Rapunzelunraveling

2010-02-08T10:03:00.000-05:00

Support Iranian human rights by posting this on your blog. Go here for the embedding code.

More on Charter for Compassion

2009-11-05T20:04:00.004-05:00

CHARTER FOR COMPASSION TRAILER from TED Prize on Vimeo.

There is an urgent need for a new focus on compassion.

Bringing together voices from all cultures and religions, the Charter seeks to remind the world we already share the core principles of compassion.

On November 12, thousands of people across the globe will listen together.

Participate and engage with the Charter now at charterforcompassion.org

Director: Gilly Barnes
Music: Fredo Viola
Additional Footage: Peter Roger

The Command is Life: the Whisper is Love

2009-10-28T23:12:00.003-04:00

Kevin A. Beck writes:

Love whispered by the voice takes countless shapes including truth, eros, agape, philia, ahimsa, brahman, nirvana, ishq, amor, ahava, storge, anatta, ren, science, wonder, delight, passion, satyagraha, laughter, music, art, inspiration, infinity. Read more ...

Kevin's Living Earth is another beautiful new blog full of such whispers.

Join A New Story for New World project:
Transmillenial by Kevin A. Beck
KedgeForward by Frank Spencer
zoecarnate by Mike Morrell
Sensual Jesus by Brittian Bullock

Oneness

2009-10-26T21:50:00.003-04:00

"Let there be such oneness between us that when one cries, the other tastes salt." ~Anonymous

Joy ... or Do It Again

2009-10-22T00:18:00.001-04:00

A child kicks its legs rhythmically through excess, not absence, of life. Because children have abounding vitality, because they are in spirit fierce and free, therefore they want things repeated and unchanged. They always say, Do it again; and the grown-up person does it again until he is nearly dead. For grown-up people are not strong enough to exult in monotony. But perhaps God is strong enough... It is possible that God says every morning, Do it again, to the sun; and every evening, Do it again, to the moon. It may not be automatic necessity that makes all daisies alike: it may be that God makes every daisy separately, but has never got tired of making them. It may be that He has the eternal appetite of infancy; for we have sinned and grown old, and our Father is younger than we. ~~G. K. Chesterton

Consciousness is Contextual

2009-10-20T14:20:00.002-04:00

Noë challenges this by turning upside-down what would normally be convincing evidence that the brain really does create a world for us. This evidence comes from an experiment in perceptual psychology by Harvard researchers that went like this: A college student stops a professor on campus to ask for directions. While the professor is explaining where to go, two workmen walk between them carrying a large door, blocking the professor’s view. He doesn’t see that one of the workmen switches places with the college student. By the time they part ways, the professor has failed to notice he began the encounter speaking with one person and ended it with something else. This has been dubbed “change blindness.”

Change blindness appears to be proof positive that the brain fabricates a mental picture of the world based on information that does not exist. We live in a delusion, therefore, a world of shadows. The goal of neuroscience, then, much like the goal of philosophers in Plato’s day, is to figure out why the world appears to us as a complete picture when in fact it isn’t. Read more... at Religion Dispatches by John Stoehr

I dread success ...

2009-10-18T16:38:00.002-04:00

I dread success. To have succeeded is to have finished one’s business on earth, like the male spider, who is killed by the female the moment he has succeeded in his courtship. I like a state of continual becoming, with a goal in front and not behind. ~~~George Bernard Shaw

God, thus defined, has nothing of the ready-made; He is unceasing life, action, freedom. Creation, so conceived, is not a mystery; we experience it in ourselves when we act freely. ~~~Henri Bergson

Poem by C.S. Lewis on Literal vs. Metaphorical

2009-10-15T20:54:00.002-04:00

Footnote to All Prayers

He whom I bow to only knows to whom I bow
When I attempt the ineffable Name, murmuring Thou,
And dream of Pheidian fancies and embrace in heart
Symbols (I know) which cannot be the thing Thou art.
Thus always, taken at their word, all prayers blaspheme
Worshipping with frail images a folk-lore dream,
And all men in their praying, self-deceived, address
The coinage of their own unquiet thoughts, unless
Thou in magnetic mercy to Thyself divert
Our arrows, aimed unskilfully, beyond desert;
And all men are idolators, crying unheard
To a deaf idol, if Thou take them at their word.

Take not, O Lord, our literal sense. Lord, in thy great
Unbroken speech our limping metaphor translate.

Interview by Twitter.. Good!

2009-10-15T20:45:00.005-04:00

Peter Rollins before describes himself as an "Orthodox Heretic" and has a book by the same title:

"The question here is not how we judge between orthodoxy and heresy, but rather how we judge good heresy and bad heresy. Another way of putting this is that we must question the difference between the heresy of orthodoxy, in which we dogmatically claim to have the truth, and orthodox heresy, in which we humbly admit we are in the dark but still endeavour to live in the way of Christ as best we can."

He also did this interview through Twitter which sheds light on how he sees himself as an orthodox heretic.

Third Way: We should get this one in first. Someone asked: 'If I've never heard of you, can you sum yourself up in 140 characters?'

Peter Rollins: Orthodox heretic, a/theist, Christian in the non-Christian sense of the term, bluffer and lover of Columbo

We'll get to some of that but, first, 'Orthodox heretic' sounds like an oxymoron, or is that a false opposition?

Orthodox is often thought to mean 'right belief', but perhaps it is better thought of as 'right praise'... in this way one can be orthodox while being a heretic... i.e. living in praise while acknowledging that we get God wrong

So to be orthodox, or to be heretic, or to be an orthodox heretic – are these things we should have as ambitions?

Being a heretic is not enough. There are good and bad heretics. One must try to be an orthodox one. A heretic who tries to live in love.

Also, being orthodox is not enough... without acknowledging you are a heretic pride can enter

How can you authentically praise something if you know you might be wrong about what you're praising?

If I fall in love I may not know what would please the person, but I act with the best knowledge I have, & in fear and trembling. certainty is not needed in order to act... love is!

@rhull56 asks 'What convinces Peter that the idea of God is worth taking seriously?'

Philosophers take the question seriously. Not so sure Christians should... Christians should b more interested in Christ-living

Wow... its hard getting big concepts shoe-horned into twitter (good question BTW)

Then perhaps he'd add 'Why Christ?' In the book you adapt Buddhist tales, for example.

Because the life (of Christ) that we read of is a radical one that, if followed, could lead to the continued transformation of society... Christianity, I believe is a radical faith based upon a radical idea. But I think that much of the actually existing churches misses this...

Perhaps only Marxists are as guilty as Christians of misrepresenting their founder

The shoe-horn point: The Orthodox Heretic reminds us that Jesus spoke to uneducated 1st Century peasants. Should all theology be that digestible?

We need to distinguish between theology & the truth of faith. The former is intellectually demanding the later is life demanding. Jesus was mostly about the truth rather than theology.

Not that theology is wrong at all! Its just not true :)

When Jesus spoke of the Father, was that true?

Yes & No. God as a Father 'yes', but as any kind of Father we experience 'no'. This 'yes/no' operates in all theology. It reveals something which remains all the time concealed. Belief should not be read as empirical certainty. Belief is more than this, it involves doubt, commitment, hope, faith and desire

Where does that leave the creeds? The 'We believe'?

The creeds attempt to help re-orient our lives, so that those 'beliefs' become modes of being. We come to live the death and resurrection. When we say, 'I believe in the resurrection' we primarily commit ourselves to becoming the site of new life to those around us. It is not primarily a mere intellectual assent.

There's nothing simple about a fable, but this book is more accessible than the others. What was the thinking behind that?

Buddhism has koans to draw out Enlightenment, we have parables... I wanted to explore this. I think attempting to change how people think is limited. I want to transform who we are. Parables are a mode of doing this.

these fables will get used by preachers. If each reader is the writer, how do we build one united body of believers?

We are unified not by shared belief but by a love and commitment to the same source. Unity in difference. We are often not good at this.

How might that work in practice? Between, say, Bishops Robinson & Akinola?

The creation of suspended space in which liberal & conservative lay down their positions in the liturgical hour to encounter each other. This is the place of 'neither/nor'... neither Jew nor Greek, Gay nor Straight, liberal nor conservative.

It is a participation in the divine Kenosis (see Philippians 2:7: "Jesus made himself nothing...") in which God is emptied of all identity. We do this and take on the identity of Christ.

you suggest that Jesus' teaching was often audience-specific, changing according to context. So was he a moral relativist?

No, he was driven by love. The issue however is that love is not possible to pin down. When we make love concrete we distort love... but we must do this anyway. Love is what drives us, but when we put it in to action it will look different in different contexts

in some tales you, the writer, imagine new words into his (Jesus) mouth. But yet you also warn against personal conceptions of God?

Both under-describing and over-describing are strategies for making sure we do not reduce God to our understanding. The Bible does both. God is given various personalities (warrior, peacemaker, unchanging, changing) & also we are told God is un-nameable.

The point of these parables is not to describe something but to perform something... Parables are a performative discourse

Thanks very much Pete. One final question from @sch3lp: 'What's the dynamic between story, its teller and its hearer?'

hmmm Story is like the child, teller is like the mother and the hearer is like one who adopts the child

Join A New Story for New World project:
Transmillenial by Kevin A. Beck
KedgeForward by Frank Spencer
zoecarnate by Mike Morrell
Sensual Jesus by Brittian Bullock

Tea in the Sahara with.... Ren

2009-10-13T13:59:00.006-04:00

A one-way ticket to the grave. That's what we all have.

...

One wild and precious life. One planet filled with people who don't think like me, places I've never seen or imagined and enough mysteries to keep me enchanted for always. There are miseries we like to look away from, starving children and wars and genocide that render such a helpless feeling. Right here under my feet there is earth to till and above me stars to inspire awe. There are children who need parents and trees that need saving. There is more here than we can take in. And people are worried about college? Read more ...

...

As we know it, a one way ticket to the grave is the end to existence, and this moment in time, the present, is the only one we can touch right now. I can't say for sure that's all we have.

I love the examples Ren gives of what exists in the present moment of each day in the spectrums between joy and sorrow, trial and adventure, peace and strife, boredom and wonder, and many other tangents of experience. And if it's all we ever have, it's quite a lot.

Kevin A. Beck's "This Book Will Change Your World"

2009-10-12T20:50:00.004-04:00

Kevin shares this book "to open a conversation," says Mike Morrell of zoecarnate.

Click to get a free e-copy of This Book Will Change Your World.

Beck's book touches on some of the most burning questions to come out of end time thought. The cover itself describes for me the process of jumping out of the fishbowl of performance that most religion is into the ocean that Life is.

Join A New Story for New World project:
Transmillenial by Kevin A. Beck
KedgeForward by Frank Spencer
zoecarnate by Mike Morrell
Sensual Jesus by Brittian Bullock

Great New Post

2009-10-06T10:46:00.005-04:00

First of all, let me introduce to those who haven't seen it, Post Christian Blog by Tim King,

Calling the Unnameable by name is a real trick. Here's what Tim has to say about it:

The name of “God” is so convincingly employed by so many so often that one would think this “being of beings” was something easily definable, living in a box, as it were – held captive to the brilliance of our structured syllogisms, finite thought and highly prejudicial reasoning.

Perhaps this has been no more evident than how the name of “God” has been politicized in a post 9/11 Western world ... (read more)

A New Story For A New World (Part 3)

2009-10-06T10:31:00.004-04:00

Your line can't be crossed by me.

So I'll keep standing here behind the mirror,
Casting a shadow that you can't see.
If that's how it has to be,
Then that's what love is to me.
That's what love has to be.
That is love
For you and for me.

Poem by Errol R. Alger

Join A New Story for New World project:
Transmillenial by Kevin A. Beck
KedgeForward by Frank Spencer
zoecarnate by Mike Morrell
Sensual Jesus by Brittian Bullock

New Story For A New World (Part 2)

2009-10-04T23:49:00.007-04:00

I love stories in progress. Here's something by a friend that I just know is gonna be a lot of fun. At this point, it's only the first page you see below:

Our story begins... (Babita and Og)

http://www.babita-and-og.com/

The characters and story are set in the land of Inzeladun. All names and lands are the sole property of Vincent N. Darlage, the creator of Inzeladun, and Mark van Dyk, the creator of the artwork, story, ...

I love the idea of guessing what's going on and interpreting the story and the process that my understanding undertakes during the reading of a new story. All subsequent readings of a specific story take on the interpretations I'm already working with. Sharing story is so organic and integral to the growth of the individual who is living it out in imagination, which in a way is for real. In a way not for real. And a lot like dreaming. But mostly it's the essence of living.

Join A New Story for New World project:
Transmillenial by Kevin A. Beck
KedgeForward by Frank Spencer
zoecarnate by Mike Morrell
Sensual Jesus by Brittian Bullock

Storied & Golden

2009-09-25T13:51:00.007-04:00

The logo is the symbol for infinity. Our son Karl's favorite number is 8 and he says he loves it because both sides are perfect. I love the infinity symbol for the same reason plus both sides are also linked together.

EDIT: Here's their new movie trailer

CHARTER FOR COMPASSION TRAILER from TED Prize on Vimeo.

Lest we missed it

2009-09-25T13:20:00.011-04:00

The highest problem of any art is to cause by appearance the illusion of a higher reality.

---Johann von Goethe

I think that's life. Not just art. It would be easy to miss or to misunderstand or to misinterpret or misconceive that life is the appearance of a higher reality.

Quick. Which is it? Lest we make this into another dichotomy, let's just say at the outset that this is no chicken and egg analogy. Or does one come before another? In which case they may both be illusions. Either life is an illusion or higher reality is illusory or they both are.

Or neither of them are. (I love logic.)

I'm taking my pick. At least temporarily, we all do. Even if we don't know we're making any decisions, there we go making them.

Ayn Rand, a writer I love to disagree with says, "Every man builds his world in his own image. He has the power to choose, but no power to escape the necessity of choice."

I just can't like that. And yet I also *do* like it. Ok it's another of those paradoxes.

Not what I am or used to think

2009-09-24T13:40:00.013-04:00

So much that once seemed true is now opened up to another shore.
So much so ... as we move up onto land where there's no more war,
I'm going to mend what I once tore through
And settle where we lived all along ... together.

I hope you enjoy this song as much as I do, sung by Alela Diane in a way I really enjoy, and not to compare with Katell's own rendering. Both are wonderful.

The Gulf of Araby
Words and music by Katell Keineg (pictured above)

If you could fill a veil with
shells from Killiney's shore
And sweet talk in a tongue that is no more
And if wishful thoughts could bridge The Gulf of Araby
Between what is, what is, what is
And what can never be

If you could hold the frozen flow of New Hope Creek
And hide out from the one they said you might meet
And if you could unlearn all the words
That you never wanted heard
If you could stall the southern wind
That's whistling in your ears
You could take what is, what is, what is
To what can never be

One man of seventy whispers free at last
Two neighbors who are proud of their massacres
Three tyrants torn away in a winter's month
Four prisoners framed by a dirty judge
Five burned with tyres
Six men still inside
And seven more days to shake at the great divide

The Gulf, the Gulf of Araby
The Gulf, the Gulf of Araby

Well, we would plough and part the
earth to bring you home
And harvest every miracle ever known
And if they laid out all the things
That these ten years were to bring
We would gladly give them up
To bring you back to us
O, there is nothing we would not give
To kiss you and to believe we could
take what is, what is, what is
To what can never be

One man of seventy whispers not free yet
Two neighbors who make up knee-deep in their dead
Three tyrants grab the reins in the summer's heat
Four prisoners lost in the fallacy
Five, on my life
And six, I'm dead inside
And seven more days to shake at the great divide

The Gulf, the Gulf of Araby
The Gulf, the Gulf of Araby

The How of It

2009-09-21T14:19:00.014-04:00

This is something I wrote in another context about what I think testing is really for.

What does "testing" have to do with A New Story for A New World? I think it's the how of it. How to learn new concepts or even unlearn things about misconceptions we have gathered in a whole lifetime of engaging in myths and mythmaking.

Until I went to university, I had not encountered much if anything about myths themselves, and slowly over time I changed my mind about what storytelling really is. I suppose it would be clearer to say that my thinking on it is constantly changing. Not all myths are lies and not all stories are fabrications and instructions for children.

In other words, myths are encapsulations of our understanding about ourselves. The word "myth" itself seems to be a more tacit agreement that we and the world itself exist in a construct created in our perception. Therefore my world will divert from your world at some --if not all-- point(s) in the storyline. We all hold different pieces of the puzzle at different points on the map in our sojourn. We're all tasting different flavors in the smorgasbord that is life. And that's what testing is about, I think.... trying different things out to see what they are and where they fit.

Here's my blog about the how of doing that:

It seems to me something very basic is wrong about testing people. The meaning of testing is to try something to see if it's good, interesting, worthy, or true. ...

I think the best purpose of testing is for learning. A person tests what is being learned about and judges what is interesting to them about it and then tests it still further to see what else there is that's interesting about it. Therefore any test in the hands of the person learning benefits them, even if the thing turns out *not* to be interesting.

In my opinion, to the degree that the test is the property and instrument of the learner, it can facilitate learning. Tests don't necessarily belong strictly in the hands of teachers.

Here are some ways that testing is what learning itself is all about. To go by the list below, testing is simply put "experiencing" anything at all in the world and finding out what's valuable about it.

Test: to try, tempt, feel, sample, choose, approve, prove
Chois: French for to choose, to taste, test
Approve: to attest something with authority; to try, test something (to find if it is good)
Prove: to test, prove worthy
true: O.E. triewe (W.Saxon), treowe (Mercian) "faithful, trustworthy," from P.Gmc. *trewwjaz "having or characterized by good faith" (cf. O.Fris. triuwi, Du. getrouw, O.H.G. gatriuwu, Ger. treu, O.N. tryggr, Goth. triggws "faithful, trusty"), perhaps ultimately from PIE *dru- "tree," on the notion of "steadfast as an oak." Cf., from same root, Lith. drutas "firm," Welsh drud, O.Ir. dron "strong," Welsh derw "true," O.Ir. derb "sure." Sense of "consistent with fact" first recorded c.1205; that of "real, genuine, not counterfeit" is from 1398; that of "agreeing with a certain standard" (as true north) is from c.1550. Of artifacts, "accurately fitted or shaped" it is recorded from 1474; the verb in this sense is from 1841. Truism "self-evident truth" is from 1708, first attested in writings of Swift. True-love (adj.) is recorded from 1495; true-born first attested 1591. True-false as a type of test question is recorded from 1923.

Join A New Story for New World project:
Transmillenial by Kevin A. Beck
KedgeForward by Frank Spencer
zoecarnate by Mike Morrell
Sensual Jesus by Brittian Bullock

2009-09-17T21:57:00.001-04:00

New Story for a New World (Part 1)

2009-09-15T17:44:00.007-04:00

Father Son Father Son
Daughter Mother Sister Brother
And there is no Other
We are We are We are All One Heart
And We never were, never are, never to be apart

Join A New Story for New World project:
Transmillenial by Kevin A. Beck
KedgeForward by Frank Spencer
zoecarnate by Mike Morrell
Sensual Jesus by Brittian Bullock

The Debunking of Assumption

2009-08-26T12:17:00.003-04:00

Just when you think you know what somebody is up to. Here's a great blogpost from The Boy's Almanac:

Sent to you by k via Google Reader:

Fish Finding

via The Boy's Almanac by Alis on 8/16/09

Last weekend we took the same Butano Canyon hike twice. The first time we brought along our redwood boat thinking we might sail it on the waterfall pond. However, Seth promptly forgot about the boat (don't tell Daniel Beard) when we stopped at the second bridge and looked down. The deep spot under the bridge was full of fish! Not just minnows but huge fish! Some were gray and one was a salmon orange. There were crawdads and some fingerlings just to round out the population. It was fascinating to watch them interact. There was so much infighting, and what seemed like crawdad harassment just for fun. Some fish swam slowly together, while other fish raced zig zaggedly from side to side. This fish observation set the tone for the hike. Seth spent the rest of the hike sidling up to the stream when ever possible and scouting for fish. Being novices to the whole fish/fishing thing, Seth and I are never sure of what we should be doing on these fishing expeditions. Now we know. We look for fish. We learned to look more carefully in the shadows and to identify habitats that might be fish friendly.

The next day we took the same hike with the fishing pole and camera. This time Seth surprised me. Every time we stopped to look at the fish he said, "I am studying the fish". He carefully revisited each little sandy beach and shady pool we had discovered the day before. I was impressed by his focus. When we got to the waterfall to practice our casting he spent a long time on the rock above the big pool scouting. I guess this is what real fisherman do - they look. I thought Seth was showing good fishing intuition. But low and behold when we actually caught the fish, he carefully wet his hands, examined the fish and asked me to release it. The reason he gave me was this, "I am a fish scientist, and I just want to look at the fish".

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From MysticBLueRose's blog

2009-08-23T22:58:00.003-04:00

The poem below is from Debra's blog. So great -- I swiped.

Wage Peace

Judyth Hill

Wage peace with your breath.
Breathe in firemen and rubble,
breathe out whole buildings
and flocks of redwing blackbirds.
Breathe in terrorists and breathe out sleeping children
and freshly mown fields.
Breathe in confusion and breathe out maple trees.
Breathe in the fallen
and breathe out lifelong friendships intact.
Wage peace with your listening:
hearing sirens, pray loud.
Remember your tools:
flower seeds, clothes pins, clean rivers.
Make soup.
Play music, learn the word for thank you in three languages.
Learn to knit, and make a hat.
Think of chaos as dancing raspberries,
imagine grief as the outbreath of beauty
or the gesture of fish.
Swim for the other side.
Wage peace.
Never has the world seemed so fresh and precious.
Have a cup of tea and rejoice.
Act as if armistice has already arrived.
Don't wait another minute.

Source: Written in response to September 11, 2001

Going Raw & Green

2009-08-23T20:32:00.002-04:00

There's nothing like a green smoothie with avocado and other yummy ingredients. Here's something I might win: a drawing for a VitaMix. Yippy! Thanks for the tip, Brianna. :)

And Speaking of Love

2009-08-14T08:39:00.005-04:00

Let's talk about what Tracy Parker calls

The Bastardization of Good News

In big letters on her blog. Just like that. Appropriately enough her blog is called: Fiercely Loved. I know *I* love it! ;) You might enjoy the woo-hoo picture she posted. Leaping into the abyss. Crazy.

Here's her fantastic blogpost:

I was talking with some friends today and they were, in part, recounting what religion has to done people. As I heard the horrors recounted (I will not share them here; you likely already know them all too well), I realize how bastardized what should be good news has become in the religious system of our day.

Rather than proclaim with great boldness: “You are loved. Relax. Go have a bottle of wine with some friends and strangers. Celebrate the uniqueness of both the One who loves you and of yourself! Invite me to eat with you and we can talk and get to know each other,” religion says, “Serve, be good, do the right thing, keep working hard, strive for purity, obey, submit, follow external instructions, and no matter what, conform so that you look just like us.”

Religion says: Celebrate the same way we do, with decency and order, and be sure you stay in line. Be careful who you hang out with—you don’t want a bad influence rubbing off on you. Appearances are everything, so choose carefully.

Love says: Let’s celebrate! Go wild, tip over the edge! Tell everyone they are welcome to my party! Be expansive, wildly open, stupidly generous, and ridiculously joyous. Invite the oddest people you can find—please! Shower one another with openness and love and being authentic. What great gifts you have for each other! Give them indiscriminately.

Religion says: Weigh your options. Try to be sure you’re on the right path. Be cautious so you don’t get out of the will of God.

Love says: Throw caution to the wind. Be the wild self you were created to be, filled with passion and ready to make lots of mistakes. No need to fear; I have it all covered!

Religion says: Do this. Don’t do that. If you do this, I will bless you. If you don’t do this, I will not bless you.

Love says: You don’t need to change a thing for me. You could never disappoint me. My love encompasses all you do. I have thrown away the measuring stick for all time!

Religion says: It’s safe to come out! We want to beat you over the head when you do and tell you how totally unacceptable you are for daring to think differently than we do. Heretic!

Love says: It’s safe to come out! You can be your authentic self, in all your glorious messiness. I see all of your BS anyway, so why bother hiding it? I am love and I embrace you completely.

And, perhaps, the worst contrast of all:

Religion says: Keep on trying. One more altar call. One more prayer. One more donation. One more effort. Try just a little bit harder. You can be “fixed” if you focus more on yourself.

Love says: It is finished! All that’s left is the celebration! Enter into what has always been true. Let’s have the most passionate, electrifying, fun, wild rollercoaster ride together!

If it doesn’t sound absolutely too good to be true, then you haven’t heard the true message of Love. I can only think that people who still walk in religious ways have simply not met the One who is Love.

Your thoughts?

Intuition and Other Abilities

2009-08-12T16:38:00.004-04:00

Any ability has a tendency to create fear and even violence, depending on how I use it. If my use of premonition or logic or intuition or any ability is to guard myself from ill fate, to protect myself, then I can have a greater and greater view of the world and myself through the lens of fear. This lens magnifies a distorted view of my potential and myself.

Yet if my use of any ability is to enrich my true self, to know who I really am, and to grow in love and integrity, then I can have a greater and greater view of the world and myself through the lens of love. This lens magnifies life.

The lenses are important in that one leads to peace and the other leads to striving for what one doesn't think one has. One view can engender chaos. I'm getting beyond simple avoidance, and more and more I feel a desire to speak to my state of mind that employs fear as a protective or competitive or compensating measure. I can view things through love without an automatic overlay of fear.

It's possible that my fear/flight instinct is trippier these days due to an overflux of true and false information, in addition to a wish for more. Knowledge is power, so the saying goes. Ok. But is that knowledge leading to fear or love? I've been using it as a litmus test for myself. Does knowing x lead me to greater love or greater fear? The same knowledge can increase fear in one mind and love in another.

I want to understand love so that my abilities are informed by that view to life. I want to accentuate love and self-knowledge and growth in a world that accentuates fear and devalues self-knowledge and economizes *everything.*

Fear is a perception of threat, which is not always intended and often doesn't come through.

Whereas love is always more real than a threat that is carried out as love can be self-perpetuating even in the face of loss. Does the experience (personal knowledge) of loss lead me to prudence and economy and protectiveness or does it lead me to giving and gratitude and openness?

Four Things

2009-08-07T18:24:00.003-04:00

These are pretty accurate I think and here's the link I got these things from:

Thing one: your child's needs matter more than your own.
A child's brain is formed based on the quality of our interactions with them. We cannot ignore the importance of this in favor of what's more convenient for us. We must let go of many of our own needs in order to give them what they need. Whether it's waking seven times a night to nurse her until it changes naturally, or offering your hand to hold for three months while he learns to walk, or letting go of your need for exercise to be consistently present with your child, they need us. Children thrive when we are able to be there for them. But here is the secret...BEING with them is actually what we REALLY need too, even though our mind is trying to convince us otherwise. (For more information read: Joseph Chilton Pearce)

Thing two: you will repeat old conditioned patterns unless you diligently work to become more conscious.
There is no way around this. If you aren't putting in sincere effort to become more conscious, to grow yourself from the inside out, to heal your own childhood wounds, then you cannot help but react in ways that pass this all onto your kids. The gift in this is that our children are stellar motivators to deal with our crap. When we do this, when we wake up to who we really are and shed the old reactive ways we experience tremendous inner peace and much more joy, for the good of our children and ourselves. (For more information read: The Presence Process)

Thing three: getting stuff done is a trap.
Absolutely there are things that need to happen in a day, but most of the doing that we do is not only unnecessary, it is avoidance. Avoiding what? Being present which is not only the hardest thing for us to do (until we become fully conscious), but it is also what our children need most from us. Start by sitting still for 15 minutes a day in silence. See what happens with just that.

Thing four: Your harshest moments (speaking to children or co-parent or whomever) are actually showing you how you really feel about yourself.
You will never give your children what you cannot give yourself: compassion, unconditional love, empathy. This is why it is actually all about you. You loving you. Now is the time to face up to this. Release the emotional blockages that stand in your way.

What's a wain?

2009-07-15T21:10:00.007-04:00

Good question. It's actually my URL spello (see above) which turns out to be a real word. (Yes I spelled wane as "wain.") I meant to allude to the phases of the moon. A sort of happy accident. As I wax poetic or philosophical, you dear reader, may find yourself carried along, thus the wain comes in handy. It's a farm vehicle which is good for carrying something that (or someone? who) was grown (is growing?), so maybe it's not so bad-- my mistake. Perhaps this blog can be thought of as a hayride. Or it's the Big Dipper in the sky. Yeah. Not so bad after all. It is *somewhat* celestial too eh?

wain
Pronunciation: \ˈwān\
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English, wagon, chariot, from Old English wægn; akin to Middle Dutch wagen wagon, Old English wegan to move — more at way
Date: before 12th century

1: a usually large and heavy vehicle for farm use [a hay wain] 2 capitalized [short for Charles's Wain] : big dipper

The Train Song

2009-07-15T13:43:00.001-04:00

by Kirtana

Just because the tracks are laid...
or just because your ticket's paid for...
and some crazed conductor
keeps on calling out your name,
you don't need to board the train.
No, you don't need to board the train.

Trains of thought will come and go,
but you are not your thoughts, you know -
so why get all caught up in where they lead?

You are who these thoughts
are passing through - don't you see.
You are who these thoughts are passing through.
Be free. Be free.

Even when you're feeling frightened,
sad or hurt or unenlightened,
you can find a peace
that underlies what passes by.
Don't mistake the weather for the sky (of your being)
Why mistake the weather for the sky?

Feelings rise then fall away -
even those you wish would stay,
so why equate your sense of self with mood?
You are who emotion
passes through - don't you see.
You are who emotion passes through.
Be free. Be free.

What a blessing to have taken birth
in this human form -
with the chance to see
that who we are was really never born,
can never die, is always free.

If Destiny decides to strike
some version of the script you like
And make a melodrama
of your endless cabaret,
you know you can still enjoy the play (yes you can) -
if you're still and you know how to play.

Just treat it like a mystery
and view it from the balcony.
Laugh and cry and stomp your feet,
but don't believe a thing.

You are who these scenes
are passing through - don't you see.
You are who this play is passing through.
Be free. Be free.

Old Timey Store

2009-06-15T17:36:00.001-04:00