death by snowflake...one flake at a time...

Better to live near a volcano... at least then it would be over quickly, not day-by-day, minute-by-minute, one fucking snowflake at a time! I'm so tired of shoveling my drive and cleaning my car off every time I go inside (anyplace) for more than 5 minutes... and the idiot drivers out there, you know, the ones that either are afraid to drive and barely crawl along just because there's a few snowflakes on the road, or the other ones that barrel down the road at 90 because they're so arrogant as to own a gas guzzling tank w/4 wheel, pushing everyone else off the road in their wake and cutting drivers off, weaving in and out of traffic like they have some special rights, just because they bought a piggy vehicle. Think I'll move to Maui and live in a volcano caldera, at least then it would be over all at once... one big bang... not one fucking snowflake at a time!

winds of change...

At least that’s what I hope I’m feeling breezing against my cheek. There is expectancy in the air today; tomorrow may be a turning point in our common lives... when we take some measure of control back from our fascist state, start taking care of the other 99% of us... let the guilded 1% fend for themselves (not that that’s likely to happen; it never has before; they’ve always prospered off the backs of laborers and slaves, and anyone else they could exploit, with their hired Gestapo’s to enforce their wills).

Ooh…, am I sounding a little testy, or even radical... NOT NEARLY RADICAL ENOUGH! I’m sorry, but no company is “too big to fail.” And the sooner the better for most of them. The leaders of said companies should not be rewarded in any way, in fact they should be punished...severely.

In early Native American traditions (Navajo for example), the worst, highest evil of all was GREED. And ... sorry... but “leveraging other peoples money” or the “equity” in your home so you buy more stuff, or property, or whatever is GREED of the highest order. So, all involved should get what they deserve... and that’s not a government bailout. Ah, but this is all old BS already, and with any luck, or anything like justice, we have reached a point where things will begin to favor those who actually do the work, provide the "P" product in GNP...

We shall see...

I believe that all government is evil, and that trying to improve it is largely a waste of time.
--H.L. Mencken

You can discover what your enemy fears most by observing the means he uses to frighten you.
--Eric Hoffer

If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; but if you really make them think, they'll hate you.
--Don Marquis

A government that robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul.
--George Bernard Shaw

The enemy is anybody who's going to get you killed, no matter which side he's on.
--Joseph Heller

what now?...

Mind is not functioning the way I’d like... or the way it did, even a couple of years ago... unless I’m in denial... that could be...

There never seems to be enough time to get what I need done, what I want done, and I don’t see how things will really change even when I start a new path... I’ve allowed myself to again be dictated to, driven by, and cornered by deadlines, commitments social, personal, and business... And (seemingly) all it took was working at a “full time job” for more than a couple of months at-a time (a year and a half now) and personal relationships that I’m not sure are going to be very good for me... too confining; need my space... convenience and economic needs not withstanding… I may have to disappear for quite awhile to find myself again... that takes time... don’t have it here and now...

consistency in practice...

I’ve been trying to impress upon my students the importance of regular, consistent practice. While it’s true that you don’t substantially lose what you’ve gained from your many years (or weeks) of practice, your timing and continuity of motion certainly do suffer from breaks in your practice schedule, and the longer the break, the more noticeable the loss.

The best advice I can give anyone trying to master a martial art (or any discipline for that matter) is to work consistently. You don’t have to put all your time into it, or practice in binges, but you do need to practice regularly, a minimum or 3 times a week to make even gradual progress, and more if you want to improve significantly. Less than 3 times a week will keep you fairly consistent at your current level, but improvement will take a very long time.

There seems to be a plateau that one reaches after learning a few basics, or even at the intermediate and advanced levels, where you can maintain that level, but not advance. At those times, it takes an extra effort to break your own inertia and advance to the next level of understanding and performance. And even that is not necessarily done by practicing every day or multiple times a day, but by steady consistent practice (3 or 4 times a week is sufficient).

Your practices should be between 1 and 2 hrs each. You can do more on special occasions if you like, but very long sessions can leave you over fatigued and mentally dull, unable to retain what you’ve learned. Extra long sessions can also undermine your determination to practice consistently.

Art is the proper task of life.
--Friedrich Nietzsche

athens for belly dancing...

Went to Athens this weekend (Ohio) to visit an old friend, a blues musician I haven’t see in almost 20 years. He’s doing well, spends most of his time playing out or just jammin’ with friends. He wants a new Harley, so is planning to do some cruise ship gigs for a few months to get the cash…. Like poetry and art (martial arts especially) there’s not much money there, except for a very high profile few. As my favorite old poetry teacher used to say (and it applies to all the arts, including music and the martial ones) … “you can be a poet [musician, artist, martial artist, etc.]… you just have to have a day job too.” This would qualify as a day job for him because the cruise line would expect him to play 5hrs a day, 5 days a week. Now, he likes to have a shot or two when he plays… so you can see the potential for alcoholism if he gets into the habit 5 days a week, instead of the couple nights a week he does now. He also likes other things that are a little less legal, that he will probably have to do without as part of a cruise ship staff… But the money’s good. He should have enough for the Harley in just a few months… He hasn’t decided for sure yet… We also went to Salaam in Athens for dinner and to enjoy the belly dancer… and we certainly did!

Reminds me of my safari in Africa. Somebody forgot the corkscrew and for several days we had to live on nothing but food and water.
--W.C. Fields

We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful what we pretend to be.
--Kurt Vonnegut

??? malaise...

Been thinking more about my mid-summer blues. Is it really the season, or the “season” of my life? As I previously said, I’m not totally dissatisfied with its direction. Is this state of mind a result of too many wasted, unseen opportunities, dissatisfaction with my own choices, or disillusionment with society and life in general?... Probably “d, all the above.”

Another possibility is not accepting the inevitable changes in my family and life. Having my kids on the weekends has certainly been different since they returned from college than it was before. In some ways we seem to have even less in common than I would have expected after such a short period of time and absence. Perhaps it’s my anticipation of the inevitable parting of ways... I’ve always hated “good-byes.” Even my youngest (twins) have started developing lives and life styles that may only include me marginally (at most)... not that that is necessarily a bad thing, but it is something that will take some getting used to... We have had more differences of opinion lately too... another sign that they are becoming their own persons, and that is a good thing too.

Then there’s the tragedy of my oldest daughter’s husband, in hospice at his early age. My recent visit to pay my last respects was ironic to say the least. I had expected them to be visiting me for that purpose at some point, not the other way around...

Sorry for the babbling... just trying to straighten it out in my own mind... As my favorite writing teacher always liked to say, “Writing is thinking.”

Perhaps more later, should actually do some work today...

mid-summer blues...

Here it is mid-July, the day’s are hot, but not excessively so, with cool evenings for good sleeping, but I’m still feeling the blues. Perhaps it's that the excitement of the first blooms of Summer (saw first fireflies of the season around the 4th) is wearing thin and we’re starting to get into the routine... Or perhaps it’s the troubles that members of my family and my friends are experiencing now, or just the numbing impact of the economy, gas and food prices (with no relief in sight). Or perhaps I just need a real vacation, rather than a night here or there... I’m not totally displeased with the direction my life seems headed right now, but I’m not ecstatic about it either. I keep thinking that there should be more to it than this... I’m disappointed with myself, haven’t felt like writing, or doing much of anything... Oh well, I guess I’ll just go lay down ‘til that feeling goes away... wake me in ... 20 years, or so... rip van CN...

Millions long for immortality who don't know what to do with themselves on a rainy Sunday afternoon.
--Susan Ertz

If we don't change direction soon, we'll end up where we're going.
--Professor Irwin Corey

The wages of sin are death, but by the time taxes are taken out, it's just sort of a tired feeling.
--Paula Poundstone

George Carlin by John Nichols

George Carlin: American Radical
The Beat, The Nation

I think it's the duty of the comedian to find out where the line is drawn and cross it deliberately.
-- George Carlin

The last vote that George Carlin said he cast in a presidential race was for George McGovern in 1972. When Richard Nixon, who Carlin described as a member of a sub-species of humanity, overwhelmingly defeated McGovern, the comedian gave up on the political process.

"Now, there's one thing you might have noticed I don't complain about: politicians," he explained in a routine that challenged all the premises of today's half-a-loaf reformers. "Everybody complains about politicians. Everybody says they suck. Well, where do people think these politicians come from? They don't fall out of the sky. They don't pass through a membrane from another reality. They come from American parents and American families, American homes, American schools, American churches, American businesses and American universities, and they are elected by American citizens. This is the best we can do folks. This is what we have to offer. It's what our system produces: Garbage in, garbage out. If you have selfish, ignorant citizens, you're going to get selfish, ignorant leaders. Term limits ain't going to do any good; you're just going to end up with a brand new bunch of selfish, ignorant Americans. So, maybe, maybe, maybe, it's not the politicians who suck. Maybe something else sucks around here… like, the public. Yeah, the public sucks. There's a nice campaign slogan for somebody: 'The Public Sucks. Fuck Hope.'"

Needless to say, George Carlin was not on message for 2008's "change we can believe in" election season. His was a darker and more serious take on the crisis – and the change of consciousness, sweeping in scope and revolutionary in character, that was required to address it.

Carlin may have stopped voting in 1972. But America's most consistently savage social commentator for the best part of a half century, who has died at age 71, did not give up on politics.

In recent years, in front of audiences that were not always liberal, he tore apart the neo-conservative assault on liberty with a clarity rarely evidenced in the popular culture.

Recalling George Bush's ranting about how the endless "war on terror" is a battle for freedom, Carlin echoed James Madison's thinking with a simple question: "Well, if crime fighters fight crime and fire fighters fight fire, what do freedom fighters fight? They never mention that part to us, do they?"

Carlin gave the Christian right – and the Christian left – no quarter. "I'm completely in favor of the separation of Church and State," Carlin said. "My idea is that these two institutions screw us up enough on their own, so both of them together is certain death."

Carlin's take on the Ronald Reagan administration is the best antidote to the counterfactual romanticization of the former president – in which even Barack Obama has engaged – remains the single finest assessment of Reagan and his inner circle. While Carlin did not complain much about politicians, he made an exception with regard to the great communicator. Recorded in 1988 at the Park Theater in Union City, New Jersey, and later released as an album -- What Am I Doing in New Jersey? – his savage recollection of the then-concluding Reagan-Bush years opened with the line: "I really haven't seen this many people in one place since they took the group photograph of all the criminals and lawbreakers in the Ronald Reagan administration."

But there was no nostalgia for past fights, no resting on laurels, for this topical comedian. He read the papers, he followed the news, he asked questions – the interviews I did with Carlin over the years were more conversations than traditional Q & A's – and he turned it all into a running commentary that focused not so much on politics as on the ugly intersection of power and economics.

No one, not Obama, not Hillary Clinton and certainly not John McCain, caught the zeitgeist of the vanishing American dream so well as Carlin. "The owners of this country know the truth: It's called the American dream because you have to be asleep to believe it."

Not just aware of but steeped in the traditions of American populism – more William Jennings Bryan and Eugene Victor Debs than Bill Clinton or John Kerry – Carlin preached against the consolidation of wealth and power with a fire-and-brimstone rage that betrayed a deep moral sense that could never quite be cloaked with four-letter words.

"The real owners are the big wealthy business interests that control things and make all the important decisions. Forget the politicians, they're an irrelevancy. The politicians are put there to give you the idea that you have freedom of choice. You don't. You have no choice. You have owners. They own you. They own everything. They own all the important land. They own and control the corporations. They've long since bought and paid for the Senate, the Congress, the statehouses, the city halls. They've got the judges in their back pockets. And they own all the big media companies, so that they control just about all of the news and information you hear. They've got you by the balls. They spend billions of dollars every year lobbying – lobbying to get what they want. Well, we know what they want; they want more for themselves and less for everybody else," ranted the comedian whose routines were studied in graduate schools.

"But I'll tell you what they don't want," Carlin continued. "They don't want a population of citizens capable of critical thinking. They don't want well-informed, well-educated people capable of critical thinking. They're not interested in that. That doesn't help them. That's against their interests. They don't want people who are smart enough to sit around the kitchen table and figure out how badly they're getting fucked by a system that threw them overboard 30 fucking years ago. You know what they want? Obedient workers – people who are just smart enough to run the machines and do the paperwork but just dumb enough to passively accept all these increasingly shittier jobs with the lower pay, the longer hours, reduced benefits, the end of overtime and the vanishing pension that disappears the minute you go to collect it. And, now, they're coming for your Social Security. They want your fucking retirement money. They want it back, so they can give it to their criminal friends on Wall Street. And you know something? They'll get it. They'll get it all, sooner or later, because they own this fucking place. It's a big club, and you ain't in it. You and I are not in the big club."

Carlin did not want Americans to get involved with the system. He wanted citizens to get angry enough to remake the system.

Carlin was a leveler of the old, old school. And no one who had so public a platform – as the first host of NBC's Saturday Night Live, a regular on broadcast and cable televisions shows, a best-selling author and a favorite character actor in films (he was even the narrator of the American version of the children's show Thomas the Tank Engine & Friends) – did more to challenge accepted wisdom regarding our political economy.

"Let's suppose we all just materialized on Earth and there was a bunch of potatoes on the ground, okay? There's just six of us. Only six humans. We come into a clearing and there's potatoes on the ground. Now, my instinct would be, let's everybody get some potatoes. "Everybody got a potato? Joey didn't get a potato! He's small, he can't hold as many potatoes. Give Joey some of your potatoes." "No, these are my potatoes!" That's the Republicans. "I collected more of them, I got a bigger pile of potatoes, they're mine. If you want some of them, you're going to have to give me something." "But look at Joey, he's only got a couple, they won't last two days." That's the fuckin' difference! And I'm more inclined to want to share and even out," he explained in an interview several years ago with The Onion.

"I understand the marketplace, but government is supposed to be here to redress the inequities of the marketplace," Carlin continued. "That's one of its functions. Not just to protect the nation, secure our security and all that shit. And not just to take care of great problems that are trans-state problems, that are national, but also to make sure that the inequalities of the marketplace are redressed by the acts of government. That's what welfare was about. There are people who really just don't have the tools, for whatever reason. Yes, there are lazy people. Yes, there are slackers. Yes, there's all of that. But there are also people who can't cut it, for any given reason, whether it's racism, or an educational opportunity, or poverty, or a fuckin' horrible home life, or a history of a horrible family life going back three generations, or whatever it is. They're crippled and they can't make it, and they deserve to rest at the commonweal. That's where my fuckin' passion lies."

Like the radicals of the early years of the 20th century, whose politics he knew and respected, Carlin understood that free-speech fights had to come first. And always pushed the limit – happily choosing an offensive word when a more polite one might have sufficed. By 1972, the year he won the first of four Grammys for best comedy album, he had developed his most famous routine: "Seven Words (You Can't Say on Television)."

That summer, at a huge outdoor show in Milwaukee, he uttered all seven of them in public – and was promptly arrested for disturbing the peace.

When a version of the routine was aired in 1973 on WBAI, the Pacifica Foundation radio station in New York,. Pacifica received a citation from the FCC. Pacifica was ordered to pay a fine for violating federal regulations prohibiting the broadcast of "obscene" language. The ensuing free-speech fight made its way to the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled 5-4 against the First Amendment to the Constitution, Pacifica and Carlin.

Amusingly, especially to the comedian, a full transcript of the routine ended up in court documents associated with the case, F.C.C. v. Pacifica Foundation, 438 U.S. 726 (1978).
"So my name is a footnote in American legal history, which I'm perversely kind of proud of," recalled Carlin. Proud enough that you can find the court records on the comedian's website: http://www.georgecarlin.com/

There will, of course, be those who dismiss Carlin as a remnant of the sixties who introduced obscenity to the public discourse – just as there will be those who misread his critique of the American political and economic systems as little more than verbal nihilism. In fact, George Carlin was, like the radicals of an earlier age, an idealist – and a patriot --of a deeper sort than is encountered very often these days.

Carlin explained himself best in one of his last interviews. "There is a certain amount of righteous indignation I hold for this culture, because to get back to the real root of it, to get broader about it, my opinion that is my species--and my culture in America specifically--have let me down and betrayed me. I think this species had great, great promise, with this great upper brain that we have, and I think we squandered it on God and Mammon. And I think this culture of ours has such promise, with the promise of real, true freedom, and then everyone has been shackled by ownership and possessions and acquisition and status and power," he said. "And perhaps it's just a human weakness and an inevitable human story that these things happen. But there's disillusionment and some discontent in me about it. I don't consider myself a cynic. I think of myself as a skeptic and a realist. But I understand the word 'cynic' has more than one meaning, and I see how I could be seen as cynical. 'George, you're cynical.' Well, you know, they say if you scratch a cynic you find a disappointed idealist. And perhaps the flame still flickers a little, you know?"

karma, ne?...

I just got back from St. Louis and a visit with my daughter, who is with the help of family and hospice, taking care of her husband in his final days…(long story for another time, but still deeply imbedded in this karmic episode).

This particular portion of the episode actually starts out more than a week ago. I left work a few minutes early to get a jump on the weekend and my b-day celebrating… Half way home, my car died and wouldn’t restart. I ended up calling a tow truck ($80) to get the car towed to the repair shop. To make a long story a little shorter, the bill was another $100 (to replace a burned out fuse in the fuel pump – because of their diagnostics computer). Didn’t get the car back until last Monday.

Last Thursday night after my classes and on my way home (around 10:pm) it died again – same symptoms… I had it towed ($75 this time). I left for St. Louis Friday morning, for the above mentioned visit. When I called the repair shop, they said they’d already started on it, and wouldn’t charge me again for hooking it up to the diagnostic computer, but there was a control module going bad that causing the fuel pump fuse to burn out… ($375)…;-/

The flight to St. Louis went without a hitch. The visit went as well as one could expect with the situation there.

My son dropped me at the St. Louis airport yesterday morning at 6:30 for a 7:45 flight. I got my boarding pass, went through security, made it to the gate, and was seated without a hitch.... then we waited on the runway for quite awhile... The speaker came on and said that we had to return to the gate to change out an auxiliary generator, which had gone off-line, that it was a simple switch, and that we'd be in the air soon. We sat in the plane at the gate for about half an hour... the speaker came on again and told us that we'd have to disembark and go back to the waiting area until another plane was brought around, because the problems were more serious than originally thought. (Notice that “the problem” became plural.)

After sitting in the waiting area for awhile, they announced that the flight was cancelled. So, I spent the next hour in a line trying to get another flight. The line formed very quickly, and even though I thought I had a good position, I ended up being the very last one processed. As a result, I was given the option of trying to get a standby seat on the noon flight, or take another on Northwest, that went to Detroit first and then on to my destination, arriving around 6:30. I was scheduled to teach a kids class at 5pm, so I chose the standby, which was very iffy at best (according to the agent).

Fortune favored me this time, as I got the standby seat. We finally left St. Louis around 12:20 their time and arrived around 2:35 our time. My ride from the airport had no clue what time I might arrive, since my last conversation with him was before I was able the get the standby seat... So when I got in I called, but he was in a meeting and couldn't get to the airport before 4... so, I read my ebook until he arrived. He dropped me at the repair shop (remember the repair shop?), where I picked up my car, and made it to the kids class by 5:05. The place was locked up, but most of the parents had waited... so I had a full class, and everyone seemed satisfied...

I got home only to discover that my computer was dead... played with it until midnight...no luck. My brother is going to take it today (after I get off work) and see what (if anything) he can do with it... After the computer debacle, I dropped on my bed ... didn't even bother to unpack... didn't wake up until the alarm went off at 5:am...

One wonders which of my many wonderfully good happenstances karma has been balancing out the last couple of weeks… I just don’t remember anything needing balancing that was THAT GOOD — ever…;-)~

anniversary relections...

Old Taoist saying: Having what you want is freedom; wanting what you have is happiness. This looks like a formula for both, with a little mental discipline, perhaps?

I always get even more reflective around my birth anniversary. How does John Meyer put it in “Gravity?” “...wanting more is bringin’ me down...” He seems to equate gravity to not being satisfied, perhaps with greed. “Gravity is bringin’ me to my knees... twice as much ain’t twice as good, and can’t sustain like one half could... oh, oh, oh, gravity is killin’ me...” I like that idea that greed, wanting more, never being satisfied is a form of gravity... a gravity that ultimately destroys...

As I look at my life, I’m happy to say that I want what I have, and for the most part, have what I want, so I guess I’m both free and happy...;-) But being a Fire Boar (Chinese Astrology), I’m not good at domestic relationships, though I keep good friends for life...and that’s really the better of the two. My Aikido students, colleagues, and friends are trying to convince me to stay in the area, even though they understand my reasons for moving south next year... Time will tell...

"The keenest sorrow is to recognize ourselves as the sole cause of all our adversities."
-Sophocles

"The visionary lies to himself, the liar only to others."
-Friedrich Nietzsche

"Who is rich? He that is content. Who is that? Nobody."
-Bejamin Franklin

good luck...

I’ve often said that I don’t believe in luck. I was commenting on my luck recently and my son threw it back at me, “I don’t believe in luck.” I grinned and considered how to answer that challenge. What follows is my clarification, because like my son, I don’t really believe in luck (as most define it) either.

The problem with communication here is that I can see at least two reasonable definitions of “luck.”

One is that luck is some supernatural force that either “smiles” on us, or leaves us cold, as the song goes, “…if it weren’t for bad luck, I’d have no luck at all… born under a bad sign…”

This is the definition of luck that I don’t subscribe to. I know that many do, but I believe that karma (balance), destiny (our best potentials), and fate (the result , on the other side of the = sign, of our life's equation) direct our lives (that is to say, we direct our own lives), rather than the above view of “luck.” I know that many think fate and karma are the same, because they both have to do with our choices. While they are closely related, fate deals with the results of directions we’ve chosen, talents we’ve chosen to develop, and ideas and ideals we’ve chosen to nurture. Karma keeps the whole of our life (or lives, depending on your beliefs) in balance, an equilibrium.

Now, the “luck” that I was referring to: even with the above understanding of destiny, fate, and karma, many things happen that we don’t understand the cause (or mechanics) of. A lack in the depth of my understand doesn’t necessarily signal “supernatural fortune or forces (Lady Luck) at work”… So, to verbalize my lack of understanding about what caused certain things to happen (the mechanics of it), I refer to that lack of understanding as “luck,” “good luck” if the event was fortuitous and “bad luck” if the event worked against my interests (but nothing supernatural, just something for which we have not yet penetrated the mechanics).

So, any time I mention "luck," it just means, "I don't know why..."...;-)

Art is the proper task of life.
--Friedrich Nietzsche

spring... at long last...

The sun has been out and the temps in the 50’s for the last couple of days, and I’m feeling a little spring fever... don’t want to do much but stare out the window, walk around outside, nap in my car with the window open... listening to my Zen.

My “would-be” astrologer keeps sending me emails, telling me I’m in for significant opportunities in the next six months.. wanting me to consulter her for details and “guidance”... I’ve got to give her credit for persistence, if nothing else. She had alluded previously to many significant opportunities for me in the last 3 months... alas, nothing presented itself... oops my bad, I didn’t consult her and that’s surely why they didn’t appear... but if I get with her now, every thing will be copasetic, and all my dreams will come true... what to do?...;-)~

I don’t mean to sound jaded (because I don’t believe that I really am), but I don’t know what dreams I really want to pursue (I have so many varying and different, even antagonistic ones). I guess I’m fairly content to see where my fate, destiny, and karma take me... I’m sure it will be interesting, and probably somewhere I never expected to be... at least that’s been the case so far.

Demon Sensei after charging up on double esspressos and esspresso brownies >>>

On a different note, all my Aikido rank test candidates passed their tests. I’ll be handing out belts and certs tonight. They are all doing very well... I expect to see a dojo full of black belts some time in the not too distant future, a couple of years perhaps.

New Rule: Stop saying that teenage boys who have sex with their hot, blonde teachers are permanently damaged. I have a better description for these kids: 'Lucky bastards.
--George Carlin

New Rule: The more complicated the Starbucks order, the bigger the asshole. If you walk into a Starbucks and order a 'decaf grandee, half-soy, half-low fat, iced vanilla, double-shot, gingerbread cappuccino, extra dry, light ice, with one Sweet-n'-Low, and One NutraSweet,' ooooh, you're a huge asshole.
--George Carlin

bible thumping relatives...

I periodically end up in a religious debate with some of my bible thumping relatives (again last night). It tends to end with my summation:

It’s obvious from your comments that you haven’t paid any attention to anything I’ve said about religion and spiritual values during our previous conversations. To recap:

1. I'm not interested in being "Saved." And, really, what is “Saved” anyway, being separated from the rest of the spiritual cosmos, from ourselves? Aside from the ridiculousness of the idea, even if it were possible, I sure wouldn’t want it. I am/we are all spiritual beings in a spiritual universe. In fact, we are all that same being/universe (that takes some very deep awareness to sense – usually not accomplished except in deep meditation – prayer if you prefer that term).

2. I do not believe in or sense some other being than the “us/everything-in-the-cosmos (past, present, and future) being” that we are all part of.

3. There are and always have been two main forms of energy (positive and negative, which keep this cosmos in balance – without balance the whole thing collapses – as in ceases to exist). In Thermodynamics this phenomenon is called Entropy (but to the extreme, total dissipation).

4. That energy can be sent by any part of this spiritual cosmos-being to any other part of it, or to the sending part itself. You can call that prayer if you like – but I don’t. It’s done by visualizing (seeing/thinking about) the person/s and reaching out with that positive energetic part of yourself that travels at the speed of thought, then letting go of it, knowing that the intended receiver has indeed received it. It is simply allowing your attention to go to the affected area or person/s. That attention in and of itself sends the positive energy. It’s also the same for self healing.

5. Yes apparent miracles do happen, though they are not really miraculous, but the product of balance, of the natural spiritual laws that govern our spiritual being.

6. I guess I don’t like the word “pray” because it gives (to me) a false impression of the spiritual forces in play. It implies begging some omnipotent presence for something that is already rightfully ours, for permission to have and/or use what we already possess (that balance that healing – ourselves or others – is the same thing – the so-called “miracle”).

7. I have come to believe after a lifetime of keen research, interest, and experience that there is no hierarchy like God, Man, animals, plants, minerals… It’s all the same spiritual stuff. We are all the same, God, Christ, man, animals, plants, minerals, everything – spiritual energy in multi-manifestation.

8. All religion, like all secular government is an attempt to control individual manifestations of that one spiritual self by some other manifestations of it. And their vested interest is that you believe them, giving them material power here and now, over you, me, and anyone else willing to give it up to them. “Follow the money.” Follow the power. Power = money... they are the same thing, ultimately... And if they can’t get the money/power by free will (read subterfuge - manipulation of the naïve), then they try to take it by force, as they tried during the Inquisition, or as the Iraqi religious leaders are trying to do now.

A casual stroll through the lunatic asylum shows that faith does not prove anything.
--Friedrich Nietzsche

After coming into contact with a religious man I always feel I must wash my hands.
--Friedrich Nietzsche

*All credibility, all good conscience, all evidence of truth come only from the senses.
--Friedrich Nietzsche

*[While I agree with Nietzsche on this, it should be noted that our senses often lie to us, or at least that we frequently miss-understand their meaning.]

19 years today...

I remember their deliveries as if they were yesterday, six minutes apart.

Now they are finishing up their first year at the Calgary School of Art and Design. It’s a shame that I can’t visit them on their birthday, but I can’t get a passport. (Don’t you know, if you’re even a little behind in child support, you’re a flight risk – officially, thus no passport is granted.) Though I don’t have to pay new support any more, I’m still paying off the accumulated debt from when I wasn’t working. Still have about 3k to go. Thank you HLS... never needed a passport before... and we’re so much safer now!!! And if you believe that, I’ve got a bridge for sale (cheap) in Brooklyn... but I digress...

Soon my twins (the last of my “wee ones”) will be seriously starting adult lives of their own... not asking advice... or permission... any more... but that’s a good thing... right? Yes, I know it is... but I can’t help feeling a little nostalgic for our day trips and walks in the woods, magic games (MTG) and endless hours of weekend movies... Soon, not only will they be starting out in their own places and times, but I too will be starting over again somewhere else... and possible ne’er the twain shall meet... I hope that’s not the case, but it’s certainly possible... coming to the close of another chapter...

The temple bell stops but I still hear the sound coming out of the flowers.
--Matsuo Basho

There is nothing you can see that is not a flower; there is nothing you can think that is not the moon.
--Matsuo Basho

this moment...

CN when I was a 20 something would-be poet...;-)~

All of life is a dispute over taste and tasting. [emphasis is mine - CN]
--Friedrich Nietzsche

in the heart of this moment

in its passion and heat

make it reverberate

make it linger...

and slowly penetrate

our social veneer

that suffocates...

Ah, women. They make the highs higher and the lows more frequent.
--Friedrich Nietzsche