Never discuss politics and religion....Or, "The Sinking Blog"

“In a Democracy, people get the kind of government they deserve.” Winston Churchill


I guess that I just can't help myself. I Have, within me, an ongoing sense of a spiritual quest that has been there before my earliest memories. So I like to lightly touch upon some aspects of religion or spiritual or philosophical teachings, ideas and experiences that have shaped me. Perhaps, too often, I am too eclectic and bounce around from Einstein to Zukav and from the Bhagavad Gita to the Bible while skipping like the proverbial stone through Taoism and Buddhism. No way to run a blog!

And then.....I go on about politics; much in the same fashion.

But let me be clear about this.

1) Trickle down economics has never worked. It only serves to help the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.
2) No politician will ever be elected by telling the truth. People love a straight talking express ONLY when it is filled with government catch words and phrases. No matter how bad things get, the kids don't want to hear it. They just want Daddy to fix it.
3) No one in right wing talk radio believes what they say. The game of schitck is "rant for ratings" and unless you continuously outdo yourself, you will be out of a job.
4) The rules are much different for the "haves" than for the "have-nots".
5) The best paying job with the best benefits is that of being a politician. If the politicians were forced to have the same level of health care that the average American had, things would change fast. Plus they eat well too! And love those shoes!
6) In Massachusetts it has been a long standing practice to hire the Police (State & local) for all road detail. This practice has been so long standing and lucrative (often at over $75 to $100 an hour) that it is anathema for any politician to talk about or even think of touching it; although it would make great fiscal sense to do so.
The Social Security system and Medicare is much the same. Call me a Socialist but no one that retires at a full pension of over $150,000 to $200,000 needs to collect Social Security and be offered Medicare even IF they paid in over there years of employment. The sale of everyday items and the ability to borrow is what keeps the economy rolling. Yet the current design leads more towards a feudal system( http://library.thinkquest.org/J0110522/feudal_system.htm) than that of a happy capitalism.
7) Should I go on?..............

Are We Not Men? (Cats)

A firefighter is working on the engine outside the station when he notices a little girl next door in a little red wagon with little ladders hung off the sides and a garden hose tightly coiled in the middle. The girl is wearing a firefighter's helmet.

The wagon is being pulled by her dog and her cat. The fire fighter walked over to take a closer look.

'That sure is a nice fire truck,' the firefighter says with admiration. 'Thank you,' the little girl says.

The firefighter looks a little closer and notices the girl has tied the wagon to her dog's collar and to the cat's testicles.

'Little Partner,' the firefighter says, 'I don't want to tell you how to run your rig, but if you were to tie that rope around the cat's collar too, I think you could go faster.'

The little girl replies thoughtfully, 'You're probably right, but then I wouldn't have a siren.

Political Rants & Raves

It becomes more and more clear that tar and feathering and riding someone out on a rail is not a bad thing.

Tarot - an exploration

The human mind is a powerful thing. It is never more evident than in sleep and dreams, when it paints our hopes and fears in vivid colors. We can do anything and anything can be done to us. Our vulnerability opens us up to view the best and worst possible consequences. We can use our mind to evoke positive imagery to help us achieve goals, or we can use it to allow negative imagery to storm the fortress of our security and inner faith with doubt and self-defeat.

This card, the Nine of Swords, deals with the power our mind has to overwhelm us with doubts and pain. These feelings can be real or imagined, just as our dreams can be real or imagined events in our lives.

Therefore this card is represented by a sleeping woman, lying between reality and dreams. She lies on a bridge, as sleep is often called the bridge between dreams and reality, the bridge between life and death. Above her in the airy clouds are her fears and insecurities, as represented by demons and devils in a wildly agitated night sky. An angel points a sword through her, symbolizing the real possibility that her fears may very well pierce through from her dream world into the real world if she lets them manipulate her, or the sword may cut through the false illusions of her dreams to what is real.

The Nine of Swords warns us not to let our doubts and fears overwhelm us and control our lives. We must put them aside and not dwell on their possibilities, real though they may be. We must remember they are not necessarily future events; however, they are an unfortunate distraction from concrete attempts to overcome problems in our lives. If we pay too much credence to our fears they will control us and become a self-fulfilling prophecy of loss.

The negative of this card would be letting inner fears overcome you and control your life. You have become the warden of your own inner prison.

Tarot exploration - Eight of cups

Eight is a symbol of death and rebirth, the symbol of infinity, two O's joined so as to be self-reflecting, from inner to outer world; so this card urges change. At this point the water in the cups has dried up, the emotions are sapped and it is time to move on. It is a human tendency to cling to the familiar, to want to stay in warm and well-known patterns and relationships. It is difficult to leave even those places that have become stagnant and stale. This card tells us that we must see the signs of change. It is time to abandon the past; leave; make a new way; find a new direction, new relationship or even a new life.

In this card a woman is leaning on a railing staring into space, as if dreaming and dwelling on the past, while a map urging her on to new adventures and new changes flies by. The cups look like they are made of fresh verdant grass or bushes representing nature, a constant source of renewal and change.

We must learn to move with the flow of events rather than fight against them. It is always time to move into the present, always time to leave the past behind, carrying only what we need to sustain us. This is the way of nature, to change and evolve, the death of the old and the birth of the new bringing change to every living creature with each passing season.

The negative of this card would imply a refusal to change, a refusal to see that change is necessary and certain relationships, old ways, old patterns must be left behind. It might also imply that one is over-reacting to a situation; and it is not a time to leave, not a time for change.

Tarot exploration - "The Fool"

The innocent seeking soul stands on a rainbow bridge, the path of bliss before you. Your companions are the owl of instinctive wisdom and the cat of intuitive grace... and you bear the blessing of the God's love as you begins your journey through life. This card represents the adventurous spirit who accepts each lesson Life offers, and all knowledge as precious and new.

On the rainbow path, there are no expectations, for each moment is a gift.
You are exactly where you are supposed to be.

Leaving a legacy is not all that its cracked up to be...

There would be no funeral
No wake; no call

A casket, a burial
just family. That's all

Anger to satisfy
Hell to pay.

Memory, signs,
all wiped away.

Forever is selfish,
when at your own hands.

No parade

No fanfare

No marching bands

You said you were tired
just could not go on

I can relate,
Yes, for too long.

Tired of being tired
a common fate

We've all got to go now
'fore we're too late.

Karma, intention, the blog entitled "The Reluctant Curmudgeon

The sum total of This Being Human could easily lead me to change my blogs title to "The Reluctant Curmudgeon".
You see, things have progressed, perhaps, I thought, they are Karma fulfilled. To the point that I find that I can hardly breathe. And I think, "I do not deserve it". But in trying to understand personal Karma, I began to think that maybe I do.
I have seen family and other such relationships spin outwards until in their momentum they whirl off into outer space; outside of my grasp - even if I indeed did wish for their return. I really don't know how I could have done things differently. I have tried to do the best that I could. The best that I know how. Much of that has been documented here.
This week, a person very close to me tried to commit suicide. I'm not sure what to do with that. I have no one to talk to. No real close friends. No analyst's analyst. I am not sure about what I feel. Anger one day, desperation the next.
In an unrelated event, my youngest son, in a drunken fit tried to engage me into a physical confrontation while I did everything possible to have him disengage. He did, thankfully, but things are different now. Shifted. His drunken accusation of "not being respected" (totally out of context in that moment) had me pleading with him to go away and cool off. I really did not want the task of taking him down. It would have been quick, and brutal. I really, really would not have liked that. Although bent, in pain and mildly fragile, I can still pull the plug. It sickens me. I abhor violence but know it intimately.
My oldest daughter and my granddaughter moved out. Very good terms, very supported. It IS a good thing. But I miss them.
My youngest daughter is trying to ease out of being a child and into an independent person. This has been a psychological travail. You know, bite (and bite hard the proverbial hand that feeds you) until they force you to leave the nest. Why do things have to be so hard! I find myself (see last post) longing for those days of youth and no responsibility.
I use this Blog to vent. Not to enlighten you with Taoist parables and insights. These last few years have been a labor; hopefully leading to new birth. Do I have something to teach you? Maybe to extend grace and compassion to those around you. Because you don't know what they're up against.
I'm tired.
And I can't blame my self. That leads nowhere. As stated by Michael J. Formica on the blogs of Psychology Today;

What karma is truly about is accountability, responsibility, and consequences. How does this translate into our day-to-day lives, without being some kind of esoteric Zen-based philosophical conundrum? It translates into this -- there are no bad decisions.

What in the world do I mean, there are no bad decisions? Exactly that -- there are no bad decisions --- there are only consequences to our decisions. Let me give the example I use when I work with alcoholics and addicts, to help illustrate this notion. I find this concept of no bad decisions helpful for those trying to reshape their day-to-day thinking and it goes something like this:

When you get in your car and leave work, turning left to go to the liquor store instead of turning right to go home, you haven't made a bad decision...when you walk into the liquor store, you haven't made a bad decision...when you buy a bottle, you haven't made a bad decision...when you bring the bottle home, you haven't made a bad decision...when you open the bottle and pour yourself a glass of whatever, you haven't made a bad decision...when you raise the glass and drink, you still have not made a bad decision...

What you have done is potentially engender consequences for which you need to be responsible and ultimately accountable. That's karma, plain and simple. Here, we get back to the notion of action -- not good or bad or anything else. Working out our karma means taking responsibility for the choices that we make and being accountable to those choices because every choice has a consequence.

So for what am I to take responsibility for?

Methinks that the answer lies with the question.

This one thing that I do know, I am an ungrateful sonavabitch and I need to work on that. Being thankful for that which I am blessed with, I need to stop bemoaning that which I find myself unhappy with. Simple, right?

Psychedelic summer

I was fifteen during the summer of love. People hitchhiked across the country, guys wore their hair long and seldom wore shirts and shoes ushering in the now well known "no shirt, no shoes, no service" signs that are so prevalent in store windows today. Girls wore skirts so short that little was left to the imagination with halter tops that knew no bras. Life was good.
It was an uneasy time for the country and most cities and little towns saw a fourfold increase in their police force. In my own little hamlet that consisted of four little towns rolled into one, we saw a ten o'clock curfew on anyone under eighteen.
Color was an integral part of life. Black light posters, Tye dyed shirts, brilliant colors from every part of the spectrum became the colors of our freak flag flown high. Marijuana was the buzz of choice. Colt 45 was the second.
TV taught us through such shows as The man from U.N.C.L.E. and Mission Impossible how to dress in black and move amongst the shadows of the night.
My father had to be up every morning before 4:30. In order for us to obey the law, we had to be in by 10:00. And we were.
But soon after the lights were out we were in secret agent mode; ready to roam the night. My buddy Al and me would most often borrow the bikes of some neighbors that lived several streets away. We could ride all over creation and have a hell of a time but we always returned the bicycles to their rightful owners. We learned to squat like shrubs when the police cruisers came by when we found ourselves on foot. We walked the circumference of trees while the police were just on the other side. It was hard to keep from laughing.
One evening as I tossed pebbles at Al's bedroom window to let him know of my presence, I saw his father get up from the table and leave his imperial quart of Narragansett beer to investigate. I nestled up to the house foundation and lay myself lengthwise in an effort to remain undiscovered. His father stood less than a foot from my head and surveyed the yard. Finding nothing, he retired back to his glass of beer and the solitude of the kitchen table. Al soon met me outside and we were off and running.
But we were all too aware that the draft was looming over our heads as we began to see the end of high school on the horizon. My cousin Bobby was in Nam' and my brother was stationed in Germany. Having zero confidence in the likes of Nixon/Agnew it was difficult to think of serving your country for a GOP that thought only of advancing the corporate elite in the world market. Fighting the growth of communism to enable the continuing growth of capitalism seemed a poor excuse for getting your ass shot off. My old man would not be better off for it. My little town would not be better off for it. For chrissake, only Wall Street might profit from my blood. No one else. Freedom! Yeah. Sure. Sell me a bridge in Brooklyn.
But the toll was stacking up all over. Drug overdoses. Drunk driving crashes. Escalating returns of the wounded and the dead from the war front. The turmoil was real. The police only knew how to react with brute force. Every policeman feared that the blacks would forever hold them responsible for the assassination of MLK The Democratic convention saw the police hit first and ask questions later; often asking with more force.
Fuck all this crap. I'm just going to have fun.
Ah, the joys of young love. I mean, ahem. Sex.
Good mellow pot.
Sunsets at the sand pit.
Sometimes I wish for innocent sex. Mellow pot. Good sunrises and sunsets.
Don't you?