MTG describes the Economics of “The War Machine”

December 3, 2024

Today I would like to stretch way back, to the 40,000 foot view of what is going on in this world, thanks to the “economy” that The War Machine has created, and that keeps us enslaved. But first, a bit of hyper-local news that begins in the same warlike vein, but then switches, to offer peace-full contrast via empathic communion with another.

Okay, here goes.

 

This morning, ultra distracted, I did not one, but a number of dumb things:

First, I forgot to lock my car (or even hide my purse) when starting out on a 3-mile walk in a long park a 15 minute drive from home with puppy Scampi. So I turned around when I remembered, 1/4 mile later. (There goes that walk! Will have to sandwich it in later.)

Next, I didn’t realize that mine would be the only car in the lot, though I should have known since the temp was only 19°.

Which meant that I would have to take my phone on the walk, given black ice on roads and especially paths. What if I fell like I did last February, on black ice, and broke my wrist? I would need to be able to call someone, but the jacket I wore had only shallow pockets. I would have to put the phone in my pants. Yuck.

So after that frustrating misadventure I went to our local co-op for weekly groceries.

Oh but wait! I had no readers in my purse, so would have to head home first to get them before heading to the store. Yep, none of my at least ten or so Dollar Store readers were in my car or purse . . .

When it came time to check out, the clerk, sweetly polite, asked how I was doing, and I blurted out, “horrible!” — kind of as a joke, but secretly, inside, true. Damn true. How could I get so discombobulated, and end up “wasting an hour” in my usual highly patterned day?

But here’s the kicker, and the reason I tell this story. The oldish woman behind me in line at the co-op  burst out with, “I’m so glad you feel horrible!” “Because I’ve been in despair, ever since the election.” Which ignited my usual harsh rebuttal: “Well, I DON’T.” But even as that word “Don’t” was uttered, my voice began to soften, empathic, finishing with, “I know. A lot of people feel that way.”

Somehow this exchange, with my tonal shift mid-word, mid-sentence, pretty much neutralized the “horribleness” of the earlier part of my morning. And though I was still fighting distraction, another thought crept into my head: it seemed to me that for this woman it was a point of honor to feel horrible after the election. That to say so would signify unity. But, good for her! Though surprised, she then took my “Well, I don’t” in stride, and then, because I had softened, what could have been rancor between us never got a chance to poison the atmosphere.

Yes, unity. Not ideological or political; simply human.

We all have feelings, and sometimes we feel horrible, or in despair.

 

Okay, speaking of poisoning. This post by Marjorie Taylor Greene may be the most succinct and yet thoroughly articulate elucidation of the fact that, and how, our entire economy is militarized, without our even noticing it. Worse, this happened decades ago, and we “citizens” have been living in willful ignorance ever since. I think, for example, of  the gigantic Crane Naval Surface Warfare Center, only 25 miles SW of Bloomington  . . . with all the businesses that feed into and out of it, the tax base it requires and acquires, on and on. That’s not even to mention the bloodlines leading into and out of it from Indiana University. . . . with academic research grants, etc. etc. all to support the global killing machine that we pretend is “defense.”  On and on. All the tiny capillaries of this bloody technocratic, inflationary monster that we, the people, pay for, re-create and keep going, simply by going about our daily lives inside it.

 

Towards Continuous, Erumpent, Dances of Universal Peace!

December 2, 2024

If it can be said that I have a spiritual practice, I’d say that I actually have two of them, one private, the other public.

The first one I call  physical culture. This practice engages and celebrates form and function of my own body and its continuity with both Above and Below, via heart-centered walking/yoga/chikung/taichi for two hours altogether on a daily basis. The other involves periodic events celebrating sacred dance in community. Here’s the latest, November 30.

I’ve been participating in the Dances for Universal Peace for about 25 years. See for example, the joy in this dance!

It never ceases to amaze me how we, who are drawn to this practice — often supposedly perfect strangers! — can come together to mutually acknowledge our source within, our source above and below, soul to soul in shared communion in the one Love. From the very first dance, to the very last dance, we leave behind our individual quirks and engage what we have in common.

Each circling two-hour dance session begins with a Sufi Invocation.

While holding hands, stepping slowly inwards:

Toward the One,

the Perfection of Love, Harmony and Beauty,

the Only Being

United with all the Illuminated Souls

who form the Embodiment of the Master,

the Spirit of Guidance. 

 

This past Saturday, I drove three hours to Fort Wayne for a post-Thanksgiving DUP event (see above) with two dance sessions (2-4 PM and 6-8 PM), with a delicious catered meal in between.

This event did the trick. Once again, at nearly-82, I started over again, began again, and this year it happened to be early, on December 1, with New Moon in Sagittarius, my Sun/Ascendant/Mars birth sign.

At meals to break up the silent, solitary drive to and from Fort Wayne, I began to slowly absorb the latest printed edition of also nearly 82-year-old Barbara Hand Clow’s Alchemy of Nine Dimensions. 

I was astonished to learn that her way of understanding the 4th dimension encapsulates all that tends to drive me crazy (and to combat I have instituted screen fasts) on the way to the peaceful (peace-FULL) 5th dimension. Think of the 4th dimension essentially as the staticky twittering, gossipy, often paranoid realm of human ideas, words, theories, lies, emotions, will, memories, anxieties, drives, etc. All that invisible gunk swirling around in the collective unconscious, with erumpent power.

In the peaceful 5th dimension, we witness that incessant activity of what meditators have long called the monkey mind, without identifying with any of it.

Instead of terror-stricken, thrilled, anticipatory, dreaded, banging back and forth, de-centering, slipping off track this way and that . . .

Yes, instead:  5th dimensional, playful! A spacious detached awareness that embraces it all without judgment, both neutral and compassionate.

 

BTW: how do you like that word, “erumpent”? I just discovered it. The perfect word to describe what I have long sought language for. Breaking through the surface.

All those chaotic 4th dimensional energies are not only rampant, but erumpent, especially these days, in the confused and confusing no (hu)man’s land post-election, pre-inauguration; and as of yesterday, yet more erumpent “news” (really olds): the blanket, so-called “presidential” Biden pardon of Hunter Biden on December’s New Moon of every crime since January 1 2014 (i.e., since Ukraine erupted) that The Big Guy had promised over and over again never to give to his son (and therefore himself).

Which however, means that Hunter can be called to testify “with immunity,” so cannot take the 5th — no, not 5th dimension; 5th amendment! I.e., if he refuses to answer questions, or answers falsely, he can be indicted for new crimes not covered under the blanket pardon which ended December 1!

Thanks to the 5th dimension, we can refuse to get caught up in the enormous drama we are all privy to during this seemingly climactic period in human history on planet Earth. In fact, this active, playful, refusal offers itself as a continuous, erumpent, DANCE OF UNIVERSAL PEACE!

Oh wow. Just realized: the erumpent Trump Dance may be accomplishing the same joyful communion!