Thursday Blues

I'm  depressed with my life, America, and the world. I am disappointed about our starting and escalating two recent wars of aggression (Iraq and Afghanistan)as well as the callus disregard and outright contempt that government officials, specifically elected officials of the executive branch, display towards basic standards of humanity and compassion. Not to mention our constitution (and it's amendments), and the bill of rights which they swore to uphold. Our leaders mirror our lack of compassion and humanity, whatever bitter harvest is reaped from this season of sowing, it will be deserved, if horrific, to all those who must by necessity take part in it. To perhaps finally begin to see how little is left of our "humanity", no greater punishment could be contrived for a people who however misguidedly, honestly desired to help others, without seeing first to the care of their own children, and the care of their souls.

 

Whether it is the treatment of poor homeless or imprisoned drug addicts or Bradley Manning. . . Or injured veterans, not to forget the innocent citizens of the countries that we so callously and unjustly invade.. . . there is only the common thread of inhumane disregard for life, and the purposeful infliction of suffering in the misguided attempt to regain the moral high ground which has been lost to us since the use of nuclear weapons in 1945, if not before that. We live as citizens of a brutal and repressive police state which functions through the use of lies, terror and violence and god help the poor people who become acutely aware of the truth of these statements. I basically despair of anything good ever happening again and await with hope and bitter prayers for a rapid and easy departure from this vale of tears. I just simply wish to leave quietly, so that I don't have to witness any more of this hell that we have turned heaven into. And i know that each day that i live, i suffer and justly so, for i have stood by silently while great evil is being done. "And the band played on". And yet none of what i have said impinges upon or sullies the perfect inherent beauty that surrounds us every day. Until it does not.

Another perspective

Feeling kind of ashamed and guilty, yet not necessarily believing or agreeing with these reoccurring patterns, Knowing that there is nothing that can be done, much less some wrong, that can be righted, I feel broken at times, unable to play with the children in the sun, unable to enjoy god's grace, of course death seems like a solution, for I'm alive enough to know that I'm not quite able to endue or appreciate life in the contributing manner that i might dream of. I am both afraid to die and afraid to even enjoy if it means walking through this miasma of pre conscious trauma that is my karma to face and to ideally, burn.

I can habitually focus on the pain, and the fear, always afraid of the trauma's incipient return, never noticing that it is actually gone and that I am safe and sound in this graceful respite. I want to live in the grace and beauty of the space of the saints, yet stumble upon the threshold to heaven, wondering how to cast off my shoes, that I might enter heaven, forgetting that I am on solid ground.

I must or can return to this moment and to this space accepting and relishing what sensation I can, even if it requires slowing down the input so I am not lost in overload. I am no longer running from an imagined hell. I appreciate the fact that I'm not doing all myself, that I've got some good heart-ed professional help and I understand that I am graced with friends and teachers and community, and most of all the desire to live and grow and be part of the solution. For if even if I cannot embody clearly what I love, I know it is there, and I, like a flower can turn and face the sun, enjoying what I can, with the hope of enjoying more tomorrow.

This sums up my feeling on hearing Isaac speak of his less fortunate students, which I count myself among, as those damaged to some degree, in my capacity to enjoy or manifest fully the grace and beauty I see and experience in Satsang , implicit in life, and the world, in spite of or enduring the damage humans inflict upon each other and the planet. I wish to avoid the reckoning yet realize that I am embodied specifically to witness and experience all that I have and do. While hopefully pointing toward something useful and beautiful for us all.I think perhaps we all struggle to contribute our love to the common good.

Truth, Morality, and Fear

 

The obvious truth: that mortals are immoral is both obvious and painful to many of us. Most of us will spend our entire lives avoiding or embellishing this simple fact. In that light it's understandable why people of all persuasions and beliefs go to such length to keep secrets and gain and exercise violent and oppressive power over one another. The fact that our social, religious and political organizations mirror our personal human actions is of course no real reason for surprise, despair or outrage. All that is required is a realistic acceptance of profoundly human nature, our deep wounds and the tendency for power to corrupt the very best of intentions, our current president is a wonderful example, if you don't want to look within yourself.

 

The recent furor over journalistic publication of international information is the primary reason for the previous paragraph. It is difficult and challenging to accept the level of corruption and dishonesty at work in the world today if we do not look deeply into our own souls to search for our own duplicity, corruption and violence. For it is in my own personal relations with my loved ones, my family and myself that I see my own faults laid bare. How can I honestly fault others for behaving exactly like I have consistently in my own life, whether in relation to myself or others? True the level of degree is vastly different, and I am a harsh judge of myself, but only to underline the profound need for compassion. Yes others have said this far better than I, yet I need to learn to say it, and live it for myself. So that I might live peacefully and joyfully in these days of our lives.

 

How often and consistently have I terrorized my own better motives, dreams and inspirations to follow the routine habits of self oppression, addiction and denial? How often have I beat myself emotionally for having the honesty and interest to look deeper into my own heart than perhaps my partner, parent or therapist might wish? For to be compassionate with ourselves is the first and most important challenge, from that battle or opportunity will all else in life perhaps flow. When we can and do accept and love ourselves as we are, rather as we would have ourselves be, we then can extend this understanding and compassion toward others, and without which we have no chance of true love or relationship with life at all. While this simple truth lies at the basis of all life it is often overlooked in our capacity to reason and think and without which all thinking and reason will be poisoned by deep misrepresentation of the self by the habit of dualistic repression by the mind or ego.

 

So again we are invited to peace, for ourselves, by our deepest self, or god or higher self, call love by any name you may, it answers to love.

In retrospect, fairly clear.

"I" don't know what I am doing, better or worse for myself or the world. I do "think" that the more I throw myself into life, the better it seems and the more I withdraw the worse. I need to remember to eat, to nourish myself both with food and with quiet constantly if peace is what I actually want in my life. I have confused thinking, obsessing and ruminating rather than simply applying the tools of work and surrender to my life and my experience.

The simple act of turning my attention toward "quiet" is all that is necessary for me to enjoy relief from ego or personality which claims to know heaven but only offers me hell. It is the activity of seeking soulutions or meaning elsewhere but through grace that is so painful that I must constantly be medicated still desiring death, not of the body or the grace of life but death of the egoic separation that has come to be synonymous with suffering and hell for this either blessed or cursed man. For I know that I asked for this experience, that all my life "I" have been "seeking" a greater sense of grace or connection with "god" or reality or whatever could possibility relieve a sense of abandonment and separation from that very self same. Or just as likely accepting my actual "purpose".

My greatest mistake or worse habit is to seek validation and confirmation from those unqualified or incapable of providing it. Of course sanity appears to be madness to the mad person and so the madness of consumerism is invisible to those content with the gains and profits of the market place.

It is only those who feel the emptiness of material things and void projected through casual approval based upon material achievements who will seek greater meaning and depth in life. That meaning will only be temporally assuaged through seeking and the company of seekers and praise, something greater eventually must be found to quiet the yearning of the heart for a wholeness that is not found though carnal love or even validation. Only the self can acknowledge the deep needing and the deep fulfillment that the love and company of god brings. There are simply no words or language to point one beyond the simple direction, away from everything that can be known or held, bought or appreciated. That which truly fulfills one is beyond all that both consistently present and always absent as long as we choose to long rather than be fulfilled.

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Progress

I am pleased and happily surprised at how well the combination of medication and meetings, yoga and prayer and action has transformed my life in relatively such a short period of time. While difficult to acknowledge and understand, I cannot control my own recovery process, at the best all I can do is follow directions and get out of my own way. As the slogan states: My best thinking got me into this situation, something radically different is necessary if I want different results or a better future. Repeating the same beliefs and actions will only guarantee that I receive the same miserable results that I have finally become willing to let go of and seek an different, better, more loving and loved way of life. Life is definitely what I make of it, rather than coming with its own intrinsic meaning, and that sentence is both true and false, for while each moment is full and complete in itself the experience of time and continuity is a result of the witness which is constantly creating a dialogue and value judgment of the experience. This "story" is actually less important and far less inclusive than experience and ideally "my" life will become more focused on the former than the latter.

Perspective

It’s difficult sometimes to have any perspective

“My” mind, does not seem to work so clearly anymore

It seems that it has become damaged, along with the planet,

our ecosphere, or spiritual sphere, our love sphere.

Violence becomes the reality of the moment

In so many very painful expressions.

the worst is always to ourselves,

yet as we mature we understand

that we are one and the same.

While we may love peace and unity,

There seems less and less of it in each day.

This is not to devalue it’s truth or beauty,

It become more precious every moment.

The ability to step away from fear and surrender to reality

To accept that what is, is and that peace and love is possible

Even in hell, one can love, one can reach toward the light

And smile, and offer kind words, or expressions, a crust of bread

Amidst a hurricane, tsunami, or volcanic eruption of dis-ease.

Our leaders seem incapable of doing much positive

Except small gestures that we are told to be grateful for.

Corporations and violent oppressive institutions rule western society

Until American dominance finally recedes, to late to be of any use.

I fear the worst, and try to appreciate the best, that is available every moment.

There is beauty love and happiness in my life.

There is clean air and water where i am privileged to live.

There is economic abundance and excess as almost nowhere else.

We are in heaven as the planet slowly begins to shrug us off like a

Dog, going for a long swim, to rid itself of fleas.

This flea is happy to surrender thoughts of “meaning” or grandiosity

Thoughts of responsibility or failure to respond, and accept that

Life is a passing gift to be appreciated while it lasts.

That kindness and compassion are enough.

Gratitude

Thank  you for the prayers

healing intentions, and thoughts,

gentle love flowers within

good morning

I hope that we all have a good, joyful, peace filled, gentle relaxing day. I am working on enjoying this day, being grateful for this life and appreciating it, and my friends, and family and extended community. Through living this life with gentle appreciation and gratitude.

I seek to reach this goal, through being kind toward myself and others. Not believing or running with critical thoughts and focused on remaining relaxed today. While i don't struggle to stay clean i do work hard to be gentle with myself and not "believe or "run" with self critical anxious thoughts about  thoughts, or medication, or situations beyond my immediate control or capacity to shift. I am making a vow to not "run with" hopeless, or fear, or despair, because the world, or my "habits' have not changed overnight.

But that i may appreciate the love I give and receive today and recognize that i am gifted with friends and family that care for or are good with me. That i can drink water and stretch and go back to sleep and enjoy a day off. I'm  using new "breathe easy" strips that do help keep my sinuses clear , a very welcome change, something beautiful and unexpected.  I am happy to find a non drug solution that helps me enjoy my life!

I'm grateful for my friends and teachers and supportive tapes and family. I am grateful for and appreciate my family, dear close and supportive friends.Thank you for the support and attention. May you also be be happy and peaceful amidst this and every day.

Another Sunday Musing

I used too constantly deal with anxiety and depression, more anxiety and self judgment around medication as well as anxiety around aging and being alone and not "dealing with it well" than anything else. I do have prescribed medication that work, that for some reason, I was horrified at being addicted to.

The irony is mind boggling and really far too much for most therapists or doctors to appreciate. That while i see that all thoughts are a form of drug, i worry about medication that is actually prescribed & seems to work and feels OK if not good. And yet for months, i worried about "dependence".

I don't know how much of this has to do with quitting smoking and drinking two and a half months ago, some i imagine, but I can see it's more the "focus" of my attention that causes discomfort, than any particular mental or chemical im/balance. It's clear that when focused on a task, book or person i can be totally happy and well adjusted. Yet when alone and adrift in my own mental stew i am quite miserable and almost at the edge of panic in "my" anxiety. Thankfully i am capable of using the medication to assuage such problems and return to something approaching a "set" or balance point that is comfortable and stable. I also listen to allot of audio tapes and such by Byron Katie, Pemma Chodron and Isaac Shapiro among others. These are far better than drugs and almost or if not on occasion even more effective, yet there is more "to do" or involved, in consciously shifting, or inquiring into the "focus" of "my" attention.

It is especially ironic to grasp at life amidst the depths of depression after a life of casually embracing death and suicidal ideation. This is actually humorous and funny!

It is as if now that i am aging and lonely and depressed beyond words or medication to do more than "help" i find myself so grateful for life and wanting to actually "live" as if i had the vaguest idea of what being alive meant without referencing to some relationship with a woman or sibling or parent, ideology etc. I face the void and often panic and recoil rather than acceptance and peace. I cry both at my humanity and my self judgment, that i cannot truly appreciate the depth of my heroic intent at inquiring deeply into the reality of existence.

I have this funny idea, born of severe attachment disorder, that if i could only be happy alone, with myself, then my life would be complete and i would have no "problems". Yet the fallacy of such ideation is apparent to even me. I am happy and OK with my own company almost all the time. What is difficult for me is unstructured or open space that my ego is adrift in, like a diver with "blue orb syndrome" in which one in open water with no visual reference points becomes disorientated and often swims down rather than to the surface. This experience is actually fairly common for me as my blood sugar drops, it's such a simple thing, to eat and nourish oneself, yet somehow that basic function, once automatic and happening without much conscious thought, now requires significant energy, focus and work. Perhaps some of that "work" is that I don't eat much processed food and that I eat at home and dislike cooking for one. Yes, that just might have something to do with it. . .

I'm reading allot, maybe have 3 or 4 books going right now. One is "In The Realm of Hungry Ghosts ~close encounters with addiction" is particularly disturbing and yet intriguing. As well as my usual fare of fantasy, SF and post apocalyptic fantasies, my life time mainstays. No wonder i'm depressed just look at what i read, And yet, how can I criticize myself for naturally occurring interest? Some of it is inspiring, some distracting and some a little educational and thought provoking.

I cannot read or watch the mainstream news; as it's so toxic and depressing, not to mention the fallacy and duplicity offered as fact. Rarely if ever addressing the primary issues that challenge humanity, inequity, the failure of violence (war, prohibition, arms industries and private armies, prison system, private education and capitalism, as if they were separate institutions, to address or solve our current social problems, and the destruction of the environment. Yet i do watch or listen to some Pacifica radio or TV, like democracy now! and KPFA which i'm happy to support. The local economy has picked up a little (as it teetered on the edge of total destruction), so there is some much appreciated structure, Yet it does really requite a fair amount of high functioning to run a business, so that's both good and challenging.

Such is Life: a gift that we grasp, perhaps more desperately, as it slips through our aging, impotent fingers. How much better to simply relax and open the palm so it may alight for a moment like a wild gift, resonating and resting with us before shifting to the next moment. For what is this tumult and anxiety in a momentary and shortly passing experience but a gift to be appreciated and enjoyed rather than dissected or criticized. Let us enjoy ourselves and so each other and express the love that we are in all that we do.

Dreams of my fathers house

Don't know why I'm writing here, rather than my journal, but to more widely "accept" the message and acknowledge the "party". I'm reading Gabor Mats's book: "In the realm of hungry ghosts"

I just woke from  a crawly-crazy intense wild ancestor drug dream. so wild and intense. I was at my dads last house a cabin on the beach in Waldport on the Oregon coast, overlooking the beach and sea.  Next too a state park and i was there just for a night seeing the changes and sleeping there I realized in some fear, what at first glance appeared to be  "kids" had climbed the fence from the park next door and were having a kegger party in the front yard and asked them to move and the did. . .  but as they went back "over the fence" into the state park, they started playing "catch" or throwing things at each other; weird "stuff" and all these wild mad homeless characters started appearing out of or into their tents and sleeping bags strange wild faces and mad expressions bedding down for the night and i watched amazed and compassionate and somehow no longer afraid at the horror and strangeness and homecoming and weirdness, I'm scared and alone and at home and blessed finally meeting the guests in my fathers house, realizing that while asking them to respect the boundaries, i may regain my semblance of sanity and yet meet and greet my ancestors and fellow humans or members of my psyche. Very healing dream ~ or not, we shall see. . . .

“Life is either a daring adventure or nothing at all.”

I'm paraphrasing or quoting Helen Keller, who said "Life is either a daring adventure or nothing. Security does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than exposure". It seemed inspiring when I was 29 in need of support for creating drama in my life, fairly new at being clean and totally (as now) incapable of having a cognizant direction in life outside of work, paying bills, writing and entertaining my own madness. As I said to a dear friend recently "I'm not wealthy enough to be eccentric" Today I'm happy to be somewhat balance in awe and horror of life. I look at the world and see that my life is a bowl of cherries compared to the average Joe in China or Somalia, astounded that people would bother to sully their hands, much less risk prison to make 2 grand shipping rifles (AK47s) to that country under UN arms embargo. I think the US and Mexico need to be under an arms embargo, unfortunately the constitution and the dominant corporate powers disagree.

I'm becoming more and more disappointed with Obama, more because of my own understanding of who he is (a successful politician) rather than what he does (lie and kill). It's his job, he applied for it and apparently he got it fair and square. The fact that lying and killing (unjustified murder) is part of the job, is apparently not in and of itself, "Newsworthy" as we are suffering a Truth in reporting & media crisis along with all the "crisis" going on in the world. The fact that the FCC gives licenses for free to huge corporations still somehow does not seem to make it possible to have a decent functioning media reporting honest disturbing news. This being a very rough quote of John Madison said "It is the job of a free press to disseminate divisive ideas and issues from the margins to the center" little did I realize that he meant that literally as free postage and distribution for newspapers was the standard in this country for the first hundred years (when we had a vibrant and meaningful media) and that the us post office was the largest sector of government employment. Nope, no money for it. Pepsi is not advertising during the superbowl, the money is better spent of face book (which burns coal, another reason to un friend face book)

"Offensive and Hateful" is how our U.S. President replies to a person saying "I do not pass judgment, But don't you think the time has come for a fact finding commission" Regarding the events of 9 /11. I think that's pretty wild, I'd say the guy touched a nerve, and I'm glad he did. I don't know why, but when it comes to second rate despots, Ahmadinejad is right up there with Obama as a despot. He's not killing as many people, He does not have as many people in prisons, he's less popular, which is saying something, but he's still capable of pointing out glaring truths or at least raising disturbing questions that the mainstream media and all serious american politicians are afraid of. He likely stole and election, but hey, our own war mongering Presidents are well known to do the same. Iran is an interesting conundrum for the world: for in Iran, we see ourselves, imperfect, ugly and yet not without style, inspiration and guts. The fact that Israel is constantly on the brink of starting nuclear WW3 over Iran having the bomb is classic Jewish angst at reality. I'm fairly certain there are quite a few nuclear weapons in the Middle East and not all of them in Iran or Israel. The fact is Ahmadinejad does not really care about the Palestinians anymore than Obama shows the two have far more in common than they have to argue about. We really need to find a way to get over this little impasse. America is already on the brink of bankruptcy and martial law, the last thing we need is another front in a field of disastrous wars. I could go on but this is more than enough for a Sunday night. And i think the point (one of them) that America and Iran has significant similarity, has been made, however imperfectly, not a bad post for what started out as a personal whine.

Even rest is work if you let yourself write

So maybe I'm not as depressed as I think or imagine myself to be. I got up today on time, after sleeping poorly, because I had a Dr.s appointment and want to maintain my prescriptions for the medications that help make my life manageable. While I criticize myself, and life, for it's addictions ,I'm grateful that these medications are legal and have a minimal (yet significant) side affects on my life. I enjoy being able to moderate my drug use and even manage to quit smoking and drinking when I'm clear on the costs and seeing that i have a choice of how to live these last few or many years of my life. I drift off or "wake up" as happens, take a day or two off work, and come and go, pretty much as I please. What good fortune amidst suffering!

While I don't write much anymore, it's not because I'm not thinking, I'm just not believing my thoughts as much. I'm still angry and depressed at times, or at myself and the world. I take it far to seriously: Convinced that humanity is a blight on the planet when left to it's own devices. We seem to tend toward greed, violence and overpopulation without comprehension of how this makes all our own lives less pleasurable. I'm both frustrated with humanity and totally heartbroken and joyful when I see a child and the love, wonder and beauty that each individual is. . . I wonder if staph cells see each other as beautiful?

It's both an ironic and serious question. Ironic because I realize that it's highly unlikely that staph cells have self awareness and because the same can be said about humans and myself. . . While I like to think of myself as "aware & awake" it's clear that I drift off too sleep with consistent regularity. This is both true figuratively and latterly. I can drift off into puttering around the house quite easily and enjoyably, generally cleaning, throwing stuff away etc. only to find that hours have went by and I've not "accomplished" much or "done anything" with my day.

It's interesting today is a bit overcast and cloudy and I'm likely to not go to work (Its 2 PM) and yet I'm still fairly happy and content.

I don't feel much has changed around our "relationship" only that I have become more and more willing and able to accept it as it is (somewhat shallow and distant) yet satisfying in the appearance and reality of our mutual familiarity and comfort with each other. While I believe she is not deeply "attached" to me, she does display much discomfort and un ease with my personal pain or depression and as such is totally averse to my discussion of suicide or wanting not to "be" here yet either way, I have learned not to express or elocute such feeling directly too, or with, her.

"My" depression or suicidality is gradually declining as I see my own aging happening before my eyes. As my own presence is becoming a clearly transient experience, there is less and less need to end my life prematurely. I trust that I will and can manage to live out my days in some semblance of peace and acceptance and gratitude for the minimal suffering that I actually experience. As I listen and ponder the Buddhist teachings of Chogyam Trungpa and Pemma Chodron I accept and appreciate my life and situation more and more. As well as I see that my own personal "need" for the therapeutic process is less acute than a year or two ago. I'm reluctant to pursue another relationship, at this time. I do have the appointments and will go again this week, but I'm tempted to try to see if switching to every other week or once a month is a realistic option. It's partially the timing and partially the fact that while I'm depressed and semi-suicidal, it is profoundly situational in cause and shape. While I recognize that I'm both more and less likely to commit suicide the need for discussion and help around the issue seems less of an issue. Maybe I don't want to talk about it because I feel like talking about it exacerbates the situation and again, on the other hand talking about it seems to concertize the fantasy and desire from an intangible into a reality.

It's imperative to recognize, both for myself, and for anyone who ever reads these long rambling missives, to know how deeply I love life. How grateful I am for the blue of the sky, the sunlight on the fence, the knowledge that this whole mad wild insane world is out there running around defying death and life, as I sit and ruminate, love and suffer and genuinely appreciate some tiny slice of humanity.

I know that my life is actually very small. That while I have traveled a bit, I have always held back, even in my madness and exuberance, there has been some holding back and some withdrawal from fully engaging in life.

I don't know when I started, If I had to guess, id say when we left Wisconsin, or the year before, when whatever happened is lost to that child that was robbed of something called hope or desire to aspire.

Aspiration has always been difficult for me. Perhaps the last one I truly had was to die or to "fail" and that was when I was 12 or 13. And I guess I did in so many tragic ways. I really started to fail. I got hurt, almost blinded in my left eye, and something changed after that even though I never could say why. Yet even though I knowingly denied whatever grandeur or fame life might have held, I could not destroy the actual joy of love and the gnosis of life.

My life is like that, a long series of wounds and failures compensated by success or grace.

I have been showered with the love of so many beautiful human beings, and I must say that I know that it is love, not the need that is the gift. For too often it is our need and fears that drive, dispose of and destroy our dreams of love from ever reaching fruition.

I don't know what I'm saying, but I trust you know that you have received it.

I just know.

Sunday Musing

As I ponder life, and the world I often am reminded that "I" tend to take things very seriously, and that life is to be enjoyed. Enjoyment is an activity that happens most easily when my focus of attention on my enjoyment is either absolute or non-existent.

 

Anything between the two and my enjoyment is less than absolute. There is a varying degree of dialogue in "my" head about what's going on, a less than total surrender which results in less than total enjoyment.

 

So back to musing on life. A friend sent me one of those silly e-mails about what some people were doing on the morning of 9-11 rather than being at the place of others death.

And it does allow one to wonder at the miracle of life and the reality of death and the simple fact that if one believes in GOD that all of it is good, in my book. What we call evil, the active enjoyment of suffering, is essentially confusion and not something to be taken too seriously.

 

Now this is not to say that we should or could not strive for clarity (i.e. Good) but that the absence of clarity is not "evil" and should not be construed as such, more as the natural state of humanity, the background of life, and so Beauty and Joy arise when we glimpse or experience the absence of confusion and see the beauty and love that constantly surrounds us all, as it is.

 

Death I've been told is less traumatic than many traffic tickets. Supposedly, it's not such a big deal. Of course this makes dying a lot easier, especially if your worried about it, or contributing to your own (smoking, eating poorly, lack of exercise, drug abuse) or others, capitalistic consumerism, war, taxes, violence et al.

 

But back to the story about 9-11. If "god" saved those people who otherwise would have been "there", then all the rest that died, were meant too, and just got a pass out of this world, into the next. . .

 

Maybe I'm missing something profound here, but it seems that faith is like pregnancy, it's all or nothing, you either believe (or know) or you don't. Every sparrow that falls does so with god's love and blessing, or there simply is no god.

 

Yes, I'm aware that some people see God as allowing evil to "teach" us that good is better etc. but that is just a watered down version of what I'm saying. Essentially it's all good, it's all perfect, and it's "our" or my perception of life that is in conflict with reality or "God's will". 

 

So from this place suffering is resisting what is. Whether what is is war and violence or  the publishing of "secrets" on public websites that are then a crime for American to view if they are members of the armed forces. . . The truth is a crime, and the crime we call war is legal. . . It's all a bit overwhelming at times, yet I'm grateful for my life and "my" freedom, that has grown deeper and more profound as I have recognized my blind habits as my greatest jailer and torturer. Perhaps I will not remain so sanguine if I am imprisoned or tortured by others, yet I am inspired and given hope by those souls who have endured such realities only later to gain their freedom and shine more brightly in the world.

 

We need heroes, we need examples of clear thinking and right action. Wherever you find them, who ever they are, I hope the point you to greater peace, love and enjoyment.

American Government at war with Wikileaks and the internet

It appears that the U.S. Defense department and the President of the United States has again bypassed the constitution. the congress and the "people". Today the Pentagon in its demand that wikileaks retract its posting of the "Afghan war diary" and other information took the first step in  declaring  "war" on the strongest voice for the free dissemination of information in the world. The Defense department, the Pentagon and the President appear to have joined forces with the worlds most despotic regimes to destroy Wikileaks and the Sun Shine press.

 

It is of course obvious that the interests of power are at odds with the interest of an informed democracy. The fact that the FCC has expedited the monopoly on broadcast news is itself, not news. What is news is the bold, and violent desperate oppression, opposition and fear that the United States is expressing in its opposition to Wikileaks. We are now declaring war on the purveyors of information to protect the guilty and the interests of the powerful, the rich and the violent. It is of course only a matter of time before any news organization that reprints or disseminates wikileaks information, becomes a target as well. We are embarking upon the end of the free press. In months or days we will see America join forces with China, Russia, North Korea, and Zimbabwe among others as censoring free press and the exchange of ideas and the eventual destruction of the internet as it is. The overt intimidation and harassment and theft from of employees and volunteers of wikileak personal has already begun. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/08/02/jacob-appelbaum-wikileaks_n_667665.html

 

It is one of the ongoing tragedies of America, that we the people, are both unable and unwilling, to reign in the endless violence that the American Government as empire, has adopted as its standard operating procedure in it's defense of itself and its growth. The "defense" of it's stolen resources, or it's championing of the theft of such resources if they are then "fenced" to "us" (the American consumer) cheaply.

 

While America has never had a strong history of open minded dialogue or negotiation, we (as compassionate loving beings) have the reasonable expectation that it might develop these capacities in the hope to demonstrate that we can indeed lead the world in "what is right". As a nation that identifies itself as "Christian" we have always ignored the primary teaching of Christ: "To love your enemies, as yourself".

Of course, one could argue that we do. That we are a profoundly conflicted nation of individuals, who are at war within ourselves, knowing that the luxury and peace we "enjoy" is paid for by the suffering of both our troops, our enemies, and most sadly, the countless innocent children, bystanders and citizens living in the countries where we are waging war. Whether the war is against terrorism, against drugs, against other governments is irrelevant in our willingness to kill, to pollute, and too fund oppression of democracy with outcomes other than rampant capitalism that profits those who fund the US Senate and Congress. And until or unless we address this inherent flaw in our "democracy" we have little hope of meaningful change.

 

It is sad and tragic in the years since 9/11 that not once has the United States leadership honestly asked itself or the world, why we might reasonably become a target of hatred and intolerance. It is indeed telling and obvious that we have a department of defense, a department of secrecy and torture, but not a department of peace or a department of reconciliation. We have become so addicted to violence and oppression of dissent that we can no longer even imaging open dialogue with those that think or feel differently. Yet it is our obligation as citizens to take the lesson of history and be willing to be oppressed, tortured and killed for the principles of truth, equality and love. It is only a matter of time that those who will not silently consume the lies we are offered every day, become targets of our own governments oppression.

 

Our courts and leadership have chosen to protect the interests of the rich at the cost of the poor, the innocent and the unrepresented. We have chosen to protect the auctioning of election through advertising rather than the examination and dissemination of truth or even position. I fear there is no end to the hypocrisy of our violence, oppression and hatred of those that might dare to think differently.

While as Americans, who supposedly have a government that represents us, we have many values. Sadly, Honesty, Truth and Compassion cannot be truly said to be among them.

And while today the enemy is called wikileaks, in truth what will be the casualty is the internet and the ability of Americans and humans around the globe, to access and discuss issues and ideas that are deemed a "threat" to Americas "national security".

Gulf news blackout

GROUND ZERO - BIRDS FALLING FROM SKY -
BLOWING UP WHALES TO GET RID OF THE BODIES


Aqua Axel 1: ON GROUND ZERO

"I have to write this mail on a new cellphone because they have taken our phones from us. people don't know how bad this oil spill is.. i'm working in the cleanup operation and we've all had to sign a legal paper that stops us from talking to anyone.

I am onshore now and can't tell you where, but i've just finished a very long shift in the gulf and texting this... fast as i can. the military are watching us, they patrol the areas we work i cant tell you what i do cause they may know who i am.

Aqua Axel 2:

Dolphins whales, seabirds fish are all floating dead on the surface of the water... boats helicopters are scooping them away dead and dying... Whales are being exploded by the military cause they can't be carried. dead body's as far as the eye can see air smelling of "Benzene"... We've seen birds fall from the sky. Workers are falling sick we, think some workers have died. My friends are hard oil men it was ok to at the start but now we cry.

Dead sea life is as big as Genocide you wont imagine it"

Fathers Day

Happy fathers day, Fathers and sons and daughters. Mothers and Grandfathers, old and coming back fresh with gleaming eyes. I awoke today thinking about where i was last year (in France) and how quickly time is beginning to move as i age and the scale becomes a little larger. Likely such trips and freedom would not exist if  was a parent. I seem to manage a fair number of problems with tools, as well as life, much less children if i had them or a life partner (even an enemy is company in hell). I can't imagine the guilt i would feel fucking up someone else besides myself and my lovers and family.It's part of having such a narcissistic wound, an intense focus on the life, the world, "myself" tools, and the work. Life, like my car or computer or espresso machine, they are alive and have spirits attached to them that want attention and care at the least, and offerings and parts or service when ignored.

Awareness without belief in criticism helping the moral fiber, or individuation process, is a huge relief for me, my work and life. Just being willing to start over, again and again, as necessary. Learning through failure teaches us far more important messages than success. If Obama actually follows through with the opertunity presented by the spill, we can shift to clean energy. This is exactly the opertunity that exisged immeadeatly after 9/11  the direction and the focus will determine the future for decades, if not the human race.

an image from Palau, or Yap the god of construction image is carved in the "men's houses" where the men live collectively with a few shared females (usually visitors from the neighboring tribe) whose images are also carved on the houses. For many men, work is in the end what gives our lives form and either destroys us or sustains us. It is a mirror that we either polish or break. For others it is family. In either case it that which perceives which creates the image.



I don't know how to attach this image, i'll try later.

Drug store rant

I'd rather write about this than the anniversary of my old sponsors
death. As well as my dad's, and his birthday. he gave so much to the
world, and us, yet left a hole in my heart that can only be dissolved,
never filled. While i know they are here, I feel them directly in my
heart and walk and see them in my dreams, I still miss the dead, the
10 Americans in Afghanistan today, all the grief and the pointless
rage, even my own, expressed as "art" or culture our ultimately, in a
desire to help, to foster thought, a commentary on our culture.

The entire loss leader and un stocked merchandise (garden supplies)
advertising program was effective in bringing me into the store,
however the exclusion of "gift card" to medical supplies results in a
bitter taste in my mouth and no desire to return.
The exclusion of medical purchase with the "gift card" makes it seem
more like a , well use your imagination, because I want to be polite.
The exclusion belies your true corporate desire, to exploit those who
are ill or fear sickness, aging and death. Your "Rite Aid" is to the
Board members and large shareholders. They (or your board economic
manager, don't consider the long term viability of their short term,
endless growth model of business.

Rite Aid ignores and disdains the selective consumer who discerns the
unwholesome artificial "food" which is actually poison, If your going
to sell food or any other product besides medication, sell good
healthy ones. Fresh vegetables, whole grains and cereals.
Not liquor, fast food and likely tobacco products as well, the irony
is overwhelming.

While the Marin community may be over educated as well as over
consuming, they will eventually see through false images and see the
devouring maw of capitalism. The fact that it is there own face as
well leaves us questioning the future of America, and the western
consumer culture as a whole.

It's my own fault for not reading the fine print on the coupon, but
thought I'd share because you pretend to care.

Dad 20 years later

This is really cool. I did not even know my dad wrote this.They know more about it than I.


20 years later, my father makes me proud of his example. If my heart is true, it is because I follow his light.

http://oregonstate.edu/ua/ncs/archives/2010/may/oregon-state-releases-unpublished-william-appleman-williams-novel-online
 

20 years later, my father makes me proud of his example. If my heart is true, it is because I follow his light.



>bk>

Yoga

Yoga is starting to open a door in my body and mind through which,
awareness shines.There is a moment of peace, which allows me "drop"
into my body. As if awareness was something Seeing briefly and worse,
knowing the trauma at the break between the two. I am learning not to
react, or flinch when I become more aware of the conflict or chaos
when I move without awareness. Although it looks at times that 99% of
my life was lived without this peaceful love of embodiment, order
within chaos.My natural grace is a function of awareness of intention.
Often without awareness, driven by my thoughts, I move, and work, and
live in a way that hurts me.The first response to this awareness is
anger. "I" feel angry because life, the world "god" however one speaks it, is telling me to grow up, because the result f life, is death.I
meant to say" "grow up"; to be happier and more alive" but either way, the result is death, and I can live and write these days, with love
and meaning and passion. Or disappointed, sad and miserable. The
choice at this point does lay in my hands, and i always have, and with
grace will.

Honestly choice has never been mine. Things happen one from another,
but often the forces that move and shape our lives are unseen, felt,
or understood quickly, if ever. Occasionally, I would term this peace,
or constantly (fear) we appear to have "a choice" but mostly it is
inconsequential, or not, it is clear from this advantage point to see
at the least the immediate harm or benefit in an action, or refraining
from it. In the long term, or greater pattern, such true opportunities
are both rare, and every moment, again, largely unseen or imagined, by
those with us, or those with the power or the daring to affect
positive change. Largely we unceasingly, act from small selfish
interests that bring transient pleasure: That ends with lasting heath
consequences. The distractions of greed and laziness and fear, the
scarcity response = violence. This inability of simple consciousness
allows us to remain mired in the endless cycle of aggression and
response; collectively we are both unable and unwilling to face the
demands as a species to mature. The unending chaotic swirl of and
economic, social and physical degradation is barley held back by the
distractions of a technological juggernaut of both development and
disaster that has us dancing at the edge of a global precipice.

These consequences are as relevant regardless of where they fall, and
upon whose shoulders. Whether directly, in the economic, physical, or
social health of the individual, community, or global impact, it is
one connected system and it is madness to continue to make political,
social or economic decisions without understanding that the economy is
far more illusionary that we know, and the positive economic, global
energy and food production issues are a product of our conditioning
and it is long past time for radical change in the framing of our
social, judicial, and global goals.

School, Suicide & Bullying

My earliest memories of school are bland, empty of much meaning or impact. I remember per-school with my sisters? No, they were too old, but perhaps I did get taken down the block by my slightly hung over father in a little red wagon to pre-school once or twice. I was certainly told the story often enough.

Bullying and abuse did not really cross my awareness until I was in 6th or 7th grade and when it did, there was and is only hurt confusion and pain. Somehow, I knew that it was not about me. That there was no way that I could be so important in these children's lives that they would act in such a way. What is clear, its that I understood, how and why we kill. How we ignore suffering and abuse, how we contribute to suffering every day, in millions of small ways and that it is truly the darkest shadow of humanity.

Why do we hurt each other, our friends and innocent bystanders? Those who are different, often prettier, smarter, or somehow slower, more vulnerable, those of us who cry easily. We are all targets. All you
have to be is a minority, it does not matter what kind. Bullies target
minorities, and in that I mean it statistically. It's like primate
behavior, and again, defenders of abusers, (for that is what bullies
are) are both sick and likely abused themselves. If something is seen
as normal, how can it be a problem? If verbal and physical violence is
portrayed and accepted and lauded in our society, in our foreign
policy, how do we then blame our children for taking up what we have
shown them on TV, video games and how we communicate within our
families and with our friends? We start to be abusive, sarcastic and
ironic to show intimacy, and even in our sickest moments, love.

 So how does this relate to a 12 year old boy holding a stolen gun
waiting for his bullies in the bushes in a small Oregon town in 1972?
I don't really know. I just remember being scared all the time. That
still I wonder how I make it through the world seeming so calm, when
it's all there inside me. The trauma, the violence, and worse; the
earnest hatred that was so calmly expressed, ahhh there indeed is the
root of my cynicism and nihilistic hatred of humanity and life itself,
for if this is life and human society, I realized I wanted nothing to
do with it.

 And sometimes reading the papers, I wonder, has anything changed at all?

Insomnia

Just not sleeping well. I often awake in from dark dreams,
into the dark, full of fear, not anxiety, not panic, just my old friend fear.
Fear of rejection, of loss, of love, of life and
lately, strangely, lately as i come to love life,
i find a new fear, that of death.

Feeling the reality of transience. That while life might be brief and fleeting, I have lived long enough in this short half of a century, too see this world de-forested, our native flora and fauna destroyed, our Oceans fished "out" and filled with garbage. Banally, without regard or thought. Purely for convenience and profit. Armageddon as a derivative consequence of greed and the choice of convenience over compassion.

I'm afraid I have too, have wasted this precious  life, planet, love affair called life. That I'm  guilty like anyone else alive today. That somehow i could have stopped this, and that when i die, it will all be made clear, where i went wrong, and missed the opportunity for our salvation.

I cry because I'm just sad and in pain; I cry tears of gratitude that these fleeting experiences are not "overwhelming" that I'm not medicating them,
that I can access resources of love, of wisdom, of perspective and
knowing that whatever happens, it is already ok.

Grateful that in this moment, this morning, that what is asked of me to endure is so much less than my fellow humans without any hope or opportunity for self redemption,
but there speaks hubris. Many of my brothers and sisters
are far wiser and know love and peace better than I.

I'm grateful that it's so easy to get up and cry, and write, that "I" have toilet paper to blow my constantly congested nose in. Grateful that I want connection, intimacy, love and peace. As opposed to power, money, control, excess materialism, or worst of all,
the deadly security of belief.

Finally breathing deeply, comforted, that  here, in this karma that it may come to an end. That I might find some rest and compassion somehow, in this life. That I may stop running scared. That I might find myself loving in the dawn, accepting all
that I has been love &  feared, in this wild journey,
a movement towards gratitude, called life.

Manifesto and prayer

Powerlessness: means knowing peace and not finding it.
unmanageability is not being able to deal with reality.
Insanity is anxiety, looped trauma, the primal  memory.  
Sanity is the journey of gently releasing of that trauma & story,
Through prayer, friends, art, lovers, family,
and whatever god I embrace in body and soul.
Home in accepting awareness.

Dark Matter

There is some field of energy that we are missing in our studies of the physical sciences of the exchange of energy form and meaning. What if the only consistent measuring device is awareness itself? And if there is no fixed moral perspective then what is measured? Than merely a symptomatic lack of lack of response to the apocalypse. It's like Joe Strummer said, if Hitler flew in today, they'd send him a limousine anyway.

 

I'm trying to be grateful for my own economic meltdown that it has taken so long, and may even have some minor reprieves, but undoubtedly, the loss has been going on for years. Every year I grow a little closer to poverty, to reality. To that which is the backdrop of most of life on the planet. Maybe I can learn to look back at the beauty and appreciate it now. That's the very best I can hope for. It's a way of enjoying the present while embracing the experience of coherent story of grace in the Fall.

 

All the while not pretending, that all that is happening in the world, is not. I have never been in denial of the situation, only to ready to question meaning, values and ends. . .  That all those visits to the ocean, trying to vacation, I was fully aware of the vanishing ecosystems. . . collapsing as I watched, frolicking with the wild dolphins in Palau on my fortieth birthday, trying too hard to grasp what is always just out of reach in our world, in our souls.

 

The horror and the beauty simultaneously interacting, destroying if not creating each other, but how not ? In some time and space. For here now: in Afghanistan, the Congo, the middle east, our brothers, Fathers and children hate kill and suffer rape while we consume, medicate and dither as the world burns and we pretend to care?

 

Is every shallow tea party conservative actually right when they say ( insert stupid comment) dismissing the true horror: That Violence is a deeply gratifying in perverse semi sexual satisfaction mutilation and torture that is so endemic in the male global psyche. It is men and the masculine alone? who/which addictively and obsessively repeats this self traumatizing pattern?

 

Destroying the feminine and repeating the fall from heaven as well as the experience of birth, individuation, awakening to the horror of the human condition, and for some, a loving gesture in the face of it, in whatever way we briefly rage against the machine, we do live, and challenge the apparently entropic decay of humanity until the last days.

 

Eventually we all find the last breath, the last tree, and the last sunrise in each of our lives. What we leave behind, and who we touch, we will never truly guess, for so much of perception is lost in this mess. And yet the lucky and the lost of us in the end, find rest.

 

 

Moral compass

 

What judged then, judges now

nothing  changes, always the same hate

is death something to be feared or embraced ?

 

something inside me died today as I watched the men collapse

and fall to their faces prostrated before they were shot from behind

 

bodies jumping in the dirt in some repulsive squirt

away from the earth now lying still

no movement again I read about the world

and I want to kill "stop loss"

drilling in the waste: Tritium  in Vermont

 

again today the world has touched my psyche

why does it feel like rape? Just reading the news

sooner or later I'm infected with hate, and I start to die.

I wana get high before I turn into the enemy and believe

that I know what is right. And  which ones first to sacrifice

to the elders & the spirits of the earth the spirits of all the children gone to waste

weve hung, on a bullet or a brain or a needle stuck in a vein

 

greed or another sick idea into the heart that it's ok to prosper while another dies

that this is not all one life and that heaven hell is not later, but here; now.

and I refuse to believe that's its really ok, that this is from another perspective

its all just a big game. While the bodies rot and the oil burns I so love to gavotte

 

Because then I'd have no excuse but to enjoy it all right now

forgetting whose right or wrong just loving this time and place

the occasion of my mothers birth, her mothers disdain,

no longer resonates in my heart.  to clean up a mess

that she did not see her own part in.

 

.

Practice

I feel better when I write. To communicate something, even an expression of pain, as the world both lives and dies laughs and cries as the sun dances so quickly across the sky we forget that we are spinning always around a center we cannot see, something holding us here, together in life and death as the two become one and the horror and the beauty merge into something so much grander than I have ever imagined or dared to believe, even these brief glimpses seem to leave me no better than before; I cannot say what progress is about, because I only seem to know what looks like failure. Except in the grace that holds my life, and somehow I see and appreciate, the beauty that is here, and if wanting more is the cause of pain, then I see how I pay the price in wanting every day, some other kiss, a different caress than this one I receive every day, from what can only be god.

Psyche Eros Gaia

There is this sucking wound
In my connection to the world
In connection to the mother
No peace in my fathers house

I cannot find any in the world
I must find it within myself
And manifest it in the world
Perhaps something will heal

Before I come along in blind habit
And rip off the scab again
So instead of something healed
I just end up with another scar

It’s difficult to hold onto the truth
When you can’t focus on the walls
Made real by beliefs and judgments
We find ourselves alone once again

With the world as our stage
And our prisons as our homes
We calmly watch our demise
In animated parody of life
Looking for something to buy

Some experience to which we compare
Our pleasure to their despair,
Nightmares made real,
Our dreams rendered
worthless

Living in America

 

It's difficult to express

Or even acknowledge

Everything that's really

 

Going Down,

All the brothers and sisters

Doing hard time,

in the prisons of America

To keep the rest of us free.

 

Going down,

all the children and elderly

Starved and beaten, shot and killed

Collateral damage from the apocalypse

That unfolds in slow motion

 

Going down,

Straight to Hell All our very best,

the bright and courageous

To fight against what is portrayed

as the enemy as it laughs

silence and tumult

 

The warriors, the children of no future

Those killing and killed, to live on in some

Strange silent horror of past trauma

 

Staring into the future

Only they can see

As the storm moves

intimately closer

And we barely even shudder

Amidst their screams. . .

Oscar Wilde

He stares from the bookshelf

Little known, somehow an accusation

Or an invitation, waiting, like god

To spread his legs.

Being Alone

Being alone sucks ass: bigtime.
Being all one is a spiritual high
And I guess I know I’m using
Pretending all the time . . .

These layers of ambiguity
Under, before and within
Joy.


It springs forth, un~detered
when met in loneliness
Hold my own hand.


No longer it’s, but everyone else.
That is my job as a human to reach
Across the gulf of personal suffering,
mingle it gently, violently

raise it too our lips
this bitter cup made sweet
in sanctification, of knowing
if we suffer so must god,

And then, in shock, I know
that for a moment, or too many
to recall, I am loved, and have loved
and that's the only thing that matters.

And in Support of Happiness

 I'm habituated to thinking
myself unhappy.
As if it were an unconscious virtue
Yet thankfully
I'm incorrigibly happy,
despite my grumpy habits,
so carefully nurtured,
from decades of needless judgment

There are these smiles
that erupt from the sky
like clouds
or blue

And  well worn worries, prejudices against
Wealth, power, freedom of choice, especially
Pointless choices that still, somehow, seem
To make us happy.
It's weird

In defense of depression

wisdom can be quite destructive without compassion,
we are what appears to leave in ''death"
appears again yet we take it so seriously,

It seems strange to worry so much about
the forms that come and go . . .

While it may be naive or unreasonable to suggest
that people making a living working with or fora
product be rescued from witting about it,
or prominent in the byline.

Treatment professionals, and victims of depression
or other "moral unfortunates, all of us,
when it comes to our sense of happiness,
our unique or shared humanity,
an axe to grind.

I find it depressing to see article after article about drugs being
written without giving space to other alternative treatments. While
most of us read such "news" for entertainment value or to support one
of our particular biases, some people are actually seeking
information. Mentioning that diet and exercise are often as or more
effective treatments for depression than medication, would be
helpful to include in any discussion of major media discussion on the subject.
It begs the question if it is not our "habit of focus" as well as
endocrine system being shifted into another paradigm.

Eye contact, touch, petting a dog, walking, meditation, prayer as well as
pleasant conversation with the checker at Safeway has all been shown
to also raise endorphins, serration, and Oxytocin. Such shifts lead to
a greater sense of well being, perhaps what we strive for is some
connection with life and "community" as we are conditioned to
most positively experience it, the absence of which iwe may label "depression"

Further lacking in a serious inclusive discussion of depression is the
endemic of the use of both substances and drugs: those licit such
as alcohol and tobacco, and also "perscribed medication to theat
depression, unhapiness, anxity, both social and existential.
The widespread use of illicit drugs to treat "depression".

The use social of drugs to further social connection and to
treat many signs of addiction is startling absent in any open
discussion of the topic, if only to broaden the scope of self
medication in response to an imperfect and unequal societal and
cosmological reality. It is common knowledge in some circles that
many people in recovery from addiction at some point realize that
that depression was and is a major impetus to self medicate, and that
some substances were effective treatments for some individuals for up
to decades.

An argument should be made that much criminal persecution
of the depressed exists, for it is unhappiness itself that asks for
attention. And finally so many "addictions" are not "too"
substances, but activities, all giving a rush and having
the ultimate problem of declining efficacy.

Additionally, it behooves us to see if depression might not be a
reasonable response to a world busy with self destruction. While we
kill each other, starve each other and torture each other, all in the
name of ideology (god, profit, etc.) we perhaps ignore that being
depressed is a reasonable and healthy response as part of a world wide
problem called "humanity" driven primarily by the desire for
resources, power and the problem of distribution & overpopulation.
Perhaps depression encourages us to refrain from the root causes of
the problem, consumption, meaningless activity and replication.

I hope it is not outrageously hopeful, idealistic or deluded to
suggest; that while not always effective, another modality for
treatment for depression is acceptance of the situation as it is. The
belief that there is a problem drives the mind to find a solution.
When I accept the moment as it is, occasionally, and perhaps even
somewhat more often of late, it seems, There appears in a discrete
moment, an opportunity to stop, breathe and simply appreciate without
the need or desire to change.

Depression can often be another way of "labeling" relaxation or
stillness. It is the story we tell ourselves and the agendas that
society that society holds for us to "be productive" that color our
experience. When we strip away all stories and rest in what is, there
lies a possibility of peace that stretches beyond the graveyard or
mire of human anguish.



wisdom can be destructive without compassion, we are either
connected or not, what appears to leave in ''death" appears again
yet we take it so seriously, It seems strange to worry so much about
the forms that come and go . . .

While it may be naive or unreasonable to suggest that people making
a living working with or for companies selling a particular type of
product be rescued from witting about it, such connection should
certainly be prominent in the byline. Even treatment professionals
and victims of depression or other "moral unfortunates,
all of us, when it comes to our sense of happiness,
however we may see our unique or shared humanity
have, to use an unfortunate phase, an axe to grind.

I find it depressing to see article after article about drugs being
written without giving space to other alternative treatments. While
most of us read such "news" for entertainment value or to support one
of our particular biases, some people are actually seeking
information. Mentioning that diet and exercise are often as or more
effective treatments for depression than medication, would be
helpful to include in any discussion of major media discussion on the subject.
It begs the question if it is not our "habit of focus" as well as
endocrine system being shifted into another paradigm.

Eye contact, touch, petting a dog, walking, meditation, prayer as well as
pleasant conversation with the checker at Safeway has all been shown
to also raise endorphins, serration, and Oxytocin. Such shifts lead to
a greater sense of well being, perhaps what we strive for is some
connection with life and "community" as we are conditioned to
most positively experience it, the absence of which iwe may label "depression"

Further lacking in a serious inclusive discussion of depression is the
endemic of the use of both substances and drugs: those licit such
as alcohol and tobacco, and also "perscribed medication to theat
depression, unhapiness, anxity, both social and existential.
The widespread use of illicit drugs to treat "depression".

The use social of drugs to further social connection and to
treat many signs of addiction is startling absent in any open
discussion of the topic, if only to broaden the scope of self
medication in response to an imperfect and unequal societal and
cosmological reality. It is common knowledge in some circles that
many people in recovery from addiction at some point realize that
that depression was and is a major impetus to self medicate, and that
some substances were effective treatments for some individuals for up
to decades.

An argument should be made that much criminal persecution
of the depressed exists, for it is unhappiness itself that asks for
attention. And finally so many "addictions" are not "too"
substances, but activities, all giving a rush and having
the ultimate problem of declining efficacy.

Additionally, it behooves us to see if depression might not be a
reasonable response to a world busy with self destruction. While we
kill each other, starve each other and torture each other, all in the
name of ideology (god, profit, etc.) we perhaps ignore that being
depressed is a reasonable and healthy response as part of a world wide
problem called "humanity" driven primarily by the desire for
resources, power and the problem of distribution & overpopulation.
Perhaps depression encourages us to refrain from the root causes of
the problem, consumption, meaningless activity and replication.

I hope it is not outrageously hopeful, idealistic or deluded to
suggest; that while not always effective, another modality for
treatment for depression is acceptance of the situation as it is. The
belief that there is a problem drives the mind to find a solution.
When I accept the moment as it is, occasionally, and perhaps even
somewhat more often of late, it seems, There appears in a discrete
moment, an opportunity to stop, breathe and simply appreciate without
the need or desire to change.

Depression can often be another way of "labeling" relaxation or
stillness. It is the story we tell ourselves and the agendas that
society that society holds for us to "be productive" that color our
experience. When we strip away all stories and rest in what is, there
lies a possibility of peace that stretches beyond the graveyard or
mire of human anguish.

Off topic letters to my CPA

It looks like I'm down over 16K this year. . .  Rather Sobering for a guy who has never "lost" money in business. A good experience personally to "feel" the cost of a decades of both personal and national "borrowing". A profoundly  flawed moral, economic, national, and personal policy. Perhaps this ongoing fiscal and spiritual depression will  allow myself and our fellow Americans an opportunity for humility and enlightenment. The depression may actually undermine personal as well as shared national habitual arrogance and delusions of superiority. I am beginning to understand that being a critic of ones country does not alleviate one's financial and moral responsibility to proactively work for change at all levels of both personal and national government.

Something I apparently i needed to experience as an individual and more importantly, as a citizen of the USA. I no longer benefit from suffering*  the fiscal and moral costs of practicing greed and terror as a basis for our foreign as well as domestic national policy. All the while transnational corporations continue to profit from taxpayer subsidies which in turn continue the media circus of distraction and denial of the limits of global military Empire which benefits the uber rich .01 percent of the world population.

*(in the ancient context of allowing)

Alternatively, may learn from our experience the values of working with each other for positive shard benefits in a world of shard threats and opportunities. To practice peace and compassion, helping those most in need, and being gratefully aware of the incredible luxuries enjoyed by the happy accident of birth or  circumstances of apparently simple or complex: our ancestors wisdom to emigrate or seek better lives in their own families, towns, and communities.