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?