• BLOG - Uncategorized

    LIVES MATTERS #not TRUTH MATTERS #not

    July 8, 2016 - By 

    The Second Triangle of Immortality is Life, Love and Truth   in Harmony creates Integrity.

    The First Triangle is  Mind, Emotion and Body in balance creates Spirit.

    Spirit and Integrity creates and maintains Soul.

    Truth is the singular most important thing that can help people get along and is the absolute necessity for Gods to exist and for anyone who wishes to obtain immortality in any of the World’s belief systems.

    Cognitive Dissonance is the most singularly frustrating thing when dealing with people.  It is when their brain’s  operating system is based on emotions.  They switch from one operating system to another by a constant flow of emotions.    It is from this very flow of emotions people gauge their comfort level of information based on these emotions and how they evoke the next set of emotions.   Sadly,  cognitive abilities, analytical skills, and information don’t  buffer well between these  emotional states.  There is an extremely limited overlap of information and abilities from one emotion to another and fail people miserably.   Disjointed analytical tools live in different emotional operating systems.

    People live constantly in cognitive dissonance their whole lives.    The very purpose of meditation and contemplation is to create a singular  state of mind which holds all the data and analytical skills in one place to grow and to be improved upon.  Then no one can relate to these people because their emotions and data don’t match the patterns that make them comfortable.

    Comfort and a fear from being made uncomfortable, beliefs from comfort regardless of the context of the thoughts and feelings don’t match what is expected,  is out right rejected.

    Cognitive Dissonance is the very playground sociopaths, psychopaths,  FOX news, Conservative Think tanks & social media outlets, and every one in a culture that expects a specific sets of actions and reactions works from.   It works because it is an empirical  logic that shows for  most of one’s actions works.   It is lazy and economical requiring no thinking whatsoever.   People think they think; however, listen to them say “I believe”, “I feel”, and “you should” which are all speaking from a set of programmed responses.

    They take everything they think, feel and believe for granted.  Because it feels right, they believe it to be true.

    The sad fact is there is truth in each of these beliefs which is turned in to an actionable emotionally charged reaction.   The context,  and circumstances are missed.

    Case in point, I posted a simple meme in the wake of  yet another murder of a black man by police officers.  “STOP KILLING BLACK PEOPLE”.    That is it.

    A good friend of mine simply stated All people’s lives matter.  She cares about every one, is multi-ethnic and has a broad view of life.    Another friend of mine gets triggered  from what would sound like #AllLivesMatter.       To put this in context of #BLACKLIVESMATTER as part of a post on Treyvon Martin’s Murderer, George Zimmerman’s, acquittal.   Since then many other black people are being murdered or killed by police, in jails, and elsewhere.   Many are innocent and demanding their rights.  Lately in our society that will get you killed.    Post Ferguson Missouri, with Michael Brown being murdered,  white racist provocateurs who started shooting into a peaceful demonstration exacerbated an ever worsening situation.   What came out at that time from white supremacist social media trolls, was a meme from conservative, bigoted think tanks: #AllLivesMatter.  There was a space of time this meme got out into liberal environments and was embraced by well meaning people.     Quickly people realized this was an attempt to “whitewash” and down play all the severe issues #BlackLivesMatter embraced.   It was indeed meant to diffuse the this movement with a racist  inference that white people lives matter.    This created even more confusion with the intent of each.  My friend  did not mean to infer or embrace this whitewash propaganda tool.   If you knew her this would be the last thing on her mind.    My other friends were severely triggered  and acted as if this was the intent.     When people are getting verbally assaulted or have their sense of self assaulted, they fight back.    They each did.     Each of them I like and would want to spend a lot of time with.    They all, if given a chance, would probably think everybody is a good and great person.   The think tank that created this racist meme of #ALLLIVESMATTER succeeded in having people tear each other apart.

    I failed.

    I shared something I feel and what should be a simple action and a simple truth.

    I failed because what I said was empty without a personal action.

    I failed because the problem is so much bigger than a simple meme.

    I failed my friends because by sharing this it divided people who should work together.

    To address these issues, and other issues like:   rape, rape culture, corporate greed, citizens united, labor inequality, gender inequality, racism, bigotry,  income inequality, lack of health care, lack of education,  disability, retirement, healthcare, foreign policies, the enslavement of country by debt, corporate ownership and manipulation of government,  foreign wars,  wars that support an industrial complex, education inequality,  economy, corporate tax loopholes, misogyny, hate groups,  and so many others, they are all intertwined.

    We are taught to label and put simple handles, to make how we deal with specific issues easy.  They are based on beliefs, values and judgements, that are not necessarily our own.   They are convenient rationalizations.  For some they are decent, and others they are horribly bad.   The fact is we don’t actually work with so many of these issues directly, however we feel a need to identify one way or another as if it defines us in society.  And it does because it attracts and detracts the type of people we can work with at some level.   It is a shorthand that is easy and natural.  It is easy and natural for it to be manipulated by those who know these issues and people at a much deeper level.  Because we believe we are in control of our lives, this  thought that others control our very thoughts, emotions and beliefs is difficult to believe.

    All these issues are so big, so massive, it is overwhelming.   It is easier to focus on singular issues as an issue unto themselves.     We have been taught to manage things with small incremental changes.    This is a perpetual treadmill, a drudgery of paperwork,, housekeeping, bureaucracy, and industry to make everything and do everything as cheaply as possible, to further make us slaves to our work, culture and the way things are done.

    What have we done?  What activism have we done?  Have we at least stood up for our friends?  Have we taken care of the sick, the poor, or the disabled?    Have we voted?  Do we know or care what the local elections look like, what issues they are bringing?   We have stood up for our friends.  We share memes, and stories.  Have we asked for facts, figures, and what the truth is, or do we just repeat what others have sent?

    What can I, a single person, do?      Do we know enough about others to stand with them and do a protest?   Do I have bail money?  Do I have friends, lawyers and a support structure to take care of me, my children, my family, and  to keep them from being killed at least?  And what do politicians and people in power care about protests, petitions, and our facebook memes?   Nothing.    Zip, notta, nothing.  Zero.   And if you do stir some truth up, a little funding here and there, and these nutjob  provocateurs make the protesters look crazy,  or shoot them, or cause other mischief.  What is the effect?  Again, zip zero nothing.  We are supposed to stare at all the divisive emotional differences, without the depth of investigation they deserve only to be given emotional divisive issues to focus on.

    We don’t have to convince the choir.   The nutjobs aren’t on our friend’s lists.  If they are they probably turned off following the sources to our memes.   We have done that with theirs. Or we simply have unfriended those who are so heinously off into their own little world.

    All the truth in the world won’t change  scared, feeble minded people, who have lost their jobs, their retirements, their way of living, who have been made to be afraid of everything and everybody. They are fighting for the same  little modicum of life and justice they use to have.  Hell, people would be happy with what they have now.    And they know they are losing it one bit of a time.  They have been lied to by a society that is sociopathic, narcissistic and led by psychopaths, that care not one wit about them or any of us.

    Is there anyone you trust?   Heck, if you are following me on social media, you can almost guarantee people who are following me are decent people.    Thank you for what trust you have in me to post or share things that matter to you, that supports you.  Thank you for sharing things with me that uplift me and support the type of person I choose to be.  I hope I do the same for you.   Do you trust me?  Do you trust the people that follow me and post stuff on my stuff?

    Who thinks this stuff through and keeps updated on various things?   I don’t know everything.  Who tries to be fair and have a level view of things from multiple angles?    Is that a leader or a politician?   A politician works to get emotional support and tacit approval for what they do.   A vote, in a corrupt, rigged, and representative of only the richest supporters is what you get.  It is a game of charades.     It use to be they at least played along and paid lip service to what we as a people care about.      Instead of a meaningful platform, they took issues that would move people and assemble them as a campaign marketing tool.     Can you trust them to get experts to tell them what to do?

    So, what we do lacks power or leverage.   Activism, voting, and through the most positive thing  by education, and that is corrupted by propaganda, media and misinformation.  Who can we trust?   Do you have leaders?   Do you empower them?  Do you support them?  Is the ideas, or ideals worth working for,  dying for, worth sacrificing yourself for?  Are they worth it?   What are we worth?

    Revolutionaries  the thinkers, philosophers and  ideas to make things better are systematically destroyed by those who have grabbed power.  They promote what cements power in the vacuum left by the destruction of  what was bad with what is the new evil corrupt mechanisms.

    So when it comes to power, Truth doesn’t matter, and Lives don’t matter.  The milieu of the existential angst of the powerless, prey on each other.   And if they are motivated against powers that be, the underlying power of the new order is supporting it.

    “I can hire one half of the working class to kill the other half.” Said by Jay Gould.  Today, the NRA right wing, controlling the conservative right who are supporting our corporate neo-fascists are being souped up to kill minorities, anybody who isn’t conservative christian, and each other when it suits them.

    “I don’t care who does the electing, so long as I get to do the nominating.” Said by William M. Tweed   This has been an ongoing strategy of the political parties, and those that sponsor them for most of our country’s life.    Each segment of population that gets the vote, the outcome has already been predetermined.

    Truth matters and Lives matters.   They are our most precious resources that need to be cherished.     We need leaders, and the truth is there is a cost to make them, to feed them and all the endeavors, that deserve our efforts, our lives and sacrifices.  Because we have so few of them, we need to create them and back them up.

    We have failed our country because we have let what is going on in the past 100 years or more happen.  We have allowed ourselves to be blinded by mouthing platitudes, principles and morals without context, thought, review, or be guided by intelligence and spirit.     We have allowed  ourselves to be uneducated and to be led by valueless, misguided or misled politicians who become convinced of the sacerdotal kool aid offered by those in power. They have not listened to, nor supported those who sacrificed their lives to know the truth of things, and those who sacrificed their lives to make a better country for themselves and their children.    We forgot to question, to fight for something greater than ourselves.  We have been inured to people’s suffering, and engendered greed and selfishness as a virtue.

    If we can not trust a few close people, how can you trust one to become a leader, to create the power to change society?  The power is in us collectively, and we need a vision and a visionary to contain and wield that power, who is responsible to the people who would tear them to shreds if he or she betrays the people.    Those who have economic power who hire mercenaries, police, politicians, lawyers, doctors and soldiers are responsible only to themselves and get the other people seduced by power and greed to kill each other off.

    All Lives, Truth and Living don’t matter, if the truth is that you are powerless to change a damn thing.   It doesn’t matter if we can’t talk with each other, trust someone to sort it out and back them up if you aren’t willing or able to do it yourself.  If you can’t build a culture where we get along, then we are separated, manipulated and are a commodity for someone else’s use.

    I have and still get beat up by trying to build the bridges between people.    The fact is people still cling to their narrow ways generally, and rarely bridge that gap of understanding between individuals or groups.       To manage the issue at large one has to have 50,000 foot view of the problem and be able to tend to those issues.   People in general do not have the capacity to see that.  Because they don’t have the capacity they can’t and won’t believe the person who is trying to  help them bridge the gap.     This was true 30 years ago and it is more true now.    If you cannot get two cliques of of people to work together, over a simple issue, how do you manage this with large issues across a whole country?

    If people could give each other a break, check their assumptions and their emotions,  ask for clarification we might get dialogues going.   If we are willing to entertain another person’s point of view we might be able to build bridges.  If we cultivate people that can find a way between two points of view you create statesman.  If we support people who bring better ideas, and trust people to develop better world, we might get a world that we may be more engaged in and trusting each other to become mutually decent citizens.

    People Embracing Change is about building such a culture.   I may be unworthy for such an undertaking.  Maybe I am.   Maybe you are.  This will need a fundamental change in the way we think, feel and behave.     And that is too scary.    Lives will matter if we have absolutely honest relationships with ourselves, others and the world around us.   That would be an act of love that is too scary to commit to.  The Truth is we are too afraid to live a Life that Matters,  or are crushed by those who are afraid of that change.

    What we need to do is build and create, leaders, cultures and relationships.  We need to study and speak to each other’s truths and experiences and build common ground.   We need to acknowledge each other’s hurts and experiences.  We have to be able to move beyond our hurts and our experiences, to build new lives.  Build new Lives that Matter together.  Then we will embody the living truth.

     

     

     

  • BLOG

    In response to a lament of the loss of Elders

    April 26, 2016 - By 

    The Rantin Raven : This is why we can’t have nice things. “On Patheos: Agora”

    I saw Elders being pushed to the side over 25 years ago. And others going solitary.
    I see some elders being respected in some communities.
    It depends on the type of community and the personality of the groups of people drawn to each.
    People noted the various influxes of Pagan/Wiccans that have joined the community. Some may choose a good initiatory tradition and stick with it, respecting and Elder.
    Many that are taught a one true way ( and I have heard it called “The Wicca”) don’t leave room for those who see the basic Wiccan ritual format as a training mechanism. And those who take it as a religion versus those who pursue the magical spirituality of it.
    This country in the mainstream and many of those who have joined suffer from the mainstream discrimination of ageism. And like others have said join a movement that helps them justify their lifestyle without a true type of morality and ethics.
    And since the burgeoning of Wicca from the 60’s feminist empowerment era, and the 60’s in general, authority, organization and hope of respect of those of whom paved the way gets diminished when that attitude and culture is still present when they get “there” and represent that which was thrown out with the bath water.
    Couple this with the fact that there are parasites and sociopaths, both “so-called” leaders and coveners, that are bane to the Traditionalists or any serious seeker.
    I, a male from NY from  those Female only times and places, through having had my own experiences that simulate what an initiatory tradition could have provided but then I could not culturally fit, for one reason or another. I had to go solitary. It is only after decades, and going where reputable long standing elders show up, do I get any type of recognition. The true ” The Wicca” and those religious and make stuff up as they go, to stroke their ego types, (sociopaths that have their enablers attack you) do every thing they can to keep you out their section of the community. Then I watch what larger community re-fragment.
    When you see it coming, and people are conditioned to isolate themselves, sociopaths and narcissists take full advantage of that. Groups can’t get as big as they used to because of this influx and conditioning to respond to these types of people.
    I haven’t seen one group in 20 years that teaches meditation anymore. The last Elder (now Past- Lady Amethyst) that taught anything about energy, vibration, and the reason for ritual adherence. Nor have I seen anyone speak to building an astral framework and ritual space except for Thorn Coyle.
    I just listened to an Ifa traditionalists where the one Baba wanted to get people back to talk about the magical and spiritual work that the various paths of the Oriesha have versus the surface rituals and practices that people do. It is endemic to the spirituality of many traditions.
    And it is part of the mainstream culture. No one trusts anyone, no group, no leader and wouldn’t know who to trust, to say that is a leader and for these reasons. People don’t waste time to listen to reasons, history, or exercise their own brain and abilities to think it through for themselves. People follow what gives them those feels, with no idea what or where it comes from, or who is manipulating it and how.
    The Elders who try to teach any of these truly empowering things are shown the door with some sort of social kick in the pants.
    There are few,  who have good solid working traditions and people earnestly supporting them, If what you say is true makes you and yours rare of what and whom I know.
    Here is the by-word, community, and by that diversity and leadership. Who do you trust, and how do you cultivate leaders? A tribe has those and multiple societies with different religious and spiritual traditions, along with a warrior, women’s, men’s and other practical day in and day out societies. That is what my group is working on. And yes we get next to zero interest. They don’t see a value in it. They want to see what’s in it for them.
    And the Elders that say they are retiring from Wicca and going to more traditional witchcraft, being a witch, wizard, is the continuing study of self, lore and magical practices, and extending their relationship with the divine and nature, without being impeded by those who have made Wicca an altogether stultifying but small organized religion, managed by many, by many standards, who couldn’t earn a traditional third degree. Those who see the Gods and the spirits know.
    And nowadays, vampires, the added extra bonus of spiritual environment and sociopaths, do what I want versus in perfect love and trust. Every larger meetup or gathering I go to, I and my group have to protect people from them. Witch by definition is what you do for yourself. Wicca is a religion and a framework, for some these magical training traditions. Shamans learn to serve a tribe. No Tribe, no community, no reliance on wisdom of elders, but the self serving of each little group manipulating each other. Yes many of us have had to survive, recuperate from burnout, or just be a victim of abuse.

    Those of you have survived with a cadre of an honest tradition. I salute you.
    I have seen Elders from various traditions manage to work together for a time here and there. The underlying lack of structure, and that thing that is a hypocritical stone stuck in my throat, working by consensus, that develops only the most skilled of the emotional manipulating leaders, that drive the core founders and workers away, no there won’t be a coherent community honoring Elders.
    Again I am doing what I can to teach. Many are concerned with who I trained under, what traditions and how successful I’ve been without any context or understanding of what I know. The paucity of capable people who have had any adept experiences are few and the rest fake it, while flaunting a more marketable feel good group. People will get what they get.
    Now that I put myself out here, I expect to be hammered. Have at it.
    Most of those who have responded to this post what you say is true and good, and from your sets of experiences, I have seen also. I just hope the one thing in pagan communities are not interested in is community and leadership and culture is the very thing that they need. And now without any good culture to be based off of, one must be created to be a model not only for ourselves, but for the world.
    Archonstone

    peopleembrachingchange.com