From the "Warrior Song of King Gesar"

It is hard to believe that this was composed over 1000 years ago.

"Our earth is wounded. Her oceans and lakes are sick; her rivers are like running sores; The air is filled with subtle posions. And the oily smoke of countless hellish fires blackens the sun. Men and women, scattered from homeland, family, friends, wander desolate and uncertain, scorched by a toxic sun...
In this desert of frightened, blind uncertainty, some take refuge in the pursuit of power. Some become manipulators of illusion and deceit.
If wisdom and harmony still dwell in this world, as other than a dream lost in an unopened book, they are hidden in our heartbeat.
And it is from our hearts that we cry out. We cry out and our voices are the single voice of this wounded earth. Our cries are a great wind across the earth."

Soul Food

Everybody on earth knowing
that beauty is beautiful
makes ugliness.

Everybody knowing
that goodness is good
makes wickedness.

For being and nonbeing
arise together;
hard and easy
complete each other;
long and short
shape each other;
high and low
depend on each other;
note and voice
make the music together;
before and after
follow each other.

That is why the wise soul
does without doing,
teaches without talking.

The things of this world
exist, they are;
you cannot refuse them.

To bear and not to own;
to act and not lay claim;
to do the work and let it go:
for just letting it go
is what makes it stay.

Lao Tzu--"Tao Te Ching" Translation by Ursula K. Le Guin

Life's Biggest Secrets 2

How to know if you have found your soulmate:

1. If you have to ask, then the answer is probably no.

2. Relationships should NOT be work. Sure, they require effort and patience, but it should not be a grind.

3. If you're with someone who is manipulative or abusive in any way, rest assured that you are not with your soulmate. Break it off as quickly as possible, or else you might never meet your soulmate because you're too busy dealing with an unhealthy relationship.

Julia Snowboard 2

Video #2 of Julia snowboarding at Mt. Bachelor. This is her first time on the black diamond (expert) run on the northwest side. The run is over 1 mile long.

Nature Boy

There was a boy
A very strange enchanted boy
They say he wandered very far, very far
Over land and sea
A little shy and sad of eye
But very wise was he

And then one day
A magic day he passed my way
And while we spoke of many things
Fools and kings
This he said to me
"The greatest thing you'll ever learn
Is just to love and be loved in return"


Lyrics by eden ahbez

Life's Biggest Secrets 1

Everyone has not only the ability to perceive the world but an ability to alter his perception of it; or, more simply, one can change things by the manner in which one looks at them. Alter your paradigm!

Surprised?

Reading the about the latest mass murder, the killing spree and Northern Illinois University yesterday, I am struck by how surprised the media makes out everyone to be about how this could happen. People, you better get used to it. It's going to become a very common occurence.
There are a certain percentage of people with faulty brain wiring. Bipolars, sociopaths, pedophiles, or people who just enjoy killing or hurting others. That percentage probably stays fairly steady. So why the increase in these kind of incidents?
Easy. The world population continues to GROW at a steady rate.
The world population:

1961......3 billion
1974......4 billion
1987......5 billion
1999......6 billion
2011......7 billion (projected)
2024......8 billion (projected)
2042......9 billion (projected)

So even as the percentage of defectively brain wired people stays the same, the ABSOLUTE numbers of these people increase significantly. And they are in closer and closer contact with the rest of us. So more opportunity for adverse contacts.

So get used to events of this type. They will happen more and more frequently in the future.

The Worst Addiction of Them All

by Kurt Vonnegut

What has been America's most nurturing contribution to the culture of this planet so far? Many would say Jazz. I, who love jazz, will say this instead: Alcoholics Anonymous.

I am not an alcoholic. If I was, I would go before the nearest A.A. meeting and say, "My name is Kurt Vonnegut. I am an alcoholic." God willing, that might be my first step down the long, hard road back to sobriety.

The A.A. scheme, which requires a confession like that, is the first to have any measurable success in dealing with the tendency of some human beings, perhaps 10 percent of any population sample anyone might care to choose, to become addicted to substances that give them brief spasms of pleasure but in the long term transmute their lives and the lives of those around them into ultimate ghastliness.

The A.A. scheme, which, again, can work only if the addicts regularly admit that this or that chemical is poisonous to them, is now proving its effectiveness with compulsive gamblers, who are not dependent on chemicals from a distillery or a pharmaceutical laboratory. This is no paradox. Gamblers, In effect, manufacture their own dangerous substances. God help them, they produce chemicals that elate them whenever they place a bet on simply anything.

If I was a compulsive gambler, which I am not, I would be well advised to stand up before the nearest meeting of Gamblers Anonymous and declare, "My name is Kurt Vonnegut. I am a compulsive gambler."

Whether I was standing before a meeting of Gamblers Anonymous or Alcoholics Anonymous, I would be encouraged to testify as to how the chemicals I had generated within myself or swallowed had alienated my friends and relatives, cost me jobs and houses and deprived me of my last shred of self-respect.

Not every member of A.A. or G.A. has sunk quite that low, of course--but plenty have. Many, If not most, have done what they call "hitting bottom" before admitting what it is that has been ruining their lives.

I now wish to call attention to another form of addiction, which has not been previously identified. It is more like gambling than drinking, since the people afflicted are ravenous for situations that will cause their bodies to release exciting chemicals into their bloodstreams. I am persuaded that there are among us people who are tragically hooked on preparations for war.

Tell people with that disease that war is coming and we have to get ready for it, and for a few minutes there, they will be as happy as a drunk with his martini breakfast or a compulsive gambler with his paycheck bet on the Super Bowl.

Let us recognize how sick such people are. From now on, when a national leader, or even just a neighbor, starts talking about some new weapons system which is going to cost us a mere $29 billion, we should speak up. We should say something on the order of, "Honest to God, I couldn't be sorrier for you if I'd seen you wash down a fistful of black, beauties with a pint of Southern Comfort."

I mean it. I am not joking. Compulsive preparers for World War III, in this country or any other, are as tragically and, yes, as repulsively addicted as any stockbroker passed out with his head In a toilet in the Port Authority bus terminal.

For an alcoholic to experience a little joy, he needs maybe three ounces of grain alcohol. Alcoholics, when they are close to hitting bottom, customarily can't hold much alcohol.

If we know a compulsive gambler who is dead broke, we can probably make him happy with a dollar to bet on who can spit farther than someone else. For us to give a compulsive war-preparer a fleeting moment of happiness, we may have to buy him three Trident submarines and a hundred intercontinental ballistic missiles mounted on choo-choo trains.

If Western Civilization were a person--

If Western Civilization, which blankets the world now, as far as I can tell, were a person--

If Western Civilizations, which surely now includes the Soviet Union and China and India and Pakistan and on and on, were a person--

If Western Civilization were a person, we would be directing it to the nearest meeting of War-Preparers Anonymous. We would be telling it to stand up before the meeting and say, "My name is Western Civilization. I am a compulsive war- preparer. I have lost everything I ever cared about. I should have come here long ago. I first hit bottom in World War I." Western Civilization cannot be represented by a single person, of course, but a single explanation for the catastrophic course it has followed during this bloody century is possible. We the people, because of our ignorance of the disease, have again and again entrusted power to people we did not know were sickies.

And let us not mock them now, any more than we would mock someone with syphilis or smallpox or leprosy or yaws or typhoid fever or any of the other diseases to which the flesh is heir. All we have to do is separate them from the levers of power, I think.

And then what? Western Civilization's long, hard trip back to sobriety might begin.

A word about appeasement, something World War II, supposedly, taught us not to practice: I say to you that the world has been ruined by appeasement. Appeasement of whom? Of the Communists? Of the neo-Nazis? No! Appeasement of the compulsive war-preparers. I can scarcely name a nation that has not lost most of its freedom and wealth in attempts to appease its own addicts to preparations for war.

And there is no appeasing an addict for very long.

"I swear, man, just lay enough bread on me for twenty multiple re-entry vehicles and a fleet of B-1 bombers, and I'11 never bother you again."

Most addictions start innocently enough in childhood, under agreeable, reputable auspices-a sip of champagne at a wedding, a game af poker for matchsticks on a rainy afternoon. Compulsive war-preparers may have been encouraged as infants to clap their hands with glee at a campfire or a Fourth of July parade.

Not every child gets hooked. Not every child so tempted grows up to be a drunk or a gambler or a babbler about knocking down the incoming missiles of the Evil Empire with laser beams. When I identify the war-preparers as addicts, I am not calling for the exclusion of children from all martial celebrations. I doubt that more than one child In a hundred, having seen fireworks, for example, will become an adult who wants us to stop squandering our substance on education and health and social justice and the arts and food and shelter and clothing for the needy, and so on--who wants us to blow it all on ammunition instead.

And please understand that the addiction I have identified is to preparations for war. I repeat: to preparations for war, addiction to the thrills of de-mothballing battleships and inventing weapons systems against which there cannot possibly be a defense, supposedly, and urging the citizenry to hate this part of humanity or that one, and knocking over little governments that might aid and abet an enemy someday, and so on. I am not talking about an addiction to war itself, which is a very different matter. A compulsive preparer for war wants to go to big-time war no more than an alcoholic stockbroker wants to pass out with his head in a toilet In the Port Authority bus terminal.

Should addicts of any sort hold high office In this or any other country? Absolutely not, for their first priority will always be to satisfy their addiction, no matter how terrible the consequences may be--even to themselves.

Suppose we had an alcoholic President who still had not hit bottom and whose chief companions were drunks like himself. And suppose it were a fact, made absolutely clear to him, that if he took just one more drink, the whole planet would blow up.

So he has all the liquor thrown out of the White House, including his Aqua-Velva shaving lotion. So late at night he is terribly restless, crazy for a drink but proud of not drinking. So he opens the White House refrigerator, looking for a Tab or a Diet Pepsi, he tells himself. And there, half-hidden by a family-size jar of French's mustard, is an unopened can of Coors beer.

What do you think he'll do?

Infinite Pursuit

Beware of traps and illusions, open your eyes to the real world, where phonies fade away to the shadows that they truly are. Frauds and phonies are everywhere, especially in high places, and especially when we are young because then we are more impressionable and can be all the more easily manipulated. Trust no one who does not love you, and reach out with love in return. All these actions are more important than having a successful career or getting good grades or making lots of money. The world is, really, almost completely upside down from what the authorities tell us. Thenk for yourself and take nothing on faith, even when it seems absolutely dependable and true. And don't be afraid to fail, even at this.

Wild Child Full of Grace

Happiness should NOT be our primary goal in life--we were not born to be just happy. We were born to LIVE and living encompasses the entire range of human emotions: pleasure, pain, love, hate, bravado, fear, restlessness & peace, JOY & sorrow. We will experience and ARE all of these emotions. We should bathe/bask/simmer/stew/ in the experience of each. Experience Life!

Happy Valentines Day, revisited

The sky is a deep, inviting blue
But if it was green would it be wrong?
My skin is white
If it was black would I look wrong?
I speak your tongue
If I did not, would I speak wrong?
I pray your prayers
If they were others, would I pray wrong?
God made the Earth with such diversity.
We should worship the differences
Embrace what is not the same.

Humanity has a built-in flaw
That guarantees its destruction.
INTOLERENCE.
I hate your color
I hate your language
I hate your lifestyle
I hate your religion
I hate where you live
I hate your eyes
I hate you 'cause you're not like me.

Happy Valentines Day

Where are you? People who don't judge and are not overburdened with insecurities. Who don't pick at every imperfection they believe they see in you. Who understand everyone is DIFFERENT. You should not judge me using yourself as the template, just as you should not judge yourself by what I appear to be.
Where are you? People I can feel comfortable with. Who won't stab me in the back. Who won't leave me for dead. Who won't give up on me. Who know that I accept them for what they are. Who are one with the world. Who see the differences all around them but accept difference as the wonder of the world's diversity instead of some aberrant imperfection.
Where are you?