Diva For Today: Jill Bolte Taylor

Happy New Year, all.

I keep slipping in and out of blogland,

and this doesn't make me happy.

If I'm not blogging, that means I'm over extended somewhere else.

Not a good thing.

Today, I heard this TED talk, and it blew me away.

This woman is a diva, and what she's talking about

could change the world,

if we dare let it.

I also tend to think that what she's talking about is what is wrong with the world:

we're too left brained,

overburdened too with being linear and logical.

So we short circuit.

Listen to what this wonderful woman,

and hear her solution:

Christmas Thoughts, From Rumi and Me

Christ is the population of the world

and every object as well.  There is no room

for hypocrisy.  Why use bitter soup for healing

when sweet water is everywhere?

(Rumi)

and from me:

As Christmas ends,

here on the other side of 12 21 12,

make change in the world, dear friends,

by being the Jesus in yourselves. . . 

wishing you a blessed holiday,

every single day.

And again, from Rumi:

Lovers think they're looking for each other,

but there's only one search: wandering 

this world is wandering that, both inside one

transparent sky.  In here

there is no dogma and no heresy.

The miracle of Jesus is himself, not what he said or did

about the future.  Forget the future.

I'd worship someone who could do that.

On the way you may want to look back, or not,

but if you can say There's nothing ahead,

there will be nothing there.

Stretch your arms and take hold the cloth of your clothes

with both hands.  The cure for pain is in the pain.

Good and bad are mixed.  If you don't have both,

you don't belong with us.

When one of us gets lost, is not here, he must be inside us.

There's no place like that anywhere in the world.

(Rumi - both translated by Coleman Barks)

(both photos taken at Cheestnut Ridge Park, 

in Orchard Park, New York)

Today Is Your Happy Ever After

( from: mapmaker )

As we all know,

tomorrow is 12 21 2012.

Not a perfect palindrome, but nigh close to one.

And it is, according to interpretations of

ancient Mayan reports,

the End of the World.

I read somewhere, in fact, that 11:00 am is a time

to be wary of.

Now, I'm not certain if that accounts for

New Zealand Time,

Eastern Standard Time,

Lunar Standard Time,

Central Time,

Greenwich Mean Time,

or 

what to do about the 

International Dateline.

But either way, be on your best behavior,

because no one truly knows the hour,

but we do have the date,

and that's tomorrow.

Now, I don't mean to be flippant about this matter.

At a certain point in my blogging career,

I was pretty focused on getting folks to straighten up their acts.

Indeed, I wrote a rather naive entry about 11/11/11,

proposing that everyone should be on their best behavior from then until now,

and maybe, just maybe,

if this truly to be the judgement hour,

the Lord On High would forgive us for our transgressions,

if we were to correct them for a year.

But, judging by the events of the last year, 

no one paid attention.

Indeed, it sometimes appears

that evil has compounded,

reaching heights never imagined before.

I need

not give examples, just

fill in a few for yourself.  There are plenty.

( wikipedia )

Will the world end, though?

Come back on Saturday,

by then we'll know.

In the meantime, remember:

if the end is nigh,

today is the day to say

your goodbyes,

to say your "I'm sorry"s

to tell mom you love her so,

to sit in silence

and listen to snow~

I suspect we won't get off so easy,

we won't disappear in a big bang.

We'll do it to ourselves.

We'll destroy our planet,

we'll kill our children,

we'll refuse to compromise,

we'll perpetuate wars on

unsolvable problems,

we'll go on and on and on,

until someday, slowly, we'll realized 

we're dying,

and no one's coming to save us,

or command us,

or damn us.

Our cruelest judge,

when that time comes,

will be ourselves,

each solitary, self-hating self:

as we look in the mirror of our past deeds,

we'll see,

the evil has existed in you and me.

So, too, does the good.

The attitude I've taken,

and the reason I haven't written here for awhile

(that plus my terrible busy-ness!),

is because I believe

Today

is My Happy Ever After.

Every morning,

I wake up

is the day I've lived all my life to live.

And yes,

I've lived them,

one by one.

You, too.

As you prepare for Apocalypse,

live today as it is

your only day,

your happy ever after,

and every person you encounter

is here for your joy.

And then it won't matter

what happens tomorrow.

Because tomorrow will be

just another day

like today.

. . . after a brief silence: winter, again

Winter again, this year will it be

rugged, demandingly, indeed

it approaches, insisting

attention, and yet we don't heed

the oncoming force that

belittles elections, not to mention T.V.

                                                   Be

ready to be awed in the true sense of the word. Vocabulary

can't encompass

the winter we're about to see.

(I do hope all my blogging friends

are fine.  I've had a terribly busy

semester ~ ~ nice to just

be moving my fingers across the keys!)

The Shimmering Self

So hard to believe my material self
                                           is the very least of me,
not meant to accompany me
                                           into eternity.

Over the centuries, I've grown so very
                                                      very
                                             intimate
with my curves and lines,
with my cracks and groans,
with my nails and toes,
with my hair, and every
crevice of me.
So very hard to believe my physical
                                           disposability.

( with gratitude to The Happiness Rx )

And yet, when breathing deep,
I find my shimmering self exceeds
my mortal limits, is only impeded
by my body's desires, but smiles
              compassionately at my body's
needs for snacking on the fruits of the earth --
                air and sea, wine and bread,
                you and me
                together --
gentle pastimes of the time
we spend clasped in this earth's embrace.

But if one sincerely meditates
one finds the lines of our bodies
only hold us close; we seek to fly,
and we can fly
infinitely.

(photo by Makropoulos)

Why
is it that we fear our dying?
It is because the body
which is a somatic entity
loves the vibrancy
                   the spirit endows it with.


The body is, essentially,
a parasite that sucks the life
off the spiritual source
that created it.
No sin in that, we live mutually,
striving to see clearly
                         the duality
               of each and all.

~ ~ ~

Now what the hell
             you may implore
does this have to do
               with the cost of oil,
               the unending wars,
               the embittered child,
               the Tony awards,
               with Barack Obama,
               or with Mitt or George?
               With the rising debt
               with the setting empire
               with Madonna's tit
               or the unpredictable weather?

With all the awful news today
Why is it that this is all
                I can say?


Because it is all I can say.

It's hard to believe,
yet it may be time
to believe
that our materials selves
are the very least of we
not meant to accompany
us
into eternity.

nature

(Huffington Post: "Human Induced Ocean Warming" )

forbidden fruit

( knoxnews )

There's always been a forbidden fruit,

and there always will be.

There's always something that

within our conscience,

we know we should not do.

(Our conscience, by the way, is that ever flowing,

border crossing,

spiritual entity

that both dictates our individual actions

and unites human - kind.

Essentially, our conscience

is the essence of the Creator

that we all share.

)

The moment of The Fall was

the moment of evolution

during which

humans recognized they could discriminate,

understand,

and make decisions

that are both in tune with the

and, 

more significantly,

contrary to 

the will of the Universal Conscience.

It set us in motion to become
Creators
in our own right --

So, to reinterpret

that story that I love to interpret

and reinterpret so much:

some early humans

with the initials A and E

once upon a time

were the first to have the capacity

to make a choice 

,

to ignore the voice of Conscience

and do something contrary to the wishes

of the Universal Good,

and then, they also chose

to pretend that what they did

was just fine.

Thus began

the game of deception that we call Civilization.

( igniq )

We have made the terrific mistake

over the centuries

of believing that our conscience

is individual,

when in fact

it is the steady constant

that provides universal ethics

for harmonious living.

The voice of God

screams out from the depths

of the You

you currently occupy;

it demands

that You cooperate

and collaborate

with your fellow Humans

(and the other animals, as well).

We have stifled the Voice Inside for far far

too long.

If you hear a voice screaming

in your head right now,

as I do,

a voice you cannot ignore,

it is the voice of our shared consciousness

and our source

demanding to be heard.

Listen to it.

11/11/11, reprise

Hi.

I have republished one other 

of my earlier entries,

and today I want to do that again.

This one was actually originally written

on 10/6/10,

I think,

but it was written about today,

and I actually had a fantasy when I wrote it,

and still harbor that fantasy,

that it would inspire the world.

Well, maybe not the world,

but maybe you.

Here goes:

( laptopprophets )

So, as we all may know,

there's a growing community of folks

who are a bit worried

about the date

12/21/2012.

Somethin' about

Nostradamus

and

the Mayans,

and

some kind of planetary alignment.

Well, I had a revelation

today, and

it goes like this:

That's not really the date to watch

out for.

Well, ok, so it's true;  the evidence

(if you accept that kind of evidence as evidence)

does suggest

something major,

on

12/21/2012

something/anything

ranging from

major paradigmatic shift

to 

ice age

to

metaphysical awakening

to 

alien encounter

to

total destruction

or

fill in the blank

on 12/21/2012.

( somy35 )

But I had a vision today,

and it was

that the really interesting

palindromic

upcoming

temporal event 

will be:

11:11 on 11/11/11

I think it could be

either

a.m. or p.m.

you choose.

~ ~ ~

Anyway,

I would propose that

11:11 on 11/11/11

should be declared

the deadline time

for the one-ness,

and if we meet that deadline,

and stay in a state

of oneness

until 12/21/2012,

well,

we'll pass whatever

judgement day test

God has in store for us

for

12/21/2012.

Get it?

You see,

the deal is this:

if, 

by some weird

outside

chance,

we are facing Armageddon,

then hey,

what the heck?

Would it really hurt us to try,

for a little over a year

to just be at peace,

to just love each other.

This Is My Request,

My Dare,

To The World:

If everyone would meet that deadline:

11:11 on 11/11/11

a.m.  or p.m.,

you choose,

and then

beginning on that date,

just

STOP

stop all the hate.

Stop all the fighting.

Stop all the bickering.

Stop all the competition,

and hating,

and hurting,

and murdering,

STOP IT ALL!!!!

and just start loving,

loving people

who

you never thought you could love.

Find a place in your heart

where you can see

the thing that makes those people

who anger you, or have hurt you,

or who you don't understand

yes, 

those people,

find the thing that makes them

beautiful.

and love them until

12/21/2012.

Well, actually:

 let's say

the danger zone for

a real,

possible

 Armageddon

or

Apocolypse

or

whatever

is

from

12/20/2012

until

12/23/2012.

Yeah,

that sounds good --

those solstices 

can take awhile,

especially when they involve

a realignment

of the Earth's

magnetic fields.

So, given that,

if we get through

12/23/2012

and we're still here

and the sun

is still shining

and Santa Claus comes

and brings you

all the presents you asked for,

well then,

if we're still here after

12/23/2012,

and we've loved for a year,

and we've communicated honestly for

a whole year

and we've given to the poor for

a whole year

and we've forgiven all our debtors

for a year

and our debtors have forgiven us

for a year

and we've built up Iraq's infrastructure

for a whole year

and gone to tea with the Taliban

for a whole year

and the Taliban has gone to tea

with us

for a whole year

So, let's say

we do all that for

a little over a measly year,

and we get past the 

end of the Mayan Calendar

with no Apocolypse,

no voice from the heavens,

no planetary destruction,

why then,

if that year or so of loving

each other really proved

to be a waste of our time

we can start hating each other again,

and go back to fighting each other again.

That's the deal.

That's the deadline.

11:11 on 11/11/11

begin the one-ness

Are We Just Left Overs?

( tvgasms )

One of the many things I admire about Tom Perrotta's new book,
The Leftovers, is its optimism.  Its initial premise is far from optimistic:
it begins with the idea that a large part of the human population
just disappeared one day -- and an even larger part is left behind.
"Left-over."  The plot begins after the sudden disappearance.
Very few in the book dare call this event The Rapture,
because to do so would be to acknowledge that the Leftovers were
not blessed, were individuals who had done something fundamentally
wrong in their lives.  As Perrotta's book says at the introduction:
"'Something tragic occurred,' the experts repeated over and over.
'It was a Rapture-like phenomenon, but it doesn't appear to have been
the Rapture.'"  It goes on to say: "Interestingly, some of the loudest
voices making this argument belonged to Christians themselves, who
couldn't help noticing that many of the people who'd disappeared
on October 14th--Hindus and Buddhists and Muslims and Jews and
atheists and animists and homosexuals and Eskimos and Mormons
and Zoroastrians, whatever the heck they were--hadn't accepted
Jesus Christ as their personal savior."


The book proceeds to create a world pretty much like the one
we all live in right now, save for the fact that humanity must proceed
under the cloud of feeling that they have missed the bus, so to speak,
and have been left to proceed in a world without something to look forward to.
Good friends, family members, mates and enemies had dematerialized,
and in the wake of that, the remaining characters seek ways to deal with their
feelings of inadequacy and loss.  So some strikingly familiar groups emerge:
The Barefoot People, for one, a bunch of Neo-Hippies who go around barefoot
of course, avoiding baths and smoking marijuana, living communally or
having huge parties with lots of sex, drugs and rock n' roll.


Notably,  something sort of like this has already happened:

from: the website for the Society for Barefoot Living.


Similarly, a large group of people begin following a character called
The Holy Wayne,  a creepy Harold Campingish figure who gains
followers because of his charismatic Healing Hug, but his popularity
ultimately turns him into a perverted power monger.  By the
end of the book, he is put in jail for his transgressions, and
his followers are left more adrift then they were at the beginning
of the novel.

bibliotecapleyades


And the beginning of the novel is full of characters adrift.
The one who sets the tone of the book is Laurie Garvey,
a character raised with no beliefs to speak of.  Pre-Disappearance,
she finds meaning in her family and comfortable suburban existence,
but after the daughter of one of her friends disappears, she begins to lose
her grasp of whatever meaning her life had.  Feeling her life
has been a scam, she joins a very very creepy group called The Watchers,
people who disavow every aspect of their previous life, who spook around town wearing white,
smoke cigarettes, and stalk those citizens of the novel who dare to try to
live a normal life in the Post-Rapture world.  Including Laurie's husband
Kevin, who is left alone with their daughter Jill and Jill's friend Aimee --


What I find most disturbingly authentic about the novel is portrayed through
Jill, who is a late teen.  She ends up engaged in drinking and meaningless
sex, the very pursuits that I, as a college professor, have come to understand
are already central to many of our college-aged youth today.  Jill's loss of her
mom to the Watchers is not all that different from the large number of young
people I have met recently whose parents deserted their families for their own
personal, often selfish pursuits, leaving their children to struggle with the
superficiality and fragility of the illusion of a functioning family.

wikipedia - blackdeath


As I read this book and saw the parallels between the world we live in
today, I even began to wonder if we might be able to say that we are all, already,
Left-Overs.  Perhaps the Rapture has already happened, or perhaps
it is happening as we speak.  I think of earthquakes and hurricanes
and floods and illnesses that have occurred in recent years,
taking away vast numbers of people in one fell swoop,
or the plague of cancer that robs us regularly of our beloved,
at younger ages and in more senseless ways, and I think:
perhaps this is how The Rapture may work -- in very
natural, biological ways, taking large numbers of people
over a relatively short period of time, leaving the rest of us to deal
with the responsibility attached with their loss.


Perhaps, too, in the cycle of life, even End Times come in cycles.
If the end is, ultimately, loss and the adjustment that comes along with it,
we have had countless Raptures over time -- countless
potential End Times -- plagues and wars and other forms of loss --
that have left LeftOvers, real-life human individuals
challenged to deal with the potential meaninglessness
that accompanies great and excessive loss.


Faced with such intense loss,
we could hang our hopes on False Saviors,
be they religious or political,
or we could seek to find,
as I would dare to argue
some of the characters in The Leftovers seek to find
a humane and authentic way to live in the real world,
and by finding a humane and authentic way
to live in the real world, we might even create a new world,
full of happiness for just being alive,
and hope for a peaceful tomorrow.

hongklat