This story had a deep and lasting impact on me. I was a child when it came out. I loved it the most of all the Dr. Seuss books. But it also troubled me. It felt very different from The Cat In the Hat, Green Eggs and Ham, or Oh the Places You’ll Go.
It felt like a puzzle that needed to be solved and time was running out!
I felt that the one word the Lorax leaves behind for the greedy, old Once-ler was the key to solving the puzzle! But, what does it mean? Unless…what?!!
Dr. Seuss tells us what the Once-ler thinks Unless means at the end of the story. The Once-ler thinks that unless someone like the boy cares a whole lot, the world will never change.
It seems so simple. Surely, I felt as a child, there are bunches of children just like me reading this book and understand the message and will care enough. Surely, we the kids of the 70s get it, and when we grow up, we will change the world and avoid catastrophe.
But, we didn’t. Here we all are, 52 years later, and the world has not changed course. It remains fixed on the same course that it was on back in the 70s when Seuss first published The Lorax. In fact, it feels that we are all speeding ever faster… and to what? The End?
Clearly, the Lorax means something entirely different in his silent message he leave to the selfish, self-absorbed Once-ler. Clearly, Unless means something different than what the Once-ler thinks. But what? What do we need to do as humans to avert total disaster… perhaps even the end of the world as we know it now?
The young Once-ler arrives in the forest where the lovely Truffula Trees look like lollipops and the cute fuzzy Bar-ba-loots bears play alongside the beautiful Swomee-Swans birds and lovely humming fish!
But instead of seeing the incredible beauty all around him, the young Once-ler cuts down one of the incredible Truffula Trees and makes a Thneed!
What really?! A Thneed… this is the thing that everyone needs!
Dr. Seuss uses the Thneed as a symbol for the modern world’s obsession with fossil fuels. And Seuss is certainly right about this, gas-fuel-oil is truly something everyone needs in the world we have made.
There are lots of Once-lers in the modern world making millions and billions of dollars harvesting fossil fuels for all the things we need in our slick, fast-paced modern world!
"I speak for the trees, for the trees have no tongues.And I'm asking you, sir, at the top of my lungs" —he was very upset as he shouted and puffed —"What's that THING you've made out of my Truffula tuft?"
But there’s no stopping the happy young Once-ler. He cuts and chops and build a factory to make even more Thneeds! And then the Lorax is forced to come back and to tell him this:
'I'm the Lorax who speaks for the trees which you seem to be chopping as fast as you please. But I'm also in charge of the Brown Bar-ba-loots who played in the shade in their Bar-ba-loots suits and happily lived, eating Truffula Fruits.'
Soon, the Lorax comes back with another dire message telling the Once-ler:
"Once-ler!You're making such smogulous smoke!My poor Swomee-Swans...why, they can't sing a note!No one can sing who has smog in his throat."
Image from: Final #PostABird fact for #BlackBirdersWeek Day 2. Do you know why the Lorax sends the Swomee-Swans away? Because there is too much smogulous smoke. | Twitter
The Once-ler shrugs and continues chopping down the beautiful Truffula Trees and making a Thneeds.
The Lorax returns again. Now it is the Humming-Fish who can no longer hum.
This time the Once-ler gets mad and shouts:
'Now listen here, Dad! All you do is yap-yap and say, 'Bad! Bad! Bad! Bad!' Well, I have my rights sir, and I'm telling you I intend to go on doing just what I do! And, for your information, you Lorax, I'm figgering on biggering and biggering and biggering and biggering, turning MORE Truffual Trees into Thneeds which everyone, EVERYONE, EVERYONE needs!'
Not long after this the Lorax does the thing that sticks in my mind and haunts me to this day. He builds a small platform underneath the Once-ler’s factory, waits for the Once-ler to look out, then without a word, the Lorax picks up the seat of his pants and flies away disappearing through the last blue hole in the polluted, ugly sky… and that is that… Unless...
But, it hasn’t worked. Hope is not enough. To fix this mess, it take action.
Are We Even Capable of Changing Our Fate?
Do we really need to destroy our planet before we care enough about it to fix it?
I know, I know, the seed the Once-ler throws down to the boy is a symbol of hope and we all need hope to Do The Right Thing. But quite honestly, do we really know what the right thing is that we should be doing?
And nature will do just fine after humans are gone. Kind of like 2067, an Australian SciFi film, where that is exactly what happens.
2067 – Official Trailer
Starring: Kodi Smit-McPhee, Ryan Kwanten Writer/Director: Seth Larney By the year 2067, Earth has been ravaged by climate change and humanity is forced to live on artificial oxygen. An illness caused by the synthetic O2 is killing the worlds’ population and the only hope for a cure comes in the form of a message from the future: “Send Ethan Whyte”. Ethan, an underground tunnel worker, is suddenly thrust into a terrifying new world full of unknown danger as he must fight to save the human race.
I think the Lorax is telling us something else. I think the Lorax is warning us about ourselves and that Unless we learn how to let go of bad ideas, we are doomed to create the world we are speeding ever faster towards making. The one that will kill us.
What Is the Lorax Warning UsAbout Ourselves?
I think it is Shame; toxic shame to be specific.
Shame is an emotion of civilizations. We feel shame, and it is necessary to feel it. Feeling ashamed motivates us to improve ourselves. It motivates us to take care of the people around us, so that we to treat them with kindness, dignity, and respect.
No one wants to feel shame. Of all human emotions, shame is perhaps the hardest one to endure. Because of this, it is one of the scariest, most loathed, most feared emotion in our human tool box.
If shame had a color it would be the color of pee. Listen to Snap Judgement, and you’ll understand.
Actress Diona Reasonover was on the brink of her big break. But she never expected it to happen while she was on her vacation.
Diona Reasonover is an actress who lives in LA, you can check out her writing on “I Love You America” with Sarah Silverman on Hulu.
Produced by Adizah Eghan
Note: Diona had a knee injury and could not make it to the bathroom on the plane before others beat her to it. Then, the plane begins to descend and the flight attendant not very understanding. So you’ll need to listen to how Diona solves her dilemma.
The episode before this one is worth a listen too: Date With The Devil. This one touches on the topic of how ee always hear about the people who survive a disaster and who often give credit Jesus or God for their good fortune, but we never hear about the people who made the exact same calculations, believe just as much in a higher power, but ended up dead.
I think we have become a bit lopsided in thinking about our survival as individuals and as a species when we hear only miraculous stories of good fortune, good luck, or good timing that allows a person to avert a tragedy.
But what about the people who don’t avert disaster? What about the people who get killed?
D. Parvaz touches on this in a very different story. It is a scary, tormented, horrifying, heart-wrenching story about people (through no fault of their own) do not make it. Indeed, they are murdered by monsters. That’s what humans become when they don’t digest and assimilate all of who they are as a human being. This means seeing the good in one’s self as well as the bad in one’s self. And yes, shame is one of those things.
People who refuse to feel their shame, fear, guilty, or whatever makes them uncomfortable will project them onto other people. People who don’t feel shame will do shameful things, horrendous things. They are no longer human because they have thrown half of who they are away.
So, don’t thrown your shame away! You need it. You really, really do… and the Lorax understood how desperately humans need to feel shame and other parts of themselves that make them truly capable of being human.
John Amodeo (a psychotherapist for over 40 years) describes that how not dealing with our feelings of shame there are far-reaching, destructive consequences.
He says, “When shame lurks outside of our awareness, it can become the driving force behind the destructive rage, blame, and violence that is damaging our world.”
Have you ever encountered someone who is boiling with a seething rage bubbling just under their human-looking skin but really what is lurking underneath is a monster ready to explode at the drop of a pin?
A teenage honor student who knocked on the wrong door was shot.
Cheerleaders who accidentally opened the wrong door of a car late at night are shot.
Teenagers who pulled into the wrong driveway and were turning around were shot, one died.
Children playing basketball and their ball rolls into a neighbors lawn are shot at, one father lost a lung after getting shot in the back.
Amodeo describes shame as the felt sense of being defective and inadequate: “it as an “intensely painful feeling or experience of believing that we are flawed and therefore unworthy of love and belonging.”
Shame has also been defined by Gerhsen Kaufman as a breaking of the interpersonal bridge. As human beings wired for connection, we dread isolation. Children fail to thrive when they don’t feel a safe and secure connection with caregivers. When healthy attachment is ruptured, a child feels unworthy of love and acceptance. This unbearable shame can lead to a mad scramble to prove our worth in distorted ways that often dehumanize others.
In a 2016 article, shame expert Bret Lyon, who leads Healing Shame trainings, describes how intolerable shame can be transferred to others:
“Driven by the need to keep the feelings of shame at bay and away from themselves, people can exult in their contempt and cynicism—finding a curious kind of gratification in it… In extreme cases, runaway contempt can cause people to lose sight of another’s humanity. Even their right to exist. This has led to extreme behavior, in Germany and many other places.”
Amodeo drives home the point of toxic shame, the very same one that I think the Lorax is trying to drive home to us with his message Unless. Amodeo writes:
When the drive toward personal “success” or being superior becomes dissociated from our humanity, we seek gratification in ways that will never really satisfy us. We become disconnected from our souls, as our innate longing for love and connection curdles into a desire for status, money, or power. These substitute ways to seek gratification often spiral out of control—taking us on a perilous journey away from our fellow humans—and away from our true selves. This desire for a narrow self-gratification overlooks the reality that we are inescapably interconnected.
We can observe this shame-driven dynamic in our fraught politics, where looking good replaces being good (truly caring about others). We can see it in political and business leaders competing to amass the greatest wealth and power, which often translates into a race to see who can be the most contemptuous and divisive.
Some political leaders—and followers who relish the thrill of belonging to a group that has special knowledge and that is superior to others—have so thoroughly dissociated from their vulnerability, their humanity,their hearts, and their souls, that they have no compunction to deny the rights of others, or, as we've seen in Ukraine and elsewhere, committing atrocities without any healthy shame to check their behavior.
The Big Choice
So… what are we going to do? Are we going to save our beautiful world full of life or are we all going to drown in a Yellow Sea of Seething Shame?
This is a job that requires every person on the planet to do. Every living individual needs to claim their shame and proclaim proudly: “I am human! I do stupid things! I learn from them! I become a better human because I use my shame to grow!”
Or, you can lock yourself inside a dilapidated husk of what used to be your humanity… deny your shame, cast it onto everyone else around you as you fake being a perfect human being.
But, your performance is nothing more than a rickety, glittery, shiny shell of who you used to be. Inside there is nothing to balance you out and make you human. You have become hollow; a garden hose flowing with seething shame disguised as rage.
On A Related Note
My college roommate from College of the Atlantic shared this story. It is closely related to the responsibility of each and every person to do the invisible work of sustaining and maintaining psychological as well as social health, which takes daily work.
Kicked out of the university lecture
Subject: Legal studies.
First lecture.
The professor enters the lecture hall.He looks around.
"You there in the 8th row. Can you tell me your name?" he asks a student.
"My name is Sandra" says a voice.
The professor asks her, "Please leave my lecture hall. I don't want to see you in my lecture."
Everyone is quiet. The student is irritated, slowly packs her things and stands up.
"Faster please" she is asked.
She doesn't dare to say anything and leaves the lecture hall.
The professor keeps looking around.
The participants are scared.
"Why are there laws?" he asks the group.
All quiet. Everyone looks at the others.
"What are laws for?" he asks again.
"Social order" is heard from a row
A student says "To protect a person's personal rights."
Another says "So that you can rely on the state."
The professor is not satisfied.
"Justice" calls out a student.
The professor smiling. She has his attention.
"Thank you very much. Did I behave unfairly towards your classmate earlier?"
Everyone nods.
"Indeed I did. Why didn't anyone protest?
Why didn't any of you try to stop me?
Why didn't you want to prevent this injustice?" he asks.
Nobody answers.
"What you just learned you wouldn't have understood in 1,000 hours of lectures if you hadn't lived it. You didn't say anything just because you weren't affected yourself. This attitude speaks against you and against life. You think as long as it doesn't concern you, it's none of your business. I'm telling you, if you don't say anything today and don't bring about justice, then one day you too will experience injustice and no one will stand before you. Justice lives through us all. We have to fight for it."
“In life and at work, we often live next to each other instead of with each other. We console ourselves that the problems of others are none of our business. We go home and are glad that we were spared. But it's also about standing up for others. Every day an injustice happens in business, in sports or on the tram. Relying on someone to sort it out is not enough. It is our duty to be there for others. Speaking for others when they cannot.”
-- Shared by Liza Hall -- 12/4/22
Feature Archetypal Animation
Music:How Bad Can I Be (From “Dr. Seuss’ The Lorax”) — Geek Music
Resistance requires bold acts of creativity. Without creativity, we lack the ability to imagine a better world.
This blog focuses on creative acts of resistance and resilience regarding Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. These five Bs are just but a few of the billions of ways we can resist violence and hatred wherever and whenever it pops up in our world. Without resistance, destructive people like Putin will turn our world into a Hellish place.
Food, art, dance, and storytelling (in any form) have always been creative tools of resistance and resilience for oppressed people living anywhere in world during any age or time. There are many ways to resist creatively, as many as there are human beings alive on the planet right now.
Wherever you are, know you are not alone, and you can resist creatively. The world is slowly catching up to the realization that we cannot leave any human being behind to be devoured by beasts like Putin or other fiendish, fascists monsters.
Each human being, be they rich or poor, famous or obscure, is critical to the social currency and fabric of human life on Earth. Not one person is dispensable or disposable, no matter how much the haters want us to think this is so.
Art by Monika Aichele | The New York Times | What Makes Some People More Resilient Than Others The very earliest days of our lives, and our closest relationships, can offer clues about how we cope with adversity. By Eilene Zimmerman, Published June 18, 2020
I.Bake for Ukraine
There are so many ways everyone around the world can help the people of Ukraine overcome Putin’s War. Bake for Ukraine. If you sell your creations, donate some of the money raise to individuals as chef José Andrés and his organization World Central Kitchen who are providing food to people trying to survive in places devastated by the same beast that held Europe in its grip in the wars that became global: WWI and WWII.
There is no ignoring this beast lives inside of Putin, his stooges, and his flying monkeys. We must stare it down right here, right now. We need to do what ever we can to help every Ukrainian wherever they are and in whatever way we can. We must merge our collective will into a force greater than the beast inside of Putin. If we fail, it will only grow stronger and swallow more of the world dissolving it into its acid of hate.
This is a beast desperate for its intoxicating food, which is destruction and death. So bake, shout, write your congressmen and women. Tell them to do more for Ukraine and all people suffering from brutality or indifference wherever they live in the world. If we do not deal with this now (if we do not stare down the beast wherever it pops up in our world), we will pay the collective price for ignorance (that is ignoring what we can do now to help others rather than just helping ourselves).
A.Bake for Ukraine — Acts of Creativity Are Acts of Resistance
Bake for Ukraine | Acts of Creativity Are Acts of Resistance
This is a video I made of us (really Elena) creatively baking Putin out of our world.
Music: Sally Cooper by Foubert [as featured under Neutral Music on iPhone]
One way leads towards greater freedom and self-determination for people and countries. It is not any easy path for it roots out corruption in imposes consequences on the people who steal from others, who lie, who double-deal, who smear and slander others, who take what others need to live, including their lives.
The other way leads to less freedom and no self-determination for people and countries. It is an easier path because you just have to follow the crowd and keep your mouth shut, even if that means your business is taken from you to line the pockets of some rich billionaire or your child is beaten up for spraying painting an act of resistance against a fascist government or showing too much hair under a veil. This is the way towards dictatorial rule of a few people who want to control everything.
Everybody on the planet is choosing right now. What will you choose?
B.Bake, Bake, Bake for Ukraine and to Free Oppressed People Everywhere
Elena baked all these gorgeous cakes! Drawing on her rich and beautiful Ukrainian culture and heritage, she is mixing and baking a better way to be and live in our precious, fragile world.
Bake, Bake, Bake for Ukraine | Cakes from October to February
This is another video I made of us (really Elena) creatively baking Putin out of our world.
Music: Space Space [I made this song using GarageBand!?!]
When people are eating together, they are not fighting each other.
We all choose our path in life. Do you choose love and kindness, sharing food and fun times with other people.
Eating together also requires physically being in the same space, something increasingly rare in our fast-moving, high-tech world. Do you choose hate and rage using your keyboard to troll and disparage others sowing seeds of fear and loathing through dark myths, lies, and misinformation… a evil form of creativity, closely associated with Dark Empathy and Narcissism.
C.World Central Kitchen
Food brings people together. Food nourishes people. Food is an act of love!
When people are eating together, they are not fighting.
Cook, bake, and create for the people of Ukraine and all people who are living under tyranny or trying to escape it. When we cook and bake for people, we are not ignoring them or turning them away from our borders after desperate journeys of survival and escape from injustice and violence.
World Central Kitchenfounder vows to keep helping Ukrainians in need
My good friend from Germany sent me a video about Banksy’s art in Ukraine. I did not know who Banksy is and had to look him up. Then, I was shocked I didn’t know about him.
An artwork by Banksy showing Napoleon rearing his horse, wrapped in a red cloak in Paris, France. EPA
Banksy might be one of the most famous names in the world of art, but for the person behind the tag, it’s a different story.
The street artist, whose thought-provoking works have appeared in almost every corner of the globe, could stroll past you in the street, and you would be none the wiser.
Banksy has managed to maintain anonymity despite years of making global headlines, thanks to a combination of careful planning and a trusted inner circle.
But, if you look hard enough, there are a few details out there about the elusive artist.
The world's most famous street artist Banksy has unveiled his latest piece of work, this time choosing a very special location to showcase his signature graffiti style: war-torn Ukraine.
Banksy posted a photo of the mural - a girl gymnast performing a handstand on a small pile of concrete rubble - on Instagram late on Friday.
His work is a creative act of resistance against the brutal, evil will of Putin and his fiendish cronies. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says if the Free World remains united like a fist, Ukraine will win this war started by Russia.
C. Other Artists Supporting Ukraine Through Creative Acts of Resistance
As I scrolled through Banksy’s work, I also saw other beautiful and inspiring murals, graffiti, and creative acts of unity and resistance. Art is a powerful form of symbols, and symbols have long united human beings in accomplishing difficult and dangerous collective action.
Now is no different than 10,000 from now or 10,000 years ago. We need each other to do difficult, dangerous things. And untied, as President Zelenskyy says, we will smote the evil flame Putin light on his bomb of greed and hunger to control and crush anyone who does not worship him.
III. Ballet for Ukraine
Ballet has always been used to symbolize and defy great powers of death and destruction and to inspire hope. Here are just two examples of how ballet is defying Putin’s hate.
A. Ballet dancers from across Ukraine bring ‘Giselle’ to the Kennedy Center
NPR | United Ukrainian Ballet Company members Liza Gogidze and Oleksii Kniazkov in Giselle, choreographed by Alexei Ratmansky. Altin Kaftira/The United Ukrainian Ballet
Some 60 Ukrainian dancers are scheduled to arrive in Washington, D.C., this weekend from The Hague. They'll perform Giselle, with choreography by Alexei Ratmansky, at at the Kennedy Center.
The dancers are refugees who fled Ukraine after the Russian invasion. With help from local officials and dance professionals, they formed the United Ukrainian Ballet Company. The artistic director is Igone de Jongh, a former prima ballerina with the Dutch National Ballet.
The stories of how these dancers fled Ukraine by train, bus, car and by foot are harrowing. Vladyslava Ihnatenko was dancing with the Odesa Opera House when the Russians invaded. She decided to leave when she could hear explosions from her apartment. -- NPR, 1/28/23
NPR: United Ukrainian Ballet dancer Vladyslava Ihnatenko was dancing with the Odesa Opera when the Russian invasion began. Yevgeniy Repiashenko
B. Ballet for Refugee Kids in the Czech Republic
I learned about this beautiful program taking place in Prague, Czech Republic that helping Ukrainian refugee children find joy during a time of incredible stress and dislocation. I learned about this magnificent program from a friend who is in a writing group that we both belong. The story of how this program came into being is just as wonderful.
In the summer of 1995, Greater Europe Mission’s president, Ted Nobel, visited GEM workers Greg and Debby Nichols in Odesa, Ukraine. As they walked along the beach, Debby told him about her crazy thoughts and dreams of organizing an evangelistic concert at the Philharmonic Hall of Odesa. President Nobel said, “But what if those are not ‘crazy thoughts’ but rather the still small voice of the Lord prompting you to move ahead with this dream?” Those words still ring in Debby’s ears today. That was the beginning of three yearly outreaches reaching thousands of Odesans.
Fast forward to 2022. The Nichols now live in Prague, Czech Republic where part of their work has been with refugees over the past six years. When the Ukrainian war began in February 2022, the Nichols jumped in with both feet to minister to their hurting friends. After many years of practicing listening to the still small voice, they are quicker to discern. And yet, it still surprises them when God invites them into ministries that only he could think up.
As they personally provided help to over 50 refugees who journeyed out of Ukraine, the Nichols sought to bring Christ’s healing in varied ways to the bodies, minds and souls of the displaced Ukrainians. Out of this sprang the idea to create a ministry Center in Prague from which to better operate. As Greater Europe Mission sought to maximize its efforts toward the Ukraine crisis, GEM focused resources on two main areas of refugee ministry –Bucharest, Romania and Prague, Czech Republic.
You can learn more about ballet for refugee kids in the Czech Republic and Greater Europe Mission’s work here.
Special note, I just received an article from my friends that Prague unveiled a powerful new mural on anniversary of the Russian invasion.
I think it is also important to point out that Czechoslovakia was invaded by Hitler for the same reasons and in the same manner as Putin invaded Ukraine. A very good friend of mine who is German told me his father who lived through Hitler’s tyranny of German said that Putin gave the very same speech justifying why Russia was invading Ukraine that Hitler gave before invading Czechoslovakia.
Hitler invaded Czechoslovakia before Poland. The world did nothing. Hitler kept going.
Our next-door neighbor is Peter Stein and he has written a truly compelling book about being a boy in German occupied Czechoslovakia. His father was Jewish and sent to a concentration camp. His mother was Catholic and forced to work in a German factory for long hours throughout the war.
Amazon: Peter J. Stein was a witness to history, a keeper of Holocaust memories and teller of its stories. He grew up the child of a Catholic mother and a Jewish father who was forced into slave labor and later disappeared. Nazi-occupied Prague was full of German soldiers everywhere and Peter’s loved ones vanished in mystery and secret. As a 12-year-old immigrant in America, he searched for a new identity that left his past behind. But as Faulkner tells us, the past is never past. When, as a college professor, a group of students sought his help to challenge a Holocaust teacher, Stein’s memories of his childhood resurfaced. A Boy’s Journey makes the past present and carries it into our future so that we do not forget.
C.BALLET BENEFIT RAISES FUNDS TO HELP UKRAINE’S CHILDREN
Throughout history, dance — ballet in particular — has played a vital role during times of war and exile. Ballet and other forms of art were used to both symbolize and defy great powers during World War II and other times of conflict. Today, as we near the one-year mark of escalated war in Ukraine, dancers from Ukraine and around the world are fighting back.
In August 2022, the National Ballet of Ukraine performed at Steinmetz Hall in Orlando, Florida. Presented by the Ginsburg Family Foundation, the Ukraine Ballet Benefit invited audiences to experience Ukraine’s culture through its national artists while raising funds to support those whose lives have been upended by the war. The performance, with the Orlando Philharmonic Orchestra, was professionally filmed by the Parable Foundation in partnership with Full Sail University, and the resulting feature film is now available for free streaming. -- Unicef USA, Ukraine, Ballet Benefit to Help Ukraine's Children, January 25, 2023
Coming Soon, the historic performance by the National Ballet of Ukraine from the Taras Shevchenko National Opera House, live from the Dr. Phillips Center for the Performing Arts in Orlando, Florida. Accompanied by the Orlando Philharmonic Orchestra, this monumental performance brings together Ukraine and the America united for the hope of Ukrainian independence and sharing the light of hope to the world through the art and power of ballet. Presented by the Ginsburg Family Foundation, this performance was filmed and produced by the Parable Foundation, in partnership with Full Sail University. All proceeds raised are donated directly to Olena Zelenska Foundation, Razom, and UNICEF to provide humanitarian aid relief to Ukrainians impacted by Russian military invasion. -- Promo - Ukraine Ballet Benefit
Ballet and dance are most definitely brilliant, powerful ways to resist fascism and unite the Free World in collective resistance to smote the evil flame Putin ignited when he invaded Ukraine in 2014. Dance is a brilliant flame to counteract any evil flame ignited by a budding evil fascists or hater in the world.
Let’s dance our world back into harmony and peace so all can live without fear and terror.
IV. Blook & Blog for Ukraine
Where would we be without writing and words? Probably, we’d still living in caves, I suppose. The first volleys of every modern war (even medieval wars) begin with words of hatred and dehumanization of the target to the aggressors seeks to diminish, control, or destroy. It has always been this way. The war begins inside the mind.
So too does the resistance and resilience. Words and stories and video blogs (aka blooks) help reconnect us to what is most essential about ourselves and each other. Words inspire us to be better humans and to act in ways to create a better world. During times of war, words will destroy the swords and bombs because they live in the hearts and minds of people.
A.Blooking
I first learned about Olena from Anderson Cooper when he interviewed her in the first horror-filled and savage days after February 24, 2022.
Blogging is another powerful way to show what Putin is doing to real people, right now. And another powerful way to galvanize the world’s collective will against fascism and hate of any kind. As I explored in my last blog, fascism and hate is not confined to Putin and his cronies. It inflicts China, Iran, Saudi Arabia, the Philippines, the United States of American.
Fascism, hate, and ignorance lives inside of all of us. But, we do not need to be slaves to it. It only takes a little conscious awareness to illuminate the fullness of who you are and the choices that lay before you each day. It only takes a little self-awareness to choose loving kindness instead of hate and dictatorial impulses to control and degrade other human beings. No one on this planet is dispensable or disposable. No one!
Beliefs form our life boats upon the sea of being that we must all navigate throughout our lives. Here are two powerful individuals sharing how people survive against all odds to overcome the impossible and to thrive once again.
Esther Perel: The routines, rituals and boundaries we need in stressful times | TED
This is a deeply moving and compelling podcast. It illuminates just how devastating Putin’s insane war has on every dimension of being human. War…wherever it happens, however it happens, however big or small it is…it tears apart the nature and fabric of life and everything life needs to survive.
Anyone who desires war and can’t wait for the shooting and killing to start is a deranged human being. This is something my brother-in-law actually said to his son just before the events of January 6, 2021 unfolded. My brother-in-law is a deranged human being devoid of empathy, filled with hate, and obsessed with himself.
Perhaps our modern world has done this to vulnerable human beings in the world making them feel unmoored, frightened, and insecure. Like animals, a hurting human can lash out and hurt other humans. But, there is something more ominous and menacing going on in the world today. A thing that is boiling over into the rise of hate groups around the world. A thing that puffed up Putin into a blimp of terrific terror who is pummelling the world with his particular brand of hate and horror.
I think Esther Perel is a wondrous voice of healing, hope, and regeneration beginning inside ourself and spreading throughout every relationship we have in every moment of our crazy, draining modern lives.
Esther Perel: The Power of Relational Intelligence |
This is another talk by Esther Perel that dives in deep into how relational intelligence guides us towards well-being, success, and a better, healthy, more nourishing life. We need to nourish ourselves so we can nourish each other. We need this sort of nourishment, this sort of insight and self-knowledge desperately now before we blow ourselves up with hateful wars or destroy our planet with woeful ignorance and lack of the collective action to save our planet from our self-destructive actions based on competition, greater profits over the greater good, and self-annihilating focus on things, power, and control.
Love always finds a way. When it doesn’t, the world will end.
B. The Will to Win
Clarissa Ward has been reporting in Ukraine since Putin’s dramatic escalation of his ugly, brutal war on February 24, 2022. Nearing the one year mark since this horrible day one year ago, Clarissa returned to some of the places where she reported to reconnect with people and places during the earlier days of this invasion. And she connects with survivors of Putin’s indiscriminate killings.
It is a compelling testament to the resilience of the Ukrainian people and how love is overcoming hate each and every day of Putin’s hate. It is the Will to Win!
The People Fueling Ukraine’s ‘Will to Win’ | It’s been one year since Russia invaded Ukraine, setting off the bloodiest land war in Europe since World War II. Since then, the bravery and ingenuity of the Ukrainian people has been on full display while its military has defied the odds and inflicted staggering losses on the Russian army. In today’s episode, we hear some of their stories and look at what comes next as the conflict drags on.
Whatever your joy is, whatever you like to do when you can really relax and sink deeply into yourself, do it now in one magnificent, massive act of creative resistance that will utterly, totally blow Putin’s flame of evil and hell out.
Archetypal Animations
Both Archetypal Animations Draw from These Creative Sources
Six months on since Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24, artists around the world have created poignant murals to support Ukraine. Here’s how artists have depicted the war across continents: (Go to their gallery to see the images) -- CNBC | The art of war: Artists around the world leave their mark in support of Ukraine
Street artists worldwide are paying tributes to Ukraine amid Putin’s invasion and showing their support for Ukraine. The invasion on 24th February 2022 has been widely condemned internationally as an act of aggression and has triggered Europe’s largest refugee crisis since World War II.
French street artist Seth Globepainter painted a little girl in Paris three days after the war began that symbolizes the Ukrainian people’s courage and determination to face the Russian invasion. Seth Globepainter visited Ukraine in 2017 when he painted a mural of a little girl for the Back to School Project at the Popasna school, located close to the frontline of the Donbas war, curated by Oleg Sosnov, Unicef Ukraine and Sky art foundation. The artist states that the school children he met in 2017 were the inspiration for his mural “Onwards Ukraine”. -- GraffitiStreet | Street Artists Paint in Solidarity with Ukraine, Worldwide 2022
A new mural featuring a young girl taking shelter under a Ukrainian flag with popular figures from children's entertainment can now be seen on Mojmírova street in Prague 4, a few blocks from Náměstí Bratří Synků.
ChemiS, the artist behind the work, told journalists on Friday that the mural is an an expression of his stance against the war in Ukraine, and an appeal for continued support of Ukrainians affected by the war.
Image From: Let’s talk about Ukraine | It’s more than just the economy. | Make Me Smart MarketPlace
In the weeks leading up to Jan. 6, 2021, my brother-in-law was heard telling his son, “I can’t wait for the shooting and killing to begin.”
I don’t share this to expose what a despicable man he is (although after spending 2.5 weeks with him after attending a memorial service for my sister-in-law who lost her battle to breast cancer, he showed me just how repugnant, wretched, beastly, and hate-filled he has become as a sorry excuse for a man. I am video blogging about the good, the bad, and the ugly in myBig Sky Series).
Rather I share this sad sentiment to shine light on the reality that the 309,000 people living in the US who do not believe in the Big Lie and do not believe violence is justified to overturn an election whose results they don’t like probably know someone who does.
The University of Chicago Project on Security and Threats have been tracking insurrectionist sentiments in U.S. adults, most recently in surveys in June. We have found that 47 million American adults – nearly 1 in 5 – agree with the statement that “the 2020 election was stolen from Donald Trump and Joe Biden is an illegitimate president.” Of those, 21 million also agree that “use of force is justified to restore Donald J. Trump to the presidency.”
Why should we be paying attention to this when there are so many other Big Problems such as Climate Change, poverty, and disease that need our time and attention. Because the ramifications of the United States of American falling prey to autocratic, authoritarian, dictatorial rule are huge. And as a democracy, we have never been nearer to such an outcome since the Civil War.
Here is what Timothy Snyder, Yale history professor, predicts would happen if a Trump 2024 coup that is carefully being architected right now through our legal systems and then shored up with new legislation restricting voting rights and further bolstered by installing more compliant men and women at state and local levels who are willing to do as the Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger refused to do when Trumped asked him to “find” enough votes to overturn his loss in Georgia.
Yale history professor Timothy Snyder predicts the horrific aftermath of a Trump coup in 2024
If Trump runs in 2024, he will lose the popular vote. If corrupt GOP state legislators install Trump as President, the United States will quickly and catastrophically cease to exist. That's what Yale history professor Timothy Snyder says in the latest issue of his "Thinking About" newsletter.
“In a situation where he is installed as president after losing an election, Mr. Trump would vainly try to control what will quickly cease to be the United States. His allies who wish to destroy the state will be the only winners. The precise scenario of the collapse of the United States is impossible to predict, but some of the following is likely to happen, and quickly.
Tens of millions of people protest. Paramilitaries on both sides emerge. Violence leads to fake and real stories of deaths, and to revenge. Police and armed forces will know neither whom they should obey nor whom they should arrest. With traditional authority broken, those wearing uniforms and bearing arms will become partisans, take sides, and start shooting one another. Governors will look for exit strategies for their states. Americans will rush to parts of the disintegrating country they find safer, in a process that looks increasingly like ethnic cleansing. The stock market and then the economy will crash. The dollar will cease to be the world currency.”
Snyder is the author of the short book, On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century. Read Mark Frauenfelder's full article for highlights from this book. It sounds frightening like Margret Atwood's Handmaid's Tale!
It would perhaps be easier if the 47 million people who believe the election was stolen, and especially the 21 million who are ready to take violent action to right their misperceived wrong, lived in a single state like Texas, and then let that state secede from the union like the South wanted to do during the Civil War. But that is not our shared reality. We are interwoven and connected to the 47 million American adults who believe the election was stolen from Trump and cross paths with the 21 million adults who are willing to use violence to get their way.
They are our brothers (or brother-in-laws), sisters, uncles, aunts, parents, children, and friends. So what do we do?
We stay informed. We find was to stay sane as my Big Sky Seriesis video blogging about. We endure the uncertainty and the extreme discomfort, anxiety, and fear that goes with it. And despite it all, we find ways to restore our sense of faith in people that at our centers, we are capable of heroic acts of kindness, goodness, and unselfishness as demonstrated just yesterday when Los Angeles police officers risked their lives to pull a pilot from his crashed plane seconds before a commuter train crashed into it.
What follows is a curation of some of the reporting on Jan 6 one year later and what has been learned as well as what remains a threat. It is by no means a comprehensive list. For example, I have made a conscious decision not to highlight “news” sources touting the Big Lie even as Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) pulls the oldest trick days after marking this sad day in American history. It is a standard go to trick in the authoritarian’s playbook, which is pretend the other side is doing exactly what you are doing.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s (R-Ky.) office knocked Democrats over “the left’s Big Lie” — which it pegged as the belief that “there is some evil anti-voting conspiracy sweeping America” — as Democrats look to push for federal voting rights legislation.
A memo from the minority leader’s office on Sunday predicts that Democrats will “try to use fake hysteria to break the Senate and silence millions of Americans’ voices so they can take over elections and ram through their radical agenda,” likely referring to calls by many Democrats to abolish the filibuster in the Senate to pass voting rights reforms.
I have roughly laid out the information below by news sources, begining with a compelling interview with Evan Osonos about the building of a Right-Wing media empire just in time for the 2024 election.
FreshAir Reporting
Second Archetypal Animation | Purveyors of Rage
Building of a Right-Wing Media Empire to CancelCancel Culture
Purveyors of Rage Culture | Music: Madvillain – The Illest Villains – Madvillainy
Fresh Air Interview with EVAN OSNOS who wrote about Dan Bongino in the New Yorker about how he is building a right-wing media empire just in time for the 2024 election--how to cancel cancel culture.
A Several Things That Grabbed My Attention:
When Evan Osnos asked Bongino for an interview, Bongino refused stating, “Why should I want to talk to the enemy.”
Bongino calls face masks mouth diapers and face burkas. While Bongino is vaccinated himself, he tells his followers to remain unvaccinated. When asked about this, he doesn’t see the connection to his vaccination status and continued health versus his followers deaths because they listened to him, remained unvaccinated, caught COVID, and died.
His fellow secret service agents said, “It’s like there are 2 Bonginos; the one who was a secret service agent and the one he is now.” He plays into the suspicion conservatives have that government is not working for us–the common man and woman in America with conservative values.
Bongino made the link between war and the battlefield with politics and differences between parties. He has been very successful in marrying the idea that violence and politics go together. He wrapped himself very tightly around Donald Trump that helped his growing business rise exponentially. He is better at tapping into rage than Alex Jones and others doing the same. Rush died. FoxNews and Matt Drudge are grappling with intense competition on the right for the spotlight.
He has a lot of gun related advertisers and survivalist businesses as well as Omaha steaks and sleep products. Guns and survivalist thinking are phenomena confined to the right. He promotes the idea that elections are rigged and are not to be trusted. He grew up during the time of the NRA dominance and embraces the idea and term the NRA promoted about having a combat mindset.
It is important to understand why we are at the moment we are now, which is arguably worst than one year ago.
Vast Intelligence, Operational Failures Traced as Root of Capitol Riot |A bipartisan team of Senate lawmakers has spent months studying contributory elements to the deadly Jan. 6 siege on the U.S. Capitol and laid out their findings in a 95-page report Tuesday. | Courthouse News Service, June 8, 2021
“A sprawling, fascinating journey through the dawning decades of the 21st century . . . through acute observation, extensive interviewing and dogged research, Osnos weaves an intricate tapestry that gradually reveals how Americans experienced the last two decades.”
―Lizabeth Cohen, The Washington Post
“One of the books of the year . . . Wildland by The New Yorker’s Evan Osnos draws the backstory to America’s rage through deep reporting and ‘thousands of hours of conversations’ in three places he lived before D.C.”
―Axios
“Osnos offers the most personal and the most powerful description yet of a country ‘so far out of balance that it [has] lost its center of gravity’ . . . My hope is that everyone who reads this great book will be enraged enough to redouble their efforts to undo the damage the greedy have wrought, and to take back America for its decent citizens, once and for all.”
―Charles Kaiser, The Guardian
“Visionary in scope, compassionate in procedure, Wildland brilliantly transmutes our national chaos into absorbing narrative order. Evan Osnos has penned a definitive portrait of what we have allowed ourselves to become: a nation reaping the harvest that long negligence has sown.”
―Ayad Akhtar, author of Homeland Elegies
Day of Rage
6 month NYT Visual Investigation
This is a six-month Times investigation that has synchronized and mapped out thousands of videos and police radio communications from the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, providing the most complete picture to date of what happened — and why.
Day of Rage: How Trump Supporters Took the U.S. Capitol | NYT Visual Investigations 6,344,823 views, Jul 1, 2021
This is a 40-minute documentary about January 6, 2021. It was produced by The New York Time’s Visual Investigations team that synchronized and mapped thousands of videos of the U.S. Capitol riot to provide the most complete picture to date of what happened on Jan. 6 — and why. It was a massive effort that occurred over six months and involved resources from across the Times newsroom. The Visual Investigation team went to court to unseal police body camera footage, scoured law enforcement radio communications and interviewed witnesses.
7 Basic Characteristics Every Democracy Needs| The Advertiser Mirror, March 2, 2021 | (1) Civil liability, (2) Democratic values, (3) Guarantee of rights and common welfare, (4) Decentralized democracy, (5) Political participation, (6) Constitutional principle, (7) Democratic models
‘American democracy will continue to be tested’: Peril author Robert Costa on Trump, the big lie and 2024 | Interview by David Smith in Washington | A Trump 2024 sign seen at a vendor’s table during an anti-vaccine, anti-mask mandate rally in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, last month. Photograph: Paul Weaver/Sopa Images/Rex/Shutterstock | The Guardian, Sep 26, 2021
Arkansas school apologizes for political news summaries in yearbook | By Joseph Wilkinson, May 25, 2021 | Daily News | “The yearbook from Lincoln Junior High in Bentonville, in the state’s northwest corner, falsely but confidently read, “President Trump WAS NOT impeached” under a photo of the former president, according to photos obtained by local CBS affiliate KFSM.”
Chaos in Washington as Trump supporters storm Capitol| Tuesday, Jan 11, 2022 | Israel Hayom — This is where we stand | US President Trump tweets: These are the things and events that happen when a sacred landslide election victory is so unceremoniously & viciously stripped away from great patriots.
The Dan Bongino Show | iHeart | He’s a former Secret Service Agent, former NYPD officer, and New York Times best-selling author. Join Dan Bongino each weekday as he tackles the hottest political issues, debunking both liberal and Republican establishment rhetoric. [Note:He is a former Secret Service Agent and NYPD officer…he is not so much debunking Republican establishment rhetoric as wrapping it and building a new authoritarian narrative to pave the way for Trump’s glorious return.]
Top Fox hosts lobbied Trump to act on Jan. 6, texts show | By David Bauder, December 15, 2021 | AP | “The revelation that Fox News Channel personalities sent text messages to the White House during the Jan. 6 insurrection is another example of how the network’s stars sought to influence then-President Donald Trump instead of simply reporting or commenting on him. Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham and Brian Kilmeade all texted advice to Trump’s chief of staff, Mark Meadows, as a mob of pro-Donald Trump loyalists stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, according to Republican Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming, vice chair of the congressional committee probing the riot.”
Peril is a book by American journalists Bob Woodward and Robert Costa about the last days of Donald Trump’s presidency, as well as the presidential transition and early presidency of Joe Biden. The book was published on September 21, 2021, by Simon & Schuster.
“The book details how Mr. Trump’s presidency essentially collapsed in his final months in office, particularly after his election loss and the start of his campaign to deny the results.” — Michael S. Schmidt, The New York Times
“The clear theme of Peril is not a rehash or account of what transpired over the past year or so. It is a waving red flag designed to warn the electorate and chattering class that this story is far from over.”—Mediaite
Marketplace Tech Description: One year after the assault on the Capitol, more police departments have deployed artificial intelligence programs for surveillance.
In the weeks after the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection, law enforcement agencies and internet sleuths identified hundreds of people who stormed the U.S. Capitol. Many were later arrested or faced consequences at their jobs or in their communities.
Authorities used a variety of technologies to speed up that process, which was needed because there were millions of images, videos, messages, social media posts and bits of location data to parse.
Anjana Susarla is professor of responsible artificial intelligence and information systems at Michigan State University and has been studying the role that tech, especially image recognition, is playing in the ongoing search for suspects. The following is an edited transcript of our conversation.
Amanpour and Company Reporting
Trump’s Next Coup Has Already Begun
“Trump’s Next Coup Has Already Begun,” Reports Barton Gellman of The Atlantic | Amanpour and Company 166,157 views, Dec 10, 2021
Overview: Barton Gellman was among the journalists who predicted in 2020 that President Trump would not admit defeat if he lost the presidential election. Now, in a cover story for The Atlantic, Gellman says the former president is in an even better position to seize power. He speaks with Hari Sreenivasan about why he believes democracy will be on trial in the 2024 presidential election. Originally aired on December 10, 2021.
PBS NewsHour & WAMU Reporting
January 6 Was A Shot Across the Bow | It is a Harbinger
Jan. 6 attack was a ‘warning shot’ and likely a ‘harbinger,’ experts say. Here’s why 9,706 views, Jan 6, 2022
Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Barton Gellman says the Republican party is increasingly unwilling to accept defeat and, in fact, is "prepared to win by sacrificing the essential elements of democracy." His new Atlantic article is 'Trump's Next Coup Has Already Begun.'
Third Archetypal Animation | As The End of Democracy Draws Near
As The End of Democracy Draws Near | Music: American Democracy: The Endgame of the Human Race by Noam Chomsky (Available on Spotify) [Also see a Dec. 30, 2021 Interview with Noam Chomsky on Rising Fascism in U.S., Class Warfare & the Climate Emergency | Noam Chomsky warns the Republican Party is “marching” the world to destruction by ignoring the climate emergency while embracing proto-fascism at home. Chomsky talks about the January 6 insurrection, how neoliberalism is a form of class warfare and how President Biden’s climate plans fall short of what is needed.
The Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol affected many people — residents, elected officials and their staff, journalists, and the police who were called in to protect them.
WAMU's Naomi Starobin and Gabe Bullard put together this montage of the voices of some of these people who talked about the events of that day and how it impacted them.
America Interrupted
This is the full episode of the PBS NewsHour for Jan. 7, 2022. At minute 23:30, Judy introduced a podcast she and three amazing women reporters witnessed and reported on live while the insurrection unfolded. Lisa Desjardins was inside the Capitol as the rioters invaded and had to hide. She tells about her experience inside the Capitol that day. Amna Nawaz was previously a war correspondent and has parachuted into dangerous places to report on them. She was outside of the Capitol as the rioters invaded and interviewed them in real time. She said the force and energy was just as violent and vitriolic as any of the places she reported during her days as a foreign correspondent reporting on wars. Yamiche Alcindor was at the White House as the day unfolded reporting on what Trump was not doing as the carnage at the Capitol unfolded.
The Jan. 6 insurrection, 1 year later | PBS NewsHour presents 7,241 views, Premiered 4 hours ago
Description: Congress is still investigating the people and organizations linked to the Jan. 6 attack — the most violent assault on the U.S. Capitol since the British attack during the war of 1812. The PBS NewsHour looked back at what happened that day, the lasting impacts on those who survived, where the investigations stand, and the broader effects on American politics, culture and democracy itself.
Fourth Archetypal Animation | Carnage at the Capitol
For months, my colleagues and I at the University of Chicago Project on Security and Threats have been tracking insurrectionist sentiments in U.S. adults, most recently in surveys in June. We have found that 47 million American adults – nearly 1 in 5 – agree with the statement that “the 2020 election was stolen from Donald Trump and Joe Biden is an illegitimate president.” Of those, 21 million also agree that “use of force is justified to restore Donald J. Trump to the presidency.”
"In the year since the insurrection that reverberated around the world, Trump’s stranglehold on Republicans has seemingly become stronger, not weaker. Graham was soon back on the golf course with him; McCarthy was soon kissing the ring at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida. Many leaders of the party have set about changing the narrative of the insurrection to portray it as a heroic last stand – a new “lost cause”.
(…)
"Trump was the first president in American history to inspire an attempted coup. After a rally where the defeated incumbent urged supporters to “fight like hell”, the angry mob laid siege to the US Capitol to disrupt the certification of Joe Biden’s victory."
"Five people died, scores of police were beaten and bloodied and there was about $1.5m in damage in the first major attack on the Capitol since the war of 1812. More than 700 people have been charged in one of the biggest criminal investigations in American history."
(…)
"Today the loudest voices in the Republican party belong to the extremists. For them, Trump’s “big lie” that the election was stolen from him due to voter fraud, rendering Biden an illegitimate president, goes hand in hand with the lie that the insurrection was a morally justified crusade, an righteous endeavor to save democracy, not destroy it."
"Trump himself perpetuates this through a regular barrage of interviews, rallies and emailed statements since he was barred from Twitter. Notably he has sought to lionize Ashli Babbitt, who was shot dead during the riot, as a martyr."
"Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Republican congresswoman, has cast rioters currently held in detention in a similar light. In November she visit a Washington jail’s so-called “patriot wing” and complained the inmates were enduring “inhumane” conditions because of their political beliefs."
"Other pro-Trump Republicans in the House echo these messages – one referred to the Capitol attack as a “normal tourist visit” – or do little to contradict them. Some Republican senators are evidently more uncomfortable with the web of deceit and urge the party to look forward to the next election. But again only a small minority are willing to take Trump on directly."
Even in the early moments of the insurrection, Rice University historian Douglas Brinkley suggested former President Donald Trump would need to take some responsibility for goading on his supporters.
One year later, he joins Here & Now's Peter O'Dowd to reflect on Jan. 6 and how history will view that day.
This segment aired on January 6, 2022.
“It is kind of like a NeoCivil War still going on today. It really is all hands on deck to save democracy and the right to vote today.“
"Rep. Peter Welch (VT-D) joins Here & Now's Scott Tong to reflect on trying to flee angry rioters in the Capitol building on this day last year, and what the legacy of that insurrection is today."
"Capitol police told us to get on the floor and put on our gas masks. Then, I heard a shot from the floor below us. There was an immense sense of peril."
Plays clip of Danny Rodriguez accused of tasing Officer Fanone who breaks down crying saying he couldn't believe how stupid he was he thought he was going to be a hero.
New FBI Video Shows Interrogation Of Jan. 6 Defendant Accused Of Tasing Officer 240,380 views, Nov 30, 2021
It started with 'The Big Lie." Many argue that led directly to the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on January 6th last year.
Over the last twelve months, hundreds have been arrested and charged in connection with the insurrection, including nearly a dozen from New England and six from Massachusetts.
But that's just a fraction of those who breached the Capitol that day. And as investigations - both by law enforcement and Congress continue - it has become clear that there was coordination, planning, at least by and for some of the participants, behind that breach.
We talk more about accountability, and what the future may hold for extremism locally and nationally with Joan Donovan, Research Director at Harvard's Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics, and Public Policy and Andrew Lelling, former US Attorney for Massachusetts under the Trump Administration. Lelling coordinated with the U.S. Attorney's office in the District of Columbia on prosecutions.
The legacy of the Jan. 6 committee … and what’s still left to do 1,200 views, Premiered Jan 6, 2022
Description: One year after the Jan. 6 storming of the Capitol, the House select committee’s investigation into what happened that day is far from over. Much of the committee’s work has been behind closed doors, but the bipartisan group of lawmakers plan to enter a more public phase in 2022. This week, Kyle Cheney joins Ryan Lizza to answer a big question: What has the Jan. 6 committee accomplished so far?
Margaret Atwood Sounds the Alarm on Authoritarianism | Amanpour and Company 58,856 views, Dec 29, 2021
Description of Interview: President Biden has promised to face down authoritarianism and defend democracy – something Margaret Atwood sees as surprisingly fragile. The author is renowned around the world for her dystopian novels, including "The Handmaid’s Tale." In her latest project she takes a turn, with a focus on utopian ideals and how we might do better. It’s all part of a new online learning experience on Disco called "Practical Utopias: An Exploration of the Possible." Originally aired on December 7, 2021.
“Did you ever imagine when you wrote the Handmaids Tale that this amount of reality would shape up decades later.”
Is Trump Laying the Groundwork for a Coup in 2024? Bill Moyers Weighs In | Amanpour and Company 79,722 views, Jan 5, 2022
Description of Interview: Clashing ideologies about the meaning of democracy in America are no less harrowing than the events of January 6. Journalist Bill Moyers, a 30-time Emmy Award winner, shares his views and concerns in the new PBS documentary "Preserving Democracy," airing tomorrow. Moyers speaks with Hari Sreenivasan alongside historian Kathleen Belew – who also appears in the film – about the insurrection and the danger of a recurrence. Originally aired on January 5, 2022.
Ronan Farrow: Who Were the Rioters on Jan. 6th? | Amanpour and Company 1,327,162 views, Feb 10, 2021
Description of Interview: In the Trump impeachment trial, a key element of the prosecution's case is a dramatic video taken at the Capitol during the insurrection. Who were the actual faces in the crowd? Ronan Farrow has profiled three different rioters to learn more about their backgrounds. All three have been arrested and now face criminal charges. One made threats on Farrow's life. Michel Martin speaks with the reporter about his investigation. Originally aired on February 10, 2021.
Jason Stanley Warns: “America Is Now in Fascism’s Legal Phase” | Amanpour and Company 76,730 views, Jan 6, 2022
Description of Interview: Yale philosophy professor Jason Stanley sees January 6, 2021 as part of a history of fascist impulses in American politics. This is the focus of his book "How Fascism Works: The Politics of Us and Them." His latest article in The Guardian is titled “America is now in fascism’s legal phase.” Stanley speaks with Michel Martin about what he calls an “extremely critical moment” for democracy around the world. Originally aired on January 6, 2021.
A New Study Shows Us the Single Biggest Motivation for the Jan. 6 Rioters | Amanpour and Company 881,468 views, May 6, 2021
Description of Interview: A new study on the January 6 Capitol insurrection finds that of the nearly 400 rioters arrested or charged, 93% are white and 86% are male. Michel Martin speaks to the study’s principal investigator, Professor Robert Pape, to discuss these findings and some surprising revelations about the attackers and their motives. Originally aired on May 6, 2021.
Jason Stanley: Did This 2 Min. Video Help Incite the Jan. 6 Rioters? | Amanpour and Company 1,111,612 views, Feb 12, 2021
Description of Interview: As former president Donald Trump's second impeachment trial enters its third day, the question remains whether his words or actions incited the January 6 assault on the Capitol. But little attention has been paid to a video that was shown that same day, at the January 6 "March to Save America" rally in Washington, D.C. Jason Stanley, a scholar of fascist propaganda, claims that this short video -- shown immediately after Rudy Giuliani left the stage, prior to the attack on the Capitol -- was full of themes and tactics that threaten liberal democracy. Stanley breaks the video down with Hari Sreenivasan and elaborates on its role in the violence that took place on that infamous day. Originally aired on February 11, 2021.
“Red Flags Everywhere:” Why Did the FBI Dismiss Jan. 6 Warnings? | Amanpour and Company 110,875 views, Nov 10, 2021
Description of Interview: "Presidents are not kings, and the plaintiff is not president." These were the words of a U.S. Federal judge rejecting former President Donald Trump's request to withhold records about the January 6th insurrection. The ruling will give a bipartisan house committee access to hundreds of pages of documents from the Trump White House. The committee also has issued 10 new subpoenas to former Trump officials. The Washington Post has conducted its own extensive investigation called "The Attack: Before, During and After." It included more than 75 journalists and interviews with over 230 people. Here is Michel Martin speaking with Post reporters Amy Gardner and Aaron Davis about the cascade of warnings received before January 6th. Originally aired on November 10, 2021.
"We often hear that, unlike in fledgling democracies, America's institutions are strong. But, as Ralph Waldo Emerson said, "An institution is the lengthened shadow of one man." If people abuse them, attack them, disregard them, they will slowly collapse."
Also, keep an eye out for Fareed Zakaria’s latest special on CNN: The Fight to Save American Democracy. It provides a deep dive into the rise of totalitarian, authoritative, and fascist regimes that follow surprisingly similar recognizable patterns to grab power and control thereby crushing previously democratic societies like Hitler did in 1930’s Germany. The parallels are terrifying. This special will be available at the link above on Jan 16, 2022.
Fareed Zakaria fears American democracy could be in peril 293,953 views, Dec 1, 2019
Fareed: Democracy is decaying worldwide 130,539 views, Feb 25, 2018
Fareed Zakaria: This is how Republicans keep their power 716,275 views, Sep 27, 2020
Is democracy safe for the world? — with Fareed Zakaria (1998) | THINK TANK 2,718 views, Dec 13, 2020
Fareed Zakaria: Is this the Worst of Times? | The Agenda 50,996 views, Jun 15, 2021
The Future of American Democracy 1,221 views, Jan 20, 2021
Description: Congressman Jamie Raskin (D-Md., 8th District) talks about the year since the Jan. 6 insurrection, which he writes about in his new book, Unthinkable: Trauma, Truth, and the Trials of American Democracy. Virginia Delegate Marcus Simon (D-53rd District) previews the legislative session, and the strategy for Democrats in a Republican-controlled House.
Power of Denialism
Denialism Is A Dangerous Virus | The Daily Show
January 6th: Did It Even Happen?! (Spoiler: Yes) feat. Chris Hayes & Jordan Klepper | The Daily Show | 587,715 views, Jan 3, 2022
“Don’t Look Up!”
DON’T LOOK UP | Leonardo DiCaprio, Jennifer Lawrence | Official Trailer | Netflix 14,080,063 views, Nov 16, 2021
Description: Based on real events that haven’t happened - yet. Don’t Look Up in select theaters December 10 and on Netflix December 24. DON’T LOOK UP tells the story of two low-level astronomers who must go on a giant media tour to warn mankind of an approaching comet that will destroy planet Earth. Written and Directed by Adam McKay.
This awesome movie with an all star cast (better watch out conspiracy theory believers (that’s you QAnon, Deep staters, False flagers operations, “Stolen election” conspiracy theory, Illuminati believers, etc.) totally captures humans ability to ignore and deny reality and facts in pursuit of selfish, egotistical, self-obsessed, money-grubbing, miserly, opportunistic, self-absorbed interests. Did I miss an adjective here?
Where Do We Go From Here?
Paul Solman explores Political polarization prompts efforts to bridge the gap through shared experiences 4,427 views, Jan 10, 2022
This was such a hopeful and inspiring segment in the face of so much depressing realization of the forces at work in this moment and the terrible odds the U.S. has it to make it as a democratic nation beyond 2024.
Description: PBS NewsHour spent much of last week trying to examine what still divides our country and the deep polarization that preceded the Jan. 6 riots. Now, Paul Solman looks at multiple efforts to bridge those major political and cultural fissures in the U.S., beginning with smaller steps forward.
Is There Room for Redemption in Our Cancel Culture? | Amanpour and Company 3,914 views, Jan 7, 2022
Description of Interview: Loretta J. Ross is a visiting professor at Smith College whose teaching focuses on white supremacy in the age of Trump. Ross speaks with Michel Martin about January 6 as a possible opportunity for reflection and healing. Originally aired on January 6, 2022
I wanted to link you, my readers who have made it this far down, to Christiane Amanpour’s January 7, 2022 episode, but it is only available to view on your local PBS station. In this episode Christiane with Doris Kearns Goodwin and Timothy Snyder; Loretta J. Ross speaks with Michel Martin on whether January 6 provides an opportunity for reflection and healing.
Here is the link to Christiane’s interview with Doris Kearns Goodwin and Timothy Snyder that really hits it out of the park as far as what are the take away lessons from Jan. 6, 2022 and things to pay close attention to in the years leading up to the next US Presidential Election in 2024. Will this fragile democracy make it? Listen and learn for you are part of the answer.
I was also looking for Christiane’s interview with the late Archbishop Desmond Tutu who died in the early days of this dawning year. Christiane’s Jan 7, 2022 episode was a recollection of interviews she had done that spoke to the actions and ramifications of the events of Jan 6, 2021. I have not found a link to her interview, but I found this one on the Dalai Lama’s Finding Joy and Happiness station on YouTube. It speaks to the same spirit that Christiane had recognized and was illuminating with her interview with Desmond Tutu.
Finding Joy and Happiness | 207,835 views, Jul 1, 2021
Description: His Holiness the Dalai Lama reunites online with Archbishop Desmond Tutu from his residence in Dharamsala, HP, India on June 24, 2021, on the occasion of the release of their new movie "Mission: Joy - Finding Happiness in Troubled Times". For more info please see https://missionjoy.org/
We have so much to learn from these two Holy men who stand outside of the self-destructive forces of modern Western Civilization that seems hell bent on standing in a circle and annihilating the world in a mutual massacre of scapegoats. It doesn’t matter what side you stand on when the massacre of scapegoats begins the world is at the beginning of the end for the human race for we have evolved technologies too powerful for our primitive, puny minds to handle with the compassion, understanding, and care necessary to use them anymore.
What is our collective fate? I have no idea, but I am certain each and every person is casting their votes in the ever unfolding moment. We do it in their hearts and minds. We do it in the thoughts we think. We do it even more loudly in the actions we take.
As the old saying goes, “Actions speak louder than words.”
Recently, as I have been struggling to understand and survive my husband’s toxic family structure long poisoned by his mother’s narcissistic personality disorder, I ran across this truth in a video by clinical psychologist Dr. Ramani who is a leading expert on Narcissistic Abuse, Psychopathy, and Sociopathy. She counsel her patients who are mainly the victims of narcissists, psychopaths, and sociopaths that their words and what they say they will do is always in direction opposition to what they do. It is the very same issue that all of us must heed now in our struggle to save our democracy and this is because our current most dominant system of consciousness, Western Civilization, rewards people who are narcissists, psychopaths, and sociopaths.
We have the power to create a more perfect union, but this creative process is on-going and must be lived with as much consciousness of ourselves and our own inner, hidden motives as possible. Without that, without conscious growth as an individual, we are doomed to live out our fate, which is our own unconsciousness projected out onto others.
Sources for schema above include (beginning from bottom to top, except when repeated from same source):
Ideapod | The most terrifying thing is to accept oneself completely
Jungian Genealogy, by Iona Miller | Embracing Shadow | “If it has been believed hitherto that the human shadow was the source of all evil, it can now be ascertained on closer investigation that the unconscious man, that is, his shadow, does not consist only of morally reprehensible tendencies, but also displays a number of good qualities, such as normal instincts, appropriate reactions, realistic insights, creative impulses, etc.“ ~Carl Jung, CW 9ii, Para 423.
Jungian Archetypes: Personalities of Our Unconscious | Jungian archetypes refer to underlying forms or the personalities from which symbols such as The Mother, The Child, The Trickster, or The Shadow emerge.
Remember that you are a beautiful conscious being! Let your light shine today. When you are fully connected to who you are deep down at the center of your being, your actions will align with life and you will be a creative force for change rather than a destructive force.
Image Source: Soldier/submachine gun by WikiImages | Pixabay | Deutsch • Member since Dec. 13, 2011 Dead man by soumen82hazra on Pixabay | English • Member since April 24, 2020 Gild Walking with Teddy Bear by reyerbaby on Pixabay | lisa runnels • Age 59 • magee/united states • Member since Jan. 13, 2012
Image Source: 7 Basic Characteristics Every Democracy Needs| The Advertiser Mirror, March 2, 2021 | (1) Civil liability, (2) Democratic values, (3) Guarantee of rights and common welfare, (4) Decentralized democracy, (5) Political participation, (6) Constitutional principle, (7) Democratic models
40 Thieves – The Work Of A Craftsman | The Noam Chomsky Music Project 25 views, Dec 3, 2021
Second Archetypal Animation | Purveyors of Rage Culture
Images from Pixabay: Red monster by GregMontani Greg Montani • Age 46 • Bayern • Member since May 11, 2015 Green Scream by DaModernDaVinci Shaun • Perth/Australia • Member since Dec. 15, 2018 • #947 Man Eating Hand by Sammy-Sander Sam Williams • Italy • Member since Nov. 8, 2018
Third Archetypal Animation | As The End of Democracy Draws Near
Pixabay Images: Sinking Statue of Liberty by PhotoMIX-Company Photo Mix • Europe • Member since Oct. 21, 2015
Chaos in Washington as Trump supporters storm Capitol| Tuesday, Jan 11, 2022 | Israel Hayom — This is where we stand | US President Trump tweets: These are the things and events that happen when a sacred landslide election victory is so unceremoniously & viciously stripped away from great patriots.
Fourth Archetypal Animation | Carnage at the Capitol
Images from Pixabay: Watching the World Fall Apart by Alexas_Fotos Here and now, unfortunately, ends my journey on Pixabay • but it continues on Pexels.com/under the same name • Member since Jan. 6, 2015
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:
After a month of listening to Alan Watts, I understand that it is I who create the problems I perceive. And only I can grow out of them.
There is nothing more to say.
All my blogs have been for not. I think perhaps the only thing left for me to do here is attempt to master the art of writing a descent haiku. This is an ancient art form using words like paint brushes to capture things that cannot be said, only felt, in three brief sentences.
“Haikus can be written for just about anything. There are haikus for humor, to raise social awareness, to evoke emotions, or to reminisce on the past. The idea of compression, though, remains the same. Haikus are a microcosm of a larger idea or feeling.”
Haiku began in thirteenth-century Japan as the opening phrase of renga, an oral poem, generally a hundred stanzas long, which was also composed syllabically. The much shorter haiku broke away from renga in the sixteenth century and was mastered a century later by Matsuo Basho, who wrote this classic haiku: An old pond! -- Haiku | Academy of American Poets
Bashō is usually credited as the most influential haiku poet and the writer who popularized the form in the 17th century. Outside Japan, Imagist writers such as Ezra Pound and T.E. Hulme wrote haiku in English. -- Haiku | Definition, Format, Poems Example, & Facts | Britannica
Thinking Is A Hard Habit To Break
The habit of thinking and writing about such thoughts; however, is hard to break. Thus, I will indulge in recalling that yesterday was September 11.
It has been 20 years since the 9/11 attacks. For 20 years, 9/11 is a day of remembrance, grieving, and reflection about all that has transpired since that day. This includes the war on terror, which has become known as the Forever Wars.
Reveal just aired a hard-hitting episode on the costs and aftermath of these wars. In short, over 3,000 people died on 9/11 and in the past 20 years as the US searched for those responsible for this horrific attack, more than 900,000 soldiers, contractors, and civilians have died in the Forever Wars.
Photo from Reveal | September 11, 2021 | Episode:Forever Wars
It is so easy to tearasunder and destroy the delicate balances sustaining all life on earth. Human beings have proved to be especially adept at doing this due to beliefs, attitudes, values, and misguided directives that are held doggedly to inside our minds and that only serve to gouge out deep trenches inside of ourselves (inside our souls) that make it possible for a good and decent person to do the most horrible things. These trenches inside of us is what separates us from each other and most of us will never escape their great depth and gravity.
It does not matter what steadfast beliefs a person clings to or what side they are fighting for because the result is the same. Once a person begins to cling to symbolic thought (replacing insufficient symbols for reality), the digging of the Pit of Peril begins and grows deeper and deeper as more and more adamant beliefs replace reality with rote responses and reactions. The harder a person clings to their resolute beliefs, the deeper and wider the trench of separation grow inside. This is the story of separation. It is the fall of man.
It is so much easier to love one another and to try to listen to one another to understand each other and live in peace rather than cultivate the inner forces of hate and separation.
September 11
Following the theme of remembering 9/11, these are two photojournalistic reflections of this day of remembering and reflection.
Today Was 9\11
A Day Between 9 11 Flags | Sept. 6, 2021
The Last Enemy
I will also mention one more thing regarding a synchronicity that occurred around this time. It is always important to pay attention to synchronicities when they occur in one’s life. Each person’s synchronicities are utterly unique and appear to help you grow as a conscious being. I share mine synchronicity story only as an example.
It began when I received my latest Netflix DVD. The title was The Last Enemy. I had no idea what it was and why I had put this in my cue. I almost sent it back without watching it thinking it was probably nonsense and I had made a mistake. However, I ended up watching it the day before September 11, 2021. It was absolutely relevant to this moment in time. It was made in 2012 and is about a fictional future where a devastating terrorist attack (like what happened on 9/11) turns Britain into a super surveillance state to keep everyone safe from those who might want to do us harm… but is everyone really safe? There is also a mysterious pandemic going on too.
I understand why Qers, plandemic believers, and even anti-vaxxers grow and harvest such ideas inside their minds. These are exciting concepts rich with conflict and mistrust. And such concepts provides the mind with a powerful fuel that speeds people through their daily activities, and quite often very dull routines. It is a type of mind fuels that provides individuals with a deep sense of meaning and purpose that they are fighting something evil.
That’s what this series explores.
The Last Enemy
Set in a recognisable, near-future London beset by terrorism and illegal immigration, The Last Enemy features the introduction of "TIA" (Total Information Awareness), a centralised database that can be used to track and monitor anybody, effectively by putting all available government and corporate – i.e. credit card and bank activity, phone use, internet use, purchases, rentals, etc. – information in one place.
The story deals with a political cover-up centred on a sanctioned but secret medical experiment run amok with key members of the government trying desperately to hide all evidence of their experimental batch of vaccine that seems to be causing a deadly virus. The complex story unspools to reveal the moral, social and privacy concerns of this hypothetical TIA system in a post-7/7 world, including such control mechanisms familiar to both real life and science fiction as retinal scans, fingerprint identification and ubiquitous camera and cellphone surveillance footage.
The story is told through the eyes of a mathematical genius, Stephen Ezard, who is portrayed as a recluse showing some signs of obsessive-compulsive disorder. But the shy genius overcomes his own inhibitions to burrow into a highly compromised British government using his brilliance and their TIA system only to find himself ultimately trapped by the people he most trusts, and to learn he is a pawn in manipulative Security State machinations which take the people he most loves from him and compromise him forever. -- From Wiki
Alan Watts
Lastly, this is one of the Watts lectures I listened to in the past month.
“Reality escapes all concepts. If you say there is a god that’s a concept. If you say there is no god that’s a concept. Nagarjuna is saying that always your concepts will prove to be attempts to catch water in a sieve.”
“If you are depressed you are living in the past. If you are anxious you are living in the future. If you are at peace you are living in the present.” ―Lao Tzu
There are so many problems in the world; huge, convoluted, intricate, life and death problems that have no easy answers or solutions. If you are listening to someone who is saying: “I KNOW WHAT IS WRONG WITH THE WORLD.” This person has no clue what is wrong or what to do about it.
Humanity in its broadest sense is floating once again on a vast and mighty Sea of Uncertainty. For some (and I am only talking about the individual level, not the collective), the uncertainty is no less than life or death. For others, they can only watch as a helpless observers to the multiple crises unfolding and must bear witness to the individual and collective descent of humanity, doing whatever they can to help, no matter how small the action may seem. For still others, this moment fills them with fear and they run away and deny the realities of this moment, preferring to hide their light of consciousness under a bushel. The worst among us, are using this moment and their light of consciousness to misled, misdirect, confuse, and frighten others so they may benefit and profit from the disorientation, confusion, and mayhem touching everyone’s life right now (e.g., this might mean they cultivate a flock of admirers who hang on your every word; they sow seeds deceit to gain money, power, status; or they indulge their criminal instinct certain no one will notice in all the chaos).
An illustration of the parable, together with the parable of the Growing Seed, which follows it in Mark chapter 4 (Source: Wikipedia)
"And no man, when he hath lighted a lamp, covereth it with a vessel, or putteth it under a bed; but putteth it on a stand, that they that enter in may see the light. For nothing is hid, that shall not be made manifest; nor [anything] secret, that shall not be known and come to light. Take heed therefore how ye hear: for whosoever hath, to him shall be given; and whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken away even that which he thinketh he hath."— Luke 8:16-18, King James Version
Crisis and complexity is not new to us as human beings. We have always been a species who had to find a way to survive through crisis and calamity. Long ago, such fate was visited upon us as a species by nature. More recently, we create the fate we must survive be it culturally, socially, politically, or any thing that calls upon our membership to the human race. It is not possible to be alive today without wearing both hats: that of an individual and that of a member of a collective.
Today, witness the shambalic pull out of U.S. troops from Afghanistan.
PBS NewsHour West live episode, Aug. 19, 2021 | The Fall of Afghanistan
The destructive earthquake in Haiti:
Haitians left homeless by 7.2 magnitude earthquake now brace for storm
The brutal, heartless War in Yemem and the death toll of children.
Stalked by death: How rising food insecurity is killing war-torn Yemen’s children
The desperate journey immigrants from around the world make across the Darien Gap.
How U.S. immigration policy affects fate of migrants braving the deadly Darien Gap
Anti vaxxers fueling the Delta variant’s death toll, even among children.
Vaccine, mask opponents are fueling the delta variant’s death toll. Will incentives help?
I have left many tragedies out. But if you are a human of goodwill and good conscious, you know what I have left out. Again, I am focusing on the actions and consequents or non-actions and consequents of individuals, not collectives (of which we are all members of one kind or another; the actions/consequents or non-actions/consequents of collectives are an entirely different order).
Because I am human and because I am enraged by the tremendous amount of misinformation spread by anti vaxxers, I am going to pick on the anti vaxxers for a moment to illustrate something critical in understanding the Secrets of the Golden Flower and Diamond Body.
I have had a glimpse into their world, and I have seen them congratulating each other for getting kicked off social media platforms when the spread misinformation. I see them admitting to each other how they choose not to get vaccinated nor wear a mask and then just pretend in crowds they are vaccinated–taking a don’t ask, don’t tell approach to what they view as an unjust infringement of their individual liberties. I see them celebrating sickness and their body’s ability to fight off anything. I see them comparing mask mandates to Hitler’s Germany. I hear them proclaiming if they resist, they will rise up on the other side of this as the people who are going to bring in a more beautiful world or the people who are going to overthrown totalitarianism in all its manifestations or the people who will be the new Super Athletes of the world (a echo of Hitler’s Super Race myth). I hear them crying fowl that they might not be allowed into bars, restaurants, gyms, workplaces, or even to donate an organ if they cannot prove they’ve had the vaccine.
Have they not seen the suffering of individuals crossing the Darien Gap? Have they not seen the children dying in Yemen because they don’t have food? And there are many children in the mighty Untied States suffering from food shortages too–where is their attention and empathy for striving children anywhere in the world. Or for the plight of the people in Haiti who 6 days later still lack medical equipment, food, water, or help of any kind! Or the millions of people left stranded in Afghanistan after Western powers left (primarily my country: the U.S.) leaving them to the mercy of a brutal, barbaric, backwards, twisted regime that hunt and kill people based on a warped and twisted worldview and religious interpretation filled with hate, especially against women and girls or men who choose to believe different than they do.
Apparently, they have not. They have been too focused on their own fears (real or not) that their rights are being trampled on and the world is going to be ruled by Hitler’s once again.
I have also caught a glimpse into some who are promoting some of the most stubborn and kooky anti-COVID theories. Among some of the staunchest anti-vaxxers, you will hear how society is sick and going to die now. These messages send their followers into pure panic to the point some are digging bunkers and preparing for the end of the world. I know some who are doing this.
Many of the farthest out narratives draw upon religious symbolism and language such as expressed by Catholic Cardinal Burke, who recently was put on a ventilator due to the disease he denied existed. Just in December of 2020, he preached about forces, totalitarian in nature, determined to rule over us .
Where I have seen some of the most infantile responses to COVID-19 is inside the Facebook bubble that I got sorted into. It is a group of people who are passionate about Climate Change. They are people who want to change the system in order to bring in a new, better, more beautiful world. Who could argue this is wrong, expect COVID-19 has revealed to me that there is a long and very dark shadow carefully hidden underneath many of my duly sorted Facebook men and women good intentions to save the world (and I count myself among those concealing a dark shadow).
I know for a fact that I suffer from the same unconscious desire to save the world, and I hide the same shadow underneath all my flowery virtue-isms. I am not that guy standing in the creek, facing down the alligators while holding a log for others to walk safely across. I am a slow learner and it has been hard to accept I can’t do a damn thing about the world, expect possible try to live my own life with a little joy and attention to those I love, and possibly cultivate a little more High Virtue actions by accepting all of who I am.
I know that most of my vexation and annoyance at the selfish and immature behavior of the anti vaxxer crowd is a sign I am not fully become conscious of my own annoying, naive, and stupid behavior. Nor have I fully forgiven myself for the foolish, puerile behavior I have become conscious of.
Alan Watts also says further that when one sets out upon the path of self-development, all the debtors suddenly appear seeking payment for your past karma (karma is nothing more than action and all action (or non-action) has a consequence).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xwKQdAt2CPU
Alan Watts ~ Becoming Free Of Past Karma | 577,631 views; May 20, 2020
“It is believed generally in India that when a person sets out on the way of liberation his first problem is to become free from his past karma. The popular theory of karma the word that literally means action or doing in Sanskrit. So that when we say that something that happens to you is your karma it’s like saying in english it’s your own doing. But in in popular Indian belief karma is a sort of built-in moral law or a law of retribution such that all the bad things you do and all the good things you do have consequences which you have to inherit. And so long as karmic energy remains (all the bad things you do and all the good things you do) you have to work it out and what the sage endeavors to do is a kind of action which in Sanskrit is called: nishkama karma nishkama. This means without passion or without attachment.” — Alan Watts
The Taoist Way – Alan Watts Chillstep Mix | 186,070 views; Dec 3, 2020
“Now when the time comes that you start to get out of the chain of karma all the creditors that you have start presenting themselves for payment. In other words a person who begins say to study yoga is felt that he will suddenly get sick or that his children will die or that he’ll lose his money or all sorts of catastrophes will occur because uh the karmic debt is being cleared up and uh it there’s in no hurry to be cleared up if you’re just living along like anybody. But if you embark on the spiritual life a certain hurry occurs and therefore since this is known uh it’s rather discouraging to start these things. The christian way of saying the same thing is that if you plan to be to change your life shall we say to turn over a new leaf you mustn’t let the devil know.” — Alan Watts (around minute 23)
I foolishly got into a debate about which perspective was right regarding COVID–is it a lie or is it really happening. It was a futile discussion for if I had truly learned anything from listening to hours and hours of Alan Watts via YouTube, I would have simply accepted this position as part of the great happening we are all apart of… and yet, sometimes, I find myself separating from Watts universal, masterful perspective and descending into questioning… but why?
In the course of this rather rancorous discussion, we found we agreed on relative realities and I shared my series on bubble realities.
The Storytelling Species: Makers and Players of Reality (Part 1 of 6)
However, that was about all we agreed upon. After a lengthy illness from which I have still not recovered, I found considerable criticism of my thinking. It is futile to engage in further thought of our ongoing disagreement, but one negative assessment must be addressed. My dialogue partner said: “A story is just a story.”
Well this is true if you are perceiving and arguing simply from the physical realm of reality that we all live in. This includes bodies and bridges, cities and towns, trees and skyscrapers– you get the picture. This is not true when you are perceiving and working from the non-physical world. The dimension where the Diamond Body exists.
In this realm of being, nothing is concrete or enduring. Here, we are confronted with the very best that dwells inside of us and is part of our psyche and developing personality. And, here, we are also confronted with the very darkest, destructive, may I say, evil parts of ourself. Every human being on the planet has a good and bad side. Without these poles, consciousness as we know and understand it would not be possible.
To live together in harmonious groups of people and not tear each others heads off, human beings had to build internal ramparts to protect the individual from out-of-control collective action and to protect the collective from out-of-controlled individual action. We call individual action that is not in accord with the harmony of the collective criminal behavior.
Stories are one of the most important ways societies build and maintain these inner ramparts that protect individual and collective from catastrophe action. When these powerful inner forces begin to crash over and break down the social ramparts carefully constructed over centuries, some of man’s most destructive instincts are let loose. For some of us, this brings death.
Carl Jung was well aware of the dangers that come from inside a perfectly normal man and a perfectly respectable woman, even child. Here are several case Jung handled during his career that helped him understand what is happening the psyche of human beings–the realm of the Diamond Body.
The Symbolic Life | Carl Jung Depth Psychology | Image for blog by Mr. Purrington | 9.7.20
That’s about all I am going to say about current events, anti vaxxers, clearing karma, and the Diamond Body for now. I may turn this into another series. I would just like to point you to the work of Richard Wilhelm who wrote The Secret of the Golden Flower in 1931. He work proved pivotal to Jung’s work on human psychology and psyche, and Jung and Watts were close friends. Watts often drew on the understandings he obtained through long conversations with Jung before Carl Jung died in the early sixties. Sadly, Watts, though much younger, would die himself in the early seventies.
We have been here before as a species on the brink of unrecoverable disaster. If we are luck, we will find a way forward together (as we have done before) and have another opportunity to pull ourselves back from the brink of extinction. Or, as Alan Watts, loved to say, “Perhaps we are that species who does itself in in interesting ways.”
TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE
The original German edition of The Secret of the Golden Flower, of which the following is the authorized English translation, appeared first in the autumn of 1929. On March 1st, 1930, Richard Wilhelm died. In May, 1930, memorial services in his honour were held in Munich, and Jung was asked to deliver the principal address. The latter finds an appropriate place in the English version, 1 which is published a year or more after the co-author's death. The address will be welcomed, not only for what it tells the reader of Wilhelm, but for the further light it throws on the standpoint of the East.
The relation of the West to Eastern thought is a highly paradoxical and confusing one. On the one side, as Jung points out, the East creeps in among us by the back door of the unconscious, and strongly influences us in perverted forms, and on the other we repel it with violent prejudice as concerned with a fine-spun metaphysics that is poisonous to the scientific mind.
If anyone is in doubt as to how far the East influences us in secret ways, let him but briefly investigate the fields covered to-day by what is called "occult thought ". Millions of people are included in these movements and Eastern ideas dominate all of them. Since there is nowhere any sign of a psychological understanding of the phenomena on which the ideas are based, they undergo a complete twisting and are a real menace in our world.
A partial, realization of what is going on in this direction, together with the Westerner's native ignorance and mistrust of the world of inner experience, build up the prejudice against the reality of Eastern wisdom. When the wisdom of the Chinese is laid before a Westerner, he is very likely to ask with a sceptical lift of the brows why such profound wisdom did not save China from its present horrors. Of course, he does not stop to think that the Chinese asks with an equal skepticism why the much boasted scientific knowledge of the West, not to mention its equally boasted Christian ethics, did not save it from a World War. But as a matter of fact, present conditions in China do not invalidate Chinese wisdom, nor does the Great War prove the futility of science. In both cases we are dealing with the negative sides of the principles under which East and West live, and it has not yet been given, either to individuals or to nations, to manage the vices of their virtues. Mastery of the inner world, with a relative contempt for the outer, must inevitably lead to great catastrophes. Mastery of the outer world, to the exclusion of the inner, delivers us over to the daemonic forces of the latter and keeps us barbaric despite all outward forms of culture. The solution cannot be found either in deriding Eastern spirituality as impotent, or by mistrusting science as a destroyer of humanity. We have to see that the spirit must lean on science as its guide in the world of reality, and that science must turn to the spirit for the meaning
of life.
This is the point of view established in The Secret of the Golden Flower. Through the combined efforts of Wilhelm and Jung we have for the first time a way of understanding and appreciating Eastern wisdom, which satisfies all sides of our minds. It has been taken out of metaphysics and placed in psychological
experience. We approach it with an entirely new tool, and are protected from the perversions the East undergoes at the hands of the cult-mongersof the West. At the same time, its meaning for us is greatly deepened when we know that, despite the gulf separating us from the East, we follow exactly similar paths when once we give heed to the inner world.
But this book not only gives us a new approach to the East, it also strengthens the point of view evolving in the West with respect to the psyche. The reshaping of values in progress to-day forces the modern man out of a nursery-world of collective traditions into an adult's world of individual choice. He knows that his choice and his fate now turn upon his understanding of himself. Much has been taught him in recent years about the hitherto unsuspected elements in his psyche, but the emphasis is all too often on the static side alone, so that he finds himself possessed of little more than an inventory of contents, the nature of which serves to burden him with a sense of weariness rather than to spur him on to master the problems that confront him. Yet it is precisely the need of understanding himself in terms of change and renewal, which most grips the imagination of modern man. Having seen the world of matter disappear before his scientific eye and reappear as a world of energy, he comes to ask himself a bold question ; does he not contain within his psyche a store of unexplored forces, which, if rightly understood, would give him a new vision of himself and help safeguard the future for him ? In this book his question is answered from two widely different sources, an ancient Chinese yoga system and analytical psychology. Stripped of its archaic setting, The Secret of the Golden Flower is the secret of the powers of growth latent in the psyche, and these same powers as they reveal themselves in the minds of Western men also form the theme of Jung's commentary.
In the commentary he has shown the profound psychological development resulting from the right relationship to the forces within the psyche.
In the German edition Jung's commentary comes first, followed by Wilhelm's exposition of the text, and then by the text itself. At the author's request, the order has been changed so that his commentary follows the text.
The Chinese words in this edition are in the Anglicized form. For making the necessary transcriptions, I am indebted to Mr. Arthur VValey, and to Colonel Egerton of Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner and Co. The latter has been kind enough to give his personal attention to the editing of my manuscript.
As a possible aid in keeping in mind the relationships between the various Chinese concepts such as ksing-ming, kuei-shcn, etc., I have added two summaries, one written and one diagrammatic.
Fortunately for me, I have made this translation under the supervision of Dr. Jung, and to that fact, and to the further aid I have received from Mrs. Jung, I owe any success I may have had in meeting the difficulties presented.
It has also been my privilege to have the completed manuscript read and criticized by Dr. Erla Rodakiewicz, and for her invaluable
assistance I am deeply grateful.
1 See Appendix, p. 139. | Cary F. Baynes. Zurich, March, J 931.
May we find peace, understanding, and love among all humans once again.
Another amazing Radiolab aired May 5, 2021 (Staph and Gamma) that revisited and provide updates on two simple scientific discoveries that potentially hold huge ramifications for our modern times. This episode began by replaying an earlier show Robert Krulsich did with Molly Webster back in 2016. At the time, this was breaking news. This episodes includes updates as of 2020.
Brainwaves
Li-Huei Tsai is a professor and director of the Picower Institute for Learning and Memory at MIT. Li-Huei explained to Molly how most research on Alzheimer’s disease (a disease that affects every family) has focused on genes predisposing people to developing this disease later in life. But, Li-Huei took a different approach at looking at this disease. Her work centers on gamma frequencies, which are like a beat in your brain (a type of brainwave).
Gamma Waves | Type of Brain Waves Affected by Alzheimer’s Disease | Animation by Genolve
Entire groups of neurons will beat at the same time. Some beat at 1 beat per second. Others beat at 600 beats per second. A person who needs to super focus his or her attention requires groups of neurons to beat at 30 to 100 beats per second. These are gamma beats. We can measure them through EEG recordings.
Li-Huei explains how the human brain has billions and billions of neurons. To do what we do as humans, process information, have a thought, problem-solve, communicate with each other, and remember things, all these neurons need to communicate with each other. The neural cell has long tentacles that reach out towards other neurons like waving hands. When an electrical signal passes through them, it is like a zap that sends a signal (neural transmitter) across the gap to another neuron, which turns it on.
Synchronizing Neurons | Magic of Everything | Animation by Genolve
To walk, write a poem, or compose a song, whole groups of neurons must turn on and fire in synchrony. The gamma frequency (or synchrony) has been considered very important for the higher order cognitive function. However, Molly Webster explains that when you look at an Alzheimer’s brain, what you see is there’s actually less gamma happening. Or people say, like, the power of gamma is reduced.
Li-Huei says this is because not all the neurons can be recruited to oscillate at the gamma frequency and this is because of plaques that build up around neurons gunking them up. the more plaque, the harder it is to think…sort of like cobwebs in the brain.
Let’s Manipulate Gamma Oscillations
So, Webster and Li-Huei wondered: What would happen if they could just bring gamma back to the brain?
Working with mice that have an early stage of Alzheimer’s disease measured by elevated levels of beta amyloid peptides, they drilled a small hole into the skull of the mouse’s head, slide a very thin fiber-optic cable into the brain (specifically, a group of cells modified to be sensitive to light), and then using blue laser light, flicker it at 40 beasts per second: a gamma wave.
The Beat Goes On | Animation by Genolve
They did this for one hour, the looked at the mice’s brain to see if anything was different. Not expecting to find much, they were shocked. After one hour of pulsing light, there was nearly half as much of the nasty plaque gunk filling up their hippocampus (a 40 to50% reduction of beta amyloid in their brain).
Who knew blinking light would do that? But, somehow, the pulsing light triggered the brain’s cleanup crew (microglia) that gobble up the gunk.
In a normal brain, these janitor cells are constantly gobbling up the gunk, but in an Alzheimer’s brain, it is sort of like the janitors have gone on strike. After one hour of light, the microglia cells seem to get a lot bigger, meaning they’ve gobbled up beta amyloid mucking up the brain.
With less gunk, more neurons are available to oscillate together at the gamma wavelength needed to concentrate and do higher level cognitive work.
Wait, It’s Even Better
These findings were really exciting, but drilling holes and inserting fiber-optic cable into brains is pretty invasive. So, Li-Huei wondered if there was another way to get light into the brain. Perhaps through the eyes?
It’s Goes Through the Eyes into the Brain | Animation by Genolve
So, they created a flicker room for the mice by using duct taped strips of LED lights. They put the mice in the altered cages and let the LEDs flicker at 40 beats per second. They let the mice bathe in the flickering LED glow for 1 hour. And then took a look at the amyloid beta levels in the visual cortex and once again found a 50% reduction.
Over time, they found out that if the mice are not put into the flicker-light room at least once for an hour every 24 hours, the plaque comes back. So, they are trying to see how to keep the levels down longer, or ever for good.
The Update to This Research
Since Radiolab first reported this research, Li-Huei has tried sound at 40 hertz per second for one hour with her mice.
Exact 40 Hz Gamma Brainwave audio used by MIT to prevent Alzheimer’s | It sounds a lot like Cicadas!
Light with sound | 40hz per second flashing Alzheimer s disease light therapy
The same thing! A 40 to 50% reduction in plague in the brain.
They are just moving into human trails, but there is a whole movement out there not waiting to find out the results. Here are just some of the interesting efforts underway, but people, companies, and meditation tapes aren’t waiting.
Gamma (40 hz) LED Lamp Flasher | 7,365 viewsDec 28, 2016 | Home project to build an LED lamp flasher as described in the Radio Lab “Bringing Gamma Back”.
Gamma Brain Waves Meditation 40 Hz frequency 1 Hr Producing Focus, Calmness, Happiness | Gamma Brain Waves (40 Hz) are the fastest of our brainwaves, sweeping across our brain 40 times a second producing increased focus, calmness and even happiness.
RubyLux Gamma Light & Sound Therapy Set
And there are many other products available.
Several other videos describing this light therapy include the following.
40Hz Gamma | 🎧 Pure Binaural Beats | 432Hz Based | Brain Reset
Image from blog: How to build your own Alzheimer’s light treatment relay with Arduino/Espruino
While far from conclusive and so far untested on humans, the results of the studies detailed in the podcast are extremely promising. The gist is by flickering light at and around the gamma frequency for extended periods of time, brain plaque caused by Alzheimer’s is dramatically reduced in lab mice.
This got me thinking how one would go about building a flicker box for this purpose if you wanted to try it out for yourself. My first thought was to just build a simple website (seizure warning):
40 Hz Gamma – Pure Tone Binaural Beat – Brain’s Operating System
Exact 40 Hz Gamma Brainwave audio used by MIT to prevent Alzheimer’s | 35,748 views * Oct 21, 2020
I absolutely loved a recently aired episode of RadioLab titled: Man Against Horse. It originally aired December 28, 2019, but I heard it May 23, 2021. I had been working on my story trying to getting straight in my head man’s long line of evolutionary changes that ultimately lead to us, the living beings who stare at screens and do everything to extremes.
Man & His Ancestors
There was Australopithecus afarensis who emerged 3.67 to 2 million years ago in the Middle Pliocene to Early Pleistocene of South Africa, an extinct species of australopithecine. Spread:Southern Africa (Lucy’s species). I love them. Look at those eyes!
There was Homo habiliswho emerged 2.4 to 1.5 mya inhabiting parts of sub-Saharan Africa from roughly 2.4 to 1.5 million years ago (mya). In 1959 and 1960 the first fossils were discovered at Olduvai Gorge in northern Tanzania – roamed Eastern edge of Africa, moving from the Horn of Africa to the tip.Spread:Western to Southern African
There was Homo ergasterwho emerged (“working man”) is an extinct hominid species (or subspecies, according to some authorities) which lived throughout eastern and southern Africa between 1.9 to 1.4 million years ago with the advent of the lower Pleistocene and the cooling of the global climate: 1.9 to 1.4 mya (although some classifications include additional individuals that extends their range to between about 700,000 and 2 million years ago). Spread: Africa: 1.9 to 1.4 million years ago. Considered an early, exclusively African form of Homo erectus. Started making stone tools 1.6 million years ago.
And of course, there was Homo erectus who emerged 2 mya, evolving from either a late form of australopith or one of the more primitive forms of Homo, and went on to spread into many parts of Asia. Spread:Western African,Europe, Arabian Peninsula, Southern Asia, Indonesia, Philippines, New Zealand, Australia, Eastern coast of Asia to Bering Strait
There are many more early hominoid species that evolved, lived for thousands (and some more than a million) years, and then died out and disappeared. This is where I was getting lost, and this is when I took a break and tuned into RadioLab and heard this episode that straighten everything out in my mind. It all came down to the nuchal ligament and the human butt.
It’s All About the Butt
I was skeptical at first because this episode started out with Matt who began saying:
Okay, so this story comes to us from Heather, who is a fantastic writer who brought us this story that, if I were to boil it down, is about a horse, a lone man running through the desert, and what it fundamentally means to be a human being. And weirdly, butts. I didn't see this coming, but it's about butts. Just butts. Your butt. It's about your butt.
Heather is writing a book about the cultural history of the female butt. She said:
I thought I'd save that one for on tape. It started as an essay that I was just working on because I have a big butt, and I grew up in, you know, the suburbs of mid-Michigan. That was -- it was pretty white. And in high school in the '90s, it was very much like, not good to have a big butt. Like, I got made fun of, et cetera, et cetera. But then sometime in the mid-aughts, all of a sudden this body that had sort of been bringing me all this shame became attractive in sort of a mainstream way.
As Heather started taking apart and looking into issues such as race, appropriation, beauty, her essay about the butt ended up becoming a book about the butt. She asked herself: what does the butt mean? Like, what does it symbolize and why does it symbolize that? Then, she realized she had to answer a more fundamental question: Why do we even have a butt at all?
Butts | Animation by Genolve
Gluteus Maximus & Evolution of Man
Daniel Lieberman is an evolutionary biologist at Harvard University who is interested in the evolution of the human body and the effects of physical activity for a long time. He wanted to understand how and why the human body evolved the way it did. Back around 1992, he was a post-doc doing research on pigs…miniature pigs running on treadmills!
Treadmill Pigs | Animation by Genolve
Lieberman was looking at how different parts of the skeleton respond to the effect of the loads caused by exercise. Lieberman says, “Sounds like an exciting thing, but believe me it eventually gets kind of — kind of dull.” This is until the day a fellow called Dennis Bramble, a professor at the University of Utah, came to Harvard to do his own research next door to Lieberman.
Dennis Bramble recalls turning to his co-researher saying, “What the hell’s that sound? Is somebody doing something there?” And they said, “Yeah, and this guy Dan Lieberman is running pigs over there.” I said, “Oh, I gotta — I’ve gotta see this!”
Pig on a Treadmill | 32,031 views•Oct 13, 2007 | Petunia the pig trains for glory.
Lieberman recounts Bramble popped his head in and watched the pig, then cocked his head to the side and said, ““You know Dan, that pig can’t hold its head still when it’s running.” Lieberman said, “It’s funny I’d spent hours watching pigs run on treadmills, but I never really thought about it.“
Bramble said: “You know Dan, I bet that pig’s head is flopping all around because it doesn’t have this thing called thenuchal ligament.” This ligament provides support for the head and neck. It is like a rubber band attached to the back of the animal’s skull and runs down the spine to keep the head straight as it runs. Bramble pointed out that all mammals that have specialized as runners have this nuchal ligament–everything from cheetahs to leopards to antelopes to horses, to jackrabbits and dogs. Animals who are bad runners don’t have this ligament–like pigs.
This is where my attention perked up: humans have anuchal ligament.
But, our closest hominoid cousins do not have a nuchal ligament. This includes apes, chimps, gorillas.
It’s All About the Nuchal Ligament | Animation made by Genolve
Humans Evolved to Run
Way back, our closest hominoid relatives split off into the genus Pan, while humans split off into the genus Homo. The first hominoid in the genus Homo to have this ligament was Homo erectus. Paleontologist can tell this by a sharp ridge on the back of the skull that this ligament leaves behind as a trace.
Daniel Lieberman says, “It doesn’t have a snout, it has smaller teeth. It’s — it’s the first species that’s really very much like you and me from the neck down.“
Around the time that Homo erectus emerged, spectacular changes were occurring with its foot (e.g., toes were shortening, arch was forming, Achilles tendon), hips (i.e., taller, narrower, twisty that helps us stay stable on two feet), arms (shorter), legs (longer), inner ears (semicirucular canals got larger to balance), joints (got bigger to bear the load of running), and butts!
Butts evolved for running. Lieberman explains that when humans run, the gluteus maximus muscles fires twice with every stride to prevent the trunk from pitching forward and falling face first.
Let’s Go! Gluteus maximus! | Animation by Genolve
Lieberman explains:
"Running is a controlled fall. Very different from walking. And so your gluteus maximus fires just before your body's about to -- your trunk is about to pitch forward and make you hit your nose on the ground, and it helps pull your trunk backward. And the other time the gluteus maximus fires is when your leg is swinging forward when you're in the air, and it helps decelerate the leg so that you bring your leg down onto the ground. So the gluteus maximus plays a very important role when you're -- when you're running, and turns out to barely be active when you're walking. And, you know, you don't need the fancy equipment in my lab to figure this out. You can just do this yourself at home. Just walk around the room and hold your butt and, you know, clench your kind of butt. And -- and when you're walking your butt will just stay kind of normal, right? It'll stay kind of, you know ..."
But Why Did Homo Erectus Evolve Bigger Butts?
Climate change! That’s what happened about two million years ago. The tree filled jungles were disappearing and being replaced by open grasslands. This was triggered by an ice age that was drying out Africa. These vast open spaces were quickly filling up large grass-eating animals such as the kudu and antelope. Carnivores were rapidly evolving to catch and eat these big food sources such as lions, tigers, and cheetahs.
Compared to these apex predators, Homo erectus was puny and not a good runner. But, Homo erectus could do something they could not do. Homo erectus could sweat! This meant Homo erectus could chase his prey over long distances. He didn’t have to be fast; he simply had to have endurance, pay attention to tracks, and be patience.
Daniel Lieberman explains:
"The trick is you find that animal before it's cooled down, because of course the animal would have run away, and when it runs away it gets hot. Like, when you -- running generates a lot of heat. And these animals aren't very good at dumping heat."
Sweat Fitness | Animation by Genolve
There is a lively, fascinating argument on this episode of RadioLab as to whether Homo erectus tracked and followed its prey to exhaustion or if he simply looked for vultures and other scavengers that an apex predator killed and banded together to scare them away. We don’t know. Probably a little of both. But, the extra protein, fat, and nutrients he got this way helped his brain grow bigger and other evolutionary changes to occur. So, the evolution of a bigger butt and nuchal ligament were pretty important to get to modern human beings.
Man vs Horse
The last half of this episode you just have to listen to… really, you should listen to all of it… I skipped a lot of good stuff. But it is all about a crazy race that takes place in Prescott, AZ every year. It is a high desert long distance race (50 miles) between a group of human runners and a group of horses with riders.
The story goes like this:
HEATHER: So in 1983, a city councilman in Prescott comes into this bar in Whiskey Row, like super-old west America.
MATT: And he gets there, he sits down, and he has a beer. And down at the end of the bar …
HEATHER: There’s a couple of cowboys. The city councilman’s just run a marathon.
MATT: And at some point …
HEATHER: The city council guy says, “I just ran this crazy race.”
MATT: And one of the cowboys says …
HEATHER: “My horse could run that far easily.”
MATT: “You’re not that fast.”
HEATHER: “My horse could do that in an afternoon. Wouldn’t even break a sweat.” And then the city councilman’s like, “You know, I’m not sure he can.”
MATT: “Actually, in fact, I bet I can outrun your horse.”
HEATHER: And for 30-plus years, they have been sort of seeing who’s right.
Matt and Heather follow the racers and it is fantastic, fun story. Who do you think wins? Listen and see!
Man vs Horse | Animation by Genolve | Listen to the blow by blow race as covered by RadioLab here
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.
It is Syttende Mai, and I just heard the most delightful story on Morning Edition–about an invasion of Trolls! But they are not coming to destroy the world, rather they are showing up to show us how to save it!
Thomas Dambo makes gentle giants from scrap wood, old pallets, twigs, and debris. In Maine, he is constructing a team of trolls that resemble a different part of a tree: the roots, trunk, branches, leaves and flowers. He is making a bunch of trolls in Maine, each with a particular story and like a different part of a tree: the roots, trunk, branches, leaves and flowers. Birk is one of these Maine trolls and he is intentionally rough and “bumpy” because he is emerging from the soil. Dambo says, “A lot of my trolls, they have fur, but this one is naked. I’m imagining … that this troll used to be underground and now it’s pushed itself out of the ground.”
Cicadas 2021
Like the cicadas are doing right now in DC…the big brood–billions and billions of them.
Dambo created Birk as if he is pushing himself out of the ground: that’s why his skin is naked.
Image from Morning Edition (NPR): This Dambo troll is part of the Guardians of the Seeds experience at the Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens. Tory Paxson/Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens
Dambo knows a lot of the stories and concepts he creates probably gets lost on visitors. But, he says, “It doesn’t really matter for me because what matters is his trolls draw people into nature where they can have a good experience.”
Birk’s Emergence to Seeds | Animation by Genolve
Dambo makes trolls all over the world and enlists a team of local volunteers to help him build a troll, which reminds me of where the heck is Mike videos (I love these videos! Oh and he has two beautiful kids now!! What a way to unite the world in love and unity through music, dance, and laughter and the joy of life).
Back to the trolls, Dambo says, “Everybody wants to be a part of some big positive project” and building a great big troll is perfect! Dambo says, “I think everything needs to be really important where you are, because that’s where you can fight your fight and that’s where you can make the change.”
I love his story about Hector the Protector; a troll he built on the Puerto Rican island of Culebra.
Hector sat on rocks at the water's edge, protecting the island. In his hand, he originally had a rock "ready to throw at invaders," smiles artist Mark Rivera, one of Dambo's collaborators. But Hector did not survive Hurricane Maria.
In 2019, Dambo returned to the same spot to make Hector 2.0. Instead of a rock, he's now holding a lantern embedded with a solar panel so boats can see the coastline in a hurricane.
Protect Islands: Hector the Protector
But the first Hector was destroyed by a hurricane and so here is the new Hector the Protector
Trolls that Block Paths
Dambo builds trolls that .
Troll that Fish& Swing
Trolls that Hold Swings
Trolls that Point at Stars
Isak Heartstone
Isak Heartstone new home
Isak Heartstone coming down
My favorite story of this interview was the troll Dambo built in Breckenridge. He was named Isak Heartstone and was removed by the city because he got so popular!
Isak Heartstone Killed by the Goverment | 6,057 views•Nov 23, 2018
I love this song about Isak Heartstone. It is absolutely fun, brilliant, and done in the spirit of trolls (who really don’t want to harm anyone). I would only add that I doubt it was really the doing of the mayor or government who did poor Isak Heartstone in. It was the property owners who lived nearby. Suddenly, due to the lovely nature of Isak Hearstone, hundreds of people who didn’t live in the neighborhood were showing up, parking on the street, hiking to see Isak Heartstone, taking pictures, probably not cleaning up all their trash–and for individuals owning property nearby–well, they probably feared this was reducing the value of their lovely homes as well as their privacy. And so, that’s where the mayor and government come in… they are there for the people to take care of all the things the people care about… and at that time, it was the value (most likely) of their properties.
That is why we organize governments, to carry out the will of the people. But, we are the people. We make the rules and then enforce them, no matter how much they stink because they really only represent a very few people. Often the one’s with the most money who can influence the rules and how they are enforced.
Take for instance the Presidential election of 2020 in America. Joe Biden won by a landslide. Trump and a lot of other Republicans didn’t like the results and so Southern state after state are changing the voting laws and rules, making it harder to vote by mail, to vote in person, and to vote, especially if you are not a pale male with a Republican bent.
It’s all on us. We live in the system. We use the system. We suffer under the system when it gets rigged against those who have less status, less money, and less power. For far too long, status, money, and power in Western Civilization has been titled to benefit white males living in the systems of power within which everyone else must find a place and a way to survive.
W. Kamau Bell has been writing and talking about this for a long time. He use comedy to have tough conversations about race, inequality, and inequity. A recent opinion piece he wrote introduces some of the topics he digs into. To really understand, it takes a willingness to do so and time to learn about and see all the connections that we contribute to just by living in a system like Western Civilization: W. Kamau Bell: Until those in power act right, I’ll see you in the streets.
But, back to Dambo and what he is doing. I just love the spirit he is literally building into the world through his fantastical trolls! His joy and fun and surprises rejuvenate the human mind and spirit. His fanciful trolls situated in whimsical places help us to realign mentally and bring us back into a harmony with each other and with all of the life. Sure, once my Nordic ancestors believed trolls were real. But, then that is why we have our fantastic minds today. We became conscious beings in a living world. At first, it is only natural to project one’s mind into the strange, beautiful, and scary things all around us.
Jung says, “When there is no consciousness of the difference between subject and object, an unconscious identity prevails. The unconscious is projected into the object, and the object is introjected into the subject, becoming part of his psychology. Then plants and animals behave like humans beings, human beings are at the same time animals, and everything is alive with ghosts and gods (and trolls). Civilized man naturally thinks he is miles above these things.Instead of that, he is often identified with his parents throughout his life, or with his affects and prejudices, and shamelessly accuses others of the things he will not see in himself.He too has a remnant of primitive unconsciousness, of non-differentiation between subject and object. Because of this, he is magically affected by all manner of people, things, and circumstances, he is beset by disturbing influences nearly as much as the primitive and therefore needs just as many apotropaic charms. He no longer works magic with medicine bags, amulets, and animal sacrifices, but with tranquilizers, neuroses, rationalism, and the cult of will (e.g., capitalism, communism, socialism, nazism…choose your ism… there are so many we cling to these days).
So go out today and find a troll or better yet, make one–a little one, a big one, an imagined one is just as good–the real point is getting outside again and melting into the magic of being here, now and alive.
Primeval (May 17, 2021) | Another Type of Whimsical Beingness in the World
