Enlightenment...

At this moment, my heart is full to bursting with LOVE for life and all of creation and all the lovely people in my life - both in 3D and in the virtual world...

And I'm amazed and happy that this feeling is so huge and not at all connected to my material circumstances, which have not changed one way or the other!

I think this is one of the ways enlightenment manifests in each of us...

I have had one other experience of enlightenment, where I expanded all of my physical, emotional, intellectual, spiritual boundaries until I was all that ever was, is now and will be AND at the same time all of that was contained within my physical self...

Will this all encompassing sense of LOVE be a one-off moment, or will I be able to sustain it, no matter what happens in my physical world?

Post Script: 

three days later...

and not-so-happy world events unfolding...

and no outward change in my own circumstances...

and I'm still feeling it!

So cool...

Some Are Born Awake...

Sometimes I envy those born after me... so many seem to be born "awake and aware" and committed from birth to living their truth.

They recognise the BS (bullshit) wherever it exists and appear to be unafraid of calling it for what it is...

It SEEMS to me that for many of my generation (and previous ones), that awakening came later in life and consequently with a more difficult weaning/turning away from the dream/illusion...

The young give me joy, hope and inspiration... I am so proud of them...

LYRICS:

that I would be good even if I did nothing
that I would be good even if I got the thumbs down
that I would be good if I got and stayed sick
that I would be good even if I gained ten pounds

that I would be fine even if I went bankrupt
that I would be good if I lost my hair and my youth
that I would be great if I was no longer queen
that I would be grand if I was not all knowing

that I would be loved even when I numb myself
that I would be good even when I am overwhelmed
that I would be loved even when I was fuming
that I would be good even if I was clingy

that I would be good even if I lost sanity
that I would be good
whether with or without you


LYRICS:

I recommend getting your heart trampled on to anyone
I recommend walking around naked in your living room
Swallow it down (what a jagged little pill)
It feels so good (swimming in your stomach)
Wait until the dust settles

You live you learn
You love you learn
You cry you learn
You lose you learn
You bleed you learn
You scream you learn

I recommend biting off more then you can chew to anyone
I certainly do
I recommend sticking your foot in your mouth at any time
Feel free
Throw it down (the caution blocks you from the wind)
Hold it up (to the rays)
You wait and see when the smoke clears

You live you learn
You love you learn
You cry you learn
You lose you learn
You bleed you learn
You scream you learn

Wear it out (the way a three-year-old would do)
Melt it down (you're gonna have to eventually anyway)
The fire trucks are coming up around the bend

You live you learn
You love you learn
You cry you learn
You lose you learn
You bleed you learn
You scream you learn

You grieve you learn
You choke you learn
You laugh you learn
You choose you learn
You pray you learn
You ask you learn
You live you learn


LYRICS:

Do you derive joy when someone else succeeds?
Do you not play dirty when engaged in competition?
Do you have a big intellectual capacity but know
that it alone does not equate to wisdom?
Do you see everything as an illusion
but enjoy it even though you are not of it?
Are you both masculine and feminine, politically aware, and don't believe in capital punishment?

These are 21 things that I want in a lover
Not necessarily needs but qualities that I prefer

Do you derive joy from diving in and seeing that
loving someone can actually feel like freedom? Are you funny and self-deprecating, like adventure, and have many formed opinions?

These are 21 things that I want in a lover
Not necessarily needs but qualities that I prefer
I figure I can describe it since I have a choice in the matter
These are 21 things I choose to choose in a lover

I'm in no hurry; I could wait forever
I'm in no rush cause I like being solo
There are no worries and certainly no pressure In the meantime I'll live like there's no tomorrow

Are you uninhibited in bed, more than three times a week, up for being experimental?
Are you athletic?
Are you thriving in a job that helps your brother?
Are you not addicted?

These are 21 things that I want in a lover
Not necessarily needs but qualities that I prefer
I figure I can describe it since I have a choice in the matter
These are 21 things I choose to choose in a lover

 

 

Empathy, Spirituality & Englightenment

RSA Animate has some wonderful short videos presenting complex ideas in clear terms... 

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

Pale Blue Dot - No More Turning Away

I Am Strong, I Am Invincible - Where Are The Men?

2,000+ years of the patriarchy, and where has that gotten us?

Seriously - look around you...

The Dalai Lama and indigenous elders all say women will step up, lead and make the changes that need to happen...

But we women have been fighting for eons to bring compassion and sanity back to life, to our societies, to the planet.   We bring life into the world, we do amazing things nurturing that life into adulthood, despite the challenges we face daily.   More is expected of us as mothers than is expected of fathers.   If something goes "wrong" it's always our "fault"...   And we are tired... 

In native cultures, men understand that it is woman's role to bring life into the world, and their role to protect women and that new life, and the environment that supports all life...

It seems to me that it's time for men to get it - get the  whole "sanctity of life" thing - and step up.   Turn this people-planet killing machine we call civilisation around...   And if you won't do it, move over and let us...

First, Do No Harm....

My spiritual practice is based on the tenet: First,  Do No Harm and John Wesley said:
 

"Do all the good you can,
By all the means you can,
In all the ways you can,
In all the places you can,
At all the times you can,
To all the people you can,
As long as ever you can."

~John Wesley (1703 –1791) Church of England cleric & theologian, Methodist movement founder
 

Does education, and education "deform", first "do no harm"?

I have been thinking about that more and more, since I wrote the letter to my child's teacher, principal and school community, withdrawing him from standardised testing and relieving them of any responsibility and liability for his academic achievement.

As the weeks have gone by, and I've processed the 100% positive feedback I have received on the stand I am taking, and I look at my son as we go to school everyday, I wonder - withdrawing him from testing - is that enough?

There are so many ways in which we don't honour our children as free human beings, and it seems to me the worst is yet to come - in some respects we are going back in time to much darker, almost feudal days...

Merit Pay Turns Children Into Workers

In many ways, I share some of Alfie Kohn's thoughts on education. 

Learning is a lifelong activity – it doesn’t just happen in the time period between 5 – 17 years of age, within the confines of school walls.   I don’t think the purpose of educating for life is to learn academics...  I think the purpose is to turn out a well rounded, balanced, confident, happy, fulfilled individual - physically, intellectually, socially, emotionally, spiritually and to develop all the talents you were born with, not just the intellect, so that you can contribute the best of yourself to your community...

But School = Prison for many kids, something they have to do, that they don’t have a say in...

Do any of us think abut how we would feel if someone came up to us and said:

“For the next 13 years or so, you will do this for five days of the week, whether you like it or not... You don’t get any say in how you spend the day or who you spend it with... 

You will stand when we say so, sit when we say so, talk when we say so, write when we say so, read when we say so, eat when we say so, exercise when we say so, do art (if you're lucky) when we say so... 

You will spend at least five hours of your day in this fashion and you may - if we choose - have up to one hour to be somewhat free and unrestrained - but even then, if you don’t obey us and do exactly as we instruct, in the manner we instruct, you will have that free time rescinded...”

And kids are supposed to believe this is all in their best interests, that the pay-off  (good job, a safe place in society, relationships, happiness, a house - and a mortgage to go with your student debt - and a generous retirement  before slipping into the night-time of death) is worth it and there is something wrong with them if they can’t or won’t conform, or enjoy it, or do their best …

I see the current model as a confining, controlling one of indoctrination into/moulding for the system and it physically hurts me inside (a twisting of the gut) to see my son being changed/restricted every day... 

So, each day I am dithering about his continued participation in formal schooling....

I want freedom for him - freedom for us all... But is that my projection, coming from deep within, my own rejection of, revolt against the dynamic of power and control...   

And am I gambling with his future if I take him out and let him 'educate', ‘unschool’ himself in something like a Sudbury model school, or even at home... (Or am I just preparing him for a different world, one that will come when this system finally collapses, as it surely will?)...

And I wonder, if that is how it is for me, how must it be for teachers who are being forced by their masters to put children through what most of them must know is not real 'education'?   I wonder how they stand there day after day jumping through the hoops a sick society is putting in front of them?

And that is not a criticism - truly... I know that place; I have been in a place where I was asked/expected to do things that I knew intellectually, morally, spiritually were not "for the highest good".   I couldn’t justify it, couldn’t find a good enough reason worth the pay-off and I had to lay it all on the line to stay in personal integrity... 

I am guessing many teachers face that dilemma daily...

My son's teacher is a fine teacher, who is used to mustering and employing all her talents (artistic, dramatic, musical) in the business of teaching her class whether that be in math, language arts, whatever...

But she is being compelled by her principal and the district to teach to the test, in content and form - worksheets, worksheets and more worksheets, formatted exactly as kids will find them on the tests including multiple choice answers with bubbles to fill in...  

It's killing her - the internal conflict and stress is literally making her sick... 

And it's killing me to see my son struggle with boredom in that...

It’s turning him off - now he says “school is boring, math is boring, too much sitting, too much writing, it’s too hard, I don’t get enough time to just read (currently his completely favourite activity), there’s not enough time to eat lunch, recess is too short”...

My son is not unique - this is happening to hundreds of thousands of kids - we are killing their spirit/creativity/curiosity/enthusiasm... I think that's a crime - which is why I do what I do against education deform...

But stopping education deform is not enough;   what was happening in classrooms before education deform wasn’t good either.   

If I know the system is broken and I don’t agree with the values of the system, and the system won't let me change it (but will let others with money change it as they see fit, in ways that I think will harm all children), what do I, as a parent, do?   

What does a teacher do?

I want to know what we as a people do, when the system is so broken it can’t be fixed?  

How do we get our world to a place where we really nurture/educate our children in a holistic way…

Do you do the best you can within the bad system, or create something outside the system?

Passing Through the Eye of the Needle...

Are you ready, and will it hurt?

Finding & Living Your Own Spiritual Truth

I'm a shaman...

At some point on my journey, I felt I was being asked to choose whether I wanted to be apprenticed to a particular lineage of teachings or whether I was going to walk this path as a solo practitioner...

I chose to walk my own path.

I've studied religions/spiritual traditions from many cultures; at heart, they each say the same thing - the only real difference is the terminology...

I've taken from those teachings what feels 'true' to what I've personally experienced on a mystic level,  I've synthesised what I've learned and now have my own world view that works for me...

That's all that's important really - whatever works to connect me with the Divine and whatever works for you;  all the rest is about power and control and inserting an artificial (and unnecessary) intermediary between humans, the rest of life and the Sacred...

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.