Natural Beauty

IMG_0028, originally uploaded by Chrissy Mc.

I had the good fortune to hike back out to Arch Rock near Point Reyes, and sit under a precarious ancient rock cliff to take this picture of a weird sea plant.

World Wide Web Logo

I was thinking about www today, and scribbled out the following symbol...it is 3 intersecting W's, and I like it because it kind of looks like the start of a web. The internet is a powerful symbol for the coming together of minds and ideas. This might make a good tattoo!

The Elephant in the Room

"The Beauty Of Gray"
~Live, Mental Jewelry

This is not a black and white world
You can't afford to believe in your side
This is not a black and white world
To be alive
I say that the colours must swirl
And I believe
That maybe today
We will all get to appreciate
The Beauty of Gray

If I told you she was your mother
We could analyze the situation and be gone
If I said you ought to give her
Some of your water
Your eyes would light up like the dawn
The perception that divides you from her
Is a lie
For some reason we never asked why

This is not a black and white world
You can't afford to believe in your side

Reality Escapes Me

I want to walk
And breathe
And dance with my eyes closed
I want to love
And share
And experience this life through you

I want to escape
And forget
And live in the now
I want to pulse
And melt
And drip to the floor
I want to spread
And permeate
And be in your body
I want to smell you
Taste you
And steal your warmth.

And I want to fly
Into tomorrow
Where anything I want
Comes true
And live my perfect fantasy
Where you know me
And we speak with the same heart
And we forget
All the years we wasted
Apart.

Lover, why do we pretend
We are strangers?
I've known you always
And yet you hurt me.
You steal my wishes and throw them out the window as you drive
Away, away.

And I am powerless
To chase you
Over that high wall
I can't even peek in.
And i sit with my back at the wall
Crying and feeling sorry for myself
And then i wander back to
My lonely world where i can create anything
But you.

And more time passes
And i miss you.
And you don't know
Because you can't see over that wall
Besides, you're driving away.
And the farther you get
The less real i am.
Until i don't exist at all.

And i build my castles
And entertain everyone
With my real stories
That sound like dreams.
And you get close enough
And throw a nickel over the wall.
I pick it up
And rub it without looking
Then throw it over the cliff's edge
And listen to it bounce
Down, down.

Then i turn around
And charge toward the wall
And pound and pound
With my two fists
Until they are bloody
And scream until
I have no voice.

Then i wonder what would happen if i
just wandered away from the wall
And never came back
And the ivy would cover it
And muffle your screams
And i could roll down the hill
Into an open green meadow
Where the sun
Warms my skin
And the winds
Caress my body
And I dance and sprawl
And shout in ecstasy
That reality has not escaped me.

All Work and No Play...

Makes H a Dull Boyfriend.

Each Little Mystery

"I recognize that I am getting older. And there are so many questions to which I am never going to know the answer. We are born into mystery and we leave life in mystery. We don't know what transpired before and we don't know what's coming ahead. Is there a God? What is time? I love a good mystery."

~William Shatner with David Fisher, People Magazine article, Up Till Now

Past Lives

Okay, this is the last straw. Oprah has credible doctors and psychologists on her show talking about their studies in hypnosis and past-life regression.

The idea of past lives doesn't fit my paradigms very well. My view of a random universe means that when you die, you scatter back into the infinite, atoms, quarks, and light energy. The likelihood of you reappearing ON EARTH, in another human body, soon after death, would be nearly impossible given a random reassembly of materials and expression of consciousness. You would more likely end up a piece of dark matter or something.

If indeed we do jump from human body to human body, than indeed the Hindus and the Christians and the Muslims are in agreement that the experience of conciousness IS Earth-centric. Taken a step further, our little life of 80 years would truly be nothing more than a learning phase of a larger conscious life.

Part of me wants to scream heathen foul-play. The other part of me is very intrigued. I may just have to pony up the money for a hypnosis session or five (or get back on my meditation plan) and prove it out myself.

Goodnight. God is Love. Rev Run.

Thinking Inside the Box

I posted those thoughts today as an example of what it's like to live inside as strong a paradigm as some religions and cults promote.

All of us have worldviews /paradigms for how the world works. When we receive information, we pass it through our filter of what we know to be true.

Part of my paradigm filter is that humans, though conductors of the divine/universal, are never always divine/universal. Therefore, the Holy Bible, though certainly inspired by the divine, cannot be 100 percent divine, as it passed through many human filters.

So, debating points 2 & 3 (geocentric universe & Noah's microbes) with a Bible Thumper can't even happen because you won't get past point number 1 (Infallability of scripture).

It predictably turns into a frustrating game of bumping boxes.

I'd love to just let sleeping dogs lie in my family, but listening to arguments like these is like watching someone you love walk up a slippery slope and just bracing yourself for the imminent fall. Unfortunately, the other side feels the same way, only that the fall is a fall to the death in fiery hell, with the added pain of watching your daughter morph into the Devil's Advocate (a great movie, by the way).

And I told someone the other day I didn't need Daddy's approval...I still think that's true, but is it too much to ask not to be judged as an Antichrist? I actually get that a lot from people that knew me before I reconstructed my personal paradigms about the world. They almost always show disappointment and scold me for the change, which smacks me as repulsive judgmentalism and arrogance thinly disguised as care and concern.

Make no mistake, Fundamentalists "know" they are on the right path and that you are on the wrong one. What they don't know (and what their paradigms do not permit them to entertain) is that all paths lead to the same shiny happy universe in the end.

We all must be allowed to follow the path that we feel brings the most light into our own and others' lives. Unfortunately, I do not feel allowed at all--I feel temporarily permitted (by reason of insanity), with the permit revocable at any time.

"Intelligent" Design

From Sacramento Christian radio this morning:

We need to accept the Bible as the sole source of Truth.

We must believe the universe is earth-centric because that is where God chose to enact his plan of Salvation.

If scientists ever discover microbes on any other planet, it is because when Noah's flood occurred, dust from the earth escaped into space.

And Now, For the End of the World

Ocean Beach at Sunset - San Francisco, CA 2008

In a lengthy debate with my father this evening on the subject of God and the apocalypse (see where I get it from?), I was reminded about looking into this year 2012 thing. My ex-roommate was the first to suggest it to me, so I looked into it a bit further tonight. Here were 2 fun websites to peruse:

A Dutch website on Mayan Predictions (heavily slanted against President Bush):
http://www.daanspeak.com/Maya01Eng.html

And a little bit of reason from a Yahoo surfer:
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20070916192830AAfw7Iz

It boils down to something very interesting, which is that the earth's magnetic poles will likely reverse in our lifetime, something that only happens with a frequency of once every couple dozen-thousands of years, and that the year 2012 will have some significance in terms of a shift of energy (may be as sudden as 3 days of darkness, may be as gradual as 100 years of shifting magnetic poles, which means your camping compasses will be useless for 100 years, then they'll point the opposite direction).

Energetically, this change in the position of the world as it relates to our position in the Milky Way Galaxy is said to bring about a period of peace. The bible refers to a period of 1,000 years of peace. The Mayans refer to a period of peace about 5,000 years long. If we didn't live such A.D.D. lives (most of us), we probably would have learned this from our elders or deduced it ourselves along the way by universal osmosis, but we've shut ourselves off to nature's wisdom by spending too much time figuring out how to collect and hoarde MONEY (see the movie Office Space, and the section on How to Make a Million Dollars):

"Smykowski: "You know there are people in this world that don't have to put up with all this bleep. Like that guy that invented the Pet Rock? You see, that's what you have to do. You have to use your mind and come up with some really great idea like that. And you can make millions, never have to work again."
Michael: "You think the Pet Rock was a really great idea?"
Smykowski: "Sure it was. The guy made a million dollars."

I swear, if I didn't have thousands of dollars in credit card debt I'd join a 3rd world tribe and live a real life. I guess if I was really serious about that I'd file bankruptcy and go join a third world tribe tomorrow.

I'm a brainwashed pussy. Makes me want to go rent "Into the Wild" and take some inspiration.

"I also happen to like it when feminists attack these fat-ass housewives who think there's nothing more to life that sitting home on the telephone, drinking coffee, watching TV and pumping out a baby every nine months. P-poom, p-poom, p-poom, p-poom, p-poom...will seven be enough Bob?...p-poom, p-poom. But what's the alternative? What's the alternative to pumping out a unit every nine months? Pointless careerism? Pointless careerism? Putting on a man-tailored suit with shoulder pads and imitating all the worst behavior of men? This is the noblest thing that women can think of? To take a job in a criminal corporation that's poisoning the environment and robbing customers out of their money? This is the worthiest thing they can think of? Isn't there something nobler they can do to be helping this planet heal? You don't hear much about that from these middle-class women."
~George Carlin, Parental Advisory - Explicit Lyrics CD

All You Need Is Love

Going through My Essays, I dusted off a couple of quotes I had written about in college. Good stuff!

"Love is a high inducement for individuals to ripen, to strive to mature in the inner self, to manifest maturity in the outer world, to become that manifestation for the sake of another. This is a great, demanding task; it calls one to expand one’s horizon greatly. . .It is the final goal, perhaps one which human beings as yet hardly ever seek to attain."
~ Rainer Maria Rilke, “Letters to A Young Poet”

“And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not love, I am nothing.”
(I Corinthians 13:2)

Mind-reading and the end of the world

I've heard a lot of people complain about cell phone technology that enables total strangers to hear, sometimes very loudly, the intimate, mundane details about people's lives they don't necessarily care to hear about.

I think this is very amusing, and it makes me wonder how we would react to reading each other's minds. Mind reading is a scary idea for many people. Sometimes you think things and you are later glad that you didn't speak them aloud. You can learn a lot about a person sitting next to them on a bus while they are on a cell phone; just imagine what you might learn if you could read minds.

The digital age has also spawned more grief for opponents of mind-reading with the coming of age of "reality TV," blogging, and Myspace. I think there is a fundamental understanding among members of our species that human minds are imperfect, therefore careful filtering and censorship is prudent and necessary.

I worry about how young people are being more 'honest' with what they put on Myspace. I think our culture is reaching a tipping point where we are trying to decide how much privacy & prudence is necessary to maintain a stable society. I believe that is why people look down upon those that talk too much on their cell phones in public (or play weird ring tones), expose too much in magazines or on TV, or showcase half-baked opinions and young ideas on the internet.

I think deep down people are excited and nervous about exposing the human condition for what it is. We are flawed, we are constantly evolving in the sophistication (or stupefication) of our thoughts. Imagine if we all knew exactly what everyone was thinking all of the time...we are getting close!

I think it could possibly lead to either chaos or a complete understanding and acceptance of each other for our imperfections.

No time to ponder the end of the world right now...that will have to wait.

Hope

Transparent fears
I want to rip them out of you and make them crumble in my fist
Change is so slow when you are waiting for it
When you need it
Open your fucking eyes already
My fear is I will run away
Into the arms of easy shallow love
Before the old dog can learn new tricks
And the masterpiece in progress
Will ly abandoned, half-finished
Drying up on the easel, sparkling under faint streams of dusty golden light
Don't let your understanding of someone
Or something
Become rigid
Everything can change in an instant
The secret to change
Is to forget the past, ignore the present,
And believe with all your heart it is possible.