Found this through Tessa's substack. (I also read Charles, although I admit I'l have to go back because I skipped Blood and Raven). Love your take on their work and the importance of love in our efforts to shape the world.
I'm biased, as I think Eisenstein is who Sage Hana calls, not often, but seldom charitably, Eisenvector.
That aside, or in hand, like a bird, if you like...this story is a set-up/con job that operates on a simple, new-car sales-pitch mechanism.
Two options:
1) His friend is a 'crazy woman' who maybe wasn't even ill. Believe that and insult the storyteller...or
2) A 'miraculous' event did occur with the bird...so hold onto *your* dreams, as they might come true.
OK, lemme see if I got this straight:
A) Call the guy a fabulous liar, with maybe a trace of misogyny thrown in as a lagniappe (hey, it's a big investment, you really don't want to skip the extended warranty and undercoating package...do you?) or
B) Score one for miracles! Cue up Judy Garland (Birds fly over the rainbow...etc) and
Inset: Old issue of Analog scifi magazine from sometime in the 1980s...scifi author spends a weekend with Bucky Fuller and they have some wide-ranging convos, one of which is about PSI phenomena. Bucky's take on psychokinesis was 'never saw it personally, but OK, maybe'...and his take on ESP/telepathy was basically 'sure, happens a lot to a lot of people...only problem is that right now we don't have sufficiently powerful or delicate instrumentation to scientifically determine 'how' it works'.
Magnetically sensitive avian meets electrically abnormal brain...as much of a meet-cute scene as anything from a 1930s or 1980s Hollywood romcom film.
We don't even have to choose (yet*) between whether the bird is acting selfishly (the brain tumor *could* have been generating a wave or field that bothered the raven) or whether it is acting based on the response part of a reciprocal altruism scenario (thanks for saving me, large creature...forgive the minor puncture wound, but I noticed something behind your forehead that you ought to take care of...no, wasn't any trouble on my end...just glad it wasn't one of those thorns-in-a-lion's-paw scene...had a cousin who didn't survive one of those jobs...ugh, that's gross...glad I could help...you're welcome).
*If humans and birds survive, we might someday have instruments delicate and powerful enough to let us to have a confident guess between the selfish & altruistic options...on a bird by bird basis even. Paging United Airlines passenger Tenuta: white courtesy telephone, please. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vknNzCtR954
Thanks for that thoughtful response! I'll read (and watch) deeper later today. But that's who SH means by Eisenvector! And I'm thinking now that the crazy aunt Eisenhana must be related. Eureka!
I like Bucky's answer and it parallels mine on all things like aliens, reptiles and brain surgery ravens--OK, haven't seen it myself but maybe. Unless there's a purpose and the answer would change what I do, I don't burn up brain cells on it.
This article was also before Eisenvector turned political advisor. I'm a little more skeptical since of his ability to step back and let reality unfold. I'm not sure he's as consistent with his own beliefs as he was.
It was some time ago, but I think SH quoted him using the phrase 'sense making'...asking, in one of SH's more un-nuanced authorial voices, something to the effect of whether, in the face of an operation run by people who want to kill you and your family and friends, 'sense making' was a valid high-value priority.
As I recall, the 'sense making' he was talking about didn't have anything to do with analyzing the overall nature or details of the Murder Op. It reminded me of words/phrases I encountered in classes required for a CA teaching credential, one of which described the process of individual kids interpreting a text as the kids' 'negotiating meaning'. Sorry about the awkward grammar, but remembering much of most of those Education classes makes me less smart, y'know? I'll spare you the studies from Sweden and elsewhere used to manufacture consensus about the value of dual-language classroom instruction. 'Studies' that typically involved comparing (and not much contrasting...bad for consensus) results from a couple of classrooms with an aggregate population (total sample size) of around 40 kids. If Edward Said (who I did have the stressful pleasure of studying with/under) or Camille Paglia (in my dreams...) used phrases like 'sense making' or 'negotiating meaning', there would have been a walk-in cooler worth of meat on them bones...but from scientifically unqualified bleeding hearts, weak soup.
Very apropos and sweet cover. So that's a steel pedal guitar? Excellent playing.
I haven't seen anything that SH has done or anyone else actually make a difference. The Murder Op is progressing according to plan. Might as well make some sense while we're twiddling our thumbs.
I took a pause from SH after his recent post on Frances Leader. I didn't see what provoked it but the response was so vicious. I just felt like it's hard enough to be drinking the hemlock of what's happening, day after day, without the added bitter garnish of infighting.
Yeah, I'm not sure anyone's got a workable plan beyond trying to avoid taking the upcoming CBDCs or the jabs that will likely be required to get your free cybermoney. I like the purity I sense from Mike Yeadon. I can't recall how I first encountered Frances Leader, but she's been fairly consistent for a while and seems to have a lot of time-in-grade in resisting various things well pre-Covid. (Maybe Frances & Sage staged a Will Smith vs Chris Rock spat for ratings? Maybe not to increase viewership, but to nudge some free-followers into financial patronage. Not to say I'd bet on it down at the We-know-everything-Casino, but as St. Judy might've said: It coulda gone down that way. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gt9qvVt0E_Y )
Health is OK based on internal reporting from inside me. Will have a CT colonoscopy Tuesday.
Maybe another CT scan of stomach & upper/small intestines if colonoscopy report is unremarkable. Have kept up daily swimming routine of 45-50 minutes nonstop...pool temp this past week must have been at the low end of the WimHof range...vrrrry cold. Wintertime bubble gets put up next week, so things should improve wrt water temp. Thanks for asking.
Segues? Am I mis-remembering you having a birthday sorta kinda recently, If I forgot to offer the usual congratulations...here's a little cake to go with the hemlock. First clip is in case you're pressed for time (2:02 min) and only have time for cake. Second clip (6:48) has first clip's cake material at the end, but has some funny stuff about empires and mass killing on the front end.
Eddie Izzard is hilarious, I've never heard him before. And Andrea is heavenly. I thought it was a slightly bucktoothed JJ Couey playing the steel on x1.
Eddie has quite a few comedy specials, almost exclusively theater performances with him on stage in front of a live audience. Very smart. He's had quite a journey since arriving on the scene in the mid 1990s. Below are links to 60-90 minute live solo performances in the order found scrolling down on YT, NOT chronologically organized. I've watched about half of them, maybe a couple more than half...howled at most of the segments and chuckled at the rest.
Sep 29, 2023·edited Sep 29, 2023Liked by Tereza Coraggio
Hola, Tereza. I enjoyed your Russell Gabor talk. I really enjoyed and found Gabor helpful, especially his interviews. His description of discovering his addictive equivalence to the drug addicts on the streets of Vancouver to be very insightful and powerful as I was diving into my new found discovery, in 2016, that I was 'stuck in the frequency of addiction', as Tommy Rosen so brilliantly puts it.
I was very saddened, actually, when during an interview with Rosen, Gabor came out as pro-jab! [Headshake.]
And I will side with Peterson about cleaning our own house as a first step in being able to effectively create change in the society. Yes, we can say, and I have often said, that we are living in a bully Stockholm Syndrome because we are being traumatised by society. Which came first!? That's a trick question. The better question is, 'How can I stop it?' I cannot stop it by changing the other person because **I cannot change the other person!!** What can I change? Me. That's it. That is what Peterson means. We have created the society, under deliberate guidance I am now reasonabley sure. And yet, the only thing I have the authority to change, the ability to change, the right to change, is me. The complexity of existence, whether it is mind in the materium or materium in the mind, is that the Gretas and Gates etc, who ARE MAKING THINGS HAPPEN, are really not. They are virtue signalling pretending to be kind while sneering their hatred of all things they disagree with.
And this aligns with my experience of life, all my efforts to create change without being able to fully walk my talk. (That is changing.) And now, it has been a kind of shock and joy to discover that my awareness of this, and growing embodiment of it too, is in alignment with Gautama's teaching, even more so than the 'official' Buddhist religion which has ignored the stuff Gautama taught that didn't align with the agenda of 'religion', that you well defined here. And I loved the description of religion as the addiction of the time! And isn't it fascinating that as the 'popularity' of that addiction has been waning, the others have been ascending.
The Shakespeare's (aka Edward de Vere's) essay looks interesting. I'll take a look for it.
Lots more to talk about, here. And yet... I'll stop to do the other things in life that are calling me. Thank you. Good night.
Lovely response, Guy. Thanks for giving my writing so much attentive reading. I'm honored.
I'm especially glad you listened to the Gabor talk. I have so much affection for him. And his wife's statement about not wanting to be put on a pedestal--I almost brought that up in our other conversation. Yes, Gabor's realization about his own addiction took a lot of humility. 'Frequency of addiction' is a great phrase.
Was Jasun's interest in Job sparked by Peterson? I know he studied the story deeply, especially during his near-death illness and his wife's.
I agree with that position certainly because there is no other person! Peterson, as I remember, was talking about trying to change the system, not other people. I feel we get bogged down in the individual responsibility that's foisted on us--BE the change you want to see. Rather than SEE the change you want in order to be.
See the change you want. Yes. And perhaps the most difficult aspect of becoming the change. It has now been made very clear to me that actually seeing what is is the most difficult of all our challenges in awareness. (1st of the 8 fold path of Gautama, 1st of the Kleshas in Yoga top in the psychology of shadow work and reclaiming the projection.)
We don't see until we see our selves in what we are seeing! And how to we begin to see ourselves in what we are seeing? Goes back to Peterson's analogy: clean our own house. How do we know that our house needs cleaning? Because of the garbage we see in the world around us! LoL! Really, life has a wicked sense of humour. Which came first? Most likely it is a mutual evolution, the yin-yang dance and the like.
I don't know for sure if Jasun's interest was sparked directly by Peterson or not. My suspicion is that it was not. Jasun has mostly disengaged from Peterson, although most likely he is aware of Peterson's commentary on Job.
Have you found Jung's Answer to Job? It has been turned into an audio book on youtube. I've begun to listen to it, although not finished it. I read it two or three times more than 20 years ago now. It had a strong influence on my process of changing my ability to see more clearly - although still very fuzzy at the time. It is really interesting for me to revisit it so many years later. Enjoy!
I think maybe yes and no. What I meant was see the change in the world that you want in order to become who you really are. So imagine a functional world, not one where everything's given to you but one where we provide for ourselves and each other. Don't worry about what sacrifices you're making or not in order to be "a good little consumer." Set all that aside and dream up the world where you could reach your fullest expression.
Right now I feel like I'm ingesting a lot of poison and it seems to be what I need to be doing. I think that having a happy life allows me to be this crucible.
I don't know Jung's answer to Job. I'm just reading your last article now on the Middle Path. Always profound. Always vulnerable.
Ahhh. "What I meant was see the change in the world that you want in order to become who you really are."
Yes. And again, if only it was that simple. I have really been wrestling with the issue of seeing! And your comment about mind/materium or materium/mind falls into that too, of course. How do we see that? And a friend of my recently asked 'And does that actually matter?' Interesting question. I haven't responded to that yet.
As I reflected on your observation, two trite aphorisms came to mind: 1) We make plans (of what we want to see happen) and God laughs. 2) You know you are cursed when God grants you all your wishes (of what you want to see happen).
I have been steadily moving towards #5 of the Niyamas, which I translate as 'alignment with God (God-energy or whatever it is).'
I realise that my ability to see is infinitesimal, even if shadow projection is removed. 'I', 'me', 'mine' are huge deliminiters of experience and, more importantly, of what CAN be 'seen' or made manifest. (I'm actively wrestling with that now, at a personal level, with my alignment with 'body-truth' as a form of ishvara-pranidhana, alignment with God.
There is not an iota of the smallest degree that I could have seen anything of this, even going back to taking up yoga with clear firm intention and diligence. There was no actually ability to see, let alone seeing at all to create this 'future'. This was my biggest resonance with John St Julien Baba Wanyama's observations as he described moving outside of the being a tool/victim of predictability into creating a world of which he had no capacity to envision.
On the other hand, I've read the books on the laws of manifestation! What is the guidance, see what you want to have made manifest in your life! OMG, now the head spins! LoL!
Michael Singer describes that 'not-seeing' process with great beauty, elegance and power too. Have you listened to him at all? You may enjoy this, if not: "Michael Singer: Let Go of Yourself and Surrender to Life"
Gabriel Bernstein describes seeing and manifesting in a good way in her book, 'The Universe Has Your Back' (which was a great synchronicity book-find in 2018(?) for me.)
Yup, 'seeing' is a challenge. To not see is to be blind. To see from the 'I' is to be, perhaps deluded. To see with the eyes of God is to allow the moment to be filled with the opportunity of appropriate eccentric action which does not have a clearly visible end result, as it allows for the unpredictability of life to unfold the action to... magic-ville. Is manifesting a house, as Gabby did, an action that came from the I or was it the eye of God moving through her? Sheesh!
Recently I've begun to study Nagarjuna. For now through the great discussion of Stephen Batchelor and his book: *Verses from the Centre: A Buddhist Vision of the Sublime*. This verse came to mind with Batchelor's comments as I was thinking about the 'problem' of seeing:
~~
While Nagarjuna accepts the Buddha's authority on the principles of ethical behaviour, he offers his own ideas as to how actions lead to effects in a contingent and uncertain world. Once an act is committed, he argues, it assumes a creative life of its own. "Imagine a magician," he suggests,
Who creates a creature
Who creates other creatures.
Acts I perform are creatures
Who create others.
Once the fateful decision has been made, the words have left our lips or the body's deed is done, the act is released into the flow of life. Its reverberative effects will, to some degree, reconfigure both ourselves and the world in which we encounter the next moral dilemma. The acts we commit now thus form the conditions under which future choices will have to be made.
Although an act is germinated in the privacy of one's thoughts, as soon as it enters the public domain it cannot be retracted or recalled. Nagarjuna declares that:
Acts, like contracts,
Are as irrevocable as debts-
Their irrevocability
Ensures fruition.
The consequences of what we do now will outlive us. The irrevocability of our actions implies that we are responsible not only for our own conduct in this life but for the impact of our actions after our death. (p79-80).
~~~
Well, now to my other 'project'. Another I Ching casting that I am using to help confirm something I had not seen coming that arose from ... somewhere intangible. Likely I will be making it a public 'announcement' at some near date on my substack. Another absolutely not seeable ... what? Something unimaginable. Until it was/is. LoL!
Thank you for reading 'Middle Path'. Another challenging, for me, essay to write. And one that I did not see where it was going! Life really does have a sense of humour. Really 'It', whatever 'It' is, really does.
I remember that an outdated and distorted form of my name was prone to trite aphorisms. Let's examine the first. It implies a God who is cruel, actually they both do. 'Watch what you wish for' is the theme of many 'fairy tales' of genies and magical fish that expose our greed.
It's not the plan but the attachment to the plan that's Self-defeating. The Course says something like, "Happiness is welcoming reality exactly as it is." I'm the ultimate planner! And it's taken me awhile to learn that whenever Spirit changes my plans, it's always an improvement. But if I didn't make those plans in the first place, I wouldn't have played my part.
You're doing exactly the right thing for you, I have no doubt. I think the whole New Age law of manifestation is ridiculous because it contradicts itself--it says that there is no plan and then believes itself to be God in order to make 'reality' serve the Ego. Either one or the other is true--we have nothing to fear and nothing we need OR we need to 'manifest' what we need because we're weak and helpless.
I see planning for the world we want, within the specific scope of our place in it, as working with Spirit and discerning the synchronicities. Syn what does that mean? chron = time. i=I. cities = cities.
Well said and a really great critique of 'new age' self contradiction.
And great point about having a plan, and then allowing it to be expanded! Love it. That is, to be totally self centred, exactly what happened that landed me here in Mexico, literally the last place my 'planning mind' would have put me. You and the Course have put that perfectly.
And so great that the big planner has managed to have us 'bump' into each other along the way! Plan or synchronicity or is synchronicity really expressing the big plan in small ways?
I'm not sure if you are resonating with the Buddhist approach. This came to mind, about walking, from Nagarjuna:
*Walking*
I do not walk between
The step already taken
And the one I'm yet to take,
Which both are motionless.
Is walking not the motion
Between one step and the next?
What moves between them?
Could I not move as I walk?
If I move when I walk,
There would be two motions:
One moving me and one my feet-
Two of us stroll by.
There is no walking without walkers,
And no walkers without walking.
Can I say that walkers walk?
Couldn't I say they don't?
Walking does not start
In steps taken or to come
Or in the act itself.
Where does it begin?
Before I raise a foot,
Is there motion,
A step taken or to come
Whence walking could begin?
What has gone?
What moves?
What is to come?
Can I speak of walkers,
When neither walking,
Steps taken nor to come ever end?
Were walking and walker one,
I would be unable to tell them apart;
Were they different,
There would be walkers who do not walk.
These moving feet reveal a walker
But did not start him on his way.
There was no walker prior to departure.
Who was going where?
Verses from the Center: A Buddhist Vision of the Sublime by Nāgārjuna, translated with commentary by Stephen Batchelor, pg 84-5.
Well articulated. We have met the enemy, and it is that we don't actually love ourself. It seems to me that 'Love your neighbour as you (would/could/want) to love yourself' is a kind of con. Traumatised people are unable to love themselves and either self destruct (often while taking down their neighbours), or explode into the community and then take down themselves. Part of the social engineering for at least 2 thousand years plus, is to traumatise the people. Tessa heard people laughing at her being tortured. People laughed when the Dalai Lama publicly coerced a boy to tongue kiss him. People cheered death at the Roman games. Krishnamurti was a wise teacher. Hmmmm.
Self love. How to see that it isn't something that is 'out there' that needs to be acquired through a process similar to buying an expensive car or house? One of the great 'humours', in the expansive meaning of 'humours', of Life, with a capital 'L'. Like the man looking for the key to life at night under the lamp standard, knowing full well that he lost the key outside of the edge of the light.
Really good point, Guy. I often think that mothers who mistreat their children (case in point) have to reject and belittle the adoration an infant has for its mother because they expect it to turn against them. Intergenerational trauma is what we know. Did any of your sisters ever have children?
Sep 29, 2023·edited Sep 29, 2023Liked by Tereza Coraggio
Sister number 1, 3, and 4 did. 2 did not.
Sister 1 had two daughters, long after going into therapy of some kind. They seem to be all reasonably well adjusted. Her husband is well grounded and didn't fall for the mother's narcissistic charisma.
#3 was totally under the mother's spell. Her daughter, after years of torturous gender confusion, has decided to transition. And #3 wrote what was one of the most woke castigatory diatribes in the form of a letter to me I have ever read. I've yet to respond to it. It is actually very funny meaning very very sad at the same time. Her son has fallen 'prey' to the addiction of a cult leader in Canada, called John DeRuiter. (Jasun's book on his experience with that cult, Dark Oasis, is excellent!) So... the trauma continues in part. (I have no children.)
(I don't know about #4's daughter, who I met once. I think she was troubled.)
Dark Oasis is an excellent title for a book on a cult. Jasun is married to sister #2, yes? I'm still working my way to his article on Job but the Substack whale has swallowed me ;-)
Found this through Tessa's substack. (I also read Charles, although I admit I'l have to go back because I skipped Blood and Raven). Love your take on their work and the importance of love in our efforts to shape the world.
Thank you so much! I've also read your comments on Tessa's substack and found them thoughtful and concise. I appreciate you listening to my video!
And thank you for subscribing. I see we read many of the same people on the geopolitical side also.
I'm biased, as I think Eisenstein is who Sage Hana calls, not often, but seldom charitably, Eisenvector.
That aside, or in hand, like a bird, if you like...this story is a set-up/con job that operates on a simple, new-car sales-pitch mechanism.
Two options:
1) His friend is a 'crazy woman' who maybe wasn't even ill. Believe that and insult the storyteller...or
2) A 'miraculous' event did occur with the bird...so hold onto *your* dreams, as they might come true.
OK, lemme see if I got this straight:
A) Call the guy a fabulous liar, with maybe a trace of misogyny thrown in as a lagniappe (hey, it's a big investment, you really don't want to skip the extended warranty and undercoating package...do you?) or
B) Score one for miracles! Cue up Judy Garland (Birds fly over the rainbow...etc) and
ELO https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6128D8ePWdE (more flying, sorry about SS's formatting)
Inset: Old issue of Analog scifi magazine from sometime in the 1980s...scifi author spends a weekend with Bucky Fuller and they have some wide-ranging convos, one of which is about PSI phenomena. Bucky's take on psychokinesis was 'never saw it personally, but OK, maybe'...and his take on ESP/telepathy was basically 'sure, happens a lot to a lot of people...only problem is that right now we don't have sufficiently powerful or delicate instrumentation to scientifically determine 'how' it works'.
Bio was my weakest science, but the obvious connection is electromagnetism...electricity is increasingly being understood as an important feature of the human body, especially the brain...and...migratory birds don't have GPS receivers but they do utilize magnetism. https://www.sciencealert.com/birds-see-magnetic-fields-cryptochrome-cry4-photoreceptor-2018
Magnetically sensitive avian meets electrically abnormal brain...as much of a meet-cute scene as anything from a 1930s or 1980s Hollywood romcom film.
We don't even have to choose (yet*) between whether the bird is acting selfishly (the brain tumor *could* have been generating a wave or field that bothered the raven) or whether it is acting based on the response part of a reciprocal altruism scenario (thanks for saving me, large creature...forgive the minor puncture wound, but I noticed something behind your forehead that you ought to take care of...no, wasn't any trouble on my end...just glad it wasn't one of those thorns-in-a-lion's-paw scene...had a cousin who didn't survive one of those jobs...ugh, that's gross...glad I could help...you're welcome).
*If humans and birds survive, we might someday have instruments delicate and powerful enough to let us to have a confident guess between the selfish & altruistic options...on a bird by bird basis even. Paging United Airlines passenger Tenuta: white courtesy telephone, please. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vknNzCtR954
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5qUVeY3FTk0
Laugh in the sunshine...Sing, cry in the dark...Fly through the night
Sleep in the stars...Don't you cry...Dry your eyes on the wind
Thanks for that thoughtful response! I'll read (and watch) deeper later today. But that's who SH means by Eisenvector! And I'm thinking now that the crazy aunt Eisenhana must be related. Eureka!
I like Bucky's answer and it parallels mine on all things like aliens, reptiles and brain surgery ravens--OK, haven't seen it myself but maybe. Unless there's a purpose and the answer would change what I do, I don't burn up brain cells on it.
This article was also before Eisenvector turned political advisor. I'm a little more skeptical since of his ability to step back and let reality unfold. I'm not sure he's as consistent with his own beliefs as he was.
It was some time ago, but I think SH quoted him using the phrase 'sense making'...asking, in one of SH's more un-nuanced authorial voices, something to the effect of whether, in the face of an operation run by people who want to kill you and your family and friends, 'sense making' was a valid high-value priority.
As I recall, the 'sense making' he was talking about didn't have anything to do with analyzing the overall nature or details of the Murder Op. It reminded me of words/phrases I encountered in classes required for a CA teaching credential, one of which described the process of individual kids interpreting a text as the kids' 'negotiating meaning'. Sorry about the awkward grammar, but remembering much of most of those Education classes makes me less smart, y'know? I'll spare you the studies from Sweden and elsewhere used to manufacture consensus about the value of dual-language classroom instruction. 'Studies' that typically involved comparing (and not much contrasting...bad for consensus) results from a couple of classrooms with an aggregate population (total sample size) of around 40 kids. If Edward Said (who I did have the stressful pleasure of studying with/under) or Camille Paglia (in my dreams...) used phrases like 'sense making' or 'negotiating meaning', there would have been a walk-in cooler worth of meat on them bones...but from scientifically unqualified bleeding hearts, weak soup.
So-so audio, but the pedal steel is on the moolah & just one dude, so, hope you enjoy... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kua0UmDU9QQ
Very apropos and sweet cover. So that's a steel pedal guitar? Excellent playing.
I haven't seen anything that SH has done or anyone else actually make a difference. The Murder Op is progressing according to plan. Might as well make some sense while we're twiddling our thumbs.
I took a pause from SH after his recent post on Frances Leader. I didn't see what provoked it but the response was so vicious. I just felt like it's hard enough to be drinking the hemlock of what's happening, day after day, without the added bitter garnish of infighting.
How is your health? Speaking of segues ...
Yeah, I'm not sure anyone's got a workable plan beyond trying to avoid taking the upcoming CBDCs or the jabs that will likely be required to get your free cybermoney. I like the purity I sense from Mike Yeadon. I can't recall how I first encountered Frances Leader, but she's been fairly consistent for a while and seems to have a lot of time-in-grade in resisting various things well pre-Covid. (Maybe Frances & Sage staged a Will Smith vs Chris Rock spat for ratings? Maybe not to increase viewership, but to nudge some free-followers into financial patronage. Not to say I'd bet on it down at the We-know-everything-Casino, but as St. Judy might've said: It coulda gone down that way. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gt9qvVt0E_Y )
Health is OK based on internal reporting from inside me. Will have a CT colonoscopy Tuesday.
Maybe another CT scan of stomach & upper/small intestines if colonoscopy report is unremarkable. Have kept up daily swimming routine of 45-50 minutes nonstop...pool temp this past week must have been at the low end of the WimHof range...vrrrry cold. Wintertime bubble gets put up next week, so things should improve wrt water temp. Thanks for asking.
Segues? Am I mis-remembering you having a birthday sorta kinda recently, If I forgot to offer the usual congratulations...here's a little cake to go with the hemlock. First clip is in case you're pressed for time (2:02 min) and only have time for cake. Second clip (6:48) has first clip's cake material at the end, but has some funny stuff about empires and mass killing on the front end.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=unkWbEmtYXs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PVH0gZO5lq0
Time permitting, a playlist for anti-imperialists, space cadets & steel guitar fans
Take that Empire and... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PVH0gZO5lq0
Stars: Results of fusion at long distances: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RK3Js9yo5qY
Steel x2: Skip to 1:40 if short on time: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a-qLZUFz3og
Steel x1: Makes a bass player smile: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m1Xkhl3Yj6Y
Steel Andrea again...with jeans: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p5CkKOsHW64
Steel makes Emmylou misty: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ziXKpTXbJk
Please continue...go on...persist
Eddie Izzard is hilarious, I've never heard him before. And Andrea is heavenly. I thought it was a slightly bucktoothed JJ Couey playing the steel on x1.
Eddie has quite a few comedy specials, almost exclusively theater performances with him on stage in front of a live audience. Very smart. He's had quite a journey since arriving on the scene in the mid 1990s. Below are links to 60-90 minute live solo performances in the order found scrolling down on YT, NOT chronologically organized. I've watched about half of them, maybe a couple more than half...howled at most of the segments and chuckled at the rest.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QRB_GhLXCds
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mDCGkasqgxQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KJy2B6njSdQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OQaHSApf8-c
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FRfqHPW3Xlk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r3LU2Ilx1GE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bRRp6iEB8lI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NNvTflAiZgI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rTtpJBkU_Ko
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iRNPqO7cBWo
I suspect eventually I'll run out of Andrea clips, but it'd be nice to be wrong.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jKlB_qG9fIQ
Hadn't made the Joe Wright <<>> JJ Couey connection, but I see it now. :-)
More steel later...pool awaits in the too-soon morning. Cheers.
one of those...scenes... No 3-dots tonight, so old fashioned correction method.
Hola, Tereza. I enjoyed your Russell Gabor talk. I really enjoyed and found Gabor helpful, especially his interviews. His description of discovering his addictive equivalence to the drug addicts on the streets of Vancouver to be very insightful and powerful as I was diving into my new found discovery, in 2016, that I was 'stuck in the frequency of addiction', as Tommy Rosen so brilliantly puts it.
I was very saddened, actually, when during an interview with Rosen, Gabor came out as pro-jab! [Headshake.]
And I will side with Peterson about cleaning our own house as a first step in being able to effectively create change in the society. Yes, we can say, and I have often said, that we are living in a bully Stockholm Syndrome because we are being traumatised by society. Which came first!? That's a trick question. The better question is, 'How can I stop it?' I cannot stop it by changing the other person because **I cannot change the other person!!** What can I change? Me. That's it. That is what Peterson means. We have created the society, under deliberate guidance I am now reasonabley sure. And yet, the only thing I have the authority to change, the ability to change, the right to change, is me. The complexity of existence, whether it is mind in the materium or materium in the mind, is that the Gretas and Gates etc, who ARE MAKING THINGS HAPPEN, are really not. They are virtue signalling pretending to be kind while sneering their hatred of all things they disagree with.
And this aligns with my experience of life, all my efforts to create change without being able to fully walk my talk. (That is changing.) And now, it has been a kind of shock and joy to discover that my awareness of this, and growing embodiment of it too, is in alignment with Gautama's teaching, even more so than the 'official' Buddhist religion which has ignored the stuff Gautama taught that didn't align with the agenda of 'religion', that you well defined here. And I loved the description of religion as the addiction of the time! And isn't it fascinating that as the 'popularity' of that addiction has been waning, the others have been ascending.
The Shakespeare's (aka Edward de Vere's) essay looks interesting. I'll take a look for it.
Lots more to talk about, here. And yet... I'll stop to do the other things in life that are calling me. Thank you. Good night.
Lovely response, Guy. Thanks for giving my writing so much attentive reading. I'm honored.
I'm especially glad you listened to the Gabor talk. I have so much affection for him. And his wife's statement about not wanting to be put on a pedestal--I almost brought that up in our other conversation. Yes, Gabor's realization about his own addiction took a lot of humility. 'Frequency of addiction' is a great phrase.
Was Jasun's interest in Job sparked by Peterson? I know he studied the story deeply, especially during his near-death illness and his wife's.
I agree with that position certainly because there is no other person! Peterson, as I remember, was talking about trying to change the system, not other people. I feel we get bogged down in the individual responsibility that's foisted on us--BE the change you want to see. Rather than SEE the change you want in order to be.
See the change you want. Yes. And perhaps the most difficult aspect of becoming the change. It has now been made very clear to me that actually seeing what is is the most difficult of all our challenges in awareness. (1st of the 8 fold path of Gautama, 1st of the Kleshas in Yoga top in the psychology of shadow work and reclaiming the projection.)
We don't see until we see our selves in what we are seeing! And how to we begin to see ourselves in what we are seeing? Goes back to Peterson's analogy: clean our own house. How do we know that our house needs cleaning? Because of the garbage we see in the world around us! LoL! Really, life has a wicked sense of humour. Which came first? Most likely it is a mutual evolution, the yin-yang dance and the like.
I don't know for sure if Jasun's interest was sparked directly by Peterson or not. My suspicion is that it was not. Jasun has mostly disengaged from Peterson, although most likely he is aware of Peterson's commentary on Job.
Have you found Jung's Answer to Job? It has been turned into an audio book on youtube. I've begun to listen to it, although not finished it. I read it two or three times more than 20 years ago now. It had a strong influence on my process of changing my ability to see more clearly - although still very fuzzy at the time. It is really interesting for me to revisit it so many years later. Enjoy!
I think maybe yes and no. What I meant was see the change in the world that you want in order to become who you really are. So imagine a functional world, not one where everything's given to you but one where we provide for ourselves and each other. Don't worry about what sacrifices you're making or not in order to be "a good little consumer." Set all that aside and dream up the world where you could reach your fullest expression.
Right now I feel like I'm ingesting a lot of poison and it seems to be what I need to be doing. I think that having a happy life allows me to be this crucible.
I don't know Jung's answer to Job. I'm just reading your last article now on the Middle Path. Always profound. Always vulnerable.
Ahhh. "What I meant was see the change in the world that you want in order to become who you really are."
Yes. And again, if only it was that simple. I have really been wrestling with the issue of seeing! And your comment about mind/materium or materium/mind falls into that too, of course. How do we see that? And a friend of my recently asked 'And does that actually matter?' Interesting question. I haven't responded to that yet.
As I reflected on your observation, two trite aphorisms came to mind: 1) We make plans (of what we want to see happen) and God laughs. 2) You know you are cursed when God grants you all your wishes (of what you want to see happen).
I have been steadily moving towards #5 of the Niyamas, which I translate as 'alignment with God (God-energy or whatever it is).'
I realise that my ability to see is infinitesimal, even if shadow projection is removed. 'I', 'me', 'mine' are huge deliminiters of experience and, more importantly, of what CAN be 'seen' or made manifest. (I'm actively wrestling with that now, at a personal level, with my alignment with 'body-truth' as a form of ishvara-pranidhana, alignment with God.
There is not an iota of the smallest degree that I could have seen anything of this, even going back to taking up yoga with clear firm intention and diligence. There was no actually ability to see, let alone seeing at all to create this 'future'. This was my biggest resonance with John St Julien Baba Wanyama's observations as he described moving outside of the being a tool/victim of predictability into creating a world of which he had no capacity to envision.
On the other hand, I've read the books on the laws of manifestation! What is the guidance, see what you want to have made manifest in your life! OMG, now the head spins! LoL!
Michael Singer describes that 'not-seeing' process with great beauty, elegance and power too. Have you listened to him at all? You may enjoy this, if not: "Michael Singer: Let Go of Yourself and Surrender to Life"
https://youtu.be/IOTwnTtSzvs.
Gabriel Bernstein describes seeing and manifesting in a good way in her book, 'The Universe Has Your Back' (which was a great synchronicity book-find in 2018(?) for me.)
Yup, 'seeing' is a challenge. To not see is to be blind. To see from the 'I' is to be, perhaps deluded. To see with the eyes of God is to allow the moment to be filled with the opportunity of appropriate eccentric action which does not have a clearly visible end result, as it allows for the unpredictability of life to unfold the action to... magic-ville. Is manifesting a house, as Gabby did, an action that came from the I or was it the eye of God moving through her? Sheesh!
Recently I've begun to study Nagarjuna. For now through the great discussion of Stephen Batchelor and his book: *Verses from the Centre: A Buddhist Vision of the Sublime*. This verse came to mind with Batchelor's comments as I was thinking about the 'problem' of seeing:
~~
While Nagarjuna accepts the Buddha's authority on the principles of ethical behaviour, he offers his own ideas as to how actions lead to effects in a contingent and uncertain world. Once an act is committed, he argues, it assumes a creative life of its own. "Imagine a magician," he suggests,
Who creates a creature
Who creates other creatures.
Acts I perform are creatures
Who create others.
Once the fateful decision has been made, the words have left our lips or the body's deed is done, the act is released into the flow of life. Its reverberative effects will, to some degree, reconfigure both ourselves and the world in which we encounter the next moral dilemma. The acts we commit now thus form the conditions under which future choices will have to be made.
Although an act is germinated in the privacy of one's thoughts, as soon as it enters the public domain it cannot be retracted or recalled. Nagarjuna declares that:
Acts, like contracts,
Are as irrevocable as debts-
Their irrevocability
Ensures fruition.
The consequences of what we do now will outlive us. The irrevocability of our actions implies that we are responsible not only for our own conduct in this life but for the impact of our actions after our death. (p79-80).
~~~
Well, now to my other 'project'. Another I Ching casting that I am using to help confirm something I had not seen coming that arose from ... somewhere intangible. Likely I will be making it a public 'announcement' at some near date on my substack. Another absolutely not seeable ... what? Something unimaginable. Until it was/is. LoL!
Thank you for reading 'Middle Path'. Another challenging, for me, essay to write. And one that I did not see where it was going! Life really does have a sense of humour. Really 'It', whatever 'It' is, really does.
Good night.
I remember that an outdated and distorted form of my name was prone to trite aphorisms. Let's examine the first. It implies a God who is cruel, actually they both do. 'Watch what you wish for' is the theme of many 'fairy tales' of genies and magical fish that expose our greed.
It's not the plan but the attachment to the plan that's Self-defeating. The Course says something like, "Happiness is welcoming reality exactly as it is." I'm the ultimate planner! And it's taken me awhile to learn that whenever Spirit changes my plans, it's always an improvement. But if I didn't make those plans in the first place, I wouldn't have played my part.
You're doing exactly the right thing for you, I have no doubt. I think the whole New Age law of manifestation is ridiculous because it contradicts itself--it says that there is no plan and then believes itself to be God in order to make 'reality' serve the Ego. Either one or the other is true--we have nothing to fear and nothing we need OR we need to 'manifest' what we need because we're weak and helpless.
I see planning for the world we want, within the specific scope of our place in it, as working with Spirit and discerning the synchronicities. Syn what does that mean? chron = time. i=I. cities = cities.
Well said and a really great critique of 'new age' self contradiction.
And great point about having a plan, and then allowing it to be expanded! Love it. That is, to be totally self centred, exactly what happened that landed me here in Mexico, literally the last place my 'planning mind' would have put me. You and the Course have put that perfectly.
And so great that the big planner has managed to have us 'bump' into each other along the way! Plan or synchronicity or is synchronicity really expressing the big plan in small ways?
I'm not sure if you are resonating with the Buddhist approach. This came to mind, about walking, from Nagarjuna:
*Walking*
I do not walk between
The step already taken
And the one I'm yet to take,
Which both are motionless.
Is walking not the motion
Between one step and the next?
What moves between them?
Could I not move as I walk?
If I move when I walk,
There would be two motions:
One moving me and one my feet-
Two of us stroll by.
There is no walking without walkers,
And no walkers without walking.
Can I say that walkers walk?
Couldn't I say they don't?
Walking does not start
In steps taken or to come
Or in the act itself.
Where does it begin?
Before I raise a foot,
Is there motion,
A step taken or to come
Whence walking could begin?
What has gone?
What moves?
What is to come?
Can I speak of walkers,
When neither walking,
Steps taken nor to come ever end?
Were walking and walker one,
I would be unable to tell them apart;
Were they different,
There would be walkers who do not walk.
These moving feet reveal a walker
But did not start him on his way.
There was no walker prior to departure.
Who was going where?
Verses from the Center: A Buddhist Vision of the Sublime by Nāgārjuna, translated with commentary by Stephen Batchelor, pg 84-5.
Hola, Tereza.
Well articulated. We have met the enemy, and it is that we don't actually love ourself. It seems to me that 'Love your neighbour as you (would/could/want) to love yourself' is a kind of con. Traumatised people are unable to love themselves and either self destruct (often while taking down their neighbours), or explode into the community and then take down themselves. Part of the social engineering for at least 2 thousand years plus, is to traumatise the people. Tessa heard people laughing at her being tortured. People laughed when the Dalai Lama publicly coerced a boy to tongue kiss him. People cheered death at the Roman games. Krishnamurti was a wise teacher. Hmmmm.
Self love. How to see that it isn't something that is 'out there' that needs to be acquired through a process similar to buying an expensive car or house? One of the great 'humours', in the expansive meaning of 'humours', of Life, with a capital 'L'. Like the man looking for the key to life at night under the lamp standard, knowing full well that he lost the key outside of the edge of the light.
Thank you.
Really good point, Guy. I often think that mothers who mistreat their children (case in point) have to reject and belittle the adoration an infant has for its mother because they expect it to turn against them. Intergenerational trauma is what we know. Did any of your sisters ever have children?
Sister number 1, 3, and 4 did. 2 did not.
Sister 1 had two daughters, long after going into therapy of some kind. They seem to be all reasonably well adjusted. Her husband is well grounded and didn't fall for the mother's narcissistic charisma.
#3 was totally under the mother's spell. Her daughter, after years of torturous gender confusion, has decided to transition. And #3 wrote what was one of the most woke castigatory diatribes in the form of a letter to me I have ever read. I've yet to respond to it. It is actually very funny meaning very very sad at the same time. Her son has fallen 'prey' to the addiction of a cult leader in Canada, called John DeRuiter. (Jasun's book on his experience with that cult, Dark Oasis, is excellent!) So... the trauma continues in part. (I have no children.)
(I don't know about #4's daughter, who I met once. I think she was troubled.)
Dark Oasis is an excellent title for a book on a cult. Jasun is married to sister #2, yes? I'm still working my way to his article on Job but the Substack whale has swallowed me ;-)
Yes he is. And love it, 'the substack whale'! Jonah was the one swallowed, wasn't he?
Oh yeah, right!