“The way of the cross is a complete reversal.  It means that the worst thing in your life, your cross, turns into the best thing that ever happened to you, by forcing you into surrender, into “death,” forcing you to become as nothing . . . ” – – Eckhart Tolle

I was chatting with a young friend last night and basically told him that I’ve sensed a mild oppressive air upon waking every morning since the beginning of the year.  At first I thought this personal, as I have gone through a whole lot of change and often on multiple fronts at a time for the last six months.  But I think there’s more to it than that.  I don’t watch a lot of television as it is, but I’ve watched even less since mass murder and other tragic events have become more and more the seeming bulls eye for the media.  Even Facebook has become a sort of minor battle zone for incessant posts about guns pro or con, and our laughable presidential campaign.   It makes me think lately of what my old friend Jean used to say: “Chaos precedes creation.”  I sure hope so.

Monsanto long ago patented food.  A 135 person or so panel called the Bilderberg group secretly meets once a year in a select country to basically plan world events.  Donald Trump wants to prevent immigration and to begin his own ethnic cleansing program, totally ignoring the fact that some of the worst mass murders in American history have been perpetrated by Americans.  (Anyone ever look up the history of the Sioux? How ’bout Sandy Hook?)  Anyone can go and stockpile military grade weapons and endless rounds of ammo, murder 50 people, then plead insanity at their trial.  A Facebook post I saw recently stated words to the effect that we need to go back to the values that “created and made this country great in the first place.”  So, if I’m understanding that properly, a group of people from some other continent are supposed to invade an entirely new continent and steal land from those native to the turf, make and break treaties they never had any intention of honoring in the first place, then invade yet another continent and bring back the people of that country and treat them to chains, whips, and deprivation and cruelty, then put a select group in power of all of this, and essentially ignore the voice of anyone in that group who has the nerve to suggest that laws be passed that treat everyone equally.  If you ask me, we’ve been operating on the same set of values since 1776 and before.  And pardon me, but the horrors of the world are not now nor have they ever been a solely white vs black issue, or any other singular color issue.  Insane behavior is not partial to any one ethnic group.

Abraham Lincoln and John F. Kennedy were both assassinated while they were making plans to disassemble the Federal Reserve.  I regularly take a lot of heat for saying this, but the Fed is not a government agency.   I encourage anyone to look up its history and the adjoining regret of those politicians who perpetuated its operation in the early going.  Most recently, Hillary Clinton had her record whitewashed of activities that have had other people fined and jailed.  Engineers and witnesses who disputed various “facts” about 911 mysteriously either lost their jobs, met with tragic accidents, or suddenly decided to commit suicide.  The majority of the wealth of the world that the approximated 1% of the population controls is not about to be shifted.   The upcoming presidential election result was decided years ago.  Land of the free?  I beg to differ.  And times have changed.   Granted,  in some countries a person can disagree with their country’s politics and face a beheading.  I do recall a time when an American could say about anything and not worry about men in black showing up at their door the next day.  I do feel an oppressive air.  The demonstrating that goes on lately eclipses one hundredfold what by comparison seems like a tea party (no pun intended) of a riot I remember scaring the hell out of me about a mile from where I lived in 1967. It was a long hot summer then, but nothing like now.  Yes, social media compounds matters.  So does mass media.  It’s no secret that major news outlets are controlled by the same people who control everything else in the world.  I’m in no way suggesting we stick our heads in the sand and ignore the tragic events that are now a daily part of our lives in multiple countries.  What I’m suggesting is that heavy emphasis online, in newspapers, and TV news on these same events also provides a perfect smokescreen to cover the doings of those in real power.   This year’s Bilderberg meeting was held in June.  That same week of the Orlando tragedy.  The same week that gun control debates escalated yet again.  Bilderberg got zero attention (the media are not allowed to cover the meeting).  Just the way they like it.

I have nothing but admiration for those who attend demonstrations to peacefully make their point.  I used to have a lot of fun on Facebook but check it out a lot less than I used to because quite frankly, I don’t really need to see a shitload of opinions of people I hardly ever interact with.  The value of something like FB for me right now when I do view it is to use it as a barometer for myself emotionally.  If I’m upset about something I read and/or don’t agree with, I already had the upset inside waiting to pounce on a target to blame for feeling like crap just underneath the surface of whatever face I was wearing at the time.  Likewise with world events.  Tragic though they may be, I’ve let them become an albatross that I don’t need to give anywhere near as much weight as I do.   And carry on, demonstrators, you have my support.  I apologize that those days are over for me.  That’s certainly not to say that I’m ignorant of goings-on in the world or that I don’t care.  There’s more than one way to change the world.

Another friend and I were talking last week and I told him that “sometimes I just meditate like I’m pulling the covers over my head for twenty minutes.”  I usually emerge more peaceful.  Whether we pay attention to “the little things” or not, a small act of kindness can and does start a chain reaction just as much as a shooting does.  The act of kindness is just usually not anywhere as dramatic as the former, and causes a ripple that may not even be seen for a while – – if ever. “Pulling the covers over my head” so to speak puts me in a position to be the person who starts that other kind of chain reaction: the kind you don’t see on the news as much as the violent ones.  Because it’s not as sensational and diverting.  I understand from my own personal experience, believe me, the enormous difficulty of “letting go” of everything around me these days.  Yet, to “pause when agitated” can change so much.  As one who enjoys employing my middle finger on the freeway with some regularity, I do indeed revel in the peacefulness that accompanies refraining from saluting.   The total sum of such restraint by many is likely immeasurable.  It is my way out.

I read a beautiful piece on letting go from an author named Mark Nepo a week or two ago.  In it he describes learning how to float.  “At times like these, I remember learning to float. Mysteriously, it required letting almost all of me rest below the surface before the deep would hold me up . . . that we can’t stay there only affirms that we must choose the deep again and again in order to live fully.” Underneath all of this worldly garbage.  It was not my intent to write a “spiritual” or “religious” treatise.  Indeed, I like that Eckhart Tolle refers to what most call “God” as being, because it seems to evade personalization and conceptualizing much more easily than naming some supreme entity.  It is there though, in all of us, like a very faint memory that only comes alive when given attention.  The more “time” I spend there, the more I truly believe that Jean’s words from so many years ago are true:  we are going through a painfully long transition period before we get to the other side of the bridge.  Kudos to all of us, we’ve come to accept insanity as the norm.  Fortunately, it’s not the same as “reality.”  No, my gut tells me that reality is far beyond thoughts and imagery.  It is eternal.  These sickening world events are not.   There is a place inside that nobody else can touch, and yet miraculously is a part of everybody.  That is peaceful beyond imagination.  So go ahead and kill me softly, world.  Strum my pain with your fingers, sing my life with your words.  Your actions reflect the loveless places inside me that that are the straw being turned to gold.  Each one brings me closer to home.  Thank You.

Peace