ONCE UPON A TIME...

 ....... a traveling philosopher and seer reached the top of a mountain after a hard day's travel. Laboriously, he inched around the last, giant boulder and stepped onto a large flat plateau with a beautiful, iridescent fire, burning at its center. Marveling, he walked slowly around its borders, admiring the beauty and intricacy with which it had been constructed. A limitless array of colors danced within the flames. He couldn't get too close because at irregular but continuous intervals, the fire would draw in on itself and then shoot outward and upward,spewing out deep, black-purple and dark indigo flames into the air, before subsiding back down and resuming its rainbow dance of color. 

He was entranced. He put down his willow staff, took off his orange cloak and sat, leaning back against the boulder. Staring into the flames.

Time passed. He could hear a fountain of water on the far side of the plateau, shooting out of the mountainside, straight and true. Down to the river,in the valley below. He was of the water and it drew him mightily, but he stayed, leaning up against the boulder, watching the fire from a safe distance. His brilliant orange robe dulled, laying dusty and discarded on the ground beside him. His willow staff of the river grew brittle and dry. 

He yearned for the water and where it might lead him, but the fire demanded to be watched though it was intertwined on itself. It could not go through its myriad changes without an audience. The fountainhead beckoned for him to come to no avail. The spray of its tears coating the rocks all way to the valley floor and the river flowing strong and true below.

*******************************************************************************

Myth and legend are the fate for certain truths in the land of belief that can bear only so much pain. How does one know of ancient stories of realities where hearts were broken unless they have a memory to remind them?
 

A memory stirs. a call is put out.

For what?

Unknown. except that, for some yet to be determined reason, it is right time.

So they awoke. this fire and this water. And they knew. They're sisters! A blessing and a curse to each of them.

But it explained a lot that had been so mysterious to the wanderer. That had been so lost to him. For he had been sleeping too. For soooo long. Called, driven, he picked up his cloak, dusted it off, and put it back on. And then he reached for his withering staff. Steadied by it, he arose to reach for the majestic essence of BOTH the fire AND the water stirring all around him. Engulfing him. awaking him. Reaching for and connecting to his very core.

Shaken! Reeling! Undone! He wavered, staggered, almost falling into the abyss. Many times. But the staff held true on the firm earth and the air began to smell sweet again as his cloak began to reclaim its shine.

A shock to the system I tell ya!! This stuff that calls to him. That leaves him standing in awe in its magnificent presence. Stuff that's real. Stuff that holds up. The kinda stuff you don't hang on the wall.

And then he knew too. They'd called to him when they'd called to each other midst their seeking which knows no other way and thank our Mother for it. Which comes to life when there's nothing left to loose. And he could see and feel how it could have been no other way. And he rested easier in his broken heart. for it gave him life.

What now, he said. 

And then, driven by an inspiration and intuition that could be of and by no other, he looked to the sky and it winked at him. And then he turned and looked into hell and it was if he'd looked into a mirror. Cuz he had. Which stirred an ancient memory in him. So he put out his own call... 

  Nothing can mend these broken hearts 

until you mend the splits that drove you apart. 

And then he turned back again. Toward the winkers. And with eyes and heart lifted he fell to his knees....

Mother, Father, God, Heart... guide us, he said. 

Hold us close and protect us in a cocoon of Your Loving, Living, Healing Light.

For it feels to Me that we and You are one and same...

And then, he arose. And with a knowing and resolve the likes of which could be reckoned to the aging Miss Rose in the final scene in Titanic, he jumped into the abyss. For it is there where the splits exist... 

The beginning.....

The Iceman Cometh

What is being revealed by the Iceman will validate what you most likely already know way down deep inside.

But, likely, do NOT believe...

"It all started with her... "They stuffed her full of pills and she committed suicide.  This was the beginning of my dad's exploring.  Like, where lies the answer?  Where lies all these (life's) problems?  So he went challenging himself.  You know, if you don't have your answer, if they don't have an answer, you go find it."(Enahm Hof, son of Wim Hof).

Wim Hof:  "I know where I came from.... its like a trauma.  She jumped from 8th floor.  That's my grief.  I loved her to death.  But the world is immune to it, its not interested in that.

Its very difficult to bring this to the establishment.  But, we are on it.  So science, in time now, will take it on as we do our stuff."

On to what?  What stuff?

Wim Hof's stuff.  Stuff is what he calls it (or at least that's what I think he is saying as the word is barely audible to me and skewed to my ear by Hof's thick accent) in the Vice Media production of Iceman.  A method of re-claiming personal power by going deep into the all-consuming, overwhelmingly painful, emotional abyss of one who has lost a loved one, a soul mate, a son, a daughter.  Into the darkest depths of the very thing which has rendered one powerless to reverse.

And he says he can teach it to anyone:

"We are going to start with the breathing.   And you will see, feeling is understanding.  And later on we can get into all kinds of science and literature and readings and comparisons and statistics and all that which we don't need because, YOU ARE GOING TO FEEL IT!"

palooka sez...  I have, ever since i can remember, 'known' that human potential is unlimited.  That my potential for personal power (and yours) is only limited by the limitations I invoke upon it.  Further, when it comes to the God thing, I'm all in.  IOW, the potential for such power is endowed as a birth right upon emergence. 

To put that another way... as above, so below!   How did I know this?  Simple, I could FEEL IT!

But, I did NOT believe it.

Over the years it has been shown to me through the experiencing of.... well, experiences, that such limitations are primarily a result of 2 things:

1 - judgements against _________.  (ie, beliefs involved with feelings).

2 - denial  of _______.  (those same feelings).

Further: when  the body politic (read my spirit and my will in body) is operating in a state of unconditional loving acceptance of each for the other and what they each are bringing to the table midst real time experiences, realization of full potential enters the state of sacrosanct.

Sacrosanct:  made holy by way of sacred rite.

The film starts off with Hof making this statement:  "To me, God is cold.  U could say that I think of the cold as a noble force.  Its just helping me.  Its training me.  Its bringing me back to being in nature the way it was meant to be.  In this way I do not just endure the cold, I love the cold."

He had begun with a theory:  that nature, when experienced in some form of its extreems, can teach anyone to know thyself.  And so it began, this love affair with the cold.

The film doesn't reveal this but I'm speculating that, with Hof, it went something like this:  psychologically, cold is often associated with the darkness.  And into the darkness of his grief is where he needed to go to find his answer.  The answer to the all-consuming question:  Why?  The question to which there is no answer and can only lead to the next question:  How then, does one live with that?

And how did he know this?  He could feel it!

He began to train.  Subjecting himself to ever-increasing extreems.  Drawing from techniques known to access deeper zones of the human psyche.  Opening doors to his spirit thru breathing techniques which would then open doors to his emotions, his will, and then, realizing, experiencing, this response thru movement and sound, in body.  Energy.  Vibration.  Release.  Each, spirit, will, body, responding in kind to the other.  Thru this process he became what 'normal' folks regard as super human.  Accomplishing feats far beyond the level of normal human ability.

With that came.... understanding!  Realization.   Expansion of point of view.  And along with it, self-awareness along with an awareness of ever increasing possibilities.

Hof's mission now is to use his body as a laboratory to revolutionize our understanding of physiology.  In 2011 he, along with twelve others he had trained in his method, were injected with a bacterial indotoxin that would typically trigger a strong immune response.

"It appeared that he was somehow able to suppress his immune response by making his body secrete adrenalin suggesting that his method can allow us to influence our immune system AT WILL."  (emphasis mine)  This is contrary to known science.  Adrenalin production was thought to be controlled by the autonomic system.  In other words, uncontrollable at will."  

The twelve he'd trained were able to suppress their immune systems too.  This was done to address the valid question:  is Hof an anomaly?  A super human?  A genetic exception where maybe a cob got sideways in the normal course of the DNA dance producing something akin to a physiological savant?

Hof says no.  If he is an anomaly, it is only in that he has been able to realize potential beyond the norm but that such realization is open to anyone willing to allow their own process to do the same.  That, that willingness is the human will and, in conjunction and alignment with the human spirit in human body are, ultimately, limited only by the limitations placed upon itself.

Its all about energy...  Hof:  if your healthy electromagnetically you are able to distinguish an energy field around your head.

Narrator:    What is this electromagnetic halo?

Hof:  That's just the nervous system.  Actually, its electromagnetic signals. And if your brain is not fucked up then you get a nice electrical field around your head.

Palooka sez... Electro - Magnetic?  Read, Spirit and Will -- the electro and magnetic polarities of the ONE. To put that another way... the male and the female from which we all emmerged.  Father/Mother God!!

It came to me somewhere along the way in my 2nd year of sobriety that:  God's will is for me to do my will!!  That didn't just come to me overnight.  It was a process of coming to personal enlightenment taking place over time by going into the emotional pain I'd been numbing with alcohol for 27 years.  Personal!!!  IOW, enlightenment for me may be blasphemy for someone else.  I may unpack that story and how it connects here in another installment on this blog but for now, how did i know this?

I could FEEL IT!

Hof developed his methods as a single parent raising his kids and dealing with the grief of loosing his wife and mother of those kids. She had  a form of DID (dissociative identity disorder - a form of PTSD specifically resulting from trauma in the developmental years).  She committed suicide ultimately setting Hof off on his journey to find a way to deal with the all-consuming heartbreak over which he felt powerless to endure. 

Until.....!!

THE PRETENDER

Its raining.  And it'll still be raining in the morn which translates into, no work!  So I'm up late.  Sittin' here listenin' to Jackson Browne.  Gawd I luv this guy's stuff!   He's the real deal as witnessed by time. And n e body payin' attention!!

And many were including many who cite him as a major influence or inspiration.  'Specially way back in the day when even he, himself, surprised himself with what he was writing and then, performing.  And then, he became a legend to the booty boogie'n, music lovin', mushroom huggin', hippie counter culture of the 70's. Wadda way to follow the 60's and the summer of luv!

As some may have been accused of 'playin around', he was exhaulted by his peers.  I'm readin' One Way Out, Alan Paul's highly acclaimed biography of the Allman Brothers Band, and took a break.   Pulled Jackson up on Pandora, popped the top on a Beck's NA, and sank in for a listen.  Having read a few minutes earlier that JB was both influence and inspiration to Gregg, I couldn't help but drift back to the story as I drank in The Pretender.  Dylan might'a said he and the likes of JB just wrote 'em down and that made 'em all a pretender a'sorts. 

Bob didn't say that.  I said that!

What he did say was this:  it didn't come FROM him, it came THRU him.  All he did was "write it down".

Anywho, here's Gregg.  The same guy who, standin in Linda and Berry Oakley's kitchen in Jacksonville, March, '69, found magic.  Screamin' to get out of him.  Fresh back from LA and new to the house, he didn't know where the light switch was.  But he found a box of kitchen matches, briefly illuminated in the light of a passing car.  Streaming, chasing shadows across the kitchen walls.  Bouncing, chasing itself across the kitchen counter.  Then it was gone.  Right out the same window it had come in.  But not before Gregg snatched up the matches.  He struck one using it to find and light another.  Then he blew out the first.  Maybe even spit on it a bit to cool it down.  I dunno.  If he did, he didn't mention it.  I did.

Then he commenced to write on Linda's ironing board set up there in the darkness of the kitchen.  Match by match he wrote.  One for light.  Another for pen.

Match by match, word by word, line by line, the magic poured out and lay down on the ironing pad. Gregg stared.  Posterity stared back.  The rest is history. 

And... oh yeah, the song? 

Whippin' Post!!

How long does it take to write a song for posterity?  One box of kitchen matches.

I'd read this as he told that story in his autobio.  Now, he was givin' credit where credit was due.  He and JB had been roomies for a time out in LA. 

Gregg, in so many ways, stands alone.  But he stands in good company when it comes to respect for JB. Like a pied piper, many followed in his footsteps.  The influence and inspiration on Gregg wasn't direct.  It was the kinda thing you had to wait out for it to develope.  For the process to unfold.  It started with the acoustic, one of JB's preferred writing instruments.  Gregg had a justified prejudice against unplugged having grown up with a "tennessee flatop"...  cryin' "crying-in-your-beer stuff"  and "shoved down (his) throat".   Gregg preferred a little blues mixed in with his cryin'.

But it was immediate.  In those acoustic melodies he could see right away the mystic avenues its muse could open up.  Vibrations reaching waaaay out there and waaaay down deeeeep inside there to unlock untapped... what? 

Brilliance!  As its turned out!!

And, as I write this final paragraph JB is doin the Load Out.  I luv synchronicity!  Its a gift that lets u know dreams u maybe hadn't even dreamed yet,  are real!

A Flute Player Fer Chrissakes!

 The flute player made me do it.  A flute player, fer chrissakes! 

Once again, its been forever and a day since I wrote here.  Lotta heavy water over the dam since last one.  I've a hankerin' to write again.  See what I can see about the unseen role denial is playing in this insanely crazy time we're living in.   And more specifically, my own and the role it plays in my life.  And maybe, just maybe, I'll get to what's in the water and spill my guts about it. 

But not tonite. 

Its a Friday nite and I'm sittin' here groovin on Jackson Brown's Pandora station and Marshall Tucker plays Can't You See.    And I have an immediate flashback to a late Sunday afternoon long ago as I often do whenever I hear an MTB song.  I've been a fan since day one and day one was that Sunday for a park full of hippies, hippie haters, and hippie wanna be's with a fair 'nuff sprinklin' of bona fide red necks and bikers thrown in.  A menagerie of humanity hanging from their collective finger tips at the edge of a bottomless abyss gathered up together with a common want - deliverance!  On that Sunday Central City park in Macon Georgia was a scene reminiscent of  Sunday afternoons not long gone to Macon or up in Piedmont Park in Atlanta where the Allman Brothers Band would show up, jamb all day and into the night and blow everybody away on a regular basis.

Or, so I was told. And since, have read.  Cuz that was right before my time in Macon.  Before disaster.  By the time I'd gotten down there in '72 they'd blown the lid off the top and were in a free fall crash into apparent oblivion.  Almost exactly 1 month to the day before fatal lightning struck for the 2nd time in a year.

There was hunger.  Macon had the unique experience of a back stage pass dealt only to them.  An all access pass to the birth of what came to be known as Southern Rock.  A brand new genre in a blues rock style that so many were emulating back in the day, the Brothers had evolved it into its purest form yet.  A sub-genre to what I like to call just plain ole roots rock.  And then, disaster!  The kinda stuff with real life in it as Neil Young would say.  Back before the techno know-it-alls started messin round bombardin the breath out of a breathin entity, blasted into dirty digits.  Kinda like the anti-life process of bombardin' living genes to 'modify' 'em in the name of 'progress'.

First, Duane.     Ranked 2nd only to Jimmy Hendrix on Rolling Stone's list of greatest guitar players of all time, Wilson Pickett, right after his astonishing cut of Hey Jude was in the can  down in Jimmy Hall's Muscle Shoals studio, had dubbed him -- Sky Man.  'Cuz his amazing riffs seemed to come intuitively channeled from the ethers creating improvisations that quietly, sweetly, filled in the blanks.  Or, as was the case with Hey Jude, put a phenomenal exclamation mark exactly where it was needed.  That monicker then magically morphed into Skydog.       

And then, Barry.  In the cumulative club of rock n roll bass players, Barry stood alone.  Back in those days nobody bent the strings on a bass quite like Barry.  Or since for that matter.

The chemistry.  The alchemy from which it all fuzed together.  The two elixirs that, when mixed together, made gold.  Literally!  A new magic.  A sound that had only been barely heard between the notes up til then.  And the really kewl part about it? 

THEY KNEW IT!!    Though they'd each recognized their own unique style they each had carried within a genius waiting for the right muse to manifest.  Their coming together in the late 60's to jamb down in Jacksonville was that muse.   Influenced by their shared love of the music of mostly rural, mostly little known, mostly black, roots n blues artists sprinkled across the landscape of the deep south who had walked the crookedest of roads on that landscape before them.  Setting the stage.  Opening the space for the unique blend that could only surface from within each of them through those influences, surfacing for the first time, in that jamb.  Differentiated vibrations so magnetically attracted to one another and in such a pure form when combined as to open the door to an entirely new sub-genre:  Southern Rock.  Many claim it to be dead today.  A thing of the past.  I know damn well that's bullshit.  You can hear the influences of its founding fathers woven into the styles of many players all across the entire spectrum of contemporary rock artists and beyond into several genres.  Just as you can hear the influences of those little known who had walked before them in the riffs of Duane and Berry.   Together, and then as a band, they could whip the post like no others.  How could a sound and a delivery so laid back, so natural, be so loudly profound and definitive at the same time?

They had no idea where it was gonna take 'em but, they knew they'd conceived a brand new baby.  One of the few who come along every once in awhile and set a new paradigm.  That one grain of sand that drops and the whole pile has a seismic shift.  A spike in the energy field that pegs the magnetism meter.   Gregg, Dicky, Butch, Jaimoe?  Absolutely essential in the blend of that chemistry.  Rounding out the potion that became the Allman Brothers Band.  But Duane and Barry were the core with the others pushing them on to new heights.  Witnessed by the roles each played as the voice of leadership of the band.  When Duane went down, Berry took up the role pushing the band that was pushing the edge.  And then, they were gone.

The Brothers mesmerized an entire generation.  Nah, zoned out on drugs, some of you might say?  Good point Gladys!  BUT, you can't cut to the bone, connect on energies that, up until the Brothers had been flowing so unrequitedly through the hearts of so many and mesmerize them for 45 years on drugs alone.  There's something a whole lot deeper happenin'.  Something that transcends differences and unites a commonality in a very unique way that fulfills a primal need on a vibratory level. 

But at the time, it appeared the Brothers were toast.  Any band of human beings would have been pushed over the cliff by the magnitude of the shear reality left in the wake of what the Brothers had created between March of '69 and that Sunday in the park.   The disturbing demise, exacerbated by they, themselves and the biz'ness and all that goes round n round in the land of sex drugs and rock n roll, pulling themselves down, down, down into the depths of self-destruction.  Sinking, sinking as fast as they'd ascended, higher and higher until, they were regarded by many as the best damn live rock band of the day.  And still are in some circles.  And then they crashed.  Into what appeared to be impending death.  And Macon had front row seats to a show with an edge to it known only to them.  A horror show at that!

To the hippies the Brothers and their new sound brought a sense of identity and credibility.   The whole point of hippiedom was about searching for an identity.  Something, anything other than what the generation that had fathered them had to offer.  To the rednecks the south had risen again.  They didn't have to wait for Charlie Daniels, another artist recording out of Macon, to pronounce it in song a few years later.  This was now!  And it had been REAL!! You can't push the frame on anything without being a rebel.  In this case, a strange juxtaposition actually.  The Brothers, an integrated band in the deep south 5 short years since the civil rights act, brings credibility to the rebel cause which was all about what?  Race!  And segregation!!

So, there was this incredible thirst.  The whole phamily with its myriad sub-cultures was as if ship wrecked.  Lost at sea desperately seeking a beacon.  Just as ABB lost it, they lost it too.  Its a big part of the reason why everybody in town was pissed at 'em.  Nobody actually put it like that directly.  No, it played out and oozed out sideways n bass-ackerds n upside down n inside out n every way but direct.  But it was there fer sur.  You could feel it in the air.

And then it happened.  Word spread like magic mushrooms at the Atlanta Pop Festival (better known as the Byron Pop Festival), the south's answer to Woodstock.  Capricorn Record's new discovery.  The Marshall Tucker Band.  In the park on Sunday. 

Lotta things bout MTB stand out.  But the way I saw it the one standing higher than any was Jerry Eubanks, the flute player.  The whole band was just plain gooooood!  But a flute player?  In a rock band?  Running the intro line?  Now THAT was a new groove  And nothing gimmicky about it.  It was perfection.  The kinda thing that just plain mesmerizes you and you immediately follow that pied piper.  And he leads you into... BLISS!  From hopelessness and desperation to bliss in one song!   Yeah sure, there was already an Ian Anderson but Jethro Tull was anything but American, let alone Southern. 

Suddenly, Macon was alive again.  And there was frosting on the cake!   Not only had we just experienced redemption, but the whole idea of a flute player in a southern rock band brought a notoriety of sorts to anybody and everybody who'd ever played in a high school band.   Who'd ever marched their ass off while their head is wondering what the fuck it would feel like to be featured?  It was a subtle thing but you could see it in everybody's eyes.  You could feel it in the air.  It was as if suddenly, everybody felt validated about that desire.  They might not have experienced it directly.  But they could empathize with those that had and REJOICE with 'em.

A flute player fer crissakes!!

The Hunter Gatherers and the Origins of GMO's

Hunter, gatherers... There was a time when they still possessed the personal power to instinctively know what to hunt in the gathering of what they needed according to their desire.

But there was confusion too.  Both among the HG's and that which they gathered, the providers.  Who were in alignment with the idea that that was their destiny path.  To provide.  With themselves.  The Sacrificial Ones!  

Die to live was their mantra.  The path they'd struck for themselves via their interpretations and conclusions drawn in a time long, long ago when such things as DNA were just beginning to take form and then make form.

But, their story is another story in the larger story  And, right now, this is the HG's story.  From one angle of it.  From one layer of the cake.

And there grew a darkness in the green forest.  Over time the HG's lost more and more of their power through the dynamic of denial.  The more split and gaped they became between their wills and their spirit aspects of themselves, the more it became difficult to hold consciousness together.

Which is just another way of saying that the denial was causal to the loss.

What happened next is culminated in what we see today.  Reflections of various forms that can show us their stories.  Not only behind the forms taken but the dynamics running the show behind the scenes.

In the Gap.

Reflections that show us who holds this power now and the unloving, nefarious ways in which they use it to control and hold power over all those who seek to know life inside of love.

Reflections that show us, as GD, a campfire compadre pointed out recently; how good things are turned into bad.

Thrown back on themselves, I might add.

The operative dynamic here is magnetics.  Cuz power, in its denied state can split off from the essence of the body politic.  Go, out there.  Where it is up for grabs.  The energy of it via the EM dynamic, attracts and gloms onto what we call, the bad guys.  And vicie versie.

Voila!  A transfer of power was just made.  In a place where is operates of its own consciousness.  A place that is unconsciousness to us.  Mostly.

I used to say high jacked.  A high jack of this power by anti-life forces.  Who's right place is not of this planet.  And, in many, many instances, inhabiting bodies they've taken over or presenting as earth spirit forms to forward their anti-life agendas.

In a phrase:  to kill the will!!

From one perspective there is truth to the high jacking.  Yet, that could not happen without attraction.  Alignment has much to do with attraction.

And so, it played out.  Over the ages.  More and more the HG's looked to those in power to tell them what to do.  What to eat. What to wear.

Fast forward to today.  There are many reflections of how this is playing out in many, many various forms.

GMO's are just one.  Here, eat this pilgrim.  Its good for you.  No, it won't hurt you.  Our best scientists have verified this with extensive testing and assured us of its safety.  Here, check out these links.  Watch these shows.  Pay attention to advertising.  It will inform you of the truth.

Another is the fashion industry.  Particularly vulnerable are women.  Cuz, what's the message?  Be beautiful.  That's yer job eh?  And besides, you desire it.  And you deserve it.  Because, you ARE beautiful!

Anyway, its quite a show to see it playing out on the stage we call life.  Wear this to be Miss Thing.  Or this sophisticated beauty for the opera.  This little number for the party.  Or, whatever.

One of those whatevers being, wear this little sexy flower and you will entice.

What?

Him!!

There she is.  The unconscious concubine to the handler.  Strutin it down the runway in all her voluptuous womanhood.  Wear this and you will shine.  And that shine will draw him to you.  And he will be mesmerized by your draw.

Which is just another of the stories in the greatest story of all time.  Him.  But, we'll have to put him in the later box for now.

Is that it?  Not hardly.  That's just one point of view of only one aspect of a dance gone mad.  Mine.  What's yours?

Holy Smoke!

DW (dear wife) was diagnosed couple years ago with dissociative identity disorder (DID) and there's never a dull moment around here what with more and more alters showing up. And the more that show up the more gets remembered. Its pretty scary. Latest episode had dead cats tied up in red string (Kabala?). Tortured to death at the hand of half a dozen children forced to do so by a circle of bad people in hooded robes.  Chanting! Smacks of ritual stuff!!

So foreign.

And then I remembered. It hit me looking at the calendar about to turn to March. I grew up under the influence of rituals. Except I didn't know it. Then, it was normal. We'd no sooner get done with one when it was time to do another. If we weren't burnin palms to bless new fire and plant ash crosses on pious foreheads we were consecrating new water into holy to sprinkle on 'em. And then there were the seasons with their rituals.

All with Holy Smoke. Incense that is. In a brass thingie hanging from chains. Technically the whole mess is called a thurible. A metal censer or vessel usually divided in two to make a top and bottom. The bottom half is stationary and holds the incense. The top half fits over the bottom and has holes punched in to let oxygen in and the holy smoke out. The chains are attached to the bottom and the top half slides up the chains. Fire up the incense, drop the top, hold the chain in one hand about a foot above the vessel and at it's far end with the other hand. Then hold the damn thing up in front of you and swing it forward in homage and let it fall back toward your face. If you didn't smack yourself in the mouth or burn yourself you knew you're doing it right if the loose chain dangling between hands makes a clinking sound against the swinging vessel. That and you can't breath for the super sweet smoke.

And ritual. Always a ritual involved.

And reverence. Always with reverence.

And in costume. The priest in his vestments all of which had symbology and changed according to what the liturgy dogmented. Robes in other words. Me? I was an alter boy along with every other boy in school. We wore a white surplice down to just below the ass over a black, floor length cassock. Robes in other words.

Growin up I couldn't tell where home left off and church began and then where school left off and church began. They were all the same. Enmeshed together but with church the priority. Everything revolved around church. And church revolved around rituals and seasons. All dogmented by papal liturgy.

For the fire and water rituals we'd march. All around the church we'd go. All us grunts carrying candles. The mucky mucks flanking the priest in pairs forward and aft, swung incense. The forward guys marching backwards so's they could face the priest. The smoke and the water and the fire would be used all year long in accordance with the liturgical calendar. All done up in a strange tongue.

Latin. The priest would mumble stuff and suddenly turn around, face the congregation, raise his eyes to the skies, spread his arms wide, raise his voice to the heavens and sing out something in Latin that sounded like... iiiiiiiii can beat you at domi-noooooes!

Then the choir, upstairs in the back, where all the girls from school were, would all sing out a return, equally in Latin that would sound somethin like... Ohhhh no you caaa-n't!

Then 4 guys with baskets on long stick would go around and collect the bets from the congregation. I don't think anybody every won 'cept the house.

The liturgical calendar identified the seasons. Not like spring, summer, fall, winter. Instead it was Advent, Christmas, Lent, Paschal Triduum (AKA passion week), Easter and so on. Each one had an accompanying mood. Christmas was happy time and you were sposed to be happy. Whether you were or not you pretended you were. Passion week was a time to mourn and grieve. Easter, a time to rejoice. In between Christmas and lent and between Easter and Advent was Ordinary Time. So even when it was ordinary it still got celebrated with rituals that went along with it. But compared to the others it was... well, ordinary. And so, you felt ordinary. Iow, nothing special. Or, maybe better put, you felt nothing. I had no problem with that one.

Lent was a time of sacrifice. It always starts 40 days before the 1st Sunday after the first full moon after the 21st of March. Which I find out many years later is called the Spring Equinox. Equinox and Solstice were 2 words I never heard where I grew up. As it turns out, such was regarded as of Pagan origin where I came from where long noses looked down upon it as ignorant, albeit blasphemous, savagery.

40 days that is if you don't count the Sundays. God said to take Sunday off remember. They call the start of lent Ash Wednesday. You're sposed to go to church that day and you get a cross of ashes plunked on your forehead by the priest. The ashes are from... guess what? Palms left over from last years Palm Sunday that have been... Burned!

The mood was... well, you were sposed to feel guilty. No prob. Lotsa training in that one. Even on Sundays. No rest for the guilty. Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa. Wiki describes lent as a "penitential" season. Yup, it felt like that too. Like you were guilty and now in the penitentiary.

You gave up shit. Seeking forgiveness and absolution. Like your favorite food and TV show. Or later, jerkin off. I remember one year I gave up I Love Lucy. Made the mistake of announcing it to the whole damn family. So get this... mom sez, okay, since you gave up I Love Lucy you can do the dishes every Monday night while the rest of us watch the show.

What? More penance for penance? WTF kinda betrayal is THAT?

Anyway, looking up at the calendar right after DW was rememberin', at the age of around 5, torturin' a drug subdued black cat tied up in red string to a gruesome death upon a stone alter in a cemetery in the name of some henious ritual conducted by a robed and hooded chanting circle of adults that sounds all the hell like a scene straight out of Eyes Wide Shut somehow triggered me into remembering that lent starts in March every March. And that started the cascade of memories thusly described.

Damn, where's that so-called False Memory Syndrome when I need it?

What Happens When God Farts?

This maybe?

Has My Lizzie Been To Mars??

I just found out yesterday that Linda goes to Mars
Every time I sit and look at pictures of used cars
She'll turn on her radio and sit down in her chair
And look at me across the room, as if I wasn't there

Chorus:
Oh My stars! My Linda's gone to Mars
Well I wish she wouldn't leave me here alone
Oh My stars! My Linda's gone to Mars
Well, I wonder if she'd bring me something home.

Something, somewhere, somehow took my Linda by the hand
And secretly decoded our sacred wedding band
For when the moon shines down up on our happy, humble home
Her inner space gets tortured by some outer space unknown.

Repeat Chorus:

Now I ain't seen no saucers 'cept the ones upon the shelf
And if I ever seen one I'd keep it to myself
For if there's life out there somewhere beyond this life on earth
Then Linda must have gone out there and got her money's worth.

Repeat Chorus:

Yeah, I wonder if she'd bring me something home.

We can thank John Prine for that. I didn't really know how to introduce this entry so, thanks John. I borrow from your wild and wacky words yet again as anecdote to what I hope is an humble pie. Suffice to say that Liz goes on these inegmatic journeys and connects up on that mysterious level many of us wonder about. Somehow something literally knocks on her head just as if someone's at the door.

Is it real? Some will just laugh and say its the subjective imagination having an affair with itself. Or worse, insanity. What the hell, it can't be any more insane than mankind gone mad in this world we're living in these days can it? If no more it justifies hope as more than an annoying nuisance.

Whatever it is it happens. On a regular basis. And when she comes back its always interesting to read where she's been. At least in her mind and feelings.

Who are we to question that its just her fancy? So indulge me here. Indulge yourselves. If anything its a trip you might enjoy and you just might be surprized that many of the mysteries that haunt us so just might have a future.

And even more surprizing? That the future is NOW! That somewhere, somehow, something took my Lizzie by the hand and secretly decoded the mysteries of our land....

Here's what she came back with...


2009-01-02 Elk Medicine, Whale's message, and Right Place

[Note: I was contemplating a Medicine Wheel that I had made at the Advanced Medicine Wheel Tool Workshop I went to last year. This Tool was designed to consider five areas in an organizational context: Purpose (in the center); Leadership (North/Air); Vision (East/Fire); Community (South/Earth); and Management (West/Water). It can also be used for personal and community development.]

Mamunia speaks: the rain is fine, so I will take that name today [note: mamunia is the name for rain in an African language]. We would like to invoke the circle, and do a short ritual to welcome the New Year and set our intention for it this morning. How does that feel to you?


Me: that feels fine.


Mamunia: Then let us welcome the four corners: Father of Earth, Mother of Water, Son and Daughter of Air, and Father of Fire. Let us ask for their wisdom and guidance, now and throughout the year. Let us thank them for their protection and care, and for the gifts that each brings to the circle of life. Let us renew our ties with them, so that we can work together to heal Mother Earth and our Universe.

Let us give thanks for all of our relations, for the winged ones, the two leggeds, the four leggeds, the creepy crawlies, the swimmers, and the standing people. Let us remember our ancestors and our children and the children to come. Let us welcome the unseen ones, in this and other dimensions. Let us light the fire in the center of the circle, and draw around, to share the light, the warmth, and the companionship. Aho.


Me & all: Aho.


Mamunia: we would like to do a round of the Medicine Wheel, with the topic being our goals and aspirations for 2009. I will put the talking object in the center of our circle, and each person is invited to speak from their heart about their personal and, if they are so moved, collective commitments. You are also welcome to speak about your hopes and fears, and any sads, mads and glads. In other words, anything you care to share is welcome.


Me: I’d like to draw a Medicine Card to get me started.


Mamunia: you would be most welcome to do so. As is everyone. In fact, why don’t we start with that, as a transfer in. What does this card tell you about your purpose for the New Year?


Me: I drew #3, Brother Elk. Interesting, because I just learned that Elk were prevalent in California, so I used to have a relationship with the Elk People. I knew their ways, their meat, their hides. And the shield (on the Medicine Card) has some human hair braided on it, which gives me the sense of giving back, of sacrificing, in thanks to the Elk’s sustenance.

The Elk is a prey animal. So they are very alert to their surroundings. They are swift. They are ruminants. They were basically the “cows” of my ancestors. I wonder if we ever domesticated them? I don’t think so. They are wild and beautiful and almost went extinct.

So what this tells me about my purpose for 2009… well, one thing is the importance of the herd. Also leadership (the bull) is important. Being willing to move to find new sustenance. So the importance of mobile, self-organizing groups. The importance of the family unit within the tribe.


Elk speaks: “We are here to share with you the knowledge of the land. We lived off of it, of course. We took what we needed, and gave back, without effort. You are now out of balance, so it will take some effort for you to get back into balance. But know that this is your natural state. It is not wrong to give to and receive from the Earth. Mother Earth has designed her inhabitants to do this.”


Me: Here are some highlights:

Stamina: As a prey animal, Elk had no other defense except his ability to go the distance, setting a pace that allowed him to utilize his stamina and energy to the fullest… If you have taken on too much recently, it might be a good idea to look at how you plan to finish what you have started without ending up in the hospital…

Family: Elk hang out with their own gender. This points to the strength you can draw from your own brotherhood or sisterhood. You may need a support group. Or at least a girls’ night out. When elks get together with their opposite gender, their mates, it is for reproduction.

Message: Elk is telling you to look at how you choose to create your present pathway to your goals—when to stop, when to persist, and to open to sisterhood for support.



Okay, so I get my purpose at the start of this year is to attend to the “how” of reaching my goals—especially paying attention to my ability to go the distance. Obviously I have a lot to juggle, but it will do me no good if I make myself ill, either physically or mentally or emotionally or psychically, in my efforts to reach them.

It is also telling me to flirt with my mate.


Mamunia: thank you. Does anyone else want to share reflections as they transfer in? I put the talking object—a piece of antler—in the center of the circle.


Inanna speaks: yes, I would. I am also reflecting on Elk, and am particularly touched by the importance of Sisterhood in the coming year. I am thinking particularly of the need to connect with the Grandmothers who have important survival skills to pass down. I know I don’t have to learn how to can tomatoes, but I do have my own grandmothers to connect with, who have stories and wisdom that might be relevant to me now.


Elk speaks: the four-legged are also members of this circle, and I would like to speak more about your purpose for the year, and our wisdom. We would like a healing between the two-leggeds and the four-leggeds. We understand how your survival has led to the relationships that you have with us now. But we hope this will change.

We believe that personal relationships between the two-leggeds and the four-leggeds will help you heal the gaps between us. We look to you, and honor you, but also hope that you will be willing to learn from us. We are but one form of manifestation on the planet, and we hope to evolve with the rest of those that are committed to healing. So it is important that you understand that we are not in a form that is “set in stone.” As terror moves, and as rage moves, we will have more flexibility to show up in other ways… as when the lion lays down with the lamb.


Whale speaks: In my being, I have the wisdom of many creatures, of a long, long history on the planet… and we have much wisdom to share, even though it is from a very unusual perspective relative to the land-based forms’ experience. We are still your relations. The mermaid form, in particular, was an attempt to bridge this difference.

The sea is so vast… yet it is being impacted in dramatic ways by the two-leggeds. Can’t you feel the anger in the hurricane? Or the forgiveness in a gentle rain? For all of your science, your “meteorology,” you still don’t seem to understand some simple facts—you can’t harvest the sea without feeling Poseidon’s wrath, if you keep on dumping your junk into our space.

The sea is like another dimension, like the Astral plain… it holds everything that is poured into it. And it is like the Akashic plain, in that it’s substance is not the currents—yet the currents are literally the most powerful force on Earth.

The Native Americans, First Nations, and many other Indigenous Cultures had a sense of this, and that is what they were addressing with the Rain Dance. But one group, one tribe, can only reach so far… your entire Earth population needs to join together in a Peace Dance… if you are going to be able to cope with the Pole Shift that is coming.

I love the phrase “Sea Change” that the business world has adopted… and yet, the true meaning of this, the true scope of this, has not been realized. You are literally facing a “magnetic change,” that goes all the way to the very core of the Earth; that is being driven or pulled or shaped by the energy field or aura of the Earth herself.

Yes, your hubby is right, there is a relationship between the Earth and the Sun—between the Earth and all the planets, in fact—that is contributing to climate change. And there is more to it than that. You can easily see the contribution of the “greenhouse gasses” to the equation. But what is causal to that? What energy fields in the people of the planet are causal to the outcome of greenhouse gasses? Why does the Earth need to move off the unloving energies in the first place?

Some of you are directly responsible for letting them in. I don’t mean to make you feel guilty, or bad—what I am hoping to point to, is that you also have the power, and the responsibility, to help with the cleansing that is coming.

Releasing unloving light is just part of the equation. You also need to release guilt. This means that you not only have permission to be “selfish” about what and who you include in your lives, you actually need to do this. The change starts within you, and then pulses out to your relationships, your families, your business partners, your friends… it continues to act on your civic structures, your social structures, your financial structures… why do you think that your economy is coming apart? It is, in large part, because of the intent of the parental fragments to undo the damage that has been done.

No, of course you do not want suffering. But you can’t let guilt keep you from allowing people to experience their own consequences. It is a giant version of “tough love,” of healing from co-dependence.

It is also a giant version of “getting clean,” of healing from addiction.

You really do need to look at every aspect of your life through the lens of “sustainability”—whatever that means to you. Another way to say it is you need to look at every aspect of your life through the lens of “health,” another way is “considering seven generations,” another is “considering all your relations,” another is “how it feels to your will.”

I know you don’t trust the healing process completely, and that is fine. How could you trust it ahead of the experience? But I want you to notice when you do listen to that voice, when you do act on it: how do you feel? What the results are in your life and in your world? You may not recognize how your actions are impacting the greater world, but they are.

First they flow out on subtle levels… and it is really these subtle levels that start things moving “out there.” This movement allows for the more substantial levels of your behavior to actually make a difference, to make change. In fact, when you let your will vibrate, when you sound, you are creating a resonant field that reaches out and “lubricates” things that may have been “stuck” for a very long time.

So don’t underestimate your power. You do that far more than overestimating it. Don’t veer from the path that your innermost knowing and desire point to.

With all the change that is coming, there is going to be a lot of opportunity to act in new ways. There are going to be cracks and fissures in the Intimidating Form that you call reality that you can follow to more open spaces. There are going to be roads that lead to your own right places, if you will allow yourselves to take the initiative, and get there first. For these places are your places, and you belong there, in leadership positions.

It is okay to be angry if someone is in your place. It is okay to complain that you could do it better than they can. It is normal to think about how you could improve things. These are all aspects of the process of you taking back your power. And if you make a mistake once you are in that position, forgive yourself. Making a mistake does not mean that it is not your position. It just means that you needed the experience to help you understand the “right” way to do something.

And people need to learn how to support you in your position. If they don’t get that “right” immediately, it does not make you wrong to be there, or make them wrong to not be there—it is just part of the learning experience. Forgive them for not knowing how to support you ahead of time. Continue to express your needs and preferences. Allow things to turn out right in the long run.

This brings me to a very important judgment release, but I would like to turn it over to God to talk about this.


God speaks: Thank you, Whale, for your wisdom, and for sharing your Grace with all of us. I really appreciate your message.

The judgment that Whale is speaking of is the one that wants to prove that your rage is right for giving up your power in the first place. This is the part of you that gives up—not because of a lack of commitment, or stamina, as the Elk Medicine brings—but because it has always known reversal, and finds it safer to expect that, instead of healing.

In other words, this judgment is the self-fulfilling prophesy that your rage or terror keeps manifesting when it says some form of “I knew that it would never work,” or “I can’t do this,” or, in your hubby’s case, “whatever I do turns to shit,” “it doesn’t matter what I do,” etc. Sapphire, in your case it shows up as a commitment to the symptoms of your brain chemistry imbalances. By this I mean that you hold on to them, as evidence of your past trauma.

Ironically, the way to heal this type of judgment/emotional pattern is not to release it in the usual way, in some form of “I forgive myself for judging that I would always have revesals,” etc. That tends to backfire. The way to heal this is to validate it.

Your judgments are absolutely right, on one layer of the cake, and there is no going to another layer until you have fully accepted your rage or terror’s position. You need to fully hear yourself… you need to fully feel the extent of the reversal that already happened to you around your power, over and over again. You need to let yourself rage about your powerlessness, or be terrified of your power, which led to others trying to control it, or grieve about the consequences of losing your power—whatever comes up for you.

You have very good reasons for being reluctant to take your power back. There is no point in skipping over these, because if you don’t understand them, you will be more likely to create yet another reversal. I don’t, we don’t, want you to do that.

You have my absolute permission to really go into why you don’t want your power, how you feel about losing it, why it was so unfair, or why losing it was my, or another’s, fault… it is totally okay to be “unreasonable,” or “stubborn,” or “unwilling,” or whatever position you might judge as being “politically incorrect” about it.

You may also discover that you have abused your power in the past—and frankly, who hasn’t—and feel you don’t deserve it, or can’t trust yourself, or need to punish yourself. So be it. Nobody can make you take back your power. You actually have the right to refuse it. If you really don’t want it, you can give it to me. I’d much prefer that than you give it to a denial reflection.

In fact, many of you went into seminaries or convents because you didn’t trust yourself with your power, and wanted me to take it back. Unfortunately, I had the same problem, so my denials were often running the show in these scenarios. We both have work to do.

Many people who were the “right” people to lead faced reversals because they had no understanding of how to release their own guilt and judgments—and so drew the reflection of their guilt and judgments in manifestation. Some didn’t even know they had guilt or judgments, and so the reflections seemed to “come out of nowhere.”

Some had fragmentations, usually of their rage, that wanted to be in the parental position, and so pushed their parental parts out of their place—or even killed that part outright. Some of you tried to avoid this by banishing or killing your rage fragment first—but this did not actually remove it from manifestation. It often just flowed to another person that had room for it, and did you in anyway.

Your rage may have something to say to you about how you are or were fulfilling your leadership position. It may be very angry with you for denying it in favor of a more “loving” presentation. It may, in fact, be “right”—that what you thought was love, was actually guilt, and you “should have” let your rage say “no” in the first place.

Of course, what rage needs to understand, is that you needed the experience, and you did not have very good role modeling from Your Parents.

My point is; you have to let yourself go into all of your feelings, here. You need to give yourself permission to really explore all of your judgments. You made them because of something that happened to you; in other words, for a “good reason.” You were trying to protect yourself from ever having to experience the pain of that original experience again.

But, as you know, the way to truly heal, to truly protect yourself, is to allow yourself to feel the original pain. In fact, there is really no way to avoid it. Your judgments can’t protect you from it, so you might as well give them up.

I am not saying that you have to go into a long, painful process, necessarily, but I am saying that you have to allow your will to let you know what it has been holding—and your lost will, as well.

You may find that you are triggered by each other as you work through your relationship to your own right place and whatever form your leadership takes. From my perspective, this is a good thing, as there is more possibility of healing when you are getting your triggers “internally,” so to speak, than “out there,” in the gap. Jealousy, competition, judgment, criticism, impatience, resentment are all likely to come up. Allow them to take you where you need to go.


Mamunia: Thank you, God. You have taken us into the Leadership Quadrant (North). I would like to close this meeting now, and invite everyone to return when we will continue with leadership, and then go on to your vision for 2009. In closing, I will put the antler back into the center of the circle, and invite anyone to share whatever they need to, to get closure.


Gar-Gar speaks: Thank you everyone, for another enlightening meeting. I am thinking about how I always look to adults for wisdom, and that I can also look to my peers, especially other younger males, for insight and guidance. I am not sure what my leadership role is in that context. I guess I fear that I won’t be respected because I am small for my age. Anyway, I am going to be sitting with this for a while.


Inanna speaks: I am going to be sitting with my relationship to power. I know I have abused it in the past… and I think I have abdicated from a lot of it because I didn’t want the responsibility again. I have been working with my child-self, as I needed to reconnect with that part of me… but perhaps it is time for me to step into my adult-self, with the wisdom that I have gained. I am not exactly afraid of doing this… it just hasn’t seemed like the right thing to do. But as I am becoming more involved with the Universal Healing Project, I am more interested in being conscious about the ways that I am living out my right… what is the word… not one in English… “beaming manifestation” is the closest I can come.


Whale: there is a bumper sticker that we find very amusing… it is of a whale, saying “save the humans”… and this is actually how many of us feel. Yes, some of us have turned away from the two-leggeds… but some of us recognize that some of you are receptive… as some of you were in the Old Days… so I want to say Thank You, for making space for me in your Circle. I don’t always speak, but I almost always come. Much of my message is communicated through non-verbal means, anyway… it is there for your taking, if you so wish… and is always there, through your connection with the Akashic Plain. It gives me, and many of the non-human nations, much happiness that so many of you are receiving us again.


God: I am glad that you are willing to specifically look at leadership… it is a very charged issue, as you well know… the more you move with the little triggers, the less you will have to draw big ones to you… So I am hoping that you will call [your potential client], and talk to her about what is going on in her community… hint, hint. ;)


Me: whew, yes, all of this is very intense for me… I am feeling a bit of terror… I am grateful for all of the input, everyone… grateful to myself for putting time aside for this… grateful for my hubby and grateful that I have a life that allows for this time, and the technology to capture this and share this… thank you, thank you everyone…


Wolf speaks: thank you for noticing me. Yes, I have been Elk’s enemy… but that is not why I am here today… though I do appreciate Elk’s wisdom, and know that I am the other side of that coin. I am here because I have an urgent message, that I want to squeeze in here, even though it is rather last minute. My message is simply this: you have to embody the energy of The Hunter as you track and own your right place.

I know there is much to heal in the Predator mode. But to do this, we need to honor what is right about this modality, what it is useful for, and when is right time to be in this mode. In order to heal it, we, the predators, the reflection of your denial of it, need you to bring it back into your bodies, and work with it, in order to discover what it has to contribute in its healed form.

This is a part of leadership, ownership, and power, at least as it stands right now. I don’t care if it doesn’t remain so, but I am asking you to please stop denying your own predatory aspects, so that they do not have to act out in a state of denial. Bring them in, move what needs to move, and learn what needs to be learned. Thank you.


Mother speaks: I hear you, Wolf… and your Bretheren… and I thank you for heading my cry for healing, in the way that you can…

Leadership that is not power-over, that is not predatory, is hardly imagined at this point, let alone manifested. Yet it has to happen.

But I am willing for you all to go through whatever you need to go through to get there. I am willing for Rage to have its say; for whatever feelings, “unloving” or no, to come up and express. This is the way to take the fangs out of the flesh, the claws from the hide.

You have to be willing for your rage to express, too, in order to follow my way. You have to trust your will, and make it safe for ignition to happen. When it does, take advantage of it, no matter how ugly you have judged those feelings in the past. Embrace the shadow.


Mamunia: thank you, everyone, for your contributions today. And thank you, Sapphire, for suggesting that we transfer in. I was being too ambitious in my agenda, I think, and it was a good lesson in allowing the process to unfold in its own pace—pacing being one of the lessons that Elk has brought to us today.

Until next time, I will formally close the circle. Aho.


All: Aho.


No need to wonder longer if she brought me something home!

Aho!!

Me and Mr. Mouse

There it was. Right in the middle of the stove top. A mouse turd. We have one of them drop-ins. Except for the oven compartment and the stove eye compartment and a drawer at the bottom where we keep some frying pans, there is no cabinet. The cabinet is actually the kitchen cabinets. I pulled the pan drawer open. Just in time to see the little bugger disappear into the darkness. Somewhere into the back reaches of the cabinets where unmentionables are stored. And unmentionables happen. Rats fucking! Nesting!! Vermin!!! Disease spreading!!!! Unknowns happening!!!!! Scary shit!!!!!!

Having cats around we've never been bothered much by rodents in the house except for the carcasses of the ones they bring in as gifts. Its in their DNA I guess. Just like squirrels do what squirrels do when they store nuts.

But this guy made it past the guard. Had he moved in? I kept an eye out for it for a couple days and then forgot about it. Left a loaf of bread on the counter overnight. Next morning I walked in the kitchen just in time to see the little bugger disappear down one of the eyes. There was a nice neat hole in the corner of the bread wrapper. I didn't mind the missing little bit of bread. Or the minor mess of crumbs. But there was another one right in the middle of the stove top.

Another turd!

I can live with the squirrels dropping turds on the rail of the deck outside. I might even be able to live with most anything as long as its not shitting on my stove! So I put out one of those mouse catchers that was left by the previous house owners. Plunked it right down on the cabinet where the bread had been. Next day, sure enough, the catcher had caught. It was one of those sticky things. Mr Mouse was alive and squirmin'. And the more he squirmed the stucker he got.

Then it happened. He caught my eye with his. Or maybe he was a she. I didn't check. But I couldn't look away either. There was a sadness. A hopelessness. A cry for help. A connection between one living thing that was in trouble and another. He'd look up at me. Then down at his little paws mired in the tar. Then back up at me. Somehow this little mouse knew he was toast. I could see it in his face. I swear, I saw tears in his eyes and stream down his little face. I just stood there mesmerized. Taken by his plight which he communicated to me on some level.

Then a wave of compassion moved through me and I thought, maybe I can take him outside and turn him loose. But those stickies grab like magnets. I'd never used one before. He was mired in the tar beyond rescue and I knew it. And I certainly hadn't considered these consequences. Or this reaction. That I couldn't do something that would determine the fate of another living creature and just put it out of mind. That I'd actually have to follow through. Pull the trigger so to speak. Face it. Deal with it. Take it to completion. Consciously.

And it was as if he knew I knew. He even looked sad for me. For my plight too. As if he knew I couldn't help him. As if he knew I hadn't thought the whole thing through. As if he knew I'd learn that it, that he, that life itself, actually mattered to me. That he mattered. That life mattered. That if I had a choice to let him live I'd make it on his behalf. And because I was helpless too he was actually sad for me. Sad for both of us.

And then I realized I was too. It couldn't just end here. I couldn't just leave him squirming on the counter. And I couldn't just pitch him out in the yard stuck and helpless to defend himself. To slowly starve to death. Or become dinner for Mr Hawk. Or Mrs Owl. Not that those kinds of things aren't facts of life as it is. And the predator would then become victim to the tar too.

One of us had to take action and it was clear who was still capable of action and who was helpless to their fate. And it was clear who was responsible. I'll spare the details but suffice to say the end was quick. And before I did what I had to do... to do for both of us, I told him I was sorry.

Was it just a mouse? Or can the experience be extrapolated to apply to one's principles? To go to the very core of one's being. What is it about life that is so precious? That moves us so? Its a fair question. But even more so is the question, why can't we hold the value of it present? Why do we have to be reminded in such heart wrenching ways?

Tears. Heartbreak. Besides life itself, one of the most precious of feelings. It serves to remind us of the value of life as a feeling reaction to loosing it.

RIP Mr Mouse. I never thought the whole thing through.

I told Liz about it and she told me the story of her and Mr Mouse. When she was about 7 she had a little mouse. It was her friend. The only friend she had at the time. But it struck her. Somehow the relationship translated into understanding freedom in the mind and heart of a 7 year old. Somehow, in her loneliness, with only a mouse as a friend, she knew she had to set that mouse free. To let go of the only other living thing she could truly connect to unconditionally. And that to keep it in a cage for her own satisfaction, for her own comfort, was conditional.

So she took the little mouse to the park and set it free. Along with a box of corn flakes so it would have something to eat. And she cried. But she said she'd never felt free-er herself. Someone, some wise bird, once said, if you love something, set it free. If it flies back to you, its your's forever.

Was that you Mr. Mouse?

The Field

Somewhere in a remote pristine monestary perched precariously on the cliffs of a Tibetan mountain side, priests are levitating. Have been for 5000 years.

How do they do it?

Somewhere in the snow, shivering in the snarly entrails of the Black Hills of the Dakotas, sits a young Lakota brave in silent, sensual meditation on his first vision quest.

How's he do it?

While that is going on psyops and black ops weaponry are being developed. Have been. For at least 50 years now and some would double that. One particularly nasty... well hell, they're all nasty... version of these is called the Active Denial System, aka, the pain ray. Appalingly, some find this fortunate! Hopefully, by the time we get to the bottom of this entry, the reader will find a chilling irony in that.

The space between things is NOT empty. and.... the assumption that our inner experiences - what we call thought, feeling, emotion, and belief - have no affect on the world beyond our bodies, is FALSE.

The exact opposite of that is recognized as commonly accepted academic scientific assumption. Has been for years. 300 years.

Academic science is just now starting to agree that the space between things and inner experiences are in play and influence outside events. Go check it out for yourselves. Now they're wondering what the hell to do with it. The boogie man has not only figured out what to do with it, they are doing it. In every way other than life sustaining. And don't even think about loving.

Journal, Nature, vol 326, aug, 1986, pg 590... "Silvertooth, under the auspices of the UNITED STATES AIR FORCE (emphasis added) reproduced the nearly 100 year old experiments done by Michelson and Moreley.

Though the M-M experiments were considered a failure even by M-M and the specific force they were attempting to measure became regarded as a superceeded scientific theory, the parameters of the experiment became a protocol for further research including that of Earnest Silvertooth.

"The results of his (Silvertooth's) experiment show that there is in fact a field of energy that connects everything in our world and the field was found to exist within the same parameters predicted 100 years earlier by Michaelson and Moreley." Quote, Greg Baden.

But don't take ole Silver Tongue's word for it. Or was that Silvertooth? Or Baden's...

Silvertooth's Experiment:

In a 1986 letter to Nature[42] Ernest W. Silvertooth reported that he constructed an interferometer capable of detecting the absolute motion of the Earth with respect to the ether. In Experimental detection of the ether[43] and Motion through the Ether[44], Silvertooth reported that on the particular day of his measurements, the Earth moved at 378 km/s towards the constellation Leo. If relativity is correct, than this result should be complete garbage.

Silvertooth published his findings before NASA launched COBE, the first satellite to accurately measure the cosmic microwave background (CMB). Due to Doppler shift, there is a slight anisotropy in the spectrum of the CMB. Based on precise measurements of this anisotropy, it was determined that, relative to the CMB, the heliocentric frame moves at 390 km/s towards Leo. Given the earth's orbital speed of 30 km/s, this is a very good agreement with Silvertooth's measurement. In a refined experiment[45], Silvertooth and Whitney confirmed the earlier result and found a speed of v = 378 km/s.

A citation search through ISI Web of Science[47] reveals no references to any of Silvertooth's papers in the mainstream scientific literature. An online document[46] briefly mentions and dismisses it on the grounds that both the experiment and the theoretical analysis are flawed, but given how well Silvertooth's result agrees with the independently determined motion of the Earth through the CMB, error seems to be an insufficient explanation. Unless Silvertooth committed outright fraud by simply making a lucky guess as to the Earth's velocity relative to the CMB and then ascribing this guess to an imaginary experiment, the inescapable conclusion would be that translation can be measured by purely electromagnetic means and that Einstein's theory of special relativity is falsified.

So while monks levitated and mainstream went nowhere in a pissin contest about what's science and what's pseodoscience and what's bullshit, the Air Force, et al, saw opportunity. Now we're all seeing the results. Ain't we the shit man!!!

Who put the field there? That's sure to feed another pissin contest... the one about who's God put it there.

I got news for all of em... the field IS God.

Oh c'mon, how can that be? How can something so majestic get so twisted up, so fucked up, so monstrous, and being used in such evil ways, have anything to do with God?

Well, let me ask you this... what do you 'spose god in a state of denial might look and act like?

Insanity Runs Amuk

Now here's some scary chit!! This is kinda sorta about Britney Spears and she's someone I wouldn't waste my time writing about. But its actually more about Dr Phil. He's the guru millions tune in to on a dialy basis to hang their sanity on. And people's sanity is worth writing about.

Here's the chain of events. Spears, after a judge takes her kids away from her, ends up on a stretcher on full watch on a psyc ward. Dr Phil shows up to do a show. The hospital lets him in. Everybody goes nutzo and the Doktar defends hisself by saying the family asked for his help. And apparently in the format of doing a show around the whole thing.

Now I ask you, fucked up as Spears is, whats the chance she came from a family system just as fucked up? Whats really scary here is that the Dok didn't consider this. Here's a guy who advises millions on a daily basis and is held in high regard as being, not only sane but, enlightened enough to advise and guide others in that general direction. And this guy goes to do a show on Spears? What the fuck besides a twisted up mind fuck would do a thing like that?

Okay, give the Dok a break you say? The network and the show's producers, seeing this as an opportunity to blow the lid off late afternoon ratings and their advertizing revenues reacting accordingly, pressured the good Dok into it.

Maybe.

But good Docs draw the line when sanity is at stake.

Frankly, the sanity of everybody involved is in question. Spears for sure. Her family. The hospital. The network and the show. The Dok. The millions of viewers who watch this fuck on a daily basis. Public teevee who has him on all the time during their fund drives. Anybody who suppports him. And, argueably, even me for writing about it.

Christmas In Fallujah And No One Gives a Damn

It takes something earth shattering to get me to post anymore. Such just happened.I'm saddened. I awake to learn that Dan Fogelberg is dead. The original rock era did more to change the course of music than any other genre in human history. Proof positive for having lived in special times. Fogleberg was as much a part of that as anyone.

Such takes more than talent. It takes vision.

And balls.

Balls to, as Richard Ouzounian, entertainment reporter for the Star, put it... grab the right moment or spend the rest of one’s life regretting it. Balls to manifest a dream and say in song what no one else can or will say. He was a part of the 64 years that make up my reality. The older one gets the more of one's reality meets mortality. Comes with the program I guess. As Springsteen wrote... you get so sick of the fightin', you lose you fear of the end.


Some find comfort in knowing that, with death comes birth. So, to that crutch, I lean for some support and comfort in my sadness. But who gives a damn?

Birth.

Renewal.

It can come in many forms. Billy Joel, out on tour, takes Cass Dillon with him. I'm a long time Piano Man fan. Another rock of that original rock era and that reality of mine. But I must admit, Dillon is a new one on me. PDG talent I must say too. There's alot of PDG talent out there that I've missed along the way. That too comes with the program of gettin old I guess. But who gives a damn?

I'm constantly amazed at the syncronicities life brings. Someone sent me a link to the Troubled Texan Weblog. Right below the Lindsey Williams vid they wanted me to take a look at was a vid of Cass Dillon's, Christmas in Fallujah And No One Gives A Damn performance with Joel. Being a fan of Joel led me to click the link which led me to Dillon.

I love it when an oldtimer like Joel reaches a hand to an up-and-comer like Dillon. They recognize the talent and potential and mentor just as was done to them by their heroes. Heroes who inspired them to break new ground. New sounds. The sounds of their own personal expressions. A whole new paradigm which spoke to set them apart from all the rest. I love what they did and I hate to see them go.

Yesterday morning, another one fell.

So I'm watching this vid and thinking, man, this guy sure reminds me of Fogelberg. The face, the hair, the style, the voice, the body language. And the song. And, as life's enigmas will have it, while I'm watching Dillon do this song I notice a headline off to the side of the page... a link to Bluedaze and the headline... "Dan Fogelberg died today".

But who gives a damn?

Ouzounian put it best...

The troubador of might-have-been has sung his final song. Dan Fogelberg, the singer-songwriter whose melodies about feelings kept unspoken and loves left unrequited touched the hearts of a generation, died yesterday morning at the age of 56.

A generation. My generation.

Melodies about feelings kept unspoken and loves left unrequited. My feelings. My loves. Our feelings. Our loves.

One troubador dead and another born. Born to say what is left unspoken. In this case, about Christmas in Fallujah. But who gives a damn?

A BED NEAR THE WINDOW?

This is not really a sanity test. It's a test to determine if you have been in the public school system which, for the purpose of social control, gets people in the mode of following suggestions instead of thinking for themselves.


During a visit to the mental asylum, a visitor asked the Director "How do you determine whether or not a patient should be institutionalized"

"Well," said the Director, "we fill up a bathtub, then we offer a teaspoon, a teacup and a bucket to the patient and ask him or her to empty the bathtub."

"Oh, I understand," said the visitor. "A normal person would use the bucket because it's bigger than the spoon or the teacup."

"No." said the Director, "A normal person would pull the plug. Do you want a bed near the window?"

ARE YOU GOING TO PASS THIS ON, OR DO YOU WANT THE BED NEXT TO MINE?

Catch A Falling Star And....

Stardust... go see it!

God's Warriors

Who's gonna get to God first? And what's gotta happen to get there?

I'm not a big fan of CNN's Christiane Amanpour. I've found some of her latest work around our current fiasco skewed. But she's got her chit together on this one if the first leg of her God's Warriors trilogy is any measure of what's yet to come.

I just finished viewing God's Jewish Warriors. Excellent! Tomorrow night, God's Muslim Warriors. Two seperate shows but you can't do a show on one without it being about the other as well. Tomorrow night will be no exception.

Jews are killin Muslims.

Muslims are killin Jews.

Friday night comes God's Christian Warriors. Its gonna to be interesting to see if Amanpour connects the dots and shows her viewers the real reason our ass is deep in the middle east...

Religous War!! We're there because we're part of it. And hell, God's on our side right? Just ask Dubbya. I doubt we'll see any clips of him tellin us the real reason. We're gonna get some pretty twisted fuckers tellin us who's really runnin for pres in 08. And why this country's literally gone to hell. But will we see the real agenda?

Jews, Muslims, Christians. Torah, Koran, Bible.

Ancient imprints playing out their various "ITS GOD'S WILL" interpretions and whatever's required to happen according to their prophesies for their version of their messiah to return, open the gates, and redeem them to the promised land.

The last segment of tonight's show was about the Jewish civil war. I expect we'll see the Muslim version in tomorrow night's show too. Both are about war and peace and the war is the war for God.

Jews are killin Jews.

Muslims are killin Muslims.

Christians killin Christians?

This country's certainly polarized enough to fight over. And the only thing more polarizing and highly charged emotionally than politics is Jesus! We just ain't in the streets killing each other over it.

Yet.

Momma's Movin'

I've been watching the USGS website for years now... the page where they watch Earthquakes of Magnitude 2.5 or Greater in the United States and Adjacent Areas and Magnitude 4.0 or Greater in the Rest of the World in the last 7 days.

My record of vigilence isn't perfect. But I look often enough that not many days in those years are left to mystery. Unfortunately I can't find an archive on the site. From time to time I journal the activity onto a calandar. At other times I just look and count. Thus I've got a pretty good read on daily averages over these years.

We just set a record! 83 shakers reported on the list 2 days ago. An average day would be in the low 20's. Ranges typically run from low teens on the low end to the low 30's on the high end. Over 70 of the 83 were in the same area of the big island of Hawaii. Most between 2.5 and 3. Its slowed down as of yesterday and so far today. But its still movin.

Thats just the list of the +2.5's. Theses are scattered 'mongst a whole lot more minors. Most are located between Pauahi and Makaopuhi craters at depths of about 1.5-3 km. About 10 to 15 small earthquakes per hour are being recorded in this area compared to more than about 100 per hour Sunday morning. Seismicity in the summit area consists of strong tremor.

More than a hundred per hour? Holy buckets!!!

Swarms like these are not that uncommon. I monitor other sites like Global Disaster Watch or Earth Changes TV to find reports of them because the USGS site only lists activity of 2.5 or greater and generally the differentiated events that collectively make up swarms are of lesser magnitude. Thats why this current swarm on the big island has the attention of the experts... the high number of 2.5+ activity.

And...

Craters?

The experts who study earthquake events are more and more connecting dots between shakers and volcanic activity. So it is on the big island....

GPS receivers in the area of most intense seismic activity continue to show widening across the rift zone in near Makaopuhi crater; preliminary data indicate widening of more than 40 cm (15 inches). A tiltmeter on Pu`u `O`o is also showing steady deflation.

Intermittent faint glow is only occasionally visible from the East Pond vent in the crater of Pu`u ``O`o, much less than is typical of the crater. On Sunday afternoon, HVO observers noted many rockfalls from the south wall of Pu`u `O`o cone and collapse of the crater floor around the vents. The lava level in East Pond vent dropped several meters in late morning.

All data indicate that an intrusion of magma started in the Mauna Ulu area early Sunday morning and moved slowly 5 km (3 miles) east along the rift zone during the day. The intrusion is continuing at this time.

Nauna Ulu has been putting on a show showhtml since 1984

Kilauea is also involved Pu`u `O`o is part of it.

Normally we could get a real time gander at the going's on.

But guess what? Current images are NOT AVAILABLE. Officially the continuously updated images have been "interrupted in order to do maintenance on the USGS web servers".

We'll see.

Or will we?

More Wisdom From The Wiseman

Taa Daa!!

Today we have a guest commentator. He doesn't know it but thats okay. The energies of the universe upon which poetic license sing shall judge the borrowing just since we give him full credit and disclosure.

And... because those same energies know!

Know what?

Know that he asks the questions that must be asked!

Thats what!!

So let me introduce to you my cyber friend, Montana Freeman.

A few weeks back i posted an entry called The Three Wise Men. The three wisemen referred to were Montana Freeman, Pogo, and Carl Jung.

The same Montana Freeman.

Montana Freeman, better known as MF to all of us who hang around the warmth of the council fires over on the Real Deal blog, is an elder of our native American brothers and sisters.

Featered in this entry is a comment he posted today to the current Real Deal topic. In it he poses some powerfully wise questions.

So where's the wisdom in posing questions you ask?

Perhaps you thought wisdom could only be found in answers. But hell... if we don't ask the hard questions in the fuckin' first place, how are we ever to find the answers?

Personally I find his comment to be directly speaking to exactly what this blog, the Unseen Role of Denial, is all about.

Here, word for word, are his comment and questions...

the unraveling of our most profound and beautiful Mother Earth brings one to question the most basic nature of mankind, which to me appears to be this, we are sleep walkers,the awareness of our own existence is lost do to the toxic nature of our unatural environment, which to me includes almost everything.

The deep psychological sickness that pervades the minds of the two leggeds is almost unbelievable, and would be laughable if it were a joke to be told at a council fire,however this is not to be, at least not yet.

The pure and unadulterated destruction of our home is an accident?

I watch my blood brother in the last stages of cancer and the daily progress of his existence which includes cigarettes, alcohol and some times a little processed food that i would not feed to a hog. Now this is a person who when tested scores in the top ten percentile of the folks on this planet, what happened to him and continues to this day is exactly a microcosm of what is happening to the world, is it not? or close enough, and as i watch him choose.? to die of this horrible disease amid an enviroment that approximates one of the most cleanest and purest places available on this earth,..i have to wander, is this not suicide? When cure is available and is tossed aside?

What on gods green earth will change this?

He speaks and says he is not afraid of death, so is he afraid of life? Is his life so filled with fear that death by the conscious polluting of his sacred body preferable to healing that which makes us sick?

To me this is the crux of our dilemma,we know we are killing our individual bodies and that knowledge bleeds over into the uncaring way we treat our mother.

i am not saying this from a soap box, and have no room to criticise, having been a smoker of tobacco for 18 years and a drunk for many many years and only recently pulled away from all the poison that surrounds me, which in itself is no mean feat,this also has the bonus of seeing things in a different light, of actually being able to feel the earth beneath my bare feet and being able to appreciate drinking water that has not been methodically poisoned by the hand of man,and learning to live in harmony with our mother,whom wants nothing more from us (my opinion) then to enjoy the bounty of her creation.

So this leads me to wonder, what in the fuck happened to us?

Suicide, (the act of intentionally taking one's own life;act of destroying one's own interests;one who commits suicide)

i would love to hear from someone at this council about how to repair that which has been done, either to us or by us and will make us wholesome human beings, walking this earth with love in our hearts for all living things including our selfs of course.

i feel the spring rain falling lightly on my face and the milk of mother earth softens the sharpness of life.Peace my brothers and sisters,may this day bring you love.

aho

mf

Powerful questions indeed!

Thankyou MF

Three Chords And The Truth

Three chords and the truth. That was how Harlan Howard, the, hands-down, dean of country music songwriters, defined country music. It wasn't his intent to define his own writing that way. But. nevertheless, it did.

That was thirty years ago and ever since hundreds have borrowed or stole that hook line to further their own agendas. Up until today the latest was Sara Evans who used it as the title cut for her highly acclaimed, freshman CD.

Today I'm stealing it to pen this entry.

The truth...

LBJ, Lyndon Baines Johnson, 36th president of the United States, WAS A LEAD PLAYER IN THE ASSASSINATION OF JFK, John Fitzgerald Kennedy, the 35th president of the United States on November, 22, 1963!

It was likely sanctioned by powers greater than he lurking behind the scenes. But he was a primary force.

The operative word here is COUP.

And coups are seldom pulled off alone. By that I mean by one boss. Its almost always a cabal at the top. An alignment between a few to several who conspire toward an end. It can probaly be argued that LBJ was just a pawn in the game. Maybe we'll never know for sure. But given what was at stake for LBJ its admittable to consider him as a major player. As a part of the cabal that ordered and carried out the hit. Yes, carried out. "Cuz, a hit like this? You don't contract something like this. Its done in-house. Today we're going to take a look at the recently revealed truth and the 3 chords in the nasty song that implicates LBJ in the JFK killing. The chords were the operatives carrying out the agenda.

The three chords...

CORD MEYER>>>DAVID MORALES>>>FRENCH GUNMAN GRASSY KNOLL!!

There are minor chords that spin off the majors...

Cord Meyer (ironic name eh?)>>>Bill Harvey

Who's the Harlan Howard? The author? The tell-all teller of the truth?

E. HOWARD HUNT.

Harlan Howard. Howard Hunt. Another irony eh?

Who's E Howard Hunt?

E Howard Hunt. was a CIA operative known most widely as leader of the plumbers of Watergate fame. 3 years before Hunt died in Jan at the crusty old age of 88, he sat sat up in his sickbed, put pen to pad, and laid down the truth. At the top of the page he wrote "LBJ". Then drew a down arrow and wrote "Cord Meyer". According to Hunt, Meyer was an easy mark. His wife, the former Mary Pinchot, was one of JFK's favorite mistresses. Not only did they share the bed, they shared the bowl. Pinchot Meyer was murdered less than a year after JFK.

Below Meyer another down arrow. Then, "David Morales".

Then another down arrow and below that, "French Gunman Grassy Knoll".

To the right of Meyer was another arrow connecting to the name Bill Harvey.

Meyer, Morales, and Harvey are former CIA operatives and pop up midst various conspiracy theories surrounding the Kennedy killing. Presumably the French gunman is the Corsican Mafia assassin Lucien Sarti, who has figured prominently in assassination theories as well.

It is also widely held that Hunt was indeed one of the famed three "tramps" intercepted, detained, photographed and released without arrest or charges near the grassy knoll at the Dealy Plaza scene of the assassination of Kennedy.

How do we know all this? Hunt's eldest son, Saint John, has the goodies. Obtained from his father and reported by Eric Hedgegaard in the March 07 edition of Rolling Stone Rolling Stone.

Read the Rolling Stone article. It tells Saint John's story who is telling his dad's story. Listen to what his dad said in a tape he sent to his son. View a copy of the paper upon which his dad connected the dots of the major players.

Read in St John's story in the RS article of how he came to suspect many years ago that his father was involved. The epiphany was the photo of the 3 tramps. "Nobody has features like my father. I'm his son. That's him!" Read how he tells of helping his dad wipe fingerprints from microphones and walkie talkies and various other articles of espionage in the middle of the night and then, following his father's instruction, "got rid of it". And the 100 grand he ran for him. And the typewriter thrown in the lake for him. All this in the wake of Watergate investigations. The article reports there is another hand written document by E Howard with more details and names.

In the wake of the RS publication St John was contacted by 60 Minutes. A meeting was had in San Francisco between he and an executive producer. He told the producer the whole story, showed him the documents and played the tape for him. Producer flew back to New York where the network's investigative team had both the handwriting and the voice print analyzed by independent experts which concluded beyond a doubt that the author was indeed E Howard Hunt. The excited producer contacted St John. He said everything had checked out, said this was a major story, and promised a piece would be done. That has never happened and St John's queries to CBS are being ignored.

Nowhere in mainstream media will you find anything about this bombshell. But there is a renewed effort going on to reinforce the Oswald-lone-assassin conclusion. Most notable is recent documentary by the Discovery Channel and a new book by Vincent Bugliosi of Helter Skelter fame. Bugliosi was on one of those radio talk shows recently and the interviewer told him about the tape. Bugliosi said he doubted such a tape existed. The interviewer just happened to have a copy all cued up and played it for Bugliosi.

Bugliosi's response? "Saint John Hunt is not a credible source."

Those words are being reiterated by anyone who is presented with the tape who has some unseen interest in furthering the lone assassination theory. If you read the Stone interview you know Saint John Hunt was a meth addict and dealer for 20 years. Arrested for it too. At least twice. So certainly his past is shady and can lead one to question his credibility.

BUT.....

Is it his voice on the tape? Is it his handwriting on the papers?

HELL NO!

So his credibility is a moot issue.

Just what is going on here? Think about it. Can the psyche deal with the reality? That a president could be so evil and power hungry that he would have his predecessor killed on live TV in front of the whole nation? Is this why so many people can't see the current president for what he really is?

St John was interviewed on Coast2Coast AM and I listened to the archived edition last night. I told my Dear Wife (DW) about the tape, the papers, and the RS article. I played her part of the interview. It literally threw her into a tizzy. She got heavily triggered by it and couldn't even listen to the tape (which they played during the interview) until she'd moved some through the initial triggers.

It'd triggered me too but not to the extent that it triggered DW. I was listening to the radio when the shots rang out. The moment is burned into my psyche. I still vividly remember exactly what I was doing and where I was at the time. It was a traumatic event. I've witnessed years of analysis both official and unofficial. I've done a ton of reading through the years. I highly suspected from the beginning that there were sinister forces involved and it was highly likely LBJ was involved.

I also highly suspected that LBJ, like many of our so-called leaders, was an operative in service to hidden, yet extremely powerful, forces that controlled him and us then, and control us still today. Why else would a good-ole-boy, street fighter, who had attained the highest political position in the nation, step down unless he was clandestinely forced to?

Viet Nam you say? You say he showed deep concern for what was happening in Viet Nam as witnessed by this photo ? He's in the oval office listening to a taped Intel report on the war. The implication is he is agonizing about the dire situation there. Good argument on the surface. He'd thought he would go in, kick ass, and come home. Sound hauntingly familiar? Things weren't going so well for the big guy from Texas by this time and then, it got even worse.

Beyond the agony of the moment was a guy who murdered to get to the chair in which he agonized. And on the way he muscled his way to the top. Then Kennedy pulled the rug out from under him when he won the nomination in 1960. JFK selects him as running mate and they win. Did JFK have reservations? Probably! But Kennedy needed Johnson's help in the south and his ties to Jewish Americans' (brokering Israel's want for the bomb at the time) influence on the Jewish vote.

2nd in command is not what Johnson had lied, cheated, snaked, muscled, raped, clawed, bought, stole, kissed ass, sucked dick, MURDERED his way to the top to settle for. Kennedy was highly likely to be re-elected in 64. That meant LBJ had to wait 'til 68 to run. He'd be 60 then. And, though he couldn't know it at the time, he'd be dead 5 years later.

Could he wait? Could he discredit his nemesis without discrediting his party in the process? Get rid of the beastie baby without sacrificing the holy bath water? Could he stand in the darkness of the wings that long? Subordinate to the man he hated with all his passion? He was far from alone in that hatred. There were many in positions of power who hated Kennedy for myriad reasons but mostly because he was in power and hugely popular with the people. Camelot was here to stay and Camelot was anything but their idea of utopia.

What was he really agonizing about beyond that picture? No way was he about to step down. Despite public opposition to the war he was still polling well. He'd railroaded and muscled in a ton of legislation, like the Civil Rights Act,.that had majority of public support. And suddenly, he quits. Just like that. I seriously doubt, not even for one fleeting second, that Viet Nam was the reason.

Kennedy's killing was a traumatic event for this nation too and has remained such throughout nearly 44 years now. Not to mention that of his brother and MLK. Many hold the official story to be false. Many hold open the possibility the hit was made by sinister forces other than Oswald and some even hold to the idea that these forces were our own leaders and/or those who control them behind the scenes. We hold open to it for various reasons not the least of which is an incredible mountain of circumstantial evidence.

But nobody knew for sure. Nobody had the smoking gun. If they did, they weren't talking. E Howard Hunt handed it to us. And his son has gotten a number of emails and contact from others "in the know" who, "off the record," confirm what Hunt said and wrote in his own hand.

We can deal with maybe's. We can deal with circumstantial evidence. We can deal with half-truths. We can deal with lies. We can even find ways to deal with life in the wake of traumatic events like the JFK assassination or 9/11.

But, confronted with the un-deniable truth that agents on our own side conspired to carry out a coup including the killing of a sitting president, we go wacko! We just can't fathom it and we can dream up all sorts of ways to dispel or twist or question the reality and explain the evidence away.

This is one way how denial works. We find ways to deny the un-deniable. And this is one way why its so easy to get away with the horrid truth.

Psychologists call it a defense mechanism. There is truth to that.

But which truth is more important? Which truth has us by the short hairs in the long run... in the grand scheme of things? The truth of a defense mechanism developed and honed to perfection to protect us from the reality of what we interpret to be unsurvivable truth? Or the truth of the reality of what has actually happened?

Which one sustains life in the long haul and which one leads to inevitable death? And which one leads us to being controlled by others?

Think about it.