What are our priorities?

A man who kills someone on a subway, in cold blood, is not convicted, but the city of New York is turned upside down, and millions of dollars spent, looking for the killer of a man who made millions by causing suffering and death to thousands. What do you think about that? And how many murders of "regular folks" are never investigated at all because the victims are not rich?

Less than 50% of voters chose the incoming President, and we already know he is going to pillage the treasury for every penny.  Plans are to cut health care for everyone starting with veterans. Education will be cut, budgets for safety inspectors for our food, transportation, and industry, will be cut.  Pollution regulations will be cut.  By 2028 the US will be a MORE polluted country, the populace will be sicker with less access to health care, the food supply will be significantly less safe, industrial accidents will happen more often and be more severe with no accountability, but certain people will have grown their hoards.  What are our priorities?

20 years

Today is the 20th anniversary of my mother's murder.  The killing blow was struck on August 22, 2024, she died on the 24th. I miss her.

We just had a family reunion.  Not all the family could attend but there were 9 of us, nieces and nephews came.  One of my nephews I had never met before.  I love them all!  Each one is a great person I am glad to know.  Being with them made this month so much better.  In the last 19 years, August has been rough for me, to the point where sometimes I literally would see the world in black and white, no color.  This year none of that happened.  I was with people who also are affected by what happened to my mother, and that made all the difference.

Why share this?  Because being with people whom we love, who love us, who "get it" whatever "it" is, matters.  It makes a difference!

If you are suffering and can connect with others who understand, it helps.  If you can't be with people who understand, know that somewhere in this world they do exist!

We see the suffering of the people in the world who are under fire, whether it's Gaza or Ukraine, the people of Myanmar, the people of Yemen, Syria...women in India, Afghanistan, the United States...the list goes on and on, people who are being oppressed militarily, politically, culturally.  We see, we feel, we hope and work for Peace, it is the ongoing work of humanity to learn NOT to be violent, cruel, oppressive, greedy.  

Everyone can do their part by practicing self-awareness, by practicing kindness, by deliberately NOT seeking power over others, but instead sharing the beauty of power-with. 

On the metaphysical side of things...

There have been times in my life when, through meditation or ritual or just for no apparent reason at all, I have experienced what Ganesh Rajagopalan calls "the other dimension," a different reality.  I have been in a place where everything is made of light.  I have been in a place where time was nonexistent.  That may sound strange to some, others may relate.  The point is, though, that in my "regular" life, neither of those qualities are prevalent if they are present at all. So being in "regular" life, the world can seem very dense, and slow, and dull.  That doesn't mean I don't experience beauty and inspiration, I do, but it's all pale compared to being light in a place that is all light.  "Regular" life can be depressing when remembering these other experiences.

When I was in my late teens I was living in San Anselmo, California, renting a room in a house.  The guy whose house it was, in his mid 30's, told me he'd had an experience 10 years earlier, a spiritual awakening, and since then he'd been waiting for it to happen again.  He had a job, but he did that job and he waited.  That seemed really sad to me at the time, it still does.  I don't see myself as waiting.  I do see myself sometimes as trapped in a place that is slow and thick and dull, not joyful or ecstatic, but tolerable, and sometimes just barely so. I know others who have similar experience.  Today I am thinking that part of the task is to learn to live in the slow thick dense dullness without being diminished by it.

Politics this week...

Part of the strategy of fascists, not just the Republicans in the US but Hitler, Mussolini, Ceaușescu and others, is to overwhelm their opposition with propaganda declaring their victory and greatness, even when they are not great and are not victorious. That is what the Republicans did this week at their convention. Lots of fanfare, lots of self-congratulatory speeches, behaving as if they have already won. They haven't.

It is critical that we not buy into their narrative. The DNC is coming up. It looks more and more like Biden will not run. Whether it's Biden or not we must stay focused on anti fascism, on exposing the Republicans disastrous plans for the US. If Biden is going to step down, or be deposed, the focus has to be on who can run and win, not on hand wringing or circular firing squad or any of that.

It is not a foregone conclusion that Trump will win, far from it!