Collapse

It's Christmas time again, a joyous occasion and all of America is hunkered down, spending less, traveling less and changing fast, as we should be. Change is not easy but it is what we were created to do, and I am sure that as the dust settles in the years to come we will look back on it all and know that it was a good thing. I pray for and wonder at all those that are suffering with foreclosures, job loss and such. I know they must be scared and lost. My wee family with my two sweet remaining adult children and my daughter's darling spouse are doing well enough, paying the bills and working hard. We are counting our blessings and know how fortunate we are. The whole world is in travail, changing with us. Isn't it curious that America started the whole collapse?

What Sadness is This?

My baby brother, Gunnar, has been diagnosed with a brain tumor...first I heard he had one year, and now I hear he could be cured at the Mayo Clinic (he lives just a mile away from it) He is in his forties, the youngest of all seven of us. He has two children, a daughter, a senior in high school, a son, off on his own now. He had a brain tumor when he was a young teenager, and it was stopped with radiation at the Mayo Clinic. Strange that I just blogged about personal planned obsolescence of the body that houses the spirit. Did I know on some level what was coming? probably.

I haven't been around him much at all since I left home at 18. I moved around from state to state, doing my thing, getting married, living on a commune, being an artist selling my jewelry and paintings, having children and such. I remember raising him, caring for his every need, dressing him and all things a big sister can do for a sweet brother when the mom is occupied in her own struggles and not around to take proper care. I moved home for a few months with my Dad building a work bench for my jewelry production so I could continue creating my line and selling to galleries. I took Gunnar to his cobalt treatments when he was fighting his first bout with a brain tumor. After he won that battle I was off and running again. I remember when I would pop into town to stay with the parents and my two youngest brothers, Jan and Gunnar still at home. I would pick him up from high school and we would go for fast food. One time I went into Dunkin' Donuts as he waited in the car. He was the quiet, slightly sardonic sort, not often smiling or showing emotions. He told me to get him the biggest donut they had for him. I went in and they had a novelty donut in the display case, as big around as a large cake, glazed and ready for me to grab up for him! I took it back out to the car in a white wax bag and dropped it onto his lap. As we were driving back to Mom and Dad's, he opened the bag and said it was big enough, hardly cracking a smile, but I knew he was delighted at the absurdity. He started chomping. I was cracking up as we drove on.

Mom and Dad continued on with their personal struggles, and I was usually there to help out with Gunnar and sometimes Jan when necessary. Jan was off with his friends most of the time. They came to stay at the commune with us for a summer when Mom and Dad were having a hard time. I still have a clay elephant Gunnar made and gave to me, with the nose broken off, some of his art work he tried selling at an art fair with me and my jewelry, and a small carving he did of an old man, little tokens of a endearing relationship. He never talked much, but I always cherished knowing him. Since I left the Midwest for good when I was 30, counseled by Mom's therapist that I should go live my life and that Gunnar and Jan would do fine without me, that they had to find their own ways, I have only seen Gunnar maybe 4 times and talked on the phone maybe 20 times at most. Our family does not keep in touch and I do not know why, but we have not made it a priority to visit each other. Life is so short and now he has another grand fight ahead. I have hardly known him and that saddens me, as I do love him so very much. He is a dear sweet soul, very hard working and respected, and loved deeply by his wife and children and by us all. Life is too short and too sweet and full of sorrows at times to balance out the joys, I guess. I am sure some great magic will take hold and he will make it through this to stay on Earth for yet another time, delighting us all. I do project that for him and know that every day impossible, amazing things do happen.

Obama, Change and Life

Obama won! How cool is that? Maybe there is hope for the world after all. I can't wait to hear from my Ausie friend. She is away traveling with her Mum so I must wait to hear from her. Did you hear about the spoof phone call from a Canadian radio station to Sarah Palin, where they pretended to be the president of France and he told her how much he liked hunting and killing animals? Ha! She actually said, well, we should go hunting together. Oh my God, we are so fortunate not to have her so close to the White House anymore! The world rejoices in that I am sure. It has felt like a Holiday, as great as Christmas, waking up and knowing what a glorious thing it is to have Obama as our new president! I went out to get a New York Times last night and they were all gone. I went to three places, to no avail. Then on the news they informed us that the papers are selling on Ebay for up to 199.00! I should have gone out earlier. I just wanted a couple to save for my children. drat.

I thought this morning as I awoke to my somewhat aching body and my ringing left ear, that we have created these bodies that bring on the signs of aging and decay to serve our purposes, planned obsolescense, though we have forgotten what those purposes are, either by design or indifference, or a combination thereof. This seemed a significant realization to me, though I know that I knew it already, but had somehow been feeling put upon by age and it's unwanted physical bothers. We don't really want to be hanging around Earth too long, so we designed our time limit to encourage our continuing on to the next world at an appropriate time.

I had a close friend in high school. We escaped our individual worlds, she hers of being very popular and heading for homecoming queen attendant, me mine of weirdo quirky artist, unaccepted by the in crowd, and walked and talked for hours. I am sure her friends asked her what the hell she was doing hanging with me, but that never bothered her. She was a Baha'i, and that was a common bond, as I hung out with the Wright family, just three doors down from our house. Mrs. Wright, Lorraine, was a sweet lady that helped me through so much of my rather unhappy childhood (I was sex typed mercilessly to be the slave in a family with six brothers), was also a Baha'i, as were some of her children by choice. There aren't too many Baha'is about so Sue was also close to Lorraine and her family. I was being raised a Lutheran at the time. This is a lot of build up, but I allow myself that as probably no one is reading this and if they are it is because they enjoy my perspective and will muck through it un-bothered. Sue died, passed on, shortly after graduation in a head on collision outside of Denver Colorado. My Mom let me know. I was pregnant in North Carolina unhappily married to my high school sweetheart. Her passing struck me hard. She appeared to me in a couple lucid dreams shortly thereafter. I was talking with her, as I sat up in bed, and she told me never to be fearful of death, as it was a joy, and I have never been scared of death since then. She also appeared to her two sisters and another close friend I found out from her mother, quite by chance. Lorraine Wright knew of these dreams and asked that I contact Sue's mom when I was home for a visit, after I told her of my Sue dream.

Still I certainly have been concerned with not wanting to become terminally ill or die before my time. I have wanted my time here on Earth, and still crave it at the age of 60. I feel myself getting younger every day, as I heal from the loss of my oldest child. I am losing weight and have new teeth, and am ready to take on the world for another time yet, with my daughter building me a new web site for my vintage clothing in hopes that I can escape Ebay someday. Seth says no one leaves earth until they are ready, though I wonder at those with cancer and other maladies, as they fight so hard not to leave. Cancer is the body reacting to our self-imposed need for change. When we drag our feet and refuse to do that changing which we came to Earth to accomplish, the cells in our bodies go crazy and attempt to change for us, growing uncontrolled ever moving forward, as we throw all of our creative energies into fighting that automatic well-meant response. We would do better if we moved forward, took a trip to Africa to help with hunger or went to live in Paris to write, then the cells would cease answering the call to change. One wonders what would have happened to America if we had not elected Obama. Would the cells of America have gone wild creating even more havoc promoting the change we were denying, bringing on more storms, floods, illness, and financial woes? A close friend, Annie Love told me when I talked to her of the Seth explanation of cancer, that she had heard that cancer was all the lives we had not lived, which fits. She is a Jungian therapist, so allows herself access to edgy reading materials. These are my morning ramblings, thoughts the two days after Obama's election. I offer them up for what they are, and may add more as time allows. If they serve no other purpose than to move that horrid photo of Sarah Palin with her real-women-kill-moose bag further down the pages of my blog, then
that is okay. They have served me well.

Obama, World Hope

My dear friend in Australia writes this:

"I am obsessing about your election. It is crazy but I have never taken such an interest in any election - not even one of ours!!
If Obama doesn't win, I will feel deeply disillusioned, so I can only imagine how devastated his supporters over there will feel. If he can't win now, in these circumstances, there's no hope of a better world for any of us. I read bits of your papers (well, mostly the Washington Post) and have been watching Jim Lehrer on PBS. Things look promising for him and the polls look good, but I still feel nervous. What do you all think is going to happen? Is anyone quietly confident? I do hope it is decided on the night and you don't have to wait for recounts, absentee votes and legal challenges. Ugh!!"

I answered along with some intense thoughts of how fearful I am about the possibility of those totally scary individuals, McCain and horrid Palin in the White House!

"Interesting that you say there is no hope for any of us, even globally.....if Obama doesn’t win. I think you may be right. Pretty scary. Remember what Emma Goldman said about voting. Either there is enough good in the world that we will turn it all around and will be able to bring Obama in to grow a new age, or there isn’t enough good and the whole thing will tumble with that crazy lady and man in the White House".

We must ask ourselves, as Americans, how we can find someone like Palin in a position to possibly end up as President of the United States? A vote for McCain is a vote for her. McCain may be a patriot but is also a misguided and truly naive soul, offering little more than constant bashing of Obama and fear mongering. His choice of Palin as a running mate negates any hope that he can manage the presidency well for America! He does remind me so terribly much of Bush, promising further tax breaks for big business and belief in the outworn trickle down philosophy, which does not work, as time has shown. How can there be so many intelligent people actually voting for McCain and Palin? They say she will be prominent in national government even if McCain doesn't win. It is surely a sign that America is in travail, floundering under pressure to find herself again. Let us only hope that there is human love and time enough to turn it all around, with Obama's help. Get out and vote! Goodness must outweigh corruption and the politics of fear in our government. The world awaits with eager arms to embrace us as the world leader we have been in the not so distant past, inspiration for all peoples of the world once again.

Losing Gannon

I think I have been hiding, too much pain from losing Gannon, my oldest son. I was having dreams all of the time of being lost and not being able to find needed things. Now my dreams are me finding things and always with friends and family around, so I think I am coming back out into the world, and am excited! I just haven’t been ready until recently. I don’t hurt as much about Gannon these days, almost four years after his passing. I know I will be with him again, in some context. I know that the whole thing was a great life experience that kicked us all around for a very long time. I will always miss him terribly. I think often of all of the families that are still going through this heart breaker.

He was so gorgeous and so talented, a dear sweet Rockabilly man, worked when he was just a kid, went and found jobs and lied about his age. A couple employers came to our apartment in downtown Northampton and asked about him. I said, “no we don’t take his money. He buys art books and art materials with it", so they let him work...he was like 13 years old then. He went to court to get out of high school and he tested out 75% above most high school graduates so they let him out. He studied on his own and went to NYC at 18 with his art portfolio and got into The School of Visual Arts there, deferred enrollment for one year to earn some money first. Before ever starting at SVA he was hired with his portfolio only, as an Art Director at Avirex, an international retailer of WWII memorabilia reproductions, mostly high end clothing. He had five artists under him, and was a golden child for four years, living with his fiancé Alethia who was going to Columbia University. They tried Heroin at company yacht parties. Gannon liked it so much, as it made him feel relaxed like he fit in. He had always felt out of place, ever racing too fast forward. He started nipping during the week without her knowing, and within a few weeks he was hooked and had maxed out all of their credit cards buying Heroin. From there on out it was a tragic story, so hard to recount. Have you ever seen the Basketball Diaries, the movie based on the book Jim Carroll wrote about his Heroin addiction? We have lived a version of that hell. Gannon was such a dynamic individual.... people used to stop me on the street all of the time and rave about him. He turned us on to so much, art, music, design, clothing, you name it. We had some of that on our own as I was an artist and so was his step father, but he so obsessed he carried us into the full world of it. We are built on Gannon’s ground.

I remember how I used to be before we found out about his illness. The kids and I made fun of the public warning TV spot when it said “no one dreams of growing up to be a junkie”...like that was so absurd it was laughable. Not so funny anymore. The hardest part for us of course was watching all the hell he went through and how scared he was, and a good deal of the time he was so far away as he had burned so many bridges here I told him he needed to leave so I could raise Ari and Ant. We would occasionally hear from him and send money, but he was always on our minds, especially on holidays. I let him come back out here when Ari and Ant were older if he would go into treatment for a year. I found him a place just south of here, and they taught him how to be a real person again. When he got out of there he did well for a couple of years, but always fell again. (Alethia left him and had married another shortly after he became ill, and that always hurt him. They were beautiful together). He fought it hard and well, recovering and building a new life, then he would fall again. It is a progressive disease, so each time he fell harder. Finally when Ari was at Cornell University and Ant was in his early 20s I had Gannon move in with me after he was released from detox. We did have some really good times then. He tried twice to get his own place but would relapse every time he hit a rocky spot in life. We would show up and he would be almost gone. We'd get him back into Detox. Heroin cripples the mind and removes the natural endorphins so they can’t make it through bad times without amazing support, and we sometimes didn't know when it was starting again. He again came back to live with Ant and me after his last bout. He survived here on Methadone but was so broken from it all, losing everything time after time, he just had lost his belief in himself and was too drugged to see any of his magic anymore. I picked up Ant and his girlfriend from a painting job and we came home from buying Gannon good food and juice that night because he had been too ill to work with them, and he had passed away inside our front door.

The cause of death was hemorrhagic pancreatitis, probably caused by Seroquel, one of the many prescribed drugs he was on, but I think he was just ready to leave. He needed a sweet rest.

Israeli Settlements

A treacherous and delicate subject, but one that can not be denied. Pardon if I do not use politically correct terminology in this post... I do try. There seems to be an information block in America about this subject. The treatment of the Jews during World War II has left many of them scarred and terribly hurt and possibly unable to feel compassion for others. It is common for the abused to grow up to be abusers, and this cycle always needs to be broken. The world also has the propensity for looking the other way when Jews do wrong, as we are all so horrified by what they experienced while we looked the other way in denial. Therefore, is it not the world that should take a great share of the responsibility for not keeping the Israeli Government in check? Certainly world opinion has a lot to do with how all governments behave. Just look at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Prison, how the world community stands up against these atrocities.

No matter what the Palestinians have done in the past as they responded to partition, the End of Their World as they knew it, it does not justify the treatment of the Palestinians in the occupied settlements today. One can expect terrorism and extremists mentality to develop in war torn, poverty inflicted areas of the world. The only way to fight terrorism effectively is to offer genuine support and loving concern to the people that might fall prey to same, which is not happening nearly enough in the Israeli settlements. Building walls and creating barriers never works, not on American borders nor in the West bank and Gaza. Time will prove that. There is a good sized human rights movement in Israel composed of Palestinians, Jews, Christians, and peoples of all races and religions working to stop this horrid situation, but it in no way is as big as it could be if the whole world would step in to work with them. Few Americans know anything about the homes and fields being confiscated and destroyed daily, the harassment and brutality being inflicted on Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank and other territories by the settlers with the support of the Israeli armed forces. Just as governments all over the world, in America as well, sometimes perpetrate atrocities upon certain strata of society, it is most emphatically happening in Israel today, a developed and well educated nation, on an astonishingly alarming scale. The world has the responsibility to speak out and work against the Israeli Government in their support for the settlements, to insure that these atrocities will end. This would be the greatest way to inspire trust and respect in the Arab and Muslim Worlds for the Western World, and maybe, just maybe stop, or at least curtail terrorism and extremism. Could it not also inspire Iran and all nations to feel less need to develop nuclear technology to insure their own security?

The Seth Material

I happened onto a book in the early 80s by Jane Roberts inspired by Seth, after years and years of looking for answers explaining what the heck being an Earthling was all about. Even as a small child I was mesmerized by it all, asking my father,"who planned all of this?" He answered,"no one, it all just happened." Somehow that never satisfied me. I had checked out all of the world religions and new age gobbledygook, been a Baha'i for a few years, and yet never found the answers I was looking for. The Seth Material sent chills up and down my spine and set my hair on end. I was shocked. "Testimony that speaks to the importance of this material is the fact that Yale University now permanently houses the Jane Roberts Papers in its library. These papers are the 2nd most visited archive at the Yale by scientist, physicists, parapsychologist, and laymen."

Supposedly we never find answers until we are ready for them. You might want to check it out. Don't let the fact that the material is channeled sour you. Give it a try. Every day existence is a miracle, when you consider string theory, infinite probable realities and the eleven universes which our scientists have now discovered through Quantum Physics. Seth revealed this stuff long before our Scientists even dreamed it all possible, not that I am any expert, so don't quote me please. So take a giant leap and consider that maybe not all channeled information is hogwash, just more magic like every day life. My kids have been raised with this stuff, making their daily magic and taking responsibility for what happens in their lives, and it seems to be working pretty good for us, even with our ever so limited understanding of this amazing work. There are many internet sites to check out. This link is less new age flamboyant and so more acceptable to my sensitivities. Check this out

The Wall Street Buy Out!

Wow! It didn't pass! Does that mean Americans have a real backbone? Does that mean anyone in Washington cares what we think? I wish it were so, but the voters against the Buy Out were mostly those who would lose votes during the upcoming elections, so we still have to wonder if our votes count more than our wishes, right? Congress is still more motivated by their own preservation and job security, rather than representing what WE want. What a shame. Does everything come down to self-preservation with little consideration for altruistic high-minded thinking? No matter, I do believe that it is the time for the spiritual forces in control of this realm, unseen and little acknowledged, to take over, and that is what they are doing. The greed and selfishness will no longer be tolerated, so whatever the corrupt money managers do, they will fail. Have great faith in that. Spirit will not be denied, and as long as government turns away from it, it will fail. It is that kind of time in our evolution. That doesn't mean the people will fail, as we can grow and continue on protected, even as the system fails. Rest assured we are being loved and cared for and what we think does ultimately matter ever so much, more than any of us know. It may get difficult and scary, but if we are brave and unafraid we will find ways to make our way through. Our love of family and peace for all mankind is being heard, and universal oneness is responding. In the dream state we speak out and are rejuvenated, even if we are not aware of the process, though we certainly could be aware if we believed in ourselves and our latent lost spirituality.
"If a billion people were thinking about peace there would be peace in our world." - John Lennon
Think long and joyfully of peace and world prosperity without Wall Street!

Americans to the slaughter

The world economy is slipping... not to mention the rest of the world's woes presently.....and we must dream of greater things, like Obama for a start. Hopefully he is for real, though I always have my doubts. Could he be a figment of my over-active imagination, as ephemeral as he is magical? Emma Goldman said, "If voting changed anything, they'd make it illegal" One does wonder.

Rant: Sarah Sucks...
Check this out
I think the Palin thing is insane. I'm not talking the person, but the total concept. Although the person is pretty damned scary in so many ways. Check this out Americans seem struck dumb or just plain scared by our governments propaganda, which for one thing, has successfully brain washed many of us into being so scared of all Arabs we are out of control... and somehow many now see Obama as an Arab out to get us, mere bigotry and prejudice crap. Who could imagine that we would get a woman so terribly freaky in a position to be President!? How lost are Americans that they could be so duped? My God!

Yes, the world should vote for the American President!
Check this out What a great idea! Protect us from ourselves, scared little idiots that we seem to be. I still think the World is in travail, and has a lot of horrid stuff to go through before we turn it all around, just too much corruption and greed all around. We all have to find our spiritual roots again. I don’t know why Obama’s world appeal has not been a more important factor in the presidential race, as you would think it would be the most positive thing, his amazing universal charisma and the world support for America he would generate. A friend in Australia mentioned that she had heard that Palin was foisted upon McCain....I thought just another stupid move on his part but maybe he did have creative help thinking up this fire cracker! And go figure why Americans responded so positively rather than with the appropriate horror.Check this out

I think the Power People are so so scared of Obama raising taxes on the rich and threatening the Great Machine, that they are pushing Palin and desperately hoping that she will bring the votes to McCain, to maintain the status quo and continue the Travesty in Washington, making the working class pay for the rich and their greed. Now Bush is trying to scare us into believing that if we don’t go for his HUGE Wall Street buy out, our economy will fall into a great depression....oooh I am so scared! That Blankety Blank Blank and all his rotten cohorts. Grrrrrrr.....McCain More of the Same treads ever onward....too naive to realize he is a pawn. Drug companies inspire more fear with hundreds of daily commercials pushing drugs they say we need to have good lives, so we can sleep well and not worry or think as we are led to slaughter working our butts off.....keep those Americans sedated and make millions on the drugs.... keeping the Great Fear/Money Machine going for the rich while it's execs in the government/pharmaceutical/medical/insurance conglomerates switch high bucks jobs back and forth like psychotic leap frogs playing hop scotch. Meanwhile Americans are slaving to make ends meet and too wasted and scared to really figure out what is going on. Are we not a lot more like the human batteries in The Matrix than we would like to think? There are many alternative sources for news on line, but too few are are driven to find them, or have the energy or clear-mindedness to bother. The network news only releases what the forces in control of this realm want them to release....and most of us don't want to see how things really are as we are scared enough already. Thus Freedom in America is. Thank God, I believe in our Angels and know in my heart that all this crap will stop soon enough, and that the world will transform. All great societies that become greedy and corrupt fall, and The World Machine will fall as well, then the little people of heart and soul will prevail. They are building their base all over the world. It is good to maintain a sense of Humor.