It is a few days after Halloween, and monsters seem to fit the season and the times we live in right now.
A few days before Halloween, I heard an interview on It’s Been A Minute called Our Undying Cultural Obsession with Vampires. And this got me thinking about monsters and how they are made.
It is she who said monsters are made. Think Frankenstein, definitely constructed by a human.
And we do this all the time…in our heads simply repeating the stories we tell ourselves that create indelible images, which we then project onto the world we live in. Or better said, the world we wish we lived in.
The Planet We Made
Cover of Time Magazine : The Planet We Made — The Planet We Need — Social Sculpture…How We Can All Participate in Protecting and Seeing Earth Anew — Artwork by Olafur Eliasson
Olafur Eliasson is an Icelandic–Danishartist known for sculptured and large-scale installation art that employ elemental materials such as light, water, and air temperature to enhance the viewer’s experience. He designed the cover of Time this month to highlight our collective climate crisis that will affect and impact everyone on Earth. Rich or poor, everyone will pay a huge price for further dithering and delaying on taking immediate action Now.
Olafur tells Time to create the effect on TIME’s cover, he employed a technique called after imaging. By following the instructions on the cover, when the page changes, your eyes re-imagine our overheated planet in the healthy vibrant greens and blues we, the human race, were born into and began our journey as a species through time.
The Monsters We Make
This same elusive after imaging takes place inside our minds. The images that get stored inside our minds are created by the stories we tell ourselves and the images we consume as ordinary citizens.
These images, let’s call them cultural images, are stored in our minds as belief systems. Beliefs are vastly more complicated images than the one created by Olafur Eliasson for the cover of TIME. However, compared to reality, beliefs are pathetic and paltry.
Belief systems tend to leave far more outside (the evil other) than inside (the person who sees the the world like you do). All of us adopt and cultivate belief systems. They help us know who we can trust. And, they help us survive by acting as short cuts to reality.
By popping your beliefs into a situation, you can just get down to action. Or really reaction to a situation because beliefs allow you to skip the work of hard thinking, critical analysis, and feeling into what you are actually experiencing.
Systems of belief are informed by the families we grow up in, the cultures we live in, and the religions we participate in (or do not participate in). Systems of belief are further evolved and informed by friends, peers, teachers, clubs, politics, and media, among many other sources.
Whether you accept the stories and images imparted to you through these systems, whether you believe them or you don’t believe them, beliefs about how the world is or isn’t are formed and held in the mind very much like the phantom image Olafur Eliasson created on the cover of TIME.
Each and every belief are things you have choose to accept, to believe, and to store in your head. You choose to believe the things you think are true or what you don’t believe or believe to be not true, regardless of whether they are empirically true or not true.
Once you commit to a belief (in other words you swallow an idea hook, line, and sinker), it creates an indelible image of how the world is, which gets overlay onto everything you do and everyone around you. Very much like the elusive image Olafur Eliasson made for the November 2022 cover of TIME. You put them there, and then you project them on the world.
Beliefs are more likes wishes, fears, and desires. They accord with more how we want the world to be rather than how it really is. Our wish/fear/wants live inside our minds and are projected on the world every moment of our lives. They hoover and cling to everything and everyone we come into contact with like a ghostly aura. Depending on what our projected system of beliefs tells us we should believe about a person or a thing that comes into our narrow bandwidth of focused conscious attention, aligns our actions and behavior in the world.
This rather simple ability has oversized implications–some good, some bad. It is an ability that we take for granted as human beings. Our ability to create systems of beliefs is a form of ignorance (ig–nor–ance, what we choose not to see) and it has gotten the better of us. It is what allows us to turn ordinary human beings into monsters or our world into a wasteland.
Kendra R. Parker explains our creation of and fascination with monsters this way:
When Dracula appeared in the 19th century, there was all of this fear, the English were preoccupied with borders, boundaries and nationalism. Between like 1881 and 1900 there was an increase in the number of non-English Jewish people. There was this xenophobia, this fear of Jewish people, this sort of threat of external colonization. And so these fears about the threatening outsider, who is going to come in and disturb the national pure body, finds its way into Bram Stoker's Dracula.
And if we come to the United States in 1898, we have newspaper images popping up out of North Carolina that depict Black men as vampires because there was this fear of Black men. There's this fear of black men being in politics and so that if you got black political power, then they're going to take over and destroy white women and all of that. And so you've got all of this propaganda.
And there are two images in particular. One is called "The Vampire that Hovers Over North Carolina." It appears in 1898, and it's a Black male vampire coming out of a ballot box. And there's another image that same time period in North Carolina where you got vampires coming out of the grave to vote and they're Black. And so there's this fear that if you let these monsters vote, they will take over and destroy our way of life.
When we use our system of beliefs to turn other human beings into monsters, it is ourselves who become the monster. When hate becomes our fuel, then the transformation is complete. The monster has been made.
It is a way of being in the world that leads to Hell. It is the path of destruction, of mayhem, and of death.
It is a way of being in the world that may begin by being suspicious, distrustful, and skeptical. But it can quickly eclipse who you think you are and make you into a person who takes pleasure in being cynical, ghoulish, grisly, and grotesque.
Such a journey is often summed up by the popular phrase —Take The Red Pill. This means a person that falls down a rabbit hole. They start out innocently following juicy breadcrumbs of gossip and plausibly outrageous happens that grow ever more implausible. But once you get hooked on these toxic breadcrumbs carefully left behind by Master Manipulators who are experts in making the implausible sound plausible. Indeed, the Truth that you are willing to die for.
Accused Pelosi Attacker Told Police He Was On A ‘Suicide Mission’
How To Make of a Monster
Step 1) Chop the world into absolutely good and absolutely evil, then choose a role to play in this absolute drama (it goes without saying that whatever side you play on… that is the righteous side, the good guys, the side that is going to slay absolute evil)
Step 2) Select a Mask for the role you will play in the absolute drama to rid the world of absolute evil (make sure you are the Super Hero of your story and everyone else is the bad guy)
Step 3) Strap Your Mask Tightly To Your Face So It Doesn’t Slip or Fall Off (you don’t want anyone to see you are merely human like the people and other living beings you are dehumanizing)
Step 4) Cut Up Bits and Pieces from the World and Other Stories, Then Mash Them Into Your Mask So You Become Unrecognizable Like Camouflage (it doesn’t matter if the bits and pieces make sense anymore, you are creating your super hero version of yourself!)
Step 5) Add Lots of Layers to Your Mask, Be Sure to Use Lots of Devilish Deceit and Deception, More Camouflage to Help You Better Play Your Role (God forbid anyone recognize that you’re really human behind your Fake Persona)
Step 6) Distort, Deform, and Mangle Your Mask to Create Fantastic New Levels of Distractions and Illusions, Even More Camouflage… Fighting Evil Isn’t for Sissies (this will draw others to you — your followers, your zombie army)
Step 7) Forget You Are Wearing A Mask: Now You Are A Monster
Image From: Metaflesh by Evan J. Peterson
I have not read this book, Metaflesh. But, the image of the cover is captivating. To me, it perfectly captures how we can turn ourselves into monsters using any system of belief, any one at all. In the land of make believe, nothing is sacred. Once we slip down a rabbit holes inside our minds, the inner Hellish landscape allows us to endlessly violently project onto others what we cannot admit to ourselves that we are.
This is a book review of Metaflesh from where I got the image:
Metaflesh is written by Evan J. Peterson, author of The PrEP Diaries: A Safe(r) Sex Memoir and DragStar!, the world’s first drag performer role-playing game. Metaflesh is a book of verse and prose from the point of view of Frankenstein’s Monster. The reflections are inspired not only by Mary Shelley’s seminal work (double entendre fully intended) but also by the pop culture descendants of her novel. Sources include a wide variety of Frankenstein/mad scientist movies and song lyrics. The book also contains themes of Jewish folklore, queer culture, camp, and a lot of David Cronenberg-style body horror. The book covers the gamut of the Monster’s experiences through over a century of movies and songs, and portrays the Monster as both gender-fluid and a sort of chimerical film critic, reviewing portrayals of their self through lyric poetry and flash fiction.
This is an ingenious book of metafiction. Just as Dr. Frankenstein cut up different people and stitched the bits together, Peterson cut up and reassembled his sources, turning them into something greater than the sum of their parts. Borrowing from William S. Burroughs cut-up technique, he splices together Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein with F.T. Marinetti’s Manifesto del Futurismo (Futurist Manifesto) and with J. G. Ballard’s essay, “Why I want to F*ck Ronald Reagan.” He apostrophizes the sexually explicit films of avant-garde queer Canadian creator Bruce LaBruce and doesn’t forget to include General Mills’ Frankenberry breakfast cereal or select lines from Mommy Dearest and The Rocky Horror Picture Show. The combined imagery of classical Greek mythology, white supremacy, drag queens, Judaism, and zombie erotica do not merge into a hot mess but meld together into a deliciously readable book.
This literary retrospective is sad, funny, quirky, surgically precise, and captivating. I was never bored and didn’t skip through parts. I tore through my first reading at speed and have been taking my time through subsequent readings. The only spot which slows me down, pulling me to a frowning halt, is a simile in the poem, “His Name is In Me”: “gross as the tallest savage.” Although I’m aware that white supremacist imagery is intentionally used throughout the book—punching up, not down—the use of the word “savage” feels out of place here. It is a racial slur used against Black and Indigenous peoples and stands out awkwardly in a poem strongly based in Judaic imagery. If it is a slur used against Jews, I am unaware, but this is my only quibble with the entire book. -- Book Review: Metaflesh by Evan J. Peterson
Someone OnceTold Me
Someone once told me that my blog The StoryTelling Species Series was just a story. He really just wanted to put it down and elevate himself because we were having a very strong disagreement about COVID. I knew he was wrong, but could not explain to him why he was so wrong then.
Now I can. I knew it is the stories we tell ourselves that make us into heroes or villains, good or evil, saints or monsters. Now I know how it happens inside our minds.
Given how susceptible we are to believe our own stories and lies about ourselves, it is best to give all other people the benefit of the doubt and trust they are not the monster you are afraid of… the one that lives inside of you. It is best just be human and to recognize that we have a little bit of good and a little bit of bad inside of us.
It is when we hang onto the evil inside of us and refuse to let go of it that we make ourselves into monsters and turn Earth into Hell. Trust that reality is far more interesting than the stories we tell ourselves about our selves and others.
Trust that you belong here and now with everyone else and that together we can heal ourselves. This is something we can only do together. And if we heal, Earth heals and our burning hot planet may once again shine in its brilliant, beautiful, life sustaining blues and greens!
On June 11, 2022, the Washington, DC 2022 Capital Pride Parade began with full regalia and ceremony followed by rowdydow fun and celebration. This is the first of four videos from this day.
Into A Rainbow | Washington, DC Pride Parade 2022 10 views, Premiered Jun 13, 2022
For the video, I wrote this:
Today was like walking into a rainbow. After more than 2 years due to COVID, the WDC Pride Parade of 2022 took place in an embrace of joy and celebration. It was one big mass of human exuberant celebration. Such a different energy than the Trump rallies that twisted and deformed into the raging, dangerous mob of Jan. 6, 2021.
I filmed one of the earlier Trump rallies, and I filmed one of the Black Lives Matter marches after the murder of George Floyd. The paranoia and double-standard of the Trump years faded to a distant unpleasant memory in the embrace of so many people celebrating differences, diversity, and inclusiveness.
What kind of world do we want?
Do we want one that is angry, overly righteous, mostly white men who want to control women's bodies and turn America into a desolate land of mediocrity and conformity?
Or do we want one that celebrates diversity, lifts up inclusivity, and makes space for everyone to shine their truth and colors as they feel them?
I choose the rainbow hands down over The Divine Republic of Gilead as depicted in Canadian author Margaret Atwood futuristic dystopian novel The Handmaid's Tale that feels more and more possible each passing day, especially since the Trump years that made hate great again in America.
Hate is not what makes us a great nation: Love is what makes us great and moments like this Parade are more important than ever, especially with the plotters of Jan. 6 still scheming how to turn America into a totalitarian state like Russia...
I suppose so we could exterminate the world in a mutual annihilation of scapegoats because that is what cheap, cowardly, hate filled people do...blame everyone else for their problems and who they really are inside.
This is the inspiration for this blog: the idea of diversity and the mutual arising of opposite things in the world because on this same day, 31 members from the group Patriot Front were arrested in Idaho.
Pride Parade in Idaho
Thirty-one men, faces covered with masks and carrying baseball bats stood packed in the back of a U-Haul like illegal immigrants sneaking into the state. The truck was heading to the Pride Parade in the city of Coeur d’Alene, Idaho. Their purpose was to start a riot.
Police said the men came from at least 10 states. They are members of the white supremacist group Patriot Front, previously known as the white nationalist hate group Vanguard America. It rebranded itself after a neo-fascist was photographed holding their shield just before he ran his car into a crowd of people, killing Heather Heyer in Charlottesville, VA.
Interview with Mother of One of the Men Arrested
Earlier this week, a mother of one of the men arrested gave an interview with Sara Sidner.
What we know about Patriot Front and its origins 132,051 views, Jun 14, 2022
From the video above: When "a little army" of men with shields and other riot gear was spotted near a Pride parade in Idaho on Saturday, authorities soon linked the men to a relatively new White nationalist group and charged them with conspiracy to riot. Most of the men arrested had logos on their hats "consistent with the Patriot Front group," and some had other clothing associated with the White supremacist group, Coeur d'Alene Police Chief Lee White said. CNN’s Sara Sidner reports
This Same Hate Perpetuates Racism & Wars
This is the same hate that fuels racism and perpetuates continuing inequalities and brutality against black and brown people in the United States. Slavery is barbaric, and so too is racism. Americans went to war and died over ending slavery in America. This war began on April 12, 1861 and lasted until April 9, 1865. In the end, more than 620,000 men were dead, roughly 2% of the U.S .population.
However, this is far less dead than the number of men, women, and children who died being transported from Africa to America, who died as slaves from violence and mistreatment, and who have died since emancipation due to the continuing violent beliefs and hate embraced by white supremacy.
Black Live Matter March
Black Lives Matter 111 views, Jun 8, 2020
Photos From Gettysburg National Military Park
Photos from Gettysburg, PA — “Often referred to as the “High Water Mark of the Rebellion”, Gettysburg was the Civil War’s bloodiest battle and was also the inspiration for President Abraham Lincoln’s immortal “Gettysburg Address”. — National Park Service
Emancipation Proclamation & Juneteeth
Gettysburg was the bloodiest battle of the Civil War. It was the most ambitious push of General Robert E. Lee into the North. Each side fought fiercely. This battle turned out to be the turning point of the war. It is also the inspiration for President Abraham Lincoln’s immortal Gettysburg Address.
Word of the emancipation of enslaved African Americans finally reached Texas on June 19, 1865 where people were still being held as slaves. More than 150 years later, Juneteenth has finally been made a federal holiday commemorating and remembering the legacy of slavery and the emancipation of slaves in America.
Yet, this horrible battle still rages in the hearts and minds of far too many white Americans still to this very day. Hate still has a home in America.
Photos From Gettysburg National Military Park
Photos from Gettysburg, PA — “Often referred to as the “High Water Mark of the Rebellion”, Gettysburg was the Civil War’s bloodiest battle and was also the inspiration for President Abraham Lincoln’s immortal “Gettysburg Address”. — National Park Service
One of Trump’s Rallies After Losing the 2020 Election
Cacophony — The Beautiful Humans of Earth 127 views, Premiered Nov 14, 2020
A Call To All Humans Who Value Freedom and Democracy
Help Ukraine | Calling All People Who Value Freedom in the World 44 views, Premiered Feb 27, 2022
This Arises… That Becomes
I finally came to understand the idea of This Arises… That Becomes… from a lecture Alan Watts gave.
Alan Watts – Interdependent origination 3,739 views, May 1, 2015
Pratītyasamutpāda
It is the basic principle of dependent origination as described by Buddha. In Buddhist doctrines, it is called Pratītyasamutpāda.
Pratītyasamutpāda consists of two terms:
Pratītya: "having depended."[26] The term appears in the Vedas and Upanishads[note 2] in the sense of "confirmation, dependence, acknowledge origin".[27][28] The Sanskrit root of the word is prati* whose forms appear more extensively in the Vedic literature, and it means "to go towards, go back, come back, to approach" with the connotation of "observe, learn, convince oneself of the truth of anything, be certain of, believe, give credence, recognize". In other contexts, a related term pratiti* means "going towards, approaching, insight into anything".[28]Samutpāda: "arising",[26] "rise, production, origin"[29] In Vedic literature, it means "spring up together, arise, come to pass, occur, effect, form, produce, originate".[30]Pratītyasamutpāda has been translated into English as dependent origination, dependent arising, interdependent co-arising, conditioned arising, and conditioned genesis.[31][16][note 3]
Jeffrey Hopkins notes that terms synonymous to pratītyasamutpāda are apekṣhasamutpāda and prāpyasamutpāda.[37]
-- Wiki
Photos from DC Pride Parade — June 11, 2022
The term may also refer to the twelve nidānas, Pali: dvādasanidānāni, Sanskrit: dvādaśanidānāni, from dvāvaśa ("twelve") + nidānāni (plural of "nidāna", "cause, motivation, link").[quote 2]Generally speaking, in the Mahayana tradition, pratityasamutpada (Sanskrit) is used to refer to the general principle of interdependent causation, whereas in the Theravada tradition, paticcasamuppāda (Pali) is used to refer to the twelve nidānas.
-- Wiki
Photos from DC Pride Parade — June 11, 2022
Dependent origination is a philosophically complex concept, subject to a large variety of explanations and interpretations. As the interpretations often involve specific aspects of dependent origination, they are not necessarily mutually exclusive to each other.
-- Wiki
Photos from DC Pride Parade — June 11, 2022
One interpretation (which I feel is closest to what Alan Watts refers to in his talk) regards this doctrine…
...as describing the arising of mental processes and the resultant notion of "I" and "mine" that leads to grasping and suffering.[8][9] Several modern western scholars argue that there are inconsistencies in the list of twelve links, and regard it to be a later synthesis of several older lists and elements, some of which can be traced to the Vedas.[9][10][11][12][13][5]
-- Wiki
Photos from DC Pride Parade — June 11, 2022
Rocks of Ignorance & Rainbow Flags
In other words, we only know inclusivity and love in comparison to callousness and hate. Like a river diverted by a rock–some water flows to the right, some flows to the left. The rock in the river is an idea, a symbol of reality, but it is not reality. Indeed, all words, all thoughts, all ideas are poor substitutes to what is really going on in life.
What should be noted is that both streams flowing around the rock are of the same river of being. They are only being briefly divided and diverted by a rock of thought that got lodged in the river of being.
Maybe, One Day
Another way of looking at this idea is that inclusivity and love are the polar opposites of callousness and hate. Although opposites, both qualities and ways of being in the world go together just as a magnet has a North and South pole. If you chop a magnet in half, there is still a North Pole and a South Pole because a magnet is one cohesive whole thing.
Since I choose to support rainbows and Pride Parades, I stand on this side of our polarized America. It is a conscious choice to flow in the stream of being that includes rainbows and diversity. And it means I am making a conscious choice to embrace all sorts of people and their differences as well as recognize how similar we are because deep, deep down I believe what Alan Watts says that we are the fabric of existence itself.
Maybe one day, we can let go of our rocks of ignorance that we cling to for security and comfort. By letting go, we can grow as a species. And if we grow, we might be able to really feel one day our oneness with each other and all life on this planet. When rocks of thought due appear in our river of being, we can better navigate the currents of division driving us apart and pushing the entire world to a tipping point that we may not recover from due to a mutual massacre of scape goats.
Maybe one day we will know we are all part of the stream of humanity no matter our skin color, sexual preference, our religious beliefs. It has always been this way. It is only when we cling to our rocks of thoughts and rocks of ignorance, which if we are constantly anxious, nervous, angry, and afraid–we are clinging to an idea, which is one of these rocks dividing us and causing so much suffering and pain in the world.
Let go and flow!
One Day | Yellowstone
One Day — Yellowstone 77 views, Jul 26, 2020
One Day Lyrics
Sometimes I lay under the moon And thank God I’m breathin’ Then I pray, “Don’t take me soon ‘Cause I am here for a reason.”Sometimes in my tears I drown But I never let it get me down So when negativity surrounds I know some day it’ll all turn around becauseAll my life I’ve been waitin’ for I’ve been prayin’ for For the people to say That we don’t wanna fight no more There’ll be no more war And our children will playOne day, one day, one day, oh One day, one day, one day, ohIt’s not about win or lose, ’cause we all lose When they feed on the souls of the innocent Blood-drenched pavement Keep on movin’ though the waters stay ragin’In this maze You can lose your way, your way It might drive you crazy but Don’t let it faze you, no way, no way!Sometimes in my tears I drown But I never let it get me down So when negativity surrounds I know some day it’ll all turn around becauseAll my life I’ve been waitin’ for I’ve been prayin’ for For the people to say That we don’t wanna fight no more There’ll be no more war And our children will playOne day, one day, one day, oh One day, one day, one day, ohOne day this all will change, treat people the same Stop with the violence, down with the hate One day we’ll all be free, and proud to be Under the same sun, singin’ songs of freedom likeWhy-ohh! (One day, one day) why-oh, oh, oh! Why-ohh! (One day, one day) why-oh, oh, oh!All my life I’ve been waitin’ for I’ve been prayin’ for For the people to say That we don’t wanna fight no more There’ll be no more war And our children will playOne day, one day, one day, oh One day, one day, one day, oh
The intersection of gay rights, racism, and white supremacy continue intersecting through time. Will we ever grow up as a species to embrace and hold all of who we are as human beings? Or will we simply continue to label, divide, and conquer each other with hate and despair? See Hate Arises… Rainbows Become… to explore more on these ideas.
Ukraine Letters | Four Letters to the World of Free Men and Women: Letter to the Ukrainian People; Letter to the Free World; Letter to Russian people; Letter to Americans
Walk Through Time | Gettysburg National Military Park
Walk Through Time | Gettysburg National Military Park | May 23, 2022
Music: Airtime — Justin Hori [as featured on iPhone, music that gets you moving!]
We stopped at Gettysburg National Military Park, Pennsylvania on our way up for our daughter’s graduation from Middlebury College in Vermont. It was late in the day, cloudy with a little drizzle–perfect weather to walk the roughly 6000 acres of historical pasture and woodlands where Union and Confederate soldiers met in General Robert E. Lee’s second and most ambitious invasion of the North.
It was the “High Water Mark of the Rebellion”, the bloodiest battle of the Civil War, and the inspiration for President Abraham Lincoln’s immortal “Gettysburg Address”.
My husband found a monument dedicated to the 13th and 16th Vermont regiments. From their forward position, the nearly 1,500 men of these regiments poured devastating point-blank fire into the enemy ranks. They inflicted terrible casualties and ravaged the Confederate flank. The battle that was going in favor of the Confederate side began to slip. The Vermonters helped turn the tide of the battle and because of this win, turn the tide of the war itself. It would turn out that we were staying in a valley from where one of these regiments came from in Vermont.
Today, in 2022, it seems like the battle that took place on July 1, 1863, occurred so long ago and that the wounds inflicted from a country being torn apart by different ideas and ideals of how to live a good and just life would be long healed. The pictures of the wildflowers and wildlife are a testament to time and nature’s ability to regenerate.
However, the human heart and soul seems to still be torn and hurt. There are people alive today ready to do damage and tear apart America’s delicate democracy. There are people willing to lie, cheat, and steal to get more than they deserve or inflict their own will on the will of the people. Democracy isn’t easy. It requires compromise, and word that seems to have disappeared from American political and culture vocabulary. It does not require every share the exact same beliefs or values, but it does require tolerance and willingness to learn about the beliefs and values of people who are different from oneself. It requires curiosity and a basic agreement of facts and shared reality.
Will America be able to keep this fragile flower of self-governance in the face of a Republican Party that prefers to stick to loyal tests rather than truth, in the aftermath of Jan. 6, in the ongoing disenfranchisement and brutality to African Americans and any people with a darker skin tone, in the double standard that it is OK to regulate a woman’s body, but it is not alright to regulate guns?
“Every day, on average, 316 people in America are shot in murders, assaults, suicides and suicide attempts, unintentional shootings, and police intervention.” — Team ENOUGH
“The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recently released updated official mortality data that showed 45,222 firearm-related deaths in the United States in 2020 — a new peak.” — Current Causes of Death in Children and Adolescents in the United States; May 19, 2022, N Engl J Med 2022; 386:1955-1956; DOI: 10.1056/NEJMc2201761
“Guns have become the leading cause of death for American kids. early two-thirds of the 4,368 U.S. children up to age 19 who were killed by guns in 2020 were homicide victims, per the CDC. Motor vehicle crashes, formerly the leading cause of death for kids one and older, killed nearly 4,000 children.” — Axios
If you are upset by these statistics, by politics, by anything that gets you shouting at your TV or computer screen. It is time to get outside. If you find yourself getting enraged by a rainbow flag celebrating Pride Month or want to join the next raiding party of the Capitol, why not try going to a place like Gettysburg? Walk the park rather than drive. Let yourself sink into the blood-soaked earth where flowers now grow and birds once again sing. Talk to the park rangers, read about what happened, feel yourself being transported back to that time when the sound of gun fire and exploding canon balls rang continuously like a speeding train.
War is bloody. Conflict kills. There are other ways to solve conflict arising from diversity. We have one of those ways. It is called Democracy.
The people of Ukraine are fighting fiercely for this way of organizing society. They are showing us what it means and takes to defend freedom, liberty, and justice for all against a brutal, totalitarian regime; a regime that lies to its people, that exterminates anyone who becomes a threat to it, that concentrates wealth and power among a very few.
In America today, it seems we are choosing whether to stay a democracy, which means making room for tolerance and compromise again. Or will we choose to become a dictatorial regime (like Russia) where lies and distortions are used to whip up dissent and division so that truth, justice, and liberty for all becomes a distant dream.
Stay Human! Go outside today and hug another living being!
“Kindly Let Me Help You or You’ll Drown” | Music: “How Do We Love Each Other” — Alan Watts
Said the monkey putting the fish safely up a tree.
— Alan Watts
Why This Story?
Alan Watts often tells this short story about the monkey and the fish. It is so short, I wasn’t sure it was worth blogging about, and then this happened yesterday.
Minute 6:23: “Because the road to hell is paved with good intention. Because all the do-gooders in the world whether they doing good for others or doing it for themselves are troublemakers on the basis of ‘Kindly let me help you or you’ll drown,’ said the monkey putting the fish safely up a tree.”
Alan Watts – what did the monkey say to the fish
Alan Watts on Virtue (around minute 32): “The highest virtue is not conscious of itself virtue (…) in other words when you breathe you don’t congratulate yourself on being virtuous but breathing is a great virtue.“
“Diabolical things are done in the name of righteousness.”
“Rest assured everybody regardless of nationality, political frame of mind, or religion always goes to war with a sense of complete rightness...the other side is the devil.”
How To Be A Better Person – An Alan Watts Lofi Hip Hop Mix
Putin is an Evil Monkey
Except Putin is an evil monkey like the ones from the Wizard of Oz because he knows he’s telling a lie! He knows he’s deluding his people by telling them the war he’s waging on Ukraine is righteous. It’s a righteous bunch of lies! He’s the Nazi the world needs to be rid of. See the resemblance?
WATTSWAVE VI: The Web of Life 2Akira The Don[1] The Secret 4:33[2] From a Certain Point of View 6:10[3] Gangster Arrangement 5:03[4] Consider Death 3:08[5] You! Love! Yourself! 4:46[6] The Shadow 5:01[7] Completely Honest 5:47[8] That Thing Which Really Is Genuine 4:07[9] It’s a Trap 4:59[10] The Sound of the Rain Needs No Translation 7:22[11] Patterns 3:09[12] Your Idea of Heaven 5:50[13] Playful 5:53[14] What Games People Are Playing 2:52
Music for Second Archetypal Animation:
WATTSWAVE II: How To Be A Better Person Akira The Done 2:56 Alan Watts Motivational WordsAlan Watts[1] Go Out With A Bang Not A Whimper 3:12[2] Overthinking 2:47[3] Dont Be Tone Deaf 3:12[4] What You Really Are 1:21[5] Man & Nature 3:04[6] Zen Stories 5:20[7] The Symbol Has No Value 5:09[8] Nirvana 3:19[9] Come Unhinged 3:34[10] How Do We Love Each Other 2:18[11] Existence Is A Relationship 3:12
For more about Ukraine and the evilness Putin has unleashed into the world, see:
Ukraine Letters | Four Letters to the World of Free Men and Women:Letter to the Ukrainian People; Letter to the Free World; Letter to Russian people; Letter to Americans
Help Ukraine | Calling All People Who Value Freedom in the World
Four Letters to the World of Free Men and Women: Letter to the Ukrainian People; Letter to the Free World; Letter to Russian people; Letter to Americans
Help Ukraine | Calling All People Who Value Freedom in the World | 22 views | Premiered Feb 27, 2022 | Music: Jupiter & Jaguar — Blond:ish (Album: Welcome to the Present) & Chants of Native Earth (Album: Shamanic Moon Native American Drums)
First Letter
Letter to the People of Ukraine
How can we let this happen to you on Our Watch? | Free World how long are you going to simply watch? The time for meaningful action is NOW! Our platitudes and policies are barbaric.
Dear People of Ukraine —
I have let you down and the Free World has forsaken you.
You are dying because we are weak and afraid.
Please forgive us. We have forgotten how to live in the Present and how to be Present for each other.
If I could kill Putin with my thoughts, he would be dead 10,000 times already. And I would just be getting started.
The Russians don’t remember how Scythians fight, how long your unique and long history is.
They will remember when they see your eyes.
Know that you have already won.
Putin, his followers, enablers, and supporters wherever they are in the world will be uttered in the same breath as Hitler, Stalin, and all men who have chosen to become monsters instead of men.
The oligarchs full of piss and fear, the Chinas suppressing their people, the stupid ones like Trump and his menagerie will snivel like snails beneath the shadow of your courage, compassion, and willingness to die to live free.
If only the Free World had a smidgen of your dignity, courage, and spirit.
Instead, we sit and watch your pain, your suffering, your deaths like the spineless creatures we have become hiding under out fragile, artificial shell of civility.
We are not civil or modern.
We hide our barbaric nature with platitudes and policies and lies.
What good is civility when evil manifests in men like Putin?
Would Hitler have stopped his demonic rage had the Free World not finally intervened?
You have warned us: Putin’s madness will not end when Ukraine falls.
An evil like this is never satisfied by what it has.
It only has an endless hunger for more of what it already has and is willing to inflict great pain, agony, and destruction to get it.
How can we (the people of the Free World) abandon you at your greatest time of need?
How can we let this happen on OUR WATCH?
You are showing us (the Free World) how to be human when evil rears its ugly head.
Your dignity, courage, and spirit show us that to be fully human and not simply shells filled with doubt and fear, we show up to help our brothers and sisters.
Humans show up when their brothers and sisters are staring down the demons of destruction trying to devour their freedom like snakes from hell bent on turning our shared reality into a field of horror and our world into a living Hell.
You are precious. Every life Putin takes is a crime. I feel so helpless watching this happen to you. Please forgive us. Our failure to not do more is wrong.
Know you have already won | Putin will be uttered in the same breath as Hitler and Stalin and you are showing the whole world what it means to be human and fully alive… because fully alive people show up for each other and face their problems head on embracing their fear, the danger, the risk
Reactions of aHelpless Watcher Witnessing Evil Live on TV #1
Instagram Posts Beginning Night of Russian Invasion
Day 4 of Russian InvasionPutin will be uttered in the same breath as Hitler and Stalin… but the price is hard to accept because it means your blood, your land, your freedom… the Free World is forsaking you to this evil.
Second Letter
Letter to the People of the Free World
To All People Who Value Freedom in the World —
This is a struggle in which the Free World cannot sit on its hands and watch. This is a struggle for all persecuted, suffering people anywhere in the world. People who are persecuted for any reason–racism, religious beliefs, gender, sex or political beliefs. The Ukrainian people are being overrun and killed by a ruthless dictator.
Do you think this ends when Ukraine falls? Putin’s vile plan seeks to destroy freedom and democracy anywhere it appears in the world. He has chosen evil and he will keep moving steadily destroying democracies and freedom wherever it appears in the world. I do not agree with Biden saying it is going to be OK. It is not OK watching the Ukrainian people being slaughtered. In what world that values freedom and human life is this OK?
Our world has drastically changed since Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, 2022.
The Free World is weak. It stares at its own navel hung up on its own comforts and conveniences. We (the people of the Free World) have left so many people behind who have been struggling for freedom, self-determination, and sovereignty over their own lives. The United States was particularly cruel and careless in its withdrawal from Afghanistan; however, the Free World has done far too little for the peoples in countries where “Arab Spring” protests were brutally put down, where protests in Hong Kong were harshly suppressed, where the military takeover of Myanmar and Rohingya genocide was savage, and this list goes on and one.
The Ukrainian people are fighting for their lives and freedom. They are standing up against a vastly superior force. They are showing the entire Free World how to fight for freedom. How to be human! Their courage, compassion, and dignity stands mighty before the rest of the world concerned about themselves and sadly it seems little more.
Putin is a maligned, demonic force of evil in the world. Such evil must be fought by all who stand for the right for life and freedom. This evil is never satisfied by what it has. It constantly hungers for more than it already has. It takes pleasure in inflicting senseless horror and pain on others. This fear, this pain that we are watching the Ukraine people suffer feds this kind of evil. It will never rest until it destroys all free people and all freedom in all lands everywhere in the world. Only then, will it finally turn on itself and devour itself.
Where Will You Go When It’s Your Turn to Run? |Music: [3] Anybody Out There, 3:48 | Ouroboros | Saint Punk
This is the same interview (a piece of it) as the Twitter link above that is not working
Putin is a man who has chosen to become a monster. His madness is spawning thousands of minions who are carrying out his biddings. Yes, there are Russian soldiers shocked at what they are being asked to do and surrendering to Ukrainians.
This is the same video as the Twitter link above that is not working.
But, there are also soldiers who are dragging people out of apartment buildings, lining them up along a wall, and shooting them. The longer this goes on, the more harden and brutal some soldiers will become to accomplish Putin’s ruthless wishes, indeed, they will be ordered to become ruthless killers. Huge explosions are being now used to destroy and level civilian infrastructure (e.g., apartments, schools, hospitals, colleges), not military as Russian “officials” said would be the focus. There are also reports of Russian soldiers shooting fleeing civilians in their cars as well as desperate phone calls to family members who made it across the border to Poland or Hungary of Russian soldiers coming into family homes and terrorizing loved ones who could not escape in time.
Putin lives in a world of savage fantasies. He lusts for ultimate power and glory, which sprouts from the demon seed buried deep in his depraved soul. His heart has been corrupted beyond all repairs. And his barbarism is being carried out with cold calculation by suicidal army meticulous trained to turn off their humanity and act like Putin’s attack dogs from hell. They have only heard and been fed a constant stream of distortions, lies, and misinformation. It keeps them in a foggy, soggy, sub-human conscious state of being, making them perfect puppets who carry out one man’s mad rage upon the world.
Deep down they know what they are doing is wrong. But I doubt it will burn away fast enough to save the people of Ukraine. And then, Free World, we are next.
Image from 1A: A Ukrainian militia waves goodbye to his family evacuating Kyiv by train to western cities in Kyiv, Ukraine. Pierre Crom/Getty Images
This episode discusses what is happening in Ukraine with Leila Fadel (reporter on the ground in Ukraine), Kurt Volker (former US Special Representative for Ukraine), and others in the know about what is going on. What jumped out to me were the following elements.
Leila Fadel told about one woman she met on a train going back into Ukraine. She told Leila she felt Ukraine is a proxy war, a game being played by Russia, the US, and China for influence and power in the world. She is right.
Leila also talked about how all lives matter. She told about how she has met and talked with individuals who fled other war zones (e.g., Syria, Afghanistan, and many other places where the super powerful have violently suppressed the super vulnerable) and settled in Ukraine and now they are fleeing again.
Kurt Volker talked about how there is much more the US can do for Ukraine while walking the line of avoiding an outright conflict between nuclear powers. Yes! That is what I feel and desperately want the Free World to push it leaders to do (no more watching!!!).
And they discussed discrimination that African and Asian individuals in Ukraine have faced. They are also trying to flee violence and annihilation. Sara Sidner (American journalist with CNN) is in Poland and talked with individuals facing this sort of discrimination and says that they just don’t understand why they are being treated this way. There have been terrible documented treatment of foreign nationals with dark skin, but also many instances of compassion and humane treatment.
This is a very complex, fast moving tragedy that is changing constantly. All experts of this episode urge watchers, especially on social media, to dig for the latest information, not media and posts that are several days old. They also warn of misinformation efforts launched by Russia and Russian sympathizers around the world–vet the information you consume and vet your own systems of belief!( I get into this much more deeply in my letter to Americans.)
This isbanned weaponas signed by Russia stating it would not use, and here the Russians are using it to level Ukrainian cities. This thing creates successive concussion waves that suck the air out of the atmosphere, even sucks the air out of human lungs. It can level buildings. Use it on the Russians now and see how they like it!
#RunRussiansRun
Third Letter
To the Russian People
The Free World is not at war with you. We are not your enemy. The anger you see from the world is directed at Putin. You are as precious to the world as the Ukrainian people who are being slaughtered by your President Putin. You are not being told the truth about this war.
You know all the courageous Russian journalists who have been assassinated or killed in Russia between 1992 and 2022.
This list goes on to account 58 journalists who have been killed in Russia between 1992 and 2022 with Motive for Death Confirmed as accounted for by the Committee to Protect Journalists. You may not trust anything except Putin’s State TV, but you know who are the Russians who have died.
You know critics of Putin have ended up dead.
Boris Nemtsov, 2015 — political leader of Russia’s “young reformers.”
"In Feb. 2015, just hours after urging the public to join a march against Russia's military involvement in Ukraine, Nemtsov was shot four times in the back by an unknown assailant within view of the Kremlin. Putin took "personal control" of the investigation into Nemtsov’s murder, but the killer remains at large." -- Here are 10 critics of Vladimir Putin who died violently or in suspicious ways | Washington Post By David Filipov, March 23, 2017
Boris Berezovsky, 2013 — A self-styled tycoon who become a fixture in Yeltsin’s inner circle in the late 1990s, Berezovsky is believed to have been instrumental in Putin’s rise to power (including a media campaign that smeared Nemtsov)
Stanislav Markelov and Anastasia Baburova, 2009 — Markelov was a human rights lawyer known for representing Chechen civilians in human rights cases again the Russian military.
"Markelov was shot by a masked gunman near the Kremlin. Baburova, also a journalist from Novaya Gazeta, was fatally shot as she tried to help him. Russian authorities said a neo-Nazi group was behind the killings, and two members were convicted of the deaths." -- Here are 10 critics of Vladimir Putin who died violently or in suspicious ways | Washington Post By David Filipov, March 23, 2017
Sergei Magnitsky, 2009 — Lawyer who uncovered evidence suggesting that police officials were behind the fraud
Natalia Estemirova, 2009 — Journalist investigating abductions and murders that had become commonplace in Chechnya.
"Estemirova was kidnapped outside her home, shot several times — including a point-blank shot in the head — and dumped in the nearby woods. Nobody has been convicted of her murder." -- Here are 10 critics of Vladimir Putin who died violently or in suspicious ways | Washington Post By David Filipov, March 23, 2017
Anna Politkovskaya, 2006 — Russian reporter for Novaya Gazeta whose book, “Putin’s Russia,” accused the Kremlin leader of turning the country into a police state.
"She was shot at point-blank range in an elevator in her building. Five men were convicted of her murder, but the judge found that it was a contract killing, with $150,000 of the fee paid by a person whose identity was never discovered. Putin denied any Kremlin involvement in Politkovskaya's killing, saying that her "death in itself is more damaging to the current authorities both in Russia and the Chechen Republic ... than her activities." -- Here are 10 critics of Vladimir Putin who died violently or in suspicious ways | Washington Post By David Filipov, March 23, 2017
Alexander Litvinenko, 2006 — Former KGB agent
"Alexander Litvinenko was a former KGB agent who died three weeks after drinking a cup of tea" laced with deadly polonium-210 at a London hotel, as Business Insider wrote a year ago. "A British inquiry found that Litvinenko was poisoned by Russian agents Andrei Lugovoi and Dmitry Kovtun, who were acting on orders that had 'probably been approved'" by Putin." -- Here are 10 critics of Vladimir Putin who died violently or in suspicious ways | Washington Post By David Filipov, March 23, 2017
This list goes on. Again you may think the Washington Post is fake news, but you know these Russians are dead.
You know Alexei Anatolievich Navalny sits in prison because Putin fears him. And you know that Navalny has called Putin insane and urges anti-war protests. Putin is insane. What man would kill innocent children?
The Free World knows you are afraid. Putin has terrorized you with his slow steady trickle of threats, deaths, assassinations, and unjust imprisonments of anyone Putin fears. Heck, he’s even afraid of a fragile but brave old woman.
You have every right to be afraid, but should this also inform what you know?
The world stands with you, but please wake up to steady lies Putin feeds you to put you into a catatonic state of frightened inaction. Putin does this to you, the Russian people, because you have collective power. He knows that and he is afraid that you will wake up.
Look at what Putin’s restrained and targeted attacks look like on the ground by your brothers and sister in Ukraine.
Please wake up. The world needs you now. We need you conscious and alive and human more than ever!
We stand at a precipice inside the human soul. This precipice exist inside every human being alive right now.
People of Earth, do you call yourself human or monster?
Your actions (and inactions), your words, your thoughts tell us which you chose to be.
Those who call themselves human must reckon with this moment fully to the very core of who they are and what they believe, what they love, what they hate, what they know (or think they know) and what they don’t know.
Each person alive on this planet right now is choosing a stream of thought and system of belief that inform your actions in the next weeks, the next days,the next hours, the next minutes, and the next seconds.
And each second that goes by, each choice made realizes who lives and who dies in this brutal war waged on the innocent people of Ukraine.
We must chose something different than we have ever chosen before to stop this senseless slaughter that stalks the entire human race ever since we crossed the demarcation line that lets us know that we know who we are. The lists of genocides and ruthless slaughter is very long. It will not stop unless we change it inside ourselves. Each person must embark on this work. It will hurt, but it will not hurt you. It will wake you up.
Peoples of the World, you must chose to protect and sustain all life or let it continue to be destroyed by men who have chosen to become monsters.
Sad Piano Music (THIS WILL MAKE YOU CRY / Saddest Piano & Violin Ever!) | 46,933,029 views | Jan 14, 2014
Every human choice matters to alter the course of our shared fate.
What will you choose?
Reactions of aHelpless Watcher Witnessing Evil Live on TV#2
Dear People of Ukraine | February 25, 2022 | We have failed you. You are showing us how to fight evil. You show us how to live through your courage even into death | Music: Jupiter & Jaguar — Blond:ish | Welcome to the Present & Chants of Native Earth #Ukriane#Russia#Fallingpic.twitter.com/BeStW6jzX7
We stand with you Ukraine. Russian soldiers are surrendering (not a lot yet), but they are increasingly dazed & confused by your spirit and that you are willing to die to live free. The Free World is coming around. You are inspiring the world to stand up to Putin #HelpUkrianepic.twitter.com/uV3Ng3TOWN
Anderson in Ukraine talks with mayor of Kyiv. They need world ? to help now. Putin’s aggression is criminal. The Ukraine people are peaceful. Putin is going after civilian targets. His objective is to cause maximum pain. We are ready to fight and die for our future #ukrainepic.twitter.com/JZXMNdK3xe
“We will win together” — These young newlyweds are willing to fight and die for the freedom of every man, woman, and child on the planet. They are defending their homeland but they are also defending all of us. They just need our help and support #ukraine#zelenskyy#HelpUkrainepic.twitter.com/EBw2vBJPM4
Biden…please, please, please do more to help Zelenskyy, the Ukraine ?? people and foreign nationals trapped by Putin’s madness. We have to do more. This doesn’t stop with Ukraine… we (The Free World) must stomp Putin out now. Don’t let more Ukraine people suffer. #SaveUkrainepic.twitter.com/6Xbf9KSlXc
Interview with John Spencer on CNN — focus on turning Kiev into a Maze of Hell for the Russians soldiers. Park buses on the street, block roads and alleys, make the Russians come inside buildings that Ukrainians know and kill them #Ukraine
Day 7 of Russian InvasionWe hide our barbaric nature with platitudes, polices, and lies.
Fourth Letter
Letter to American People
If you call yourself a patriotic American, you don’t root for Putin and you don’t spread Russian misinformation.
Americans rooting for Putin are imitating evil. It will lead us to the same remorseless, ruthless state that Russia has become.
American rooting for Putin, do you really want to cut your soul off from your humanity? From the very essences that make you human? Do you really think it is worth it to become a demon just so you can control everybody and everything to your desires?
Yes, I hear your complaints levied at the liberal left. You feel that you are being overlooked and left out by political correctness and cancel culture, but you have persuaded yourself to feel this way. You know darn well you have the same rights, responsibilities, and privileges as every other American, except those who are not white. You know darn well you fear the power that white male supremacy has conferred to you is slipping away. And this is why you bawl and brew and stew.
We have paid a terrible price in the United State for nursing our grievances by using the fake news and misinformation spread by Putin to further our own cause. Now evil grows on American soil inside American minds and it will not be long until Ukraine’s fate is America’s fate as well.
Think hard about how easy your comfortable American life is, even poor Americans have it 10,000 times better than the people in Ukraine right now.
It is so disheartening to hear a poll after Biden’s first State of Union address that said 60% of listeners thought the US economy was more important than Ukraine.
This is why we are not doing more to help the brave, compassionate, and beautiful people of Ukraine survive. This is why we are watching them being slaughtered.
Because we prefer our own comforts over someone else’s?
Yes, it has been a hard 2 years. There are still supply chain issues and higher prices, and these are probably going to get worst. Yes, wearing masks to protect others who are more vulnerable to COVID has been hard, but it is worth it, isn’t it to save someone else’s life?
Or are we a people who just think about ourselves obsessively and shallowly?
These things have made life harder to juggle, but American people, you can still juggle these things. You still have homes. You still have jobs. You can still go to the store without being shot at or bombed. You can still go outside and go about with your life without fear of being burned alive in your car. Ukraines are being burned alive in their cars. They are being shot. They are being bombed. They are being hunted like animals.
Are so many Americans really so blind and so heartless?
This is a disgrace.
We are a nation disconnecting from our capacity to empathize with other people.
How heartless the American heart seems tonight.
The frontline that Ukraine is fighting is EVERYWHERE!
There is no place to hide from this kind of evil for comes from inside us. If Ukraine falls, this horror rests on us for failing to put aside our differences as Americans, our comfort, and our policies and act like human beings.
Ukrainians are showing us how human beings act. Human beings help each other when trouble descends, especially when evil manifests its ugly power in the world.
Are you going to be human or monster?
Fight the Fade — Where Do You Hide Your Hate | Music: Bullet | Masks (Deluxe) | Fight The Fade
I know my words are harsh. Please look into your heart. Please feel the pain of the Ukrainian people and the pain of all persecuted people because you can do something about it. It may hurt, but it will not hurt you. It will wake you up.
The choice is yours.
From the Perspective of Americans Working to Destroy Democracy
The Letter to the American people is informed by a former friend who I e-mailed the day of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. My husband and I had happened to see Matthew Chance putting on his flak jacket the night the first bombs started dropping all over Ukraine. We were shocked and horrified knowing we were witnessing the beginning of the War.
The next morning, I sent an email to a person who I have been very tolerant of in his support of Donald Trump. Knowing how cowardly Trump was in standing up to Putin, I asked my former friend flat out, who does he support–Putin or Zelenskyy and the people of Ukraine. Here is his reply.
What a bunch of cat poop!
I sent him a scathing reply, then blocked him. I told him he is not my friend, his beliefs are cat poop, and I stand in opposition to him. Even 10 days into the heroic fight the Ukrainians are giving the Russians, some Americans are still rooting for Putin.
These are not Americans that believe in freedom and democracy. These are wannabe dictators who are just as insane and mad as Putin. I say lock them up just as they chanted to lock up Hillary, but really they are just sad anti-Americans who have every right to voice their cocky, cockeyed opinions. And, they are really, really sad examples of being human in this century.
From the Perspective of Americans Working toSave American Democracy
Image from 1A: Svetlana Suvorova and Andrey, who only gave first name, hold signs as people gather for a rally in support of Ukraine on the Brighton Beach Boardwalk in New York City.Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images
One of the guest said, “This is a fight to be a human or a monster. Every person on this planet is part of this fight,” one speaker said today. I have been echoing this too. Action is required NOW.” #UkraineRussianWar#Ukraine#Zelensky#StopPutinNOW
Another guest said, “Two weeks ago, Zelenskyy was unknown. Today he is the most loved man on the planet. Courage is the sexiest trait a man can have…so don’t be afraid!” says one of the speakers today. Listen to this. #UkraineRussianWar#Ukraine#Zelensky
"Two weeks ago, Zelenskyy was unknown. Today he is the most loved man on the planet. Courage is the sexiest trait a man can have…so don't be afraid!" says one of the speakers today. Listen to this. #UkraineRussianWar#Ukraine#Zelenskyhttps://t.co/8nAiEvM370
This is what makes America and democracy great. Diversity and lots of different people with different ideas who can come together to do something worth doing, something essential, something that will leave a mark on the world of mankind that is good, that humane, that is for life and all living beings not against it.
Images for this animation come from the video featured at the top of this blog and from my previous blog: Moonlight Shaken from a Cranes Bill(Oh how so much can happen in such a short amount of time. I published this blog 7 days ago when the world was a different place.)
Feature Archetypal Animation from Moonlight Shaken from a Crane’s Bill — posted February 22, 2022 — Two days before Putin unleashed hell into the worldOriginal Feature Archetypal Animation of blog: Moonlight Shaken from a Cranes Bill
First Archetypal Animation
Music: [3] Anybody Out There 3:48 | Ouroboros | Saint Punk
Image from: Ouroboros, the World Serpent & Jörmungandr | Symbols from Folklore & Mythology — “The depiction of a serpent or dragon consuming its own tail is an old one. A symbol of the cyclical nature of things – and linked to the end of the world and immortality – it’s woven its way through time and across cultures for over a millennia.”
Image from: Ouroboros | Nether Realm on SoundCloud
Image from: Legends and Secrets of the Cosmic Ouroboros “There are few creatures that evoke the range of emotions like the earthbound snake. Across ancient cultures and civilizations, snakes have been viewed as mystical, dangerous, repulsive, and ultimately one of the most fascinating beings in the animal world. However, there might be a deeply rooted reason for human’s fascination with this creature, one that is embedded in the oldest mythology known to humans: Ouroboros, or the one who devours itself.”
“It’s an ancient circular symbol, dating back to 5000 BC, which depicts a snake or dragon eating its tail. Archaeologists discovered the oldest known example of an ouroboros on a jar that is possibly 7,000 years old. It belonged to the neolithic Yangshao People, who lived along the Yellow River in what is now eastern China.”
She lived in a Speakeasy because she loved money so much she could cheat people all day and all night saying, “It’s so easy!“
Cheating People is So Easy!
She cheated so many peopleout of so much moneyfor so longshe built a great big pileof money that she kept to herself as she smiled like an evil elf tittering all day and all night, “Hee Hee.”
“I killed Santa with my chainsaw!”
She loved this great big pile of money so exceedingly that it leaped to life one day and gobbled her up, whereupon it said, “Hmmmm, that was cheesy!“
“Ahhhhh! The Money Monster!”
The End
Be sure to listen to the songs embedded in each of the moving animations above. Just click the sound icon to hear them. I am sure you’ll want to run out and get the song for the evil elf animation!
by Andy SmithPosted on December 8, 2018Mark Wagner — Article by by Andy Smith says, “Wagner’s artwork is an entry point to a conversation extending far beyond the art world,” a statement says. “Decades dedicated to destroying banknotes has provided Wagner with a unique perspective on the nature of money. Modern man’s obsession with finance and our wistful attempts to tame it through economics belies money’s emotional, mercurial… even fictional nature. Wagner addresses these issues in writing, lecture, and interview as eloquently as he does through his artwork.”
Also see Tahiti and the Thing for more on how greed and self-absorption and can do terrible things to a person and everyone around them.
Another facet playing into uncontrolled self-absorption and greed along with contributing to an uncontrollable evil willingness to destroy just about anyone and anything isnarcissism. There is a reason why Trump chooses orange make up when he goes on camera.
I came across this great series of blogs as I was coming to grips with navigating the complexities of narcissism in my own family tree.
Defence Mechanisms –– This is a spectacular blog on defense mechanisms every human being depends on to navigate life’s complexities. The problem is when we get stuck on the lowest levels, then we are heading into pathological living patterns that don’t end well for anyone, especially the narcissist and their loved ones.
The Money Trap
Is there any way out of the money trap?
Alan Watts said once upon a time about there was an old woman and other matters relating to rampant capitalism and rugged individualism that tilts so far one way or the other that it becomes a pathological way of being in the world and relating to each other. He said:
“George Herbert Mead where he called the conceptions that we have of ourselves the interiorized other in other words the sum total of all the things that people have told us we are because you do not know yourself as a self except in a society–just as you do not exist biologically without a father and a mother–you do not carry on an existence without a society.”
“The reactions of other people to you provide you with the mirror in which you attain a realization of yourself you know who you are in terms of your relationships with others.”
“So then now, uh, when we contemplate this disappearance of privacy and a completely integrated human society we can look at this from two different points of view pro and con.”
“Let us first look at the pro point of view how great to have nothing to hide how great to give up all worries about ownership because you could say if somebody says that they would like something you have, and you say, “Please have it,” because you know very well you can go to someone else and say, “Could I have that?” and they’ll give it to you.” — Min 124:49
Alan Watts – You are EVERYTHING (Black Screen, No Music) [3.5 hours long] — Just Google the the title… it’s a constant game of whack a mole on the Internet with music and things…
Also, see this blog as another possible antidote to greed and the money trap:
In the preface of the book, The Philosophy of the I Ching written by Carol K. Anthony, she describes how the I Ching addresses the limitations of only relying on one’s intellect (and the powerful ability of thinking) by saying the I Ching cautions the beginner that:
“By limiting himself to his intellect, he will only see the surface and never experience the depths.”
The depths referred to is the fullness of one’s inner Self (or as The OA says, the invisible self). This includes those parts of Self that are accepted by one’s Self, and thus exist in the conscious mind of Self. It also includes the parts of Self that are not accepted by one’s Self, and thus exist in the unconscious mind.
The unacceptable parts are often taught to us as being unacceptable early in life by parents, peers, teachers, and society at large. They tend to be the savage and most selfish parts of Self that must be tempered and controlled in order to live in a civil society, otherwise very bad things would indeed happen.
But when these parts of Self disappear underneath the demarcation lineof consciousness and become unconscious, this is dangerous too. Indeed, this is the most dangerous thing that could happen to a conscious living being because we loose the ability to maintain balance and cannot navigate the challenges in life due to our inner lopsidedness.
Very often this occurs when we mistake the Mask of Self for who we really are. But it is not who we really are. It is only the most outer shell of who we really are. Essentially, it is the outer most crust of our Sphere of Consciousness–that mysterious thing that illuminates the world inside and out and gives us the feeling that We Know Who We Are.
This outermost crust is actually the smallest part of who we really are, and it is the most fragmented part of ourSelf. It is the part of ourSelf painstakingly assembled based on all the things we have been told to be or not to be by others. Most of these things are distortions of who we really are because the very same thing has happened to the people who are telling us to be this or that or the other thing.
This is the Story of Separation and Polarization. It begins inside one’s Self when the Mask of Self separates from the parts of Self that have been thrust deep into one’s unconsciousness. In the depths our unconsciousness, the lost and abandon parts of Self go to work making the rip between the Mask of Self and the Rest of Self into a rift that grows into divide that transforms into a chasm that mutates into a terrifying and endless abyss.
The more we insist on believing we are only the good parts of ourSelves, which essentially is the Mask of Self that we projected to others for the benefit of society, the more neurotic and unstable we become. This is because the bad parts (along with all the undiscovered parts) haven’t gone anywhere. They are still very much there in our psyche. They have simply been rendered invisible because they are forced to exist in another dimension–the unconscious mind. And they very much want a seat at the Table of Self, just like the good parts have (or more accurately, the accepted parts of Self that we have pounded into our Mask of Self that can include bad things we have been told by others that we are and we believe them).
If the unconscious parts of Self are denied a seat at the Table of Self, they get projected outside of the Self. Suddenly, the evil that one refuses to see inside of oneSelf surrounds the Self. But, this is only youfoolingyourSelf, as Alan Watts liked to say. And, Carl Jung called this man’s greatest evil, which is when man’s unconsciousness is projected onto others because he/she cannot bare to see all of who he/she really is.
The I Ching consoles the very same wisdom for this is a book about self-development and cultivating wisdom in one’s inner garden of consciousness. This can only be done by finding the hidden parts inside of ourSelves, especially the parts that have become buried in the unconscious mind. Of course, many good qualities of Self are buried there too. These are parts of ourSelf we have not found yet because we have not grown our inner light of consciousness bright enough and big enough to see them. And, so they remain unconscious too.
Time and time again, we find out eventually that both good and bad qualities are needed to feel successful, and even more important, they are needed to provide a sense of meaning and purpose in our lives. Without doing the inner work necessary to grow our individual field of consciousness, these treasures inside of oneSelf remain hidden and out of our grasp.
Summary of the Book: The Philosophy of the I Ching by Carol Anthony
Chapter 1: This book presents the cosmological background of the I Ching and its many concepts. It describes the Tao, the binary system of numbers that forms the 64 hexagrams of the I Ching, the Sage who speaks through it, the I Ching view of existence, and the hidden Cosmic order that underlies all apparent chaos. Thus rather than: 'In the beginning there was chaos,' one sees that 'In the beginning there was order.' Chapter 2: describes what in the I Ching is called the 'superior man' or 'noble Self' as the unconditioned true self; the 'inferior man' is seen as the socially constructed self-image, or ego. The 'superiors' or 'helpers' described by the I Ching are revealed as inherent character-traits, such as natural modesty, natural kindness, and the capacity for patience and perseverance. The 'inferiors' are discussed as aspects of the bodily self that speak, as when they say, 'I am hungry, I am tired.' Also discussed are the many references in the I Ching text to cultivating the true self and that imply self-development to be necessary if we are to learn how to harmonize ourselves with the way the Cosmos works.// Chapters 3 and 4: discuss the anonymous wise Sage who speaks through the I Ching, and the attitudes that are important on the part of the I Ching student if he is to gain the Sage's help.// Chapters 5, 6, and 7: describe the process of self-cultivation undertaken when we accept the Sage as our teacher. It describes how the Sage teaches us mostly in real-life learning situations, so that what is perceived in the head is transmitted to the heart as wisdom. It also describes many important I Ching principles, such as coming-to-meet-halfway, and working through the power of Inner Truth.// Chapters 8 and 9: describe the more technical aspects of the I Ching within the context of its historical development: the development of the lines, trigrams, and hexagrams. It also describes its traditional methods of use, but gives an entirely new method discovered by the author that enables the student to understand its messages very precisely.
-- Description on Amazon about Carol Anthony's book
Thoughts & Time: This Too Shall Pass
In Buddhism, the Master and the Student strive to maintain balance in every situation encountered in life. While some situations that occur appear to be beneficial to one’s Self and considered Good Luck, if not extremely advantageous to one’s wellbeing and fortunes, other situations in life can seem harmful, injurious, and hurtful to one’s best interests and wellbeing. These are perceived as Bad Luck, if not down right evil. All experiences, regardless of how we feel about them or perceive them, help us grow as conscious beings, if we allow them to penetrate into deeper levels of ourselves and darker realms of consciousness.
In every situation encountered in life, we are always free to choose our actions. We are also free to choose how we express our feelings and emotions about these situations. Our ability to navigate the turbulence of our inner and outer world of experiences grows throughout our life, especially when we tune into our inner world rather than just reacting to the outer world.
Constantly reacting and defending one’s Self against perceived threats, adversity, and maleficent dangers is exhausting. This is because if all one’s psychic energy is constantly being poured into building walls against outer reality in order to defend a fractured sense of who we are, then we have less energy to live in the present moment, to be happy, to be successful, and to treasure family, friends, and life. This is truly the greatest treasure one can cultivated in life. To cherish and nurture time with others who can share the beauty and splendor of this beautiful world and who will stand by you when your fortunes turn in life as they always do.
People who have chosen to pursue fame, money, or power are really the most impoverished people you will ever met in life. This is because they have to sacrifice their time and attention to being first, to having more than others, to controlling everything around them, which they can never do but their inferiors keep trying. The karma for this foolishness is alienation from other human beings, including friends and family. These individuals are truly alone in this world with no one to share the good times with and no one who will stand by them when their fortunes turn the other way.
To understand the tremendous fullness of reality, which we all must share, means empathizing with another’s person perspective. It also means using one’s powerful intellect to ask questions about one’s own beliefs, opinions, and perceptions. We must do this in order to see and understand why another person might perceive a situation differently. This is important because no one exists exclusively in a bubble. Everything in this world, indeed the universe, has arisen mutually. Because of this, to understand the whole of reality, every person’s perspective, experience, and view point must be included. Not only that, all of life must be included and given a voice at the Table of Being–this includes animals, plants, fungi, bacteria, and even rocks. This is not my wisdom. This has been known and understood for centuries by many peoples. And it is documented in the oldest book known to belong to humanity: The I Ching.
Perhaps this story may illuminate this ancient wisdom a little more concretely. It is a famous Zen-Buddhist story:
Thoughts & Character: The Importance of Self-Development
The I Ching was create to provide console to those who seek its wisdom and guidance during times of life experienced as times of elevation (e.g., elation, good times, good luck) as well as during time of life experienced as time of decline (e.g., misery, bad times, bad luck).
As one develops, one often comes to understand that we have no control over these cycles, although our ego (and what Carol Anthony says the I Ching refers to as our inferiors) will insist otherwise. They will kick, scream and have a melt down railing against fate, circumstances, reality. But all this will be for not because these cycles cannot be controlled by sheer concentrated of power of will or muscle force or any perceived power of the ego.
We can only find peace inside when we learn to put aside our feeling of frustration and fear that we will be destroyed by forces of evil or chaos perceived surrounding us. Most of the time, this is a false perception of reality cause by inner disharmony and separation.
But take comfort, for it is precisely when we feel like it is the darkest hour that the cycle of yin and yang swings the other way; when he vexing thing begins to fade away as a new cycle begins, a new reality gets underway.
Everything we experience in life is impermanent and transitory–it comes and goes like waves on a beach. Nothing stays the same. For if it does, it is undergoing a transformation of passing into something else (otherwise known as dying).
During times of decline, which is when one is likely to feel high degrees of fear, frustration, and extreme agitation, it is consoled by the I Ching to use this time on self-development(e.g., the I Chinghexagram 53 | Self-Development | Gradual process). This hexagram specifically refers to self-development, but all the hexagrams teach about developing one’s inner self and learning more about one’s inner world.
To learn more about one’s inner reality, the I Ching provides consoles through many hexagons of the importance of taking care of yourself, of practicing patience, of listening to others and their needs, and of listening to what is rising inside of you, especially from your inner Sage.
Most interestingly, it is precisely during times of decline(when things are not going our way) when we have the greatest opportunities to learn the most about ourSelf. This is because we have more time to explore hidden inner landscapes–that is, the parts of ourselves we have not yet discovered or uncovered.
During times of elevation, we often must focus our conscious attention in the outside world. Thus, we do not have as much time or energy to see inside, unless of course, we have previously completed the inner work needed to illuminate more of our inner world.
If we are able to change our inner attitude during times of decline from that of it being “a punishment” to an opportunity, then we unleash inner abilities such as forbearance, patience, and mildness that allow us to flow with adversity better.
Even the most horrible times come to an end.
Think of the hundreds and thousands of Afghan civilizations now trapped under the control of the brutal and barbaric Taliban. This is a trulyterrifying reality for hundreds, even thousands, of people now living under Taliban rule–many may well end up dead. It may seem in our modern Western world that we face the same adversity (e.g., mask mandates or vaccine mandates). But this is a distortion of reality.
When we do not use our abilities to flow with reality as it comes to us, and rather choose to fall back into our inner fortresses of beliefs, opinions, convictions, and credences, we force the flow of reality to bend around our inner ramparts constructed long ago to defend us from all the cruel evil perceived surrounding us. Most of the time, these attitudes, opinions, and belief have become very rigid and worn out due to over use. Reliance on such rigid inner structures quickly turns into a heavy, heavy weight that we end up carrying around with us for the simple reason that we refuse to let go of them and put them.
Rather than feeling sorry for ourselves because of our circumstances, think of other people who are undergoing even greater struggles. This might just open a secret door inside of yourSelf that allows your consciousness to illuminate parts of yourSelf remaining hidden from view. You need these parts of yourself to navigate the storms life inevitably throws your way. Such inner work not only grows empathy for others but for oneSelf.
And aren’t you worth it?!
Thoughts & Now: The Importance of Suspending the Constant Barrage of Thoughts from Time to Time
I make videos documenting just some of the beautiful moments in life happening all the time. Moments I forget to notice because I get stuck in the steady train of thoughts that constantly worry about this, think about that, consider the other thing I forgot to do yesterday or need to do tomorrow or did and made a fool of myself. This is a neurotic way of being in the world and we have been taught to do it since childhood. It is hard to give up and just be here / now.
I have found a few strategies that help me root my attention in the present moment. Photo journeys are one way that works for me to switch off my spot light consciousness and tune into my flood light consciousness, as Alan Watts talks about in so many of his seminars.
Ways of Connecting to Now Through Photojournalism
It’s the little moments that count the most!
Music: Hard To Say Goodbye – Washed Out [as featured on iPhone — music that heals the soul!]Series: Have You Been Outside Today? and Doggie Tails & Trails: Hunting for Beauty Every Day
Music: Divide – Dualist Inquiry [as featured on Apple iPhone 7 — music that heals the soul!] Series: Have You Been Outside Today?
Journey Through Time — Age of Man
Music: Dreamer — Brian Reitzell [as featured on iPhone — music that heals the soul!] Series: Art Yoyages Photos/Videos: Me
Ways of Connection to Now through Blogging
Blogs related to nature, being alive, and cultivating one’s inner sphere of consciousness include:
"We think we can congratulate ourselves on having already reaches such a pinnacle of clarity, imaging we have left all the phantasmal gods far behind. But what we have left behind are only verbal specters not the psychic facts that were responsible for the birth of the gods. We are still as much possessed by autonomous psychic contents as if they were Olympians. Today, they are called phobias, obsessions, and so forth, in a word, neurotic symptoms. The gods have become diseases; Zeus no longer rules Olympus but rather the solar plexus and produces curious specimens for the doctor's consulting room or disorders the brain of politicians and journalists who unwittingly let loose psychic epidemics on the world." -- Carl G. Jung, Psychology & the East | Secret of the Golden Flower, p. 39
We are living in troubled times. Pick your issue. There are many, and each one is getting worst–accelerating climate change, accelerating economic hardships and global inequalities, rampant misinformation campaigns leading to real life misery and deaths. Adding insult to injury are deniers, fanatics, and maniac visionaries (each one with a different vision of how to save the world). Deniers flock to the manic visionaries. They amass in huge groups to the most charismatic ones; believing them when they say that only they possess the knowledge to save us from this mess. And, they are worshipped by their followers like Gods for they believe that their manic visionary (their savior) does indeed know the secrets to saving them, and they will blindly follow them anywhere, even if the destination is over a cliff.
DC Metropolitan Police Officer Jeffrey Smith took his own life after protecting the Capitol on January 6. His widow, Erin Smith, has a message for those who deny there was an insurrection. -- CNN
Denial of Reality Has Real Life Costs…There is a Price to Pay in Everything We Choose and Do, Especially When We Act Based Only on Beliefs
Huge groups of people have been swept up into the worlds of maniac visionaries where fantastic alternative realities have been created for their anxious and fearful followers to inhabit. Here, everyone is informed by their own “trusted news” sources (typically the maniac visionaries and his or her “parrots“). In these alternative worlds, followers soothe each other with testimonies about what they believe to be true, how misguided everyone else is in the world, and how they will fix the world when the world either “wakes up” from its delusion or they kill everyone off who does not “know” or believe what they “know” is true.
They tend to each others wounds after coming back to the group from another brawl with reality. The fight is endless because there are so many people who do not “know” what they “know“. And they “know” they are right because their maniac visionary tells them so.
Each and every day, they suit up and go out into the world for another battle with “the mainstream“, with “Big Pharma“, with “the government” (any government because they are all rotten to the core), with “experts of any kind“, with pretty much anyone who believes or knows something different from what they know.
Anti-Mask Protests Erupt At Tennessee School Board Meeting | 16,874 views | Aug 12, 2021
This is happening now! Are you terrified? I am.
Is this really how we want to be as a people, as a country, as a world? Do we really want to devolve into a bunch of fractured groups who are nursing on intolerance, bigotry, parochialism, partisanship, insularity, and fanaticism? This sort of food for the mind turns ordinary, good people into rabid animals. It transforms them into people who are ready to inflict terrible brutality on each other over wearing a mask?!!!
Currently, these groups are small and very fractured. But all of them are in a great deal of pain and fear. And most of them include people who are very, very angry and very vocal. These groups mainly exist developed modern countries. This is because for the majority of people living in developing countries, they know what reality is because they live it every day.
The people I am focusing on in this blog have become very comfortable with their lives and their comfort. They like things just the way they are (or used to be). They are terrified by all the changes and upheavals happening around them. It is very threatening their way of living. It is eroding their beautiful island of being comfortable. The real world is encroaching on their paradise, and they don’t like it, one bit. No one is going to tell them what to do in their promised land!
But the changes keep coming like relentless waves on a restless sea. They can’t understand what is causing all this mess. They only know they must resist because if they don’t, it means they will have to change and that might mean losing their promised land.
What we see playing out in real life, right now are groups of people who are afraid and have flocked to insufficient theories about what is going on and why it is happening to them. It is always about them because they have not yet grown their capacity to empathize with anyone else’s burden of reality. We all carry a burden of reality. That is what we are supposed to do. This is why we are here, now. These untethered groups are small and scattered now, but they won’t stay small. This thing is growing. This thing feeds on fear, anger, misery, hate, and it has ample food supply on both sides of the divide.
What is the true source of all this misery, fear and pain?
Stubborn Denial
Stubborn denial of what other people are experiencing and suffering through or enduring because of… (…climate change, racism, Jan. 6…or add your issue or event) is cruel and feeds The Thing between us.
Officer testimony on Capitol insurrection: ‘The indifference shown to my colleagues is disgraceful’ 35,491 viewsJul 27, 2021
I want to highlight here what Officer Fanone said during his testimony to Congress about January 6, 2021. And about the denial of its brutality. He is specifically aiming his words at the Congressmen and women are perpetuating this false idea through cruel denial about what happened to him and his fellow officers that day. Men and women who fought to save our fragile system of democracy from a growing lunacysown by lies and false narrativescarefully crafted to fuel fear, mistrust, and general anxiety. The sowers of such destructive seeds prefer to live in an authoritarian, autocratic, despotic, dictatorial system.
“SO MANY OF THE PEOPLE I PUT MY LIFE AT RISK TO DEFEND ARE DOWNPLAYING OR OUTRIGHT DENYING WHAT HAPPENED. I FEEL LIKE I WENT TO HELL AND BACK TO PROTECT THEM AND THE PEOPLE IN THIS ROOM, BUT TOO MANY ARE NOW TELLING ME THAT HELL DOESN’T EXIST OR THAT HELL ACTUALLY WASN’T THAT BAD THE INDIFFERENCE SHOWN TO MY COLLEAGUES IS DISGRACEFUL!”
— Officer Fanone at January 6 Commission to Investigate What Happened & Who Is Responsible
The Right Means in the Hands of the Wrong Man…Will Lead to Ruin and Disaster
Circling back to Jung’s quote above, he continues saying:
"So it is better for Western man if he does not know too much about the secret insights of the Oriental sages to begin with , for, as I have said, it would be a case of the 'right means in the hands of the wrong man.' Instead of allowing himself to be convinces once more that the daemon is an illusion, he ought to experience once more the reality of this illusion. He should learn to acknowledge these psychic forces anew, and not wait until his moods, nervous states, and delusions make it clear in the most painful way that he is not the only master in his house."
The Cost of Denial & Feeding Your Mind with Misinformation
Two examples of people who believed misinformation about COVID-19 and got COVID and what happened to a little girl who is too young to get the vaccine and caught COVID because it is raging through the area where she lives among the unvaccinated.
Blake Bargatze told his parents told his parents “he was putting off receiving a COVID-19 vaccine because he felt uncertain about its possible side effects, WSB-TV in Atlanta reported.“
Senior Writer David Knowles writes, “He wanted to wait a few years to see, you know, if there’s any side effects or anything from it,” said Paul Nuclo, his stepfather. “As soon as he got in the hospital, though, he said he wished he had gotten the vaccine. Bargatze was the only member of his family who passed on getting vaccinated, Cheryl Nuclo, his mother, told Fox 5 Atlanta. Once hospitalized, however, he asked to be inoculated.”
The child, Ava Amira Rivera, tested positive for Covid-19, according to Amanda Callaway, a spokeswoman for Harris Health System. Callaway said Ava was having seizures and needed to be intubated but Lyndon B. Johnson Hospital, where she was first taken, does not offer pediatric services.
What Are the Top 10 Killers of the World?
Three examples above are real life tragedies, and yet, I know people who continue deny their realities as well as the reality of 4,320,728 people (including children) who have died from COVID-19 since the pandemic began a year and a half ago.
I don’t want to hear the ready list of top 10 killers around the world deniers pull out to prove they are right. I’ve heard too many times: “COVID is no worst than this or that disease.” This is a sorry-ass, lazy excuse made by individuals who no longer trust anyone but themselves and refuse daily to see the whole of reality playing out in front of them now!
We are 7.8 billion people in this world and growing. There are a lot of realities playing out each and every day. How can anyone believe “they know” the full of reality and “they are right” while everyone else is wrong? Only a fool takes such a stance due to their overwhelming ignorance and refusal to grow beyond it.
Let’s look at this list. You can click on each one to see the sources I am drawing upon:
Since the beginning of the pandemic, which too many people to this day believe it is a lie, a hoax, a trick by the ruling elite, 4.3 million people have died.
The actual death count is believed to be much, much higher because countries like Japan, India, Brazil, Portugal, Italy, Pakistan, Tunisia, Jakarta, Eastern Europe, Jerusalem, Mississippi, and I could go on, but I think you get the picture, their health systems and hospitals are collapsing. They are utterly overwhelmed and under resourced to care for the numbers of people coming for treatment and help. When a health system or hospital collapses, it is very hard to record the daily death toll and track new cases. Also, when a health system or hospital collapses, they lose the capacity to help people coming in due to a heart attack, a stroke, a car accident, diabetic shock, children who are starving, or other any other respiratory disease or crisis.
Death is going up across the board across all diseases and emergencies.
And you know why? Because hospitals are overwhelmed. Doctors and nurses are exhausted and demoralized because of deniers and those who have not been inside a hospital recently who are resisting reality.
In India alone, it is believed 4 million people could have died. This would double the current numbers of deaths worldwide due to COVID.
But still, I know people who continue to believe COVID is made up, COVID is a lie, COVID is a trick made up by demonic people who want to control us all. “Watch out!,” they cry, chant, and shout, “They’re coming to eat us all!”
Fanatics, Deniers, and Alt Reality
Deniers, political fanatics, and the “do gooders” out to save the world by making it more beautiful again continue to say COVID is a lie cooked up to control us. One of their most favorite chants is:
“Don’t trust anyone, especially experts!”
Scientists and doctors are high on their lists of people not to trust, but if you are going to not trust experts, then at least be consistent about your beliefs! Deniers and distrusters must also include any experts with whom they come into contact. This would include people who they do not personally know or have put their nose into what these “experts” know. And so, if you are among the deniers and distrusters of experts, you must add to your list: airline pilots, dentists,nurses, or anyone who has spent any amount of time studying a subject to gain expertise in it so they can help others.
If we cannot agree on simple fact that masks (even cloth masks) work to stop the spread of COVID-19, then how the hell are we going to come together to solve Climate Change?!!
Borrowing from Officer Fanone’s testimony: “Refusing to see the reality of the suffering of millions of people due to a global pandemic is a disgrace!”
Time to Wake Up
“Verily, I say unto thee, thous shalt by no means come out thence, until thou hast paid the uttermost farthing.” It is not a matter of indifference whether one calls something a “mania” or a “god”. To serve a manis is detestable and undignified, but to serve a god is full of meaning and promise because it is an act of submission to a higher, invisible, and spiritual being. The personification enable us to see the relative reality of the autonomous system, and not only makes it assimilation possible but also depotentiates (i.e, The action of a substance that reduces the effect of another substance). the daemonic forces of life. When the god is not acknowledged, egomania develops and out of this mania comes sickness. — Carl G. Jung | Psychology & the East | Secret of the Golden Flower, p. 40
Additional Relevant Materialson the Topics Explored Above
Two things I heard yesterday that are very germane to the ideas explored in this blog include:
A syringe is filled with a first dose of the Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine at a mobile vaccination clinic during a back to school event offering school supplies, Covid-19 vaccinations, face masks, and other resources for children and their families. | PATRICK T. FALLON/AFP via Getty Images
Few people want to be where we are now, but it feels like those who are vaccinated have reached a breaking point with those who aren’t.
The question now isn’t whether the anger some of us are feeling is valid, but what do we do with it? And how do we find a way forward when a difference in opinion costs lives?
Neil deGrasse Tyson Teaches Scientific Thinking and Communication | Official Trailer | MasterClass | 11,299,669 views | Oct 5, 2020
"One of the great challenges in this world is knowing enough about a subject to think you're right but not enough about the subject to know you're wrong." -- Neil deGrasse Tyson
And then also, just for extra measure on these very complicated ideas about what’s going on now, here’s some Alan Watts:
The Illusion of MONEY, TIME & EGO – Alan Watts | 3,910,318 views | Sep 1, 2020
"Well, I have a sort of suggestion and that is this that before we decide either to save the planet or to destroy it we pause for a moment of silence. I don't mean that kind of grim silence which one observes when somebody says such and such a famous person has just died, and we'll observe a moment of silence in his honor and everybody frowns and thinks very serious thoughts that's not silence at all. I mean real silence in which we stop thinking and experience reality as reality is because after all if i talk all the time i can't hear what anyone else has to say." -- Alan Watts
The False Idea of Who You Are – Alan Watts | 394,064 views; Jun 8, 2021
"You see the problem is this we identify in our experience a differentiation between what we do and what happens to us. We have a certain number of actions that we define as voluntary we feel in control of those, and then over against that there is all those things that are involuntary. But the dividing line between these two is very arbitrary because for example when you move your hand you feel that you decide whether to open it or to close it. But then ask yourself how do you decide when you decide to open your hand do you first decide to decide you don't do you. You just decide and how do you do that, and if you don't know how you do it -- is it voluntary or involuntary? Let's consider breathing..." -- Alan Watts and the many veils of who we think we are
Finally, These Are Partial Posts about Conversations or Observations I’ve Had, Mostly with Myself, As I Try to Understand Deniers
August 5, 2021 at 1:30 p.m.
This is such an important concept needed so desperately now…
In responding to a post about the death of expertise:
“You have described something that has been deeply bothering me for sometime, and in the last few weeks, intensely as I have come to know a group of antivaxxers who fall into this category that “…their guess is as good as anyone else’s.
“So often when I see one of their posts bemoaning the growing public pressure they are getting from family, friends, workplace, local/state/federal governing bodies, I am tempted to ask: “Have you called your local hospital recently and asked if there are any COVID patients there?”
Post after post is about their tremendous confidence that this is a hoax contrived to control us all forevermore into some dystopian future. Each post also casts anyone who have followed the guidance of governing bodies and medical professionals as ignorant people who have fallen prey to the evil dictators who have devised this malevolent but utterly fake killer virus. “After all, one person said, we are surrounded by viruses everyday.” They express sorrow about how misunderstood they are but also ridicule for those who “take the jab”, seeming to imply anyone who does this is nothing more than minion for the evil empire plotting and scheming to take over the world.
They paint themselves as resistors to all authority. In trying to understand the logic of this by pointing out, “So if all authority figures must be doubted because you don’t know what they know yourself, then does this mean you should never again step on an airplane because the pilots are authorities in how to fly a plane?”
Airplane pilots have spent hundreds of hours learning how to handle all sorts of weather conditions and how they affect the aerodynamics of a plane. They have had to learn about all the machinery, how it works, how it all goes together, and what to do in an emergency. They have flown for thousands of hours to gain the experience to handle any situation. They have become an authority of how to fly a plane and keep everybody safe. But because they are now an authority, they must be doubted?
“It is the same from this group about doctors and nurses who are working themselves to the bone to save people dying from a novel virus racing through the human population. But, they too are thrown into the paint can and dipping their broad brush to explain reality casting them as surely simple minions of the evil empire seeking to take over us all.
“What happen to the ideal/idea that we live in complex systems consisting of lots of individuals… each one unique and different and valuable.”
These pro disease individuals shout, cry, and console each other with resist, resist, resist… because when this is all done, we will be the only ones left standing, then we will insert the Earth and bring in a more beautiful world.I have been shock and horrified at this circular logic for do they not realize that they too seek to take over and rule the world?
It is impossible to use logic or reason with individuals caught in the circular thinking… indeed, they are trapped inside spherical cow thinking and making themselves madder, more fearful, and more crazy everyday. Constant thinking is part of this all too human problem… most of us only think, which makes us scared and crazy.
“Thinking is a good servant but bad master.” — Alan Watts and Eastern Masters
Alan Watts
My friend Glenn responded to this post:
Glenn Gaasland: “The vaccine hestitancy is a peculiar kind of insanity, that can afflict even very clever and good people. It behaves very much like a virus. I know some good people who are somewhat afflicted by it. It seems to be a result of some mixture of a general distrust and disgust for governmental institutions and especially the medical industry + some concern about new kinds of experimental vaccines developed very fast + group identity issues + believing that the Covid virus is not so serious for others than the sick and elderly and that immunity by infection is a good alternative. The unusual nature of the Covid virus seems to play in, we are used to thinking of viruses behaving a certain way, yet this one behaves very unusually. Then this meets a very weak information ecology full of profeteerin mechanisms, a media culture that walked in the wrong direction almost a generation ago and has continued on this path, and it becomes a perfect storm of crazy. The fact that medical authorities communicate with the public somewhat like kindergarten teachers, and big pharma insists on making a profit instead of dropping their patents, plays right into the narrative. All the lies about the origin of the virus, including established scientific magazines ridiculing the lab-leak-hypothesis ( which seems the most likely origin ) was also a terrible blunder that enhanced the mistrust. Along with this, the pressure is growing, and the amount of data is growing, to make the anti-vax position less and less tenable and the need for general vaccination increasingly obvious.”
July 28 at 2:29 P.M.
This is a response to a comment on this post about Sagan studying social sciences a little more.
The implication I interpreted is that Sagan would probably revise this statement somewhat. I commented to this comment as follows:
“Please say more on this… or can you indicate reading material? A man named Peter who recently moved next door is a retired sociologist who taught about the Holocaust. Indeed, he survived it as a half Jewish boy living in Nazi occupied Europe. His father died having been sent to the concentration camps.He recently asked my husband and me if we knew how long it took after Hitler was elected for Nazism to rise and the brutality to begin. We did not know.
This Peter who survived Nazi Germany said, “Four months.”Now consider the United States of America and the testimony of four officers who defended the Capitol on 1/6/21. Can you imagine what would have happened if those rioters had gotten a hold of even one Congressman or woman who they considered the enemy?
They did not get ahold of a single one because the thin blue line of officers fighting for their lives held back 8,000 to 9,000 angry, mostly middle age white men from encountering them and creating safe passages so they could escape and hide.
“A thin, blue line… it is very Carl Sagany… the cosmos the the thin blue line that sustains all life on Earth. And, now we are that thin, blue line, if we can stop polluting our consciousness with racism, fascism, authoritarianism (just pick your ism) and clean our minds so we can treat each other with dignity and respect and compassion.”
This is Peter Stien’s book. It is a must read for anyone seeking to understand reality. He wrote this after 4 of his students came to him in tears after encountering another professor at Peter’s university who was a Holocaust denier.
Peter Stein | Friend and Neighbor | Survivor of the Holocaust | Professor of Sociology & Writer
July 28 at 1:31 P.M.
The first “anti-vaxxer” movement, which began as soon as the first vaccine was discovered and used, began in 1796. At this time, the British medical and scientific community of the early 1800s was known to be very cliquey and dominated by highly influential people. They didn’t like that a a country surgeon was promoting a safer alternative to dealing with small pox and mounted a blistering campaign against him (the man who observed that milk maids who had become infected with cow pox did not catch small pox). These jealous doctors blurred the boundaries between opinion and fact, which continues to this day. They were also in fear of losing their income and status.
Witness the United States of America where a lively anti-vaxxer community thrives and generates lots of money for persons dedicated to misinformation. Also, getting vaccinated against the newest virus that has evolved to infect people and has proven it is highly infectious and deadly has been weaponized as a partisan poisoned arrow. This partisan poisoned arrow and new love child for anti-vaxxers is of course COVID-19.
This article says, “Many of the arguments against vaccination that we see today stem from this period: the idea that Jenner had no qualifications, that vaccination could actually cause smallpox, syphilis, or any number of diseases, and that vaccination would affect the way the body worked by the introduction of material that was not meant to be there.”The reason many of these claims have pervaded is mostly because they are based on the tiniest grain of truth which, when taken out of context, can give them an air of veracity that isn’t deserved.”While it is true that Jenner didn’t have a formal qualification, that’s because he trained as a surgeon at a time when there were no degrees for surgeons.
According to Gower, in the early years of vaccination people were sometimes contracting other infectious diseases, or blood poisoning, as a result of vaccination but that was because it was not a sterile procedure at the time and there was a risk of contamination, which is not the case today.”
NPR did a segment on dirty needles recently, which are still very prevalent in the developing world and estimated to be the cause of death of 3 to 4 million people in the coming year.”The iconic photo of the two boys — one vaccinated against smallpox and one who hadn’t been vaccinated — was published in 1901, and taken by Dr Allan Warner at the Leicester Isolation Hospital.”
Who do you want to believe–someone spouting unsubstantiated opinions crafted to get you worked up, afraid, and angry OR someone who has dedicated years of their life studying things that make people seriously ill and how to stop or treat these deadly things (we call these people doctors, researchers, virologist)?
It is wrong, indeed downright evil, to conflate the work of doctors and virologists with the evil Pharma industry that wants to control us all (or insert your favorite evil doer of our time: the illuminati, Corporations, governments of all kinds… you can put anything in there to stoke up the fear factor that spices up your real intentions).
Or perhaps it is the evil Bill Gates who wants to plant a chip inside of you (or have you heard the one about he wants to grow inside of you so he never has to die… now we are tracking down the QAon poisoned pansy path of fear inducing fantastic fiction).
From a friend Jean on this post: Also great background context on the “anti-vaxers’…. Very interesting to me. I grew up GRATEFUL for ALL vaccinations… But I’ve actually MET people recently who started telling me, “oh you only need vitamins and you cannot get COVID-19”. Here’s a link to a DOCTOR who is one of the “influencers” around one of the many disinformation being spread re COVID-19.
“Americans’ growing interest in alternative medicine has helped turn suburban Chicago doctor Joseph Mercola into one of the most popular voices in natural health. So why does he have so many people riled up?” — Chicago, January 31, 2012
July 27 at 6:46 P.M.
A response to a friend:
I understand you speak of a reality little visible to the ordinary Western man and woman. It is a spiritual-psychic reality that is just as real as pooping, sleeping, and eating.
And also, so you do not misunderstand or underestimate me, I have and continue to pay close attention to the numbers, who is giving the numbers, and a whole lot of other things going on in this world. It is not within your ability to perceive or know what I have been paying attention to and what I have failed to perceive, or even worst what I have chosen to deny exists and have created an alternative reality to explain. Only I can do that, just as only you can do that for yourself. The words we use to share our experiences and our understandings of what we observe and what we have come to understand are woefully lacking, and even more so when we have not experienced a certain situation together and know without any doubt whatsoever the reality of what we have just experienced in this world.
The interview (with numbers) is not about Coronavirus and who has died, but rather use of dirty needles for all sorts of treatments for all sorts of life threatening diseases and conditions in the developing world. It is no less a tragic state of affairs than the number of children worldwide dying of starvation each year, while developed countries do a little but not enough to stop starvation in its tracks! We can do so, we choose as a massive collective of human beings not to do so.I also understand that we will not agree on the severity of this novel virus (known as COVID-19) that is marching its way throughout the human population across the world. The reality of what is happening Now will speak for itself as time goes by. However, this is not new. Being decimated by an invisible microbe has happened to the human species again and again. We have fallen victim to lots of deadly disease throughout time, I mean the whole of human history.I do not think you would deny how deadly Rabies is — low and behold, it is a virus. Nor do I think you would bother to debate how infectious and deadly Smallpox Variola major – specifically the malignant (flat or hemorrhagic type) has been to human beings. Dengue haemorrhagic fever (DHF) is also a virus that does ugly things to the human body.
I had Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever earlier this summer. It made me really sick. It almost sent to me to the hospital. Of the spotted fevers (which are cause by another microbe, a bacteria), it is the most deadly. It can also cause long-term nasty effects on the human body if left untreated.I did not deny the reality of this disease. I sought medical treatment. I took the doxycycline even though it caused nasty side effects that I will not get into here because it would really gross most people out to describe what happened to me.
Coronavirus, yes, it is new; yes, it is making the world crazy; yes, too many of us have become obsessed with who is a trusted source of information and who is a lier. But the reality is, it is leaving hundreds of thousands of people without mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, aunts, uncles, and even children have died from it. To deny the reality of what these individuals have endured is to inflict a psychic wound on the people who have lost individuals the love. It is also taking a spiritual step onto the very same psychic-spiritual path that all the “lying politicians” and “lying people of any authority (I guess??!! — does this mean a pilot who flies the airplane you get on to go visit someone you care about cannot be trusted because he/she is an authority on flying, even though he has trained for hundreds of hours and knows about all sorts of conditions and how to handle them? Or, does this mean, you cannot trust a doctor who has spent years studying and learning about the human body and disease to become an authority on how to treat disease? If you are true to your beliefs, then you must be consistent all the way and not trust the farmer who sells you food to eat because you have not raised it yourself; you must not trust another person to dig a new well for water; you must not trust any other authority but yourself. This is a very lonely world to live in, at least, I think so.)” Yes, I whole-hearty agree there are power hungry people who have climbed the steps of power and authority who are willing to do anything to maintain their power, including lying to and killing their people. But to clump all people who have dedicated huge amounts of time to become an authority on something is a dangerous movement of thought.
You are not wrong to fight evil. We must all fight it when it rears its ugly head. However, it is my humble opinion that you don’t need to be lopsided and cruel to people who have lost their loved ones to this novel virus to make your point about the perils of our time and the need to wake up consciously and fight like hell.Indeed, I believe your point and fight would be much more powerful and potent by holding the reality that people are dying from COVID-19 in great numbers alongside the reality that children are dying of starvation in great numbers and we as massive collective let them die. This is evil. It is also possible to hold the reality that a little tiny virus is killing lots of people exceedingly fast alongside the reality that people are dying in huge numbers by by brutal government using brutal tactics. Holding these two realities does not lessen what you are speaking and calling people to action one little bit.
You are calling them to psychic illness and spiritual decay such as the hundreds of thousands of black and brown people in my country who have been lynched and brutalized for centuries. I am disgusted by segments of people in my country who project their psychic illnesses on others. It is a most insidious illness that is rearing its ugly head again such as the events (the REALITY) of January 6, 2021. I have blogged about this horrible day in depth when an estimated 9,000+ (mostly middle age white men clinging like tormented children having a tantrum to their belief in white supremacy) stormed the Capitol. These tourists (as Trump and most of the Republicans of my government) call them — gouged out eyes, severed fingers and toes, tasered officers at the base of their skulls (causing one to have a heart attack), hit them with sledgehammer, baseball bats, and even the American flag.
The civil war never ended… it went underground and grew in foul and malicious ways. It was carefully poked and prodded and stoked by evil men until it erupted in what I saw unfold not more than 9 miles from where I live. And almost the whole Republican party is denying the reality of that day… following Trumps lead who says the air was filled with love.
One of the officers testifying today when asked about how this particular statement Trump said made him feel said, “If that was love, then let’s all go down to mar a lago and share some of this love with that man.
“Yes — you are absolutely right… when you are facing a monster… and if you have a molecule of consciousness to chart a moral course forward… you have no choice but to fight it!!!!!!
This is the way of all life on Earth. This is reality, which does not lie, but fools will fall when they deny the rock of reality that human life has sprout out of.
Alan Watts says this much better. Don’t bother listening to that interview above… I only shared that as another and different tragedy playing out in our collective reality of now. Rather, if you can stomach it, listen to this talk. It’s one of Watt’s shortest. He even talks about the very same thing you are calling us to pay attention to… he even uses the analogy of the wasp and the bee who are locked in an eternal, mortal struggle against each other. And so too is man when evil rears its ugly head, it must be fought as well. But, Watts says because we are a conscious living being there is another level that must be kept in mind as we fight the endless war of good and evil.
Tribute to Carl Jung — 1961, Alan Watts
July 26 at 1:16 P.M.
On Living in Sin… and other terrible things we do to each other as human beings… this is my response to my friend who wrote this blog and posted something else that I responded to with a question:
“To be honest, I am not sure how fast I will get to your blog. This is a time of remembering; a time when 3 years ago my father died. I can not help but remember the events that played out and pay homage to the lost despair, and darkness I was flung into in the aftermath of this time, three years ago.Terrible people exist everywhere on this Earth — in high positions, like your terrible leader in India and previously in my country of the US with the devil disguised as Trump — and they exist in low places like the funky little nonprofit I worked for whose CEO fired me for being by my father’s side as he struggled for life for 10 days then died.
But frankly, that devil lives inside you and inside me and inside every single human being on this fragile planet. It is a disease as real as COVID-19. This human disease will probably guarantee that nothing will be accomplished in the next 9 years to mitigate Climate Change. This is the burden of consciousness and how we respond (or do not respond) to the problems of our times.
I will read your post, in time. I have always been illuminated by your insights and abilities to perceive things below the placid surface of being human; a surface of normality that we all like to pretend exists, but really we are vortexes of chaos in the world when we become blind to our own inner devil and demons.
I will leave instead this quote from Jung I found while looking for another that fits the current global situation:
“Be silent and listen: have you recognized your madness and do you admit it? Have you noticed that all your foundations are completely mired in madness? Do you not want to recognize your madness and welcome it in a friendly manner? You wanted to accept everything. So accept madness too. Let the light of your madness shine, and it will suddenly dawn on you. Madness is not to be despised and not to be feared, but instead you should give it life…If you want to find paths, you should also not spurn madness, since it makes up such a great part of your nature…Be glad that you can recognize it, for you will thus avoid becoming its victim. Madness is a special form of the spirit and clings to all teachings and philosophies, but even more to daily life, since life itself is full of craziness and at bottom utterly illogical. Man strives toward reason only so that he can make rules for himself. Life itself has no rules. That is its mystery and its unknown law. What you call knowledge is an attempt to impose something comprehensible on life.” ― C.G. Jung, The Red Book: A Reader’s Edition
Garden of Eden and The Fall
Where did the term Toxic Positivity originate from? (This was asked by my friend Barry Kort)
My response:”It is as old as human beings being self-aware. It is a price we pay for being conscious and able to see inside ourselves and reflect on what we find there — the good, the bad, and the ugly.Most of us love to see the good in ourselves! You see it all the time on Facebook. “Look how productive I am!” “Look at this great thought I just had.” “Look at this great project I’m doing.” “Look what a good man, good woman I am.”
Owning our bad and ugly parts, well, that’s not so fun. I know hardly no one with whom I can have an honest conversation about the ugly thoughts and downright evil thoughts I have.
Toxic positivity is just a new word for a very old psychological coping mechanism — mainly denial and splitting. Below these “normal” methods of coping with stress, you descend into pathology. Here’s a great article on it:
"Zuckerman says that “toxic positivity, at its core, is an avoidance strategy used to push away and invalidate any internal discomfort.” But when you avoid your emotions, you actually cause more harm."
The situation you helped me with last year with Ecology for System’s Thinking that was a case of Toxic Positivity…. you know who I’m talking about. That person was doing great harm to me, and then blamed it all on me and my inability to be as “happy” and “positive” as he was. What a deep and dark well of unconsciousness resides inside this individual; indeed, resides inside each and every one of us… “Oh, but let’s not talk about that… let’s be positive and look on the bright side of things… we got Climate Change to solve and COVID to get through…”
We are headed for hell by ignoring the dark depths and failing to give comfort to each other when we encounter adversity and despair.”
“I think in our times today, especially on platforms like Facebook, we all believe ourselves to be physicists, we all reduce the complicated problems swirling around us to the simplest formulas, and we all preach our views to the void of obscurity and untenable realities… and so we have our overly simplified Now with solution makers that know little to nothing about what they are proclaiming will save the world and everybody in it. We might as well be living on a spherical cow.”
The spherical cow is a humorous metaphor for highly simplified scientific models of complex real life phenomena. Wikipedia
July 22 at 9:52 P.M.
“As the old Chinese master took us on footage if you ask any question you get thirty blows with my stick; if you don’t ask any question who get thirty blows just the same–in other words what the hell are you doing around defining yourself as a skilled and defining me as a teacher. In other words you have raised the problem.” — Alan Watts – Buddhism As Dialogue (Full) [around minute 19]
Recently on The HiddenBrain, I heard Iain McGilchrist talk with Shankar Vedantam about our divided brain and the making of the Western world. Shankar introduces this episode saying:
"I'm Shankar Vedantam. If you type in the words left brain versus right brain on YouTube, it's not long before you'll find yourself in a vortex of weird claims and outlandish hype. (...) For decades, pop psychology books and plenty of YouTube videos have made dramatic claims about people who are left-brained and people who are right-brained. It got to the point that respectable scientists felt they had to steer clear of the study of hemispheric differences. This week we follow the work of a researcher who went there. What he's found is much more nuanced and complex than the story on YouTube. His conclusions, though, might be even more dramatic. He argues that differences in the brain and Western society's preference for what one hemisphere has to offer have had enormous effects on our lives."
Iain McGilchrist is a psychiatrist who has spent years studying the human brain through case studies of his patients and a detailed examination of scientific research. As I listened to him, he reminded me of a blend of Oliver Sacks and Alan Watts. He is the author of the book: The Master and His Emissary; The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World, Yale University Press, 2010.
The program is called: One Head, Two Brains. I will highlight pieces that really resonated with me. Vedantam begins by highlighting all the pop science and psychology that has emerged over the past 20 to 30 years about the hidden powers of the left or right hemisphere of the brian.
McGilchrist adds: “Well, the conventional model is something that sprang up probably in the ’60s and ’70s and had some life into the ’80s and even into the ’90s and is now, probably, mainly at home in middle-management programs and pop psychology books. And I was told when I got involved in this area – don’t touch it. It’s toxic. Don’t even go there. And basically, that was that the left hemisphere is logical and verbal and the right hemisphere is kind of moody and possibly creative. But all of this turns out to be much more complicated, and some of it’s plain wrong.”
The Brain: SuperComputer or Musical Masterpiece
McGilchrist explains: “In motor terms, (the brain) is fairly straightforward that the left hemisphere controls the right side of the body and receives messages from it and vice versa. But in terms of psychological life, they have quite different kinds of roles. They have quite different dispositions. And I believe evolutionarily, they are – if you like – addressing different questions. (…) It’s there in all mammals, amphibians, reptiles, fish, insects, nematode worms – which have, you know, like – one of them has 302 neurons, but it’s working asymmetrically. And in fact, the oldest creature that we know of that has a neural net of any kind is called nematostella vectensis. It’s 700 million years old, and it’s thought of as the origin of neural networks. Guess what. The neural network is asymmetrical.”
He is adamant the human brain is much more than a biologic computer saying, “(First of all), it’s a vast waste of computing power to have this brain divided into two bits.” His research has revealed that brains have evolved with two different hemispheres to provide living beings with two different views of reality: the right focuses on the big picture, the left focuses on details. Both ways of understanding the world are essential because if you can’t see the big picture, you don’t understand what you’re doing. And if you can’t hone in and focus on the details, you can’t complete the simplest tasks.
McGilchrist provides the example of listening to a piece of music, say Mozart’s Requiem.
Mozart – Requiem | 99,589,610 views • Mar 5, 2009
McGilchrist explains that “the right hemisphere takes in the whole at the start. The left hemisphere unpacks that and enriches it. But then that work being done, it needs to be taken back into the whole picture, which only the right hemisphere can do.“
All living creatures must do this simultaneously to survive.
Left brain:In order to manipulate the world – to get food, to pick up a twig to build a nest – you need a very precise, targeted attention on a detail in order to be able to achieve that and be ahead of your competition.
Right brain: But if you’re only doing that, and if you’re a bird just concentrating on the little seed, you’ll become somebody else’s lunch while you’re getting your own because you need, at the same time, to be paying the precise opposite kind of attention – not piecemeal, fragmented and entirely detailed but sustained, broad and vigilant for predators and for other members of your species.
In every living being with a complicated brain, the two hemispheres are connected by a bundle of nerve fibers named the corpus callosum; often described as a bridge passing information back and forth between the two hemispheres.
McGilchrist explains: “All living creatures need to be able to attend to the world in two different ways, which require quite different attention at the same time. And this is simply not possible unless they can work relatively independently. On the one hand, in order to manipulate the world – to get food, to pick up a twig to build a nest – you need a very precise, targeted attention on a detail in order to be able to achieve that and be ahead of your competition. But if you’re only doing that – if you’re a bird just concentrating on the little seed, you’ll become somebody else’s lunch while you’re getting your own because you need, at the same time, to be paying the precise opposite kind of attention – not piecemeal, fragmented and entirely detailed but sustained, broad and vigilant for predators and for other members of your species.”
The Master & The Emissary
Where my attention really perked up is when Vedantam and McGilchrist began talking about the title of his book, which comes from an old parable about a wise spiritual master who rules over a land. The master appoints an emissary. He’s a smart messenger. His job is to carry the master’s instructions to the far corners of the land.
The Master & Emissary — Animation by Genolv
McGilchrist recaps this very old story:
This emissary was bright enough but not quite bright enough to know what it was he didn't know. And he thought, I know everything. And he thought, what does the master know, sitting back there seraphically smiling, while I do all the hard work? And so he adopted the master's cloak, pretended to be the master. And because he didn't know what he didn't know, the result was that the community fell apart, essentially.
Sounds a bit like Harry Pottery and the cloak of invisibility; however, what McGilchrist is pointing out with this story is what Vedantam says next: “Iain argues that the right hemisphere of the brain is supposed to play the role of the wise master of our mental kingdom. The left hemisphere is supposed to be the emissary. Iain says we have grown infatuated with the skills of the emissary. We prize the details but scorn the big picture. He makes an analogy about the relationship between the hemispheres.“
McGilchrist stresses the brain is not a computer. It is far more sophisticated; however, in terms of function, he says the left hemisphere, in a limited sense, is a little bit like a very, very smart computer. Like any computer, it collects massive amounts of information, but it does not understand it. To do that, the ability to set back and analyze the interconnections and patterns of the data collected is necessary.
McGilchrist warns that for the first time in the West, we have become enamored with and slipped into listening only to what it is that the left hemisphere can tell us and discounting what the right hemisphere could have told us.
The right hemisphere is the master… the left hemisphere is the emissary. One sees the small picture…the other, the big picture.
Two Hemispheres — One World | Animation by Genolve
See it! Grab It!
McGilchrist says that modern man lives in a world that prizes what the Left Hemisphere of the brain offers while offering contempt for what the Right Hemisphere does. What results is that the emissary usurps the master. However, just like the parable, the Left Brain doesn’t know what it doesn’t know. Adding to this, the realities constructed by each hemisphere of the brain are very different.
McGilchrist gives a very simple example of the types of realities each hemisphere specializes in creating for a living being, particularly, one that using language.
Language has many components. One of them is attending to the tone of voice in which I say something. For example, I can say yes, or I can say yes. I can intone that in probably a dozen different ways with quite different meanings. So for example, I say, it's a bit hot in here. You, using your right hemisphere, know that what I mean is, could we have the door open? Could we put on the air conditioning? But your left hemisphere is wondering, meanwhile, why I'm supplying this quite unnecessary meteorological information.
Because of this, all kinds of things happen. Because of its narrow focus, it doesn't see anything that isn't explicit. It only sees what's right in the center of the focus of attention. And it doesn't understand things that are not said. Often, that's as important as what is said. The way in which it is said, my facial expression, my body language - all of this is lost, as well as the interpretation in the whole picture.
For a person who becomes overly reliant on the functions and abilities of the Left Hemisphere of the brain, metaphor in language is lost.
McGilchrist points out that “this is no small thing because as some philosophers have pointed out, metaphor is how we understand everything. And they point out that, actually, particularly scientific and philosophical understanding is mediated by metaphors. In other words, the only way we can understand something is in terms of something else that we think we already understand. And it’s making the analogy, which is what a metaphor does, that enables us to go, I see, I get it.”
He adds:
Now, if you think that metaphor is just one of those dispensable decorations that you could add to meaning - it's kind of nice but probably a distraction from the real meaning - you've got it upside down. Because if you don't understand the metaphor, you haven't understood the meaning. Literal meaning, however, is a peripheral, diminished version of the richness of metaphorical understanding. And what we know is the right hemisphere understands those implicit meanings, those connections of meanings, what we call connotations, as well as just denotations. It understands imagery. It understands humor. It understands all of that.
McGilchrist says that the Left Hemisphere is “very goal-driven but very short-term goal driven. It wants to grasp things that are within reach. Remember, the left hemisphere is what controls our right hand with which we grasp things that are within reach. So it has a very direct, linear idea of a target and let’s go and get it.”
Apple, Pear…Any Good Thing…Let’s Go Get It! | Animation by Genolve
McGilchrist beautifully sums up what this extreme focus on details can do to individuals and civilizations when he tells Vedantam this:
Time can be seen rather like the flow of a river, which isn't made up of slices or chunks of river that are then put together. We, as personalities in time or cultures in time, are like this flow. The left hemisphere can't deal with anything that is moving. It fixes things. It likes things to be fixed because then you can grab them. You can't grasp your prey, you can't pick up something unless you can at least immobilize it for that second while you're interacting with it.
So it doesn't like flow and motion, which are, in my view, basic to not just life but actually to the cosmos. So instead, it sees lots of little punctuate moments, little slices of time. And things have to be put together by adding them up.
Vedantam says, “It’s almost like a form of calculus, you know, of taking slices and then trying to integrate them together.”
Thanks to my friend Barry Kort, this topic has been previously explored in depth. You can find it under Resilience Resources.
McGilchrist agrees saying: “You’re absolutely right. And calculus is an attempt, actually, to achieve something which is indivisible by dividing it in slices.”
Two Hemispheres; Two Very Different Sets of Values
Vedantam says that the left hemisphere prefers to reduce moral questions to arithmetic.
McGilchrist tells a story to demonstrate how the Left and Right Hemisphere come up with very different values that translate into very different realities.
Hypothetically, let's say you can temporarily disable the right temporoparietal junction with a painless procedure, and then ask people to solve moral problems. They will give quite bizarre answers to them based on entirely utilitarian understanding of them.
For example is, a woman is having coffee with her friend. She puts what she thinks is sugar in her friend's coffee but it's in fact poison, and the friend dies. Scenario two, a woman is having coffee with her friend who she hates. (Laughter). She wants to poison her. And she puts what she thinks is poison in the coffee, but it's sugar, and the friend lives. Which was the morally worse scenario?
Now, all of us using our intact brains say, well, the one in which she intended to kill her friend. But no. If you disable the right hemisphere, the good old left hemisphere says, well, obviously, the one in which she died. The consequence is what matters. So values are not well-appreciated, I think, by the left hemisphere.
Right Brain Damage
Another example of how the two hemispheres operate and see the world very differently is an exchange between a physician and a patient who experienced right hemisphere brain damage. This example bowled me over! McGilchrist explained that her left hemisphere (the detailed, likes things still and not moving, focusing part of brain) is still intact. The patient has a strange belief about her own arm. We asked a couple of producers to read the exchange.
UNIDENTIFIED PRODUCER #1, BYLINE: (Reading, as physician) Whose arm is this?
UNIDENTIFIED PRODUCER #2, BYLINE: (Reading, as patient) It's not mine.
UNIDENTIFIED PRODUCER #1: (Reading, as physician) Whose is it?
UNIDENTIFIED PRODUCER #2: (Reading, as patient) It's my mother's.
UNIDENTIFIED PRODUCER #1: (Reading, as physician) How on earth does it happen to be here?
UNIDENTIFIED PRODUCER #2: (Reading, as patient) I don't know. I found it in my bed.
UNIDENTIFIED PRODUCER #1: (Reading, as physician) How long has it been there?
UNIDENTIFIED PRODUCER #2: (Reading, as patient) Since the first day. Feel. It's warmer than mine. The other day, too, when the weather was colder, it was warmer than mine.
That’s Not My Arm! | Animation by Genolve
McGilchrist explains:
What we're seeing is a phenomenon called denial, which is a feature of the way the left hemisphere works. So if you have a left hemisphere stroke, so your right hemisphere still functioning, you're very aware of what deficits you have. If you have a right hemisphere stroke, you are completely unaware of there being anything wrong. So if you have a paralyzed left arm, which is often a consequence of right hemisphere stroke, more often than not you will deny that there's any problem with it. If asked to move it, you will say there, but it didn't move.
If, on the other hand, I bring it in front of you and say, whose arm is this, can you move it, they say, oh, that's not mine. That belongs to you, doctor, or to the patient in the next bed or, as in this cut, my mother. It's extraordinary because these are not people who in any way mad. They don't have a psychosis. But they're simply incapable of understanding that there is something wrong here that involves them.
Denial.Denying facts. Denying reality. And creating alternative versions of events. Does any of this sound familiar? Narcissists are particularly good at denial and creating fantastic alternative realities. Perhaps they have become completely stuck in their Left Brain Hemisphere. Sure, narcissists can be highly dynamic people and fun to watch. They count on that affect because they feed on your time, attention, and pocketbooks. Narcissists tend to be extraverts as well and know how to hook and reel in their targets. Such a person likes to be in front and most will lead you (dear admiring follower) right to the Gates of Hell, and then give you a kick inside.
Only My Reality Matters!! I Rule the World | Animation by Genolve
My series Collective Storytelling takes a deep dive into how and why we create alternative reality bubbles, and knowing how the Left Hemisphere works helps to explain why these concocted alternative realities are so convincing–so much so, people are willing to raid the Capitol and die for the alternative facts they have absorbed as the truth created by a master storyteller of anything other than the truth or reality.
See Blog and Collective Storytelling tab
Left Brian Damage
McGilchrist says about damage to the left side of brain creates interesting complexities too; however, the structure of reality seems to remain in tact:
It's really fascinating because the consequences are so obvious. You can't speak. And sometimes you can't appreciate the structure of a sentence that's being said to you. The other thing that happens is you can't use your right hand, which is a bit of a bummer if that's your important hand. But effectively, the structure of reality is not changed. That's why it is easier to rehabilitate somebody after a left hemisphere stroke than after a right. The left hemisphere is the one that sees body parts whereas the right hemisphere is the one that sees the body as a whole. It has something called a body image, which is not just a visual image but an integrated image from all senses of the body.
But I've been looking at all the interesting neuropsychiatric syndromes, many of them described by Oliver Sacks, which follow brain damage. And all these quite extraordinary delusional hallucinating syndromes that most people can hardly believe can happen to a human being happen either only or very largely after damage to the right hemisphere, not after damage to the left. So the succinct answer is the left hemisphere is to do with functioning and utilizing - reading, writing and grasping - and it doesn't really deal with the structure of reality whereas the right hemisphere does.
I love Oliver Sacks. I researched and helped the common man and woman understand so much about ourselves and our brains. McGilchrist reminds me of Oliver Sacks and Alan Watts. Here are a few amazing Oliver Sacks interviews. Sadly, he died on August 30, 2015.
“The Last Hippie” – Oliver Sacks discusses Brain Injury, Amnesia and Music Therapy | 14,167 views•Mar 11, 2011
TED TALKS LIVE Short – Rapture | 5,771 views•Jan 18, 2017
What hallucination reveals about our minds | Oliver Sacks | 5,525,698 views•Sep 18, 2009
Emotion & the Brain
McGilchrist explains:
Broadly speaking, the right hemisphere is more emotionally literate. It reads emotional expression, and it gives emotional expressivity to a greater extent than the left. But it's not a simple matter. And some emotions to do with particularly understanding another person's point of view, what it feels like to be that person, are very profoundly connected with the right hemisphere. However, there are some emotions that are more particularly associated with the left hemisphere. Perhaps the most striking one is anger, which happens to be the most lateralized of all emotions. And it lateralizes to the left hemisphere.
So I think it's that the left hemisphere always has an immediate task because it wishes to accomplish. And if it encounters any opposition, it's dismissive, and it becomes enraged. I mean, that's a simplification, but I think it works. And after a right hemisphere stroke, the range of emotions open to somebody is limited. It's mainly irritability and anger.
Anger Gets Processed in the Left Hemisphere — Making It Sharp, Focused, Explosive | Animation by GenolveI’m Mad (Version 2) | Animation by Genolve
Music & Humor
Music and humor would not exist without the abilities of the Right Hemisphere. You can listen to HiddenBrain’s discussion of music, I will highlight just a little about what McGilchrist says about humor:
So humor is another example of something very human and very important that the left hemisphere doesn't get. Humor is an example of something else, which is the ability to understand the implicit in poetry. You can't really understand poetry by paraphrasing it any more than you can explain the joke and expect it still to be funny.
And that's very close to my heart because I used to work in the area of English literature. And in brief, I left it partly because I loved poetry too much. And it seemed to me that these internally implicit, unique, embodied creatures - the poems - were being turned into explicit, general and entirely abstract entities. So I thought this was a destructive process. I wrote a book called "Against Criticism" and went off to study medicine and become a psychiatrist!
It’s A Jolly Holiday When Both Brains Work Together! | Animation by Genolve
Empathy
In a Right Brain Hemisphere world:
The right hemisphere, if it were really without the left hemisphere, would see a lot of connections between things and would see a broad picture, but it might not be so good at focusing on details. Emotionally, the timbre might be somewhat melancholic and sad. Because I think it's one of the aspects, I'm afraid, of the right hemisphere's realism and sympathy, a capacity for empathy, that it does feel suffering. We would not be able to make calculations in the same way. Most arithmetic calculations are made by the left hemisphere.
We Need All of Ourselves to Heal Ourself…And Healing Self Comes Before Healing the World | Animation made with Genolve
In a Left Brain Hemisphere world:
There'd be an emphasis on the details, instead. There would be a great emphasis on predictability, organizability, anonymity, categorization, loss of the unique and an ability to break things down into parts but not really see what the whole is like. There'd be a need for total control because the left hemisphere is somewhat paranoid. After right hemisphere damage, people often develop a paranoia, and that's because one can't understand quite what's going on and one needs, therefore, to control it. Anger would become the key note in public discourse. Everything would become black and white.
The left hemisphere needs to be decisive because, don't forget, it's the one that's catching the prey. It's no good at going, well, yeah, it could be a rabbit, but it might not be. It's going to go, I'm going to go for it. So it likes black and white. It doesn't like shades of meaning. So in this world, we would lose the capacity to see grades of difference. We would misunderstand everything that is implicit and metaphorical and have to make rules about how to achieve it.
In the world we live in now, McGilchrist warns:
I think what I observe is an overemphasis on predetermined systems of algorithms. The sense of social alienation. The way in which we live divorced from the natural world, which is a very new phenomenon. The insistence on extreme positions, which is what the left hemisphere understands, not a nuanced argument about the pros and cons of every single thing.
Here’s what we need to shoot for:
I love science. Since a child, I was captivated by science. I depend on science in my work, and I depend on scientific discoveries for my life. The argument in my book, as people have pointed out, is sequential, analytical and rational. In fact, people say is quite a left-hemisphere book. And I say, good, I hope I used both my hemispheres in writing this book because if not, it wouldn't be a very good one. So we need both. And what I feel is that science and reason depend on a balance of these things. There is a distinction to be made between rationality - by which I mean the mindless following out of rationalistic procedures - and what I would call reason - which, since the Renaissance, has been exalted as the mark of a truly educated person, which is to make balanced, informed judgments - but not just informed by data but informed by an understanding in the whole context of a living being belonging to a vibrant society of what this actually means.
In other words, judgment - judgment has been taken out of our intellectual world and replaced by something a machine can do. And that may look good to a certain kind of way of thinking, but I think it's a disaster. The right hemisphere sees the need of the left. That's in the image of the master and the emissary - the master knowing the need for the emissary, the emissary not knowing the value of the master. And if I may use a quotation from Einstein, I think this gives us the full picture - he said that "the rational mind is a faithful servant. The intuitive mind is a precious gift." We live in a society that honors the servant but has forgotten the gift.
Perfect timing! This announcement and our new Youth Poet Laureate’s message could not have aired more synchronistically!
Alexandra Huynh of Sacramento, California is the nation’s new youth poet laureate. The 18-year-old’s appointment was announced Thursday night in a virtual ceremony hosted by Urban Word and the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.
Here & Now learned more about the four laureate finalists on Thursday, and now has more about Huynh and her future plans.
Sometime last fall, while biking, the word Sisyphus popped into my mind. I did not know what it meant. I knew it was familiar, but I could not remember why. It’s a weird word. Not a word you hear on a daily basis, not even a word you hear on a decade basis, unless perhaps you are a scholar. But, it kept popping into my mind randomly at least a dozen times or more into the beginning of 2021.
I Was Just Looking for Something Good to Watch
I was looking for a new series to watch on Netflix. I’d finished a score of good series, and then hit a patch of bad ones. I wanted something good…something I could sink into and get lost inside. I was looking for something like the shows I had recently finished watching such as:
Outlander
Outlander: I never read Diana Gabaldon‘s books, but once I started watching this series, I was hooked. I was trying to find a replacement for Masterpiece’s Poldarkseries based on Winston Graham’s books, which is absolutely amazing. And when I saw Ronald D. Moore was producing this series, I was intrigued because his last big hit series was the updated Battlestar Galacticaseries, a TV drama I loved immensely in the 70s, and Caprica(this tells the tale of how that fictional human civilization fell by showing how the Cylon androids took over their worlds, but then it got abruptly and cruelly canceled before the whole story could be told).
Outlander does not disappoint from the very first episode onward. Its characters are complexed, nuanced, and compelling. The series does not rush the story, reveals each character honestly and humanely, and tells the tale in a captivating, mysterious way. Each season builds upon the last one. The characters grow as the times change around them. The difficulties and battles feel real and vital. Each character has layers of complexities that influence their choices and actions, just like real people do, making the story relatable; indeed, a symbol that transforms the complexities encountered in novel and unexpected ways. And isn’t that what you are really hungry for when you sit down to watch a story?
OUTLANDER – Season 1 Trailer | 5,355,359 views • Aug 6, 2015
His Dark Materials
His Dark Materials: I never read Pullman’s novels but I loved the Golden Compass, which was made for the big screen in 2007. However, due to the financial crisis of 2008/2009, the next parts of this series never materialized. Then in 2019, HBO teamed up with BBC to reimagine this fantastic tale for the smaller screen/TV. They did an amazing job translating a complicated story to the screen. I found it believable, compelling, and thrilling. The characters are complicated. You think you’ve pegged one as evil and then realize later critical nuances that force you to reconsider your views. They mystery of the story is revealed slowly and unevenly, so you have to guess or imagine for yourself why this or that happened. Each new character has something new to offer in understanding the whole story. The special effects add to the story rather than overly dominate it.
His Dark Materials: Season 1 | Official Trailer | HBO | 7,892,118 views • Oct 3, 2019
I love this scene where the researcher and scholar Mary talks to Dust, then she realizes the Dust itself are the Angels. (From His Dark Materials | Season 2, episode 4. The Tower of Angels).
His Dark Materials – Mary talks to Dust (Angels) | 26,773 views • Nov 30, 2020
She asks: “Angels are creatures made up of shadow matter of dust?”
The Mysterious Something answers: “Yes.”
Mary further inquires: “And shadow matter is what we call spirit?”
The Mysterious Something replies: “From what we are, spirit, from what we do, matter. Matter and spirit are one.”
Mary asks: “You’ve always been there?”
The Mysterious Something says: “Making, stimulating, guiding.”
Mary queries: “So does that mean angels have intervened in human evolution?”
The Mysterious Something answers: “Yes.”
Mary asks: “But why?”
The Mysterious Something says plainly: “Vengeance.”
Now, I wonder what that means? I didn’t find out in Season 2, so waiting for Season 3. But after that exchange, Mary starts working with the I Ching–which is our world’s equivalent to the Golden Compass from Lyra’s world. Because of Mary, I got the I Ching for my birthday and learned to read the yarrow straws. I supposed that now I too am talking to the angels.
I use good TV drama like a support system, especially during this year of COVID where social distancing has put so many of us into isolation to extremes. My own Indra’s Network was already partially destroyed and broken. The connections I still maintained with friends and family were sorely stretched by time and distance. They were incredibly nourishing when time and attention permitted, but these moments were punctuated by long bouts of silence and little to no meaningful interactions with people who care.
Good stories, powerful dramas are ways I have found that soothe and nourish my soul, especially during times when kindness and caring human contact is in short supply.
Liz Cheney
As I was working on this blog, Liz Cheney spoke before Congress on the eve before the impending vote tomorrow (5/12/21) to remove her from her leadership position as the 3rd most powerful Republican Leader in the House. Republicans are doing this to her because she took a stand not to support Trump’s Big Lie that the 2020 election was stolen from him. She named Trump as the chief sower of doubt in the hearts and minds of Americans.
The Dark Force
By the way, the I Ching says doubt is the Dark Force. Now, who is being a superhero here in the United States on this very day of May 12, 2021? Who is growing the fabric of time and space rather than ripping it to tiny shards of broken light?
Doubt — The Dark Force (Animation by Genolve)
The Tibetan Book of the Dead
The Tibetan Book of the Dead warns the soul of a dying individual not to follow the illusionary images and lights they have created inside of themselves and then projected into the world around them. They did this because they did not understood their true Self in life. They did not descend and understand their true identity as a space-time being. They did not understand the meaning and purpose of life. Death is a time thats unravels the net of confused pain each individual becomes entangled within throughout the course of their life on Earth. To not do so, condemns the eternal soul to return again and again and again–sometimes (perhaps often) as a lesser being in order to learn the lessons not mastered in the life before. This returning can occur again and again for the world of rock and buildings and money and power is like water–it continually flows, dissolving everything in time.
Those who use the power of the Dark Force may indeed achieve tremendous riches, success, and power on Earth. However, all this will turn to dust and scatter into nothingness at the time of death. Nothing here is permanent. At death, we lose everything. Nothing that we thought is real is real. If we don’t let go of everything we have clung to in life, the tiny light of consciousness every human being is born into at the beginning of their life will be born into another painful life, again and again and again.
Those who peddle in doubt and fear can live 10 billion, million lives, each one diminishing his/her original source of light until there is nothing left of that light.
Leonard Cohen narrated a beautiful documentary about the practices and wisdom contained and known within the Buddhist tradition. It is elegant knowledge, beautiful knowledge. It shows how we can grow as space-time beings, as we are suppose to grow, rather than collapsing into smaller and smaller living beings.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P5A2erZXJx8
The Tibetan Book of the Dead (1994) – Narrated by Leonard Cohen | 90,513 views • Oct 28, 2019
“People make hell realms out of their own anger. They make worlds out of passions, out of envy or complacency. We project our emotional states, and then believe it is the real world. But no matter what, everyone longs for compassion. Everyone wishes to be awake. So the best thing is to develop genuine compassion for all living beings and for ourselves too. And our compassion should extend beyond our friends and family and the people we like. It must extend to all people and to all living beings.” — From Documentary about The Tibetan Book of the Dead
This is how to wake up as a living conscious being.
The OA
The OA: This series is a mind-bending SyFy fantasy that often leaves viewers with more questions than answers. Word has it this is one of the reasons this show was cancelled after season 2 when 5 seasons were planned. Apparently the average viewer does not have the attention span or interests to dabble in complexity–perhaps this is the inevitable end to Carmel Marvel storytelling–everything has to be blunt, not complex, and nothing left to the imagination, much less to dabble with moral ambiguity. I loved this series. I guess I drank the Kool-aide and became part of its cult following late. And I agree with 110% with Brit Marling that storytelling in America has become not as good as it could or should be.
The OA | official trailer (2016) Netflix | 53,112 views •Dec 13, 2016
When the show was cancelled, one viewer went outside of Netflix’s headquarters and held an 8 day hunger strike. Refinery29 interviewed her and wrote a compelling article about why she did this.
“We are living in a time where it seems that things are going to go very badly,” explains Young in front of the Netflix building in Hollywood, where she has been protesting since August 15 and hunger striking since August 19. “The response to that has been ‘Okay, we’re going to make darker, grittier television.’ But in times of darkness, light is most important, and The OA is filled with light. We need something to let us know, ‘Yes, we can do something,’ because all the media around us is telling us that these are dark, grim times and there is nothing you can do about it.”
Created by Brit Marling and creative partner Zal Batmanglij, The OA tells the story of Prairie (Marling), a blind woman who returns after years in captivity with her sight restored. Season 1 of the series mostly exists within the narrative that Prairie tells a group of soon-to-be friends about her time in captivity and before it, in which she transcended time and space and found herself in alternate dimensions. Along the way, the show tackles themes of trauma, and of the importance of a human connection amongst it. Young isn’t wrong about The OA being different: There’s a hopefulness to The OA that is unmatched by more gritty prestige TV offerings like The Handmaid’s Tale, Westworld, even Game of Thrones.
Learning about this woman, Brit Marling and Zal Batmangli came and brought her water. Afterward, Brit posted this about her reaction to OA’s cancellation and how storytelling in America has become not as good as it could or should be.
The series was conceived by Brit Marling and Zal Batmanglij, and they began working on the concept in December 2012.
This is no small thing that Emperial Young and Brit Marling are drawing our attention to in this protest and post, particularly this part: “… the role of storytelling and its fate inside late capitalism’s push toward consolidation and economies of scale.” This is a post about Sisyphus: Is Late Capitalism and its push towards consolidation and economies of scale perhaps not the rock Sisyphus not pushing up the mountain getting it to the top after great effort only to have it fall back down to the bottom again and again and again.
Invisible City
Invisible City (Brazil): This is a new Brazilian fantasy that is streaming on Netflik television series created by Carlos Saldanha that is based on a story co-developed by the screenwriters and best-selling authors Raphael Draccon and Carolina Munhóz. It is in Portuguese, so you have to read subtitles if you are only an English speaker. I was born in Brazil and once knew Portuguese, but have forgotten all of it. I loved listening to the characters speaking in Portuguese. It felt familiar and lovely. It is a musical language and the music in this series is alive and vibrant. I soon forgot I was reading subtitles and got lost in the rich and depth of storytelling unfolding through this complex, invigorating story. The characters are treated with dignity and respect. The puzzle of the drama unfolds in surprising reveals that add depth to the story and bring this mysterious world into vivid view.
Invisible City Official trailer (HD) Season 1 (2021) | 86,811 views • Feb 5, 2021
Glitch
Glitch (Australian): This is an older series that begins with a bang when a police officer and a doctor face an emotionally charged mystery as seven local residents inexplicably return from the dead. It is three seasons long, and the first two open up so many innovative ideas and possibilities, but season 3 falls flat on its face and destroys all the wonder and the miracle being explored, in my opinion. I am glad I watched it because I learned what I do not want to do as I write my tale.
Glitch Season 1 | Trailer | Now On Netflix | 753,177 views • Feb 23, 2016
I was so bothered by how they ended this series, I went on online to see if others were too and found this great blog: Old Ain’t Dead | Reviews of movies and TV focused on women … specifically Season 3 (so if you intend to watch Glitch, save this site for later because there are definitely spoilers, including my comment there).
When it comes to science fiction and fantasy, I have come to realize I am picky, and not all are the same. In fact in the United States, we are suffering from what I have come to term the Carmel Marvel Syndrome. It is a widespread a syndrome that is dumbing down how stories are being told in books and reimagined on screens. The good-bad divide in Carmel Marvel stories is stark, uncreative, and boring. Nothing is left in-between–you are either the good guy or girl or you’re the bad one. The bad ones almost always lose in the end, but you get there in terribly unimaginative, brutal, evil ways…as the good guy or gal finally finds a morsel of moral or spiritual strength and prevails. Romance is reduced to uninspiring sex scenes that clearly come from basal fantasies of pale males.
What bothers me most is Carmel Marvel storytelling is that they are not honest to the characters. They tend to stripe away their complexity and humanity and force them to do things against their character’s moral underpinnings. Yes, imagined characters have moral underpinnings, they are real and must strive for meaning, purpose and dignity too. I am not going to explain this now, but Carmel Marvel stories like to put their characters into highly contrived situations that they would never do unless forced to by their bored and uninspired creators. They are put into these situations purely for entertainment reasons, which really translates to money. Because Carmel Marvel producers and creators hope for billions and billions of viewers–and they think only highly fantasized modern gladiators well do this. After watching such a sickly story, nothing sticks or stays in the psyche or soul from the story. That is because there is nothing real there. There is nothing nearing the human experience of meaning, truth, reality, or wonder. Everyone knows these types of stories are junk food for the soul. They are cheap imitation of images meant to trick, deceive, and fill you up with a whole lot of nothing, just like if you ate only Carmel candy for all your daily nutrient requirements.
So let’s get back to that word Sisyphus that kept popping into my mind.
After being disappointed by another Carmel Marvel HBO series, I switched back to Netflix to hunt for a new series to watch. That’s when a 2021 Netflix out of South Korea caught my eye. It was called Sisyphus! Normally, I would have put it on my To Watch Later list since it required reading subtitles again. But because of the synchronicity, I thought what the heck, go for it!
I loved it! And I discovered that I love the Korean way of telling stories!!!!
Sisyphus | Official Trailer | Netflix [ENG SUB] | 1,028,877 views • Feb 9, 2021
The fabric of this story is rich woven with little bits of gold and silver throughout the 16 episodes. Each one takes the viewer on a journey, revealing a little bit more in surprising ways that adds depth to each character, even the evil ones. The villains have backstories that are as complex as the heroes. Villains and heroes alike are treated honestly and no high tech short cuts are used to substitute good storytelling. Throughout the 16 episodes, the viewer enters a journey (a world) that grows more and more complex as you go: you grow as the characters grow.
Sisyphus masters the art of subtle storytelling. This is a subject I briefly touched upon early in my blogging efforts in a blog questioning if Collective Transformation Possible. In it I talk about the Black Magician and the White Magician and their roles in our human psyche. I drew them while listening to a Chinese business-financial scholar talk about Trump’s power play back in 2018 with China on trade. (It’s didn’t end well by the way… this power play Trump tried… for Americans or for Trump who placed the livelihood of hundreds of small soybean and other farmers in jeopardy.)
Notebook drawing Yin-Yang by Bébé
Dr. Peter Chen pointed out Western ideas of negotiation are quite different from Eastern ideas. He said in Chinese, the most similar word they have to negotiation is tánpàn, which means talking and judging. For the Chinese, it is considered the dark side of economics with the East preferring to focus on conversation when working out deals. However, there are huge differences in how conversation is conducted by a Western diplomat versus an Eastern diplomat. By Eastern standards, Westerners are considered low-context communicators (i.e., direct and forceful, which can be considered very rude by Eastern standards). Eastern culture dictates a much more high-context style of communication, which is reserved, relies more on body language, and is based on relationships.
This why I loved Sisyphus. They tell this story using a much more high-context style of storytelling. I also love listening to the actors speak Korean. Every word they utter is full of meaning, purpose, and emotion. The tone and way a word is said is more important than the word itself. You understand a song by how the singer sings it, so too with Eastern languages. They are full of images, meaning, context, and emotion. And isn’t that what we are really craving in watching or reading a story? Deep meaning and purpose? Sure, lots of people will say they just want to escape into something entertaining… but if you discover something about yourself and others while doing so, isn’t that a whole lot better. Stuff that stick to you and makes you a better individual… helps you grow as a conscious living being?!
Even though we deny how powerful and essential good storytelling is in Western culture, we are starving for good, wholesome, spirituous stories that fed our souls as well as our fractured, confused minds. Stories that awaken sleeping spirits needed to defeat doubt: the force that splinters our psyche and traps us in endless delusions and illusions that only make us smaller, meaner, and contribute to the demise of all life on Earth.
A new friend I’ve made during runs with Pumper (another mom of dogs and kids) recommended another Korean Netflix show called Crash Landing on You. I didn’t think I would like it better than Sisyphus, but I love it even more. The depth of each character grows and spills out in unexpected ways in each episode. And don’t miss the little peaks at the very end after you think the episode has concluded. Not always, but often, they show you something not shown earlier. It is often something that fills in a gap and fills out the depth of the character–how they are thinking, perceiving, and acting in the world. How they are transforming through time and space.
Crash Landing on You | Official Trailer #1 | Netflix [ENG SUB] | 2,327,897 views • Nov 29, 2019
My friend Fabian Navin has just posted something very insightful about why I loved this show. The Facebook embedding is not working, so I am copying below what Fabian has posted (go to his site above to see more of his posts):
*Warriorhood in Marriage and Relationship* Conscious fighting is a great help in relationships between men and women. Jung said, “American marriages are the saddest in the whole world, because the man does all his fighting at the office.”
When a man and a woman are standing toe-to-toe arguing, what is it that the man wants? Often he does not know. He wants the conflict to end because he is afraid, because he doesn’t know how to fight, because he “doesn’t believe in fighting,” because he never saw his mother and father fight in a fruitful way, because his boundaries are so poorly maintained that every sword thrust penetrates to the very center of his chest, which is tender and fearful. When shouts of rage come out of the man, it means that his warriors have not been able to protect his chest; the lances have already entered, and it is too late.
Michael Meade has suggested that both marital partners begin by identifying the weapons that have come down through their family lines. Perhaps the woman has inherited the short dagger, used unexpectedly, and the spiked mace, which she swings down late in the argument onto the foot soldier’s head. The husband may have inherited a broad sword, which he swings when frightened in large indiscriminate circles; it says “never” and “always.” “You always talk like your mother.” He might add the slender witticism spear to that.
Some people also use the “doorway lance.” When the argument is over, and the woman, let’s say, is about to go to work, the man says: “By the way,” and the lance pins her to the doorframe.
Man and wife might say which weapons he or she plans to use in the particular fight coming up. During such preliminary conversations the man’s warrior and woman’s warrior are welcomed in the house and honored. A good fight gets things clear, and I think women long to fight and be with men who know how to fight well.
When both use their weapons unconsciously or without naming them, both man and woman stumble into the battle, and when it is over the two interior children can be badly wounded. The adult warrior inside both men and women, when trained, can receive a blow without sulking or collapsing, knows how to fight for limited goals, keeps the rules of combat in mind, and in general is able to keep the fighting clean and to establish limits.
Marie-Louise von Franz once told a story about a woman friend. “This woman had gone through several marriages. Each marriage would go well until an argument came. Then she would throw a fit, and say damaging things. The terrible quarrels would continue, and finally the man would leave. One day we heard she had found a new husband, and we said, ‘Oh-oh, here it goes again.’ But something else happened. A few weeks after the honeymoon, the same old quarrel arrived and she brought out her poison and said terrible things. The husband turned pale, but to her surprise, said nothing, and left the room. She found him upstairs packing his bags. ‘What are you doing?’ she said. I know,’ he said, ‘that I am supposed to act like a man now and shout and hit you, but I am not that sort of man. I will not allow anyone to talk to me in the way you have, and I am leaving.’ She was astounded. She asked him not to leave, and he didn’t. The marriage is still going on.”
This story is not perfect. If a woman has a fair argument, it is not right for the man to leave; he should stay and fight. But von Franz’s use of the word fit implies that her friend had a habit of going over the line into possession. Her fits belonged metaphorically to Kali’s realm, rather than to the human realm. Men cross that line often as well. The inner warrior can tell a person when the partner is on this side of the human line, and when on the other side.
Marion Woodman remarks in The Ravaged Bridegroom, “Anger comes from the personal level, rage from an archetypal core. . . . The rage in both sexes comes out of centuries of abuse.
If it is taken into relationships, it destroys. Attacking each other in a state of possession has nothing to do with liberation.” The interior warrior in both men and women can help them to fight on the human plane. If men and women have only soldiers or shamed children inside, they will have to settle for damaging battles constantly. ~Robert Bly, Iron John: A Book About Men
I am totally hooked now on the Korean way of telling stories!!
The stories we tell can liberate us or chain us to the rock we must push up the mountain of life only to watch it fall back down, again and again and again, like poor old Sisyphus. Who do you want to be in life? How are you going to become the best version of yourself, a better person than you have been so far? How will you grow you fragile light of consciousness and help others do the same?
Part 6: Final in the Seriesof the Storytelling Species
I started biking outside for exercise when my gym shut down because of the national lockdown issued in March of 2020. When my gym reopened in June, I went back only to discover they were allowing people to exercise inside without a mask. I was shocked. At that time, the effectiveness of mask wearing was still being hotly debated in the United States, but anyone paying an ounce of attention could discern that this was an airborne virus and wearing a mask was one part of an essential defense in bringing it under control. It felt their decision was extremely short-sighted combined with the fact they made me sign contract stating I would not sue them if I contracted Corona there. I did not to return to the gym after that day. The concern they projected about the health and wellness of their members was completely undercut in my eyes by making me sign that document in order to enter a gym I had been a member for over 15 years. I had wondered what they would do if the Coronavirus made it here… now I knew. It was very disappointing.
In fact, I believe someone already died from COVID-19 due to exposure at my gym. She was a cleaning woman. She was a hard worker. She had worked for the company for years. I’d known her for years as well. She was always kind to everyone. She was from Guatemala. She had lost an eye. She spoke broken English. She was a single mother. I learned she had died from another member at the gym. She died in January after a flu-like illness. This was more than a month before the first COVID case was confirmed in the U.S. I think COVID-19 was already here in the United States, on the East coast, spreading everywhere in January of 2020. I think people were dying then from COVID and were didn’t even know it yet.
I think I contracted COVID at my gym. It was a mild case, early in March when tests were not available yet. I never found out if I had it, but I had lingering effects for months after this–extreme sluggishness, bouts of dizziness, shortness of breathe, and bouts of extreme arthritis-like pain.
Inner Changes: Shifting from Me to We
Seeing More of Me
At first my commitment to exercise outside was entirely selfish. It was aimed only at keeping me and my family safe. However, as I remained outside, something shifted. It was something inside me. I could feel myself slowing down and disengaging from deeply embedded routines instilled in me since my childhood. It was cultural programming: all the things I’d been told I needed to do in order to be a good person and contribute to my society. But really, these were things and behaviors the economy required of me. They had nothing to do with me at all.
I began making movies on my bike rides. This slowed me down even more. The more I slowed down, the more I saw all around me, and then inside of me.
He Landed on My Finger & Would Not Fly Away — Photo by Bebe
Seeing More of Nature
The first thing I noticed was the beauty of nature everywhere. The videos I made documented beautiful moments I saw that transported me to inner Islands of Tranquility. One such moment was a fight between a bee and a wasp on a patch of Goldenrod!
Hallowed Skies — Big Day in DC Today — A Fight Between A Bee and A Wasp for the Goldenrod!
On the day I filmed this war between a bee and a wasp, news broke the former President, Trump and the First Lady Melania, tested positive for COVID-19. His infection was announced exactly one month and 1 day before the Nov. 3 election. Since the pandemic began, he’d played down the deadly nature of this new virus that was marching around the world. Trump took the strong man strategy. It is a strategy that rocketed the United States of America to number 1 in coronavirus infections and deaths within the first few months of the pandemic.
Coronavirus Infections — Artistic Rendering Combined with Animated Map of First Few Months | Excerpt from Mother of Grief — Remembering 2020
Trump’s failure to get the coronavirus under control was perhaps the single greatest factor in his defeat on Nov. 3, 2020. Although his arrogance andinability to tell the truth should have been the single greatest factor in his defeat because these were homicidal actions. He consistently chose to play to his base, to protect the economy over people, and to serve himself over everyone else. He refused to wear a mask. He held huge rallies cramming lots of unmasked people together. And he repeatedly said untrue things over and over again such as: ‘it’s nothing, it’s like the flu, one day: like a miracle, it will go away.’
In fact, it was far worse than the flu. His lie that one day like a miracle, it would go away turned into a nightmare. It killed more than 25,000 people by mid-April, 2020. By the time he left office, it would kill 500,000 Americans. One confirmed case turned into 2, that turned in 4, that turned into 8, then 16, then 32, and then 64, then 128, then 256… that turned into 13.6 million (this is how many confirmed cases of Coronavirus there are as I write this blog at the end of November 2020 — it’s far more now and this is just the United States). Around the world, the global infection continued to surge too. Even now with vaccines, terrible waves continue to kill hundreds of thousands of people everywhere.
Bob Woodward told us Trump was homicidal. In his book, Rage, in Trump’s own words (recorded), Trump reveals that he knew it was a deadly airborne pathogenin January of 2020. Trump would call Woodward during the early months of the pandemic to tell him what was going on at the White House. Meanwhile Trump tells the American people it is nothing. It will go away. The closest he comes to admitting reality is in an Axios interview in August where he says: “Nothing more could have been done.”
Back to the bike rides! So, in addition to seeing the beauty of nature all around me, I found they also revived lovely memories with loved ones, which spontaneously bubbled up and burst into my field of awareness, mixing with the loveliness of the landscape I was peddling through. Each revived memory was helping me too. They were helping me reconstruct a life raft to float on the overwhelming Grief and Pain of the past few years that had created a Sea of Devastation inside of me
Most people still think I am stuck in grief after my father’s death. They are wrong. It’s not their fault. They are not paying attention. They are distracted by their own lives and drama. Every time they glance at me, they see the same frame and they think I’m stuck. They fail to grasp I am simply doing deep inner work.
My father would have perceived this. That’s what fathers do. They pay attention to the ones they love, especially their children. It is a rare and precious relationship. This is why the Death of a Father is devastating no matter how old the father is when he dies. It leaves a hole that cannot be filled by anyone else. Everyone will experience this lost at some point in life, unless they die before their father. There are spoiled relationships between children and fathers too. My father had a spoiled relationship with his father. This leaves a hole too.
So when I lost dad, I lost a powerful source of gravity in my life. He had kept me safe, protected me from reality barbs, held me in eternal love that grounded me to the Goodness of Earth. His gravity was his unconditional love. I didn’t even know it until he was gone. So as good memories of dad percolated up on my rides, they were precious and healing.
My bike rides also helped me sink deeper into my imagination. I need to do this to finish the story I’m writing about Climate Change and Consciousness. I won’t bore you with details of the story, but the timeline begins in 2020. So I have felt tremendous pressure to go faster, but I know now is when I need to go slower.
Imagination requires time to digest ideas that come to me from my daily reality as well as are coming through me. As modern humans, we are pretty ignorant about the need to digest consciousness daily. It is a lot like digesting food needed to sustain our bodies. To sustain our minds, we must digest ideas, dreams, visions, inspiration, and our day to day reality. This is how we grow as individuals. This is how we evolve as conscious beings. Our ancestors understood this, but we have forgotten this as modern humans.
This is one of the videos I made from my imagination digesting sessions:
Concept 10 — Miracle Day
Digesting the Daily News
Lastly, my bike rides provided ample time to digest the news and information I’d consumed on social media or other places. Information swirls around us all the time. It is embedded in everything we see, hear, touch, and experience in the world. As conscious beings, it necessary to pay attention and to weave together what is rising from inside oneself with what is happening outside oneself. To be a conscious being is to blend these two realities, and in doing so, something else is born. This is a timeless act of creation. One person reaches out across the void to share ideas, experiences, and feelings with another person. It is a miracle. It is how we create reality together.
As human beings, we have amassed expansive pools of knowledge. We do it through art, music, philosophy, theology, and many other systems of consciousness we have evolved through time that distill, sort, digest, and transform consciousness. An International Baccalaureate (IB) blog defines Fields of Knowledge as 8 Areas of Knowledge, including Mathematics, the Natural Sciences, the Human Sciences, History, The Arts, Ethics, Religious Knowledge and Indigenous Knowledge.
Some forms of knowledge elevate and enrich our individual pool of consciousness. Other forms of knowledge depress and pollute it. Some are down right dangerous and distort reality (see the previous blog in this series on collective story telling and fake news).
Making and creating relative reality bubbles to live inside is a luxury really only modern human beings are able to indulge. Thousands of years ago, human beings were preyed for more powerful creatures. One of the most fascinating stories I heard about this topic was about a young hominid child of the species Australopithecus africanus, a direct precursor species leading to Homo Sapiens. His small scratched skull was discovered in 1924 along with the mangled remains of many other bones of small to medium-sized animals, as described in an article written by By Ross Pomeroy (RCP Staff) in What Hunted Ancient ‘Humans’? Pomeroy says, “the best explanation for the skull and the accompanying collection of skeletons is that they were gathered by an ancient, large bird of prey – the leftovers of many, many meals.”
Our ancestors needed a keen, accurate understanding of reality because if they didn’t they would most likely become dinner for giant birds, crocodiles, and leopards. Early humans likely had to contend with bears, sabertooth cats, snakes, hyenas, Komodo dragons, and even other hominids. I write about this in my story, but that’s another story for another day. We consume information daily and we must digested it daily, just like eating food. This is how we grow our inner light of consciousness. If you eat a daily diet of outrage, greed, selfishness, or purple prose, you will become that. Your mind molds into what you feed it. Eat well my friend. Feed yourself with the realness of who you are each and every day. Don’t be afraid to see inside yourself the good, the bad, and the ugly parts. You need each and every part to grow whole and to fulfill your destiny.
Broken Wings Healing Through Space & Time | Through Memories Mixing With the Eternal Now
Healing the Now... one person at a time…
What Are Your Stories?
You are the Maker & Creator of your Eternal Now. Each and every moment, you weave your reality into our Collective Reality. When you heal, the world heals. By creating you, you create me.
Dream Your Best Self into Being — Go Out into Nature — See, Be the Beauty all Around You
WATTSWAVE II: How To Be A Better Person 
is fighting is EVERYWHERE! 
