The Muse

I'm just a little writer, a five-foot nine writer, sitting behind my computer punching keys. I didn’t come over on the boat, but my ancestors did.

I write, not because a ton of people read me, but with writing perhaps I will gain some understanding. For as Isaac Asimov said “Writing, to me, is simply thinking through my fingers.”

After the Republican nominee was selected in 2024, I went into mourning for a month. My daughter and I were railing against the possibility that that nominee could be elected.

Then, when Kamala Harris spoke at the Democratic Convention, I leaped for joy. For a moment the heaviness lifted. I believed in possibilities. Joy could again ring throughout our land.

I was wrong.

I thought women would rise up in mass, "No way." They would say. "You are not disrespecting us again. You are not taking away our rights to medical help in times of need. You are not allowing our little girls to be impregnated and then allow them no choice. How many of those pro-lifers have had teenage sex? How many single mothers raised their children alone? How many old farts have gone to sex parties where they were served underage girls?"

I was wrong. Not enough women said that.

After the election, I figured I wouldn't read about what was happening or write about it.

I was wrong about that, too.

But the rattling sounds came to me from the Midwest to the West Coast—it was of democracy being attacked, of freedoms being dismantled, of people being frightened and shipped off. Like a train wreck, it was impossible to ignore.

And then a lady Bishop, like David standing up to Goliath, spoke out to the giant to be merciful to vulnerable people.

That took courage.

Now she is being attacked for disrespect, for speaking from the pulpit, her turf, the church.

If she had called out the President in private, it would not have caused a ripple.

Yes, we have separation of Church and state, but this was a person-to-person comment and having an assemblage of governmental people waltz into a church under the guise of tradition certainly brings the image of the state into the church.

And the complainers probably don't know that in 2022, this Bishop, while ministering to a group of protestors—bringing masks and such, were dispersed, (security brought Billy clubs and tear gas), so that the nominee could walk safely to the front of the church, the very church where Bishop Budde officiates, and hype his Bible for sale.

Didn't the Christ of the Christian Bible throw the money changers out of the synagogue?

I understand that many thought politics was corrupt, money was running the government, our administration was funding the wars, that the rich were getting richer and the poor poorer. They saw that the middle class was melting away.

We were told we were living in garbage cans, our cities were insulted, lies were flying, data couldn't be believed, people were being demonized, science couldn't be trusted, and there were differences of opinion regarding Earth Warming. Yet, probably lurking in the backs of many minds was the probability that the earth would not survive, and thus, neither would they.

We Homo sapiens can handle fear and stress in small doses, but when it is continual, it wears down the spirit.

Without HOPE, the spirit dies.

Our still small voice, our intuition, our spirituality was drowned out by the blooming of rhetoric.

Time was ripe for a despot to step in and tell us he could "Make America Great Again.”

Americas didn't see that America was great already.

Our country is like a living individual; it makes us ashamed sometimes, does wonders other times, it grows, evolves, and sometimes takes one step back while taking two ahead. But underneath it all, we know it beats with a proud heart, and that it is step by step, inch by inch, moving forward.

But Americans wanted a quick fix.

We, the people, were peddling as fast as possible to keep our family together, raise our kids properly, keep them safe, manage our finances, make ends meet, and worry about the media's effect on us personally and the country in general. It was bombarding us at every turn.

When a pandemic hit, it brought on an entirely new set of problems—deaths in our family, fear for our lives, our elders at risk, and when inoculations came, many railed against them saying they were not safe that they would damage us, they weren't tested sufficiently. We were sick because of additives in our food, we didn't eat properly, and we needed someone to save us.

We lost jobs. We lost businesses. We lost our support systems. There was a rift between friends, spouses, and lovers. All the while, the media kept fear in front of us.

We knew that Russia had influenced the earlier election, but I guess not many believed that they would do it again. Keep those Americans off-kilter, and they are easily manipulated.

One side said we were being lied to. The other side said the same. We knew we were being lied to. One man was clear with it. We could see lies coming directly from his mouth. At least we knew what he was about.

Was it an entropy (a gradual decline into disorder) that happened? Was our system wearing down? Did we allow our morals, truth-telling, and respect for our fellow man to be eroded? Didn't we hear the bashers coming and didn't stop them? Did we feel powerless and, therefore, needed someone to save us? Couldn't we tell the difference between a despot and a Messiah? Did our belief systems totally blind us to other ways of thinking?

Did we not see that opposing forces were beating on our doors while we were allowing the media to tell us what to think?

Looking at it, it's no wonder we are in a mess.

It's time to put on our big girl panties and get to work.

Will we let a group of big-money people tell us what to do? We are Americans. We built this country with our bare hands. We tilled the soil, moved west, championed women's rights, and put Unions in place so people would be paid a living wage, and be treated properly. We freed the slaves, brought about Civil Rights, and had our lives saved by the black, white, red, and yellow physicians, chemists, and researchers.

We've been inspired by all races and sexual persuasions —writers, songwriters, entertainers, motivational speakers, ministers. We gave women the right of choice with their bodies, we saved cancer patients, we eradicated Polio, and we gave new body parts to people who had faulty ones. We have seen children born with defects live their lives through science, research, and innovation. I once held a little baby with leukemia. They knew he would soon die, and he did. Now, children with leukemia are being saved, living out their lives through the advances in medicine. My sister-in-law died of breast cancer in her 40s, and now women are living beyond it. I lost my mother to cancer when she was 48. Now, although not eradicated, there are many cancer survivors—my husband being one. The present administration is attacking cancer research, too.

Don't tell me America isn't great. We brought water to people who needed it. We brought food to those who were starving. We are Americans. It's time we looked at what's good instead of what we don't like. We have the power to change and to advance; we've done it before. We will do it again.

Remember Grassroots?

They changed our culture, our medical field, and our nutrition.

We were all immigrants at one time. We came here to be FREE.

We ought War Bonds, we gave pots and pans to help defeat Hitler. We protested wars we felt were wrong. We won't be brought down by someone who does not understand all this—a man who has no empathy and has never walked in our shoes. We have mercy. We care for our neighbors. What in the heck are we doing folks? We forgot for a moment, but now we remember.

We're Americans.

And we were once smart enough to chase the fox out of the hen house and to fortify that structure, so he never got in again.

 

The Fantastic Human Being

 

 

Hello fellow Homo sapiens,

Imagine yourself like those two kids. You have it in you.

Throughout the ages, there have been controllers who put their fellow humans in boxes, huts, chains, on gallows, crosses, electric chairs, or made to drink poison.

Controllers have used manipulation, coercion, blackmail, belittlement, ostracizing, ignoring, blaming, threatening, propaganda, lies, excommunication, and deportation to control people and thus gain power. And we use such tactics to attempt to change people's thinking.

Yet look at those faces above. Feel their joy.

You know that Homo sapiens are hard to control.

Toddlers rebel against control. As parents, we tried to control them, schools tried, and governments tried—often with extreme tactics, yet out of this came individuals who fought for peace, advancement, freedoms, liberty of thought, and expression.

These people were artists, adventurers, philosophers, scientists, and ministers. Many had no desire to change the world, but they worked on their passions and passed them on.

They inspired and motivated others to action.

Think of the Buddha, Krishna, Plato, Socrates, Aristotle, Pythagoras, Jesus, Abraham Lincoln, Susan B. Antony, John F. Kennedy, Robert Kennedy, Martin Luther King Jr, and John Lennon. All were peacemakers. Most lost their lives to controllers who believed in violence, not discussion, and yet…

The Peacemakers changed the world.

I read that the actor Steve Martin became popular at the end of the Vietnam War when a "Wild and Crazy Man" made people laugh. He came at the perfect time and place. We needed absurdity. 

We need laughter now. Laughter is a little heart massage--or maybe it's a big one.

And cream rises to the top.

And individuals will improve on a phone until it is a hand-held computer resembling a Star Trek communicator.

I heard this story (Twilight Zone music here) that in space, there are spaceships built on the same design they have used for thousands of years. Yet if you gave one of those ships to a Homo sapiens, he would try to improve it.

That desire to Make Better is built into us.

We can't help it.

Perhaps that is one of our strengths as Homo sapiens. If we are lost in the jungle, we would try to protect ourselves by making a weapon. At night, we would build a hut. If that hut fell on us that night, we would make a better one the next night. We would search for landmarks to get back home. We would look to the sky and say," I think that star was over there the first night I was lost, maybe I'm going in the wrong direction."

Put restrictions on people, and some young whippersnapper will poke his head up and find a way around it. (Or a not so young person.)

Take the individual who worked for the government and believed that certain secrets should be shared with the world.  It was not an attempt to give them to an enemy.

He downloaded them on a microchip and placed it inside a Rubik's Cube. He had constantly fiddled with that Rubik's Cube; thus, the people he worked for and with were accustomed to seeing him with it. On the day of the microchip escape, he threw the Rubik's Cube to the guard as a sort of joke, that way he got past the detector.

"I define a hero," exclaimed actress Shailene Woodley, "as somebody who against the judgment of other people, if they believe something will positively impact the world and they choose to do it and honor their integrity, that's what I (sort of) consider a hero, no matter how big or small a feat they create."

Take Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde, who asked the President to be merciful to scared people. Yes, she called him out in a Church Service, she embarrassed him, yet if she had said it in private, it would not have caused a ripple.

People get ready

There’s a train a-coming

You don’t need no baggage

You just get on board

All you need is faith

To hear the diesels humming

Don’t need no ticket

You just thank the Lord

Songwriter: Curtis Mayfield

 

“It has always been a coalition of the faithful that have brought about change.”—Bishop Mariann Edgar Buddes

 You know we want to be FREE. Being controlled isn't in our genetics. We're a lively bunch, a faithful bunch, we're tired of lies and mayhem. Let's get on that train.

Listen on YouTube to the Bishop Mariann Edgar Buddes’ 2022 sermon on her epiphany that challenged her courage. “Finding Courage in the Face of Injustice.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ne6SQH4qMYU

Oracles of the Day

“One of the hardest things to make a child understand is, that down underneath your feet, if you go far enough, you come to blue sky and stars again; that there really is no “down” for the world, but only in every direction an “up.” And that this is an all-embracing truth.”

…It is also what “we grown children find it hardest to realize, too.”—Anne Gilchrist

 

Occasionally, I randomly open a book to see what it offers for the day. After the above I found this morning, I opened Natalie Goldberg’s book Writing Down the Bones, (1986) page 48 (30th Anniversary Edition), and this spoke to me.

“A writer must say yes to life, to all of life, the water glasses, the Kemp’s half and half, the ketchup on the counter. It is not a writer’s task to say, “It is dumb to live in a small town or to eat in a café’ when you can eat macrobiotics at home.”

Our task is to say a holy yes to the real things of our life as they exist—the absolute truth of who we are—several pounds overweight, the gray, cold street outside, the Christmas tinsel in the showcase, the Jewish writer in the orange booth across from her blond friend who has black children. We must become writers who accept things as they are, come to love the details, and step forward with a yes on our lips so there can be no more noes in the world, noes that invalidate life and stop those details from becoming.”—Natalie Goldberg.

At first I wasn't going to blog this week--declare Tuesday a day of mourning, but then I wrote my apologies, and now I can't help myself--well, I could, but I don't want to. In times of trouble, I turn to my computer and books for solace. I am passing on what I found this morning for the artists out there (all of you are) and those suffering for what they fear to come.

Before my last post, titled “I Apologize,” I began writing about writing and on being an artist, then decided it wasn’t addressing what I felt was important. I’ve changed my mind. Becoming an artist is important.

 Once, a prominent psychiatrist told me that writing is self-aggrandizement.

What an idiot.

I don’t care how many credentials he had, he still missed the point, traumatized me, and besmirched all literature.

If you have decided that you are imposing your great wisdom on someone, then you might be accused of aggrandizement, but if you want to become an artist—that’s a different story. (The psychiatrist disagreed with the writer of a book I was reading.)

An artist wants to express himself, which takes many forms—artistry is creative expression.

Art is where your heart is.

And HOPE is right beside it. We have to believe there is hope for the future. We have to HOPE that we aren’t all tied up in Plato’s dark cave, only seeing shadows, not the real things.

A scientist HOPES his theory is correct. A singer HOPES her audience likes her song. A songwriter, HOPES his lyrics ring true.

Every artist who sits down to his work begins the hero’s journey. Every time. Over and over. He leaves his comfortable ground to set out, not knowing what pitfalls will befall him. He or she HOPES they live to reach their destination, and they HOPE they have something to offer the tribe. 

The writer-artist doesn’t write to impart wisdom; he writes to find himself, and through that self-discovery, he HOPES to motivate others to do the same.

Who was it, Issac Asimov, who said “I write to find out what I am thinking?” Maybe it was Joan Didion who wrote a book with that title.

That is something my friend, the psychiatrist, did not understand, for if you follow Natalie Goldberg’s way of thinking that writing is a therapeutic experience, it might put him out of business.

Then there is old procrastination (Steven Pressfield calls it resistance) in finding something else to do besides THE WORK. THE WORK (your artistry) is scary, that’s the reason we put it off.

Hemingway said writing was opening a vein.

Liz Gilbert said to enjoy your creativity.

I enjoy writing. While writing, I am in the flow, and time is a no-thing. My demons aren’t as scary to me as Hemingway’s was to him. Or maybe he thought one must suffer for their craft. Published writers have an additional problem; they want to match or exceed their earliest work, which burdens them.

Steven Pressfield found that once he declared himself a writer (found his calling) and he sat down at the typewriter, typed out a few pages he later threw away—he was freed.  A few minutes later he was at the sink washing 10 days of stacked up dishes—and humming.

Suffering comes in the gap between where you are and where you want to be.

While hunting for a different picture I had recently placed in my files, I found this one.

P.S. Hey, it looks like I got my follow button back. How about a follow?

 

I Apologize

 I do not want to trivialize what is going on this week by writing a blog unrelated to the pain many of us are experiencing.  

My first thought was not to blog on Tuesday, for Monday is Inauguration Day—a day of grief for many. And Tuesday would be too raw for many to go for trivial, myself included.

Instead, as a citizen of the U.S., I am apologizing.

First, I apologize to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. that a man who seems to be the antithesis of what Dr. King stood for—non-violent resistance—is being inaugurated as President of the United States on MLK day.

I apologize to Dr. King that many people in our country do not know or care about the peaceful protests he so eloquently orchestrated to bring about civil rights. And to the people who believed that all individuals in our country should be free to pursue life, liberty, and happiness.

I apologize to Dr. King that his dream of the Promised Land, which I felt was within arms' reach, is being pushed further back.

I praise Dr. King, who adopted non-violent protesting from Mahatma Gandhi, an Indian lawyer who led the struggle for India's independence from British rule by using non-violent means and influenced modern civil disobedience movements across the globe. 

Second, I apologize to our Immigrants who work and live in our country, who came here because they believed it would give them a better life, for the fear they have and the possible deportation they face.

I apologize to the Roe vs. Wade lawyers and the Supreme Court of 1969, who upheld their decision that the performance of abortions deprives women and physicians of their fundamental rights of privacy and liberty in violation of the Ninth and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution.

I apologize to those who have stood their ground for Women's rights, that many of rights they fought for are in jeopardy.

I apologize to the women who have spoken out about sexual abuse only to see their issues swept aside.

I apologize to our children that we have birthed them under a democratic system and then elected a President who has little regard for the very system we thought we were giving them.

I apologize that we elected a President whose morals are not in keeping with basic decency, like not lying, cheating, bullying, degrading females or people of other races from ours.

I apologize to the children that we voted in a Commander and Chief who does not place much emphasis upon the planet upon which we live to see that it survives.

And I apologize to the plants and animals that their home is in danger because the up-coming President and his appointed cabinet do not see their livelihood as a high priority.

For all The Good, Bad and Ugly, There Remains HOPE

Do you ever find yourself eager to run to your computer, then instead of going directly to your files, you scroll click-bait?  Oh, those headlines are good, aren't they?

Click-bait: Right now, with California fires burning up over 10,000 homes, our soon-to-be administration is criticizing the CA administration for not being prepared for fires or some inane thing like a vendetta against the governor.  Blame, blame, blame--I'm tired of it.

People are suffering folks.

We need a solution. No we aren't prepared for the wildfires we have been having. We weren't prepared for COVID-19 when it hit us either.

Oregon used to have lookout towers where a person or a couple would spend the summers on a lookout for lightning strikes or puffs of smoke rising through the trees. Those lookout towers set above the forest, and the lookout person could, with an instrument, visually triangle the location of a puff of smoke and notify the position so the rangers. That way, they could catch a fire at a very early stage.

Once surrounded by Oregon forests, we saw a helicopter fly over with a large bag hanging below his plane. Unbeknownst to us, a lightning strike had ignited a tree not far from our house. I don't know who saw that strike, but it set the tree on fire.  A helicopter was deployed, and the pilot dropped a water bag on the tree. It was out, just like that. And we didn't know of the danger.

I could spend a month or so in a cabin atop a tower looking up regularly from my computer to watch for puffs of smoke—Think of all the reading you could do between times of surveying the countryside. I don't know how that would work in urban situations. I know that during war situations in our hometown, people were hired to search and document every plane they spotted.

Whatever faults humans have, we are still good detectors. Like other animals, we can see when something is out of the ordinary.

Perhaps we need a net of fire spotters, for it appears that wildfires are regularly upon us—Oregon forests, Lahaina, Hawaii, and now Malibu, CA. Perhaps fire berms could wind through cities- that would be a good place for mountain bikes to travel on dirt roads, and kids could play in the dirt. That would give tractor drivers a weekly job of tilling the dirt. Or what about regularly irrigated gardens planted in the fire berm, or fields of wheat, corn, or oats? One would think that streets would provide fire breaks, but apparently not. Fires jump streets, rooftops send sparks, trees and houses explode.

I asked my physicist husband about detection devices, and he said that satellites can detect a single rocket launch and a fire within a city block, so apparently, they have detection covered. Our problem is with putting them out.

Ocean water could be used for homes near the ocean—pumped under the streets, a spraying device to implement them. Automatic sprinklers in the streets? If you have ever watched the TV documentary, "The Curse of Oak Island," you would see that someone back in the 1700s had the ingenuity to hide a treasure 150 feet underground, booby trap flood tunnels to thwart other diggers from getting it and do it so well that 200 years later no one has found it, and it isn't for lack of trying.

When people are presented with a problem, they will devise a solution.

From the time of tribes, a good governing situation was to take into account all individuals of the tribe.  

"When given the choice of whether to work for the benefit of society and future generations, or to act only in their own self-interest, the majority of people will do the right thing. If we allow people to choose, unhampered by undo pressure and disinformation, democracy works."--

A great example is from a study in France in 2019.

The government chose 150 French citizens at random from all walks of life, ranging from 18 to 80 years old. (Hey, why stop at 80?)

They gave the group eight weeks to figure out a solution to the global warming problem. More specifically, the task was to reduce overall carbon emissions by 40% by 2030.

The citizens were provided with a panel of experts to interview and a way for them to all communicate with each other. Throughout eight weekends, this group of 150 citizens would work together, get expert input and feedback, and develop solutions.

The French government informed this group that by the end of these eight weeks, whatever proposals they came up with would be put up for a democratic referendum vote. If one of the proposals gets voted in, it will be implemented.

This acted as an excellent incentive for people to take this task seriously--that their voices mattered.

"The first thing the group concluded was that economic growth would have to be stunted. Remember that this neoliberal capitalist model that we've been talking about is based on unlimited growth with limited resources. We know that this is not a sustainable concept, therefore, the group quickly realized that stunting economic growth was necessary to make responsible decisions to cut emissions."

They decided to ban advertisements of things that are exceedingly harmful to the environment, ban short flights and single-use plastics, and make recycling mandatory. Landlords would be required to renovate their properties to be sustainable by 2034. They would increase taxes on polluters to about 4%, which would apply to anybody who made over $10 million. The higher "pollution taxes" would help pay for these changes. They would also work on eliminating trucking in favor of using trains. It was a comprehensive plan.

"When the French government started to see what they were putting together, they immediately interjected to tell the group that they needed to keep their proposals reasonable because money doesn't grow on trees."

But the group was on a roll. They stuck to their guns, insisting that this was what needed to happen and what they wanted their fellow citizens to vote on.

They came up with a 400-page proposal of actions that could be taken.

Though Macron, (a neoliberal capitalist) promised to put any proposal they came up with to a vote, it shouldn't surprise anyone that this never happened.

The proposal was torpedoed.

They did implement some watered-down versions of the stuff they came up with, but the suggested sweeping changes were never put up for a vote.

Here's the point.

"When you take ordinary citizens, from all age groups and walks of life. Give them pertinent, accurate, expert information, and then ask them to vote… they can be counted on to make the right choice." 

 

And then there is a giant in the form of a small 90-year-old lady named Jane Goodall, who with interviewer, Douglas Abrams has written a book called HOPE, A Survival Guide for Trying Times.

Last night, I read an excerpt. In Abrams's introduction, he wrote this:

"We are going through hard times. Armed conflict, racial and religious discrimination, hate crimes, terrorist attacks, and a political swing so far right that it is fueling demonstrations and protests that all to often become violent. The gap between the haves and the have-nots is evidence fermenting anger and unrest. Democracy is under attack in many countries. And climatic crisis temperately pushed to the background is an even greater threat to our future, indeed to all life on Earth as we know it."

Douglas Abrams also interviewed the Dalai Lama and Archbishop Desmond Tutu as they talked about JOY. This interview was captured on TV and in The Book of Joy.

I have been a fan of Jan Goodall since I first heard of her, and quickly read her book, In the Shadow of Man (1971)—that was 54 years ago. The shadow was that of a chimpanzee falling on Jane's own shadow. This was after she sat on a hillside for six months watching through binoculars before getting close to one.

When Goodall published the film of the chimpanzee, David Greybeard, where he stripped leaves from a twig and used it as a tool to fish termites out of their termite hill, she set science on its ear. Before that account, one definition of a human being was that he was a tool user.

Then, I read a little treasure: SOLO, The Story of an African Wild Dog by Hugo van Lawick, the photographer who became Jane's husband.

Solo isn't on Amazon, but I found it on Thrift Books—one left for $6.69 plus shipping—you can find one on eBay for 85 bucks. Solo is about a little orphaned wild dog whose legs became deformed from following his pack when he was too young for the job. The team put aside their Prime Directive of non-interference with a wild herd or pack. It figured out what, in God's great plan, it would hurt to rescue one little puppy. They did and later reintroduced him into the pack where they observed him suddenly itching and scratching and wondered what was wrong with him. He was reintroduced to fleas. When in captivity, they used a repellent.

And when the chimps caught polio and would drag their hindquarters around and couldn't clean their beds at night—typically chimps move to another tree and make a new bed every night, the workers climbed into the trees and cleaned their beds for them.

I must tell you all this because when I was young, I used to say that Jane Goodall had my job, but she didn't. It was her job. She was perfect. I do not have the patience to do what she did, and her trip to Africa, a month's trip on a boat, would have killed me. (I get sea sick.) No planes were going to Africa when she went, and the Panama Canal was closed.

Yet, here we have a lady believing in HOPE and two religious leaders of different persuasions believing in JOY. (Their love for each other is contagious.)

Goodall calls herself a Naturalist, not a scientist. A scientist is more apt to focus on facts and the desire to quantify.

A Naturalist looks at the wonder of nature, listens to its voice, and tries to understand it.  A Naturalist needs empathy, intuition, and love.

HOPE and Faith are not interchangeable words. Faith is belief in the unknown, "HOPE," says Goodall, "is a survival mechanism." Your dog hopes to be let outside. Your cat hopes to be fed.

Whatever endeavor we begin, whether it's building a gizmo, a home, writing a book, a song, or starting a new job, we HOPE it will turn out well. We HOPE we can make a contribution.

Without HOPE, spirituality dies.

A friend sent this to me a few days ago:

"I listened to a YouTuber speak last night about how some of us are like birds in a cage and don't realize that the door is open, and we can fly out whenever we want.

"Some just want to stay in the cage because they're used to it and are okay with following the rules and belief systems that make them comfortable, and they don't want to leave and enter the unknown while others of us have flown out of the cage but still may be feeling unsettled because we want a home and don't want to be out there by ourselves.

"Also, we have friends and family members still in the cage, and we miss them, but we're not willing to live in that restricted environment to have it. So, we're on the other end of this and feeling very isolated, alone, and unsettled because we gave up the structure and security of whatever that was for this freedom.

"Bottom line - the cage is dissolving and we're moving into a new way of being and we get to choose how we react to it. This is a new chapter in the book that hasn't been written yet. It's being written now."

Thank you, dear one.

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