in your houses from so long ago. We thank you for teaching us as much about ourselves as about you. There is no separation between us. The Sun that sees you, sees us. All the beliefs of a thousand years are interpretations of the same essence, manifested in a billion ways, all different but all of the same. It doesn’t matter if we are Christian, atheist, Buddhist, Hopi, Muslim, Jew, or Hindu. This gathering place of our ancestors echoes with the greetings and halloos of blood from the Inuit to the Inca, the Vikings to the Chinese. This place belongs to The People, and to no person, and to every one of us, individually. For if there are no individuals, there are no Peoples. If there are no differences, there is no sameness. We are all the same essence, and we are all different. This is a place where differences were gathered together, and reconciled, and Spirit swirled out again to create anew. We thank you Spirits for allowing us to be here with you."

We then closed our eyes and smelled the desert wind, breathing the same dust our ancestors did, filtering their skin, and food, and life through our noses, and leaving our own for those that follow us.

"Now it is time to receive Raven’s message." And we leave the Porch of Gratitude, for the place higher up, where we can almost fly with Raven’s Husband.

Continuing widdershins around back on the cliff side of the foundations, we come to the northwestern corner, the highest tower left. I took Raven’s body out of my pocket, broke it into three pieces, giving one each to Katy and Joe. I held mine into the wind and said,

“I give thanks to Brother and Sister Raven for this gift of her body. We hear her message from the other side, (voice changing to Raven’s) and from up in the wind, that we are all brothers and sisters. There is no separation. We may be on opposite sides of the Veil. We may be of different tribes, kingdoms and faiths. We are all connected as I am connected to my spouse whose remains flutter in your hands. Go now and give parts of Her that still is to those you find, remind them that they are not separated from you and each other, and to pass the feathers to the next person they see with the same message.”

Silence.

Then Joe says, “Look! I see Raven!”

Over the cliff, half a mile away overlooking the trailhead, gyred Brother Raven on his gymbol.

“Dad, I hadn’t seen him before until you finished his message to us.”

“Well, Joe,” I said. “Now you are paying attention. Raven speaks to you as he does to me, to all of us. Now, people are coming up the trail. It’s time to pass along Raven’s Mail.”

With that, we saw a couple coming around the other side of the foundations, peeking in storage kivas, looking for old photographs, too.

“Halloo! You guys’ll probably think the sun has gotten to me, but I have a message from Raven for you.” The woman took the feathers as I continued.

“Y’all might even think this is gross,” referring to the slightly odiferous clump of feathers in her hand.

“No,” she said, smiling, allowing me to finish.

“Raven says to give parts of his spouse that still is to those you find, remind them that they are not separated from you and each other, and to pass the feathers to the next person they see with the same message.”

The couple smiled, the man shook my hand strongly, looking me in the eye, and I wished them a great day.

My spirit children, somewhat stunted by the city’s ways in lack of trust, are now shocked beyond description by Da’s weird boldness. Surely he’s become possessed by Buddha, the Heyoke, or the sun. I chuckled because I knew I wasn’t done yet. We headed back down the trail, meeting an elderly couple just arrived in this Metroplex of the Ancestors. I hailed them, and then read their fortunes, “You will soon meet someone who will give you a Raven’s feather to remind you that we are all connected. Take it and pass it on to the next people you meet, with the same message.”

I shook the man’s hand, which was trembling, and I couldn’t tell if it was from palsy, because he thought I was crazy, or if he was already stressed from the heat. I wished his wife and him a beautiful day, and walked back down the hill. Katy was still silent.

Joe said, “Wait. I want to see if they do get the feather.”

I said, “Joe, trust in Spirit. The exchange will happen, but you’ll only see it if you don’t look at the people. Trust them.”

“Daddy?” Katy asked. I said, “Whatty?” as I always respond.

“I think I finally get what you’ve been saying for so long, “ she said. A tear came to my eye as I said, “Excellent!”

And we headed down the path, back to the Outpost of the Present Now, to continue our journey. We will always have Raven’s Mail in the inboxes of our memories.

Copyright October 2007, Todd W. Deatherage

INTENSITY

2007-08-08T10:33:00.000-05:00

Sometimes I miss you
The roundness of your face
The energy beams from your eyes
The child-like intensity of your smile

Connections just happen if we allow them to
Why does the belief in chains bind
When they are of our own belief that they have to
Accepting is allowing is loving

I can imagine you softly whispering in my ear
The tingle of your touch on my skin
You don’t know you do this
At least not in the front of your mind

Still, it’s not enough to feel you inside me
Or elst why manifest in the physical
I cry longing for your touch on my hand
Sometimes I miss you touching me.

July 30, 2007

2007-07-31T10:28:00.000-05:00

July 30, 2007

I have a luscious, varied, highly creative life, many lives, going on inside my head. One would think, if I could and did express them, that I was schizophrenic. In my dreams, I share the many lives of my other focuses of essence. I bore so easily in my days, because my inner lives are so much more dramatic. Yet, I cannot stand drama in my objective life. It is too distracting from what is going on inside my head.

Sometimes when I’m discounting myself, I think if people knew what was going on, if they even had some inkling what I did in there, that they would judge me as mendicant and lazy, an airhead out of touch with reality, in need of some good drugs or on some bad ones, and not attentive enough to “real life” and the people I share it with. This is discounting of my self. I resist the counter response of “You’re just jealous.”

As rich as my inner life is, I crave objective interaction with others. I want to hear what they have to say. The vicarious sharing of their dramas fascinates me, as long as I do not have to participate, too. I long for the sharing of my thoughts and conceptions. I love the beauty of my thoughts and feelings. I appreciate the beauty of others’ thoughts. I gather their expressions of their feelings like so many molted feathers on the ground. Amazed that someone would slough off diamonds, these feathers of feelings I gather as if they were the ones on my knick-knack shelf. The little spontaneous gifts I treasure. And better still I look up at the birds, these people, as they grow new millions of beautiful feelings with which they fly.

She said last night, “No one gets us like we get us. We are so rare we have to stick together.” I had to agree with my friend with only a nod of my head. That is all I could do, to nod with the millions of un-objectively expressed feelings and thoughts that make their homes inside her and me. It is near impossible to express that silent flooding energy that passes between us. I sent her a message of electrons, “I sit here writing, sharing the beautiful aloneness with you, not wanting to shatter it with objective expression.” I know she will read it, and sigh with her wan smile, and become more intensely engrossed in her aloneness, making it even more colorful and iridescent.

White lightning flashes on the northeastern horizon viewed through my sliding glass door. Footsteps of my heavy neighbor thump the air and my bottom through the floor, like echoes of the thunder too distant to hear. I think of practical things I could be doing, like paying bills, and entering numbers and payees in my electronic checkbook register. My hands grow bored with the plodding scribbling of my thoughts. I pause…

…and wonder if I feel like writing anymore, which slows my thoughts and keeps them earth-bound.

Where Did I Go On Vacation?

2007-07-11T06:56:00.000-05:00

Across West Texas to Cloudcroft, NM, to a reunion with friends. To Chaco Canyon, NM, to a reunion with Spirit and other lives. To the Arches National Monument, UT, for a reunion with Nature and what we create. To Salt Lake City for a family reunion. Across central Colorado to reunite with my past, then home for a reunion with Home and Work.

*smiles*

Destiny

2007-07-10T07:16:00.000-05:00

There's no destiny to manifest. Everything exists as choice in the moment, our perception of linear fate not with standing.

The kids and I had a wonderful trip to Chaco Canyon last week. More later when I have time to write it down.

Unity and Difference

2007-06-26T13:50:00.000-05:00

It’s desirable for me to find disagreement with others, sometimes, because it sharpens my understanding of myself, what I’m thinking, doing and feeling, if I’m paying attention, and not just trying to be "right". I don’t have to be "right", I just want to be.

Difference–it’s what lets consciousness expand so it can turn around on itself and see what it is. Difference is what creates individuals. There is no "mass" without individuals. In most creation stories, first there was one. There was no mass, just an individual personality, undifferentiated "oneness". Then there was "other" and one, which makes two. They were individuals, and there became "together" and "separate" with conscious awareness of one and two and ONE, simultaneously. There was no separation, only different points of view. Then there became MANY, and still there was no separation, only infinite points of view upon the Oneness, the ALL THAT IS.

In the view of oneness, there was individual, the primacy of the individual, the One, and of the Individual One of many. ESSENCially, there was no difference, no separation, no aloneness, only differing focuses, infinite universes in the ALL THAT IS, glorious rambunctious creation–the Universe giving birth to itself. Now, there are many myths about how this physical reality was created, and all of them have one characteristic in the blueprint, which is separation. Essence decided to experience "aloneness". In its wisdom, it created this game with a feeling of separation, because the effectiveness of the game depends on the single-minded absorption in it. Essence still knows there is no separation, but now its focuses forgot for the purposes of the game that IT IS A GAME.

There are some 6 billion focuses, i.e., "Humans" on this earth at any one "time", and all are different points of view, and each has a differing understanding of who and what it is. This is ESSENTial for the game, this differing understanding, because differing understanding is what creates the differing points of view, in other words the differing creations of experience for Essence to be knowing itself. There is no good or bad in this. There is no judgment of right or wrong. There is discernment of difference, and thereby the choosing of experiences for each focus’s intent, and this intent is the theme of that focus for the flow and set of experiences intended to further that intent, if you’ll pardon the repetitive alliteration. My understanding is different from yours, times six billion. In our forgetting, our belief in separation, we "understand" aloneness, and together we feel the Oneness, if we pay attention. Essence of consciousness doesn’t forget. It understands. It knows there is no separation, yet it can feel the separation we feel and that is part of the intent of Essence in this physical universe, to experience that aloneness.

We’ve gotten bored with this, and we are in the present now, times 6 billion degrees of understanding, realizing that there is no separation. Bit by 6 billionths of essential bits, we are "understanding" who we are. Looking at it from the WHOLE we see the mass moving in more of common direction and forget that the mass is composed of individuals. We are in this together, and always have been, and that’s where the mass consciousness comes from, in my opinion. On the other hand, the mass consciousness is not an entity. It is not some monolithic but amoeba-like energy blob. I see it as the river or flow of all our consciousnesses moving. Sometimes it moves in one direction, and sometimes it flows out like a giant flood with many riverlets of intent and understanding and awareness. But consciousness turning back on itself still sees its own individuality, its own identity. It feels its connection with the mass simultaneously with its feeling and knowing of its own identity. For identity once created, once realized, never dies; it’s never absorbed back into the mass. It never melts into its constituent links of consciousness. It is, and continues.

Coming back to where I started, the ALL THAT IS, is one and many, E PLURIBUS UNUM. The individual has primacy because that is what IS. The ALL IS; for there to be ALL, there must be many ONEs. There must be individuals to have a mass, or there is no mass of any THING. These individuals never die, they never are melted into the pot of molten consciousness. They may disperse, but they always know WHO they are.

In this, it’s not about whether you or I are right or wrong. There is only our differing points of view, of equal value and validity, and that my dear, is my point. *smiles* Your mileage and understanding may differ, see?

A New Race of Gods

2007-06-24T12:40:00.000-05:00

Jane Roberts in PSYCHIC POLITICS wrote:

What boldness, to create a new race of the gods, glorifying individuality,seeing each as a unique personification-not sterile righteous lords sending down condemnations and handing out impossible edicts, but gods saying "Life is good. That's why we're alive, and alive in you!"

We need father, mother, grandfather, grandmother gods, niece and nephew gods, aunt and uncle gods-boisterous joyful divine families, mating among themselves and with us,singing of the beauty of the lovebed, appreciating the moments formed like solitary jewels from the vast necklace of infinity…

The Book of the Gods- I'd like to write that, and The Book of the Universe,in which people-gods or god-people rise from nonphysical to physical life because they want to,because they dreamed in their solitary godhoods of green grasses and soft flesh
and yearned to be born as men and women; flinging their godness into bodies joyfully, recklessly, come what may.

A Missive to a Fairy

2007-06-09T18:44:00.000-05:00

Dearest Twig:

Your smile brings light to my day and love in my dreams. Awake with a smile fresh from some dream lost in the forests of my nocturnal wanderings, I know that you’ve passed through, hidden but recognized.

You must have sprouted up like a mushroom out of the swaddling moss of some arboreal paradise, found by cottagers of the kindest sort and raised human. Our elfin cousins vanished long ago, because we didn’t believe in ourselves, so we ceased believing in them. When I met you, I believed in elves and fairies again.

I wonder if you can understand human speech. If you do, you’ve doubtless heard how amazing we think you are. I’ve seen people of all ages stop and stare, enchanted senseless by you. I’m embarrassed to say that I drink from that cup, also. When children come away from you, I’ve asked them what you said. And they’ll tell me in great detail what the conversation was. I then ask, "Did you see her lips move?" And some will forthrightly say, "No." "I thought not," respond I. What more do you do that we humans have forgotten the method? What more do you know that we would remember if we noticed?

I still have the red feather that you accidentally on purpose dropped in my path.

I imagine where you are, and wonder how you got there. What roads do you progress upon? What manner of carriage do you ride? How do you go unnoticed by the travelers that pass along side you near? Where do you lay your head when you rest? What fortunate cushion cradles you when you dream with your father and mother among the royal court of the Fairies?

You are evidence I present myself with of the knowing that your kind still walks this earth. On some other earth your kind has dwelt for many years waiting for us to recognize who we are, and thus recognize you. I look forward to those days when we gather together as the extended family we are. I anticipate with magik the magik you bring back to us, that we be reminded of the magikal beings we are. Until then, I hold a place for you in my heart.

I’ve heard and read that once a human’s heart has been touched by a fairy it will never be the same, lost in some fantasy land never to be heard from again. I think this is the fear of not knowing who we are that instigates this. But I know there is some truth to it, for I am indeed lost to the normal human insularity and separation. My heart glows with your finger prints; my inner ears ring with your flutes. I hear your tinkling foot steps even in the bustling human cities of chaos, and I turn to locate the sound believing absolutely that you are there. Invisible, you just don’t match the vibration that is familiar to my eyes. I trust my senses and my inner voice, because I can smell the humus of your birth and feel your energy exciting my blood and bones. I am not disappointed.

One fine day, we’ll meet yet again. Perhaps it’s the day that the elves and humans greet each other with kisses and hugs in a giant reunion. Perhaps it will be a private meeting, with knowing glances, an exchange of feathers, while all about us know not a wit of the agenda of our meeting. Until then and always forever know that there are no conditions, reservations, or expectations. There is sufficiently a knowing appreciation in allowing our energy and choices. In this, there is no separation between our divinity. In between and amongst there is only love.

For the divine in me sees the divine in you–Namaste’

Hawkfeather/
Todd

Climate Change

2007-05-30T13:26:00.000-05:00

I think that the affectingness of climate change is more important than it is in itself. It's not the effects of climate change that will affect us, it is how we let it affect us. On the other side of the circle, we are affecting climate change on a much deeper level than what we put into the air and water. The climate changes. It has done so throughout linear time. It has damn near wiped us out several times over. But, WE create it, as we create all of nature, continuously. We do this from a much broader and deeper focus of attention than the attention required to drive our SUV's with our feet on the gas pedals. We put our energy into the atmosphere in a direct way, and the climate reflects that back at us to show us what we are doing energetcally. We mistake that for carbon dioxide, cow flatulence, and a more active sun cycle, and put the cart before the horse.

It's not the carbon in the air that is our challenge; it's what we focus on, the awareness of that, and the resistance to being aware and to be accepting of that. In my opinion, both the White Man's religion and the Native American religions are incorrect. We are neither superior to nature nor its creation. Nature is the manifestation of our collective consciousness. In that, it is both our reflection and collective identity, in part.

In other words, climate change comes from the reverse side of the circle; the side we can't see; the other side of the sheet of paper. It comes from the motive source of the finger that having writ, moves on.

We are remembering that we are not separate from nature any more than we are separate from Essence. We just believe we are separate from both.

The Belief Systems of Healing

2007-05-30T07:14:00.000-05:00

The belief systems I have about healing have to do with both ancient and modern "healing" practices. In this, we have to "fix" something "wrong", internally, externally, or spiritually. It comes from our veil of separation that is a core blueprint of our reality. It's a "necessary" belief with which we've constructed reality so that we are able to experience in isolation the creation of our reality. This has been morphed into a sort of "illness" that we have to become "whole again", that our separation was and is some sort of error on our part. I envision a "time" when the separation was a temporary point of view that we could shift from when we wanted to step out of the exercise for a bit. Instead, now we believe it to be permanent unless until we "heal" and become "whole". And then we formed all sorts of methods, processes, beliefs in religions and sciences with which we fix ourselves or find some healer to "fix us" using these methods, processes, religions and sciences.

I'm not saying this is wrong, nor that these beliefs are not "real" for they are very valid and existential, and REAL. Also, they are not absolute truths. The really real truth is that we are and never were "separated". Separation is only a point of view that is narrow and narrows our perception and limits our creativity. The purpose of this was valid; yet, we've exprienced about as much as we can stand of this. We are bored with it. We are growing tired of having our creativity stifled, and tired of experiencing the same things over and over again. This fatigue with separation is now a part of us individually and as a species. Many of us are checking out, and not remanifesting in the future from now. Those that want and will continute to remanifest in the future are changing our perception to one of wholeness and with a relatively lessor amount of separation. An example of this are the modern shaman or spiritualist. For some others like me, we experience and remember our dream creations as experiences and valid and memorized as much as our walking life. This reality is changing, and I envision it to result in a physical reality much like it was when the DreamWalkers created this reality wherein we will be DreamWalkers, too, only with a lot more experience.

In the context of our current belief systems, we will be "healed". Only then, we'll know that there was never any healing needed. There will be a broader awareness, a change in point of view to a "range of view", so to speak. We will be able to see where we've been, where we are, and the places and times we could be, almost simultaneously, like in the amount of time it takes us to turn our heads to view a different part of the room we are in. It will be more like the feeling I get when I'm driving in awareness of traffic, or like when I'm sharp and on the kenjutsu mat or soccer field. We'll know where everyone is and what they are doing without having to look with our eyes. We'll just feel where we are and what we are doing in the past, present and future. We'll be able to narrow our focus to just one point of view, but we won't forget we are not separated from ourselves the past, present or future and all the probable alternates thereof.

In the acceptance of our current belief systems of "healing" we'll have the choice to know that healing is not necessary, just a process we can undergo if we want. Otherwise, we'll be aware of our wholeness and our range of perception.

Not Here

2007-05-29T07:38:00.000-05:00

There's courage involved if you want to become truth.

There is a broken-open place in a lover.

Where are those qualities of bravery and sharp compassion in this group?

What's the use of old and frozen thought?

I wanta howling hurt.

This is not a treasury where gold is stored, this is for copper.

We alchemists look for talent that can heat up and change.

Lukewarm won't do.

Half-hearted holding back,well-enough getting by?

Not here.

Rumi

"The Soul of Rumi," Coleman Barks

Self-Trust

2006-06-27T12:15:00.000-05:00

Over my last six years, one issue has been paramount, and that is self-trust. I can't tell you how many times I ripped my own heart out. It took me six years to realize the reason my beloved Annie died the way she did (a Jack Russell Terrier closer to me than any being of fur and four feet that there ever was) and all the personal drama I've been through since. Then, I did realize that it was about trusting myself, that her death and all the rest was to teach myself to trust my own creations--I shall not betray myself. It ain't possible.

Learn to trust yourself. You can start by trusting your creations, all of them. It's all you and reflections of you. It's not self-importance. Self-importance is part of the belief of duplicity--the you v. the not you; right and wrong, good and bad. It may take a sudden epiphany. It may take 6 years. It may take the rest of your life. I can't say when. Just trust yourself and your creations, and all the ripping heartache becomes a dance of compassion with yourself.

MSM Arrogance

2006-02-14T13:39:00.000-06:00

Would somebody in the press please point out to me the place in the Constitution or federal or State law where it says that the government MUST put out a press release or a 30-second announcement for significant news items? I think that the guys and gals in the press, MSM or blog-world, are suffering from over-weaning arrogance. It showed in technicolor in yesterday's news conference. The media acts if the failure to disclose this event as soon as it happened was illegal. And, I am not sorry to say, it is not.

You won't find any dispute from me that you have the right to print and say what you want if you can discover it, with some restrictions on the margins, and on certain information that may not be legally disclosed. And, you certainly have the right to print and talk about VP Cheney's hunting accident. But, you don't have the right to a press release the moment it happened.

Would it have been more politically astute to run a press release Saturday? Perhaps, yes, when one considers the arrogance and greedy appetites of a nest of baby magpies. In the end, I assert that the only damage done was to the pride and prejudice of the reporters and their editors, who indignantly cried and whined like a playpen full of spoiled brat toddlers.

Grow up. You'll get your bottles when they are ready.

Forbidden Images

2006-02-02T15:51:00.000-06:00

There’s a prohibition in the Qu’ran from creating images of the Prophet Mohammed, for the reason that it’s thought that they would inspire idol worship instead of veneration for the Prophet and worship of God. It’s not a good idea to mistake the symbol for the thing in existence.

So, the furor over the derisive cartoons published in Denmark lampooning the Prophet raises a question–How is it that since it is forbidden to create and worship an image of the Prophet it is okay to be offended by an image of the Prophet? How is it permissible to kill people and break things in offense taken from a depiction of an image of the Prophet that one is not permitted to worship in the first place?

If anyone wants to get a little more understanding about what radical fundimentalism is about see: http://tinyurl.com/d12dm

Nature, Nurture or is there something else?

2005-12-01T16:21:00.000-06:00

Well, first of all, I have to tell you that I start from a premise that our little bit of consciousness does not start out like random spark from a flint. In other words, it has a source, and that source is another consciousness. (What that consciousness is, is a different subject.) Let's throw in another premise that that source doesn't exist in space/time like our new consciousness does. (Could we get into a sort of genealogy here? But I digress.)

We, us and our source, choose this vessel from a time without time, with all it's biological functions and encodements (hormones, DNA, genealogy, etc.,), talents and infirmities, and the milieu of cultures, families, and programs that we are born into, among other things.

In that beginning state, time is not linear, the fun with retroactive enchantment being one example. Our path is one of an infinite number of possible paths we could have chosen. Our path is not certain, then, ever, except our footprint in the now--our point of power--our AP or the point on which we focus. Neither our past or future is given, only a range of possibilities.

We create our own reality in the now from all of those possibilities. We create this animal body every moment of every lifetime simply by will power and focus. That's where we intend our focus to be, so that's what we perceive at the moment. The next moment, and all the other parallel moments are a different matter, pardon the pun. The future and past are composed of waves of probabilities from the now, our focus, will and intent. The creative possibilities are not just infinite, they are eternal.

You, we, are only as bound by our DNA, culture, family and the rest as we intend to be. None of us really realizes how powerful we really are.

2005-11-04T10:44:00.000-06:00

Experience is more than what's before the eyes.

This really bugs me

2005-10-05T18:06:00.000-05:00

Okay, I don't normally get into mass cause celebre'. But, not to do so in this case just doesn't seem to me the right way to live. So, please look at this site, that sets a protest day to stop the Japanese fisheries from slaughtering en mass dophins and other toothed whales in order to have more fish for themselves. I think these guys need to find other work. What do you think?
http://www.earthisland.org/saveTaijiDolphins/japanDolphinDay.html

The Gales of September, the Ides of October

2005-09-29T11:46:00.000-05:00

Here are some of my feelings, gnosis, or whatever for the coming month of October. I was asked elsewhere what I felt, and here 'tis.

What I do is start from mass perceptions, things in the Conventional Reality and quasi-Conventional Reality (like alternate and new age stuff), and while describing them in writing, gnosis takes over and interpretations spill out.

First, I have to say there was a lot of energy released by the gales of September, which was attracted to LA and TX by the energy present. What I mean is that mass consciousness energy tends to attract similar energy and that's the way the mass reality is created. At the end of September going into October, that mass energy in the US is shifting to politics, as the indictments of political figures, the vote for Supreme Court Chief Justice, and the nomination for Associate Justice take place. I think the energy is going to stay there in politics for the month of October. The energy released by the hurricanes by no means depleted the energy available to be released. More to come.

October starts with a solar eclipse on the third, the window for that starting on the 1st. I don't believe that eclipses are causes, but they are signs that people believe in, consciously or not, and this one happens in Libra (my ascendant sign), the sign of life's purposes and balance. Eeewww, balancing the scales can be painful, especially drastic movements. The unbalanced energy is significant, as any sensitive person here can attest. The lunatics running the asylum is just one symptom. Something eerie to add: the path of the eclipse travels right over the headwaters of the Nile, and is at its most complete at that point, too. The Nile to most people symbolizes Life, and the beginning of our current program (civilization). The headwaters are the beginning of both the river, and the symbol of the inception of the program.

October 16, very near the Ides, is a lunar eclipse, when Earth Changes and Human Consciousness coincide. Did I say above that mass events are triggered by mass consciousness? Hmmm. Remember, eclipses are just mass events given metaphorical significance. What this symbolizes to me is "a break between the way we experience a certain reality and the way we represent it, leading to a sharp adjustment." --Ellie Crystal's words. Your mileage may differ.

The height of the partial lunar eclipse passes over the US Mississippi Valley down to the Mayan Highlands, and the Indus Valley in Northwestern India. Both were centers of high culture at the inception of the programs in the Eastern and Western Hemispheres. Again, this may mean nothing to you, consciously or unconciously, but it feels to me like it will be noticed at the mass consciousness level, at the point the events are created.

Any way you look at it, October looks to be even more interesting than September, and not just conceptually or spiritually, either. Look for physical and emotional manifestations that are on the mass scale. We all create our own realities, solo and en mass. Stay as independent as you can from mass movements and from taking sides. It's a all a game that the world is playing, and no side is "right" or "wrong". They just are.

The Pledge of Allegiance Unconstitutional?

2005-09-15T14:11:00.000-05:00

An interesting ironic twist:

The Pledge was originally written without the words, "under God" by Francis Bellamy in 1892. He was a Christian Socialist preaching in the Baptist churches of his day. He was kicked out the Baptist Church for his socialist sermans, and later was a member of the National Education Association during its formative years. The words, "under God", were added in 1954 when Congress adopted the Pledge. These words were added at the instigation of the Knights of Columbus, a quasi-Masonic fraternal organization. According to many on the Christian Right, the Masons are run at the top by a cabal of international conspirators, the Illuminati.
http://history.vineyard.net/pledge.htm

On Removing the Jews From Gaza

2005-08-22T18:04:00.000-05:00

If it's wrong and fascist to remove those Jews from the Jewish Settlements, what was it when those folks moved in back in 1974 after dispossessing and bulldozing Palestinian homes so the Jews could move in? Why is one any better or worse than the other? One could wonder if the Jews really didn't know they were living on borrowed time and borrowed property.

SAY WHAT?

2005-07-22T13:16:00.000-05:00

Sheikh Omar Bakri Mohammed, a British Muslim cleric, said today that Islam contained "a message of peace for those who want to live with the Muslims in peace."

"But Islam is a message of war for those who declare war against Muslims," he said.

"I condemn any killing and any bombing against any innocent people in Britain or abroad, but I expect the British people to condemn the killing of Muslims in Iraq and Afghanistan."

However, asked about Islamist attacks on British and U.S. troops and on Israelis, he said: "If violence is pro-life I don't condemn it."

The Follies of the Powers that Be

2005-06-30T10:49:00.000-05:00

June 29, 2005

Negroponte to Head New National Security Division

By DOUGLAS JEHL

WASHINGTON, June 29 - President Bush ordered today changes intended to break down old walls between foreign and domestic intelligence activities by creating a new national security division within the Federal Bureau of Investigation that will fall under the overall direction of John D. Negroponte, the new director of national intelligence. The directive by Mr. Bush is aimed at consolidating the power of Mr. Negroponte, whose authority over the F.B.I. had been left ambiguous. It also sets in motion a major restructuring intended to dissolve the barriers that have often kept the Central Intelligence Agency and the F.B.I. at arm's length, and elevates intelligence operations to new prominence within an F.B.I. that has remained firmly oriented toward traditional law enforcement, even since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/29/politics/29cnd-intel.html?ex=1277697600&en=afd0b2a1ec47ea64&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

MY TURN:

They've been trying to do this since J. Edgar Hoover's days. The FBI under Hoover distrusted the Yale Skull and Bones guys over at the CIA. Those in the know knew what these sons of opium dealers did, while the FBI and the DEA risked their lives with no anticipated fortunes or senior government appointments after their law enforcement careers were over. They were incensed beyond toleration when Nixon and Halderman used the CIA to trump FBI investigations of Watergate. The FBI, before Louis Freeh, Pres. Clinton's director and Bush patsy respected the law and the legal restrictions on their investigations.

The PTB tried all during the '50's and '60's to use Communism and the racial and anti-war disturbances to breach this wall to no effect. Then came the '80's and Iran-Contra and the drug running escapades involving Clinton/Bush I, circumventing the necessity of breaching the wall. They passed the RICO acts and the property/drug seizure laws as well as the IRS to do the same things. During the late Bush I years and during the Clinton administration, they tried using civil unrest, the racist/militia armies, WTC bombing, Branch Davidians, and other local bred terrorists to extend the powers of investigation, enact gun bans, and extra-judicial seizures of property. However, local bred terrorism didn't instill the proper level of fear in the public so that the people would trade their rights for security. Besides, the local boys were of our own.

So, along comes 9/11 and now we have a xenophobia that created great fear in the public, at the same time manifesting that time worn phrase, "As long as it's them damn furriners, more power to ya!"

Now, the FBI has finally been given the powers of extra-judicial, star chamber investigations and trials without jury, all in the name of national security. "Those that sacrifice liberty for security will soon find that they have little of either." Wasn't that James Madison who said that? May he rest in peace.

I'm like my dad, now. I don't really give a shit, because it's all folly to me. In the mean time, I will try to live a life that's enlightened enough that it spreads to enough people, including my kids and their peers, so that these control freaks find their efforts in vain. Who can control the human spirit? No one.

Namaste'

The Point of Power

2005-06-29T15:19:00.000-05:00

I read something yesterday while doing my Seth/Jane Roberts reading. This was something I missed growing up in the '70's.

Came across this in Personal Realty

THE PRESENT IS THE POINT OF POWER

Sorcery speaks a lot about power, personal power, and creating your own reality. When you sit still and do not think of the past that got you here, or the future of the next moment, you realize that everything depends on NOW. You can change the past from the present, and change the future from the present. By doing so, you change the present. What you want to create, or fix, is done from the NOW, not living or reliving the past and thus reinforcing the present. Nor is it hoping or fearing for the future and ignoring the Present. In that space between past in future is the point of the present. The Point of Power.

2005-06-13T14:53:00.000-05:00

One thing I have discovered the truth of is--Neither shit nor anything else that happens doesn't just happen. Every tiny bit, from the cactus rose to the stuck water pipes is created by us on some level of consciousness. The only question is, are we ready to take responsibility for it?

Good and Evil

2005-06-10T09:10:00.000-05:00

He who hates evil merely creates another one. --Seth Speaks/Jane Roberts

The Cherry Tree Blooms in the Garden

2005-06-08T17:53:00.000-05:00

Just figured something out. I had to right it down before I forget it.

We are all Masters
To remind others they know
Then, we disappear

Nee and Non to the EU Constitution

2005-06-02T16:48:00.000-05:00

This is real interesting to me, a lawyer, and a one-time historian of the Constitutional debates in the US 216 years ago. The same issues are brought up by the people that were brought up back then: Small states v. Big states; individual sovereignty; guarantees of individual rights; corporate interests v. individual interests; economic haves v. have nots. This occurs after 50 years of the Europeans having their heads in the sand over these issues, and 200 plus years of ignorance of why we Yankees fought the British Crown and its puppet parliament compared to the French revolutionary nihilism.

I'm rubbing my hands with glee over this. AT LAST THEY SEE THE LIGHT!!

Now, may we Yankees recover our senses and throw our political/corporate establishment out with the bathwater, both parties and their corporate/banker financiers and the goddam insurance companies that hold legal title to nearly everything.

Facing Fears and You Create Your Own Reality

2005-06-01T14:57:00.000-05:00

*epiphany*

I used to do what I could to assuage the other's fears. What that did was to put more focus on them. I get more of what I focus on. So, I got more fear until it was a snarling pitbull of irrational monster. Bad idea.

Keep voicing everything: fear, love, insecurity, confidence. And, I won't try to fix them like I used to. Just release them into the Universe.

As for me, my fears include fear of others' insecurities--HAH! What a hypocrit am I!! My own insecurity fearing their's. Self-deprecating humor allows me to laugh at myself, not derisively but to put things into perspective and to change the focus from heaviness to laughter. That's why I laugh at the "Psycho" image--"NEE NEE NEE", whenever I think of this. We are our worst petty tyrant, I think. Laughing at it diminishes its, and our own, self-importance.

Let 'em rip, m'dear. Facing our fears is a legitimate way of teaching us what we need to learn. What's the worst thing that could happen? We'll die? We're gonna have pain? We're gonna do that, anyway.

I'll love you all come what may.

Haiku

2005-06-01T11:24:00.000-05:00

Infinity swirls
Crystaline nexus connects
Two hearts entwining

Haiku

2005-05-25T16:28:00.000-05:00

Petals of pink roses
Rain showers cool the ardor
Poems for the mind

"L"

2005-05-23T08:20:00.000-05:00

Love

Lust...mmm

Learning

Living

Labyrinth

Legs

Layers

Late

Lassez Nous Faire

Laptop

Lunch Date

Lucky

Lapdog...

To be continued

How To Peel An Apple

2005-05-10T11:41:00.000-05:00

These things must be done delicately. The apple must be washed, in vanilla scented water. Then the hands should be washed in glycerin soap. Next, your cutting tool must be sharp and fit well in your hand. Cradle the apple in the palm of your hand, the knife in the other. Pressure is applied with the last two fingers. The first two fingers and the thumb guide the blade. Hold the blade so it faces your thumb. Slip the blade under the apple's skin, not too deeply or you'll bruise the flesh. Slowly spin the apple toward the blade. Too fast and you'll cut your thumb. Starting at the top of the apple, spiral the slice downward across its surface. When you are out of skin, your apple is naked in front of you, and her clothes lie neatly on the floor. Perfect!!

A Koan

2005-05-09T16:41:00.000-05:00

The bodhisatva’s say that there are 64,000 moments in the snap of your fingers. How many eternities are in a pause? How many licks does it take to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop?

Namaste'

2005-05-09T14:44:00.000-05:00

I wish I could paint you
Walking down the path
Squatting over baby ladybugs
Standing against the sky

Nothing so ephemeral
As Oil on Canvas
Just something to show others
How I see you there

An awareness of body and limb
Gliding over the grass
Sliding between tables
Leaving sparkles in your wake

The spice of vanilla everpresent
On my clothes, my hands, my memory
I regretfully washed the shirt
It will always be there with me

You are a layer under everything
A carrier wave of tide
Traveling across the spider web
I am just that into you

Todd
May 9,2005

INVITATION

2005-04-25T11:37:00.000-05:00

Being now worthy
Of Spirit in the catch
Life travels in spirals
Circles with altitude

The Tower signals
Big change offing
The Heart pierced
By swords, over

The Full Moon Eclipsed
Mars in the Fish
When love darkens
In Scorpio dreaming

Similarities noticed
Change also in mind
Scorpio in the cards
Let it go as it might

Copyright 4/25/2005

Balance

2005-04-18T10:37:00.000-05:00

Relationship stuff will make you think. Always remember that there's a lesson to be learned.

One thing I've noticed in people who like to think of themselves as non-violent is that they get down on themselves for violent thoughts or behavior, even if it might be justified. Each of us has a "light side" and a "dark side", or in CG Jung's lingo, an angel and a shadow. Each archetypical personality has a shadow. Point being, this is perfectly natural. If we introspect enough, we all run into our demons. Fear's the first, and probably the most damaging, and never really goes away forever. If it's in its place, it keeps us safe and is a good thing to have. If it becomes a fear of something that hasn't happened yet, though, it can create the reality we fear; we get what we focus on.

This doesn’t mean that our mates are necessarily one-to-one mirrors of ourselves. I do think they are actors in our script, and aspects of ourselves in the sense that "whereever I go, I meet myself". Karma is a word that I use here but in a more new-agey way than in Hindu. We each have karmic contracts, or a life outline of things we agreed to work on in this incarnation (more about reincarnation, later, lest I get off track.) We set up energy hooks that attract us to people that will present situations for us to learn from. I wouldn't discount the mirror aspect that others have for us, though. It is possible that we'll naturally perceive in others (or "project" to use the psychological term) that which we deny in ourselves. We get what we focus on, and a projection is a focus of part of ourselves onto the movie screen of reality. So, we get more of it because we are supposed to learn from it. When we learn the lesson, we move on to something else.

Suppose we are in a relationship where the other person is an alcoholic and abusive. Suppose we created "Bubba" in our life to learn to stand up for ourself? Possibly, we needed to learn to acknowledge that dark, violent side that can aid us in self-protection, to balance all that goodness and light? *smiles* The Goddess Athena was the matron of knowledge and reason; she was a warm nurturing mother that encouraged her children to go out there, take risks and succeed. However, she was also sometimes the Goddess of Justice, and if you transgressed and pissed her off, her dark side was ruthless and horrible. All part of the same archetype or BE-ING. Good or bad didn't have anything to do with it. And they don't have anything to do with our dark and light sides, either. They just are. Acknowledge both of them, because they are both YOU.

We all have aggressive desires. Some of us focus on them. We all have passive "allowing" as well. An over-focus on that side can lead us to be victims. There are no victims. There are just choices. And, there is just balance and imbalance. Balance is a state of being. It is not static. It contains within it the state of imbalance. A pendulum in balance is ever moving. A broom balanced in the palm of your hand by the point of the stick is always out of balance. It requires thousands of little movements in your body transmitted to your hand to keep the weed on top. Just standing on two feet requires millions of nerve cells to fire. We are always falling, and we are always rising. That is balance.

So, don't be upset that you have harbored violent thoughts toward Bubba, or Osama or Hillary. Who wouldn't? And, perhaps they needed to learn that reality can dish them some self-respect, even if they wouldn't do it for themselves, Hmmm? *wicked smile*

Balance.

Present

2005-03-15T18:33:00.000-06:00

I'm still here.

Whereever you go, there you are

2004-12-02T16:30:00.000-06:00

When you are BEING where you are, what is there to fear? When you are in the past or future, you are not where you are, not BEING where you are. Therefore, fear takes hold.

We resist what we fear. How can you fear what is in the past or future--that which isn't anymore, and which isn't yet? Resistance is futile. You will assimilate what happens to you. *smiles*

"Whereever I go, I meet myself." Shunryu Suzuki

I won!

2004-11-02T15:56:00.000-06:00

I just got an opinion from the Dallas Court of Appeals for the 5th District (that's the intermediate appellate court in Texas for you common folk) that I just won my third appeal.
WHOOOPEEEE!

Find Out For Yourself

2004-10-21T09:41:00.000-05:00

Find Out For Yourself
Not Always So, by Shunryu Suzuki

"The moment you are told something by someone and you think you understand, you will stick to it, and you will lose the full function of your nature. When you seek something, your true nature is in full activity, as if you are feeling for your pillow in the dark. If you know where the pillow is, your mind is not in full function. Your mind is acting in a limited sense. When you are seeking for the pillow without knowing where it is, then your mind is open to everything. In this way you will have a more subtle attitude toward everything, and you will see Things as it is."

The Metaphysics of Baseball

2004-10-19T11:14:00.000-05:00

Crash’s Soliloquy from Bull Durham, Script Written and Directed by
Ron Shelton

CRASH After 12 years in the minor leagues, I don't tryout. Besides-- I don't believe in, Quantum Physics when it comes to matters of the heart...or loins.

ANNIE (challenging him) What do you believe in?

Crash at the door. Annie's question is slightly taunting. He stops, and speaks with both aloofness and passion:

CRASH I believe in the soul, the cock, the pussy, the small of a woman's back, the hanging curve ball, high fiber, good scotch, long foreplay, show tunes, and that the novels of Thomas Pynchon are self-indulgent, overrated crap. (beat) I believe that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone, I believe that there oughtta be a constitutional amendment outlawing astro-turf and the designated hitter, I believe in the "sweet spot", voting every election, soft core pornography, chocolate chip cookies, opening your presents on Christmas morning rather than Christmas eve, and I believe in long, slow, deep, soft, wet kisses that last for 7 days.

ANNIE (breathless) Oh my...

CARLOS CASTANEDA - ENIGMA OF A SORCERER

2004-10-06T15:33:00.000-05:00

DVD RELEASE--The film will be released on DVD mid 2005. For the most current release information visit: http://www.IndicanPictures.com

I listened to the trailer on this website. Well, who knows how they picked the excerpts. Probably had in mind the most controversial and negative ones simply because our society expects that, therefore it's most likely to sell the movie. We'll see what the movie brings. The most telling about the motivations of the trailer's creators was a comment near the end, "The people who were damaged the most by Carlos were those that expected the most from him." Well DEE A DUH!!!

We are so used to expecting that our expectations will be fulfilled that we are indignant and plead victimhood when they are not. Sometimes we sink into neurosis in our disappointment. This is one of the definitions of self-importance, and is the opposite of shamanism and Zen. Expectations are the core of Conventional Reality in that we expect something to be so therefore it is. This is the most obvious lie of the whole blasted thing, and the one the most essential to avoid and ignore for people to maintain the status quo, and their sanity. Expectations are not always so.

Don Juan told Carlos not to expect anything from him, warned him in fact. Just like Don Juan expected nothing from Carlos. Go where spirit leads you.

This closes a chapter...

2004-09-30T15:31:00.000-05:00

I Can’t Be...

What does it mean when your loved one doesn’t understand you?
Are you understandable? Are they blind?
Are they not looking because they don’t want to see?

Do they really have a picture of what they want you to be?
Are you that which they can’t, or don’t want to, see?
If you were to do, say or be what they want,
Would they, could they, point to you and say "that’s what I meant"?

The pain of not being what your loved one wants is immense, heavy.
Like a weight on you that you can’t lift and no one can spot you.
I can’t be what they want. No wonder lesser people shrug.
The burden is even heavier somehow when you think it’s not possible to lift it.

How can you recover that which you gave away and was rejected?
How can you re-caste pearls before someone again?
What if that person was a person who loves you and doesn’t see the gift?

How can you join someone on the veranda who doesn’t see what you do?
Do you doubt your own mind, your own eyes, to try to see what they do?
Isn’t that kind of pretending called a lie? And who benefits? Does anybody?

Copyright
4/19/01

Samhain Moon

2004-09-30T15:25:00.000-05:00

Orange Orb, smiling at me.
Smiling, knowing, but kind.
Portentous of the coming year.
Augeries of battles and victories.

A Blue Moon on Samhain Eve
The first in fifty years minus four.
Four times ten is forty. My years in this life.
My lily girl will see it again in twenty.

What changes the year has wrought.
Awareness of other realms brought.
Teachers came and disappeared
Some were returning lives to my circle.

Black crows greet the final day,
Picking at the scraps and corpses of last year.
May they feast on it with gratitude,
Messengers of the changes augured for the next.

Keeper with crows, messengers of the dead.
Samhain Eve when the Otherworld doors open.
Spirit whisperings, rough bird oracles,
I will need wit and weapon, pen and poetry.

Yellow and red mums boisterously bloom.
Pumpkins orange, hay bales brown, birds in the wind.
Big birds black, tree plum red, tears of regret.
A cold time come before the sun warms the ground.

Copyright
11/06/01

Falling Leaves

2004-09-30T15:22:00.000-05:00

Fall leaves drop softly
Summers energy now drained
Kisses cool her face

2004-09-30T15:14:00.000-05:00

Vampyre hidden in the night,
Darkling witch of pure delight,
Eyes of glowing hematite,
Watching, waiting prey in sight.

Mortals fear what they don’t know
Imaginings worse with fright do grow
Crackling air, wings of a crow
Blood is spilt upon the snow.

Come to me, my darkling one.
The shadows we will shun.
Sunlight will be feared by none,
Who walk when magick spells are spun.

Let the magick’s unseen force
Join our paths into one course
Between us grows the source
Of love’s immortal code in morse.

Copyright
09-26-02

SEEING

2004-09-24T09:33:00.000-05:00

A Zen koan of long standing goes as follows: The roshi (Zen teacher) holds up a staff and says, 'If you call this a staff, you affirm. If you say it is not a staff, you deny. Beyond affirmation or denial, what is it?'

I have no way of knowing at the moment what’s of pragmatic value to me, as far as theory and general knowledge go. I trust that my search for it will lead me to the right places. In that sense, I'm in a "maybe" state. What I’m trying to learn to do with all this is to learn to SEE.
Pragmatism is great for what's going on right now, and maybe I should pay more attention to that.

That Zen always seemed to me to be trying to get the student away from the use of words (dichotomy), and labels. For if we stick a label on it, we are trying to determine in the operative sense of the word what it is and shall be, and maybe it is not what we are labeling it to be. If we use a word to describe it, it either is or is not. We can also be making an assumption of what it is based on consensual agreement. Again, assumptions and agreement may not be valid. The point is, words can sometimes get in the way of SEEING.

I'm reminded of the Castaneda koan in "Separate Reality" where Don Genaro, Don Juan and Castaneda are discussing SEEING. Castaneda is busy taking notes. Don Genaro is sitting on the ground, and somehow rolls over and is balanced on his head, then rolls back. He keeps doing this impossible thing, much to Castaneda's distraction from writing down Don Juan's words. Soon the to sorcerors are chuckling to themselves. Finally, Castaneda asks why they are laughing. Don Juan breaks up laughing, and when he recovers, he says, "Oh, Genaro was just saying that the likelihood of you learning to SEE by writing is the same as Don Genaro being able to sit on his head." Which broke up all three of them into fits of laughter. Point being, SEEING and learning to SEE are not done with words, but maybe they can be. Genaro sat on his head, after all.

*smiles*

What's your totem animal?

2004-09-24T08:57:00.000-05:00

The StagYou are protected by the spirit of the deer, swift
of foot and of mind; you keep true to yourself
while thinking of the good of the herd. You are
an independant and free spirit, capaple of
solemnity and of true bravery. As long as you
stay honest with yourself the Stag will protect
and serve you well. Your quote: "If I am
walking with two other men, each of them will
serve as my teacher. I will pick out the good
points of the one and imitate them, and the bad
points of the other and correct them in
myself"

What is your Inner Spirit Totem Animal?
brought to you by

Who Is This Man?

2004-09-23T11:50:00.000-05:00

Who is this man, that calls himself God?
Just the man that calls her Goddess.
He left the Garden, following his mother.
Found Lilith’s daughter, lying in the sand.

Who is this man, that fights the Demons?
Only an angel, who is self-made, self-named.
Drying the tears of centuries, good riddance to guilt.
Demons are ourselves, made allies from enemies.

Who is this man, that calls himself King?
Only the man that dares ask her to be Queen.
For he cares not where he lays, when love they make.
As long as it’s by her side, when after they wake.

Who is this man, that dares tempt the Darkness?
Only a man that can bring it the Sun.
Light from darkness, antipodal in spirit.
Then one from the other, they are like the Tao.

Who is this man, that calls himself Witch?
Arrogant, and honest, who saw himself in one.
Magik and reason, can live side by side,
The universe is everything, eyes opened wide.

Who is this man, that calls himself God?
Only a man that creates his own soul.
Who is a man, that enslaves none, nor is enslaved?
Only a man that can answer, "It is I"

Copyright May, 2001

On Hunting

2004-09-23T11:37:00.000-05:00

I am one of those people that hunts. It is both by nature and choice that I do so. I could quote long history and many sources that support my position. But, I don’t need to do so. It would be redundant.

I know by my own nature, and by my own inheritance that it is part of me. It is what I am. It is therefore what I do.

I am not an "outdoors" writer like Terry McKenzie or Capstick or J.L. Hunter or Colonel J.H. Patterson. I cannot wax poetic like the Indians and other wild folk whose talk and tales around campfires for eons past have recounted the stories of great hunts in words, song and dance. When I read their words, or feel the warmth of the campfire and see in my mind’s eye their sacred dances, I feel it in my bones, my muscles, my loins. My blood grows warm.

Yet, when I see the artificial blinds in the woods, the deer feeders, the empty shell casing on the ground, I feel as those do who find a hatred well up inside them. I know that these people feel the power of the hunt somewhere in their souls, but they have lost touch with it. It touches only their concrete commercial minds. I try not to judge them. They in their yahoo enthusiasms and drunken haze are still out there doing what in their nature they are. Yet, they have lost touch with what it is to be a hunter. Like everything else they do, it is without heart. Most of them weren’t reared like I was to feel sad when they kill something. That sadness that makes one weep. That feeling of their own mortality that only a true hunter knows–that he too is going to die someday. No high dollar pick-up truck, air-conditioned and heated blind, no modern rifle or deer feeder is going to prevent that. That sadness I feel is my own death looking over my shoulder, smiling, saying not yet, someday, but not yet, that too will be you.

When I am alone or with friends out in the dove field, the woods, by a quiet stream, a big bass lake, the sandy lagoons, the deep blue sea, and hunting the creatures that live there, it is to feel that connection with Spirit, that I Am that is also Me. When I feel the tug on the line, watch the dove streak past, the deer rutting or trembling that something just ain’t right, it tugs at my heart all the way to my mortality that I share with them. They pull at that everlasting eternal struggle for life that we all share and that struggle we shaman take with us into infinity.

I share kith and kin with the red tail hawk soaring outside my office window, the house cat on the prowl, the dog after the neighborhood squirrel, the leopard in the cool African night air, the alligator in his warm black swamp, all of that primeval longing, that hunger deep in the pit of my stomach, that drive in my legs to go hunt. The call of the whippoorwill, the howl of the coyote, the trill of the screech owl, beckon to me, and at that the same time, remind me that I will die, too.

We all kill. From the microbes our systems reject into oblivion, the pill bugs we accidentally step on, to the meat that somebody else kills for us. Death comes in anti-biotic pills, cans of bug spray, the rolled up newspaper, the saran wrap and butcher paper the meat comes in. We kill, oh yes, even if it’s by proxy. We live our sanitized politically correct lives, and ignore it. We rail at the slob hunters with their pools of blood and beer in the parking lot. We forget that someone makes a living in pools of blood and entrails to feed us, to stave off that hunger so that we can forget that we are hunters and hunted.

I know and can answer those words that haunt the back of my mind–it is only a dream, a program, a consensual reality that we’ve collectively manufactured and dreamt into being. In that case it is only all a dream and the killing is imaginary. But, it is not only a dream. It is a dream as real and engrossing and fatal as any other dream. It is the life we chose when we came here, to feel the heart beat, smell the smell of fear and death, to go on living until we too will die one day to feed some other mother’s babies. But in the dream it is all so beautiful, if you let yourself not be so self-important and judgmental to say, to convince yourself that you are above it. You are hunted and hunter right down to the spider’s web of DNA that makes you. You gather in your organic or commercial stores, safe from the tiger that ate your great, great grandmothers’ sister by the blackberry patch. You are not above it. It is what you are, it is life in this reality, this earth, this dream. You chose it in this time, after a couple of millennia spent trying to eliminate the wolf at the door that calls you when it is time. Why? To get it back. We are given the task, among other things, of regaining that immortal feeling of death and life that circles all around us, so that we may be reminded that oblivion and the Eagle await us if we are not diligent, aware, and careful.

I know what I am. Therefore I do what I do. I live, I hunt, I feed myself and others. I choose not to hide behind a piece of saran wrap. If I were a vegetarian, a vegan, even, I would still respect and yes, love the hunter. He or she is the agent of my death. To not kill is neither sin nor prideful self-importance. To sit in our organically grown cotton papasan chairs and pontificate that hunters are all slobs, and that if everybody ate only veggies and soy like we do this would be a peaceful, loving world is the height of arrogance, self-importance and stupidity. We deny the existence of one half of the world. For as long as there are grazers, there will be hunters, and when the hunters are all gone, there will not be peace, but oblivion. Nothing but fossils of a long gone era. I hope someone like me finds my bones and remembers.

Sitting on a hill
Cold wind chilling my bones
The Stag awaits

Namaste’

Tools

2004-09-20T15:34:00.000-05:00

I look around, and take account of all the people in my circle, some close to the center, and some passing the circumference. I read a lot too, from the fictional to the historical, dramas of life. What drives this drama? What makes folks so mad, both crazy mad and angry?

I talk below of eliminating self-importance. But why?

We have been conditioned against our grain for, oh, at least 2000 years, to separate the physical from the metaphysical. Orthodoxy and Priesthoods warned us away from looking at the metaphysical for ourselves, and the Renaissance, Reformation, Enlightenment, Industrial Revolution were reactions to Orthodoxy and Priesthoods, culminating in the Scientific Century. The horrors of dis-em-spiritual life, and the orthodoxy of the State have led us back around to gnostic spirituality. Yet, we still can’t SEE. We are blind men speaking to deaf wives, and disinterested kids.

When I said, "dis-em-spiritual" I was making a pun related to disembowelment, because, that's what we've done, disemboweled our spirit. We've taken the guts out of life. We've substituted that with the enormous bellies of the "Obese Man" and the raging tempers of "PMS Woman". My theory is a person’s belly size or hot temperament is directly proportional to their self-importance, all other things being equal. The way we've done that is we've substituted awareness for using tools. Everything is a tool. As such it is a layer between us and reality. Words are where it started. A good thing to have when you need to act as a team to kill the mammoth or collect as many berries as you can. But, they are tools, and get in the way of seeing things as they are, sometimes.

Now, everything and everyone is a tool for us. We spend eight to twelve ours a day looking at the world through TV screens and computer monitors. The most damaging thing is we see each other for tools: Tools for making money; tools for our genetic lineage; tools for our vicarious living; tools to get even with our spouses; and, tools for our self-importance. Self-importance is the over-riding concept, because money, aggrandizement, child custody disputes, little league sports, domestic relations and disputes, spilled coffee, defrauded companies, office politics, anger at the person cutting in line in front of us, debasing and beheading prisoners of war, political lies and dissembling–all of this is to increase our self-importance. And, self-importance is nothing more than having a personal stake in everything that goes on around us, as if the deeds and misdeeds of the world, much less our fellow wo/man actually mean a bit to us, really. And which, if you think about it, is even more stupid since it’s totally unreasonable to have a stake in the light from a TV screen. As result, we can’t be aware of what’s truly going on around us, we can’t regain that connection to Spirit, we can’t truly love ourselves and others, if we are constantly filtering our perceptions through–"What’s in it for me? Why did he do this to me? Why did this happen to me? I will look bad if this does or doesn’t happen. My soul will burn in hell if I tolerate some other person’s view of the world and the after life. How many more babies can I stuff into this world?" All of this is because we look at other people as our tools and imagine that some malfunction in them or some lack in the number or quality of them is the source of our problems.

I am not saying that reducing and eliminating our self-importance is going to be easy, after all, we’ve been trained since infancy that the world is ours for the demanding. But because of our own damn self-importance, we don't see anything for what it is, but just as tools. We don’t see the damage that we do to what we say we value. And therefore we have no connection to Spirit, which is what everything is.

Don't Take it Personally

2004-09-16T22:39:00.000-05:00

"Whatever happens around you, don’t take it personally...If I say to you, "Hey, you are so stupid"...it’s not about you, it’s about me. If you take it personally, then perhaps you believe you are stupid....What causes you to be trapped is what’s called personal importance." Miguel Ruiz– The Four Agreements

A couple of good friends of mine have run into their own pinches tyrannos. I too, have had my own personal petty tyrant, for years. I was defeated by mine, because I lost control, discipline and forbearance. I have regrouped and gone on, and I refuse to join her and become a petty tyrant myself. Having a personal petty tyrant is a good thing. It’s the best way to find out how self-important you are, and to help you eradicate that self-importance. Self-importance is not a naive consideration. It’s what wastes our energy worrying about me, me, me, instead of observing what is going on around us and dealing with the way things are. What I’ve told my daughter is that some people are like tornados. Tornados hit trailer parks. Don’t live in a trailer park by taking these people personally. These people are idiots. They are an act of nature. We use control, discipline, forbearance, and timing, and in extreme deadly situations, our will, to overcome them. By doing so, and being lucky enough to have a petty tyrant, we remove our self-importance, and properly use our energy to become impeccable.

Petty Tyrants

2004-09-16T22:37:00.000-05:00

Don Juan said that "Impeccability is nothing more than the proper use of energy." The seers of the Spanish Conquest, the unquestionable masters of stalking, had developed a strategy for removing self-importance. There are six elements in this strategy, five of which are the attributes of a warrior–control, discipline, forbearance, timing and will. The sixth element is exterior to the warrior–the Petty Tyrant– pinche tyrano.

"Just what is a Petty Tyrant, Don Juan?" I asked.

"A petty tyrant is a tormentor," he said. "Someone who holds the power of life or death over warriors or simply annoys them to distraction." Carlos Castaneda– The Fire From Within

Self-Importance

2004-09-16T22:33:00.000-05:00

Half complaining, I told Don Juan that he had made me feel very uncomfortable by refusing to talk to me for past two days. He looked at me and arched his brows. A smile played on his lips and then vanished.

"I was provoking your self-importance, " he said with a frown. "Self-importance is our greatest enemy. Think about it–what weakens us is feeling offended by the deeds and misdeeds of our fellow men. Our self importance requires that we spend most of our lives offended by someone." Carlos Castaneda– The Fire From Within

Whodunnit?

2004-09-15T13:55:00.000-05:00

It's pretty much established now that the National Guard Memos that purport to be about Pres. Bush's Guard service are forgeries. Question is, who'd a dunnit, and why. While the conspiracy theories grow like dandelions in a summer lawn remember these immortal words:

"Stupidity trumps Machievelli every time." Sen. Robert Bennett, Rep. Utah; September 15, 2004, speach on Senate floor.

The No Abiding Place

2004-09-13T09:45:00.000-05:00

If your mind is fixed on a certain spot, it will be seized by that spot, andno activities can be performed efficiently. Not to fix your mind anywhere is essential.Not fixed anywhere, the mind is everywhere.The Original Mind is like water which flows freely,whereas the deluded mind is like ice.There is a passage in the Diamond Sutra that says:"The mind should operate without abiding anywhere." - Takuan (1573-1645)

After reading tons of Zen stuff over the years, this is the one that stands out for me, and it does so at the moment, because nothing but doing a lot time in zazen will make it happen, in my experience. Right now, I'm at the stage where I can last about 30 seconds in the "no abiding place". Even sticking to the idea of getting there frustrates. It is the place of "no intent", and one gets there by "not intending".

Nothing

2004-09-01T13:34:00.000-05:00

Speaking of nothing, that is "nothing", the Buddhists have a different conception and thus understanding of "nothing" than we do. Nothing to us means "void". To the Buddhist, nothing contains pure potentiality. It is an empty page containing all the words in the universe. Not even words, but inchoate thoughts waiting to be forced into existence by an act of will.

When I have a problem that I can't solve, if I can step back from it and look at it a different way, it is not a problem. I have an innate fear of conflict. When I get into conflict, and I fight aggressively, I got a problem. I'm a little guy. I'm gonna die. I fear failure, so I procrastinate. Another problem. Not really a problem though. I have the chance to look at it a different way. Your feeling nothing can be a good thing. It’s a place of peace. Nothing's happening. No fear, no anger, no sadness--and this is a problem?! There's no joy or happiness or love either. But those feelings fade, even though they are good things. Thus, you have the chance to start from a fresh piece of paper. A blank movie screen to shine anything you want on it. Just notice the blank screen for what it is. Nothing. Now it’s anything you want it to be. It’s any feeling you want to have. All you have to do is take that first step, then another, then another, and before long you will be running again.

This is over intellectualizing it, but I can't get it across to you in any way but written words. I hope you understand them.

Fear

2004-08-31T22:04:00.000-05:00

This is from personal experience as I was watching it happen to myself, seemingly unable to do anything about it.

Over the years, from the time my kids were born, wife had fallen into isolation, worry and resentment. I saw it happening, couldn't stop it, didn't know how to stop it. So, I did the next worse thing, I worried about it. Then I saw what could happen if things continued.

To make a long story short, I worried, I obsesssed, and together, those things spell fear--the obsessive visualization of what bad things can happen. It's why the Buddhists said that attachment is a bad thing, as suffering is nothing but attachment to what we don't want or can't have, or attachment to things and people we love and want, in spite of the fact that nothing lasts forever in a world made of energy.

Fear makes what you fear happen. Works like a charm. You bring it on yourself, guaranteed because your intent begins to meld the energy fields into forcing what you fear into being.

Okay, that's the intellectualized version of it. The only thing that will stop it is the visualization of what you want to happen instead, voice it, then let it go. Don't attach and just deal with what's in front of you. The only thing I've discovered that helps me let it go is my daily, or every other day just sitting, counting or watching my breath, and letting the rest go. 20 minutes a day works wonders for me.

Positive visualization and letting go. Simple? Nah, just do it, and you'll see how hard it is to counter a lifetime of worrying and negative visualization. It gets easier as you practice, but its not a quick fix. Still the little ease you get from learning to just deal with what's in front of you makes a big positive reinforcement.

On having human beings for kids

2004-08-21T12:04:00.000-05:00

It occurs to me that I haven’t really written anything in a while that is about anything other than me. I’ve written lots of stuff about me being me. Not likely what anyone else wants to read. They are too busy being them.

So, about having kids. Kids aren’t just little people. They may be big people. Probably will be. Maybe, with a little coaxing they’ll grow up to be human beings. What’s the difference between people and human beings? Never occurred to you, I bet. There’s 6 billion people on this planet, but I get there’s barely 6 million human beings. People are homo sapiens, but that’s not saying a lot. So are human beings. People have all the genes, looks and potential of any homo sapiens. Human beings are people being human. Like I said, most people by far are not humans being. They are unconscious two-legged meat bags, too busy trying to figure out how not to starve, how to keep there kids from starving; or they are too busy trying to figure out how to pay their bills, not get fired, feed their kids, what the latest celebrities are doing, and how to get the latest fad that they are supposed to buy. Or, they have no survival worries, except to keep from going insane. Well, too late for most of them, anti-depressants notwithstanding. Kids are all this, most likely. Potentially, they have the capacity for knowing that they are spiritual bits of conscious energy, holograms of the universe as a whole. They have the potential to see and know that the universe is infinitely more than what they’ve been told. Having kids for most people is what they should be doing, with no thought whatsoever of having them grow up to be humans being.

Didja notice the change in terminology in that paragraph? Betcha did, but thought it was a typo. Human beings are humans being. What does that mean? Well a human is a conscious being. Conscious of themselves, their inner cores, and what’s going on around them. Most people are conscious of what goes on around them, at least what they’ve been taught and have accepted is going on around them. Funny thing though. Even though every thing they are conscious of is thought of as only that which affects them, they have no idea of the "them" that the world is affecting. They have no idea who or what they are. They are people just being people, doing what everybody around them is doing. Ask them, "Who are you?" and if you don’t just get a blank stare or the brush off, they start blabbering about what they do, what they have, who their friends are, who they’re married to.

Their kids are growing up to be just like them. Two legged porcine beasts consuming as much as they can, as fast as they can. The parents have no conception that there is anything different than what they are and have been, except for richer and more powerful, maybe, or just surviving like they and their ancestors have done for countless generations. Their kids can’t be expected to know anything different. One in a million will though.

That is my hope. That one in a million will see some light in him/herself. To know that they are a spiritual being having a physical experience. My two kids, fortunate enough to be brighter than most, or cursed to be brighter than most, may be the two in a million kids that I’ll know in my lifetime who figure this out to become humans being.

I’m not going to lecture you on how to raise humans being. If you are smart enough to grok this, you are a human being with the wherewithall to raise a human into being. Really, all you need to know is found out when you yourself become a human being. Just show your kids what they are equipped to understand at the time. Read them stories of other humans being. Show them examples of other human beings. Figure out who you are, and the kids will see it. They want to be just like you. Be a good example.

Thank you very much.

What Chinese Mythical Creature are You?

2004-08-19T10:36:00.000-05:00

You are Xuan Wu!
Mythological background: Because the turtle has a
thick, solid shell that serves as protection -
this animal is associated with stability. You
enjoy intellectual pursuits. Also, in Feng Shui (the Chinese myths behind
choosing a house), the black turtle's solidity
is used to protect from cold northern winds.

Which Chinese Mythological Being Are You?
brought to you by

Does the Universe Exist

2004-08-18T12:30:00.000-05:00

A Zen master would say to the question, "Does the universe exist?"--"The cypress tree grows in the garden.

A quantum shaman would say, "It does if you want it to; just depends on where your assemblage point is."

A quantum physicist would say, "Yes, but you can't tell its momentum and its velocity at the same time."

The Einsteinian relativist would say, "Yes, but what time it is depends on your velocity."

A Castanedian Toltec would say, "Yes, it exists as filaments of energy, but only if the same filaments are lit up in your energy egg."

A Ruizian would say, "Only if we agree it does."

Somewhere in that morass of sayings, there is a Universe to enjoy.
Think I'll go zazen under the cypress tree.

Something new, needed....Answer within

2004-08-04T15:56:00.000-05:00

I need a new outlet for myself. Work is making a living. Not an expression of me. Delphi Forums, where I have developed the me that I am in this moment out of 64 in a finger snap, is okay, but it too is getting sterile and limited.
I need a bigger or better, more challenging outlet. An expression of the me that is. I think the need, once expressed this way, will start forcing it into being.

Save Me....A Prayer To My Higher Self

2004-08-03T17:22:00.000-05:00

Save me from being wholly intellectual and emotionally distant; from having to win every argument; from having to dominate every conversation; from being the all knowing teacher and sage; from giving unsolicited advice.

Teach me to have compassion and not fear; to believe in those closest to me–that they will be fine; to accept my best.

Give me the strength and resolve to listen and not respond unless absolutely necessary; to be flexible and not resistant; to walk away when offended; to figure out why I was offended; to accept my failures and mistakes, learn from them, and not feel guilty and beat myself up for them forever and ever,

Amen

SIDHE

2004-07-30T09:46:00.000-05:00

Sidhe

When I look at her picture, a feeling swells. Why? Not that I doubt it. The feeling was there before I noticed it. Is this idolization? Is it setting her up on a pedestal? Not if it was there before I noticed it. The she, the one moving from moment to moment, slides in and out of existence. Is this the really real SHE? No. That’s the one that attaches to me as she relates to me, my self-importance. The SIDHE as she is can’t be grasped, only seen as the passing dance, the laughter ringing in my ears, the softness under my finger tips, the perfume of her hair, the taste of her skin (and cooking!). The moment I’m conscious of her, SHE’s gone.

What did you say?

Attachment, Non-Attachment

2004-07-26T09:44:00.000-05:00

Attachment, NonAttachment
From Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind, by Shunryu Suzuki

      "All we want to do is know things just as they are. If we know things as they are, there is nothing to point at; there is no way to grasp anything (Idolize–my word); there is no thing to grasp. We cannot put emphasis on any point. Nevertheless, as Dogen [-zenji] said, ‘A flower falls, even though we love it; and a weed grows even though we do not love it.’"

      What this means to me is that people we love fail us. We put them up on a pedestal and worship some ideal of them like some kind of idol. They don’t live up to our Idol of them. We don’t live up to our Idol of ourselves, either. We love our flowers, hate our weeds. Don’t roses get brownspot? Don’t dandelions bloom? We are the rose that we love, the weed that we hate. Aren’t other people the same way? Love them and ourselves as they are, hate them as they are. Either way, accept what we love, non-accept what we hate and know that both are the same thing–an expression of Buddha, God, Creation. This true for how we treat ourselves, as well.

      "Because you create (Idolize) some idea of unity (idol) or variety (imperfection), you are caught by the idea. And you have to continue the endless thinking, although actually there is no need to think."

Existance and Variety

2004-07-23T10:26:00.000-05:00

Each existence depends on something else. Strictly speaking, there are no separate existances. There are just many names for one existence. Sometimes people put stress on oneness, but this is not our understanding. We do not emphasize any point in particular, even oneness. Oneness is valuable but variety is also wonderful. Ignoring variety, people emphasize one absolute existence, but this is a one-sided understanding. In this understanding, there is a gap between variety and oneness. But oneness and variety are the same thing, so oneness should be appreciated in each existence. That is why we emphasize everyday life rather than some particular state of mind. We should find the reality in each moment, and in each phenomenon. This is very important.
–From "Acceptance and Non-acceptance", out of Beginners Zen, Beginners Mind, Shunryu Suzuki Roshi

Acceptance and Non-Acceptance is a wonderful essay, covering many subjects in its 3 and a half printed pages. This is not the best, if such a thing can be said. It seems to be the most enlightening to me at the moment.

Namaste'

Coon poop

2004-07-21T14:39:00.000-05:00

Coons like great big flat rocks. They'll turn a 6 foot square limestone table rock into a coon latrine. I can see them now:

Mine's bigger.

Oh yea? Check this one out.

No way, who cares about size when it comes to poop? Mine's prettier. Look at all the grapes, gooseberries, juniper berries and blackberries. Jackson Pollack would be proud!

Get out beotch! Mine has Eukanuba in it from the ranch house!

Oh Puhleaze! Mine has Friskie's from that finicky Persian over the hill.

Oh gawd! Here come's Fred! He eats those minnows out of the bucket in the stock tank! PEEEEEE YEEEEWWWWW!!!!!

The Bodhisatva's Vow

2004-07-21T12:56:00.000-05:00

The Bodhisatva's Vow

So long as space remains,
So long as sentient beings remain,
I will remain,
In order to help,
In order to serve,
In order to make ,
My own contribution.

Tibetan prayer translated by The Dalai Lama

No Answers

2004-07-19T09:06:00.000-05:00

I awoke this morning with no answers. I’m in the realm of no answers, it seems. An odd and scarey place to be for me, a person used to having answers for everything, or at least an idea of where to look. I sat in zazen this morning, with that as my non-focus. I’m stuck and don’t know which way to go, which is best. Do or not do. Pick one. It doesn’t matter which.

PS: I'm not looking for the answers.

Amaterasu

2004-07-12T12:07:00.000-05:00

Amaterasu

Great Sun Goddess of Japan. She is the supreme deity of the Shinto religion and is queen of all the Kami, the forces inherent in nature. The rice does not grow without Her. “Great Shining Heaven.”
In a drunken rampage, Amaterasu’s brother Susanoo, trampled Her rice fields, threw feces into Her temples, filled in irrigation ditches and threw the carcass of a partially flayed horse into Her weaving room! She pleaded with him to stop but he ignored Her. In protest, Amaterasu withdrew inside a cave.

As a result, the world was plunged into darkness. Without Her light and warmth the Kami of rice and all living things began to wither and die. Her brothers and sisters gathered in front of the cave and tried to coax Her out, pleading with Her to return. But Amaterasu remained unmoved.

Then the voluptuous young Goddess of merriment named Uzume turned over a washtub. Standing on top of it and clothed in nothing but leaves and flowers, She began a sensual dance, drumming out a rhythm with Her feet on the washtub. She eventually shed Her leaves and danced naked, Her audience clapping along and shouting with delight. Behind Uzume was hidden a great octagonal mirror. When Amaterasu peeked out of the cave to see what all the commotion was about, Uzume moved aside and the great mirror was rolled in front of the cave. Amaterasu, who had never seen Her own beauty before, was dazzled and delighted. She returned to Her heavenly throne to warm the winter-weary earth. All the Kami rejoiced in Her divine warmth and light. Life stirred and the world turn green once again.

The royal families of Japan trace their descent from Amaterasu. She is the ancestor of the Peacock emperor. An important part of his coronation ceremony takes place at Amaterasu’s main temple at Ise, which houses the sacred mirror. This mirror is Her Shintai, the object into which the Goddess’s spirit enters to be present at ceremonies and to listen to the prayers addressed to Her. Cock, which roam in profusion on the temple grounds are sacred to Her because they salute the sun each morning at dawn.

It is the rising sun, Amaterasu’s emblem that appears on Japan’s national flag and Japanese people welcome Her each morning with prayer and hand-clapping.

Kites and the heavenly arrows are also Her emblems.

Celebrations in Her honor as Amaterasu-o-mi-kami, queen of all the Kami take place on July 17. During this Great Festival of the Sun Goddess, street processions go on all day.

She is also honored on December 21, the winter solstice, as the birth of light – Amaterasu coming out of Her cave to once again warm the earth.

http://www.mothergoddess.com/ama.html

Haiku

2004-07-12T11:01:00.000-05:00

Cherry blossums gone
Fruit hangs in clumps from the tree
Eat, and they vanish

Acceptance

2004-07-12T10:31:00.000-05:00

I'm often amazed at the connections I have with some people I meet.

I meet them in strange places. I see their face, and something clicks inside. A memory of something. Strings of Karma that loop into space/time from the great beyond.

If I get to talk to them, it's like rejoining an old friendship. If it is good, then we talk as if we never parted. Sometimes current life things get in the way, and confusion sets in. Which is NOW? And which is THEN? And, then I get to putting value on it, which is a stupid thing to do. I haven't done that, this time. Old habits are hard to break. I accept them for who they are, no matter what. I laugh, and it is good. Having no desires about it, one way or the other.

Today, I'm much more sanguine about things like this. I accept them the way they are, now. One reason is that there's only confusion that comes through judging how things and people have value to me. The other is that people are what they are. If they make me laugh, and cry, and they are kind and uninhibitedly themselves, then its just like having a flower bloom in the snow. I'm thankful for it. Nothing more. But THAT'S ALOT! That's all there really is.

Acceptance

Haiku for a Warrior

2004-07-07T16:14:00.000-05:00

Duty Strength Honor

AH! A midsummer's dreamlife

The sword only cuts

~~~~To Dad

4th of July

2004-07-05T16:21:00.000-05:00

I went to the spouse's house to have the best 4th I could, for myself, my kids, and her. It was nice. I fired up my own grill, got out my bar-b-que sauce recipe (YUM), and did some pork backribs. It was pretty damn good if I say so myself. *smiles*. We had a good view of the fireworks. The firecracker engineers were at their finest. There were some really cool designs this year, many I'd never seen. Somebody figured out how to make the shape of a 5-pointed star, that everybody took to stand for Texas' Lone Star, but some of them had a circle around them. The wiccan symbol of the pentagram did not go unnoticed, but could only be detected by my wry smile. If the Christian bigots in the multitudes only knew. Hehehe I wonder if there will be any of them that had the wherewithal to notice and raise a stink. That could enliven the letters to the editor pages for a while.

I had a good 4th.

I'm reading a really good Zen book by Brad Warner, "Hardcore Zen". The guy was one of those "weird types" like me, back in the day, and was a relatively well known punk rocker out of Ohio, later to take up zazen, found a teacher at Kent State to get him started, and then moved to Tokyo to study under an old Soto Zen master. The old guy gave him the "dharma transmission"--to a gaijin no less! He works for the Tsuburaya Productions company to make a living. They are the ones that created the Godzilla movies, and also produced Ultraman shows. The ironies there are great! I'll be posting some stuff out of the book for folks' erudition and comment.

Focus

2004-07-05T13:49:00.000-05:00

Focus on what's in front of me, and what needs to be done, now. The past is done, and the future ain't happened, yet.

Enlightenment

2004-07-03T11:01:00.000-05:00

If insanity is doing the same thing and expecting different results, then enlightenment is doing something else.

--ME

INTENT

2004-06-30T18:58:00.000-05:00

I'm about to enter into a new project. I am finishing up old ones. Being a father to my children will always be there, the rest of my life. This is something old, but new to this life. I read somewhere today that if we have unbending intent, we can carve out of the Nothing that is Everything a piece that will be our own creation. I wonder what that is. I want to see it, envision it, and by doing so spark it into Being. Wish me power, and the clarity to use it well free of fear before I die.

I recently learned....

2004-06-22T11:36:00.000-05:00

You can't make somebody love you.

Nobody can make you love them.

You are responsible for loving somebody else.

You are not responsible for whether they love you.

Simple stuff, really. But, very difficult in the realization and practice.

Beginnings

2004-06-14T11:53:00.000-05:00

Really crazy stuff in here. No medication available. Only power plants.