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?

What is real?

When I moved to Drain, Oregon (no shit!Drain!) in 1969, it was an isolated backwater logging town in the middle of nowhere. Then logging died. Simple math, really. You cut down all the trees, pollute the river with the run off and then the mill shuts. Now, it looks like there is a minor epidemic of grape growing for wine on the naked hills. it does look a lot better than the crop of stumps that was covering the hills when we lived there. So, when we moved to Drain, there were very few people who had been "away". We had been living in New York and people in Drain did have TV. Most had seen New York on TV. But, talking to neighbors it soon became clear that to them, in spite of TV, New York was just a bigger version of Drain. They could not make the mental leap from the 19th century poverty and ignorance that they enjoyed to the size, prosperity, culture and so on of New York. They could not do it.

That is one side of the equation. Today, sitting by the Plaza in Ashland, Oregon, I listened to several conversations of other people watching the action with me. The action was Hollywood setting up a scene for the movie "Wild" which will be filmed here tomorrow starring Reese Witherspoon. I loved the autobiographical book and the scene being filmed actually took place about 13 years ago. But not quite at the same time of year. It is full-on Autumn now and some of the trees have lost their leaves and others have turned gorgeous fall colors. I am guessing that the scene they are filming took place in late August.

So what we were watching was a ton of people stripping the brown, tan, red leaves off the trees on the plaza. Then another crew was replacing them with green silk leaves, then the third crew was painting the bright green silk leaves with a wash of filmy brown. (I think the color of the silk ones was a little too 'spring green." I found this all very amusing. I sit in the Plaza for my late afternoon coffee almost every fall afternoon watching the pass and chatting with friends. This was fun.

The conversations I heard around me from random people centered mostly on exclamations about how surprised they were at the artifice involved in movie making. Remarks about how they would never believe a film again. The word 'fake' came up a lot. I felt a little lost.

The folks in Drain 44 years ago didn't comprehend what they saw. These people think that what they see in movies is real, were upset that illusion and even artifice was involved. So my question that I ask myself is what happens when either group sees a Godzilla or a Raiders of the Lost Arc or an good old after the Nuclear holocaust kind of flick?

I choose not to watch horror movies or slasher movies because I don't enjoy having certain images imprinted in my memory. But, I get a kick from the art of cinema when it does its magic and transforms me to another place and another time. I feel kind of badly that illusions were being shattered today. It kind of reminded me of my feelings about the tawdry process of taking down the Christmas tree. I never wanted to do that in front of my kids. I wanted them to remember the magic and be shielded from the reality. Maybe Hollywood should keep making movies in big studio sets hidden from the public.

I will go to the Plaza a few times tomorrow and gawk. In two days everything will be returned to normal and it will appear that we had a midsummer night's dream. Do you think they will glue the brown leaves back on? I hope so.

Walking in the mountains past glorious marijuana farms.

Things are certainly different from when I was young. When I first encountered marijuana it was in small bits, skinny little joints rolled in secret with a lot of preparation. Yes, we wanted to get high, but back in the early sixties the whole scene had a lot of ritual. It was something new and special for middle class kids. It was very illegal, but most of the cops didn't know what it looked like or smelled like.

We went somewhere where we wouldn't be disturbed. We picked out great music. We only smoked with people we trusted. We lit candles and incense. We spread out on pillows on the floor. We passed the joint around, hardly whispering. We didn't drink booze. We wanted an experience and we had one.

We felt a wild kinship with the great rebels of the past and present. We read "Confessions of an English Opium Eater", Baudelaire, "The Tibetan Book of the Dead, Neil Cassidy. We felt a kinship with Lewis Carroll. We were "Alice in Wonderland". We were stoned.We talked about how famous people thought and wrote when they were stoned, like Freud and Arthur Conan Doyle. We were part of a great tradition. It was sacred business.

One of the comparisons I can make with today is the difference between a First People ceremony where sacred tobacco was ceremoniously smoked and someone today puffing away at two or three packs of Marlboros every day. A different ball of wax entirely.

From what I understand, the dope we smoked was incredibly mild compared with the stuff out there now. It was mellow. It was pretty harmless. It spread like wildfire. People started wandering away from fraternity parties at colleges to go "do their own thing", as it was called. Soon, the cutting edge started "turning on, tuning in, and dropping out." A sea change was coming and LSD was that tipping point. At least among people I knew.

Again, the new wave came with a lot of rituals. After all, we were going to see God, peel away all the layers of maya. You can tell we were East Coast people. This was the Timothy Leary people. On the other coast, Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters had the opposite scene going. We were drawn to the exuberance, the wildness, the Far Fucking Outness of the people who were painting the redwoods dayglow colors, and writing books like "Cuckoos Nest" and delivering Electric Cool Aid to thousands. Out West was where it was at.

I am sure that everyone has their romantic stories of their first toned experiences. But I am talking about a huge giant collective experience. Today, you can't walk down the street without smelling dope being smoked. It is growing everywhere. Huge drug cartels are killing for their piece of the fortune. Many people can't get through the day without it. I stopped almost as soon as I started. Fortunately for me the seeing God thing translated into the reality that I fell asleep every time I smoked. Lucky for me.

I just couldn't help remembering this today as Jane and I were walking up by the late, marveling at the autumn colors and looking down on green houses filled with giant plants. Brought back memories. Each joint had an exotic provenance. "This is from the Golden Triangle. This is from Afghanistan. Great Mexican shit." We had our myths and loved them for a time.

Look up Apodments in Seattle

Yes, the word apodment has the word "pod" in it. The rental prices in Seattle are going up by the minute. Lots of students there. Lots of young people starting out, and like everywhere in this country, lots of baby boomers. Ten years ago in quiet neighborhoods like Ballard people were building 4 plex units in their back yards. Then, single family houses were being torn down and skinny 3 or 4 story apartment houses were being thrown up. Then, within a few years, whole blocks were being made into apartments. Now, the new thing is to make these tiny little pod units with no parking, no room for landscaping and where you can put 25 couples into a lot that was formerly a single family house.

I have mixed feelings about these places. "There goes the neighborhood" is no joke here. Some of them look like 1950s Russian design. Not gorgeous. I think of the tenements in New York in the 1800s. Absolutely amazing how many people could cram into a tiny space. At least these new ones have indoor plumbing, or plumbing at all for that matter. Seattle today doesn't look like the kind of place where many folks will gather on the front stoop on a summer evening. Who knows? Maybe a whole new social structure will be born and redefine the idea of neighborhood.

On the other side of my mind a little voice is happy that there will be affordable housing for many who can't be in the game because of the high prices. I can see young folks who have jobs getting their sea legs economically by having a new, clean, convenient to town place to sleep. I say 'place to sleep' because I picture these kids going out for coffee, going to work, going to the gym, going out for food and a beer and then going home to sleep. I don't picture a lot of entertaining and lounging going on in these tiny spaces.

Then I think about the old folks. Maybe this is the answer to a prayer for an infirm elder. If these rent for $500 a month and an assisted living joint costs over $9,000 or something a month, maybe a geezer could have more fun and more independence and more random luxuries (like massage) for their money in such a place. But, I am not the first to think of this. They are now building granny pods with wheelchair wide doors, handicapped bathrooms, surveillance cameras ( just one step up from NSA, one step down from personal drones) to address the really old or infirm.

With all the prosperity in Seattle (and it is evident everywhere) with all the bright young things creating bright things, are we actually in the business of building slums or is this a creative answer to overcrowding and overpricing? I don't know. I assume that if it is going on in Seattle, it is going on in lots of places. I can't quite sort out my feelings about whether this would be for me or not. I have certainly considered plunking one of those lovely little houses in some yard somewhere for my old age and renting it on airb&b while I can still travel. Being old, being young, lots of logistical problems. Some of the places I saw actually look a lot like nursing homes with common eating and social areas. It would kind of take away from the excitement of painting that first college apartment that had fifty coats of paint already. It was sort of fun going from a middle class upbringing to a sketchy edgy place.But then, we didn't work all day and never dreamed of going to the gym. Different times.

I went to this conference last week for people who had had traumatic experiences on cruises.

I had never been on a cruise, but I figured that my accumulated experiences at sea qualified me as a participant. I also wanted to meet people who were suffering from PTSD in a way that maybe I could relate to. It was relatively inexpensive. It was only a week. I was a fully crazy idea. Now I know.

The cruise ship was never going to leave port in Florida. The idea was that we could learn to feel safe again and resume our life of cruising. Never mind that it was hurricane season. Never mind that it was a collection of crazed people in a confined environment.

Right away I knew why I had never been on a cruise. The lines to board the ship were slow. People were so uptight. They had tons of luggage. I had a little day pack. What the hell could they have in those gigantic suitcases? They mostly all looked like KMart  casual, tee shirts with glitter, too tight pants, and big hair. That is except for the Europeans. God, do Italians know how to dress well? The answer is "yes".

So, lines are bad enough, but lines of people facing their fears are even worse. The guy in front of me had green neon flip flops on. Right away, as if we were best friends, he asked me to look at the place where his little toe had been. "Oh gross!" I said. His toe had been chewed off by a rat when he had passed out on the deck one night. Every time he passed out he awoke having nightmares about rats. "Is it possible that booze is your problem?" I probed. He didn't think so, it had never bothered him before the rat incident. "Oh shit,"  His attention quickly turned away from me and he was proudly showing off his war wound to the next people in the line.

People were definitely getting agitated. The beauty of the program became apparent when the loudspeaker came on and a soothing sympathetic, low modulated voice told us that we were safe and to shut our eyes for a minute and start taking deep breaths. Good. A few people quieted down. "That's better. Focus on the positive. Deep breath." Some people can take deep breaths and still talk in hysterical voices, but most started getting into it.

I flash backed to a flashback. When I was filling out the application to the conference, I relived some of my worst moments at sea. I felt nauseous. Who knew how shallowly these memories hid below the surface ready to pounce?

Stay tuned for the next episode of The Shadow.

I am upset again.

Whence comes my determination to finish this damned book, "The World According to Monsanto"? It is the slowest reading of a book in my lifetime. I am often a book a day kind of gal. I can only handle 6 or 7 pages of this book until I hit my wall. The weird thing is that I thought I knew much of this story. I have been to Monsanto protests. I have lived through Agent Orange, Dioxin, DDT, Bovine Growth Hormone. But the scope of this GMO nightmare and its ability to change the planet and everyone on it is so horrific that it makes me sick. It is probably making us all sick.

Two days ago I read about the invasion of Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay and other countries in SA by Monsanto and Roundup Ready GMO soy beans. The scope of the invasion is mind blowing. Hundreds of thousands of peasant farmers have lost their land and migrated to city slums when these crops ruined their lives and their health. As we all know soy beans have some properties that mock estrogen. RR soybeans, genetically modified by the mad scientists have caused girl children in Argentina to get their periods at age 3. These girls didn't even necessarily eat the beans, they lived nearby the fields which were sown with the GM seeds. It makes me sick.

In our own country more and more women are having trouble getting pregnant. More and more kids are suffering from behavioral problems, more and more babies are being born sick. Why can't we stop this? In many Latin American countries they are openly counting the invasion by Monsanto as worse than the conquests by the conquistadors.

I understand that I have come back to this again and again. Sorry. Many states are soon voting on GMO labeling. It would be a place to start. Also some places in the US are trying to have GMO free zones. Another good idea. The virus is unleashed and spreading wildly. But it is still worth fighting.

I return in my memory to the Mayan peasant in Guatemala who wouldn't cook me broccoli. When I asked her why not she said that since the Dole company started growing broccoli in their hills, they had their first remembered cases of cancer, more every year. (Dole uses DDT there which is manufactured in the USA, forbidden for use here but brought back to us on our food grown elsewhere.) This woman said that she understood that we liked the poisonous food in our country but she chose not to use it because of the cancer. With RR GMO food, she won't have a choice not to poison her kids. Wind and water will take care of that. Bad, bad mojo.

I Am Not Laughing Anymore

I laughed when a friend in Marblehead told me what she had to do to get her kid's attention. Despite repeated naggings, her kids rooms were always a mess. She wasn't asking much in her opinion. She was asking that, when the cleaning help came, they could vacuum the floor. She further had asked that laundry be put in the laundry hamper and sheets be changed once in a while.

I would have gone a lot further if it were me. My kids didn't grow up with cleaning help, nor did I do their laundry. Well, that started when my son was about 11 and I dyed all his clothes a nice color of pink. I guess it wasn't all that OK to go to gym class in pink boxers.  I just stuck his laundry back in his room hoping he wouldn't notice. He came storming into my bedroom (not allowed) and put his hands on his hips and declared, "I am NEVER going to let you do my laundry again. NEVER. Do you understand me?" I had to bite my cheeks to keep from laughing while I accepted his grave disappointment in me and vowed never to wash another thing of his, ever.

The truth is that my kids are great housekeepers, always have been. We had to pull together and make fast business of the housework if we wanted to have fun on the weekends, like go skiing. I was a single parent and worked several jobs. The kids got good at everything. By the time they were driving, they could get a rental truck and move us entirely. They painted the house one summer and Tom Sawyered a bunch of friends into helping. My son had a chain saw when he was 13 and cut our firewood. I am bragging now.

I had been determined about this. Before my oldest was 1, I met this lovely hippie lady with a bunch of kids. She went to Guatemala with the kids for the winters. When they were getting ready to take off one year, she told her kids (the youngest about 3 1/2) to get ready. They all scrambled and got their backpacks, took the clothes they wanted, got their tooth brushes and favorite toys and books and were ready to go before she was. My role model in that department. (Maybe something about Guatemala, too.) It was one of the goals I achieved. Not without a few mishaps like Alice forgetting her passport when going to the Bahamas with the Crowes when she was 11 or so and missing her flight while I drove the passport to the airport. She flew alone on the next flight. All well.

About my friend. Her nagging did not work, so she got a little more serious. When it was time for the kid's room to be vacuumed, she put all the stuff that was on the floor and disappeared it. She ignored the whines of the kids. Next, when her thick kids didn't change their bedding, she disappeared the bed. The kids were in agonies of righteous indignation. She said "There is a simple solution. do what I ask." Her kids learned their lesson. I thought she was cool, also.

So, in this department things worked out well for me. I had to take little beatings now and then, like when Alice chewed me out for having a messy car and said she cleaned it so she wouldn't be embarrassed when her friends rode with me. Good plan, Julie.

But I am running into young people today who really don't get it. We have Greeley's grandson living with us. His room smells bad. Like you can smell it from the hall. Our furnace is in his closet. The other day, with fair warning I knocked on his door around 9 AM to tell him and his girl friend that the furnace guys had arrived to do some work. He got really upset and wanted me to arrange for them to come back in the afternoon so they could sleep some more. I was so shocked I just stood there and finally said, "No, not happening. Get moving." I was shocked because, as you know, it takes a lot of effort, money and phone calls to get repairmen to the house. I was shocked because the room was a pig pen. I was shocked because they don't work, they don't pay rent, they never lift a finger and they were offended at something being asked of them.

I have heard the word "entitled" over and over for various groups of people. I now get it. In the case of these unconscious twenty somethings it seems to mean "Rights Without Responsibilities." Lief has the right to his privacy (no one can come into his space) but takes no responsibility for taking care of it. He has a right to his preferred lifestyle and that incurs no responsibilities. If he were sick or mentally challenged or there was some extenuating circumstance, I would be full of sympathy. He is not. I am not.
I am ready to "clean" his room. I am ready to remove everything on the floor and disappear it. I am ready to take away the sheets and blankets if they are not washed. I am not a mean person, but I am having mean thoughts. First I have to get my head on right and then I will figure out whether I can teach responsibility responsibly.

A Terrible Thing I Could Imagine Happening

A second civil war in the USA. So, this President Obama who gave the most Lincolnesque speech I have ever heard, "On Race and Religion", now needs to give the present situation a "House Divided Against Itself Can Not Stand" speech. I think our country is on the brink of falling apart. I know that I personally do not share the same values spiritually, economically, socially, and so on, as many in this country.

I know I feel a vast kind of defeat from fighting battles which I thought we long ago won. (abortion rights, free press, civil rights) I am deflated and confounded by what is going on; injustice, oppression, abuse (women, planet, resources, ) do piss me off. That being said, I do not believe violence will solve any of these situations. Violence is the enemy of peace and justice.

However, there are lots of American citizens right this minute who are cosmically pissed off about their rights to kill and their rights to have no environmental or health regulations and their rights to exclude minorities from their civil rights. Most of these people are pretty much worked up into a frenzy of ignorant righteousness by Ted Cruz, Fox news and hateful radio invectives both religious (?) and political.

I think we are sitting on a powder keg right now and it wouldn't take much to ignite an absolutely crazy splitting apart of this country. An extremely violent break up would happen. It is my fear that this could happen the way it happened with that one shot in Sarajevo or the attack on Fort Sumter.

I fear that what Obama must face now is either the dissolution of the United States or he must rise up and unite his people. No sign of that so far, but if he could do it, we could get on with our rightful task of conquering the planet and making money. All kidding aside, I know that what this country needs is to re-vision itself uniting under a common purpose.

I don't know how this can happen. Right now our common enemy seems to dwell within our polarization. This is dangerous for us and for the whole world. I think Obama could take the opportunity of the shutdown and invite every American to think about why we are a country at all and how we can pull together. We need some spiritual leadership, some spiritual perspective. We don't need blame and victimized leadership.

I pray for all the suffering beings on this planet. I pray that we can transform the bad karma we are creating and that no one makes a disastrous move before we wake up.

Refresh your recollection of the last civil war in this country. This simplified version of the events might trigger your knowledge.

Causes of the American Civil War

A common assumption to explain the cause of the American Civil War was that the North was no longer willing to tolerate slavery as being part of the fabric of US society and that the political power brokers in Washington were planning to abolish slavery throughout the Union. Therefore for many people slavery is the key issue to explain the causes of the American Civil War. However, it is not as simple as this and slavery, while a major issue, was not the only issue that pushed American into the ‘Great American Tragedy’. By April 1861, slavery had become inextricably entwined with state rights, the power of the federal government over the states, the South’s ‘way of life’ etc. – all of which made a major contribution to the causes of the American Civil War.

By 1860 America could not be seen as being a homogenous society. Clearly defined areas could be identified that had different outlooks and different values. This was later to be seen in the North versus South divide that created the two sides in the war.

The South was an agricultural region where cotton and tobacco were the main backbone to the region’s economic strength. The area relied on exports to markets in Western Europe and the class structure that could be found in the UK, for example, was mimicked in the southern states. The local plantation owner was a ‘king’ within his own area and locals would be deferential towards such men. The whole structure was portrayed in ‘Gone With The Wind’; a strictly Christian society that had men at the top while those underneath were expected and required to accept their social status. Social advancement was possible but invariably it was done within the senior families of a state, who were the economic, political and legal brokers of their state on behalf of the people in that state. Within this structure was the wealth that these families had accrued. It cannot be denied that a huge part of this wealth came from the fact that the plantation owners oriented the work on their plantations around slave labour. As abhorrent as it may be to those in the C21st, slavery was simply seen as part of the southern way of life. Without slavery, the economic clout of these premier families would have been seriously dented and those they employed and paid – local people who would have recognised how important the local plantation owner was to their own well-being – simply accepted this as ‘how it is’. When the dark clouds of war gathered in 1860-61, many in the South saw their very way of life being threatened. Part of that was slavery but it was not the only part.

The North was almost in complete contrast to the South. In the lead up to April 1861, the North was industrialising at a very fast rate. Entrepreneurs were accepted and, in fact, were seen as being vital to the further industrial development of America. You did not have to stay in your social place and social mobility was common. For example, Samuel Colt was born in Connecticut into a relatively poor background. He had an inauspicious start to his life but ended up a very rich man who left his wife $15 million in his will. Whether he could have done this in the South is a moot topic. It was always possible but most of America’s premier entrepreneurs based themselves in the North where the straitjacket of social class was weaker. Cornelius Vanderbilt is another example. Whether a man who came from the Netherlands could have forced his way into the social hierarchy of the South is again a question open to debate. The North was also a cosmopolitan mixture of nationalities and religions – far more so than the South. There can be little doubt that there were important groups in the North that were anti-slavery and wanted its abolition throughout the Union. However, there were also groups that were ambivalent and those who knew that the North’s economic development was based not only on entrepreneurial skills but also on the input of poorly paid workers who were not slaves but lived lives not totally removed from those in the South. While they had their freedom and were paid, their lifestyle was at best very harsh.

While the two sides that made up the American Civil War were apart in many areas, it became worse when the perception in the South was that the North would try to impose its values on the South.

In 1832, South Carolina passed an act that declared that Federal tariff legislation of 1828 and 1832 could not be enforced onto states and that after February 1^st 1833 the tariffs would not be recognised in the state. This brought South Carolina into direct conflict with the Federal government in Washington DC. Congress pushed through the Force Bill that enabled the President to use military force to bring any state into line with regards to implementing Federal law. On this occasion the threat of military force worked. People in South Carolina vowed, however, it would be the last time. 

It was now that slavery became mixed up with state rights – just how much power a state had compared to federal authority. State rights became intermingled with slavery. The key issue was whether slavery would be allowed in the newly created states that were joining the Union. This dispute further developed with the ‘Louisiana Purchase’ of 1803 whereby Kansas, among others, was purchased by the federal government. Kansas was officially opened to settlement in 1854 and there was a rush to settle in the state between those who supported slavery and those who opposed it. The state became a place of violence between the two groups and Kansas got the nickname ‘Bleeding Kansas’ in recognition of what was going on there. However on January 29^th 1861, Kansas was admitted to the Union as a slave-free state. Many in the traditional slave states saw this as the first step towards abolishing slavery throughout the Union and thus the destruction of the southern way of life.

When South Carolina seceded from the Union on December 20^th 1860, the first state to do so, it was a sign that the state no longer felt part of the United States of America and that America as an entity was being dominated by a federal government ensconced in the views of the North. Whether this was true or not, is not relevant as it was felt to be true by many South Carolinians. The secession of South Carolina pushed other southern states into doing the same. With such a background of distrust between most southern states and the government in Washington, it only needed one incident to set off a civil war and that occurred at Fort Sumter in April 1861.

The Man I Met Was John Gardner

We arrived in New York from Puerto Rico.  I was very happy to be leaving for a European adventure. We had saved up a few dollars so we felt free. We had a kind of plan for the autumn. We looked gorgeous. No modesty there. When I look at the few old pictures that have survived the ages, I am in awe of our beauty. We felt great.  We were free. That is the word that comes to mind . We were as free as birds.

I was wearing a short skirt and big tall platform shoes. I mean short. I mean that the whole skirt was about 8 inches. My hair was bleached by the sun and down to my waist. P. was wearing bell bottom pants, long hair also and some silk cravat. Looking back, at least he wasn't wearing a sari as he sometimes did.

The Long Island we went to was not the Long Island of "The Great Gatsby" (that would be later), it was the Long Island of nice suburban houses in nice rows with nice yards and two car garages. It was the Long Island of commuter rails carrying thousands of workers into the City daily. It was very tidy. The Waldorf Institute, The Garden City Waldorf School, the home of the Gardner's were all nice and neat and tidy. It was a bit of a shock, like re-entering the world of "Leave it to Beaver" after living through the 60s.

John met us at the school. We were carrying our backpacks. He showed us around this place where everyone was modestly dressed in expensive clothes with nice neat haircuts and practical shoes. Then he took us to his house to spend the night and meet his wife, Carol.

Carol greeted us warmly, took us to separate bedrooms with twin beds and showed Patrick around while I went in the living room for tea with John. I could tell that we were both judging each other and both coming up with critical opinions. So, I did what I do when I am uncomfortable. I challenged him. (in his own house while he was offering us his hospitality!) I was young, remember. I said something about how I bet he was happy that we hadn't been able to shut down the war in Vietnam. He said something about how I must be insecure to have to wear such revealing clothes. He said something about how disruptive the war protesters were when he was running a school. I said something about how some people were living in a dream world if they thought we should just let those in Washington be in charge.

He allowed as how I was pretty angry and I was using my anger to prop up my lower ego. I said" You are talking to me about EGO! Who are you to talk about big egos?"

Then Patrick came in and Carol invited us into a nice dinner. (meat loaf, potatoes, salad, garden veggies, ice cream. Why do I remember this stuff?) and we chatted and all got along famously. John had invited Lee Lecraw to meet us. By the time we left the next morning, we were going to the Institute in the fall, Mr. Lecraw had offered to pay the fees, we had a plan to rent a house at the beach with Jennifer Greene. Signed sealed and delivered.

I loved Carol Gardner. At some point in the 24 hours, I got an amazing feeling about John Gardner. It was not comfortable, but it was strong. I had met the man who's mind would challenge me like never before. I had met someone important. It was not necessary that I agree with him on anything but it was necessary that I think in a deeper way to meet his questions and that I look beyond my hippie rebellion against the bourgeois lifestyle and see this man. He was my teacher.

Our friendship unfurled at a slow uneven pace. I grew up a lot. John had some intense heart opening experiences. He became one of the most important people in my life. We became great friends. Long after his death I still turn to him when I want a longer view of things, when I want a challenging opinion. A lot of people I met through him quote him or offer what they think he thought about something. I could never do that because I could never predict his thoughts or anticipate his words. He had an original mind. I did, however constantly have the experience that my intuition was sharpened, magnified in his presence. That can still happen when I conjure him up in my heart. Some good teacher.