65 laps around the sun

Today I finish my 65th time circling Sol. Well, tomorrow afternoon actually. Tomorrow is my 65th birthday.

I took the day to reflect a bit, and to nap a lot because life has tired me out.  I was hoping to feel elated and connected with everything as I "be" with this, but that's not what I feel.  

The place I am in is beautiful and offers endless awe.

The information about what is happening with humanity brings so much sadness and frustration and disgust.  The utter insanity of the greedy violent oligarchic class, their cruelty and violence, must be stopped.  They must be contained.  Enough is enough.  It is ridiculous to allow these people to cause so much harm, and that they do it for money and ideology is just proof that they are insane.

Today on the eve of my 65th anniversary of being here in this body I call out to all of humanity to say "no" and to stop cooperating with this madness. Soldiers put down your weapons!  Stop being tools used to kill innocents for the profit of insane people. Just stop.  Every one, every cop, every ICE agent, you too are just being used.  You are sacrificing your humanity in order to be part of something that is truly evil.  Stop! All of us, unplug from the businesses that profit from all this killing and cruelty and oppression. Find creative ways to disconnect from and to not cooperate with the forces that are also bent on owning and/or killing us all. It's not too late!

Happy Birthday!

❤️

Looking at what humans have constructed our world to be, all of it, it would be easy think that we are trapped and there is no way out of this mess, but it isn't true!  All we have to do is behave differently.  Be kind. Be honest. Hold each other accountable and when someone is not kind and honest, name it! And those who presume to lead, if they are not kind and honest then they are out! It's not complicated.

A cell in the body

There's a body awareness exercise that I learned from somebody years ago in Vermont and they learned it from some great teacher whose name I can't remember at the moment. But what it is is that you move across the space focusing on a particular body system for instance, walk across the room, just being aware of your bones or your blood, or your nervous system, your skin, your muscles, your organs, etc. Each awareness is different and then at the end you bring them all together and move in space with awareness of all of them together and it's a powerful experience.

Often I have images of people around the world and what they’re experiencing, the people being bombed in so many places, all the distress. And today I thought well what if I just focus on the kids for a moment? Think of all the children in the world at once, and what so many of them are going through that's horrendous and should be completely unacceptable. Think about all the women in the world all of the women and what their lives are like all the different lives. Think of all the men, all the men in the world. We are each part of this Humanity. 

In my spiritual tradition, one of the things we say is that the work is to love yourself in all your parts. So what if we loving all those people, and hold them all in awareness with love. We are each a cell in the body, right?

What will it take for Humanity to stop hurting ourself?  If Humanity were my therapy client they would be considered to be profoundly disturbed. Humanity is traumatized and keeps traumatizing ourself. It is possible for this cycle of self abuse to come to an end, and not only by our extinction, but by facing our collective mental illness. The models of leadership currently pervasive in human societies are psychopathic because they do not value life above all, and quality of life as essential for the common good.  Amassing power for it's own sake is psychopathic, lacks conscience or empathy or a sense of connection to others. 

As long as Humanity continues to embrace this model of power and organization, whenever we feel our Humanity by doing the exercise above, we will encounter suffering and brutality. Don't be afraid to face it and feel it.  How else will we change it unless we all feel that to the point that it becomes intolerable?