Obama-Longoria... wtf.

Eva Longoria info@barackobama.com	6:01 PM (2 hours ago)
to Brandy

Brandy -- In 2008, like so many of you, I dedicated a lot of my time to help Barack Obama win the presidency. Now, with 2012 around the corner, I wanted to get ready for the next election by sitting down for an intimate conversation with supporters like you to talk politics and the role we'll play to win the 2012 election. If you want to join me, along with DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz, donate $3 or whatever you can to President Obama's campaign today, and you'll be automatically entered for the chance to be one of five supporters to take part in this face-to-face conversation about next year's election. I can't wait to meet some of you. I hope you'll bring your ideas for 2012 and share what matters most to you -- whether it has to do with health care, immigration, education, or jobs. Donate today to be automatically entered to join in the conversation: https://donate.barackobama.com/Our-Conversation Looking forward to it, Eva So, I received this email today... Politicians...our current president... piggybacking onto images and vice versa.  AND getting a faux-spammy email about it.  ?!  How stupid.  But that's the game, huh. That's the democracy we chose.  Pick the best poster-boy(godforbidawoman)--the best Tom effingHanks...or Eva Longoria, I suppose. I'm sickened by the blatant frivolity of our political process that has been too steeped in privilege$ to really understand reality anymore. Ugh.  Stupid.

venting poem

Nannies, ripped away wombs

bats leave flatheads

dust finds broom

wind buries chimney 

hair sweeps tears

grooming fears

wound up in sheered

patattacks combing

around you

back from work

the worlds better without you.

Do everything in mindfulness

I have successfully mindfully 

meditated

on hate.

I have done so all day.  And retaliated

in stabbing fashion so applauded by 

modeled by, supported by 

that which is called

chromosome Y. 

On tea and mind

When you have a well-built, solid handle, the tea will pour itself.  

That's the assumption, what's served to me on a tray at one particular coffeeshop.  

When you have a house, money, blahblahblah, xyz, the tea will pour itself:  you will be happy with minimal negative repercussions--just tasty tea.  

Ever eaten some tea leaves?  It happens.  Eating tea leaves isn't always pleasant to those who drink tea with expectations of smooth-sailing, warm, comforting liquid--only. 

Tea strainers are paramount--a solid external 3rd party mediator between pot and cup.  The strainer is the final holder of the leaves.

But the handle: look at the handle.  Note it's shape.  How it grasps the pot, it's precious--sturdily, loosely?  Does it swivel?  Is it rickety or poorly crafted with a death grasp on the pot?  Or does it all the pot some wiggle room?  All handles have a different relationship to the pot; just as all of our brains have different relations with our bodies. 

You must craft your life into a solid, working, sustainable, efficient way, just as the handle of a teapot you trust can pour the tea.

The body the pot. 

The handle the mind.

Craft your mind, pave many paths.  

A well crafted handle learns to adapt to the level of water in the teapot. 

When the tea is plentiful, all that's required is a simple lift-tilt jig.  

When the tea's running low--drained of its teaness, it's lovely energy of warmth and flavour... just the oversteeped backwash of exhausted leaves.

Now for the handle--this is where the handle's swift ninjary is put to use:

When freeing the last of its contents, an efficient handle bends in shape--accommodating for the weight and shifting nature of the water. 

It must in order to free the straggling tea contents from their misery.  No where to go but down another drain.  

Knowing its fate, it remains in the pot rather peacefully (it seems from a human perspective).  Simmered at the bottom in a melancholic paralysis.

Abandoned at the bottom of cellophanic jellowater.

Yet much stronger than the tea that had evacuated prior to it.  This is the water that faced the leaves the longest.  And the former lively, now dried leaves, coming to terms with the foreign substance of the hot water that is sucking out its juices.  

There is mutual understanding that leaves and water have to die--each of them. The leaves must be willing to give of their juiciness if it wants to become tea.  And the water must undergo boiling if it wants to face the tea.

The dance between the leaves and water.  Each giving of themselves to try to become some end.

However, 

Tea leaves are already tea.  And water is already tea.  

Bend with the water.

Think like the tea. 

Ctrl Z Culture

This post is in response to Kathryn Schulz's TED talk (posted).  An interesting one for certain about living with regret.

Living with regret is the HUMANE alternative to rejecting it.  Regretting Regret.

When we regret, we tend to think our present situation can be happier if we had done something different in past. 

This requires: 

1. agency 

2. imagination (tracing your steps back and making a different choice, then creating a possible scenario out of that--a story). 

The more agency and imagination with given regret, the more acute that regret will be.

Miss flight by 3 minutes rather than by 20.  We feel responsible when experience came out badly but ALMOST came out well.  We can almost just imagine it.

top regrets, gathered data

1. Education 2. Career 3. Romance 4. Parenting 5. Self 6. Leisure, family health, friends, spirituality, community.  

We know most of what we know by regret by the study of finance.  

Financial decisions don't even rank. Count for less than 3% of total regrets within this pool.

Components of regret:

1. denial  

2. bewilderment - we can no longer understand that part that led us to some action we regret

3. punishment - i could kick myself!

4. perseveration - to focus obsessively & repeatedly on same thing, which puts regret on INFINITE LOOP.

She refers to our generation (the present new youngsters of 20s and whatever else) as the Ctrl+z generation.  Focused on undo.  Unfriend.  Unfollow.  Quick undo fixes.


I know when I played Solitaire growing up, hell yeah I abused the Ctrl Z button.  And with Dope Wars (remember that awesome fucking game?!).

Throwing money at problems to make them go away.
Throwing ourselves into work to undo the thoughts in-head.
Throwing our minds back and forth between extremes to distract.


All so violent.  Ctrl Z is an upright rejection of the reality of the situation.
  
Ctrl Z culture: Drink to forget, think to forget, work to forego, lie to forfeit.




Summary of the last 5 minutes or so of this talk, BRILLIANT:

Make peace w regret: 

1. take comfort in universality.

2. laugh at selves.

3. time heals wounds.  

some of own regrets aren't as ugly as you think they are.

we should feel pain.

 the point is to not live without any regrets. 

the point is to not hate ourselves for having them.

we need to learn to love the flaws imperfect things we create and forgive ourselves for creating them.

regret doesn't remind us that we did badly.  reminds us that we know we can do better. 

humor, even balck humor plays role in survival.

WHY I BELIEVE IN THE MINDS OF OCCUPY

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L6oCscep_T4&feature=share




Please share this video.


they're just muscle they're not told to think.

go serve in a war. go defend an oil company.
ill-informed. ignorance. hide in fancy house. 
**national defense autorization act - going thru congress. allowing military to pursue american individuals without any reason. 

hiding only buys time--no one is safe (eventually 99%, only 80% of those 99% are DISTRACTED and BRAINWASHED by their perks. vacations. job titles. EGOS).

she goes on"what are you gonna do" needless question--she repeats the question throughout. this guy stands his ground. takes the opp to share some intelligence.

any major social change did not occur in 2 months--civil rights, gay rights, magna carta..


Our children, future generations will be enslaved by debt, wars for profit, political pondering,
we can't vote people in
we are the change we wanted in 2008

half those cops-- they dont wanna be here.

business owners, military vets, college students. media is dangerous.
theyre selling themselves out, trying to get a piece as well (cause its easier to bury your head in the sand and BELIEVE that what you're doing is okay).  This is a truth.  A faith that we call believe in.

faith of capital

put a stop to the radicals

play cards to the bone

sweep over our bloodyholes.

see no blood see no bodies

counting hydes bleeding whipped

from Moneyminds

Mastering the game of TIME

Believing in our lady of bank

barred of gold

the head is straight

pouring out the crown

a thought bubble of clouds

cloaked in loving kindness 

makes a lovely sound

THE PANT OF RAGE

IS

NEVER 

SILENT

.

.

.

orphan poem

No interest indeed

to see what

you seek.

to be 

the end of all ends.

the self divides 

bending around

sticks drenched in the T

we all sit around

drink our fucking tea.

No mind of the street

         a place to sleep!

Hello! Are you listening to me??

(Check yer privilege, white girl)

Sit on your race

means nada 

what counts:  the energy

love you give and take.

Capitalist family circus

Capitalist family circus

the width of capital
stuffstuffmustgetstuff
fill the gaps
between the walls
separate the muskly deathly stench
of rich people who have everything but themfucking selves.

poor little rich girl
cries even when it's windy.
never known the things she saw
were real and future pending.
she tends to think
the world is such
that all are sentient beings.
the guilt the shame seeing
such things

murderous
heltersktelterous beings.

Daddy yelled get the belt
only a few times.
usually it was get the switch.

threats were made
privacies raided
no bones to call my own

bouncing thoughts my only friend
dissheveled into twelve

not I, said, me, the bratty young thing,
Not I, said, you, the ratpack.

Manipulative cat scratching friends
in my headbrainskin
why can't we all be fuckingfriends?!

so we pingpong back and forth
twelve monkeys scattering limbs

never thought to end such silly thrills
boredom is the enemy of wealth.

un cuerpo

dead guy
Brains in the skin but out of the skull.

A few blocks prior, some eggs fall and blast open on the sidewalk.  I used to play such pranks.  Fucking brains.   Out of the shell.
Shock stunned guts.


The sound is just my breath.  Holy shit, I'm so glad to hear it. 
I used to count my breaths when I was afraid I'd go to sleep and not wake up.  Counting down to ___ (xyz).  Whatever. 
This particular man lay on his back, a pillow under his head, propping it up almost.  But no pillow.  Brains out of the shell.  a Brainpillow. 
Looks like a tumor, almost.  Pink, kinda swelling, as if in heat.  So much heat happening in the Brainpillow.

All those thoughts, all those ideas.  Splat, brainpillow, heat, Nada.
Not nada, then people flip the body over, dissect what happened, stir the dead like mixing a fucking fruit salad. 
Respect the body. 
It takes a beating from physical elements, internal stories, and subsequent actions. 

Often thoughts are the bullet in the gun.  Then more supporting thoughts set it up to fire.
Just thoughts, but taken to be a valid source of information (according to our own fucking heads, of course). 
Get out of it.  Think about the pillow behind your skull. 
No discrimination of thoughts, just detachment.  Getting outside of the brain, but keeping it in the skull.

Two Spoken word pieces by an unhomed man.

Freedom Fight

Two spirits that are free,
and spread truth as free
souls should.

All that is good is covered up,
and you shall be the savior
of good.

Even though the road is rough,
you two, in your freedom,
cast spells with creation.

She, a creation, in herself,
and he, the master of
spirits wealth.

So keep up the fight, by
being you.  The freedom
fight is won, in truth.

___________________________________________________

The Lie

On this wicked plain I seek
only in what I believe.  A lie
does me no good, and only
understood is the wickedness
of the world.  Reality is my
enemy now, and the real world
succumbs to all I am.  I am
only what chance brings.
What I must change into
when oppression beckons this
soul to rise.  I have risen
many times.  I have risen
many times.  I never knew
a vain disguise that was
so powerful.  A world wide
lie.


both written works by Kenneth Towler, Downtown LA.  He does this for tips.  He hand selected poems to give to me and a friend--I received "The Lie."
Freedom Fight he wrote right in front of us. 

Just thought I'd share some bits of loveliness going on in DTLA.  

Habit energies & fear, yippee!

Fantasizing about a rectangle when looking at 5 free floating squares of different sizes again, are we?

I have a habit of gathering unrelated phenomena into some form and drawing conclusions--a very common mental process, actually.  Useful, and required for some (not all) forms of logical thought...
The issue is when labels are introduced from thousands upon tragillions of vantage points. Mixed, and are mingling in (practically) different languages in the public sphere.

*Labels = preliminary judgments from a single vantage point.

Excerpts from Voices of Freedom by H.W. Dresser (+ added ideas & discussion):

"Consider for a moment the habits of life into which we are born.  There are certain social conventions or customs . . . a theological bias, a general view of the world [universe].  There are [rigid] ideas in regard to our early training, our education, marriage, and occupation in life."
How we learn to label things, ideas, and ourselves--automatic judgments that constrict our views.


Now for a grounding exercise, playing with vantage points...  Empathize, see through eyes of a stranger.  The specific sights, smells, winds, physical sensations, mind-states, and pressures felt by the person.  Lay out your immediate visual environment as if you were that driver in the car who nearly ran you down in the crosswalk.
^^^ An experiment with empathy ^^^

The (not-entirely-necessary) stories we hold onto about our lives (present and past, any way we try to conceive of it) commonly contain a huge list of anticipations: growing old, losing faculties, diseases, and the chocolate on the grasshopper: DEATH.  Fear of death, that is. 

 "A list of fears dreads, worriments, anxieties, anticipations, expectations, pessimisms, morbidities, and the whole ghostly train of fateful shapes which our fellow men especially physicians are ready to help us conjured up."

This immense pile of Fear is swelled by an unpredictable, foreign nature of the external world.  The sense of I , me, myself  VS. everyonefuckingelse.

But here's the thing:  we are all part of this environment.  I'm no more real than you, no?  Need I quote Tyler Durden's steaming pile of shit motivational speech....  I won't. (If you haven't seen Fight Club, well, I can't help you, Netflix, or I suppose Blockbuster, can).

This leads us to....the nameless dreads...
Henry Wood (Varieties of Religious Experience) describes a person suffering from The Nameless Dreads:     "The Man has fear stamped on him; he is reared in fear . . . all his life is passed in bondage to fear of disease and death . . . his whole mentality becomes cramped, limited and depressed, and his body follows its shrunken pattern and specification."

Fear in the brain puts the body in a state of chronic alarm.  The muscles take their shapes accordingly: shoulders tense and high, spine hunched, neck protruding forward (or something like that).  The body grows accustomed to this state, and begins exhibiting more reactive (vs. active, general) behaviors in response to external stimuli. 

The thoughts and ideas that go on in our heads prompt our bodies to twist and morph.  Fear-bearers, habitually pulsing with fear and quick on the defense, are more prone to seek out these familiar, cozy states of alarm, consciously and unconsciously (recreating trauma from the past in order to move past it).  The more practice the brain and body get at this energy, the easier it is for the nameless dreads to quietly lay roots.

Rick Perry: notice the hunched shoulders, forward neck--alarm pose.  This is an unrelated jab--I disagree with Rick Perry's political values.

"How can an idea, an ephemeral nothing, gnaw at my stomach and constrict my chest?"
"Polarizing and magnetizing us at they do--we turn towards them and from them, we seek them, hold them, hate them, bless them, etc.."  All action verbs.  (All require a do-er--who/what is this entity and is it necessary or limiting to our understanding and perception of the world?)

The real issue is the attachment and subsequent reaction to the crack-monkey brain.  By responding to such intrusive, messy, all-over-the-place, borderline schitzophrenic dialogue in ourselves, we play the game of anxieties, fears--by removing from the present moment.  Not the ideas you hold about the present moment, but _______________. This.  Hello.   

4 Pacmen and algebra alligator mouths, going for the larger sum.

Semi-copy/pasted and inspired by: Time, Space, and the Mind by Irving Oyle

On Seattle, train songs, and wordnature porn.

Seattle, seattle, what a lovely effing place.

People are noticeably passive, I will say.  But there' s authenticity to it.

The Oh Sees, local Seattle band.  I find their sound pretty fun.  (photo: http://sexbeatlondon.com/2010/04/15/sxsw/)

Here's a Seattle experience so far (hopefully more to come):

At Citizen coffee in Lower Queen Anne, real people that work in there--honest.  The cook in the back was pissed because it was so hot and didn't want to be in the kitchen--and she expressed that authentically--something I wouldn't see in an LA cafe where smiles = tips and a chance at a toothpaste commercial or voice-over in the very least (right).  Especially for an attractive woman, (at least I found her rather attractive).

Every restaurant and place of vending I went to, there seemed to be no outward physical obligation to feel a certain way in order to send some message to customers.  That's REAL service.  Acting as a present, authentic human being is necessary in order to treat people as such****

(* this assumes the majority of people in big cities give two shits about treating people like human beings)

That message is unnecessary--and would have been irrelevant to the moment.  At least to how she was authentically feeling--so why is that so masked so often?  Of course, it is possible that the passivity acts as another mask--merely a different expression of the same intention as the robot smile, which of course is influenced by environment/context.

Only tunneled into Kurt Cobain, 90s grunge, or _____ (whatever) instead of the T-mobile chick or happily rich n' malnourished poster-girl or ______ (insert other images, public identities assumed for the day/week/year/present moment). 

There's no use in complaining about people being too passive or too happy or too ____ (fake happy, outgoing, etc) but there is use in examining it.  Moods and flavors of communication happen to be contagious sometimes, and it helps to reign in the ol' Brainerangs (mental pests) every once in a while, right?

Side note: I love how friendly people are in Southern California--happy people, seemingly, but that's different for everyone so who the hell am I to say?! 

Kurt Cobain fetishes?  Absolutely, me included.  Grunge 90s, rain, coffee, trucks with "fweedom" signs on it, dreads, rolling green hills -- count me in.

Although I have a feeling if I spent a lot of time there the environment would affect me just as it has the people that live there.  While there's nothing wrong with keeping to oneself and being emotionally present and passionate (we all go in waves, anyway, a natural phenomena called being alive), that's not entirely comfortable for me in a sense.  I like to reach out to people and strangers, it's just part of my curious cat syndrome, my search for external approval, and depending on how seclusive I'm being from the world around me.

We have the right to crawl into our caves, definitely--and I will, it comes to that sometimes if I don't stop and reconsider my breath on a regular basis.

The little escapes that are so necessary sometimes seek to remind us of our insignificance--our littleness--and the transitory state of everything.

Every city has as song.  And my dear friend that lives in Seattle remarked the song of the trains in the valley that his back porch overlooks.  (The porch overlooks a neighboring hillside of houses with haunted teeny diamond windows and the like and the bay, industrial ports, Tacoma, San Juan islands--fuck, maybe even pieces of Canada).

The train songs, I heard them the morning I crashed on Paul's* (is it okay to say your name if you read this? , lemme know) couch.  A whistle with leaves and ships' horns and water.  Seldom cars on windy roads and the overbearing leaf-drums in trees from the wind.

The postcard unfolded itself like a damn hologram--and I thought of a conversation I had with another dear friend* on a balcony in downtown Los Angeles (same name question above, if you ever read this).  The extreme sensory pleasure I received from all these elements unknown to me in colors so fresh it seemed fucking edited (by ___ jeebus m christ myself?  Allah? Yahweh? FSM? Our own software? V-chips brought to you by Time Warner Cable and Coca Cola? ) gave me the spark that holy shit, THIS is IT.  This is the ultimate fucking lump of art, source of joy, source of connectedness... _____ .

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Insert anything that brings out ultimate joy in you, whatever joy that may be, hell, maybe it's eating babies--not that that is encouraged, but still, be curious and aware about whatever brings you ultimate joy, right?

The exquisite weavings of how the elements all manage to get by--earth, water, air, fire (and any others, I mention 4 for brevity).

The train song accompanies the horns of the ships, the wind leaf drums, and the crows perched on white triangles with square windows, and the evergreens, the pink sunset reflection, and the sunlight sparks on the surface of the water.  All of it.  Can teach us how to get by.  How to live just doing what we do.

The sunlight on the water doesn't move with the waves; rather, the light is a mere spark, barely a firework, more like a teeny strobe.

Nature's hypnosis for people who like to stare at things and go into trance.  :)  A joyous one, at that. 

From which I receive the same high as I do from reading Kurt Cobain's journal and letters between him and Courtney Love.  :)



Indulgently reposted:

"Courtney,

When I say I love you, I am not ashamed, nor will anyone ever ever come close to intimidating, persuading, etc me into thinking otherwise.


I wear you on my sleeve. I spread out wide open with the wing span of a peacock, yet all too often with the attention span of a bullet to the head.

I think its pathetic that the entire world looks upon a person with patience and a calm demeanor as the desired model citizen, yet there’s something to be said about the ability to explain ones self with a toned down, tune deaf tone.

And I will say it: I am what they call the boy who is slow. How I metamorphosised from hyperactive to cement is for the lack of a better knife to the throat hu, annoying, aggrevating, confusing as dense as cement.

Cement holds no other mineral. You can’t even find fools gold in it. Its strictly man made and youve taught me it’s ok to be a man and in the classic mans world

I parade you around proudly like the ring on my finger which also holds no mineral.

Love Kurt"

(copy and pasted from http://heatherfink.blogspot.com/2009/12/love-letter-from-kurt-cobain-to.html)

Blood n Gold (poem)

What am I rejecting?
These patrons, while upsetting
are there to tell me
it's bound to bleed
eventually.

I must transform
old waves forgone
long crashes ago
foam bubbles seeped
into the soil
cycled up & over & down again
falling on the porch
in a heap so pitiful
only could be a pretty girl.

Laid out bare (the torch of grace)
I leave a bloody stain
upon her lovely face.

What am I rejecting?
the sense of reflection
past repremanding
recommending the future
present. presents wrapped in gold.
pre-presented at
the heart tugged
dragging from the cartoonish
man with saggy ears to
the sky flipping coins
and tricks to get by.

who the hell am i?
get rich and die
do we not see the disguise?
(democracy lies).
so while we make up these lies
smiles worth six pence and a knife,
try to understand the
child of gold crying
from her bloody eyes.

die constantly

Ram Dass talks about the moment of death being a pinnacle of spiritual growth.  Because the deepest mystery of universe is revealed to us.  Be curious.  present.  not clinging to any particular path or stories.

I'd like to take this a step further, as one's inner-masochist might say: die constantly.  Every second, every breath is an opportunity to let go of who you think you are.  Who you think you should be.  You aren't your body.  All you have is the awareness of the air and energy flowing in and out of you.  This is something I meditate on when I focus on the breath.  It helps (when doing breathing meditation) to focus on one location where the breath has a noticeable exchange with the physical body: for example, the belly rising and falling, the pressure and feelings around the nostrils as air enters and exits, the expansion and retreat of the chest. 

Dass describes his fear and panic at the moment where his thoughts had given up.  "It's scary because you're not thinking anything."  A natural state of nonthought... has become scary to our minds, so used to constant stimulation and DOING.

How can we not become afraid when we're so trained to DO, to PRODUCE, to BE something other than ourselves.  to CREATE.   I'm always writing ideas.  I have journals of shit.  Because I feel a compulsion to keep producing, keep thinking.  And suddenly, empty, I stop and see myself as the little rat on the wheel that I am.  And I laugh at myself, how silly it is to get caught up in momentary feelings of loneliness, anger, guilt, etc.  All become I have some idea about who I think I am, my ideas about others, and how those two "ought to" coincide.  Too many damn "oughts." 

"The emptier my mind was, the more optimal my response was to every situation.  i don't have any plan for what i'm going to say to you.  what i was suppposed to talk about?  what we say is what we say, the result of this situation."  (Dass excerpt from lecture).

As long as you think that there is a do-er, you're still attached.  Right now you may feel prone to identify yourself as reader.  Detach and witness the action of reading.  Breathe and welcome the emptiness that makes you throw your head back and laugh at how stupid it is to get wrapped up in little dramas.   I am a witness to the actions of thinking, speaking, listening.  I am not a reader, speaker, listener, etc.  Why cling to any one action--the nature of actions is that they change.  reading is.  speaking is.  writing is.

Some other highlights of Ram Dass' talk from above:

"Go to a place inside where the flame doesn't flicker.. watch your drama goes by.  desire as well, lust.  fear.  there it goes.  personality is like clothing.  body is clothing.  behind all this shit, here i am.  here we are.  here.  it is.

"Actions don't fall away but attachment to actions fall away. 

"It takes someone willing to give up the framework of their lives sufficiently to experience another orientation towards the universe to be able to know what needs to be known.  must give it all up first.  surrender the western model of who you are and how it works.  Become aware of the notion that you are a product of your environment...(something like that).


"if the body belongs to god, show me the paperwork."

^^ clever

Insurrection of the People

UK Riots. 

"What i was certain about listening to my grandson and my son...  something very serious is hapenning in this country. If you look at black and whites with a discerning eye and careful hearing they have been telling us and we wouldn't listen."
R: Does this mean you condone what is hapenning?"

He replies, "Of course not.  I don't call it rioting I call it an insurrection...of the masses of the people."  Akin to what's happening in Syria (and elsewhere)... "This is the nature of the historical moment."

Here are the video's top 2 comments:

"  WHEN YOU CUT FACILITIES, SLASH JOBS, ABUSE POWER, DISCRIMINATE, DRIVE PEOPLE INTO DEEPER POVERTY AND SHOOT PEOPLE DEAD WHILST REFUSING TO PROVIDE ANSWERS OR JUSTICE, THE PEOPLE WILL RISE UP AND EXPRESS THEIR ANGER AND FRUSTRATION IF YOU REFUSE TO HEAR THEIR CRIES. A RIOT IS THE LANGUAGE OF THE UNHEARD - MARTIN LUTHER KING

AkaashRAFIQ 3 hours ago 16
Reply
@AkaashRAFIQ When you give the govt power by accepting subsidies in the form of entitlements, you become a beggar at their door and a pawn to be used by either right or left to gain and win political/social favor. The rich get richer off of your complacence... violence is the uneducated's ONLY means of dissenting for change... Progressive ideology makes slaves of us all.



And what's even sillier, British Prime Minister Cameron is proposing to ban social media outlets like Blackberry BBM, Twitter, and Facebook because they allow people to communicate....but they're not people, of course.  They're RIOTERS.  Bloody rioters aren't people right?  So far they haven't been treated as people.  This is what happens when authorities abuse power (LAPD anyone?). 

"So we are working with the police, the intelligence services and industry to look at whether it would be right to stop people communicating via these websites and services when we know they are plotting violence, disorder and criminality," the prime minister said.

How fucking 1984 of Mr. Cameron.  Taking away rioters ability to use social media is akin to taking away a teenager's cell phone or car when they get in trouble.  The party that experienced some loss of freedom will always find another way. 
Or the riots will just inflate out of retribution.

Why not use social media to LISTEN to the messages they may be saying... is that not part of communication?  Listening...?

On Desire and Projections.

The world is a projection of our desires.  For instance, if you are hungry, all you will see are restaurants or food places.  If you are looking for a bank for an ATM, you will not notice the nice molding on the ridges of the historic buildings, but you'll be scanning feverishly for the street slot machine with a TV on it.  Just the same if you have to piss--the eye becomes a hawk for blue stick figures or Starbucks.

Everything we see is an inkblot.  Which do you see first, sand, city, polluted purple sky, crevices of sand, shapes, lines, shadows, footsteps, reflected light.. _____.????

I am guilty of projecting my desires onto others and following through with them as if they were on the same page as I am, then getting upset when my desires fall through (inevitably, they do...most of the time...since it's a cerebral dialogue or exchange anyway).  This is the problem with riding the clouds of emotion that bounce across the mind's sky--no grip.  No ground.

For instance, just this morning I felt as if this man was staring at me uncomfortably, wanting to talk to me or approach me, etc.  I wanted nothing to do with him.  Yet, I kept feeling this energy of being looked at.  Being pursued or watched, as if waiting for the opportune moment to pounce in and ask me what I'm reading.  Then I'd tell him I'm into Buddhism, read weird quacky theories about life, death, psychology, etc.  I read for escapism because television and movies are sometimes limiting to the imagination--too invasive for me sometimes.  I envisioned all of this happening and then I laughed.

Look at the lovely little story I created out of feelings of being watched.  The lovely little ego that got a cookie for being so god damn interesting and reading so many god damn books all the time.  What a god damn individual I am.  (As if no one reads books...?!) 

Simple feelings turned into a mechanism for action.  Which created more feelings (being special, ego pat on the head, pride, etc), more panic (not being accepted), a rise and fall within me as the man completely went on in silence and got up and left.  What was I looking for, approval?  A justification that I am desired or pretty or an interesting person or ______???

What are we looking for?  I saw an energy in the air because I put it there.  I envisioned it.  I breathed life into the idea that promoted the feelings within me.  Simply because I wanted to feel.  I had my back turned and my ego strolled in and decided it wanted to play.

Now how do does one get out of this trip?

The breath is the exchange of energy, as I read about in Ram Dass' The Only Dance There Is.
I experimented with this idea at the pool.  The dichotomy between underwater, above, air, water, detachment, and giving over to breathlessness (in order to really breathe) --> tangent.

The breath is taken into the intimate, dark places within you.  Things you've never seen but somehow have to trust to function.  The breath carries oxygen, a catalyst for energy to flow, a nomadic energy through the body invades and pulses out stale air.  What a lovely, refreshing cycle is all contained in the breath. 

My cat sees me and sees food because he wants food and I'm the food giver.  See? Here, he is realizing I have no food to give.

Come back to your body through the breath.  You will start to see the energies that are actually there and be able to laugh at them, as you realize they're all reflections of your desires, fears, and ego...playing it's little game.

On the Meditative Traumatic Release...

I am in the midst of something jarring--physically, psychologically, spiritually, etc.  I either had a:
    1. Seizure
    2. Epileptic fit
    3. Orgasm
    4. Spiritual Awakening / Opening of Chakras
    5. All of the Above

I couldn't open my hands, they were clamped shut.  It was terrifying and I feared I may bite my tongue off so I chewed on my fingers instead.  I started to calm down.  Pain, the pinching of my teeth into my skin centers me.  I look at the knife in my cup holder.  It slips across my mind like a cloud for a split second the notion that spilling blood could feel incredible and make me calm and normal again.  I put my hand down and fish for it with the cup of my hand.  My claw digger grabs it and fumbles.  It falls by my feet.  I thought about cutting my ankle or leg or something.  Pain helps, after all, right?
Distraction.
  Focused energy at one point in the body. 

Then I remembered my breath.  I forgot about the pain, the knife--and the suction-cup face energy turned to warmth.  Waves of oxygen/energy/? circulated and jarred my limbs, like a dog's uncontrollable running dream.

I felt I couldn't walk.  So I put my head down and my feet up onto the steering wheel for circulatory purposes.  My jaw is chattering, feeling like I have a suction cup over the lower part of my face--a suction-cup over my face and jaw.  Tingling, taught feeling of energy--perhaps breath energy leaving or going into my air passageway.  I think something left me.  I forced a negative breath energy out of my body by focusing, watching the breath.  Letting sound happen without clinging to them.  Reveling in the spaces, noises, notes in and around the sounds.

Prior to this ___, I had been chanting Om Mani Padme Hum in my car while sitting in traffic.  I felt a warm tingling in my stomach to begin with.  Then a sudden rush of ____ through my body, crippling me.  I was afraid, shaking, and yet felt strangely calm.  I had a bodily quake and felt comfortable expressing it and watching it unfold in the safety and privacy of my car (once I pulled over...safety first). 
I felt more present than ever.  I've read about releasing energies through meditation and breath, but wow.  This was a real trip.  :)

How to cool your jets

 "The best way to live life is as a soul, dancing in and out."

All you can do is dance.  The best way to spread joy is to lead by example.  Dance yourself, and slowly, surely, people will pick up on your energy.  Consciousness is contagious.

Dancing in sand.  with an orange. and an oil refinery...

Try it, someplace alone with a person.  Even alone with your ___ in bed.  Whatever you may call a significant other or just a person that happens to be laying next to you a random morning you don't quite recall...

Breathe mindfully, slowly.  The rhythm of your breath is contagious.  I've seen it.  I've made it happen myself.  I've allowed it to happen between myself and strangers, homeless, people who don't speak a lick of english but understand the higher language of energy. 

We can be present together.  And understand that we are sharing the air in this moment together, right now.  And that's all there is to it.  No need to be afraid of it.  No need to repress it, or run from it, asking ourselves, "I wonder what they're thinking." Or "I wonder where they got their hair done.  I don't like their shoes.  They are old lady librarian shoes.  I better pull out my phone.  This is weird.  Check email.  Oh, living social deal, wine and pizza, sweet.  Distraction distraction."

What a lovely little game we've fallen into.  This thinking in circles.  All we do is think, we deserve to pause for a bit and listen to the soundtrack.  Step out of it.

Ram Dass' core theme, Be Here Now...also the title of a lovely secular text embraced by free spirits all over.

Skills of redirection to the present is a  great tool.  When you're talking with so and so about blah blahblah often times you're living in the past, future, 70s, your mom's back porch, your bathtub...  Elsewhere talk.
Redirect the conversation to the here and now.  Ram Dass talks about making strawberry jam in the kitchen with his father, who was just rambling on and on with his miseries of past wives, his kids that don't call, loneliness, etc.  He had created a storyline and a leading role for himself as a miserable dude, and all RD said referred to making jam.  "Are bubbles supposed to rise to the top like this?"

Redirect the energy to the body.  The present.  What you are doing here and now.

I'll often run into people in the midst of errands downtown.  I really pay attention to how they're walking.  What they're carrying, in their hands, on the shoulders, on their bodies, in their heads--the eyes tell more than anything they could say.

a self portrait of sorts

I can tell this cat's stressed--neck forward, shoulders slumped.  Not really breathing in the stomach.  Tight belly and midsection.  Not alive in the hips, the feet, the toes. 
"Yo yo what's up," I say.
Spewing, "Oh my god...(exhales)....fje;ajea;fjelajfel;ajghresgjrsj" (Insert random errands, names, places, dogs, etc.)
"Me too, lets do it together.  Where you headed?"
And we walk together.
Breathing together.
Grabbing a coffee together.
Small talk, enjoying the sun, stopping for free samples of beer and wine at the beer shop.  Stopping for coffee.  All on the way to sign papers. 
Trudge through filling in blanks with dates, signatures.
Washing dishes, getting cat food, scooping cat shit, etc.

Nothing else to do but bask in each moment--each place we go, the sounds, smells, feelings of places, colours, energies of people, dogs, trees, cars, etc.  How lovely it is we are able to call things our responsibilities sometimes.  And then sometimes not.

Random poetries

Fetteroid the Fetterrer
tethered tightly
on a greddler
bombs fly tetherd to
god religions money
sex hurt
(those cats flock together).

I've been angry been green
blue purple again
I'll never fit into my
fantasy friend
Friction's pure fiction
told as a tale
a ballad of epic realms
no wives, just tails.

Ram Dass on Experience

Bam.  Be Here Now is an incredible collection of ideas, words, worlds, and a chance to shut the hell up, heal, and relax.  Highly recommended reading.

If it don't make dolla$ then it dont make Sense!

Too much time wandering around in Pasadena often pisses me off.  Seeing (seemingly) happy families and innocent people digging the dark holes of their lives even deeper.  Eyes buldging at the obvious traps--diamonds in the windows, mediocre-quality sweatshop Zoolander clothes, furniture stores that smell like laundry and ambien to Get YOU you YOU i (ladies, wives, partners, pedophiles, n' little worker bees) n the BUYbuying MOOD of SmileZ! :) (andfearselfdeprecationselfmutilationselfhatredselfloathingnotgoodenoughbullshit).

Don't you wish your Bacardi mango came with an orange psychedelic 70s vagina with a mango in it??!! Sneaky, yall. Sneaky.

But I am jealous of their ignorance--their bliss.  The joy that comes from really really truly believing that some material object is going to cure all.  I do this sometimes, thinking an antique chair could possibly complete my living room, thus completing the empty space staring at me in the corner, when really it's my own thoughts looking at me, begging to be hashed out and sorted and mourned... then I laugh at myself.  What a trip, right.

Anyhoo, their active choice to live in the dark about their own poisons and weaknesses.  Or maybe, if they are aware, to accept it without question--without doubt that there are hundreds upon millions of other persons, desires, and philosophies within them they are capable of listening to, learning, crafting, and growing.

How can we ignore the flow of winds within our consciousness and unconsciousness?  Blowing seeds into our minds and out.  I'd hate to lead a static life--mentally, philosophically, etc.

Hiking Topanga Canyon--despite its stock-imageryness

But who knows, maybe consumerbuggers playing their game could know some secret that I have no idea about.  The people that I see and judge often represent archetypes that I fear live within myself.  And they do.  And it's not just me.

Let it all rot
I'm tired beaten
forgetting the things I thought
I could want.  Turns
out not.
Caught in the realms of pleasure
& sense/cents.
Even clouds are abused dogs.
Lifestyle floaters.
Polluting Seeds
cast into a sea of
hungry mouths.
(Fishing with dynamite).

yapping teeth
reyapping the sapplings
of their discontents.
(pissed down from a
pedophile in high places).

All molestation.
Rape of the brain.
Condemning the act
upholding the Act
Giggling for G's
stripping our skin
At Ease!
Masturbatory easels upon
which we spew our dirties
Guts
Blood
Make children laugh.

Nature Porn (and reflections).

This is where the bunny went, of course.

The riddle in the trees tells us about the natural order.  They reflect our own blueprint of society.  Some leaves grow lower on the tree (whether they wanted to or not, that's where they ended up sprouting).  There, it is nearer to the earth, it's cooler, shadier, lets call this the mineral realm.

The mineral realm sees the nuts the bolts, the reality of the soil.  They devote their energies to relaying the water on down to the roots.  The roots that feed itself as well as all the other leaves on the tree--whether light, dark, withered, broken, hole-y, unholy, striped, purple, etc.  That is the mineral realm.  They have the responsibility of choosing the best seeds to water in the soil.  They have to flesh through the bits of pollutants in the soil and water in order to fuse the two most efficiently.  This is the mind and body coming together through the elements, a cyclical, dual-nourishment.

Velveteen leafies

The leaves on the top are in the light realm--bodily absorption of the elements.  They protruded for a reason--showering themselves in light is just their nature.  It's what they must do to survive and for the survival of the ones below that can't reach enough light.  By absorbing light themselves, performing their duty to its greatest extent given its position in the light, the benefits flow to the rest .
 Some leaves give too much of themselves, trying to take in more light than their veins can handle.  They grow up fast, live fast, perform their duty to its max efficiency plus ten (absorbing light), and then dry up and crackle away.  Similarly, as a human lives fast, so does it dry faster.  It is depleting its physical form at a faster pace than those with a balance of light and shade.

Architecturally sound.

Like any mental formation that people make about their lives--they MUST do this or MUST do that to survive.  The ones that go to extremes exert themselves unnecessarily, but feel a sense of duty and altruism for doing so.  And Sometimes the other leaves are kind enough to grow up too, take responsibility, and shade the former from the intensity of light.  The torch gets passed.  The shadows passed down to the middle--trickling down into darkness- minerals in the soil. 

Hiding out in the tree fort.