Thursday 26 March 2015

Chicks and B*tches … Chirps and Barks ... Envy and Criticism






Human perspective … wouldn't you just love to spread your wings and fly like bird … nothing but the big ole sky and freedom from here to the horizon … I envy birds.

Bird perspective ...

Bird Envy

Do ever think a bird looks down
at a child play in the park

And thinks …

I wish I could run like that
I wish I could climb like that

I wish I didn't have to eat rocks …

Walking weasels it's cold up here

Chirp Chirp



Afterword

Seriously … living on crumbs and sleeping on wire is not the high life
Wow … did you see the buns on that one … I love a chick that talks with her mouth full

If that poem tells you anything … besides the bizarre workings of mind ... is that one can find a reason to envy anyone. 

Inner monologues go … 

She is so pretty … all the boys must love her
                    She is so popular … all the girls want to be her friend
He has so much money … he can buy whatever he wants
                    He has so much free time … he can get full night's sleep

The reverse is true as well. One can find a reason to feel superior to anyone.

She's pretty … but I'm smart and kind … and pretty fades
                She just jealous; she's can't get a date
He has so much money … but I'm spiritually enlightened …ohm
                He's a lazy, hippy bu'um.

Most of us are very talented at this kind of thing … creating and soothing our own sense of inferiority by attacking what threatens our ego or the more insidious … what we do not want to recognize in out own psyche. Whether we'll admit it or not we become jealous, flightless little birds.

senryu


Here's the thing … you all have a creative seed … the ability to build and create. So when you find yourself criticizing or envying someone else … destroying and tearing down ... it is not about them … it is about you. You have lost site of your own potential and have fallen to the fear that there is not enough of whatever you feel you are lacking to go around … usually that means you have fallen to the fear that there's not enough love to go around and you must wrestle it from someone else. You have forgotten that within you there's an endless source of love and happiness, an endless source of creative ability; so much so that your cup runneth over and you have enough to give even to your greatest of rivals … actually at that point you won't have any rivals ... just other co-creators. 

Pie in sky … you say … when pigs fly

No Babe … when you do. But I know … I know ... mud pies are very tempting. I've fallen to their temptation a time or two myself; I'll leave you with a poem commemorating such a fall. I wrote this to a fellow poet … whose talent and beauty was just a little too much for me to handle at the time … not to mention the attention she got from a guy a fancied. I know the nerve, right. 

B*tch 
A Love Poem
(warning there's barking ahead)



Rock n' roll, you beautiful people. See you next week.

Bitch, a Love Poem and Jealous Little Bird are published in Monsters, Real and Imagined … Monsters is available at the link below.


Thursday 19 March 2015

Descartes Was Not a Mosquito and Other Macrame

Descartes Was Not A Mosquito 


Excerpt

...

pestilence, disease
unseen blight carried by all
ignorance is bliss … 

humans stand apart
with regret and second thought
we are given hope

no fly can think itself clean
human awareness is cure

Descartes … I think therefore I am 


Descartes has received a lot of judgement from us spiritual folk mainly because he appeared to put rational thought over emotion. We've since come to understand that our emotions link us to our spirit. They tell us when we are moving closer or further from our truer selves that underly the bravado that is our ego.

The dark side … you serve … when your emotions … you fight … says a certain space primate. Yep … Yoda was an alien tarsier; google it.





Descartes was an intellectual but also a deeply spiritual man and his greatest contributions to philosophy and mathematics came to him in meditative contemplation … visions. He may well have been the world's first mathematician, philosopher, Jesuit … hippy. That's right … in stillness and with a clear mind he found greater intelligence. Descartes was also a man from Now. I believe when Descartes claimed I think therefore I am … what he really meant is I am aware of myself and as such I exist and since awareness/thought has no physical form … I too exist beyond the physical form. 




Neurons firing are neurons firing; this happens when we think but they did not cause the thought and they are not the thought … anymore than the delivery man is the pizza and you'd better hope … he didn't make the pizza too.



I recently tweeted … no puppet has ever looked back at his strings and asked what are these for … you have agency and you exist. And you do … but you also have strings. Each of us comes into this world with genetic programming. This programming has been passed on and allowed our ancestors  to exist long enough to reproduce and eventually to produce you and me. But humans are social animals; so along with the directions in our DNA ... we have ... since birth … learned certain thought patterns and actions that serve competition between an unenlightened individuals and groups … we've learned an ego. It is this interplay of nature and nurture that makes most of us who we are.

Maybe in past lives too … but like I said with regards to reincarnation I will have to get back to you on that and you will be waiting awhile.

I see Ego as a collection of fear-based thoughts that leads us to scramble to make our mark, eliminate the competition, and seal the deal before its too late and we croak. Ultimately ego comes from the fear of death and the fear that there is not enough time and resources to do what you need   to … which is to reproduce as much as your DNA as you can in short time that is your life. Ego serves evolution and as such serves creation but it does not serve to make you happy. That is not what it is there for. Despite it sweet nothing whispers and victory cries to the contrary … it offers no happily ever after. Your ego cannot defeat death.

Sports update … death ∞ -; ego 0

But don't worry ... happiness comes with strings attached. Each and everyone of us is connected and as such forms a whole and when we pull against the whole with ego …  the strings get taut … our bodies and emotions lets us know. We begin to suffer.

Pain is not suffering. Suffering and pain are linked but suffering requires thought. Pain is an intense pressure … some intense pressures are actually thought as pleasure … for example massage and the burn of a physical workout. It is all about the mindset. 

So where does that leave you when you're in a weeping mess or messy rage … you're pulling with ego with all its worth. You're suffering and probably causing other egos to suffer around too. Don't worry you can pull as hard as you like … those strings can stretch to eternity and rest of us couldn't let go if we wanted to. But if you're aware or becoming aware that you're doing this … you are ready to let go of the suffering … the fear.  

Do as Descartes … still your thoughts, enrich your mind, and free your soul.



There's no lasting fall as you travel through time, space and eternity. There are too many strings holding you up. So you might as well fly.

Learning to Fly

reach up for meaning
elusive high planes
grasp at an eternity
flight slips through your fingers
gather feathers all the same


Happy soaring, rock and roll stars … see you next week. Love ya:)



Learning to Fly and Descartes Was Not a Mosquito are published in Tattoo, Calling All Soldiers Home and available at the following link … http://goo.gl/1gf0Fc

Thursday 12 March 2015

Sisyphus and Siddhartha under the Dark of the Moon


lol … youtube has given me a bird nose


In greek mythology King Sisyphus was punished by the gods for his deceitfulness and greed. He was given the task of pushing a boulder up a mountain only to have it fall back down and his job to begin again … for eternity.

Sisyphus was the first rock and roll star

To my mind the boulder symbolizes ego. With tremendous exertion and/or aesthetic denial of self Sisyphus is able to arrive at the summit each and every time. But such a position is always precarious and ego supplies no stability and eventually he plummets back down again.

Sisyphus guided by ego maintains the circular rise and fall of suffering and pleasure … similar to certain concepts of karma.

But the moon has no karma … your poem doesn't make sense, Pryde. 

No the moon has no karma … but you do.  Let me explain what I mean by karma. I do not mean that somewhere there is a list kept by the higher powers of all the good and bad any one person has done … and payback awaits. That is not Karma's job … Santa Claus does that. Rather karma is about the quality of energy you carry around in your body and as such the energy you put out into the world. This is not metaphysical mumbo-jumbo. Remember what keeps you alive is biochemical reactions … a scientific fact … in other words energy. How we influence the quality of our biochemical reactions is with what we consume, activity, and thought. Your thoughts … whether they come from a place of awareness or not … influence the energy going on in your body … your mood ... and your mood … how you act onto the world.

Voila … karma is born. You go out into the world with a boulder on your shoulders and eventually you are going to get crushed. You out into the world with a spring in your step, looking to be delighted and you find cause to be delighted. You will also attract to you similar people. Angry people have no problem finding other angry people to throw stones at. Happy people like to hang with other happy people. Your mood and actions are contagious

So where does that leave us with moon … 

Well, mon petite chou, you are the moon and you become Sisyphus when you agree to carry your ego  around… or more to the point the suffering it causes … for eternity. 

Can one drop her ego completely … some say they have; I have not … at least not completely. But I do know that with more awareness of thought the suffering load can be significantly lightened; so there is no cause to get lost in what St. John of the Cross called the dark night of the soul

How do you know when you're lost … when you keep going around in circles.


Get to know your body and learn to sense when it's in emotional distress. This is sign to you to stop what you are doing … which is usually thinking in way that does not serve your karma. Step off the wheel, throw off the boulder, and you will reach new heights.

But whatever the case … don't worry … because you'll get there eventually … each and every one or you rock n' roll stars are meant to reach the top …. but then you will find there are even higher mountains to scale. Blessings.









Thursday 5 March 2015

Bengal Tigers Like Bacon Marinated With Rage

Leviathan of Fire

In response to last week's blog I received the argument that anger is natural and being that it's natural we should should let it be. First off … I am a natural woman and I have experienced anger on more than a few occasions. I couldn't write poems like Leviathan of Fire and Where's the Cream if if I didn't have insider information; so I agree … anger is natural and being that it's natural one should never chastise herself for feeling it. Even among the most practiced, controlled and spiritual people it arises. 

But does that mean we need it …. 

When we talk about needing anger there is a tendency to confuse unpleasant emotions and sensations with anger … pain for example. We need the physical pain sensation. It tells us to take our hand out of the fire, change positions when seated for too long and to change our stilettos before our feet fall off. It prevents us from doing the same physically dangerous thing twice or at least to take more care the next time.

For example with hammering a nail … 

The pain we experienced when we hammered our finger the last time tells us to proceed with caution. We may have become angry in response to that pain, used it to dissipate energy but the anger was secondary to the pain and one could have just as easily jumped up and down, cried, or even laughed it off. There is a reason why we talk about hitting our funny bone.
We certainly don't work ourselves up into a fugue when we go to hammer a nail. No construction worker has ever been told that he was too calm to work on a job site, go home, have a fight with the misses, and come back tomorrow in a right ole funk. 

But certainly we need anger for the Fight and Flight response … you know if a Bengal Tiger is chasing after you. 

No what you need is adrenaline … a hormone released when one becomes angry but it is not anger. You can have an adrenaline rush without anger. Anger needs a thought. What you feel in response to the Bengal tiger is instinctual fear. It requires very little thought. Fear releases adrenaline that diverts energy to your muscles so you can run or if you have no other choice fight. Hint though … I do not recommend you convert the energy to anger … do not think who hell does this tiger think he is … doesn't he know who I am ... that you stand your ground ... and tell the tiger to bring it on. 

Best practice for tiger taunting … never taunt alone. You will not be able to outrun the cat but you may be able to outrun your friend. Your friend is faster than you … put bacon in his backpack when he's not looking. Bengal tigers love bacon marinated in rage.

The only time I have ever observed anger play a prosocial role … ironically ... is in the prevention of violence. That is one walks the line between cuckoo-nut and peacock bad-ass and the one who has not succumbed to anger goes … I don't want none of that ... in other words in the act of posturing.We see this kind of behaviour in the animal world during mating season as males compete for  females or when the gorilla pounds his chest to exhibit dominance.

The problem with anger-based posturing is at some point the posturing won't work and violence occurs; so the utility of anger as deterrent is very unreliable and in a world where we can kill so many with the pull of a trigger or a push of a button … not worth the risk.

So where does that leave us with anger...

We're human and so for the foreseeable future most of us are going to feel anger from time to time. You don't need to feel guilty about this. Anger has evolved … it is what is. And feeling guilty is likely to inspire more anger. But given its lack of utility and its tendency to cause harm, anger is something we should learn to prevent it and move beyond.  

It is something we can learn to prevent and move beyond.


Reverse Chameleon



Anger is a secondary emotion … that is the pain, the fear … the grief ... came first. So much could be avoided if we agreed to feel the primary emotions. But we tend to be afraid of our emotions and the energy needs to go somewhere ... be it depression or anger. Remember emotions are thought plus energy … thoughts are controllable and energy dispersible. We give ourselves the time to feel and the permission to turn off our thoughts and/or guide them a very wonderful thing can happen.



But there is no changing human nature you say. 

Everything … that includes nature … human nature ... is changeable. In fact there is no stopping change. But we are in the unique position as humans to become more aware of ourselves and begin guiding that change. You are wonderful, unique part of the whole. Anger makes enemies. We all get there together or don't get there at all. Blessings.



(The media and politicians already know this … they use our human nature and mould it for their advantage. It is happening already.)