Musings on what sets us free?

Scandals....War...Politics...Stress...Tension...Markets are up & down...everything seems upside down?
Environmental Degradation...The Newspapers full of senseless unkind and insane acts of inhumanity. Hate. Rage. You even see it on the road-- people risking their lives to speed, pass and cut others off. Why?

What stories are we telling ourselves?

Time to step back and see where our stories as a collective body of people, a community, a family, as nations, a race, a creed, a gender have brought us.
Time to examine our stories and what stories we want to nurture or keep repeating from generation to generation.

I still love and re-read Eckhart Tolle's Book the New Earth- Awakening to your Life's Purpose.

" If you were not familiar with our contemporary civilization, if you had come from another age or another planet," states Tolle, " one of the things that would amaze you is that millions of people love and pay money to watch humans kill and inflict pain on each other and call it 'entertainment' "." Drama" .."The pain-body.. magnifies the ego's need for enemies".

Interesting. How many of us are even conscious of this thing called EGO? We are trapped in "Object"consciousness .... Most of our lives are cluttered up with things, material things to have or get or things to do, things to think about", he explains.

Is this freedom?

How do we cut through this? How can we bring sanity back to our planet?

First we have to be aware that much of what we do is in fact informed by stories that we carry on with....and with habits... or ways of doing things that we never question if they even make sense or if they really serve us. Gossip out of control? I sat at a table the other day and heard a person hold court with gossip and stories and gossip and finally no one was speaking as this person droned on and on with petty details of " he said.. she said".

We are trapped in our own insanity. Because we are evil? I don't think so.

Can we tolerate being quiet and still enough to examine the thought-less-ness that stands in the way of being aware of what a high price we are paying for carrying around egos of pain, hate, feeling less than, scarcity, greed, that empty spiritual hole that can't seem to be filled with enough distraction, activity, sex, drugs, noise, music,TV , Internet, video games cigarettes, success, needing to be the leader, the winner, the hero?? etc. etc.?

Why are we so afraid of quiet? of stillness? of nature?

"The greatness of life arises out of small things that are honored and cared for. Everybody's life really consists of small things. Greatness is a mental abstraction and a favorite fantasy of the ego. The paradox is that the foundation for greatness is honoring the small things of the present moment instead of pursuing greatness. " To read more of these easy to read concepts do spend time with Tolle's book The New Earth...a sin Slow time-- quiet time... aware of the ego talking to you as you read. Warning! Your ego may just kick and scream all the way through!
Just Read The book!

I rarely go to the cinema. I find many films just pure feeding of fear or keeping us feeling scared -- like the negative newspaper stories we read everyday. Where are the good news stories of people caring for each other? or Overcoming hate and fear or depression?

I just recently saw the film Invictus...it reminded me of the brilliance of how a leader helped a nation cross the lines of a horrible history together... where
(not perfectly and still imperfect) Nelson Mandela, in his first term as the first President of a free South Africa initiated a unique venture to unite the apartheid-torn land. He called upon the national rugby team to take on a mission to win the 1995 Rugby World Cup. Ah! He could have led with revenge and hate for the other. But who is really the OTHER?

Invictus

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds and shall find me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.
William Ernest Henley 1875

This poem gave strength and courage to Mandela while he was incarcerated.
Henley, at the age of 12, despite a severe bout with TB successfully passed the
Oxford senior student student exams in 1867. In 1875 he wrote the "Invictus" poem from his hospital bed after having his leg amputated after the disease progressed to below his knee.

See The Trailer! See The Movie: http://www.imdb.com/video/imdb/vi1889666329/

and Learn about the man:
http://www.nelsonmandela.org/index.php

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We Are All One - We Are The World - We Are All Brothers & Sisters- We Can Choose Peace

PEACE PEACE PEACE
FREEDOM

PEACE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WmxT21uFRwM

Life without liberty is like a body without spirit~Kahlil Gibran

Time for Patriots to Take Back America!

It is BROKEN ! So FIX IT!

The Problem:
We are being ripped off, our health care is gutted and we are working harder and falling behind- while our constitution is being undermined, while our own government is fencing our borders and U.S. based gun and weapons manufactures and surveillance manufacturers and the Halliburtons of America are being fed fat contracts after fat contracts paid with our taxpayers money. Meanwhile we are supposed to shut up and shop-- tune into Ipods and bipods and HDTV and get sucked into the game of DENIAL.

It isn't about waving a flag and claiming to cherish our freedoms and a right to bear arms. What good is a gun when the air is polluted, you can't drink the water and global warming is whipping our you know what. PLEEZE ...-- What freedoms? Freedoms for mortgage companies to fleece the American People? Freedom to torture animals in laboratories? Freedom to build more Nukes? Freedom for drug companies and insurance companies to lobby away our rights to health and vitamins? Freedom for Corporations to sell and swap our private information? Freedom for union busters, freedom to build more prisons, fredom for sick elders to fall into poverty, freedom for children to go hungry because most wages can't pay the rent? Freedom for Developers to charge insane prices for apartment dwellings-- and for working people to scrounge while making minimum wage.? Condo Developers in San Francisco are touting 450 Square foot Condos and charging $250,000-$270,000 per condo and calling them a perfect starter home ... for those who don't own anything they don't even have closet! Get Real -- you are getting ripped off. Put down the beer, the Coke, the Evian, get off the stool at the wine bar. OK..I am ranting...but there are some great solutions....but first I need to rant some more.And don't get me started on the oil companies! Clean Coal? Yeah right!

I cannot understand how anyone in America can watch our health care disappear, our schools go on with brain deadening testing without creative thinking without creative arts and sports programs for kids. I can't believe the youth of America buys into the $60,000- $100,000 debt to get a 4 year college education. I can't understand how we can or watch our elders and veterans suffering with inadequate health care-- and we are still sending our kids off to a war...a war that was based on a BIG FAT lie and promising them that they will be heroes and defending what? Eight years of the Bush/Cheney regime? Enough is enough! Chemical spills, oil spills, toxic spraying-- toxics in or toys and food. How did this happen?
By the same Red, White and Blue Flag waving RICH Corporate fat cats - that have made money off all working people- and ripping off your pensions plans and now telling us to invest in their STOCK Market Ponzi game for our retirement! Get Real-- this is not what America is about.

And remember we are a nation of immigrants! HELLO! U.S.A was not founded by the First Nation peoples! We all came from somewhere else-- either booted out of Europe, or as indentured workers, slaves or expats who suffered a land grab, famine or unspeakable poverty- but that does that give us a right to screw others-- heck no! Stop the pecking order and the addiction to victimhood. We are all humans trying to get away from somewhere else to make a better living except there are fewer and fewer places to go. So here we are-- calling on Jesus, Allah and Buddha and there about 167 religions in the world fighting it out for your attention and some have guns or throw bombs in the name of their God when they get pissed off at you.


HOW TO START FIXING IT?

Most people are tired of this system of economic shyster hit men and women, be it religious fanatics, marketing bozos, and etc. People are tired of war after war and violence in the hoods. It is not about upbringing or environment-- it is about mindfulness and egos and emotional baggage and FEAR that we are all operating out of. We all make choices based on our own thoughts-- from joy to anger ... So when you get home from Burning Man or Disneyland or shopping or the war go read the New Earth by Eckhart Tolle OR listen to him and Oprah discuss it--- go to Oprah's Soul Series and give your soul inspiration and take a vacation from the negative fear based news. IT IS FREE! All you have to do is get to a computer sign up for the Webcast On Demand and listen to this groundbreaking international happening with

Oprah and best-selling author Eckhart Tolle leading 10 online classes that take you through A New Earth chapter by chapter. Watch the webcasts on Oprah.com or download them from iTunes and take them with you. Plus, get transcripts, listen to audio meditations and the theme song for the A New Earth Web classes. Then once you realize that you have power stop giving it away.

SPEAK OUT AND FIND YOUR TEAMMATES!


At the Speak Out on 45th Anniversary of Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” Speech San José State University students Latu Tapaatoutai and Diana Victa spoke out about the fading American dream after Hurricane Katrina expelled hundreds of thousands of residents of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast. While the U.S. government has squandered a trillion dollars on endless wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, vast tracts of New Orleans remain devastated and deserted three year later. Tapaatoutai and Victa are members of the Gulf Coast Civic Works Project, which seeks federal funding to fully rebuild the Gulf Coast and enable all displaced persons the opportunity to return to their original communities and jobs. Check it out at: http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2008/08/31/18531443.php

GO GREEN!
Want to change the world? Stop doing the same old thing! Get a Green MBA, study accupunture,
organic permaculture farming and for goodness sakes stop shopping and giving your dollars to the very corporations that are poisoning our food, our water, our air, our environment and your mind!

And all you brillant young people -- don't fall for the same old trap-- don't let the corporate machine entice you and then spit you out after they use you. Create your own alternative economic system that recognizes natural capital and social capital not just elite capital that is sucking everything out of people, places and things until we have dead earth.

BE A HERO!
From U.S. Congressman Dennis Kucinich:

"On August 1st, I delivered to Speaker Nancy Pelosi; a petition bearing the names of over 100,000 Americans that, like us, feel that the President must be held accountable for abusing executive power and disregarding his Constitutional obligations.

Our voices have been heard and your support continues to send a powerful message to lawmakers. That is why I call on you again to help us in a new effort to deliver 1 Million signatures to Speaker Pelosi on September 10, 2008.

Send a history-making message to Congress:

1,000,000 signatures for impeachment.

On September 10, 2008, we want to deliver ONE MILLION signatures to
Congress urging them to exercise their Constitutional authority and mandate to
hold this President - and all future Presidents - accountable."

I say JUST DO IT! http://kucinich.us/