Jan 9th, 2012 by John
Rumi Poem - Thought I would try a little poetry by Rumi (Coleman Barks – Like This) with images.
Dec 3rd, 2011 by John
Did you get a chance to watch Thrive? If not, I recommend it. Did you watch Cancer: The Forbidden Cures?
It seems almost everyone is upset with the way things are being done and run these days – BIG Governement, BIG Business, BIG Pharma, BIG Banking, BIG Agra… There’s a lot of stress, energy and vocals, but very little effective action, it seems.
The Occupy Wall Street movement seems, to me, like a dismal failure. Why? My observation is that ranting and raving and getting attention is usually not very effective. It works for hungry 2-year-olds or even a 5-year-old with a cut or a bump, but that’s usually because someone who really cares is within hearing distance.
The reason that movements like Occupy Wall Street and others fail is what? – no one cares? the system is too entrenched? the BIGs are in control?
The Occupy Wall Street movements seemed to quickly devolve from a noble quest to just another scene for repressed anger and immaturity to run amok for individual acting out or to be co-opted by more focused anti-social elements. I didn’t see anything that I would characterize as effective action.
Imagine that every person that attended a Occupy Wall Street protest, or every person that found themselves on the wrong side of the mortgage melt-down, or every person that has been hurt by the economic down turn did something simple like take their money out of the Big 3 banks that are controlled by three large and powerful families and started using a local credit union or community bank. Imagine if everyone of those people help convince 5 other people to do the same.
In detective shows and novels they say – follow the money. Hit them where it hurts is another well-known phrase. Some make the case that our individual accounts are just peanuts to the big banks, so take the peanuts away. Doing something other than just bitching and complaining is a step.
Many feel cynical and fatalistic about changing the political system with its current entrenched emphasis on “political divide.” Voting for or against a particular Presidential candidate does seem very effective. Should we Throw Them All Out? Probably, it seems it may be the only way to get the message across that our representatives are elected to serve the country and not themselves… Did you see the 60 Minutes segment?
Here again, we probably need to first deal in peanuts and then work our way up. Local community and state governments as well as Congress.
The challenge is that it takes effort and commitment for the long haul, because change will not happen over night. Many of us are challenged in those areas. We want it now and thought it doesn’t change, we manage to eke out a little emotional discharge by sounding off or acting out in ways that support the positions of the “powers that be.”
I have or am in the process of closing down all my known ties with the big 3 banks. Chase Bank keeps sending me offers, telling how they want to serve my needs. This in spite of the fact that two years ago they, canceled to credit accounts because I wasn’t their type of customer. A recent incident with Chase Bank helped to reinforce my stance.
The reason I took the time to write this post is that I have several friends dying from cancer and it seemed too obvious that the way the AMA and Big Pharma are in business to keep cancer treatment alive and well as opposed to actually finding a cure is the same as the way the financial mess is being handled to support Big Banks at the expense of the consumer.
My money and my vote is moving away from BIG…
Nov 27th, 2011 by John
The normal course of life is like this: A wart grows on your nose and becomes so big that you finally can’t hide it from yourself or others. So you pretend to be someone else. And people, for one reason or another, quit mentioning the wart. Of course, you can’t mention their crossed-eyes, crooked teeth, ugly toes, and etc.
We do not see the world for what it is, nor do we really see each other. Continue Reading »
Nov 23rd, 2011 by John
Everywhere I look abundance and every moment gratitude. There is nowhere to go and nothing needed.
One way I see our situation is that creation or the universe is like a tree. Love is the flowers of the tree, and the human being is the final fruit of the tree, the final fruit of creation. The thick nectar of the ripe fruit is gratitude. Gratitude for how things are, gratitude for being vulnerable, gratitude that you can be completely influenceable. Gratitude for being human. – A. H. Almaas
Appreciation floods my soul in recognizing the preciousness of the human experience.
As you may notice, the notion of oneness has quite an impact on your mind; it is a possibility that your mind doesn’t usually conceive of. The idea of it has an impact. Now, imagine what the experience is like. The more the person has an experience of oneness, the more the person will be walking around with a question mark: How can that be? What does that mean? You are eating your food, and you ask, “What am I eating? I am eating myself.” For your mind, it is completely incomprehensible. It takes time for the mind to get used to it, to adjust itself, to realize, “Yeah, I do not really have to think the way I usually think, I do not really have to go about my life the way I usually go about it. Things are not really like that.” The goodness and abundance is in every point and all of existence. It is not here or there. – A. H. Almaas
Nov 19th, 2011 by John
Everything’s been drug into the Wide-Open
He’s turned the whole house inside out
Even the walls are for sale
We were going to ask pennies on the dollar
But wanted better bargains
We’re asking for laughter instead
I put out all the images of my friends
Some art collector took the lot
Laughing – all the way to the bank
I gathered all my stories and tales
Hopes, woes and dreams
And rushed them out to the curb
Just in time to catch
An impoverished playwright
He was certain the joke was on us
I ran out of personal items
So I started bringing over
Donations from friends
Thinking I was pulling
A fast one on Him
I can’t contain the mirth
What a rip-roaring snort
When I discovered His face
In all of the Buyers and Sellers
What a riot!
I can’t tell you
Who is laughing loudest!
Nov 16th, 2011 by John
I remember when I stored 50 or 100 phone numbers between my ears. This was back in the day of the rotary phone. I should have realized that those 12 push buttons of technology from Ma Bell were going to lead me down the path of selective technological dementia – where I have to check a digital device for my name, rank and serial number.
As human beings, we rarely dwell on just how fragile our existence is. We tend to think the sun will rise tomorrow and though Bernie Madoff is in jail, our financial security is no more secure now than it has been at any other time in history. It can all go in the flicker of an eye – everything gone, even more so than the tsunami in Japan.
Likewise, we text, tweet and like as if all of our gadgets will be there for us – should the sun continue to rise.
A strong solar storm in 1859 shorted telegraph wires, causing fires in North America and Europe. If such an electromagnetic storm occurred today, it would take four to ten years to recover electric power lines, according to a report of the National Academy of Science. Given the strong interdependence of every system, the effects could be devastating for the whole of society. – The Digitally Divided Self
I wonder how many of us would survive if we lost electricity for a decade.
And on another note -
God!
You should hear
Me complain!
About this lack of sleep
You’d never know
I’ve just awakened
From a fifty-year snooze
Every time I try to relax
A new tale from beyond
Enters my head
Going on and on
Like a broken record
Until I let it out
Or, some soft kiss
Steals into my heart
Setting it on wing
This canary’s very nature
Is endless sweet song
There’s no time to rest
The grave is rushing toward us
Like a runaway train
Don’t be struck
Deaf, dumb and dead
Before your time
Choose your death wisely
Crack your heart-seed open
Now
Die in this moment
Singing your birth-song
And you
Into existence
Come join me
In this delicious misery
Lay your head upon
Soft feathered pillows
Awaken
In His lap
God
Wants to hear
You complain too!
Nov 14th, 2011 by John
Gently, I lower into my self
An elegant lady entering a bath
The pool of being welcomes
A tulip at day’s cool end
The mirror reverses
Awakened lucidity
Boundaries fade
Noon sun burning fog
No longer seeking
I am
Nov 11th, 2011 by John
In The Digitally Divided Self, Ivo Quartiroli addresses the promise of technology to produce a better world, a bright and radiant future for all. As Ivo points out, there is an endless loop of hope, desire and falling short of the mark. Here are the stages in his “will to produce” self-reinforcing loop:
This has the same feel and smell to it as the Buddhist Wheel of Samsara. This endless loop can also be viewed through the lens of endless ego activity, looking to the outside for what’s needed to make one happy, content, whole, real, strong, lovable, etc…
The focus of all activity is toward the future. Hope arises – taking us out of the NOW. This initiates the cycle of ego activity that will eventually lead to experiencing the transitory nature of all experiences which leads us back to dissatisfaction and looking to the future for the answer.
The universe
is a kaleidoscope:
now hopelessness, now hope
now Spring, now Fall.
Forget its ups and downs;
do not vex yourself.
The remedy for pain
is the pain itself. – Sarmad
Quit spending
All of your time & attention
Trying to get a life
The one dealing in that coin
Will drive you into bankruptcy
Each moment
You live Now
Is like collecting a penny
From heaven
Spending them
In service
Will bring you wealth
That lasts beyond the grave
And a life
Precious beyond price
Nov 10th, 2011 by John
A friend (point 8) commented to me once about “the bad rap eights get”. This was in response to an article on the enneagram of personality types that had appeared in a major metropolitan newspaper. The article quoted one person’s viewpoint that “eights are awful to be married to!” As an eight myself, I could relate to both my friend’s concern and the person quoted in the article because I too was married to an eight and it was the worst 18 months of my life!!! Those eights are they too much or what?
I have attended a number of enneagram functions and have many friends and acquaintances within enneagram circles. Invariably, I hear comments about how eights are the worst. In studying the enneagram, I learned that no particular fixation is better or worse than any other. Why then do we continue to hear comments like this? Continue Reading »
Nov 5th, 2011 by John
The world comes knocking
at the wise man’s door
like all good guests
laying problems at his feet
quietly, he feeds them
as gluttonous appetites
ravage the evening’s meal
bloated with assumptions
they raucously depart
hidden in the corner
a hungry servant
died on table scraps
What is this space we say we need
and to our neighbors refuse to cede
Our bodies willingly we’ll bleed
if our words they fail to heed
Seeking love with heart sincere
a bloodied child sheds a tear
Our cause is just, the course won’t veer
such hypocrites, we have no peer
From global wars to marriage spats
righteousness wears white hats
And just like hissing alley cats
soon throws itself upon the rats
They say we live an age of reason
apparently there has been treason
But let us wait another season
before removing ego’s lesion
Religious leaders take such pride
in claiming God is on their side
As human passions they seek to hide
in fear the flock finds they lied
If all is fair in love and war
then our poor world will heal no sore
And children raised on local lore
will also rot at the core
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