Guru Danger

It seems to me that there are real dangers in following a teacher who is dead. It seems to me that there are real dangers in following a teacher (guru) who is alive. The mitigating factor in either scenario must be a sound moral compass. That has to be the deal.

The case against dead teachers is self evident. A follower can go way off the track and there is no one to bring her back to center. The words handed down can be mistranslated or badly distorted or actually lied about or manipulated by self serving followers. I shouldn't insult your intelligence with familiar examples, but I will. I recently heard a preacher on a Jesus radio station extorting his flock to get revenge about something. He said, "In the holy words of Jesus Christ himself, 'An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth.' Shit ya. People are following this follower and there is no Jesus Christ around to say, "Wait a minute, fellow".

And you see followers on incredibly strict religious diets drinking Coka Cola because Coke wasn't invented when the rules were written. These are dumb examples, but you can expand them to the big stuff like The Inquisition, the massacres of infidels that are still going on in the name of peace. This is going to happen to MLK and Mandela, just watch. Either their radical revolutionary ideas are going to be watered down to pap or their words are going to be twisted. That is one reason the death of someone like Mandela is so deep. Whether he was active or not in the past few years, his very presence on this earth kept some people on the strait and narrow.

The great masters who walked this earth had unbending moral compasses. They didn't say, Thou Shall Not Kill unless someone is trying to steal your toaster oven. They didn't say Love Your Neighbor As Yourself  unless she is wearing a head scarf. The teachers (masters, gurus) of non-violence didn't say Use non-violence, but it is OK to whack your wife around. Sometimes we need live teachers.

On the other hand... We read often enough of live teachers who have done dastardly things to their followers. James Jones comes to mind, of course. People have been led to criminal acts by leaders who seem very evolved, or very appealing or very enlightened. Too many examples to count. My conclusion is that honing our personal moral compass and following only when it passes every inner test you can come up with, can we put ourselves at the feet of a teacher.

There is so much we have to learn. Let's go out and learn, but let us not lose our balance in the process.

Some well meaning questions and some pissy answers.

I have given you fair warning. I am pretty much against American exceptionalism and our ridiculous notion that we are the center of the universe and therefore the center of enlightenment. I mean, think about what was going on in the USA when the Renaissance was happening in Europe. And that is just one of many examples. Think about our contributions to the world right now; wars, weapons, shitty GMO seeds and chemical foods, pollution and exploitation of natural resources at rates that were unsustainable years ago, guns, bombs, landmines, drones, war, terrible labor practices, global warming, plastics, floating islands of plastic, racism, unhappy religions and so on.

So, that being said, nice innocent questions come my way about whether the people in Thailand know how to take care of the elephants and whether people here know that brown rice and organic foods are good for them. And the implication is that we are the enlightened ones who could teach others to live better.

This is where I fall off the rails. Who are we to talk about things that we are worse at than any other country on the planet (maybe excepting China) I am sure that most of the world laughs when Hillary Clinton wags her finger at China and lectures about human rights. Everyone knows about Guatanamo and Abu Ghraib and all of our human rights stories.People know. What are we thinking? Other countries fight successfully against GMO seeds and crops contaminating them forever and they know enough that we are the proponents of such evil stuff.

Maybe instead of asking about the care of animals in other countries we should ask what we can learn about the care of animals. How can a country that allows the crimes that happen 24 hours a day in feed lots growing chickens and pigs and cattle in America claim to care for animals? Look at some pictures and think about how we are seen from afar. It is so disgusting as to be nearly unthinkable.

We set a fine example of animal husbandry during the eradication of the buffalo. From tens of millions to 2,000 in twenty years. 

The Near Annihilation of America's Buffalo in Pictures

Photo: Unknow  These are buffalo skulls waiting to be ground into fertilizer and shipped east. Tip of the iceberg.

In the journals of Lewis and Clark, not so very long ago, they wrote about having to stop the caravan in its westward movement after they crossed the Missouri River because there was such an abundance of wild life that they couldn't pass through it all. They, of course, had a ready solution. They shot and killed as much as they could to such a degree that they were held up further waiting for more ammunition to be brought from the East.

I think we need to stop thinking we have answers until we clean up our own act. Then people in other countries will look to us for guidance.

Same story for food. We are not a booming success in setting any standards around the world for dietary excellence. The world knows this.

I would like to see us look to others and see where they were successful and learn from them and learn fast. We have a long way to go and not much time to do it in.

I am a weird tourist.

My BLOG is not a travel blog but people have been asking questions about what I am doing, eating,and so forth. I feel like the little old ladies in English novels who went to a hotel in a nice place and stayed for the duration. There are several differences, however. The other people at my hotel mostly don't stay very long. This is a good thing and a bad thing for me. Several people who have come through I would have enjoyed spending more time with. With most a little bit was plenty. Most of the guests at the Come Chiang Mai Lanna Boutique Guest House are Asian. Couples mostly do couple things unless one person is an extrovert. Families spill over. I like that. Most often the mothers look tired and like to have someone admire their kids. I do that. Singles talk if the dining room is not crowded. These are my observations.

I found this place, CCMLBGH, on the interrnet on the AGODA website which has very good descriptions, deep discounts. I have left a bunch of times to take little trips and several times including tonite when I forgot to tell them I was staying and they booked full. When this has happened, they found me a good place, carried my bags over and came to be sure I was well settled in. Amazing , really.

I am happy with this place. It is small, clean, appealing to the eye, comfortable, great food, very nice people. Good walking neighborhood. So, I have done some real travel, but mostly I have plunked and made a good routine. I usually swim everyday. Here, not. I found pools that were nice, but the water tends to be a bit cold and the sun is very hot and the shade is quite cool. So, I end up moving and adjusting myself all the time, so I have given up on that. After all, I soon will be at the beach and then in Nicaragua so- nothing lost.

Food takes up a lot of my time. I like to eat small meals frequently. Actually don't have much choice after I was so sick last year. Thais also seem to be eating pretty much all the time and there is great GREAT food everywhere, all the time and very inexpensive (except for the small fortune I spend on cappuccinos). Sweet things are extremely sweet and hot is very hot and salty is very salty, so I am on a perpetual grazing party compelled by the experience that one extreme sets off a craving for the other. I have only once eaten an American thing and that was a grilled cheese sandwich which was quite remarkable but in no way resembled anything we might associate with said item.

I had shrimp with hot cooked basil in a chile sauce, rice and cold water for lunch. $1.30. Still starving, I went and had a carrot, apple and ginger juice thing. Now, I am plaotting where I will stop for my afternoon coffee and dessert. I have a pretty good idea.

I am taking yoga classes when I can get to them. This is pretty much an all day deal because after the class, I have to take a shower because the mats are really smelly and then I have to have lunch because I am starving and then I have to have an 1 1/2 hour massage because I ache and can't walk, then I go to my favorite temple and meditate and mostly give thanks for the beauty, the time, the health, the money, the spirit that guides me to be in a temple in Chiang Mai giving thanks. It is one big circle.

So, all in all I would say that my life is simple, easy, and pleasant. Once or twice I have felt lonesome, but that is why God gave us the gift of SKYPE. In my walking and boat rides and elephant rides, I have met (Invented) the character that will be in my novel if I write one. I just love her. We'll see where that goes.

And next week Gretchen and Eric come and we will do some hammering travel and meet up with dear friend Rhys. That is the story. You can perhaps see why I am not a travel writer. I assume that all of you have either been here or have a pretty good picture of the peaceable kingdom in Southeast Asia and, as I find everything lovely and meet kind generous people...not so much to report.

One thing does stand out and it is not in anyway unique to Asia. Everyone is always on their iphones. Everyone. Everywhere. Or taking pictures  (same thing). The human disconnect is staggering in its scope. Absolutely staggering.

We Have to Judge!

A comment on a recent blog of mine has me fretting. I said something about Jehovah Witness people proselytizing in a country that has a rich and rewarding belief system that has worked marvelously for a very long time. Why would anyone want to screw with someone else's good thing? The comment was "Don't judge."

That kind of got me stewing. I do judge. We all judge. In some cases judging can be a very good thing. In the instance about the Jo Ho people I wasn't so much judging as making a slightly ironic point. Kind of in the line of "If it ain't broke, don't fix it."

If millions of people hadn't judged that apartheid was evil in the USA and finally in the 1960s made enough noise and great leadership emerged, we still would have "Whites Only" signs all over the south. If Nelson Mandela and the ANC hadn't judged that apartheid in South Africa was evil, we wouldn't be celebrating Mandela's remarkable life today.

We have to judge. Leaving aside all the thousands of years of astute theological arguments (which we all know) about the existence of evil, I have to weigh in on the side of simple minded belief that sometimes there are bad things afoot. And if we can't make judgements about them, we can't do anything to stop them.

And, I am compelled to admit that I like irony and a bit of fun with ideas and seeing the humor in things. I know from experience that this is more of an east coast thing that west coast. I also like to be provocative. It gets the juices flowing. And not to single out the Witnesses in particular, if you think about it there has been a lot of weird shit forever everywhere in the name of religion. Don't get me going.

I am grateful for the comment. It got me thinking.

Deus Absconditus

Concealed God. Oh, all those years of the dreaded Latin lessons! And now it is fun when some phrase rears its head. Who knew?

Who knew? Was there some little corner in my being that knew, even then, that there was something for me that would someday delight in words, reading, talking, my God, talking! and telling stories? I don't remember talking all that much except there is some family myth that I used to follow my brother around as he terrorized our little planet. My mother says he climbed to the top of the fridge, up the front, when he was 8 months old. He also started walking then and hasn't slowed down since, except when he had that bad back thing and that was agony for him. Apparently I followed him everywhere, talking a blue streak and interspersing my monologue every few sentences with a "Huh Bill?" To which he would give some fleeting nod and go about his business. (Sounds like a lot of men.)

Then there was the fact that I made, wrote, created puppet shows and plays. I was the boss of it all. I was the one with the stories to tell, except when my Irish uncles came and then I sat at the foot of masters. Not to put a too fine point on it, when I wrote one play in 4th grade, everyone had to bow to the ground in front of me and my line was "I am Jupiter, dare not defy me!" I was a princess who had been stolen by those people who called themselves my parents. I joined the circus many times in my telling of how things were. I forced my brother and sister to rehearse endlessly with me. Our act was called "The Flying Zeros."

All this stuff came from my imagination. All the stimulus was from books. We had no TV and I hadn't yet seen a movie. Pig Latin was my first foreign language. My grandparents had the first foreign accents I ever heard. Grandma Braucher-German, and the Caffreys could put on the Irish.

Was some part of what would become so important in my life already there?  Was my hidden deity bursting out through my childhood play? Did reading the wars of Julius Caesar expand my horizons? I connect with words. I shape my reality with words. I am not a court reporter. My interest is in the spirit of an event as it hit my perception. And, in a certain way, all our stories are exactly the same. The god within is trying to find expression through the life we live.

So What Happened to Falling in Love?

I know that I have probably hit on this subject before but it came up today when I saw a couple together who were obviously, hopelessly, madly in love with each other. So cool. His eyes followed her every move , enraptured by her every gesture. She looked at him adoringly, couldn't keep from smiling. It sounds like a two- bit romance. It was actually gorgeous.

It made me realize how long it has been since I have heard someone say that they were "in love'. In Love. I mostly hear people talking about relationships. "Working on their relationship" is even more common. "Evaluating their relationship." Shit, I have a 'relationship' with my phone company. I have a 'relationship' with the food I eat. I don't want to have a 'relationship' with a guy I go out with. I am a romantic. I have had that kind of love where your heart pounds, where you can't catch your breath, where your brain turns to mush. I like that feeling. I am sad for those who haven't had it. It is not only about mating kinds of experiences. It can happen when you meet your new baby, when a child looks into your eyes and gives you her soul, when you meet the Dalai Lama. Pure, crazy, knock your socks off love.

And it is crazy and it is scary and you can get hurt big time. And so what? If we spend our lives not getting hurt, are we missing the big gold ring at the merry-go-round? You understand, of course, that I am not talking about perversions of this: "I love you, you're mine." kind of stuff. I am talking about opening the heart and 'seeing' someone else. It is fun. Try it again if you have forgotten what it feels like. I was inspired by that couple this morning. yes, I was.

Overheard tonight in a restaurant, a man making bad karma.

If what goes around comes around, if every action has a cause and a result, if we reap what we sow, then this guy I overheard tonite is going to have some tough times ahead.

I think he was American. He was on the older side, kind of good looking, maybe a little of the less seedy former CIA types that one runs into all over the world, especially where women go for cheap. He was talking to a young guy who was nodding, but not paying too much attention. The guy was bragging a bit about how he had set himself up here in Thailand. He was actually bragging a lot. He had a place in town and a something in the rural area. He had gotten it all for cheap. He was making his dream. No problem there.

Then his voice got louder and louder and he got more and more excited. There had developed a fatal flaw in his perfection. He had a neighbor who had a shop in the next house. The neighbor made furniture in his house. His work and his tools make a lot of noise. Big loud imitations of power tool noises! And now the guy was practically screaming and so pissed off..He had no tranquility in his home and the fucking neighbor wouldn't stop and the fucking police don't give a shit and there are no fucking laws in this fucking country to make the neighbor stop making noise that is disturbing this guys tranquility.

Aside from the fact that this guys companion looked like he wanted to crawl into a hole, aside from the fact that no one else eating there could possibly have another thought than this guys disturbed tranquility, aside from all that, there is the Buddhist thing.That is that if you want something you have to be it. In this case, if the guy wants to not be irritated by noises that he doesn't like, he has to stop making unpleasant noises himself. I am willing to bed the farm on the fact that this guy has no concept that he is actively (very actively) creating exactly that which he is railing against.

I know I should have approached him humbly told him that I have all the answers, but, you know, I didn't want to create the karma for that happening to me next time I am being an ass hole.

Toyota or Honda?

Every car here is a Toyota. Nearly ever moto or motorcycle is a Honda. I am taking hoards of these things. Yesterday I stopped in a Honda sales place and found out that a new Honda bike can be bought for about $500. I am not in the market, but I was wondering how people with a little fruit stand could afford one. I assume that used ones can be gotten for as little as $50. So, that led me to the question of why I can't buy one of these things and take it home at enormous savings. When I was young, everyone was going to Europe and buying a VW on the cheap and bringing it home.

This, of course, led me to make an attempt at understanding the concept of Free Trade. Everything I read about this subject added to my confusion. It is a good idea, but bad in practice. It is a bad idea but has some good parts. It is a way of further enslaving have-nots and stacking the deck for the haves. It doesn't exist and can't exist. The WTO and GATT and NAFTA are living examples of how these so called free trade deals screw everyone except the powerful.

Who decides what? We subsidize farmers in the USA so they can dump corn in Central America at prices that put farmers there out of business and then what do we gain? More hungry people needing to work in the USA so they can send remittances home so that their families can buy expensive corn so that we can pay taxes to make this happen? Too many questions. I do not understand what is my net gain. Nothing, I suspect. What is WalMart, Monsanto, Goldman Sachs net gain? Huge amounts. I would wager.

If any of you can explain to me what is going on, I would appreciate it very much. I hate being ignorant. I trust my gut feelings that there is perverse manipulation afoot. And I feel quite certain that the USA doesn't need more cheap junk to fill up our storage units. But, the concept of a level playing field has some appeal to me.

This is so true. Some important words from Noam Chomsky

Noam Chomsky: America hates its poor

Noam Chomsky interviewed by Chris Steele

Excerpt from Occupy (Second edition), Zucotti Park Press

Salon, December 1, 2013

Q: An article that recently came out in Rolling Stone, titled "Gangster Bankers: Too Big to Jail," by Matt Taibbi, asserts that the government is afraid to prosecute powerful bankers, such as those running HSBC. Taibbi says that there's "an arrestable class and an unarrestable class." What is your view on the current state of class war in the U.S.?
A: Well, there's always a class war going on. The United States, to an unusual extent, is a business-run society, more so than others. The business classes are very class-conscious -- they're constantly fighting a bitter class war to improve their power and diminish opposition. Occasionally this is recognized.
We don't use the term "working class" here because it's a taboo term. You're supposed to say "middle class," because it helps diminish the understanding that there's a class war going on.
It's true that there was a one-sided class war, and that's because the other side hadn't chosen to participate, so the union leadership had for years pursued a policy of making a compact with the corporations, in which their workers, say the autoworkers -- would get certain benefits like fairly decent wages, health benefits and so on. But it wouldn't engage the general class structure. In fact, that's one of the reasons why Canada has a national health program and the United States doesn't. The same unions on the other side of the border were calling for health care for everybody. Here they were calling for health care for themselves and they got it. Of course, it's a compact with corporations that the corporations can break anytime they want, and by the 1970s they were planning to break it and we've seen what has happened since.
This is just one part of a long and continuing class war against working people and the poor. It's a war that is conducted by a highly class-conscious business leadership, and it's one of the reasons for the unusual history of the U.S. labor movement. In the U.S., organized labor has been repeatedly and extensively crushed, and has endured a very violent history as compared with other countries.
In the late 19th century there was a major union organization, Knights of Labor, and also a radical populist movement based on farmers. It's hard to believe, but it was based in Texas, and it was quite radical. They wanted their own banks, their own cooperatives, their own control over sales and commerce. It became a huge movement that spread over major farming areas.
The Farmers' Alliance did try to link up with the Knights of Labor, which would have been a major class-based organization if it had succeeded. But the Knights of Labor were crushed by violence, and the Farmers' Alliance was dismantled in other ways. As a result, one of the major popular democratic forces in American history was essentially dismantled. There are a lot of reasons for it, one of which was that the Civil War has never really ended. One effect of the Civil War was that the political parties that came out of it were sectarian parties, so the slogan was, "You vote where you shoot," and that remains the case.
Take a look at the red states and the blue states in the last election: It's the Civil War. They've changed party labels, but other than that, it's the same: sectarian parties that are not class-based because divisions are along different lines. There are a lot of reasons for it.
The enormous benefits given to the very wealthy, the privileges for the very wealthy here, are way beyond those of other comparable societies and are part of the ongoing class war. Take a look at CEO salaries. CEOs are no more productive or brilliant here than they are in Europe, but the pay, bonuses, and enormous power they get here are out of sight. They're probably a drain on the economy, and they become even more powerful when they are able to gain control of policy decisions.
That's why we have a sequester over the deficit and not over jobs, which is what really matters to the population. But it doesn't matter to the banks, so the heck with it. It also illustrates the consider- able shredding of the whole system of democracy. So, by now, they rank people by income level or wages roughly the same: The bottom 70 percent or so are virtually disenfranchised; they have almost no influence on policy, and as you move up the scale you get more influence. At the very top, you basically run the show.
A good topic to research, if possible, would be "why people don't vote." Nonvoting is very high, roughly 50 percent, even in presidential elections -- much higher in others. The attitudes of people who don't vote are studied. First of all, they mostly identify themselves as Democrats. And if you look at their attitudes, they are mostly Social Democratic. They want jobs, they want benefits, they want the government to be involved in social services and so on, but they don't vote, partly, I suppose, because of the impediments to voting. It's not a big secret. Republicans try really hard to prevent people from voting, because the more that people vote, the more trouble they are in. There are other reasons why people don't vote. I suspect, but don't know how to prove, that part of the reason people don't vote is they just know their votes don't make any difference, so why make the effort? So you end up with a kind of plutocracy in which the public opinion doesn't matter much. It is not unlike other countries in this respect, but more extreme. All along, it's more extreme. So yes, there is a constant class war going on.
The case of labor is crucial, because it is the base of organization of any popular opposition to the rule of capital, and so it has to be dismantled. There's a tax on labor all the time. During the 1920s, the labor movement was virtually smashed by Wilson's Red Scare and other things. In the 1930s, it reconstituted and was the driving force of the New Deal, with the CIO organizing and so on. By the late 1930s, the business classes were organizing to try to react to this. They began, but couldn't do much during the war, because things were on hold, but immediately after the war it picked up with the Taft-Hartley Act and huge propaganda campaigns, which had massive effect. Over the years, the effort to undermine the unions and labor generally succeeded. By now, private-sector unionization is very low, partly because, since Reagan, government has pretty much told employers, "You know you can violate the laws, and we're not going to do anything about it." Under Clinton, NAFTA offered a method for employers to illegally undermine labor organizing by threatening to move enterprises to Mexico. A number of illegal operations by employers shot up at that time. What's left are private-sector unions, and they're under bipartisan attack.
They've been protected somewhat because the federal laws did function for the public-sector unions, but now they're under bipartisan attack. When Obama declares a pay freeze for federal workers, that's actually a tax on federal workers. It comes to the same thing, and, of course, this is right at the time we say that we can't raise taxes on the very rich. Take the last tax agreement where the Republicans claimed, "We already gave up tax increases." Take a look at what happened. Raising the payroll tax, which is a tax on working people, is much more of a tax increase than raising taxes on the super-rich, but that passed quietly because we don't look at those things.
The same is happening across the board. There are major efforts being made to dismantle Social Security, the public schools, the post office -- anything that benefits the population has to be dismantled. Efforts against the U.S. Postal Service are particularly surreal. I'm old enough to remember the Great Depression, a time when the country was quite poor but there were still postal deliveries. Today, post offices, Social Security, and public schools all have to be dismantled because they are seen as being based on a principle that is regarded as extremely dangerous.
If you care about other people, that's now a very dangerous idea. If you care about other people, you might try to organize to undermine power and authority. That's not going to happen if you care only about yourself. Maybe you can become rich, but you don't care whether other people's kids can go to school, or can afford food to eat, or things like that. In the United States, that's called "libertarian" for some wild reason. I mean, it's actually highly authoritarian, but that doctrine is extremely important for power systems as a way of atomizing and undermining the public.
That's why unions had the slogan, "solidarity," even though they may not have lived up to it. And that's what really counts: solidarity, mutual aid, care for one another and so on. And it's really important for power systems to undermine that ideologically, so huge efforts go into it. Even trying to stimulate consumerism is an effort to undermine it. Having a market society automatically carries with it an undermining of solidarity. For example, in the market system you have a choice: You can buy a Toyota or you can buy a Ford, but you can't buy a subway because that's not offered. Market systems don't offer common goods; they offer private consumption. If you want a subway, you're going to have to get together with other people and make a collective decision. Otherwise, it's simply not an option within the market system, and as democracy is increasingly undermined, it's less and less of an option within the public system. All of these things converge, and they're all part of general class war.
Q: Can you give some insight on how the labor movement could rebuild in the United States?
A: Well, it's been done before. Each time labor has been attacked -- and as I said, in the 1920s the labor movement was practically destroyed -- popular efforts were able to reconstitute it. That can happen again. It's not going to be easy. There are institutional barriers, ideological barriers, cultural barriers. One big problem is that the white working class has been pretty much abandoned by the political system. The Democrats don't even try to organize them anymore. The Republicans claim to do it; they get most of the vote, but they do it on non-economic issues, on non-labor issues. They often try to mobilize them on the grounds of issues steeped in racism and sexism and so on, and here the liberal policies of the 1960s had a harmful effect because of some of the ways in which they were carried out. There are some pretty good studies of this. Take busing to integrate schools. In principle, it made some sense, if you wanted to try to overcome segregated schools. Obviously, it didn't work. Schools are probably more segregated now for all kinds of reasons, but the way it was originally done undermined class solidarity.
For example, in Boston there was a program for integrating the schools through busing, but the way it worked was restricted to urban Boston, downtown Boston. So black kids were sent to the Irish neighborhoods and conversely, but the suburbs were left out. The suburbs are more affluent, professional and so on, so they were kind of out of it. Well, what happens when you send black kids into an Irish neighborhood? What happens when some Irish telephone linemen who have worked all their lives finally got enough money to buy small houses in a neighborhood where they want to send their kids to the local school and cheer for the local football team and have a community, and so on? All of a sudden, some of their kids are being sent out, and black kids are coming in. How do you think at least some of these guys will feel? At least some end up being racists. The suburbs are out of it, so they can cluck their tongues about how racist everyone is elsewhere, and that kind of pattern was carried out all over the country.
The same has been true of women's rights. But when you have a working class that's under real pressure, you know, people are going to say that rights are being undermined, that jobs are being under- mined. Maybe the one thing that the white working man can hang onto is that he runs his home? Now that that's being taken away and nothing is being offered, he's not part of the program of advancing women's rights. That's fine for college professors, but it has a different effect in working-class areas. It doesn't have to be that way. It depends on how it's done, and it was done in a way that simply undermined natural solidarity. There are a lot of factors that play into it, but by this point it's going to be pretty hard to organize the working class on the grounds that should really concern them: common solidarity, common welfare.
In some ways, it shouldn't be too hard, because these attitudes are really prized by most of the population. If you look at Tea Party members, the kind that say, "Get the government off my back, I want a small government" and so on, when their attitudes are studied, it turns out that they're mostly social democratic. You know, people are human after all. So yes, you want more money for health, for help, for people who need it and so on and so forth, but "I don't want the government, get that off my back" and related attitudes are tricky to overcome.
Some polls are pretty amazing. There was one conducted in the South right before the presidential elections. Just Southern whites, I think, were asked about the economic plans of the two candidates, Barack Obama and Mitt Romney. Southern whites said they preferred Romney's plan, but when asked about its particular components, they opposed every one. Well, that's the effect of good propaganda: getting people not to think in terms of their own interests, let alone the interest of communities and the class they're part of. Overcoming that takes a lot of work. I don't think it's impossible, but it's not going to happen easily.
Q: In a recent article about the Magna Carta and the Charter of the Forest, you discuss Henry Vane, who was beheaded for drafting a petition that called the people's power "the original from whence all just power arises." Would you agree the coordinated repression of Occupy was like the beheading of Vane?
A: Occupy hasn't been treated nicely, but we shouldn't exaggerate. Compared with the kind of repression that usually goes on, it wasn't that severe. Just ask people who were part of the civil rights movement in the early 1960s, in the South, let's say. It was incomparably worse, as was just showing up at anti-war demonstrations where people were getting maced and beaten and so on. Activist groups get repressed. Power systems don't pat them on the head. Occupy was treated badly, but not off the spectrum -- in fact, in some ways not as bad as others. I wouldn't draw exaggerated comparisons. It's not like beheading somebody who says, "Let's have popular power."
Q: How does the Charter of the Forest relate to environmental and indigenous resistance to the Keystone XL pipeline?
A: A lot. The Charter of the Forest, which was half the Magna Carta, has more or less been forgotten. The forest didn't just mean the woods. It meant common property, the source of food, fuel. It was a common possession, so it was cared for. The forests were cultivated in common and kept functioning, because they were part of people's common possessions, their source of livelihood, and even a source of dignity. That slowly collapsed in England under the enclosure movements, the state efforts to shift to private ownership and control. In the United States it happened differently, but the privatization is similar. What you end up with is the widely held belief, now standard doctrine, that's called "the tragedy of the commons" in Garrett Hardin's phrase. According to this view, if things are held in common and aren't privately owned, they're going to be destroyed. History shows the exact opposite: When things were held in common, they were preserved and maintained. But, according to the capitalist ethic, if things aren't privately owned, they're going to be ruined, and that's "the tragedy of the commons." So, therefore, you have to put everything under private control and take it away from the public, because the public is just going to destroy it.
Now, how does that relate to the environmental problem? Very significantly: the commons are the environment. When they're a common possession -- not owned, but everybody holds them together in a community -- they're preserved, sustained and cultivated for the next generation. If they're privately owned, they're going to be destroyed for profit; that's what private owner- ship is, and that's exactly what's happening today.
What you say about the indigenous population is very striking. There's a major problem that the whole species is facing. A likelihood of serious disaster may be not far off. We are approaching a kind of tipping point, where climate change becomes irreversible. It could be a couple of decades, maybe less, but the predictions are constantly being shown to be too conservative. It is a very serious danger; no sane person can doubt it. The whole species is facing a real threat for the first time in its history of serious disaster, and there are some people trying to do some- thing about it and there are others trying to make it worse. Who are they? Well, the ones who are trying to make it better are the pre-industrial societies, the pre-technological societies, the indigenous societies, the First Nations. All around the world, these are the communities that are trying to preserve the rights of nature.
The rich societies, like the United States and Canada, are acting in ways to bring about disaster as quickly as possible. That's what it means, for example, when both political parties and the press talk enthusiastically about "a century of energy independence." "Energy independence" doesn't mean a damn thing, but put that aside. A century of "energy independence" means that we make sure that every bit of Earth's fossil fuels comes out of the ground and we burn it. In societies that have large indigenous populations, like, for example, Ecuador, an oil producer, people are trying to get support for keeping the oil in the ground. They want funding so as to keep the oil where it ought to be. We, however, have to get everything out of the ground, including tar sands, then burn it, which makes things as bad as possible as quickly as possible. So you have this odd situation where the educated, "advanced" civilized people are trying to cut everyone's throats as quickly as possible and the indigenous, less educated, poorer populations are trying to prevent the disaster. If somebody was watching this from Mars, they'd think this species was insane.
Q: As far as a free, democracy-centered society, self-organization seems possible on small scales. Do you think it is possible on a larger scale and with human rights and quality of life as a standard, and if so, what community have you visited that seems closest to an example to what is possible?
A: Well, there are a lot of things that are possible. I have visited some examples that are pretty large scale, in fact, very large scale. Take Spain, which is in a huge economic crisis. But one part of Spain is doing okay -- that's the Mondragón collective. It's a big conglomerate involving banks, industry, housing, all sorts of things. It's worker owned, not worker managed, so partial industrial democracy, but it exists in a capitalist economy, so it's doing all kinds of ugly things like exploiting foreign labor and so on. But economically and socially, it's flourishing as compared with the rest of the society and other societies. It is very large, and that can be done anywhere. It certainly can be done here. In fact, there are tentative explorations of contacts between the Mondragón and the United Steelworkers, one of the more progressive unions, to think about developing comparable structures here, and it's being done to an extent.
The one person who has written very well about this is Gar Alperovitz, who is involved in organizing work around enterprises in parts of the old Rust Belt, which are pretty successful and could be spread just as a cooperative could be spread. There are really no limits to it other than willingness to participate, and that is, as always, the problem. If you're willing to adhere to the task and gauge yourself, there's no limit.
Actually, there's a famous sort of paradox posed by David Hume centuries ago. Hume is one of the founders of classical liberalism. He's an important philosopher and a political philosopher. He said that if you take a look at societies around the world -- any of them -- power is in the hands of the governed, those who are being ruled. Hume asked, why don't they use that power and overthrow the masters and take control? He says, the answer has to be that, in all societies, the most brutal, the most free, the governed can be controlled by control of opinion. If you can control their attitudes and beliefs and separate them from one another and so on, then they won't rise up and overthrow you.
That does require a qualification. In the more brutal and repressive societies, controlling opinion is less important, because you can beat people with a stick. But as societies become more free, it becomes more of a problem, and we see that historically. The societies that develop the most expansive propaganda systems are also the most free societies.
The most extensive propaganda system in the world is the public relations industry, which developed in Britain and the United States. A century ago, dominant sectors recognized that enough freedom had been won by the population. They reasoned that it's hard to control people by force, so they had to do it by turning the attitudes and opinions of the population with propaganda and other devices of separation and marginalization, and so on. Western powers have become highly skilled in this.
In the United States, the advertising and public relations industry is huge. Back in the more honest days, they called it propaganda. Now the term doesn't sound nice, so it's not used anymore, but it's basically a huge propaganda system which is designed very extensively for quite specific purposes.
First of all, it has to undermine markets by trying to create irrational, uninformed consumers who will make irrational choices. That's what advertising is about, the opposite of what a market is supposed to be, and anybody who turns on a television set can see that for themselves. It has to do with monopolization and product differentiation, all sorts of things, but the point is that you have to drive the population to irrational consumption, which does separate them from one another.
As I said, consumption is individual, so it's not done as an act of solidarity -- so you don't have ads on television saying, "Let's get together and build a mass transportation system." Who's going to fund that? The other thing they need to do is undermine democracy the same way, so they run campaigns, political campaigns mostly run by PR agents. It's very clear what they have to do. They have to create uninformed voters who will make irrational decisions, and that's what the campaigns are about. Billions of dollars go into it, and the idea is to shred democracy, restrict markets to service the rich, and make sure the power gets concentrated, that capital gets concentrated and the people are driven to irrational and self-destructive behavior. And it is self-destructive, often dramatically so. For example, one of the first achievements of the U.S. public relations system back in the 1920s was led, incidentally, by a figure honored by Wilson, Roosevelt and Kennedy -- liberal progressive Edward Bernays.
His first great success was to induce women to smoke. In the 1920s, women didn't smoke. So here's this big population which was not buying cigarettes, so he paid young models to march down New York City's Fifth Avenue holding cigarettes. His message to women was, "You want to be cool like a model? You should smoke a cigarette." How many millions of corpses did that create? I'd hate to calculate it. But it was considered an enormous success. The same is true of the murderous character of corporate propaganda with tobacco, asbestos, lead, chemicals, vinyl chloride, across the board. It is just shocking, but PR is a very honored profession, and it does control people and undermine their options of working together. And so that's Hume's paradox, but people don't have to submit to it. You can see through it and struggle against it.

Small up!

This is a Jamaican expression for make room for more people, as in a crowded taxi. I like the term. But I am liking it more and more as the idea catches on the less is more. In the 60s when the book "Small is Beautiful" cam out, we were already hearing warnings about ecological disaster, about the population exploding, mutterings about global warming. In the 70s we had the gas crisis for a bit. We knew about the rainforests being decimated. This was a long time ago. Nothing that is going on can be surprising. We had warning after warning.

This is one place where my generation more than fucked up, failed, bombed. We played the fiddle while Rome was burning. We carried excess and greed to astonishing heights. OK, we helped get back to more natural childbirth, we made some decent attempts at recycling, we got a nature foods trend going, we stopped nuclear power plant growth in the USA. Good things. But we became the champions of exploiting resources and people and the environment. We owned stocks in hateful companies with murderous practices, we had to have more of everything, more cars, more bigger houses.

A lot of the people running companies and the government now are my generation. We don't take care of the environment. We don't care if everybody shoots everybody. We support hideous wars and call them peace makers. We changed the rules so that companies have more rights than people.

We talk a good story but we go one wasting everything we have been given. We have no apparent intention of curbing our wasteful ways. There is no idea of sacrifice or pulling in or smalling up. Who are we? Now  see more and more about tiny homes and ways to make it simpler. But for most people I know this idea appeals to them as another dwelling. And extra space where they can go to gt away from their shit. Maybe we should leave our stuff in the house and live in the storage continer.

Whole countries have had entire populations switch to low flush toilets, motion sensitive lighting, wind power, on demand water heaters, no plastic bags...simple changes if there is a will. Not in the USA. We still leave whole huge areas lit up at night like a stadium (car lots) when other countries have never dreamed of doing such a dumb thing. Who are we?

We are the people who have storage places for crap we never want to deal with. We are the country who had to add Hoarding as a mental diagnosis. We are the people who kill each other to buy crap at WalMart to celebrate Thanksgiving and get a jump on Christmas. 

Now, one thing that occurs to me is that if this state of affairs was making us wildly happy and sublimely contented and generous to a fault with those who have less, then it might be worth trying to sustain it. That isn't exactly the picture I see. We need antidepressants by the truck load. We seem to need a lot of guns. Who are we?

I am fully a part of the generation that ruined the environment and broke up the family and had to do what I wanted to do because I deserved it and  I earned it and I knew best. How can we turn this around? We canstart by smalling up where we can.

The Birth of the Christ Child

What is it about this story that can be so utterly compelling for thousands of years to all sorts of people? I think everyone likes a good story. I do. I think we like stories that are particular and universal at the same time. It seems to me that every birth is a birth of Christ. A new being incarnates. A new star appears in the heavens. The earth is forever changed. I think every child born has this effect.  Right there there is something to remember and celebrate.

There is also the amazing timing. The winter solstice, celebrated as long ago as the Druids. The names might be different, but many traditions have some big do over the triumph of light over darkness. It is getting darker and darker and what is happening? Then like the magic it is, the sun wins out and the light returns. Who can't like this story? This is THE story. We feel hope. We feel that all things old have become new again. This is good.

And as far as I am concerned, the language in the New Testament is simple, elegant and vivid. The Prince of Peace being born in a humble manger in a dusty little town while the parents are obeying a harsh Caesar Augustus and going to pay taxes. Great story.

Have yourself a real treat this season and forget the nonsense and read this fine story to yourself or to whomever you can capture. Light a zillion candles, prepare for the triumph of the sun and get into the vibe. It will bring good feelings to you.

Everyone should have me for a doctor.

A German, a Frenchman, and Jew got lost walking in the desert.

The German said I'm thirsty. I'm tired. I must, I must… have a cold German beer.

The Frenchman said: I'm thirsty. I'm tired. I must, I must… have a good bottle of French wine.

The Jew says I'm thirsty. I'm tired. I must, I must… have diabetes.


Thanks to my friend Ron for the joke. The reason he sends me this is that he recognizes the Jew in me. It had to have been in a past life, because it is not in my current gene pool. Catholic and Lutheran. Irish and German. Be that as it may, I  jump to the worst diagnosis for every possible ailment. In this case a little knowledge is certainly a dangerous thing. I have no memory of ever not doing this. I do it regarding others, but have learned for the most part to keep my mouth shut.

It is my sketchy knowledge of anatomy that gives me such authority. I know muscles, major organs, systems (sort of). Therefore, when I forget that I ate organic beets and pee red, I am immediately sorting through my mental catalogue of those friends with bladder cancer. All survived. Steady breath. A headache has to be a brain tumor. indigestion or a back ache is my first symptoms of pancreatic cancer. I am reporting this to you flippantly, but the real deal is that I get pretty worked up until I check myself and decide to wait and see. I have Lupus just about every other day.

The reason I am thinking about this today is that I read a nice article about conscious dying and families taking back the care of the dead, much as midwives reclaimed birth. There is a big movement about this now. When my friend, Sarah Lee Sexton died, her body was put in a cold room on dry ice and friends and family sat with her round the clock for three days and nights and we prayed and cried and laughed and read to her. She died in a Camphill Village, and this was the tradition there. Now, without or because of the influence of Rudolf Steiner, these kinds of personalized traditions are springing up all voer the place.

So, this will be the problem of whomever is around after me. As will my funeral. I have changed my mind about what I would do for my funeral so many times that I am glad I won't have to sort it out. I've left notes around when I've had inspirations, but I can't remember where they are. But it is this thing about my dying so often that has me concerned. The "What ifs?" are killer. So unBuddhist. Right now I may have a million life threatening diseases incubating in my body. But, right now I feel great and my sore feet are sore from walking for hours at the night market and not from bone cancer. I 'get' it. Be Here Now. The past is over and the future doesn't exist. I am tired and thirsty. I must need a glass of water and a good night's sleep.

Big Day

Unlike George Bush, when I say "Mission accomplished" I really mean it. Of course his mission was pernicious and ill defined. Mine was simple. I had to get a 30 extension on my visa so I can arrange my life as I wish.

The thing is that you have to leave the country and when you come back in they only give you 15 days which would leave me in a pickle no matter how I play it because of plane tickets already bought for 24 days from now. I am in Chiang Rai which is in the Golden Triangle where Myanmar, Laos and Thailand meet. The claim to fame here, aside from stunning scenery, is the infamous drug trade which was monumentally escalated during the US occupation of South Vietnam. Remember Air America the CIA's drug planes? People here certainly do.

Strange to think about, but it was the bombing of Laos (more bombs dropped on Laos than on any country ever in the history of warfare.) and the lies told to the American public about it that jumped the anti-war protests from big to massive to shutting down the war. That's my memory of the deal.

Burma is 'all right' for travel right now except for this area. But I was told that it is a border where one can cross over and cross back and get a 15 day extension. I set out this morning to do so. I walked to the bus station, took a minivan for 1 1/2 hours, then took a truck to the Myanmar border. I thought it was going to be a sketchy crossing like some in Guatemala/Honduras. Instead it is a gigantic endless, market selling everything. I mean everything. For instance you can buy deadly snakes, you can buy pieces of meat that you don't want to ask what they are. You can buy gold, diamonds and there it was..the first one I have seen in my life, a Lambroghini show room.

No shit. There is definitely money in the drug trade. There is certainly poverty. The old Chinese field workers looked so broken down. (they are probably 40). I wasn't shopping. I was doing the border thing. So I left Thailand and walked across the bridge into Myanmar. I was greeted by the most friendly young policemen! "Welcome to Myanmar!" Smiles! "Please sit, Madame Mama!" Smiles! (The government there is one of the most repressive anywhere. You know that.) I sat down and they said "That will be 500 Baht." I asked what would be 500. "To come into the country. Please Miss Mama, have a seat over here and we will take your photo."

He now is holding my passport and my 500 TB. I go over and have my picture taken. He gives me a slip of paper and says "Now you can enjoy our country for 1 maybe 2 hours." I asked for my passport back and he says, "No." I reached out to take it off his desk and his hand blocked mine so fast you wouldn't believe it. He said "You can have your passport when you leave the country." Now I was giving myself about ten lectures at once mainly consisting of the fact that I really needed to go to the bathroom, really wanted a smoke and if I open my big mouth it could take forever to undo what I might say.

I know I have mentioned that I don't do well with repression or oppression or dumb shit authority. So, with lovely control, I said that I changed my mind and didn't want one or maybe 2 hours in his country and under my breath, that I wasn't going to walk away leaving my passport with a 12 year old soldier in a $8 uniform and a big gun. Did I mention that you could buy guns in the market...much like WalMart at home. I behaved, I really did. I used to enjoy causing scenes at immigration but those days are long gone.

So, I had one more challenge before I could pee and smoke. I went to the Thai immigration. I had been told you could bribe for more days, but never told a price. I went up to the counter and told the lady that I wanted 30 days. She spoke to me in Thai. I looked at her. She spoke more in Thai. I still looked at her and said 30 days. She said 500 Baht. (I had heard as much as 1800). I looked at her. She got tired of me and told me to pass and gave me the 30 days. No money.This standing like a stupid idiot is the best way of bargaining that I have ever tried.

Anyway, I did it. After a little siesta, I have a whole new town of temples to look at. Crossed the Mekong River twice today.

Monkey Mind

My thoughts are jumping all over the place. So come along for the ride.

Is there such a thing as too many massages? Is that what is stimulating my monkey mind? Today's guy did something we were taught about at massage school, but most people I massaged wouldn't put up with it. He started out so gently that it was nearly an etheric massage. He went over and over the same places on the feet and legs until I almost had decided that he wasn't touching me at all. This went on for about 20 minutes. Then I felt a lot of energy going to those very feet which were hardly getting touched. He had warmed up the muscles. Then he hit the reflexology hot spots slowly but amazingly deeply. My head almost blew off. Great stuff.

Many people whom I have massaged want you to hit it hard and fast. They are impatient for the deep stuff right away. But the fact is that if the muscles are really warmed up and the therapist is going slowly, you can ultimately get in much deeper. I now "know" this as opposed to having learned this.

Jumping around. There is something weirdly intimate about being impersonal. I am not sure that impersonal is the word I seek. But people here don't offer up their names and their stories easily. But there is something deep about sharing a cup of tea or a glass of water with someone and not knowing anything and not caring and not expecting anything. Just being there.

Every western tourist I hang with is slightly frantic to tell me who they are and what they do and where they went to school and basically to stand out as a unique individual. They spill their guts. It is weird. Americans are the worst except maybe for Israelis.What are we working so hard to demonstrate to the world? I think an Asian wait person would curl up in embarrassment if they had to say "Hi, my name is Mung and I am happy to serve you today." You feel all that but it is never spoken. You know people by how they are and what they do not by what they tell you. I like it.

Jumping to another thought. One good reason to have kids if you are debating the issue is that sometimes they can give you back what you gave them. Case in point: Today I was dithering on SKYPE with my daughter about whether I will go into remote Laos next week. I have had a lot of warnings about danger but also a lot of "If you don't take this chance and go, you will regret it." She said, "Shark Beach". I was lost there for a moment. She reminded me that on our first trip to Mexico we had come across one of the most gorgeous beaches I have seen in my life. No one was on that beach. I thought out loud, "How can people go to the crowded touristy beaches when there is this perfect beach here? We are coming here tomorrow. People are so stupid." Famous last words.

The next day we packed up and found a taxi and he was about to take us there. I described the location to him and told him I didn't know the name of the beach. "Shark Beach", he said. "Is that because there are sharks there?" I asked. Duh. He told us that it was overloaded with them. Their favorite spot in Mexico. So, I had forgotten that lesson, but my daughter had remembered it.

Saw some big tall Americans passing out WatchTower pamphlets today and I got inwardly a little snarky thinking what balls they have to come from a great materialistic war mongering country like the USA to convert these peaceful Buddhists to a religion that is for all practical purposes brand new and which doesn't celebrate anything like birthdays and Christmas. Jesus, these Buddhist celebrate everything and throw in Hindu celebrations too. Then I realized that the earlier Christian missionaries didn't put a dent in this country, these currant ones aren't much of a danger. (I just keep judging) Gotta stop that.

"Do You Wish the Slow Plane?"

Here's the thing: I basically only do one business activity a day. Anything more is all together too exhausting. This category excludes housekeeping but includes everything from mailing a letter to doing my taxes to buying toothpaste or a new car. I am so lucky to have such a simple life, anything else and, who know what would happen?

For years I worked a bunch of jobs at the same time. For a few years I was a Waldorf School class teacher, did free-lance editing in the early morning hours, had the refugee foster kids, and did banquet serving on weekends. I was a single mother at a very low paying job with no health insurance. Moan and groan. And, there was the care and feeding of the kids, the house, the car and so on. I mostly enjoyed every minute of it.

Finances were so stressed that I had a box under the mail slot and couldn't bring myself to open the mail more than once every two months. Sometimes the mail carrier would slide a particularly pressing bill under the door. The thing is, we did it! Eventually, the bills all got paid, the kids got launched, and I was kind of cooked. Without the pressure of the kids, I lost interest. I was in a rental house after the kids left home and I had been there six months before I noticed that it didn't have an oven. Point made.

Right now I am living la dolce vita. However, today I had two business tasks. I had to buy a bus ticket, reserve the seat, call a tuktuk to take a trip. I have to leave the country on a visa run. It is very frowned upon to overstay your visa here. The nice woman at the hotel desk set me up with that business. Then, I had to mail a painting that I bought back to the states. Oh ya, AND go to the ATM. The pressure. I made my strategy for the day. I could stop for my second coffee on the way to the mail place, then go to a temple and meditate and give thanks, do the mail place, return to hotel to get rid of ATM money, eat lunch, take a walk, have a massage, read my book, eat dinner, take another walk, get a new book, and go home and crash.

I was feeling that although there is a lot to do today and a lot of pressure, I could cope. When I was at the mail place (It certainly didn't look like a post office.) The woman behind the desk was trying her best to ignore me. This is unusual in Thailand where everyone greets everyone. I think she was unsure about her English and hoping I would go elsewhere. I couldn't. I had a schedule to keep. I asked her what it would cost to send the package. She asked me whether I wanted to send it by the regular plane or the slow plane. "You're shitting me right? The slow plane, what's that?" She said "It is a slower plane." "How much slower?" I asked. "About three weeks slower." I gazed into her eyes to be sure she wasn't making fun of me. She wasn't. Thai people are very straight about business things.

"Oh my God, I'll choose the slow plane." I declared. She looked very satisfied as though I had passed a test. But I can't help think, how slow can a plane go and still stay air born? Is going slow even possible? I have slowed down my life to a very slow pace, but I have done it gradually. Can a plane do that? Is this a metaphor? Another one of those mysterious Asian things? I don't know.

Monks Chat Club

I went back to the Monks Chat Club (that really is the name!) today and met a very wise 21 year old. Seems strange to me to sit at the feet of a youngster while he casts pearls of wisdom to me. It is very hard not to hug these sweet boys because our moments together are so intimate.. that is to say, I felt like he was seeing the real me. But a woman can not hug a monk. (I guess the Dalai Lama is in a different category. He is a big old huger. He hugs with his arms, but he also hugs with his smile. The champion.)
Some monks can't even put those bracelets they bless at the temples onto a woman's wrist. Some lay person has to do it. It kind of makes you feel weird until you realize what they are sacrificing to keep their vows. Cool.

This club is at a huge temple, off in a little garden. Today's guy was on vacation and doing this because it gives him pleasure. He talked about compassion, not worrying about the past or the future, and being content. I said that it is hard for me not to judge people. He said, "It is hard." I said that I do it often even when I have no idea I am doing it. He said, "Yes, it is hard not to. So, don't judge." I said that what I mean is that judgements come even when I don't know they are coming. They are very sneaky, slipery things. He said, "Don't judge others."

Was I looking for some absolution or forgiveness from him? I already got all that from the mass at the end of the Camino. I said my penance and got my absolution. Done. What was I after from this dude? Then I got it. He was back to his thing about the present moment. I was hammering on about an old habit. He was telling me to stay in the now. God, this stuff is so subtle. I was forcing him to hit me over the head by repeating himself.

When I had my moment of self-realization, he saw it in my eyes and we had a good laugh. I like being outsmarted. Our laughter was fully in the present moment.

A Major Rethink. Help!

I wrote a post yesterday and then unposted it this morning after a few people had read it because I was guilty of doing that thing...that thing that old people do, romanticizing the past. Firstly, I can not do this in an honest way, because it is a belief of mine that the healthiest thing we can do is to be grateful for all our experiences that have brought us to who we are today. Yup. That's a belief. So, ipso facto, everything in my past was perfect, a fairy tale, a dream life. Another thing is that I am a romantic soul - same result. Yet another thing is that remembering yesterday's events or even today's can only be done with my present consciousness and I don't want to be guilty of "the good old days" syndrome.

I want to share my stories mostly because I have enjoyed so very much hearing other people's stories. They explain everything; they explain nothing. People's stories are what they can offer as a glimpse into the window of their soul.

But what bothered me about the deleted post, was there was an unintended but unmistakable implication that things were better in my childhood than they are for kids today. Not necessarily true.

When I was a kid I loved to visit the farm in Pennsylvania where my Grandfather, William Kohler Braucher grew up. There was a huge stone house, a gorgeous red barn, hundreds of dairy cows, rolling fields. Three generations lived there together. They worshiped, worked, ate great food, worked, did I mention worked together year in and year out. That is what I saw. What I didn't see, and later found out was the pain and devastation of WW1 in their household, and the Spanish Flu epidemic and the pain of relatives back in Germany and other countries in Europe. So, I can enjoy my romantic picture of this bucolic tapestry, and I do, but it is both a reality and a fantasy.

I am sure that Dr. Freud would have said that it is an unhealthy thing to remember only the good. I must be repressing bad shit that needs to be talked about forever. But remember he was a coke head and he was mostly dealing with raving lunatics.We make our choices. But, the main reason I had second thoughts was the implied superiority of one childhood over another. I am, after all, in the land of karma. We get what we need and we make of it what we will, and have compassion for anyone less fortunate.

Old People.

I have interviewed a cross section of the Chiang Mai public and there is complete consensus about where the old people are. They are at home in the country side. I am glad to know that they exist. This information certainly brought up the fact that many or most of the young people here, who are all the Thais I meet, have come here to work. For most it is good work unlike the girls from further north who go to Bangkok to prostitute themselves to support their families at home.

Working in the fields growing rice is back breaking labor and yields a few dollars a week. The boys who want higher education come to the temples and seem to get a very high quality education and a basic life for free. The temple schools teach many languages, a lot of history and more and more science. And, of course, Buddhism.

The past few days have been the festival of Loy Krathong. Like many festivals in many countries it seems to be many things for many people. For me, it has meant seeing more and more beauty, the little bowls made of leaves and flowers and candles floating down the river, the great lanterns floating while burning up into the night sky. But one of the big thrills is that the monks, the young ones especially, open their gates to all and share in profoundly buzzing rituals attended by thousands. Do not get the impression that this is tip toe, whispery, woo woo stuff. The crowds are having a blast, people come and go, the monks feed the crowds, the crowds feed the monks. A hilarious moment last night in the courtyard of a temple with thousands of onlookers, hundred of candles, lanterns of wild colors everywhere and a dog walked into the holy circle and started to lift his back leg on a Lama who was praying.  One after another the 8 year old novices give the dog chase, the dog got confused and kept going in instead of out. The monks started laughing, the crowd was hysterical. A good time was had by all.

I suppose it is just the same as our Christmas in the USA must appear to people of other faiths. For some of us it is an orgy of overeating and drinking, Santa Claus and shopping and shopping and shopping. For others it is an annual time to go to church and enjoy the decorations and the music and see friends. For others it is a most sacred time celebrating the birth of Christ 2,000 years ago. For me it is all three things, excepting the shopping part. Never had a taste for shopping.

Last night at the temple, I had a real Buddhist lesson. Or maybe it was Christian or maybe it was Jewish. I don't know. I had gone an hour early and found a seat in the sand right outside the circle. I got peaceful as the place began to get more and more crowded. Then hundreds of people went inside the circle to take pictures. I kept calm. I had a good mental picture. Then the big Who Ha came out and said that the ceremony was about to start and everybody had to leave the inside before the thing could really start. We are all exceptions to the rule, it would seem. More and more people pushed forward taking innumerable shots of this pretty picture. Finally they thinned out and I had my ringside seat right outside the line.

So, what is it with me and Germans? This German photographer. I'll assume that he was a photographer because he had a very big very expensive camera, kind of stepped on me as he shoved his way into the barrier and stood in front of me. He then proceeded to fucking fuss with his camera and sweat and grunt and swear as he was blocking our view, disrupting our tranquility, and stepping on me and another old lady beside me. Didn't anyone assume that National Geographic has been nailing this photo yearly for 100 years?

I looked at the lady beside me and she was not annoyed or disrupted by this putz in front of us. Then I started to laugh. At myself. Thank you Buddhism. I got unannoyed, accepted my karma with the Germans, and went off giving my place to another. I was in a good mood for the rest of the night. "What you resist, persists."

Where Are The Old People?

In my little town in Oregon, almost all you see is old people, excepting the million or so school kids who come to the Shakespeare festival. But you don't really see them much except in the Plaza between shows. There is a lot of grey hair around town. That is a fact.

But here in Chiang Mai , Thailand, and come to think of it, in Bangkok and Ko Samet, I NEVER see an old person. Tomorrow I am going to ask the nice young man next door where they hide the old ones. In Nicaragua, the old folks sit in rocking chairs in front of the house many mornings and just about every evening. They are neat, tidy, scrubbed up, fed, and their work is over. They watch the pass and schmooze with neighbors and family members come and sit with them.

There are several possibilities here:

1. No one lives here. The young people just come to work and then go home somewhere else.

2. The old folks are dead. That could be why there are so many ancestor altars.

3. They don't look so good. Keep them hidden.

4. They are still working rice in the countryside.

5. Thai people don't age. Many of the people I think are teenagers are really 100.

I guess the possibilities are endless. I just got the willies when I figured what was missing around me. I like a good mix of ages. I feel that we all have something to offer each other.

In fact, when I was a kid (here she goes again) we played with all ages. On a good snow day, the parents and kids were all sledding or skating together. We played baseball and swam at the pond with whomever showed up. Big kids, little kids, dumb kids, smart kids, terrible players, great players...together. We made up our rules and enforced them. We made teams. We behaved well because it was fun. There was no tension. 'My team' was one bunch of kids one day and another bunch the next day. I think this was healthy.

Today everything seems to be divided up by age groups. You have to take your birth certificate, for heaven's sake, to play on a 7 year old soccer team. Don't want any team to tip the balance by putting in an 8 year old! The kids have to learn everything from adults. We learned most good stuff from other kids.

How is this segregation working out? It seems to me that it might be backfiring a little bit. With the adults trying to make everything fair, it seems to me that the competitiveness of the adults comes down quickly on the kids. It seems that a lot of kids won't try a lot of things if they fear they can not be excellent. It builds up an intolerance for under performers who might never have the chance to find their way.

This is probably bull shit nostalgia, but everyone I know remembers going out in the neighborhood after dinner as the best thing of their childhood except maybe visiting the grandparents. Intergenerational memories. So, I have to find out where the aged population of Chiang Mai is. I'll let you know.

To my readers in the Philippines:

I hope you are OK. I am deeply saddened by the suffering your country is experiencing. Is there anything we can do to help? Please accept our compassionate prayers.

The Pressure Is Intense.

Is it possible that our ways of functioning in the world are the same as they were when we were kids? If I had a paper to write, I did the reading and found information right away. Then I thought about it and avoided thinking about it and then one night I would write the whole thing in a great burst of inspiration. I was often way ahead of the kids who hadn't done the reading or the research, but I was also incapable of working on it nightly in regular allotments. I had to ruminate and then find my jumping off point.

Well, it seems that that is my approach to almost everything I do and don't do. It feels as though that is what is going on on this thing about writing my book. Only here are the problems; I have had my whole life to do the research. It is done. I have made this announcement that I am about to do this. I have the time and the space to do this now. And I feel pressure. I created this pressure and now it bugs the hell out of me.

This is a bit of a spoiled brat whine. But it is my reality. The thing is that I have never been good at doing things for myself. I still struggle with a ton of impulses toward self-denial. Old habits are hard to break. So, every time I stay in a nicer hotel instead of a tolerable cheap one, I have to have a little talk with myself. It is OK. I am OK. It is OK to treat myself well. It is fine. (my little self-lectures)

But on this big thing about writing the book, I can't put the effort into it unless I have a higher motivation. So, dear readers I will attempt to do it for you. (That feels better already) I will do it for my ancestors and dependants. Feeling better and better. For the glory of God! (don't get carried away, Jules)

I am overwhelmingly bored by writers writing about their writing so I beg your forgiveness. I will keep this crap to myself from now on. Promise. In the meanwhile, I am going to take a big walk on bad flip flops and then need a foot massage to recover. Nice cycle, isn't it?

Slammed down by a nice Buddhist monk.

Went out for a walk in Chiang Mai this fine morning. Well fed, well rested, cool breeze, it was a great start to the day. I had just about come to a decision I have made a bunch of times. It is time to write my book. Yup. That decision. I seem to have this realization when I have a bit of time alone to think. Good friends and relatives have been saying this to me for a very long time. (I hear you, Gretchen!)

So, of course, I walked to some stunning Buddhist temples. What I had pictured was a bit of contemplative time and a lightening bolt telling me what to write. What I found were temples and sculpture so stunning that I was knocked over by them. Buddhas so beautiful that I couldn't think. (My personal Buddha is kind of my best friend and family quietly nudging me when I go off the track."No more gossip for today, my dear." He was not, until now, massive complexes of temples filled to overflowing with gold Buddhas that strain my neck to look upon.

The other thing I had forgotten was that these are not museums. Hundred and hundreds of novices and monks and students were praying, meditating, talking, attending classes, eating snacks, flirting and so on...in my holy space!

So at one huge complex, there was this little garden space and a sign that said, "Chat with a monk." This offered, a seat, shade, and possibly some insight.

My very attractive, very bright, very scholarly, 24 year old monk was named something like "Chunky." I covered my shoulders with my trusty scarf, sat opposite him and prepared to take a new step toward bliss, or at least the lessening of suffering. He asked me if I came alone. He then asked me if I had children and grandchildren. He then kind of scolded me for not bringing them with me. He could not comprehend that I could be so selfish. When I said I was getting on in years and didn't have all that much money and my kids work and my grand kids are in school, he shrugged. Lame excuses.

I kind of 'get' it. Putting it together with my thoughts about writing a book, well, I think I have to change my previous way of operating. I have never been any good at making money. I have never tried much in that arena. Perhaps now I have to write a bang up book, make bank and bring the whole family and my friends to Thailand. Maybe my practicing Buddhism is not for me but for my heirs. Maybe this new picture sits well in my heart.

Get your passports ready friends and family.

Where and When Do Dreams Start?

I think that bad dreams start in the liver. When we taught at the High Mowing Waldorf School in New Hampshire, (actually we were boy's dorm counselors with small teaching assignments..I taught current events which was mainly reading the New York Times), Stephen and Eunice Chalmers wrote and directed a play which I remember somewhat. It was called ? What Stephen? "The Gourmands Nightmare"? Wow. That is so not it. But as I remember it, the story had many crazy and entertaining scenes which, it turns out were the result of a huge and over-rich dinner that the dreamer had eaten. I have certainly had that experience. Mom used to tell us not to eat cheese at bedtime. "It will give you bad dreams." Old Irish wisdom, I suppose.

But putting aside bad dreams for the moment and trying to forget old German wisdom that the liver is sluggish at night, I was trying to remember when I first thought of coming to Thailand. In the summer after 7th grade, my brother badly broke his leg. It was a feat only Bill could have produced. He hit a car at a stop light. He was stopped on his bike and the car was stopped. (This is only my memory of the event). He somehow fell into the car and the break was a compound fracture which left bone sticking out. My mother paid me to hang out with him in the sun room for parts of each day. He did need a little entertainment. He was missing a whole summer of fun. That summer, I gave the book mobile record business.

One of the books  I read was "Anna and the King of Siam". I was hooked. Further on in the hookage was seeing "The King and I" starring Yul Brenner. So, much as on my first trip to Atlanta, when I somewhere in my mind expected to run into Brett and Scarlett, I had a certain images coming to the former Siam. (pronounced Seeeam) And actually, I have not been disappointed. You see, you get glimpses here and there of the old kingdom. Soon I am going to the country side where this will make more sense than at a beach resort.

One thing that is amazing me is how little language needs to be used to get by and to make friends and alliances. The eyes are something else, aren't they? A little Dutch baby was laughing as her eyes followed something dancing in the air (fairies?) this morning. I pretended to see them. She saw me and gave me this deep look and then laughed. Later her mother said she likes the wind. It was so more than that and baby and I knew it. We bonded.

I am so done with the hippie /backpacker thing.

God, how I used to love it. I loved making something from nothing, foraging for food, beating "the man", living on the edge. It was a fun game. And it was a game for I had home to return to. No matter how hungry or dirty or dispirited I was, there were my nice middle class parents with their nice home and Mummy's predictable lousy cooking, waiting for me. I didn't have to avail myself very often of their hospitality. But, there it was. A safety net.

At La Gloria Guatemalan refugee camp in Chiapas and in San Carlos Lempe in El Salvador and in Cheputul Dos in Nebaj, Guatemala, I met the real thing. I saw a baby starve to death. I ate some terrible bitter root that somehow filled my stomach when there were no tortillas, I drank water that could kill you as easily as quench your thirst. I prayed to any and every god. It was not a game.

Yesterday I walked to a beach in another cove. The little rental shacks were not that bad, but I couldn't get away fast enough. It smelled a bit like desperation. A German mother was yelling at her kid. A old hippie was too stoned to lift his eyes. Everyone was kind of down. The beach even felt dark. The funny thing is that in places I have been where there was dire poverty, the mood wasn't down. There was strength. People were fighting for survival and they were winning, mostly. The fight was heroic, glorious, spirited. The poor were more dignified than anyone else.

So, now I glorify the poor and condemn the sad hippies. I guess so. In the USA we are not supposed to be a class based society. Noting could be further from the truth. In England at least it is up front and clear. In the USA we lie to ourselves about how strict and static our class lines are. Old money scorns new money. Certain accents finish off the upward mobility of some poor souls. We rejoice in a rags to riches story, yet structurally stack the odds so heavily that it is almost impossible to achieve.

I started out middle class. I enjoyed poverty, I knew astonishingly wealthy friends and I end up middle class. The resort where I find myself comfortable is just that. The hippie place doesn't suit me and the really posh place in the other direction doesn't either. (Although I did suss out their dessert menu and plan on a visit later today.) I am glad that Rhys recommended Tumtim Resort. I am also glad that I can fit in many worlds. Survival skills are nothing to be scorned. Who knows when they will be all we have. (Please note that I do not mean "survivalist skills". They are totally fear based as far as I can see.)

So, the middle way. Buddhism 101.

Blank Mind

I have achieved the most desirable state. I am zen. I am there/here now. Well, not really. What is real is that I am  spaced out, fully. I am sure that I can't confuse this with Nirvana. It is more like brain freeze. I have to leave little notes to myself. "Eat lunch." "Go swimming".

I NEVER forget to eat. Is it possible that I am having culture shock? Or am I tired? Or is this the real thing that we strive for in meditation. I, being a self-effacing westerner, have to assume that it is a state of serious pathology, not eternal bliss. I can see how devout nuns and monks need a very practical abbot to keep them grounded in the world.

Yesterday I had some time and out of time moments. Being with Rhys after 40 years was a bit like being at Dana Hall after 50 years. In a certain way no time at all had passed. Are we exactly the same? Is it possible that time is simultaneous? No time has passed, maybe. It is all happening at the same time. This kind of happened to me on the Camino also. I am reading a book about Henry VIII. I am at a beach in Thailand. I am with an old friend. I am thinking about my childhood and family. Each thought is as vivid as if were happening now. Is it?

I look around this Island, bustling with construction activity, like all of Thailand, and I find a deserted spot and wonder whether I could have survived if I had been ship wrecked here alone. I think, "yes". People ask me whether I mind traveling alone. I feel that we do everything and nothing alone. The Thai people I meet keep their distance, look away from my eyes, until I make contact. Then I am gifted with a wonderful smile and an attention to me that I can't believe. My choice.

Rhys says that I shouldn't believe all the smiles. I do and if I get ripped off, I get ripped off. It is way more fun to believe than to be skeptical. I did believe that the salt I was shaking all over my eggs was salt. I saw a funny look fleetingly pass by the waitress's eyes. I was a bit shocked when the salt turned out to be sugar. Not a bad combo, really.

I am going to take my spaced out or fully realized self or non-self into the warm womb of the ocean and try not to remember that this same womb was involved in a tsunami not so long ago. Namaste.

Correction

My friend, Jane asked me how I experienced the "ghosts" at the temple for the dead. I had awakened in the middle of the previous night knowing that I had used the wrong word. The word I should have used is "spirits". As Jane pointed out those words have very different connotations. I am grateful for the inner and outer urging to say it more clearly. Kind of new territory here.

Felt Like Crying Yesterday.

It most definitely wasn't sadness. It was a feeling I have had on occasion while traveling. I felt, for an amazing few minutes that I had come home. I was at the temple of the reclining gold Buddha in Bangkok. Of course I was. It is one of the biggest tourist attractions in the world. It is also a place where millions of Thai people return again and again.

For my whole life I have felt like a gypsy. Or a snail. I seem to carry my home on my back. I often feel at home and I never feel like I have to stay anywhere to have that feeling. I think ni a certain way I don't put down roots. In a literal sense I do. I have left behind a flower garden nearly everywhere I have lived. But that's not the same thing as having a place.

Apologies to my children who had to suffer this because of me, but then, from the Buddhist perspective you chose me as one of the parents you incarnated to because of the challenges you chose to face in this life. Neat, isn't it. I feel no guilt here, but sometimes wish I could have given you more.

When I was pregnant with my second child, I was leaving the torture and bliss of Emerson College, Sussex, England. It was a school of spiritual science brimming with searching young souls making a turn from the sixties. The great Francis Edmunds, the founder and head cheer leader, knew that I had had a tough year. But he chose that moment to tell me that he saw my future as having a home nowhere and being at home everywhere.

Sitting outside one of the smaller temples in the huge complex I discovered that I love the shine of gold, I 'felt' some of the statues and felt nothing from a similar one right next to it. What's that about? I knew I was having a tear moment and I didn't feel remotely sad. I felt at home.

Wat Arun is not very old in the grand scheme of things. It was built in the 1,700s. Are these feelings of being home proof of re-incarnation? I don't know. I don't require proof. I have had proof all my life in a thousand little ways, from knowing the streets of Paris on my first visit, to understanding things spoken in old Greek, too many moments to bore you with.

I never dreamed that Bangkok, this huge modern city would be this powerful an experience. Tomorrow I am going to the beach for a more familiar experience. (God willing.)  I can't help comparing things here with Central America and it is fruitless. This is so different. Take, for instance, the fact that Thailand was never a colony of anyone. That is a rare deal for such a beautiful place. The street stalls are more expensive for Thai products than the gigantic MBK Mall. That's weird. The food is consistently great. Big difference. Hardly any Catholics and Christians running around talking about sin. And most everyone gaining merit by deeds of kindness. Very cool. Picture me happy, excited and having a lazy day today.

When anyone younger bows in a Namaste to an old thing like me, the custom is for me to nod. If I namaste them back I am denying them a chance to show respect for my years on this earth. Cool.

For the dead.

The other night Rhys and I went out walking in Bangkok at night. We had some dinner and I enjoyed being overwhelmed by the unfamiliar bustle. I have, for God's sake, been living in the middle of nowhere Oregon. This city has almost the same population as New York. I find that I am alive to strange presences here. There are ghosts everywhere. I am sure that if this is so here, it is so everywhere. But here, I don't know, they are more present.

I am a bit confounded by the sweet, beautiful girls selling their  bodies everywhere. They look so young and so sweet, laughing and chatting while waiting for customers. I am no puritan. I understand the poverty and the economics. They can earn by six tricks what their whole family in the countryside earns working on a farm for a month. They come to support their families.

Is that good karma? I suppose it must be. Sacrificing for the welfare of others must be good. But what happens to the good karma when they have a degraded rest of their lives? Everything has a cause and everything has an effect. That is my simplistic understanding of karma. I suppose, ultimately, I can only do deeds to create my own karma.

That night in Bangkok, Rhys took me to a temple in the middle of one red light district. There were so many people in the temple that you sort of had to shove your way around. This temple is a place where kind Buddhists collect the bodies daily of the poor souls who wind up dead in the river or on the streets and bring them to have some burial ceremonies and be carried in boxes to be cremated. The hundreds of people who go there each day to earn merit and assist the dead on their journey pay whatever they can, get two chits, put one on whatever coffin they choose from many, get twenty sticks of incense and go from altar to altar saying prayers, leaving 3 sticks behind until they burn the second chit in a fire and bow down to the departed soul. At nearly midnight on a random night there were hundreds of people doing this. It goes on all day in this city of millions.

It was a powerful ceremony for me. That temple was swarming with ghosts but in all the bustling activity there was an uncanny atmosphere of peace. Wow. Somehow gaining merit this way doesn't bother my sensibilities the way the idea of buying indulgences from the Catholic Church in olden days did. I can't quite get the difference but is has to do with the fact that there is something private and personal in this deed here. There is no priest between you and your God.

Foot looks better but cracked and bled last night. I went to the pharmacy and got some strong medicine for it. I am such a good girl.

Rhys and I are catching up on a friendship in which we haven't seen each other for forty years. Shades of last year's Dana Hall reunion. Great fun.

On a bit of a trip.

Apologies for lack of posts. I am in Bangkok, Thailand. 

Years ago my friend and mentor, John Gardner taught me a fine lesson. Well, except for the fact that I have to learn it over and over. Why? I ask myself is it so very hard to change my ways?

At the time of the lesson, I drove to see him in an extremely funky old fourth hand car. The tires were bald that you could see the fabric on all four. When I awoke with a flat tire, John kindly asked me  to explain my theory about the tire. I said that I had hoped they would be fine as I didn't want to spend the money replacing them. (I probably didn't have the money.) I implied that maybe they would get better. John sat me down and told me that he was going to buy me new tires but that he wanted me to understand that "Tires don't get better."

Somehow this was a life lesson. Teeth that hurt didn't get better. If my evil dentist in Oregon told me they were fine and they still hurt, then I needed a new dentist, not the hope that the pain was an illusion.

Now, the reason this has come up on my first day in Bangkok is that I got this huge blister on my heel walking Bella to school (running actually) last week in a pair of boots that I wore without socks because I was in a hurry. The blister killed, but I didn't really look at it because I decided to wear flip flops and it would air out. Air out it did and also got infected. So I have arrived in Thailand with an infection on my foot that I could have avoided if I had taken ten minutes to wash it and put antibiotic cream on it. Foot infection in a tropical country is such a no-no I can't even let myself contemplate it.

Sometimes I am the dumbest person I know. Susan Dodge reminded me of this when I got sick last year with parasites. So, Susan, I will go to a doctor before I need an amputation. And John, I am trying to learn your lesson of taking care of things before they are terminal, things that can't take care of themselves by magic.

How Do We Know Who We Are?

I have been worrying about who we are as Americans these days. Are we the people drone killing random people all over the planet? Are we the people who are forcing death and destruction all over the planet with our GMO seeds? Are we the people who live under the whacky illusion that we have the best lives and best medicine and best schools in the world? Are we the people who cherish our god-given right to kill anyone who might be trying to steal our toaster oven? Yes we are.

But I hold myself aloof from that crap. I help people. I celebrate differences. I carry guilt for the actions of my country. I educate myself. But my question today is: I know these mental constructs that I have grown through my life. But, are these illusions just as some of our ideas of America seem to be illusions?

How do I get to the core of me? At different times in my blog I have talked about my past. Today I was trying to remember moments from my childhood that were split second glimpses into who I am today.

The first moment that came to mind was the moment I learned to read. I can still see the classroom. I can see how the light was. I remember the page in the big book that we were looking at. We were learning the "sight see" method at that time. You didn't sound out words. You recognized them. Collectively we became fast readers and terrible spellers, a fact that is now of little worry because of spell check, but caused some real pain in the intervening years.

So, I was sitting on the right side of the classroom, near the windows about 5 rows back. I had on a plaid dress with a white collar so it must have been autumn. The teacher was very tall and had glasses on and a pointer in her hand. She was pointing to flip pages of a big book called "See Spot Run." and suddenly I was reading the lines before she pointed them out. I felt like I was home, not having known something was missing until I found it. I have never stopped reading. It is one of the most important parts of my life. Looking back I know that some part of me as a first grader knew that this was a big deal, a very big deal.

I have hardly ever had a conversation with a friend that hasn't included some talk about books. When I was approaching my first day of teaching at a Waldorf school, the thought that gave me momentary panic was "What do you talk about with people (the kids) who don't know how to read?" I did laugh at myself and quickly realized that "God, you dope, you teach them to read. AND you tell them stories in the meanwhile."

Congruent to my discovery of reading was the discovery that I loved to tell stories and I loved to have an audience. This nugget of self awareness led to many steps toward becoming or realizing or giving the nod to who I am.

Do you have a flash memory of seeing the acorn that would grow into the oak you are today?