Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category

AOL’s purchase of The Huffington Post brings into full illumination a very important point: It’s never been more necessary that you be an independent thinker. While the AOL-HuffPo deal is not the first example of how “news” becomes corrupted by power grabs and political agendas (General Electric owns NBC…hello?…all that Brian Williams “green speak”), it does shine a bright light on the biased-laden way we are being fed information. Add to this the viral aspect of how technology has overtaken our lives and you have a surefire recipe for mind manipulation.

Enter the Independent Thinker.

While there is not much any one individual can do to impede or prohibit the unhealthy and   unholy relationships that develop between entities seeking power and influence, there is a great deal one can do about how and from where you obtain your information.

And yes, it takes more time and effort to be your own sleuth and filter… but the rewards are exponential.

Technology is neither inherently good nor bad. It’s inherently neutral. It’s what we do with it that counts. Kind of  like “guns don’t kill people, people kill people.”  If you allow news and information to be inputted by 1) clicking on a home page  2) reading the headlines 3) occasionally clicking through to the complete story and 4) exiting without further inquiry or validating sources well… then… you’re being manipulated by someone with an agenda and your thoughts are not your own.

If, however, you read multiple sources, questions assertions, investigate sources and check alternative views, challenge even your own findings, then you are on the road to forming your own thoughts and drawing your own conclusions based upon reasonable inquiry.

This is why you have a mind to begin with.

History is replete with people who sought power for its own sake… and for less than noble ends.  Their means have always been the same. Exploitation and manipulation. The 21st century brings unprecedented opportunity to affect equally ignoble ends on a grander scale than ever imagined.

As has forever been the case, it is the individual, thinking for him or herself… and ready to stand with their self-drawn conclusions… that acts to impede the greed of the few as against the well-being of the many.

Take the time and devote the effort to how you feed your mind.

One person with one mind has the capacity to change the world.

Note:  Ironically this was the first post ever entered at Gold Post It.  Its was published May 7, 2007.  I copy and enter it here in memory of Sargent Shriver who died this week at age 95.

I have just read Sarge: The Life and Times of Sargent Shriver.  Most people under the age of 50 know him, if at all, as the father of Maria Shriver or, more remotely, the father-in-law of Arnold Schwarzenegger.  If you’re over 50, you more likely know him as the husband of Eunice Kennedy Shriver, founder of the Special Olympics. A few people, comparatively speaking, will know him as the first Director of the Peace Corps during the 1960’s.

But, only a handful know him as perhaps the greatest visionary and architect of social change in this country during the 20th century. The Peace Corps, the Job Corps, Head Start, Legal Services for the Poor, the OEO… the list is staggering in its breadth and scope exceeded, only perhaps, by the breadth and scope of Shriver’s seemingly infinite energy and profoundly motivating impact upon everyone who ever had the privilege to know or work with him.

Yet, in all that I read and learned in the nearly 700 pages of Scott Stossel’s exhaustive work, nothing has given me more pause than one of Shriver’s most noteworthy speeches, first delivered during the presidential campaign season of 1970 and known as “The Politics of Life” speech. In it, Shriver made “a distinction between the politics of life and the politics of death.”

It is this distinction that has crystallized for me where we are today, 37 years later, as we embark upon yet another political season as the field scrambles to determine who will be the Republican and Democrat candidates for President and Vice President in 2008. It seems that we are, once again, enmeshed in politics…the Politics of Fear.

We are already being subjected to campaign rhetoric from both sides.  Fear is a big issue. It’s a big political issue. Each side wants us to fear the other. Republicans want to capitalize on the fear generated by 911 and have you fear the inability of the Democrats to protect you as well as the certainty that they will increase an already oppressive and obscene tax burden. Democrats want you to fear the effects of a Republican-fueled incestuous relationship between government and private corporations, as well as a foreign policy bent upon imposing our military and global vision upon an increasingly unreceptive and hostile international community. Independents want you to fear both the Republicans and the Democrats simply because they are bigger, more powerful and have been around too long. And trumping all of these, global terrorist cells want you to fear Life itself.

So, ’tis the season to be fearful it seems. Or is it?

My father taught me to believe that in every situation, I always have a choice. If you’re religious, call it Free Will. If you’re not, call it the right to self-determination. No matter what you call it, the ability to choose starts with our thoughts.

What will I think about and, by thinking about it, to what will I give my energy?  If I can choose my thoughts, and my choice is between fear and reason, I choose reason.  Why choose otherwise?  If the choice is between fear and courage, I choose courage. Why choose otherwise?  If the choice is between fear and hope, I choose hope. Why choose otherwise?

So the real issue as we prepare for the onslaught of political rhetoric is choice. Choosing to reject the Politics of Fear.

The illusion, or hologram as I like to call it, is that it’s all about choosing between “us” and “them.” In stark contrast, the reality is that it’s all about reclaiming our inherent and divinely forged right to choose what we think about and how we view the world and it’s future. To choose wisely is to choose reason, courage and hope over fear.

Abdicating the choice is not an option. Failing to make the choice yourself will guarantee that someone will make it for you. And with so many marketing “fear” this season, the odds are with them…unless you campaign instead for the Politics of Reason.  As Americans, born and raised with the concept of liberty and the constitutionally mandated right to vote, we understand the importance and significance of free elections. But it seems we have forgotten and worse still, abdicated the greater right to free thought.

This is a critical moment in the evolution of our individual and collective truth. In order for us to move into the Politics of Reason, we must each turn inward, away from these “external marketers of fear,” and make up our own minds about what we think and what we believe has value.

The paradox holds the answer.

Only by going within, by thinking for ourselves, can we all unite as one in the Politics of Reason and by so doing, collectively reject and annihilate the politics of fear.  For me, the timely and lingering message taken from Sargent Shriver’s life is what one mind, thinking for itself, rejecting the politics of fear, can accomplish.

While I definitely have a personal opinion regarding the passage of universal health-care, that’s not the focus here. The focus here is integrity.  After at least two decades of rampant and oftentimes blatant deceit by politicians, it’s just plain heartening to see the outcome of the recent House of Representatives vote to repeal the Health-Care Act.

Why?

Just because the Republicans kept their word.

Those members of Congress who achieved nationwide upsets in the November 2010 elections did so because of  national disgust and growing unrest over the direction in which the country seemed to be headed.  But almost to a candidate, those who prevailed in those Congressional upsets promised to vote to repeal the Health-Care Act.  And so they did

Now whether you were for or against the passage of the Act really isn’t the issue.  The issue is that when someone gives their word they tell you their truth and then act in accordance with it.  Its how the world is supposed to work.  Whether in our personal or public life, maintaining trust and healthy relationships is impossible without integrity.

So I am encouraged by the House of Representative’s vote.  Encouraged to think that when the pendulum swings sufficiently far in one direction it will, in fact, begin to swing back toward the other.  In this regard, we’ve experienced more than a tolerable amount of deceit from our public servants to last several lifetimes… and may, sadly, have to bear the effects of all those lies for that long as well.

However, if the recent vote to repeal health-care is any indication… and I think it may well be…we are in for a new and growing rash of behavior unseen in our public servants for quite some time.

If memory serves me correctly, it’s termed “honesty.”

One of my audiences is high school and college students.  As such, I have been acutely aware of how bullying has escalated in the past decade to the point where it increasingly ends in a suicide or an attempt.  For awhile I could not understand what caused the upsurge in this particular form of insensitivity and intimidation.

I’ve figured it out.

It’s our leaders.  In government, in our churches, in business… the adults of the world have shown, through the behavior of both the bully and the victim, intimidation works.

Think about it.

The cover-up of sexual abuse by clergy, the ramming through of legislation whether or not it’s in the nation’s best interest, harassment and terror experienced by whistle blowers who witness criminal behavior or a lack of fiduciary duty in the private financial sector… all of these have been going on for a very  long time.  Long enough for an entire generation to observe what we do rather than what we say.  So now, we have a generation imbued with the belief that bullying is power.

Our children have watched people in the bully pulpit… acting like bullies.  Is it any wonder the problem has become endemic?

The only power a bully has is humiliation.  The way out of this pattern of behavior actually rests with the so called “victim.”   You see, you cannot bully someone who 1) has no secrets and 2) holds values worth dying for.

Moses, Jesus and Gandhi knew it.  It’s why their legacies have endured long past those of their oppressors.  Many others have known it as well.  It’s the principal of high moral character attributed to John Galt, the protagonist in Ayn Rand’s novel, Atlas Shrugged. And regardless of the century or the society, it’s still the surefire way to defeat a bully.

Live your life with integrity and know what you value enough such that to live with less would be to not really live at all.

If we each step up and live ethical lives predicated upon truthfulness and personal responsibility, we will know our self worth and be certain in our self esteem.  Bullies, be they ancient Egyptians, first century Romans, the British in India, sexually abusive priests, dictatorial governmental leaders or corrupt corporate executives… all need our cooperation in order to maintain their power.

Cultivate the highest version of yourself  and know what you believe in and bullies will be out of a job. That’s good unemployment.

As we embark upon this holiday season, may I make a suggestion?

Make a wish.  Now, don’t write this off as some fairy-tale-mental-meandering of a pie-in-the sky blogger.  Stick with me.  I’m going to make sense of it.

There are thousands of self-help and self-improvement books, tapes and CD’s out there and they sell for a reason.  We live in a high-tech/ high stress world and can use all the help we can get to…well… just get by.  In fact, the power of positive thinking has become the golden egg, so to speak, of this genre.  Whether the “Laws of Attraction,” “The Secret,” or a myriad of others techniques, they all teach, encourage and support focusing your mind to bring to you that which you want.

Well, before we had all the science and fancy words it was called “making a wish.”  After all, when performed properly, wish making shares much in common with these more advanced forms of manifesting your intention.  In fact, focused thought to manifest your intention sounds a lot like making a wish so your dream come true, doesn’t it?

Here’s something else they have in common.  Both require you to do your part, to do the work necessary along the way.  Neither focused thought nor wish-making is predicated upon you having a random thought or making a one-time wish and then sitting back, opening your arms and passively awaiting your bounty to arrive via FedEx or otherwise.

What both are predicated upon is that there exists a moment when no matter how much preparation and work you do, outside influences beyond your control may intervene to detour or totally obstruct the object of your desire.  And so, the power of intention or the laws of attraction hold that if you keep your thoughts focused upon what it is you want, even when you are not physically engaged in achieving it, you can perhaps outwit or end-run those obstructionist energies and thereby call to your assistance some inexplicable aspect of Universal energy.

So, too, with wish-making.

Its benefits engage at that point where all human effort leaves off.  And whether you believe an angel, a fairy, a leprechaun or God intervenes on your behalf to fulfill that which you seemingly could not… in the end its all the same.

What you are doing by positive thinking or wish-making is acknowledging a force that, when combined with your own, is able to co-create a specifically desired outcome.

So, this holiday season, try making a wish.  Here’s how:

Sit down, calm down and be quiet.

Look at something living.

Close your eyes.

Put your left hand over your heart.

Put your right hand over your left hand.

Breathe abdominally.

Now, on the exhale, whisper exactly what you wish for.

Do so in precisely eight words or syllables.

Then trust that your wish has been received in thought and will, when the time is right, manifest in matter.

If that all seems to “fairy-dust-esque” for you then purchase a copy of Norman Vincent Peale’s “The Power of Positive Thinking” or Esther and Jerry Hicks’ “The Laws of Attraction.”

As for me, I’m simply wishing you a wonderful holiday season and a blissful coming year.

Well, let me say this from the outset:  If you’ve misplaced, or totally lost your sense of irony and humor in the midst of all the chaos, don’t read any further.  You simply won’t get it.  But if you’re still holding out for some sweetness and light, here it is.

The connection between the newly discovered Star of David on the roof of the Iranian National Airlines building and the chaos resulting from the WikiLeaks disclosure of classified documents is Cosmic Humor.

“What’s that?” you want to know.

Cosmic humor is when God (sometimes referred to as the Universe or Source) is having a good old time doing what it does best… creating.

What is being created at the moment is so obvious one could almost miss it in its simplicity.  Chaos.  Chaos is being created in order to affect real change.  Now there are two plots being acted out here.  I’ll refer to them as the “lower” and “higher” vibration scenarios.

In the lower vibration scenario, individuals and organizations with money and/or power think they are manipulating the masses in order to acquire yet more money and more power.  They are deliberately creating chaos (with a small “c”) to reach their desired ends.

Simultaneously, the higher vibration scenario, commonly referred to as God, is orchestrating (perfect word since we’re literally talking about a higher frequency of energy) events and occurrences that are, in fact, using the lower vibration energies to effect an outcome that moves humankind to its highest and most expansive role ever in the history of the world.  Chaos with a big “C.”

How?

NO MORE SECRETS!

So, back to WikiLeaks and the Star of David on the top of the Iranian National Airlines building.

The information that WikiLeaks is now disseminating has been suspected, and in some cases, known for awhile.  Yes, we now have details… names, dates and places that were heretofore only vague suspicions… but it is really all that startling?   Hasn’t common sense and good old instinct told you this stuff has been going on forever?

And the Star of David?  Really? Come on.  Google Earth just spotted it?  No one knew of it before or saw it?  It’s been there for 30 years!!!  It’s so ironic…funny, actually… that I’m smiling as I type.  A Star of David on the roof of a government building in the center of a country set out to destroy a country and an entire people represented by that star?

You tell me God isn’t having a whopper of a time!

So, while I know the DOW is rocky and the dollar is heading for the dumper and Congress is a joke… take heart.

NO MORE SECRETS.

God is busy reorganizing things.  While He/She is busy cleaning house, let us put up with a little inconvenience for humanity’s sake.  And while we’re patiently waiting, let’s look on the bright side.  The Star of David is watching over everything.

Wasn’t that the original deal?

You know how you look for sun block with “SPF” in it to protect you from harmful rays of the sun?  Well, there’s “SPF” for your soul…to protect you from harmful thinking.  First, let me tell you what SPF for the soul is and then how to apply it.

SPF stands for Suffering, Pain and Fear.  What these three feelings have in common is that when you are experiencing them, they bring you present in your life.  Whether it’s suffering poverty, oppression or the loss of a loved one… the physical pain of illness, a broken arm or a finger pinched in a closing door… or fear of facing down a wild animal, economic loss, the dark or even death… each of these feelings causes living in either the past or the future just too burdensome.

Whenever you are lured away from living totally in the present, living solely in the Now, what you inevitably run into is some variation of SPF.  For, you see, there is no SPF in the present.  In the present, everything is manageable and capable of being tended to.  In the present, there can only be joy and wonder at life Itself… in the pure experience of It All.   It’s when we project too far forward or languish too far back that life appears to be either overwhelmingly complex or filled with regret.

So this is how you apply SPF to your soul.  You do it by becoming aware of when you are in it.  Once you have the awareness that you have inadvertently wandered into the past or the future you use that SPF awareness to bring yourself present. You effectively use it to remind you to block out everything that is not real.  And all that is real is what you are experiencing, Now, in this instant.

I once watched a documentary of former Tibetan captives who spoke lovingly, with smiles on their faces, of how they had prayed for their abusive Chinese captors while their captors were beating them.  I found it incredible.  But I have come to understand that if you believe in the concept of Oneness…that we are all connected…and you are living totally in the moment, it is not possible to experience anything other than love and joy.  Not an easy state to achieve… but one worth aspiring to for sure.

Directions: Apply SPF to your thinking and allow it to bring you present so that you can experience the best of life without becoming damaged by the harmful rays of the past or the future.  Re-apply as needed.

Like the rest of the world I watched with rapt attention and welling emotion as the last, heroic Chilean miner was lifted from the collapsed mine after being trapped for 69 days. Defying logic and the odds, all 33 men survived an unimaginable nightmare and did so with both grace and dignity intact.

Two thoughts come to mind.  1) There are no accidents, and, 2) there are only two emotions, love and fear.

I have always been a believer that everything happens for a reason… even those things that seem to make no sense at all.  For while we may not be able to make sense of some events or personal experiences, everything that happens offers the potential for growth.  This is Life.

And so, in a world adrift economically, politically, and socially… 33 miners show us how to defy the odds, rise above limitation and scant resources, and accomplish the impossible.

But there’s more.

What the recent rescue teaches us is the power of Love.  In a world so long enamored with the love of power, this is a much needed lesson.

The people of Chile are apparently of hearty stock, with an indomitable spirit, national pride, passion for life, unshakable belief in God, and comfort with the expression of emotion regardless of gender. Love of life, love of country, love of one another and love of God.

And the complete absence of fear.

I did not hear or see fear anywhere.  Not among the trapped miners, not by the President of Chile, not by the waiting family members who camped out in the desert for months on end. Fear was absent in Chile and in the absence of fear, miracles occur.

There are no accidents.  What we have witnessed in Chile is a lamp unto the nations… the hand of God… reaching out to guide us in the direction of all that is good.

May we pay attention, set our intentions, and proceed with unbridled love.

It seems that the Obama Administration has today lifted the Gulf off shore drilling ban it imposed after the BP oil explosion.

A skeptic might say that the sudden reversal is nothing more than a political move to try and gain whatever votes can be had for the upcoming mid-term elections in which polls show the Democrat party taking a severe beating.  After all, the ban has hurt an already struggling economy by eliminating 10-15,000 jobs.  Until recently, the Administration seemed tone deaf to the voices calling for the lifting of the ban. Now, with the Democrat majority in both Houses in jeopardy, the President’s hearing has taken a turn for the better. A skeptic just might say.

I’m not a skeptic.  I’m a spiritual warrior moving through a paradigm shift who always looks for the highest message.  I think the message here is that try as they may, the methods, policies and tactics that were effective in the old paradigm are unquestionably impotent in this one.  I also think that you cannot now impede what some call the “will of the People”… but what others call the collective consciousness.

What we are going through is real change.  Real change means the way in which things get accomplished defy the methods of the past.  Real change is each individual awakening to the full scope of their own internal power to effect change.  Real change is the stuff of legends and miracles.  There will be many miracles beheld and many legends born of this time of transition.

And so, I leave the political analysis context and finger pointing to those still mired in the old paradigm.  Looking at it all from higher ground, all that happened was all that needed to happen… whether those with “apparent power” planned on it or not.

It isn’t that we drill or not in the Gulf.   It’s how we drill.

We must do so with a consciousness of gratitude for the abundance of energy that is there and respect for how we obtain that energy and use it.

That will be real change and now we’re being given the chance to show that we can rise to the occasion.

I’m not an historian. In fact, I’ve never been interested in reading history and yet I do mass quantities of reading whenever I can. So it was very unusual that I recently found myself reading The Real George Washington published by the National Center for Constitutional Studies.

It was even more unusual that I could not put the book down.

It seems the real George Washington was not someone I was ever exposed to throughout my 20 years of public and private education. The real George Washington was a pillar of physical and moral courage since unmatched. It’s almost impossible to briefly reference his remarkable, and sometimes miraculous, accomplishments as they were so numerous. In fact, when the authors tried to do just that after 601 fact-filled pages, it took them 3 pages to just outline them in list form!

However, what has had the most impact upon me, given our current state of political disrepair, was Washington’s disdain and even fear of political parties. The then Federalist and Republican parties were born of the irreconcilable philosophical differences between Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson. Washington did what he could to bring them together but to no avail.

His foresight led him to fear for the destructive influences of political parties and he spoke “in the most solemn manner against the baneful effects of the spirit of party… This spirit, unfortunately, is inseparable from our nature, having its root in the strongest passions of the human mind. The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge natural to party dissension,…is itself a frightful despotism… A fire not to be quenched, it demands a uniform vigilance to prevent its bursting into a flame, lest instead of warming it should consume.”

So here we are now being consumed by the very fire of which he spoke.

While many are hoping the November mid-term elections return control of the House and the Senate to Republican hands so as to place a check upon this President’s agenda, I hold out no such illusion.

It matters not which of these two parties control either the House or the Senate since they have both become so internally corrupted and adversarial for opposition’s sake alone, that the cure is not either but neither.

Perhaps we should be seeking another George Washington… or the equivalent amount of courage and integrity within ourselves… to put forth a solution that does away with both these ailing dinosaurs we call “Republicans” and “Democrats.”

Perhaps it’s time to actually, and finally, live the words:

“One Nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”