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REFLECTIONS ON LYING: I Go to Vote While Holding My Nose

October 28, 2026

When considering the state of the world, including the weird, confused state of the so-called “United States,” like many people, I’m mostly appalled at my perceived quality of most of those who inhabit and/or seek “higher office.”

Even so, I REFUSE to give up completely, and not vote at all.

So, I go to vote while holding my nose. Either I vote my conscience, which would be to leave (just about?) every box blank, or I vote “Conservative,” as  the lesser of two evils. But, to “take sides” is basically, to lie! Plus, re: those boxes I do or do not check, who knows who’s lying? I don’t know any of these people personally. If someone I do know lies, even once, and I find out, and when challenged, they refuse to admit and seek forgiveness, our relationship is forever tainted. If they lie again, and I find out, the relationship is over, done.

So, in the political world, Is anyone not lying? Isn’t lying, or at least covering-something-up-to-make-one-look-good, actually required, in order to “get into office”?

Worst of all, am I still lying to myself? Is my deliberately optimistic attitude of gratitude utterly foolish? i.e., Do I “know better”?

Well, I’d say, that even if I do “know better, I don’t care. Why am I still alive if not to express the love the fills and fuels the universe no matter what? 

Remember this quote?

Meanwhile, if we must “take sides” in order to actually live in this crazy world of deliberate political polarization, then there are some signs that we the people are getting fed up with the usual palaver. Oh, you won’t see it in the polls. (That’s for sure!) But you might see it in what just happened up north.

 

Elizabeth Nickson, for whom I have great respect, is rejoicing. See her substack, Welcome to Absurdistan.

 

 

Through it all, I remind myself:

If money is a scrim upon nature, if language is a scrim upon nature, then so is politics.

Advice to myself: stay close to nature. To my own nature, to the natural world. To my animals: Tiger cat teaches me independence; Scampi pup teaches me loyalty. As for other humans — I continue to deeply and unreservedly love those close to me personally, while extending love’s invitation to those whom I encounter in the wider, but still local world, on a daily basis, whether stranger, friend, or so-called foe.

Yesterday evening, I called a dear old friend; the night before I called another old friend. All three of us remarking how each and every morning, we wake up again stunned by the realization: “What? I’m 84?”

It’s so good to speak with old friends. Friends whom I will likely never see in person again. Not just to catch up, but to feel each other’s frequency, as refined over nearly 50 decades, having over the years co-processed memories of often highly dramatic shared experiences from when we were “‘young and foolish”!

This rich resonance between us is always healing, a salve upon whatever our current difficulties, usually involving minds that, frankly, don’t work as well as before!

However, were I to steer our conversation in the direction of “politics,” who knows what would happen! All I know is that when even close friends talk politics, it’s as if we’re invaded by an alien force that seeks to divide us. (Likewise, back in the covid con days; couldn’t bring that hot button topic up with old friends either.)

And yet, through it all . . .

Remember, remember:

Let’s face it, except for the “territory” (the mysterious infinite domain of all in all), all maps are lies, including those which aim to tell the truth! Even the earth itself, is a tiny dot from within a larger frame, a  higher perspective. And we can always go higher . . .

OPENSPACE IS A VERB

 

 

 

Today’s Serpentine Navigation of Inherently Neptunian Path

October 27, 2026

I decided to refigure my use of the Apple Watch. Instead of wearing it to bed, in order to track my sleep, I now wear my old Hume band instead. That helped a lot. Just that. Apple Watch during the day, Hume band at night. But I do need to configure the watch for info I’d like; and that might have to wait until my son Sean visits in January. We’ll see. I know there are youtube intros; maybe I’ll watch one of them.

So many choices, every single second of the day! Each one setting me off on its own course, liable to be continuously interrupted (in middle of interruptive Uranus Return!). Were I not disciplined in my routines, who knows where I’d be now,  at nearly 84, given my inherently Neptunian path (Neptune at MC), and the fact that Neptune for the first and only time in my life continues criss-crossing the IC (root point of chart), therefore in opposition to its natal position; therefore this is the time of full illumination of the Neptunian fog . . .

This morning I decided to take a serpentine path during my walk with Scampi. One full hour of wandering here and there, crisscrossing over and over again, putting into practice what I’m feeling inside, noticing how the landscape keeps subtly changing, changing.

Since I got enough sleep last night, for the first time in about a week, I decided to “tackle” something (again) that has held me spellbound my entire adult life: And that is the relationship between thought and language. What is it, really? Is there a time in one’s life when language actually eclipses thought, so that the grammatical structure and vocabulary we learn, for example, with English, actually pretends to mirror the labyrinthine, multidimensional “reality” — both outside and inside our bodies? In other words, the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis:

Is there a time in one’s life when one’s language locks us in? If so, is it early on, say by two years old (Mars cycle), when we’ve learned to speak and so already familiar with navigating the world with words, thus clamping us into the particular Overton Window of that particular language?

BTW: a child who learns more than one language may be exempt from this clamp.

 

Seen on the internet this morning:

In the coming years, “Astrology will be to psychology as math is to physics.” Love it! Right/left brained astrology as the structural, archetypal, mystical abstraction of left brained psychology.

Speaking of which . . .

I’ve been collecting memes again. Memes, as another manifestation of right/left brain integration.

And, as usual, fascinated with the epistemological status of memes. So, after going to reddit for somebody’s view of of the epistemology of memes  . . .

or even better, also from reddit:

I asked gemini ai that question:

“What is epistemological status of memes?”

And got a decidedly skeptical, cynical response (likely informed especially by left-brained scientism):

Problem is, who knows what’s “objective” anymore? I think the covid con wiped that supposition from our cultural foundations.

IS “OBJECTIVITY” POSSIBLE? An Alt-Epistemological Exploration

Okay, how about a meme to illustrate?

So yes, we’re left struggling to make sense of the world.

To make clear, common sense of the world.

Each of us in our own little silo, walking along with ear buds or screens, ignoring those who walk behind or in front, or those who we pass by.

At least that’s the tendency. Which is why I counter it with my main spiritual practice: seeking to gaze into each person’s eyes as Scampi and I pass by.

Seeking to break the hypnotic, soporific spell, at least momentarily.

I’d say that about 50% of the time I succeed! They meet my eyes, sense my compassion, and grin, relieved. I feel  them melt, briefly, into their own soul’s essence. At least today that was true. Who knows about tomorrow?