Odds and Ends

It's difficult to try to show up to a blog every day. It's not that I don't want to--it's more that I frequently feel like I don't have a whole hell of a lot to say. Or too much to say. I could have a real big buncha stuff to say about the upcoming difficulties we'll all be facing with S.D. O'Connor's resignation from the SCOTUS yesterday. Part of me feels panicky, but another part of me feels, "Yeah. This is what's next."

Over at astroworld.us, which is a site for astrologers of a decidedly anti-Bush, progressive bent to examine the astrology of what's going on on this bizarrely affected planet, I recently read someone's post who said about PBS being overrun by corporate bombthrowers "let it collapse, because it's rotten." Or something to that effect.

That's kind of how I feel about this sad has-been entity known as the "United States of America." I think that as the Xtofascists push their agenda on the rest of us, we're going to see just how different we all are. This, together with the peak oil situation, climate change, and all the other environmental stuff going on around us all, might just lead to the rending of the contract between all the states. Will there be Civil War? A Velvet Divorce? I don't know, but to just put the objective view out there: There is a persnickety group of malcontents out there who seem to be Acting-Out-Of-Their-Addiction-to-Toxic-Beliefs, who are bent on eliminating those they have deemed chaff. They are people who are very close to TPTB (The Powers That Be), and who are snapping at their heels. They are not content to share this planet with anyone else, having gotten stuck at some pre-teen age when their addictions really took root.

It's a truism amongst 12-Step recovery groups that when we start with our various addictions, that was the age where we stopped growing. I started with the food before I had the dawning of awareness, or at least that's how I see it today. I've seen pictures of myself at age 5 and 6, and I hadn't started to gain weight yet. But I still point to around 5 or 6 as when the food addiction started. And I was stuck in that place until I was 39.

So today, I'm emotionally 7 or 8. Not that I should be talking about where these fundies are, but it's quite similar I believe. Together with those in my fellowship, we have thrown off the powerful addiction for the time being and we're growing up again. But as a 41 year-old fellow with a lot of life experience, even as a stuck-at-5 adult, I can see that others who just rail against this group or that group, who have somehow decided that there are people and not-people out there based on criteria a-sub-1-to the 10th power, are really another group of addicts. I have often wondered whether they were the sickest people in our culture. It's a curious thing to try and ascertain who the sickest are, because according to experts on addictive organizations, groups organize around the sickest person. (I would also amend that to frequently include the sickest relationship, in the case of families. For the most part, I'd say my family was organized around my Dad's drinking persona--belligerent, enraged, paranoid. But there was a time when it was difficult for me to know whether my mother wasn't actually the sicker of the two. The relationship between the two of them, however, did qualify as the sickest of all the permutations.)

I don't think North American society is arranged around 43, but there's someone close to the administration who definitely qualifies. Again, I don't know who that is, or, if it's a group of people, what that group is. But as people awaken to their situation, as we individually and collectively hit bottom, we will start to comprehend the truth of our situation, and hopefully we will at least try to reach out to one another. I need to remember to have hope, actually. And the best sign of that for me came from, of all things, the Blackout of 2003.

New York City was a party zone for those hours from 4:23 to when the lights returned nabe by nabe. It was the strangest of days, I have to admit. And at the end of it, when the lights came back on, I burst into tears in the middle of Avenue A. I didn't realize how much stress I'd been carrying over the course of that time. Still, I will remember that as the night I met my neighbors for the first time really. In the darkness on the rooftop. At the time I didn't realize it, but I had a contact with one of my guides and he filled me on a few things. I wondered for a long time whether I was just crazy, and by the f'd standards of our society, I probably am still "crazy." But I have a feeling that the strange events of that freak occurrence could serve as a reminder that we don't have to choose panic as others may do so. Even in New York City, there are people who will choose to show up and do what's required. Even if it's just to sit tight and wait actively.

The other thing I wanted to write about is that another piece of my spirituality is starting to emerge in tandem with the witchy stuff. I've begun to understand that much of what I've gone through as a part of my recovery from food addiction has been gnosis. I've awakened, or rather I should say I'm in the process of awakening to the nature of this reality. And I'm choosing to honor the True Self. It's interesting to me that I don't have to do any stretching of 12-step, earth-based spirituality or gnosticism to accommodate one another. They all really point back to the Perennial Philosophy as laid out by Plotinus and Heraclitus, amongst others. It's breathtaking to see these chunks assemble within me, and without.

So as regards to the upcoming Culture War--a part of me thinks like Starhawk: "Let us ride out to meet them." And a part of me feels that I don't really want to do a whole bunch either--not out of apathy, but more out of a sense of "what's the next right action?" How exactly does a monist take sides? I can't control whether a belief-addict is driven to "take a side" against me/himself. Do I need to protect myself? How do I transcend this situation and include the other person? How do I get through this obstacle course and to the life beyond our wildest dreams?

Those are the questions I seek answers to.