Some "gems" from one of my ancestors, Robert Green Ingersoll

"I simply believe in the liberty of mind. I have no fear about any other world - not the slightest. When I get there, I will ive my honest opinion of that country; I will give my honest thought there; and if for that I lose my soul, I will at least keep my self-respect"

"Every orthodox creed is a chain, a dungeon. Every believer in the 'inspired book' is a slave who drives reason from her throne, and in her stead crowns fear"

"I compared the Plays with the 'inspired books.' Romeo and Juliet with the Song of Solomon, Lear with Job, and the Sonnets with the Psalms, and I found that Jehovah did not understand the art of speech."

"Nothing can be more absurd than the idea that we can do something to please or displease an infinite being. If our thoughts and actions can lessen or increase the happiness of God, then to that extent God is the slave and victim of man."

"If upon this earth we ever have a glimpse of heaven, it is when we pass a home in winter, at night, and through the windows, the curtains drawn aside, we see the family about the pleasant hearth; the old lady knitting; the cat playing with the yarn; the children wishing they had as many dolls or dollars or knives or somethings, as there are sparks going out to join the roaring blast; the father reading and smoking, and the clouds rising like incense from the altar of domestic joy. I have never passed such a house without feeling that I had received a benediction."

Well I now list myself among the conservatives voting for Obama. While I'm not thrilled with his platform I see it as the better chance for facing the crises we are in (and which are still being denied by Republicans and the media). Maybe Obama will rise to the occasion as things are going to get harder, not easier. Between climate change, a collapsing economy, an outdated dependence on fossil fuels, and the desire of the powerful to stay powerful at all costs (meaning costs like your life or mine) even remotely considering the McCain/Palin ticket seems to me irresponsible. 

My fantasy is that McCain was being dictated to by the party bosses and in the end intentionally chose an unelectable running mate as a final act of defiance. Again,  just my fantasy because I think if McCain had his way Lieberman would  be his running mate.

Either way, for me the die is cast. While I think we will still have to fight for freedom, the Obama ticket has the capacity to attenuate the damage in such a fight.

It is hard to say what is more fascinating about this spectacle - the weird nostalgia for Republicans past and the equally clear shunning of our goofy child president or the almost total lack of coverage of all the protests going on outside the RNC. My sources in the Pagan community tell me that non-violent protesters are being gassed, tazered, clubbed and jailed while the "media" focus on  a small number who are protesting violently.  Vintage Republicanism - if they don't agree, smack 'em.

Well second-hand information is always that but the probability of it being true seems high to me. What of the speeches thus far? A neutered Joe Lieberman delivers a half-hearted endorsement of Senator McCain while Laura Bush is released from wherever she's been imprisoned the last few years to speak to Sarah Palin's strengths as a Republican woman and a potential vice president.

What will this convention yield? Likely no more than the sequel to the back-room deals initiated in Denver last week and another flood of confetti and balloons. It is hard to be a conservative these days. The mainstream labels you "libertarian" and both parties actively ignore the benefits of smaller government because, above all, it would put some of them out of work.  And truthfully, what skills do they possess to find other types of work? "Alas... how terrible is widsom when it brings no profit to the wise."

As Hunter Thompson would likely have said in response to our "candidates,"  "Ye Gods!" On the one hand we have a man I actively supported in 2000 who seems to have been kidnapped by bodysnatchers and replaced with an automaton. On the other hand I have a man who (aside from a resonant speaking voice) brings very little in the way of a convincing platform and looks suspiciously like Alfred E Newman.

Most people I talk to don't really feel like they have a choice. They were backing primary candidates who were actively ignored by the so-called "media." Bill Richardson, Ron Paul, etc. The only winner in this election will be the corporate interests who insist we never stray beyond the facade of a two-party system because, while they are wealthy, they can't afford to pay off an infinite number of candidates. If we actually legalized competing political parties God only knows how many candidates they'd have to fiscally coerce.

The Democratic convention has descended on Denver like a hyena feeding-frenzy. Dupes and fools take the podium spouting gibberish and lies while the drunken delegates play craps in the backrooms with our destiny. When the balloons are dropped at the end the only certainty is that deals will have been made that preclude any change that might decrease the income of the elite minority of economic royalists who are really in control. And guess what folks? These are not civic-minded pillars of the community - they are feudal lords who view us as parasites that could just as well be exterminated as let scurry around fighting over the crumbs from their table.

I met a man the other day who told me Barack Obama was "spirit in action." I told him I knew a man in Youngstown Ohio who would roller skate around Wick Park wearing a surgical mask and shouting revolutionary slogans who thought he was spirit in action too. I think I am more likely to vote for the roller skater.

I am deeply saddened by the death of William F. Buckley Jr. A man who, right, wrong, or in-between elevated the arts of elocution, intellectual exploration, and debate to previously ignored heights.  

When I was a child my mother always said she wished she could speak as eloquently as William Buckley. I soon understood why. As an aspiring writer struggling with my first essays I tried to keep his voice in my mind like a treasured recording. In trying to defend my earlier libralism i could see his arching eyebrows and quizzical smile.

As I swam into the unknown seas of politics,  religion, or the role of the state, Mr. Buckley's work was a bright buoy keeping me in sight of the shoreline.   One of my ancestors wrote "life is a narrow vale between the cold and barren peaks of two eternities." Mr. Buckely's exit from this vale leaves us poorer, as eternity is richer in elegance, humor, and dare I say good taste.

"To be torn between divided allegiances is the painful fate of almost every human being. Pull devil, pull baker; pull flesh, pull spirit; pull love, pull duty; pull reason and pull hallowed prejudice. The conflict, in its various forms, is the theme of every drama. For though we have learnt to feel disgust at the spectacle of a bullfight, an execution or a gladiatorial show, we still look on with pleasure at the controtions of those who suffer spiritual anguish."

                                                                                              Aldous Huxley
                                                                                              Those Barren Leaves, p. 65.

Well here is my first blog on Gaia (aka Zaadz). I could read all the emails about what the change is but I'm really not interested for the same reason I didn't read all the letters from my bank when they merged with another (for the third time) - it just doesn't seem of import to me. It does reflect an economic context though that I'd like to comment on though.

At home in Kent OH, I walk around the block a lot with my kids. We look at things, rehearse old Steve Martin stand-up routines, and frequently meet our neighbors doing the same things (well maybe not the Steve Martin stuff - excuuuuuuussee meeeee!). Anyway during a recent warm-spell some neighborhood cat disemboweled a mole (or maybe a vole - I can never tell the difference post-mortem) and left it on the sidewalk. We past that hunk of mole every day of the warm spell (about 4 days in all). Each day there were more life forms swarming on it and less mole. It got me to thinking.

I see all these "spiritual" magazines, ads, brochures, fliers, teachers etc. advertising every manner of enlightenment in so many places. Having read a lot of their stuff and met a great number of them I feel a majority are what i call "for-profit prophets." They are good at inducing temporary states but after the check is cashed no real changes have occurred except in their bank accounts. Maybe I've read too much Richard Dawkins but I had a vivid vision of the spiritual niche in the upper-middle/upper class economy as that disemboweled mole and the for-profit prophets as the swarms of those creatures scavanging nourishment - dress it up however you like but the spiritual market place has the same predatory dynamics as the animal kingdom.
 
I certainly don't brand all spiritual endeavors this way - some, while still being part of the natural world, are engaged in right livelihood. I am a highly biased fan of Integral Institute and their recent moves to get Integral "out in the world" grappling with things like PTSD and drug dependency.  But much of what I see advertised seems lacking in integrity - especially the 2012 stuff.

One really sad pattern is some "prophet" digs up some obscure reference and claims to understand it then goes on to make a fortune with the quasi-millennialism rap about "a new age" and oh-by-the-way, for a small fee I can prepare you for that new age in one of my workshops. It is the same problem as why there are never guru conventions - it's hard to be taken seriously as some Kosmic insider sitting in a room with 30 other people claiming the same thing.

Will we ever stop looking to others to tell us the lies we've tired of telling ourselves?

 

In my world of Northeast Ohio, a good man has passed from the scene. Scott Fetterolf died Friday in a one-car accident. Scott is known to me and many of my ilk as the owner/operator of "Scott's Folkatorium" in Akron, OH. The Folkatorium was as uniqued as Scott - outrageous, hilarious, delightful. In the front of the Folkatorium he had a collectibles shop and in the back, a live music venue.

Scott was a true supporter of artists and live music. A talented musician himself, he based his business on the belief that the best music was live music and he created a sacred space for that. He was one of the kindest and generous men I have known. He would always lay out a lovely buffet for people who came to the shows and it was one of the few live music venues you could bring small children to. Scott never charged parents for their kids and let them roam freely through all the collectibles he had in his front shop.

As the owner of the venue, Scott always dealt honestly and squarely with musicians. If you've ever worked as a professional musician you know how painfully rare such integrity is. When we'd had a slow night, Scott insisted on paying us even though the till was close to empty. Scott encouraged young musicians allowing them to rehearse in his place and loving it when they came and performed on stage. His enthusiasm fueled his loving encouragement for everyone who played there. Whenever a musician was playing, you could be sure Scott would be the biggest fan in attendance.

Scott's presence is already sorely missed in a world where too few of us live our passions and too many of us forget to encourage and cheer for others. In the cold, harsh light of indifference, Scott laughed and sang and loved. Let's remember him through acts of generosity, outrageous enthusiasm, and in sharing a laugh and a song.

Black, orange Halloween
Veil thin, Samhain, New Year
Earthborn, Blessed Be

Well, here we go again. I've just finished the latest in a series of books on the "next big transformation." The book is The Mystery of 2012: Predictions, prophecies & possibilities published by Sounds True in Boulder, CO. This is a nice follow-up to Daniel Pinchbeck's work and some of the related films and essays on the topic.

The publisher cautiously distances herself from any of the contents in her preface which is a good practice while reading the book.  The Mystery of 2012 is worth reading - let me start there. For quasi-Millennialists like myself, it offers  yet another set of opinions for why we feel unrooted, in transformation and called to something we can't quite wrap our minds around. It mirrors that tenuous balance of not knowing whether to invest in a shotgun or a rain barrel system (I'd recommend both). Most intensely, many of us are increasingly aware of multiple crises facing us and feel responsible - and pressured - to act on our knowledge. It's like the winding down of some weird power-deprived existential clock wrenching out its last pathetic seconds before its gears collapse in a heap of rubble. Of course all this may just be another way to distract ourselves from doing the laundry.

The speculative aspect of the 2012 book is a stunning array of purple prose, baseless conjecture, and New Age gurus cashing in on the latest "prophecy." This is par for the course though - pearls of wisdom are always mixed with parking lot gravel and both have their place - its hard to drive a motorcycle over pearls. 
 
What is noteworthy in the book are essays like Gregg Braden's that cite reliable literature on phenomena like the magnetic pole reversal and electromagnetic influence on mammals. As a psychologist I am particularly fascinated by this since the introduction of magnetic fields (repetitive Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation - rTMS) is the latest physiological treatment for severe depression and other symptoms. If our brains do have millions of magnetic particles, one wonders what a pole shift might do. Other highlights: Daniel Pinchbeck is always worth reading as are Peter Russell and Corrine McLaughlin. These authors share their doubts, offer their sources, and encourage the reader to think as well as feel.

There are of course poor essays in the book such as the one by Lawrence Joseph on "The Bible Code." He describes amazing research by Israeli statisticians entering the Torah into a computer and finding predictions in code. These include an end-of -the-world scenario that is the common plotline in the mini-series of Middle Eastern religions. What is most amazing is that he claims this work was published in a statistics journal but doesn't bother to cite the article that supposedly went through a peer-review process. I can only conclude he is not being truthful, he is terribly out of touch with the center of gravity of most people, or he is a poor researcher. Extraordinary claims require at the very least a trail of documentation, not just the proclamation of a prophet (or a for-profit-prophet). Would I really value end-of-the-world instructions from a guy who can't even cite a journal article?

Reading the more questionable essays one wonders if some of the more speculative "futurists" will settle down to a life of farming and meditation after 2012 or if they imagine themselves still conducting expensive workshops. That of course is where we come in - will we keep flocking to workshops that allow us a day or two of abdicating responsibility or will we realize that what we need is right where we are sitting now?

The best essays in the book remind us that how we live now, that living with integrity, and that cultivating connectivity via compassion are helpful both for ourselves and others. Whatever does (or doesn't) happen in 2012 and the time leading up to it, now is the time to find out who we are and be that.

While the worst vice is advice here is mine: use the book as a projective test. Do you find yourself more drawn to explore what you are doing now or what outside forces will do in 2012 (e.g. sweeping down with magic powers to do the hard work for you)? If reading the book helps you answer that question, it may be worth the time and money.