Zeus!

 Zeus is a puppy I met a few weeks ago at a local animal shelter.  He's almost grown into his feet so 14 months maybe?  Pit Bull mix, sort of a cinnamon color with a while blaze on his chest.  At the shelter he was alone in a cage and I went to him and gave him treats and he was very very very enthusiastic, and when I got up to go he just sat down and wailed.  Really heartbreaking.  He's very much a baby still.

Friday afternoon I picked Zeus up at the shelter and brought him home.  He is happy to be here and very curious, checking everything out.  He is very affectionate, starved in fact, and he's got a powerful little body and puppy energy.  We're working on "sit" which he now does, and "off" and "no jumping" which he is starting to respond to. He loves to chase the ball or the kong.  He likes the different foods he's getting.  He listens to everything and watches my every move and is clearly "taking it all in."  I suspect he hasn't lived in a house before.  He's a little head shy, so he was probably hit.  I am clumsy and I dropped a knife on the tile floor while cooking last night and he was very upset and frightened. He recovered quickly, though, with gentle coaxing and affection.  He runs around then he crashes, typical puppy.  He barks when he hears someone at the door or at the door to the next door place.

It's a beautiful thing, watching him blossom in a loving secure comfortable space.  He's been waiting for this.

Zeus needs a permanent home.  I can only have him for the summer as I have travel plans.  He will be some lucky someone's really great dog for a long time.  Anyone who's interested can contact me through this blog. He needs a good home with space, preferably country, and loving people who will treat him with kindness and invite him into their family.

There are so many animals who need homes.  I knew it, but going to the shelter and seeing all the dogs and cats, and so many kittens, I had to respond. Hint hint 😊

Here we are

Any field of life, whether a pond or a forest or a planet, has limits, capacities, processes that can be disrupted resulting in die off.  If we look at Earth over the last few hundred years we see an increase in activity, population, extraction, heat, pollution, the list goes on.  It looks and feels like we are headed for massive system breakdowns, in fact many of our human made social systems are already collapsing. Both the social contract and social safety infrastructures are disintegrating before our eyes. That is just the start.  Wait until large planetary systems collapse quickly.  We're getting close, with the oceans dying, the tipping of the Amazon rainforest which now emits more CO2 than it sequesters, and other such Earth systems collapsing under the weight of humanity's demands.  Record warm temperatures at both planetary poles has very significant ramifications.  The momentum is building, we all feel it whether we acknowledge it or not, and that is working on the collective psyche.  Fear of annihilation drives extremist politics and extreme religiousity, both of which shred the social contract.  We see this happening all around the world.

It's always nice to wrap up a blog entry with a pithy resolution.  I don't have one.  Here we are.

Can suffering be a catalyst for positive personal growth?

 I was recently interviewed by Mina Blair for her podcast MatChat.  Here's a link to that interview.

Can suffering be a catalyst for positive personal growth? with Baruch Zeichner

Belief - to Believe

Believe - From Middle English beleven, from Old English belēfan, from be- + lȳfan, lēfan to allow, believe; akin to Old High German gilouben to believe, Old English lēof dear 

How many times do we say or hear "I believe..." and what role does belief, as an action, play in the state of civility in society?

Basically it means that a belief is "something I hold dear."  We like our beliefs.  We are attached to our beliefs.  We defend them and even offer them to others, sometimes forcefully. Belief is something humans engage in.  "To Believe" is a verb, Belief is a noun. They are the product of Mind. The self-aware conscious mind that humans have makes belief inevitable.  We have experiences which inform our beliefs, and, we share ideas with each other.

Religions are sets of beliefs, but not all beliefs are religious.  Belief is the lens through which we see the world, through which we see ourselves. We have a choice, always, about what we believe.  We don't always know we have that choice. Beliefs, enacted, have consequences, sets things in motion. We see this in our politics.  We see this in our physical health and sense of well-being.

If we are to stop killing each other and become something better, frankly, then we currently are, we must learn to see belief for what it is, a personal choice of a way to see the world.  Not Truth.  Not universal. If each human really is a limitless universe of potential imagination, then it's clearly a fools errand to try to conquer another persons autonomy in any way.  It's absurd.  

We go through our lives interacting with each other, though less these days, but how many of our encounters are really fully present Encounters of the other person? Even if it's a person you're encountering through a bureaucratic function, to exchange some words that acknowledge each others personhood.

I have this idea to create a website where people can go who feel politically polarized and don't want to be polarized, who want to come together with others with a common mission, putting political differences aside. The way it would work is you would go to the website, enter your name and zip code. You would then be matched with others from yours and neighboring zip codes, and with a task that needs doing; a park cleanup, a garden planted, a playground fixed, things that benefit everyone.  The agreement is that by using this service you agree to put politics aside and really give it your all to work with people for the common good. What do you think?