The Phantom Highway

The Phantom Highway

Here is a photo of the Prospect Expressway. I want you to be absolutely certain, before continuing, that it actually exists…

Why?

Because years ago, as a young adult at a family gathering, I suggested the route to a male relative asking for directions.

“I never heard of that.” He replied.

“Well,” I said, “Check the map I believe you can take it from…”

“No. That doesn’t exist!” Then louder, to make sure everybody heard him, “You’re making it up!”

Now, in the age of the whole world in our hands thanks to mobile technology, this would not fly (unless we let it, as too many people sadly do, to be “nice”), but at the time it was a 2-pronged attack  -- on my sanity and social standing. His first statement was intended to back me into a corner where I had to make myself wrong and back down from an obvious truth, or appear disagreeable by defending my statement. The second was to convey to everyone in earshot, in an authoritative tone, that I was a person who “made things up” and therefore unreliable.

Sexism is a form of societal psychopathy, often expressed as toxic “mansplaining” like this. I can at least provide you with a photograph to illustrate the ridiculousness and meanness of his position, but we all have equally valid points to make that can’t be captured in a digital camera, or proven in a millisecond. A more subtle but equally despicable type of discount is when someone re-interprets a clear statement you made and requires you to address and accept their version, usually uncomplimentary to you, to continue the conversation -- just don’t! Take charge of your own Identity! We all need to access less tangible information to make good decisions - and that is exactly the capacity this kind of gaslighting attacks. “Don”t think, I’m going to do that for you.”

Guys, I know that (a) real men do not behave like this, and (b) there are female sociopaths, but given the prevalence and acceptance of this and collateral offences I am taking the liberty to address this mostly as a gender issue this time, and thank you for understanding. And we all need to remember to stand and speak up for any person we witness as a target of this kind of trolling!

While mansplaining and gaslighting are a ways along this continuum of chronic abuse, the attitude has roots in an entire system that values the happiness of males over females. This article about advertising some people don’t want us to see opened my eyes to the way corporate gatekeepers this it’s okay to plaster the world with ads about erections, or the need for them, but would rather not have us see content impacting women’s sensual wellness.

The words of the prophets are indeed written on the subway walls, warning us not to become accustomed to inequality! It’s inspirational to see racism being outed and going viral via citizen journalists with mobile phones... it’s time to expose the war on women at this level as well!

Think about it, we are all stuck on this planet being driven to its doom by a governance structure gone mad. It’s requires those of us who can to trust our own insights -- provable or not --  and speak and act accordingly, with power and purpose, and own our own impact. We cannot afford to allow creepy losers, of any stripe or social position, without real strength of their own, to manipulate the rest of us in order to subvert our power into the service of their hopelessly broken egos. No one should be allowed to undermine the wonderful potential of any human being.

Namaste

https://www.fastcodesign.com/90171907/exclusive-see-the-ads-the-mta-deemed-too-sexual-for-the-subway

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/books/non-fiction/spot-psychopath/

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/here-there-and-everywhere/201701/11-warning-signs-gaslighting

Working Gaslight

The Beauty of the Beast (Invitation Attached!)

We all want to be better. Sometimes we are hard on ourselves, and sometimes we dislike a facet of our thinking or actions so much we say "you are not me, begone!"

Which is pretty much what I was saying to myself on the subway a few weeks back, when I found some unpleasant notions I was entertaining about other passengers to be less than I expected of myself. I did not expect an answer...

What I sensed was crying, a mournful wail striking the center of my soul. A cry for understanding. A cry for acceptance...A cry for love.

Accessing my inner eye, I saw a very dark place, lonely, and two large, wet eyes looking back at me. There was a sense of unexpressible beauty, even though it was too dark to observe any details.

I responded to the wordless plea, with a vow to never neglect this creature again. To appreciate her gifts. Because of course, she was mine -- my discernment. While I may not feel it is highly evolved to judge others, sometimes we need our responses to first impressions to keep us safe in a world where so many strangers cross our paths.

This experience led me to begin to explore the way our least comfortable aspects can actually aid is in being better people, and I have found that characterizing them as beasts, real, mythical or invented, helps us love and understand them, hence ourselves, more fully and productively. Much more to come, but right now, the question is:

Do you have a few besties you are denying because you think they are lumpy, bumpy or just too darn dangerous?

Come and play with the Beasts at an event that is all about Beauty! Saturday, March 24th, Lucky, at 168 Avenue B,  will host a Beauty Brunch with bagels, cocktails and everything your body and soul need to SPRING into the season of love with magical ease! Pamper and treat yourself and have a special tarot reading directed to introduce you to the Beautiful Beasts who have always had your back...

Join on Facebook!

Hours and Days and Weeks and Months and Years and Ringing in the New....

On the F train home to this afternoon, my timing was perfect to catch the last direct sun rays -- to these parts -- of 2017 through the west-facing windows, reflected in pale pinks by the clouds, bridges, and buildings of Downtown Brooklyn and Manhattan. To the east the Supermoon was on the rise to take over the Sun’s duties, sending its reflected light to Earth this New Year’s Eve.

The next sunrise will be in 2018, and one year from now it will 2019. But a year is not an entity, it is a quantification based on one complete revolution of the Earth around the Sun, marked by the 4 seasons, which are generated by the geometry of tilt of the axis of this planet. This circuit takes almost exactly 365 sub-units of 24 hours -- a quantity based upon the duration of one full rotation of the Earth around the aforementioned axis. Somewhere in Time that is universal and connected to Space, our conceptualization of time developed and came to include the principle that these 24 hour periods, “Days” if you will, would have seven names that repeated 52 times during the almost exactly 365-day cycle now affectionately dubbed “Year.” And after the passage of 12 named (by similar sentimental and conceptualizing humans) “Months,” occurring in the span of the “Year,” the name of “Month” one would be the name of the “Month” after the 12th, and thus we would have a “New Year.” And apparently will, in this sense, within a few short hours…

But if a cycle around the sun is a “Year,” it can start at any moment, so the day that dawns on January 2, 2018 can be thought to have its very own “New Year,” In fact, any cycle starting at any point in our constructed frame of time can constitute the beginning of a “Year” that will end in almost exactly 365 days…

Your year is always really going to be what, where and when YOU make it…

Looking out the window, it’s dark out. Happy New Night!

The Other “Me Too”

Photo by Mark Wiener, 11/28/11

We can think of shame and scandal as forcing change, as may be happening among certain individuals whose sexual misbehavior is being exposed.

Yet, in recent months, I have also noticed a surge of old school politeness among men towards women - giving seats on the subways, holding doors, offering to carry bags, even walking aside to pass me on the street side of the sidewalk. I also see more people reaching out to beggars on the street and just plain being “nicer.” Perhaps it’s those little changes that make the bigger ones possible, not the other way around.

We are all a part of this. We all can take a breath and be a bit more kind, patient, giving, accepting, helpful, and loving in our daily lives. Your smile and a thank you will make YOUR day too, when you receive a courteous gesture. That’s how change really happens.

Want to make a better world? Me too…

On judgment...

Ever feel misjudged? Caught myself doing just that a couple of times recently, and for some reason the thought kept jabbing at me. Until I realized…

I had only been judged by myself.

Questions had been asked in a safe way by trusted people. Questions! To me, the fact that they were even asked felt like condemnations, and I came away certain my answers had not been believed. Why?

I was carrying judgments from my past without realizing it. Truth does nothing to dispel pervasive nightmares, they need to be dismissed by letting in the light. And part of that light is, when you deem someone judgmental and opposed to you, you have just judged, and likely misjudged, them… and the beat goes on.

Forgiveness breaks the cycle. It does not mean forgetting or permitting true transgressions, but holding onto feelings that no longer keep us safe actually tie us to the offense and the offender. And we get to forgive ourselves too, so…

When those thoughts of judgment come up, we can remind ourselves that we can’t change the past, forgive ourselves and move forward. Suddenly nobody else seems to be judging us either, or, in case they are, we can always forgive them.

IMAGE CREDIT: By Pamela Coleman Smith - a 1909 card scanned by Holly Voley (http://home.comcast.net/~vilex/) for the public domain, and retrieved from http://www.sacred-texts.com/tarot (see note on that page regarding source of images)., PD-US, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=17299683

Accepting Our Gifts

This morning’s meditation brought a sense of deep peace to my heart.

I accepted it with the intention to return to that consciousness throughout the day, and that this same peace be received by all of humanity, that we might know our true nature, our true home that we all share.

With that wish sent winging on its way, I remembered all the times in my life when I did not experience or value serenity. Especially in my 30’s...My burned out ego and left brain were in the driver’s seat for long stretches on my quest for a meaningful life, telling me I was not rich enough, talented enough, pretty enough, young enough (even in my 20’s!), and when it got to be too much I blocked the growing despair with action and stuff. Any impulse to experience joy, mindfulness, or self-fulfillment was met with severe abuse from some inner voices that, thanks to my upbringing, I was deeply afraid to ignore.  

Interruptions were insistent - an illness that forced me to decline a job, the urge to take a different route the night a tiny, injured cat found me and came home, and, most of all, the moments when, while I was in my most distracted state, the world as I knew it would drop away, taking my breath, and leave me in a cool, blank mist wondering how and if what I called life was even possible.

The ego dispatched inner critics to say something was wrong with me. I had known since infancy there was something “more.” I never spoke of it - if I had, who knows what would have been done to “fix” me? The ego is spawned to protect our life, and sometimes it works in mysterious ways. At others, it needs to be acknowledged and asked to step aside, because it has the unwitting power to destroy us.

We all have those voices inside, they were acquired by our egos on the learning curve of life. We can choose to let them go now that we know better. There are always people on the outside ready to echo them the second they see us growing. But it’s your job to remember that obedience does no good and a great deal of harm, it is better to get distance from a person than damage yourself and the rest of the world.

Speaking of the world, the one we find ourselves in at the moment is enough to trigger anybody’s defensive impulses. But, “God is in the details.” On the subway tonight I randomly recalled someone who made wonderful cookies I loved when I was a little girl, then others who had shared abundance and beauty during my lifetime. Soon it became impossible to feel anything but gratitude, hope and love -- try it!

Namaste.

Chapter ∞

[Chapter Infinity]

Good morning! ( I hope you say this to the Universe every day!)

It’s a new day, a fresh start.

Well, admittedly most of us have a few loose ends that kept us awake until they slipped from our grip. And often, after the first clear flush of arising in the light, we feel compelled to pick them up and proceed to try to tie them up again…

Are we really?

So much of the structure of human activity is based on “finishing.” Deadlines and goals can be important milestones when publishing a book, constructing a building, getting a degree, eradicating world hunger…

But so often we apply this same logic to life itself, and it’s often the opposite of the nature of who we are. We say, “Once I have something, do this, or am with a certain person, it will be done.” What will, your life? Do you want to die the day you buy your new house, win that award, or get married?

Of course not, but we tend to look at things that way and either spend our lives waiting for completion or wondering what to do next (how many people get married and then screw it up by making their partner their next “project?”)

On a spiritual path, practice leads us to a clearing of mental debris that opens myriad new pathways on a daily basis. They do not lead to completion or closure, only more paths to explore. Where is happiness? All along the way, or nowhere at all.

Why go forward? Because we know we were all brought here for a purpose, to feel whole and to do good in the world. When we lose our way, we feel detached and alone.

The quest for concrete attainment has another downside -- comparison. We judge ourselves against others according to milestones in time, material acquisition, and social standing. Does being a Partner at 30 make anybody really happy? Does a more desirable spouse make for a happier life? Or a bigger house? Admit it, we all know people with these assets, and more, who are miserable, but we still feel a little “less” for not having it all. And that is a waste of the immeasurable gifts we do have!

I have for decades referred to Bokononism, a religion that exists only inside the narrative of Vonnegut’s gem of a novel, “Cat’s Cradle,” as having real resonance with how we live. One aspect that is now catching on is the concept of the Karass vs the Granfalloon (I just noticed typing this that these 3 words are in the dictionary, woo-hoo!)

A Karass is basically the subset of humanity with whom you were born to interact, a natural fraternity of spirit and synchronicity. A college fraternity, any club, political party, professional group, etc. would be deemed a Granfalloon, an artificial classification without true significance. (Perhaps why there is so much drinking generally involved...)

The message here is that we can settle for synthetic happiness within the prescribed activities of our Granfalloons, or we can set out to find our soul family, our Karass, with whom lies oneness with our destiny and true bliss.

Another feature of “Cat’s Cradle” is its unusual structure - 304 pages divided into 127 chapters. We tend to see our lives as a series of chapters, and perhaps we need to expand our possibilities in that area. We are infinite. The present moment contains the whole universe. Where will it take us, and where will we take it?

...Chapter ∞