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Oh, thank you, package from Amazon.com

Oh, thank you, package from Amazon.com

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Oh joy! Books! Books I ordered, but that now appear like a comic gift to me from Benevolent Deities Inc.

Happy sigh. Ahhhhh…. two for browsing at leisure, one for candy satisfaction:

Pronoia Is the Antidote for Paranoia: How the Whole World Is Conspiring to Shower You with Blessings
Rob Brezsny

Diva Lion says:

Pronoia is a philosophy book of a most unusual stripe. It takes a lot of the ideas that Breszny has developed on the Free Will Astrology site and particularly that he included as themes in his amazing novel, The Televisionary Oracle, and expands on them, shaping them into a chaotically coherent philosophy of life. The style is undeniably Breszny– quirky, irreverent, soulful, linguistically athletic, challenging, hopeful.

The Red Book: A Deliciously Unorthodox Approach to Igniting Your Divine Spark
Sera Beak

Synopsis:

The Red Book” is a nothing less than a spiritual fire starter—a combustible cocktail of Hindu Tantra and Zen Buddhism, Rumi and Carl Jung, Mary Magdalene and modern psychics, goddesses and Gnosticism, shaken with cosmic nudges, meaningful subway rides, haircuts, relationships, sex, dreams, humor, and intuition. It’s a book that encourages women to live more consciously so they can start making clearer choices across the board, from careers to relationships, politics to pop culture and everything in between. For smart, gutsy, spiritually curious women whose colorful and complicated lives aren’t reflected in most spirituality books.

Making Money (Discworld Novels)
Terry Pratchett

Publisher’s Weekly review:

Reprieved confidence trickster Moist von Lipwig, who reorganized the Ankh-Morpork Post Office in 2004’s Going Postal, turns his attention to the Royal Mint in this splendid Discworld adventure. It seems that the aristocratic families who run the mint are running it into the ground, and benevolent despot Lord Vetinari thinks Moist can do better. Despite his fondness for money, Moist doesn’t want the job, but since he has recently become the guardian of the mint’s majority shareholder (an elderly terrier) and snubbing Vetinari’s offer would activate an Assassins Guild contract, he reluctantly accepts. Pratchett throws in a mad scientist with a working economic model, disappearing gold reserves and an army of golems, once more using the Disc as an educational and entertaining mirror of human squabbles and flaws.

Sometimes I Just Want

Sometimes I Just Want

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Sometimes I Just Want

To fly through the sky, carefree, in freedom.
To heal anyone of anything.
To know, understand, and be able to communicate in every language.
To sing well enough to make other people cry.
To leap through the air like a dancer.
To skip and not worry if I look absurd.
To play, mingling imagination and reality like a child.
To run at full speed, for as long as I want to.
To hide anywhere by fading into my surroundings.
To huddle, warm and cozy, by a fire.
To sleep in total comfort, with sweet, sweet dreams.
To stomp my feet and get my way.
To scream in frustration.
To cry, giving meaning to feelings of helplessness.
To read great books for days and days.
To write better… much, much better.
To articulate the half-formed thoughts that escape so easily.
To inspire others to think and ask questions and wonder and care.
To be more courageous.
To take a risk.
To trust.
To loathe.
To feel more comfortable in my own skin.
To be graceful.
To be awkward.
To shake someone and scream “what is WRONG with you?”.
To pick a fight, for no real reason.
To hear laughter.
To take off and be by myself for a couple of weeks.
To have superhero tools, especially the lasso of truth.
To have a teleportation device.
To have a time machine.
To have a holodeck.
To have a device that could make anything out of anything -free.
To have enough money never to have to think of it again.
To never have to clean anything but my own body.
To travel safely and comfortably – anywhere.
To open everyone’s eyes – including my own.
To have a working magic wand.
To suddenly notice that I’m happy.
To have a good tree to climb.
To go on a ferris wheel.
To go ice-skating.
To go skiing.
To go camping.
To be wise.
To be silly.
To be fun.
To be frivolous.
To be loving.
To be loved.
To be cruel.
To be petulant.
To be unreasonable.
To be logical.
To be disciplined.
To be unfettered.
To be irresistible.
To say exactly what I’m thinking.
To be completely selfish.
To be sweet, for no particular reason.
To live in that happy spot between desire and ego-lessness.
To find the ideal balance between order and chaos.
To be left alone.
To get attention.
To slap someone right across the face.
To do something meaningful with my insights before I forget them.
To have something more than insight.
To see for miles and miles.
To let go and trust the cosmos.
To float downstream.
To laugh naturally, untainted by any history.
To dream vividly, in color, and with all my senses, and remember everything.
To be able to play any music I’ve ever heard or can imagine, and on any instrument.
To experience the world in terms of wonder.
To create visual works of art that turn out just the way I imagine them.
To kiss and be kissed – with passion and tenderness.
To be held and comforted.
To believe that everything will be all right.
To make love for hours and hours.
To hold hands and walk together.
To talk for hours about everything and nothing.
To be more likable.
To be witty.
To be as bitchy and cantankerous as I please.
To be sneaky and sly.
To throw down the gauntlet.
To do the dozens.
To alphabetize my books.
To find the book I was looking for.
To remember the perfect word for that.
To know everyone’s name.
To make everything all better.
To have a plan.
To see real justice in real life.
To feel sorry for myself.
To feel sorry for someone else.
To always look like I was exactly 28, but live forever.
To talk to God, and get it, and like it.
To confer with the minor deities, and emerge unscathed.
To discover the perfect energy source.
To discover the cure for greed.
To read – at will – anyone’s thoughts.
To live in a more civilized and caring country.
To have friends in all the imaginary kingdoms, but no foes.
To die.
To really live.
To be immortal.
To understand and forgive.
To hold a grudge like it was a piece of treasure.
To be more realistic and pragmatic.
To keep an even keel.
To keep a stiff upper lip.
To keep my cool.
To express everything.
To be silent.

Revamped for the Election

Revamped for the Election

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Too bad I couldn’t find the custom canines, but I think the fangs are clearly implied.

I am so very happy that I can celebrate such things. Jehovah’s Witnesses and other groups who can’t find the spirit in Hallowe’en are really missing out.

As the photos de-monstrate, I embraced my shadow and it was as thrilling and as unnerving as always. Found a few more worthy bits to reposition, save and integrate. Such exploration is palpably good for the soul (despite appearances).

I call attention to the construction of the word “demonstrate” with a hyphen. Why?

Latin dēmōnstrāre, dēmōnstrāt- : dē-, completely; see de– + mōnstrāre, to show (from mōnstrum, divine portent, from monēre, to warn).

To divinely portend, to call out a warning, to make manifest or apparent, display, evidence, evince, exhibit, manifest, proclaim, reveal, show, authenticate, bear out, confirm, corroborate, endorse, establish, evidence, prove, substantiate, validate, verify.

To demonstrate is thus also to un-conceal, to dis-cover.

Truth as endorsed warning and as authentic manifestation of such warning AS truth – but also holding a warning about that very act. A complete showing that warns about itself, like an Angel of Annunciation. But do not fear.

Oh, it’s a lovely emblematic truthing, but with a warning about that truth, too. The truth will set you free, but it’s not always easy.

The word “demonstrate” also suggests something to the ear – “demon-straight.”

Damned straight! Straight to hell! It shows what we most demonize, but what we demonize is also sacred to us because there is an attraction at the heart of the repulsion. It’s inherently unstable with regard to anything but its power.

Such signage can be archetypal and playful identifications can de-“monster” – precisely by letting the demon-monster live for a little while, so that one can pick up some of the good monster traits while letting go of elements that have been recognized (but no longer denied or forgotten).

I am not free of the vampire. Where is that body? Where is that blood? Gimme communion. Gimme carnality and spirit. Gimme unrepressed gratification of my desires. I would love to swoon. I would love to take a walk on the dark side. Of course, I pass out at the sight of blood, but I do love vampire novels. It’s all a dream, and to pick out the parts that really can be integrated into me, into my life, into my own sense of ethics and my own spiritual journey, is always enlightening. It reminds me a lot of the way I used to collect rocks.

I think McCain and some of the Republican Party are vampires, and that is what I despise about them. I do love to despise their bloodthirstiness, their preying upon the sub-millionaires among us, their cynical manipulations of the public, their disregard of what it takes for people and countries to thrive. And it’s true – so true – that they are vampires in these ways.

But Barack Obama is right, I think, not to manifest and feed that set of truths because it can’t be taken playfully or dissipated with court-jester humor that speaks truth. It’s too real, and the consequences are too important. The alternative is to recognize, but to lead with an different vision, one that refuses to demonize others. We are all Americans, after all, and a President should think of just as many of the people as he or she can.

I think it is wise to have elections a few days after Hallowe’en, and it is especially important this year. It works the same way as a picture of Cheney as the Evil Emperor with George W as Darth Vader; the fear that is inspired by the recognition of a deep truth in it is – at the same time – dissipated through its very manifestation. They really ARE those characters, and thank goodness they really aren’t.

I have been fearing that what (at least a subset of) the Republicans are trying to catalyze will work, and that hatred and violence will escalate. I am hoping that projections of evil otherness must at some point become so obvious, so de-monstrable even to the far-right wing, that they will just fall down and implode. It looks a little better now for the latter scenario than it did even a week ago.

After such playful shadow-work as seems inherent in the celebrations and rituals of Hallowe’en, I am less angry, and much more hopeful.

Remedy for A Curmudgeonly Mood

Remedy for A Curmudgeonly Mood

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When I find myself in a curmudgeonly state, I listen to episodes of StoryCorps. I used to listen to it on NPR’s Morning Edition on the way to work on Fridays, but my car radio doesn’t work anymore. Now I listen via podcast.

I honestly don’t know anything that more predictably awakens my love for humanity than listening to these recordings. All the complexities and quirks of human being are there, and those things are always kind of new and surprising and wonderful.

I started listening to try to improve my skill at writing dialogue. I wanted to listen to a range of “real voices” very quickly. But I fell in love with it. Listening to the experiences of others is a form of loving. It is a form of spiritual practice, one I tend not to value enough in the world of everyday existence.

You can’t listen to many of these and continue to think in exclusively negative terms about people. During this election season, I’ve been desperate enough that I have even gone back into the archives. They are short. Sweet. Highly recommended.

The podcasts are supported by the Fetzer Institute as part of its Campaign for Love and Forgiveness (loveandforgive.org). All the recordings are being saved for the Library of Congress and, if you know someone with an interesting experience to relate, you can arrange to record that story, too.

Listening to people telling their stories helps us all to remember and to really feel why hating or fearing other people is not going to be any kind of solution to anything.

It sounds trite, but when mind and body and spirit are in agreement, it’s a powerful thing, and we have so few opportunities for that sometimes. I could feel the endorphins flood my system. No kidding.

Really paying attention also develops the inclination to do so more often – and with more people, and a wider range of people. Sometimes there are amazing experiences that people have undervalued for years… the woman who would not be deterred from voting, the romance that took decades to come to fruition, the very first jumpshot, the reason why Grampa grins when you say that word. There are stories all around you.

Beliefs and values come from the stories of people’s lives. One thing that everyone could do is to ask! “Have you experienced something that informed your view of this issue?” Maybe if we shared our stories more often, we might start to understand how to negotiate through some of the more difficult issues we face. Maybe if we listened to people who have had different experiences than we have, it might help to heal all the communication pathologies that are so clearly evident today. When you listen, and read, and think about real experiences from different perspectives and places and times, it also makes you a little more impervious to manipulation.

The heart of StoryCorps is the conversation between two people who are important to each other: a son asking his mother about her childhood, an immigrant telling his friend about coming to America, or a couple reminiscing on their 50th wedding anniversary. By helping people to connect, and to talk about the questions that matter, the StoryCorps experience is powerful and sometimes even life-changing.

Our goal is to make that experience accessible to all, and find new ways to inspire people to record and preserve the stories of someone important to them. Everybody’s story matters and every life counts.

Just as powerful is the experience of listening. Whenever people listen to these stories, they hear the courage, the humor, the trials and triumphs of an incredible range of voices.

By listening closely to one another, we can help illuminate the true character of this nation reminding us all just how precious each day can be and how truly great it is to be alive.

-Dave Isay, Founder, StoryCorps

On the home page, there is a subject index for you to pick a topic. Enjoy.

StoryCorps: Listen Here