Decisions, Decisions...

From my Facebook Status:
"OK - decision time... should I, or should I not, take a risk and spend $45 of the $70 I have left on a trip over the water to collect the mail and get a haircut ($25 haircut and $20.20 ferry ticket)?

Will cash come in to refill my depleted coffers in time to get me across the water, get some gas and pay for parking for Friday's court hearing to decide whether boy and I can go back to Australia to live?"...

Friend's response: 

"Maybe getting a cheaper haircut. In White Center it would be $10"...

My reply:

"I know... but I have to go to Shoreline to pick up the mail, and the haircut is a discount someone gave me for a place in Lake Forest Park - basically three streets away... 

Going to White Centre for the haircut and then up to Shoreline to get the mail would be the extra $15 in petrol and time...

Am thinking this is a trust test; have to stay in the NOW and keep moving, not sit at home being scared my resources are limited and if I use them up, there will be no more"...
  

And no, this is not a "poor me, look how hard life is" pity post...

I'm really awake to the fact that at this point, I'm being given the opportunity to look deeply at every situation I create/find myself in, at all its possibilities and at the choices I make...

Am I coming from a place of love - expansion, or fear - contraction?

POST SCRIPT: 
Seems the Universe thought it was a good idea to get my hair cut yesterday; recalcitrant ex-husband overnight deposited some of what he owes in my bank account, so the cheque I wrote to the salon is covered AND we can get around! 

Funny that he puts in the money - that he's been withholding for two months - the night before we go to court to argue over whether I can take our child back to Australia to live...

Guess it doesn't look good in court, when you're saying how much you love your son and how much of an unfit mother his other parent is, to be behind in your payments, so far behind that your child becomes homeless as a result...

Clarity: Part Two - Rules Are For Fools...

The law will never make men free, it is men that have to make the law free. 

~ Henry David Thoreau

 

Me today is very different to the me that raised my first family...

I "woke up" around 1990, and with my spiritual awakening came a new way of looking at life and how we humans do 3D here on this planet...

I suddenly saw many of the incongruities, the incoherence, the dissonance we live with, enable in our daily life...

And I realised that most of the system and the rules we live by don't make any sense (other than enforcing the power over, and control of, the many by a few) and are really quite silly, if not outright toxic and damaging, and in some cases murderous...

For example...

"Thou shalt not kill... but if you kill someone else, we reserve the right to kill you...

and, 

we reserve the right to conscript you and send you off to war to kill and injure people you have never met and against whom you have no personal beef... 

Oh, and if you refuse to go where we send you and do that, or you run away from it because it's all too much and too horrible, we will punish you, even kill you - THAT'S RIGHT, WE'LL EVEN KILL YOU IF YOU REFUSE TO KILL OTHERS..."

Either life is sacred or it's not... make up your mind, world...

Then there's the fact that absolutely every single situation in life is different - happening at a different time, in a different place, to different people, in different circumstances, driven by different causes and motivations...

If every one of us on the planet saw the same event, we would have 6B+ different versions of that event, 6B+ different sets of beliefs about the morality or otherwise of whatever is playing out...

There is no black and white - everything is grey... and so it seems to me to be pointless to have set in stone a bunch of rules that must apply in all scenarios,  and which never have scope and flexibility built in to take into account complexity and context...

When I lived in Brisbane, I hung out with a bunch of women wanting to live authentic lives... real women... and one of the teachings/truths we were examining in our practice of being real was:

... guidelines are for the wise ...

Most of us have grown up accepting society's laws and rules by osmosis, never consciously looking at what they mean, where and why they originated, whether they're about safety or about maintaining power and control, whether we have ever been asked for our agreement to these strictures being placed on us as free human beings...

As far as I can tell, rules and laws were created by the few powerful 'haves' to protect themselves and their possessions from the many powerless 'have nots', making refusal, rebellion and revolution difficult...

Think about it... we're living in a world where there's no longer any sense of community, of clan or tribe, of working together and sharing resources and the product of that work.

We're each responsible for providing for ourselves, regardless of the circumstances.

And we've developed a system of trade, even of the basic necessities of life,  where goods pass through many hands from creator to consumer, and at each point of exchange become more expensive, with the final "buyer" paying much more than the creator received for the initial transaction.

Imagine a man or woman has no food for his/her hungry children, and is standing in front of a bakery looking at a loaf of bread;  this parent has no money (method of energy exchange) and no goods or services to trade for that loaf of bread in the window...

In other societal and economic structures, the community would have planted the seed, grown and harvested the wheat and made the bread together, and would have shared the fruits of their labours...

There's an order of Divine versus earthly logic that applies here...

Is it more of a "crime" to let one's children go hungry than it is to take (without offering immediate exchange) a loaf of bread that will alleviate that hunger?

Who does the law "thou shalt not steal" protect in this case?   The  most vulnerable in our community, or those who already are provided for?   Surely if the loaf of bread is up for sale, that means it's "surplus to requirements," as they say, and the "owner" already has plenty for his/her own needs?

Our forebears, at some point determined that taking something without exchange, even to feed the hungry, is an offence, punishable by imprisonment, whipping, having limbs amputated, enslavement, banishment and exile, and sometimes death...

And we still say all "stealing" is wrong, no matter what the circumstances leading up to the decision to take something without offering an immediate exchange...

This denies the fact that all of life is a circle, a connected web, where energy (money, food, love, caring, action) flows around the circle and will eventually come back to us...the return will not often be directly reciprocal, but it does return - all major spiritual traditions remind us of that...

When I was growing up in New Zealand, I remember hearing about the butter  and wheat mountains, that the west had, while at the same time we were reminded daily on our television screens about the plight of the starving children of Biafra...

40 years on and nothing has changed... we still have people and governments sitting on food to force the price to rise, while billions starve...

EU butter mountain to return

The European Union's notorious butter mountains and milk lakes are to return after a controversial decision to reintroduce dairy subsidies.

By Bruno Waterfield in Brussels 4:49PM GMT 22 Jan 2009

The European Commission has announced plans to artificially boost prices by buying up 139,000 tonnes of diary products at a cost to the public purse of £237 million.

From March 1 until the end of August, the EU will become the owner of 30,000 tonnes of butter and 109,000 tonnes of skimmed powder milk, paid for at above market cost to support the dairy industry.

The EU is has also agreed to begin new export subsidies for European butter, milk powder and butteroil.

Export subsidies and EU food stocks were last used in 2007 and the Commission last year tried to scrap such payments, a reform that was blocked by France and Germany.

Commission officials have played down the measure as a temporary move after a steep slide in milk prices triggered a 33 per cent decline in butter exports last year.

- Butter Mountain To Return

Which is really the "crime"?   Being reduced to live in circumstances where one has to "take" what one needs for survival, or with-holding the basic necessities of life because the "price" is too low?


And we have fooled ourselves into thinking that some deity set these rules into place, that they are sacred in some way...
  

I can't find it within me to believe that an infinite, omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, all loving Divine Essence would see life in such a limited perspective... 

Or that it would contradict itself by decreeing "thou shalt not kill" and then order Abraham to sacrifice his son to prove his loyalty/faith, 

or that it would kill all life on earth except Noah and the other occupants of the ark...

Just as I can't find it within me to accept the logic that one must ALWAYS stop at a red light...

What if I have a passenger in the car who is in the middle of having a heart attack?

The light ahead turns red... there are no other cars in the intersection and none in view approaching...

Should I stop for the red light and wait obediently for it to turn to green?

Or does DIVINE LOGIC decree that this person's life, which is endangered, is more important than a "rule" that says: "Thou shalt always stop at a red light"?

How often do you think about the choices you are being asked/expected to make every day, and about what unconscious beliefs you hold about how the world works?   

Do you ask yourself what are the "rules" you give conscious consent to following, every time you have to make a decision?

I believe that the purpose of living in this world is for each of us to come into our own sovereignty, to actualise ourselves as fully evolved humans, making the best, most conscious choices for ourselves (and the highest good) at every moment.

And that means we have to wake up and learn to think for ourselves... take responsibility for our lives and be willing to be held accountable...

Our world discourages us from that.   It exists in its current form through the manipulation of the many by a few, to maintain the paradigm of power and control...

And if too many of us "wake up", we will exercise our power and will no longer be able to be controlled...

“Know the rules well,

so you can break them effectively.”

  ~ Dalai Lama XIV

PS: 

My friend Janice (who's using crutches) today posted on Facebook her experience of being made to wait 20 minutes by the bus driver, at the bus stop, outside in the cold, until she was "officially" allowed to board the bus...

I replied that it's a sad day when common sense and compassion are over-ridden by "rules"... 

And thinking about it, the lack of common sense and compassion and the imposition by others of silly 'rules' are the reasons we can't stay where we are living now, any longer...

Thanks Janice, for creating the space for me to see that!

 

When Neutrality Equals Complicity

 

I was challenged on the Save Seattle Schools blog (link on the sidebar) a couple of days ago, as to whether I ever have a neutral gear?

And the answer is: "No, I don't have a 'neutral' gear when it comes to  education 'deform' and all the many aliases and disguises it comes under/uses to attempt to slink under the wire"...

In my opinion, it's immoral and obscene... and completely undemocratic... half a dozen uber rich people have decided what public education should look like and they're going around using their money and influence to ensure they get it to be that way (and to make sure they and their friends make mountains of money in the process)... and we and our kids are mere pawns...

And here in Seattle it's being pushed through regardless of process or law...

I don't think I have ever encountered anything more arrogant and completely disrespectful in my life...

And this is not about creating a great education system that benefits all kids... in fact, it's not about the kids at all...

It's about oligarchy, it's about privatising the last of the public institutions in this country, it's about exercising complete power and control, it's abusive, it's nothing more than a nasty,  horrible, disgusting example of domestic violence, played out in the societal and economic arena...

And one of the side benefits for those pushing the deform agenda is all the public taxpayer money there is to be siphoned off into their own back pockets...

So I do what I do to highlight where individuals, groups and institutions come from and what their agenda really is, because it seems to me that many people in this town (and country) are not informed...

And if they are, they seem not to get the ramifications of what they support, in the broader picture... or they're sitting in total denial, with their fingers in their ears humming/singing "I can't hear you"... and I can't/won't shut up while that's going on...


There are groups all over this country fighting this deform agenda...

Here's a sample:
 

Parents Across America
Parents and Kids Against Standardised Testing
Support Our Schools
Uniting for Kids
SOS Million Teacher March
Fair Testing
Stop RTTT
Schools Matter
NYC Public School Parents

All acknowledge what is really going on...

You might like to read this:

privatising war and education

and this:

are we handing education over to corporations?

and this:

Klein to advise Newscorp on financing startups providing digital services to education

and this:

NYC Schools: Democratic Public Education, or Corporate Widget-Maker?

and then watch this:

"standardized retardation!"

It's like Germany in the 30s - going on in broad daylight, right under our noses... and we are letting it...

Tilting At Windmills - Someone's Got To Do It... Will You?

To dream the impossible dream
To fight the unbeatable foe
To bear with unbearable sorrow
To run where the brave dare not go
To right the unrightable wrong
To love pure and chaste from afar
To try when your arms are too weary
To reach the unreachable star

This is my quest
To follow that star
No matter how hopeless
No matter how far

To fight for the right
Without question or pause
To be willing to march into Hell
For a heavenly cause

And I know if I'll only be true
To this glorious quest
That my heart will lie peaceful and calm
When I'm laid to my rest

And the world will be better for this
That one man, scorned and covered with scars
Still strove with his last ounce of courage
To reach the unreachable star

Did the Cat Eat the Canary?

Is Civil Disobedience Compassion in Action?

What are your responsibilities as an "awake and aware" social activist?

For a while now, I've been impatient with, and frustrated by, what I see as wishy-washy responses to what's going on in the world by people who claim to be compassionate social activists... 

These people criticise my perspectives and actions, saying there's no place for anger in creating a peaceful future.   They suggest that giving energy to the negative will increase it and that focusing on the positive will undo all that is so damaging in our world.

I can't buy into that attitude/belief system.

I think there's a place for righteous anger and action to call attention to the things that are hurtful in our society.   Jesus got pretty angry with the merchants in the temple and with those who wanted to stone the adulterous woman.   Gandhi wasn't shy in expressing his anger at the British ruling India.  Martin Luther King was pretty vocal - blunt in fact - in demanding equal rights for African Americans.   Mother Teresa didn't soft-pedal on the poverty and disease killing women and children in India... 

In my opinion, those who say we should concentrate on the positive are in denial about what is really going on; they're overwhelmed by the imbalance in the world and are too scared to confront it.   If they did really face it, what would that require them to DO?   Would they be required to put it all on the line, risk losing their place on the ladder if they really named what is going on?  If we name it and label it as unjust, don't we then have to own our complicity in the status quo, stop enabling, stop participating in the system that's creating and continuing this imbalance?  

So how far should we go, then, in confronting injustice in our society?

See here and decide for yourself...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_Disobedience_%28Thoreau%29

Spirituality and Enlightenment

Some religious traditions suggest that God created man in His own image.   Now, that idea has never sat well with me; I always thought that if that was true, God must be a very ordinary and flawed being and that didn't match the claims made about his infinite power.   Rather, I came to think, unimaginative humans created God in their own image, as an anthropomorphic projection of ourselves.

The ideas about the Divine and Sacred that work for me are based on the holographic principle - the sum of the whole is contained in each of the parts.   

Therefore, if one believes in a Creative Life Force, which is all-knowing, all-powerful, then by extension, we as Its creations are also It - with all that knowledge and all that creative power.   We are each God (I don't usually use that term - its too loaded), but it will do for general understanding.

Once one takes that view on board, it's no longer possible to create excuses, no longer possible to refuse to take responsibility, to be held accountable, to live up to one's full potential - or at least attempt that; and sad to say, there's no going back - once you cross this threshold, you cant pretend you don't know and understand your part in this wondrous co-creation.

And I've had experience in meditation, very early on in my 'awake and aware' journey, of having the boundaries of my physical, mental, emotional and spiritual self expand into infinity and being all of creation - through boundless space, time, the dimensions - being and knowing and understanding all things that were, are and shall be, feeling this most amazing, huge, overwhelming LOVE and the power of that love... and yet at the same time, feeling all of that contained within my smaller human self.

And from my perspective, we are each of us a manifestation of the Life Force, (kinda like a segment of an orange), which desires to explore, express, experience and understand itself in all of its infinite potential.   And in our living, we bring back to the whole that experience and understanding and add to new and greater levels of being.

All of this happens both in linear time and simultaneously - and we each are individuals but we also are each other and everything else in creation at the same time....

I don't think there are values such as good/bad, right/wrong etc.   I think those terms are human-created in an effort to set a baseline for understanding and to appease our need to define, so that we stay in comfort and delude ourselves that we have control.... 

I don't think the Life Force exerts judgment in that way - things just 'are'.   I think/feel/know It just revels in the joy of infinite expansion, experience and understanding.