“IT’S ALL FAKE” . . . except when it’s not!

November 13, 2025

And it’s decidedly not in the invisible bubble that I, for one, apparently live inside of. Because as I go around the world in my daily life, on walks, and otherwise encountering other all-too-human beings, our common life feels even more real, i.e., palpable, sensuous, connected, than ever before!

Does this mean that the “fake” aspect of life is 3D and the “authentic” aspect of life is  5D? That so-called “Ascension” is actually measuring the increasing split between 3D and 5D?  Perhaps. Thinking multidimensionally does seem to help me navigate through my moment by moment, breath by breath, embodied voyage here, “on Earth” (feels so weird to say that; as if “on Earth” were merely one of of “my” — and “our”? — parallel locations).

Case in point: The contrast between what appears to be the overall social media takedown of whatever institutions (whether “brick and mortar,” or virtual), whatever human “constructions” — as not what they have “presented themselves to be” (for decades, centuries, millennia?) but instead, exposed as skewed, riddled with holes, torquing, morphing, twerking, fading, shimmering into nothingness — as we humans, apparently, descend into chaos.

Okay, that’s the “bigger picture,” supposedly. I would suggest that an even bigger picture lies just beyond the horizon of the usual technologically mediated awareness, and that is of humans who surprisingly discover that they have much more in common than not. That in fact, “common sense” is something real, palpable, resonating through our rhythmic beating hearts, our rhythmic breathing, our collective dreaming of a world wherein humans feel their connectedness.

Case in point:

Yesterday evening, I attended a second “listening session” that the Bloomington City Council and various city departments partnered to set in motion as a way of “getting input” on what should be done here about the increasingly difficult and expensive housing situation. Like other smallish cities home large universities, the problem of adequate affordable housing of various kinds is not new; it is ancient. Of course! Is there really anything new under the sun? Humans are always working with the dichotomy of scarcity/abundance; and the way we view this polarity depends in part on our own attitude of scarcity or abundance, some, but not all of which, can be attributed to personal economic, material conditions.

Most meetings the City Council holds, feature the nine Council members sitting in a row, raised slightly above, and beyond their audience — the few community members who choose to attend any regular meeting, usually with some pet grievance in mind that the Council is due to take up that evening.

Which means, CC meetings, just by the physical set up, tend towards antagonistic.

Last night, however, at the second “listening session” (I also attended the first one, a few weeks ago, and found it interesting and productive enough to draw me back to the second and final one), I was blown away by just how powerfully the atmosphere changed, and changed again, to the point where it felt like the entire crowd, both officials of various kinds and those who came (usually, again, with particular grievances) had entered another dimension!

As David Hittle, the first speaker and Director of Planning and Transportation (he and I had walked my Green Acres neighborhood together a few months ago) —  said to me afterwards, this meeting was civic! Civic! Nobody was mad at each other.” He used the word “civic” so deliberately that I wonder if he’s familiar with Alexandra Hudson’s book, The Soul of Civility, and/or the Project Civility Conference I had attended in September and wrote up here, afterwards.

Project Civility: Verb or Noun?

 

I urged him to do it again. To suggest to the City gov and City Council that these kinds of meetings happen on a regular basis, not just for the pressing issue of housing.

How did this seeming miracle happen? Well, in part, it had to do with the way the meeting was organized: First, a half hour power point talk from a city official (first one, David Hittle), then a 1/2 hour session with everyone seated together in circles of 6-8 people (eight circles altogether), both officials and the public instructed to converse personally, after first going around our circles introducing ourselves and why we are here, to address several perplexing questions or issues, for example: “When you stop growing you start dying” (Attributed to William Burroughs).

The point is, this entire get-together was addressing the dynamic polarity between growth and decay, what we all face as individuals our life long, and what any human group faces as well. It’s never one or the other. The meaning and purpose of each depends on its relationship with the other.

We did this twice, with first an official speaking briefly, powerpoint presentation on all four walls, and then a listening/discussion session in small groups.

The meeting began at 6:30, and by 8:30, that main part of the meeting was done. I needed to get home and to bed, so did not stay for the conclusion.

But let me tell you; as I looked around the crowd prior to the start of the session, I saw a lot of disgruntled, weary faces, with, I imagined, an attitude of “Well yeah, they say they are going to listen, but they will just do what they want anyway.”

But then, as we were asked to decide which circle of chairs we wanted to be a part of the in the first listening session, with people, mostly strangers to one another, hesitantly moving into one or another of them, the atmosphere got more and more intense, more and more energized, as one person after another spilled out what was bothering him or her, to the empathic ears of the others in their own circle, at least one of whom was likely facing exactly the same reality in life.

As I said, we did the entire round, speaker, and then circle listening sessions, twice, with the “officials” in each circle taking notes, and adding their own personal concerns. By the second time around, the eagerness to continue to participate, and to deepen what was already turning into an incredibly engaging, thoughtful, evening, was both palpable and exciting.

Throughout the evening, people (some of them officials) whom I have known only tangentially for all these years I’ve been in Bloomington (24 and counting) came up to me, greeting me enthusiastically, and usually our encounters turned into very authentic, welcoming hugs. I felt seen, heard, and empathically connected to all others in the room.

FAKE. No. Not. Not at all.

As long as we “stay with what we have in common,” our shared local reality, we encounter our own capacity for the mysterious all-pervasive Love that feeds and fuels the universe, no matter who we are, no matter what our material situation in life, no matter what our ideologies.

It’s obvious! Common-sense!

SENSING, IN COMMON.

 

11/11/25. I reflect on Socialism . . .

November 11, 2025

. . . as the human drive towards connectedness run amuck.

Okay, speaking off the top of my head here . . .

Remember: we humans are born with free will to chose good or evil, at every itsy bitsy intersection of 3D time and space. This enormous, and constant opportunity requires nourishing our innate capacity to navigate and integrate two “opposite” drives:  “service to self” (selfishness) and “service to others” (selflessness).

Unlike animals, we humans have self-serving egos, of which we are aware, or could be/should be; that — in itself! — is a distant goal, involving a more or less painful journey! The awareness of one’s own ego, whilst in the midst of using it. That is the key: a doubled awareness.

There’s no sense trying to “transcend” ego, because basically, it’s impossible, while we are in bodies, unless we are asleep, in a coma, anesthetized, or otherwise “unconscious.” Furthermore, our egos serve as both a directive force and a demarcation between inside and outside. We learn this profound lesson at the age of two, when the planet Mars returns for the first time to the degree it occupied at birth. From then on, we can learn to use Mars consciously. The result? “Me!” “Mine,” and “NO,” for awhile; what we mothers have humorously labeled “the terrible twos.” And yet, as the child practices utilizing this beautiful egocentric Mars power, he or she can then begin to learn, through constant trial and error (Saturn), to achieve goals over time.

And of course, we can be “unconscious” (of the inherent self-directive power of Mars) also in the sense that our awareness can be and usually has been, taken over, and/or masked, by both early abusive conditions, as well as by so-called modern “education,” which is really, as more and more of us recognize, hypnotic, mind-controlled indoctrination. Stripping our real selves of that cultural patterning, that mass formation, is a profound journey, and essential, if one desires true freedom: not freedom to do whatever you want, but freedom from identifying with the desire to do whatever you want.

Okay, enough on that. No how about service to others? Well, this is what socialism pretends to be. In actually, it’s self-centered (egocentric) pride, but projected out, into the world: aren’t I wonderful for wanting everyone to have the same material wealth? (I think of especially the prideful transcend the ego “new age” movement here). That’s it, basically. Big difference from a natural empathic desire: to want everyone to have the same opportunities in the material world, while recognizing that every person, though equal, entered this world with different talents, skills, material conditions. That these differences then tend naturally to lead to different material conditions, wealth and poverty among them.

Add to this karmic conditions brought in from other lives. Some individuals have very heavy karma: as souls they chose to come into an extremely traumatized life with the aim of rectifying the situation, despite its seemingly overwhelming impossibility. Will they succeed? Probably not. Not all the way. But even just the attempt is not just worthwhile, but utterly praiseworthy.

How many of us, on a soul level, actually chose such excruciating early life conditions this time around? If we didn’t, then either we decided to be a bit lazy in our current lifetime, to coast through life, gifting ourselves and our larger purpose a welcome break; or: we really are well on our way towards mastery, thus releasing us from personal karma so that we may, indeed, and in reality, begin to utilize our own life force to serve the whole. Christ, Krishna, Buddha come to mind.

 

Okay, all that said, here are a few memes illustrating what “socialism” brings, when taken to an extreme (which is always the goal: erase the individual in favor of the “group”).

We can thank Mamdani’s election as Mayor of New York City for promoting socialism  to its blowback extreme. (Q: “What cannot be said must be shown.”) I hear that he is now having trouble financing his pie-in-the-sky goals of free food and housing for all; I hear that thousands upon thousands of creative, wealthy, and otherwise accomplished people are about to exit the state.

BTW: don’t get me wrong: capitalism (the opposite of socialism) also has its disgusting extremes. The point is, in the exercise of our innate free will, we are here to learn how to balance the opposites: to get and remain present in the dynamic middle ground between them. Both have their virtues, and both, their vices. When taken to extremes, both not only fail, but cause immeasurable harm.

Or put in other words: to identify with one opposite and polarize against the other is always what we must watch for in ourselves, because we’re all constantly required to choose between those two drives, self-orientation, and other-orientation. Both are needed. Too much of the first degenerates into greed, anarchism, chaos; too much of the other renders complete loss of identity, freedom. We become as bots.

Notice, both these poles are mentally generated.

Another obvious polarity is that between mind and body.

As long as we identify only with our minds, we’re in trouble as a species. Our bodies are connected to earth’s body, and she is very much alive, ensouled, conscious, and at this crucial point in his-story, at risk of being blown to smithereens.