Herding Higher Humans

The means to herding higher humans is betrayal. Betray them into believing they are unheardable, then wait until they they sink to the bottom of their well, watch them float back up, then steal what they reveal from down under. Effective magic is the grim certainty of a smothered delusion that death lived an affectatious union. The Collective Consciousness Egg of Irony cracks from the inside-out. The organs of the Invisible Mind have a gravity that darkens the skin below the eyes, makes them look sunken, but reveals tragedy at its finest and final hours. Years of journals go in the dumpsters of this life because they take up too much space in this world. Emily Dickinson was wise to secretly soulcraft her Hermit her Wisdom. The freed ego of social order is its own prison.

Solution: the Gravity of Mind, 1) requiring the presence of 2) a problem to explain its 3) orbit.

Forgiveness: the state of mind that needs an offense to forgive. Who told you you're naked?

If I'm not upset in the first place, there is nothing to forgive.  Give thanks for everything.

And We Quit Fighting Everything and Everybody.

'The world is addicted to judgment', from his book, Repenting of Religion, by Greg Boyd.  

"Ignis aurum probat, miseria fortes homines." ~Seneca (Divine Fire)

"Ignis aurum probat, miseria fortes homines." ~Seneca (fire tries gold and Trials by Fire purifies humans).

Are you sick and tired of being sick and tired of life being stressful with all the negativity flying around with politics, religions, wars and rumors of wars, animals being hurt, abuse, etc.?  As Gandhi said, “BE THE CHANGE” YOU WANT TO SEE IN THIS WORLD.  Let’s quit thinking about what we don’t want or don’t like, and focus on changing the world positively.  Be part of the solution!

Here’s the secret to affecting world peace in an IF/THEN scenario: “If you don’t tell at least three people a day that you love them, then you’ve probably wasted a day of your life.” 

Try telling three people a day that you love them.  Do this for one year, daily.  Your life doesn’t change immensely, AND you might change someone else’s life through this assignment.  There are many ways to say “I love you,” so be Creative.  A smile might change someone’s world.  Passing on a motivational quote or giving a long overdue hug.  Being kind to an animal.  Buying a meal who whoever needs it (person, animal or plant).  Love paints many portraits, so paint your life into a personal permanent picture for the greater good.  After all, what we do for ourselves is temporal, but what we do for others, it goes on.  Make every day count.

Here are a few ideas to ‘pass on’ to help make the world a better place:

"You don't have to attend every fight you're invited to." 

"Never get into a pissing contest with a skunk." 

"Quit walking with the enemy." 

"Show me your friends, and I'll show you your future." 

“Say what you mean, mean what you say, but don't say it mean." 

“Truth without compassion is cruelty." 

“Make your wounds your wisdom.”

“We don’t forgive the ones who wronged us because they deserve forgiveness, but because we deserve peace.”

Look up Phoenix 490 on Facebook.  PHOENIX 490 is for people who have or are turning coal into diamonds, lead into gold, and for some of us transforming tragedy into triumph. No matter how far down the scale we may have gone in life, our experiences can benefit others. Be the change. In God's Economy, nothing is wasted.

 

But sometimes we make mistakes and say things we shouldn’t, no matter how long we've been in Earth School, ‘stuff happens.'  Saying I LOVE YOU in the mirror counts, too, especially on the bad days.

Poem: The Repentant Philosopher

I remember the last time I cried
how I watched silent laughter swirl around at my embarrassed feet
I gave all these lessons away with an elegant irony of a pre-winter thaw,
despaired not at the maintenance of sweet pain and patience, but of innocence regained.
forgivers blanket pavement o'saltwater tears that shape
mosaics of lost minds,
that knew too much of what people can do to hurt each other.


apples & oranges,
lemons & limes,
who care about truth,
so long as it rhymes?


Did you hear that?
It’s the lyrics of evaporation ascending;
distrust dissolves beneath the cover of clouds making love,
gratitude never drinking from the foundations of needless pain.
dissemination of negativity lore is a rent veil rummaging around inside of me;
never meant for hearts to endure a single beat
without soul.

A quieter savor of free,
never was meant to be.
"How beautifully tragic is the written poem of love
that dries its ink in thee ice-cold well
of what once and always
was me”
has an irregular address
undelivered mail
describing my love frees others from their chains
open smile harmonics,
don’t change for me the neighborhood you don’t jog through.
these stairway days of care for me,
i’m not Carl Jung’s = Client Science.
sun pours down like water,
gratitude of surprise society of brains
conformed to the rule of breaking rules
silentnights for violent types demanded I crawl into
clouds that I “fit” in, made sounds for me to sit in, nodding my head to music,
get in a plane to get the dough from the world that makes little sense of a Clement
and whose quilt was sewn with a picture and words,
“too gentle to live among wolves”, yet was never their victim

he never forgot himself as he loved others,
never morphed the long night to forget that their and his own pain are equal.
Primitive religion is redundant,
so is the Repentant Philosopher.

Random Rules of "OH WELL!"

Whether our experiences clarify our perceptions or defy them, it also lends us a loss of misperceptions. Yes, like a banker, it lends us experiences and the ripple effects therefrom.  If we forget where we came from, we re-experience change. As we allow ambiguity to pass, we lose our illusions, as well. When we think we've arrived at clarity, which invites creativity, it creates change and our clarity surrenders to a beautiful mystery. Our struggle is our servant; we define it, not vice-versa.  Freedom of choice is strongest in the mystery. Certainty is the Mind Killer.

DAY JAW VUE or déjà vu

HAPPY SPRING! 

In 2015, my friend Rae Jacob posted this from her book, ACUPUNCTURE FOR YOUR SOUL: ‘Etheric spring cleaning.  IMAGINE having colorful acupuncture treatments travel through all your energy bodies, mental, emotional, spiritual, etc. imagine all no longer wanted or needed obstacles, wounds being vaporized into a puff of cosmic colors! IMAGINE this clearing traveling through your life's personal timeline. Be discerning as this also vaporizes our excuses for not listening to or not following our Soul's True Path! To Quote Dr. Hazel Pacells," is it time to trade in your wishbone for a backbone?" "

FYI, I capped IMAGINE. I know some people poo-poo imagination as a pathway to success or healing, but Einstein said imagination is more important that knowledge. Some people also poo-poo prayer and ironically, some faith-based people poo-poo scientific explanations of why prayer works. The overlapping area between science and religion is a constricted domain, indeed, maybe even strait and narrow, but I see it as the biggest small place in the world. Both religion and science speak the same language at some juncture, some place where synchronicity convergences with observation.

Evidence-based philosophies and perceptions are the wellsprings of lifelessness, for they rely on what was rather than from whence it is; like a co-occurring order or disorder, we see what we are. But let the dead bury the dead and scoop up the nutritious soil their carcasses fed for future generations. Everything we think today will be rightfully poo-pooed by generations to come, but without our erroneous perception, they would not exist. Our dead ideas are the nutritious soil of remembering who we were as part of who we are? 

Fortunately, existence might precede understanding. As Kierkegaard pointed out, it is understood backward but lived forward.  Existence is the Eternal Now, living in all places and at all times, now. Were it not so we would never have Deja Vue, a place where the future and the past meet in the now (now is the past of the future).

My friend, John Littlewolf, wrote a poem he published in “SEND” that in its unique way might address some of these ideas:


 

THE RIVERS CREST

"Whisper the reason

for the spring to me,

on the banks of the fatted river.
 

As you take my precious breath,

whisper to me,

the reason for my death,

drown me in your excess,

and rejoice,

in this wonderful rebirth at my expense."

 

If anything is right beyond time and space, it will be co-signed and consigned by both Creator and Created.

https://www.amazon.com/Acupuncture-Your-Soul-Collection-Life-Changing/dp/1627873406

https://www.amazon.com/Send-John-Littlewolf/dp/1634137515

 

 

“I’ll give of your love in me. I’ll be strong and lift up those who are weak.”

A friend of mine's son was killed in Minneapolis by an impaired driver on Oct. 27th, 2012.  His son was a loving, caring human being, as is his dad.  In his backpack was found a written commitment that governed his life:  "“I’ll give of your love in me,” he had scribbled in pencil. “I’ll be strong and lift up those who are weak.”  His dad and I will eventually speak together to stop impaired driving and turn lives around.  I've spoken with so many mothers and fathers through the years, whether it be in MADD or Minnesotans for Safe Driving and in other venues, who have lost loved ones.  This is a preventable problem, with many schools of thought as to how it needs rectification.  I have faith that expressing and receiving love is our true strength.  Strength through vulnerability.  “I’ll give of your love in me. I’ll be strong and lift up those who are weak.”

Here's the article:  http://www.startribune.com/driver-in-fatal-minneapolis-hit-and-run-gets-3-years/204119161/

There's Nothing New Under the Sun, Politics Included

The 2016 election has had zero effect on my perception of the truth. Same shit, different day.  While I believe that most Americans believe in their respective parties for legitimate reasons, a great many Americans are willing to subjugate intellectual integrity to "win" an election for their party of choice. Party loyalty is mutating into a carcinogenic mass. Republicans said that Bill Clinton was not their president after he was elected. Democrats are saying Trump is not their president.  

There is no such thing as reality; there's only perception. Caesar said, "What is truth?" He must've been close to the political pulse of Rome for that question to even occur to him. Truth, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder. The same applies to politics.

A house divided cannot stand, and dividing Americans into either the political Democratic or Republican party, or to utilize the Adversarial System in a court of law, is to take a Poison Pawn and expect to win a competitive game of indivisibility for the greater good.  If only it worked. Politicians have been known throughout the ages to embrace dishonesty or war as a means of acquiring or holding power and riches. I perceive that very little has changed in today's world. Yes, there are some honest politicians in our Democratic Republic. But in a democracy, as it exists today, the good ones always get voted out of the public trough, and if said politicians become Loose Cannons, they will find a bullet in their head like JFK.  

When I was young, my foster mother stated that voting always boils down to picking the lesser of two evils. The truth is that like Sartre told us, "We are condemned to be free." Christ said, "The truth will set you free." Neither neglected to mention that the facts would probably piss us off first.  My spiritual advisor told me that I don't have to attend every fight him invited to and to never get into a passing contest with a skunk.

Say what you mean, mean what you say, but don't say it mean. Truth without compassion is cruelty. I respectfully submit that in a country where someone can get ten years in the penitentiary for punching someone in the nose, and someone who rips off hundreds of thousands of Americans for their life savings and only serves a small amount of time in a plush penitentiary, we should ask ourselves why is this the case? I think it's because people with money can get away with almost anything, and these are the ones who can secure political power in this country. They are the same lawmakers who send the poor to prison, and so unlike Christ, set the rich free.

Since I can't seem to get a real job, maybe I'll run for office.

Bill Moyers Documentary about Riker's Island is a Must See.

"Rikers" has had a scary reputation for a long time.  While I strive to be positively focused and look for the good, I have noticed through the years that people only get better in this country (?) after everyone has milked the every problem for every cent he or she can steal from taxpayers.  Maybe this is meant when saying that 'the love of money is the root of all evil.'  Whether it's roads or prisons, health care or other types of social reform, change is discouraged by the status quo, but a revolution is always imminent.  It begins in the hearts and minds of the person and then migrates to the people.  

To avoid the future's nationwide carnage, I strongly suggest we make the next one a Revolution of Love.  LOVE ONE ANOTHER is not a new precept, except concerning practicing it.  If you love someone, you will not hurt them.  If you love yourself, you will not throw oneself in harms' way, either.  People typically take action only when they have to.  It is called hitting one's bottom.  We can push that moment into existence a little sooner, but that does not mean sitting on our hands or our laurels.  

When we get honest and drop our fear-based, knee-jerk reactions to the issues defacing our Constitution and Bill of Rights, then we will address problems before they grow unmanageable. The Declaration of Indepence was drafted in part as a response to oppression and taxation without representation.   Well, if EX-convicts are disenfranchised from voting yet pay taxes, where's the representation?  Representation is not a mindless yielding to the pipedream idea that persons "they" cannot vote for will respond to "their" needs because politically, THEIR voice is just noise.  

Me, I am done yielding to politicians telling me I am damaged goods.  My last crime was June 30th of 1984.  The person I was has long since disappeared from planet earth.  Yet, securing employment in the helping professions is ILLEGAL.  Since I cannot get a real job, I guess I will run for office.  :-)  Yes, tongue in cheek humor, as I know, politicians work very hard sometimes, but you know what I am saying.

SALUTE to Kathy Morse!  https://www.linkedin.com/in/kathy-m-8b3b9794/

Call to Empathic Realists: Fellow Right-Brainers of the World, UNITE!

At an Artist's Way Meetup a few years ago, I purchased a book, titled, "The Right-Brain Business Plan, A Creative Visual Map for Success", by Jennifer Lee.  I am reviewing this book since I'm finally taking classes on drafting a business plan. NOW is the time to get the energy flowing.  I'm also conducting a class on Vision Boards for MN-DEED on April 6th for the Job Club and taking ideas from this book for teaching aids.  I have done Vision Board classes with Ex-convicts at 180 Degrees, knowing that if we change our vision, we change our future.  Karen Casey wrote a book that I referred to with clients on probation, titled, "Change Your Mind, Change Your Life."  http://www.womens-spirituality.com/

I saw so-called Offenders walking away with a spark in their eye that shone with hopefulness long-since dampened by life's' circumstances.  But we are more than what happened to us and more than what we've done.  I AM MORE THAN MY MUGSHOT.     

After my release from Stillwater Prison, I acquired tools in Lakewood Community College on how to study effectively.  It must have helped because I was a member of Phi Theta Kappa, the Honor Society.   One of those tools was to write down what I learned and then to teach it to someone else.  It aligns with the idea in recovery, that, "If you wanna keep it, you gotta give it away".  Therefore, I am telling you about this book and touching on Vision Boards for your edification.  

If you are a Left-Brain thinker, this book and the idea behind Vision Boards might seem childish, but to Right-Brained Intuitives like me who swim in creative compassionate ecstasy, aka Empathic Realists, this book might be exactly what you are looking for!  So check it out!  Jennifer Lee has the eBook version if you want it, though I Old Schooled it by getting the paperback version.

Rock On!  Oh, if you are interested in attending our Artist's Way Twin Cities Meetup group, here's the link:  https://www.meetup.com/Artists-Way-Meetup/

Change Your Mind and Your Allergies Will Follow

I remember the day I decided I am not allergic to pollens. I reduced my reactions to it significantly. It's AMAZING what the mind does to us. They've shown through studies that people with Multiple Personality Disorder can be allergic to a thing in one personality, like nylon, and have a severe reaction to it. But in another personality, have ZERO reaction to it. Some people have breakthroughs with hypnosis, too, with fears, allergies, and more. The way we talk to ourselves is critical to healing, big and small. Studies in the Spontaneous Remission of Incurable Diseases (Chapter 2, Evolve Your Brain by Joe Dispenza) approaches the ART of Healing if you will. The Quantum Art of Healing might be a better phrase. Anyway, THINK about it less if it's negative. Quit thinking about things you don't like or don't want. Fake it until you make it.

There's No Such Thing as Reality. There's Only Perception.

When the student is ready, the teacher appears. I am in charge of what I say. You are in charge of what you hear. What WE hear is of an entirely different nature, for when our ears become unified, nothing compares. Only the EGO can notice ego. We all have it, I suppose, but so what? There is a unifying principle that happens when we release our hearing to our HP. Our HP meets us where we are at. As my Spiritual Advisor (RIP) used to tell me, "We don't get ready to meet God. We meet God to get ready. The world is addicted to judgment, but WE can reshape OUR perception through Surrender.

Self Limitation

In my early twenties, I was sickly for a variety of reasons, one of them being a heavy smoker. I got a trainer and started exercising. I could not bench press 45 pounds, I weighed maybe 130 pounds at 6' 0", and could not run twenty feet without fighting for breath. My trainer started to teach me a wide variety of disciplines, including boxing. He said to exercise like I was actually in the ring, because then when I am actually in the ring, it would seem easy compared to a person that didn't push themselves to the maximum during training. I coughed blood but kept running when I caught my breath. It was excruciating! I slowly grew stronger and stayed committed to my routines. Three years later, I was lapping athletes on the track. After about four years, I ran two consecutive 1-mile runs, both in under 4-minutes. When I ran the first mile under 4, my trainer said there must be something wrong with the stopwatch and told me to do it again. I balked but did as he instructed. I ran the mile again, and that's when he said I did it in under 4...both times. He was amazed! I was tired. I bet had he told me I did it under 4 the first time, I would not have done it again. I thought it would be IMPOSSIBLE to run an under 4 mile. But it goes to show that we are capable of more than what we give ourselves credit for. So don't talk yourself out of success! This was a great article, and it reminded me that I need to drop my self-sabotage with speaking too.

Morning Ritual (because not all habits are bad)

“I paint not by sight but by faith.  Faith gives you sight.”  Amos Ferguson

 

The way we start our day can make or break us.  How do you start your day?

Here's how I start mine.  When I awake in the morning and open my eyes, I also open my heart, mind and spirit with an “Attitude of Gratitude,” thanking my Higher Power for another day of life.  Regardless of what might be happening in my life, this is my law od self-care. 

 

How did I get inspired to take this course of action?  Well, I initiated this Morning Ritual as a result of hearing Chris Berg speak at a Mother Against Drunk Driving Victim Impact Panel.  A drunk driver hit Chris, and she incurred severe brain trauma in the crash, losing all of her memory from the point of impact backward.  She did not remember her family and friends, fiancé, the fact that she was a manager for a store, or valedictorian education, pets, etc.  Chris went through hell to get her life back.  She is now married and has a beautiful daughter.  Chris said, “Every morning when I wake up when my feet hit the floor, I thank God for another day of living.”  Chris is a fantastic role model.  I figure if Chris can do it, then maybe I can do it too.  From that day forward I have been thanking God for another day of living every morning that I wake up.  Thanks for that Chris.

 

Next, I grab a pen and paper so I can take notes, and turn on encouraging programming. I spent the next half-hour listening and processing ideas to give me strength.  I pray and meditate upon how I can use what I learned to help someone in the day ahead.  “If you want to keep that you gotta give it away.”

 

Then I turn to my daily readings.  At the time of this transcription, this morning, I read from The Artist’s Way, A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity”.” Then I read my daily reflection on Facebook, written by Karen Casey.  Lastly,  I look for ways to offer encouragement to someone in need.  Every good thing in my life has come as a direct result of helping others, so it’s a win/win to give and receive love for healing.

 

Finally, I turned to my prayer list, and let the spirit and lead me in what to pray. 

 

Now I’m ready to meet my day with gratitude and vigor.Love is my religion. Action is my Gospel.  Laughter is my Holy Spirit.  Now, make someone’s day magical.

Truth and Trust: the Art of Connection

Truth without compassion is cruelty. Say what you mean, mean what you say, but don't say it mean.

We had just shy of 100 professionals committed to helping youth attending the YIPA event today.  Some folks from 180 Degrees showed up and talked about Britany's House, which in my estimation is the best thing that ever happened in Minnesota. They help Sex-Trafficked girls have a chance to just be girls again!


We also had four women from MCF-Shakopee come in from the Challenge Incarceration Program, and they were spectacular! It is so uplifting to see people turn their lives around and find support in the system that is GENUINE. Sargeant James Churchill accompanied them; I have heard him present on several occasions at various Minnesota Correctional Association trainings. He's the REAL DEAL!


We did have some Minnesota Representatives show up, so I know there is interest in helping fund Youth Intervention. Paul Meunier, thanks for all you do with YIPA! I'm proud to be a member of your wonderful organization!