The Web Journal of Stephen Kent Comer

SPRING !

2010-03-10T08:59:00.000-08:00

Spring is about to spring!

The beginning of Daylight Savings Time is this Sunday,
Mar. 14th. An extra hour of sunlight when you get home.
(Condolences to those who have to get up an hour early.)

The Equinox is Mar. 20th. After this the days start get-
ting longer than the nights.

A PHILOSOPHER

2010-03-10T08:50:00.000-08:00

A philosopher is one who asks the questions that no one
can answer.

The Criteria of Emotional Maturity

2010-03-06T09:57:00.000-08:00

Please don't use this list as an occasion for self-criticism.

It's an ideal whose truths are more relative than absolute.

But if you are on the path of psychological growth, this is
a good list to think on now and again.

The word 'maturity' in this case does not relate to Crit-
ical Parent 'shoulds', but to the process of 'ripening', i.e.
becoming more of what one fundamentally is.

THE CRITERIA OF EMOTIONAL MATURITY

* The ability to deal constructively with reality

* The capacity to adapt to change

* A relative freedom from symptoms that are produced
by tensions and anxieties

* The capacity to find more satisfaction in giving than
receiving

* The capacity to relate to other people in a consistent
manner with mutual satisfaction and helpfulness

* The capacity to sublimate, to direct one's instinctive
hostile energy into creative and constructive outlets

* The capacity to love

--William C. Menninger, MD 1899-1966

William Menninger, along with his brother Karl,
founded the internationally known and respected
Menninger (psychiatric) Clinic of Topeka, Kansas.
In their time they had a great influence on psychia-
try and the treatment of mentally ill people.

MILLIONAIRE GIVES AWAY FORTUNE

2010-02-22T10:29:00.000-08:00

Will wonders never cease? An Austrian millionaire is
giving away his fortune because it's not making him
feel happy or fulfilled. Karl Rabeder will soon be mov-
ing out of his luxury home for a simple hut in the moun-
tains. His proceeds will go to a number of non-profit
organizations he started in Central and Latin America.

He says: "More and more I heard the words 'Stop what
you are doing now...and start your real life.' I had the
feeling I was working as a slave for things that i did not
wish for or need."

Since selling all his belongings, he says he feels "free".
He felt guilty about his wealth while on a luxury trip
that seemed nothing but phony to him.

" [I]n all that time we felt that we hadn't met a single
real person--that we were all just actors."

All the money will go into microcredit charity, which
loan small sums of money and strategies to poor people
who want to start up a business.

POETRY

2009-11-18T10:18:00.000-08:00

Poetry has been an important ingredient in my life and i write it
as well as read it. There aren't many rhymesters around these
days, maybe because it's hard to rhyme and sound natural at the
same time. On the other hand, have you tried memorizing some
non-rhyming poetry? It just doesn't come as easily. Perhaps
the days of memorizing poetry are over.

Here is one of my favorite poems, short and eloquent:

AH! SUN-FLOWER
William Blake

Ah, Sun-flower! weary of time,
Who countest the steps of the Sun;
Seeking after that sweet golden clime
Where the traveller's journey is done;

Where the youth pined away with desire,
And the pale Virgin shrouded in snow,
Arise from their graves, and aspire
Where my Sun-flower wishes to go.

Isn't that beautiful? Uncomplex in rhyme or meter yet still
full of mystery, with archetypal images abounding.

LITTLE KNOWN FACTS ABOUT WELL KNOWN PEOPLE

2009-11-04T10:01:00.000-08:00

Donald Rumsfeld......Liberal?

Who'd a thunk it? Donald Rumsfeld was elected to Congress in
1962 at age 30 and immediately became a reformer. He fought
for civil rights legislation and sponsored the Freedom of Infor-
mation Act. He was so anti-Vietnam that Henry Kissinger used
to sarcastically flash him the peace sign. While he was chief of
the Pentagon he refused to meet with defense-industry exec-
utives on ethical grounds. His biographer says he was 'deeply
moral'.
--From a book review of Bradley Graham's biography of
Rumsfeld called By His Own Rules.

So what happened? How did a hero become such a villain? We
would prefer our heroes to be pure and our villains to be, well,
villainish, without any mitigating factors. But human beings con-
tinue to be human beings is spite of our wishes, and within every
human psyche is the potentiality for everything a human being
can do, the worst evil as well as the greatest good. Not so? Wit-
ness our present example. It would be fascinating to know about
the moment(s) Rumsfeld wandered from one side of the line to
the other.

Hope and Reason

2009-10-15T14:17:00.003-07:00

So, a Black man is president, the Democrats have a maj-
ority in both the House and the Senate, and many pro-
gressive groups are redoubling their efforts to direct
attention to US American injustices. Full speed ahead
then? Unfortunately, no. The violently ignorant are
still being both violent and ignorant, as they have been
for the last three decades. The Culture Wars are not
over yet.

How much clearer could it be that the (for-profit) insur-
ance companies are delighted that so many of the
ignorati are backing them rather than a liberalizing gov-
ernment seeking to reduce these same companies' prices
for the benefit of all?

When i was young, political analysts used to say that
people voted their pocketbooks. No longer, and not for
a very long time---at least for the 51 or 52 percent of the
electorate who vote conservative. For the last three dec-
ades all a guileful politician has had to do to gain rabid
adherents is to praise Jesus and salute the flag. And now
they no longer need do even that much. Today all they
have to do is say "big government" and mobs with torch-
es and pitchforks are ready to do their bidding.

There is no reason involved here at all, only the torren-
tial hew and cry of the logically challenged (and the
terribly frightened).

Back in the '70s a woman wrote a book on how to be sub-
missive to your husband (The Sensuous Woman?) It was
a nation-wide best seller! Scary, but it turned out to be
the beginning of the end, thank heavens. Nowadays
young women don't have to call themselves feminists;
rights are taken for granted (altho of course the battle
isn't over yet).

Hopefully the same will prove true of present-day con-
servativism. Even tho that philosophy has proven itself
to be morally bankrupt, people still cling to it as to a
sinking ship. Perhaps it's their last hurrah; i certainly
hope so. Their mean-spiritedness has dragged our
country down in ways that we may never fully recover
from.

Hope and Reason

2009-10-15T14:17:00.002-07:00

Hope and Reason

2009-10-15T14:17:00.001-07:00

Hope and Reason

2009-10-15T14:17:00.000-07:00

DOUBLE RAINBOW

2009-08-26T07:30:00.000-07:00

I had the great good fortune the other day to see not only
a rainbow but a double rainbow, rare in this part of the
country altho common enough out West. As usual the
second (top) rainbow was paler than the first (bottom)
but almost all of it was showing save for a bit on the left-
hand side.

Rainbows are archetypal, i.e. it is easy to see them as
being charged with supernatural power. In Christian
mythology, the rainbow is God's sign that he will never
flood the Earth again.

Of course, 'archetypal' can mean different things to dif-
ferent people. As i stood at the door of the natural food
store i was working at, gazing at a rainbow over Troy
and wishing i could be watching it in nature, a man
with a cigar noticed me and said that he saw it while
driving past Troy so he drove into town and immediate-
ly placed a bet. He didn't say whether he won or not.

A rainbow is also an example of an argument about the
nature of reality. Consider:

A rainbow consists of three things: moisture in the sky,
sunlight, and someone to see it. Arguably, if there is
no one to see the rainbow, it remains merely the inter-
play between sun and moisture. In other words, if
there is no one to see the rainbow, it doesn't exist.

Sound crazy? Consider that in modern quantum (sub-
atomic) physics a quantum 'packet' is neither energy
nor matter until it is observed. Then when it is ob-
served--or more properly, measured--it can be either
energy or matter. What this says, according to my
limited understanding of the subject, is that nothing
is real until it is observed.

This has tremendous consequences in that theoretic-
ally the universe does not exist until it is 'seen' by
someone or something. Does that mean that the
world as we know it doesn't 'really' exist? I don't
know because the rules of the everyday world seem
to be different from the subatomic world and thus
i feel like Alice in Wonderland. On the other hand,
when i put my hand on my desk it feels securely
solid.

And whatever they might ultimately be or not be,
i still love and cherish rainbows.

IT'S WILD, ITS PRICKLY, ITS LETTUCE

2009-08-14T11:37:00.000-07:00

It's wild prickly lettuce, but not a lettuce like you'd buy
in the supermarket; it's a weed (=an unwanted plant)
that can be found thruout most of the US. It wouldn't
be particularly noticeable except that it is taller than
most of the plants around it. And in this rainy Summer
it looks like the Beanstalk of 'Jack and the _'

My plant book says that it can grow up to 10 feet tall
and in my yard there are three of them at least that
tall. 10 feet---that's as tall as a one-storey building.
Apparently they are edible as young leaves; they're
of the same genus as commercial lettuce (lactuca).

But i'm not going to eat mine; i'm going to have the
tallest one bronzed, so i can remember how power-
ful Mother Nature is---just add water.

PLATO WAS QUITE A GUY

2009-08-09T14:42:00.000-07:00

Plato was quite a guy. Probably the single most impor-
tant philosopher in Western history, he has been given
a status above all other philosophers. It was said of him
by a 20th century philosopher (Whitehead?) that all of
Western philosophy is merely a series of footnotes to
Plato.

Still, Plato had some strange and even scarey ideas. (or
was he only quoting Socrates?) For instance, he thought
the ideal form of government was by oligarchy---the rule
of a few, backed by an army, who would hold lifetime off-
ices. Shades of fascism!

He also thought that every object in the world was an ex-
pressed instance of an ideal that existed outside the
realm of space and time. Thus, any particular horse was
merely the reflection of an ideal Horse that was not di-
rectly available to the viewer. Plato was an idealist; i.e.
he thought that ideas were more real than the ordinary
manifestation of everyday physical objects.

Another belief of his was that knowledge was not some-
thing we gain, but rather something we remember---
from a pre-vious lifetime. This is an idea that is central
to Eastern thought but is scarcely found in the West, at
least among philosophers.

But Plato had another idea that astounds me because
however marginal it might be to the Western world, it
is a mainstay of the East. It is also to me one of the few
images that reflect something of what the world is really
about. This is Plato's Cave Analogy:

A man is in a cave, chained so that he can only see the
back of the cave, not the entrance. Between the man and
the entrance of the cave is a fire that throws the man's
shadow on to the back of the cave. Thus the man can
never see the reality of the world beyond the entrance,
only a distorted view of reality that reflects the shadowy
world that he can see directly.

This is an extremely radical idea. It says that the ways
we view the world are not ultimately real but only im-
perfect manifestations of reality. What? Our families,
our friends, our possessions, our jobs---these are mere-
ly distortions?

Well, yes and no. (This is me talking now.) Our every-
day realities are real in a sense but also not real in
another, deeper sense. We are all like the man in the
cave, seeing reflections when we could be experiencing
reality directly by breaking our chains and looking be-
yond the fire to the entrance of the cave, where the real
reality lies.

What if we believed this preposterous idea---what then?
Then we could take steps to break the chain of unreality
and view ourselves and our world in a simple, direct
manner.

And how do we do this? Meditation is the only way
i know of, altho there might be other ways i don't
know about. But the impetus to meditate comes
from a belief in the truth of the cave analogy, which
is not a matter of faith but a gut level of understand-
ing in which the cave analogy seems to make sense.

GLOBAL INVADERS

2009-08-04T08:57:00.000-07:00

The Asian longhorned beetle is a recent invader
centering in New York City and surrounding area.
Originating in China, the ALB was first spotted in
the city in 1996 and is believed to have arrived in
the 1980s in wood-packing material. Since that
time it has spread to 16 states from California to
Massachusetts, Ontario and British Columbia in
Canada, and Britain, Austria, and Germany in
Europe. It weakens and destroys trees by boring
holes in the bark to lay eggs which become adults
and in turn bore more holes.

This course of events is unexceptional. One web
site lists over 300 invasive species, both plant and
animal, thruout the globe, and there may well be
more, perhaps many more. Our world is being
transformed and there seems to be no way to stop
the process.

Nor is this global event unique. There have been
five previous major disturbances of the worldwide
biome in the history of our planet, and more lesser
ones. One metaphorical explanation for this is that
our Mother Gaia is a gardener and sometimes gard-
eners pull up their gardens and start all over again.
This explanation may or may not be a source of con-
solation; for those who love our Mother's creation,
the loss is painful.

But this process, universal transformation of the
Earth in multiple ways, is the major characteristic
of our times.

CONSULT THE EXPERTS?

2009-07-28T08:48:00.000-07:00

The 'Dr. Fox Effect' is the name of a series of experiments
that have demonstrated that so-called 'experts' are often
little more correct than random guesses. It made no dif-
ference whether the expert was highly educated, had ac-
cess to hidden information, or had many years of experi-
ence. The only consistent predictor of accuracy was
fame, and it was an inverse relationship, i.e. famous pre-
dictors were less accurate than unknown ones.

'Dr. Fox' was a made-up name for an actor who presented
professionals with what was essentially a meaningless
lecture. After the lecture most of the audience declared
that they were impressed with the 'doctor', showing how
much expectation has to do with believeability.

Those experts that were the worst at predictions tended
to be strongly opinionated but highly outspoken. Those
who were more cautious and prone to self-doubt were far
more likely to get matters right.

Other experiments point in the same direction: Psych-
ologists diagnosing clients did no better than their sec-
retaries; maze rats consistently outperformed groups of
Yale undergraduates at understanding the ways of maze
optimality.

What do these insights mean to those who comprehend
this information? --Perhaps taking 'experts' opinions
with a large grain of salt. But if we can't rely on experts,
how will we know what is true? This is an attitude that
was formerly known as 'existential'; human beings are
suspended over a void of the unknown and uncertain.
That is our lot. What will our future be?

--Taken from an editorial by Nicholas Kristof, col-
umnist of the NY Times. 3-26-09

OUTSIDE THE BOX

2009-07-28T08:38:00.000-07:00

Think outside the box, as is said these days. Sounds good,
but what happens when there is no box?

WHAT'S TO BECOME OF WARD CHURCHILL?

2009-07-24T14:33:00.000-07:00

I see Ward Churchill is in the news again, still fighting
against his dismissal from the University of Colorado.
Churchill said infamously that the people killed in the
World Trade Center were "little Eichmanns", which
prompted the University to investigate his scholarship
and find it wanting. He was fired on grounds of plag-
iarism and falsification of material, which he is pro-
testing.

Churchill, whose academic specialty is Native Amer-
ican history, is popular with Indian activists because
he can be depended upon to say radical things, of
which "little Eichmanns" is the most egregious. And
he makes some good points; however, there is another
factor to his rhetoric that makes him suspect, at least
to my mind.

Exposing the truth is one thing but there is a pervasive
and chronic bitterness and even ugliness to his state-
ments which makes it seem that he has a hidden agen-
da. I'm not sure what that might be and chances are
that Churchill himself is not aware of it, but i'd imagine
it has to do with his parents telling him he couldn't do
things when he was a little boy. Speaking the truth
doesn't require cynicism; in fact it undercuts it. One
wonders, what makes him talk that way?

He also has claimed Indian blood, which he has been
unable to document. Poor Ward Churchill, he went
one step too far and now he's paying for it. Perhaps
now he'll change his ways?

PEACE PILGRIM? WHAT IS A PEACE PILGRIM?

2009-07-08T09:35:00.000-07:00

Actually, i don't know who Peace Pilgrim was in 'real'
life, since she started to call herself by that identifier
in 1952. I never met her but i've heard abt her; in fact
i have a book in which her thoughts have been tran-
scribed by friends of hers, and by means of that know-
ledge i have developed a tremendous amount of respect
for her.

Peace Pilgrim was what one might call a 'spiritual gen-
ius', along the lines of Gandhi, Ramakrishna, and St.
Francis. It seems that early in life she had an experi-
ence that could be called 'cosmic consciousness', the
direct experience of the Unity of all things. After that
she abandoned her former life and took to the road,
wandering without income, home, or worldly goals.

Why did she do such a crazy thing? Because she wanted
to share her message about peace with the world. Now
this kind of matter would be perfectly understood in say,
India, where spiritual seekers are an integral part of the
social fabric, but in the US it would be considered, well,
crazy. But she knew what she was doing.

She walked until she was given shelter, fasted until she
was given food, and had no organization to back her. Nor
did she accept money on her pilgrimages. Her early pow-
erful experience(s) made her absolutely fearless. On the
back of her simple tunic were the words "25,000 miles
for peace". She stopped counting after that. In her time
she influenced many, many people and was welcomed
wherever she went, altho she made no plans and lived as
far as possible anonymously. In 1981 she was struck by a
car while walking down the road and died instantly.

This entry is no mere praise of her life and being, but just
a little bit more, because i want to talk about my own re-
lationship with Peace Pilgrim. Many years ago i was driv-
ing down the road at a fast pace when i happened to pass
by a pedestrian who going in the same direction i was. I
don't know if i was speeding or not but i was going way
too fast for the situation and as i passed the woman by i
noticed how differently she looked. She was wearing a
blue tunic and blue pants and she turned a little in my
direction as i sped past her. Her hair was gray.

I quickly forgot about her altho i must have noticed
something special in her regard because when i heard
about Peace Pilgrim many years later, her image came
instantly to mind. Did i pass by Peace Pilgrim on that
occasion? I swear i did, even if it seems unlikely. (And
it does.)

In Hinduism, and perhaps other disciplines, separation
by time or space makes no difference in the god-seeking
world. A man was asked who his wisdom teacher was and
without hesitating he replied, "Shankara". That would
seem to present a problem, since the great teacher Shan-
kara lived many hundreds of years ago; nevertheless it
was the man's strong belief that he had a relationship
with the holy man, regardless of temporality.

Then do i have a relationship with Peace Pilgrim in spite
of the fact that i never formally interacted with her? The
intellect says probably not, while the heart and intuition
say an unequivocal yes. I don't think that this has any-
thing to do with me personally, but says much about the
charisma of Peace Pilgrim, whose energy has crossed
time and space to make an indelible impression on me,
and others. And i still believe i 'met' her, regardless of
mundane probabilities. Such was her being.

Summer Solstice + 1

2009-06-22T17:40:00.000-07:00

Happy Summer Solstice.....plus one. I forgot to record
it yesterday. Longest day of the year and cause for cele-
bration among a number of cultures, past and present.
The Solstices and the Equinoxes are 'natural' holidays,
created as they are by planet cycles that can be recog-
nized and observed. All other mythologies are scenar-
ios, i.e. narratives with characters, god and human. But
the procession of the heavens needs no story or actors.
It's enough that celestial bodies pirouette in the void.

PROJECTIONS

2009-06-12T07:55:00.000-07:00

People sometimes project onto me attributes that i either
don't have or don't have in the abundance they think.
Then later when they find out that i'm just like everyone
else they're angry with me, as if i'd let them down. But
i'm not trying to manifest myself as anything other than
myself & if someone is disappointed in me it's because
i didn't live up to his/her expectations.

But it would be mentally unhealthy to try to live up to
the expectations of others. I'm not perfect and i don't
intend to be. I tried being perfect when i was a young
man and it was far too difficult. It took all my energy
and made me weak, unable to respond to anybody in
an engaging, personal, and spontaneous way. I have
no desire to go thru that again.

So i ask people not to project their own ideals onto me,
in other words, not to overvalue me, because later they
are likely to undervalue me. Ideals have their place but
there is always the reality principle to deal with. And
the reality here is that i'm just plain me, with all the vir-
tues and faults that any human being is capable of. And
i wouldn't have it any other way.

NATURE OBSERVATIONS

2009-06-09T08:43:00.000-07:00

The black locusts are flowering now, one of the most
fragrant blossoms around. I don't think they're native
to our area but they were widely planted by plantation
owners in the 18th and 19th centuries. That fact leaves
us flower sniffers with a problem, namely that these
trees are all mature & so the blossoms are largely above
the height of human reach. Frustrating. Perhaps a lad-
der should become part of the toolkit of the dedicated
blossom inhaler.

Yesterday it was raining cotton around here. Not the
kind that is planted but the seeds of the cottonwood
tree. I have a special affinity with the cottonwood be-
cause i grew up with two of them in our yard and be-
cause they are widely distributed thruout the semi-
desert West. Their roots grow deeply in the ground
in search of water and sometimes they'll be the only
tree around. It's also the state tree of Kansas, the
place i'm from.

But perhaps the most notable aspect of the cottonwood
(along with aspens) is the sound they make in the wind.
Their leaves are positioned in a different way from most
trees, configured so they beat gently against each other.
Listen to that sound the next time you encounter a cot-
ton wood on a breezy day.

FAITH AND SCIENCE

2009-06-03T08:34:00.000-07:00

A recent poll finds that 44% of US Americans believe that God
created human beings within the last 10,000 years. (? Usually
fundamentalists say our 'birth date' is 4004 BC, which would
make our race 6,013 years old.)

This is kind of scarey except that similar polls have been finding
the same thing for the last 30 years or so. What are we to make
of this?

There is no rational reason to believe that science and faith are
incompatible. The Puritans, noted for being, well, puritanical,
were nevertheless not rejecting of science. They thought that the
physical world mirrored God's majesty and that the more they
discovered of the world, the more they could understand God's
will.

How simple fundamentalist faith could be if the believer would
just accept that the world is a manifestation of God. But we can
bet that that's not about to happen.

It reminds me of the beginnings of the 'feminist era', during which
a best-selling book (don't remember the title) was about the 'nat-
ural' submission of women to men. That was scarey too but it
didn't prevent a new era of feminism from manifesting itself, which
leads us to interpret the book's popularity as a last hurrah of the
old guard rather than a portent of the future.

Similarly, polls rejecting the truth of science may be a last, desper-
ate stand to somehow prevent change from taking place in the
world. I think this is the key to the issue: not that people are
resisting science per se (although i'm sure they think so), but that
they are afraid of change itself. This is a prominent feature of con-
servatism: such people, sometimes called authoritarian personal-
ities, want to be told what to do and also highly prize the stability
of the status quo which allows them to refrain from having to
challenge their own beliefs.

But this is not how our world is. To the contrary, we are going thru
a period of change unparalleled in human history, in fact the
greatest change to the planet biome since 65 million years ago,
when the dinosaurs became extinct. Nothing is going to stop this
change--altho we hope that we can direct it into desirable channels.
Fortunately our children and grandchildren seem to be wiser than
we, even as we are wiser than our parents and grandparents. Per-
haps the hope of a better world is what real faith is in our times.

TRIFECTA

2009-05-27T08:57:00.000-07:00

I hit the trifecta recently. No, not at the racetrack; i
saw three examples of wildlife near my home. First i
stepped out of the house and saw in the leaf litter a
garter snake with a frog in its mouth. A little bit later
i saw an upward-spiraling broadwing hawk not very
far above me. (We call it 'ours' since it hangs around
our property.)

Soon after that my dogs and i saw a beaver standing
beside a wetland. Naturally we went over to have a
look and naturally the beaver took to the water as soon
as it spied us. But instead of swimming off to the far
side of the swamp it merely turned around in the water
and calmly looked at us. I could have touched it with
a stick, it was that close.

I stood still and watched it til it turned around and
leisurely swam off. The channel it was in was so shallow
that it had to crawl over a high spot that put most of its
body above the water. I marveled at its composure. The
last beaver i saw did a somersault in the water when it
saw me & swam off quickly. (Their eyesight isn't that
good.)

So, three sightings of special animals in about a half
hour. That's my trifecta.

Want to experience something similar? The more time
one spends outdoors in nature, the more likely one is to
have such encounters, while walking slowly and not
making too much noise.

"Malefactors of Great Wealth"

2009-05-19T11:46:00.000-07:00

"There is not in the world a more ignoble character
than the mere money-getting American, insensible
to every duty, regardless of every principle, bent only
on amassing a fortune, and putting his fortune only to
the basest uses....to speculate in stocks....careless of
the working men, whom they oppress, and of the State,
whose existence they imperil."

--Theodore Roosevelt, who also coined the phrase,
"malefactors of great wealth"

'CIVILIZATION'

2009-05-15T08:48:00.000-07:00

I can barely stand to write the word 'civilization' with-
out using quotation marks, which means to me the
equivalent of: "Civilization? Not really." Shouldn't
civilizations be civil? Then why are they so noted for
their abominable treatment of subaltern peoples?
(sub=under, altern=alternative, different, and ulti-
mately, inferior.)

It is virtually a given that societies of power will press
their will against weaker societies. The US is no excep-
tion. Civilization is supposed to mean 'advanced' in
science, technology, and the arts, but what good are
they in the face of the urge to dominate others, often
to their great suffering? The pictorial equivalent is of
a person wearing fine clothes while doing evil. What
do the clothes matter in the face of the fundamentals
of being truly human? Was Nazi Germany civilized?

In light of the woeful fact that human societies (and
individuals) are all too capable of the demonic, i pro-
pose a single standard for 'civilization' that transcends
all others. Compassion is the term for the society or
individual who is not taken over by its/her/his will for
power. The Hindus have a word for it: ahimsa, which
means 'harmlessness'. If that is the standard, then
Clara Barton and Mohandas Gandhi are the truly civil-
ized, along w the Dalai Lama in our own time. Most
politicians (but surely not all) would be uncivilized
in this regard.

We are at a crossroads of 'civilization' in this time. We
are like a ten-year-old with a chemistry set: old enough
to create serious trouble but not old enough to be res-
ponsible about it. We need to grow now in a way that
takes responsibility for the well-being of all.

But how does one communicate this essential idea to
those who are immune to it? The crude will laugh and
jeer; they know only their own appetites in a setting
that encourages those appetites. What they will or will
not do will have great effect in our present world. How
does one explain color to the blind?

Compassion then, including compassion for oneself,
is the hope of the world. Fortunately, there are many
today who understand this.

I LIKE LIT

2009-05-11T08:53:00.000-07:00

I was fortunate to grow up in a family that read and
that prized knowledge for its own sake. Every Satur-
day our parents would take my brother and me to the
local library to check out books. When i was a teen-
ager i would read up to maybe eight books at a time.

How does one do that? I would read one book until
i got tired of it and then would go on to the next book
and so on until i was tired of reading. I had a crying
need to experience the world beyond the boundaries
of the tiny little town i grew up in. (Those were the
days when there were only two--maybe three--TV
stations and the content was pretty mediocre.)

I haven't been able to read much since i went to grad-
uate school but i'm at a point now where i can start
the lush (book) life again. I still read a number of
books at one time; it would be no exaggeration to say
that there fifty books around my bed. I'm not read-
ing them all but they are all books i'm looking for-
ward to reading. I'm waiting for the day when you
can get a chip implant and download the book
straight to the brain.

Here is the first paragraph of a book i just finished
by the Swedish author Par Lagerkvist, winner of the
1951 Nobel Prize for this book, The Dwarf. Not sure
when it takes place but in the time of princes, castles,
and royal courts.

"I am twenty-six inches tall, shapely and well
proportioned, my head perhaps a trifle too large. My
hair is not black like the others', but reddish, very
stiff and thick, drawn back from the temples and the
broad but not especially lofty brow. My face is beard-
less, but otherwise just like that of other men. My eye-
brows meet. My bodily strength is considerable, par-
ticularly if I am annoyed. When the wrestling match
was arranged between Jehoshaphat and myself I
forced him onto his back after twenty minutes and
strangled him. Since then I have been the only dwarf
at this court."

SPRING HAS SPRUNG

2009-05-05T10:25:00.000-07:00

"Spring has sprung, Fall has fell, Winter's gone, all is
well."

So goes an old country & western song that comes to
mind as i contemplate the season. Spring is the excit-
ing season because of all the changes that go on, day
by day, to make our environs green & alive again. It's
a kind of resurrection from the dead & i thankfully
greet all the old friends as they arise and flower.

No one ever asked me what the 'official' sign of Spring
should be but if they did i'd choose the flowering of
the shad tree, also known as shadbush and service-
berry. Inconspicuous the rest of the year, the shad
tree is the first to flower in the woods in Spring, at
least in my part of the northeast. Its white flowers
and slender trunk give it a grace unlike anything
else in the forest.

But the shad tree has another dimension to it that is
not easily seen, which caused it to stand out for the
Original People (the Indians) prior to the European
Invasion of North America. And it is that the shad
tree flowered at the same time as the shad fish began
to swim up the rivers to spawn. For Indian peoples
(in my area the Mohican and the Munsee Delaware),
who sometimes suffered from starvation at the end
of Winter, the flowering shad tree must have had a
wonderful effect, for it meant that an abundance of
food was at hand once again. Although there is no
record for it, we can imagine how joyfully they cele-
brated.

And that is why i choose the flowering of the shad
tree as the recognized symbol of Spring in the north-
east. Not only is it beautiful but it heralds a new and
freshly-made world, full of rewarding possibilities.
Go out now and look for this special wonder of Nature;
it's everywhere.

Bertrand Russell / Bear Country

2009-04-28T08:38:00.000-07:00

"The infliction of cruelty with a good conscience is a delight
to moralists--that is why they invented hell", ---Bertrand Russell

THIS IS BEAR COUNTRY

I live on the Rensselaer Plateau, the biggest unknown
natural area in the Capital District area of NY State. This
is Bear Country, Mister, so watch your bird feeders;
bears lov'em. We just sustained a raid from two of our
bruins; at least from the footprints there seemed to be
two.

And, if you'll pardon my frankness, they had two differ-
ent kinds of scat (animal poop). The one was all seeds:
corn, sunflower, and assorted others. The other was all
black rounded formations. It seems they must have been
feeding separately and decided to tackle our feeders to-
gether, perhaps as a choice dessert?

Bears are one of the glories of the Rensselaer Plateau.
Bears around the world have been thought of as sacred
animals and they are so with me. I have a bear skull on
my altar, probably a two-year-old just separated from its
momma who didn't make it, poor thing.

As long as there are bears running around free, this area
can still be called wild. That's why i love being here.

WIDER DRUG WAR THREATENS COLOMBIA INDIANS

2009-04-27T18:31:00.000-07:00

In the deep rainforests of western Colombia, S.America,
criminal armies are terrorizing the Embera Indians and
other Native groups over control of the cocaine trade.
The Embera are just bystanders in the violent clashes
of these illegal paramilitary fighters but at least two
armies are involving them via beatings, rapes, abduc-
tions, and murder.

Currently Colombia has about three million internal
refugees, the majority of them Indian peoples lacking
clean water and sufficient nourishment. The Colom-
bian government has sent some soldiers to the area
but evidently not enough to control the situation. The
Embera people fear that this emergency will last for
months or years.

Arhuacos, Awa, and Nasa peoples have also been drawn
in by the fighting. In fact, at least 27 Indigenous groups
are currently in danger of being eliminated.

NY Times, 4 -22 - 09

THE SECRET OF LIFE

2009-04-21T08:56:00.000-07:00

Some decades ago, the psychoanalyst and philosopher Carl
Jung opined that the spiritual ways of the East were so eso-
teric that Westerners would never be able to understand
them. These secret scriptures were to be hidden away so
they wouldn't be defiled by the profane. Funny thing
about that : these days the secrets are out and in plain view;
in fact they've even been on the best-seller lists. I'm refer-
ing to a book called PRACTICING THE POWER OF NOW,
by Eckhart Tolle (New World Library, Novata CA, 1999),
preceded by his book THE POWER OF NOW, which i hav-
en't read. (But the dust jacket on PRACTICING says that
it consists of excerpts from THE POWER.)

I don't know what Tolle's background is, but what he says
i say also. It's pretty straightforward: 'Be Here Now' is a
neoVedantist (Hindu) way to put it, AKA 'Mindfulness' in
Buddhism and (perhaps) 'The Still Point' in meditative
Christianity. But this practice does not belong to any par-
ticular religion, faith, or ethnicity and is neither theology,
nor ideology, nor creed. It is nothing more than simple
consciousness---although sometimes understanding what
consciousness really means is not so simple.

I usually use the word 'consciousness' in two different
senses. In the first sense i mean 'understanding' or 'aware-
ness', as in "She is conscious of the need to conserve re-
sources". (In this case the term 'conscious' will generally
be followed by the words 'of' or 'that'.) What i mean in the
second sense of the word will take a little more explana-
tion.

'Conscious' in its simplest and most basic form means 'a-
wake'. One is either conscious or unconscious. But there
is a second meaning to the word 'awake' which is a bit more
subtle--or radical, if one finds the concept too demanding
or uncongenial. The concept here is that of 'waking sleep',
a state of mind that differs significantly from ordinary sleep.

WAKING SLEEP IS IN FACT A DESCRIPTION OF HOW
WE SPEND MOST OF OUR PRESUMABLY AWAKE TIME.

Did you ever wonder what the secret of life is? Well, this
can be it, at least for our day. What has become Homo sap-
iens has sometimes evolved in quantum leaps: about 2 1/2
million years ago our ancestors invented stone tools'; hun-
dreds of thousands of years ago they learned to control fire;
less than 30,000 years ago, they started to create beautiful
works of art; 9,000 years ago they learned to control crops;
5,000 years ago they began building towns and cities.

Today our fundamental task can be to learn to become
permanently awake. Why? Because the awake will be
much better able to see and understand what needs to be
done.

Siddhartha Gautama Buddha, the historical Buddha, had
such an aura about him that he was asked, "Are you a god?"
"No", he replied. "Are you a holy man?" "No." "Well, what
are you then?" "I am awake."

EATING THE MENU

2009-03-26T07:49:00.000-07:00

Many US Americans' lifestyles illustrate what i call 'Eating

the Menu'. Imagine going into a restaurant, sitting down

at a table, and reading a menu of all sorts of mouthwatering

pictures of food. But when you've made your pick, instead

of ordering the food you start EATING THE MENU ITSELF,

especially the pictures of the dishes you are most hungry

for. Mmmm, colorful pictures depicting delectable enticing

meals---and when you're done your stomach feels full, but

somehow you don't feel well-fed.

Why is that? You've done what you're supposed to---gone

to the appropriate place to engage in a normal and funda-

mental activity.....and somehow it doesn't work. But only

you are aware of that. Everyone else is eating the menu

happily; they seem to be enjoying themselves. But deep

within, you are aware of a vague feeling of dissatisfaction.

That feeling of dissatisfaction must indicate that something

is wrong with you, however, because the people around

you don't seem to be having a problem. Everything appears

normal with them and they are going about the business of

going about their business. Only you seem to be disturbed.

So what do you do? If you're like many people you quash

that vague, half-conscious feeling and proceed to go about

your own business. But the feeling doesn't go away, it just

lies in the back of your mind and makes you feel ever

so slightly......hungry.

Many people will insist that nothing is wrong with their

eating habits. Unpleasant realities can be kept at bay in-

definitely by means of the thousands of distractions that

our consumer society provides us, but for some life's

distractions are like eating fast food: the more you eat the

cheesier it gets and the cheesier you feel. But if all you

ever eat is fast food, you probably don't know the differ-

ence.

At the risk of sounding trite, let me compare life to a

banquet. [Qualifier : Only if you have enough to eat and

are not being shot at.] As small as this planet has turned

out to be, it is not just plain fare. To the contrary there

are more wonderful things about it than we could pos-

sibly know or experience in one lifetime. But many of

us are not privy to all the many facets of life simple be-

cause we are not aware of them.

Before we can know, we have to be able to see. Looking

is not seeing; seeing in the sense i'm speaking of in-

volves the ability to focus and concentrate on an object

or idea without judgment or undue mental static. Thus

in order to really see things, one must be able to exper-

ience them directly, beyond the filter of social program-

ming. When we see, we are no longer eating the menu,

we are enjoying our food. (Or not. When we actually

experience what we eat, we might decide that we don't

like it after all, in spite of the fact that everyone else

seems to be enjoying it.)

SPECIES INSANITY: ITS CAUSE AND CURE

2009-03-23T07:44:00.000-07:00

There are any number of reasons why people behave,
individually or collectively, in the destructive ways they
do, including over-population, ethnic competition, eco-
logical degradation, exploitation, lust for power, neuro-
logical disease, world views at odds with reality, and low
self-esteem. However, there are two fundamental issues
i would especially like to point out at this time.

First and most basically, there are multiple aspects of the
human psyche that easily lead to such behavior. To make
use of one explanatory system or point of view (POV)---
Sigmund Freud's---unconscious elements of our minds,
collectively called by Freud the Id, are full of self-serving
and socially uninhibited tendencies that are all too willing
to make themselves manifest. These primal psychological
energies work on 'us', i.e. our conscious sense of who we
are, to behave in ways that are often destructive to our-
selves and others.

Secondly, for US* Americans especially, a combination of
anxiety, a sense of meaninglessness, and a programmed
distractive consumerism work together to make us uncon-
scious of much of what goes on around us, even if an in-
creased consciousness would benefit us all.

As for the cure, that will take much more blood, toil, tears,
sweat, and ink.

*Every citizen in the Western hemisphere is American. Citizens of the
United States of America are US Americans.

FIRST THINGS FIRST: THE END OF EVERYTHING

2009-03-22T13:08:00.000-07:00

I have no hesitation in saying that today we are at the crossroads
of human history simply because previous societies have risen
& fallen but there was always somewhere else to go. Today
we don't have that luxury. The Earth is an artifact of our species
& there are no luxury suites on the Moon.

Today the world is far over-crowded and natural resources have
been dangerously degraded. Ethnic/religious/ideological groups
are warring w each other with increasingly powerful weapons, and
people without sufficient psychological resources are engaging in
horrifiyingly destructive behaviors. And we are all terrified.

To put our troubles into even greater perspective, we are also wit-
nessing one of the major turning points of all Earth history.
So far in the history of the biological Earth, there have been five
major species extinctions. The dinosaurs died out in the last one,
the Cretaceous. We are in the middle of the sixth one today.

Already the fossil record of our time---should anyone be around to
read it--will reveal this. There has been much controversy over
the causes & origins of previous extinctions, but there is no doubt
as to the agent of destruction in our present crisis.

Plainly it is a plague of biological origin, all the more dangerous
for being a complexly-organized species that multiplies with
great rapidity and wantonly destroys other species as a by-product
of its own insatiable appetites. In spite of many attempts to arrest
this epidemic, including episodes in which tens of millions of
individual organisms have been destroyed in a brief amount of
time, the species itself continues to proliferate at an alarming rate
of speed.

Of course the species i am speaking of is Homo sapiens, also known
as US.

MAN THE RIDICULOUS

Instead of Homo sapiens, 'Man the Wise', perhaps we shd be
known as Homo ludicrens, 'Man the Ridiculous' since our col-
lective actions have resulted in worldwide biological degreda-

tion & destruction. We are quickly reaching a point wherein

we will no longer be able to sustain life on Earth as we know

it, yet we are unable to stem the human-made tsunami that is

now looming over us. Presumably we are rational creatures

who can plan & carry out complex transactions that will result

in enrichment & enhancement for all, yet in reality we are un-

able to do so. In fact, given the commonplace that "only a sick

animal fouls its own den", we must consider ourselves to be

sick as a species---sick, as in mentally ill.

MAN THE INSANE

Schizophrenia, the thought disorder that prevents the sufferer

from comprehending the difference between reality & his/her

distorted view of it, is a fundamental form of human illness. A

person suffering from such a disease is liable to engage in be-

havior destructive not only to him/herself, but to others as well,

and at the same time will be helpless to undo the resulting

tragic consequences. Enlarge this concept from the individual

to the species and you can see why such a diagnosis might be

collectively appropriate. This Western mental-illness model

can provide a helpful perspective for understanding such an

irrationally destructive species as our own. In other words i'm

saying

WE'RE CRAZY.

Please understand i am not saying that everyone is literally schiz-

ophrenic, just that many if not most people are so tied into a dis-

torted mind set that they have no idea what a real reality might

be or how destructive their delusions are.

I Said To The Sun, Good Mornin, Sun

2009-03-12T20:29:00.000-07:00

Today is March the 12th, two days past the return to blessed Daylight

Savings Time. Now we have an extra hour of sunlite in the evening,

the days are getting longer, the birds are becoming active once again

as are the red squirrels & gray squirrels (no chipmunks yet). I heard

the whistle of our broadwing hawk the other day & the showy

cardinal is singing its thrilling love song.

It's Spring, Ladies and Gentlemen, the best time of the year by far for

me. I saw my 1st flowers at Bard College the other day: snowdrops,

i believe. Seasonal Affective Disorder begone; here comes the sun. I'd

love to say that i love all seasons equally but the fact is Winter makes

me tired and confused. I feel old in Winter; Spring is refreshing and

revitalizing.

There are two kinds of time: linear and circular. Linear time is what

we experience as history; it only flows one way and sometimes faster

than we want it to, much faster. This is time for the 'civilized'.

Circular time is what our ancestors experienced: Spring to Summer

to Fall to Winter to Spring again over and over, time out of mind.

This kind of time is timeless. People are born, live, have children,

grow old and die of course, but it's the same land that housed their

ancestors, the same seasonal round that comes and goes and comes

and goes.

The Chinese have a saying: Happy the people who have

no history. The Original People had no history; history only came

with the Europeans, who cd not get rid of their own history, so

they traveled to the New World to lose themselves and wound up

lost. But it's possible, still, to regain that sense of time of the ances-

tors, by going outside every day and spending some time checking

out the weather and the season. Weather is our Mother's emotions;

by being affected by the weather we sow a relationship with the

Earth, Gaea. There is nothing deeper than this.