MASS PSYCHOSIS - How an Entire Population Becomes MENTALLY ILL

Merry Days & Nights, Good health & Happiness. And Morality

 Chris Hedges: Yeah, yeah. You’ve got to act morally; you can’t teach it. You’ve got to—if you live the moral life, that’s what perpetuates the moral life to those around you. As Daniel Berrigan said, it’s the good drawing to it the good. 

bell hooks: a prophet for social justice

"For many scholars, once they have “achieved some status,” they become seduced by a poisonous neoliberal sense of “success.” They tend to have such an inflated sense of themselves, ruthless in their attempt to protect the little that they’ve acquired — money, endowed chairs, endowed professorships, media connections, insider cronyism and all the goodies of their academic institutions. I know this from personal experience." 

In Teaching to Transgress, bell writes, “The classroom, with all its limitations, remains a location of possibility. In that field of possibility we have the opportunity to labor for freedom, to demand of ourselves and our comrades, an openness of mind and heart that allows us to face reality even as we collectively imagine ways to move beyond boundaries, to transgress. This is education as the practice of freedom.”

George Yancy, Truthout. 

You Are Chosen

 Just read a post on Facebook - a merry Christmas wish. Below that was a couple of comments from different names. "You are chosen - please visit my page and friend me." Both were from male identities although I doubt they were real people.

My thoughts immediately went to SCAM!  You know those phone calls that are recorded on your message system that warns of large charges on your email with instruction to press "1" to stop the charges.

We are living in a time when scammers find opportunity from other scammers, when we are so plagued by headlines of evil greedy con artists, some who are gaining billions.

Although most people I have met have integrity and work for the greater good, I have read articles from mainstream writers that suggest our corporate economy is run by well dressed sociopaths and our planet is sinking into the realm of lizards who have thrown out any feelings of guilt.

It's almost like those who love life and friendship and equality - are still in kindergarten while real men feel entitled to take, rape and murder whatever they can to put coins in the bank.

And the rest of us believe we don't count.  We don't have any power.

Please don't drink that Kool-Aid. Please think about all the teachers, relatives and friends you admire, and think about all you have that was established on the notion of equality and justice. The medicare, education and laws to protect were fought over before I was born, after a very dark and violent war.

You are chosen to live your life with as much happiness and deep meaning as you can. It's your life and it doesn't have to be explained by media or politics. You and our future are a work in progress.

The Blame Industry

 

The first tendency I must resist when I hear of bad news - is to work out who is to blame. It quickly lets me off the hook and so I must examine my own part in the story.

Laying blame is something I learned early on. You don't have to know the truth to blame someone as soon as discomfort arises, especially if you do it behind their back.

What would happen to our world if we stopped blaming anyone or anything?

First we would look at ourselves. What can we do about climate change, poverty and violence? What can we do about selfishness and greed? To do nothing is where we allow the unthinkable to happen.

I know there are many arguments about big issues and their causes. I know I have limitations and so it would not be a good idea to take on something I am not suited for.

What am I suited for? The subjects I am curious about and able to do. I cannot do physics or computer programming or math at the level as those who have spent much of their life studying. I am a dreamer, artistic and creative, so I begin there.

I am not athletic and would not climb mountains or run marathons. Dance is beautiful but my body has not been trained to dance. I am not content to just read the news and accept it as truth. My religion is kindness.

With these limitations there are assets. I am human. I have made mistakes and learned from them. And I have lived long enough to know I am not in control, so I have learned to appreciate the skills and talents others bring and to work with them.

While you and I might have benefitted from inequality - we didn't create it. We didn't create the myths of white supremacy or misogyny or ableism. This means I can listen to the stories of other peoples suffering with empathy. Feeling guilty does not help. Feeling sad and sorry is a good start then it's time to ask "what can I do".

I can interrogate styles of writing and teaching for signs of bigotry. I can see how seemingly innocent stories contain messaging about class. Judgement on "normal", "cultured", "feminine" and "masculine" are part of our conditioning but we can examine how attitudes benefit the status quo and challenge those beliefs.

"Normalizing" is a brainwashing to keep us within the ignorance of our "race" and "class" where we groom our selves and others to make us feel comfortable. For an evening or a day. But we will not survive long if we cannot reach out to all sentient beings. 

Instead of asking who is to blame, we can ask how we got here and what I can  do to let down the barriers to world community.  Prejudice and ignorance only benefits those who believe they cannot survive without servant/slave classes. Their supremacy depends on crippling the freedom of others.

Portals

 

https://leahhokanson.bandcamp.com

This latest CD by Leah Hokanson is reverent, haunting and beautiful. In a world where there are deep divisions, anxiety, pandemics and floods. this music brings us back to the human questions and reveals a spirit of resilience that is humble but hopeful. Leah writes:

"I hope this email finds you well. I'm thrilled to announce the launch of my new EP Portals: six original songs that explore love (of course), listening, beauty, and redemption, while taking a playful poke at our human foibles. All the songs are lyric-driven and include stylistic elements of jazz, pop, ballad, blues, and R&B, with sprinklings of my classical and orchestral past."

What further portals are there for us to explore?

A Christmas Story by Naomi Beth Wakan

 

     A few words first, in order to give a setting to my small Christmas story. I, a non-observing Jew and a retired Toronto therapist, bought, with my husband Eli, a country school-house in the small village of Stirling, Ontario. We were totally alien to country life and, indeed, since we purchased the schoolhouse in late winter, did not even know whether the schoolyard, under deep snow at the time of purchase, was asphalt, or grass.  We just saw the swings, the roundabout, the see-saw, the large schoolroom with a blackboard running down one wall and we were immediately seduced into buying a building totally inadequately insulated for an Ontario winter, and totally unsuited to residential life.

     We also were uncertain as to what we might be doing in order to pay the schoolhouse’s ridiculously high-rate mortgage, but what we did know was that somehow we wanted to experience life in a village, and, for that, we were soon to discover, we would have to go to church. As recent Buddhist drop-outs and keen non-observers, we were reluctant to take this step, but the lure of singing in the small church choir overcame our resistance, and soon, each Sunday, we were to be seen donning black gowns with odd gold-drapery collars and belting out “Nearer my God to thee,” “Eternal Father strong to save” and other such oldies and goldies.

     We had taken up residence in the schoolhouse in the summer and that Fall our little choir was busy practicing carols for the Christmas services. I was an amazingly keen participant in all this, perhaps because, as a young girl, I had been excluded from Christian assembly every day for six years at the girls’ high school that I attended. As one of a handful of Jewish students, I was only allowed into assembly after the Christian prayers had been sung, so that I might hear the notices of the day. In the line-up of girls slinking in belatedly (besides the Jewish ones) were the girls who had been given a detention or had been caught fraternizing in the local GI camp. Now, in my little village, at last I was being allowed to be party to the Christian mysteries.

     I can barely remember, but think “Hark the Herald Angels”, “In the Bleak Mid-winter” and “Silent Night” were certainly among the carols the choir practiced. 

     Come the Sunday service before the holidays, a day selected for the choir to perform in all their black and gold glory, the snow descended as only the snow can descend in an Ontario winter. By the time Eli and I had donned, sweaters, trousers, boots, jackets, scarves and gloves, the snow was almost to our knees. The phone lines were down, of course, and our pump had ceased to function making us a little ashamed that we were going to church unwashed, but hoped we would be forgiven by he/she who forgives all.

     The little church perched on the top of a hill from our schoolhouse, and it seemed to bob up and down as we dragged first one boot, then the other out of the deep snow. It was a good ten minutes of slogging that usually short climb, before we carefully pulled ourselves up the steps of the church.

     It was surprisingly cozy inside. The farmer’s wife from the farm adjoining the church volunteered to come in and keep the place dusted, stoke the furnace, arrange seasonal flowers, play the organ and, in fact, do everything save give the sermon. She greeted us rather abruptly with the news that the service was cancelled as the minister couldn’t make it over from his lodgings in a nearby village, since the snow ploughs weren’t out yet. She doubted that any parishioners would turn up and seemed about to usher us out.

     I, however, a new and devoted country woman, and almost as devoted choir member, was not about to be dismissed so abruptly. I had promised to perform and to perform I would, audience, or no audience. I should mention here that a few of my aunts had vague theatrical connections (one of them played piano to accompany silent movies) and my grandfather’s cousin had a gypsy orchestra so my showbiz roots weren’t too far away and “the show must go on” was somewhere engraved on my skeleton.

     Persuasive as I can be when I want something to happen, I ushered her over to the organ to prepare, while Eli and I slipped into our gold and black horrors. She and I had a slightly heated un-Christian conversation about what we would sing to the non-existent congregation. For some reason, although the choir hadn’t chosen to include it in their program as it wasn’t Christmasy, I suddenly had a strong desire to sing “The Church in the Wildwood.” The farmer’s wife was taken aback and refused my earnest pleas, saying that it wasn’t in the United Church songbook. I turned aside, sulking a bit, and muttered the words to myself:

“Come to the church by the wildwood. Oh, come to the church in the vale. No spot is so dear to my childhood as the little brown church in the vale.”

     I had no idea where this desire of mine to sing “Church in the Wildwood” had arisen from since I was brought up in the honky-tonk seaside town of Blackpool, nowhere near any vale, or dale come to that.

     I halted my mumbling suddenly, remembering that this was supposed to be the season of goodwill, so I agreed with the farmer’s wife, and also with Eli (who had disloyally sided with her), in the decision that we would stay with “Hark the Herald Angels,” “In the Bleak Mid-winter”, and “Silent Night.” Eli and I proceeded to render them best as we could; although neither of us could get anywhere near the high note towards the end of “Silent Night.” The hollow church echoed our voices, bouncing them from stained-glass window to stained glass window.

     As the word “peace” did its final echoing, I found myself moving towards the pulpit and, standing there, I started to give thanks.  I thanked the empty pews for welcoming us to their village, and I thanked them again for allowing us to sing in their choir, and buy their farm milk and eggs, and shop for other basics at the little village store. And looking out over the ghostly empty church, I found myself thanking God for my sturdy body, imaginative brain and the good life I had been given. And I, a Jew, whose grandparents had never spoken English, at least not in a way that made any sense to me, and someone who had no idea what the word “God” meant, suddenly found the tears running down my cheeks at the joy of being able to share this moment with my dear husband and the farmer’s wife.

    And looking over to my favourite stained-glass window, a window in which Jesus was carrying a new born lamb, it seemed to me as if he too nodded towards me in some kind of union.

Oh Trees!

                                 

Oh trees!

                                Christmas, evergreens, dessiduous, ancient, young, stumped

                                by our greed for trinkets and coins

                                how you stand tall

                                or bend

                                how you build our houses

                                how we have ignored mycelium

                                whispering in our dreams

                                trying to teach us

                                to be

                                               responsible.

How Did We Get Here?

Day by day

minute by minute

thought by thought

action by action

reflection

selection

inaction by reflection

seconds become minutes

minutes dissolve into hours

days by days

months into years

years into a lifetime

we were taught doesn't matter

they were wrong.

We

I am currently listening to CBC the Current which is broadcasting things we can do to bring down the carbon footprint.

A lot of science and energy language I do not understand but what was mentioned is the connection between climate and our mental health.  The power we have to affect change, to invest in the future with our own integrity.

The lift from listening to the daily news and weather reports to ideas about my involvement is emotionally tangible. I do feel down and burdened when faced with problems in our society and must be careful not to pass that on to friends and family.

Thoughts can so easily shift from "we are doomed" to what can I do? What abilities do I have.

This is just the beginning of change - the move from "we are doomed" to what have I got to offer.

First listen to scientists, teachers and neighbours. Explore ideas that promote the gifts we have rather than just the mistakes we have made.

But whatever you do, don't fall into the 'why bother when the worlds most powerful nation voted to spend $778 billion on the military while many of their citizens are homeless, hungry and crying for infrastructure'.

Bombs and dollars are no replacement for life.

Addictions!

How are addictions different to needs?  We need food and water. We need shelter and warmth. We need companionship. We need to care for ourselves. We need respect from our family members - meaning they appreciate who we are.

How did we end up reading opinions that disregard us or worship others who, we are told, are special. 

I remember I was about ten when I thought I had an obligation to achieve something special. Later in life a friend of the family said I was good looking and I retorted that I am not stunningly beautiful. The friend scoffed at my response.

I see now how commercial television formed my views of worth I watched sitcoms of beautiful people acting out their roles. Assumed a revelation that you are either somebody or nobody. How to be popular was the topic of magazine articles.

We were mostly all swimming in that assumption. At least those who I met in the office and TV commercials.

Now, in my seventies, I see how destructive it was. Billions of people walking around attempting to be somebody while they feel like nobody. All the pageantry that goes into being somebody, all the ways I had projected my self-contempt onto others. How ugly I made myself trying desperately to be stunningly beautiful.  How easily manipulated I was, and still am, by evil geniuses until I think twice.

Now I see that vanities must be swept aside in order to deal with real threats like climate change, war and poverty.

Now I see my life depends on the well-being of everyone and everything around me. Particularly my family and friends, and those I depend on like first responders, healers, writers and artists.

Signs of Slide into a Police State

" last-minute amendments crowbarred by the government into the police, crime, sentencing and courts bill are a blatant attempt to stifle protest, of the kind you might expect in Russia or Egypt." 

This is the UK now, reported by George Monbiot on his blog. Most of media never reported or commented.  "It looks like a deliberate ploy to avoid effective parliamentary scrutiny. Yet in most of the media there’s a resounding silence."

"Among the new amendments are measures that would ban protesters from attaching themselves to another person, to an object, or to land. Not only would they make locking on – a crucial tool of protest the world over – illegal, but they are so loosely drafted that they could apply to anyone holding on to anything, on pain of up to 51 weeks’ imprisonment." George Monbiot

I am trying to write positive things as we approach the holiday season but I feel so full of dread for the future. It sits in my chest like a grey beast.

The other night we watched a documentary on the life of Mandela as South African blacks struggled to get democracy by winning the vote. There was so much violence during that struggle. Then I listened to CBC radio about African Americans trying to find freedom in Canada.

Are humans evil? That's the question that haunts me, yet there are so many who are helping those who need help. Anti-poverty, fighting for homes for the homeless, fighting for definitions that connect us to nature. 

What has become clear to me is how frightened we are, unable to bind together a sense of peace. 

Looking for my place in all this. What I can do. What I should do. How to survive without harming others. How to write a path that acknowledges our concern and compassion. 

I do know it's not in my best interest to support governments and movements hostile to the most vulnerable. There is nothing great about policies that harm minorities while allowing billionaires to create privilege for a few.

Misogyny, Misandry & Misanthropy

 

"The Epstein case is important because, however much is being covered up, it is a window into the scourge of male violence that explodes in decayed cultures, fueled by widening income disparities, the collapse of the social contract and the grotesque entitlement that comes with celebrity, political power, and wealth. When a ruling elite perverts all institutions, including the courts, into instruments that serve the exclusive interests of the entitled, when it willfully neglects and abandons larger and larger segments of the population, girls and women always suffer disproportionally.

The struggle for equal pay, equal distribution of wealth and resources, access to welfare, legal aid that offers adequate protection under the law, social services, job training, healthcare, and education services, have been so degraded they barely exist for the poor, especially poor girls and women." Chris Hedges

What is a decayed culture? What is a culture that is alive, healthy and vital? What do you bring to your culture?

Do you write letters to the editor to support the vulnerable? Do you argue with narratives that diminish life, do you protest exploitation, do you support small business, do you speak to strangers with respect? 

If you are spending all your time and energy taking care of humans, young or old, you are fighting against corruption. When you listen to someone who is heartbroken you are helping to heal them. When you are engaged in any activity that cares for life in all its forms, you possess integrity.

If you are a predator you have moved away from your humanity into the world of constructed hate which abuses and alienates your own self.

The Universe Weeps

The Universe Weeps

over farms, towns and cities

where people have re-arranged

landscape, built stores with bricks

roads with molten gravel that once

were mountains and beaches

where one species has turned

all of nature into a singular financial plan

where the meaning of life is to win

what matters is six figures

separated by commas

and the gift arising from earth

the trees, the roots, the green stems

held in offshore banks 

while refugees wander in the dark night

carrying their babies on their back

and anti-abortionists scream at women 

who have no food for their embryos

and politicians devise plots to disrupt 

reports of need to make justice a game

a soccer match on fields where poppies grew

once housed families  before warriors 

found new enemies underground

and the goal is to manage threats 

delete imagination 

kill the metaphor before it learns to sing 

— ‘we are here’

before humanity realizes its nature

while economists argue over narratives

to entertain consumers

trying hard not to worry

not to be concerned or negative

and so the universe grieves

and weeps

lakes and rivers

over our conspiracy to survive. 

from National Observer - a father not allowed to find his daughter on his land

He knew she was out there when the RCMP moved in, arresting 15 people, including elders and a journalist. Images, videos and reports emerged throughout the day showing officers in tactical gear with assault weapons and police dogs, as helicopters and drones circled overhead.   National Observer.

What Drives Your Life?

Is it the love for your family? The love of food? Is it the questions that command your mind to attention?

Is it to find a challenge to reveal your nature and talents?

If you could remember why you were born into the body you have what would it say?

Why are you here? Are you an answer to an ancient quest?

Does it matter what your answer is? It does matter that you dare to ask the question. And it matters that you are not imprisoned for asking the question.

Satellites

 

"A satellite is an object that moves around a larger object. Earth is a satellite because it moves around the sun. The moon is a satellite because it moves around Earth. Earth and the moon are called "natural" satellites." NASA

Living things like trees, animals and clouds, are satellites on earth, because we all transmit information.

A person's face can tell us how they are feeling, whether they have enough to eat and whether they have been loved and cared for.

There are so many ways we can tell others that we care. When I meet someone who cares about living things I can see it in their face, hear it in their voice. It has an affect on my mind and heart.

I see people as satellites transmitting information regardless of whether they want to or not.

I want to transmit belonging to all living things. I want to love all the satellites that brighten my world in ways that can only be transmitted from sentient beings.

Angels coming out of the wood work

Coming out of dreams

coming out of the telephone receiver

coming out of friendly visits

their smiles and clear eyes

while the news changes every day

the fire place is dark and cold

but someone (an angel?)

will come and light it soon

coffee will be bubbling

through the brewer soon

tea will be darkening

in the pot

bread in the toaster

and butter in the dish

will meet and melt

together somewhere

then an announcer

on CBC radio

will broadcast

today's weather.

Things will go right

and things will go wrong

and your beloved

will put their arms around you

and the light will get lighter

until evening

when it gets darker

I pray that if you don't have these things

the angels will agitate for you.

 

My Advent Calendar

 

I hope I can find words that live inside you

that remind us

amid the tragedies of the day

... we are not awful, greedy or violent.

We know this of course

but it isn't broadcast

in game shows and business reports.

Write down the things

you bring to this earth

even though goodness

doesn't receive public

acknowledgement.

What We Need Is A Reverence For Life

 "What we needed at the Cop26 climate conference was a decision to burn no more fossil fuels after 2030. Instead, powerful governments sought a compromise between our prospects of survival and the interests of the fossil fuel industry. But there was no room for compromise. Without massive and immediate change, we face the possibility of cascading environmental collapse, as Earth systems pass critical thresholds and flip into new and hostile states." George Monbiot, Domino Theory

It's as though we learned that creating something new, solving a problem,  is so hard and takes so long, we gave up and instead focused on destroying everything we can. Like those video games where the player moves the track point to the moving images of whatever is in its path which blow up into cloud dust until you exit the game.

When all things on this planet have been blown up, when we are gone how will we know who won?

But this is not who we are. This is not us. This is a different kind of game organized by those who hate, who are so broken they conspire to get us all to believe we are mindless ping pong balls spending our waking hours trying to win ... anything and everything.

This view makes the world a shallow violent place as though we were all created in a petri dish, five minutes ago.

We began our personal lives in a uterus and stayed there for about nine months until  forced out into the cold air, crying, outraged, until a nipple was found, and by some magic we knew we had to suck it to survive.

Capitalism has revolved around the creation of "things" to play while it destroys the earth we depend on to breathe, eat and live.

Minds are battered by trivial inventions to create need. Education teaches us to measure the trivial so we can survive by playing the game of "winning". The problem is that nature offers so much beauty and mystery we can be absorbed in life and neglect the games that drive the economy where only one side wins and everything else loses.

The Day the Mountains Came Down

the listening Leah Hokanson

the listening 

     penetrates perception

the listening

     softens edges

the listening

     dissolves other

the listening

     of flow

     movement

     turning

          and returning

the listening

     beyond language 

     beyond history

     beyond I 

the listening 

     of intention

     attention

     invocation

the listening

     of innocence 

     of presence

     of silence

 

Evening Song Vi Hughes

 

At end of day when streets are still,

And houses shutter from the fear,

A single note comes rising up,

Soon followed by another.

Shutters open, people rush 

To fill the streets with song.

Banging, 

Clanging, 

Cheering, 

Clapping.

They sing a song of thanks.

Thanks to all the health care workers, 

No end of day for them. 

Teleology Janet Vickers

It takes four to ten years 

to study medicine and the learning 

never ends—specialists research until

they die—spend hours on committees

listen to those who survived

and family of those who didn’t

—life is about 

pain, sorrow and struggle

as you try to learn their needs—no winning 

or losing in the thick of it 

all you want is to make them better

the prize—an empty bed

of someone who went home

grateful for the times

you hid your fatigue.

 

Who do you go to ? Dave Neads

 

When you want to increase your portfolio

Make a few hundred thou on the side

Who do you go to? 

Those who have tips, insider info

When you want to get the best return 

on your money, pick up a few points

Who do you go to? 

Those who give advice, know the market  

When you want to buy that big home

Triple your investment over the next year

Who do you go to?

Realtors, who know property values 

When you want to look younger

Shave a few wrinkles, enhance your sweater

Who do you go to?

Plastic surgeons, people who know profiles.

When you seek relief from the burdensome

Traces of a functioning society 

Who do you go to?

Politicians who know the value of money.

Who do you go to when you are sick?

When you need medical attention?

Who do you go to?

Dedicated Doctors and Nurses  

Yet you advocate squeezing scant budgets

Stopping creeping socialism 

Where do you go

When it is your life on  the line?

To your stock broker? 

Your Banker?

Your Real Estate broker?

Your Investment analysts?

Like they give  a hoot about you

You need those who care,

Who devote their lives to healing  

Others.

For no profit, no investment gain

These are the ones who care about others.

Something foreign 

To your consciousness.

So let us celebrate those among us who

Dedicate their time, energy

And yes, even their lives 

To help others. 

Without them we would 

simply be another howling 

mob of dog eat dog 

in the wilderness. 

And who loses in such a scenario?

I bet you can guess.  ( Or maybe not)  

Because privilege comes with blinkers

Until the reins are seized.

Who will you go to then ?