The Making of The Prophet

I did this project a few years ago.  It came out really well. The person who made it happen is Dennis Lind-Beery.  I met him because I was looking for carpets for a dirt floor in an Earth Ship and he had some really amazing handmade Indonesian hemp carpets that he was allergic to. We became friends and at some point he told me he'd been wanting to produce an audio version of The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran, would I be interested in reading the part? Dennis is a Musician and Recording Engineer so he had the tools to do the recording. 

Dennis lived about an hour's drive, and I went to his studio every week for nearly 3 years to read.  Dennis worked on the studio acoustics and made a really great setup with zero noise. Dennis also directed me.  I would read and he'd give me notes.  After nearly three years we did a reading and recording that we were both happy with.  

I had the master files from Dennis and was tasked with the editing.  We also needed a second voice for the part of The Priestess/Narrator.  I did the edit and a couple of people read for the part but were not right for it, so it sat for about 8 years.  I don't remember how I got the idea for Starhawk to read the part, but it was the perfect choice.  By now Dennis had moved back to Alaska and we were out of touch.  I contacted him and he said "Run with it!" so I asked Starhawk, and she agreed, I booked recording time at the legendary Hyde Street Studios in San Francisco. Starhawk did the reading in one sitting! Her voice is perfect for the part and she brings her Priestess self to the part. That gave me the material needed to finish the piece.  

Those files sat for another couple of years, and then I decided to publish the audiobook. Alternatives made a beautiful website with original artwork commissioned from Marie Davis and through Lantern Audio it was published.

It has barely sold at all, which is too bad.  I had no PR budget, and proper promotion is costly. I was hoping it'd be a vehicle to bring funds to the folks who worked on the project and also some non-profits I admire.  So it goes.  But The Prophet is out there, it's a good piece of work, and perhaps more people will discover it over time.

Jimmy Carter and Robert Redford

 Thinking about lots of things, but I was recently reminded that the flags were NOT flown at half mast for Jimmy Carter, so I am honoring him here.  And Robert Redford. Both cut from similar cloth in terms of being altruistic, believing in service, and humility.

Jimmy Carter was human, he never claimed to be perfect, and he wasn't.  My beef with him was over nuclear power, he was in favor of it and as President supported the development of nuclear power. Other than that, as US Presidents go, he was a mensch.  He brokered Peace in the Middle East.  That has since been sabotaged and now Israel/Palestine is the site of genocide, but Carter did good work in that regard. He understood that we needed to care for the Earth, and put solar panels on The White House. Reagan subsequently took them down.  He was married to one woman and from all accounts they were very devoted to each other. None of their offspring are sleazy drug addicts. They lived modestly.  The Carter's spent decades building houses for people who otherwise would never have a house. 

Redford, arguably the epitome of the handsome movie star, was so much more, he was a Person.  He had values and stood by them. He was wise enough not to be ruined by his stardom.  He defended the Earth, he encouraged creativity in others. He was not scandalous. He was an artist. I have never heard a bad word said about him.

Both of these men behaved responsibly in that they responded to the challenges they faced, and they both chose to undergo significant challenges on behalf of the greater good. They both endeavored to leave the world better than they found it. Alas, not everyone in such positions has such aspirations.  

Life and art

It is said that "Life imitates art" and also that "Art imitates life."  Classic chicken & egg question, but the answer is...it doesn't matter which came first, we respond to/are affected by the gestalt.

Case in point; as protests in Los Angeles are now being met by 300+ National Guard, which means more violence and further erosion of Democracy, we are fed bread and circus. So I looked at the circus.

The movies coming out this summer are pretty much all violent, murderous, rife with humans being cruel to other humans in many contexts, from the personal to the political.

What was the last movie made in Hollywood about people having transformational personal psychological spiritual (not religious) experiences?

We humans love story. Telling, hearing, reading, seeing, story is part of most people's lives in one way or another. Stories are vehicles for communicating values, beliefs, history, and aspirations. A story can enlighten, doom, inspire, discourage. We are affected by the stories we ingest.

The old saw about "violent games do not encourage violence" even though brief commercials do encourage behavior, often trotted out when the violence in media is pointed out, is so tired, so I am preemptively saying this...the idea that humans are not affected by what they see and hear, by what's on the screen, especially in the US where average screen time keeps increasing, is idiocy. More people ingesting more media, more and more of which is violent and designed to stimulate fear and anger, affects the collective psyche. Prove me wrong.

To the media producers who produce all this violent content, please stop. Start producing material that encourages people to grow, not to become murderous psychopaths. If you have a conscience then you must value a healthy society over your own profits.  If that is NOT the case, you are a psychopath and should stop producing any content and go into therapy ASAP. If you'd rather be part of the problem than part of the solution, something is wrong with you.

Radical Acceptance?

 It means to accept what is so, noticing how one feels about what is so, as a state of being, while not engaging in futile actions trying to "fix" but instead, offering what one can, to help.

Those who are here causing harm are as much a part of the equation as those who are here to reduce the suffering.  Accepting that can be challenging to the mind that is focused on helping. A mental challenge.

Wrangling one's mind, kindly and with purpose, is also part of the equation.

❤️

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?

Ugh...today...

 I awoke in despair.  Right now people are being brutalized, tortured, murdered, for money, religion, political ideology. I am so disgusted.  The VAST majority of humans would say no to all of this, but it keeps on going.  No one stops the monsters who are steering the ship and so they keep taking us into these insane killing sprees. It's been thus for such a long time.  I can't wait to leave this planet and I am never coming back.

Cosmic Recycling

There is a belief that in death, the single flame of the individual soul joins with the infinite light each individual soul comes from. A person is, with each step in life, moving towards that joining, where we become part of the great cosmic light of Is-ness, and shine on the embodied, until another candle is lit from the great light, to live a life on Earth. Cosmic recycling, if you will. Energy is neither created or destroyed, it is continuously transforming.

Imagine what that looks like. 

#Soul #Reincarnation

Emotional Permaculture

#Permaculture #MentalHealth

If we apply the Permaculture concept of "zonation" to our mental health, this can be especially helpful for empaths!  An empath may be feeling what's going on in Zone 10, and that may be some gnarly stuff halfway around the world.  That experience can be helpful in terms of informing, but it can also be debilitating when it shows up as intrusive thoughts and feelings. Sometimes we need to be able to reel our awareness in to Zone 5 or 3, closer to home, simply as a way to avoid overwhelm.

Fascism is "In"

Check this out:

https://www.commondreams.org/news/corporations-trump-inauguration

I just deleted my Uber and Uber Eats apps.  I rarely shop at Amazon but now, no more.

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!

Travelin'

I've been traveling again. In December, I learned that I can't get residency in Jamaica until I'm retired and have a pension, and that's a few years off, so I am in transition. Dear friends welcomed me in Portland for four months, wow, and then I went on a hiking trip in Ireland and visiting friends in England, and now I am visiting my brother in Hawaii. I am essentially homeless, but not destitute, and not without friends and family and resources, so I am very fortunate.

All this has led me to reflect on ideas like home, permanence, and impermanence (again), and the effect of uncertainty on my equanimity. It kind of does a number on it. Which offers me this opportunity to see that, and not allow myself to get sucked into a panic about my future. I don't know what's going to happen, but the reality is even when we have lives that feel very settled and we think we know what to expect next, anything can happen, and does. So really this is just me getting to be pretty real about it.

There are so many people in the world who have no home, who have no place where they feel welcome, where there is violence at their backs and uncertainty and likely hostility in front of them. This is a difficult time. There are so many humans and there's so much greed-driven war and other exploitive and brutal forces being foisted upon regular folks. Not to mention the crazy ideological extremism that we see coming out of the Abrahamic religions all around the world.

I got to visit a really fantastic food forest earlier this week, just beautiful. 6 acres of fruit trees, and flowering plants just all kinds of stuff, all organic, all Permaculture gloriousness!

Today...

Injustice and cruelty do not just happen, they are the result of choices made by people. When someone cuts a plume on a graduation cap, or drops a bomb on a house with people in it, shoots up a school, or uses a deadly pandemic for personal political gain, etc etc etc these are choices made by people, they are not accidents, they are not random acts.

We are each responsible for our choices. That means we must each fess up to ourselves about the damage we cause, and we all do. Drive a car, fly in a plane, use anything plastic...that is causing harm. Pollute to create electricity...that is causing harm.

When I was younger I wanted to live off the grid, grow all my own food, the whole nine yards. Now I am older, I don't grow any of my own food these days, I work online...I'm shaking my head.

This human existence, the ways that we live, the ways that I live, so many points of imbalance. It pains me and I know many feel this way, yet this is what we perpetuate.

I have no solution. I'm writing this, naming this, as part of my own processing, my response to this mornings information, and yesterdays, and anticipating tomorrow's.

Kindness is also a choice. Honesty is also a choice. Compassion is also a choice. Creativity, curiousity, respect...

Have a great day! ❤️

Abrahamic Religions are Violent

The current spate of religious holidays celebrated by those adherents to the Abrahamic religions, occurs while all three branches are represented on the world stage by extremists engaged in the organized oppression and murder of much of the world's population. Jewish extremists in Israel are committing genocide. Muslim extremists continue to oppress women and LGBTQ people throughout that region. Christian nationalists in numerous countries are trying to revive nazism as a dominant force.

Let us call out and question the Abrahamics for their actions. These religions have been the dominant paradigm in the so-called "west" and "middle east" for a long time, and look what they are bringing to the world. Not OK! Enough!

The paradigm of the Abrahamic religions in these extreme forms; all are patriarchal, anti-nature, misogynistic, and violent.

Maybe we the people of the world need to think about how it is we allow the world to be hijacked by these belief systems that are so obviously destroying life and seeking to control humanity on a massive scale.

Remember!

A lot of folks don’t understand, transgenderism, or sexual orientations that are different from hetero, or any number of other things about other people, so what. We don’t have to understand each other to treat each other with respect. Human dignity matters . So if you don’t understand another person, you think they’re weird, you think their choices don’t make sense, just remember, it doesn’t matter what you think, it matters how you treat people. So just treat people decently. It’s the golden rule! It’s what allowed humans to live in civilized societies. So let’s get back to it.

The Turning of the Wheel

It's the last day of 2023.  Ancient ways of tracking of time are about cycles, which are circles.  The physical universe is all about roundedness.  Not perfect circles necessarily, planetary orbits are often elliptical, the Earth is not a perfect sphere, but the force of gravity tends to round things out.

We experience cycles in our lives; birth and death, day and night, fertility, "to every thing, turn turn turn" etc. We even see cycles in our human inventions; economic cycles, cultural cycles, even fashion.

When we are younger and have less life experience, we tend to experience the moment and generalize it into the future, "it's like this now and so it will be like that then."  As we get older we have a different perspective, and so what is happening in this moment can more easily be seen as just this moment, something that is unfolding, rippling effects through time, throughout our lives.  For example, let's say one chooses to care for one's body in certain ways as a young person, that will affect the person's life as they get older.  Likewise if one chooses not to care for one's body, the effects will be quite discernible as time passes.

What happens when we bring together our understanding of the cyclical nature of things with our ability to make choices?  I think this is part of wisdom. That's a word we don't hear a lot these days, nor see practiced by those who are prominent.  We see lots of decisions made for expediency, political and economic, usually very short-term thinking.  It hasn't always been thus.  The people we call Indigenous to the land mass once known as Turtle Island, famously considered the actions of the group in terms of it's effects seven generations into the future.  How will this action affect the people and the place seven generations hence? This appears not to be a consideration in our modern technologized societies. Instead we have sped things up. We walk fast, drive fast, eat fast, think for the present, plan only a short time into the future.  We're busy busy busy. I am reminded of how small children (and some larger children too!) have trouble with delayed gratification.  They want it NOW!  Modern societies on Earth are very much behaving like small children in this way.

Like all things physical, this Earth has it's limitations.  The biosphere is finite and exists within a delicate balance. If you study biology at any level, macro or micro, you learn that life can exist within a fine balance, chemically.  Change certain ratios, say salt to water, and organisms die. Change the CO2 - O2 ratios in the atmosphere and some life forms will flourish while others die off. This isn't an opinion, it's observable fact, what we call "science."

As we recognize another cycle around The Sun it would be wise for us to examine our behavior, as individuals and as a group, to understand the impact we are having on our physical world and in our abstractions (politics, feelings, social behavior).  This is why cultures throughout time have taken moments to stop and reflect on what has happened and how that informs what will happen. Isn't that what New Year's Resolutions are about?

All of this to say that today and tomorrow we have this cultural tradition of reflection, taking time to stop and sit with what is, both to evaluate and to digest. This is the practice of wisdom, and wisdom leads to better choices.  Humanity is (always) faced with choices that have significant effects, in our individual lives and in the life of the group (and by "the group" I mean ALL life on Earth). What would happen if we stopped moving so fast, and instead, considered how our choices will affect the whole in seven generations? What if we stopped thinking about our desires, and instead focused on the well-being of the whole field of life on Earth, and how we as individuals and as part of the group can choose consciously the intentions on which our actions are based?  I invite all of us to take this with us into 2024.

Tonight's episode of Paradigms features Yungchen Lhamo, a woman from Tibet who makes music with the intention of spreading kindness. The music is so beautiful and effective, and Yungchen brings wisdom to the conversation. I hope you'll listen to the episode.

Sunday Morning You Sure Look...

 ...fine, here in the West Indies. It's sunny and warm with a nice breeze. It's nice.  We have been without internet service all week, the 2 month old new modem set-up provided by the monopoly internet service Flow (owned by Cable & Wireless) failed last Sunday night.  I have been seeing clients via phone hot-spot but that's not always good. Probably 1/3 of my meetings last week did not happen.  I really don't like not showing up for people when I've said I'd be there, not to mention the lost income.  We have been told every day by a Flow Rep that someone is on their way, and no one has shown up yet. What a way to run a business!  But mine are US expectations in a small developing just barely post-colonial exploited society. So I adjust, one has to. It did lead to a very frustrating week, including some recording anomaly in Paradigms, some reverb on my voice in the interview.  That was not intentional, but so it goes.

This week's Paradigms episode is about war.  I'm really happy with the way it came out.  The guest, Marc Eliot Stein from World Beyond War, was great to talk with about war and humans and all of it. It's such a pleasure to choose music to go along with an interview like this.  This is the creative part, painting pictures/telling stories with other people's songs and words, to convey what I intend to convey.  The songs chosen for this week's show are like perfectly fitting puzzle pieces.

All media has an agenda, I am right out front with my media production agenda, to inspire people to have visions of a viable future for life on Earth including humans. Certainly Peace is part of that.