In their no doubt zealous desire to “protect the American people,” our leaders have spent the precious reputation of a country which tries to be better. (Now this is an illusion. I was certainly never taught in school here in USA about the M69 napalm firestorms in 67 of Japan’s wood, straw and paper cities.) How ever faux, the world saw us as somehow trying to be just.

                                   sistersofmercy

Now our Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib and our general hysteria and grotesque hubris have made us distrusted and disgusting. It’s all about means and ends. Your ends can not be nobler than your means were. Amnesia and/or rationalization can blur the memory, but, unlike in Dresden, 67 of Japan's firestormed wooden cities, Abu Ghraib, and Guantanamo, we must fight for means that, if not, forlornly, serene, are at least not vile. ...   more »

"Spirit, mind, heart -- this is the trinity that people seek to comprehend, to tend, to organize. Then their life will be sweet, will be serene, will be complete. .. .. " Why is this not so?" Because of what no one can bear to attend to. Because of what seems �beneath us� as civilized persons. .. .. "Viscera. We ignore or disdain viscera to our implacable, even ferocious danger .. ..    more »

I put on my overalls, bought a new bucket, and a few rolls of Select-a-Size Bounty paper towels for mopping up. My first job back was construction clean-up on a mansion. Holy Moly. Construction clean-up is three times harder than window washing because all of the razor-blading and super scrubbing. Painters, by the way, who say through their rovianally deceitful lying teeth that the overspray they have mangially managed to get on 90% of the windows inside and out �is water-based and washes right off.� No X 1000. But of course they are gone skulking and cackling off to the next job, leaving the hapless window washers to scrape and scrape, ever unable to get all the damn specks off. There are as many micro-specks of paint on an over-sprayed window as there are visible stars on a clear night. Just it ain�t poetical .. ..   more »

If we see consciousness vertically, a ladder to be climbed, we are falsely forced to see ourselves on the lower rungs staring up at the compassionate rump of the priest, guru, monk, shaman who precedes us to the heights. .. ..If, on the other hand, we rotate the axis of consciousness to be sideways, we can more correctly and coherently see the spectrum of our consciousness as including all the densities with no greater value implied. Just as in light, ultraviolet is not better than infrared, our less-dense experience is not better that our solid experience, only different .. .. .    more »

Note: This deceptively simple fable is what I paid my life, my fortune, and my sacred honor for. Learning the answer to the question of Whether we can have a just world ? not whether we will have a just world -- is one of the big questions of history, & I could only answer it with my sinew and blood .. ..   more »