Outline – From Inner Understanding to Activism

 

　

Outline – From Inner Understanding to Activism

Evolutionary Revolution 1A

　

Understanding cultural, societal issues is inexorably tied to defining our personal, individual issues. We can't work through issues out in the world until we have a clear idea of our own.

1. To understand the denial we've been inappropriately infected with requires first understanding the depth of grief process to which a human life cycle is exposed.

2. Every loss triggers a grief response. In balanced circumstances the response is commensurate with the loss.

3. Once we understand the reactionary, dysfunctional grief responses to the multitude of losses each of us experiences we can understand the sources of our dissatisfaction, frustration, and fear.

4. Unresolved grief never, ever goes away.

5. Recognizing, understanding, and working through our unresolved grief - becoming current with our grief - opens us to balanced experience of light/love.

6. Of equal importance, being current with our grief allows us to deal with the darkness, which is as inevitable an experience in our life as breathing out after breathing in, without resistance or guilt. The darkness is not one bit lighter or less painful, but we pass through it in the shared presence of our community.

7. In the balance of that environment we can for the first time open ourselves to the transcendence that is at the heart of love. It is then that we can open ourselves to our own, unique, individual spiritual path.

8. It's after we can direct our lives and follow our path that we can finally look about us and begin to see how the same process that has so damaged us, has mired our social, political, economic, and spiritual institutions in patterns counter to the needs of the people.

These few sentences can't share what needs to be shared. I have previously suggested it was possible to present an overview in an hour. I think I was wrong. It might well be more like two hours - and some extra time for questions. And that’s only a bare-bones explanation of the Overview.

Most often the objection I hear to even discussing these issues is –

“You want to change everything, do something about everything? It’s too much, it’s just too much.”

Here’s my response. I've repeated this at least a thousand times in the last thirty plus years. A Buddhist teacher once told me –

"... You want to make changes out there in the world? Look to your own heart. Then be totally in the moment. Be open to that moment. You will always know what needs to be done in that moment. Watch what happens. Watch the changes."

I've tried to live that advice every day since then. Everything that I’ve been involved in that has had positive results, at the St. Francis Center, the Fredericksburg Hospice, Sena Foundation, both books, Quicksilver Times, and in my personal life, has come as a result of that lesson. I've failed at it so often, still do every day, especially in all the love relationships I've been so lucky to have experienced. Failed so often and so many. But the failure was always mine, my self-absorption, my greed, my laziness. The lesson is true. And me? I'm working on it.

Can we do this? To quote a great man, “Yes we Can!”

The thing is… If you’re fulfilled, if your life is in balance and your world – the way you see it out there – is balanced and working well, go on about your business. But if you’re not fulfilled, if your world is as out of balance as your heart, take a look. Listen. Read. Think. Ask questions.

No one at Sena Foundation or Quicksilver Times wants your money. No one wants to control you, or manipulate you. It’s all about sharing.

There’s a new Translation in a state of becoming. Sena Foundation and Quicksilver Times, Remembered Gifts and New Directions and White Man Dancing – Grief, God, and A Unified Theory, are part of a Telling, as are the SF & QST Facebook pages and this blog.

You understand. You hear…



love,



bill



What to do, What to do?

 

What to do, What to do?

　

In response to recent posts I’ve received comments that ask – In the face of such massive, global-wide dysfunction, and given the almost incomprehensible complexity of making fundamental changes to world-wide systems, What Can We Do?

Here is what we can do -

First stand up. Speak out. Look, study, commit. Talk about it, think about it. Ask about it. Help us find like minded folks who will begin to come together to discuss how to:

1. Define the connection between denial of mortality and grief and the culture of "More"

2. Design an alternative to Capitalism

3. Define political process (Government) in a Quicksilver Times Evolutionary/Revolutionary environment

4. Find and create group affiliations.

5. Reach out to, and connect with world workers

6. Define specifics of population control

7. Design political action that is in keeping with concepts and values of QST

8. Define and create an environment of sexual freedom that will allow each individual to fully experience her/his sexuality.

9. Encourage spiritual perspective based on re-defined spiritual values identified on Quicksilver Times and in White Man Dancing – Grief, God, and a Unified Theory.

Each of these topics is essential – and more may need to be defined as the path unfolds – to making the fundamental changes that must be made to heal the systemic, planet wide dysfunction and move towards balance.

In addition to communicating via Internet we need to design meetings, workshops, and retreats where we begin to meet with folks in person. The power of the Internet has been co-opted by the massive amount of drivel out there at any given moment.

We can gather momentum, we can define and share, but, finally, we have to stand in each other’s presence and be seen by the community at large. Just as this Evolution/Revolution will grow one heart at a time, it will be recognized and valued when it manifests out here in the real world one group, one meeting, one physical manifestation at a time.

Right now we are involved in defining and organizing. Does it feel overwhelming? Oh, yes. But the key is remembering that no individual is responsible for making any of this happen. The singular responsibility is to do your part – and you do your part not “for the good of the world,” but for yourself. Because it’s the only way to understand the next step on your own path. It’s a beautiful example of appropriate selfishness. It’s a lovely paradox. The only way to truly serve yourself is to serve the world.



love,



bill 



Ethnic Cleansing – Israel vs. Palestine – History vs. Propaganda

 

 

 

Ethnic Cleansing – Israel vs. Palestine – History vs. Propaganda

 

　

What a sad but important post this is.

 

Israel – victims of the millennia. Horrors beyond reason. Birthers of a lost nation.

 

We in the west grew up on the horror and the mystery and the wonder of it.

 

We thought we knew. But we didn’t.

 

Some of us traveled a decades long, disillusioning, disheartening path, achingly disappointed in the way Israel dealt with their Palestinian co-residents. And we thought we knew.

 

 

But we didn’t.

 

Ilan Pape, an Israeli Jew wrote The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine in 2006. Few of us here in the west, especially in the United States, have heard of it. But we need to. And we need to read it.

 

Mr. Pape points out with vivid clarity and deep emotion how, just three years after the end of the Second World War - and the horror of the Holocaust - the fledgling Israeli government carried out a program of ethnic cleansing against the Palestinians. It's a sad book to read. The evidence Mr. Pape presents is overwhelming. Under direction from, and in complicity with the entire Israeli leadership, Israeli armed forces executed men, women, and children, and banished hundreds of thousands of resident Arabs. Mr. Pape presents verifiable evidence - complete with pictures.

 

One example –

 

　

 

                                                                    Deir Yassin

…On 9 April 1948, Jewish forces occupied the village of Deir Yassin. It lay on a hill west of Jerusalem, eight hundred metres above sea level and close to the Jewish neighbourhood of Givat Shaul.

 

The old village school serves today as a mental hospital for the western Jewish neighbourhood that expanded over the destroyed village. As they burst into the village, the Jewish soldiers sprayed the houses with machine-gun fire, killing many of the inhabitants. The remaining villagers were then gathered in one place and murdered in cold blood, their bodies abused while a number of the women were raped and then killed.6 Fahim Zaydan, who was twelve years old at the time, recalled how he saw his family murdered in front of his eyes: They took us out one after the other; shot an old man and when one of his daughters cried, she was shot too. Then they called my brother Muhammad, and shot him in front us, and when my mother yelled, bending over him – carrying my little sister Hudra in her hands, still breastfeeding her – they shot her too.7

 

Zaydan himself was shot, too, while standing in a row of children the Jewish soldiers had lined up against a wall, which they had then sprayed with bullets, ‘just for the fun of it’, before they left. He was lucky to survive his wounds. Recent research has brought down the accepted number of people massacred at Deir Yassin from 170 to ninety-three. Of course, apart from the victims of the massacre itself, dozens of others were killed in the fighting, and hence were not included in the official list of victims…

 

Pappe, Ilan (2007-09-07). The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine (Kindle Locations 2062-2066). Oneworld Publications (academic). Kindle Edition.

 

 

This is one example only. The book is 295 pages long. It will share with you each sordid detail.

 

The skewed historical version of the birth of the Jewish state that has been accepted by the non Arabic world is one of the great lies of the twentieth century. The fact that Mr. Pape is an Israeli Jew, not Arabic, should make it easier for folks in the west to take an unflinching look at one of the great historical lies of our time.

 

So often in both the media and in our personal interactions we find that anyone who seems to give credence to the grievances of the Arabs is accused of being anti-Semitic. "Why do the Arabs hate the Jews so?" This book can help us understand.

 

“Why do they hate us here in the west?” Maybe this book will help us understand why Arabs judge us by our allies.

 

Please understand. What is being shared here, what Mr. Pape illuminates for us, doesn’t suggest an endorsement of the excesses of Arab extremists.

 

But –

 

 

Mr. Pape suggests that peace in the Middle East is dependent on Israel taking responsibility for what they inflicted on the Palestinian people. He's right.

 

What's done can't be changed. But if both sides will take responsibility for their actions perhaps they will have the courage and compassion to approach healing in the way the South Africans did after the end of Apartheid.

 

If Quicksilver Times is to begin the long, monumentally difficult process of identifying the denial/greed based dysfunctional patterns of our social, political, economic, and spiritual institutions we have be clear about what the real history of the last century has been. Creating what is an evolutionary/revolutionary movement requires us to be clear about the point from which we start.

 

So it’s imperative that we take the blinders off, look clearly at the true state of affairs – and understand the history that has brought us to this point.

 

If we are clear about our situation then the task of designing new equitable institutions based on justice, equality, and true spiritual values, while formidable in the extreme, begins with clarity and a solid foundation.

 

It’s time to TALK ABOUT IT. Doncha’ think?


love,


bill

　

Poem

http://www.trueactivist.com/gab_gallery/the-banker/

The Banker Airs His Views On The Right Of The Elite To Control Everyone's Lives. A Must Watch For Anyone Who Is Angry About The Current Financial Situation!

Performed By Mike Daviot
Written,Directed and Produced By: Craig-James Moncur

Draw Attention?

YES. Watch! But after recognizing the truth of this video, shouldn't we, like, DO SOMETHING?

Blog - www.quicksilvertimes.blogspot.com

Facebook - http://www.facebook.com/pages/Quicksilver-Times/200014026693900

Net Site - www.quicksilvertimes.org

Have ideas - will share...

Please Join us -  love, bill



Reality and the nature of Sesame Noodles

Reality and the Nature of Sesame Noodles

November 1, 2012

I’m off the flesh wagon. Again.

Decades of adhering to the premise that respecting what you kill and consume, stepping each day closer to consciousness – as your moment, strength, and attention allows, and attending to love while recognizing if not always accepting the darkness, have brought me another epiphany. Of sorts. Stimulated by the solitary darkness and intermittent  flashes of light on Interstate Highway 95, after four or five hours of sharing middle-of-the-night rhythm with truckers and a few other four wheel night riders, the near meditative silence and mind clearing passage of time has awakened me. Again.

It came unbidden to mind. “Not the time to be eating flesh.” That simple, really. So after twenty-five years of no flesh, followed by about twenty-five years of fleshing, I’m off the stuff again. For how long? Don’t know. It’s not the issue. No flesh today.

On that black night, all alone on the road, that “Poor Man’s Epiphany” has re-centered me.

Seems a pivotal time has come. Again.  

All the new work – Quicksilver Times and all that entails, Live broadcasts identifying issues and directions understood now - after forty years of study and struggle, Finally getting the 78 half hour Sharing the Seasons TV series programs digitized and up on the Sena Foundation You Tube channel, Reprising the Sharing the Seasons series itself, Preparing for a spring kickoff of Quicksilver Times Talking Tour – all seem suspended. Just…waiting.

The primary focus of the moment is White Man Dancing – Grief, God, and a Unified Theory. The book is finished. Thanks to Becca Fitzgerald the editing is completed. The letter to Agents/Publishers is strong and ready to be sent. A list of Agents and Publishers has been compiled. www.sena.org has been updated so the first book, Remembered Gifts and New Directions, and the TV series are highlighted. www.quicksilvertimes , the Facebook page, and this blog are in place and active.

All that’s left is to send the book out there.

The last couple of years have been consistent in, if not rejecting ideas, programs, and projects we’ve begun, they’ve certainly displayed a yawning disinterest. I can, rightly, explain away that lack of acceptance by taking responsibility for not presenting our work appropriately, and for not being able to fully understand and use the media and technology available to us.

                                                                                                                              

I also know that the primary motivation for the work must not be in the apparent success or failure of our sharing. We do the work because it’s the right thing to do. We present because it is the truth. My mind uses what has now become cliché, “Stand for what you believe – even if you’re the only one standing.”

It’s become my standard in the last decade.

So now, with White Man Dancing – Grief, God, and a Unified Theory finished and safely tucked in its’ digital nook on several computer hard drives, it too seems in suspension.

The moment brings to mind a moment in a kid’s sorta book I just finished a few days ago. (Lol, it I suspect, will receive the same reception as everything else sent outward the last few years.)

Pancake Pendleton is a boy who has been smooshed flat by a billboard for Papa Peter’s Pancake Emporium. He’s been caught up – literally – in a Derechos (You know, one of the huge new storms our Global Warming may be spawning) and has flown all the way from Sheboygan Wisconsin to Bowling Green, Virginia. And yes, he is a distant cousin of Flat Stanley.

"...Pancake Pendleton broke free of the wind. For a moment or two he felt suspended there, motionless, between the earth and the sky. Held by some magical force that would keep him balanced there, at peace, forever. But forever is a realllly long time.

We don’t know how long that beautiful forever moment lasted for Pancake Pendleton. But it for sure wasn’t forever...."

It feels like that right now here in the real world, or what passes for the real world. I accept the moment can’t be forever. I’m seventy-three; I’ve at least learned that.

But there’s a part of me that wants to hold on here, not face the probability, no, the almost certainty that White Man dancing, Grief, God, and a Unified Theory will languish in some digital cranny of the ethers.

I’m prepared for that, I just don’t have to be overjoyed about it.

I can look ahead and understand that “This is the way the work ends, this is the way the work ends, this is the way the work ends, not with a bang, not even with a whimper, but with a series of quiet ‘Phhhllaaats’” – to shamelessly maul T.S. Elliot.

What begins to hover about the edges of my understanding is that this might be a greater season of change than I have been anticipating. Yet in the quiet, inevitable entropy of each heartbeat, each rising sun, I find the middle way, which for many decades was a tightrope made of Teflon coated piano wire, is now a path. The cautionary note about that, of course, is that at the moment I’m without pain – physical, mental, or spiritual. The darkness is real but momentarily a memory.

In the balance of what Pancake Pendleton would call a forever moment that he knows will end soon, I see the nature of reality adjusted.

But as White Man Dancing says, UNDERSTAND, the words lie.

Yet here they are.

Look to the new Physics. There in the physical nature of being and not being, in the measurable nature of movement and stillness, there is a portal to transcendence. Consciousness, intelligence is not measured by memory, memorization, or marking, but by opening and acceptance.

It’s in the opening, in the acceptance and the environment the middle way accesses that transcendence is experienced.

Find your way. There are as many as there are moments.

See?

Pancake Pendleton was right. The moment ended.

Now it’s to the exercise. The book must be sent out. The broadcasts must be planned. The videos must be digitized. The Quicksilver Times Talking Tour must be planned. And it is time to again to STAND UP!

Come on and help. Share.

Sesame Noodles? It’s what I’m making the family for dinner tonight.


love,


bill

Well, There's Googley Plus, You Know

Well, There's Googley Plus, You Know

OK. Been around googley+ a few months. Been hanging out on the Internet since before there was an aol. At the moment googley+ is to FB what compu-serve was to aol.

The issue, I think, is one of balance. fb seems an endless sludge of contra-productive information. To find coherent, conscious, meaningful communication your fb search, and patience, must be exemplary.

googley+, on the other hand, offers a safe medium in which to explore all manner of valuable pursuits. But is the search for communication and sharing that relates to looking at and becoming involved with real social, political, economic, and spiritual change any more evident?

All the "smart folks" are here, bringing us intricate, focused insight into science, technology, art, belly button spiritualism, and so much more.

But if all that information and sharing in the end allows us to maintain our denial and not center our moment on the profound issues and solutions accessible to us, then for all of our intellectual exercise, no matter how right minded our intent, what little movement there is here on googley+ it's really only babbling - just like the fb'ers

The inability to use the incredible power offered to us to communicate freely and meaningfully through the explosion of technology and the Internet will be the failure our grand kids look to when trying to understand why we did not come together and look to the real issues.

I see it, and this makes me sad.

So here are three sites. Lets Talk?

Blogspot - www.quicksilvertimes.blogspot.com

Facebook- http://www.facebook.com/pages/Quicksilver-Times/200014026693900

Net Site - www.quicksilvertimes.org

love,

bill