I've been reading about DNA in Jeremy Narby's The Cosmic Serpent. We are all familiar with DNA on some level, in that we know it carries the genetic code that makes all life what it is, that it is shaped like a spiral. I was not aware of the wonder of the DNA molecule, however. There are about 50-100 trillion cells in a human being. In each cell, there are two strands of DNA, one from the mother, one from the father. Each strand has three billion chemical base pairs, like rungs in a ladder, which are arranged in the "language" or "text" required to build the cell. If you remove a strand of DNA from a human cell, it is six feet long, but only ten atoms wide. To put this in perspective, if you were only ten atoms wide shoulder to shoulder, and you were to climb a strand of your DNA like a ladder, one rung, or base pair, per second, it would take you more than 93 years to climb bottom to top - assuming you didn't stop to rest at any point in the journey.
All the DNA in your body is about 125 billion miles long. The distance from the Earth to the Sun is 93 million miles. That's a little more than 134 times, to the sun and back.
DNA is the code at the foundation of all life. The code is found in genes, which are sections of the DNA strand where the base pairs form in specific ways, and in chromosomes, which are portions of the DNA strand tightly woven together. The translation mechanism is found in ribosomes, which pull amino acids together to form proteins, which become the structure of the body. Cells are like little factories, taking in energy, transforming it into something else, manufacturing at times exact copies of itself. As Narby points out, it tips to absurdity to suggest that both the language (DNA), and the translation mechanism (ribosomes) could arise by chance together, by accident, out of any random primordial soup.
It's also worth noting, for fun, that the DNA in your cells is not inert, but endlessly writhing within the nucleus of the cell like a snake, wrapping around itself and the companion strand, in myriad ways. One hundred and twenty five billion miles of DNA in tens of trillions of cells, writhing like snakes.
Of the DNA strand, only about 3% is dedicated to information directly attributable to the creation of cells and proteins. In other words, we do not know what 97% of the DNA in our body does, if it does anything at all. Science calls this bulk of our DNA "junk", or "detritus" left from our evolution from specie to specie. As Narby points out, this pejorative description is more a reflexive action of the Scientific ego, which would rather denigrate a thing than admit ignorance, or allow for mystery. It goes directly to Materialist Rationalism, which is the notion that there is no intent behind existence, that life is an accident arising out of some primordial soup, purely by chance. In other words, nature is inanimate, which idea is at the root of our treatment of the Earth and each other: inanimate matter can be plundered, manipulated and abused, including the matter that is people.
Francis Crick himself, one of the discoverers of DNA, a profound proponent of scientific rationalism, elaborated on the notion that DNA is too complicated to arise by chance, in great detail. Narby, in The Cosmic Serpent, connects the mythology of the cosmic serpent, expounded by shaman worldwide, with the biology of the DNA strand. He is suggesting that through the use of hallucinatory plants such as psilocybin and soma (mushrooms), iboga and specifically ayahuasca, but also through dreaming, and trance states induced by repetitive dancing and fasting, that the shaman comes in contact with information directly relational to molecular biology, that shaman worldwide have been describing the DNA structure and its transformative ability for thousands of years, mythologically, long before modern science proved the existence of DNA. Suggesting as a hypothesis, "that DNA in particular, and nature in general, are minded."
This of course is inherently contradictory to scientific orthodoxy, which is itself largely a reflexive action in opposition to the notion of God. Currently, Darwinism is in the ascendant, and has been since the discovery of DNA in the 1950's. We are just finally getting used to the idea, as a culture. Unfortunately, Darwinian evolution offers no real explanation as to how life came to be, or how it was that 543 million years ago, in a relatively short period of time, species of extraordinary complexity and variety simply came to be, without antecedent. Most scientists ignore this argument in favor of Darwinian orthodoxy, because it seems to play right into the hands of those who preach "irreducible complexity," otherwise known as Intelligent Design, which is very much associated with Christianity.
Quantum Physics, however, saves us from both extremes, insofar as it reveals that there are a great number of dimensions beyond what we perceive, that existence is far more than it appears to be, and there can be no separation. That electrons can be in more than one place at a time, that they can appear on the other side of objects without passing through them, that these seemingly separate manifestations can be divided by great distances, and yet a reaction in one is observed simultaneously in the other. All this lends credence to Narby's hypothesis, and the stories told by indigenous Shaman everywhere. Leaving the door open to an Author of the DNA text, but opening existence to realms far more vast than anything either Science or Religion has conceived.
I know this is all very complicated. Don't worry. It's all part of awakening. Take it slow, do your own research. I certainly have my own work to do, in understanding it. Best of luck, and I'll continue to address these topics, hopefully in a way that is increasingly easy to comprehend.
Sunday, March 13, 2011
Tuesday, March 8, 2011
Winter Wonder Blast
Last Friday I attended the first annual Winter Wonder Blast, a benefit for MN Special Olympics, held at the Calhoun Beach Club. I had called a friend to ask if he knew any talented, reliable body painters (I'm looking to hire one for my Mar. 18-19 Patrick's Cabaret performance), and it turned out he was organizing the performers for the WWB gala. There would be body painters there, he assured me. Despite the cold I rode my bike across town, a long ride but almost entirely bike path, along Minnehaha Creek and Harriet and Calhoun lakes.
When I talked to Brandt at 1:30, the show was only 60% sold. When I arrived, it was sold out. Luckily, Brandt showed up just after I did, and I slipped in among his entourage of fabulously, elaborately dressed show performers.
Next thing I knew, I was in the performer dressing room, eating their food, drinking their booze, chatting with body painters and hoola-hoopers and fire dancers, among models and cabaret dancers, the latter in various stages of dress. A fun crowd, relaxed, friendly, joyous, open and accepting.
A mildly hedonistic affair, on the whole. A celebration of the body, really. Entirely appropriate, for the cause. There was a runway show, not of clothes but of abs, the gala in part supported by a body-building program/company called Contour. The runway stars had agreed to follow the program for a period of time, before the show, then to be part of this scantily clad runway show, to be voted on and auctioned after. Bidding started at fifty bucks for a date. Few in the room were, or wanted to admit they were single.
A talented duo of brothers and their band, Buckets and Tap Shoes, split the stage between the models and the cabaret dancers. Hoola-hoopers finished it off, before the runway was transformed into stages for three teams of body painters, and their half-naked models. The floor cleared, the dancing commenced, with a DJ and a man on Congo drums.
I wove my may throughout the venue, rarely stopping, a mercurial dancing spirit welling up inside, letting it loose three times, once in the secondary hall, twice in front of the DJ and drums. After the second dance a couple approached me to tell me how great they thought I was, asking if my dancing was therapeutic. I let them know there are few things more healthy than dancing, and if they were at all self-conscious, just learn to allow yourself to close the door to the world, let go and dance. Another woman stopped me to ask if I had thought about teaching a class. It was very loud, and in the mercurial space I was in, I couldn't really hear her, or didn't want to. But indeed, I have been thinking about a class for some time. I hope to hear from her again.
Beautiful women aplenty: models, dancers, and moneyed beach-club culturati. As usual, the guys mostly hung back and watched, though in many I saw the suppressed urge to dance. A Tree of Life seemed to beckon to me, and I thought about taking aim with my bow at the apple atop her head, but I hesitated, settling for the metaphor. I admired the dancing of another, but danced for her and not with her, and vaguely insulted her to drive a wedge between her and my attraction. Hindus call this Aeon the Kali Yuga, an age of degeneracy and degradation, and I have become wary of the destructive aspect of Kali as it manifests in women, in sex and relationships, wary of how it manifests in me as a will to dominate and possess. When it comes to sex, I'm wondering about sex that is based on trust, generosity and love, and an exploration of un-accessed energies, as a flowering extension of consciousness, which I don't know the first thing about. Besides, I was wearing long underwear, and after dancing three times I had begun to stink. I meant to bring another shirt, my best shirt, but it's rare the encounters I have with the cultured class, and I forget to be glamorous, and I don't really care. With a long bike ride ahead, on a winter night, I cut out at about 11pm.
The Spring Equinox approaches. Winter is coming to an end. It has indeed been a long winter-wander through my personal underworld, a long wading-period through humanity's accumulated understanding. I'm still alive. Glad to be here. Thrilled, really. With gratitude and thanks.
When I talked to Brandt at 1:30, the show was only 60% sold. When I arrived, it was sold out. Luckily, Brandt showed up just after I did, and I slipped in among his entourage of fabulously, elaborately dressed show performers.
Next thing I knew, I was in the performer dressing room, eating their food, drinking their booze, chatting with body painters and hoola-hoopers and fire dancers, among models and cabaret dancers, the latter in various stages of dress. A fun crowd, relaxed, friendly, joyous, open and accepting.
A mildly hedonistic affair, on the whole. A celebration of the body, really. Entirely appropriate, for the cause. There was a runway show, not of clothes but of abs, the gala in part supported by a body-building program/company called Contour. The runway stars had agreed to follow the program for a period of time, before the show, then to be part of this scantily clad runway show, to be voted on and auctioned after. Bidding started at fifty bucks for a date. Few in the room were, or wanted to admit they were single.
A talented duo of brothers and their band, Buckets and Tap Shoes, split the stage between the models and the cabaret dancers. Hoola-hoopers finished it off, before the runway was transformed into stages for three teams of body painters, and their half-naked models. The floor cleared, the dancing commenced, with a DJ and a man on Congo drums.
I wove my may throughout the venue, rarely stopping, a mercurial dancing spirit welling up inside, letting it loose three times, once in the secondary hall, twice in front of the DJ and drums. After the second dance a couple approached me to tell me how great they thought I was, asking if my dancing was therapeutic. I let them know there are few things more healthy than dancing, and if they were at all self-conscious, just learn to allow yourself to close the door to the world, let go and dance. Another woman stopped me to ask if I had thought about teaching a class. It was very loud, and in the mercurial space I was in, I couldn't really hear her, or didn't want to. But indeed, I have been thinking about a class for some time. I hope to hear from her again.
Beautiful women aplenty: models, dancers, and moneyed beach-club culturati. As usual, the guys mostly hung back and watched, though in many I saw the suppressed urge to dance. A Tree of Life seemed to beckon to me, and I thought about taking aim with my bow at the apple atop her head, but I hesitated, settling for the metaphor. I admired the dancing of another, but danced for her and not with her, and vaguely insulted her to drive a wedge between her and my attraction. Hindus call this Aeon the Kali Yuga, an age of degeneracy and degradation, and I have become wary of the destructive aspect of Kali as it manifests in women, in sex and relationships, wary of how it manifests in me as a will to dominate and possess. When it comes to sex, I'm wondering about sex that is based on trust, generosity and love, and an exploration of un-accessed energies, as a flowering extension of consciousness, which I don't know the first thing about. Besides, I was wearing long underwear, and after dancing three times I had begun to stink. I meant to bring another shirt, my best shirt, but it's rare the encounters I have with the cultured class, and I forget to be glamorous, and I don't really care. With a long bike ride ahead, on a winter night, I cut out at about 11pm.
The Spring Equinox approaches. Winter is coming to an end. It has indeed been a long winter-wander through my personal underworld, a long wading-period through humanity's accumulated understanding. I'm still alive. Glad to be here. Thrilled, really. With gratitude and thanks.
Thursday, March 3, 2011
Helios
The basis of our economic system depends on the idea that energy supplies are always stable, and always will be. Reality periodically reminds us that our economy is entirely dependent on cheap and abundant energy; a harsh lesson now evident, as to how much we Americans depend on Middle Eastern despots. Indeed, it offends the finer senses to acknowledge that the supposed beacon of democratic light is fired by Saudi Arabian monarchy, but there it is. No use lamenting it. It is. Moving on.
Our assumptions toward stable energies extend as far as the sun, 93 million miles away: the sun is, it was, it always will be. Some part of us, remembering something from elementary school, agrees that billions of years from now the sun will expand, eventually swallowing the Earth. Or something like that. It is irrelevant. We will all be long dead by then. Live the life you lead. The sun matters, but not really.
Oh, but living in this accelerating age can be unsettling. As it turns out, the sun is not stable at all. It is a roiling mass of superheated liquid and gas that periodically belches radiation outward into the heliosphere, sometimes in a direct line with the planets. We got hammered with just such an outburst recently. Known as Coronal Mass Ejections (CMEs), this solar wind rushes out, slamming into the planet's magnetosphere at up to speeds of 3000 km/sec. The immense energy contained in these CMEs funnels to the poles and into the Earth and atmosphere. In 1859, a CME known as the "Carrington Event", turned the sky in the middle of the night a bright blood red, as far south as Cuba. Telegraph operations around the world went haywire, to the point of writing incomprehensible messages without human intervention. There was so much electricity in the air a telegraph machine could be "unplugged" and messages could still be sent.
That event was four times stronger than anything we have seen since the advent of the space age. As dependent as we are on electronic everything, it doesn't stretch the imagination much, to recognize how vulnerable our infrastructure has become to such a mass infusion of energy. In fact, because of the efficiency of sending mass amounts of electricity over long distances on the grid, we have actually made the grid increasingly more vulnerable to such events. An excellent reminder, and one we hopefully will not have to learn the hard way, that the free-market does not always lead in a good direction. Comparing our modern information infrastructure with the intervention of a CME like that of the Carrington Event, the National Academy of Science stated in 2008 that an historically large but perfectly plausible solar storm could damage the power grid, with costs exceeding $1 Trillion to $2 Trillion in the first year, with a 4-10 year period of repair. It's no stretch to say that that would be the end of the United States as we know it.
We are entering into the peak of the eleven year, solar sunspot cycle. We are likely to see more upheaval on the sun, just as we saw a recent, extraordinary solar flare not long after last weeks CME. This would not be unusual, in the grand scheme of the sun and the heliosphere, but for two factors: one, that it may be the heliosphere has entered a highly energetic, interstellar portion of the galaxy, on its elliptical revolution around the center, which is feeding energy into the Heliosphere and all the bodies in it; and two, that in less than two years, the Earth, the Sun and the center of the Galaxy will be in alignment, for the first time in 26,000 years.
It begins to feel like a key fitting into a lock and slowly turning. What will be revealed? What energies emanating from the center of the galaxy will be amplified by the sun, and what affect will that have on life? Honestly, I'm hoping for a kind of divine intervention. By that I mean, a transformation of all life as we know it, at the cellular level, at the level of DNA, spontaneously, over a short period of time. An increased awareness of the grand multiplicity of dimensions. A Great Awakening.
I could be wrong. If I am, and there is no Great Awakening, if there is no lock and no key, and all this synchronicity is just fantastical connective imagining, and we slip through the end of 2012 as event-less as we did Y2K, then I expect everything will continue as it is, until we have consumed ourselves out of house and home, facing another 500, or a 1,000, or 10,000 years of tyranny and violence, on a planet we have made increasingly less hospitable, where no generation can expect to have it any better than the last.
I don't believe that is our fate. There is more to this existence than we comprehend, as mere humans. I no longer believe in apocalypse. I believe in Awakening, though I suspect, the sun is going to make it seem, in the next two years, like apocalypse, to those who have closed themselves off to the divine, who default to violence in times of stress, stress exacerbated by the bursting of the illusion of stability, and ever increasing economic progress.
Our assumptions toward stable energies extend as far as the sun, 93 million miles away: the sun is, it was, it always will be. Some part of us, remembering something from elementary school, agrees that billions of years from now the sun will expand, eventually swallowing the Earth. Or something like that. It is irrelevant. We will all be long dead by then. Live the life you lead. The sun matters, but not really.
Oh, but living in this accelerating age can be unsettling. As it turns out, the sun is not stable at all. It is a roiling mass of superheated liquid and gas that periodically belches radiation outward into the heliosphere, sometimes in a direct line with the planets. We got hammered with just such an outburst recently. Known as Coronal Mass Ejections (CMEs), this solar wind rushes out, slamming into the planet's magnetosphere at up to speeds of 3000 km/sec. The immense energy contained in these CMEs funnels to the poles and into the Earth and atmosphere. In 1859, a CME known as the "Carrington Event", turned the sky in the middle of the night a bright blood red, as far south as Cuba. Telegraph operations around the world went haywire, to the point of writing incomprehensible messages without human intervention. There was so much electricity in the air a telegraph machine could be "unplugged" and messages could still be sent.
That event was four times stronger than anything we have seen since the advent of the space age. As dependent as we are on electronic everything, it doesn't stretch the imagination much, to recognize how vulnerable our infrastructure has become to such a mass infusion of energy. In fact, because of the efficiency of sending mass amounts of electricity over long distances on the grid, we have actually made the grid increasingly more vulnerable to such events. An excellent reminder, and one we hopefully will not have to learn the hard way, that the free-market does not always lead in a good direction. Comparing our modern information infrastructure with the intervention of a CME like that of the Carrington Event, the National Academy of Science stated in 2008 that an historically large but perfectly plausible solar storm could damage the power grid, with costs exceeding $1 Trillion to $2 Trillion in the first year, with a 4-10 year period of repair. It's no stretch to say that that would be the end of the United States as we know it.
We are entering into the peak of the eleven year, solar sunspot cycle. We are likely to see more upheaval on the sun, just as we saw a recent, extraordinary solar flare not long after last weeks CME. This would not be unusual, in the grand scheme of the sun and the heliosphere, but for two factors: one, that it may be the heliosphere has entered a highly energetic, interstellar portion of the galaxy, on its elliptical revolution around the center, which is feeding energy into the Heliosphere and all the bodies in it; and two, that in less than two years, the Earth, the Sun and the center of the Galaxy will be in alignment, for the first time in 26,000 years.
It begins to feel like a key fitting into a lock and slowly turning. What will be revealed? What energies emanating from the center of the galaxy will be amplified by the sun, and what affect will that have on life? Honestly, I'm hoping for a kind of divine intervention. By that I mean, a transformation of all life as we know it, at the cellular level, at the level of DNA, spontaneously, over a short period of time. An increased awareness of the grand multiplicity of dimensions. A Great Awakening.
I could be wrong. If I am, and there is no Great Awakening, if there is no lock and no key, and all this synchronicity is just fantastical connective imagining, and we slip through the end of 2012 as event-less as we did Y2K, then I expect everything will continue as it is, until we have consumed ourselves out of house and home, facing another 500, or a 1,000, or 10,000 years of tyranny and violence, on a planet we have made increasingly less hospitable, where no generation can expect to have it any better than the last.
I don't believe that is our fate. There is more to this existence than we comprehend, as mere humans. I no longer believe in apocalypse. I believe in Awakening, though I suspect, the sun is going to make it seem, in the next two years, like apocalypse, to those who have closed themselves off to the divine, who default to violence in times of stress, stress exacerbated by the bursting of the illusion of stability, and ever increasing economic progress.
Monday, February 28, 2011
Healing
I babysat for my seven-year-old niece, and my three-month-old nephew, Friday. It was my sister's first night out, since the birth of her son.
My niece is doing very well. As I lived with her the first three years of her life, she is as close as I have to a child of my own. She is a bit timid physically, in part because she lives in the city and doesn't have the freedom to roam, as I did growing up in rural environs. She is also fierce, and stands up for herself without hesitation. She was described by her teacher in her latest report as intelligent, giving, nurturing of the other students, attentive, and self-directing. "I don't have a single bad thing to say about her," said the teacher.
One of the most common words out of her mouth is Gayatri, which is the name of her best friend at school, and also the five headed Goddess of Hindu mythology, the Mother of the Vedas (the worlds oldest spiritual literature), sometimes the feminine form of the all pervading Brahman, sometimes the Mother of All. It is also the name of the most commonly repeated mantra in Hinduism,
Aum Bhur Bhuvah Swah
Tat Savitur Varanyam
Bhargo Devasya Dhimahi
Dhiyo Yo Nah Prachodayat
Which in most translations, loses the feminine from, reverting to the male pronoun He, not at all surprisingly in this hyper-masculinized world. Loosely,
We meditate upon the radiant Divine Light
That Sun of Spiritual Consciousness
The One whose noble thought
Energizes and directs our awakening
This gem of a little girl is the smartest in my niece's class (except maybe for my niece), a fine friend and model for my niece. Born in Guyana, it is a true wonder and blessing, for my niece and myself, that she attends this inner-city public school in America.
When I look at my nephew I see an old soul. From almost the moment he was born he has been striving to get somewhere. He is always striving after the light; but he can't get anywhere, his arms reaching, his legs kicking to no effect, until he works himself into a frustrated tizzy and starts wailing. He makes me think about the new energy that some say is infiltrating the heliosphere, and I wonder, holding him, if some of my energy is feeding his restlessness.
My niece has always been a good sleeper, from the moment she was born going to bed at about 9pm and sleeping until morning. Only once did she wake me up in the night, when I lived with her; and then because she was ill. Friday night I let her stay up late, and she went to bed of her own accord, at around 10:30. Her little brother did not.
I had arrived at about three. From three until 11pm, he slept about thirty minutes. At eleven, he was in his crib wailing. I let him wail, thinking, "This is why I do not have children." He did not want to eat, he did not need a diaper change, he did not want a pacifier, he did not seem to want to be held. At midnight I checked on him again, his wailing unabated.
I picked him up, the light in the room off but the light in the hallway shining bright. Against my chest, he continued to strive to the light. I kept whispering to him that all is well, to be at ease, but he heard nothing, so much was the pull he seemed to feel. I closed the door but for a crack, and held him to my chest in the back corner, my back to the door, swaying back and forth, humming. I held him there a long time, thinking about the feminine, as he gradually wound down, until he was limp, twitching. I held him there longer, and when I felt he was ready I set him in his crib. He opened his eyes and looked at me and then at the light, and closed them. Three more times he looked at me and then the light, until finally, he let go, sleeping the rest of the night without waking.
I have long been on a path of healing. Even so, the idea of healing another is an idea as foreign to me as any other language I don't know. The cards have been telling me I have an abundance of healing energy now, enough to share, but I have no idea what that means.
Spending time with these children, I begin to.
My niece is doing very well. As I lived with her the first three years of her life, she is as close as I have to a child of my own. She is a bit timid physically, in part because she lives in the city and doesn't have the freedom to roam, as I did growing up in rural environs. She is also fierce, and stands up for herself without hesitation. She was described by her teacher in her latest report as intelligent, giving, nurturing of the other students, attentive, and self-directing. "I don't have a single bad thing to say about her," said the teacher.
One of the most common words out of her mouth is Gayatri, which is the name of her best friend at school, and also the five headed Goddess of Hindu mythology, the Mother of the Vedas (the worlds oldest spiritual literature), sometimes the feminine form of the all pervading Brahman, sometimes the Mother of All. It is also the name of the most commonly repeated mantra in Hinduism,
Aum Bhur Bhuvah Swah
Tat Savitur Varanyam
Bhargo Devasya Dhimahi
Dhiyo Yo Nah Prachodayat
Which in most translations, loses the feminine from, reverting to the male pronoun He, not at all surprisingly in this hyper-masculinized world. Loosely,
We meditate upon the radiant Divine Light
That Sun of Spiritual Consciousness
The One whose noble thought
Energizes and directs our awakening
This gem of a little girl is the smartest in my niece's class (except maybe for my niece), a fine friend and model for my niece. Born in Guyana, it is a true wonder and blessing, for my niece and myself, that she attends this inner-city public school in America.
When I look at my nephew I see an old soul. From almost the moment he was born he has been striving to get somewhere. He is always striving after the light; but he can't get anywhere, his arms reaching, his legs kicking to no effect, until he works himself into a frustrated tizzy and starts wailing. He makes me think about the new energy that some say is infiltrating the heliosphere, and I wonder, holding him, if some of my energy is feeding his restlessness.
My niece has always been a good sleeper, from the moment she was born going to bed at about 9pm and sleeping until morning. Only once did she wake me up in the night, when I lived with her; and then because she was ill. Friday night I let her stay up late, and she went to bed of her own accord, at around 10:30. Her little brother did not.
I had arrived at about three. From three until 11pm, he slept about thirty minutes. At eleven, he was in his crib wailing. I let him wail, thinking, "This is why I do not have children." He did not want to eat, he did not need a diaper change, he did not want a pacifier, he did not seem to want to be held. At midnight I checked on him again, his wailing unabated.
I picked him up, the light in the room off but the light in the hallway shining bright. Against my chest, he continued to strive to the light. I kept whispering to him that all is well, to be at ease, but he heard nothing, so much was the pull he seemed to feel. I closed the door but for a crack, and held him to my chest in the back corner, my back to the door, swaying back and forth, humming. I held him there a long time, thinking about the feminine, as he gradually wound down, until he was limp, twitching. I held him there longer, and when I felt he was ready I set him in his crib. He opened his eyes and looked at me and then at the light, and closed them. Three more times he looked at me and then the light, until finally, he let go, sleeping the rest of the night without waking.
I have long been on a path of healing. Even so, the idea of healing another is an idea as foreign to me as any other language I don't know. The cards have been telling me I have an abundance of healing energy now, enough to share, but I have no idea what that means.
Spending time with these children, I begin to.
Friday, February 25, 2011
Followers
A short note for this, the 100th post, on this Friday here in Minnesota, where winter has re-asserted itself, with below zero windchills. Google tells me I now have 10 followers. I consider 10 a profound number, not least that I spent a long time with 3. I simply want to say, thank you to each of you for showing me your support. I am honored. And humbled. And I trust that you will, in all things, follow what you know to be true to yourself. If I lead at all I lead by example, never by fiat.
Blessings to you and yours,
William Hunter Duncan
Blessings to you and yours,
William Hunter Duncan
Thursday, February 24, 2011
Fool
Walking to the bank this morning, with my iPod, listening to my FrenchySpanishyPortugese playlist, lipsyncing, singing, dancing in the sun. I'm walking on the sidewalk, climbing the walls of packed snow at each corner, leaping pools of water. Far ahead of me are two figures walking proudly, firmly, side by side in the middle of the street. From this distance I can't tell if they are coming or going. Soon, it's apparent they are coming. These two mysterious, powerful figures I've been admiring...are two older ladies, of northern European origins, about 60. I step into the street too, the path to the sidewalk blocked by a puddle. I think to tell them how I thought them so powerful and mysterious, walking down the middle of the road. They see me coming and turn the corner, heading south.
There's a cold north wind, but it's that time of year when the north wind has begun to give way to the sun. A song comes on I recently found, Cambiare, Grupo Caribe, one I haven't listened to more than a few times, and never intently. Somehow, I'm lipsyncing almost perfectly in parts, and a feeling comes, like I already know the song somehow; if only I can stay out of the way. A broad smile illuminates me. I pause in the middle of the intersection and do a little dance. It has begun to occur to me that maybe I stand out. Most of the time, I try to be subtle about it.
Withdrawing $200 of my last thousand, remaining from my time at the Halloween store, it occurs to me, it might not just be my dancing that stands out. I'm washing regularly, though my washing machine isn't functioning. I tried to wash my clothes in the tub, but I'll clearly have to be more aggressive about that if I do it again. That was about a week ago...or was it two? I tend to wear the same clothes again and again. I don't have more than a few sets, and at the moment, no resources to add the kind of clothes I'd like to wear.
It's a beautiful day, and I decide to walk to Coldwater spring. I haven't been there in a long time, since last fall. The road in hasn't been plowed, at least not since last week's twelve inches, though a few vehicles have passed. Near the spring is a small Japanese sedan, with no occupant. Footsteps lead away from the car behind a building. As I'm speculating, a man and a dog, who I saw when I entered the park, are walking down the path behind me. The man is in his Mid-forties, maybe close to fifty, with a short, unkempt, graying beard. He's looking humiliated, but he's trying to maintain his composure. "I'm stuck. I figured there was a turn-around. Got to that point up there and started wondering, but I just gunned it." There is a turn-around, sort of, I tell him. But its really a loop, and you have to go beyond and around that big building up there, and they've got the path chained off for some reason anyway. Not that he would have made it, with his little car.
"I thought this was a tar drive, that it'd be plowed."
"Well, it is only America's newest National Park." I don't add that I'm fine with it the way it is, because this is as wild as it's likely to be for a long time. "I notice no one has broken the snow between here and the Spring."
"Yeah, I noticed that too."
"And I thought this place was sacred." Though I immediately remind myself that I haven't been here, to treat it as a sacred place, for quite a long time.
"Yeah," he says, though he's not so sure, the way he says it. I ask him where he's coming from. "Here in Minneapolis." He tells me he's gone "hiking" here a few times, that he was sure there was a turn-around, still sheepish about being stuck. I forget how city some people are.
"Yeah, what a bummer." I hope the tow-truck doesn't get stuck. That's a possiblity. I tell him, "At least enjoy the weather. It's a beautiful day," before I follow the only tracks I can find leading to the spring, made by a pair of deer. He says good bye, though he isn't going anywhere anytime soon, and I'm not really either.
These tracks don't lead to the spring, they lead to the middle of the pool below the spring. Then I realize, the tracks lead to a limestone half-circle, an old wall in the middle of the pool, at an irregular height above the water, but never more than a few inches, and not more than eighteen inches wide, forty feet from end to end. I laugh. Alright, if that's the path the deer chose.
There are fifty mallards in the pool, and about forty take off before I've stepped onto the limestone. I stop while the other ten watch me, and try to let them know I'm no danger; they take off for elsewhere, their instincts more powerful than my message.
Half-way across the limestone half-circle, it occurs to me, it would be a real bummer if I fell in. This water is cold - this is Coldwater spring, and it is still February. I probably wouldn't die but the beloved iPod my friend Chad gave me would. No point in turning around. The sun shines down as I look up and smile. Reaching the other side I grasp a two-inch, pipe railing, to help haul myself onto the flat above the pool, and the whole 15x3 ft L nearly topples into the water, me along with it. I laugh as I crawl up the bank on all fours.
Inside the four-square well where the spring emerges, I take several handfuls of water in. People have been here recently, showing their respect; there are relatively fresh flower petals in the water. Standing up, looking out the south-east facing arch, over the pool, the sun shining on the water, through the arch onto my face, I sing and sway softly to Esta Melodia, Marisa Monte, and the whole Earth around me comes alive. The song ends and I climb out, happy that the only footsteps to the spring appear to be coming out of it. Will anyone notice?
The man's dog steps tentatively through the deep snow, in my direction. An ugly mutt, with short, tight blonde curls in an irregular pattern. I put my hand lower than his muzzle, and he lets me scratch behind his ear as he leans toward me, perpendicular to me. I put my left hand on his back and he looks over his back at me and growls, as if to say, "don't think I won't bite you." Got it, and don't worry, I'm no harm. I scratch a while longer and then stop. He shakes his head, and bounds joyously through the snow.
The man is still feeling stupid. "Don't worry about it," I say. "Life isn't any fun if we don't take chances." Right, he says. I tell him if he really wants to take a risk, follow the deer, telling him about the path the deer chose. He seems to be listening, but it doesn't seem to be sinking in. He has no questions for me, still stuck as he is on the idea of a turn-around. I shrug my shoulders, and offer him blessings. "Sometimes, you have to take a risk. It doesn't have to make sense." But he's an old dog, and I'm not sure he can hear me.
Half-way up the hill, it occurs to me, we could try together to get him out of this. I look back, wondering if I should turn back. He's wandering up the path, under the big willow. From this distance, he looks younger, and I realize, of all the places to be stuck on your day off, it doesn't get much better around here than this, particularly when you're stuck. Who knows, maybe he'll take a risk and follow the deer. I imagine him meeting the tow truck driver, soaking wet. You think you're humiliated now? I laugh, and continue on my way, only then realizing I'm listening to Ha Dias, Luca Mundaca, a song I'll soon be dancing to in front of an audience, with my pine swords. I do another little dance, and sing, laughing at myself that I could be such a fool. In the mythical sense, of course.
There's a cold north wind, but it's that time of year when the north wind has begun to give way to the sun. A song comes on I recently found, Cambiare, Grupo Caribe, one I haven't listened to more than a few times, and never intently. Somehow, I'm lipsyncing almost perfectly in parts, and a feeling comes, like I already know the song somehow; if only I can stay out of the way. A broad smile illuminates me. I pause in the middle of the intersection and do a little dance. It has begun to occur to me that maybe I stand out. Most of the time, I try to be subtle about it.
Withdrawing $200 of my last thousand, remaining from my time at the Halloween store, it occurs to me, it might not just be my dancing that stands out. I'm washing regularly, though my washing machine isn't functioning. I tried to wash my clothes in the tub, but I'll clearly have to be more aggressive about that if I do it again. That was about a week ago...or was it two? I tend to wear the same clothes again and again. I don't have more than a few sets, and at the moment, no resources to add the kind of clothes I'd like to wear.
It's a beautiful day, and I decide to walk to Coldwater spring. I haven't been there in a long time, since last fall. The road in hasn't been plowed, at least not since last week's twelve inches, though a few vehicles have passed. Near the spring is a small Japanese sedan, with no occupant. Footsteps lead away from the car behind a building. As I'm speculating, a man and a dog, who I saw when I entered the park, are walking down the path behind me. The man is in his Mid-forties, maybe close to fifty, with a short, unkempt, graying beard. He's looking humiliated, but he's trying to maintain his composure. "I'm stuck. I figured there was a turn-around. Got to that point up there and started wondering, but I just gunned it." There is a turn-around, sort of, I tell him. But its really a loop, and you have to go beyond and around that big building up there, and they've got the path chained off for some reason anyway. Not that he would have made it, with his little car.
"I thought this was a tar drive, that it'd be plowed."
"Well, it is only America's newest National Park." I don't add that I'm fine with it the way it is, because this is as wild as it's likely to be for a long time. "I notice no one has broken the snow between here and the Spring."
"Yeah, I noticed that too."
"And I thought this place was sacred." Though I immediately remind myself that I haven't been here, to treat it as a sacred place, for quite a long time.
"Yeah," he says, though he's not so sure, the way he says it. I ask him where he's coming from. "Here in Minneapolis." He tells me he's gone "hiking" here a few times, that he was sure there was a turn-around, still sheepish about being stuck. I forget how city some people are.
"Yeah, what a bummer." I hope the tow-truck doesn't get stuck. That's a possiblity. I tell him, "At least enjoy the weather. It's a beautiful day," before I follow the only tracks I can find leading to the spring, made by a pair of deer. He says good bye, though he isn't going anywhere anytime soon, and I'm not really either.
These tracks don't lead to the spring, they lead to the middle of the pool below the spring. Then I realize, the tracks lead to a limestone half-circle, an old wall in the middle of the pool, at an irregular height above the water, but never more than a few inches, and not more than eighteen inches wide, forty feet from end to end. I laugh. Alright, if that's the path the deer chose.
There are fifty mallards in the pool, and about forty take off before I've stepped onto the limestone. I stop while the other ten watch me, and try to let them know I'm no danger; they take off for elsewhere, their instincts more powerful than my message.
Half-way across the limestone half-circle, it occurs to me, it would be a real bummer if I fell in. This water is cold - this is Coldwater spring, and it is still February. I probably wouldn't die but the beloved iPod my friend Chad gave me would. No point in turning around. The sun shines down as I look up and smile. Reaching the other side I grasp a two-inch, pipe railing, to help haul myself onto the flat above the pool, and the whole 15x3 ft L nearly topples into the water, me along with it. I laugh as I crawl up the bank on all fours.
Inside the four-square well where the spring emerges, I take several handfuls of water in. People have been here recently, showing their respect; there are relatively fresh flower petals in the water. Standing up, looking out the south-east facing arch, over the pool, the sun shining on the water, through the arch onto my face, I sing and sway softly to Esta Melodia, Marisa Monte, and the whole Earth around me comes alive. The song ends and I climb out, happy that the only footsteps to the spring appear to be coming out of it. Will anyone notice?
The man's dog steps tentatively through the deep snow, in my direction. An ugly mutt, with short, tight blonde curls in an irregular pattern. I put my hand lower than his muzzle, and he lets me scratch behind his ear as he leans toward me, perpendicular to me. I put my left hand on his back and he looks over his back at me and growls, as if to say, "don't think I won't bite you." Got it, and don't worry, I'm no harm. I scratch a while longer and then stop. He shakes his head, and bounds joyously through the snow.
The man is still feeling stupid. "Don't worry about it," I say. "Life isn't any fun if we don't take chances." Right, he says. I tell him if he really wants to take a risk, follow the deer, telling him about the path the deer chose. He seems to be listening, but it doesn't seem to be sinking in. He has no questions for me, still stuck as he is on the idea of a turn-around. I shrug my shoulders, and offer him blessings. "Sometimes, you have to take a risk. It doesn't have to make sense." But he's an old dog, and I'm not sure he can hear me.
Half-way up the hill, it occurs to me, we could try together to get him out of this. I look back, wondering if I should turn back. He's wandering up the path, under the big willow. From this distance, he looks younger, and I realize, of all the places to be stuck on your day off, it doesn't get much better around here than this, particularly when you're stuck. Who knows, maybe he'll take a risk and follow the deer. I imagine him meeting the tow truck driver, soaking wet. You think you're humiliated now? I laugh, and continue on my way, only then realizing I'm listening to Ha Dias, Luca Mundaca, a song I'll soon be dancing to in front of an audience, with my pine swords. I do another little dance, and sing, laughing at myself that I could be such a fool. In the mythical sense, of course.
Monday, February 21, 2011
The Point
I said there were two things I would elaborate on. The first, an elaboration for my friend Keith on my feeling about corporations, yesterday. This is the second.
A feeling comes over me sometimes when I feel very tired of being alive, followed shortly by a sense of desolation and the idea, or rather lack of ideas, that there is any point to my existence. Most often this comes when I'm engaged in the act of remodeling a conventional house in a conventional manner. I was in the remodeling business for several years, during the heady days of the credit and housing bubble. I worked alone, I lived alone, I drank too much and I didn't have any sense of purpose. Those were dark days for me, when I could feel little but rage and despair. Knowing I had to do something different, I set myself on a path of healing, not having any sense what that would mean. That was about four and a half years ago.
What happens is, when I fall back into that dark place, I find myself in a position where someone else has made a decision that is costing me time, or I make a mistake that costs me time or someone else time. When I encounter the former, I think how the thing, whatever it is, could have been done differently, and better, if only the person had thought it through, or thought about something other than themselves. It's not very charitable. The idea and the lack of charitability feeds my frustration about our self-serving culture, and that's about the time I make a mistake, or recognize I've made a mistake, and the next thing I know, I can't see any reason to live, I grow very tired, and I want to die.
There is nothing very attractive or charitable about any of it. It's quite ugly, hideously so when I'm alone. I hide it somewhat when others are around, but the essence of it remains. Curiously, when I talk to others, the feeling dissipates. If the conversation is enjoyable, the feeling evaporates. Alone again, if I haven't addressed the feeling in any meaningful way, it returns. Almost always, whatever I was working on that triggered the feeling, it turns out just fine. People make mistakes. I make mistakes. Eventually, I find my compassion and I move on.
It's far deeper than issues with remodeling, which is only a trigger. Deeper, it has to do with a lingering internal confrontation with my evangelical upbringing, and anger I have for the way in which so many Christians and Muslims participate in the corruption of the world, corruption which has nothing to do with God, and everything to do with the very human pursuit of totalitarian terrestrial power. On the other hand, there are the sky gods who control the Market, who act as if the Earth exists only that we might plunder. And the billions or so who act, in smaller ways, like our model sky gods. Then I get to feeling like there is no purpose, that humanity and the Earth will suffer another thousand years, or ten thousand years of tyranny, or, that our insatiability is leading us to imminent collapse, with all the expected wailing and cursing and gnashing of teeth. If either is the case, what exactly is the point of living?
Four and a half years ago it was often, and eventually always like this for me. It's comparatively rare now. Now I know about quantum physics, that there are dimensions other than the ones we percieve, that life might very well be the rule wherever matter comes together. Indeed, we are living in extraordianary times, becoming increasingly aware of the Universe and our place in it, with the sense, somehow, that everything we know is coming to an end, in some mysterious way. Everywhere I sense it, the quickening, as if time itself is increasing speed.
I awoke after my time with Keith and his family, with a dull sense of dread (which has everything to do with my internal struggles, and nothing with my good friend Keith and his beautiful family). I pulled cards, and they showed me in greater detail where I know myself to be. I went for a walk, and blogged, and danced, and found some great new music (new to me, anyway. Like most everything that's making me feel new and alive these days, its been around for awhile.) Today I wrote the second draft of two more chapters of a second book. I danced. I sang. I danced some more. I'm blogging now. Indeed I feel energized, as if there's a new energy in the heliosphere. And indeed, all the planets suggest there is. The sun, I expect, will soon give us all a greater sense of its power, energized as it is by that new energy, at the peak of its sun spot cycle. I'm imagining now the center of the galaxy on the other side of that sun, and my whole being seems to come alive with wonder.
It seems like a great time to take an immense risk. I am, all over the place, and the cards are telling me that in some way, there are decisions being made on some level of existence that I'm not fully aware of, and everything is fine. Wonderful even. I forget. It gets to feeling a little unstable, uncertain, when I contemplate these new realities with my old self. But more often, I feel an immense gratitude, and joy, that I'm awakening to my place in the Universe. That I will continue to awaken as long as I am alive, with the increasing awareness that there is a great deal more than this life. With an increasing will to explore it. With an increasing certainty that we are all in the midst of a Great Awakening.
A feeling comes over me sometimes when I feel very tired of being alive, followed shortly by a sense of desolation and the idea, or rather lack of ideas, that there is any point to my existence. Most often this comes when I'm engaged in the act of remodeling a conventional house in a conventional manner. I was in the remodeling business for several years, during the heady days of the credit and housing bubble. I worked alone, I lived alone, I drank too much and I didn't have any sense of purpose. Those were dark days for me, when I could feel little but rage and despair. Knowing I had to do something different, I set myself on a path of healing, not having any sense what that would mean. That was about four and a half years ago.
What happens is, when I fall back into that dark place, I find myself in a position where someone else has made a decision that is costing me time, or I make a mistake that costs me time or someone else time. When I encounter the former, I think how the thing, whatever it is, could have been done differently, and better, if only the person had thought it through, or thought about something other than themselves. It's not very charitable. The idea and the lack of charitability feeds my frustration about our self-serving culture, and that's about the time I make a mistake, or recognize I've made a mistake, and the next thing I know, I can't see any reason to live, I grow very tired, and I want to die.
There is nothing very attractive or charitable about any of it. It's quite ugly, hideously so when I'm alone. I hide it somewhat when others are around, but the essence of it remains. Curiously, when I talk to others, the feeling dissipates. If the conversation is enjoyable, the feeling evaporates. Alone again, if I haven't addressed the feeling in any meaningful way, it returns. Almost always, whatever I was working on that triggered the feeling, it turns out just fine. People make mistakes. I make mistakes. Eventually, I find my compassion and I move on.
It's far deeper than issues with remodeling, which is only a trigger. Deeper, it has to do with a lingering internal confrontation with my evangelical upbringing, and anger I have for the way in which so many Christians and Muslims participate in the corruption of the world, corruption which has nothing to do with God, and everything to do with the very human pursuit of totalitarian terrestrial power. On the other hand, there are the sky gods who control the Market, who act as if the Earth exists only that we might plunder. And the billions or so who act, in smaller ways, like our model sky gods. Then I get to feeling like there is no purpose, that humanity and the Earth will suffer another thousand years, or ten thousand years of tyranny, or, that our insatiability is leading us to imminent collapse, with all the expected wailing and cursing and gnashing of teeth. If either is the case, what exactly is the point of living?
Four and a half years ago it was often, and eventually always like this for me. It's comparatively rare now. Now I know about quantum physics, that there are dimensions other than the ones we percieve, that life might very well be the rule wherever matter comes together. Indeed, we are living in extraordianary times, becoming increasingly aware of the Universe and our place in it, with the sense, somehow, that everything we know is coming to an end, in some mysterious way. Everywhere I sense it, the quickening, as if time itself is increasing speed.
I awoke after my time with Keith and his family, with a dull sense of dread (which has everything to do with my internal struggles, and nothing with my good friend Keith and his beautiful family). I pulled cards, and they showed me in greater detail where I know myself to be. I went for a walk, and blogged, and danced, and found some great new music (new to me, anyway. Like most everything that's making me feel new and alive these days, its been around for awhile.) Today I wrote the second draft of two more chapters of a second book. I danced. I sang. I danced some more. I'm blogging now. Indeed I feel energized, as if there's a new energy in the heliosphere. And indeed, all the planets suggest there is. The sun, I expect, will soon give us all a greater sense of its power, energized as it is by that new energy, at the peak of its sun spot cycle. I'm imagining now the center of the galaxy on the other side of that sun, and my whole being seems to come alive with wonder.
It seems like a great time to take an immense risk. I am, all over the place, and the cards are telling me that in some way, there are decisions being made on some level of existence that I'm not fully aware of, and everything is fine. Wonderful even. I forget. It gets to feeling a little unstable, uncertain, when I contemplate these new realities with my old self. But more often, I feel an immense gratitude, and joy, that I'm awakening to my place in the Universe. That I will continue to awaken as long as I am alive, with the increasing awareness that there is a great deal more than this life. With an increasing will to explore it. With an increasing certainty that we are all in the midst of a Great Awakening.
Sunday, February 20, 2011
Corp.
The day after darts, I'm inclined to expand on two points: the corporation, and the feeling that comes over me sometimes, that I am tired of living and there is no point to my existence. One today and perhaps the other tomorrow. I'll start with the corporation.
As I said yesterday, or rather, very early this morning, the corporation is a co-operation between many, because many together are stronger than any one alone. The pre-eminent co-operation practiced today is a most extreme hierarchy, with those at the peak of that hierarchy gaining more than most to an extreme degree. All within this modern co-operation gaining more than most. Which is a kind of tyranny.
The highest court in our land has long declared the corporation to be a person. This ostensibly has been to simplify contracts between parties, such that all who benefit directly from a corporation are not required to participate directly in the contract. More to the point, the corporation becomes a shield protecting investors, employees, executives from any legal action against the corporation. This leads directly to a disconnection between the actions of the "person" that is the corporation, and the people who benefit from those actions. Whatever action taken by the corporation is acceptable then, as long as it is both profitable and within existing law. The "person" that is a corporation is fundamentally amoral, with far more resources than any one individual, with which it influences the law to facilitate the amoral pursuit of wealth generation, often to the degradation of the Earth, often to the great benefit of a few at the expense of the many.
The modern corporation is a vehicle of insatiability. It exists according to a philosophy of eternal growth, on a finite planet, without regard for any resource but that which can be transformed into wealth, no matter the kind nor the amount of waste generated in that pursuit. It generally refuses to account for any of that waste except that which can generate profit. It cannot conceive of any action but that which generates wealth, and of that only the kind of wealth that can be accumulated infinitely, by those who drive the vehicle.
Corporations too can accept only that government that facilitates the kind of order that allows the corporation to pursue wealth insatiably. It does not matter to the corporation what kind of government. All the better, the kind of government that controls the supply of information. Anything but democracy, which almost always places checks on the power of corporate "persons". The best government is that which appears to be democratic, but which in fact is a vehicle of the corporation.
The "person" that is a corporation becomes a shill for men who seek immense terrestrial power, who establish and maintain a social hierarchy, who exploit both human and natural capital, to aggrandize themselves beyond anything thus far conceived. Such men would have us believe that their actions are a great benefit to humanity, but there are about four billion more poor people than there were when the first corporation was formed, most of those without any recognizable hope to improve their state, who will only add to that number. And the whole of the Earth is suffering.
All wealth is of the whole. The modern corporation is largely a means to acquire an ever greater portion of that wealth without end or limit. It does not have to be. Because it is not so much the corporation that is the problem, as the extreme hierarchy so often established and facilitated by it. A hierarchy that cannot ever be anything but exploitative. In theory, government exists to check the grosser aspects of that exploitation. It does not do that well, and cannot. Ultimately then, every human must place checks on oneself, lest one become indifferent to that exploitation, and enrich oneself at the expense of the many. There is no exploitation that is not violent; just as there is no coercion that is not violent. I am equally as bound not to coerce you as you are not to exploit me.
People will always come together, to combine their strengths, to more readily achieve their individual and cumulative ends. That is the way of community. It is only eternal vigilance by all that will prevent that from becoming tyranny.
As I said yesterday, or rather, very early this morning, the corporation is a co-operation between many, because many together are stronger than any one alone. The pre-eminent co-operation practiced today is a most extreme hierarchy, with those at the peak of that hierarchy gaining more than most to an extreme degree. All within this modern co-operation gaining more than most. Which is a kind of tyranny.
The highest court in our land has long declared the corporation to be a person. This ostensibly has been to simplify contracts between parties, such that all who benefit directly from a corporation are not required to participate directly in the contract. More to the point, the corporation becomes a shield protecting investors, employees, executives from any legal action against the corporation. This leads directly to a disconnection between the actions of the "person" that is the corporation, and the people who benefit from those actions. Whatever action taken by the corporation is acceptable then, as long as it is both profitable and within existing law. The "person" that is a corporation is fundamentally amoral, with far more resources than any one individual, with which it influences the law to facilitate the amoral pursuit of wealth generation, often to the degradation of the Earth, often to the great benefit of a few at the expense of the many.
The modern corporation is a vehicle of insatiability. It exists according to a philosophy of eternal growth, on a finite planet, without regard for any resource but that which can be transformed into wealth, no matter the kind nor the amount of waste generated in that pursuit. It generally refuses to account for any of that waste except that which can generate profit. It cannot conceive of any action but that which generates wealth, and of that only the kind of wealth that can be accumulated infinitely, by those who drive the vehicle.
Corporations too can accept only that government that facilitates the kind of order that allows the corporation to pursue wealth insatiably. It does not matter to the corporation what kind of government. All the better, the kind of government that controls the supply of information. Anything but democracy, which almost always places checks on the power of corporate "persons". The best government is that which appears to be democratic, but which in fact is a vehicle of the corporation.
The "person" that is a corporation becomes a shill for men who seek immense terrestrial power, who establish and maintain a social hierarchy, who exploit both human and natural capital, to aggrandize themselves beyond anything thus far conceived. Such men would have us believe that their actions are a great benefit to humanity, but there are about four billion more poor people than there were when the first corporation was formed, most of those without any recognizable hope to improve their state, who will only add to that number. And the whole of the Earth is suffering.
All wealth is of the whole. The modern corporation is largely a means to acquire an ever greater portion of that wealth without end or limit. It does not have to be. Because it is not so much the corporation that is the problem, as the extreme hierarchy so often established and facilitated by it. A hierarchy that cannot ever be anything but exploitative. In theory, government exists to check the grosser aspects of that exploitation. It does not do that well, and cannot. Ultimately then, every human must place checks on oneself, lest one become indifferent to that exploitation, and enrich oneself at the expense of the many. There is no exploitation that is not violent; just as there is no coercion that is not violent. I am equally as bound not to coerce you as you are not to exploit me.
People will always come together, to combine their strengths, to more readily achieve their individual and cumulative ends. That is the way of community. It is only eternal vigilance by all that will prevent that from becoming tyranny.
Darts
I spent the day at my friend Keith's, with his strong wife and companion, and their clear calling son. I was there to help with household chores, the kind of chores every household requires, the kind of chores few homeowners have the time or confidence or tools or experience to do themselves. A paid job, though by the end of the day I didn't feel much like accepting any money, as I spent much of the day in a fowl mood, and I burnt up much of our collective day on a back and forth about a damn shower door, a door I misjudged, and installed, and uninstalled, that Keith and his family had to return on a Saturday evening, and I forgot to add the damn directions. As I whined about a bathroom light/fan, uninstall/install, and got a sharp object in my eye for a good twenty minutes, tough even then I whined about how no one seems to care about how their actions effect anyone else, and I'm tired of being alive ,and I don't see how my being alive has any fucking point at all.
At midnight, Keith payed me everything we agreed on; and despite my attitude, much more than we originally talked about had gotten done.
We went to Prairie Pub for drinks and darts after. I took the first three games, though Keith showed a bit of fire and I drifted back into a dark place. We ended up tied 4-4. In the ninth game, the bartender took my beer and I focused again: 5-4, in my favor. On the way home we wandered around St. Paul as Keith grilled me on my anger against corporations. He calls my arguments contrived; I argued as I always do with him, weakly against a thing I'm not really against, a thing I'm only suspicious of because of the power that's gained in numbers, and the myriad ways that power leads with violence.
He found my house. I unloaded the bike he gave me, assuring him I had a fun time, as I always do with Keith. Inside, I prowled around the house, imagining undoing every thing, tearing it all down, being done with it. A curious jupitorious geminiouness, foretold in the cards. My right side tense, full of pain and restriction, my left at ease, weaker but more flexible. I collapsed in the corner, tears in my eyes, raging.
A corporation is a co-operation between many, because many are stronger than any one alone. In this age, the pre-eminent co-operation is between those who practice the most extreme hierarchy, with those at the peak of that hierarchy gaining the most, to an extreme degree. All within the modern co-operation gaining more than most. Which is a kind of tyranny. All wealth is of the whole. What are we to do with our portion?
And there, as always, my conundrum, my refusal to force anyone to do anything, with whatever portion they feel themselves entitled to.
It's now five am, and my fury is waning. I've been going to bed early lately. This is what comes of my participation in the world. It is not always this furious.
Must focus. LOL.
Sleep. Dream.
At midnight, Keith payed me everything we agreed on; and despite my attitude, much more than we originally talked about had gotten done.
We went to Prairie Pub for drinks and darts after. I took the first three games, though Keith showed a bit of fire and I drifted back into a dark place. We ended up tied 4-4. In the ninth game, the bartender took my beer and I focused again: 5-4, in my favor. On the way home we wandered around St. Paul as Keith grilled me on my anger against corporations. He calls my arguments contrived; I argued as I always do with him, weakly against a thing I'm not really against, a thing I'm only suspicious of because of the power that's gained in numbers, and the myriad ways that power leads with violence.
He found my house. I unloaded the bike he gave me, assuring him I had a fun time, as I always do with Keith. Inside, I prowled around the house, imagining undoing every thing, tearing it all down, being done with it. A curious jupitorious geminiouness, foretold in the cards. My right side tense, full of pain and restriction, my left at ease, weaker but more flexible. I collapsed in the corner, tears in my eyes, raging.
A corporation is a co-operation between many, because many are stronger than any one alone. In this age, the pre-eminent co-operation is between those who practice the most extreme hierarchy, with those at the peak of that hierarchy gaining the most, to an extreme degree. All within the modern co-operation gaining more than most. Which is a kind of tyranny. All wealth is of the whole. What are we to do with our portion?
And there, as always, my conundrum, my refusal to force anyone to do anything, with whatever portion they feel themselves entitled to.
It's now five am, and my fury is waning. I've been going to bed early lately. This is what comes of my participation in the world. It is not always this furious.
Must focus. LOL.
Sleep. Dream.
Thursday, February 17, 2011
Language
When I was about eight, our teacher, Mr Rudolph, gave us a list of Christmas songs (really, I didn't make up that pun). We could chose two songs and take home a cassette copy of each, to practice. We were to return to class on a specific day, and perform the song before the class. The kids chosen the best performers for each song, would go on to perform before parents and teachers at the Christmas pageant. I was chosen the best...Bing Crosby.
Shane N. was chosen best Elvis. But that didn't mean I quit practicing. On the day of the pageant, Shane didn't show up for school. His mom called him in sick. I still have a VHS copy, somewhere, of myself, in one of my dad's cardigan sweaters, my hair slicked back, probably with crisco, lip-syncing to Bing Crosby's White Christmas. And me again, in an adult-sized, brown leather jacket, and sunglasses, lip-syncing to Elvis's Blue Christmas.
One of the things that has always stood in the way of me learning another language is stage fright. I was always too embarrassed to practice in front of other people, my mind going blank. I also used the very common American excuse, that I have no need for another language. Which of course only assures that when I do need it I don't have it. As I aged, I figured that, like a dog, I couldn't learn anything new, especially not a thing so complicated as a language.
Then a large batch of exceptional music from around the world came to me through a friend. I found myself dancing to this music, but also, without really thinking about it, lip-syncing. Suddenly, I found myself singing songs in languages I don't know how to speak, in some cases not even knowing what the language is. It wasn't until recently, when I sung Musica, by the artist Nawal, to a Kenyan woman, that she informed me, she thought, I was singing Swahili. Honestly, I still don't know for sure that it is. I do know I can sing the song, acapella, beginning to end.
There is a vast gulf between singing a song in Swahili and speaking competently with another in Swahili. It's a start, though, a strong foundation really, if I decide to learn Swahili. Which got me thinking again about Spanish, and for reasons of my own, Brazilian Portuguese and French.
I've recently compiled forty songs, in these three languages, and I listen to those songs daily. Already, after only two weeks, I'm lip-syncing several of the songs most of the way through, some energetically, some so much that I'm starting to sing. My ears are tuning themselves to the subtleties of each language. My mouth is learning to form the words. It comes easier if I get out of the way. It doesn't matter that I don't know what the words mean. The intellect will follow the mouth and the ear, I reason.
Spanish is the priority, as it's the most widely spoken language in the western hemisphere besides English, and I have a direct reason, my niece, who is bi-lingual but struggling with her Spanish. Unfortunately, I've always had trouble distinguishing individual words in spoken Spanish. Now, my ear can grasp the delivery, which is progress. I know what a few words mean. I can read Spanish out loud, sort of, even if I don't really know what I'm saying. The Barrons program I use, designed in the eighties for the US Foreign Service, is great if I want to speak in a condescending manner. I don't, but it's still a fine exercise. My next step is to find a book on tape in Spanish, and the book in Spanish, to follow along.
Brazilian Portuguese is currently the most fun, as the music is the most joyous and the words are more comprehensible. French is, well, a challenge. I can see how it might be fun, though, someday.
Of course, I know, if I really want to learn these languages, I will have to go live among people who speak them. That is my intention.
Time is a problem in the immediate, however, as this time next month I'll be out of money, about the same time I perform at Patrick's Cabaret. A job doesn't bode well for the learning of three languages and the writing of a second book. Hopefully, I'll be done with the second draft by then.
What could I do with 99 weeks of unemployment compensation? Too bad, I never qualified.
Shane N. was chosen best Elvis. But that didn't mean I quit practicing. On the day of the pageant, Shane didn't show up for school. His mom called him in sick. I still have a VHS copy, somewhere, of myself, in one of my dad's cardigan sweaters, my hair slicked back, probably with crisco, lip-syncing to Bing Crosby's White Christmas. And me again, in an adult-sized, brown leather jacket, and sunglasses, lip-syncing to Elvis's Blue Christmas.
One of the things that has always stood in the way of me learning another language is stage fright. I was always too embarrassed to practice in front of other people, my mind going blank. I also used the very common American excuse, that I have no need for another language. Which of course only assures that when I do need it I don't have it. As I aged, I figured that, like a dog, I couldn't learn anything new, especially not a thing so complicated as a language.
Then a large batch of exceptional music from around the world came to me through a friend. I found myself dancing to this music, but also, without really thinking about it, lip-syncing. Suddenly, I found myself singing songs in languages I don't know how to speak, in some cases not even knowing what the language is. It wasn't until recently, when I sung Musica, by the artist Nawal, to a Kenyan woman, that she informed me, she thought, I was singing Swahili. Honestly, I still don't know for sure that it is. I do know I can sing the song, acapella, beginning to end.
There is a vast gulf between singing a song in Swahili and speaking competently with another in Swahili. It's a start, though, a strong foundation really, if I decide to learn Swahili. Which got me thinking again about Spanish, and for reasons of my own, Brazilian Portuguese and French.
I've recently compiled forty songs, in these three languages, and I listen to those songs daily. Already, after only two weeks, I'm lip-syncing several of the songs most of the way through, some energetically, some so much that I'm starting to sing. My ears are tuning themselves to the subtleties of each language. My mouth is learning to form the words. It comes easier if I get out of the way. It doesn't matter that I don't know what the words mean. The intellect will follow the mouth and the ear, I reason.
Spanish is the priority, as it's the most widely spoken language in the western hemisphere besides English, and I have a direct reason, my niece, who is bi-lingual but struggling with her Spanish. Unfortunately, I've always had trouble distinguishing individual words in spoken Spanish. Now, my ear can grasp the delivery, which is progress. I know what a few words mean. I can read Spanish out loud, sort of, even if I don't really know what I'm saying. The Barrons program I use, designed in the eighties for the US Foreign Service, is great if I want to speak in a condescending manner. I don't, but it's still a fine exercise. My next step is to find a book on tape in Spanish, and the book in Spanish, to follow along.
Brazilian Portuguese is currently the most fun, as the music is the most joyous and the words are more comprehensible. French is, well, a challenge. I can see how it might be fun, though, someday.
Of course, I know, if I really want to learn these languages, I will have to go live among people who speak them. That is my intention.
Time is a problem in the immediate, however, as this time next month I'll be out of money, about the same time I perform at Patrick's Cabaret. A job doesn't bode well for the learning of three languages and the writing of a second book. Hopefully, I'll be done with the second draft by then.
What could I do with 99 weeks of unemployment compensation? Too bad, I never qualified.
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