Occupy...Me!

Since the "Occupy" movement began, I have been cautiously supportive of the effort to let financial corporations and our government know how ticked off we are. Why have I been cautious, you ask? Initially, I didn't know what the movement's agenda was nor did I know who was behind it. You see, sometimes these things get started by the very entities that are causing the problems. For example, if I were one who had a lot of power and control in this country and/or the world, and I had a vested interest in quickening the collapse of the economy, I might start up some protests or help provoke an incident in order to make myself some serious money. Or maybe instead of money, I may just want some laws changed that would benefit me. This is the old, "Problem, Reaction, Solution Method," that the global elite have used for centuries. Create a problem that will manipulate the masses into an expected reaction, then offer a solution to that problem that gets the global elite exactly what they wanted to begin with. I know...you're probably thinking, "Gee, I wonder how many times I bought into that setup?" I'm sorry to say that it has been more times than either you or I care to admit to. Nobody likes to be manipulated. And when you realize you have been manipulated, nobody likes to admit it, because nobody wants to appear or feel stupid.

But after taking a good, hard look at the "Occupy" movement, I am now convinced that it is for real and that the powers-that-be have not had a hand in getting it started. So it appears that people are actually waking up to the reality that they have been lied to, robbed, cheated and manipulated by their government and the corporations that own it. That's why we're hitting the streets.

I had a friend recently tell me that he thought the protests weren't accomplishing anything. I disagreed for a variety of intangible reasons until I ran across several articles talking about how 1,000,000 people across America had closed their accounts with big banks (B of A, Chase, Citibank, etc) and deposited their money in local credit unions. This includes small businesses, churches and non-profit organizations. Somewhere in the neighborhood of $4 billion was transferred in just the last 30 days. Now this is just a drop in the bucket for these big banks, but the message was sent loud and clear due to the fact that the big banks felt that they had to increase fees and tack on additional fees to their remaining customers in order to make up the lost business. It only makes sense that if they continue to do that, they will lose even more customers. It's as if they are making themselves irrelevant. Why? Maybe they know if they fail, which they will, they will get yet another bail out, courtesy of the US taxpayers. It's almost a "pay-me-now-or-pay-me-later," scenario. I guess in that sense, my friend might be right. Maybe the protests aren't accomplishing anything.

So I go back to my intangible reasons why I felt the "Occupy" movement was a worthy undertaking. Taking a look at myself to understand what changes had happened in me in the last 3 years, I found what I had in common with the movement. In 2009, I sold my Radio Shack franchise, which ended an over 30 year career in retail, and decided to become a musician and recording engineer. At least, that was the plan. This ended up being way more difficult than I had ever imagined! Turns out that I had stuffed a lot of emotions inside of me over those 30+ years that I never had enough time to deal with. I say, "enough time," because I had been doing work on myself for about the last 20 years. I would go to retreats, individual counseling, couples counseling, workshops, etc. in order to recharge my batteries for the day-to-day life. Little did I know, all that work on myself turned out to be nothing but a band aid to get me out onto the front lines again, until yet another layer of myself had gotten burned off. Being out of retail and the regular schedule of what that meant, I then had "enough time" to come face to face with me in order to recreate myself and refocus my purpose. My wife and I tried to do a decompression trip to the Grand Canyon after selling the Radio Shack, and then immediately moved to another town after we got back. When things settled down was when the depression and anger hit me. Dealing with those emotions became very overwhelming to me to the point that I lost my ambition and motivation. Here I was, at a place in my life where I was going to finally get to do something I've always wanted to do that was creative and exciting, but yet I couldn't move. I was frozen with fear and depression.

Thankfully, the place we moved to was an intentional community of healers who were either facilitating psycho-spiritual workshops or were participating in them. So I chose to participate in a few and take advantage of the opportunities that were literally, right outside my door. There was a lot of dismantling of myself. I was dying to who I was and re-birthing myself to whoever I was to become. There was lots of frustration, anger and deep grief that got expressed during that time. All of which were accompanied by buckets of tears. This has gotten me to a place in my life where I am much more functional, productive and above all, happier! It's amazing how much a good cry can help ones well-being!

However, the one thing that I am still in process with, is my anger towards the illusion of the "American Dream." And while I know I will be meeting with a group of men soon about anger issues, I felt this blog would be a great primer for that meeting. So please bear with me.

I am really ticked off at the fact that I have been manipulated all my life into this system of, what now feels to me like, slavery! I have been a slave to the system. By that I mean a slave to the education system, the religious system, the governmental system, the capitalist system, the patriarchal system and others, I'm sure. Damn, no wonder I've been depressed! I've been a friggin' slave this whole time! I could really get angry at my parents for not being smarter about all of this. But I've come to realize over the years, that our parents always did the best they could in every given moment. The same holds true for me throughout my life. But at the same time, while I'm angry at all of these systems, I know that on some level, I allowed myself to be enslaved. For that, I am very angry at myself for buying into all of it, even when it didn't feel right. I stuffed my feelings and kept pushing on because that's what everyone else was doing. And in so doing, I enslaved myself. But I have been working through this a bit.

Lately, I have been doing everything I could to change my mindset and erase the programming of my past. Reading, meditation, prayer, processing, writing in my journal and even blogging have been my best tools recently. This also helps me to stay focused on what needs to happen next and gives me more of a sense of purpose. But at the same time, it is a very insecure feeling due to the fact money does not show up at regular intervals like when having a 9 to 5 gig. When I feel on purpose, I know all will be okay and that somehow, someway the bills will get paid. In this way, because I'm on purpose, I feel more free and less enslaved by the systems. I'm finding a way to make it on my own. I know this sounds funny, but regardless of what happens in the economy, there's a part of me that feels I'll be just fine. Why? I guess because I feel like I'm pulling myself out of the building before it collapses. I think the less identified and the less dependent we are on these systems, the better off we will be when they cave in.

That's part of what the "Occupy" movement is all about. People around the world know that they've been duped and they have a sense that it is all collapsing. Above all, they don't want to get stuck paying for the clean up. So people are trying to either dramatically reform the systems in place or are willing to help crash the systems now to immediately create what's next and not prolong the agony. That's what I believe needs to happen. Completely new systems need to be put in place that put people and the environment first, because the systems as they exist right now are corrupt beyond repair. And they (the Occupy Movement) don't feel that just electing someone different into office is going to change anything.

The thing that the folks in the "Occupy" movement need to realize is that they need to free themselves from the systems in whatever way they can; like moving your money from big banks, spending money with only ethical companies, focusing on your purpose, doing your inner work, etc. As Gandhi said, "Be the change you want to see in the world." That one idea can bring us more freedom than we could ever imagine!

To Be Christian Or Not To Be Christian?

Many of you who know me, know that I was born and raised in a middle income, Roman Catholic family. I continued to practice Catholicism until about 25, when I became a father. The obvious next step as a Catholic was to get my daughter Baptized. Thinking that the process of getting things arranged would be simple, I had come to find out how political Catholicism really was. You see, I had been going to church in a distant town, where none of my relatives lived. So to make it easier on my relatives, I decided to set up the Baptism in my "church of origin," the area where most of my relatives were still living. In order for that to happen, I needed a note from the priest at the church where I had been going, to say that it was okay that the priest in my hometown Baptize my daughter. I thought, "Really? God cares about that?" But I guess since God is a jealous God, according to the Old Testament, that feeling must have transferred to the priests as well. Great! Now I'm dealing with potentially jealous priests.

After getting things ironed out, in the way a priest's vestments get ironed out, I managed to get my hometown priest to wave the "permission slip." The Baptism was a religious family success, at least in the eyes of all my Catholic relatives. For me, it was a quite different story.

Now this may not sound like much, but this event got me questioning everything about Catholicism, religion and even the existence of God Himself. Through much mental and spiritual struggling, I ended up going to the extreme opposite end of the spectrum...atheism, but only briefly. After reading, learning and just experiencing day-to-day life, I became an agnostic and found a church I could identify with...Unitarian/Universalism. At that church, I could be, believe and behave pretty much anyway I wanted and no one in the church would have a problem with it. As long as I followed the golden rule and had an open mind, I was in. No judgment, no confession, no kneeling and we rarely read the Bible during service. All of that was refreshing!

Since that time, however, it has been a struggle to explain myself and my beliefs to my Christian friends and relatives. Why? Because I don't have any one book that I rule my life by, like they do. I once was approached by one of my Christian fellow co-workers, who was having difficulty understanding my beliefs. He started asking lots of questions and finally got down to these last few. It went something like this: Christian: "Do you read the Bible in church?" Me: "Not very often. We read from lots of different books." Christian: "Do you believe Jesus Christ is you Lord and Savior?" Me: "No, but he was a great man." (He's getting frustrated by now.) Christian: "Do you meditate?" Me: "Yes." He nodded and walked off, proud that he had finally put a label on me. I just laughed.

But this instance as well as others in my life, made me realize how little we, from different faiths and life experiences, understand each other. I also realized that even though I was a Catholic for 25 years, I knew, or chose not to remember, very little about the Bible. When having conversations with Christians, particularly Protestants, about Christianity or the Bible, I was put at a serious disadvantage of being able to support and even explain my positions on spirituality and religion. It became apparent to me that in order for me to understand where a Christian might be coming from as well as to communicate and to justify to them my own opinions, I had to meet them on their turf. Because in most cases, they were not willing to leave the home plate of King James. So I chose to take steps into what the Old Testament refers to as the lion's den.

It wasn't until I had access to the internet that I started really honing my Bible skills. A few years go, I started collecting my favorite Bible verses when I ran across them. Some I chose for inspiration, but most I chose because they were, in some ways, controversial or helped me support what I believed. Below you will find some of my favorites along with my own interpretation.

Here's two passages that seem to say the same thing. The first is from the Old Testament and the second is from the New:

"I have said, Ye are gods; and all of you are children of the most High." Psalm 82:6

³³"The Jews answered him, saying, For a good work we stone thee not; but for blasphemy; and because that thou, being a man, makest thyself God. ³⁴Jesus answered them, Is it not written in your law, I said, Ye are gods? ³⁵If he called them gods, unto whom the word of God came, and the scripture cannot be broken;" John 10:33-35

(Bold lettering is my emphasis) Whoa! I don't know about you, but I certainly don't recall hearing these verses coming out of anyone's mouth! Yet, if you tell a Christian that you or they are a god or a goddess or even god-like, they would call that blasphemy, just like the Pharisees did in the above passage. So my interpretation is obvious...we are all gods.

Okay, here's another one that relates to the above:
¹²Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do; because I go unto my Father. John 14:12
 

These are the words of Jesus according to John. Jesus was saying that if you believe in what I say and follow my instructions, you will be able to create great miracles as I have done, and even greater! And the phrase, "...because I go unto my Father," means that Jesus is connected to the source of it all...God. Therefore, Jesus felt we could be just like Him and even greater. The obvious evidence of this is when you look at the 12 Apostles who followed Him more closely than anyone. They were also able to heal the sick and do great miracles just like Jesus. This would mean the true message of Jesus has been very distorted, lost, gone underground and/or intentionally hidden from the public. This is the core difference between my beliefs and those that are contemporary/conventional Christians. I never felt Jesus wanted to start a new religion or to have people worship Him. More so, He wanted people to simply pay attention to everything He said and did. Because He was a shining example of how one could be in the world, even given all the adversity that He had faced. For, "I am the way, the truth and the life." John 14:6

Even though these verses tend to bring about some disagreements in interpretation, it still allows us a common reference point of the Bible in order to better understand each other. The interpretations may be different, but the source of the message is the same. I'd like to ask some of my non-Christian friends that when they are in conversations with Christians, try to meet them, not in the middle battle ground, but on their turf where they feel comfortable and non-threatened. This takes you out of your comfort zone, which is the land of great vulnerability and growth. Because it's not about winning an argument or being "holier than thou." It's just about having civil, kind communication as well as listening and understanding. With understanding does not necessarily come agreement, but it does allow an opening of acceptance, wisdom and compassion in order for us to more fully "love thy neighbor as thyself," which is a passage we all can agree upon. (Passage found in Matthew, Mark, Luke & others)

It's the Economy, Stupid...or is it?

The Occupy Wall Street movement, which has inspired people all over the world, has had its critics. While the movement intended to join all of us together, well at least the 98 or 99% of us, I've noticed there seems to be a more even split, particularly in the US. I had seen a Fox News poll that included close to 400,000 Americans that said about 49% approved and supported the movement and about 47% disapproved of it. Granted, Fox News is certainly the most conservative main stream media outlet on TV, so those numbers would probably show even more support of the movement had the poll been taken on any other news outlet. But still, this shows that there are some divisive issues here.

It seems that no matter which "lame stream" media outlet you look at, there is little if any support of the movement. As a matter of fact, it took the media a long time before they even started reporting on it. This should tell you something about corporate media. The movement had to get going to the point that they, the media, couldn't ignore it. When the reporting finally started, there was a lot of downplaying, criticizing that there wasn't a clear message. They were being insulting that it was a movement of nothing but goofy drum-playing hippies without a purpose in life and nothing better to do. The protesters were threatening the very fabric of capitalism/society and pushing us towards Marxism and revolution. And I'm sure there are a few other criticisms I left out here, but you get the drift.

With regards to the movement's message, it has not been able to be put into a nice concise little 30-second sound bite, which the lame stream just love to eat up and then regurgitate at you through your TV screen. Yes, it is true there are a lot of issues that people are ticked about in the movement. But when it comes down to a simple message, I have yet to see a protest sign that says, "The economy sucks and I'm here to make it stop sucking!" That, my friends, would say it all and would give the media something to hang its hat on. Who could disagree with the fact that the economy is tanking with no end in sight? And all anyone hears these days is that sucking sound coming out of your purse or wallet.

While the movement has tried to separate the have's (1 or 2%) from the have not's (98 or 99%), the media has succeeded in manipulating almost half of the US population into believing they are better off not changing much of anything, except for maybe their representative in congress and/or the president. The folks that have been manipulated, tend to blame the government for the missteps in the economy, claiming that over regulation has suppressed corporations from creating jobs, providing loans, expanding infrastructure, etc. In reality, the exact opposite has been true. Not that government is not at any fault. But I think we all have to distinguish between the corrupter (corporations), and the corruptee (government). In other words, I tend to blame the initiator of the corruption more than the one who gets corrupted by accepting the monetary favor. Because as they say, everyone has their price.

The fact is, corporate deregulation has been happening since the Reagan administration with his, "trickle-down economics," and has been carried on throughout the Bush I, Clinton, Bush II and the Obama administrations. I've noticed that as corporations deregulate themselves through the government, our individual liberties start eroding away as well, but that's a whole other blog. The fact remains obvious that Reaganomics just doesn't work, but it's taken us 30 years to realize it. It's a system where the rich get richer, the poor get poorer and the middle class disappears into the lower class. (Insert sucking sound here.)

So it baffles me as to why almost half of Americans refuse to include themselves in the 99%. Because if you look at their financial standing, they are definitely part of the 99%. I guess maybe they're holding onto faith that someday they'll be in the 1 or 2% if we keep going full-steam-ahead, business as usual. Or maybe they're just not "rock the boat," type of people. Or maybe they forgot that just 2 or 3 years ago the Tea Party was on the streets protesting about some of the exact same issues. Maybe they don't want to be affiliated with drumming hippies. Or maybe...just maybe they're in a total state of denial that our government system and our money system are broken and corrupt to the core! And if that is true, then we have to look at all the ways they/we have given our power away. Okay, maybe that last sentence could take me into yet another blog, so I'll spare you.

But now we're getting somewhere. It's very, very difficult to admit that the country, who's flag you have waved, pledged allegiance to, paid taxes to and fought for, has failed its citizens. The greatest country in the world is falling into an economic and political abyss. And the ones in denial are holding onto the last threads of the rope to try to keep it from tumbling anymore, as well as even trying to hoist it back up. But these systems are like old, beat up cars. You can only repair them for so long until its not cost effective anymore, and you end up having to get a new one. These failing systems no longer work for the people and are certainly not cost effective to save.

So the Occupy Wall Street movement understands this. All those "hippies" are not in denial. They know there needs to be a complete system replacement and not just an overhaul. They know that there needs to be a revolution to make that happen. They know that there's no other way it can happen. And they are willing to unplug the patriarchy.

I will leave you with two things. Here is a link to an article written by a multi-millionaire, Mike Dillard, who gave a pretty fair depiction about his experience at the Occupy Wall Street protest. Even though I disagree with some of his assessments, it is still insightful. Also I'd like to leave you with a timeless quote from Benjamin Franklin:
"The refusal of King George to allow the colonies to operate an honest monetary system, which freed the common man from the clutches of the money manipulators was probably the prime cause of the Revolution."

My Ever-Changing Beliefs

Lately, I've been doing a lot of integration. It has come from reading, watching videos online and re-starting a particular meditation practice that I've been led to do for awhile and have only recently gotten into the habit of. After being downloaded with this new information, I have had to integrate these new ways of being into my life, which can take time and sometimes isolation, thereby, the reason I have not blogged in awhile.

But before I go too far, I feel like I need to give some background. Over 25 years ago, events in my life started to dismantle some of my dearly held beliefs about religion, money, government and marriage in particular. To be brief and without going into specifics, I came to the realization that all is not as it seems and that there seems to be an undercurrent of a power and control agenda running all over the planet. Although, I don't think I knew this consciously at the time, I did come to realize a certain necessary flexibility in my beliefs, because the old rigid ways were not working anymore. I had been, with clenched fists, holding onto beliefs that helped me make sense of the world and define who I was. My beliefs, up to that point, gave me a sense of security within myself that gave me a sense of confidence and helped me develop a positive mental attitude (PMA) about all aspects of life...at least that's what I kept telling myself. There was still this yearning for some other piece of the cosmic puzzle, that I would deny and stuff within myself in order to get through the business at hand, which was paying the bills and raising a family.

After major life events like... the birth of my children, changing jobs, moving to another part of the country, divorce, changing religions, marriage, a car accident, etc., the core of my perspectives on life and my beliefs changed. Also, whenever I am presented with new information or gain new insights from reading, watching a movie, therapy, or prayer and meditation, my beliefs change. Change can be a very unsettling and insecure feeling. But I've realized over the years that it is not such a bad thing. The feelings of insecurity have been the gateway to discovering what REAL security is, and as importantly, what it isn't.

But I feel these new insights and perspectives are encroaching into my realm of belief  to help me consciously evolve. In other words, God is asking me to adopt a new belief system and step up my game. When that happens, a new hologram of belief seems to get imprinted on me to carry me through my everyday life in order to fully integrate and embody it.

To be more specific and give you an example, a sense of security has been intertwined with financial security, in the American culture particularly. Most of us, myself included, find that when we are short of money and are having difficulty making house payments or putting food on the table, get this sick, anxious feeling in the pit of our stomachs and start to worry about where the money's going to come from to take care of these basic needs of survival. Sounds pretty normal, right? Our tendency in this situation is to figure out ways to get the money to pay for these things. Most often, we figure out a plan to pay our way through it or out of it, and the feeling of insecurity subsides until the next time it happens, and we repeat the cycle again. After doing this a few times, most people, again myself included, come to the conclusion that expenses need to be cut and/or a new or additional job must be found in order for this not to happen again. Inevitably, the scenario gets recreated again, only on a bigger scale. After having this be a constant and repetitive pattern throughout my life, I have been putting myself in touch with what security is to me, over the past couple years, and have been working through these feelings of anxiousness and insecurity.

Recently, I was turned onto a book, "Unplugging the Patriarchy," by Lucia Rene. What a powerful book! It has dismantled me to the core of what I believe and more importantly, what I thought I knew! Some of the information presented in this book were things I already knew intellectually. But now I know them on a much deeper emotional and cellular level. This book not only made me realize that my security is plugged into the money system, but that even in the past it was plugged into religion and the government/military. I have been challenged to not identify my sense of security with money! Right now, with the way the economy is going all over the world, we, as a global people, are being challenged with exactly that! In this situation our tendency is to do whatever it takes to prop up the money system, or what we so closely identify as propping up our sense of security. As we've seen and are about to see, this "propping up" is very temporary. Our thoughts are, what will happen to us if the entire global economy collapses? How will we survive? This cuts to the core of our beliefs about our security being so identified with money. This is our challenge...to find the real source of our security.

It appears that we have done exactly what the God of the Old Testament told us not to do..."You shall have no gods before me." We have made money our god and our sense of security.

I have recently gotten back into a Sun meditation, that I had started about a year ago and had quit doing for whatever reason. But I do it a bit differently now. As I sit and breathe facing the Sun, I imagine the Sun's energy from its core moving in and out of me with each breath. I do the same with the Earth and then combine both energies to my heart. In the last two weeks, there have been two occasions that I have had profound experiences where Father Sun and Mother Earth spoke to me. On the first occasion, I felt the divine holding of the Mother like a mother holding her child, saying things like, "You are safe with me," and "I am your security," and, "No fear, only love." I was wrapped and held in a Love blanket like I have never felt before! I was like a child in tears. Words cannot describe the depth of this feeling.

My next profound experience came after I had a discussion with my wife about money, or lack thereof. So my emotions were a bit raw going into the meditation. During the meditation I was asked by the masculine voice of Father Sun to stand with my arms outstretched. Then he asked me to turn around and face my back toward him. After feeling the warmth of the Sun on my back, he said, "I got your back." It is probably one of the key phrases that every male wants to hear from his father. I was again brought to tears and I knew in that moment that the Sun and the Earth are the source of ALL. Then I thought...nothing would be here without the Sun and the Earth, including me. I've realized through these experiences that I can connect with that divine security through God's creations of the Sun and the Earth. I feel like I've been re-energized with a new sense of purpose and confidence. And I'm excited to see how all of this is going to play out! Stay tuned!

Are We Really Independent?

Since surviving the July 4th holiday with lots of friends, relatives and food, I've been pondering just how independent are we as a country? After all, isn't that what July 4th, Independence Day is all about? The Declaration of Independence ramped up the Revolutionary War that had been going on for about a year. We wanted to be free from the all the laws, taxes and religious persecution that were dominant in England at that time and have the independence to run our own country. With that would come the inalienable rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. So the question of "are we really independent" is more about how are we doing in maintaining these rights as well as not letting the rules of England run the show here in the US?

If we look at all of these things on the surface, most of us would say that we're not doing too bad. But if we take a closer, more objective look, we see a whole different picture. Take for example taxes...one of the biggest reasons we declared independence from England. Are we paying taxes to England? Well, not directly. But we are paying taxes that help prop up banks and oil companies that have British connections. But at the same time, most of our taxes go to our own government to pay for all the things that a government does, like military/protection, government workers salaries, social programs, infrastructure upkeep, national parks, etc. But now it appears like a lot of our money is going to corporations who provide services to the government at, in some cases, significantly inflated prices. It doesn't appear that we are getting a lot of "bang for our buck." We have the most expensive and technologically advanced military in the world by far, exceeding the next top 20 countries combined! Yet we seem to have a lot of trouble defeating our enemies these days. Two world wars were fought and ended in less time than we've been in Iraq, at least as far as our involvement in those wars were concerned. Now we have the never ending war on terrorism. Therefore, our involvement in wars has put a seemingly unending burden on US tax payers.

There were no federal taxes early in US history until after the Revolutionary War when George Washington, along with Alexander Hamilton, tried to tax whiskey to help pay off the federal debt of $54 million dollars that had been mostly accumulated by the recent war. That started what has been known as the Whiskey Rebellion. This resistance felt that this young country was doing things that England had done, and felt that they needed to fight against a tax on whiskey/moonshine, which was used as currency during those days. It's not hard to see how local, state and federal taxes have snow-balled out of control in our country today. As of 2009, the above average US citizen pays 57.7% in total taxes!

From the religious perspective, again most would say on the surface we're not doing too bad. Let's take a more objective look again. When the Europeans, mostly British, first came to this country, we started wiping out the American Indians by the millions. They appeared to the newcomers as savages and pagans, which was a perception of extreme difference from themselves. Of course, the American Indians were also an obstacle to acquiring the land that the settlers felt they needed to own for their survival. Some settlers along with the federal government committed genocide over the course of several hundred years to establish themselves in the new world. No religious freedom was tolerated by the settlers then.

Then there's also the Salem Witch Trials, where roughly a couple dozen people were either executed or died in prison for being proclaimed a witch. It's surprising to think that people at that time were leaving a country (England) for religious persecution reasons ended up recreating religious persecution in their new found land!  While we're not hanging people anymore for having different religious beliefs, we are imprisoning people for peacefully demonstrating against illegal wars. Most of these people demonstrating for peace are religious people who do feel that the issue of war is a moral issue. They also come from a variety of different religious backgrounds with a common belief in peace.

Today, the Christian faith has all but taken over our government. People are sworn into office and sworn under oath in our courts of law on the Christian bible. The line of separation between church and state become blurred when we allow only Christian viewpoints to be promoted in the public school systems. For example, a lot of public schools allow kids to wear t-shirts promoting Christianity, but not t-shirts promoting atheism or any other religious belief. If parents wish to educate their kids in a school that promotes Christian ideology, their are private schools that will do that. Public schools are not a place for religious education or promotion.

In summary, I guess for the most part one could say that we are independent from England. The problem is, from all that I've laid out above, we have become England.

Insecurity All Around Us

I was watching a video that was posted by my spirit daughter, Keiya Mavita, on Facebook by Eve Ensler on Ted TV. The video really set me back in my chair and got me thinking about how insecure the whole world is. In other words, our collective shadow in the world is really scared! What are we so afraid of? I think Eve Ensler was mostly referring to our physical security and how there are many villains that appear to threaten our very existence. Citizens in countries throughout the world are relying heavily on their governments or local law enforcement to protect them, only to find out, in some cases, that their perceived protectors are the perpetrators. Oddly enough, the citizens of this world have given up certain rights in order to gain some sense of feeling secure.

This has certainly happened in the US following 9/11 with Patriot Act 1 and 2. For example, law enforcement authorities can detain you indefinitely with no probable cause, call you an "enemy combatant," and never be allowed to see a lawyer or go to trial. The definition of an "enemy combatant" is very vague and left open to interpretation. When I think about the freedoms that we have given up, I am reminded of a quote of Ben Franklin's that goes something like this,..."those who sacrifice liberty for the sake of security, deserve neither..." Yet we, as citizens of the US and the world, will give up our liberties over and over again when we are presented with a perceived threat to our lives. Why do we do this?

When the Iraq War was getting cranked up in early 2003, our government was trying to convince us that Saddam Hussein was a bad guy, had something to do with 9/11 (not sure what),  had "weapons of mass destruction," (don't know where they are), and that Iraq was an imminent threat to the US. I thought, so the US is the only country that can have WMDs? I also felt that if Iraq actually had WMDs, that our government should show the weapons inspectors where they are and prove it once and for all. That never happened and we went to war under a "perceived" threat. Myself, I never bought that sales pitch.

Maybe this is the kind of thinking and feeling that we have to summons within ourselves in order for us to withhold our liberties for ourselves and maintain our freedom. These kind of events give us an opportunity to call on our spiritual warrior to determine if the battle and sacrifice is a worthy cause or not. We can no longer trust the actions and words of our governments to tell us the truth about the reasons for going to war or giving up our liberties. Because, as it turns out, going to war in Iraq had nothing to do with the reasons that our government told us. It was all about the oil and money. Oh yeah, and about the fact that Saddam Hussein was trying to re-denominate Iraq's oil from the US dollar to the Euro, which would have crashed the US dollar. Hmm, this sounds a little familiar to the current events in Libya. Apparently, Qadaffi has tried to do a similar thing by coaxing other African countries to re-denominate and refuse the US dollar and the Euro and use the gold dinar in trading for oil.

The point is, these wars and Patriot Acts have nothing to do with making us more secure, because exactly the opposite is happening. Personally, I fear my own government more than I fear any terrorist or perceived outside threat. I want my liberties back! Some of the things that have happened globally in the last 10 years make me feel less secure and less free. Not because of what some terrorist did, or possibly didn't do, or is going to do. But because of how governments all over the world have reacted to these "perceived" threats.

As always, whenever I get into things like this, it's about me...and you. Our world is but a mere reflection of what is going on inside of all of us. For myself, I definitely have had and still have, to a certain extent, feelings of insecurity. I have wrestled with these feelings all my life. In the past, I have had my insecurity issues brought up in my face around being in intimate relationships. As a matter of fact, love was intertwined with security. Whenever I felt secure in relationship, I mistook it for love and vice versa. I can honestly say that today, I no longer do that. I am now more secure within myself and therefore have the ability to love without any agendas.

But I do still have insecurities around money and have all of my adult life. Financial security has always alluded me. There have been times that I have felt more secure than others and that feeling of security is directly related to how much money I have in the bank. It is now time for me to disconnect the feeling of security from money, because I know that money is a "perceived" sense of security and the lack of money is a "perceived" threat.

So where does this sense of insecurity come from and how can I and humanity move beyond it? I think this is a big one for all of us. As I'm writing this, I have no idea what the answer is. It is deep and burdensome. But my insecurity comes from a fear that all my third dimensional needs will not be taken care of. When I think back on my life, there has never been a time when my needs of food, clothing and shelter were not met. That I am truly thankful for! But I believe all of us can think of a time in our childhood when our emotional needs were not met. Could my, or anyone's, financial insecurity be connected to emotional needs not being met as a child?

Let's talk about it this way. If our emotional bank has little or no currency in it, how does that make us feel? If emotional deposits were not being made, or in some cases, not being sought after, how is it possible to feel wanted or secure in ourselves? As adults, we can no longer expect our parents or someone else to just fall over themselves to come to our emotional rescue and make "deposits" in our account. But sometimes we do just that to fill our holes or "emotional bank accounts" of insecurity. It is time for me and all of us to seek out emotional connection and take action in making "deposits" into these nearly empty emotional bank accounts. We have to take chances to be honest and bold about who we are and how we're feeling with the significant person in our life, which is sometimes a therapist. This in turn, I feel, will make us feel better and more secure about ourselves. After all, we are who we are in the context of relationship.

Maybe if we all make a choice to do this, we will be taking back our power, become more secure and free within ourselves, heal the collective insecurity shadow and feel safe and secure within our own skins dispelling any threats, no matter where they come from.

Getting Ready for 2012 - Dealing with My Shadow

I felt like there were some things that I had not mentioned in the previous 2012 post, so I'd like to elaborate.

I had wanted to mention what I know to be the Christian perspective of the "end of the ages," which even some Christians believe may happen in 2012. Although it is true that many Christians do not believe that Armageddon or the end of the world can or should be predicted, there is a feeling that "the end," is not far away. The general consensus is that Christians, and/or those that accept Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior,  will experience the Rapture and be taken up to heaven before the final day or days of Armageddon begin. I invite any Christian out there to correct me on this if what I have just stated is not the case, but this is how I understand it. As you know, there was a recent prediction by Harold Camping of The Rapture happening on 5/21/2011, which came and went uneventfully. There has been another approximate date set by the same group of Camping Christians for sometime in October 2011. The date of 10/28/2011 is a date that some of the Mayan calendar experts talk about as the "end of the creation cycles." This date is supported in the work of Carl Calleman and Barbara Hand Clow. So we may actually have some agreement of a future date of significance. But it remains to be seen what will actually happen when that date rolls around. It may just be like 5/21/2011 was, without any significant historical events happening. But I think it is interesting to note the similarities of dates between two completely opposite thought and belief systems.

There is also another significant date that I was made aware of by a Bolivian friend of mine, who said that 6/21/2011, the southern hemisphere's winter solstice, is the end of the Inca calendar. From my friend, there was no indication that anything significant was predicted to happen on that day. At least if there was, my friend never communicated anything like that. It seemed to be just a day of great celebration not unlike New Year's Eve 1999. And we all remember the Y2K things that were predicted and never happened.

This all brings me to my bigger point... our collective shadow. I believe that there is this feeling inside all of us that something really big is about to happen and none of us can really completely grasp what that is going to be. There is a stirring in our souls that feels the volatility of almost every aspect of our world, both in our personal spheres of influence and the global collective. I am reminded of the environmental bumper sticker I've seen on so many cars, "Think Globally, Act Locally." I believe the same holds true for us to use that same thinking when it comes to our personal relationship with ourselves as well as with our friends, family, co-workers, neighbors, etc. If we as individuals can heal and make all of our relationships work, we have made a huge step in healing the world as well as prepare for whatever is to come, whenever it comes.

So the question is, how do we do that? Let me share with you how I've dealt with my some of my shadow pieces in an effort to answer that question. Over 20 years ago, I came to an awareness that the world was not as it seemed. It started with leaving the Roman Catholic Church as my religion after my daughter was baptized in the church that I was baptized in. There was some politics involved with regards to the church priest needing a "permission slip," if you will, from the priest of the church that was close to where I lived at the time. I thought, "what does God care what Catholic Church my daughter gets baptized in?" It made no sense to me and my internal pendulum swung to becoming an Atheist. But it wasn't long until I felt that I was being a bit rebellious and then became an Agnostic. It was shortly after that belief system was in place that I found a Unitarian/Universalist Church close to where I lived. But it was shortly after my family and I had become members there that my wife at the time had become ill and had a rather long recovery process of personal and family therapy. This is really when my own spiritual journey began on a path of personal growth that continues to this day.

In order to deal with my personal "crap," that was coming up, I tried a wide range of therapies...everything like prayer, meditation, personal talk therapy, couples therapy, family counseling, group therapy, Native American sweat lodges, chanting, reading, hypnotherapy, re-evaluation counseling, journal writing, men's groups, breathwork and there are probably a few I've forgotten about. Whew! You'd think after doing all of that, I would have been canonized by now or have gotten my wings! But no. Come to find out there are many layers or levels to what Eckhart Tolle calls our "pain body." I've heard an analogy that the healing of our psyches is like peeling away the layers of an onion.

But of all of these healing modalities listed above, the ones that I keep in my "tool box" when I'm "stuck," and that give me the most bang for the buck are breathwork, men's group work and journal writing. I also cannot overstate the value of one-on-one therapy with a talented therapist who can get you to emotionally release in a cathartic fashion any pain, anger, grief, loss or sadness that has been trapped and hidden away inside of you. These cathartic releases have been where I've found both God and the devil inside of me. Besides, just think about how much better you feel after a good cry, for example.

The stirring in our souls, that I talked about earlier, could be our own shadow begging to be recognized and dealt with. Shining light on our own darkness and healing our inner demons are what we are being called to do at this time, above all else, in order to be prepared for whatever may be coming our way. The beautiful thing about this is it doesn't matter whether you're a Christian, Jew, Muslim, Buddhist, Atheist, Unitarian, whatever. We all have a shadow and it's up to us as individuals to seek help, whenever we need it, to heal those dark parts of ourselves and be made whole! Aho.

2012 - Disasterous Ending or New Beginning?

Much has been said about the coming 2012, more specifically December 21, 2012. Some of what has been written about this subject has been complete speculation and there have been many projections about what will happen.

That being said, I guess I have to throw in what is my projection and speculation after looking at a lot of information from a variety of different sources from a scientific perspective to a Christian perspective and all the way to a New Age perspective as well as everything in between. First of all, let's look at the date of 12/21/2012. That is supposedly the date at which the Mayan calendar ends. That has been the date agreed upon by many scientist, researchers, archeologists, Mayan elders and authors.

But it's not just about that one day and what all the experts say. It's also about what is currently going on around those of us now who are the "lay people" of this world and what we have the ability to observe, perceive and deduce, because not all is how it is presented to us in the media. It's obvious to most of us that the world is not what it was just 10 years ago. There have been dramatic shifts of all the institutions we have held dear and supported for a very long time. Institutions such as...government, education, health care, religion, the economy, the environment and mass media, just to name the big ones, have all been going through volatile changes over the last 10 years or so. As the song says, "the times they are a-changin'," although it seems quicker now than back in the 60's. So what is going on?

I've been noticing, that most if not all of these institutions no longer come close to serving us in the way that they were originally intended. Take our federal government... no really, please take our federal government. <Rim shot> One of the main purposes of government is to protect its citizenry. Given the rounds of economic bailouts to failing financial institutions using our tax paying dollars, do you feel protected or robbed? What about education? The national dropout rate in 2008 was 25%! I've noticed that kids are not being taught real world skills to help them succeed at even the most basic things like balancing a check book, credit cards, buying a house, investing, signing or drawing up a basic lease, buying a car, etc. It's obvious our current educational system no longer serves kids or our country and needs a major overhaul.

But I have digressed a bit. What are the dates about and what do they mean? According to many experts, the Mayan date, 12/21/2012, is the end of a long cycle of time. You see, just like the Earth and all the planets take a certain amount of time to revolve around the Sun, and the Moon to revolve around the Earth, so does our solar system move through the Milky Way Galaxy. At the center of our galaxy is a black hole, which has a very subtle, but detectable, gravitational pull. My understanding through my research is that our galaxy has an equator that our solar system travels around in a sideways "S" shaped fashion. The time it takes for our solar system to complete one quarter of the "S" cycle is 5125 years. This completion happens on 12/21/2012. There is also an alignment of our Sun, Earth and the center of the galaxy on the same date, 12/21/2012, which only happens every 26,000 years and would be the full completion of our sideways "S" shaped cycle. This info is confirmed by Gregg Braden, John Major Jenkins, Jose Arguelles and others. So it is no wonder that the Maya decided that 12/21/2012, the date of our alignment with galactic center, would be a good date to end their long count calendar.

So what does this mean to us on planet Earth? Should we expect something catastrophic to happen? The answer that I have is, yes and no. We have already noticed significant changes in weather patterns and earthquakes, which may at least be partially due to our solar system moving closer to galactic center. The subtle gravitational pull that the center of our galaxy has on the Sun could certainly be causing some of these disturbances. According to NASA, the cause of sunspots, which are the precursor to solar flares, is from subtle changes in the magnetic field around the Sun. This in turn causes a subtle cooling effect, which results in solar flares sometimes in the form of coronal mass ejections. Solar flares of any kind can have a huge impact on the Earth's gravitational field, which in turn impacts weather patterns as well as the stability of the earth's core and fault lines. You can track the activity of the Sun at: http://www.spaceweather.com  The Sun has certainly been more active in the past year or two than normal. Given this information, it appears that we are in for a bumpy ride.

But here's where we come in and this is where the fun begins! We actually have a choice as to whether the coming 2012 and beyond can be a bumpy or a smooth ride. I know...now you think I'm crazy. How is it possible that we can choose to make the Sun "behave?" Well, I am of the belief that we are all intimately connected with each other, everything and the Creator. Some of you will have trouble with this because you can think of people, places and things that you don't or can't possibly have any connection with. If so, name them right now. More than likely, these are all people, places and things that you either disagree with, don't understand and don't want to understand, dislike or even hate. Those, my friends, are all shadow parts of yourselves that need recognized as part of you and are in need healing. They are your mirror! Ouch! Yeah, I know...it hurts me too.

We are approaching our inner and outer alignment with our own black hole, which is where our shadow resides. There are many aspects of our shadow, but one of the biggest, defining aspects is that of our belief systems. These beliefs have been what have held up the institutions of the patriarchy for millenniums and have also been what has held us back as a species. It is time for us to look at our shadows and let go of belief systems that no longer serve us. For those of us that are unable to do this, it will in fact be a "bumpy ride." For those that are willing to take a good hard look at themselves to promote healing and the ability to let go, will have a smoother ride and can look forward to a new beginning. Once we arrive to this healing point, it is important to thank and honor those old belief systems, institutions, the patriarchy and your own shadow, for they have gotten you this far and have served you very well! Aho!

My Ego and My Music

Thea and I had a great creative experience with our music over the weekend! First of all, we had a concert at The Mountain Retreat & Learning Center that was a healing experience for me. You see, I used to work at The Mountain from 1994-1995 and had left there with a sense of rejection, under much stress and emotional upheaval. While I loved my job there, it was a very stressful and emotionally draining place to work. This was the polar opposite of most guests' experiences. With it being the most challenging place I've ever worked and lived, at the same time I have never experienced more growth in my entire life than in my 15 months at The Mountain. So today I am very grateful for my experiences there.

Many of the upper management of The Mountain are now gone as of about 8 months ago, and the organization has a new purpose and drive. And there was something in me that wanted to be supportive of that. I had contacted the Board of Trustees and expressed my support of their decision and recognized their courage. To express my support, Thea and I agreed to discount our normal fee for concerts for there first annual membership weekend since the transition in October 2010. Since leaving The Mountain 16 years ago, standing and playing music in a space that I had remembered for all the different emotions that I had felt there, there was a feeling of coming full circle, back to a place that I had loved and felt its potential to change lives. It certainly had changed mine! I felt I had come back home, but I was a totally different person than when I had first arrived here 17 years ago. It felt fresh and alive again to be performing in that same space, meeting people that I had known back then and how they welcomed me back to The Mountain with open arms! What a healing experience as our concert was very well received!

The next day, we were due in the recording studio, Sound Temple Studios, to lay down rhythm beds to 7 or 8 songs of our new CD, Serve Love. It has taken Thea and I a long time to get to this point. So it was very exciting to finally be laying down some real "keeper" tracks with some great musicians. River Guerguerian laid drum and percussion tracks while Michael Hynes laid down the bass tracks. These guys are real pros and it was an pleasure and an honor to work with them!

But to back up a bit, the process goes something like this. After the songs were written, we took about 16 or 18 songs into Robert George's Sound Temple Studios to evaluate all the songs and select songs for this CD project. Several songs were already in various stages of production. After breaking the songs down, changing lyrics, chord progressions, melodies, structure and just plain polishing,  we then proceeded with selecting songs for the project.

This can be a very humbling process, because others are taking a close critical look at your creation. I struggled at times to get my ego out of the way in order to do what was best for the songs and the project. It was a huge lesson in letting go and trusting in the creative process of others as well as myself. Lots of deep cleansing breaths were necessary in this endeavor.

After songs were broken down and selected down to the 12 that were going on the CD, Thea and I had to get busy and record scratch tracks of guitar and voice, as close to the metronome as possible, in our own studio and then give them to the bass player and drummer, so they could be prepared to track when they arrived at Sound Temple Studios. At that point, I thought it was going to be fairly easy to go into the studio and just sit back and listen to River and Michael cut their tracks to our scratch recordings. <Buzzer sounds> Wrong! I was told by our producer, Robert George, that we had to come prepared and rehearsed to play along with them live the same as the arrangements put on the scratch tracks they were given. This put me into a bit of a panic. Why? In all my years doing music, I had never rehearsed or played to a metronome (click track) except when tracking in our own studio. Now I was going to be playing along with these monster musicians in another studio and I felt I wasn't good enough to do that. So here come all my feelings of not being good enough or inadequacy. I expressed my concern to Thea and our producer, Robert, that I felt it would be better for them to record to the scratch tracks we had already prepared, due to my apprehension that I wouldn't be able to play it as well live as what we had already recorded. Robert and Thea were able to set my mind at ease and say that they were only going to use my live studio performance as a reference and that River and Michael would strictly follow the click and not me. This method also allows us to further craft the song and the arrangement without being locked into our original scratch recordings. This leaves an opening for the creative process to kick into high gear. Taking some deep breaths, I gave into the process and let go again. This was getting to my control and ego issues big time! I like to know what I'm getting into before I step into anything that is foreign to my realm of experience.

After some rehearsing along with the click track for a couple weeks, I felt that I was up for the challenge but still had some apprehension about playing live in the studio. Being prepared helped to disperse my fears, so I went in with more confidence than I thought I would have originally. It didn't seem to take me long to settle in to a relaxed, but excited feeling of finally getting songs tracked that I had written over the course of 16 years. Oddly enough, one of the songs I had written shortly after arriving at The Mountain! We ended up changing some aspects of that song that had been embedded in me since my time there. Wow, talk about letting go! But I was surprised as to how easily I had let go of the form of the song in order to bring the song to a whole new level. That magic happened all the time throughout our 2 days of recording.

So it has amazed me what can happen when I or anyone opens themselves up to the creative process, even as the feelings of fear, apprehension, not being good enough, being out of control and other emotions rise to the surface. I say, if I was able to push through all of that this weekend to make magic happen, than anyone can!

Turmeric - An Amazing Herb (Scambled Eggs Recipe)

About a year or so ago, I found an herb that has some amazingly strong properties! Turmeric is an incredible antioxidant that is multiple times stronger than Vitamin E or C. The best way to ingest it in order to get the most benefit is raw, but it is also used a lot in Indian cooking. It is important to also try to get turmeric that is minimally processed and organic. I have found that it has great anti-inflammatory properties, which can help you with joint pain and many other ailments. I am of the belief system that most disease comes about in the body due to an inflammatory response. Those inflammatory responses can come about for a variety of reasons including a highly acidic diet and exposure to environmental toxins. So if you're able to reduce the inflammation in your body by using turmeric, you can eliminate inflammatory pain and significantly reduce or eliminate pain medications.

I don't consider myself much of a cook, but I do have a scrambled egg recipe that I use turmeric in. Again, not the best way to ingest it, but you will still get some benefits from it. First of all, start off with some farm fresh eggs, preferably from a farm that has at least one rooster. That's where you get eggs that are lower in cholesterol and higher in Omega 3's. Beat the eggs and melt some butter in the frying pan, and I mean real, organic butter, not margarine. If you are cow dairy sensitive, use goat butter. Throw your beaten eggs in the pan after the butter has melted and add the following seasoning to taste: Sea salt, cayenne pepper, a little onion powder, and turmeric. Cheese can also be thrown in if you like that. Stir it around like you would normally for scrambled eggs. I prefer not to over cook my scrambled eggs. According to Julia Child, the eggs should be the consistency of custard. You will notice a beautiful orange color to your dish that partially comes from the turmeric and partially comes from the farm fresh eggs. This recipe will give your scrambled eggs a great zip and spiciness to a sometimes boring dish. And...it's good for you!

Check out the link to get some additional great info on turmeric! Bon Appetite!

Welcome!

Welcome to my GreenMan Blog! After spending way too much time of Facebook, I found out that I have a lot to say about a variety of topics. Some people have coerced me into writing a blog, and after much resistance, I have decided to take the plunge into "blogdom." I hope to be able to organize this blog well enough that everyone can find something on the topic of their choice, because my topics will be diverse. I certainly do not consider myself a master at many or any of the future topics, but at the same time I hope that you are able to gain inspiration, insight, a change in perspective or maybe just stir up doubts and questions that wouldn't normally come up in your mind.

I welcome any comments and questions in response to any of the posts here no matter what your viewpoint. But I do ask that everyone be kind to each other and avoid any name calling.

Thanks so much for joining me in this blog journey! Blessings!
http://www.theaandthegreenman.com