A gift

Imagine you are a powerful Divine Being with a magic wand that can perform any miracle and then imagine someone you love, touch them with your wand and say:
You are free of pain.
You are free of suffering.
You are happy.
You are filled with loving kindness. You are awakened.
Then imagine someone you’re neutral about and do and say the same thing.
Then imagine someone you have issues with.
Then imagine the earth and say: All people everywhere are free of pain, etc.
Finally, imagine yourself and touch the wand to your heart and say the same words.

Time flies

Since the past and the future exit right now, then what happened to us five minutes ago, yesterday or ten years ago is now also 13.8 billion years old. Why hold a grudge or be angry or seek punishment for something that happen 13.8 billion years ago? There is only the Holy Instant. The Now. Let everything else go. Peace.

The only secret to happiness and peace

I forgive you in me. 

I forgive me in you. 

I love you in me. 

I love me in you. 

I bless you in me. 

I bless me in you. 

It is done.

the one problem with the planet...

...14 year old men (and the women who act like them).

I'm not arguing for the de-masculinization of the planet (though a good flea dip wouldn't hurt), but for the simple acknowledgement of the fact that most women have known since the beginning of time: Few men ever grow emotionally beyond 14 years old. I'm not being cute or sarcastic. Any extra-planetary, neutral third party would look at our global history, and current economic/political/social/cultural status and determine that we have yet to grow out of the testosterone-driven, ego-based schoolyard bully phase of the 14 year old male.

I'm also not arguing that a world run exclusively by women would solve the planet's problems. Spend time with any group of women and you'll find they bring their own issues to the table. Certainly some balance between the masculine and the feminine would help.

But what would be most helpful now is to simply acknowledge the truth of the 14 year old male and the 14 year old male's view of the world: I am powerless. I must do whatever I can to have power. I don't understand my sexuality. It's out of control. I must have control. To have power is to have control. To share is to be weak. To be weak is to be powerless. I must have mine and I must have yours then I will be back in control.

A 14 year old male sees the world only inhabited by other 14 year old males, also out of control and wanting power. 

What a 14 year old male does not understand is that at the very center of the sense of powerless and being out of control, lies a deep shame of the self, derived primarily from an out-of-control testosterone-driven sexuality that the male ego eventually translates into violence, whether outward or inward. That violence may become physical attack, or the drive to conquer and achieve success at any cost. The ancient kill of the mastodon becomes the 'kill' in the stock market or on the football field, or in the boardroom.

The 40 year old male takes on the trappings of sophisticated language and education and the veneer of civilization, but it is still the 14 year old boy making decisions.

It is time to acknowledge the 14 year old boy wherever he appears, on the sports field, in the house of legislature, on the 'big screen', on the battlefield, in the corporation, in the presidency.

A 14 year old boy needs protection from outside forces he secretly fears. An adult male faces his fears and sees them for what they are: illusions.

A 14 year old boy wants more and more and more. A man has enough to share.

A 14 year old boy doesn't share. A man shares everything, even his last dollar.

A 14 year old boy fears other 14 year old boys. A man fears no one.

A 14 year old boy equates sex with love, power with possession. A man knows the difference and never seeks power over another.

A 14 year old boy sees a violent world and seeks to battle it. A man sees the inner violence and seeks to heal it.

A 14 year old boy shouts out the injustice of the world. A man changes the world.

A 14 year old boy needs a gun. A man holds out an open hand.

A 14 year old boy builds fences and walls. A man takes them down.

A 14 year old boy makes war. A man makes peace.

A 14 year old boy seeks strength and validation outside himself. A man seeks both inside himself.

A 14 year old boy attacks. A man defends, and only the defenseless.

A 14 year old boy is a constant victim. A man is his own master.

A 14 year old boy believes he is a man.

A man knows.

a post about sex

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"The Desert Orchid" by bradley rand smith

See also screenplay "the awakening of Ellington Webb" and "darkness and men's eyes" as well as "Shambala, an adventure" on this blog.

(photo courtesy Brian Jeffery Beggerly)

Once upon a time a good-hearted and noble-minded king ruled over a desert kingdom within a vast sea of sun-bleached sand.

Outside of the city walls, as far as the eye could see, nothing lived but burrowing desert mice and scurrying black beetles.

Within the city's walls, life for the king's subjects was good, as it was the king's great-grandfather who first discovered the rushing oasis spring which, to this day, still feeds the city's palms and dates and pomegranates. 

But the aging ruler, who had lived far past his family and wives, now had only those he ruled over as his companions, and he now lived only for their happiness.

But despite being much-loved, as old men are want to do, he began to doubt the value of his life, and began to question whether he had truly been a good king -- as his father and his father's father had been. He wondered how he would be remembered when he died. Would he be remembered at all? 

It was at this time that the king heard from a passing mystic of a magnificent and miraculous white orchid which blossomed in the very middle of the vast desert. It was said that this orchid possessed the power of prophesy and that whoever possessed the orchid would know the truth of what was to come. And what had been. That is also would bestow great wisdom on whoever claimed it and would offer powerful protection and great wealth to all who came near. 

And so the king made it his quest to find this orchid and bring it to the oasis in the center of his kingdom, for all his people, that they might know the future and continue receiving their blessings long after the king had died. 

Out from the city's wall's rode the finest young men in search of the orchid for their beloved king. And for years they searched, but to no avail. Even the king, on certain moonless nights, snuck out from the city on the back of his powerful stallion in search of the miraculous orchid. And each time he returned empty-handed, his heart filled with more and more sadness and regret. 

Perhaps his failure to find the orchid was a sign that his greatness had been nothing more than a mirage in the desert? 

Never was the orchid found. 

Years later, as the king lay dying, surrounded by his grieving subjects, again his mind and heart were filled with doubts of his worthiness as a king.

And be began to long for death if only to free him from these burdensome thoughts. And one night Death came, quietly and gently, and took the king's spirit to his place of rest, where he was greeted by the spirit of his father, who smiled joyously and embraced his son."Father, I have failed as a king, and as your son. I did nothing for your people," the king's spirit said. 

"Come, and look, " the king's father said and turned his son back toward the kingdom, where the son watched his funeral procession moving slowly through the streets of the kingdom, the weeping crowds parting reverently. 

"Listen," said the king's father. And the son listened, and to his dismay, he could hear the thoughts of his subjects as his beautifully cloaked body passed: "The king smiled upon me that day of my heartbreak, and I didn't feel so alone," said one young man. "He made me feel safe within these walls, that I might have a family and be a good father," said an old man. "I showed my child what honor and integrity were by pointing to the king in his tower," said a mother. "I learned that strength and goodness can be one in the same, from the king's example," said a soldier. 

And on and on it went, until the king's eyes were filled with tears and his heart lifted with joy. 

The father turned to his son, "You allowed your subjects to find their own way. You gave them safety that they might thrive, you gave them peace that they might discover love. You, my son, were the greatest of kings." 

Touched and humbled, the king asked, "But what of the future? What will become of our people? Who will watch over and protect them?" 

Again, the king's father turned his son to the kingdom, and to the center of the lush oasis within. There the king's body lay buried, at the green bank of the rushing stream, a simple monument marking the grave, with the words inscribed upon it: "Long May Our Beloved King Live." 

And from the very center of the desert, on a grass-covered grave, over the king's heart, there grew a miraculous and magnificent...
 
white orchid.

A self guided healing journey

You might copy and paste this text into your computer voice program for playback, or record it yourself and listen to it spoken in your own voice. This takes about fifteen minutes.

Don't worry about visualizing or placing your biological organs and systems in their proper place in your body. You don't need to know what they look like or where they are -- your body knows that information, and better than you ever could. Just trust that energy follows thought, and your body will do the rest.

Take a few moments to get comfortable, using the techniques already described. Turn off your logical mind. Close your eyes and begin to align your breathing with your pulse as previously offered. Relax and enjoy.

Then tell the arches of your feet to relax, the bridges of your feet to relax, the heels to relax, the ankles to relax, each covered in the warm, healing light.

Continue drawing the glowing, warm light up your lower legs, to your knees, to your upper legs, telling each to relax and enjoy the warmth, the relaxation, the healing.

Continue drawing the warm, healing light up and over your buttocks, your hips, your pelvis, up to your stomach, your abdomen, your chest, telling each to relax and enjoy the warmth, the light, the healing.

Gently draw this warm light up your lower back, your upper back to your shoulders, telling each to relax. Draw the warm, healing light down each arm, telling them to relax, drawing the light down to the wrists, the hands, the fingers.

Now gently draw the warm light up your neck to your head, covering your entire head with glowing, healing light. Tell your face to relax, your eyes, your ears, your mouth and jaw.

Now take a moment and become aware of your entire body gently glowing with warm, radiant, healing light. Feel the slightest, most wonderful vibration over your entire body as this healing light soothes, relaxes and heals everything it touches.

Now picture your lungs glowing with a bright, healing light. Follow this energy flow into the heart; picture the heart pumping and pulsing healthy, glowing blood through your circulatory system. Tell this blood, this light, to remove all excess fat and all toxins from your system; tell this light to heal your blood cells; to generate new, healthy blood cells from your glowing bone morrow.

Now move this light into your other internal organs: your stomach, your large and small intestines, your liver, your gall bladder, your pancreas, your spleen, your kidneys, your bladder, your bowels, your urinary tract, your reproductive tract. Fill all your internal organs with this glowing, radiant, warm, healing light and feel these organs healing.

Take a moment and focus this light on any organs you're having problems with. Heal them with the radiant, warm light. Know that miraculous healing can happen at any moment - that miraculous healings happen every day to millions of people the world over. Know that the only ones limiting our healing are ourselves.

Now move this warm light to your muscular system; feel all your muscles, ligaments and tendons glowing with healing light, strengthening them.

Move this light into your nervous system; fill your brain with this healing, warm, relaxing light. Now draw this light down your spinal column and into the millions of nerves throughout your body. Watch the energy and healing electrons dart and spin and race throughout your brain and nerves strengthening your memory, your intellect, your consciousness.

Now move this Divine, glowing, healing light into your eyes so that they can see better; into your nose so it can smell better; into your ears so they can hear better and into your mouth, teeth and gums so you can taste better, all glowing with light and energy.

Now move this warm, healing light to your skin, your nails, your hair until your entire body -- inside and outside -- is glowing with health. Know that if someone were to come into your room now, they would not see a body, but a radiant, glowing form of Divine, healing light.

Now, just bask in this glowing, healing, protecting light and warmth. Luxuriate in it. Be a peaceful child once again. Smile with your entire body. Know that you are perfect. 

Know that you always have been.

guns, bad guys and the brink of peace

By Charles Eisenstein 

 Why is the American public so unenthusiastic about bombing Syria? Certainly the case for war is weak and hypocritical both in its pretext and in its imagined goals. But that was no less true of the Iraq War, which was easily foisted upon a credulous public – a “slam dunk,” as CIA director George Tenet put it. 

This time, despite a weeklong media blitz (administration insiders call it “flooding the zone”), a majority of the American public still oppose bombing Syria. For the most part, it isn't because they are explicitly aware of the weakness of the case for war. They haven't necessarily asked themselves, “Why would Assad use poison gas when he had virtually won the war already?” A week or two ago, when only 12% of Americans supported bombing, most had a very vague idea of anything but the one-line narrative: Bashar al-Assad used poison gas on civilians and needs to be punished. 

Yet still they opposed it. Why? One common explanation in the media is that Americans are “war-weary.” In former times, that term meant that people were weary of the danger, privation, and uncertainty that come with war. Most Americans today are (seemingly) quite well-insulated from war's direct consequences; if war-weary, then, it must be for some other reason. It is the people in Syria (and Yemen, Iraq, Afghanistan...) who are understandably weary of war. 

Yet the phrase seems apt for Americans too. What is this weariness that talk of yet another bombing campaign evokes? Perhaps what we are weary of is the whole concept of war, the mindset of war, and the worldview underlying the waging of war. We are weary of having our panic buttons pressed. We are weary of being maneuvered into seeing some people as evil Others. We are weary of hating. We are weary of punishing. We are weary of living in a fortress, Fortress America. 

The narratives that are meant to evoke responses of hatred, punishment, and fortressing are no longer working. The narrative of a global struggle between Communism and Freedom, though it never could bear deep scrutiny, nonetheless was effective in rallying the public to war mentality. The specter of Terrorism was less compelling, not only because it was flimsier in its factual construction, but also because the metanarrative of us-versus-them was becoming obsolete. Symptomatically, the patriotic fervor of the Iraq War era was much shallower, if no less loud, than that of the WWII and Cold War generations, which held a deep and nearly universal conviction of America's legitimacy as a crusader for good. 

 The end of the Washington Consensus, which accords hegemonic power to the United States, coincides with the end of the dominator mentality more generally. For centuries it has been the goal of Western civilization to make the world ours: to tame the wild, to transcend the limits of nature, to exterminate evil, to control every variable, to civilize the heathen, to eliminate the germs, to become, as Descartes put it, the lords and possessors of nature. From within this program, the power to change the world comes through the harnessing of force, and goodness, order, security, health, and progress come through control. 

Yet today in every domain, from the geopolitical to the ecological, we are witnessing the failure of control. We are experiencing today the emergence on a mass scale of ecological consciousness. No longer is the world an arena of struggle from which man emerges triumphant. We now see that the defeat of any species is the defeat of all; that the paving over of one habitat deadens something in all of us. The ecological crisis is teaching us that the good life does not come through winning the war against the Other. 

 Translating this awareness into geopolitics, we become less prone to believe that the solution to the problem is to overthrow the bad guy. That, or some lesser version of it – to intimidate, warn, punish, deter, draw a “red line,” etc. – is a perception of a world populated by separate and competing Others. And we are weary of that. We are awakening to the reality that “bad guys” are created by their context, and that that context includes ourselves. Most people will not look into the complexities of Syrian society, colonial history, neoliberal economic policies, or petroleum and natural gas politics to understand the reasons for the violence there, but they intuitively understand that it isn't so simple as another evil bogeyman who must be taken down to keep us safe. 

The narrative, “Assad is a monster who must be punished, to stop him and deter other potential monsters,” is strangely uncompelling. Why? Is it because Assad has not enacted brutal policies? No, he certainly has. Is it because the public realizes that these are no more brutal than those of many US-supported regimes? No: aside from leftists, the public has no clue. The bad-guy narrative is failing for a much deeper reason, that is untouched by the details of who perpetrated the recent gas attack. It is failing because we are graduating from the worldview that says evil originates in evil people, as our intuitions increasingly encompass the realization of the connectedness of all things. 

 As we step into the perception of interconnection, we come to know that as we do to other people and the world, so we do to ourselves. We come to know that every person we encounter and every relationship we have mirrors something within. We see the fallacy of judgmentality and blame. We see that violence begets violence, bombing begets blowback, pesticides breed superweeds, antibiotics breed superbugs, prisons breed crime, crackdowns breed radicalism, and, as mounting military suicides show, killing breeds suicide. 

Killing doesn't come naturally to anyone who sees the world as interconnected. From that perspective, bombing rarely makes sense. I'm not saying there is never a time to fight; just that we are reenacting a tired old habit of fighting reflexively, even in situations where fighting is inappropriate (which is most situations). There are other ways of solving problems. Lest I be accused of being impractical, let me offer a modest suggestion to bring peace to Syria. Instead of bombs, what if we sent five thousand brave volunteers (perhaps soldiers – they are supposed to be brave) to Syria, wearing special uniforms, unarmed except with video cameras, as “witnesses for peace”? Or perhaps five thousand emissaries from world peace religions, or just ordinary citizens, young people maybe. 

The message would be along the lines of, “Syria is at the brink of peace, and we the world will help by bearing witness to the restraint, forgiveness, and negotiation that must happen for peace to break out.” I don't know about you, but I always find it easier to do the right thing when I know someone is watching. OK, so maybe this proposal isn't so modest: actually it would be such a radical departure from today's entrenched militarism as to require nothing short of a political miracle. Its potency would come from the shocking reversal of course it implies as well as from its practical effects on the ground. 

Since it would be idle fantasy to hope that our leaders spontaneously undergo the requisite change of heart, let me make a second proposal as a way to change the climate of elite decision-making and strengthen the emerging field of peace, a proposal you and I can implement right now at the grass roots. It is inspired by the love messages that spread virally between Israel and Iran a few years ago. “Iranians: we love you.” “Israelis: We love you.” “Israeli friends, we don't want war. Love and Peace,” all accompanied by photographs of the well-wishers. 

While no one can prove that these messages influenced the calculations of the policy-makers, we must acknowledge the fact that no war occurred. Here is my message: “One earth, one people. Syrians we love you. No bombs.” My inner cynic felt awkward taking this photograph. Its voice told me, “This kind of mushy sentimentalism is a distraction from practical political action to pressure the authorities. You are being foolish,” it said, “standing there with a sign.” The cynic might also say it is hypocritical to wish them peace while my own government and the global economic and geopolitical system relentlessly sow discord. 

Shouldn't I be doing something about that? What the cynic doesn't understand is that building a field of love does do something about that. It makes it much more difficult to whip up war hysteria in the public. It might even make it more difficult for the political elites to whip up war hysteria in themselves. We must be careful not to demonize them, as so many left-wing critics tend to do. By making him into a nearly incomprehensibly hypocritical, wicked, and ignorant Other, they do the same to Obama as his administration does to Assad. 

But he like any of us is called by the consciousness of interconnectedness. There is a deep part of him that doesn't want to drop the bombs either, that is repelled and anguished by the very idea of it. Appeals like this one by Dieter Duhm appeal to this higher aspect of the man. However, locked tightly within a logic, a narrative, and a system that silences that humaneness, he can only act from it with the help of a strong surrounding field. That is what we must build. The cynic's tactic of “pressuring the authorities” does not do that, but only strengthens the field of othering. 

We must raise up a mighty field of love. One earth, one people. In the transition from the mentality of the evil Other to the mentality of interconnectedness, we all face, from time to time, moments of doubtful hesitation: “Is it OK to trust? Is it OK to relax control? What if the Other doesn't respond in kind? What if he just takes advantage of our 'weakness' (our trust)?” For warring factions with, in some cases, generations-long grudges, to take that step requires huge courage. For our own leaders it takes a bit of courage as well. 

What if they are called soft? What if Assad truly is a monster and he takes our declining to bomb him as license to commit horrors? What if he doesn't want peace but only, like a James Bond villain, to dominate and destroy? What will happen to the United States if we can't build a gas pipeline through Syria controlled by U.S. interests? If I listen to my heart, will I be OK? What makes it easier to trust is when I catch a glimpse of the humanity of the other – when I see that this person is another self; in some sense, another me. The Internet makes it possible like never before to bypass the propaganda and see people in faraway lands as human. 

Elaborate though our denial mechanisms may be, it is becoming harder and harder to escape the truth that bombing victims are real people and not collateral damage. Beyond that, what is really bringing us together is the ecological crisis, which is making it impossible to pretend any longer that we are not all in this together. Facing the loss of all that is beautiful and alive on Earth, we are growing impatient – or might I say weary – of the petty contentions, the “American interests,” the race to see who will be the top rat on a sinking ship. Here we are, all together on a planet where the ecological basis of life is unraveling. And we are still bombing each other? That is insane. It is time to grow up.

If not now, when....

“Forget safety. Live where you fear to live. Destroy your reputation. Be notorious.” ―Rumi

Fear less

We seem to be living in a time of deep fear, with this verdict, with the anti-women laws, with the gun violence, with the surveillance state. And there seems to be no leaders out there advocating acceptance of others, kindness, non violence. It will probably be up to us. We may have to — peacefully — take on again the battles we thought our parent’s had won. There’s always been a dark core to America which we haven’t faced. Our foreign policy, our politics, our economics, our entertainment all speak to violence and the valuelessness of life. They have us fighting each other while those in power rob the bank. Like our ancestors and parents we will have to once again come out of our comfort zones, get our heads out of the sand, stop seeking the superficial and stand up for human dignity. Change won’t come from those in power, like Brazil and Egypt and Turkey, it will have to come from the people. Violence only creates violence. Anger only creates anger. Hate only creates hate. We’re all going to have to go deeper. Love and light to everyone suffering today and always.

July 16, 2013