Thursday, November 12, 2009
Seductively Satirizing Hollywood's Seduction: Woody Allen's Anti-Genre Films
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
Understanding Classical Greek Mythology and Its Avenues for Enlightenment
The ancient religion of Classical Greece is one of a culture which based its religion more on reality than the unreachable paragon dictated by an autocratic god embraced by contemporary monotheistic nations and cultures. The Greek gods and goddesses not only exhibited human traits, but often to excessive degrees. The immortals can be more accurately understood as personifications of essential or basic energies extant throughout time which infuse and influence the lives of humans (or so the Greeks of the Classical period believed). The gods and goddesses, at their best, exemplify traits of excellence - arĂȘtes to be emulated. However, they also offered foreboding omens to mortals as warnings against allowing these essential energies or potencies to run amok, beyond or outside the degree of excellence or arĂȘte.
The Greeks accomplished another feat with their religion. They reconfigured the world from a place full of danger, terror and dread which one should fear into a world of beauty, joy and opportunity. One of the ways that was accomplished was through heroic tales, great men performing great deeds. Another manner by which this transformation was elucidated came through the writing of poets and teaching of philosophers. Rationality and order placed chaos and the terrors of fate’s whims into perspective, allowing the minds of the Greeks to gain a sense of harmony with nature and a growing ability to use nature for human benefit.
Apollo’s mythic nature and attributes, along with the tales, myths and legends about him, offer insight through self-analysis for facilitating healing in today’s world. Apollo’s roles as God of Shamans, a healer, poet, musician and entertainer to the Olympians, and the God of Prophecy, provide glimpses into avenues for healing. Significant individuals, who pushed and prodded the world of the 1960s into social consciousness, helping to spark and enflame the peace movement, embodied those qualities. Jim Morrison, John Lennon, Bob Dylan and Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young represent a few examples of people whose Apollonian traits inculcated the ideas of peace, love, understanding, cooperation and nonviolence as a force for societal healing.
A central requirement for imparting a healing message to the world, and having it heard, accepted and acted upon by others, arises from charisma. Physical attractiveness is a part of charisma. The qualities of the gift of speech, an exciting air and aura, charm, wittiness and intense energy each play additional roles in presenting a magnetic personality. For a figure in today’s world to reach a mass audience and be able to excite, energize and galvanize them into a healing force for change, that person must exude ample quantities of charisma.
Apollo is a god whose allure includes magnetic charm. For instance, in the book Classical Myth, written by Barry B. Powell, the author reveals from the “Homeric Hymn to Apollo” the following lines to describe the favor and esteem in which Apollo was held. “How can I challenge the songs already sung to your glory? / Everywhere, Phoebus, the strains of music resound in your honor,” (160). Powell offers this explanation, “Apollo fulfills in the divine community the same function as the oral poet in the human, playing for choral dance and singing and entertaining at the banquet” (162). Hermes gave Apollo the lyre as a gift. It was said in verse of Apollo that he skillfully strummed the lyre (190). Apollo’s charisma was sufficient to command the attention and interest necessary for imparting a message through his gifts as poet and musician.
Apollo’s legend encompasses slaying the serpent, Python. Slaying the serpent represents a leg of the hero’s journey – meeting and slaying a dragon in combat. The serpent or dragon symbolizes evil, both within and without. A study of Apollo would lead individuals and societies to comprehend that evil should not be projected onto others. The projection outward of evil is not a valid excuse for war, interpersonal disputes or violence. Evil is a state of imbalance, sometimes between two or more people or groups and other times within the souls, psyches and collective consciousness of individuals and groups. Healing imbalance is best accomplished by looking within, not making scapegoats of others. Through studying this aspect of Apollo, illuminated as part of the hero’s journey, individuals and societies can learn to practice self-healing. Self-healing will aid them to climb out of their money-wealth-possession accumulation induced narcissism.
In his guise as the God of Prophecy, Apollo assists us to see beyond the veneer of our selfish interests and desires. Prophecy offers warnings concerning the impending cataclysm from Climate Change as well as the degradation, death and destruction awaiting massive populations on the planet from war. If humanity studied Apollo, its collective ear might be attuned to the warnings all around. Then, the disasters which await the planet might be averted. Comprehending Apollo’s nature could assist humanity to heed the signs nature posts instead of ignoring them so they can delude themselves into thinking it will continue to be fine to pursue business as usual: greedily amassing possessions from a fixation with narcissistic consumerism and its resulting perpetuation of corporate excess, the mass production of needless products and the waste of the planet's resources, all contributing to the overheating of the planetary ecosystem.
Apollo, in his guise as the God of Shamans, combines all these elements in one persona. The shaman was a healer and seer for societies in antiquity. “He can read the inner meaning in signs and omens. He can summon the spirits of the dead, and dreams reveal to him what will come to pass. Through his superior knowledge he controls the invisible and dangerous forces that interfere constantly in the lives of human beings, including the most dangerous and puzzling of them all, disease” (Powell 171-72). This is the guise of the doctor, the healer, and the magician. This form of Apollo offers the opportunity for healing to individuals, societies, cultures and the planet, bringing necessary medicine to cure us of soul-sickness while leading us forward into a brighter, happier and more naturally balanced future.
One of the more interesting facets of the Greek myths can be seen in how the myths themselves matured as the Greek societies grew more sophisticated. The natures of the gods and goddesses themselves were altered over time as the Greeks grew in their understanding of ethics, morals and philosophical ideas. Some attributes of the gods seem to reflect a looser morality than other legends and myths reveal. The myths surrounding Zeus offer a case in point. Perhaps this has more to do 1) with the ethics and morals of the contemporary world which judges the actions contained in the myths by contemporary standards and which may have little or nothing to do with the standards held by the societies in the time when the myths were popular, and 2) with the various moral and ethical standards which might have been present at different times while the myths came into being.
As an example, Zeus possessed a dual nature which offers a glimpse at this phenomenon.
One side of Zeus depicted in the tales about him evidences aberrant behavior by contemporary standards. Although he was married to Hera, Zeus had many female consorts, lovers and conquests. He sired children out of wedlock with his sexual partners, some of whom were mortal, others were divine. These tales were popular at a time when kings had concubines, consorts and harems in addition to other sexual adventures. Maybe these kingly prerogatives arose because the kings mimicked the behavior of their gods. However, it is more likely the gods were depicted with these kinds of human moral failings because men conceived of their gods in their own image, especially with regard to the practices of the societies in existence when the myths were created.
Another side of Zeus is as the warrior, leader, ruler and father figure. He is the patriarch. He is also the mightiest and most feared of all the gods and his thunderbolts were the greatest of the gods’ weapons. He was a general who rallied his forces to his side to overthrow the old order as he also protected himself and liberated his siblings from the fate Cronus had in store for them.
Zeus is said to have ruled over Olympus with an iron hand. However, the Olympians lived sumptuously and elegantly. All seemed to enjoy great freedom to do as they pleased as long as they did not interfere with Zeus’ order. Nonetheless, Olympus was always full of intrigue and plots. During the Trojan War, Zeus wasn’t able to control the actions of the other Olympians or prevent them from meddling in human affairs.
There is still another side to Zeus, a very important one for the matters being discussed. He is said to have been an arbiter of fairness and justice and represented the Greek ideal of justice called dike. He is also emblematic of the Greek principle called xenia, which was the custom or formal institution of friendship and reciprocity. A relationship exists between the tarot card The Emperor, the Greek god Zeus (the Roman god Jupiter), the Kabbalistic sephiroth called Chesed and the energies of mercy, justice and the balancing of scales. Zeus is father of the Seasons (Horae), Fates (Morae), Graces and Muses. So, it is from him and his essence that each of those governing and inspiring forces emanate.
“The name Zeus is said to derive from the Indo-European root di- meaning ‘shine’ or ‘sky’” (Powell 137), and which is associated with a luminous heaven and a numinous quality. Transcendence may be found in this description: the luminous, numinous sense of Zeus, his sky/heaven association, his representation of xenia and dike, and his embodiment of justice and fairness. In these qualities, we see something beyond the laws of man and start to discover “the light of the higher laws of the universe” of which Emerson wrote.
One more facet to Zeus’ nature assists in realizing perhaps the most important approach to contemplating his relationship to transcendence. Zeus rose above his human-like frailties and his baser nature. Sometimes he was rooted in the world, seeking pleasure and opulence. At other times, he rose above and beyond that mundane realm of existence and those earthy, earthly qualities to shine luminously, to transcend his nature and enter into communion with his numinous essence and highest nature. Thus, Zeus embodies the ideal of man perfected as a god (also the alchemists' search for the Philosopher's Stone, the Knights of the Round Table's quest for the Grail, the Zen Buddists' desire for Satori, and the Kabbalists' efforts to rise up through the ten sephirah along the 22 paths through the four worlds and attain oneness in Kether).
In this aspect of his story, Zeus shines like a beacon to all of us as we live out our own quests to find the source of personal enlightenment. After all, enlightenment does shine luminously from within, and its glow both induces and reveals transcendence.
In her book The Greek Way, Edith Hamilton, explained, “The power wine has to uplift a man, to give him an exultant sense of mastery, to carry him out of himself, was finally transformed into the idea of the god of wine freeing men from themselves and revealing to them that they too could become divine, an idea really implicit in Homer’s picture of human gods and godlike men, but never developed until Dionysus came.” (213-14). Shortly later, Ms. Hamilton imparts, “’He who is not being inspired,’ Plato says, ‘and having no touch of madness in his soul, comes to the door and thinks he will get into the temple by the help of art – he, I say, and his poetry are not admitted’” (216).
Let us consider the effects of wine on an individual. The first notable effect that wine produces on an individual is a loosening of one’s inhibitions. The senses are also affected, and the individual is prone to errors in perceptions with regard to both time and space. One’s motor coordination is impaired, as well, when under the influence of alcohol. Finally, wine provides a heightened sense of self as well as of self-importance.
Next, one ought to gain the perspective of what the Greek mysteries were about. The Greek mystery schools sought to separate the individual from mundane reality, exalt the individual to a level conducive to allowing him or her to identify with an archetype, or a god or goddess from the Greek pantheon. In so doing, the individual was enabled to transcend everyday regularity, move beyond normal perception, and see through perceptual reality to find a deeper meaning in life and connection to and with the universe.
Plato’s point is that the normal, everyday kind of mind, even when that mind is heightened to the degree that one might be an artist or poet, is insufficient to carry the individual past normal perception into the kind of deep trance which can yield transcendence. Furthermore, transcendence is required for the individual to undergo the transformation of the mind and soul necessary to experience the true mysteries. However, by loosening the control which society exerts over us all through the mechanisms of induced conformity and peer pressure, and by loosening the control our minds exert over us to see and perceive reality as based solely on our unaltered sense perceptions, the individual can find an approach or doorway into the temple to discover meaning and connection of the deeper nature offered by the Greek mysteries.
Indeed, in contemporary culture, humans are even more limited in their apprehension of the scope of reality by their senses and perceptual input. Science has reduced the mysterious into a small box it calls by one of the names from among superstition, illusion and delusion, or science demystifies the mysterious with explanations alluding to the intercession of natural processes. The entire culture suffers from severe doses of induced conformity imposed by schools, churches, television commercials and peer pressure requiring adherence to the latest, academically accepted ideas and current moral values commercial fads while contemporary cultures debase the use of any and all forms of intoxicants as being evidence of aberrant behavior. It is naturally the case that contemporary cultures seek to breed conformity to social, cultural, moral and economic values bred by that culture as a means of perpetuating the system in place and the class of people entrusted with governing that system. The consequence is witnessed in contemporary cultures’ ties to economic models in which the only acceptable values can be reduced to income: the amassing wealth, proving the individual’s relative power within the culture through the amount and quantity of expenditures as witnessed in the things one acquires, and dedication to productive work which is really only guaranteed to amass greater sums for the already wealthy while reducing the free time and enjoyment of the worker classes. All of these modes of economically induced conformity engage with sense perception in a way as to create a cycle of reinforcement. Consequently, the mind is more and more attached to sense perceived reality as being all there is.
One’s only avenues to loosening the controls – that culture, the economy, contemporary religion, societal mores currently applied and the training and influences of parents, teachers, preachers and television commercials exert on the individual from birth – can be found by relaxing those controls, at least temporarily and to some degree. Hence, the use of intoxicants and psychedelics provide the most approachable mediators (at least in Western civilization, whereas in the East, Sufism, Buddhism, Taoism, Hinduism and Transcendental Meditation all offer additional paths to loosening the strings of convention and physical reality) for deconstructing the societal and cultural edifice long enough and deeply enough to at least investigate alternate insights into reality. These are the only contemporary avenues for seeking transcendence which can lead to personal transformation and an apprehension of the mysteries the ancient Greeks held so dear.
The most transcendental experience of the ancient Greek religion had to do with the rites of Eleusis. Very little is actually known for certain regarding what occurred in those rites. They were shrouded in secrecy and mystery. Few actual details have been preserved to enlighten us about the Eleusinian Mysteries. However, one can construct some of gist of what must have been going on from the details known.
The rites lasted for days. There were two different events staged: one for the Greater Mysteries and one for the Lesser Mysteries. Sacred objects were brought to Athens where they were housed in Demeter's sanctuary beneath the Acropolis. The festival began in the agora when the official announcement of its commencement was given.
Maria Mavromataki, in her book Greek Mythology and Religion, relates that, on the next four days, sacrifices were made and the initiates washed and purified themselves by the sea. On the morning of the fifth day, a splendid procession headed for Eleusis along the Sacred Way made up of mystes (initiates), priests, the hierophant and torch-bearer among the procession. The initiates wore laurel wreaths. Along the Sacred Way, from time to time, the procession stopped to perform mini-rites at appropriate sanctuaries. That evening, they reached Eleusis. Two initiates (to be symbolically, ritually sacrificed to Demeter and Persephone) fasted and drank a barley water potion (74-5). It is from this point forward that little is known.
In The Road to Eleusis, R. Gordon Wasson (the founder of ethnomycology), Albert Hoffman (the discoverer of LSD), and classicist Carl A. P. Ruck collaborated on a thesis which proposed that the secret ingredient in the barley water drink was ergot. Hoffman explains that the ergot of wheat and of barley analyzed in his lab was found to contain basically the same alkaloids as ergot of rye, including traces of lysergic acidamide.
The authors provide the following description of the mysteries within the temple. "As he performed the service, the hierophant intoned ancient chants in a falsetto voice, for his role in the Mystery was asexual, a male who had sacrificed his gender to the Great Goddess... Finally, in acknowledgement of their readiness, they all chanted that they had drunk the potion and had handled the sacred objects... Then, seated on the tiers of steps that lined the walls of the cavernous hall, in darkness, they waited. From the potion, they gradually entered ecstasy" (58-9).
The next portion of the description sounds like something right out of one of Ken Kesey's acid tests with the Merry Pranksters. ""This potion - an hallucinogen - under the right set and setting, disturbs man's inner ear and trips astonishing ventriloquistic effects. We can rest assured that the hierophants, with generations of experience [these rites were performed for a period lasting over 2000 years], knew all the secrets of set and setting. I am sure that there was music, probably both vocal and instrumental, not loud but with authority, coming from hither and yon, now from the depths of the earth, now from outside, now a mere whisper infiltrating the ear, flitting from place to place unaccountably. The hierophants may well have known the art of releasing into the air various perfumes in succession, and they must have contrived the music for a crescendo of expectation, until suddenly the inner chamber was flung open and spirits of light entered the room, subdued lights I think, not blinding, and among them the spirit of Persephone with her new-born son just returned from Hades. She would arrive just as the hierophant raised his voice in ancient measures reserved for the Mystery: 'The Terrible Queen has given birth to her son, the Terrible One'. This divine birth of the Lord of the Nether world was accompanied by the bellowing of a gong-like instrument that outdid, for the ecstatic audience, the mightiest thunderclap coming from the bowels of the earth" (59). Here's how they described the experience that people who dropped acid in the 60s and 70s called peaking, "Then, suddenly, there was light and the boundaries on this world burst their bounds as spiritual presences were felt in their midst and the hall was flooded with glowing mystery" (63).
This rite reveals exactly what is missing from the contemporary world. There's no mystery. There's no glorious apprehension and communion with the mystical. We're too busy anesthetizing ourselves with toys and television and movies and virtual reality games and beer to actually live life and enjoy the interconnection which life offers. Because we disrupt the flow of current which otherwise should be present in interconnection, we lose respect and appreciation for everything of real value. Acid tests actually sparked a movement back to nature and to reconnection among like-minded "brothers and sisters." Unfortunately, in today's world of bland conformity, there is no place left for mystery outside the movie theater, and even there, it is only witnessed through brief, vicarious encounters never through direct, experiential interaction.
I wonder sometimes if there are any people left who remember what it was like to roll in the grass on a warm summer day, or fly a kite, or run through the surf. Few bother to recall the joy of playing tag at dusk or recollect the sensation of running fingers over the rough bark of an oak tree and contrasting it with the slippery smoothness of river rocks. The scent of tomorrow is plastic and metallic and antiseptic. The colors are all ecru. But most sadly, the experiences only occur indoors and lack infusion with one's own imagination. Without an absurd theater of sublime ecstasy, life itself becomes absurd and meaningless. Without mystery, nature's only value lies in what new commodity can be made from the planet's natural resources. When there is no longer a real connection with the planet and all value for nature ebbs, we bring Climate Change upon ourselves. Laws to limit the amount of carbon emissions will not save humanity from itself. Mystery and reconnection with nature and with each other are the only avenues to a satisfying and rewarding future.
Saturday, October 17, 2009
One World Day
One World Day – an expression by you, the people of the world, who, through your sheer numbers, your power as you mass in the streets, your willingness to engage in or refuse to perform work and services, and the power of your willingness to pay or withhold payment of taxes to governments – can shock politicians and corporate Machiavellians with awe as you demand from contemporary leaders, with the same strength demonstrated by the people of India in their quest for independence from Britain and by the people of Eastern Europe as they extracted independence from Soviet domination, a new world reflecting your real, common interests, the interests of people everywhere.
The idea for One World Day flowers as the child of two events which occurred in the 60s. One of those psychedelic, parental seeds was the Our World broadcast on satellite to 26 countries, watched with rapture by some 400 million viewers on June 25, 1967 in what was billed as the first worldwide, satellite television broadcast. The other spiritual parent of One World Day played minor havoc with corporate profits and political agendas as the Moratorium to End the War in Vietnam elicited a mass, popular strike from work and school on the 15th day of October and November of 1969 by people who supported ending the war.
The BBC commissioned The Beatles to provide the UK’s contribution to the Our World show. In response, John Lennon wrote the song All You Need Is Love (officially credited as a Lennon/McCartney composition). The then recently psychedelicized mop-tops performed the song live, with a large, participatory audience present. The lyrics embodied Lennon’s statement to the world that, through love, altruism, community, togetherness, cooperation, understanding and unified will, the great mass of average, working class people and student youth movement could build a better world, without divisions and bigotry, without the kind of competitive antagonism which disunites people, creates classes and castes, and yields, ultimately, to a hierarchy pitting people and groups against one another as they struggle to accumulate the dreams for wealth and power which always remains outside their grasp, while simultaneously taking away even the opportunity for the poor to eke out meager sustenance and survival.
The star studded audience present incorporated their energy, symbolizing a united world joining The Beatles as they performed – everyone, everywhere lifting their hearts in one voice crying out the paean that All You Need Is Love! Well, my beautiful friends, the time to make that symbol a reality arises, this moment presents itself as an opportunity to get 6 billion people out in the streets together, spontaneously singing with one voice that, indeed, All You Need Is Love. With the internet, the word can be spread immediately, along with the agenda, the list of demands and the program to be presented.
The Moratorium to End the War in Vietnam drew up a blueprint for how to make a mass movement of voices the world over heard and felt. That antiwar movement got together on the 15th of the each month and stayed out of work and school. They didn’t buy anything. The only thing they did was go out of their homes wearing black armbands and participated in demonstrations against the war.
It is obvious that there is big money made in war. The Moratorium intended to attack the war by creating a desire to counteract the profitability of war, the real reason for waging war, not because of the bullshit platitudes and phony political excuses men in monkey suits read on TV. Those Moratorium idealist participants sought to remove the incentive for waging war. Those demonstrators understood that as long as war remains profitable, it will be waged. It’s the profits, baby. Follow the money and you'll see the causes and desires of any political action. The protesters also understood the bottom line of all corporations contributing to the war effort could be dramatically cut if a concerted effort was made to boycott products made by those corporations intimately enmeshed in the military-industrial complex. The antiwar movement realized the only way to make a point was to put a dent in corporate profits. Shut businesses and commerce down for a day per month became the theme of dissent.
One World Day can change the future. John Lennon told you that you can have anything you want if you want it badly enough and are willing to work for it. He said, "If the world wants peace, they'll have peace. But they have to want peace more than another television set."
Listen groovy babies, here’s the secret, all you’ve got to do is be dedicated, persistent and determined. But you have to start and you can’t stop once you do start. Pick a day, any day of the month. Start with 50 people in one hamlet, somewhere. Somebody must prove brave enough to go first. Step out into your street and sing All You Need Is Love. Refuse to go to work or school that day. Don’t buy anything. Don’t spend any money. Let everyone you know in on your subversive little plot. Enlist volunteers across your little corner of the world. Plant the seed and watch it grow.
Keep meeting on your street on the same day every month like the cabal of revolutionaries you are, brothers and sisters. Like a vine, the movement will catch on and spread out over fertile soil. More and more people will catch the fever, just like a wave at a ballpark or a cheer at an arena. You no longer possess a reason to keep serving masters!
Why let a few thousand politicians and corporate monkey suits tell you what to do, how to live your life, determine who will live and die, who will eat and go hungry and who will sleep in the dirt or in a palatial home? There’s too many of you, and they need you too badly for their profits and their votes and their taxes to ignore you if 6 billion of you walk outside on the same day and sing All You Need Is Love together everywhere across the world, all refusing to work and go to school that day, and all refusing to buy anything that day. Can you dig the power in that?
What do we want as people?
We want human dignity.
We want to know we will be fed everyday and that the food will be healthy, nutritious and tasty.
We want to know we will have a place to sleep every night.
We want to know that when we are sick, we can see a doctor and be properly cared for as opposed to being turned away or have some insurance company say we aren’t covered or we cannot have the medication a trained and professional doctor prescribes for us.
We want to know we will be able to find meaningful employment in a career of our choice, finding fulfillment and satisfaction through contributing to our communities.
We want to know our children will be properly educated.
We all want a fair share of the abundance harvested from commerce.
We want sufficient time to share with our families and loved ones and to enjoy a reasonable quality of life rather than spending nearly every waking moment devoted to earning obscene amounts of profits for the corporations employing us.
We want to know we will live in a world free from pollution and pass that clean world on to our children.
We want to live in a world where weapons of mass destruction do not exist.
We want to live in a world without standing armies and huge military arsenals.
We want to live in a world that will allow us to get along with our neighbors.
We want to live in a world where there is real equality and equal opportunity for everyone, everywhere, and without special treatment for the rich, famous and powerful.
We want to live in a world where we can feel like a vital, honored, respected, valued and integral member.
How do we get all that?
Go out and stand in your street and sing All You Need Is Love. When someone asks you what you are doing, tell them you are preparing the world for unity, love and understanding. Tell them you are participating in One World Day. When they ask what that means, tell them what you want, or write down your list from what is suggested above.
Then, tell them you won’t buy any products that day and you won’t work that day as a protest against the world you’ve been forced to accept. This isn’t the world you made or wanted, it’s the world monkey suits have bequeathed you. Tell them you don’t want the monkey suits’ world anymore and won’t participate in it anymore. Then, month after month, go out and do it again and again. And don’t stop!
This is your world and your life. Stop settling for what you’re given. Take what you want. But do it non-violently. You cannot create change if the change is based on violence. Violence will only beget more violence. The result of using violence would be a reactionary cycle of violence. Any violent actions you exhibit will provide the monkey suits with an excuse to beat you down with their clubs and their tear gas and their bullets and their tanks.
But if all you do is stand there singing All You Need Is Love, what can they do? If all you do is refuse to go to work and boycott purchasing products one day every month while you sing a song in the streets with your family, friends and neighbors, what can anyone do to you? Even if you decide to stop buying any and all products from specific companies because those companies are linked to the military-industrial complex, what can any legitimate government do about it?
Not a damn thing flaming groovies!
Leaders talk about bringing change. They buy you off with words and platitudes and dreams which they will never deliver and cannot deliver because the monkey suits won't allow it. When politicians are bought with money from men in monkey suits – corporate CEOs, lobbyists, promoters, advertisers, TV moguls and newscasters who are paid to represent the interests of those monkey suited money interests and campaign donors – they owe those monkey suits favors and loyalty to the agenda those monkey suits think up and pass on as their agenda.
Change gets lost in the day-to-day operations of business as usual. Change will never come from the silver-tongued plastic-fronts funded by the monkey suits who sit in elected offices. Change will never come clothed by the plastic money that the monkey suits’ use to tempt and buy the leaders and elected officials of governments. Neither Demoncrat nor Repugnican in the US, neither Slavours nor Consneervatives in Britain will ever bring you change, because they are owned by the monkey suits and devoted to the monkey suited mania they call the economy.
Change will only come from you! Change will only come when you demand it and force both your leaders and the men in the monkey suits to accept it. Change will only occur when people stand up together, holding hands across the boundaries of all nations, and sing together in one voice the paean of their shared desires and mutual interests. Change is your birthright: all you have to do is take it. To take it, all you have to do is sing All You Need Is Love together, one day a month, every month, in one voice, until 6 billion of you are brave enough to all sing it together – holding hands across all national borders – so loudly that your voices will be heard in the heavens and even the monkey suits will have to take notice. All you have to do is take that one day, call it One World Day and boycott commerce in every way. All you have to do is boycott all products made by corporations involved in the military-industrial complex. All you have to do is, as Gandhi said, "be the change you want to see" – be love, give love, feel love and sing love. Then, love will fill your world. Then, the world you live in will really be your world.
One World Day is your day, dream it, plan it, practice it, demonstrate it, and perpetuate it though persistence and insistence. Bring One World Day to every street corner. Become one loving mass of humanity, and create the most significant historical moment in the annals of time! History is waiting for all of your beautiful souls, all of your loving hearts, to set the world aflame with your passion, your wisdom and your caring to become a Unity of Love and seed the clouds with a rain of love that will create a Reign of Love upon the planet that can last forever. That would be so psychedelic! Can you dig it?
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
A Wasted, Stubborn Gaze
as their growing fingers span memories' bridge,
creeping across dandelionclock faces
that mark the consistent progress of seconds'
subconscious wile; while marijuana's wasted,
stubborn gaze persists in calculating odds:
seeping seeds spend evolution underground.
Childlike drifting fascination, feathers
leaf through the creole backstreets of Mardi Gras
revelry under ash blackened foreheads, dreams
squander faintly demented marching brigades'
bound captives; coffin gagged, violence resistent
bodhisattvas' sing supine supplication -
winding a forest carpet, silent, sublime.
A baby's fingers clutch for mother's wet breasts
sucking air from imaginary nipples,
insistent TV ads intercede, "Suckle
from culture's commercial, corporate illusion."
The contemporary model of nature:
mother's too busy to care for baby's needs;
dripping seeds melt, heat seared on the rocky dust.
Gazes turn to the wind, a blowing bellows,
a roaring, raging inferno of frothing,
rabid dogs carving out the latest fashion,
erecting statues of glorification,
their gleaming eyes slobber with gluttonous glee;
just out of sight, in the seedy underground,
a wasted, stubborn gaze breeds revolution.
Sunday, September 6, 2009
Passion Spent Spills
rubbing up against attraction’s golden glow
in the still midnight hush, a fragrant flush
blushes urgency to flower petulantly
as the whitewater rapids of desire ply
curiosity with a provocative pretense.
Forms embody souls’ impressions
and curve-cuddle close like the lines
of fingerprints, they shadow dance
on momentary eternity’s wall –
illuminated by united bliss-brilliance
in separation’s dark desert of illusion.
The fresh scent of passion spent spills
upon quivering petals like dewdrops’
crystallized ambrosial nectar: innocence
yields like fading stars at sunrise – multitudes
burn into one radiant luminosity and blood
flows through the heart, condensing into spirit.
Crestfallen
slippery pebbles slide under foot.
Fingers grasp, clutching emptiness
in the crestfallen starscape
where prayers wander aimlessly.
Who dares suckle the night?
An owl prowls
the moonless land,
a rodent in its talons.
Slithery scavengers
witness eons crumble into dust,
strewn across time’s sandy highway.
A cavern’s frigid bowels
fossilize ancient tales
etched on evolutionary walls.
Even created ignorance leaves
a trail: demented dementia.
Who dares nourish the suckling mother?
A Cold, Stone Edifice
of daybreak. Soldiers’ boots crawl
across blood soaked streets in hazy
half-light. Bats screech through un-peopled
underpasses in the between-world – killers
above corpses below. The mostly asleep
undead dreamwalk through turnstiles,
depositing their productive years
into token slots as they pull the gas pump
triggers of Uzis and smart bombs.
Wealth’s stranglehold grips newborn
fantasies by the jugular, applying pressure
while insatiable appetites ooze a putrid,
envious and lusty stench. A blind moment –
no one’s eyes read the inscription, so a cold,
stone edifice shrugs deliriously, mutely aware
that technological advances erect no signposts
indicating lethal lessons latently linger learned.
Saturday, August 8, 2009
Health Care, Tea Parties, Lies, Racism and Capra


Communism, however, includes the political apparatus which administers the socialist economic policies of Communist governments. In theory, Communism was meant to place power into the hands of the "proletariat," or workers. However, what arose with Communism was a bureaucratic class which assumed responsibility for administering (and even formulating) not only the economic direction and policies of the nation, but also every other political policy. As Communism developed, and as power centralized into the class known as the bureaucrats, and as power corrupts, the bureaucrats in most Communist nations eventually wielded power in a manner which served that class most predominantly, and the rest of the populace secondarily.
Some of the benefits of socialism are the manner in which the socialist society apportions social services. Schooling, health care, living quarters, jobs and other similar services are guaranteed to all, and all receive their fair share. There is no wealthy class, but there is no poverty class, either. The state makes sure that the economy runs efficiently and that it moves forward in directions which best serve the national agenda and national interests. One of the things a socialist nation was able to do in the past was industrialize extremely rapidly. Both Nazi Germany and the Communist Soviet Union used this to their advantage in the years between the two world wars. For instance, the Soviet Union, through its 5 year plans, was able to engineer the industrialization of its economy far more rapidly than either Britain or the US through Capitalist means. Had the Soviet Union not been Communist and not industrialized in roughly a period of 23 years years to a degree which took the US to achieve in a period of roughty over 150 years, the Nazis likely would not have been defeated during WWII.
Wednesday, August 5, 2009
Moonset Sunrise
swims through night's celestial ink
arcing a path from crag
to mesa - jutting up to wall off
a desert expanse. The ancients
chanted many names:
Hecate, Diana, Ishtar,
Artemis, Europa;
still, this hour
a bell tower struck
Selene's chimes, tolling
an approach: winding
to her abode in Mount
Latmus' cave. Silvery
light yellowed, Selene
sank into the muggy
morning monsoon
clouds, drifting aimlessly.
Her fullness strummed
descending, peek-a-boo
moon chords, magnetic
Selene attracted dense,
wetly drenched dark
condensation, she winked
light rays on and off,
diffusing heat in a blink,
melting diaphanous
wisps into clear, dry
skies. Skin sponged
the night's persperation.
Behind the crag facing
the mesa, Eos' orange
wash, from pastel
to burnt sienna, crayons
the dawn as Helios bleaches
the inky dome, erasing
shimmering stars -
Jupiter and Venus stand
as twin sentinels, balancing
opportunity with beauty
and justice; the first rays
of sun sliver over
the edge of the world.
My body stood, trapped -
the poles of two magnets
charged by the haunting
voice of Jim Morrison,
gulping the tequila worm
at the bottom of a bottle,
laughing bloody phlegm out
from his lungs, pulling
the tails off lizards, wizards
churning out incantations
of cheap pop crap; and winds
swirl up a twister, blistering
across synaptic highways
as I reach out from darkness
finding light slips through
my fingers, and lightning
bolts magically charge
the ions of a new world
only found in the dove-
tailed resin of a joint
smiling from the street
corners of a One World
popular rally, six billion
strong marching across
corporate plasma TV
screens in the instant
between moonset and sunrise.
Tuesday, August 4, 2009
Splashing Passion
sheer, lace curtains lapping and clapping
a window sill, a cool breeze caresses
porcelain skin - an alabaster woman's
flesh tingling anticipation. Sauvignon's
blush paints desire on rising goosebumps.
Strawberries bitten-open-blood stains
petulant, ivory lips moist, tart sugar
gushes from fruit's fleshy meat, steamy
heat oozes through sopping pores, high
tide's answer to a proxigee new moon.
Night's ebony canopy cradles pin-
prick, distorted light beams glimmer
diffused reflections against angled panes -
windows cranked ajar - shadows wildly
dance to gasped breaths' tempo, abandon
flickers on walls, a candle flame jumps
and wavers in the wind. Cascading
the room like a waterfall, splashing passion
drapes night with a moonlit, rainbow
mist: thickly scented coitus. Rocky strength,
hardened hands, seduces flesh, lightly
lingering grazes - enlightened feather-fingers
stroking, furnace stoking, eternal flames' rage.
She wraps arms around spirit, he erupts:
bodies meld. She grasps an instant, hoping
to overwhelm lifespans, to shine as unendingly
as stars, forgetting starlight is an ancient traveler,
long ago bursting, only to be witnessed, finally,
tonight: ever present, but one place at a time.


