There's no place like home.

“Freedom from illusions lies only in not believing in them.” –A Course in Miracles

When I write something and it’s completely true to where I am at a particular moment, or period of time, I feel satisfied.  I felt that way when I last wrote in September of 2008.  The quote was, and still is so apt.  My short exploration, however clumsy, was pretty successful in encompassing a much larger feeling of seeking and failing to arrive because of a distraction that soothed the ego, at least for a time.  That ego thing is a real high maintenance nightmare.

Since then, I have been on some adventures that have really challenged me.  I’ve been forced to look at some rather unpleasant aspects of myself, and how these tend to manifest on this dizzying endless carousel ride called “life.”  Most unpleasant of all, though, was to realize I’ve been running and running and running…  searching for meaning and purpose and when life fails to deliver, running somewhere else.  What is it that I’ve been running from?  I supposed this is the first time I’ve ever stopped running long enough to ask myself.  The unpleasant and somewhat ironic answer?  The truth.

THE TRUTH!!??  But isn’t that the very thing I’ve been seeking?  That’s WHO I AM AFTER ALL…  Oh no, I recognize that endlessly rationalizing and defender of self.  It may be high maintenance, but that ego, it just keeps running.

And that’s when it happened.  It was a terrifying feeling, but somehow freeing.  The Truth?  None of this MEANS ANYTHING.  There is NO MEANING to anything that happens here.  At first, I thought I might have finally lost it and become suicidal.  That is a scary thought, but I entertained it anyway.  The results of which were somewhat confusing, I realized for one, I am not particularly afraid of death nor do I seek it.  Two, there is still meaning, it simply cannot be found OUTSIDE of me.

All of this has been floating around in my awareness for a few months, making for some fascinating dreams and some serious reframing of priorities.  I also started to feel something, and at first I wasn’t really sure why or where it was coming from but I felt intensely sad.  I felt like I missed something so very much and felt helplessly alone.  As I allowed myself to surrender to this feeling and experience it, I realized I always feel this way and work very hard to compartmentalize it, to put it away somewhere I don’t have to be reminded.  What does it mean?

A very dear friend of mine, whom I consider family, has been facilitating A Course in Miracles study group.  She has mentioned it to me in the past, but I never felt specifically called to it.  To be honest, I was severely skeptical.  Living in Northern California, there’s all kinds of channeled/healer/enlightened/new agey bullshit floating around, and this particular brand purported to be directly from Mr. Jesus H. Christ himself.  Right.  I’d had enough Jesus bologna in my formative years to last me a few lifetimes.  Regardless, I made an effort to be open to her and something in which she had found profound truths.  After a few of our dizzyingly deep conversations, I found that it continued to come up and I found myself becoming more and more interested.

She recommended an introductory book to me, one that she knew would resonate with my down-to-earth sensibilities.  Written by a self-proclaimed smart-ass and procrastinator, The Disappearance of the Universe is proving to be an incredible read.  In fact, I can’t put it down.  It has even prompted me to begin my own exploration of A Course in Miracles.

Open Your Eyes and Live It

“I see you, and I know that my dreams are right, right a thousand times over, just as your dreams are. It is life and reality that are wrong. I understand it only too well, your dislike of politics, your despondence over the chatter and antics of the parties and the press, your despair over the war, the one that has been and the one that is to be, over all that people think, read, and build today, over the music they play, the celebrations they hold, the education they carry on. Whoever wants to live and enjoy his life today must not be like you and me. Whoever wants music instead of noise, joy instead of pleasure, soul instead of gold, creative work instead of business, passion instead of insipidity, finds no home in this trivial world of ours.” -Hermann Hesse, Steppenwolf

Sitting on the train has always been comforting to me.  Besides the nostalgia of my railroad family, there is a feeling I have when I am sitting on the train.  The comfort of knowing the train is on the tracks, the tracks are on the ground and they are heading to a particular destination.  Everything is under control.  It’s an illusion, of course, because anything can happen really.  I know this, and I’ve made a choice to live my life in full knowledge of this truth, however, there is something so comfortable about the gentle rocking of that train.  It lulls me, it lulled me to sleep.

Some of us are not allowed to sleep, though, and the quiet scratching at the back of our minds like a dog waiting to be let out becomes an inescapable roar.  The deafening noise will not allow for escape any longer.  It’s time to wake up (again).  I thought I was awake, but the comforting train of a full-time salary with benefits lulled me to sleep somewhere along the line.  I got attached to it, scared to let it go.  A small piece of security for me in this crazy world of failing economies and rising fuel prices.  It seemed easy.  Look!  I can lead the way to a different tomorrow all from the relative comfort of my cubicle.  I should know better by now, it’s empty.  Ideals pasted all over the exterior like an old steamer trunk covered in badges from foreign places as if it were full of exotic treasures.  However, within were only the emperor’s new clothes.

My eyes are open again, poised to take the leap, to take my life back and do with it as I see fit.  And thank God, I no longer have to do it alone.

“The shallow consider liberty a release from all law, from every constraint. The wise see in it, on the contrary, the potent Law of Laws.” –Walt Whitman

Essential to liberty is the idea that we are all imbued with common sense, and should have the right to behave and create society as we each see fit. This would necessitate societies being very small, and furthermore constantly engaged in an organic process of change — of growing and dying — as any process in harmony with nature. The structure would serve the people; the people would not be a slave to the structure. However, in this model the individual has much more freedom, and thus, much more responsibility. In such a system, an individual must know himself, his connection to other human beings, and his connection to nature in order to best make decisions for himself and the future. There is no authority to comfort and provide answers. The answers must come from within. And from this place of knowing and connectedness, the community and nation can thrive.

When we think freely, when we look at the world honestly, when we question the answers that are given, it can certainly be terrifying. It feels as if our last grip on connection to something larger than ourselves will be sacrificed, that these beliefs will alienate us even further than we already feel. Yes, the truth can be terrifying, however, the truth can save us and nullify any oppressive system. The truth shall set you free and the truth is: power is not assumed it is given, courage is acting from the heart, and fear is just increased awareness. Everything is not lost. Our power as individuals is choice, and everyday we make choices. I am not asking for mere hope for a better tomorrow, I am asking for agency in each individual to rise to the occasion and create a better tomorrow. We can choose to find a deeper connection than we ever thought possible in coming together to create a just, sacred and sustainable universe for all beings.

“Integrity has no need of rules.” –Albert Camus

There was an era before agriculture. In this time, things were much less defined and depended on the connection between humanity and place rather than fearfully harnessing the fertility of the Earth. Hunting and gathering was how humanity sustained itself. In order for a society to be nourished by what was present on the land, it was necessary for them to be in balance with what the land provided. The rules of these societies were created by necessity not as a method to centralize power.

While I use the hunting and gathering model as an example of sustainable culture, I am not suggesting a regressive movement. In many ways, technology has benefited humanity and may, in the end, be a contributing factor to a revolution from antiquated social systems and economic megalomania. We must never fall into the trap of blaming inanimate objects for our own failings, we have created these tools; technology is a manifestation of human consciousness. We are called to recognize the effects of our actions and our intentions, to be responsible for what we do. Regardless of where the effect lies, even if it will only be felt thousands of years from now, it is still the result of our actions. Disconnection from the future of humanity is the ultimate xenophobia.  We cannot even see our own plight as an endangered species, and when we do glimpse the truth it is terrifying.  We would rather forsake our future for momentary pleasures and profit.

“This might surprise the millions of fans trying to guess who’s the genius behind the hit Web series, You Suck At Photoshop, but no, it’s not the comedian Dane Cook. It’s not Will Ferrell, either.”

Read the entire article from Time magazine, The Photoshop Guys Revealed!

These dudes suck at keeping a secret and sold out to Time magazine.  At least I don’t suck at that.  I also don’t suck at Photoshop.

“Narcissistic individuals constantly strive to meet the impossibly high standards of their false self, frequently feeling frustrated and depressed by their inability to do so, but also avoiding at all costs recognizing how empty they truly feel.”[1]

The desired unified worldview for globalization is one of consumer culture. This culture drives the economy by continuing to use up resources, demanding new technology at an ever-increasing pace. In order to instill a bottomless abyss of craving, it is necessary for individuals to feel disconnected from themselves and others. This wounding is insidious and occurs through advertising, media, and even the vapid nuclear family model. It is not accidental. A deliberate and systematic campaign is being waged even now to create unthinkingly selfish “individuals” who are desperately hungry. This is the objective of the industry we call Marketing. However, there is no way to sustain this endlessly consumptive linear model. Using without returning anything, without closing the loop, without reciprocity, ends the game with nothing left. Unfortunately, narcissists cannot see beyond their own needs. They are trapped in an infantile state of need. They are without the wisdom and maturity to know how to nurture what can sustainably feed them. It’s a trap, a spiral of self-destruction that keeps them separate and keeps them hungry. It’s imperative to wake up from this nightmare and live consciously. We must reconnect and take agency over our own lives and choices. We must be compassionate and understanding with each other, and together we can learn how to stand. This, a new more holistic perspective, is in order; one that can bring much needed healing to ourselves and the Earth.

“For complex reasons, our culture allows ‘economy’ to mean only ‘money economy.’ It equates success and even goodness with monetary profit because it lacks any other standard of measurement.” –Wendell Berry

The only benefit of monoculture is to allow a farmer to more easily make greater sums of money. The species of plant used is inevitably worse off for it, as it is more vulnerable to disease due to its lack of genetic variety. Of the literally thousands of potato varieties that exist, no more than twenty make up three-quarters of the total potato harvest in the United States. Monoculture makes all the steps from sowing to harvesting to selling a crop more palatable to an individual or group’s revenue. Therefore, a monoculture is a method of harnessing the Earth’s resources for financial gain, regardless of the side effects to life itself.

So what is globalization then, if it is that? It may be used as a way to reduce variety to more simply market and milk a populace for their resources, regardless of ill effects on those being used or the users themselves. This cynical view should not be seen as attempting to exclude possible good effects. However, one must also take into account the fact that international corporations have jumped on the bandwagon of this globalization movement. At the risk of sounding paranoid, why would so many corporations want to be a part of something that wasn’t going to be a boon for them? And as we’ve seen time and again, big business corporations are Machiavellian entities with very little accountability.

In the corporate world, you will hear individuals extol their belief that capitalism means maximizing their profits by any means, in order to “best serve their stockholders.” This results in corporations having an ethical blank check, as profit is the only guiding principle. Western civilization has become a materialistic society with very little reverence for life, even the lives of our own kind. The culture of separation has made it exceedingly difficult for us to care for anyone or anything “different” from us. Now corporate economist culture is making a power play to encompass the whole world with unsustainable consumerism driven by a natural human desire to feel safe and connected to others. However, despite the rhetoric, there is far less room for diversity of thought in the globalization monoculture than in the previous eras of “fragmentation.” It is much easier to market to people who share the same worldview.

“Advocates like to describe economic globalization as a long-term, inevitable process, the result of economic and technological forces that have simply evolved over centuries to their present form.”[1]

Accepting that national borders are merely a quaint reminder of an order long passed, what are the factors shaping the world we see today and imagine tomorrow? Who are the players on the battlefield? The new world order is, as we have established, based on economy. If economy is the basis of social systems, then obviously control of the economy is power. If the goal is to possess as much power as possible, than it follows that a global economy is the highest ideal. This is a concept central to what we know of as globalization.

Globalization is many things; first, given the current state of technology, distance and traditional borders are irrelevant. Using direct and instantaneous communication, information from any point on the globe is knowable by anyone else, anywhere else. Direct communication is in itself neutral. However, how one uses a tool is not neutral. No matter how you spin it, globalization is the movement towards a global economy. For many, globalization has led to the fostering of a sort of international culture, especially between those who use the Internet as a medium. Those who would attempt to shape the definition of globalization as noble goal might call it a “neoculture,” a way to transcend petty differences of the past. I, however, would term it a “monoculture,” with all the connotations that plague the word in its agricultural usage.

“The most powerful positions are those which control some crucial area of uncertainty.”[1]

One of the most disturbing ways to achieve control is to randomly award and punish. In this way, the individual being controlled is constantly perplexed as to whether he is doing well or badly. He continues to strive for the occasional windfall and condemns himself when his “luck” fails him. Since the financial roller coaster is a shared experience, there is a common bonding with others “in the same boat” and a sort of Stockholm Syndrome persists. Perhaps it is not the game, but our willingness to play it, to believe in it, to ascribe our hopes and dreams, our progeny and our legacy to it, that makes it so sickening. How many generations of sons and daughters have become lawyers, doctors, politicians, stockbrokers, in the hopes that they, too, could play the game? The game is rigged, or rather, we are not the ones playing it, we are the pieces; we are pawns moving ahead, moving back, being sacrificed. We are being played, and on some level, we know it.

Anicent Ways for Modern Times: a journey to STONGEHENGE/GLASTONBURY and the Micheal and Mary ley lines