February 07th, 2024

Lolling about naked on a beach in India back in the 1970s... I stopped a tall, colorfully dressed man to see what he was hawking from his large flat wicker basket. I bought an ancient looking coin for five US dollars, enough money to keep a street person fed for months. Barter as I might, the walking merchant would budge no lower. I still have that coin from the Parthian kingdom in Persia, among the first ever produced, made several centuries before the point in calendrical time we might call “0”. I didn’t know it then, but that exchange would trigger a series of musings in following years. 

These days I find myself imagining a world without money. No, the thought is not crazy, and neither am I. (Better yet, where would we find a worthy reference from which to determine “crazy?” I’m game to the challenge, but that’s another matter entirely.)

I say that we are “necessarily” obsessed with money. The world as we know it requires our participation in the belief in its essential role in our lives, and in our compliance to the acquisition and exchange of great gobs of it daily. Even those who are far from greedy, those who are content with enough food and a good bed to sleep in and nothing more... unless they are completely “dropped out” of all banking and governmental affairs, will be drawn into the unrelenting current of its power.

I imagine this money-less world not in the hope or fancy that it might come to pass in my or my great-grandchildren’s time, no I do not.

I do so for the “brain-wash”. Much as we are brainwashed into whatever social conventions that have set themselves into our minds from birth and which we now take as sane and normal, I seek, in such fantasies and “novel thinking”, a temporary, refreshing mind-cleanse, a fresh wind to sweep away the webs of habit... that I might set forth into the (moneyed) demands of my day with a snappier bounce in my step. “Mental floss”, if you will.

I get that money’s essential purpose is to represent, by standard and fiat, the fundamental value of human effort. At best it is merely that: a way to simplify the values of myriad goods and services we all need and want to engage in. And I believe that at its best, money is a tool and not an object of desire, let alone an idol; that we would remain committed to its usefulness only as it enables us to live well and be of service to our loved ones and our community.

And that brings up what it has become; and is likely why I’m taken to imagining its non-existence. 

Namely, this can be referred to as the shadowland—as it stands proud in our brightness of day—of the ‘American Dream’. A dream that promises, to anyone willing to go along with the ruse, a life of luxury, and perhaps, adulation. When I was in primary school, elders asked us what we would like to become when we grow up. I recall answers like “fireman”, “doctor”, “nurse”, “astronaut”, “train engineer”, teacher, and “house builder”. A few decades later it was noted by sociologists that a growing number of children responded with “rich and famous”.

I will say only that I have this gut-borne feeling, this head-ripping conviction… that the “American Dream” needs to expire, or at least to transform, likely in a radical way.

I have an idea for a replacement: it is the dream not of luxury but of abundance for all, and that “I” might be of service to my fellow blue-planet inmates. I know, it’s a bit simple, and not near as exciting as one that shows just how special I am/could be. Let’s remember, though, that all our personal dreams—singer, painter, scientist, builder, fireman, dancer, cop, inventor—remain as they always have, in our dreamy hearts and brains, and will continue to fuel the enterprises of an intelligent and productive society. Because we all are so special in this way—this way of dreaming, and being of service—not one of us really is. Except in personal relations, of course. Yet we are unique, each and every one. And that, my special friends, is enough.

Yes, I imagine a social system not unlike that of the “primitive” hunter-gatherer—but with guitars, central heating, and great libraries.

A social environment in which one’s well-being blends invisibly—and obviously—with that of everyone else’s.

Ahh, but one can dream.
…..



I sit in my lawn chair in the afternoon sun as it blazes the eye from between tall firs and mighty cloud forms. A glass of good wine sparkles in the rays. A flash rain erupts and decorates the neighborhood with liquid fire, and it pummels my front lawn in a shower of spears, and from each one as it hits the grass, a poof of mist… sudden change! 

I wonder about the world, how it has changed so quickly, or seems to have, and where it’s going and why. I imagine something emerging from an outworn cocoon, perhaps a new human creature to take flight into we-know-not-where, into territory of mind and experience we likely aren’t able to imagine. A sudden downpour of change, violent and beautiful—why not, this seemingly fantastical scene? If the natural world provides examples of such radical transformation—butterflies, volcanoes, ice ages—why not in the personal and collective of our species? Evolution is slow and irrevocable, yet there is evidence of mutation and sudden leaping about… Or, blind as a love-smitten mole, do we cycle through the ages once again, as if following a script we attribute to myth of olden times: the Atlantis of our possible future?

Could we have conceived a story of the demise of a great and arrogant civilization... in anticipation of the direction we ourselves might be hypnotically fixated on? A warning from our collective unconscious of myth and symbol, of where NOT to go? Could we be that wise—and dumb at the same time? 
“Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.” —Carl Jung.

That there is, in fact, a ‘wise’ part, is where my imagination wants to go. I imagine that cocoon cracking open, and some strange bird of a human kind taking flight into a wondrous path, bringing the unconscious into new form. And maybe that’s us, and this suffering Buddha-realm is a very convincing performance art we unknowingly employ for the sheer joy and horror of it all. That’s our job: to feel, and to be whatever we can be. Play good and hard, yu’all!

And there are other stories we tell ourselves, stories with meaning and potential. We tell them with flaming hope, with fear and with yearning. We imagine aliens—whether real or not in the physical sense—dropping by and sneaking around, so evolved and such. Yet hidden inside that story is the drive for a return to a paradise lost. Having long lost the primitive spunk that conceives haunting melodies, lovelorn pain and brilliant dance... comedy and tragedy, mouth-watering cuisines and street car fun—yes, drawn are those imagined aliens to the messy, throbbing faith in living each day blind for tomorrow, the rough ruby of our dumb honesty haunting a dim, aching memory... Yeah, it’s a fantasy, a fiction I play for kicks, perhaps self-serving, like each stepping stone on a path to… to wherever, baby. The seeds of that dystopian future already live among us in our movies, our novels, our imaginations—and whenever we feel numbed out to the life that explodes around us every moment of any day. For if we take that story of ancient myth to heart, we already have everything to be thankful for, here and now... 

Yet I’d like to go back to the idea of sudden change, or ‘mutation’. The idea that form can change in short order (perhaps plain as sight in the caterpillar/butterfly transformation) has been made more understandable with recent discoveries in epigenetics. My spiels are often wispy or foggy, as some have pointed out, but this one—that humankind might ‘jump’ into a new era of ‘loving cooperation’—can be considered alongside a direct mechanical correlation, offering, I hope, a more palatable scenario to my ‘mechanistic’ readers (if any still remain). 

For epigenetics has made Darwinism (not among my favorite of human ideas) more believable, and palatable. I’ve often wondered, ‘how could wings just happen, as if the complete idea precedes the need and the fact? Or whales, beginning in the ocean, then sprouting legs for a season on land, then deciding it’s better to go back into the ocean…’ the mechanics of these evolutionary assertions have always seemed difficult to explain, or believe, given the idea that DNA is ‘just so’, more or less a static thing once the individual creature is born. (Thanks, cousin Nick, for prompting this discussion.)

That is, until the advent of epigenetics. For it is now understood that any of our twenty-five thousand-ish genes might be active or dormant, depending on their need; depending on environment. And further, that any single gene can be activated in myriad ways—again, by environmental triggers. That’s a momentous shitload of possibilities. And so the changes implied in Darwinism now appear more readily understood, in that genes might be suddenly ‘awakened’ in a species according to need in a changing environment. 
[I would add here the work of Rupert Sheldrake, his theories on morphogenetic fields (‘hundredth monkey theory’) as an adjunct to epigenetics, in order to better visualize how an advantageous mutation might rapidly sweep through an entire species. But this presupposes a leap in our mechanical understanding of things, in that ‘field’ might be based in ‘energy’ that we still have difficulty perceiving, never mind measuring.]

Now back to my beloved wispy fog… whatever track we’re on, whatever path we leap about on in our gleeful ignorance, I say we dream a good dream... while loving the crap out of each other.
…..



Two young men embark separately on life-changing journeys in the 1970s. They don’t know each other, and if they were to meet in their travels either one might view the other as a self-satisfied sycophant of a delusional subculture. Not really sure about that, just a guess. For as one leaves his homeland to hit the hippie trail in Asia, the other goes to smuggle Bibles into the USSR.

Decades later, in the early autumn of human years, they meet in a broader community of like-minded individuals seeking to plumb the depths of mind and spirit with questions like, “what DO I feel, and WHY do I feel this?”; “are these my thoughts?”; “where do they come from?”. And “how can I get through this shit so I can move on?” In this environment of vulnerability and honesty, they become good friends.

It is one of those abiding mysteries… that two very different individuals can find a connection worthy of the tales and legends told in any culture. What is that essential “sameness” they choose to turn toward that enables them to become friends? Had they met as young men—with the contrasting adornments of the lives they had chosen, or had stumbled into—would they have at least sensed something, or recognized common values beneath those adornments?

How can we learn to see past the all-too-common divisions played out incessantly in the worldly mind?
…..



If I could advise a younger me, as goes a current trend, I’d say, “The world, young fella, is not worth a minute of your worry, contrary to how things appear, and to the way most folks carry on. When you understand this you will no longer be its faithful stooge; instead it—the world—becomes your ready servant.”

I dream quite often. As I get older, getting sufficient sleep becomes more and more precious. Yet the dreams keep coming, and grateful as I am to receive them, I allow only the “stronger” ones to rouse me from my bed to write them down. 

Here are two, one recent and the other from a few years back. They are similar in their suggestion that appearances in the world are not what they seem—and not to be feared, as comes so “naturally” for us laughing, trembly humans.

In one I was on my stomach, along with loved ones, crawling through high grass so as to avoid a lethal spray of bullets overhead. When I looked up and focused on the individual bullets they melted into harmless raindrops, as if my attending to them with a steady eye played a part in transforming them. We all rose to our feet and walked along, smiling as the gentle raindrops fell. In the other we were under the control of a vast army, each soldier dressed in black and moving with menace throughout the town. Again, when I had another good look at them they turned into “happy hounds”, deferential pups wanting our approval and love.

Is it true, as countless mystics have maintained over the centuries? Does our view—our focus and intention—alter the very fabric of “reality”? Is it simply the dispelling of false ideas and with them, the “world” as we have known it?
…..



Way back in 1951 a clever researcher wondered about the nature of group conformity. He devised an experiment which, in ensuing years, is said to have been widely replicated under a variety of conditions, an experiment in psychology which stands firm before the test of time.

He provided a drawing of three lines of obvious different lengths, and a separate fourth line exactly the length of one of the three. These lines were drawn in a manner that left no doubt as to which two of the four lines were identical in length. The experimenter made sure there was no ambiguity in this. He had four people sitting viewing the lines, each asked, in order, which of the first three lines the fourth one corresponded to in length. Now unbeknownst to the last individual asked, the first three people were ‘plants’, a part of the experiment. The first three had been instructed to choose—incorrectly—a certain line that clearly was of a different length (to match the fourth). The results? Fully 75% of those actually being experimented on (the fourth person in line, who gave their answer last) conformed to the incorrect answer of the first three. That left 25%… of humans, in our present psycho-emotional state, who dare to see things with our own eyes, and to declare what we see to others. 

I would be curious to see this experiment conducted to compare results from dense urban folk/rural village folk, as well as those from ‘PHD’ households/’illiterate’ households. We could imagine all kinds of tests along these lines (if we dared, even on different nationalities) to see if certain environments promote conformity more than others. I wonder how these additional, imagined tests might challenge our moral nerve in simply being willing to see what might come up. Would we be prepared and willing to face and accept the implications of such experiments? 

Some time ago, four countries invaded another, less armed one—and they dropped bombs. 
Grandchildren, brothers and sisters live in every one of them: Saudi Arabia Invaded Yemen, the U.S. invaded Somalia, Israel Invaded Syria, and (oh yeah, I almost forgot) Russia Invaded Ukraine. All happened within one week, folks.

In my early years I was made to become conscious of my family’s darker skin and odd ways as compared to the surrounding lighter, more fetching homogeneity. I have never forgotten the ugly truth about our tendency to ‘go tribal’—and how most people succumb to the horrific attitudes of racism and superiority. No group appears to be above this. 

Why have we not heard much about the other three acts of war that happened at the same time as the much-publicized one? It doesn’t matter to me that Ukrainians “look like us” nor that it is a “modern nation” like ours. I care about the grandchildren, the brothers and sisters—in all nations. What is happening in our world that the news focuses where it does, and ignores so much?

I wonder, and I am reluctant to think this way, yet… if one is not willing to consider the possibility that the whole of society thinks and behaves as an insane entity, then it’s possible that one is not sufficiently ‘thirsty’ to find the waters of truth.

The paradox, the colossal mind-fuck? I am grateful for my life. I feel blessed to love my people, my grandchildren, and I choose to live in faith that love is our name for what constitutes the fundamental nature of the universe—of you and me. I must see the ‘darkness’ that informs the ways of this world, and with clarity and hope must I mention what I see… yet I live daily, as much as I am able, and able to remind myself, that we each contain the whole of everything we hold dear, inside us. 
…..



Whoever discovered that the diameter of a circle times pi (3.14…) equals the circumference… is brilliant! (An ancient Greek?) And more, that pi times the radius squared equals the area of the circle--even more brilliant! 

I had to use both these formulas for the first time, in over 30 years, to do a tile quote. Had to happen eventually, I suppose. Monkeys, typewriters.

I walked up to a giant fountain inside the giant circle of a short concrete wall… walked up like one of those Planet of the Ape types, but holding a tape measure. Without thinking, probably looking glazy-eyed and smug, I measured the circle’s diameter and the height of the wall, then turned and walked back toward my truck. In my dumb kind of peripheral figuring I had sensed that it was all the info I needed, so I said goodbye to my potential client. He couldn’t speak English, but the guy must have thought I was daft.

No, I didn’t get the job, but the numbers were sharp.
…..



Learning with my granddaughters the skills and the art of kindness, a most valuable way to meet the day. I get my crew going in the morning then step back, see what might be seen. Eyes with hunger—and with flaws and limits, ‘culture-bound’ as they are, or at least are likely to be. 

I realize it is unwise to try to understand that which is beyond my grasp… yet here I go, weak in my resistance, armed with the dubious benefit of audacity gained within the tight embrace of a flamboyant Italian clan… 

I am astounded at how much of our personal experience is private, separate. I speak of all times, not just the past few years… how we experience being human, period. I’ve heard that ‘separation’ has its costs. 

Regarding community, the words ‘parochial’ or ‘provincial’ describe locally-bound culture, and are often linked with ‘narrow-minded’. The particulars of a group’s thought and behavior are thus associated with insular, ‘unworldly’ views and attitudes.

In this worldly time we see and speak across vast distances with little effort, so the merely parochial appears to be changing, as all things do. And so the geographical fences are made more transparent and visible at the same time. 

But it’s harder to get a fix on our ‘era-specific’ limits. We modern types can think and behave in thousands of ways now, even in the same town. But the limits we don’t see are perhaps the ones we don’t doubt. We are driven, together, toward familiarity and comfort, and consensus in our perceptions. And these likely operate on mostly unconscious programs. We could call it our ‘blindness in time’. 

Parochial and provincial were good and natural for those closed-in valleys of the past. “Others” were not to be trusted. Attack, rape and pillage are a real part of our past. Still happens. 

We are good at pointing at, naming and describing a physical object and the space it occupies. We’re good at measuring our domain; we know where the valley ends and the passes that make us vulnerable. 

Time, on the other hand, is as slippery as a scent on the wind. 

I would like to find a word to describe a perceptual matrix, a local veil in time, rather than in space. This time, our time—any time. I speak of the illusion of the pre-eminence—in knowledge, philosophy, the arts—of ‘our’ times. It is the collective web of thought and emotion that fools us into believing we are wiser than all who came before, that we are closing the gap on ‘knowledge’s end’. 

I believe it would be a most useful word, one to name a reality... that we might be better equipped to ‘see’ before the slip of time would allow us to look back with smug confidence. I can’t think of such a specific word. If there is one, I’d love to learn of it. Or maybe we could make one up. The Germans are good at throwing words together, maybe they already have one. 

I was flipping through my big red dictionary toward one of those German words, zeitgeist (to make sure I wasn’t bending its meaning), when my eye fell upon another, weltanschauungen. (Perhaps a ‘soft’ synchronicity serves to suggest that I become more aware of my own folly…) But neither word is… well, not quite the word I hanker for. For it needs also to refer to an era’s self-delusion in knowledge and wisdom.

As much as I feel it, I can’t put my finger on it. A word to name... something we haven’t quite ‘seen’ yet. It’s like saying the universe is expanding, but not mentioning, nor even wondering, what it might be expanding into. 
Is there some kind of ‘Non-Universe’ out there? What could that be?
.....


A friendly universe: and so I find that I’ve been living in one all along.
‘Friendly’ sets the tempo of life on flow, illuminates the backdrop of the stage with faith, and reveals in every detail a little hologram of something greater.

‘Universe’ is so incomprehensibly huge that it contains all we can and cannot imagine, including our present ‘unseen’ before the birth of ‘I’, and after its death. Today’s teacher might well be the fragility in a child’s eyes, and the smile that eases my burden tonight might come from a prisoner of suffering.

Perhaps fear is our work order, the stick and carrot of class instruction. In the many guises and different ways it comes to us, fear could be the mask for opportunity in reclaiming responsibility for what we experience, and therefore, for our autonomy. And so after a few bumps along this rather primitive road, we get to meet with the discovery of genuine friendship with... all of THAT.

Because I love that we see things differently (otherwise, why the need for words?), because our experiences are diverse and appear as separate pieces in a vast puzzle… I am curious about, and would love to get my hands on a grand bus, fill it with like-minded pilgrims, and travel the plains of sanity to plumb the mysteries on this, Einstein’s famous question: 

Is the universe a friendly, or an unfriendly place?
.....


In the aftermath of that logging truck crash and covid… seems the air itself has been spiked with psycho-active agents emanating from some existential (some say a spiritual) field. 
So lately, I’ve kept rather quiet.

Then I happened to look back at some unfinished thoughts I’ve had in months past but didn’t have the will to present. Here’s one:

In the dark hours, I’m sorting through different shelves of mind that bleed up and downward in ways I’ve given up trying to understand. In these remorseless places I have ‘been informed’ that I have allowed myself, for most of my life, to be tossed about in the caprices of desire to the point of obsession. Music, the Mind, Woman: my great peaks of desire. 
Feels like the exquisite aura of ‘woman’ has towered higher, prouder. Of course it has, chump.

Writing is a relative newcomer and is, oddly, something I simply do, like installing fine tiles or going to the park with my granddaughter. It’s not so much about desire, more about experience and service. Alas, writing did not even exist as an identity-piece in my formative years. I saw myself as a son of peasants and more suited to the vagabond life, or digging dirt or building things—playing music if I really wanted and was lucky—than to anything so learned as ‘to write’. During my entire childhood and a good portion of my adulthood, the classic affair with words and phrases did not even appear as an option. On the seminal journey of a bygone traveling life I made a modest attempt at keeping a journal; it is what I saw a few compadres-of-the-road doing, so I gave it a go myself. Lasted for a few weeks before I flung it out a window on an Indian train as I would a nasty parasite plucked from my neck.

Now, ironically, in these quiet hours I am drawn to write, and it feels quite separate from anything goal-oriented or the ‘objects of desire’. (Is that even ironic? Sigh.) An alignment toward ‘contributing’ is roused, inasmuch as I’m able to describe and share ideas on how to recognize and perhaps dismantle some of the crazy walls we build, together and alone, between and surrounding us. Perhaps this is my modest way of testing the waters of serving one and all… that I believe we all crave. It is what brings me the courage to hit ‘post’ or ‘submit’. 

And it gives me respite from hunger for the beautiful eternity I have always been driven to seek in those desires, like some foolish madman alone in a wasteland.

Such personal stuff--sigh. What I suspect the more sensible among us are likely to keep to themselves. And, well, that’s just what I’d been doing, far too effectively and for far too long, as I learned in a classroom setting a number of years ago.

And so this note is at the tail end of a masterly run of procrastination.

It was a number of years ago, in the second year of a course, that I was challenged to set up a web page for my writing. After some modest belly-aching about my deep and abiding distaste for goal-setting, yadda... I agreed to do it. I did the web site, but told very few people.

I reckon that telling people was an unspoken part of the deal... right?

Self-promotion is something I just don’t feel. It doesn’t bother me when I see it in others, but when it comes to me, I find it repugnant. I’m sure there’s something to be curious about there. Not gonna defend my reluctance, and I’m not gonna say there isn’t a beneficial place for it either.

But given ‘the deal’, this forum/blog/love diary... seems as benign a place as any to tie up the loose end in my agreement. And it’s far more effective—and true to that agreement—than mentioning it briefly, dismissively, here and there.

So here it is: my official coming out on the writing thing: johndom.com (I know, you’re already here.) Some whack shit therein, most of it written a good while ago, probably never live it down. But I will, cuz that’s the deal,right?

My seeming lack of ambition and strong reluctance toward goal-setting, my insistence that “all is as it must be” (thanks, Mom)… I won’t explore here what drives these attitudes, for they likely show up in the tip of a hidden mountain of subterranean action on this great Earth of countless mountains in multi-colored, colliding ranges—you and me and buddy and all our wondrous joy and loathsome shit.

Yet in spite of it all, I like myself. Perhaps this is weird. 

Thx P2, and Steve and Maria.
Thx, Fortuna, Destiny, Providence, Lady Luck, and all those inscrutable forces, alignments, road blocks and such, juggled as they are in the rubbery hands of time—that always seem to play us just exactly where we are.

I will walk, foot by foot, in winsome faith that somehow it all unfolds with intelligent ease.
For in the jungles of war and love, we are the hidden treasures of an undiscovered world. 
.....


The ‘flow’ of things presents timely little jumps that make the act of choosing seem redundant. Surrender and flow: a heck of a way to run a business. Or one’s life. I take a new course of action—by happenstance, for all I know—then it’s time for reflection. ‘Reflective intelligence’, as counter point to our more celebrated ‘active’ kind, is the discovery of an experiential new land risen from some great ocean of potential.

As a result I see that much of what I think and write about leans into ideas that seek to make sense of what are described as metaphysical, spiritual, or the subtle, transpersonal realms. All this and everything between... could be described as “mysticism for dummies”. So for some, the following is likely to strain credulity, or conjure yet another castle in the sky that would add to the rarefied rubble of words I offer in a heedless scatter across our timeline of ideas. 

Lately I’ve been smitten with a holographic paradox that goes something like this: All the love in the world fits neatly inside each of our hearts. It is an idea and a feeling that is dear to me, and maybe self-serving. (But what real meaning has “self” here given that we all share that very same focus or ‘form’ of identity?) Yet the value of the notion comes through in its effect, which feels liberating, calming—indeed, it lights up my connection with others. Love puts the spark to all we value in life… in its wake curiosity and gratitude are like special mind-crafts, mysterious inner potions that can take us into new lands of experience and understanding. 

The template of reality suggested by holograms can explain a feeling many of us have, or have had, especially as children: that ‘I am’ a glorious, self-evident ‘center’ of all that is. Leaving aside the private mind’s darker or more rudimentary aspect, “solipsism” (that oneself is all that exists), we can delight in the assurance that all can share in this same sense.

And so, when I wonder about existence plain I come to a ‘shape’ of things that can be described thus: I am a small part of the whole, yet I contain the essence of the whole. Simple words that attempt to describe our central existential mystery… that surely is beyond words.

Toddler-me tried to participate in ‘talk’ like everyone else. All I got was chuckles. It was the first time I became conscious of “me” as separate from others. I remember that ‘me’, and how it felt… and I am intrigued to admit I do not perceive any notable difference from the ‘me’ of today: essentially it is self as a whole, yet one of untold many that populate our Earth. 

I wonder, how many ‘wholes’ does it take to fill the ‘sheltering sky’ of mind—personal and collective? What drives us, singularly and together, in purpose and muscle, to build great pyramids, to set out into unknown seas in wooden ships? To hole away in seclusion and write a symphony? To climb aboard a missile aimed into space? To construct a world-wide network in crude mimicry of a single brain? 

What drives us? We are numerous pieces with the same form, the same working parts. A staggering multiplicity of pieces, the whole reflected in each one.

And what wily shadowland of descriptions can account for who, where or what... we are during sleep? Do we ‘go’ there? Is sleep a common field for a collective ‘self’ we dip into each day? For me the questions themselves are exciting, even though the answers might not appear—at least not where we think to look for them.
…..


It was Valentine’s Day yesterday.
And I realize, just now, that I did not wish anyone a “Happy Valentine’s Day!” 
And so I want to say...

Love is deeply intelligent. So intelligent that it is beyond the whim or machinations of ‘not-love’. That is the place of fear and control. When it comes to controllers and ‘perps’, they appear to feed on anxiety and pain, and gain by the contractions that fear creates. I have seen and felt this myself, and I’ve been the bad guy, too. That these regrettable behaviors have no jurisdiction in the field of love… I’d place a huge bet there.

It’s as if the designers of the universe decided that where love is lacking, intelligence will be in short supply as well. Perhaps love and intelligence are directly related. Wherever the forces of control and fear hold sway, a scarcity of conscious presence is evident. Why do those who are labeled ‘evil’ underestimate the goodness and good sense of most people? Is it because they do not perceive it? When inhabiting ‘darkness’, is ‘light’ repellant, or, ‘invisible’? Is that why, in their pompous arrogance, repressive regimes stomp forth revealing their plans as if nothing could stop them? Perhaps fear and control operate in a more rudimentary strata of mind and are, well, to put it simply, kinda’ dumb. Dumb when contrasted with the creatures of limitless creativity and rollicking laughter that each of us contains—even as we might hide it all away. Love addresses suffering with compassion and forgiveness and offers redemption, a way through and beyond the agonies of the world. Love even loves... ‘not-love’.

Darkness cannot drive out darkness, only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that. —MLKing.

I don’t know about you, but in my interactions with others, characterizations of ‘light’ and ‘dark’—as in forces or energies—keep coming up, especially regarding the polarized mess the world appears to find itself in these days. I don’t really buy into the division: I believe it is false, a broken view arrived at by the scheming of distressed minds. Perhaps ‘darkness’ and ‘evil’ are simply what result from a chronic turning away from each other—yes, us—from ‘connection’ itself. Even so, in our personal interactions there are those who lift us, those we feel comfortable near, and those who judge us, those we feel uneasy in the company of. In popular myth the forces of fear and dick-ness (being a mean-ass dick) are generally aligned with darkness. Now I am not ‘against’ darkness, for in walking straight into it one can experience growth and transformation (light), and find that there is no real danger in it, that it isn’t even dark, really. In my modest way I have learned that when faced, what appears as a horror tends to subside and lie placid, as a lion beside a lamb. I’m not saying that this is absolute for everyone in all experiences, only that it has been the case for me, once or twice, in my limited time here.

Perhaps, as some say, there are spiritual or transpersonal ‘laws’ that govern our behavior. For those who are reluctant to think in these terms, we might say that it is the propensity of life itself to insist upon growth, adaptation, and improvement—an observable phenomenon, among the most mysterious to science. Why should this be so? What is life “trying to do?” Perhaps what some call spiritual is, by this natural view, the expansive enigma of life’s intricate and energetic pathways, ones that appear to move as if ‘purposefully’.

We speak poetically about ‘the head and the heart’, as if the two have been pushed apart by some strange, alienating magnetism inside each of us. But it is only when the separation vanishes, like the monster in the closet, that we might come close to feeling ‘whole’.

And that is when compassion rises and we laugh at the illusion of fear as we laugh at the sky, and the sun rises like a giant heart over the world.

And as it sets, the growing darkness ignites our imagination, and we are sparked with cool ideas on songs and poems, words and pictures... and all is well in the lands of the human saga.

Happy (belated) Valentine’s Day!
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“We’re making a pledge to do this thing together!”
Peter Jackson’s “Get Back” comes at an auspicious time, giving us a brighter view of the Beatles in their latter days as a group. The film shows us their commitment to produce music in a deliberate, scheduled way: it was their ‘job’, even as they defined the mountaintop that subsequent popular music would have little choice but look up to. The film comes across as more light-hearted and optimistic than the earlier “Let It Be” from 1970, which was shot in the same time and place yet depicted a quarreling, darker foursome.

The quote at the top is from a dream I had last night, words that speak at the same time—and bewitchingly so—to entirely disparate scenes, as dream words so cleverly do. For me they underline the positive potential of what our world is turning through today, as if Jackson’s hand on the wheel of time has the Beatles nodding in our direction, still singing, “Love, love, love!” in these most interesting times.
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I will ask a tender question: to what extent is the cause of censorship, in all its forms—including hate speech laws and the urges of those who would promote ideas to “protect the vulnerable”… how is this drive to ‘clean up the world’ related to the seemingly widespread denial of one’s ‘shadow’—that interior self we seem to fear and be self-programmed to avoid? Do we fear that the darkness might ‘win’? What is our personal ‘bogey-man’? Will there always be some anti-christ or monster from deep childhood, no longer recognized as fear yet still lurking in our sophisticated lives, ever-ready to be triggered for ‘justified’ action? 

Someone once said: “the way to deal with darkness is to shine a light on it.” 
And another voice: “Hate cannot overcome hate; only love can.”
Or, as a poet said, in an unruly moment: “kick at the darkness until it bleeds daylight.”
Vedantists say that there are many paths on the lower slopes, but only one mountain top.

Shine on. Light and love are real power. Fear and control are intrinsically weak. 
Paradoxically, there is nothing to fear. 
Every single one of us ‘has’ a body that will expire. 
Let’s accept this plain fact, face it every day, and then see what happens.

Those who say hateful things, or produce bad art, are hurting, and need to spend more time with those who hurt less. Let’s get together.

And those who we believe will be hurt by words and images… would best be supported, and strengthened, in learning to flourish in ‘the-world-as-it-is’—and not in our attempting to silence or ‘blot out’ the parts that bother them (or, more to the point, bother us.)

These bothersome parts are the so-called ‘shadow’ of all things about us that we would rather avoid. Yet staring it down and walking straight into it is one sure way through to a less anxious, and a better life.

And in facing the dark and the ugly, we are enabled to embrace all of humanity, even those we might once have been willing to denounce and cast aside.
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Morning, 2021! 
This little bit takes the form of a confession. 
I was raised in an old-world, Roman Catholic home, and evidently, something there remains. Although I rejected its tenure in my belief system at an early age, it seems that its psychic action runs deep: the idea that ‘seeing’ one’s transgressions is useful; the conviction that this kind of inner attentiveness will have a beneficial, redeeming effect. 

Which leads me to wonder whether any system will leave its experiential ‘imprint’—including those that stand in opposition to ‘faith’, or self-describe as rational, or ‘evidence-based’. Is it possible that all systems are subject to this ‘house-of-mirrors’ effect? Something to think about.

Somehow it does not make sense to me that my whole life, even from when I was very young, has been blessed with insights and sensations that want to cozy up to the teachings of saints and sages, even as these have become entangled with recent ideas from the physical sciences. It does not make sense to me because it seems that I have done little to earn these; I have followed no apparent discipline of mind or body, of study or skill; and I have not learned to meditate or develop the ability to concentrate or ‘be still’, of which mystics often have spoken. Without blame or shame do I seek clarity, and I see that in most ways I have taken the path of least resistance. Why then, have I been so blessed? Am I foolish to even ask? 

As the world races and spins, shouts and cries… I see it, watch it, even as I want to engage it, to do my part for the blooming of peace and trust where suffering so clearly abounds. Yet I find that I am often stalled and silent in the face of its rapacious and acquisitive forces. I go about my simple life—running my small business, serving my guys and my customers, attending to my loved ones—like a single reed in a quiet pool at the edge of a raging river. While my own carnal hunger also continues to rage, gone are the dreams of glory that once set the bar in this mostly restless mind. Gone is the great expanse of time and existence in this world, the illusion of a ‘worldly forever’ that accompanies the imaginations of the young (and how lovely, that naive joy in imagining infinite possibility! Are the young indeed ‘closer to the truth’?) 

What remains is desire for truth, and love for my people. And faith in some kind of unknown power that I intuit lies at a deeper level within the places of rest and near-silence, felt as brief glimpses beyond the storms of world and mind.

Gratitude and curiosity follow me on my path. Or they precede me.
Surely, they are my allies. 
This is my refuge.
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