I've been a slug. Summer, is well, . . . yes...
That being said, I have been reading one of the Ur-texts of the integral "movement", though I don't think that's really the best word therefor. Perhaps "amovement" would be better? to go along with atemporal, arational, aspatial and aperspectival? Just a thought since Jean Gebser created a whole slew of different terms to speak of the aperspectival mutation that has been slowly gestating inside us all since the days of Leonardo da Vinci.
I started to post something recently, and I may still post it. A meditation on the nature of time and the both/and aspect of spiritual reality. (Not "Either astrology or physics," but "Both Astrology AND Physics." "Neither religion nor science, but both, and some other things developing as well.") It is helpful to try and slog through one of these books, and come up with my own conclusions rather than sit and try to be satisfied with the likes of Mr. Wilber and others. Most people don't go back to a text like The Ever-Present Origin, and while I can see why (and I would love it if I could get into a study group with others o' like mind about this book so we can all hash it out like it was an AA Big Book Meeting), I'm really glad I'm doing this legwork myself. I'll be curious to read other "Integral" thinkers, but I'm really planning on staying away from Wilber for the time being. I want to immerse my own "integrality" into the seminal texts.
Be all that as it may, I am also interested in submitting a couple of thoughts about the weirdness in the world today, and my own reactions to various people's perspectives on the boorish behavior of all parties involved in the Middle East. I read on one site that an "integral" perspective would side with the Israelis. On a gut level, I feel this is a rationalization of some sort. I don't see the Israelis or the Palestinians handling this matter with grace or in any way aligned with divine intentions. I'm not exactly sure what's going on in the Israeli mindset. The term "mad dog" does seem to be appropriate here. It sure feels like overreaction to me. It aslo looks like a number of people are a mite quick to jump on either bandwagon, either pro-Israeli or "pro"-Hezbollah. One of the things that increasingly has irked me about looking at the eternal tinderbox that is southwest Asian politics is that one can not seem to go about looking to find out what "reality" is without being accused of being "anti-semitic." It's a word that sends shivers up and down the spine, because that's tantamount to calling someone a Nazi these days. Ironically, it's when someone is called a "Nazi" that we've been told the epithet-thrower has lost the debate. Certainly most people check out when they hear the word. Perhaps the same fate needs to await "Anti-Semitic?" One can hope.
People like William Kristol become ever like the Wizard of Oz's man behind the curtain, only it's "ignore the Jew pulling the anti-Semitic strings." As if someone's race or "sectual preference" should absolve someone of acting humanely! Does the Holocaust give Israel the right to persecute a group of people who may have a legitimate point about the land they had stewarded for over a millennia? When I think of the Balfour Declaration, personally I think of the plight of Lois Wilson writ large on the map of the world. Lois Wilson was the wife of Bill Wilson, the founder of Alcoholics Anonymous. Sometime in the 1950s, Lois realized that Bill's idea was so wonderful, that she and a friend (Ann S., I believe) got together and started Al-Anon. If only they had done so in time for the founding of Israel! Some of the Anglo-American codependence might have been addressed at that time. At least it would have kept the nascent apocalypticists in check.
There's more to it than that, I realize. A certain primal appeal to the dormant thug that resides below the skin's surface and rises up in nationalistic, "patriotic" fervor as evinced in the junior wars that are sporting events and everything that multiplies in devastation therefrom, is merely accepted and built into this system rather than confronted head-on. Few of us seem ready to address this winged lizard that clutches at our root and sex chakras so that we may enter into "the brethren of humankind," to celebrate our differences rather than seeking their (and our own) elimination. That is what is so disheartening about people on either side of the fence throwing about their addictive epithets--they are blind to the mirrors of their collective Other, and because they give that shadow more and more huge power, they threaten themselves with engulfment therefrom. I wonder just how many of them are truly gone far beyond the pale of recovery and into the wild urban desert of their own auto-mechanized insanity.
Part of it is in the Abrahamic creeds themselves, for all of them enshrine this unfortunate us-vs.-themism, which is part-and-parcel of Saklasian projection. G_d/Beelzebub aka Jehovah/Satan is the dualistic yin-yang that refuses to acknowledge its other side, and so becomes like the dog chasing its tail through the cosmos. Both sides need love don't they? Both sides need to put down their bats/bombs/rocks, etc. How this is achieved, I don't know. Anyway, I have other thoughts but I don't have time right now to put them all down. I need to not be a doormat and call it as I see it. My $.02
Thursday, July 20, 2006
Tuesday, July 11, 2006
Wednesday, July 05, 2006
4 Swords Odin Salamander (?) - Current Matters
I hesitate to put it this way, but working the 3rd Step of the fellowships allied toward recovery of our disparate split-off selves as they manifested (and continue to manifest) themselves through addictions of all sorts compels me to put it thus:
We have the government we deserve.
This isn't exactly the most original thought. Alasdair Gray averred as much in his mindboggling opus Lanark, which has been on my mind of late. I've also been letting PKD's insights about Empire--that to fight it is to become "assimilated into the Borg" as it were--marinate this abstinent and sober body. But I must surrender to the fact that even though there's a part of me that agrees with Julia Roberts ("He's not MY president"), that indeed GWB is indeed the King of my Dark Side, and as such, he is the apotheosis of all I find dark and scary in the world, or rather, dark and scary in myself.
The man is the king of projections of "the Other", and as such, he has declared me (another himself) his enemy. The violences continue to splinter and splinter and splinter, and it's kind of like the broomsticks in The Sorcerer's Apprentice, which keep reproducing more and more broomsticks sort of like fractal patterns. "The Other" keeps bifurcating as more and more of us infidels are concocted through the smoke and mirrors of media-savvy.
I had this realization the past week after sharing about the toxic sludge that we're all slogging through. I know that so much of this is beyond my control, but I need to focus on what I can do through the situation. And involving my personal pantheon in the issues is perhaps the best place to start. I get inner promptings about a lot of stuff, and I've been having more dreams related to my job. Though I seem to be having dreams about every era of my life--college, high school, elementary school. For all I know, I'm having dreams about the future. Last night I had a dream where Albany, Seattle and Denver all converged into a seamless whole. Interestingly, I was headed to a mall called "Turtle Creek," which has connotations of "Turtle Mountain" to me--the Ojibwe name for the North American continent. This mall seemed to be next to the Starbuck's on State & Pearl downtown. And I was going to see a film upstairs in the cinema there. Perhaps I need to rise to the occasion and dream my wildest dreams, for recovery of my split-off selves seems to herald ever greater visions.
I've had moments in the past where I've been able to give thanks for the Neocons and their incompetent degeneration. I still have to send out even more FAG, actually probably FLAG (Forgivness, Love, Acceptance, Gratitude). Gaia loves us all, after all, even as we attempt our self-destruction. Perhaps the attempt will be successful, I don't know. The Norse had a vision of Ragnarok where only Freyja survives. Maybe I can invoke Freyja myself, or rather "Freyja Self" (ar-ar-ar!) (I think she finds that mildly amusing--thwack! or maybe not!)
I keep thinking there's more to do, though. Some things are coming to fruition. A couple of my poems will be published by a local magazine this month, and I submitted an article addressing my concerns about community to a bi-monthly gay magazine in the Northeast. Perhaps these will develop into fruitful areas of endeavor. I feel warm and juicy about it all.
When I contemplate my Triple Soul, Talking Self seems to be a rich and vibrant green! It's the height of summer, and T.S. seems to be expressing that very nicely. All in all, I feel fairly excited about life in general. Thank you Goddess and God!
We have the government we deserve.
This isn't exactly the most original thought. Alasdair Gray averred as much in his mindboggling opus Lanark, which has been on my mind of late. I've also been letting PKD's insights about Empire--that to fight it is to become "assimilated into the Borg" as it were--marinate this abstinent and sober body. But I must surrender to the fact that even though there's a part of me that agrees with Julia Roberts ("He's not MY president"), that indeed GWB is indeed the King of my Dark Side, and as such, he is the apotheosis of all I find dark and scary in the world, or rather, dark and scary in myself.
The man is the king of projections of "the Other", and as such, he has declared me (another himself) his enemy. The violences continue to splinter and splinter and splinter, and it's kind of like the broomsticks in The Sorcerer's Apprentice, which keep reproducing more and more broomsticks sort of like fractal patterns. "The Other" keeps bifurcating as more and more of us infidels are concocted through the smoke and mirrors of media-savvy.
I had this realization the past week after sharing about the toxic sludge that we're all slogging through. I know that so much of this is beyond my control, but I need to focus on what I can do through the situation. And involving my personal pantheon in the issues is perhaps the best place to start. I get inner promptings about a lot of stuff, and I've been having more dreams related to my job. Though I seem to be having dreams about every era of my life--college, high school, elementary school. For all I know, I'm having dreams about the future. Last night I had a dream where Albany, Seattle and Denver all converged into a seamless whole. Interestingly, I was headed to a mall called "Turtle Creek," which has connotations of "Turtle Mountain" to me--the Ojibwe name for the North American continent. This mall seemed to be next to the Starbuck's on State & Pearl downtown. And I was going to see a film upstairs in the cinema there. Perhaps I need to rise to the occasion and dream my wildest dreams, for recovery of my split-off selves seems to herald ever greater visions.
I've had moments in the past where I've been able to give thanks for the Neocons and their incompetent degeneration. I still have to send out even more FAG, actually probably FLAG (Forgivness, Love, Acceptance, Gratitude). Gaia loves us all, after all, even as we attempt our self-destruction. Perhaps the attempt will be successful, I don't know. The Norse had a vision of Ragnarok where only Freyja survives. Maybe I can invoke Freyja myself, or rather "Freyja Self" (ar-ar-ar!) (I think she finds that mildly amusing--thwack! or maybe not!)
I keep thinking there's more to do, though. Some things are coming to fruition. A couple of my poems will be published by a local magazine this month, and I submitted an article addressing my concerns about community to a bi-monthly gay magazine in the Northeast. Perhaps these will develop into fruitful areas of endeavor. I feel warm and juicy about it all.
When I contemplate my Triple Soul, Talking Self seems to be a rich and vibrant green! It's the height of summer, and T.S. seems to be expressing that very nicely. All in all, I feel fairly excited about life in general. Thank you Goddess and God!
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