October- the turning

September 2008
The Turning- I've always been sensitive to this particular turning- the September turning- it's always been my birthday, when the cold was coming but the air was so delicious as to be tormenting. Thank goodness we live in the trees.
You know, I've always considered the turning of the universe to remain uneventful for long periods of time, and then suddenly coalesce into radical catalysm. Not cataclysm; catalysm. We are in a time like that now. I am personally in a triple turning sequence- that of the globe, that of my life span, and that of the season. September. 9- when the season begins to renew itself spiritually while the organic begins to disorganize.

Well now, that's deep (elephant) shit- perfectly OK because the cycle renews itself with the fire of decay and the wind of mirth. Now I'll try to talk straight. Awww...

We're at a crossroads now in the world- a breakpoint. I recognize the symptoms, having lived on both sides of my own breakpoint a bit. I don't mean to say this in an urgent manner, though. I'm of course speaking globally. Now we will observe just how imaginary are the memeplexes which, for instance, hold up the banking system, or our behavior toward each other and the planet.

My big consideration when i began transformative mode in my late twenties was whether I would become an outsider or find some way of interfacing with a culture that i determined was becoming fouled by what we were doing as a nation. Well, Carol came along and fetched me up from my teethgrinding and moaning and gave me a baby or two- um, four. My decision was a given. Babies bring devotion- something which i had not studied very deeply until presented with the helpless.

I'm a very logical person- that is, i lay out potentials before me, derived from primarily personal experience, and ethic. The potentials which I laid out early in my transformative state separated into two main trunks-

If the grid stays up or
if the grid goes down.

I don't mean the electrical grid, particularly- I mean the whole global body of connectedness.

November 6, 2008
Well, I'll be.... it looks as if the grid will stay up. and if we are really tough we may not devolve. There is as much chance here of devolution as there is evolution; although, I must say, the energy expressed worldwide by the election of Obama is decidedly energizing and positive.

It has been a time of potential darkness for much of your adult life; you know, a sense of looming and dread. That was just a small sample of the negative psychic pressure any person of color has experienced to quote Colin Powell: "in the past 400 years, from the first colonies". What a devastating load for a Spirit to carry!

All who are bigots or racist know the humuliation of this condition- after all, that is the very condition they intend to impose- and are terrified of retribution, not necessarily from people of color, but from the concept "What comes around...". In the Judaeo-Christian traditions, the guilt for mistreating another is built in, and with it, the fear and violence it helps to produce.

When we lived in the Mississipi Delta for a couple of months; in the middle of the BB King story- in the same cotton fields, we were, without knowing it, provided with a window into what was about to happen. Intimately engaging with a museum collection/exhibit that is topical is like rewinding to the past and absorbing history through the artifacts. Then the story comes along at the last part of the process, and, if the exhibit is well designed, a vision comes! The BB King Exhibit really brought it home to me.
10 suburban white kids in a small but vibrant black community. Admittedly, most or all of us were freaks, but not obviously so. The Community there in Indianola really opened their arms to us without reservation. It was so nice just to be comfortable. You see, I generally, in white society, feel as I have to remain invisible in order to survive. I didn't feel that way among the Indianola Black Community. They are invisible with me. You know, that's one of the big reasons that people turned freak- to share that exclusion with non-whites; to take whatever part of the load we could- to protest the obvious crimes being committed on our behalf, supposedly. Those times have been mirrored in the past 8 years. Now you really get it, my children, how important it is to shine a light as much as is within your power. I keep talking about memeplexes because the concept is a perfect conceptual framework in which to put the history which is occuring right now.
The patterns driving the contrasting points-of-view are made clearer in times like these, when a decision is made by most of us where to place our little power-token. I am not belittling our vote by calling it a token. Our votes are counting sticks- currency.
What is it that we are voting for? We are voting for a complex set of ideas of which most of us are only marginally aware of. We'll call this whole animal a memeplex- a complex and organic idea tree- an idea structure.
In my understanding, the tree is divided conceptually- that which is coded in the genes or platforms of a nation or a government; and that which is seminal in nature, and catalytic.
The Democratic Idea is a memeplex, with a coded aspect, and also with a seminal aspect. Both aspects are necessary, as is the tension between them. It is in this pool of tension that our evolution as human beings resides- a combination of base and catalytic agents.
TBC