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

11/7/11

( in5d )

What I love about

the 11th month

in the 11th year

after the millennium

is that every day

for at least the first week or so

is a palindrome --

it gazes at itself in the mirror,

with little emotion,

but absolute equilibrium,

challenging each of us

to assume

the same composure -

11/1/11

11/2/11

11/3/11

11/4/11

11/5/11

11/6/11

11/7/11

11/8/11

11/9/11

- it's a narrow marching column,

like a count-down,

counting up --

to 

11/11/11

and then the perfect palindrome,

a beautiful balance to aspire to:

11/22/11

 .

( paradigmsearch )

Anonymous, aka: Makropoulos

( globalvoices )

My name is Anonymous;

I just walked past you,

but you didn't

see me.

I was born to blend in,

and named to be unnamed --

If I 

were sitting next to you

you wouldn't notice

me;

if I were speaking

you would interrupt --

it's not

that you can't hear me;

it's rather

that my words 

appear irrelevant.

I would love to be heard,

but my fate 

is 

not to be.

I am woman;      I am disabled

I am blonde;             I am shy

I am brown;                                 I was once abused--

I am homely              I am fat

I am poor     

I collect your garbage

                                                   I am an open bruise.

I can't read    ,           I am male

I used to work

in a factory, and

now I don't work at all.

My name is Anonymous;

I just walked past you.

( wikipedia(anonymous))

My name is Anonymous,

but when I'm alone

I sing like a bird

I write words that seer

I design all my own clothes

I paint perfect portraits

I built my own home.

I touch people gently

I heal aching bodies and heart;

I love my children dearly

and refuse

to abuse

again.

I listen to you carefully, and

believe that what you say is true.

I cry alone at night

and speak a language known by few.

My Name Is Anonymous.

I just walked past you.

My Name is Anonymous,

but my name is Makropoulos

and I beg you not

to take my words not

to take my songs.

They are mine;

yet they belong

to all the world

we've lived so well, so long

My palms weigh heavy,

my fingers are aching

to write poetry with wings,

words that fly

into your eyes and make you think

that for a moment you see

some

thing,

even the tiniest thing,

a little more clearly.

My voice too

rattles the cages of my throat

longing

to sing to you.

This, though, will not be one of my finer entries,

only one I feel a need

to say,

rather than be silent

~ ~

The autumn closes on us all,

here in the Northern Domain

and the miserable misery of working

pulls on me like a ball

and chain --

I am not one of the unemployed in America,

nor am I one of the untaxed wealthy.

I am a member of the Working Class, which includes everyone

from garbage collectors to postal deliverers to teachers to engineers to insurance salesmen to nurses

to the retired to the grill-girl at McDonald's.

We are all the ones who pay the taxes and bills, with interest,

on every single living and dying step we take.

We're the ones who keep the company

woops, country

alive.

And now the ghoulish parade of hopeful GOP's

have donned their Halloween masks;

every day a new trick,

with promises of impossible treats.

Today, we discard our masks and return

to drudgery;

for them, the masquerade

has only just begun.

We're doomed to listen to them,

and to be required to believe

actually believe

that one of them,

just one of them,

is more capable than the current one man in office

 of relieving us of the mess we're in,

and restoring us to 1960's prosperity.

No no no no No

On this day, 11/1/11,

I say to you:

no one single American citizen

can turn this mess around.

Only us,

together,

can turn it around.

And we must start by stopping

our bickering,

start by stopping

our partisanship

start by stopping

believing

that we're right

and the other person

is wrong.

Start by listening,

and looking

with both eyes wide open,

and we will see

the Statue of Liberty

sailing away to sea.

We're all right,

and we're all wrong.

We have

lived so well,

so long,

and now

our biggest challenge is

finding a new way to live

well

together --

The Dream That Must Be Interpreted, by Jalal al-Din Rumi

This place is a dream.

Only a sleeper considers it real.

Then death comes like dawn,

and you wake up laughing

at what you thought was your grief.

But there's a difference with this dream.

Everything cruel and unconscious

done in the illusion of the present world

all that does not fade away at the death-waking.

It stays,

and it must be interpreted.

All the mean laughing,

all the quick, sexual wanting,

those torn coats of Joseph,

they change into powerful wolves

that you must face.

The retaliation that sometimes comes now,

the swift, payback hit,

is just a boy's game

to what the other will be. . . .

And this groggy time we live,

this is what it's like:

                                              A man goes to sleep in the town

where he has always lived, and he dreams he's living

in another town.

In the dream, he doesn't remember 

the town he's sleeping in his bed in.  He believes 

the reality of the dream town.

The world is that kind of sleep.

The dust of many crumbled cities 

settles over us like a forgetful doze,

but we are older than those cities.

                                        We begin

as a mineral.  We emerged into plant life

and into the animal state, and then into being human,

and always we have forgotten our former states,

except in early spring when we slightly recall

being green again.

That's how a young person turns

toward a teacher.  That's how a baby leans

toward the breast, without knowing the secret

of its desire, yet turning instinctively.

Humankind is being led along an evolving course,

through this migration of intelligences,

and though we seem to be sleeping,

there is an inner wakefulness

that directs the dream,

and that will eventually startle us back

to the truth of who we are.

all photos by Makropoulos

Can pianists be divas?

. . . as long as you think of divas as being

this:

( operatoonity )

well, a pianist cannot be a diva.

But, as usual, I challenge you

to alter your perception

of the word diva.

This sad caricature is a distortion

of the true meaning

of divine --

The divine - the diva - in each of us 

is found

when we relax and be the thing we are

naturally,

when our talents explode

because we let them,

then, 

we naturally flower.

When we lose our lesser selves

to our greater selves,

well, 

then we are divas. 

So, 

here is another diva:

and another:

and another:

Need I go on?

Then why not this:

I dare you:

be a diva

the love that exceeds, reprise

Sometimes

I think about something I wrote 

a month,

a year

a hundred years

ago, 

and I think:

somethings just don't change;

that's still what I think

and feel 

today.

The following is an entry I wrote

16 October 2010 --

and it is an important one for me.

I wanted to revisit it today.

Thanks for revisiting it with me.

(Sounio, south of Athens, Greece

photo by Makropoulos)

When we love

      with a love

                 that exceeds

our expectations of love,

we ignite a fire

in our being

that unites with

the infinite, 

and

the penetrating

incapacitating

                     power of the All

is engendered there.

(also at Sounio,

photo by Makropoulos)

Incapacitating

                it is

because it erases

our

mortal individuality

and implicates us

in a nameless

immortality.

(The human

and all that it imagines 

and comprehends,

even of love,

has boundaries -----

the temporal frame

of earth 

and life and death

and the portrait of

                  our living

that that frame embraces---

is our lives

is our lives.

(pebbles through water 

off a beach

in Kythnos, Greece

photo by Makropoulos)

That frame,

the only portal

at our disposal

that gives us acccess

to the beyond

is the subtle,             

delicate

heart

                             so inextricably wedded

to mind

and the melody

                           plucked on the strings

      that bind

them

is the song of our love

seducing us to love

beyond our limits.

When we love

      with a love

                 that exceeds

our expectations of love,

we ignite a fire

in our being

that unites with

the infinite,

the penetrating

incapacitating

                     power of the All

is engendered there.

bundle of wires

( pbase )

I've been terribly busy lately, rushing around, trying to 

be with the people I care about but also trying to fulfill

the demands of my job.  Trying to live life, I guess.

I hadn't been home too much, and was beginning to feel

very frazzled.  I felt I'd begun to lose sight of the 

essential stuff that makes me me.

That happens when I'm busy.  I suspect it happens to all of us.

The other day I got home after a short trip away, tossed my 

packed stuff into their respective closets and hiding places, and went on 

with trying to sort out my life and house.  When I went to charge

my phone, I couldn't find the charger.  Looked everywhere

that it could be -- in the bookcase where I sometimes store it,

in my suitcase, in my purse, in my computer bag.  It was gone.

I knew I had taken it with me on my trip.

I remembered winding it around my hand, packing it and thinking how inconvenient

it would be if I lost it.  I decided I'd lost it, somewhere along the way.

I went to sleep, resigned to the fact that I had one more errand

to run the following errand-full day -- to the cellphone store, where I hoped

I would be able to get a charger. 

The next morning, when I woke up, wired 

to get moving, I took a shower, then

went to take out the hair dryer that I had,

only the day before,

put back into its respective cupboard, and there

tangled amid the hairdryer wires,

was my cell-phone charger.

A minor incident, but it caused me to pause

and write a poem,

a simple poem,

but a poem nonetheless.

and as soon as the words bled onto the page,

I knew the day would be alright.

Here it is:

( thisoldsailboat )

Look for the wires within the wires,

they nestle there

unawares

that they are hiding from you.  Look

for the bears

among the bears;

                  they, too, have no clue

that you

find them threatening 

                  or stealthy.

Look for yourself

               inside yourself--

             not in a book

          or in a car

            or in a bank

                   account

                                or a glamour magazine--

you are hiding there,

your good and your bad,

in the den of your soul,

your lost part

             tangled

'round other parts like it,

stored inside, hastily

.

Unravel it all.

Look closely:

every night before you sleep

take stock

of what you put away that day --

no sense in losing every

vital clue

of you

.

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

The thief that keeps taking

I've been robbed twice in the past eight years.

The first time was while I was living in overseas.

It was a simple, clean robbery.

I knew exactly when it began,

and when it ended.

Someone broke the door of my apartment off of its hinges,

walked in, found where I had stored some cash and some gold jewelry that I had bought

as a gift for my mother. 

They took it and left everything else in my apartment untouched.

It was as if they had read my mind on where this stuff was.

They didn't even take my computer -- they went for what they could sell,

or spend,

quickly.

Coming home to that was very disturbing, it's true, but once the door was fixed, I could get on with the process of mending from that invasion.  My neighbors and friends helped me recuperate my loss, and my life went on.  

( cashforgold )

And then I moved (back) to the U.S.A., got myself a tenure-track job.

At the beginning of my second full month of work,

I left my purse in a drawer in my locked office,

went to teach,

and a few hours later when I reached into my drawer to get my wallet to go buy lunch,

it wasn't there.

My wallet wasn't there. 

The purse was still there,  just as I left it, but it had been opened.

That's right: at some point, while I was teaching,

someone unlocked my door, went into my office, and took my wallet.

Unlike my overseas thieves, these thieves were kind enough

to lock the door behind them again.

And also unlike my overseas thieves, I was faced with the stinking

more-than-suspicion that I actually worked with these thieves, 

even passed them in the hall daily.  After all,

they had the keys to my office.

The wallet had been gone for perhaps

two hours, tops, when I got to the police and filed a report,

then hurried home to start canceling credit cards,

only to find that on one card the thieves (or thief) had already charged $5,000.00;

on another, around $3,000.00,

and they tried to clear out my bank account.

Since I had the police report, the credit card companies and my bank did not hold me responsible,

but the bigger concern for me was this:

those thieves had also gotten every scrap of my identity needed to become me, and I 

have had to guard myself ever since.  I actually pay for a service

to keep an eye on my identity.  Now, that industry didn't even exist

fifteen years ago; in fact, I would say that the $15 or so that gets deducted

from my credit card every month to protect me against

identity theft is another modest extension

of the robbery itself.

Yes, you've heard of the gift that keeps giving?

Well, I -- and many like me -- 

have been showered by the blessings of the thief that keeps taking --

In the years since then,

I have encountered more and more forms of out and out robbery on these fair shores,

robbery that, like my wallet robbery, is very neatly handled:

so neat it's hard to tell how and when the thief actually gained access to your wallet,

but the thieves gain access to it, and you suddenly realize

that more and more money

is missing.

And they keep taking, or have the potential to keep taking,

whenever they damned well please.

Quite frankly, I blame it on the credit based economy.

We now live in a world where no one carries cash - in fact, we're told to not carry cash,

to protect ourselves.  But ironically, the replacement for cash now

is the target of thieves, and more and more,  the thieves are the very institutions

we trust with our cash.

Yep, robbery has become a trusted industry, one in which, with a little convincing,

we hand over our money, our gold, even our identity,

 and think it's just the way it's supposed to be.

And Again . . . Happy Birthday, John Lennon

Just imagine,

if people would just

listen

and believe