The Hell Up Appears To Have Been Left Open

Apr29

Perhaps that’s OK… nobody seems to be listening anyway. And thus, the collective consciousness of humanity continues to conjure and enact ever more tragic scenarios, and ever more frequently so. The media strive to analyze, extrapolate, inform, recap, and update… keeping plates of psychic horror spinning throughout nations of carnivals of scale. Being progressively free of ownership by device electronic, one still cannot completely evade constant bombardment with the knowledge of suffering.

Following each instance, there’s generally steadfastness, hope, and righteous defiance, and it is soon usually grossly overshadowed by runaway blame, re-engineered judgment, and fortified intolerance. The cycles continue as episodic clones proliferate, then mutate to replicative dissolution upon eons passing.

The nature of terror is satanic in that it effectively eliminates all possibility of ambiguity in making choices in the moment. It is possible also that the notion of a satan is, in fact, a well-crafted subroutine implemented to exercise some control over the masses. Not much seems to escape consideration or scrutiny, be it a random thought, a mistaken symbol or facial expression, or a benign bottle of shampoo at a security checkpoint. Yet, The Hell Up gapes as widely as ever… no one can detect, let alone decipher, any ‘voice’ coming from that big hole, yet it remains ever absent of a viable means to be shut, filled, fulfilled, or even pacified! It is all eventually tuned out of awareness until more blood is spilled.

There is an order of some kind to things in general – whether chaotic or theotic. Incredible precision and timing maintain the dance of celestial objects and the life of their creatures. We can’t pack enough dirt together and hurl it into space in such a way as to complement the grand act already in performance. Yet, we manage to scrape up the absolute worst of what’s happening on the planet and then dress it like a stuffed pig ready for the roast – native entrails and contents intact!

Given that whenever Mother earth gives an occasional rip, a few precious human lives are usually lost, would one instead have Her tiptoe into deeper space with an enormous rubber plug? Given further the overwhelming well-being apparent and in absolute support of our Mother in Her capacity to support life, wouldn’t it be probable that the total of bad news that could ever be dredged up at any instant pales pitifully in comparison to all else going on?

Most would draw benefit from but a hint of a clue as to why such terrible things are happening, and many of us do get our questions answered and much more from religion, however loosely organized or tightly wound past the brink of fundamentalism. Yet, throughout human history, seeking ultimate clarity through religious dogma has been pretty much like looking to jet fuel and direct sunlight as a relief from skin cancer.

I don’t know what the answer is, but I do most certainly care, though I can’t possibly keep caring and keep my own sanity when the events that have sparked the question keep humping me about the head each time my random awareness is hijacked by some strategically planted digital HD structure. What I do know is that nothing that has happened (or not) or that has been considered (or not) is likely to make any difference.

And if a miracle is needed, then may we come to know that a miracle is simply a change in perception – a shift in the way of looking at things. It is we who create the news, and it is we who create our own blues. At some point along our evolution, we may succeed in encouraging ourselves to come to consensus on a possible alternative view – a perfect, expansive, well-meaning, well-being universe with but a spec of apparent discord somewhere in the Alpha Quadrant of the Milky Way. Wouldn’t it be special if merely lifting attention off ourselves could allow the focused attention of all that is to filter through to us, thus allowing us to get one another’s attention without having to resort to extremes?

Much Ado… About A Dick?

Apr1

It’s been a few years since I chose to eliminate television as a viable therapeutic diversion from whatever in daily living may cause me occasional stress or boredom. I do still find myself in front of a computer screen perhaps more than is really beneficial, but it’s all standard in the ongoing process of seeking balance. Thus, I visit the spam folder, on occasion, as a possible source of spontaneous amusement. Having come to the realization some time ago that nearly everyone who has an email address generally gets the same kinds of ‘mystery meat’ that I get – even women, children, pets, and those who are deceased – I’ve learned not to take so personally the targeting misadventures of all the world’s snake oil peddlers.

Appreciative as I am that there is an ever abundance of ripe concern for the libidinal wellbeing of the masses, I’m more relieved that such assurance is never likely to arrive in random torrents of spamatazoa from profit seeking entities through the seminal ethers of the electroniverse.

Is it yet another mindless thing to ponder… not to any great depth? The puzzle that is not is that I almost seem to sense forces conspiring to stir up guilt for my making light of a symbol so otherwise [evidently] strongly and subtly revered (or riveted) in the human psyche. But this is in fact an anti-conundrum insofar as I could never be made to swallow the thought that if I somehow should fail to take full advantage of my maleness in this lifetime (whatever that could possibly mean within the spectrum of natural experience) – or if I should speak sacrilege of that whose single exaltation it is to throb – Genghis Khan’s spirit will recommend to the forces that be that I be returned to this earth for the next dozen or so lifetimes as a lowly female afflicted in some way as to render me unsuitable for standard penetration – or maybe worse yet, someone oriented otherly than other-o-sexual.

If I am the oddball for breaking wind in the face of that notion, then clearly the world is my accidental mentor! But, am I really the voice of any particularly popular minority at present? Do I reveal heroically (or in any other way) any semblance of truth not already obvious as I take utter delight in desiccating disgust in a kiln of absurdity – one that ultimately well becomes it? Well, it seems so right and just. It’s legal. It harms no one. It feels really frigging good for me to do so. That is all that really matters, isn’t it? Screw all else!

At the same time (…though, ‘through a mirror, oddly’ …and, as if the present incarnation were my first as a male) I would not have turned down this experience for all of eternity spent in non-corporeal splendor, if for no other reason than to behold woman from this perspective. On an eerily subconscious level, revisiting this earth for that reason alone always seems… worthwhile …no matter through which gender woman is beheld. Nevertheless, if and when I should return as a female, I strongly suspect that, on an intuitive level, I’ll have something of significance at core to share with “the girls,” and I honor my manhood deeply for the privilege of entertaining the possibility of crafting and offering such a gift.

However, and without further embellishing the current Feast of the Immaculate Erection, I will admit, along with perhaps most other architecture sporting the heliotropic flying buttress, that there is tremendous and unspeakable pleasure in acting out the more percussive aspect of passionate virility. Though, my only lament is that a woman’s rapture has a much fuller life, a much longer life span, and (as often experienced in spurious situations somewhat less than spiritual) is neither even necessarily nor absolutely dependent upon any specific degree or quality of focus that her co-creator may presume to be offering (Ouch!) And it’s easily within her will and at her total discretion to offer audible signal – however modulated in sincerity – which might suggest to him otherwise. The pervasive, plasmic Consciousness of nature, somewhat more infinite than my own, knows well the reason for that.

The observation or perception that a vaster majority of women historically continue to respond favorably to the sweat pumping, slam dunking bumping of ugly aspect is simply a blatant indicator of the Consciousness at play in the display of nature’s power. Not man’s power; not woman’s power, but Nature’s power! I believe, though, that women generally have a much better handle in orchestrating and directing that awesome power. After all, it is she who has the ‘goods,’ so it is he who must muster the means to ‘make nice.’ And Traditionally, regarding any woman of ‘value,’ making nice rarely, if ever, includes inelegant, rock hard demonstrations of ultimate intent (unless, of course, such raw and natural instinct were deemed societally appropriate to express – something not likely to occur on a global scale any time soon).

Men may lay general claim to greater bulk and physical strength, yet how many a seemingly frail female form has performed the miracle of childbirth in the witness of awestruck lunks of masculinity?

The most significant of the genital organs, by far, in both male and female, is the brain. This is so because the brain is the firmware of the imagination, which is the paint that we use to help fill in the canvas of perception. The imagination is spirit; it is creative consciousness, and without it, no miracle would be possible, let alone the directing of the dastardly dongle of distension. Therein lies the unobvious yet huge-assed elephant of a clue that Big Pharma would eliminate completely at all cost, if only it could! The pharmaceutical giants do, in fact, succeed quite well in convincing people that they have no control of their bodies nor their general wellbeing except through the medications they provide.

The problem (and also the blessing) with the genital brain is that it is easily programmable in bio-machine language as effective as brainwashing, through connections centrally hardwired therein. If one attaches a big nasal sensor with a high-capacity olfactory sub-processor tied directly to the mid-brain, one has a creature whose propensity it is to poke its snout where others fear to embark, in constant search of material with which to program its ever ready machine. The woodland creature is not likely to ever experience anything remotely resembling erectile dysfunction simply because it would never occur to him to stray from natural focus in the moment.

The human brain doesn’t have much comparatively in the way of nasal power, but is equipped with a relatively enormous prefrontal rational sub-processor. It does nothing but suck in everything it gathers from the sense organs, then tries to make sense of it all – similar to ‘breaking what ain’t fixed.’ Whatever sense it does come to, in consensus with others of its kind, it becomes reality for all. If you happen to have a less than preferable day, then someone suggests that you might suffer from ED, or breast cancer, or whatever, then, within the famished fugue of dusk, you continue thinking about that… you will eventually draw a pattern unto yourself. This is nothing new. In the proper state of suggestibility, the human mind can be made to believe that a potato, obvious to everyone else, is actually an apple. When the subject is told to take a bite, he reports the experience of having tasted an apple – not a potato!

Without engaging in endless verbal extravaganza, the mind controls the member. But certain ambiguity of expectation results when often the mind that is locally attached to the member is not the one controlling it. The mind of a woman in love, for example, can affect it one way; the mind of the pill pusher, a completely different way – the mind of the Media and/or the State, yet another. Indeed, bad news from the stock broker may turn one’s turgid tool to a tepid tubule rather quickly and effectively, volatile strip that it can be!

Whether the prevailing pimp nature of present retains its role or evolves into something even just a trifle less Warner Brothers is not my concern in the moment, nor should it be anyone’s. The fact that women – and the Feminine – are mistreated by the countryload throughout the world, moment by moment, really shouldn’t bother anyone… nor then should the probability that knowing so is the reason why men might ever have trouble getting it up.

Angels & Artisans… Assholes & Asperger’s

Mar12

I am a chameleon capable of masterfully mimicking normal behavior for prolonged periods.

It is such pungent irony in hindsight, yet not nearly so in a tragic sense, that hilarity now erupts from the depths of my soul. It was actually not until almost a decade ago that I was nearly accidentally introduced to the term Asperger’s Syndrome. It was in a classroom setting relatively late at night while preparing to become a high school math teacher, of all things. (Thankfully, for the sake of those young minds who would have been subject to my calamitous unleashing, I did not conclude the endeavor.) Another student in class at the time was asking a question on the topic of relating to children with special needs in the classroom to better accommodate the learning experience of all.

That is about all I can safely recall of that session, because throughout this person’s seemingly endless rhetorical inquiry, as he repeated the audible symbol, ‘Asperger’s’… and thinking intermittently that he was actually saying something else, I began to lose consciousness of what was going on around me – including everything he was saying. As this would occur at interval through the duration of his speaking, whenever I would drift back toward awareness of the moment, I’d arrive at the same certain conclusion, and further re-questioning, from a repeating monolog: “No, he couldn’t be saying what I’m hearing… No one could possibly have a name like that… If I had that name I’d have long before changed it or at least remained childless… that is, if I hadn’t perished via suicide prior to pre-school. What nature of a crack could this nominal anomaly have slipped through? Why am I missing something here…?”

Some while later, having pinched myself to determine whether or not I had fully returned to conscious awareness, the fact that everyone around me had managed to maintain a straight and narrow face suggested to me that whatever this person’s name was that my classmate kept iterating, it was a significant one, at least among the teaching and the behavioral health communities – even though I had failed to assimilate it that particular night.

And now, many years since, a grand epiphany is embraced with anticipation rivaling that of male penguins seeing their mates return, packed full of nourishment and appropriate fuzzies, after an eternity of fasting and freezing while incubating their young. [I’ve seen the videos] For it doesn’t matter that for the past thirty plus years I’d been misdiagnosed, and therefore mis-‘treated’ – leaving me clueless as to how and why I’ve made such an accidental career of mistreating others. Forgoing clamoring for an official diagnosis, for all the good it would do, the evidence itself, now revealed to me, is most overwhelming. I am – and always have been – one of those ‘special’ children… though by now most gracefully gruesome and gray… and somewhat glazed with guilt.

I didn’t actually start to speak until nearly the age of four, yet in a very real sense, I remain mute even unto now and forever more, freely and abundantly available to the volatile ether of present, and to archeologists of eons hence.

The general story of this appreciative clown is somewhat classic and rather noble in some novel sense:

Mommy lovingly encouraged me to go out and play. For the most part, I enjoy being outside, and the kids seem to be friendly and eager for me to join in all the fun. Although many of the games were fun for me at first, I can’t seem to really get the gist. I often certainly look like a clown, and the others laugh, but I trust it’s all in good fun. It’s almost nine o’clock, though, and I don’t think I’m having as much fun playing as I might have anticipated. I decide to come up with a game or two that I think (or feel?) will be fun to share with the others. Besides, some of the others do just that, and it all seems to be good with everyone, so why not I? But it is lunch time now, and Mommy has called me in for a break.

During every moment and morsel of refreshment, I am contemplating the positive response I’m sure to experience when I share my new games with the other kids. But to my dismay, when I return to play, rather than finding myself connecting in a more intimate way with the others, it seems I’ve instead made myself more alien to them. Typically, they offer not a clue, and as they now continue to recoil from me, then so I do from them. It’s as if there’s a big green booger somewhere on my face that others have pointed out to me, but I have to guess exactly where it is, guided only by the intensity of their laughter as I nervously feel around my face… or something sick like that. It is by now and forever such ‘normal’ behavior for kids to be less than kind when presented a reasonable opportunity, I’d even been programmed to indulge in such behavior were I to encounter someone more boogered than I.

It is now late afternoon. I’m left with an important decision. Which is the path of least resistance? Do I continue vainly endeavoring to learn the tougher games the other kids play at the risk of psychic harm to myself until I’m good enough just to not get laughed at? Or do I play my own games unfettered and with ease, but in contingent and absolute solitude until I return home at the end of the Day?

Now, of course there is a much broader range of alternatives here, and certainly a much less negative overall take on the situation. Thankfully, the teachings of Abraham (among others) help keep me reminded of this. My expressive irreverence of self herein is simply an attempt at levity as a surefire technique in releasing resistance and moving on… quite similar as when Abraham speaks of people ‘croaking’ rather than dying, because there is no death…. The label, too, is not something I intend to chew on like a meat-encrusted utensil throughout near eternity. The label does in the present, however, effectively soothe an urgent guttural growling. And, as I share my personal experience, those like myself are recognized, and there’s a net increase in the evolution of all that is.

So, mine is really not a tragic tale in any way; it’s just… a tale. Indeed, reality would indicate that there are others on the planet who are much worse off than I. The reason knowing why I’m different is such a blessing is because it is such a powerful revelation. In one fell swoop, it seems to bring extreme clarity to past behavior patterns and to my life in general – a linear tapestry of false starts, magnificent screw-ups, and otherwise meaningless undertakings in constant hot pursuit of an ever elusive thread of self-worth. In the same way, though, this surge of enlightenment also brings into recognizable focus many of my ‘superhero’ traits courtesy of The Drome, which include, but are in no way limited to:

Increased ability to focus on detail
Capacity to persevere in specific interests without being swayed by others’ opinions
Ability to work independently
Recognition of patterns that may be missed by others
Intensity
An ‘original’ way of thinking

There are by now tons of tests and litanies of criteria online and elsewhere for helping professional ‘peutics,’ as well as the more general public, to determine the ‘existence’ or ‘magnitude’ of Asperger’s Syndrome in an individual. Well, here’s a clue straight out of the blue-matter mustard of a misaligned mind: If you think you could easily create an endless store of rich content items for a Jeopardy game category called “Things totally ‘off the wall’…” and merely considering the task induces an almost sexual arousal, you just might resemble The Drome. But… not to worry, we’re in pretty distinguished company. Among those suspected of honoring this gift are Mozart, Einstein, Ben Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Marie Curie….

I’ve been told on occasion that I have a talent for coming up with weird ways of saying things. Among the once and future goddesses who’ve ever anointed this reality with their gift, and who are now re-focused in the non-physical, is one Laura Nyro. Instead of singing ‘I’m heartbroken,’ she declares with the purest and deepest of feeling: “I got a job on the chamber’s walls of heartache.” When given but the slightest benefit of doubt (aka: love), it is clear in anyone’s mind and heart who has felt exactly what she feels, knows exactly what she means, and she means much more than simply ‘His leaving me has evoked some rather strong feelings…’ So, praise for masterful verbal acuity is clearly to be shared!

There are currently some twenty five million Aspies worldwide. As an adjunct to simply feeling good, enjoying life, and being truly free, some of us came here (maybe) to make a positive contribution to this physical time/space reality, in the here and now. Some of us certainly end up accidentally teaching higher-order spiritual lessons (and often dispensing horror or inciting disgust in the process), or facilitating the uncovering of some of the practical flaws in the operation of certain human social constructs – systems, attitudes and orders that have never worked. Some yet are here, it would seem, to not interact with the present physical, or affect its current evolution in any way but the most superficial while remaining equally focused into more subsequent reality, applying intent directly derived from desire experienced in the present reality toward moment-to-moment unsurpassed well-being for future humanity.

We’ve been observing your Earth
And one night we’ll make
A contact with you…
We are your friends.

Links of Possible Interest:

http://www.templegrandin.com/

http://www.medicinenet.com/asperger_syndrome/article.htm

Does The Sea Look Any Different When You Let Go Of The Oars?

Dec16

A standard non-pharma technique in treating cases of acute depression is the basis of modern Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT). It involves the lost art of reaching for a thought, based on how you feel at any given moment, which will likely make you feel better, as consciousness tumbles forward in temporal momentum. What a concept! It makes such plain and absolute sense it seems ironic that such an elaborate structure as the study of human behavior is weaved in order to engage the utter simplicity of its healing power. And it is plausible that the world’s most effective therapists may have managed to steer way clear of formal education.

When one is severely bummed out (whatever the cause, known or buried, blatant or complex), there is a thick, dull, yet intense feeling of doom and hopelessness that is rather chronic and very debilitating (trust me, as I do speak from personal historical experience). So if such a person can be made to mentally claw out of that state to, say, a feeling of anger, then that indeed is a step in the right direction, because the person now at least realizes the power to feel something (understanding, of course, that lingering in a state such as anger is potentially much more harmful than remaining in the constant catatonic fugue of depression).

Having said all that, the aim is to suggest that the cool thing about information overload (TMI) – the torrent of detail and recap of recent tragedy that has shaken the world to its knees, or what might not happen this Friday coming – or about anything at any peek in eternity – is that it’s an opportunity to step back and cross one’s eyes just a tad, to take in an alternate arrangement of all news fragments, scattered bits of certified horrific truth, and piquant sooth sayings from the vaults of antiquity. Then the surreal is given the chance to morph into absurdity, then levity, and eventual serenity within some semblance of deeper understanding. This is reasonably in line with my, or anyone’s, moving from utter hopelessness to anger… to frustration… to disquietude… to indifference… to clarity… to integrated resolution… to eventually seeing the world and all that seems to go on ‘externally’ as safe, having no power to control the single thing that I alone can and must control – the way that I feel in the moment regardless of what my world is showing me. Am I guilty for not being so willing to prolong feeling bad even though there’s such a “good” reason to? If so, then perhaps it is the same vibration of guilt that maddens the madman as well as the gut-wrenched bystander demanding some order of resolve from whomever or whatever.

Actually, that transcendental knowledge that few attain … and actualize while yet in bodily form offers a clue that is psychically tantalizing. What goes on out there in that world – out here in this world – is a reflection of what is apparently ‘not’ going on out there. It is a reflection of the one perceiving… the self! There’s nothing not going on that isn’t already in either aspect. I’ve heard spiritual icons and enlightened theoretical thinkers say this in so many ways in the past, and for a lifetime I am pouring escrow into wrapping my weary noodle around what they mean. I do so because along the continuum relating caveman to social giant, I am somewhere in between – perhaps much closer to the solitary, earth dwelling space explorer than the surface flitting fan of the Kornucopians.

But what I’m learning along the way is that the conundrum called self, its world and all that it seems to perceive and experience – life –is too alien a substance for the mind alone to contain. That is why the human soul also has a heart which has no choice but to feel its way where reason dare not tread alone (…or at all, in the rawest of scenarios).

And for another moment, words take a break, and eternity is touched…

In dealing with life, my personal spiritual operating system has become a hodgepodge of code segments from various programs to include the Tao De Ching, A Course In Miracles (ACIM), and the teachings of Abraham, most predominantly. After all, the human body with its brain and central nervous system is a computing device as well as an electromagnetic transceiver. We – at least our bodies – behave very much like the machines we create in our own image to serve and support us. The difference is that we, as humans, are self-programmable as freely as we are susceptible to programming by others like us – including our friendly devices, tangible or otherwise.

But we’re not actually the devices we think we are. Rather, we are the current that runs them, the waves of energy exchanged among them, and the information processed by them. Then, perhaps God is the supreme dork with the killer double click! Energy passes through the body at tremendous frequency, such that we essentially turn “on, then off” billions of times per second. When we are “on” is the only time we perceive ourselves as a specific identity in a physical body. When we are “off” we are an unfettered member of collective consciousness. This is similar to a bunch of free electrons making its way into a toaster, replacing electrons that had resided therein, then becoming suddenly and briefly aware of having a body (the toaster) and of living (toasting).

The teachings of Abraham – and myriad others – tell us that contrary to popular belief and religious doctrine, well-being abounds, and it is all that does. The fact that we are often not aware of it is due to our own unwillingness to focus on it instead of its lack, which is the ultimate illusion. They also speak much on the idea of ‘letting go’ when often they employ the analogy of someone putting their boat in some fast moving water, pointing it up stream, and paddling frantically. They seem to always suggest trusting the current, and insist that simply letting go of the oars will turn the boat around and send it swiftly in the right direction.

But like some arduous Vulcan mind training discipline, it is still all pretty much of a stretch for me, as I suspect it is for most, because I’ve spent decades building traps to force my boat against the current. But, like anything, the more the principles are practiced, the less resistance one will feel in the assimilation of life. The operating system that one is running doesn’t even matter… just reaching the next better thought, using the heart as the master compass, and letting the current carry you home.

Links of Possible Interest:

http://www.perrymarshall.com/24736/newtown/?inf_contact_key=b1e9e25758c70b86e1c77eba0e86926478f3a459f077e172908598126368e384

http://simplesensibilities.com/2012/12/16/enough-is-enough/

http://www.mail.com/business/economy/1768656-mexicos-mayas-face-dec-21-with-ancestral-calm.html#.7518-stage-subhero1-1

Don’t Grab A Gift Tenor By The Nuts…

Nov24

…Nor a songbird by its dollarless bill,

Nor a leftover turkey by its seeming ingratitude for having escaped a dinner table once again…

But do grok if and when so inclined.

Who on the internet or in the world orders nightingale services via Google or Bing? I knew the answer to that from the beginning, yet I began, and I continue to offer such a thing, like the bliss fuddled ice-cream man pushing his cart through a car wash en route to a war zone… A sentimental ringtone echoes within the hollowed mind, “Only a fool breaks his own heart.” But being traffic challenged and fairly afflicted with iconic social blunderlust is hardly the nightingale’s nemesis; only giving up altogether is!

Who are my audience, and how do I reach you? I speak to those – and for those – of similar vibration to mine – those of you who are just plain weird, psychically and spiritually restless, and stranger of heart than average… you birds of a different feather, weary of the truly trivial, and fearless in the exploration of subtler human currents in the Ocean of Being.

The true worth of any Magic Realist is the willingness to inspire others to look at things in different ways than the norm, and to share those jewels of perspective with yet others – to embrace and communicate an ever broadening experience of Being. We are all Alfred Hitchcock, Rod Serling, Joan of Arc, Salvador Dali, Bob Dylan, Z. Budapest, Gene Roddenberry… to some degree, and sharing one’s weirdness expands the consciousness of the whole of humanity. This is how evolution occurs and how world orders change.

Every time Thanksgiving rolls around, I’m given (perhaps through socially programmed guilt) to the task of coming up with newer and fresher reasons to be thankful, to add to the rock solid base of my overflowing cup (cough…). Vulcan logic would agree – as well as Bajoran spirituality and Klingon honor – that being grateful (let alone for any reason) is a good thing. So bless a special day to remind me in case I lose sight of meaning altogether in the moment’s rustling of living leaves through the winds of abundance.

There’s a programmable notion, it seems, that being “too much” and individual, that is, too much one’s own self, a person risks isolation by one’s own doing or through socially imposed excommunication… or both. And one of my biggest fears – much bigger than falling from the ledge of a high-rise – is to be ignored… to be whispered about but never communicated with… to be laughed at rather than felt through. I am thankful in the moment that the bigger fear is also much more ‘imaginary’ than the other.

Ironically, this imagination, daring to be expressed verbally yet terrified at the notion, is the same imagination agile enough in the past to have worked its way out of mazes of illusion generated by the belief that a person can really be separated from others, and that this severance of social nurturance can be lethal or terminal. That may have some speck of truth if one is running a business and is concerned essentially with worldly gain. But I’m just speaking my mind here, and a mind is a terrible thing to waste.

Kermit the Frog told us once that it’s no picnic being green, but he has Miss Piggy, and millions of fans, and his legend has already outlived and out shined mine own. So how does Kermit, the would-be blogger, reach that laser targeted pot of gold on a silver platter? Through all the myriad recommended means… then after pumping the sea through a strainer with fire hose force, a ‘site’ may turn out not to be the proper way. If that’s the case, then I’ll just have to consider this experience cyber fiber for a grand and therapeutic Thanksgiving purge. I’ll meet you in the streets and at Barnes and Noble’s.

If you can hear me… If you’re even a tad soapy and drenched, I do know that you’ve been through the car wash. But I also know that your goods have been shielded from calamity. I want to see what you have, and I want you to examine my wares. Let’s party a bit. This ain’t no war zone. You are welcome here, my friend!

~ Thrizzle, threzzle, thrazzle, throam… time for ET to phone home ~

Which Came First, Afterbirth Or Afterlife?

Nov13

In a typical Twilight Zone – like drama, an aging fool, having years ago quit taking his side Effexor, spills his last DNA unto a blog that he can’t persuade people at gun point to even take a peek at. [Zone music in the background] One by one, friends, family ties, acquaintances… each drifting from life, the bewildered martyr becomes recluse, an internet connection his single remaining link. He is by now but a friendly ghost – one still captive in the earth plane, yet unseen, unheard – unbothered and unbotherable by others, and unable to see “the light.”

In such a storyline – and that’s all that it is – the blog has the potential of becoming just another extravagantly self-authored epitaph, at best. And so it embodies the sound of the tree falling in the forest where no one is there to witness, or the ever frisky dog in the neighbor’s yard whose greeting is ignored by the endless stream of passersby throughout the day. To those distant stars whose light is yet to reach your closest neighbor, I knew you were there from the beginning, and it is to you I reach out to offer platform – a mirror to reflect your light for a critical peek at mine. For in reality, I AM “the light” (Everyone is…). I know who and what I work for, and it is that greater force who is the author of my heart and my hand. The Message that I speak (for me, in this incarnation) is My Lady (not necessarily one particular lady, but all ladies… The Feminine…), and I am destined to lay my cloak before Her. If I’ve even attempted to get her to where she wished to be without her feet becoming soiled by that which doesn’t know her, I am fulfilled. Forgiveness is indeed the fragrance Mother’s eternal violet offers to the heel who never knows it exists! There’s absolutely no indication of screwing this up.

Some of us, sometimes and to some degree, think about what happens (if something) after our frail physical forms turn to dust. Some of us believe, often wholeheartedly and vehemently, in a post mortem order where the phenomenon of conscious self-awareness yet survives. Still, some of us neither consider nor believe in anything at all. Perhaps ‘being in the present moment’ does preclude such mental folly as considering life after ‘death,’ and this world’s most spiritual of teachers may be among the strongest believers in non-belief. Nevertheless, the expansive variety of spiritual Operating Systems and their interplay make for prime sustenance for the imagination.

Since people generally don’t have experiences which today would be termed transpersonal, many of us are prone to rely on the testimony of those who’ve had such experiences, or on faith, as it is solicited by religion or cult, organized or otherwise. Then, perhaps each person’s experience is as transpersonal as preferred programming will allow. There’s a lot of “stuff” out there regarding the nature of the afterlife. Some information is “channeled” by beneficent beings who exist outside this realm, some information is relayed to people from friends who’ve passed, and some is personal testimony of transpersonal experience.

Upon meticulous synthesis of all available material on the afterlife (apart from the traditional and drudgingly dogmatic), one can identify common patterns and parallels – the tunnel; the light; seeing friends and loved ones who’d passed previously; lovely places like those of earth but of supremely exquisite beauty; the enlivened and invigorating qualities of vegetation, water, color and sound….

This is a world to which the flesh and its drama are quite alien, and one which apparently has some specific ‘complaints’ about some of our beliefs, misbeliefs, unbelief, attitudes, and behaviors regarding their world that tend to cause a constant unnecessary restructuring of their standard routine of activity. It appears we are that fifty six one hundredths of a percent of creation that makes “heaven” not quite so – nor earth, for that matter! There are many authors, but I refer to a particular one by the name of Rev. George V. Owen. There’s also an interesting site called Afterlife 101.

We share this thing we call the phenomenon of existence in the physical plane. We arrive in shock, naked, vulnerable, peeing on ourselves… as we instinctively react from comparing this new world experience with some “memory” of prior existence. What else might explain such a dramatic response to each first contact with this world? Other species, for some reason, don’t seem to trip nearly as much on being born.

Despite all the initial trauma, however, we soon become rather enthralled with new surroundings, and our hyperactive focus is easily seduced by the most mundane of stimuli. From then on, it’s all pretty much about fitting into this new and exciting environment like a tailor made glove, studying its ways and feeding on the guidance of others. “Speak… now crawl… now walk… and quit peeing on yourself; there are ways around that!” After a while, that “memory” we once had is now but the faintest of an echo.

As we learn and grow and become more and more who we came here to be, our interest and fascination with this world waxes. A maxim is reached, and then a plateau period where all that we’ve come to learn and know has become a part of us as it animates us into more lucid and automatic daily functioning. Then, if we live long enough, we get to where the things and affairs of this world become less and less important (except, of course, for significant emotional bonds and the like). Eventually, we reach that point where we feel in our hearts and souls that we’ve spent sufficient time here, and that it’s appropriate and beneficial to all for us to move on.

In striking figure-8 analogy, we often return to spirit in a state of relative shock, having poured a lifetime of escrow in establishing some things in this world, and perhaps something of a personal image with a built in half life. Having ‘died’ and left all that stuff behind, we face the issue of reacquainting ourselves to the existence from which we all venture.

If we had believed in ‘life’ that there was nothing after ‘death,’ then it seems we’ve got some serious adjusting to deal with right off the bat. And if we had believed in some fabricated drama from the bowels of the text of the twit, there that belief is suspended before us, a foul stench of mist obscuring the absolute reality lying just beyond. We are as children in both worlds. The earth is a Sandbox where we are placed. We don’t really know what this place is or how we got here; we’re just here playing, throwing sand, too often in one another’s eyes. There don’t seem to be any ‘adults’ around supervising us. We can’t see outside the Sandbox, nor do we really want to; there’s nothing out there of immediate concern.

But once outside that Sandbox, the world is infinitely vast. There is so much going on and so much that we’re an integral part of that it is taking the eternity that it is to explore it all. We have super powerful, super light, indestructible ‘bodies’ of light that don’t require any maintenance, and that can move with the ease and speed of thought. It is most certainly a viable ‘world’ quite comparable to this one, and in it we each have a ‘home’ and a ‘life’ that we return to without having missed a beat.

It is as bustling a scene as downtown Manhattan or Tokyo at noon only infinitely more so, and with wonder, vibrancy, and complexity that defy description. When the two worlds are compared, it is clearly evident this world came into existence subsequent to that one (not the reverse). It is modeled, somewhat, after spiritual ‘matter’ which is the progeny of spiritual ‘mind,’ and it is created for specific purpose. As beautiful and as breathtaking as this earth is (and can be), it is an enormously scaled down keepsake in the tidy pocket of an angel on special assignment in a distant corner of reality.

Again, the sandbox does have its purpose. We spend much time and focus in spirit planning out our brief stay here to best benefit from the splendid orders of contrast that it offers. We are presented with contrast so that we can better come to know its ‘opposite’ as fundamental – to learn to choose one mode of behavior over the other.

The mysteries of life do indeed matter both here and in the realm of spirit, and just as here, there are no answers. The vast majority of those in spirit, although much closer to ultimate truth than we, do not come to know it all or if there is even a ceiling to what can be known. What they do know – which we can draw sustaining solace from – is that it’s all good, and it just gets better. But if there’s such a thing as spiritual ass, we temporarily earth bound can be a pain in it for all the damage control necessary on their part to keep us from becoming anchored in hellish crevices of our own making upon leaving earth. Some of us are fairly arrogant as we barge back into spirit thinking we know more about things in general than the average resident. In time we become aware of how little we do know and how much debriefing and catching up we must do.

Arrogance is but one of the many characteristics common to human beings, yet we are quite capable of much kinder and gentler ways – and this is also human. Inhabitants of the spirit realms don’t incur anything resembling issues of mental health that on earth would be treated with antidepressant medication. But what does cause a heaviness of heart to them is to witness how disrespectful we are to everyone and everything including this ball of divine grace that bares and sustains our physical forms.

In keeping in mind that life in human form was conceived in spirit and meant to be the state of the art opportunity for spiritual growth, is it not most prudent for us to live out our earthly lives in such a way as to honor the Feminine as the sacred, life affirming means by which we enter into such noble contract? Can we simple minded earth folk make a difference in allowing heaven to be one hundred percent so, and the earth much closer to it?

TYJ55ZZNPTNB

Poultry Preparedness Principles

Nov4

A famous figment of life suggests, with rather odd and cavalier blitheness, that there exists in subspace a mighty spinning blade of some sort and that a standard fell substance is randomly hurled towards its center, thus flung in all directions from it, often at extreme velocity. Am I then to assume that this phenomenon and I share the same spatial and temporal flux in such a way that I or my agenda in the moment may be seriously harmed within the envelope of the supposed event horizon – or anywhere for that matter? One will readily accept that life certainly happens, but is that sufficient cause to engage hog wild in unnatural acts with ideas and other expressions of conceptual kinkiness? Were we creatures of another species, we might well be suspicious of most things coming from above, to include raindrops, divine guidance and inspirational fruit!

As I tumble backwards through self – a plasma torus in the deepest of deep space – there are questions I seem desperately to need answered. As I continue to emerge from the shock of having come into being, why, pray tell, need anything exist, least of all this wretched speck of me – adrift in a vastness, humbled and yearning? What sends me so asunder that it aches my soul to breathe but a wisp of hope? Could it be that I’ve merely heard ‘the news?’ My, what a lame assed confection! All I really need to do is to turn the damned thing off… unplug it – pawn it or pay someone to have it removed, rancid bowl of black water that it’s been in the midst of my sacred quarters.

Even with the livingroom’s inverse neural apheresis commode detached from service, I stand the ranting and scolding of all those paragons of spirit, health and goodness who spew disdain for all the gluten, sugar, un-raw milk, and whatever else I’ve consumed since near infancy, yet hadn’t evolved a problem until the coming of this new age, and coincident to my newest ears. Indeed, when the earth’s population is reduced to about a billion – through natural disaster, the second erection, or whatever – there may very well be sufficient quantities of certified elk antler velvet extract to go around!

Within the torrent of ‘information’ whirling out of control seemingly throughout all available atmospheres of relative being, a colorful expletive pierces my consciousness and flees the magnetic container of privacy. It is one that is generally indicative of my personal assessment of all the recklessly declarative matter, and more specifically so of the anticipation of momentary loss of control of excretory function upon externally induced realization of impending doom. Yet, a calmer, stiller, deeper voice from within whispers blatantly, ‘Wind your watch, friend!’ Petrified, and with a dull aching sensation centered about the solar plexus, I am powerless to make a choice – or to act upon it. Urgency seems to be the pervading theme and the expected accompaniment to the administration of larger scale psychic terror. It would seem that, at least for intervals of millisecond duration, hell hath no theory like a human born! Although I’m not Sartre or Kafka, I am at times dangerously closely in touch with their consuming despair.

In the midst of a storm, one generally dons protection from the element… and in war, a shield from enemy fire. But in the most basic of spiritual algorithms, ego and spirit are in a constant dance of debate over issues of duality and negativity. If spirit emerges the ‘victor,’ then one must come to the conclusion that there is indeed good news and that it is absolutely non-reliant upon ‘external’ theater, and eternally impervious to it. I recall when I was younger, always fiercely toiling for some essence of material gain and faltering frequently in the face of falsely fathomed failure. When someone wiser would suggest I be grateful for even having the health and fuel to toil, I’d usually brew resentment with the zeal and the consciousness of a rugged commercial grade cappuccino maker, thus indulging exaltation of behavior already unbecoming. Time and my past teachers have, however, helped me to sculpt an alternative understanding of the clay of life.

I did awake this morning to not a perfectly sunny day, yet the robins were chirping, and the fresh air was crisp with a hint of cherry blossom. I can effortlessly fill my lungs to capacity. I can jump to the day knowing that I have big dreams, that I deserve nothing but the best, and that all conscious throughout everywhere is in full support of my day as I am with everyone else’s. This alone is sufficient, and as it should be. Life is ON! Things of significance and value outside the trance of the tube and all popular parlance and palaver are intransitive, non-linear and intangible. They include the memories of my feeling very much on top of the world vice the reverse, and in the twilight, it’s become evident that hell can in fact be other people, but only if I am as well.

Whenever the self is restless and thinks it needs some kind of input or entertainment, I’ve found that I can take it outside and connect it to the earth in some way – through friends or just by digging my naked toes into the fresh earth and contacting a tree with my hands. I may look ridiculous to others, but as ‘Abraham’ would probably say, “Who gives a rip?” This Mother – our Earth – is a spiritual place in that it is of divine design and made for a spiritual purpose. It is filled with riches… precious gems and metals, minerals, water, atmosphere, crystals, plant and animal life in infinite variety and habitat. The very force that glows at Her center is the same as that which animates your organs – the same as which brought the cosmos into being and which orchestrates its drama. How could a force so awesome restrict itself to singular consciousness? Might we be the very method the Almighty chooses to consummate experience?

Each of us is a vital piece in the grand puzzle of existence. We are each magnificent and unique in our abilities and talents to share with the entirety of being. It is in everyone’s best interest that you see your value – that you see each day growing more toward the super self that you were born to be. Let yourself feel like royalty today. As you walk down the street, and everywhere you go, feel and know that you are priceless not only to yourself and those who know and love you, but to all life… all being….

Many who are way more qualified than I have pointed out that staying constantly in tune with all the negative hype and hysteria polluting the electromagnetic spectrum – or any source of negative energy – doesn’t really do one a hell of a lot of good – even in just having the information. However, the person most qualified to make that determination is YOU!

Questions Of A Religious Nature

Oct28

If God causes erotic arousal, whether in a dream or at Starbucks, should one be alarmed?

Apparently, as scripture would indicate, Mary didn’t trip. But then she was without sin from the beginning.

Questions of a Religious Nature…

What essence imprints upon the main track of the panties of a young goddess, redolent of the Veil of Veronica – a relic blessing bestowed upon an ardent supporter in return for a random act of kindness en route to Golgotha? Were I to touch them, would I become anointed in some big way? If my nose were to come into direct contact, would I be delivered instantly to Krishna Consciousness? Why is it so that part of me is compliant to finding out for certain through firsthand experience?

Can my local priest answer me that? One would be doomed to even seek such counsel. And given all the available candidates for images of the divine to not choose from, pardon my bluntness, but screw a dude dripping blood down a cross, a Dudley B. Righteous dressed in black, claiming to be a direct representative of enchanted misery… a deliriously happy, cross-eyed old fart with a fat belly…. I shall endeavor to take the do-it-yourself approach (or, more accurately, the be-it-done-unto-me-but-most-willingly approach).

Is it that I exist and that I am genetically engineered, somehow, with a driving force to recognize what I know to be of divinity, or is it she whose universe I’ve simply become a viable part of? I really don’t know much… except for what she has created me to know, thus relieving me of the futility of figuring life out, and of the cumbersome pretense of acting of my own volition in life’s drama. She IS Love. That big, little much is what I do know. The sight of her alone makes that perfectly clear. Divinity – the Feminine aspect of it – frequently has a way of piercing through flesh, cotton, and all else, and permeating the mind of the intended beholder. What I’ve also come to know most vividly, and within most of a sudden, is that holy instant where space and time do not as yet have meaning – before existence itself said, “Super Bang me.” There is neither distance nor distinction between that which would be my face – the leading edge of my conscious awareness in this physical realm, and the face of the divine – the trailing edge of nurturance nestled between her thighs. Indeed, at the point where all universes intersect, my voice is the song her incipient cunt is yet too shy to sing to the world.

Her wand is the intensely soothing blink of her eyes as they tenderly modulate the purity of her spirit. And does she actually have wings that move with such grace and superior vibration that they are silent and invisible to the untrained senses? If it is so in the slightest of imagination, may it then be so in the absolute? Is her magic sufficiently powerful as to bless and redeem my soul – to instill an indelibly enlightened outlook on life – by mere sight of image? Speaketh thou not even a word, Holy One, for I am already healed. Thank you so for being.

This narrow sack of suds that I seem to be, and most habitually lay claim to – this token of flesh and bone among billions upon the billboard game of life, like all others, has emerged from the fabric of Nature through standard structure – the life affirming aperture into this physical realm, and it is in that direction this sack is ever drawn. Yes, Spirit is all that it is, and all that it should be, and this earth plane is but a proper subset designed and crafted originally in Spirit and ultimately for spiritual curricula – and billions of eons before its physical manifestation.

One’s patent Course in Miracles states plainly that nothing exists but Love and that everything else is illusory, serving only to obscure Love’s presence. The teachings of Abraham tend to support any thought and feeling formation that keeps one “in the Vortex.” So, is this a safe enough world to proclaim, out of pure Love, that a young woman’s flow commands me? “Nothing real can be threatened; nothing unreal exists. Therein lies the peace of God” sayeth the Course. So my shields are at zero percent here, and holding steady.

There are systems of worlds of clusters of words that could be used to attempt to explain what I stated within the inquiry in the previous paragraph – a necessarily marginally adequate rendering of what is meant. Within a globe of emotionally sclerotic awareness, daredevil verbal and psychic acrobatics are sometimes required to convey meaning which is otherwise not expressible without indulging the vulnerability of verbal simplicity. The risk is in its backfiring – twisting meaning inside out rather than serving from a crimson chalice a focused beam of exquisite purity, and thus rendering meaning utterly unrecognizable from original intent. I’m occasionally obliged to take that risk… evidently and passionately, being generally audacious when it comes to issues of chance, and being driven also by a force so much greater than myself.

But language shouldn’t have to be rocket science, at least I don’t think it was ever meant to be. In fact, I believe it not to be scientific at all in the long haul, nor does it have to do much with logic. It is purely, intuitively slow and simple, and requires but peripheral contemplation: “A Woman’s Flow Commands Me… A Woman’s Flow Commands Me…. “ Be it mantra or manic mumbo, its meaning is quite literal while at the same time light-years away from it! How does language deal with that? In a saner world, need it have to?

The Supreme and ultimate fact, within a strictly spiritual context, is that Love has as many faces as there are faces. That includes, incredibly, that of Frankenstein (figuratively, literally, and every which way), and he, as all thought form, are of our own creation. Implicit also in this physical realm is that there are orders of appropriate response to any particular ‘face.’ One ‘loves’ Frankenstein, the ideal – the gestalt of time, creative force, and human drive that brought it into being, and the culture of benefit it has generated. One doesn’t necessarily ‘love’ the notion of sucking face with the epitome of homemade horror.

When your beloved canine family member plops down in the middle of the livingroom floor while you’re having ‘company’ over, and proceeds to… polish his helmet, as it were, how natural is it to dismiss with petty analysis and human judgment? Yet there are certain families of natural imagery that continue to trigger an often psychotic disgust in people. Is it truly possible to be electrocuted through exposure to that which has a net feminine charge? Or is it more likely that we’ve undergone a slow, meticulous, and static circuit frying, over time, through prevailing societal attitudes regarding things feminine?

What I find most residual in my experience of life thus far is that the more one resists or recoils from random expressions of the gynome (ok, it’s not in the dictionary… yet, but think about it), the more spiritually and mentally unstable one becomes – the more ‘out of sync’ with nature and the cosmos. It can be evidenced on national and global levels as well as the individual. This may very well have been the foregone conclusion among the goddess oriented cultures that existed scores of centuries before now. And perhaps it was not just common knowledge, but an attitude vital to the integrated health of the populous. Goddess temple rituals may very well have included extensive, intensive instruction on the feminine, its sacredness, and its fundamentality.

As an experimental option in desensitizing to the sight of human bloodshed, a seemingly troubled world might well consider turning off the TV for ten minutes each hour, and instead meditating on, say, a mandala-like arrangement of used tampons. One might suspect that it couldn’t make things any worse.

There are tons of resources available everywhere on the subject of meditation – books, CD’s, videos, teleclasses, etc. Perhaps this is an indication that meditating doesn’t come as easily as texting for most people. I’m not a master of either. For the longest time I’d been rather envious as I’d watch people casually sink back into a state of bliss – at will – and return to reality a short time later totally recharged and ready to resume their lust to terraform. “Yeah, well meditate on this!” my mind would bark. And I developed a stiff aversion to the plethora of meditation material.

Once it occurred to me, however, that I have on many occasions reached sustained, elevated states of consciousness through what could reasonably be called meditation, resentment began to quickly dissipate. During such times I’ve found that one can really get it on… spiritually. One can let loose and commune with the divine like there’s no one watching. With but a tweak of the imagination, the sound of water falling gently while focusing on the feminine (for example) tends to release a torrent of abstract cushioning for the mind’s refuge. One begins to [finally] comprehend and savor the meaninglessness within the meaning evoked by the sound. I’m taught that breathing is the most important thing about meditating, and I recall the majority of time I’ve spent trying to muster a fraction of the excitement for simply breathing that the teachers seem to exude so effortlessly. Again, I’ve found that I can breathe with significantly increased focus and a lot more depth when I’m initially in touch with something feminine….

…Whatever brings the Tap of the Magic Wand, make it so!

How Magical Is Your Reality, How Real Is Your Magic?

Oct19

How Magical is your Reality? How Real is your Magic?

An eon or so ago, at the behest of some very loving and lovingly persistent ‘artsy’ friends, I first encountered the term “Magic Realist.” It was essentially the title of a series of short plays, The Magic Realists and Other Plays,* performed in the tradition that had come to be known as ‘Modern Theater’ or ‘Theater of the Absurd.’

* (Regrettably, I have not been able to reproduce any reference information about this specific collection of plays after some time scouring the internet and the public library. Maybe the published material is out of print… or perhaps someone more ambitious and skilled at research may fare better.)

At the time, I didn’t have a particularly strong taste either way for the arts in general, yet I was intrigued by the provocativeness of the term – a conceptually tantalizing and audacious dichotomy. The merging of the words ‘magic’ and ‘realist’ was, to me, an event as elegant in time as the inception of the ‘P-N Junction’ that ushered the Mayan-prophecy-like awakening in the evolution of modern technology. The latter propelled us quickly from a zinc-plated vacuum-tube reality into one of cell phones, computers and digital HD! Could the former have indicated a similar shift in the emerging of conscious perception?

As my friends persuaded me to attend their production at the local community college, I could gather but a finite amount of information about the term, as the internet and Google were not yet available. As I watched the actual performance, I was enthralled and entertained beyond my wildest expectations. I experienced an uncommon configuration of high energy characterized by creative intellect, professional precision and sheer wackiness, all to drive home – or completely obliterate – some elaborately simple or simplistically elaborate point. Extremely satirical with a pregnant mixture of fantasy and reality, the performing group also made extensive use of special effects in the way of strobe lights, lasers, mirrors, the boiling of dry ice to create fog for ‘dream sequences,’ and the use of ‘flash powder’ to simulate miniature explosions. Indeed, there was no inclination whatsoever to slumber. I recall that what was most electrifying for me was the general ‘headiness’ of it all – the profound ‘message’ – or supreme and uncanny lack thereof…. Having attended that thing long ago, I experienced a significant quickening of my conceptual engine as well as a deepening respect for the writers and performers of this earth realm who graciously support our consciousness expanding, just for the love of it (…and perhaps a pay check).

Magic Realism was established, originally, by artists, the earliest of whom were painters and dramatic performers. BUT, don’t we all live and interact in a world that is most often very grossly ‘real’ to us while rather fantastic on a subtler, more quantum level? The ancients realized this perhaps infinitely more so than modern humanity would care to admit. Yet, were it not for the ‘Magic’ ignited in our very souls by the Source of all Magic, we could not recognize and experience the enchantment woven into the fabric of this reality of ours. It is This conscious, pervasive, powerful, fluid Essence Who accounts for the manifold miracle mingling magnificent amid matter unceasingly.

So if living – itself – can be considered and art form (Who would dare deny that?), then each and every one of us is a Magic Realist living out a simulation in harshness and density – all of us with the will and the birthright to witness the Glory and to “…see it together,” as indeed all flesh shall and ultimately will! The Challenge now, and as has been throughout the ages, is to remember – to recognize and realize the Magic within and to share the Magic with one another. I choose to submit to you, most respectfully, the prototype – the Archetype – The Magic Realist, for your comment and criticism, on the premise that cordial, honest discourse activates the mechanism of wisdom and adds to the sacred waters of mutual enlightenment.