Simple Karma - Difficult Change - Si se Puede

So, here's the thing: It seems like every time I find a perfect moment here in Marin, it is instantly interrupted by the grating, disturbing noise of a leaf blower or a hedge trimmer. Poor me. I am not saying occasionally I am interrupted, I am saying almost every time. I think the little yard next door gets trimmed about five times a day. No shit!

So, at first I decided that I wasn't choosing my spots very well. I tried different locations. Have you ever noticed how much noise a garbage truck can make? Astounding. Then I realized this problem was happening at other locations. No matter how much strategy I employed, at church or Buddhist meditation or in business meetings, I invariably have someone sit next to me who is coughing, chewing, muttering trying to get a wrapper off of something. It drives me crazy.

I am forced to think about my karma in this. I say forced because I have finally given up on blaming others. This is my problem. What then is the karmic cause for being disturbed by noise when I seek peace and quiet? I must be making noise which disturbs others. Everything has a cause. Everything has an effect.

Well, yes. The downstairs condo lady says our heavy foot steps bother her. I have been trying to remember to tiptoe around in the morning and evening. But, it has to be more than that. In the Catholic doctrine, a sin can be committed in thought, word or deed. Bingo! There it is. The noise I generate by thinking and speaking criticisms of others is enough racket to cause a lot of trouble.

We educated, hip, modern souls learned the lessons of critical thinking very well. We can rip apart a book or a movie or a policy or a person with elegant logic and articulate another persons faults with remarkable precision. This is the noise that I contribute to the world. The world gives back in good measure.

This is yet another task I must practice. If I want peace and quiet, I must first live it. I have to set up the causes which will reward me with what I want. Right now I am the biggest loser in this conflict.

If You Have to Kill, Try Killing With Kindness

The Seven Social Sins, sometimes called the Seven Blunders of the World, is a list that Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi published in his weekly newspaper Young India on October 22, 1925.^[1] Later he gave this same list to his grandson, Arun Gandhi, written on a piece of paper on their final day together shortly before his assassination.^[2] The Seven Sins are:

• Wealth without work.
• Pleasure without conscience.
• Knowledge without character.
• Commerce without morality.
• Science without humanity.
• Worship without sacrifice.
• Politics without principle.

To this list his grandson added Rights without Responsibilities.

In any conflict, both sides can get mighty righteous. That is why they embark on the destructive ugly road of conflict. Every act of violence sets the stage for future ones. We have to be idiots not to notice this. Lama Marut says that ignorance isn't not knowing. It is ignoring what you know. Wow.

When Gandhi wrote of these Blunders, he was trying to articulate the root causes of violence. My experience of bringing these ideas to friends has been a thunderous silence. For most of my friends, the very first point "Wealth Without Work" is already a deal breaker. What are some ways of getting wealth without work? Stealing. Using slave labor. Conquering. Stock market. Oops. Inheritance can put some distance, that's good.

Why do I keep bringing this up? I guess that I am stubborn and a bit pig headed. Or very pig headed. I am not shoving this conversation at you, dear readers, because I am righteous, but rather because I am struggling to figure out my life and the context in which I live.

Of course I am dismayed about the suffering that is happening right now in the world. But on a simple personal level, I am struggling between the act of turning the other cheek and that of standing up for myself. Great ideas both, but neither quite gets me out of a reactive mode.I need to find the root cause of my getting into the situation in which I have to react.

If Buddhism or Christianity has it right, the problem is my little ego. If  'I' was not attached to an outcome and let God's will enter the picture, 'I' couldn't possibly have a problem, could I? If I am one with the universe, then there is no Julie in any case so I can't possibly have a problem. I am confused.

Israel/Palestine..Another Shit Storm

I have many more questions than answers, believe me. My tendency always is to side with the oppressed. My stance is against war. War is a stupid, useless, act of ugliness and pain and waste. It is never nice. It always seems to force both sides into becoming that which they despise in the other. It requires no creativity. It is cave man crap.

Any reader of my blog knows well that this is how I think.  But on this Israel Palestine horror, I have questions that I think need to be addressed;

Firstly, Is this a religious war or a political one?The Israelis are almost always described as Jews. That sounds like religion, but maybe it is being used as a racial thing. That forces the discussion about politics into the religious arena. If you are against the tactics of Israel you must be against Jews. Messy thinking.

The Palestinians are often described as Arab. That is confusing as most Palestinians through genetics are descended from Jews. The Muslim conquests resulted in conversions over the years. There was also, historically a large Christian population among the converts. Very bewildering to me. Most Palestinians are now refugees in other countries. Most Palestinians speak both Arabic and Hebrew. It seems to me that they have a lot of common ground with the history of the Jewish people.

What occurs to me is that if this is a religious war, then the discussion and solution of the never ending crisis should be hammered out by religious people, not soldiers and so called diplomats from countries that can hardly be distinguished from the combatants. Why the hell is a US president or State Department person in Egypt talking to God knows whom about what we will accept or not?

If this is a religious war, then get the leaders of the great religions of the world to be the peace talk participants. Pope Francis, Dalai Lama, Thich Naht Hahn, Chief John Pretty on Top, Desmond Tutu...why aren't they in Jerusalem making peace? Pope Francis gave a powerful statement yesterday begging both sides to STOP IT NOW!

Do thoughts like this belie the whole idea that this is about religion? Are the Israelis hiding behind the Jewish identity? Are they deliberately conflagrating the issue for sympathy? Are the Sunnis doing the same thing? What lies are people dying for? What lies are people killing for? I am confused.

Can any US citizen not remember what we did to the first peoples here on our soil when we get righteous about what we are doing to the Palestinians? This is what we do. We use overwhelming power to get land and resources. Think about it.

In El Salvador, the thirty year civil war stopped almost to the day we stopped funding it. Just a thought.

Thoughts Reflecting on a Museum Visit

Yesterday I was at the Legion of Honor Museum in San Francisco. Karen and I went to check out the current exhibits. Karen and I both live nowhere and travel much, she more than I. It is pretty remarkable how often we get to spend a few days together.

The exhibition of Intimate Impressionism from the National Gallery was most lovely. It was kind of stunning to realize that the paintings (many from the late 1880's to the early 1900s) were revolutionary and scandalous. From my perspective, they are so sweet and innocent and pretty and balanced. It is also a little crazy to think of California at the time this art was being created. The Indian genocides  and the buffalo genocides were over. The gold rush was over and the San Francisco earthquake hadn't happened yet. New new new.

In Europe where these painters lived, the thrust was to topple the domination of the accepted norms in art. It was revolutionary to paint from 'real' life instead of painting a Greek myth or a scene from the Bible. It was even more revolutionary to paint people who weren't aristocracy. Unheard of. And plein air painters, give me a break, what did they think they were doing? And a plein air painter who conveyed a feeling through his/her use of light on a haystack? Break through.

One thing that struck me was although some contemporary art has gone very far from the simplicity of real life and has been quite remarkable at showing the distress and alienation and fear and horror of the contemporary psyche,  many contemporary artists are returning to plein air. Young people I talk with who are going to art school are excited about painting the natural world.

What I was was wondering is whether there is a cyclical trend happening. Then I realize it probably won't go all the way back because it is fast becoming rare for a universal familiarity with the classics to exist. I am happy to enjoy plein air paintings whether in museums or new works.

Yesterday I had no tolerance for the Old Masters. I am in a California kind of mood. I like the pastels and the turquoise and bright pinks that reflect the flowers that are everywhere in Marin in the summer.

Does Trying to Avoid Suffering Really Cause More Suffering?

There are, naturally, no absolutes. But, today I thought of something that happened to me recently. This past spring when I was so sick with something going on in my stomach, the doc and various specialists had ruled out everything they could think of. I had had every test they could think of and nothing had shown up. I still had such pain that it woke me up in the night and kept me from eating much of the day. One nice specialist after looking at all my test results offered OXY. He said it would help with the pain. I looked at him like he was crazy and declined.

The thing is that I have an addictive personality. I have had multiple and concurrent addictions most of my life. I smoked, ate chocolate and read murder mysteries at the same time for hours daily while those were my 'problem'. keeping secret stashes hidden in case of emergencies.  So, having watched friends suffer from narcotics addictions, from having read the statistics about OXY addiction and how swift and how devastating it is, from knowing the suffering involved in getting clean, I declined the drugs offer.

This offer for the prescription came after a five minute office visit. I was suffering. I was hoping for some relief, but I was hoping for the relief of finding out what was wrong with me and treating it, not from taking very strong narcotics. I am pretty certain that I would have been trading up on the suffering ladder by making that decision.

I am sure you have a lot of examples in your life.  have sometimes caused myself great mental agony by avoiding a confrontation or a decision that once made turned out to be nothing, nothing at all. Yet by avoiding dealing with the issue, I had carried around the backbreaking burden of "what ifs".

I was thinking of this today in larger terms, such as the Israel and Palestine problem .One day there will have to be a solution. Finding a workable solution will take great courage and selflessness on the part of the leaders. It will make daily life much more safe and comfortable for millions of people. It will return integrity to both sides. Postponing the inevitable is taking a tremendous toll on millions of people. Avoiding the suffering or hurt of making compromises and making a sane policy is increasing the suffering that the current failed policy is causing minute by minute and murder by murder. Pulling the thorn out from the bottom of my foot hurts, but not as badly as leaving it in a letting it get infected and making my whole body sick would.

When I extoll myself to "Carpe Diem", I usually am thinking about doing cool things like riding an elephant. I am thinking today that it would be of great practical value to "Carpe Diem" for things that are hard or painful and save further increased suffering in the future. "Take the bull by the horns" and all that.

This, of course, leads to the contemplation of what actually does motivate us. What finally did cause the tipping point in the Irish situation? What will make the Israelis think themselves into the shoes of the Palestinians and stop killing kids on beaches? Why do we often have to wait to hit bottom before we change? I don't know. I do know that as I get older, I notice that dealing with tough shit right now is often easier than waiting for it to get worse.

Your terrible childhood.

I recently went to a Buddhist workshop on compassion and I more recently went to a group talking about letting go. In both groups, the older people spoke about the memory that one of the awful things about their childhood was that it was uptight. Their parents never talked about what was going on. They were seriously worried and intimidated about what the neighbors might think. The handicapped were warehoused out of sight. You always put up a good front. Any aberration was swept under the rug. Life was often a lie, and nothing outside of Leave it to Beaver happy family was tolerated. Many of the speakers were resentful about this.

Then, the 35-45 year olds had a very different complaint. Their hippie parents, or their rock band parents, or their damaged by fighting in Vietnam parents, let it all hang out. They allowed drugs and sex and rock and roll to pervade the home. There were no boundaries. They stayed up at night until they fell asleep under the table. They moved all the time. They had to parent the parents. You didn't judge or condemn anything lest you be called uptight.

Everyone seemed to have gotten a raw deal. But, all the people in these groups were working on letting go and having compassion and moving on into wholeness. These are great big steps/lessons that we all have to learn at some point in our lives. No bad can come from being more compassionate of ourselves or others. Often people don't learn to let go until they are dying. It is much brighter do this when you have more time to practice it. These lessons, in my experience, often need to be practiced over and over. You have to be a Bodhisattva to conquer all of life's suffering.

But, several thoughts came to me. One is that we get exactly what we need in this life. This brings us back to Karma. I chose the parents to whom I would incarnate. They presented me with exactly the challenges I needed for this incarnation. My experiences with them brought me to exactly this moment of possibility in this life and I am in this moment in a beautiful, safe place surrounded by compassionate people sharing my story. Pretty cool.

What I came away with was a jumble of thoughts. The first one, and it is very loud, is that most parents were doing their best with what they had and the mega and minor circumstances they were in. Another thought is that with a certain mind set, nothing is ever enough. There is no objective measure of what enough love is or what enough money looks like, or what enough nurturing is. That is in our heads. So, the thing to change is our mind. "I have enough" becomes a most fruitful mantra.

I have to get a plan.

How am I going to decide where I want to live? No joke. I have no idea where I want to live. In part this is because as soon as I land somewhere and develop my little routine...coffee, swim or walk, good book exchange, some spiritual practice and lovely nature, I am at home. And as soon as I am fully at home, I start to think about where I might go next. I have talked about this aspect of my twisted unnatural personality before, but now it is becoming a more pressing problem because I have hit a wall a few times with my re-entry from nomadism.

I have a lot of amnesia and a good measure of avoidance going for me. An example of this is that I am day dreaming about where to go to follow the sun next winter. What I am forgetting is that when I came back to the US last winter, I was sick and needed help and had nothing set up. It is hard to set things up when you are already diminished. But, now that all seems so far in the past that I am thinking that I can wait a few more years before I make a decision.

This, of course, puts an excessive strain on those people who care for me. Firstly, because they care about my well being. Secondly because they would have to come up with solutions or help when and if I can't do it myself. But, doesn't that often happen in one way or another in so many eventualities? What if I get Alzheimer disease? Same problem. What if I break my back? What if the spot on my lung is "C"?

I have recently watched some of the best planners I have ever known come up against the need to depend on others. I am not saying that I will not make a decision. I am not saying that I will not make a plan. What I am saying is that I am really skillful at not doing anything and I won't have a lot of faith in any notion of permanence when I do. I am working diligently on my self made Buddhist program of "Do Nothing, Be Nobody." and this need interferes with it.

One thing I have been enamored with is the idea of building a very small house in some city. That idea gets me excited and then makes me tired. I have an old idea of making something by myself, that is carving the door, hand painting the tiles, welding the metal, going insanely green, but then I realize that that might be an unfulfilled idea from long ago hippie days. I am just not that interested in things to give them so much energy. Part of me  could see me growing older in a totally zen scene with one bowl, one spoon, one pillow that kind of scene and at the same time I like the idea of great down comforters, deep soft couches, silky smooth fabrics, great hot baths. I am confused.

My only solution is to put it out to the universe and stay awake to what comes up the clearest. This has worked in the past and I don't see why it should stop  working now. I do feel guided. I am leading the life I wish for. That's a good thing.

We Need to Think About the End Game. What do we want the results of our actions to be?

 I think this is a very simple and clear article. I think that if we could apply this kind of thinking to other aspects of our lives, we would make the world a better place. Did we think about the end game when we invaded and occupied Iraq? That country was a secular state and is fast becoming a true Islamic caliphate. It seems like we spent billions of dollars ans caused untold suffering to create our worst nightmare.

In the world of child rearing, is the same thing happening? Almost every parent will say the same thing when asked what they want for their child. "I want him/her to be healthy, happy, well-adjusted, doing something worthwhile in life." Something like that, in any case. This writer points out that we might be sabotaging the kids. I have to think that our intentions are mostly righteous, so let us think about whether our actions will get us what we hope.

5 Reasons Modern-Day Parenting Is in Crisis, According to a British Nanny

Posted: 07/02/2014 4:47 pm EDT Updated: 07/08/2014 7:59 am EDT

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I generally am quite an optimistic person. I tend to believe that everything will work out for the best unless the evidence is overwhelmingly to the contrary, and anyone who knows me will tell you that I am not prone to drama. That's why when I say that modern parenting is in serious trouble -- crisis, even -- I hope you'll listen, and listen carefully. I've worked with children and their parents across two continents and two decades, and what I've seen in recent years alarms me. Here are the greatest problems, as I see them:
1. A fear of our children.
I have what I think of as "the sippy cup test," wherein I will observe a parent getting her toddler a cup of milk in the morning. If the child says, "I want the pink sippy cup, not the blue!" yet the mum has already poured the milk into the blue sippy cup, I watch carefully to see how the parent reacts. More often than not, the mum's face whitens and she rushes to get the preferred sippy cup before the child has a tantrum. Fail! What are you afraid of, mum? Who is in charge here? Let her have a tantrum, and remove yourself so you don't have to hear it. But for goodness' sake, don't make extra work for yourself just to please her -- and even more importantly, think about the lesson it teaches if you give her what she wants because she's thrown a fit.
2. A lowered bar.
When children misbehave, whether it's by way of public outburst or private surliness, parents are apt to shrug their shoulders as if to say, "That's just the way it is with kids." I assure you, it doesn't have to be. Children are capable of much more than parents typically expect from them, whether it's in the form of proper manners, respect for elders, chores, generosity or self-control. You don't think a child can sit through dinner at a restaurant? Rubbish. You don't think a child can clear the table without being asked? Rubbish again! The only reason they don't behave is because you haven't shown them how and you haven't expected it! It's that simple. Raise the bar and your child shall rise to the occasion.
3. We've lost the village.
It used to be that bus drivers, teachers, shopkeepers and other parents had carte blanche to correct an unruly child. They would act as the mum and dad's eyes and ears when their children were out of sight, and everyone worked towards the same shared interest: raising proper boys and girls. This village was one of support. Now, when someone who is not the child's parent dares to correct him, the mum and dad get upset. They want their child to appear perfect, and so they often don't accept teachers' and others' reports that he is not. They'll storm in and have a go at a teacher rather than discipline their child for acting out in class. They feel the need to project a perfect picture to the world and unfortunately, their insecurity is reinforced because many parents do judge one another. If a child is having a tantrum, all eyes turn on the mum disapprovingly. Instead she should be supported, because chances are the tantrum occurred because she's not giving in to one of her child's demands. Those observers should instead be saying, "Hey, good work -- I know setting limits is hard."
4. A reliance on shortcuts.
I think it's wonderful that parents have all sorts of electronics to help them through airline flights and long waits at the doctor's office. It's equally fabulous that we can order our groceries online for delivery, and heat up healthy-ish food at the touch of a button on the microwave. Parents are busier than ever, and I'm all for taking the easy way when you need it. But shortcuts can be a slippery slope. When you see how wonderful it is that Caillou can entertain your child on a flight, don't be tempted to put it on when you are at a restaurant. Children must still learn patience. They must still learn to entertain themselves. They must still learn that not all food comes out steaming hot and ready in three minutes or less, and ideally they will also learn to help prepare it. Babies must learn to self-soothe instead of sitting in a vibrating chair each time they're fussy. Toddlers need to pick themselves up when they fall down instead of just raising their arms to mum and dad. Show children that shortcuts can be helpful, but that there is great satisfaction in doing things the slow way too.
5. Parents put their children's needs ahead of their own.
Naturally, parents are wired to take care of their children first, and this is a good thing for evolution! I am an advocate of adhering to a schedule that suits your child's needs, and of practices like feeding and clothing your children first. But parents today have taken it too far, completely subsuming their own needs and mental health for the sake of their children. So often I see mums get up from bed again and again to fulfill the whims of their child. Or dads drop everything to run across the zoo to get their daughter a drink because she's thirsty. There is nothing wrong with not going to your child when she wants yet another glass of water at night. There's nothing wrong with that dad at the zoo saying, "Absolutely you can have something to drink, but you must wait until we pass the next drinking fountain." There is nothing wrong with using the word "No" on occasion, nothing wrong with asking your child to entertain herself for a few minutes because mummy would like to use the toilet in private or flick through a magazine for that matter.
I fear that if we don't start to correct these five grave parenting mistakes, and soon, the children we are raising will grow up to be entitled, selfish, impatient and rude adults. It won't be their fault -- it will be ours. We never taught them any differently, we never expected any more of them. We never wanted them to feel any discomfort, and so when they inevitably do, they are woefully unprepared for it. So please, parents and caregivers from London to Los Angeles, and all over the world, ask more. Expect more. Share your struggles. Give less. And let's straighten these children out, together, and prepare them for what they need to be successful in the real world and not the sheltered one we've made for them.

Life is Suffering, Buddhism 101

I am living in sunny Marin County, CA. I live across the street from a wonderful park. The kid's playground is closest to our place. I love waking up to the sounds of the birds talking and singing. I love the sounds of the children in the playground.

I have noticed, however, that along with the joyful shrieks and laughter there is almost an equal amount of crying. It is not disturbing, the crying. It stops as soon as the mom or dad or babysitter comes and gives a bit of comfort or a distraction. But it is interesting. Even as kids, we get blow back from seeking fun. If we eat too many cookies, we get a stomach ache. If we climb too high, we can have a fall. Years ago, when we lived in Forest Row, Sussex, England, I was shocked at the public playgrounds. The ground was cement. The play structures were heavy metal battering rams. The swings were easily maneuvered to go over the top.

I took it to be a sign that the British believed in toughening up the kids, the stiff upper lip and all that. Forty years later, the playgrounds here in Cali have soft stuff covering the ground, all the safety features that any town can think of and the kids still manage to take good tumbles and get bonked with great regularity. I really have no opinion whether one way is better than the other, except the memory of guiding my 2 year old daughter away from the equipment that looked actually deadly. When we were kids, we had no playground and lived in the woods and we still managed to get broken arms and lots of cuts and bruises. I still have a few tiny pebbles in my knee from taking a great tumble off my bike. Cleaning the cut was much more painful than getting it so I told my mother that I got all the gravel out. Oh well.

 I think that it is our job as parents and teachers and care takers to protect the children as much as we can. This is logical and human. Who wouldn't? But, when we can't, what is that? When we can't as adults avoid pain, when our quest for pleasure bites us in the ass, what is happening?

Oh ya, there is that karma thing. And the thought that suffering is our great opportunity to grow. It is our path to enlightenment. It is not about keeping a still upper lip. It is not about ignoring or deluding ourselves about what is going on. How many times have you heard about a person becoming transfigured in the last stages of cancer? "She taught all of us so much." I've heard it a lot. Don't get me wrong. I am not a fan of pain and misery, but rather, I am trying to sort things out.

Yesterday I went to a retreat at a Vipassana center, Spirit Rock. The subject of the day was Compassion. The teachings were brilliant, as always. And of the over 50 people who spent the day together, from many countries, many economic levels, many ages, we all had the same intention. We wanted to be more powerfully, actively compassionate.

One thing we quickly learned was that practicing in little ways prepares us for the big moments. We also 'got' it that if we are not compassionate towards ourselves, we had little chance of being that way toward others. One of the little exercises we did was partner up and for five minutes our partner asked us over and over "What do you really admire about yourself?" Damn, it was hard. I bet not one person said "My beauty." We are hardwired to being critical. This seemed to be the same for very high achieving people who spent their lives being told they were great, (they don't really think they measure up.) as well as for people who had been beaten down by other people telling them that they were losers. Amazing, really.

There was too much going on to recap all the aha! moments. But on this subject of suffering and pain, the mindfulness teachings are amazing. When we examine what it is that blocks our natural instincts for compassion for ourselves and others, the answers are right there in us. Ask yourself this question and sit with it for a moment. I am going to do so.


The Four Noble Truths (Sanskrit: catvāri āryasatyāni; Pali: cattāri ariyasaccāni) are regarded as the central doctrine of the Buddhist tradition, and are said to provide a conceptual framework for all of Buddhist thought. These four truths explain the nature of dukkha (Pali; commonly translated as "suffering", "anxiety", "unsatisfactoriness"^[a]), its causes, its cessation, and the path leading to its cessation.
The four noble truths are:^[b]

1. The truth of dukkha (suffering, anxiety, unsatisfactoriness^[a])
2. The truth of the origin of dukkha
3. The truth of the cessation of dukkha
4. The truth of the path leading to the cessation of dukkha

The first noble truth explains the nature of dukkha. Dukkha is commonly translated as “suffering”, “anxiety”, “unsatisfactoriness”, “unease”, etc., and it is said to have the following three aspects:^[c]

• The obvious physical and mental suffering associated with birth, growing old, illness and dying.
• The anxiety or stress of trying to hold on to things that are constantly changing.
• A basic unsatisfactoriness pervading all forms of existence, due to the fact that all forms of life are changing, impermanent and without any inner core or substance. On this level, the term indicates a lack of satisfaction, a sense that things never measure up to our expectations or standards.

The central importance of dukkha in Buddhist philosophy has caused some observers to consider Buddhism to be a pessimistic philosophy. However, the emphasis on dukkha is not intended to present a pessimistic view of life, but rather to present a realistic practical assessment of the human condition—that all beings must experience suffering and pain at some point in their lives, including the inevitable sufferings of illness, aging, and death.^[6] Contemporary Buddhist teachers and translators emphasize that while the central message of Buddhism is optimistic, the Buddhist view of our situation in life (the conditions that we live in) is neither pessimistic nor optimistic, but realistic.^[d]
The second noble truth is that the origin of dukkha can be known. Within the context of the four noble truths, the origin of dukkha is commonly explained as craving or thirst (Pali: tanha) conditioned by ignorance (Pali: avijja). On a deeper level, the root cause of dukkha is identified as ignorance (avijja) of the true nature of things. The third noble truth is that the complete cessation of dukkha is possible, and the fourth noble truth identifies a path to this cessation.
According to the Buddhist tradition, the Buddha first taught the four noble truths in the very first teaching he gave after he attained enlightenment, as recorded in The Discourse That Sets Turning the Wheel of Truth (Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta), and he further clarified their meaning in many subsequent teachings.^[e]

We Tell Childen to "Use Your Words" but We Seem to Think Guns Are Better

OK, so Target decided to ask its customers not to carry loaded guns into its stores. Ostensibly, the reason was not because 400,00 people signed a petition in a very short time. It was because one of the idiot activists left behind (forgot?) a loaded gun in the toy section resting on a toy box on the floor.

Can any sane person not shudder and almost lose her lunch at the thought of what could have happened in that store? I can't even go there. Guns are made to kill. What other purpose could they possibly have? I have come to think that only fearful, cowardly people rely on guns. Have you seen the artillery some men take into the woods to hunt (and kill dear?) Have you heard to boasting some men do about their ability to hit targets? or have bigger, better guns stashed in cabinets around their houses?

The first time I came from Boston to Oregon in 1964 was the first time I saw a real gun in my life. The style then was for intrepid hunters to drive around in pick up trucks with gun racks in the back. I thought it was pretty strange. Were they going to shoot deer in the grocery parking lot? Looking back, that was a cake walk compared to what you can see today in the USA. Ugly, stupid, cowardly, hateful stuff in the name of a Christian religion. This is fucked up.

I no longer blame TV or Jesus or the Second Amendment for this epidemic. I blame cowardly impotent ignorant men who are taken in by the glamor of being the tough guy while hiding behind locked doors and camouflage outfits. These are not conciliatory words. These are the words of a good Jew obeying the Ten Commandments, a good Christian heading Christ's words the turn the other cheek and do unto others. These are the words of a woman born in WW11 where 18,000,000 or some such number of people died. These are the words of a woman who is asked in every country she visits what is wrong in the USA that we murder each other all the time. No one anywhere can figure out how we have gotten so perverted and violent.

We have merged Stone Age mentality with 21st Century technology and become the murderers that we fear. Even the NRA distanced itself from the Target gun activists. You tell enough powerless people that they can take control and you get some deranged person leaving a loaded gun in the toy department.Guns are made to kill. People who have guns have them so they are ready to kill when they decide to. Our Presidents now have very public "kill lists".  People cheer when we murder Bin Laden. Things have gone wrong here. This is not freedom and human rights. This is anarchy and today's version of the Wild West and Manifest Destiny. I am very confused by this all.  Toy departments should be magical imaginative places where children can dream.

We need people of courage. We need Gandhi and the Salt Protest. We need Mother Theresa collecting children from the hospital in Beirut.  We need courage.

Why I Am Not Perfect - Because I Am Human.

I don't mean to shatter your illusions about me. By the same token, the reason I am perfect is the same - because I am human. One of those Zen things. I have had so much in this life. I am beautiful, smart, well fed, and loved. I have had every chance imaginable to perfect myself. I have had education, great teachers, amazing gurus, lessons in everything I have wanted. (except flying but that is my fault) This week alone I have worshiped with the lovely Father Lawrence in Larkspur, CA, USA. I have meditated with and heard wisdom from Jack Kornfield at Spirit Rock. I have l have heard a podcast of Lama Marut. I have been in a beautiful support group. This is just the tip of the ice burg. All my life I have been blessed with magic encounters and opportunities.

I have met the Dalai Lama, heard live Desmond Tutu, Nelson Mandela, and many great saints of my lifetime. I have studied Anthroposophy under some wonderful teachers, John Gardner, Francis Edmunds, Richard Walton. I have had time to meditate. I have had time to go to Mass and retreats and visit Monte Alban, Chartres Cathedral, the Camino, Jerusalem, the Vatican, Palenque, Copan, Tikal, Angkor Wat, Wats to numerous to name in Thailand and I am not anywhere approaching levitated yet. I am an ordinary bumbling fallible mortal warts and all.

I still have a temper. I still can really lack compassion. I still get so frazzled that I panic. I think these fabulous opportunities that I have been given were the Good Gods recognizing that I was, in spite of all signs to the contrary, a little behind and in need of more help than most. Yup. I got the 'special' treatment because I have 'special' needs.

But then in Buddhism and in 12 Step literature and in the Catholic tradition we are taught to make love to our faults and challenges and short comings and weaknesses. They are our greatest teachers. If you never meet a horrible shitty person who shakes you to the core, then you never had a chance to test your mettle or develop compassion. If you never loose your shit, if you never sin, if you are perfect and tranquil and radiantly happy, then why are you here in this incarnation at all? So, my challenge is to accept myself and my opportunities to improve my happiness and that of others. One day I do this, the next day I try. The next I cry "wee wee wee all the way home."

I am trying to be a little less self-critical when I am just human, but also I am trying not to make excuses for things I can change and don't. Alice, my daughter, reminded me that after all my big talk in a blog over a year ago about ringing out the sponge after I do dishes, about letting go of my lazy habits, I am worse than ever in that department. I am grateful that she has a good memory and can nail me when I am full of it.

Don't Be an Idiot! Take this Advice Now!

Don't use texting for emotional communications. Don't. Don't talk about feelings in text messages. Don't.

Firstly, text messages don't just disappear. You might delete them, but they are still around.

Secondly, and most importantly, they will get you in trouble. I am unequivocal about this advice.

As I have said before, I am a bit of a troglodyte. But in this instance, that is not relevant. For the past few years, I have seen example after example of texting emotions (good or bad, happy or sad) causing misunderstandings, embarrassment, and dissension. I mean it. Texting is an excellent medium for saying, "I am going to be 10 minutes late", or "I forgot my gym shorts, can you drop them off on your way to work.", or "Meet me  in Tahrir Square tomorrow to overthrow the government." Simple, clear messages. Cold info.

But here is a scenario I have witnessed over and over: Someone tells me that they met a nice man at a party. They hung out a while. There was a spark. Three or four days later, I hear from the someone and they are distressed that they haven't gotten much encouragement from the guy. It is depressing.She feels bad. What could be wrong? I ask whether she texted him.  Yes she did. Did he answer. Not really. And not right away. What might she have said in her texts? "I told him how much fun it was to meet him." "I told him it made me feel good." "I asked what he felt." "I asked him why he wasn't texting me back." "I told him that I was having doubts about my initial feelings because he wasn't responding."

Shit man, get a grip. This is harassment and would end anything including true love in its tracks. So, picture the other side. The guy had fun. He has a job or a career. He can't chew gum and walk at the same time (most men a terrible multitaskers) and he might have hoped to see you again and he might have had a lovely time too, but he wasn't going to think about it for a few days and now these texts come, turning a potential thing into BFF chatter. He doesn't give a hoot about your day at work or your hair cut or that you need new tires. These things mostly aren't interesting in any case, but certainly not as news flashes about someone he hardly knows interrupting his life.

This is one example from a million. Texting gives us a chance to say dumb things really fast in an offhand way. Can it come as any surprise that people get into trouble with it? Impulses might be healthy or destructive but waiting until you take time to sort out what is appropriate, what someone might want to read while doing their taxes or going to the bathroom or waiting for a job interview, this might bring you much closer to the intended result.

When someone over texts me, not only do I get irritated about the interruptions, especially if I am doing nothing which is a fine use of my time, but I wonder whether the other person has a life. Like, if you are at work or visiting with a friend or jogging, why are you texting me? You aren't in your life. You can't be.

This sounds a bit like I am on my high horse. I don't mean to be. I am writing this because I have head from distressed people who have messed up their lives with this. I would like never to hear the long pause when I ask, "Have you been texting? A lot?"

Take a step back. Put yourself in the other person's shoes. When in doubt, don't. Amen.

I can't get rid of nostalgia for the "Good Old Days".

Nostalgia has got to be a natural feeling for older people. It makes sense that this would be so. But, this combined with a feeling that things are moving very fast and maybe it is not all good, has me irritated. I get irritated with myself for not being able to see the future. Then I get anxious about being a troglodyte. I really don't like that idea of myself.

A lemonade stand is what got me going. My daughter and grand kid are working to set up a lemonade stand. They have made a beautiful sign and are strategically planning the whole endeavor. It is a nice healthy project, I think. Then the nostalgia kicks in. Then I start having these feelings about the good old days when life was more simple and this takes me on a wild trajectory that ultimately robs me of the fun in today. I have to stop this.

The first time that my brother and I made a lemonade stand was when some water lines were being put in by our country home. Normally we wouldn't have had anyone to sell to. We told Mom about our plan. She told us that whatever mess we made, we would have to clean up. Duh. She always said that. We knew that. We then started this huge project that began with finding an old board. We painted it with house paint (oil based in those days) and that involved opening the can, stirring forever, washing the brushes with turpentine, all that. Then, days later when the sign was dry, we found rocks and boards to make a table and we made ice and put the ice in a big bowl and then we had to shine glasses and find some fabric for a table cloth. We counted our savings and walked to the store to buy lemons and sugar. Getting the final approval from Mom and a final lecture from Dad about putting the lids back on paint cans correctly, we opened our business.

We knew exactly how much we had spent on our supplies. We knew exactly how much money we made. We were extremely gratified with our social interactions. It was very nice. When our customers moved on to the next block, we hung the sign in the garage with other summer memories.

Now, suburban kids would be total freaks if they approached the lemonade stand as we did. Today, they get in the SUV with Mom or the nanny and buy paper cups and a bag of ice and a poster board and lemonade and that is that.

So, why would I get in a dither about this? This is nice and sweet and fun. That is the whole point. My way was no better, just different. We wanted a lot of what kids have today. We had no idea that anything like a cell phone would ever be invented, in fact, at age seven, I had probably never talked on the phone. I certainly hadn't seen TV but we made home made walkie talkies with string and tin cans. We made stilts from those tall juice cans. Today's children will invent stuff I never dreamed of using their imaginations is ways I can't even fathom.

My task is to remember a more simple time and throw away my rose colored glasses. When I was a kid people were working very hard to forget the horrors of the Second World War and redefine normal. Now we have other challenges and we will need everything the kids can muster to meet tomorrow. I suppose that they will look back on the simple times when all you had to do was to get in the SUV and drive to a store to create the fun you wanted.

Lama Marut revisited. How to get rid of an irritating person. Thank you Guruji.

Re-re-re-visited, actually. I probably can't do justice to this, but I know it works because I have used it. As with any spiritual practice, I have to remember it in the midst of being irritated. Because it is hard to remember when things are out of control, Lama M. suggests that we make the practice using small impact situations until we get it into our routine. Then we can go to the practice in desperate moments.

I find it very sweet, in a way, that he uses the word 'irritating'. This can mean a person jiggling his knee next to you on a train or it can mean someone pointing a gun at you, and anything in between.

He speaks humorously about simply removing yourself from the situation. Using a magic escape phrase, "Excuse me, I have to go to the bathroom." You can always find something to make this a true statement. Wash your hands or something. If you are stuck with this person (one reason to avoid sail boat trips with unhappy people.) you have to work a bit more.

The real gist of the practice is to look at the person attacking you or yelling at you or being mean to you and have compassion for them. You can not hold anger and compassion at the same moment. If someone is irritating you and you think about how much pain they must be in to act so horribly and how much bad karma they are creating for themselves, you get a gift of objectivity and clarity which allows you to experience them differently. They must be in so much pain to allow this behavior or these words to come from their mouths.

This switch in your mind can make a huge difference. I was in a non-violent action training many years ago at a homeless shelter in Boston. The trainer had us roll playing. The roll was that someone would verbally attack us and we had to diffuse the situation rather than taking the bait. I was paired off with a huge guy who really got into his role of attacking and intimidating me. I got frightened by his intensity and in my fright, I stood tall and looked him in the eye and said, "I love you." He reacted as if he had been hit with a knock out punch. He started to cry. He said he couldn't remember ever having those words said to him. Then I started to cry. That was so sad.

That was before I knew Lama Marut, and I take that as a gift from the gods. But there it was, in a flash. It is probably better to practice in easier situations. When some driver is acting like a real ass hole, instead of giving the finger, as is my wont, I could think, "It must be very hard to be him today." Changes everything.

What, actually, is awesome?

Don't we all get a huge kick out of the jaw dropping, mind blowing, no shit! experience of coming across something that is awesome? This has to be such an individual thing, the trigger for these moments. It definitely has to magically catch us at the right time and the right place.

As you remember your experiences, I will tell a few of mine. I am a lucky woman in that quite a lot of things blow my mind. The people who study brain chemistry might have a good explanation for this but can they show us how the process gets rolling? I mean, it is like labor in childbirth.  We know a lot about the hormones involved. We certainly know the process, but I have yet to hear anyone with a clear understanding of what actually triggers the start of the labor. Is it the alignment of the stars after all? Does science begin when spiritual science lets off? Just wondering.

What got me onto this subject today was my experience at church this morning. I have been going to a little Catholic church in Larkspur, CA. I was drawn to it because it looked a little more New England than many of the West Coast churches. Then I found the bonus of the wonderful Father Lawrence. Enough said. Today's mass was nice. It was friendly. There were tons of people especially with young families. It was mundane. That's what got me thinking about the several times in my life when going to church has been awesome.

They were pretty big events. The first time I went to what used to be called High Mass in St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York City. High mass when I was a kid was Gregorian chants, tons of frankincense incense, elaborate vestments , big flowers, the whole nine yards. I was struck silent. The mass at Campostella at the end of the Camino was awesome. It was not only big in every way...thousands of people, dozens of priests, all the mumbo jumbo anyone could wish for but everyone there was not only giving a huge collective exhale but I have never felt such a collective gratitude. (Must have been that on a gigantic scale when WW11 ended. I was too young to remember.) We had made it. Whatever 'it' was.

I have felt awe at a few concerts. Hearing Pablo Casals play cello, hearing Miha Pogacnik  play violin, these were big experiences for me. Seeing the Pacific Ocean for the first time at sunset with the setting sun's rays coming through the waves. Oh my God!

At High Mowing School on a freezing mountain top in New Hampshire, I was pregnant with my third child. Samuel Kaymen was our resident farmer. (He and his family later started Stoneyfield Yoghurt). Samuel sent someone to fetch us when a horse of his was starting labor. Watching this horse foul was unbelievably awesome to me. When I lose the ability to speak, it is a big deal. I hope many of you have a chance to see such power in your lifetime.

 The mother horse paced. She went around in circles. She shuddered a few times. I thought we were in for the long haul. Not so. She calmed down and focused (no kidding!). Then she kind of groaned a few times. Then her muscles tensed. Then steam rose from her body. I mean enough to fill a steam room. She didn't move her hoofs. She pushed. Out slid this perfectly gorgeous foul fully in the caul, The steam stopped and she looked happy and normal and we were all speechless. I don't know, I have seen many women give birth, the usual dogs and cats and pigs, eggs hatch, but there it was, the birth that blew my mind.

I hope everyone gets a lot of these moments. I would feel bereft if I couldn't feel awe. 

Why Was It So Hard to Stop Above Ground Nuclear Testing?

There was no lack of proof that this practice was incredibly dangerous. Even as a kid, I knew that the mushroom cloud was awesomely frightening. Any idiot could see what evil the bombs we dropped on Nagasaki and Hiroshima had unleashed. It was no secret that the bombs worked. It was no secret that they released deadly amounts of radiation that hurt everyone in the path of the wind.

Women were much more affected than men. Yet, we exploded more than 325 nukes in our country and in the Marshall Islands. That was many more than all the other countries in the world combined. This is bad shit. Aside from being the only country in the world to ever use a nuke, we were the country that seemed determined to expose our own citizens to the most amount of radiation. What is this? How can we live with ourselves? Who are we?

Yesterday I talked about trying to get some objectivity and perspective on personal situations. How about big national ones. When President Kennedy made his first moves toward nuclear detente, he had to do it in secret, behind the backs of Congress and the military. This was because it was a hated step. When he averted the nuclear threat in the Cuban Missile Crisis, he was reviled for not using nukes! This is sick. The people of the US, I am certain would not have voted to start a nuclear war which could have wiped out a huge portion of two huge countries. Most normal people would never say "Oh yes, expose us to terrible effects from nuclear testing and we and our offspring will be happy to be sick for generations to come. Sounds OK to us."

And I can't abide the "We didn't know it was dangerous." argument. Bull. Just like the ridiculous notion that we smokers couldn't figure out that a couple of packs a day might give us problems after a while. No one is dumb enough not to figure that out. Reports were everywhere about the radiation poisoning in Japan. Why would our test bombs here be any different?

So the question is do we want to kill masses of our own citizens? Or who wants to kill masses of us? And then, why do we let them do it? In the case of the test sights, it was the military and the alphabet organizations (CIA< NSA<FBI) and the John Birchers and the very conservative big business influence and the anti-communists. The same people who somehow pushed through Agent Orange, Depleted Uranium, GMO crops, Aspertame. All agents of destruction of ourselves as much or more than of communism.

So, I will conclude once again that we seem to be the most willing people on the planet to sacrifice the health and well being of ourselves for the ideology or profit of our military and big business. It is down right medieval.

It seems that it is subversive for us to object to practices that most other countries halt. It is subversive to want to eliminate toxic and deadly exposure of masses of people. We need to evaluate carefully whom we listen to. John McCain and Dick Cheney would have given us many nuclear wars by now. Who will watch out for us if not we ourselves?

This Isn't My Circus, These Are Not My Monkeys

When I read most books or watch most movies, this objectivity is obvious. I am not a Chinese woman during the Cultural Revolution. I am not a Russian countess. I am not Theodore Roosevelt on a river in the Amazon. So, being involved and yet not part of the story is easy.

Real life makes this a lot harder. In the past, I have used a simple technique that John Gardner taught me. I pull my viewpoint far away and look down on the situation as if it were a play that I was watching.  This allows a certain objectivity that helps get things in perspective. I can get the same help from telling someone who doesn't have a dog in the fight. A little outside perspective always helps.

But when it is a big, personal, emotional, life threatening deal and I have all the right answers and I know exactly how things should play out and the other person doesn't - well, things get a lot harder. I know! Meditation. Prayer. Pleading with God. Promising to become a nun if I get my way. (I did this as a 10 year old and was so relieved when I didn't have to - mostly because of the shaving the head thing that was necessary in those days) Let Go and Let God. I know and I am pretty good at all these things. I can make my prayers sound like greeting cards, so perfect, lovely. Why don't they work then?

Is it possible that I don't know the future? Is it possible that I am not God? This can be extremely hard to bear. Is it possible that my back is not strong enough to carry my burdens? Yes. Yes. and Yes.

My friend Lisa teaches us in Satsang, teaches by her example, to go deeply quiet. I used to be very good at this. I was always very good in emergencies, going to that still place and acting like I knew what I was doing. One of my best moments was in Concord, NH many (33) years ago when I found myself at the public swimming pool with about 50 kids. At that exact moment there were no other adults and only one lifeguard. She had a seizure and fell and cracked her head on the cement. This was long before cell phones. I became a strong general. I ordered the kids out of the pool, told two older girls to go to a neighbor and call an ambulance, covered the lifeguard with a towel..all the right moves. Because of my calm and my authority, the kids all sat quietly out of the water and everything worked out well.

The deal is that I went outside my personality, got strength I don't own and managed. Sometimes, especially of late, I don't find myself doing that. I have a little hysteria that is closer to the surface. I have been thinking (saying) that I am more fragile. One of my kids tells me that that is a self fulfilling mantra. But I think it is right. What I have been forgetting when I feel weak is that I don't have to carry this load. I am not a donkey. I can let some strength come into me. I am not the master of the universe. I am a servant. And the phrase that gets me going on this much better, much calmer, much saner path is "This is not my circus."

The Magic of Old Soap Operas

I have a daughter who watches Reality TV. I don't like the shows. I am a hard sell for almost anything on television. Yes, I am a fan of Masterpiece Theater and once upon a time thought CNN was interesting. What happened there? Now it is fodder for late night comedy. 24 hour coverage of a missing plane with experts thinking it might have gone to heaven. Very thought provoking.

I have several totally cliche favorite watching moments.  The most significant were shared by zillions. Seeing Elvis and then the Beatles on the Ed Sullivan Show. Iconic. Then I have the very special moments. There were some days when I sat on the big chair in the sun room with my mother and we watched Shirley Temple movies together and cried and laughed. There was the day when I was watching the Guiding Light with our cleaning lady and drinking gin at noon. A character named Julie died in a drunk driving accident and we were so shocked. She was a favorite of ours. We had been at this activity for some time by then and I kind of freaked out at Julie's death. I had a bit of an epiphany in that moment. I decided to go back to college. I did.

The first time I ever saw a Soap Opera was two years after we got our first television. I was born during the war but by the time I hit third grade, the baby boomer epidemic hit. We were in prefab classrooms on double shifts. I went to school morning shift. My mother wasn't working. When I came home for lunch and the rest of the afternoon, we started watching the Soaps. This was the bad year when my very active mother had a depression. Her parents had died and she had a miscarriage. When I look back, I wonder whether only depressed, stuck at home people watched those shows.

Other people's misery is fully distracting. Those were the glory days of Soaps. The shows were live and the rehearsals were mostly for staging. (who walks in the door and when she walks in) The actors were so familiar with their characters that they 'became' them on the shows. There were some funny moments when they flubbed their lines or fell asleep on the operating table. When spring came, Mom got a grip and turned off the TV.  In spite of the gap of many years, I was able to pick up the stories when I took up the shows again. I guess I was having my own dark night of the soul.

There is something about going into other people's lives for an hour or a half hour 5 days a week. That is one thing that keeps me from connecting to reality shows. Firstly, I think most of the contests are idiotic an boring. Secondly, the shows repeat and repeat and show scenes over and over from previous shows and then there is that thing about the voices. I can hear the tension and fakeness in a Housewives or a Kardashian voice two rooms away. Thirdly I am a bit of a snob.

I have to laugh at myself when I look at this picture. I can be a snob preferring Soaps over Reality.  Who am I? I do admit that two of the smartest men I knew from college ended up being writers. One wrote for All My Children and another for the Guiding Light. These slips we treated with humor. It wasn't much different from the doctor who was going to save the world ending up doing nose jobs or the lawyer who was going to help the poor working for Halliburton. Shit happens and there can only be so many great American novels after all.

It was, after all the writers strike that jump started the Reality show industry. What goes around comes around.

Talk About Karmic Connections, How I Met Sonja

Well, we could, I suppose, think back on how we meet any person who ends up being important in our lives and step back in awe at how amazingly the universe arranges things. I am going with the idea of karma, but call it what you may, life is just remarkable.

I understand the karma which brings us together with a college class or a gang at summer camp or meeting kindred spirits on the Camino. There is a logic there. We choose, apply, show up and are bound to have things in common. But the seemingly random encounters that turn into big friendships, how random are they really?

I met the Packards in Battleground, Indiana when Patrick and I walked by a funky little house that had a sculpture of a foot in the yard. It actually was a foot stool. Get it? It was a carving and a chair shaped like a foot. And when we met them Joan served us cold blueberry soup. A great encounter. But we kind of had to meet because we were the only normal people in that town at that time. Almost everyone else was some kind of weird Christian Republican throw back to the post war (WW11) years. I mean Watergate was going on in the rest of the country but in Indiana, oh man.

I just can't imagine not having met Sonja. It couldn't have been random but it happened like this. I was in Granada, Nicaragua and I was having a lot of dentistry done. A ton (refer to early blogs for grim details). I had met this lovely man from Seattle, WA.  I actually can't recall how I met Doug. I think someone introduced us. Doug was walking his way back to health. He had been hit by a truck in Brazil and nursed back to health by the family of the people who found him injured on the street. He was in very good shape when I met him. He is one of those kind souls who checked up on friends. Several times he offered to come to the dentist with me when I was having big stuff done.

We ended up taking walks together or going for coffee. One day we were walking down the street near the big second hand store when a woman came running out of a house yelling for help. We couldn't quite catch the full story but we did understand that she needed a taxi and it had to be very fast because her dog was choking? dying? something. Doug ran to Xalteva to flag down a cab and I went along with the hysterical woman to get the dog. We had some complications getting to the vet because of one way streets and not knowing the name of any of them. The dog got saved and we got out of the cab and continued our walk. Now I can't remember whether we stopped in on Sonja when we ate at the Mexican restaurant that was next door at that time, or whether we just ran into her after that.

But Sonja became a very important person in my life. I think the good gods organized that moment in the street. Sonja is a person who is up for doing things. We ended up taking a lot of outings together and then another year when I was terribly ill, nearly dying, and having my house situation explode because of Suzanne Prior's drinking or drugging or all around psycho life, I called Sonja who was just about to embark on her venture of renting out rooms and she invited me to move in that day. My healing started when Gretchen and I fled to her house. Thank you, Sonja.

We are the most unlikely friends. I am an old hippie, radical anarchist. I don't worry much about how I look. I am an intellectual and a Buddhist with Catholic leanings. Sonja is a Texas Tea Party, born again Christian who plays online poker and has a house full of dogs. She always looks perfect and designs her own clothes. We love the heck out of each other.

Now Sonja is dying. I am not there to be with her but I am so grateful for our unlikely friendship. It has meant so much to each of us. I don't think it was an accident that Doug and I were on that street at that moment.

Doesn't Darth Vader Ever Get Vanquished?

Sometimes I think that living a long life is a curse. Not that I have done so yet, 70 is kind of nowhere. Not long. Not short. But here stand I. The thing that I am allowing to irritate me these days is that things that seemed to have been accomplishments not only fade, but come back as new challenges in different forms. It gets hard to see progress.

Getting fabulous, never ending media coverage was one of the great triumphs of the Anti-Vietnam War movement in the USA. In previous wars, the general public saw the propaganda films put out by the military machine. Most every depiction was of our handsome heroic boys saving the world. It was pretty much the same from the German side.

In Vietnam, intrepid reporters sent images around the world that horrified, stunned, mobilized, and finally had a good part in exposing and ending the insanity of that War. We had learned how to expose the machine in real time. Yea! Except, that triumph was short lived. The powers that be also learned their lessons. In subsequent wars it has been impossible to repeat that. The purchase of the major TV outlets by the great arms manufacturers, the blackout of access to war zones except with embedded reporters, the publishing delays for stories that might have saved many lives (Think about Seymore Hirsh's story of the El Mazote Massacre in El Salvador). This was like a full stop of media until the exposure couldn't influence the outcome.

Now we have our every communication watched and listened to. How different this is from the CIA and FBI guys that would hide behind doors at anti-war actions and occasionally step out and flash a camera in our faces. Whistle blowers are no longer protected, but rather criminalized. Any progress that was made toward openness, has now been quadruply eroded.

My melancholy is not reflected by the greater thinkers. Chomsky, Dalai Lama, Desmond Tutu, these great men see humanity making great progress. Why would I feel a personal defeat in the loss of the triumph over the media? Well guys, it is a bit about the ego. I would guess that the need of my little ego to think that I had been part of something important is a character flaw that still irritates. Great human beings are those who get over the need for these self important pats on the back. Mea Culpa. Change is important and unstoppable. I know this.

The Fine Art of Hanging Out

Doing nothing is a very refined skill. Once lost, this ability is hard to recapture.  Children are some of the best teachers, but, these days even they might need some guidance. I have watched kids look around for an activity, ask to use an electronic device, attempt to get some attention that they don't need, and then settle into an amazing meditative state. They might start to build a fairly house.  If you leave them uninterrupted by idiotic questions like "Are you OK? Are you having fun? Do you need some water?", they can go into their own little world for hours.

In their play, they are relaxed, setting their own pace and engaging their imagination. "The grey rocks are the good soldiers, the white ones are the enemy." "Shush, the fairies are asleep and we don't want to wake them up." Kids are amazingly resourceful. A dead leaf can be the roof. A tiny wildflower can be the tree. Then, maybe cloud watching can turn into a day dream. Hopefully, you all have had some childhood experience of this.

Then we grow up and we have to do lots and lots of things to keep the show going. And now we have all these devices to keep charged and get interrupted all the time. When do we get to look at the clouds? When can we stay in the daydream and not fall asleep from exhaustion? I don't have a very big problem turning off my devices. I do have a lot of interruptions caused by my relationship to my body. "I am hungry. I am thirsty. I am cold. I am hot. I need some caffeine. I want some nicotine." I am my own pain in the ass.

It feels kind of abrupt and rude when people ask me what I do and I say "Mostly nothing." This, however, is the truth. I discount the stuff we have to do to stay alive. I don't count throwing the laundry into the machine or putting the dishes away as "doing something". I don't discount these activities. I am happy I can do them, but I consider them, for now, just one step up from saying I am breathing. But, therein lies the rub. If I can breathe consciously or do the dishes as if I am preparing for a visit from the Buddha or the Christ, then I am not only doing nothing, but I am doing the greatest task of my life.

I suspect that when a child is playing alone, unguided, and uninterrupted, he/she is fully present. I aspire to this state. It can't make any difference whether my activity is able to be labelled 'productive' or 'unproductive' if I am present and aware. This is different from being distracted or entertained. And being distracted or entertained is different from being moved by a song or a painting.

I guess my theme for the day is to learn from the wonder of childhood and be here now. I am awake, even if I can only sustain it for a few minutes.

Life Following Art Following Life

So, months ago, I wrote a few blog fictions without changing from my normal autobiographical blog stuff. Not that we aren't a fiction of our own making no matter what. Long ago I realized that I pretty much dress for the part that I am playing at any given time. If I am the sick lady, I wear PJs and a sweat shirt. If I am the proper woman, I wear my pearls. If I am the sport, I wear my trainers. We all do. My home is the stage set for the current drama. My story is the internal monologue I run. Today I am a victim. Yesterday I was the proud grandmother. Another day I might be the world traveler.

In those 'fiction' blogs, I was meeting with a priest and it was intimate and powerful. This week I did just that in real life. A few weeks ago, I went to Mass here in California. The priest was a tall, handsome man from India. Lovely Indian accent. I don't remember what he said particularly. I do remember having a feeling of being quieted and when he spoke the word 'love', I felt something. A transmission of love.

As the days followed, I was beset by disharmonious feelings. I was on an emotional roller coaster. One such day as I road my bike past the church, I ran into a woman coming out of the office. I asked her if she worked there. She did. Could I make an appointment to talk with a priest. "I guess you could." she said and gave me the office number.

When I called I said I needed to talk with a priest. I know the receptionist was a little baffled because I was no one she knew and I didn't offer any explanation of my business. She gave me an appointment for the next day. I didn't dare hope it was the Indian guy.

It was. Father Lawrence. I said that I was having a crisis of faith. When I needed it the most it was alluding me. He said he had prepared for our meeting in prayer and he felt that I was having an ego problem. Oh My God. I was. I didn't want to be the person who was losing her shit. I didn't want to be the frazzled one. I wanted to be in control of my life and I was pissed off that I was friggin'  human. God was fine. I was fully in the way of any help or comfort that was being offered me.

You are probably thinking that this is generic God talk and that Father Lawrence had no insight into my very special very ME situation. I assume that he did and he didn't. The thing was that I felt the same transmission of Love coming from his heart to my heart that I had during Mass and the way he spoke communicated to the wounded ego me as well as to the higher being of me. It was a powerful good meeting.

This is what I was going for in my fiction and then I was gifted it in real life. Who could have known?

Don't You Hate Concepts Like "Humility"?

My friend Greeley doesn't like people to use words like 'hate'. But despite his preferences, I often go for the most simple and dramatic word. It gets my attention. You have to understand that it is not the word or even the concept of 'humility' or 'gratitude' that I dislike so vehemently. It is the ever changing goal post of experience that is so very difficult for me.

It seems as if, as soon as I think I have become humble, something much bigger and deeper and harder comes up for the next lesson. "You think that is humility! Try this on."

I finally understand that it is seriously not a good plan to have any spiritual hubris. But what is wrong with allowing myself an occasional pat on the back? My current conclusion is that it is as big a crime as murder. Because spiritual pride means starting over. If we have to 'die to become' then pride in anything brings that ego right back and feeds its insatiable hunger.

Humility is a rough one. If you play it like "Poor worthless little old me, I am less than a bug on a rug." are you denying the glory of God's creation? Are you seeking compliments? Are you looking to be knocked down or built up? Sketchy stuff. If you go to "In my humble opinion, blah blah." are you feeling righteous. You are. Your thoughts are better. They are right. You have the truth. You might as well say "In my all-knowing and perfect thinking, here is your answer." Nothing humble there.

I thought I had learned a lot about humility. I am not possession proud. But am I proud of not being possession proud? Ya, probably. I am not looks proud. I am kind of a natural, nothing fancy kind of woman. But does some little part of me think that is just a little bit cooler than the women who spend all their time and money being worked on? Ya, probably.

Getting old does a good job of knocking out pride and teaching humility. Think about it. Daily something sags or wrinkles or looses it's full abilities. It isn't a subtle thing. It is a sledge hammer action. So this aging thing, like this parenting thing, as with the creative thing, this life thing,  conspires to bring us to our knees, to teach us what is real, to expose the very essence of life.

So, it is all good. No one ever said it would be easy.

Your humble servant,

Julie

When Did Rich People Become Skinny and the Poor Get Fat?

I assume I am talking about my strange country. In much of my travel, I have not observed such a trend. But, there is something counter-intuitive happening in the good old US of A. Here in Marin County California and certainly in many other places which suffer from affluenza, the women especially, tend to be rail thin. Often the kids are also which looks weird to me. Kids should be round and strong and have rosy cheeks and scuffed knees, right?

And as I go about my day, I pass exercise places, then yoga studios, then gyms, then pilates studios, then hair and nail places, then plastic surgeries, then hair removal places, then clothes places selling thinning, tightening pants, then shops selling no fat ice cream! No fat almost anything. And no sweeteners! And it costs more, much more, to have less of everything. Is this not strange?

Think about it. In a poor country many of the folks spend all day getting enough to eat. Most people do a lot of walking. Often work is physically demanding. Fat is not a problem. A lot of places with affluence have traditional foods which are relatively balanced. Fat is not a problem. Skinny often means ill or starved and signals some big problem.

In some countries I can eat a whole meal without anyone commenting on the amount of salt or carbs or protein or trans fat or whatever is in the meal. I can often enjoy a big dinner without having anyone remark that they are 'bad' if they eat butter or dessert. And I can enjoy being with people who enjoy their food.

We have tons of real food issues in this country, like GMOs and pink slime in hamburgers, but I suspect that we might get healthier if our ideal were something other than starved, tucked, hairless, dyed, pinched, over muscled, heroin models. I think it is the moral duty of the very rich to get fatter. I really do. They are setting a bad example which is causing an incredible imbalance in the natural order of things.

How to fix the VA, by genius Julie.

Just a thought that has been swirling around in my imagination:

Apparently there are some huge problems with the VA. This can not be news to anyone. Those poor soldiers have been telling us this since they started coming home from Vietnam. They took about 40 years to admit that Agent Orange cause health problems! They might have checked with some millions of Vietnamese. Or the thousands and thousands of soldiers reporting their problems.

Actually, if you think about it, war causes health problems. Mental health, bodily health, spiritual health..all screwed up. Depleted Uranium in Iraq? Funny, that shit, like Agent Orange can't figure out who are the good guys and who are the bad guys. Look up possible effects of toxic levels of uranium. It is pretty frightening.

Story after story has been dribbling out about returning soldiers who can't get medical help. Maybe the VA is trying very hard. Maybe there are some huge cover ups going on. Maybe the money is being skimmed off by evil people. Maybe this is a big push to privatize the VA so Haliburton can get all the money, whatever is going on, it is a problem. A big problem.

One of the reports I read states that the systems don't work. This is where I got my idea. Instead of having a billion meetings to rehash the problems with the same old people who created the systems and covered it up when they didn't work, why not go to high school or college kids  and have them invent completely new systems? Young people today who are into tech stuff seem to be absolutely amazing at making systems. I am not a fan of trying to adjust and rework stuff that doesn't work. Sometimes it isn't just about the money spent, it is about solving problems. Some solutions can be simple and elegant. That is my thought for the day.

We owe it to the vets. There is a lot about war and its effects that can't be fixed. We must fix what we can. The father of my friend Joan just started to get compensation for a brain injury he got in WW11. Ain't that a pisser...70 years.

Hi there...

Catch up news;

Haven't smoked for something like 50 days but have been using every other kind of nicotine delivery system known to man. I think I just overdosed on Nicarette gum. Is that possible? Got a serious buzz on.

I moved to California. I signed a 7 month lease on a tiny apartment in Corte Madera. Nice view of Mt. Tamalpais. Pretty California suburban. Cars everywhere. It was really weird saying goodbye to Ashland. I have been there and mostly not been there for quite some time, 7 years, maybe? A tremendous lot of coming and going. Have wonderful friends there.

Got my health back. Never did figure out what was making me so sick. Richard Stanley told me the other night at a Nica in Ashland gathering (Tucker, Melissa, Moi, Stanleys, Gretch and Georgene,) that I should get checked for arsenic poisoning. Some problems with the Granada water delivery. I had told my doctor, Flash Gordon (no shit!) that I felt like I had been poisoned but today I am disinclined to get more tests. I will buy some charcoal tablets. I miss Nica and think of Sonia every day. She is quite ill.

My hard-to-get-through book right now is "JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why It Matters." Fabulous book. It makes sense of those times and everything since.

I have no more idea about who I am and what I am doing than I ever did. This is my homeostasis.

It Takes Two to Tango.

This statement appears to be true. And it pretty much takes two to argue or to fall in love or to make a seesaw work smoothly. But how much influence do we really have on each other?

Last week I was visiting with some friends who were a bit frustrated with a slowdown in a project they are facilitating. R. asked somewhat rhetorically, "How to you get people to change?"

Bingo, That. Is. The. Question.

I asked myself ,"How to I get myself to change?"

And the answer is that it is really hard. The things that aren't hard, I am not counting in this discussion. And, full disclosure: I am a creature of habit. This is sometimes a good thing and sometimes, not so good. I am somewhat rational, somewhat educated, somewhat energetic, somewhat lazy. In my thinking, most of us are pretty complicated and at the same time, pretty simple.

I guess that change comes partly from running out of options. I have mentioned before this astoundingly fun and brilliant shrink I knew in Puerto Rico many years ago (1968). He said "The imperative to change is death." I get that. I know a bunch of people who quit smoking when a doctor mentioned cancer. Just never smoked again. No program, no fuss, no gum or patches. Over.

But my friend was asking about how to influence people to create a more sustainable energy plan. I remember the gas lines during the Carter years when suddenly we were developing car pool lanes and creating good intentions. When the oil started flowing again, all was forgotten and cars kept getting bigger and hungrier all the time. I had a Jeep Grand Cherokee that got 8 miles to the gallon. Loved that car.

When the Fukushima disaster happened three years ago, Germany decided to shut down all its nukes. The USA is building a new one (tax payers subsidizing and insuring) for the first time in more than 30 years. Interesting reaction. Bringing that down to a dumb personal example, I keep telling myself that I won't buy any more water in plastic bottles and then making endless exceptions for myself. I know the plastics (all plastics) are toxic and yet I bought one today. Here in Nica, they get recycled by the people who pick the garbage, but that doesn't account for the toxins which enter my body and the toxins and oil that are necessary to make the plastic and all that stream of stuff I should not be buying into.

It is possible that being conscious will eventually get me to stop. But why is it hard? If I have trouble with simple little stuff like this, how do we get billions of people to change their habits? I don't know. A lot of Americans have stopped throwing trash on highways. That was a big campaign by Lady Bird Johnson. (cool name) but we have created billions of tons of new crap that is bad for the environment and is now floating around in our oceans.

I'd be interested in thoughts on how we get ourselves and others to make changes. I assume we all need to.

Mark Twain famously said...

something like "The older I get, the more clearly I remember things that never happened." Couldn't agree more. Today I am playing with the idea that everything that ever happened is connected to everything else simultaneously and completely. If this is so, then everything that happened or is happening is fully a part of the experience of all. There's that OM thing again.

I have been reading, Proof of Heaven, a Neurosurgeon's Journey into the Afterlife. The ideas in this book are by no means new to me or probably you. I am somehow annoyed at times by the author's shock at how a brilliant scientist like himself (his own characterization) could discover spiritual realities. I assume that it is because many scientists are a bit thicker than most people, or rather convinced of the idea that their reality is the only reality.

This is a bit strange when you think of how fast the facts of science change and how stable the fundamental principles of most religions have been. There is more to this game than meets the eye, or one does better now and forever if one adheres to guidelines like not killing and stealing and so on.

From Dr. Alexander's book:

In the 1920s, the physicist Werner Heisenberg (and other founders of quantum mechanics)made a discovery so strange that the world has yet to completely come to terms with it. When observing subatomic phenomena, it is impossible to completely separate the observer (that is, the scientist making the experiment) from what is being observed. In our day-to-day world, it is easy to miss this fact. We see the universe as a place full of separate objects, (tables and chairs, people and planets) that occasionally interact with each other, but nonetheless remain essentially separate. On the subatomic level, however, the universe of separate objects turns out to be a complete illusion. In the realm of the super-super-small, every object in the physical universe is intimately connected with every other object. in fact, there are really no "objects" in the world at all, only vibrations of energy, and relationships.

There is no reality possible without consciousness. OM again. And what I am wondering whether it is all available to all at anytime anywhere. So, maybe remembering things that never happened when we are older is more a symptom of a looser etheric body and an ability to tune into other vibrations with ease than of a crappy memory or a gone wild imagination.

(He wasn't old when he did this, but I used to think Garrison Keeler went into a bit of a trance when he told stories about Lake Woebegone and was just telling what he saw. Cool thought.)

Hit the Wall.

Several things happening. Well, many actually. At the risk of boring you more than I am boring myself, I have parasites again. And I am suffering. And, yes, I have a well trodden path from the house to the lab to the doctors office to the pharmacy. The lab people look happy or sad when they hand me the envelope. Good news one week, bad news the next week. It isn't just Nicaragua, I got them in Thailand also. The reason I am going on about this is it certainly has interrupted my blog..big time. Remember how everything in the body is connected? It isn't just the body. It is the spirit also. And that stuff about thinking, feeling, and willing well, that all gets muddled up when any major organs are compromised.

That being said for the umpteenth time, another repeat issue, only this time with more clarity. I am so excited to have met the character I want to write about. You started to meet her in the last three blogs I posted. In college, I went on about my plan to write autobiographical fiction. I don't think it is a contradiction in terms, just a loosening of the edges of the genre. She finally came to me.

I had this idea that it would be fun to just throw her into my blog and begin a book. It is fun, but I don't think I can make it work for this reason: I can't seem to make each entry into an autonomous blog post. Many of my readers do not and can not read daily, nor do they by any means read sequentially. This produces confusion in both me and my readers.

I am going to continue with Ask Julie and write my autobiography in another sitting. I am afraid that I am already falling for the priest and this is exciting.I have to go get a manicure before we meet up this afternoon for our chat. Do you think he is so shallow that that will make a difference? I hope not, and yet.

Yo y El Padre. Part 3.

I felt shy. I wasn't even shy when the Dalai Lama held my face and kissed me. With Father Francis, my inner experience was moving faster than 'reality'. There was so much to say and at the same time, there was nothing to say. I was present.

"Have you been in jail?" I asked. Where did that come from?

"Si, pues."

I didn't have to ask. I already knew.

"Me, too."

"I know."

I started to laugh. "The first time was because my dog wasn't on a leash in Eugene, Oregon at 8:00 on a Sunday morning. Well, not because of the act itself, but because I thought it was so stupid that I didn't pay the ticket and ignored the summons regarding it. I was in contempt of court. I was in contempt of everything. This was 1970 and we were raging against the Vietnam War. (In SE Asia it is more aptly called The American War.) I ignored every summons they sent me which gave them the excuse to pick me up late at night and take me to jail. I stayed over night because we didn't have the $30 to get out. I was angry, insulting and defiant which was not cool because most of the police hated us because of our antiwar activities."

He laughed.

Maybe the hard stories would come later.

"Why are you in Nicaragua now?" As he asked, we both knew the answer.

"To meet you."

When I get really nervous, I talk too much or show off. I struggled against this. That little rap about jail was nervous twitter. I pictured my Buddhist teacher and started to breathe slowly. I didn't want to blow this off.

"My father was Roma, but he gave it up for farming. He said a fortune teller told him that it would be the survival of his lineage. We were practically the only ones to make it past Hitler. My mother yearned all the time to be on the road. A wise man told me that I would never have a real home but that I would always feel at home wherever I was. His name was Francis also. My middle name is Francis"

Oh shit, I am babbling in spite of myself. I will stop.