under a fuchsia sky

It is a trick of the human mind to sweeten our past and dissect our present thus the term fond memories, as if the past was our personal interactive 20th century movie and the present is all that is real, true, yes, but still we dress ourselves in comparisons with then and now, now and then to the point that now is a jagged edge of zigging and zagging events and nonevents while events from the past have a way of being some scripted kind of rise to salvation where everything was bent towards happily ever after.  In our physical present it is not happily ever after, rather in many cases sheer survival.  According to memory, all was less arduous to bear in the past, we sort of sailed through rough spots arriving intact to today only to ponder again the question of The Open Boat: Why, how, after all the harrowing and resolved thrills of then, did we, do we, arrive here, in this long, drawn out series of worsening, humiliating conflicts, personal and political?  Maybe I'm just feeling a way today and maybe not.  Maybe in the cold clear light of this winter morning seeing January present itself as early May, we can say "Hold it, this never happened before, but it is happening now."  If we are still around in ten years, will this particular time zone presently under today's experience be fond?  Most of you reading here will say no, that decade was a run up to TEOTWAKI and the present is engulfed in world wide suffering and upheaval, although its always been that way we just did not realize how ruthless is the journey of life in the long run. We did not grasp the fall out of war.  Worse, we drastically underestimated suffering.  We underestimated evil.  You will think this is new.  It is new when its new to us. 

We are in a precarious stage at the present. It is a malevolent present, portending worse to come and this attitude is fully accepted as the way it is, as if we are caught helplessly in some satanic vice squeezing out our ability to self-resurrect.  Everyday we go through the motions, in freefall designed by ourselves for self-preservation while completely unknown to ourselves as the architects of our experience.  Nothing we do has impact on the mass psychosis of the present while everything we do is consciously performed to create our perceived version of what route the future takes.  Everyone has their crutches.  Some garden extensively, others meditate or count on whatever saving grace is available to them to reroute their tomorrows and when tomorrow becomes today did it help or was it just more whirling in freefall while time marched on?

Migrant workers housing Weedpatch government camp,
watercololor on Arches

Overpopulation is perhaps the greatest and least acknowledged problem here.  All those minds with bodies coming from every angle and more, all of them needing something to do and they do it.  In this respect, the past was better, overpopulation had not yet reached the density it has today and will reach, regardless of population watchers telling us it is leveling-off in certain more educated (spelled western) societies.  When the Industrial Revolution's blind detour is corrected, as it cannot help but be corrected, overpopulation will bulge out into anything it can grab to survive and see itself as worthy of having existence which is just an extension of what we already see.  Overpopulation has rights, legal personhood, it is a protected condition encouraged by child molesters.  As humans are boxed-in more efficiently into accepting no life, still more life is on the way ensuring no life at all for anything breathing.  Ran Prieur once said our planet could likely support overpopulation, the real problem was mismanagement, an observation that may well be correct, he's a pretty smart observer.  But since human nature is an iffy proposition in general, beneficial management of seven billion minds may not be possible regardless of management.  Many so-called humans are equally as predatory as animals.  Once someone sets themselves up mentally as an authority, something happens to their humility.  They tend to focus on top down control benefiting themselves and whatever good intentions originally drove them are lost, usually forever.  For example, our leaders of today are not leading.  Over time they have become biased towards self-interest and deathmatch concealment of personal motive.  In this way, they are like a pack of dogeared baseball cards, traded and finding completeness in sets.  It is impossible to integrate them into the general population again, the line was crossed, the pacts permanently sealed.  They hang out with each  other, using each other as yardsticks and justification, its the civilized way, imitation is flattery.  And yet, we know thanks to the news under the news, its more than flattery, its denial by design.  Have you been denied lately?  Oh, you have?  One hundred times a day every single day?  Nights too?  It wasn't always that way, was it.  I do not recall seeing horizontal blinking colored lights floating in the heavens, the Flying J's of the Universe, begging for attention from possible passersby.

I'm in agreement with bholanath who commented last week on the flexible timetable of prophecy.  What we have here is a steadily deteriorating situation without foreseeable schedules.  Name one edict, one plan, one rollback or reform that halts the onslaught of worse.  You see, once it started it could not be stopped and here we are in growing lunacy contrary to all things good and right. I don't have any answers as nonspecific thunder rumbles in the background with lightening bolts scattering over any sequestered region/s self-possessed and sustainable under most conditions, but let me welcome you to the new conditions.  Oh, its official.  These are the new conditions and so much worse is on the way I cannot imagine it.  I've tried.  So embroiled in what was are we that what is to come has no reality.  Must we delve into corruption to be decent?  When everything appears to be heading into chaos, must we too be chaotic?  Scrambling for breathing room, dirty dealing, concealing our one true deepest and inescapable motive, that of our own survival?   No.  J'objecte!

Aside from the occasional personal niceties, the mailbox bears very bad will.  Everyday it is jammed with corruption.  If you want to bring bad karma into your home, get the mail, open it, sign the forms and send them back in the self-addressed, no postage required envelopes now obese with forms filled to completion.  It is a guaranteed self-fulfilling nightmare that will return again and again with more papers, more signature lines, more coercions in ever increasing sizes of packets until you are bleary with exhaustion even before the cell phone chimes with hundreds of unknown phone numbers, heh, kinda like a chain letter, the returns are amazing, but what is more amazing is the masses are actually participating and if they are not participating, where are the objections?  Some of us who are amazed would have made excellent fish, refusing to bite the bait and all.  But the creators of bait catch enough fish to make the expense worthwhile or they wouldn't do it.  Do beware, the trawlers are working now and its sink or swim.

Do note also that no one is stepping up to the microphones to make promises of aid following Pakistan's 7.4 earthquake at the northeast border with Afghanistan (massacre alert, clear the property alert, evacuate immediately alert) or offering C-130s to evacuate flood victims and carry medical supplies and food to anguished Australians and South Africans.  They don't even bother anymore, they're too busy watching Baby Doc free himself in order to power grab during Haiti's election crises before HAARPing on sudden shifts in the tectonic plates.  There's a lot to watch on their phone screens besides porn.  Mostly they watch Hu since his last visit was accompanied with little if any fanfare and now, trillions in national debt, likely quadrillions in world debt, Hu gets his state dinner.  All the little things going down add up.  They won't deny what is happening, they must deny it to the bond holders or there will be margin calls.  While we stretch out what is left of our days, languishing in doubt and wonder, China turns into us and we become the cheap knock-off we were merely slightly known for once upon a time by any astute travelers who left the state and discovered the real thing.  It seems that China created its wealth from the US buyer so its only right the US be bailed out by them, at least temporarily, but isn't this how wars begin?  Anyone challenging our financials, our imperial rights, should be cautious, it looks like the whole thing is going to blow.  Yes, I know, there are many reasons going all the way back to repeal of Glass-Stegall that brought us so low so fast, and it was fast.  Faster than we recall since everything was rosy then.  And now ... well I needn't go into it further.  They say it is always darkest before the dawn. 

Bulletin board:

Please do not miss bholanath's video, Kali Stuti, I downloaded it to the library and played it again late Saturday night reminding myself we are truly blessed to be among musical genius.  It is shockingly, hauntingly exquisite and takes you far into the realm of great beauty and holiness.  If you already played it, all I can say is Play it Again and again.  Every time I hear it there are previously undiscovered nuances.

Prayers of gratitude and pure love are due for Susana Su-nami who saved her son's chance at a full life over the past week in an agonizing balancing act completing a perfect Yin Yang. 
Blessings abound, one love.

The Cycle of Life