People Who Get It

These are some of the people who get it in my book and some short reasons I think why. I may not agree with their stances, their views, but in my book, they warrant recognition. Some are imaginary (film characters), others are dead, but I speak of all of them as if they were real and alive. In his book 'Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance', Robert Pirsig describes quality as 'something you can't altogether define, yet you know it when you see it'. The following are those folks who have this sort of quality, in my book.

Alice B. Toklas - In the 1920s, she founded 'Shakespeare and Company', a bookstore located on the Left Bank, Paris. Her store was frequented by expats such as William Carlos Williams, Ezra Pound, and Ernest Hemingway. Her critical insight was sought by many of these famous authors before they published some of their most noteworthy books. Together with Gertrude Stein, another one who gotit in my book, she coached Hemingway on women characters in his novels and helped him develop his lasting aesthetic 'less is more'.

H. Rider Haggard - In the early twentieth century, when men were cautioned to not use wormwood sticks to beat their wives (but by all means, use anything else), this writer published 'She', a novel featuring 'Ayesha', a mythical, powerful goddess figure who held sway over an entire people. Men trembled at her beauty and sheer presence. Haggard combined adventure and pulp fiction with a whopping female hero that had Sigmund Freud recommending the novel to his analyst buddies.

Mr. Stone in the movie 'The Family Stone'. Embodying the western liberal tradition, this is a man who exhibits Virtue, yet is human and has character flaws. He's a tolerant, open minded human being who proves to be an excellent father and husband.

Wes Anderson - His movies Rushmore and the Royal Tennenbaums prove to be some of the best, honest character studies ever put to film. In Rushmore, he captures the promise of youth and the longing of unrequited love. In the Royal Tennenbaums, he shows how families are made up of individuals, each with their own unique identity and their ability to overcome their egos in order to coalesce with a group of people who happen to be 'closely related'.

Stanley Kubrick - In 2001 A Space Odyssey, we are treated to two hours plus of film with less than a 1/2 hour of music and dialogue combined. Kubrick masterfully translates Arthur C. Clarke's masterpiece onto the big screen with mesmerizing results. Before he passed, Kubrick made 'Eyes Wide Shut', largely panned by critics and filmgoers alike, yet in it he showed the tenuous quality of marraige and the frailty of men and women alike.

Icelanders - inhabitants all have Viking blood coursing through their veins and they produce rockstars with names such as 'Bjork' and 'Sigur Ros'. Night reigns much of the year, and the northern lights are especially visible in their part of the world. Being hyperborean, they have a mythical quality to them, in my humble view.

Pythagoras and the Neopythagoreans - Pythagoras, besides making famous contributions to mathematics, developed a mystical philosophy that espoused harmony and simplicity. His followers first were subjected to five years of silence - no talking. They were held to a strict vegetarian diet and were mysteriously cautioned to avoid beans. After five years, they became 'acoustimikoi', the basic followers who were allowed to hear Pythagoras' lectures, him behind a veil. From these, after more time, some were chosen to receive the most secret teachings from the Master and were allowed 'inside the veil' during lectures. These were called 'mathematikoi'. Pythagoras had been initiated by Egyptian priests into their mysteries at Heliopolis, and it was this gnosis he transferred to his followers.

The Cathars in the south of France, turn of the thirteenth century - Gnostic heretics who observed that the true assessment of day to day life with all it's accompanying horrors and cruelties pointed to the fact the Universe may not be governed by One, True, Benevolent God. They developed an experential spirituality that included an at best incompetent, at worst malevelont creator god who trapped the sparks of divine fire (our pre-existent souls) in foul flesh. The True, Loving God was One who reigned in the stars beyond, and all souls would eventually transcend the fallen evil and material world for the spiritual world in the heavens they called the 'Pleroma' - the blessed Union of souls. The Cathars were massacred by the combined temporal power of France and ecclesiastical authority of Rome. It was from this crusade the famous phrase 'Kill them all - God will know His own', was uttered by a most well meaning warrior bishop, I'm sure.

Christopher Hitchens, author 'God is not Great' - This should be required reading for all people who call themselves 'religious'. Hitchens points out many of the irrational, horrible deeds that have been perpetrated by the 'religious', right up to the present day. Although in my view, Hitchens becomes just as dogmatic as those he criticizes by embracing SCIENCE as the future saviour of mankind, a view I wholeheartedly disagree with, he offers some sobering tidbits and food for thought that should leave any thinking spiritual person with the humble knowledge they should be more humane, more apologetic and certainly more rational and tolerant when it comes to their worldview.

Carl Gustav Jung, psychoanalyst - Being a student of Freud, Jung became particularly interested in the mystery of the unconscious - a dark, universal and personal shared realm where repressed instincts and desires existed. Breaking from his teacher over the theory of complexes, Jung brought gnosticism into his psychology and developed his theory of 'archetypes', recurring symbols and images such as the 'wise old man', and the 'crone', and found that these along with many other unconscious symbols transcended 'race', culture, and time. Though Jung was impacted greatly by religion, philosophy, and spirituality, he adamantly remained in his area of expertise, psychoanalysis, and only considered the psychological aspects of these subjects that informed him throughout his lifetime.

Immanuel Kant, Enlightenment philosopher - considered to be the father of continental philosophy, Kant never travelled more than 30 miles outside his native Konigsberg. Criticized heavily and later for his ethical system, to me, his real contribution was in the sphere of epistemology. Kant found that all people necessarily view the world through 'categories' such as 'time' and 'space', and as such, being obviously mortal, were limited in what they could know. In the Critique of Pure Reason, Kant outlined the difference between knowledge and belief, and developed a scepticism that would set the tone for the rest of modern philosophy.

Marc Chagall, painter - Informed by the Bible, Chagall found that in the Biblical Universe, men could float through the ether willy-nilly, defying gravity and the laws of physics. Chagall's use of color and whimsical flight of fancy motifs (men and women in loving embraces, floating over houses and livestock), animals floating through the air with smiles on their faces, and so on, are a reminder that religion need not be taken so literally and seriously all the time and that the line between the profane and the Divine is not that thick of a line afterall. Interestingly, Charlie Watts, drummer for the Rolling Stones, put together a wonderful book of Chagall's works in the eighties which included personal interviews with Chagall and his wife.

Two Irelands

Ireland was populated by the Fir Bolgs, a race of rather large uncouth beings who were known for their dullness. From a cloud of glory, the Tuatha De Danaan descended and claimed the land. Considered gods who themselves were 'sons of Danu', a goddess who was consort to the great Creator, the Danaan were said to have brought crafts and sciences to the island of Ireland. The Mils, from up North, swept down led by their poet Amergin and took over the land from the Tuatha de Danaan. Amergin decided to divide Ireland between the Mils and the Danaan. He said the Mils would inhabit the upper portion, the Danaan the lower portion. There then are two Irelands. One seen, one unseen, the 'otherworld' of the Danaan, who live coincidentally with the seen. The Danaan are the origins of Faeries. This type of faerie though was of regular human build, perhaps a little taller, and was composed of men, women and children. It is said during certain times, the veil between the upper Ireland and the otherworld is particularly thin and the two worlds coalesce.
During the Christian era, Ireland was found by the Catholics to be pagan but not barbaric. St. Patrick, it is said, was visited in his dreams by the people of Ireland who wished him to come to their land and give them the new revelation. Unlike many other pagan territories of the time, there was not one martyr slain when the Christians arrived. Monasteries were founded on sites with ancient pagan standing stones, which were built around by the Church, rather than toppled. St. Patrick, who helped write down much of the history of Ireland, as to that point, the whole was only transmitted orally through Bards, was said to have been informed by a pagan Tuatha de Danaan, who had lived in Ireland as a bird, a stag, a boar, and so forth.
So through history, Ireland, an insular island in western Europe, the land itself, has called out to it's inhabitants. The land itself is said to have chosen it's own peoples.
Following is the Song of Amergin, the words he used to claim Ireland for the Mils:

I am a Stag: of seven tines
I am a Flood: across a plain
I am a Wind: upon the waves
I am a Tear: the sun lets fall
I am a Hawk: above the cliff
I am a Thorn: beneath the nail
I am a Wonder: among flowers
I am a Wizard: who but Isets the cool head aflame?
I am a Spear: that roars for blood
I am a Salmon: in a pool
I am a Lure: from Paradise
I am a Hill: where poets walk
I am a Boar: ruthless and red
I am a Breaker: threatening doom
I am a Tide: that drags to death
I am an Infant: who but I peeps from the unhewn dolman arch?
I am the Womb: of every holt
I am the Blaze: on every hill
I am the Queen: of every hive
I am the Shield: for every head
I am the tomb: of every hope


Who, even gods, could argue with such Poetry??

The 10's - The Step Aside Decade

It's 78% over this decade. Round up to 80%. What decade did we just live? The digital decade I suppose? Music went from electric to electronic. Books went from paper to digital.
For me, it was a decade of intentionally slowing down. Going in reverse. Saturn in retrograde.
I had some psychological upsets this decade and realized Life was passing me by, right there before my very eyes.
PEOPLE. That's what it became about.
I learned BASIC programming in eighth grade. I worked on TRS-80s, Commodore 64s, the first networked computers and PCs, and became a digital draftsman. I learned technology pretty well.
But somewhere along these lines, I suffered soul loss, folks. There was no ghost in the machine. It all became lifeless pixels and binary chaos.
But people, who were they? Who was I?
This was my existential crisis decade. My ontological quagmire decade. The decade I realized I didn't know dick about what I really cared about. The people around me and my own wellbeing.
I discovered the Humanities, the glory of the Western Liberal Tradition. Titus Burckhardt, Umberto Eco, Robert Bly, Carl Gustav Jung, Freud, Plato, Seneca the Stoic, Epictetus, on to Kant, Rosseau and Heidegger and Camus, back to Pythagoras and Heraclitus, now with Richard Tarnas and even some metaphysical stuff thrown in to boot, I realized how rich a western tradition I was a part of, and how little of it I knew.
I became a young man this decade. Van Morrison sums it up best. Had my congregation, had my initiation, had my talking with the profane....How can a poor boy get through to you, when you don't think nothin's true....I made the painful step from boy to young man and now am settling in for another 20 years until I become an old man.
So here is some young man wisdom for you for this coming decade....
While corporations busily go about devouring each other, while technology mindlessly, truly mindlessly propels forward into a future it creates without understanding, step aside and let the train roll through. Look deep inside yourself, as deep as the starry night sky, and ask, what do I know, for certain? Little ol' me....personally, that some schmuck in a white coat hasn't told me. Do I even know for sure the Earth revolves around the Sun? Or have I just accepted what I've been told because the white coat convinced me? Then begin to ask yourself....how does WHITECOAT know? What makes him so sure? Why are we smashing particles at CERN when we can't get along with our neighbor? Further ask yourself about QUALITY. You've been told your quantities...your bank account, your savings, your home equity, your life expectancy, your on and on and on. But what is your QUALITY? I leave it to you to begin to discover QUALITY and what it means to partake of something that so far (THANK GOD) cannot be measured by length, mas, charge or time, else it would be TAXED! The IDEAL is alive and well, and is waiting to serve you, dear friend!
Make this coming decade your awakening.
My came a little early, but not too early, and I'm just giving you a heads up.
It's time for sweethearts to hold hands under a black velvet sky with twinkling stars again. It's time for lover's lane, for making out, for caresssing and caring. Heavy petting. It's time for troubadors and poets to usurpe rockstars. It's time for your REALITY to usurpe reality t.v.
You heard it hear first. The 10s are the step aside decade. The juggernaut must be slowed down, perhaps even thrown off course.
Join me in going backward just a little.
I dare you.....

Iron John by Robert Bly

Bly is sly. He talks about men without isolating women, without excluding the Divine Feminine from the male experience.
In a day and age where the alpha male has been replaced by the only rational option, the beta male, Bly offers a third way, the nurturing Father.
I really like the way Bly brings in fairy tale, mysticism, some gnosticism, and paganism, and um, even mythicism and also um the kitchen sink to describe the male ego in all of it's complexity.
The most telling, for me, is the chapter on the lost King, concerning modern men's relationships to their workaholic distant Fathers, and embracing of their Mothers. The mothers encouraged men to eschew manual labor (vulgar!) for more 'spiritual' work involving intellectualism. And obviously, with the Enlightenment and the dispatch of Kings, the male ego has no really earthly Father to gaze upon as a Spiritual Guide.
Bly rightly points out that in aboriginal tribes such as Indian and Australian, male initiation still takes place for boys where today in postmodern Western society, the lack of men intervening in boys' lives makes the process much more drawn out, much more protracted and even postponed. What happens in some aboriginal boys' lives at age thirteen only happens to young 'men' aged forty in Western society.
Initiation, for me personally, occurred anonymously and in my late thirties, and lasted much too long. I only now am just coming to grips with the fact it happened and the resultant implications.
It is uncanny the path and waypoints the initiation takes as described in Bly's book and how it was meted out in my own experience, pointing to what must be a universal phenomenon that encompasses many cultures.
I recommend this book for any man who has ever failed miserably at being a 'man'.
The rest already have this stuff down pat, I'm sure.

My Dad Was Chevy Chase

The year was 1974. Who knows what the price or availability of gas was. We owned a 'not new' station wagon, and lived in Evansville, Indiana (East of Missouri). It was Winter and my dad was in sales with Sears Roebuck and Company. This was his slow time. So.....he decided on a whim to take off for three weeks and drive the family out to California and back to visit dear Aunt Daisy. The family was two sisters, two brothers, six of us in all including parents.It was snowing in Evansville when we left, we had around six inches by the time we reached the main highway (highway 41) out of town. We drove to St. Louis and thought we were almost there...having asked the perennial question between the four of us at least a half a dozen times apiece.We drove.We drove and drove and drove. We say snow on the plains, in the desert. We saw the wind whipping tumbleweeds through Oklahoma. We saw the adobe houses and natural rock formations of New Mexico. Of course, we saw the Grand Canyon which was Grander beyond description upon arriving home.Looking back, it seems like we spent just a few days at Aunt Daisy's, even though it was in actuality a full week. The drive to and from was the real vacation for me. I had seen the country on the map, but had never experienced just how huge, wonderful and beautiful the United States really and truly is.I was used to farmland interrupted by cities and towns. I had no idea you could drive for 500 miles through Arizona and New Mexico without seeing hardly a gas station. I didn't know it at the time, but I experienced a Zen state, lying on my back in the back of the station wagon, peering through the back window at the huge, amazing sky and the cactii and incidental landscape flowing by. There is nothing like standing in the painted desert and looking around, where by all accounts, you're standing on a completely different planet, yet have never felt more at home on Earth. The dirt, the dust, rubbed between fingers and clapped between palms, the prick of a cactus needle, the horizon interrupted by rock plateaus, all added up to a truly breathtaking experience.In California, I got to ride in my first skateboard park (Skatopia), visit Disney Land and Knott's Berry Farm, tour the Queen Mary ocean liner, and check out Hollywood's Walk of Fame at the Chinese Theater.I ate Chinese takeout for the first time, saw boulders sliding across the Pacific Coast Highway, which was shut down while we were on it due to mudslides, and witnessed the majestic Pacific Ocean.I will never forget that trip. It truly was epic in scope and variety. We became closer as a family, became more of a part of the Country, and learned what it was to truly travel.Since, I have visited the East Coast, but nothing compares to the trip we made out to California...

Children and Family

From Robert Bly's The Sibling Society...

'The work by Bowlby, Winnicott, and Kohut supports the idea that children are basically "warmth-seeking mammals." They attach themselves to whatever object seems to offer warmth and comfort, even if the promise is mostly illusionary, and even if "the object is hostile or frustrating to them." Children "will search for the faintest flickers of light, even if the light illuminates nothing, and even if it carries little warmth." They search - if there is little warmth at home - for light in teachers, random adults, pop singers, acquaintances who may abuse them. Children who must make such choices have, as one observer remarked, "settled for so little from the start that they think a little is a lot."'

Sobering, isn't it? To me, you first have to recover the child in yourself that was denied. Those of us who grew up watching MTv looked for warmth in music video and alternative culture, and found it, perhaps in the tribal sense. But the child's grasping for human, familial warmth perhaps went lacking, but now can be recovered. Personally, I was raised in a close knit family, and though it had (has) it's ups and downs, was (is) largely successful in providing love and warmth. Still, I did buy into pop culture and on a perhaps unrelated note, I became disconnected form Nature at large. In adulthood, I actually reached a stage where I could barely feel the grass between my toes when I walked outside barefoot. I had to ditch all the stuff, the technology for awhile and rediscover that inner nature that sought that greater Nature that went denied throughout my youth. Even in the successful families, children are damaged, says Bly in this gem of a book, and I had my damage I had to deal with.

On to our children and what we can offer them. All those nineteenfifties things we rebelled against. Family dinners, Family outings, Family walks in the parks can establish a bond among people that hopefully will help in withstanding the buffets of fortune and fate and society. For Mary, Dylan and I, sitting down to a meal after a busy day at work, work, and school can quickly re-establish our bonds with one another and provide the familial warmth Bly decries the lack of in his book.

But in my book, first take care of yourself so you then can tend after others. What do you derive pleasure from? Make it a goal to live a rich, full life. Flowing from this, you will transmit this same richness and fullness to your children.

So guitar hero is good in good measure, but reading, writing, making music, the traditional seven liberal arts, I don't see where you can ever go wrong with these...

Summermoon - a Poem

Summermoon climbing throiugh the daymooned sky
Clear sky vapor trails crowd each others tails
Azure, eyeblue on little winks of cloud
Landscape green bounding and circling
I could sing this sky, but it would be an alien sound
The eggdrop Sun in Saturnine arc
Twisting through the Zodiacal beyond
Hovering then hurrying throiugh it's predestined course
What meteorology can explain all this?
This amazement not belonging to a scientist
This belongs to the saint, the sister, the father the son
The sky in womanly curved hips round
The dome that encircles this flatearthed bound
Speaks dreams and miraculous floods and quietest sound
Father sky, mother earth, the sacred marriage eternal
Has at last broke the bonds and scattered the infernal
Forever gliding through that wider arc
We now, once before and again shall embark
Wondrous journey through air and space
Never leave me, but leave me alone in this place!

Wine, Women, Song

Oh those days of you, those days when we achieved a Platonic state much greater than any vulgar one. I held your hand once. You carressed my troubled skin once. A smile across a crowded place, whispers carried on a silent wind....and there was the wine, we let it flow with no thought of the next day or what would happen next, like we could drink and drink and be drunk and be drunk....and the song, what prohibited music we played, our sacred notes sung among the profane, you were my muse and my siren all wrapped in one...it was all real...and now it is a dream, but dreams are real, aren't they?

An Intuitive Take On The Upcoming Election From Someone Who Doesn't Know

Barack is obviously going to win the Democratic nomination. Hillary will be his vice presidential candidate....surprise! In the election at large, McCain will make a strong showing, but Obama/Hillary will win the election. Surprisingly, to me, this moderate Democratic ticket will be the best thing for the country at this time, seeing McCain is too much of a loose cannon and doesn't have a steady enough hand to steer the U.S. through it's current troubles of the economy and the war. What ultimately will be needed will be an empathy with the American voter McCain will not be able to match in comparison to Obama.