Some Things to Live By

Been thinking a lot on how I want to live in this world. I have some common sense guidelines; codes to live by, ethics. These things I try to remember and aspire to live by every day - with lots of falling short.  Here is the long list. I'm sure I forgot lots.

Love and appreciate this planet for all it has given us and continues to give us.  I believe that all sentinent life can feel the benefit of appreciation.

Enjoy simply being (not necessarily having to do - just being with)  the people you like and love. The little day to day rituals - a meal together, watching the children play, etc. Cultivate solitude and quiet within your being - make time every day for it.

Have compassion for those people (or institutions) you don't like or love (but you owe them nothing - including pretense of niceties, "hanging out" with them or "joining," whatever.) It's your right to avoid the assholes and mean people, rather than give them another pot shot at you or "try a little harder" to be acceptable to them. In other words, be anti-social if "society" and its banality and insensitivity are killing your joy and life force and sucking you dry. Be careful of "reformers" and jealous people who will either try to belittle you or nitpick all of your "faults" to death. How do you feel around them? Sucked dry and unhappy? Pay attention to your gut. Suffer no ongoing abuses from people who are unconsciously miserable themselves, and they're going to take that out on you (albeit maybe unconsciously. Still no excuse for bad behavior).

Go outside every day - without your technological devices! You really won't DIE if you don't talk on your cell phone or text. Stop. Look. Listen. Be still. Marvel at Nature. Cherish what moments you can. Be grateful whenever you can manage it - you're alive! Cry. Grieve for the Earth and what we've done to it. Also, celebrate Earth - its beauty, its generosity, it's miraculousness. Its ongoingness and its cycles of birth/life/death/birth. Touch and be touched by it all.

Laugh at life's absurdities - there are so many. Today could be our very last day alive - individually or collectively. Do what you love every moment that you can. Accept whatever you're doing or feeling, every moment that you can. You don't have to always like it, but acceptance makes everything go easier.

Fall for no false gods or self-appointed "gurus" who want to sell you their "secrets" for a lot of dollars. They have nothing you don't - in fact, some of them are power mongers and shysters, with huge narcissistic insecure egos and a lot of greed. Everything you need is within yourself; you don't need them!

Shun hierarchy and the societal models based on it, wherever possible. It's a trap and an enslaver and it wears a lot of disguises. Learn to recognize the snares. Practice not "ranking" anything or anyone above or below anything/anyone else. recognize that we all have some leadership capabilities and that no one is supposed to grab onto that at the expense of everyone and everything else - that is dictatorship.

Ask lots of questions. Don't settle for someone else's answers. Really dig deep. Recognize if there are multiple possible answers or no answers at all and let the mystery be. Let your questions lead to further questions. Be unafraid that you don't know most everything.

Trust your body more, and turn off your mind and thinking. This includes using your body, being outdoors, dancing, singing, touching, tasting, laughing, weeping, embracing, etc. Really experience life and all-that-is through your body whenever possible. Be with every little thing from the warm dish suds on your hands, to feeling your sitting bones on the chair or the knot in your gut at a tree being murdered by a chainsaw. Try to notice when you're out of the moment - you will either be thinking that you want more or want to push something away (grasping/resisting.) try to simply sit and stay with the what-it-is. Watch the thoughts and emotions come and go like clouds.

Listen to the animals - and the children. If you're a guy, stop fearing and hating the feminine. It's within you, just as the masculine is within all women. 

Be fair. Communicate - don't be a coward - if you have something to say to another person, say it. Be yourself - don't change for anyone - if you're going to change, do it for you. Treat people the way you want to be treated. Apologize if you need to and make living amends by changing your behavior.

Respect your elders and really listen to what they have to say. Help them remember who they are when they forget, and value them and their contributions, as they take the long walk toward death.

Open yourself to the youth. Don't shut them down, or their ideas or their idealism; nurture the spark into a flame. Be real with them. Show them you are just a bozo on the bus too, and don't have all the answers in adulthood. Listen for theirs - they still see and embody what got crushed out of a lot of us. Protect their right to continue to nourish those seeds.

Wherever possible, do no harm. Remember thanks and appreciation for all you encounter.

old 2011 poem written about Occupy Wall Street

I'm reviving this blog.

This was an old post I started to write probably 4 years ago, in response to Occupy's original inception and the hope felt by many about the way it was evolving (until the police state shut it down). But you can't keep a good underdog down. We are many, they are few. We will, like water, keep moving, and we will smooth boulders of obstacles into river stones. We will prevail... for the benefit of all future generations... for all sentient beings unable to speak humanesque, legalese or have "standing" under human laws. We stand for Them under Universal Law.

Occupy will not die. It will morph into whatever it needs to be at any moment inside or outside of time. We will learn to occupy ourselves and thus see the planet for what it truly is, and own responsibility for the pain and torture we inflict on it, on ourselves, on others - and choose a kinder, more compassionate way to live on this miraculous planet earth which supports us. From this place, we have a chance to solve the great problems besetting us. Nothing will be solved until we see ourselves as a part of this living breathing earth, and one with it, and humanity as a speck of sand on a beach - one beach among infinite beaches.

We would never burn our skin or drill or blast holes in our own body, to drain it of blood or water, and suck it all out of our body We wouldn't mine our bodies for organ extraction, leaving gaping wounds or worse, filling the holes left with filthy water. That is what we do to Earth when we drill for oil or frack for gas or blast for coal, or murder myriad forests of trees, and all beings and ecosystems dependent on them.

The Earth is the only currency we must protect. If we don't see everything here as part of us, if we don't see ourselves as part of everything, we are doomed to extinct ourselves with all else we are extincting.

 Occupy                                                           

That crowd of unwashed

kids and revolutionaries

       corporate corruption cleanup crew;

I want to live with them

      in their tent cities

No leaders needed

     white men

            last in the circle to speak

                  after all others

A different man and woman

leads each day

          Listening

       is our guide in the dark

We’re all willing to be lost

We’re about to run out of dough

       shift

             to a whole new paradigm

Debauched kingpins

and slavering pretenders

      say    we’ve got a dilemma

Awakening of the many

     terrifies the oppressors

            still they won’t keep their hands

                  out of our pants

We no longer tolerate

       any system of slavery

    Help

will always appear

        from likely and unlikely sources

We awaken

      to our collective Sovereignty

             hope

to evolve    earn equality

      with all Life Forms,

sacred co-creators, teachers,  friends

of homo sapiens. We let ourselves be
speck in the sands of All.

We won’t ask anyone’s permission to take

our rightful place,

help someone, something.

So much reparation is needed.

                                                                                           10/12/11

Attack on the Feminine - Again?

It's been a long time since I've posted here. Have been doing some local things intensively with some of the all-too-few people who are attempting to protect the environment and save what little is left. People standing up for human rights or the environment have been ridiculed, vilified, snubbed, slandered, discredited, glared at, stared at, cold-shouldered, threatened, harassed, and more. This happens in a small community too. And even nastier things would start happening - vandalism, threats of violence, and violence itself - could happen here too, at the rate things are heating up nationally in these pressure-cooker times.

If you care at all about what's happening to the Earth and the life forms on it, including human, you get brokenhearted, discouraged, burned-out when you are up against such odds. No one lasts long at giving their whole heart and soul, and losing over and over again. Turning away is not an option and looking hurts too much. Many hard core activists either burn out or die; through sickness or violence. If you get on the front lines for the Environment, you are considered Public Enemy #1, and it starts right where you live.

In this manic era of so-called patriotism, if you care about social welfare, or want to stop corporate  fossil fuel land rapists and bankster and billionaire robber barons, you are considered a communist traitor against the American Way - by the very people being brainwashed by puppetmaster propoganda to hate you - because you still care about the Earth and humanity. The puppeteers would just as soon that we kill each other - so that they don't have to kill us. How did we get here? When and where can it stop and begin to turn in another direction? Is humanity destined to repeat and repeat and repeat this bloody broken-record paradigm?

Everywhere today in the USA, polarities exist where people are so embroiled and entrenched in their opposing stances that nobody is listening to each other anywhere or realizing we're all on the same Titanic going down. There seems to be a collective fist-shaking perpetual shouting match, and the stress level of most Americans seems through the roof. This seems true on all levels. Politics have gone crazy. Congress is attacking women's rights and the environment.

Collectively, we have lost our connection to the earth; the body which nourishes and supports us all. We pollute the waters, the soil, and send poison smoke and invisible deadly chemicals into the sky. This seems an all-out attack on the Feminine. The U.S. is heading into a Taliban-type fanaticism and fascism, the likes that none of us has ever seen. Our country is officially an oligarchy now. The planet itself cannot sustain life for much longer, with the amount of damage humanity has done to it since industrialization. If there is any hope at all for humanity, or for life on this planet to survive in some way, it can only come through regaining our connection with all of life, and allowing that deep connection to All to open our hearts and minds and inform us again.

The Dirtiest Two Words in the English Language: Oil Sands - (AKA Tar Sands)

As President Obama takes yet another vacation, protests are in their third day in Washington, D.C. and people are being arrested to try to get media attention. The Oil Sands site in Alberta, B.C. is an enormous scar on the planet; the largest project of this type in the world. Some say it's as big as the United Kingdom.

 All that the Keystone pipeline will do is destroy U.S. boreal forests, extinct more wildlife and migratory birds, pollute our aquifers, and create untold needless carbon dioxide and undo all the gains we have made globally.

The Pipeline companies don't give a whit if there's a market for the Oil or not! They are only interested in raping and pillaging wilderness areas, forests and wetlands to build their monstrous pipelines and make dirty profits while destroying the planet for their economic short-term gain. The Pipeline route will destroy some of the largest agricultural aquifers in the U.S. (and Canada) and that is just one horrifying result. There's even talk of building nuclear reactors to help the extraction and refining process! As it is, they use Natural Gas to fuel the monster; what a waste! It takes up to 4 times the water by weight to produce one barrel.

Please look at the links provided and read about it. Then, tell everyone you know. I'm finding that many people don't even know about this thing, and it's growing so fast- a huge cancer; the largest industrial nightmare the Earth has yet seen. The Oil extracted from the site won't even be refined, making it far more acidic and no one knows what it will do to the material used for the pipeline, but at least 11 major leaks are expected by the company building it within the next 50 years! WTF are we DOING?!?!!!

If we want this thing to get media coverage, We the People have to get the word out. Facebook and Twitter away.

Here's the first link: this is the best site I can find on the oil/tar sands, with many links to many articles on all the areas of ramifications (and there are many) if you want further reading.
http://oilsandstruth.org/tar-sands-101

There is also an excellent site put up by Greenpeace with pictures and some staggering information.
http://www.greenpeace.org/international/en/campaigns/climate-change/stop-the-tar-sands/

Here's a 2009 National Geographic article:
http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2009/03/canadian-oil-sands/kunzig-text

Please - as painful as it will be to read these and look at this wholesale slaughter of once pristine and beautiful lands, take the time to educate yourselves. This is only one pipeline of thousands crisscrossing North America. The movement to stop the pipeline and oil sands production is worldwide. Join it - for future generations, and for the non-human defenseless Beings inhabiting the Earth with us.

When working within a corrupt system does not help or change anything, perhaps the answer is Anarchy

Lately I've been thinking about how absurd it is to keep trying to change this decaying stinking system by doing anything within the system. For so long I believed that my vote counted, that any action I took in petition-signing or trying to educate my fellow and sister humans about what's going down on Planet Earth and what we can do to turn it around, would be helpful. The thing is, now I realize that it's not helpful to anybody, including me. Nobody much wants to hear how bad things are when all seems so hopeless. So, we just try harder doing the same things that have already failed and failed. Or we consume more: buy a new monster truck or high-def TV, drink another beer, eat another ding-dong, take another drug, etc.

Just when things felt beyond hopeless or sane, OpEd News posted another great article in a series of intelligent and sane articles and opinions they post.
This is the best article I've read in a long time. It makes Anarchy, a word most of us have been brainwashed to dread, seem not only attractive, but hopeful; a possible sane solution in insane times. It feels comforting to think that maybe Anarchy is a way to sanity and sustainability again. Maybe when you read this, you'll think so, too.

This article comes from a website named "We The People News," out of Texas. (That gives me hope!) The article is entitled "Anonymous Anarchism: the Yang of Globalization," and the author is John Kelley. Please read it! Then ask your friends to read it. It's time to start the conversation, individually and globally, because the current hierarchy is killing us and the planet.

http://wethepeoplenews.net/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=792:anonymous-anarchism-the-yang-of-globalization&catid=16:john-kelley&Itemid=25

May 2022 update:

Well.... that is not the same website I visited in 2011! How disheartening! Will have to find the article archived someplace,  and re-post a direct link.

A Refreshing Breath of Fresh Air in these Crazy Times: People Who Make Sense

I just read Dennis Kucinich's brilliantly clear and simple proposal on balancing the budget: here it is, on my favorite online news and opinion source: OpEd News. I voted for Kucinich in the Caucus in 2008 and would vote for him again anytime. The link to an OpEd post (below this paragraph) has further links detailing Kucinich's entire plan for national economic reform and recovery. It makes sense. We can do this!
http://www.opednews.com/articles/The-Kucinich-Plan-for-Nati-by-Richard-Clark-110725-480.html

And how about this? The Congressional Progressive Caucus People's Budget - written by people, not corporations! This is a coalition of progressive (NOT neoliberal or liberal) people who have good ideas on how to eliminate the deficit in 10 years, laid out in terms anyone can understand.

It's heartening to know that there are people who don't just whine or rail or finger-point about what's wrong, which is all too easy to do in these hellishly corrupt and diabolical times. Instead, they're offering concrete solutions to complex problems that are fair and do-able, while not destroying the middle class and poor and the environment and everything we've fought for - women's rights, civil rights, equal opportunity, protecting the environment, jobs, education, etc.

Anyone with half a brain would come up with these things that we can do:

~ Withdraw all U.S. troops from all wars abroad, and bring them home.
~ Put our citizens and veterans to work here in the U.S., rebuilding America's infrastructure
~ Overturn the Citizens United vs FEC supreme court ruling and strip corporations of their rights to be "people" and get every tax loophole imaginable.
~ Do away with tax loopholes, and increase federal and state taxes for anyone making over $200,000 a year.
~ Research and implement alternative and green energies and technologies, and put the U.S. at the leading edge of those technologies; thus releasing the stranglehold of our oil, coal, and natural gas dependencies.
~ Fine all profiteering polluters - no exceptions, no loopholes. Fine them exponentially for every day they are in violation.
~ Do away with the cap on social security; the rich still profiting AND collecting their social security, while trying to gut it for those who really need it.
~ force all bailout banksters to pay back the bailout "loans" with high interest, also on the hefty and obscene profits they made from the bailout.
~ cap campaign spending and contributions, and return to paper ballots in every voting jurisdiction so that elections can't be tampered with anymore.

All this and more would generate revenue and balance the budget.

The time for timidity and kowtowing and trying to please republican or democrat war hawk extremists is over. If they won't meet us somewhere in the middle, the center will not hold. Now is the time to come up with solutions and have the spine to stand firm, tell the truth, say no to the liars and crooks who would destroy this great country. throw them out or indict them for their crimes. There is so much work to do and we need to get busy saving democracy and the middle class. Let's look toward, and share ideas on, solutions.

And Now, the "Wake UP" Series....

OUTRAGEOUS!

That could be the headline to much of what is going on these days. The continued pummeling by Congress on the EPA and consumer protections, medicare & health care, Women's reproductive rights, Social Security, the dirty lies and secrets of the US Chamber of Commerce (no relation to your local Chamber!) - where only a few corporations give billions of dollars to manipulate elections and force mandatory electronic voting with no documentable monitoring of tampering, spying on regular Americans who disagree with being made powerless serfs at the hands of the ultra-rich Corporatocracy, etc. The pharmaceutical companies selling us our drugs to keep us numb sheeple who don't make waves - telling us our rage is a sickness that needs to be medicated.  The pundits for greed decide to proliferate more oil rape, more nuclear take and take and what do we get? Poisoned!

Feeling ill yet? Feeling really angry? Good. That means you're waking up. Everyone in this Sunny New Age says anger has no place in the full spectrum of human emotions. Anger is a force that can be used for good because it motivates people - it shakes them, wakes them, gets them off their collective lazy asses and shows them there's something worth fighting for. Let's use our anger for the good, people. Let's use it like a controlled burn for the health of the forest.

There are so many holes in the dike and the water is over the sea wall. People, we can't lose heart now. We can't give up even though our heads are barely above the rising waters. Get out your snorkel masks and let's get busy!