song of the day: Om Nia Merican (Saul Williams)
word of the day: Grimoire (pronounced grim-WAH- it's a handbook of black magic)
monk of the day: Matt Westgate (a million thank yous and three big bows, brother)

woke up today with Saul lyrics running through my head:

i'm the
omni american born of beats and blood
the concert of the sun unplugged
i'm the offspring of spring
reborn pledged and sworn
the risen ash
of a flag burned and torn
i'm the blood of the womb
the risen tide of the moon
the dark side that the light cannot hide
i'm the pages of history read betwen the lines
the living truth behind your symbolds and signs
i'm the son of a minister
love of a teacher
my mother taught me well
so i rebel

i'm making that song my personal national anthem. what the hell is up with our country anyway? i mean, i don't want to retro-romanticize the past- things are always tough and weird on the collective / cultural front, but when did we become so positively ugly, crass, and lost? how long are we going to asyphixiate in flatland? not just that, but how long are we going to celebrate these self-absorbed adolescents in the public arena for being short-sited, opinionated, uninformed tantrum-throwers? i'm talking about pundits, atheletes, rock stars, movie stars, politicians- i just can't believe what we tolerate and in fact reward when it comes to our "leaders" and "heros". what i don't feel or experience in this country in the last ten years or so is any sense of imagination, wonder, hopefullness, curiosity, or VISION- and this definitely pre-dates September 11th. you know, back when communism began to collapse, and the Berlin wall fell, i felt this amazing, intoxicating POSSIBILITY, not for the United States alone by any mean, for the World, and it seemed truly possible that the World was taking a step, that barriers and boundaries we thought were intractable were suddenly evaporating. it was incredibly auspicious. and i still do believe that was / is the case. but then i suppose the harsh realities of the transition set in for those former Soviet satellites, and over here i believe there was a natural, normal counter-balancing dynamic. because there was a new, emergent global / World community on the rise, and the U.S. was the only super-power left in the World, there was i suppose a new opportunity for that to be exploited by the powers that be, namely the World-wide rise of the Corpocracy- the international community of Corporations that operate outside the laws of any particular nation for the sole purpose of profit via expansion. i have to say i think the implications for our culture and assuredly all those around the World have been enormous- and tragic. we live in a World dominated by flat-land, right-hand imperatives (profit, expansion) that at best ignore interior / left hand values (meaning, purpose), and do so by anasthetizing and hypnotizing its consumers. it's programming. and people are so, so fucking ready and willing to be programmed, because living outside the Trance is a fucking pain in the ass, it's tiring, difficult, and really quite lonely for most people. the information we are submerged in- everything from our families, to our religions, our movies, t.v., radio (music and otherwise), books- are engineered to keep us in the Trance. the Trance programs us to self-soothe and self-medicate by adding, purchasing, consuming, acquiring (products, personal appearance, status), all founded in the endlessly implied assumption that our lives are lacking, deficient, defective. they make you fat and then sell you the diet, they drive you to drugs and drink and then sell you the programs, they push you into fucking debt and then counsel you out of it, it goes round and round and round- stronger and easier to implement with each generation (technology is neutral, but those with the power over media and the dissemination of information are not). "government" is woven into this phenomenon seemlessly, and i DO mean left and right here (lest we forget that Clinton de-regulated radio, and gave us the fucking shit circus of companies like Clear Channel buying up 5,000 radio stations and programming our culture right into FLAT land, assuring that no real variance, innovation, or imagination could occur anywhere- a company that went so far as to BAN John Lennon's song "Imagine"- a move that sums up their regard for humanity quite succinctly). now all the radio stations, t.v. stations, newspapers, and magazines are a homogenous fucking WEATHER FRONT designed to TELL you what you think, and a great portion of this ingenious programming occurs through the Lie Of Omission. keeping us in a trance means exluding all the agents and properties that would spark an awakening in us. the government is of course (left and right, which are actually one ridiculous, incestuous party feigning distinction so as to insure their symbiotic monopolization of affairs) in concordance with all this, because it's real interests- it's ACTUAL agenda (which is hardly democracy, my friends) benefits from the Trance. once people are in the trance, you can do whatever you want, you can spoon feed them bile and tell them its art, you can inject them with hallucinations and tell them it's their own vivid imagination, you can devestate local and regional cultures and economies and tell them it's growth, you can strip them of their civil rights and tell them it's for their protection, you can wage war publicly and privately around the World for sinister causes and call it "liberation", you can manufacture a collective sensation of immiment danger, an unsubsiding threat and then project or personify that "Evil" onto whatever will be the next domino in the new global imperialism. our World has been hijacked, our future generations have been taken hostage, that is what the fuck is going on. if our "leaders" were really, for an instant, interested in the creation and preservation of peace and prosperity- our natural course of evolution- how can we possibly account for their well established course of choices? they are not well, they are quite literally ill, and while we can pity all beings that are ill, and work fervently to awaken them into the ever-present freedom that is their inherent condition, in doing that work we must also remember the difference between idiot compassion and authentic compassion. we cannot idly sit by and simply do loving kindness meditation on the transgressors. a Sleep Disorder of this magnitude and depth does not respond limp-wristed "can't we all just get along". we have to get in the trenches, get into the ring, and fight like fucking mad (from a place of authentic Love, fully realizing that the urgency of this work comes from the fact that these are our family members, not our enemies, these people are part and parcel of our very own over-soul, not our sworn adverseries, and so our inspiration rises from the desperation to heal and include our own Heart), we have to make distinctions and judgements and not get seduced by the swamp of relativity or the mystical by-pass (oh, everything is "Spirit", why should i worry about Samsara??- that's HALF awakened awareness, that's HALF-assed realization. HALF of Spirit is unborn-unmade, un-conditioned, and absolute, and half of it is form, manifestation, and is always, always unfolding and evolving- or if we're not careful- DE-volving- and these two aspects or modes of Spirit are indeed the very same One, they are twins, perfectly unified).

make no mistake, we have many lifetimes of wonderful, brutal work to do on this planet, but in the short term, right now, in North America in 2004, the most critical, important matter is GETTING THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION OUT OF THE WHITE HOUSE.

i will say it again: BUSH HAS GOT TO BE REMOVED FROM OFFICE IMMEDIATELY.

our wayward brothers and sisters who've gotten trapped in the wicked side of the Mystery have managed to infiltrate quite deeply into the control of affairs on this planet, and for their safety and everyone else's we have got to start turning this ship around. Kerry / Edwards are hardly the solution, it is just the first step in one particular domain (politics) and part of a much larger, much deeper correction that must occur. lest you think i've just launched off on a political rant here, it is not. this is actually a matter of great spiritual import on our planet right now, and not even a matter of left and right. this PARTICULAR conservative administration is wrapped up in some really, really nasty stuff. Kerry / Edwards is not the answer, it's the respite we need to even gather our senses and begin to repair serious, long term damage around the World, some we've engendered and some we have not.

both sides of (right and left) have great value and assets in their healthy forms. what we have now are incredibly pathological varieties of BOTH. if we expect to continue and assume our priveleged role as a World power- this insane Grand-Maul Seizure known as Bush Administration has got to go. my Heart has spoken...