Horror-Show...

Heart-breaking. Putin's horrible, death-dealing, soul-killing attack on Ukraine is a  crime against Humanity, it is an attack on all of us, on anyone of us who aspires to live a happy, free, fulfilling life on the planet.

War is always a horror-show. 

It is excruciating to see a nation suffer as one Megalomaniacal Creep tries to impose his will on a free nation of 41 million human beings.

Look upon the mayhem and weep. Weep for humanity. Weep for the children, the mothers, the fathers, for those fleeing, and those staying, and those standing against a brutal onslaught.

Putin must fail... 

We should all hope for the Dictator to fall, to be brought to some kind of Justice. One hopes and prays there are folks in Russia who will not let this continue.

Searing, Hard-Earned, Reality...

There were the American Putin sympathizers and apologists. They included our former President (#45) and both left & right wingers yapping away: air pollution. It always seemed so out of tune, so wrong-headed, so anti-Democratic, and so anti-West, and frankly anti-American. Of course, here in USA, we value Freedom of Speech, so the price we pay is that we get to hear lots of stupidity and noise, and loud, out and out, counter-productive bullshit on the airwaves, in the inter-tubes, and down the block.

The over-riding idea in a Free Democracy, ideas are aired, and the best ideas and opinions rise to the top, we hope the best, smartest ideas compel and convince enquiring minds. Of course it doesn't always work that way. Case in point #45.

Anyway, bombs are falling, tanks are rolling, people are dying. It focuses and clarifies. What is important? What is worth living for? What is worth fighting for? Who is on the right side of History? Who are the collaborators, who are the apologists and sympathizers of murder, invasion, depravity, raw, unleashed power?

Turns out Putin isn't a cold, calculating chess player, he is a madman, a bully, a thug, delusional, trying to remake a world that no longer exists.  I heard the head of the Ukraine Orthodox church on the radio call Putin the Anti-Christ. Nice. This is not really new news. Many of us have known for a long time that Putin is poison to the West, to Freedom, to Democracy, to a Free Press, to Peace. So now, a searing, hard-earned, clarity. 

The West unites. Most of the world recoils from the horror. Those apologists and sympathizers squirm and tie themselves up like pretzels pretending they did not say what they so fervently said. Remember how #45 bowed and scraped before Putin?  Let us not forget who sided and collaborated with the Dictator before the storm.

Let us Hope and Pray that the invasion falters, Putin falls, and a new renewed world heals and recommits to Peace, Love and Understanding. It's the only way forward, naysayers be damned.

Free-Range Blogging is Back!

Yes. Back to "normal" blogging. Whatever that means. Primarily I can now type in the body of a post, and type with all my fingers.  Liberation from bad, old tech.

Thinking of FREEDOM and DEMOCRACY today. Not to be messed with, not to be taken lightly, or for granted. Feeling great sympathy for the people of Ukraine, those folks heroically standing against a dastardly, barbaric invasion. 

It is Putin's Folly. The worms of depravity must have infiltrated Putin's soggy brain. 

"Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely." 

We are all Ukrainians today.

Madman Theory. I was reluctant to go with it, seems reductive, but then it does explain things. Power corrupts!

We seek clarity, eyes on the real, but often confronted with the fake, the virtual, the murk, shades of gray. Lean to the light, Dear Pilgrim! ,

"These are the days of miracles and wonder. Don't cry Baby, don't cry." - Paul Simon via Peter Gabriel

Reading reports of fresh new WAR in Europe, listening to U2 singing of Peace and Love. The Duality of the Human Thing.

A half-moon-shaped cut on my forehead; soon to be a scar, horn, third-eye, or Mark of Cain?

The Gods; they require beseeching, praying, sacrifices, they need praise and attention. The Demons; quiet, patient, content, whisper in your ear, "How can I help you Little Chicken?" .

A blazing, glorious ball of fire rises above a partially-frozen lake. The blood rises too, and sunny thoughts flood the brain of a humble pilgrim! Think: photosynthesis!

Love may be the answer, but laughter is the key to the kingdom. Genuine, well-earned, self-directed, spiced with tears of deep sadness.

Meditations/Visualizations - the Jesuits recommend getting in a boat with Jesus. But he is such a Gloomy Gus. How about getting in a boat with a willow tree, a river, a Golden Buddha, or Bunny Wailer?

The self-inflicted wounds are the worst. Most of our wounds are self-inflicted. Think: freak accident, the sabetuer!

When the weird is on the ascendant, and no doubt, dear pilgrim, times are weird indeed, there really is only one good strategy: ride the weird for all its worth. Go forth weirdly!

Deep-freeze in the heartland. Coffee is strong, music on the box. Another day. Expect to walk in little circles, leaning to the light.

Stripped to the existential. Attend to beauty in nature, art, music, poetry, film and literature. That is the good life. Love truly is the answer.

I am reduced to one finger tapping into the void. Forces have conspired to treat me to a new dawn. Today's word: SURRENDER!

I am hand-cuffed with old, out of date tech. Using an obscure browser, ancient iPad from an undisclosed location. Can only type "headlines" for the next 8 days. The will to write is strong. Expect short, cryptic

THEDDDDDDDDD

This is a test.

YES

Little Explosions...

I am reading a book, a collection of philosophical essays by Iris Murdoch.  It is a slim volume published in 1970. At first I was having difficulty tracking with it, even though it is well-written, the language is plain and clear. Maybe "too much light makes the baby go blind?" I found myself reading certain passages over and over trying to penetrate the clouds swirling in my muddled head.

Towards the end of the book, little explosions have been going off everywhere. This is my book, my language, where I am, where I live. It speaks directly to me. So many powerful insights small and large. So much wisdom, plain as day, plain as a rock garden, a tree, rushing river.

It is an old book. You would think it would be out-dated. Nope. This book is totally alive today, this moment. Astonishing. Illuminating. Everything. Good. Yes, the sovereignty of good!

The River...

Thinking about the river. Or maybe about "the river."

You can't push the river. You can jump in and float. You can grab a piece of driftwood, or build a raft, or buy a canoe and ride that thing. You can make it an adventure and shoot the rapids.

Sometimes it makes sense to sit on the shore and just watch that thing. As Dylan once sang: "Watching the River Flow."

The river will do what the river does, it will go where it goes. Maybe best to take a lesson. Flow. Flow like the river. And let it all just go.

Cosmic Vibes...

Yes, an intense conversation yesterday with a close band member. We talked about how much music means to us: the listening to it, and the playing of it. We both agreed that early in our lives, since we were young, snot-nosed kids, music has been a major kick, inspirer, & guiding light. Might sound overblown, but both us believe music has been our primary spiritual path for most our lives. Music is a way, a calling, a faith, a religion, a mission, a reason to believe, and a reason to live. It's all about those cosmic vibrations wafting over us and thru us. Imagine being in a rehearsal room with a fabulous collection of collaborators, all working together, listening, responding, giving their all to a collective energy. Transformative. Life-changing, life-affirming. The best stuff, no doubt.

Folks in the Room...

The folks in the room. The souls in the room. The human beings in the room. The spirits in the room. The collective energy in the room.

Everything counts. Everything. 

Open the door; beckon, invite, congregate with a select group of beings. Open your arms, open your head & heart.

Collect & accumulate the energy. Create together. Create something bigger and beyond the ideas of the folks in the room, bigger and beyond the hopes & dreams of the folks in the room.

Experience the power, the glory, the beauty. Take in the focused discipline of a group of individuals; unique, extraordinary, alive and attentive to each moment.

Magnificent. To be one of the folks in the room a great honor and a life mission.  You know, a practice, a form of worship, a calling.  

Best Game...

Living in the real. Living in truth. The real and the true can be hard, unforgiving, maybe not what you want, but what you must  rise up, meet & deal with. I do think living in the real and in truth is rewarding, and it is the best game in town. There is a clarity there. You realize you have to do what you have to do, but, it is not all about you and that's okay, maybe even magnificent.

Trust Yourself?

 Intuition - "the power or faculty of attaining to direct knowledge or cognition without evident rational thought and inference."

Intuition. Is it a super-power or a trap?

Do you always trust your intuition, or are you sometimes suspicious of it? I ask because without going into explicit detail (protecting the guilty and the innocent), I have been dealing with a situation and a character who has been a bane of my existence in small ways and large. From the get-go, I "knew" something was wrong, I sensed it, but ignored it, and thought I could work around it. And I welcomed this character into the inner sanctum.

Yesterday it came to fruition. Of course, my first initial intuition (think of Allen Ginsberg's "first thought, best thought"),  many months ago was totally spot on. The character totally revealed himself. It is totally liberating to be proven correct. At the same time, I kick myself. "WTF was I thinking?" 

I let my rational thought lead me astray. Second-guessing is a slippery slope. I outsmarted myself. Not for first time. Sometimes you really should trust yourself, follow your gut instinct, you know, bypass your analyzer, disable your "rational calculating machine." Rationality has it's limits too.

 Another day, another lesson. Yikes.

Sand...

Castles made of sand. Right. Kind of an apt metaphor. The maker of the castle is made of sand too. We can gather and build, shape, design, but it is all temporary; both the builder and the built. Timelines vary. Tick, tick, tick. 

No sense in fighting, we must "go with the flow" of things, and find a relaxed ease with the passage of time. Time is another one of those odd concepts, does it really exist? You can feel the passage of time in your bones, you can see it in the cycles of nature. Does the ticking add up to a life?

Turn to Mindfulness...

Two posts ago (see previous) I was dealing with an Angry Spirit...

Here is the late, great Thich Hhat Hanh on "mindfulness as a practical antidote to anger" ...

"The individual has to wake up to the fact that violence cannot end violence; that only understanding and compassion can neutralize violence, because with the practice of loving speech and compassionate listening we can begin to understand people and help people to remove the wrong perceptions in them, because these wrong perceptions are at the foundation of their anger, their fear, their violence, their hate.

We have to remain human in order to be able to understand and to be compassionate. You have the right to be angry, but you don’t have the right not to practice in order to transform your anger… When you notice that anger is coming up in you, you have to practice mindful breathing in order to generate the energy of mindfulness, in order to recognize your anger and embrace it tenderly so that you can bring relief into you and not to act and to say things… that can be destructive. And doing so, you can look deeply into the nature of your anger and know where it has come from." - Tich Hhat Hanh

Thin Razor...

Being here now. Alive in the moment. Not as easy as you think. There is the long and winding road we call THE PAST, and the misty, unformed mirage called THE FUTURE. We are perched on the thin razor between, the slim light of this moment right now. There's a quiet, insistent... tick, tick, tick... it appears and disappears, ungraspable. It's the bomb of living. Anything can happen here. Inhale it. Now. No, I mean right now. This... this... this... this... mo... ment...