All in good time

Greetings Relatives

its fall here in Wisconsin   the leaves are changing  the nights cooling down

there is much going on  much transition and learning   hope you all are well

love love love mb

the final frontier

Good evening Relatives

How are you?  We are so far apart  like a cosmic event whose impetus we are barely able to discern is blowing us out to sea so far from each other  so far from what we once were  so strong and yet so subtle that the change in our heading is often not recognized until the shore upon which we land becomes the ocean that separates us one from the other

I watched two movies today  the first was a spoof on spy/bond movies  called the kingsmen  starring colin firth  I like him   it was ok actually funny and original almost elegant in an odd way  that lured me in maybe because I am part Scottish and there was a lot of plaid and great accents   anyhow  in the film a black man causes/directs/purposefully coordinates the murder of fifty or more white people in a church in Kentucky  I understand  intellectually that it is a film a spoof not real  but it immediately and irrevocably brought to my mind the memory of the very real event of a white man murdering multiple black people in a  church in south carolina / charleston   and once I was deposited on that shore  wondering about the exact mirror of murder between "reality" and "the movies" I got stuck

I got stuck because I couldn't figure out which came first the movie or the murder? I didn't like it and because of the deaths in charleston I couldn't go back to being "lost" in the movie.  maybe that is a good thing, maybe it means that film has outgrown its ability to give us a place to go where we can escape who we are and who we live with and are surrounded by   maybe that is a good thing because it removes one more buffer    

but it also made me feel like I live on a different continent than perhaps lots of other people do and that made me wonder how should I feel about that?  and I haven't decided yet to settle on one feeling more than another.

I feel as if I am standing on that shore watching people die over and over and cannot escape the loss of humanity that translates in to action into psychotic disregard for life  into the over and over and over and over insatiable impulse towards violence  violence that leaves an impact a scar that cannot be moderated   and I wondered if that man in south carolina who killed those people in that church had watched the same movie

a horrific  scene  both in Charleston and in the movie, senseless in so many ways and on so many levels and so unexpected and yet part of me was not surprised but sad and it felt to me like my world, my shore drifted a little further away from the shore that everyone else lives on and even though it was a little sad and silent i was ok with the idea that I don't live on that shore  and I wondered at where or what shore did the librarian who recommended that movie to me today was standing on when she talked about the hilarity of the film and how funny it was as if the link to the dead in the church never happened

I see myself standing on a different shore  perhaps in the same world perhaps not I am not sure and I am no longer sure that it matters really  not because I am deluding myself into thinking a blind eye will make the dead not visible but because I know that in my place, in me, in my world I see something that I choose to reject and attentively down to the minutia of activation out of my life and world   and that something is violence    violence gets no oxygen in my life on my planet

when I fell in 2012 my brain got disconnected  there were other physical and mental injuries I had to address and have been  and have been working towards recovering the use of my physical self  but my brain  my memory my ability to retrieve, assess, collate, finesse and weave into reality the vast array of what it is that was available in the world around me  in my world in my life got disrupted severely  it got crushed so badly  so disconnected that I was afraid that I would never know myself again

that I would never be able to recognize me  or avail myself of the me that I knew like an old friend  the oldest friend  in my life  I knew right away i would never be able to be a doctor practicing again because the blanks in my cognition were so vast and so complete to me that I knew at least that I could remember that I could not remember what it was and would be necessary to take care of a patient  and I still remember that the first part of my oath was to first do no harm

its not disappointing to not be a doctor practicing again,  I was a good doctor,  I remember that,  it already happened, I'm not addicted to what I was   what is disappointing is that I have yet to find someone who understands that its not important to me to be a doctor any more, I am proud of me for being able to be enough of a doctor to say no to practicing, and to have the courage to walk away from what was into a life I have no idea about,  and that I recognize that the most important thing is, that I be important to me, that I value me really, truly, perfectly.  the most Important thing is not that what they project on me is mourned or strived for   its disappointing that they don't seem to hear me or value me now  and the shores on which we stand again drift further apart

but I am arriving at a functional brain again  I am healing and it is a relief to me  I have lost somethings that I will never recover and I will not begrudge me this even as I find the limits sometimes through exhaustion  sometimes through physical reaction  ( I am getting ready to move and when one of my friends told me she would even though she hated the thought of it, would bring her horse trailer out to pipestone and help me move and she wanted to know how much stuff I had to move I found that inside of me there no longer existed that person who could have that conversation with a friend, and i got scared, and I got hot and I said to her that I didn't have the ability any longer to discuss that with her or anyone else and that the thought of that discussion, trying to defend what I had or coordinate with someone about why was I moving this or that and why was I making my choices and timing I no longer could do that and inside of me I got scared and got angry because it felt like a wall that I could never possibly climb or even imagine a door in let along figure out how to open and go through it, so i preferred to move by myself with no help because I didn't want to feel that sense of fear and inability so irrevocably in myself so I just told her and that was that and in a little bit the fear went away and I didn't have to be the person who overcame her lack of skill because I quite frankly just never would again be able to do it so it was ok to simply say I can't go there any longer and find a different place to go  find a place that I could go and go there instead) and today when i was bringing things down the stairs carefully and slowly  after about three things, three times down the stairs I found that I was hyperventilating and scared and dizzy  so I stopped and I said to me  good job  and good for you that you stopped  tomorrow you can try again

so what I wonder is do you think I have to or will have to have a whole new set of friends that don't know me since the me I am today doesn't really too much resemble the me I was yesterday?  and do you think that whole new set of friends will be because I can't relate any longer or because my old friends were so invested in who I was that they can't reconcile even if I can that I am no longer on that shore of familiarity  

is that what love is ?  having the impetus to love yourself to recognize that I am so amazing and so able even when I no longer am very much at all what I was or who I was?  do you think there will be people in my life who care for my essence and understand that the expression of me as myself is still a universe that is unfolding and do you think they will celebrate me or abandon ship cut the ties between the interests, the hearts that watch across the void that allows me to unfold without fear without design and allows me to see them as they are and enjoy that they are so not me ?

the second film I watched was Still Alice   I had read the book  I was a little afraid of the movie  but it worked out   I took a chance on Julianne Moore and she delivered   its a good movie  no one wants to face the reality that their reality is so vastly different from everyone else  or that there is no way that they can reverse the propulsion that is carrying them away from what was into what is and what will be


it's ok   perhaps I could have more  I am not sure really   but what Ic an tell all you other space and time travelers is that I have me  and I know me  and I am peacefully pleased to know me still, after all these years

sleep tight

mb

Walking on Water

Good Morning Relatives

well its been a while since I blogged   Ive been doing other things and sort of like working the garden in the spring like a maniac and forgetting to do the laundry means that things that need to be sorted pile up  I figure its a nice rainy day to sit down and finish sorting out some of the details and story that has begun a new chapter here in Pipestone.

Did you know that there is a secret society of women in Iowa?  I didn't know it till this last weekend. There they were, these women who gather and open their lives to change, while weaving a basket of support for each other and for themselves.  Then they fill that basket up with questions, answers, potluck food, the giveaway of what has been and what can be, and then they take apart what is ready to be undone and reconstruct themselves with the intention of going at their lives with courage wisdom and the effect/effort of being authentic. I witnessed in them the desire and application of effort to make their lives valuable to themselves as individuals with no worries about the social or manipulated concession of outside opinion or judgement for or against what or who they are becoming.  This type of statement might be translated by the pattern of the overculture's   propaganda to make us think of amazons dykes man-haters spinsters old hard wire unbending dangerous women who are to be avoided or discounted  but these women were funny, strong, kind, heterosexual (not that that is a bonus mind you) mothers, grandmothers, aunts, and sisters, relatives of lesbians, working and retired, friends who are common amongst their communities but uncommon in their lives.  it was awesome to see and listen and to observe and get to participate in their common but uncommon lives. I felt like what I had come to think of as utopia was actually right there around me in that little cabin in the woods in Iowa.  So those of you who think that the age of aquarius never arrived or that the aztec calendar promise of a new world hasn't yet manifested I beg to differ   it has arrived and did so many years ago and is thriving in rural Iowa.

I was saved by this group of women last weekend. what is interesting is that the saving of me began long ago when we first got up as individuals and from different backgrounds, compass points, religiosities, food preferences and life stories started down the path of who are we and what and why should today I go this way, and arrived for a few moments together in the woods in Iowa and simply shared what for each of us was essential, different and naturally complimentary. They we continued on our way, confident in the understanding that our lives up until that time had been well earned and enjoyed and for having come together would continue to be so.

Each of them for the past several years have answered the call of their own essence and begun and lived the work and joy of answering that call.  What call is that?  It is the voice of the sound and beauty of the desire of themselves to become who they are.  These women have expressed with their actions  their steps  their words the food they have shared the beingness they have gathered in themselves, amongst each other, as a diverse but collective essence, a universe bound by desire and intention, together each year in June for many years now.  In-between Junes, when they could they have continued to intertwine their individuality with each other without apology or judgement. This year, they made a noise, sent out an intention, called upon the Universe in such a way that and with the history of their effort in the past holding a depth in that call, the universe responded and that response from their desire and effort through the essence of this great body we live in came a response that changed the minds and hearts of human beings in New Jersey which changed a circumstance that saved me here in Pipestone and thus I was able to travel to the place of their secret social seclusion and thank them, give back to them what they had given to me.  How cool is that.

and people think that Life doesn't listen, that the one voice isn't heard, and that the impetus of the unseen action attitude and heart held intention isn't manifest in this time.  well hmm  that has not been my experience.

Awesome!   Sweeeeeeeeeeeeet!

our lives have been held back by the mythology of distrust, by the blanket of fear, the gerbil wheel of endless chewing on unanswerable questions, the season and habit of self-doubt and unattainable perfection, the immobilizing acceptance of the premise that we have to be more than we are in order to connect, to exist, to have value, to show up, to matter, to whatever it is it is a lie that is so ingrained in us that we do not even recognize that we step out onto it rather than into our own beautiful selves every time our minds look towards our lives.

This is the fist that the "overculture" (as Clarissa Pinkola Estes calls it) uses to diffuse, deflect, or channel the energy of our effort. It is the drain that siphons our souls progress into either profitability for the very thing that we a trapped by or into the whirlwind of dissipated struggle that wears out our stamina and uses up our creativity, consuming the energetic essence of our lives until at the end, our lives are or have been lost to the great mechanism of doubt and self questioning that robs this time and place, our time and place, both collectively and individually of the beauty and the creativity that we, each of us, brought with us when like tiny seeds of joy and unimaginability we began unfolding into what never before was here and never again shall be.  When we chew on the fist of the overculture; that unfolding is lost, withered, stunted, or twisted into a life shape that leaves us unfulfilled and a little bit confused when it is time to let it go.

but not all of us end up looking back thinking what happened and why was it that blah blah blah?   some of us like that secret society of women in Iowa never look back and when the beginning approaches disguised as the end others fear we will simply take off our worn out outfits and transition to the next embodiment of our own divine selves.

so what has been going on?  

well some of you have followed the story of the purchase of the home and land in pipestone and the placement of me here  (you can look back in the blog if you need to refresh)  and it has definitely been an adventure

last winter ( not this last one but the one that ended a year ago, spring of 2014) I had the overwhelming feeling that I was once again climbing an escalator rather than headed down a path    this house in Pipestone was too big for me alone and the land and the finishing of everything was too much for an SSDI income and I was tired  really really tired   so I began to question,  not that I was here but instead the grand ideas I had about what it was that I was supposed to do with and while here.  I have no doubt that I was brought here and supposed to purchase this house and land but the grand ideas I had were not perhaps what it was bought for

you know how they say that until you let go of what you are grasping you cannot be given what belongs in your hand?  well I began to let go  and once I did things started moving.

the USgov which "owns" and manages the pipestone national monument has begun a "study" and inquire into whether or not the pipestone that is dug here should be made into items and sold at the monument by the indegenous who do so. Even though the stone has been dug, carved, traded and sold since the beginning of this earth and made into pipes which were and are intended to go one to each heart that beats in a human being, there are tribes who in their PTSD mindset following the events of the 18 and early 1900's and on and on believe that the pipe, and the stone, and any object made from that stone that comes from the sacred ground here in pipestone is only intended for and should only belong to and should never be sold to anyone who is not FBI  FBI meaning full blood indian and of their tribe only.    so this effort of this tribe, backed by big gambling money etc.... has leaned on the USgov for a long time now and like the water dripping on the stone is not ineffectual in bringing about the change they seek.  That of taking over the monument and preventing any pipes or stone made items from being sold or otherwise distributed to anyone without the explicit permission and approval of said tribe.

well as you can imagine that is not good for the rest of us human beings is it?  and definitely not what the pipe or the stone was made or intended for.  Sooooooooooooo, what I realized is that this property that I bought and its house are the last remaining privately held non-conflict land that is part of the old quarries the original quarries for pipestone and what needed to happen was that this land needed to be transferred to someone(s) who would keep it for the pipe makers and human beings who seek that connection and the stone that holds the representation of their own heart, their own sincu, in prayer.

so I had a dream, in that dream my sister Racho said time to give up the house, time to go home, time to get rid of the past, burn all the photos and go on down the road.  So I began to look for a new home for me and to try and seek what and who to turn this land over to.  So I knew/ understood that for me the river in wisconsin was a good place  so why not look for a home that was small and already finished and private and perfect for me,  for just me and my family of other legged beings that care for me and I for them.

so I found, last september on the st croix river a little cabin in the woods, on the river, and in the midst of 15 acres, on a private road, with neighbors who are weekenders but of the same age range and education/economic thought pattern as myself, that is 640 sq feet.  Perfect for me

so I went to see it  and it was perfect  I wept while I was there because the peacefulness that came from that land overwhelmed me.  I asked if the owner/seller would do a contract for deed and they would not.  I was willing to pay the asking price no questions, no inspections, no repairs etc  if they would.  but once again I was getting ahead of what the universe what the spirits had in mind and my thoughts were leaving out the bring it on of others   its a hard lesson for my brain to learn that my life and others lives come together in a weave and jigsaw that begins long ago and far away and comes to a point of intersection where if we look, if we observe we can see that life has been loving us and we each other the whole time.

so because of the foreclosure FHA in my past  I had to wait until March 10th to reapply for an FHA loan.  So I laid on the ground there in Wi and put out tobacco and wept and I asked for that land for me for me I asked.  and I wept.
then I went home and dreamed about the woman who was complicit in the death of my sister.

some of you may or may not know that when Rachel died she had 4 or 5 times in the 8 months prior to her death gotten drunk and called this woman Karen who was a "friend" of mine, and told her that she was drunk, she was sitting there with her gun, and she was suicidal and was afraid and needed help, she didn't want to die.  that is what my sister said to this woman  and Karens response was to go to Racho and or have Racho come over to her place and proceed to get her so drunk that she passed out.  Karen never called me or took Racho to a therapist, or to a program, or the hospital or anything she just applied more alcohol and walked away.  well the last night this happened, Rachel woke up after Karen left.  you can imagine how I felt towards this woman when I found out this history

I wanted to kill her  I wanted her to end   I told her that some day when she had forgotten about me I would come for her for the life she took from me

that was in 2007

now here in 2014 I had forgotten about Karen,  but you know what  the universe hadn't forgotten  and better than me the universe knew what that oath was doing to me and to Karen in our lives like a seed of death unfolding and destroying us.  So, when I got home fro Wisconsin and from lying on the ground and weeping I had a dream.  In that dreamtime I found myself ahead in time and place walking up to the hair salon that Karen owned and worked at,  she is karmeticly destined to be a hair person how funny is that?  anyhow she was surrounded by guardians that let me through to her  and I walked up to her  looked her in the eyes and said, " I miss my sister."  then I said, "I am sorry" and then she said to me "I miss her also", and, "I am sorry."  and all that hate and death evaporated.

how cool is that

so I woke up crying again and knew that the peace of that land had found in me what was killing me and keeping someone else from transitioning and it had healed me  

how cool is that

when I got back to Pipestone I thought I knew how to find the answer for the land so I went to a pipemaker woman that I knew and respected and she was looking for a house to buy and I was looking to sell my place so we talked about her buying the land and in my head I saw the perfect scenario  and I was pleased with my adjusted idea about land that did not belong to me

so I went to the conference in mankato  the women and spirituality conference and gave a little presentation and while I was there I met a Tarot woman who I booked time with and she when I sat down said to me"let's talk about the land."

ha! that was a shock,  and we did. and she said that the grandmothers who were with me said that the woman I thought might or should buy the land was/would be unable to keep her relatives from taking her over so they would most likely (they being the Spirits in charge of the greater picture) would find someone else to buy the land.

so what I saw from her and the connections at the conference was that women were listening to the universe  women were in tune with the basket and a part of the weave that held all of us together, but we are coming from around our own curve and dancing past each other long past the moment again and again and holding the dance, the weave but not grasping the point, not forgetting, but not projecting.  I remembered the women's basket dance that my old Tewa teacher taught me long long ago and I understood for the first time a little bit about the medicine of that dance.

so I headed towards March  towards a new FHA loan  and I fell again at Caseys ha and again learned more about what I was and was not supposed to be doing and how to see and how not to see money  I thought I should or could buy the home mortgage free but it was not to be  I had my SSDI and I had enough to make it work but it would require attentiveness, staying in the economic basket and developing discipline and interaction

I got a little credit card to wake up and restore my credit  I paid off old crazy little debts and began to reinsert myself back into the financial patterns

then in March I called the realtor back and found out that no-one had made an offer on the property  no-one had even looked at it.  So, I called a woman who is a mortgage broker who I had known in Dallas since 2003,  she had helped me get my home back then, and then I helped her save her dog back in 2009.

back in 2009, she brought me her dog for a broken tooth and the dog had a mass on a toe on one of his front feet.  she asked me to take off the mass while he was under for the tooth and I did thinking that she would follow the followup no worries.  Only a series of not keeping the e-collar on events happened, not following the instructions and guidelines happened, and the dog ended up with 6 or 8 surgeries and gangrene in its foot.

bad  gangrene is bad.   so we had a "come to Jesus" meeting her and her hubby and I and the dog at the clinic and I drew a line on one side was the pink juice(euthanasia) for the dog, on the other was exact and unwavering agreement and followthrough about post op instructions and e-collar.  no messing around  no more.

so she reached in side of her  this woman that I knew and she found her rock and she committed to her dog and she never looked back  and I did ceremony for her and her dog and the gangrene and the Spirits fixed that dogs foot and eliminated the infection and dead tissue with not even the loss of one toe for that silly old dog in about ten days.

it was a miracle

then they declared bankruptcy and never paid the over 18,000.00$ bill   8 surgeries and 30 or so bandage changes is a lot of money dudes.  so there I was and there she was and there it was  a debt I had to let go of

remember how when I bought this place it wasn't about the money?  well the dog wasn't about the money either.  and letting go of the place in Pipestone wasn't about the money (getting "mine" back) or having enough to get the land in Wi, and remember when I told the owner of the land in Wi that if he let me purchase it on Contract for deed that in 5 years the money would be forgotten but the deed would be life changing?  its never about the money relatives  remember that

so I called Wray  my friend of the dog and asked for her help with the FHA loan for the place in Wi  and you know she said to me,  you saved my dog and I owe you mary  and I told her I never saw it that way  and yet she did and so now the debt is come due and she could help me in a way that was more valuable and would be more lasting than the money from 2009 would have been  oh and by the way the dog is still doing great   old but great     so it wasn't about the money but the trade  the doing was important and carried karmic weight even if back then I didn't see that things would be reinvested for me in a way that was more timely and more valuable than what I thought was best back in 2009 or what society would say was right or good back in 2009.

so Wray helped me with the loan  she prepped everything, got me a banker and then she stood by me like she stood by her dog back in 2009

but, the process the loan, process almost killed me.  I found a cash buyer for the land and the house, the couple who run the non profit known as  The Keepers of the Sacred Tradition of Pipemaker's,  people who believe in and stand for the access of all human beings to the pipe are the ones who bought the place, they own the depot next door,  they and I reached an accord.  Cash price, no inspection, no improvements no nothing for me to do here at the house, I can stay as long as it takes and no worries.

so i sold this place out from under myself   limbo   agggggh   50 days before the loan was approved I became homeless  but not homeless   I had to wait I had to hold and keep going forward one step at a time with no idea that anything or what would work out or how it would

aggggggh

and I was of course as all loan applicants are freaking out about money and closing costs and having enough etc and I didn't want to pay for the inspection of the house, well, septic etc... I thought I would save the $600.00  but ....Wray said not to,  she said do the inspection.  so I did  and guess what
the well had not been capped properly and there was a little opening and a mouse crawled into that opening and committed hari-kari on the switch in the well.  soooooooo when we went to do the inspection the well wasn't working, and because it wasn't working the owner/sellers had to repair it which turned out to be more extensive than just the switch and included having to submit a water test.  And the water test showed that the well had naturally occurring arsenic in it that was too high of levels to be ok for human use which meant that not only did the owner/seller have to fix the well they had to have a system put in that purified the water all of which cost way way way more than the $600.00 inspection fee and that little mouse knew that its time was now to let itself go and it gave its last effort to wards that land and me and the help needed in a timely manner

how cool is that

and while all this is going on   in the interim, some of the women I had met in mankato, who belong as it turns out to the secret society of women in Iowa, invited me to be their guest speaker at their june gathering   and I accepted    so as june approached and the loan officer kept telling me that the loan could fail any day and things seemed more and more frighteningly frightening for me because I was supposed to turn over the property in pipestone June 15th to the new owners  I was panicking and my body was filling with toxins from fear   that inspite of all the training qigong and swimming and self distraction i was doing I could not resolve into faith  faith was there it just was unable to make me into buddha in the midst of the storm of impending deadlines and no loan

agggggggh

I was floating on a very small island inside of my own sea of fear and doubt and knew that there was no way I could be of any use to the women who had invited me to come and visit with them if I was that afraid   there was no way it would happen and I saw the idea that I was a spiritual failure, that my life was over, that the end was near that blah blah blah was imminent and I knew that I could not do anything but say I did all I can and I can do no more   and just like that time when I was holding the fire in Lame Deer and all I could do was focus on the fire and not engage or try to change or judge or effect or think about anyone or anything happening around me  I didn't dive into the black fear and self judgement nor did I try and run around and conjure up a miracle  I just stated the truth and stood where I was

so I put out tobacco and cried and said to the Spirits  on Wednesday last week (due to leave Friday for the Iowan retreat) I said to the Spirits, there is no way I can be of use to or visit those women in Iowa when I am in this much fear.

and I left it at that, and walked away,  I walked away from imagining, projecting, or deciding on an answer.  I just left it.  I think it is the only real buddhist be in the now time of my life, so far. if I drowned in fear so be it  at least I would drown without taking those Iowan women down with me.

at five o'clock on that day  Wednesday  I got a call from the loan officer and he said your loan is approved.

That was it     the loan is approved

dude

how cool is that

still papers to gather  things to tidy up   but it was a done deal

instantly I felt the sea of stress begin to drain away

that night I slept for real    in the dreamtime journey I made that night every place I went I encountered myself in another time and place sleeping,   resting

how cool is that

so I went to Iowa and met the secret society of women and thanked them for saving me

their desire, their request to the universe for me caused things for me to come to a positive resolution so that I could come to them and give back what the universe had filtered through me as a giveaway that day.

how cool is that

what a nice basket  with a nice little mouse accent

so they saved me   and now the land in pipestone is on its way to where the Spirits are taking it  and I am on my way to Wisconsin and those secret women in Iowa are entering into the daily weaving that will change lives across our world even if they never know it

we all walk on water relatives  we just don't look down and don't look back

love ya
mean it
mb

Run Hillary! Run!

Good Morning Relatives

Well Hillary is running   and guess what  I believe her presidency will be an interesting time.  Yep  I believe she will be elected  I dreamed years ago that she was president and she was using the resources of her office to rebuild the house for the children   how cool is that

Im for cool

Im also for finishing my tattoos     I think its time to fill in the blanks so to speak and bring joy to the change  

I have been cleaning out my own house,  metaphorically and physically and the most important thing is to realize that its ok to let go of things  why is that possible  because when I stand still  when I feel me and how I feel feeling good about me then what I feel in that feeling is the clarity that comes from not needing any add ons to feel that clear and clean and peaceful   wow how cool is that?

I think Imelda Marcos must have been in charge of my closet  there are way too many shoes in here  and lets face it we don't need a revolution we just need to stop acting like and thinking as if and ignoring the fact that big money somehow values those of us who are little money for any other purpose than being the gerbil on their wheel   I was a gerbil for a long long time and I thought I was supposed to work hard and spend hard and accumulate and run run run  but all that running just ran me down (maybe thats why I kept buying shoes, maybe I thought I'd eventually be able to find or afford the pair that would end all the running)  I had to crash before I realized that running wasn't taking care of me and when all was said and done I would be dead and not very happy in the process one day so I began to try and find my own happy my own investment in me and it took a while to get out of the habit of running and to get the impetus that I had swallowed for so long out of my mind and body like the backwash of years of brainwashing

thats the most important thing that we can ask Hillary to do for us  and ask ourselves and other new politicians policy makers  teachers and if we have to have them religious guidance counselors to do for us   to help us identify and deconstruct the brainwashing that somehow became a twisted and all powerful OZ of the American ideal and took over our lives like maze rats on Emerald City crack  we have to actually find out what really is the American idea of life what is freedom and life that is not controlled by credit or hours and hours of work or rate of financial return.  We have to take out the trash without throwing out the baby  to not fill the babies head with stories and class oriented money oriented right is might oriented salvation is worth dying and killing for ideologies that will continue and have destroyed the beautiful opportunity that life here in this country can be

be brave relatives  be radical   throw out the running and I promise you that the morning will come when you will see all the shoes and not only wonder why did I buy these  but I don't need them any more and you can toss them out

be a part of disentaglement theory in action

attachment shows up right away if I pick something up  and immediately begin to tell myself a story about it and me   then its like tendrils of intertwinement which interestingly enough the spell checker wants to change to entertainment   which is the point isn't it?  the point of letting ourselves bloom without being intertwined in ownership of something to have ourselves our lives without the need to fill or define our lives with a wish or a fantasy or a story of who we are or what our lives meant when this thing is or was a part of it  and liking that story we travel away from where we are right now

right now I am typing so that I can practice using my fingers in a coordinated manner,  also so that I can get my brain back on line after it got knocked loose when I fell in 2012  and I am sitting  the fire is going  and I am having turkish coffee  I didn't burn the bacon this morning which means my brain is able to remember a multitask  and the smoke alarm is chirping so I need to go and take a moment to reset it   and my lungs feel good   each breath feels like life  like a virgin opportunity  my trunk feels steady  and my legs willing and my left and right arm feel like distant cousins  one attached to the rest of me and one sort of here painfully so  tentative  like a ghost of its previous self  but not fearful today

now is the time to get involved in self government to try and try again and make a place for the common human being to do well   its time to let go of the idea that more money is worth more of your life   to let go of the idea that more stuff makes things more valuable

there is great value in enjoying how it feels to be able to walk   to laugh   to watch the nankin cherry bushes outside the window bud out a little more each day  to see the lilacs begin to leaf out
do you think that the spring robins are fat or just still encased in their winter down ?

watch yourselves  relatives  beware of old stories that trap you somewhere than in the day that is in your hands right this moment  

beware of anything that promises that you will be or become or achieve something that relies of carrying around or holding onto a weight or an artificial light or a premise that wants you to dance around its maypole    remember when we trade our work  our effort our brilliance we are making a trade of our life for something that will end something that will wear out or down and we must make sure that we remain sustainable as our own resource  we must make sure that we understand that trading our life  our time  our effort is incredibly valuable  and if who or what we are trading for wants us to believe we are less than them or it  or that we are less if we let go of them or it then they and perhaps we if we buy into that idea are mistaken

do not trade your life, your breath your weight your appetite or your present moment for something that needs you to give more to it than it gives to you

water poured out on the ground takes a long time to come back as rain, or as food, or as breath

best
mb

How does your garden grow

Good Morning Relatives

Well   April Fools  or maybe March Madness or perhaps Spring forward

either way   it is today isn't it?

I looked through my audio books and realized that I have moved on from subscribing the the self help  through listening to what others think ideology

like stones in the stream that I crossed and left behind me they have no more place in my day than the old ah-ha moments that formed in my body brain synapses as I was learning to stand, walk and eventually run.

I am grateful to the stones that helped me when I was convinced that I needed them  but, there is no need to continue to carry them around, or to center my life as if they are an altar that I must chain myself to as if I am incapable of learning  of shedding my own cocoon

don't look back


There is a woman that is running for congress in Maryland  Her name is Kristin Beck and although like most newly formed ideologies that are a departure from the old school that is running us into the ground she is not perfect, she is I think on the right track. she is also someone who learns and is unafraid to change and grow, she has depth and she has willingness and intelligence and courage to apply herself to the things that are larger than what I can do with my day and effort and that is why I am sending her $20 a month, because she is willing to do work that I am unable to but which will benefit me when she succeeds.   I am going to give to her because I believe that small voices and small money gathered together will in fact get the attention of those who think they own all of us and at a minimum they will want to stop the leak in their system, at an middle they will want to recruit or destroy her which means they see her and our breaking free of their dominance as a credible threat, at an unimaginable fairy tale ending they will change their ways or die trying which is fine with me actually   gardens turn over and it is up to the gardener as to what type of perennials they perpetrate isn't it?

I am going to give to her work because it is the most effective use of my money towards the future of my own country that I have found available this year and I want to do something to make my own difference

I am going to give to her because I believe she is well aware that she will be derided, mislabeled, her own past used against her and still she is willing to take the hit, to stand for me, for you for herself. What that tells me is not that she is naive but that she is steadfast, that she has watched, and understands that it not the pristine that gets through the firefight for freedom, but the experienced soul that is incorruptible that makes it to the day of reckoning. that the day of reckoning isn't about retribution or profit, but about absolute change for the better, I believe she understands what it takes to take the life, the lie, out of the the system that has become so gross and dysfunctional that it is capable of being crippled by the simple idea that people outside of a district, even people outside of the country can band together and make a candidate for the american congress a winner.  Kind of cool isn't it? the idea that as human beings we can garden in the part of the plot that is not in our back yard.

she is practiced at this as you will see as you look into her and that is why I believe she is a good investment  because she has succeeded, and she has failed, and she has continued to find her truest self so that when she takes a stand she is solid,
not perfect,
not a virgin,
not a nun,
not a hero,
but a woman who is willing to come home from war and bring her awareness of the sacredness of life to its full circle by not pretending any more that our government is acting in our best interests as simple hard working valuable human beings

look her up   contribute to her cause   send $10 or $20 to her effort  I believe that she will invest it well
her website is:

http://www.beck4congress.us

spend a little of your time and then your dime on changing what needs to be changed by working on the part of the garden that is active. That is growing and willing to take a foothold in the early spring growth.  change in Maryland means change is possible anywhere  so go for it

be bold  be brave   step out of connivence or best return on the dollar or fear or reluctance and contribute


I have an active mind that is not sure what to do with itself.  thus the grubbing around looking for audio books that are worth listening to

it seems like all at once we, the human race are going to outgrow our past like the bean sprouting from the long frozen recently thawed ground


so get to work gardeners   I challenge you to make the garden grow

love ya
mean it
mb

cooooooool beans

Good Morning Relatives

its a perfect spring day   we have a covering of snow/pellet snow on the ground  just enough to fill the air with the smell of snow and crisp new opportunity.   what an awesome thing

There are happening things going on in Minnesota    this Monday  at 8pm there is a meeting to review and discuss the legislation that is coming up that will affect the habitat of bees.  The campaign is called Pollinate Minnesota and you can find them at the web address below.  Just reading the information on the list of proposed bills and areas of change that affect the lives of bees makes me feel like I am on the way to actually helping heal my planet and care for more than just my own 2.3meter squared space.

http://www.pollinatemn.org/mnsession2015/

I encourage you to find people in your state if it is not Mn that are like minded and help them make a difference for the bees.  we can also donate to help with plantings and to help support the education that teaches awareness and care of bees.  Awesome!

follow the links and make a change with your change

There is a new sheriff  here in pipestone   and already the town feels less creepy.  how funny is that.  our town was actually known to be a hotbed of drugs and just walking around the air felt oppressive. at night there was lots of strange traffic, speeding cars, and cops creeping around but not changing anything.  we have had several local drug guys who would get busted every two or three months go to jail get out of jail free and then start over and over again   now it seems that has changed  all because what ever it was that was locking the old sheriff in place  changed and he moved on and the new guy who did work for the old sheriff at one point but quit for some unknown personal difference in opinion or protocol  came back and ran for sheriff against one of the drug deputies and won!  now things are different  how cool is that   Im for it

and we have new equipment at the rec center gym  

so new opportunities abound  and it seems that I get to choose what I do with those daily chances at choosing my own surroundings

things add up don't they   time spent at the gym changes how my body feels which changes what I feel I can and can't do  and also changes how I feel inside my own opportunity   there is some uncomfortableness   Im not sure why it is a part of expending the effort   it is like pushing through negativity and holding my breath  only I have always disliked that idea in me  that feeling of enduring negativity thinking it will bring me a positive outcome

so I can think something else can't I ?  I can think about my body and the effort and the feeling of the doing  differently  kind of like a chick pecking though a shell seeking more than the limitations it finds its awareness was born into   its the old glass half empty thing   it is up to me to decide to look for positivity and enjoy it rather than to confirm negativity and carry it or endure it like sludge that can never be escaped

I don't have to know all the answers like a magic bullet and then wear them or repeat them like a mantra   I just have to look at the light that is me and trust it to see to understand to shape and to enjoy    I think it feels much better than pushing myself and what I am doing away   better than holding my breath

so heres to breathing in the fresh spring air and then back out again and again and again

Hannah Arendt where are you today? There are Monsters under our beds.

Good Morning Humans

Well late to the party. But as Far Side cards and the longest joke in the world assure me Better Nate than Lever. If you are curious about that you can google it.

Thats what it does for us;  curiosity, it helps us find our way.  Hannah Arendt did not lack curiosity. Nor did she lack the bravery that it required to take a simple singular stand. She used her voice, and the opportunity that the New Yorker gave her in 1961 when they sent her to Jerusalem to report on the   trial of Adolf Eichmann, as an attempt to engage the human beings around her in a productive dialogue about what it was that she glimpsed when she took the light of her inquiring mind and shown it in the dark corners in one of the most empty souls the world had ever had the opportunity to observe and question. I was two years old in 1961. Too young to drive to New York and thank her. Too young to use my voice to cry out for anything other than food, water and perhaps an comforting hand. I think Hannah Arendt was thinking about me and others like me who would be born and grow up in the world that lay before us when she took a good long look at Eichmann. I think back in 1961 rather than thinking about what she could get for herself, she was thinking about me. Now I would like to return the favor.

By choosing to dissect and then publish what she believed to be the mentation of the mechanism of this man, she recognized the danger that he still represented. Her response by writing, and then the response of the editor of the New Yorker at that time by publishing what she observed, served to demonstrate what the actions of one, and then two people, can do. When they recognize something that is bad. Something that is wrong. Something that is growing in front of their eyes. When they chose to stand up for what is the right thing at the right time, rather than deciding to turn aside, or to modify, or to ignore the responsibility that they recognized we have to ourselves as human beings in favor of approval, protection, or economic security they gave us an example to help us find our way. 

Hannah Arendt decided not to simply reiterate the horror Eichmann embodied and then join the crowd to throw stones of justice at him. When she listened to him, and watched him, she did not see the dangers that had been narrowly escaped. Rather, she observed in this man a clear insight into the perils that we faced in our future. She recognized, that if what is at the core of this type of evil was not brought to light, so that it could be identified and stopped, it would return.

She was the only reporter at the trial who dared to actually face the monster of the holocaust and then publicly speak about the fact that what that monster is, was not a man, or a group of men, or a political, or religious belief that got carried away. It was the expression of a new kind of inhumanity that was just beginning to find its way on the world stage.

I believe that she viewed what she saw in Eichmann, as if it was just the mother of a type of monster whose offspring, seeded amongst the bureaucracy of government, (whether it be capitalism, totalitarianism, or simply bankers and CEO's who control the housing, food, economic, and education opportunities of the world or religious leaders attempting to control and direct the force of human life) would grow into a new type of evil that is very much alive in our world today. I think that Eisenhower also recognized this monster. He called his monster The Military-Industrial Complex. 

I think Hannah Arendt recognized that the mutation of this monster would bring about a different, perhaps, but just as deadly repeat of the Holocaust she had lived through. She was right actually. The monster of the Third Reich lived long enough to breed and its children are alive a well in todays world. Busily going about the dismemberment of society, and the degradation of human life. They just have different uniforms now and are much, much better at camouflage, distraction, and the dissemination of information than their procreators.

In using her glamorous opportunity to publish in the New Yorker in this way, Hannah Arendt did not take the easy road or the one that was immediately understood. She took the necessary road. The road that was in the best interests of Humanity. It was a unique action. Brave in a way that both demonstrated what could have been done to prevent, as well as a model for those of us, who years later, need a leader to turn to. Someone who is willing to teach us to think, to examine, to review and speak up. Someone who is willing to demand that the humanity of our lives not be divided from the mechanisms that run our neighborhoods, our banks, our schools, our houses of worship, our grocery stores, our civic and economic opportunities.

Hannah Arendt understood that the individual had to remain closely self identified as a human being, always. She also recognized that the definition of a human being had to include all the things that Eichmann and those like him sought to destroy, like so much waste being poured down a drain. I also believe that she recognized that we were slipping as a race. That some time in the future, people would need to be reminded that they are human beings.

Hannah Arendt dared to propose with her life's work, that each of us in the society that we live, has the capacity to create a unique perspective with which we train ourselves to see and respond to ourselves and each other as we observe and participate in the miasma of the social human construct that surrounds and governs our lives. More importantly, she also taught that our action and reaction as individuals within that society has an accumulated effect. It is the capacity of the human being to distance itself quite clearly, cleanly, and throughly from any kind of moral attachment or ownership or self recognition to amoral acts self perpetrated against other human beings that she found was so dangerous to our future and so subtle in its ability to perpetuate itself.

We are unique in that as human beings, our response to the bureaucratic mechanisms we see affecting the lives of our neighbors; be they the same or different color, race, religion, economic status, sexual preference, language, hair color, age and social circumstance, our response to how we allow or permit or condone the authorities to treat any human being, has the potential to have an tremendous accumulative effect on the humanity in which we all reside as fellow members.

The small, innocuous, purposeful ignorance, is the sleight of hand that is used perhaps as an act of self preservation or, to garner advancement, to profit in a momentary or eventually sustainable way, that is the beginning that separates us within ourselves from the hands that commit the acts that are unspeakably inappropriate or inhumane. When we witness these activities in the flow around us and yet find that within our selves we lack the capacity to speak up, or out, against the perversion of authoritative opportunity and how it moves amongst ours lives, we are failing humanity in a way that is perhaps not as grand or as gross as Eichmann did, but we are failing it nonetheless.

Our own self preserving separation rather than cleaving us from the action of the perpetrator, immediately binds us, irrevocably, to the pattern of silence and non thinking that contributes to the slippery slope of the habit of dehumanization that surely as a train headed for Auschwitz will result in the loss of innocent life. It is important to make sure that in your own minds eye, your neighbor is not oppressed, or exploited, or relegated to an identity that is less than someone you would die for. It is important that we exercise our right to speak, to think, to challenge each other non violently. To try again, and again, and again. Even if it seems we have failed in the moment, history tells us that we have not failed. Even if we die in the attempt, we have not lost our life, but invested it. Like Hannah Arendt did with hers for me. It is our human responsibility, to try and get it, if not right, or left, then perhaps to a good middle way. It is better to have a purposeful and radical good life, rather than a banal one. To have the desire to do good, and to feed it, rather than to turn off in ourselves the little thing that might be even just a tiny bit adding to the tide of evil that lives amongst us today.

by the way I discovered the google doodles today   today's is to honor the volt-master I'll let you take it from there although I would like to say thanx to Google for this one thing  the doodles they are imaginative and interesting prompts to explore  even if the rest of your machine has its suspect aspects for the doodles I say way to go

now as far as throwing the baby out with the bathwater I want to use todays blog to write an editorial letter or response to an article that appeared in the New Yorker magazine June 4th 2013 in the Page Turner section written by Michelle Dean titled "The Formidable Friendship of Mary McCarthy and Hannah Arendt.

Right up front I want to say Michelle you have missed the point and badly and in so many ways.

As to the New Yorker I'm not sure if they will print my letter to the editor as it is, as I said up front, late to the party. But it is, of course because it is mine, important to me no matter when it arrives. Like I said, better Nate than Lever as the Far Side reminds us that timeliness may be more and also less important than the content that eventually gets aired.

Hannah Arendt 

I recently signed up for netflix and watched the movie "Hannah Arendt" a movie directed by Margarethe von Trotta  released in the US in May of 2013. The movie is an interesting and dispassionate recreation of a purposefully directed point of view aimed I believe by the movie's writers to give the viewer a visual/visceral experience of what it may have been like to be this extraordinary woman at a time in her life that few people it seems, including Michelle Dean 54 years later, were capable of understanding.

The movie, on the surface, is impersonal; just like Hannah's writings and her public persona were. However, that does not imply that either are not of great value. Quite the opposite in fact. The movie creates a perpetual surface assault on the sensibilities and opinions of the viewer that are in direct and judgmental conflict with the value of the message that it is trying to deliver. The movie simultaneously distracts as it delivers the underlying message. Enduring the onslaught of the debris while keeping the eye on the prize is a skill that todays world is lacking. It is however the skill Hannah Arendt had.

In a time when Humanity was still reeling from having barely survived a type of world encompassing horror that not many thought at the time about tracking down and killing, she could think of little else. Hannah used her opportunity to track the monster to it's lair, wait for it's offspring to rear their heads and then she proceeded to go at them with the best weapon she had at hand; her writings, her ability to think and report on what she thought was a very current, rather than defeated or past affair.  It is an example of a modern day quest where most of the bodies lost on the thorny patch or in the desert of impossible practicality are piling up and beginning to stink on a grand scale while the heroine is attacked from all sides not by the enemy, but by those she is desperately trying to save. It seems that today, we are lacking a heroine that can find her way off of the beaten path and lead humanity into a less dangerous world. I miss Hannah Arendt and I never even got to meet her.

It is unfortunate that the review of the movie in the New Yorker by Michelle Dean 54 years after Hannah Arendt also wrote for the New Yorker, that we rather than finding our reporter to be someone who is capable of being our heroine, realize that she is just one more body piled up on the pyre of the same monster that drove Eichmann in 1961.

It does not take very much digging to see, or perhaps understand, that Hannah Arendt, perhaps like her movie crew, did not concern herself with public image, ratings or box office return. To her the point is the point, and the movie makes it nicely even if it is presented in a form that is not designed as fodder for the masses.

Hannah like her movie making cohorts dared to present to the world something that had depth and essence to it on a level that was and is critical to what type of humanity we aspire to become. It is, frankly, a compliment that she would think that we still have the chance to aspire to choose a humanity that is purposeful and radical because it is good, rather than allow our humanity to become banal, evil, predictable and destructive.

As far as the audience is concerned, I think that when Hannah wrote her articles for the New Yorker in 1961, she expected that somewhere out there was someone who would get the message in the bottle that was presented to the world in the media form that was so very effective in her time. We can thank her later when we run into her down the road, for her stalwart, unwavering commitment to humanity.

In the interim, if we want to use her gift for that which it is intended rather than as a springboard to show our own shallowness, ahem. We can take the time, spend the effort, to dig a little deeper into the movie, the current state of affairs, and the new totalitarianism that frankly appears to have our world by the short hairs. We as human beings who cannot all pay attention in the moment the way that Hannah did, at least can stand up and contribute a small voice to, or if need be against, the louder one. Rather than simply allow those who are not thinking, and who have demonstrated that they are not capable of thinking, to decide for us what and how our world should look and operate.

Hannah Arendt made her difference Michelle. Now, what are you going to do about the difference that you have the opportunity to make? For me as a human being, reading the New Yorker, and as a person of my time who has to live in the holocaust of the economic and cultural failure of democracy in the United States, I would say that it appears to me that you didn't do your homework. You didn't think. You didn't even try. It appears to me that you didn't use the opportunity you were given by the New Yorker to perpetrate anything that even comes close to what Hannah Arendt did with her opportunity. Instead like the Jewish leadership that Hannah reported on in her review of the Eichmann assignment you went for the banal. You went for what would not ruffle the feathers of the proletariat.  You went for the laugh or the smirk or the ratings. Good for you for the moment. Not so good for all of us in the long run.

Like those who designed and followed through on this movie, Hannah Arendt went after the unseen as if her life depended on it. Or perhaps as if my life did. She recognized then cornered and identified for all the world to see, the not to be missed but easily mislaid, mistaken, misappropriated missing link that held together the mentalities of the men and women (or at least the one who she was able to personally observe and listen to), who perpetrated the unthinkable horror that she was willing to stand up and say human beings are capable of. This kind of failure of humanity was not just an occasional isolated thing that happened at a death camp. It started and was perpetrated in hearts, homes and neighborhoods. Lives were destroyed, not only once in a while, as if Hitler and his group were some sort of serial killer aberration, but for years in a horrible sustainable wave of casual inattention that begs to be gutted and rooted out of our species. I think she saw the choices that Eichmann made were choices that many people made in their own way, amplified on a massive scale that when accumulated and given time redirected human behavior in a way that should be understood and addressed so that that type of accumulated disfunction would never be repeated.

Hannah Arendt took a long and dark look at the mentality that enabled a man, a human, to not only facilitate but also to personally profit from the mass destruction of human life because he, in his mind and from his mind made his effort, his own humanity, his own work, he made himself into something that is void of humanity so that he was capable of sustaining the active mentality that other human beings are a void in which he could act with no compunction. Eichmann believed that humans were not only worthless, but useless in a deep and terrible lasting way.

I encourage anyone who reads this blog to watch the movie and in doing so to watch and listen to Hannah. Her mind and her action and her words are not reactive, they are steps, stones that are not thrown at the enemy, but rocks that are carefully laid down so that we can depend on them to help us escape our own lack of purpose and training.

Eichmann's banality was deadly. He and others like him did not just transition into the monsters under the bed. They took over the whole house, the neighborhood, the town, the country.  The difficulty with what Hannah reported on back in 1961, was that everyone had skeletons in their closets, and she was willing to see the pedantry that people who could have stopped what happened hid behind. She was correct in understanding if not addressing or overstating that when the holocaust happened the Jewish people did not yet have the mentality and resources that the State of Israel gave them in the 60's. Just like the Homosexuals who were not yet Free to Be You and Me as we are in the present day, it is not a radical thought to understand that people who were family and friends of those who died in the death camps did not prevent those people from being taken there.

this is an excerpt from a paper written by
Karen Silverstrim, MA CandidateUniversity of Central Arkansas

Overlooked Millions: Non-Jewish Victims of the Holocaust
Records kept by the Germans prove they exterminated millions of Communists, Czechs, Greeks, Gypsies, homosexuals, Jehovah's Witnesses, mentally and physically handicapped, Poles, resistance fighters, Russians, Serbs, Socialists, Spanish Republicans, trade unionists, Ukrainians, Yugoslavians, prisoners of war of many nations, and still others whose identity may never be recognized.⁽¹⁾ Their victims, according to one survivor of four different concentration camps, "were of some thirty nationalities, from Nepalese to Andorrans, and of a variety of racial and linguistic stocks ranging from Basques to Buriats and from Ladinos to Lapps".⁽²⁾

Hannah Arendt wasn't playing the race card when she addressed the complicity of the Jewish leaders in the deaths of their neighbors and countrymen, women and children. She was commenting as carefully as possible what the proper response was when people banded together played it, as if they are separate from their neighbors. Israel played such a card when they made the move to capture and keep Eichmann to themselves rather than bring him to justice in a world court. There is no doubt that the formation of their own nation allowed the Jewish race the opportunity to stand unified on the world stage and speak of their pain. However, one could argue that their selfishness robbed millions of other peoples from having their own moment to face their perpetrator. 

Rather than delve into what was possible or probable, Hannah Arendt stuck to the facts of the trial.  I believe Hannah simply reflected back to the Jewish leadership what they themselves were asking the world to ignore so that they could have their day in court, or in monstrosity as it were. She was brave enough to be fair. To demonstrate and take the hit that clearly would show that she was not playing sides or valuing one race or religion or people over another when it came to taking care of the future of her species. 

It is unfortunate when human beings allow themselves to be taken over by an authority that they mistakenly believe has their best interests at heart. When in fact that authority has already demonstrated that they are willing to use banal pedantic bureaucratic fabrications to ignore their dehumanization and persecution of their neighbors, fellow countrymen and women, and peoples of any other nation as well. What Hannah was trying to get everyone to see was that even our neighbor, our cultural representative, our people who we think of as family, have the capacity to some extent to see us off to the gas chamber; if we/they allow ourselves to profit from looking the other way. This subtle choice to detach from the consequence of one's capacity to relocate, redefine the status of a person inside of our hearts and minds exists in not just one of us, but millions of us. As was demonstrated over and over again and again by a bureaucrat who could have chosen to resist, to say no, to refuse, to do anything other than continue to do his job, the job of making sure that human beings were loaded on trains that took them to their deaths; simply because someone signed a paper that authorized that action.

This sustainable, hollow, non-thinking mentation that results in the type of crime that Eichmann committed, is as Hannah might say, easier said than done.  We are not talking about one body, or one moment, or one event or one life. We are talking about the mechanism that became within a human being, and as the facts of history displayed for all of us in multiple human beings, created the ability to sustainably disregard and destroy with creativity, purpose, and a businesslike efficiency the lives of those who were available to use to perfect this mental mechanism within himself and his peers. A mechanism that made the voices and lives of those who in his moral compass have no presence. Lives that were at best irrelevant to the future that this man and others like him were marching towards. At worst, lives that were simply debris that needed to be swept away.

In her own words, works, critically reviewed and publicly reviled, emotionless examination of the effect of the mechanism of the thoughtlessness of the men who were behind and responsible for not only the war crimes against the human beings who died at their hands, but also and perhaps more importantly responsible for creating a model of dehumanization that was dangerous in that no one at the time (except Hannah apparently) observed; Hannah Arendt was willing to pull back the curtain and not only try and understand but also to publicly make the world aware of what it was that motivated this man. Hannah recognized that the mechanism that was driving the man and men and women who were behind the curtain of what drove the wizard that made Hitler's emerald city so attractive to so many people, was something that was not dangerous because it would haunt us after it was defeated, but because it was something that obviously could reproduce itself amongst humanity.

I believe that Hannah understood that what happened inside the mind of Eichmann was something that was obviously critical, but more importantly, she recognized that it was possible to reproduce his banality in other human beings. I think she didn't see Eichmann as an anomaly but as a sign of an outbreak. It was almost like she saw him as contagious, and because of that she knew that we were still at risk. That meant, that the mechanism that existed within Eichmann could and most likely would come back. When it returned once again under a different guise, mutated as monsters do, it would rise again through the subtle permission of those who decide not to look, those who turn their head, those who want their own profitable moment and take it, when they contribute to, or give permission for, or facilitate, crimes against humanity. It can after all only be human beings that destroy other human beings one at a time, or en-masse.

Personally, I think the film is extraordinary. We are exposed to rivers of cigarette smoke, seemingly hours of banal conversation, purposefully social misdirection in the form of cheating husbands, silent support staff, vapish female friends, ignorant bureaucrats, administrators worried about their reputations, faint hearted friends, Israeli goon squads, and brooding intellectuals who seem to only talk around the point rather than get to it. Hannha is un moved by all of this. Steadfastly our heroine encourages us to march like Nazi's through the debris around us so that we arrive at out destination no matter what it costs us.

The difference however,  in the Nazi's and in Hannah Arendt, was simply that she did not seek to destroy anyone in an her attempt to comment and effect the outcome of the lives of the humanity in which she lived. Although she ultimately destroyed herself in the minds eye of the unthinking easily manipulated social mentality of those who were around her or who came in contact with her simple exercise of taking a good look at what she was interested in and making an intelligent and educated concise effort to give back to humanity the things that she believed would protect it from itself; it appears that unlike the nihilist culture that almost destroyed the humanity of Europe, Hannah Arendt didn't grouse about how humanity treated her.

She simply thought that it was interesting that no-one commented on the fact that she herself had made a small mistake in her analysis.  Good on ya, Hannah. Good on ya.

The nihilism that lay behind and in the hearts and minds of Eichmann and others like him, was and is alive and well in todays world. It is apparent even in the subtle simplistic efforts of reporters like Michelle Dean when they excuse and deflect what is the deeper movement of the forces that are going on behind the scenes.

There are human beings in countries in our world who believe and perpetrate that it is acceptable to risk family homes for the profits gained in mortgage manipulation. There are human beings in countries in our world who believe and perpetrate that the lives of their citizens are expendable as political statements and life destroying acts that annihilate the opportunity of the bomb wearers as if their life could never, would never have any meaning except as a mule used to carry death to those who are different in some unradical, seemingly intolerable existence. There are human beings who use television as an opportunity to profit from the systematic public dehumanization, abuse, and perpetration of self harm of "contestants" in "reality" programs as if they are not human beings with desires, dreams, frailties, and real lives they have to return to once the producers have wrung all the profit they can from them. There are human beings who use the opportunity for technological advancement, for profit margins, and for returns on investments to prevent education, conversation, sexual awareness that results in self aware care and thoughtfulness. There are human beings in countries who use education not to teach us to educate ourselves in the skills of awareness, effective singular value that makes a whole invaluable, communication that allows for differences that lead not to one thought or one design but to a better, richer, more diverse and peaceful purposefully perpetrated whole humanity that recognizes and trades not on the dehumanization of humanity, but on its incredible beauty. There are human beings that use religion as a weapon against humanity.

And in all the above circumstances, there are millions of people who are making the same small, self profiting choices inside themselves that Eichmann did as they help perpetrate these atrocities against humanity because they are entertained, or they don't want to be involved, or they don't see the harm, or they just needed the job, or what ever.  That's it really isn't it? Thats the point that Hannah was trying to make.

Whatever.

So Michelle, I hope the New Yorker asks more from you in the future. I do

mb

burn after reading

Good Morning Relatives

Have you noticed that this blog doesn't have ads running when you pull it up?  have you noticed that there isn't a tracker imbedded in it so that when you pull up your Facebook or next query page on your internet browser that this blog doesn't sneak itself into your visual field and try to run away with your mind and attention?

well you can come here and just hang out  if you like   I think the biggest day we've ever had has been 19 or so   usually there are two or three who come here for a nap  not too many ad companies want to hitch their wagon to this one.  and thats ok with me  its still content that is uncensored and nonfat based and not owned by any political parties  its not bad really  I am not sure why so many blogs and information pages are so crazy full of things that are linked together to the browser on google or whomever is running the search engines these days

its like all the ads from tv and radio went viral and multiplied into the inability to even pull up a medical article and read it without having to learn how to not accidentally click on a celebrity gossip or the crazy get rid of belly fat by avoiding these five food thingy  

how things have changed  not sure how to stop this visual and web page viral overloaded ad crazy ness  maybe just wait till it crashes or find a teenager who understands how to block a web browser better than I do  maybe just making sure I am not caught up in it  or driven by it   like the gas coupon thing at the grocery store   cents off a gallon if I buy a product manufactured by a certain large company wonder if they own the gas also?   its still irksome to live where the stores are small and the shelf space and ad space in coupons are driven by the large soft drink, chip and cracker and frozen food entree manufacturers    there is no way to actually have a grocery store that offers regular non shelf space and paid by subsidies food that determines what I get to choose to eat   is there?  grocery stores are dependent on customers spending and like this blog if numbers were the game we would starve to death wouldn't we   well no actually I wouldn't  I won't

money really has become a god hasn't it?  and if the housing market crash happened because people were willing to get something for nothing and there were people willing to sell and trade futures  our futures over and over until the root traders were secure enough with their compounded moneys that they could turn around and pull the plug on those who were out there dangling on mortgages and credit cards that they couldn't hope to afford  like drunk lemmings running for the cliff instead of the sea  and everyone crashed except those who planned and traded on that money scam that was sold over and over and over

those who got out early got out   but I doubt they are idle   It was after that that the internet changed wasn't it?  it was after that that viral ads went viral

someone is paying money to make produce and sell those ads  someone is selling the space on your computer and the space in your face and is tracking and selling anything and everything that you browse through so that they can sell sell sell

why are people allowing so many Facebook and twitter and pintrest and ad linking viruses to attach themselves to their blogs or articles or what ever

so they can have exposure  so they can be liked so they can get paid to rent space on their dime hoping that you will spend your dime in their store

sway out there somewhere is another deficit  it has a face   it has a viral infection fed by someone who wants money   doesn't have to be my money or yours as long as they get it in the end '

wonder what that crash will do

did you realize that so many people are on prescription medications in this country that we who are required to have insurance are required to have and pay for a prescription medication plan even if we do not, cannot, and will not take them?  

well what is the option   ?  well  people will die won't they?  if we don't pay for them then what is the cost ? the cost is not life  its not that people will die if untreated  its that their income generating stream will end for someone else if they die.  that is why they are supported through insurance and "care" programs that reduce one cost but jack up so many others that the income streams are innumerable linked to one person who is paying paying paying  and believe me when the paying is not enough to justify the out lay  then you die any way

sound depressing   no worse than five belly fat items whatever they are

so make a decision to feed the rats or jump the ship  it will cost you your life either way  it just depends on what kind of life you want in the interim doesn't it ?

its going to smell really bad when all this stuff crashes isn't it?  clean water and really good septic systems are going to be really important  and a really good dog

keep your money in your pocket and stop "sharing" see what happens next

Pema and Johnny Cash and the IRS whats a name anyway

Good Morning Relatives 

well I decided to do a little meditation last night before bed so I soaked in a hot bath of korean sea salt and epsom salt and rosemary and eucalyptis    nice   then I read a bit in Pema Chodrons book the places that scare you  only reading from a held back meditative place which by that point was quite easy 

it allowed me to observe and see something that I had not previously  which is always interesting isn't it   

Pema is big on meditation and on labeling her source of effort as bodhichitta  which is a nice effort  and all but there is way too much emphasis on levels and achievement  if we are then we are and why not 
I say go for it Pema and let yourself be an original and all encompassing source already  don't hold yourself back out of some sort of respect for those who have and those who can't or won't  its not worth it  so forget the bodhichitta or becoming a bodhisattva   be Pema  she is grand don't settle for  the prelim stage of enlightenment 

   anyhow that note aside I was enjoying the reading and not reading at the same time as the intense saltyness drew myself out of myself and allowed me to be me in a whole different way   that is when something that Pema said or rather she wrote on the page that I was reading caught my ah ha moment 

it is the idea that intensity let loose in side of me (usually in the dream time)  triggers such deep and intense breathtaking feeling that before I know it in an attempt to get away from myself   from that fire that is destroying me inside which I don't remember inviting in the door by the way  I end up leaping onto a story board and running down the road riding what is often a very dead horse till the emotion or the fuel burns out of me or burns me up and hopefully in the midst of all that conflagration if I can hold on and not harm myself  then I can phone a friend (though it seems no one gets up early any more do they at least not in my time zone) and if they answer and I havnt set myself or the house on fire I can ask them to help me please  help me while I burn to death in my own cauldron of fear that has somehow caught on fire in the night and is out of control inside my very own self   thank life for old childhood friends who do answer the phone and who know what a horrible and unremovable thing it was to have to live through my sister shooting herself and dying before I was done loving her or needing her to love me back   thank life for friends who can just say I understand and I am holding you even from thousands of miles away steadfast and long enough and strong enough that I can die and be reborn again into my own reality  thank life for the truly loving and selfless friend of mine

Pema said to let go of the story and have the intensity of the emotion and while having it sort of like the bath and the book and meditation all at once adding up to a fourth dimension  let it flow and yet don't be consumed by it but take a look at it while I am in it   that was an interesting thing that I as it so happens was doing while reading and soaking so the idea was already present (kind of like Pema being Pema without the boddi butting in)

so I thought about that  

then she said that when we hold ourselves to a story or a action or non action while we are having this eruption of fuel if we are fearful which is the point of the book to learn not to be fearful then we are simply using the fuel and the fire (the story we are telling our selves) to avoid the underlying fear and so in a way we are harming ourselves   which may not be overt but is definitely accumulative like steps on the treadmill or four or six too many m&m's or one more chip or one less hug eh?

so my project this week is to recognize when I am telling me a story and stop and take a face on look at the underlying fear    I may not change avoiding going to the gym on sunday because the guy who mans the desk not only watches in the cameras everything I am doing but comments to me about what he thinks of me when I come by the desk which I must  so what is the underlying fear?  a creepy dude watching me makes me feel awful and I don't want to feel powerless and exposed  so what is the story I tell me? that if I go to the gym I will be victimized   brrrr ugh yuck yuck yuck   since it is not socially acceptable to whack his head off  either I go and ask for his schedule so that I can go when he is not there  or I don't go at all  and or I tell his super visor what he did and does  and I recognized that I was avoiding going because I could feel myself holding myself back from going,  I could feel the part of me that wants to go work out and wants to not keep eating or reading or sitting for hours on end but I would ignore it. I would push it aside. I would push me aside and not listen to me.  thus the emotional cauldron fills with fire while I am looking away pretending that I am doing what I want to do when what I want to do is not what I am doing. Capisce?

all this from Pema  imagine that   anyhow  I don't feel less creeped out or less vulnerable knowing what is behind the story of why I am not going and allowing myself to add one more day of blobness to my already unwelcome days of blobness due to my injuries  but what I feel is that I am honest and clear and not carrying an extra layer of nasty crap just so that I don't have to think about facing the creepy dude at the gym because lets face it  what girl knows how to deal with her fear of creepy dudes?  I really don't understand how those girls who go about exposed do that knowing that there are creepy people out there oggling  them  not that I think I am ogable these days Im not but it makes it more creepy that someone would watch someone who is as out of shape as me urgh brrrr yuck  anyhow  I know as women we are supposed to take back the night and all of that but really it is exhausting having to deal with creepy people and in a small town there seems to be even more of them per capita than in the big city  creepy! ok enough of that

so I went to bed thinking about how to use Pema's looking glass today which is now and I was happy about it  a way to explore and reauthenticate my life  may not change what I do but really who wants to be a self induced zombie?  so i went to bed and thought about a friend of mine who is being reviewed by the IRS (by the way it seems despite the propaganda that they have cut back on staff and the audits are less than 1% that everyone is being audited except the rich and famous or the republicans or the Koch brothers) any how I was sending her a good night best of luck thought because I knew she was up late organizing old tax crap  and I woke up at one in the morning with this poem :

Lay down your burden as well as your hed
Let us sleep together the sleep of the ded

For the ded think not on things that are fled
Or let things go round and round in their hed

Like poems or loves that cannot be hed
For the ded be not afraid of ser dred

Nor do they toss and take to their bed
Memories of lives that have long since fled

Narrie do Thoughts of food, wine or bed
Cross their sleep nor worried their hed

Sleep ye now with neither harm nor dred
The sweet sweet sleep that comforts the ded


ta da!  nice eh  so I texted it to her in the early morning

then I finally fell asleep  and woke somewhere in Scotland with a bunch of old women who were trying to get their act together for a lament  but none of them were quite through the barrier that was holding them back  so I stood up and began to meditate out loud the song that Johnny Cash and Fiona Apple sang as a duet on one of his last albums  Bridge over Troubled Water   only they jumped right in on the first cue and took it off like a sunday school rhyme  which was all wrong  so I had to make them stop and begin again  and over and over they bungled it with their fast pony sunday school mantra carry me away down the river singing
I could feel that they weren't feeling the song  just singsonging it and that felt to me like so much less than what I could feel and wanted to bring to them  and to the ded

I kept telling them NO NO NO  it is a lament  a LAMENT you feel it and that is what makes the words come out that is what makes the song  only they weren't getting it  that it is FEELING that brings the song  and if we FEEL then the song shows up on our lips and we don't get lost down the river of denial

so Pema I feel ya

best mb