Envisioning The Future...

"Dare to live the life you have dreamed for yourself. Go forward and make your dreams come true."

~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

CRASS: There Is No Authority But Yourself...

... punk is not my thing, nor is heavy metal, nor is rap....

AND... when I listen to the lyrics and the thoughts/ideas underpinning them, then punk, heavy metal and rap definitely speak the same truths I have come to understand via other paths...

LYRICS:

You talk about your revolution, well, that's fine
But what are you going to be doing come the time?
Are you going to be the big man with the tommy-gun?
Will you talk of freedom when the blood begins to run?
Well, freedom has no value if violence is the price
Don't want your revolution, I want anarchy and peace

You talk of overthrowing power with violence as your tool
You speak of liberation and when the people rule
Well ain't it people rule right now, what difference would there be?
Just another set of bigots with their rifle-sights on me

But what about those people who don't want your new restrictions?
Those that disagree with you and have their own convictions?
You say they've got it wrong because they don't agree with you
So when the revolution comes you'll have to run them through
You say that revolution will bring freedom for us all
Well freedom just ain't freedom when your back's against the wall

You talk of overthrowing power with violence as your tool
You speak of liberation and when the people rule
Well ain't it people rule right now, what difference would there be?
Just another set of bigots with their rifle-sights on me

Will you indoctrinate the masses to serve your new regime?
And simply do away with those whose views are too extreme?
Transportation details could be left to British rail
Where Zyklon B succeeded, North Sea Gas will fail
It's just the same old story of man destroying man
We've got to look for other answers to the problems of this land

You talk of overthrowing power with violence as your tool
You speak of liberation and when the people rule
Well ain't it people rule right now, what difference would there be?
Just another set of bigots with their rifle-sights on me

Vive la revolution, people of the world unite
Stand up men of courage, it's your job to fight

It all seems very easy, this revolution game
But when you start to really play things won't be quite the same
Your intellectual theories on how it's going to be
Don't seem to take into account the true reality
Cos the truth of what you're saying, as you sit there sipping beer
Is pain and death and suffering, but of course you wouldn't care

You're far too much of a man for that, if Mao did it so can you
What's the freedom of us all against the suffering of the few?
That's the kind of self-deception that killed ten million jews
Just the same false logic that all power-mongers use
So don't think you can fool me with your political tricks
Political right, political left, you can keep your politics
Government is government and all government is force
Left or right, right or left, it takes the same old course
Oppression and restriction, regulation, rule and law
The seizure of that power is all your revolution's for
You romanticise your heroes, quote from Marx and Mao
Well their ideas of freedom are just oppression now

Nothing changed for all the death, that their ideas created
It's just the same fascistic games, but the rules aren't clearly stated
Nothing's really different cos all government's the same
They can call it freedom, but slavery is the game

Nothing changed for all the death, that their ideas created
It's just the same fascistic games, but the rules aren't clearly stated
Nothing's really different cos all government's the same
They can call it freedom, but slavery is the game
There's nothing that you offer but a dream of last years hero
The truth of revolution, brother................... is year zero.

Either/Or, And/Also...

I think that part of the problem in all of this palaver we have going on in the world,  is that we see "truth" as an EITHER/OR proposition... 

We say:

IF this is true, THEN that must be a lie...

But life is not like that... 

It is possible to have more than one truth exist in the same time and space...

It's called the AND/ALSO paradox...

THIS is true AND this is true ALSO... now what?

Understanding and accepting this leads to expansion, creativity, personal, interpersonal and societal peace...

Holding onto the EITHER/OR duality/false dichotomy leads to contraction, rigid dogma, personal, interpersonal and societal conflict...

WHICH DO YOU CHOOSE?

PEACE OR CONFLICT?

WHAT WITHIN DO YOU NEED TO CHANGE

TO BEGIN LIVING IN PARADOX?

I think we need to go to the place where we accept (not just tolerate) points of view we can't understand or appreciate...

And we sit with that UNTIL some solution presents itself where all is represented/honoured...

In my experience, when I take the time to be with a person/point of view I don't "get", sometimes which "screams" at me internally as being "wrong, wrong, wrong", I find a kernel of understanding we both share...

Sometimes the difference is in something as trivial as terminology...

And finding that commonality is a starting point for dialogue and creating something different...

And I'm not talking about giving in, compromise, rolling over...

From a metaphysical perspective, we are all ONE - we do each carry these differences within each one of us, though we might not be aware/conscious of it...

And once we recognise that, the need to fight it seems to evaporate...

How can we shift others' behaviours to be "accepting"?

 

Well, we encounter our first problem when we think we need to shift others' behaviours... 

 

In thinking we have to shift others' views and behaviours, we are still in the paradigm of making ourselves right, and them wrong...

 

Bucky Fuller said you can't change a broken system; build something new along side it... 

 

I think we need to start out with smaller groups living in acceptance of each other, in the paradox of AND/ALSO...

 

As we show people how it's done, they will come looking for inclusion...

 

Of Spinning & Weaving...

 

Words that speak what I feel in my heart from Sarah Alexander, via my Facebook friend Meryl Steinberg:

 

"We are being called to raise our consciousness, to each take our place at the table around which we convene to sustain our precious life on the planet...

 

And each person in my life, coming or going, each experience we bring into each other's lives, glorious or painfully challenging, is designed to hone us to the grindstone, clear us of anything that will not serve the higher good of all.

 

We are being fashioned as homemade gifts by a knowing hand, knitted, spun, thrown on the potter's wheel, carved - we are all both Created and Creator.

 

 

 

 

Nothing less is called for at this urgent time of transformation.

 

Peace On Earth starts here, in my heart, in my willingness to be fashioned and assigned my place in the reclamation and reformation of all I cherish and call Home. 

 

The greatest gift we have to give is ourselves - our true selves, our highest potential.

 

This is humility, this is love, this is grace."

 

If you're a regular reader of this blog, you'll know that I too have been feeling this, as I have been walking my particular path...

 

And with the duality that is being human, I have welcomed it and railed against it - sometimes simultaneously, sometimes alternately!!!

 

 

 

 

Everyone Loves A Parade...

 

I have this thing where brass and pipe bands and parades and crowds at sports arenas seriously freak me out...

 

I'm pulled into the energy and the excitement and at the same time, there's an overwhelming sense of danger, distress and distaste...

I think it's some kind of multi-generational cellular memory carried froward from the days of the Colosseum, or the Nuremberg rallies or something - that whole mindless crowd frenzy, group think hysteria stuff...

 

And its completely disturbing to see 'drill' teams of young girls - often comprised of one ethnicity and some only pre-schoolers - marching and shouting aggressive military-style chants...

 (interesting chicken-and-egg question - 

which comes first in the militarisation of our young?)

AND it also gives me the heebie-jeebies when some of my social activist friends call me or each other "comrade"... 

More "isms", more conflict, more implied aggression, more manipulation, more separating ourselves from our other 'selves'...

Whether it's communism or fascism people are espousing, for me, it's more looking back at the past, to dead white men's ideologies that did not work and relied, explicitly or implicitly, on a hierarchical structure of rulers and ruled, of leaders and followers...

So why do we need to do this thing, where we ask people to join us, and we tell them that if they're not with us, they're against us...

Why can't we simply acknowledge each other as friends?

"Strangers are friends we have not met yet"

Why can't we listen to each other?

Why can't we take the best of what has been tried before, leave what didn't work, add in a touch or two of creativity, mix it all up and try out what we get?

The way of the future is in synthesis and synergy... 

AND/ALSO - which brings PEACE...

not either/or - which brings conflict...

The complementarity of intuition with logic, of feminine with masculine, of art with science, of idealism with pragmatism, of the natural with the manufactured...

PEACE

I hope we get to try it...

 

Sahila Once More...

... is grateful to all her friends who made it possible for her (and the boy and the cats) to have a quiet, comfortable weekend to recover her sangfroid...

and who said lovely things about her in character references...

... she feels almost human again... 

and it's Monday tomorrow...

and, seeing life has not magically resolved the issues in the past two days, it's "once more into the breach, dear friends, once more..."

from Shakespeare's KING HENRY V:

Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more;

Or close the wall up with our English dead.

In peace there's nothing so becomes a man
As modest stillness and humility:
But when the blast of war blows in our ears,
Then imitate the action of the tiger;
Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood,
Disguise fair nature with hard-favour'd rage;
Then lend the eye a terrible aspect;
Let pry through the portage of the head
Like the brass cannon; let the brow o'erwhelm it
As fearfully as doth a galled rock
O'erhang and jutty his confounded base,
Swill'd with the wild and wasteful ocean.

Now set the teeth and stretch the nostril wide,
Hold hard the breath and bend up every spirit
To his full height.  On, on, you noblest English.
Whose blood is fet from fathers of war-proof!
Fathers that, like so many Alexanders,
Have in these parts from morn till even fought
And sheathed their swords for lack of argument:
Dishonour not your mothers; now attest
That those whom you call'd fathers did beget you.
Be copy now to men of grosser blood,
And teach them how to war.  And you, good yeoman,
Whose limbs were made in England, show us here
The mettle of your pasture; let us swear
That you are worth your breeding; which I doubt not;
For there is none of you so mean and base,
That hath not noble lustre in your eyes.

I see you stand like greyhounds in the slips,
Straining upon the start.  The game's afoot:
Follow your spirit, and upon this charge
Cry 'God for Harry, England, and Saint George!'

although, perhaps she might try a less aggressive approach...

Occupation...

"Civil disobedience is not our problem. Our problem is civil OBEDIENCE. 

Our problem is the numbers of people all over the world who have obeyed the dictates of the leaders of their governments and have gone to war, and millions have been killed because of this obedience. 

Our problem is that people are obedient all over the world in the face of poverty and starvation and stupidity, and war, and cruelty. 

Our problem is that people are obedient while the jails are full of petty thieves, (and) the grand thieves are running the country. That's our problem."

~ Howard Zinn

My fellow activists in the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the UK and everywhere...

I recommend that we all put our different foci aside temporarily, and concentrate on replicating what is going on in New York right now...  in cities all over the world!

After all - everything that we are working to change, stems from the oligarchy that has its power base (in the US) divided between Wall Street and the Capitol...

 

 

 

Once Upon A Time Minstrels Would Sing Of Love...

Not anymore...

Here's Ewan MacColl's offering (he was a communist from the English city of Manchester)...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ewan_MacColl

Phenomenal Woman...

To my sisters in this season of change...

 

Who knows better than we

what all life needs?

 

It's time once again for us to DO, not just talk...

 

What small thing will YOU do today, 

and tomorrow, 

and the day after that,

to birth a better world into being?

Women Raise Their Voices...

Time to listen to the women again...

All The World Longs For Peace...

 

So, if all the world and all the cultures in the world and all the spiritual teachings of the world long for, call for, beg for peace, what are we going to DO to make peace real for us all?

Our leaders don't seem to want peace... 

They talk about it, but nothing they do seems to end the conflict that's killing our planet and everything that lives on it...

Maybe that's because there is too much power and money in war and disease and planetary destruction...

Making peace is a personal responsibility, a personal choice, a personal ACTION...

What will you do today and every day, in your personal life, in your family, in your community, in your society, in your country, to BIRTH AND RAISE PEACE?

Wiccan Prayer For Peace...

 

Lady of Peace who hears the cries of the world
Extend your power through me and with me;
Bless those in harms way.

Bless those who are suffering.

Bless those who are dying.

Bless the lost unknowing dead.

Bless those who love.

Bless those who are helping.

Bless those who are scared.

Bless those who can do nothing but wait.

Bless those who are falsely suspected.

Bless those of limited understanding.

Bless those upholding civil liberties.

Bless those who, though well intentioned, do wrong.

Bless the Ancestors
who love and hold us dear;
may we feel their comfort, too.

Bless those who work and pray for peace
throughout the good, green Mother Earth.

Bless us ALL and hold us safe within your embrace.

So Mote It Be!

~ Wiccan Prayer for Peace

Egyptian Book Of The Dead On Peace...

 

Let us rise up and greet the Sun

Let us wash our hearts with laughter

And rinse them with peace

And dry them with love

~ Egyptian Book Of The Dead