Back to low tech blogging for a couple of days. Today's phrase of the day: Godsmacked & Bedazzled!

The Flaws are Baked In...

I will hazard the guess that studying Human Beings, and BEING a Human Being gives one some insights on the subject of being Human. Look around. What's the main takeaway? We are not as smart or together as we pretend to be. We all have blind-spots and flaws, and we often lie to ourselves and others. Most of us probably suffer from the Imposter Phenomenon.  We feel like frauds fearing to be called out. Best to seek out our "authentic selves;" being and doing only what is authentic to our own quirky, flawed constitutions, knowing that we "don't really know" everything, sometimes don't know anything, but then deciding to be kind, gentle and humble with ourselves and others. It's probably a lifetime project. We are moving targets tracking moving targets.  Not surprising to find out that the most successful, popular, powerful, beautiful & accomplished amongst us are also supremely fucked up. It just goes with the territory. It turns out that Celebrity, Fame, Money, Power just amplify and cultivate our flaws and bad tendencies. And being poor, without Celebrity, Fame, Money, Power often makes one's existence just a grim, long, hard slog. Being poor in the land of supremely wealthy just knocks you down all across the board. Looking for evidence? Check out the daily headlines.  Really. "Elementary, My Dear Watson." That's not to say that some of us can't rise above the "needing, wanting, grasping." Many do. See the best of us in the Arts, Sciences, and Cultural Studies. We can find alternative ways to live and measure happiness and healthiness, but you know, it ain't easy, and it's a never-ending search and journey. Suffering helps. Helps us find some compassion for ourselves and others; I mean a lesson from The Buddha, easier said than done.

Filter, Pick & Choose...

There are some distinct advantages to "Living in Your Own Private Idaho," you know, cultivating your own interior landscape. That is where your "calm center" is located.  Some of us have a vast and roomy interior space, built upon silence, and a disciplined meditation practice, where we reside, and where we can retreat, when things get weird and dicey. And, you know, in the human realm, things always get weird and dicey.  

Sure in Your Own Private Idaho you have your quirks, obsessions, madnesses, and rabbit holes, that's what makes it your own. But you don't have to obsess and be outraged by what everyone else is being obsessed and outraged about. You can filter, pick and choose. It is in the interior zone where you find and cultivate your "authentic self." No one can mess you there. It is a sanctuary, a retreat, a holy place. Often it's the only place to be.

Ragged, Shiny Beast...

Blazing, glorious sunshine here this morning. I woke up late, had a big blanket over my head. Caught some extra ZZZZ's. Felt good and necessary. Dylan and the Band are on the CD player this morning. The Basement Tapes (Bootleg Version - RAW).  Dylan is just such a special brew. If you are into his music, there is nothing that compares. Truly.

I love the tracks from the basement, they were never really intended to see the light of day, but they are magnificent, funny, wild, unkempt; Dylan's songwriting creativity was over-flowing, and the Band were there giving their all just for themselves. Amazing work. So inspiring, joyful and well, yes, hopeful.

This is the line that sticks out this morning, feeling good, but even before I turn to the headlines of the day, this line, a ragged, shiny beast calls to me: "It's a wicked life, but what the hell, everybody's got to eat." - B. Dylan

Jiving with It...

This morning, finally, mercifully, the sun breaks across the Heartland. It has been pretty much a long week of the "cold, gray slog." We humans are such transparent, easily-influenced creatures, you know, like weather-vanes?

We reflect and amplify the weather. Everything is different this morning, everything is suffused with light. It really does seem like a new day, a new world, new possibilities, a new human being at the keyboard.  You know, I think of that freaking "Hallmark Card-like" cliche: "This is the first day of the rest of your life."

Hah. Exactly. Let's just say I'm jiving with cliche, riding it for all it's worth, in all it's sugar-coated, gloriously sunlit, magnificence.

Do Your Best...

So you let go the wheel, and roll forward. You go with the roll. You decide you won't judge the day or the moment. You will just go with it. Sort of a lightly determined ZEN thing. Keep your eyes peeled. Breathe. You listen to and watch your body light up with a new deep breath. And another one after that one. Breathing is good. Also, keep a clear head. Clarity. It's good. Roll. Forward. Slowly. Carefully. Gracefully. Can you live carefully and gracefully? You will do your best.

Visions of Hell...

You kind of feel like Dante Alighieiri this morning. Conjuring up a series of circles of Hell. Imagining certain wings for certain folks. You hear a story on the radio of young children being murdered and maimed in Ukraine. All this unbearable horror unleashed by one madly delusional, super-disgusting Human Being. Yes. There should be a special dark circle in hell called the Putin Ring of Hell. Dante was a prodigious poet, he could really spin a poetic tale. This morning all I can conjure up is a hard pool of tears, and yes, visions of a righteous hell-scape for the evil-doers.

"Why?"

"Why?" 

That is the question. Always. And usually it just hangs there, over our heads like a big cloud of unknowing...

"Why?"

Strays...

Stray sentences I came across from two wildly different sources this rainy morning  in the dim light of the kitchen sipping coffee with Bob Dylan and the Band's "Basement Tapes" spinning on the box.

"Life... astoundingly short, strange and inexplicable."

"As the Master says: So Be It."

Aye, There's the Rub, Bub...

Is it more than it is, or is it less than it is, or is it just "it is what it is?"  You may ask, "what is this it is you are speaking of?"

Last night, in the middle of a deep, restful sleep (that's a new thing!),  a voice came to me. It wasn't my voice, it was an authoritative, soothing, radio-friendly voice; sure, confident, male.

And the voice said unto me: "The important thing is to see clearly, always."

Hah! Not exactly "Burning Bush Material," but you go with the voices you get. 

That's a pretty good one. Rings true, but, I mean, what the hell do you do with that? What of my flaws, my biases, how do I know whether I am seeing clearly, or not? No answers there. Just, you know, a pocketful of questions.

Aye, there's the rub, Bub...

New WWSP T-shirt - "Crow with Pearls."

My partner and I have a band named whitewolfsonicprincess. It is a creative mission, sort of cult of "vibes." It is a vehicle, a platform and entity that lets us gather with some amazingly creative musicians to "compose" all original music, which we often record, and play out in the world.  One of our fans described our music as "21st Century Druid Music."  Dig!

Our band and creative mission is an all-consuming "flow-activity." A reason to live and to believe. Sometimes we have merchandise too, you know it's all part of being an independent DIY entity. We have a new T-Shirt design! Taking PRE-ORDERS NOW via Bandcamp!  

Be the 1st on your block to own the latest coolness: "Crow with Pearls!" Turn the sound up. The tune is "Dance a Wave," from our last album The Alternate Boot. Enjoy!

Heady Landscape...

There seems to be an outward and an inward journey. Sometimes they run right along with each other. You are in the world, and "watching yourself" in the world. Your interior space connects with the exterior, and  they sort of mirror each other.

Lately the outward journey is quite circumscribed. Navigating smaller and smaller circles. Whereas, the inward journey seems to expand and deepen. There is a bit of a disconnect, or a dislocation. 

Chalk some of it up to the global pandemic: lockdown, isolation. Choosing to go out less, staying home more. You spend more time living in your interior space and less "out there." Lots more reading, listening to music on headphones, ruminating. Head stuff. You are a bit of a stranger in a strange land, and that strange land is inside your own head. A heady landscape, no doubt.

Yes, that Molehill is a Mountain...

Can you make a mountain out of a molehill?

Sure. A small personal problem or event is blown up to massive, earth-shaking proportions.  That's life. That's the Human Thing right there in a nutshell.

Lose a tooth, (see previous post), and you'd think the planet cracked in two. Suddenly you feel like a different person, that every aspect of your existence has changed. The little corner of your mouth has been transformed, instead of nursing a spiky troublemaker, you are nursing what feels like a massive crater, a large fleshy void in furthest territory of your mouth.

There is mystery, a hushed quietness in that void.

Funny. You carry yourself gently. You cultivate silence. You are more careful. You eat less, you talk less, you turn inward. Yikes, I mean it was just a tooth., a poor wreck, a terrible excuse of a tooth.

Still, it's true, everything has changed...

The Dentist: Profound Void...

Can going to the Dentist be a profound experience? 

Yes, well, yesterday I was convinced I was going in for a patch-job, just a quick touch-up on an old wisdom tooth way back in the furthest reaches of my mouth. Nice day, I biked there, about 30 minute ride.

I got in the chair, you know, I love my Dentist, he's a cool guy, no b.s. total pro, so I always take the chair with confidence. He took one look in my mouth a declared: "I have to take it out." I looked up at the ceiling, there are beautiful little cherubs and angels painted up there, pretty nice ceiling, I gulped and said in reply: "Okay! Let's do it."

I was sort of attached to that tooth, and for sure it was attached to me. Had it in my head most of my life. But it was a wreck of a tooth. Filled over the years, many times. A while back the filling fell out, and it's been an empty, edgy, sharp and spiky husk of a tooth. If I checked with my tongue it brought up images of a bomb crater, reminded me of my visit to the Meteor Crater in AZ.  That was a trip from eons ago.

He zapped me with some novocaine, I barely felt the pinch of the needle, and I numbed up right way. Then  he brought out those sophisticated tools: tongs, and pliers. YIKES. He told me I would feel some pressure, and I did, but after a bit of determined rooting around, he expertly extracted that thing and laid it on the tray next to me.

He showed it to me. It was a total lost cause of a tooth.  A nasty old thing, discolored, decayed. It looked like a burned out and beaten up alien being. Even St. Jude, Patron Saint of hopeless cases, and lost causes, couldn't do a thing for that total wreck of a tooth. The blood started to flow from the hole in my mouth, the Dentist wadded up some cotton and I chomped down on it to stem the red tide.  I could feel the new landscape, lots of new empty space in the further reaches of my head. Talk about a clearing.

This morning a bit sore, don't think I can chew anything, maybe just sip liquids and and drink warm soup. I feel empty, distant. Changed. It was only a tooth, and terrible tooth too, but it was mine. Now gone. Just a wound now, hopefully already beginning the process of healing. And you wonder about the marvel of our bodies, how they can absorb a cut, blow, a wound and begin the process of repair almost immediately. I feel a bit "inward" this morning.  A gathering of my all forces and energies. A necessary physical and mental healing.

Yes, going to the Dentist can be a profound experience.  I do think so.  One less tooth in my head, but clearer, cleaner, and well,  really as my Dentist said, that tooth was just a trouble-maker waiting for it's time to create mischief. I feel like I've dropped some baggage that was really doing nothing for me. Now just a memory, a ghost, a chimera of an old, wasted tooth. Goodbye old friend...

To Handle it All...

My long-time companion and I are such sensitive souls. We are like little, very particular birds. Alive, aware, awake to everything. It's a way of living. But it opens us up to all slings and arrows of our constantly churning hurly-burly of events, feelings, vibes.

We also can, unfortunately, hype each other up. We can feel the pain, the suffering of the wider world around us and the suffering of each other and stir it up into a cocktail of sadness, doubt, worry. We are "strange-attractors." We try our best to "keep calm and carry on," but it really is a full-time job, and we can work ourselves up into a frenzy of feeling.

That is why meditation is so important. Breathing deeply. Finding a calm center. Grounding yourself. Taking care, eating well, sleeping well, trying to be impeccable in thought and speech. As Cat Stevens once sang, "Baby, baby it's a Wild World." Yes. Indeed. Our job is to be able to handle it all.

Can't Really Explain It...

Let's just say you had an extraordinary meditation, vision and experience. It was something you consumed and integrated heart, head and soul (see previous post).

You can't really explain it, you don't really know what it means, all you can do is recognize it as a profound experience. You feel that you have changed on a fundamental level.  At the same time, some of the feeling evaporates. That magnificent liberating feeling of transcendence fades in the light of a new day.

You know it was just "pictures in your head," but you wonder why these particular pictures, and how is it possible that it was such a real, overwhelming experience?

Just like anything, add it to the mix of being human. You can't explain it. The mystery lingers. This morning you wonder what Salvador Dali was hoping to convey:

"Corpus Hypercubus is painted in oil on canvas, and its dimensions are 194.3 cm × 123.8 cm (76.5 in x 48.75 in).[4] Consistent with his theory of nuclear mysticism, Dalí uses classical elements along with ideas inspired by mathematics and science. Some noticeably classic features are the drapery of the clothing and the Caravaggesque lighting that theatrically envelops Christ, though like his 1951 painting Christ of Saint John of the Cross, Corpus Hypercubus takes the traditional biblical scene of Christ's Crucifixion and almost completely reinvents it. The union of Christ and the tesseract reflects Dalí's opinion that the seemingly separate and incompatible concepts of science and religion can in fact coexist.[5] Upon completing Corpus Hypercubus, Dalí described his work as "metaphysical, transcendent cubism"."

Yes.  A three-way marriage of Art, Religion and Science. Dig.

A Good Meditation...

It is a personal thing. A "vision," not so much a day-dream, but kind of like a day-dream. Often I meditate, and I do a little creative visualization while I still my body and breathe deeply. Sometimes I sit, sometimes I lay down, sometimes I fold my legs in a Yoga position.  Still flexible after all these years.

Yesterday, after making my appointed rounds, biking, walking and then a fabulous mid-afternoon lunch, and clean-up time (sweeping, mopping, polishing),  in our apartment, I put my headphones on, propped my head on a pillow, and sprawled across the wooden floor in our living-room. Yes. I often meditate with music on my headphones. I own a fabulous pair of  Grado headphones and I attend to the music as if I am performing a religious ritual.

I played two Sigur Ros albums: Ágætis byrjun (1999) & ( ) (2002) while I meditated. Long, meandering, floaty, "spiritual" music. Symphonic, powerful.

Two of my all-time favorite, must-have, must-play-often, no, must-commune-with, albums, no doubt. 

Majestic, atmospheric, moody, ethereal, enthralling, gorgeous. These records always entrance me. No words. Wordless vocalizations, violin-bowed guitar, bass, keyboards, drums, strings, sometimes horns. Just pure sonic bliss. I often fly when I meditate to these records. I lose myself in visions, in the clouds, blue sky, floating high above the earth. Sometimes I see figures, a Golden Buddha, The Chariot, The Hermit, The Magician Tarot cards. Sometimes a raven, an eagle. These visions captivate me, seem so real, more real than any very real lucid dream.

Yesterday, was an extraordinary experience. I saw myself as Salvador Dali's Crucifixion (Corpus Hypercubus)  I inhabited the character; Christ without the blood, the crown of thorns, the guilt, the suffering, a pure more abstract and surreal Christ. I was flying across the planet, over land, over ocean, in the clouds. I sometimes faced up, looking at the pure blue sky, and then sometimes I faced downward looking at the cities, oceans, mountains, trees, all the little scurrying people. I was the figure on the cross. And the cross was like a space vehicle. It was outfitted with some kind of silent engine, and it propelled me around our little blue planet. I circumnavigated the globe a few times. Breath-taking. Weird. Wild. So liberating, free-ing, powerful and humbling. And unexpected. Astonishing. 

Yes, indeed, that was a good meditation. 

Conjure & Impose...

Maybe it's to be expected. I got a degree in Psychology, so I see the long, winding road of Human Drama as a psychological thriller. I look at the events of the day, or the unrolling of events that we call History, and I am left with the primary, fundamental question: WHAT the fuck WERE THEY THINKING?

Trying to parse what is going on in Human Being's heads at any one time. Not easy. People are tricky. You know, there are all these competing forces, physical, economic, political, imaginary!

My "minor" was in Literature. So I also sometimes see everything through a novelist's or short story writer's lens too. Throw in all that poetry I read and wrote, and well, everything also seems like a long, prose-poem that sometimes rhymes.  

Still though, sipping coffee this a.m. the thought-bubble rises up in my head, it's all in our heads. The madness, the power, the glory, the idiocy, the horror, the beauty. We conjure and then impose...

We are All Sinners...

The flaw in human nature...

I am post-Catholic, but some of that Original Sin talk sort of resonates with me all these many years later. You know, if you think of Original Sin as a poetic metaphor; the little burbling babies, the tiny Human Beings in their swaddling clothes, stained with a dark mark on their souls at birth, it all sort of rings true. Just look at the daily headlines.

Funny, you would think it would be an easy leap to go from a literal reading of the Bible and all the Catholic teachings to a Poetic and Psychological reading of the key texts, but you know, it took lots of time, first fighting the literal indoctrination, then to a full-out rejection of all of my Catholic upbringing,  finally to a peaceful coexistence where I am free to discover and uncover any wisdom from pretty much any source, including all the major religions, and you know, even Pop Culture and the minor cults?

What are Human Beings capable of? Great Beauty & Great Horror. Maybe we have to overcome our nature, our biases, our biology? Maybe we have to learn to discipline ourselves, to not be totally selfish, egomaniacal assholes. We don't need God or Jesus, or the fear of Hell to get our shit together, we can do this on our own, looking for examples in the Human Herd.

We are biological entities, basically animals, "smart, tricky monkeys" with big aspirations and huge blind-spots. Often it seems Humans will lie, steal, cheat, rape, murder, pillage, we do pretty much anything as long as we think they can get away with it.

Human Beings will often do what they can, not what they should. But at the same time, don't we all have a sense of Goodness, Kindness, Grace and Well-Being?  We don't need a God to know The Good.

Of course, there are the "Better Angels," those examples of Human Beings who do the right thing, who suffer the slings and arrows and emerge more compassionate, more empathetic, more willing to Love and do Good. You know, "Do-Gooders."

We turn our lonely eyes to the Do-Gooders, knowing that those folks are just flawed Human Beings too. We have to take everything with a grain of salt. Hope for the Best, knowing that we are all Sinners too.

"More Pricks than Kicks." - S. Beckett

There is something to be said for just getting on with it. You know, hitching up your pants, getting your shit together and carrying on. As Samuel Beckett once said, facing the day and the world may bring "More Pricks than Kicks," but, no doubt, you can endure the pricks to get to the kicks if you just put your mind to it.

My friend's doctor recently explained: "Shit Happens." Yep. That covers a lot of territory, and pretty much sums things up. Still, we must endure, carry on, keep our eyes on the ball; always onto the next thing. I mean, fuck, why not. Yes, the torpedoes will come, but you know,  shite, "Damn the Torpedoes!"

Striding Forth...

Every morning, balancing on the thin edge of a razor. Stepping gently into the kitchen to flick on the pre-prepared coffeemaker. An inhalation of breath. Those moments before the brew starts flowing,  emerging from the nightly "cloud of unknowing," two competing thoughts, duking it out on the playground of my mind.

"Everything is going to be alright." vs. "We are royally screwed."

Contending forces: the light vs. the dark, optimistic vs pessimistic.

If the coffee is really good, and does it's usual morning magic, both thoughts can co-exist freely inside my head. That's is wisdom, intelligence, two contradictory thoughts arm in arm, hand in hand, striding forth into the new day. No, not twisted, flexible...

Thanks for the Memories...

Burdened by memories...

Maybe that is why folks write memoirs? 

It is a process of unburdening. I think of Mary Karr and her death-defying memoir "The Liar's Club." I think of Patti Smith's beautifully fabulous "Just Kids." I am currently re-reading Jim Carroll's (Catholic Boy), stark, hilarious diaries, from the 60's and 70's. 

There is something about a "voice," a writer writing about experiences, directly. The human thing rendered sentence by sentence. Imagining and re-imagining. You learn about fallibility, and hopes and dreams, and shattered lives, and wrong turns and dark shit. And life. The living of a life.

You are left with the writing. Words on a page. The book in your hands. And there is hope there. Hope in the holding and the telling  and the reading of the tale.

Memoir...

Write a memoir?

I think about the long, winding road. The events of my life. Do I delve into the crazy, stupid shit I did as young person? Do I recount my failures, my successes? Not sure I want to wade into the past.

BTW - Did I have any successes?

Oh yeah, there was that Little League game, I was pitching, we were trailing by a run, and I hit a Grand Slam home run to win the game. It was accidental, no doubt. I remember running the bases, rounding third, heading home, and the coach and the whole team was at home plate, cheering and whooping it up. I tried my best to be cool, to not crack a smile, acting like it was no big deal, but I couldn't, I broke into a big grin and gave my body up to the high-fives, hugs and backslaps.

That was a little success right there. 

So, anyway, I probably won't be writing a memoir. I just don't really want to go back there, sift through the years. What's the point?

Safe to say, my memoir would be short, concise, no fluff:

That was then, this is now...

A Quiet Place...

Noise. Lots of noise. Best to tune out the noise. Find a quiet place. Breathe. Seek a bit of a "time-out," from the hubbub and the hurly-burly. We live in the 24/7 echo-chamber, the always on Tower of Babel channel. You can lose your head to the whirlwinds. Find a bit of shelter from the storm. A quiet place. Yes.

Inherent Flaws...

"So much trouble in the World." - Bob Marley

True then, true now. I think there is always a War. Always. Never-ending. Always, somewhere on this Little Blue Planet. Human Beings are an "aggressive" species. And most assuredly, not a smart as we think we are. Oh yeah, and we are pretty damn selfish too. Not so self-reflective. Combine those inherent flaws and you get lots of turmoil and Hurly-Burly. The Human Condition.

There are some, a few, who rise above the common traits, those who learn patience, discipline, humility, silence, Love, Charity, good vibes. Altruism anyone? They are good examples, folks we can all try to model ourselves after.

When bad shit goes down, it reflects badly on all of us as a species.  Yes, there is a bit of that "collective guilt" in world events. Somehow we are all complicit. We can and must do better. Human Beings, get your shit together...

A New Day...

A new day. Maybe sort of like the last one, but decidedly, not the same day at all. As Bukowski once wrote: "The days run away like wild horses." Yep. Moments, fleeting, flying away, out of our grasp like little sparks of lightening.

So, yeah, new day. Cold, cloudy, windy, stormy. Nothing like yesterday. There is a continuity, but it is really all in my head, and in my body. I carry the days, I carry and embody the past. It is a heavy load. Sort of a burden. 

Memory. Remembering.  Trying my best to be clear, in the now. Not easy.

Being in Motion, Always...

Up early, with the Light. Yes. I am enamored with the Light. I see it and feel it and think about it as a Spirit, an Energy, a God-like phenomena. I look out the window of the present place I am staying, (you know, another chapter in my ever-evolving itinerant existence) and I see the roof & chimney of the home across the street glowing. A fiery orange glow. A reflection of a new-born Sun. The roof and bricks look old, last century old, (probably not), and supremely, wondrously alive.  

Another day, another room, another house, another furry animal adventure, another gig. What a weird "job." What a weird existence.

Happy to make it to another morning. Waking up in always changing environs is sort of a daily lesson in the ever-evolving nature of our world. Everything is a moving target on a constantly rotating planet. We are all moving targets too. It takes a bit of discipline to "be here now," but that is the task before us.

Maybe the moving, the always be moving, being in motion, always, is the key to the game? And the Light, don't forget to be Alive, Aware and Awake to the Light all around us.

Dichotomies We Live With Every Day...

You stare into the Black Abyss. 

You think the Universe is filled with a Bottomless Black.

You stare into the Light (be careful "Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind")

You think the Universe is filled with Blazing Light.

Contending Forces:

Light vs. Dark

Good vs. Bad

Love vs. Hate

Peace vs. War

We, of course, live with these dichotomies every moment of every day.

War is raging in Ukraine; the Jaws of a Man-Made Hell are open wide.

Here in the Heartland of USA it is sunny & peaceful. A bit of Heaven on Earth.

Doesn't seem fair. 

Such suffering for some, such peace & calm for others. You wonder what it's all about.

It is the way of the world. Has been since the beginning. Probably will be until the end. 

We are surrounded by darkness, we lean to the light, and hope for better days ahead for all.

Crimes Against Humanity...

All the greatest Crimes Against Humanity come from Humanity. That is fucking fact for you. The worst shit you can imagine comes from our Fellow Human Beings. Makes one take pause, gasp for the next breath.

If there is Evil in the World, it resides in the Human Heart. Same with Good. Seems we have a Demon on one shoulder, and an Angel on another. I know we all want to blame forces outside of us, Devils and Gods in some grand disembodied realm playing chess, but that is lame. It's us. It is all on us. The battlefield is in our own hearts & heads.

We watch The Horror unfold in Ukraine, and we think Monsters must have unleased this cruel violence, unconscionable death and mindless destruction. But, no, it is one megalomaniacal Human Being who has unleashed this latest Horror. Although, don't forget this one man has enablers, supporters, and co-conspirators all over the planet. 

Unimaginable. We must imagine it. We are all implicated. I suppose it is that Existentialist thing. 

What to do? Feeling pretty helpless. Hoping, praying, looking to the light. If you listen to the Wise, Holy Ones, it is essential to live Mindfully, to be kind and generous, always, to try to set an example of Right Thought, and Right Action in everything you do. We are just one drop in the ocean, but, if you go with that mystical notion, we are the ocean too!

Yes, seems sort of paltry in the face of The Horror, but that's also the very Human Truth we must live with. The limits of being Human in a vast Sea of Humanity! 

Reality. What is it Good for?

Reality...

What is it good for? Sometimes it is difficult to be in the real world, but, you know, that is where we live. The place where things are as they actually exist.  The Holy Ones, the Wise Ones tell us to be mindful, to be present, to live in the moment.  You know the real moment, all the moments, one rushing on after another. That is where we live, it is where all the shit comes down, where the Good, the Bad and the Ugly contend.

I mean, nothing wrong with dreaming, with cultivating your imagination, but the real is real, it takes discipline and clarity to the see the world as it is, and not just how you want it to be.

Best to be there in the real in all it's splendor; alive, aware, awake, no matter how difficult, or disturbing. It is where the beauty and wonder resides too. Seems simple, almost simple-minded. But there it is. Breathe. Open your eyes, your head, your heart. Let it all in, let it all come down.

Clarifying Moment...

Just pay attention. Who in the USA is siding with Putin, a murderous thug at war with a civilized world? Note the inhumanity of the folks doing Putin's dirty work in the media and in the political sphere.

Remember. Do not forget. 

This is a clarifying moment in time. The claws and fangs and bad blood are all being revealed. Bombs are dropping, innocent people are dying. We are all implicated. This is no longer political theater, this is a hard, cold reality. It is our world. At war. 

So sad. But we must face it all with a fierce compassion. Clear-headed. Time to cleanse the soul. Pay attention. Be aware, alive, awake.  There are the soul-eaters amongst us. They are revealing themselves in all their depravity.  Some folks have made a fortune feeding on disinformation, using it to destroy Democracy from the inside. Be sure to take note of the comments of President #45 and his slime-ball supporters, and his cable news & social media mouth-pieces. Who is amplifying Russian propaganda for profit?

This is no longer just a show, not just political performance art. It is a horror-show with real devastation, and blood and death. Pay attention.