why haven't I written one of my long rambling channellings for awhile?

Maybe some of my dear friends

and readers

are kind of relieved

that I haven't done that

for awhile.

Maybe some of you miss it.

I, for one,

miss it.  Because those long,

intense entries I write come to me

when I'm most relaxed

and my mind is most open

to that kind of reception.

Unfortunately, that has not been the case

for a few weeks or a month

or so

because

I have to fill my mind

with words that perhaps

should have never been

written.  

I try to teach college-aged students

how to write.

That's part of my job.

And it has become more and more painful,

as more and more

colleges are seeing the products of

"No Child Left Behind."

Oh, it's amazing how many children

have been left behind.

And I do not blame the teachers, 

no sirreee.

I have a sister

who is a teacher

and who reports the pain and agony

of the No Teacher Left Standing 

paperwork.

No Time To Teach;

No Child Can Spell;

Some Children Can Read and Write

but Most

Have Learned How to Get By.

Cheating has become an art form.

Now, I could write quite a bit

about my current  theories of how this has happened,

but I really have to get back to grading papers.

However,

a friend of mine, turned me on

to this guy named Taylor Mali

and I found this routine by

Taylor Mali,

and it summarized 

the kind of stuff I encounter regularly

far too well.

Listen,

and laugh

until you weep:

Something Like a Star

I've been so silent this past

week or so:

the world of work

and the world of the world

has been far too much with me

these days; they have

invaded my brain with riff-raff and garbage,

with a pettiness that produces

dullness

and interferes with any attempt

to directly experience

love, life and language.

(Dear internet friends, don't leave me!

I'm here; I really am, and soon enough

I'll be finished with my semester!)

The absence of sun these days too,

and unexpectedly Chilly Spring Days

have frozen that dullness

into a seemingly insurmountable

wall of ice.

I have been in desperate need of a thaw.

Yesterday, I got a bit of one,

in the form of a poem set to music

in which I had the distinct pleasure of singing.

I'm not in this version of it,

but a version of it it is --

Randall Thompson's choral version

of Robert Frost's 

Choose Something Like a Star:

(may it help thaw you, too):

Choose Something Like a Star

(by Robert Frost)

O Star (the fairest one in sight),
We grant your loftiness the right
To some obscurity of cloud --
It will not do to say of night,
Since dark is what brings out your light.
Some mystery becomes the proud.
But to be wholly taciturn
In your reserve is not allowed. 

Say something to us we can learn
By heart and when alone repeat.
Say something! And it says "I burn."
But say with what degree of heat.
Talk Fahrenheit, talk Centigrade.
Use language we can comprehend.
Tell us what elements you blend. 

It gives us strangely little aid,
But does tell something in the end.
And steadfast as Keats' Eremite,
Not even stooping from its sphere,
It asks a little of us here.
It asks of us a certain height,
So when at times the mob is swayed
To carry praise or blame too far,
We may choose something like a star
To stay our minds on and be staid.

Today's Diva: Geraldine Ferrarro

Sometimes she sang right on key:

And sometimes she went way off key:

But there was at least one song she sang

before any other woman sang it --

I honor her tonight.  Dear Geraldine Ferrarro,

may you rest in peace.

Some Times, I Have to Stop Being So Serious: ("Not Only, But. . . " featuring John Lennon)

Makropoulos does

have a sense of humour,

though it is a strange one.

Here's an homage

to one of my favorite

fellow Librans:

(it's been a terrifically long,

tiring week for me,

and this is the best

I can do

on a Friday evening--)

A contemplation on the need for rites of passage

~

I wake up every morning to the news on the radio,

and today, the local story that pulled me out of my sleep

was this:

Over the past month, there have been two deaths

from heroin overdose, and a potential third recent death

seems also to have been caused by this same substance.

In addition, there have been

42 non-fatal opiate based overdoses

at one hospital in a short period of time,

all of this is leading the police to conclude

that someone out there is selling some pretty nasty stuff,

laced with something that humans should not be ingesting.

The story was a warning, both to the users

and the sellers, who will be tried for murder

when and if they get caught.

So, there I was, struggling into consciousness

and struggling to understand

why so many people

are using this stuff,

so many people 

in a town blighted

with poverty

and unemployment.

And they're young people,

 very young people.

There's another story in this town

that makes me cry

whenever I think about it--

a couple years ago,

someone found a young woman

folded in half, naked,

bloody,

and dead,

in a garbage bag

in a dumpster.

A beautiful young woman who

became increasingly involved in drugs, then

prostitution to support her drugs

when she was in her late teens.

The last person to see her alive

was someone who dropped her off

at a house where she was going to exchange

sex for drugs.

The police declared hers

an accidental death,

and put the file away.

Well, that's bull shit;

nobody

accidentally falls,

naked and bloody,

into a garbage bag, 

in a dumpster.

Nobody.

Somebody did that to her.

But who is to blame?

( gawker.com )

~*~

So back to waking up this morning:

I thought I heard something else in the heroin story,

but it may have been another story

blurring into it:

it said:

this sort of behavior develops in cultures

where they have no initiation rituals,

no rites of passage.

And my mind went to stories of young men

in Papua New Guinea,

or Tanzania,

or somewhere like that,

fearing and anticipating that certain age when they know

they will have to take some mind altering drug

then go out and sit out in the wilderness

with wild animals

for a night or two or more

and wrestle with their own demons

and with nature

before they can return to their family

and home, and be called a man.

Some of them don't survive it,

I imagine.

But those that do

know the power

and the danger

of taking risks;

they are very familiar

with their own

dark side.

Furthermore,

I thought as I lay there in bed,

with these stories blurring in my head:

cultures with rites of passage seem to acknowledge

that at a certain point in every person's life

(generally some time after the hormones start pumping)

that person is bound to be drawn

to risky behavior.

So, we have a choice

as a "society":

we can either let our children

take their risks on their own,

illicitly, and illegally,

and let them kill 

themselves

or other people

in the process;

or

we can ritualize

that behavior,

and make the risk

and the substance

that heightens the

thrill of the risk

a sacrament.

It seems to me that the latter

of those two option

actually ends up empowering

everyone:

the fledgling risk-taker

as well as the adult

who seeks to teach

the fledgling risk-taker

responsibility.

After all, in a culture

that includes such

rites of passage

it is a foregone conclusion

that everyone who has survived

to adulthood, has passed through

the threshold of no return,

and returned, wiser for it.

( bbc )

Our society has departed

so far

from a culture wherein

we acknowledge

the risky threhshold

between childhood and adulthood --

almost as much as we have departed

from acknowledging the threshold

between fertile adulthood and old age,

and between life and death.

Many young people today

get older, with little

awareness or instruction

in the notion of the sacred,

and no ritualized behavior

to guide them on their way,

except, perhaps

the ritual of going to a movie

or a high-school prom.

Those rituals do not recongize

that life's changes include

risks, and potential dangers;

they do not acknowledge

the presence of the dark side

in each of us; if anything

that dark side is treated

as a forbidden, sinful thing.

Rites-of-passage acknowledge

and embrace

that forbidden, shameful, even sinful thing

as a necessary part

of everybody's life.

( tvtropes )

So where am I going with this?

Well, soon enough I will be going off to bed;

I need to sleep fast,

so I can wake up again,

to the dulcet tones

of the highlights of life on earth

in 2011,

but for now, 

I will end this meandering entry with a 

meager thought--

as I mused over this sobering story

some 18 hours ago,

I began to think a thought

I often think --

I feel a bit like humanity is regressing,

back to a wildness that is savage.

I fear for the upcoming generation

especially in the U.S.A.,

because all they value is the superficial,

and (as I say above)

they have no sense of ritual.

Humanity could, potentially,

go through some very dark times.

And if we survive,

we may need to return to the wisdom of the tribal,

a wisdom that is intimately aware

and respectful of

 the earth and the seasons

and the changes of the human body itself,

and perhaps then we will return

to recognizing the dangers implicit

in those threshold ages --

the teen-aged years,

the menopausal years (for both men & women),

and the years of death.

And perhaps once we recognize the dangers

of those times,

we will honor that, by turning those ages

into ritual years, 

and in doing that, too,

we would restore respect to 

all of the ages of men and women.

But for now,

we leave our children

to encounter

their demons alone.

Dvinity and the Diva in You

aspireauctions

Divinity is the 

                                  imperfection of God;

but it is still the

                              perfection of man.

(Hazrat Inayat Khan The Unity of Religious Ideals, page 119)

Divinity, according to Hazrat Inayat Khan,

is "God personified"

Divinity is the physical manifestaion

of the divine idea

held within the mind

of every man and woman.

"Divinity is reduced God and enlarged man."

Divinity in this equation is

the intersection point,

the intermediary, 

between God and humanity.

Divinity is of God but it is not God.

layoutsparks

God is total

unutterable

all,

inconceivable

in words,

capable of conceiving us,

but we

are not capable of conceiving g-d.

The Divine is our route,

it is the nearest we can get

to conceiving the unknown and unknowable

g-d.

The Divine

is God Captive

in the Realm of Humans;

it is the seed planted and engendered there,

by the spark within each of us,

and when we open

our hearts

our mouths

our wombs

to produce our understanding of the 

divine,

we produce

divinity.

In reality, divinity is

the expansion of the human soul;

divinity is human nature

in God. . . . (Inayat Khan, p. 116)

umich/limitedforkatlas

Thus, there are as many deities as there are

perceptions of the divine.

And that is why

we should not,

we must not

chastise another,

              if her

              or his

divinity looks different from our own.

We are all responding to the same compulsion

to represent something sacred,

we who seek the divine are all listening

to the diva inside of us.

ourscience

Each human carries the seed

of divinity within --

Some religious authorities have tried to recognize the divinity

of Christ while ignoring the divinity of humanity.  They

have tried to make Christ different from what

may be called human; but by doing so they have not been able to keep

the flame alight, for they have covered the main truth that religion

had to give to the world, which was that divinity resides in humanity,

that divinity is the outcome of humanity, and that

humanity is the flower in the heart of which

divinity was born as a seed.

 (Inayat Khan p. 118)

-- I fear these words as much as I see the absolute sense in them.

I know some people may read them and immediately

leave this blog and never return.

That's the risk I take

when I write these nutty entries.

And yet, I write these words here, these words that indicate both

the absolute humanness of Jesus

(who was also divine)

and the potential divinity

of each human.

And it is true.

When Jesus said that the only way to salvation 

is through him,

he didn't mean to deify him,

he meant to work

through him,

through the metaphor he offers

in the script he provided.

It is important to note

right now

that Jesus never wrote down words.

He acted.

His script was one of deed;

it shows us how we all should

act and do if we intend

to embody the divine that dwells

in each of us.

Do not worship Jesus,

worship is a passive act.

Rather,

if you find his story to be a story

that fits your perception of divinity,

well, then,

imitate him,

walk in his shoes,

for the argument Jesus poses

is the most convincing argument

for the end of violence.

Notably,

(and I've said this a few times already)

in our current world

people who do take Jesus' words and actions

literally and live then literally

suffer one of two fates:

* we kill those people, perceiving them to be dangerous

* we chastise and alienate those people, condemning them as ignorant.

The time has come

it is now

to stop killing and chastising

the lovers of peace and truth;

the time has come

to join them.

I am not lying.

I never lie.

We have had our second chances.

The time is now.

My charge is clear; my message, simple:

if we could all just stop this bullshit

and find the divine within ourselves,

and embody that divine, then

without a doubt,

Jesus would come

Jesus would be here.

In that sense, one may call man

a miniature God, and 

it is the development of humanity

which culminates in divinity; thus

Christ is the example of the culmination of humanity

(Inayat-Khan, p. 119)

bobtowery

Random Thoughts on Ghosts and Earthquakes

I find it kind of curious that

I've been getting a bunch of hits on this blog lately

because a few months ago I wrote

about an app I have on my phone

called Ghost Radar.

(You will note, that entry is now my highest ranking entry (see sidebar))

I wish  could report that the Ghost Radar

has continued to crack open the divide

between here and the 

nether world,

and to give me the meaning of life,

but when it suddenly blurted out

a few weeks ago

that some grandmother

had a gun,

I stopped using it.

It does tend to spew out

lists of senseless words,

wherein even the most daring imagination

can find few points of connection.

The other app that I have now

that I find to be far more prescient, accurate

and timely

is something called 

QuakeWatch.

bestiphoneandipodtouchapps

Yeah, that's right,

it's an app that reports

all the earthquakes going on

all over the world.

My family thought I was nuts

when I got it,

but I just have been having a funny feeling about the earth

beneath our feet these days:

Humans continually fight their petty fights

and destroy themselves and each other

when, in fact, there are far greater forces at work

right now.  The earth itself is repositioning,

and meanwhile we

(humanity) 

have our fingers in our ears, and we're

singing really loud.

When I was sitting in the middle of the desert

last week, I checked the QuakeWatch

with some regularity,

as I was very near

a fault line.

One day, one of my fellow desert sitters

informed me

I didn't need my silly app,

because he could hear the earthquakes,

even the small ones.  And then he started telling me 

whenever there was one.

I would check my app, and

he would right.

Meanwhile, too, though,

early last week,

it was hard not to notice

on my trusty little app

something happening in the Pacific

along the Ring of Fire.

(wikipedia)

So, though I was saddened and horrified

by the magnitude of the Japan Quake,

I was not surprised.

And this had very little to do 

with any prophetic skills:

my iPhone told me.

(Sorry this is a rather sad little entry,

but I got back home from my trip and proceeded to get

quite ill.  Flying on an airplane in the States these days

has the same effect as getting admitted to a hospital:

both make one ill, if one wasn't

ill before.)

Here Comes The (Super) Moon; George Harrison

(Maybe this is why I've been so sick lately)

desert sun

all photos by Makropoulos

In the desert,

I forgot my name.

I was no longer

Makropoulos,

no

longer

my other name,

no longer

a person with profession

and rank;

I was just

,

grateful for the opportunity to mingle

with dust

and rock

and heat.

I did not write there,

I had no words -- the blue 

of the sky

and the ever changing hue

of the earth

became my only word.

And I felt an absolute

contentment to be in awe,

and utterly overwhelmed

by the earth we live on.

Comfort can be found from simply knowing

one's place.

haven't too much to share, only a thought and a tear

( robotarmageddon )

 
I've been talking to my students lately

about AI
(artificial intelligence)

and we've talked a lot about the question:

if computers can match us intellectually,

then

what makes us different?

What makes us human?

A computer is

the extension of 

our brain;

it is

the collective brain

of the best 

                                      or the worst

of humanity.

It is coming to

maturity

                              now.

Meanwhile

we, the childlike

parents of this fumbling monster
need

a computer to read, need

a computer to add, need

a computer to tell us the weather

and the news

and everything in between.

We're not thinking for ourselves,

and

we're numbed by technological overhaul.

I proposed to the students today

that perhaps if we are to keep in step

with computers,

the next step in the evolution

of humankind

is the psychopath:

he or she

who has not emotion,

only brain;

he or she

can match the computer

byte for bite.

I said to my students:

if I could just get rid

of my heart,

I'd be able to groom my brain
to perfection.

It is my emotion,

my heart, that keeps my mind

from flowering.

If I had no emotion,

then I would be able to match

the machine.

One of the girls looked at me

with fiery eyes,

and said to me later:

That's crazy.

You need your heart

to be my teacher.

And I said:

yes.

The heart is the thing

that makes us

hu

man and woman

that's it--

the heart.

And that

is what

I'll keep.

I'm going away for a few days --

stay warm.

Charlie Sheen and Me

( queenofourcastle )

Over the last few days,

I have been continually reminded of the fact

that once upon a time,

I met Charlie Sheen.

Seriously.

I met Charlie Sheen.

It was in a grocery store in Malibu.

I was with an old friend of mine, who

had asked me to help her drive home.

"Driving home" in this case meant

driving from the East Coast to the West Coast,

a journey we took

in  a Drive-Away car, a red Mustang convertable,

packed with someone else's huge collection

of shoes.

My friend's "home" was a rather ordinary ranch-styled house

that happened to be in Sheen's neighborhood.

It belonged to a 

a wealthy plastic surgeon.

She "managed" it for him, and

she was his mistress.

All across the country, she kept telling me

she intended to break up with him,

as soon as she was back on her feet.

Seriously.

(Before I go any further with this tale,

I would like to say: 

she did.)

~*~

Anyway, so there was I,

grocery shopping

in Malibu,

on a hot-steamy July day.

Now, I'll tell you:

one of the reasons you have not seen

my face

is because, at my advanced age,

I'm very bashful - in fact I always have been -

and I'm also very self-conscious

of the arti-face

of it all.  At various times in my current life,

I've also been singularly unimpressed

by people who are overly impressed

with themselves.

So I have made no attempt to look appealing

to them.

I was in that frame of mind

when I met Charlie Sheen.

"Oh, look, there's Charlie," 

my friend had giggled,

and I looked,

and there was Charlie.

Given how old I know I was at the time,

I'd wager he was maybe 24,

in shorts,

and sauntering towards the exit,

carrying a six-pack,

and slightly glassy eyed.

 "Isn't he cute?"

my friend squeeled.

He was.

Sort of.

We went to say hi;

he gave me a quick once over,

a wink, and a smile;

I remember how much I was sweating,

how I probably smiled back 

and said "hi" before glancing out

at a gangly teen-ager

pushing carts across the steaming parking lot,

and Charlie and my girlfriend

exchanged flirtatious small talk,

and then we parted.

I will admit:

At various times since then, I have thought

I should have given Charlie a little more

than the time of day,

but I didn't.

Today, though, I'm very proud

of my naieve wisdom,

because now I can make the following

claim, and it is
an absolute truth:

I am a member of a very elite and, by all reports, very very small group:

that being that handful of women

in the world

who met Charlie Sheen

and didn't end up

in bed with him.

(socialitelife.com )