The only thing fascism is good for 
is fueling resistance to fascism.

Resistance doesn't care what its chances are--
it knows what its purpose is:

Liberty!
Justice!
Equality!
Truth!

Fascists are totalitarian,
oppressive/repressive,
despotic,
absolutist,
evil.

Republicans are fascists
saying, "Oh, my goodness, no,
we are not fascists!"

Do not listen to anything they say,
see what they do.

Vote as though the future of 
Liberty!
Justice!
Equality!
Truth!
is in your hands.

As though you are democracy's only hope.

Vote for the Democrat--
vote against the Republican--
in all races great and small,
forever.

–0–

We have an adversarial relationship
with our circumstances.
We step into them 
looking for ways to turn them 
to our advantage,
to wrest what we want from them,
to make them serve us 
and our idea of how things ought to be.

We never step into one
saying, "Well, well, what have we here?
What seems to be happening?
What is called for 
in service of the true good
of the circumstances as a whole?
What needs to happen here?
How can I help with the gifts
I have to offer--
my original nature
and my innate virtues/characteristics/
specialties/interests?
How can I make things here better
by the way I respond to them here/now?"

But, here we are, now.
And nothing says
we can't turn things around
and begin looking at every circumstance
as an opportunity to live there
in ways that are good for the people
who share it with us.

No?

–0–

I think all living things have similar experiences
with being alive.
The more conscious we are 
of what we are experiencing,
the more alive we are--
alive to the moment,
to the here/now,
of our experience,
is to be alive to that moment.
The less consciously aware we are,
the less alive we are.

Experiencing our experience
includes experiencing our reaction
to our experience.

Consciousness is wasted on a lot of people.
They may as well be rocks,
or toads.
Toads may be more consciously alive
than a lot of people.

Don't be one of those people.
Practice being aware here/now.
Awake to what is happening,
to what needs to be done in response,
to what our response is
to what we are doing about our response,
to what is happening here/now...

Awareness is all practice.
What's happening?
What is called for?
What are we doing?
Now what's happening?
What is called for?
What are we doing?
...

Being aware of being present 
with/in the moment,
and what the moment is calling for,
and what we are doing about it
moves us into the position 
of observing our experience
and our response to our experience--
and out of the position 
of being robots going through 
the motions of being alive
while being mostly dead.

–0–

Emergency room personnel have it down,
doing what needs to be done
with whatever comes through the door.

It is their business to meet all circumstances
with what is called for
without allowing their emotional reactions
to get in the way.

We would do well to train ourselves
to deal with all of our circumstances
in the same way.

If we spill the milk,
we clean up the milk.
If the car has a flat
we take the appropriate measures
to get the flat fixed
or a new tire purchased.
Etc. all day every day
for the rest of our life.

Just deal with it
with no editorial embellishment.

No expectations.
No opinions.
Only: See! Do!

Each situation that arises
has its source in the circumstances
that produce it.

It is ridiculous to take personally
anything that crops up,
much less everything.

Be the emergency room physician,
nurse,
technician,
dealing professionally with the moment
in every moment--
without being emotionally involved,
upset,
reactive.

Get up and do what needs to be done,
and be ready to do it again
in the next moment.

Live as though you have nothing at stake
in your life.

Think about it.
What do you have at stake in your life?
Nothing means anything
we don't permit it to mean.

So what if the flood waters wash away
our possessions?
We begin the task of putting things together
with our best effort to meet 
the demands of the day
from day to day.
It is a grim task, to be sure,
but it means nothing to us personally,
only logistically and financially.

Be the emergency room physician,
nurse,
technician,
doing what the circumstances call for
without being undone by things we don't control.

Situation by situation
all our life long.

–0–

I take silence seriously,
and solitude,
and emptiness.

Everything flows from there,
and leads to there,
like the tide going out
and coming in.

I take humor seriously.
Balancing opposites.
Harmonizing discordances.
Inner with outer,
yes with no,
Yin with Yang...

Letting everything be what it is,
as it is,
because it is,
and watching/seeing how things fall out
around/with everything else.

I hate crowds and noise,
and keep my distance
as much as possible,
and accommodate/acquiesce
when required by circumstances.

I love circumstances.
The source of everything,
The end of everything,
though nothing ever ends
actually,
only apparently so,
spinning on eternally--
a part of circumstances
impacting circumstances,
creating circumstances,
noise,
complexity,
drama,
trauma,
seeking the peace
of emptiness,
stillness,
silence
of the AUM
at the heart of it all,
in the dance of life and being,
light and darkness,
realization and laughter,
all without end,
the loop of infinity
being infinite.

What a party to be a part of,
hating parties,
loving parties,
discordant harmonies,
seeking AUM...

And the dance goes on.
There is only the dance (Eliot).

–0–

Our circumstances are always asking/requiring/demanding
something of us.

We are always locked into an eternal and everlasting
struggle with our circumstances,
trying to impose our way on the way things are.

It doesn't have to be this way.

We can be at war with our circumstances,
or, we can dance with our circumstances.

The choice is ours,
one circumstance at a time.

–0–

There is what we do to earn a living,
and there is what we live to do.

Too many of us get earning a living down
without having anything to live for,
and fall into the pit
of drugs, sex, alcohol, money, or some other addiction,
immersing ourselves in attractive
distractions, diversions, and entertaining pastimes,
with nothing of interest to do--
and walk past hordes of people like us every day.

Living lost in the wasteland of discontent,
with no idea of what to do with themselves
or what they might be here for
and drinking beer for breakfast
to ease their way into the day.

This could be a country song.

It is certainly the basis of countless
country songs,
written about other people
by people who live to write songs
about the people who have nothing better to do
than listen to songs about themselves
sung by people who, for the most part,
are not like them.

How do we stop the action
and get this all sorted out,
with truck drivers driving trucks,
and auto mechanics wrenching their way
through the days,
and shoe salespersons selling shoes,
teachers teaching,
scientists sciencing,
and politicians mucking things up for everyone?

(The thing about politicians 
is that they are not in the business
of making things the way they think things ought to be,
but of making things the way they ought to be.
There is no agreement among us about how things ought to be.
And no way to get there, it seems,
so there is no wonder that things are the way they are.
We don't know how things ought to be,
except to say they ought NOT be like this!)

How do we get from here to there?
Particularly when no one is listening to anyone?

Each of us has to take it upon ourselves
to sit down, shut up, be still and quiet
until the dawning comes.

Until then, when people ask us what we are doing,
we tell them we are waiting for the dawning to come,
and go back to being still and quiet, waiting.

If you have a better idea,
by all means, 
hop to it!

–0–

Our place is to be who we are,
where we are,
when we are,
in ways that are true to our original nature
and our innate virtues/characteristics
in each situation as it arises.

We have all we need to do this,
and it only requires the proper portion
of emptiness, stillness and silence
to know what we know,
be aware of what is happening
and what is called for in response,
do the right thing,
at the right time
in the right place
and in the right way,
with the gifts that are ours to offer.

Babies come into the world
knowing how to do that,
but things interfere with our
ability to remember it over time.

Jesus came to remind us with his,
"Unless you turn and become like children,
you will never get to 'the still point
of the turning world' (TS Eliot), were
you can know what you know
and do what needs to be done about it,
through all that comes your way."

Everything we need is always
right here right now
if we empty ourselves 
of all that is distracting our attention
and enter the silent stillness,
waiting to see what calls our name
urging us to action in rising to the occasion,
meeting our circumstances
and dancing with what must be danced with
through all that remains of time.

–0–

It is easy enough to toss out theology
and re-interpret the entire Bible
as a treatise on the order of the Odyssey
about the path to maturity and grace.

But the draw of being magically in control
of our future and our destiny
is too compelling to set aside,
so we tell the tales 
as though they are about
what they are said to be about
and not about living to do what needs to be done
even if it means dying to our idea
of how things ought to be here/now
in each situation as it arises,
all our life long.

Never mind that that constitutes 
the "Jesus-ness" of Jesus
and the calling of each of us
from birth to death along life's way. 

–0–

We lived on the edge of the 22-acre woods in Indian Land, South Carolina (But, it is all Indian land, you know, and, before them, it was just land. I wonder how long it will be before the land returns to its original pristineness and is glad to "just be" again at last), for ten years or so. 

We cleared out the underbrush on HOA property and claimed it for our own, planting ferns and "rescuing" from eventual development Wild Ginger, Sumac, Woods Sorrel and accent stones from the woods, and setting up what I called "The Zen Glen," with a hammock, bird feeders and a bird bath, and waited for things to happen. 

The hammock was a blind of sorts in that I was blind to the birds and creatures of the woods when I was in the hammock and parallel to the ground. I did not mean anything to them there.

One spring when a family of Carolina Wrens were out with the new hatch just learning to fly and going everywhere, looking at everything, one new Wren flitted up and perched on the toe of my shoe for about five seconds, looked me over and flitted on. I was neither a threat nor interesting. 

I took advantage of that by taking pictures of citizens of the woods for as long as my knees allowed the trek back and forth from the house, and miss those times of lying back in the scene, waiting for something to come along. 

"The halcyon days of yore," I think of them, glad to have had them, and glad to have held them close and let them go-- which is the catchy title of a book about raising/rearing children, "Hold them close and let them go," that I don't recommend beyond its title. 

The hammock was also good for silence, stillness and emptiness, which together constitute the bedrock of spiritually/connection with the invisible world of more than can be said/told/explained, and can only be experienced/known as the moved can only hope to know the mover. 

I don't know what serves as a hammock for you, but I know you have to go there often and stay there long enough each time to develop the knack of just being with yourself and reflecting on the experience that enables/allows to the point of new realizations, and see where it goes.

We know what is right for us
and what is wrong for us,
where we belong
and where we have no business being.

So, what's the problem?

Knowing what we know is the problem,
and doing what needs to be done about it.

Our practice has to be
knowing what we know
and doing what needs to be done about it.

This is our duty.
It is what we are born for,
who we are built to be--
with fealty,
liege loyalty
and filial devotion--
knowing what needs to be done,
and doing it when, where and how
it needs to be done.

No matter what.

–0–