“Come close to me, oh companion of my full life;
Come close to me and let not Winter’s touch
Enter between us. Sit by me before the hearth,
For fire is the only fruit of Winter…” – Winter, by Khalil Gibran
From the Desk of Spiritual Climate’s Editor
For those of you new to our Social Commentaries: we are not Journalists, nor bloggers per se, we are from many walks of life. But, we are Mystics choosing to share our observations of human beings along with our personal experiences of those said observations. We also feel obliged to truthfulness, and no one amongst our contributors, so far, has a high paying contract salary which prevents them from discussing truths that interfere with some organizations product or commercial agenda, as does happen here in a profit-censored America. Since we are using the word “Mystic”, you can be sure we have no commercial marketing program of illumination or liberation for you to purchase; otherwise we wouldn’t use the well abused, misunderstood and scapegoated word – Mystic. Some have an obtuse, fearful response from their own wrapped-too-tight personality to the word Mystic, mistakenly thinking Mystics live off the fruit produced by the uterus of humanity’s imagination. Nothing could be further from the Truth.
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-That being stated-
Time has a strange way of taking on qualities of different speeds; it can creep so slowly that one thinks it has stopped, hours seem to take an eternity to crawl by and then, in stark contrast, before you turn around, years have flown by in the blink of an eye, and you find yourself looking in the mirror wondering when you turned into your mom or dad. The Earth time that has actually passed since our last edition of Spiritual Climate has that quality of Teflon that Dr. Strickler has used to describe the slip-sliding away of months, indeed years, as we, in this physical manifestation, measure the experiences of our Soul in units of “time”, artificially created by our imagination and belief that time, does, in fact exist.
Thanks to Dr. Strickler’s dedication, investment of time and technological skills, the Staff of Spiritual Climate Newsletter is exhilarated to begin publishing our social commentaries once again in a new format. Our regular contributors are back again – Adam Crosthwaite, Christine Ford, Rev. David Strickler, Wendy Ford – along with our prior editions/articles are included as well, and it is our intent to bring new articles to our followers every other month to stimulate, challenge, and possibly cause you to question the state of your Spiritual Climate.
So, to christen this edition with the words I have used before at this point of Spiritual Climate’s Introductions, grab a cup of your favorite beverage, find a comfy chair, and join us once again as we explore the polarity of the depth and breadth of the Spiritual Climate of this amazing yet disturbing, beautiful yet ugly, loving yet hateful planet that for a while we all share and call home.
Welcome back from the Staff of Spiritual Climate.
– Christine Ford, Editor
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Greetings and welcome back to Spiritual Climate Newsletter.
It is mid point of time in the current decade here in a profit-censored United States of America and the behavior resulting from monetary illiteracy is being intentionally promoted and sustained by corporations and commercial agendas creating a miasma of engineered confusion, fear and loss of time. So, who the Hell put teflon on time?
In some ways, it has been a long hiatus with many new experiences through my organism’s survival of a stroke and the various coping strategies that I use in dealing with the resulting effects of brain injury. Sometimes, dealing with the ongoing brain injury involved is as if I am living in the end of the story “2001: A Space Odyssey”; various stages of looking back and seeing oneself as one was, although in my version I also include the now and the future being generated out of the event horizon of this now.
Herein this article is my first written commentary in seven years, with the new publication of Spiritual Climate Newsletter in 2015, I am attempting to cover a few topics and weave them together. My hope is, that by interweaving the components of this article (e.g., time/politics, time/relationships, time/money, time/world, time/humanity), that somewhere nearing the end of this article in Part 2, it will be a satisfying reader’s experience of understanding where these topics are going. This Part 1 article will either be dashingly successful on one side of the scale OR smashingly missing the mark (failure) or somewhere in between, initiating this window view I am pointing toward.
This being said, and taking into consideration some of the neural/cognitive train wreck I still experience, which, on a practical level is probably a kindred experience encountered by most if not all who are aware they have had a stroke, whose life is sometimes experienced as a state of non-stick Teflon of not being able to grasp things from point A to point B, let alone remember what I ate for breakfast or lunch up to forgetting whatever reason why I am dealing with conditions at hand. Of late, I would swear that humanity’s behavior resembles a stroke after going around galactic center (Sagittarius A*: pronounced “Sagittarius A-star”, standard abbreviation Sgr A*), somewhat of a bending, compression, slippage, decompression of time in our experience: nothing sticks to it and everything keeps sliding faster and faster – watch out for that black hole!
It begs a question, and this has nothing to do with a bear or rabbit: are you aware of what does and doesn’t stick to you?
Is it possible that clever human forces have put Teflon on internal parts you formerly used to protect yourself from ‘forces’ seeking access to your desires, while disarming your rejection defenses which protect you from being ‘used?’ Is it also possible for these clever human forces to reach out with their tentacles and get their narrative to stick to you, in order to draw your attention away, to veil, parts of a larger set of facts that they benefit from you not hearing or seeing, perhaps to gain some form of policy, rule or law written to legally extort, extract and profit from you? Could these clever human forces be preventing your recognition of their attempt at gerrymandered, emotional-persuasion to control what they want to stick to you, so you rally in support of an artificially designed consensus of giving away your earned benefits, your property, your freedom and even more of your time?
Do you have the awareness that some of the source for your agitation, anger, and frustration could be a result the wearing down of the personal Teflon formerly used by you to protect the sensitivity of your awareness that either smells the bull-crap or sees/hears that something is intentionally being left out, so that you intentionally/unintentionally give up monitoring your usual range of discernment (bait n switch)? If so, are you then to be held responsible for the consequences of getting stuck on narratives that exploit your inability to change circumstances, by allowing those who have written the narrative, whether they be ALEC (American Legislative Exchange Council), your Boss, the Corporation you are employed by, to exploit your sense of normalcy and balance, while inhibiting your ability to seek higher expectations and better outcomes?
Stick around! There are two parts to this commentary exploring a bit of this and more, with this first part being published in this first 2015 opening edition of SPIRITUAL CLIMATE NEWSLETTER, Winter/Spring Edition, and then Part 2 of this commentary being published in the next edition.
Seven years ago in December 2014, some difficult decisions had to be made and the publication of SPIRITUAL CLIMATE NEWSLETTER was temporarily paused. Many simple and complex issues involving the authors and contributors of this newsletter in their professional and personal lives came to the forefront. Contributing to this were health issues, family issues, moving issues, but most specifically, the unseen ratcheting up of productivity requirements of those of us contributing authors of this newsletter in their employment, both before and after the wondrous financial crisis brought about by unchecked white-collar incentivized fraud happening (and still is) in the investment banking system of Wall Street. So, what appeared and felt to be genuine limitations of time, we had a ‘hard time’ sticking to any form of publishing schedule of SPIRITUAL CLIMATE NEWSLETTER.
Certainly, many readers can relate to the squeezing demands being imposed upon time happening away from work, if any time can be found at all. Increasing demands of further output in the workplace contribute to restricting time spent with family, children and relationships, all without any healthy recourse. It appears to be a common malady that middle class Americans are being squeezed into changes that they didn’t VOTE for (bait-n-switch arguments from the Science of the Economic Stupid used by i.e., Gov. Scott Walker and Gov. Chris Christie), or insane rulings such as money-equals-speech, the censoring of unions and the ‘middle class’ being forced to give up more time, more money, more of limited resources and earnings at the behest of the Rentier Millionaire/Billionaire Boys Club, using their weaves to demand that we Submit to their dictates to control our time through demanding ever increasing profits under the dogma of shareholder value and innovation. Even the time for Labor-Unions has been censored as Labor is denied a voice in this Nation as compared to allowing the voice of Corporatism sounded through its arrogant child named – CONGRESS, Inc. and proudly held up by those in the SCOTUS Majority decision called Citizens United, both of whom suck on the Financial Sector.
As if we came into this life to do business; business is not Metaphysics. It is my opinion that those in the SCOTUS Majority decision who decided to ass-kiss Citizens United, and support the purely obtuse, foul-smelling, objectionable bull-crap named “money-equals-speech” psychosis are deeply disturbed individuals who should seriously undergo neuropsychiatric evaluation. If they won’t resign their bench in quiet, they should be impeached as quickly as possible. I would even let them have their retirement, provided proof of they are not financially ‘kept’, as in an old cliché ‘a kept woman.’
America has become a highly profitable, unethical cottage industry for CEO’s and Corporations, leveraging the insanity of an extreme version of the Protestant work ethic (or the Puritan work ethic) that American’s have been brainwashed by and supplanting it with a usurped version of ‘American Exceptionalism’ (i.e., “live to work” instead of “work to live”) without questioning its dubious parentage. This ploy is destroying the fabric of genuine dialogue, while stressing the normal working families, whether couples, singles, or families with one or both parents working to maintain a roof over the heads of their children, food to eat, and money for privatized utilities. What happens if your child gets sick? Do you get fired, demoted or given a hard time? The strain on personal precious resources of time and space, with increasing demands of a 14+ hour work day are intentionally imposed to keep adults suggestible (through lack of sleep) to a pseudo-authority transplanted from mom and dad into a ‘Corporate mommy and daddy-hood’ enunciation of austerity.
Before going further, I feel I must make an important point! If you think I have anything against work or creating widgets, you will likely need to consider ~snorting copious amounts of Exlax~; you are completely incorrect in your interpretation of that which I have thus far presented and could be lacking in a fuller comprehension of American economic history, or perhaps you are living under some disingenuous rock of reason in your imagination. Why is this an important point to draw attention to this at this juncture? If, in the personal one- room movie theater of your mind you are arguing a view that stealing time from overworked adults is healthy for a Nation and its people, then your personal delusions, be they generated by emotional, money or a variety of belief systems will prevent you from hearing some of the following topics and facts this commentary is going to present. The likelihood though, is that you do relate to some aspect of that which I have cited thus far, so it is not your contrived perception or workability of available time, it is instead likely, a derived Reality that many are experiencing to some degree or another and God has nothing to do with it.
In many families there are two working adults, each averaging a 68-hour work week per working adult to earn a living wage 1. Are we then to expect these adults have adequate time for responsibilities and time to understand political positions, insurance in any shape of its forms, the endless retirement explanations, taxes, the damn remote or accompanying electronic devices, Oh! and their city is being bankrupted and their earned pensions are in process of disappearing due to malicious, ignorant thievery of people like Gov. Chris Christie or Gov. Rick Snyder, Argh! How do you make this damn Android phone work and the now-classic ‘what the hell is wrong with my computer’? Well, (smiling) I said only naming a few common daily occurrences. Oh wait! I almost forgot (I do not have children), having a relationship with their children and understanding why their children’s education consists of only test taking and participating in their children’s school activities? What if your child is sick, or developmentally impaired? What if YOU are ill from the flu? Just reflect for a moment…When was the last time you had a full weekend off or were able to celebrate Christmas or some other holiday without having some aspect of work demanding your attention or time, due to a turn-around shift?
With this intended confusion invading our space, not to mention the plethora of microwave broadcasting through the air and radio waves along with any and all electronic transmission communication signals bombarding our nervous systems and brains, that if we could actually experience visually, we wouldn’t be able to see beyond two feet in front of our faces due to exhaustion. What I am hearing more frequently from people in various sectors I am in communication with, is: 1) “I have no time,” along with 2) “Is someone/something out of their cotton picking minds?” and 3) see number 1. My answer is “Hell yes, and this is what happens when the beasts in the financial sector, seeking to extract profit from the public and private sectors, set the rules for an economy AND their bought politicians who are making policy in the aforesaid sector’s name and bottom line.” It is all engineered! But we don’t have the time and/or make the time to even give it some checkpoint questions in our awareness.
I would argue that this is what happens when financial institutions are given a regulatory oversight into a Nation-State through capitalists turned into oligarchic plutocrats who buy and promote political office holders who are lacking knowledge of economic history replaced by the surfeit of the Black-Scholes gaming theory and then place them within said institutions. This promotes a Confederate (States’ Rights) psychopathy to undermine growth of this Nation, our families within this Nation and our resources in the Nation by re-creating the infamous ‘plantation effect’ in which employers claim their worker’s time as their own property under the guise of global competition, while convincing gullible and/or fragile Americans that they must compete (Trans-Pacific Partnership2, NAFTA, et al) with workers in China or wherever else in the world – say WTF? The only problem with our institutions are the people running of those institution and selling access to power and selling the power itself because of paid for behavior determined by corporate owned LOBBYISTS.
This is a plausible social engineering feat, even one that a dinosaur of a computer code writer like me would have had the ability to set up a flow chart at age 16. Aspects of this plausibility have been constructed by the forces of greed since that period of my age, to influence the majority of citizens who both do and do not vote. This ongoing engineering is enforced by a sublimation process exerted by the ceaseless hypnotic drumming of 24/7 info-entertainment news paradigm. The mainstream (beltway) media, such as FOX Entertainment-News (we have the best ratings, never mind our intentional lies), providing short-hand version of condensed mental constructs of perceptions that are intentionally to be taken as a perception of reality, which seems real enough to agree with, thereby capitalizing on producing a predictable range of responses to dwindling, limited resources of attention and time the a struggling middle class has available, whereby to exploit those responses and their trust.
Just add digital coax connection so the rinse-and-repeat action of the description above fosters an implied agreement of consensus that the Beast operatives in the financial and political Corporation-State want as a likely response and outcome to further increase additional burdens to be carried by the Middle Class. Next move is to insure a broad range of reduction in facts of what is truly going on. Then, include further editing of any information resembling truthful information necessary in order to prevent making informed decisions on anything pertinent affecting individual lives up to and including Voting. This is the neutering of good public policy and the election of office holders who would ordinarily construct healthy public policy in the monetary and fiscal areas to benefit ALL citizens, not just the single sided balance sheet mantras that has quadrupled the myopic .01 percent’s share of the country’s wealth in half a century.
But, the biggest gain of all not being spoken of, if anywhere, to my current awareness, is that the Beastly Wall Street Investment Bankers are seeking to intentionally usurp control of the Monetary System, through the purchase of politicians to barker for the required changes to governmental policies, in order to gradually hand over the power of the government and the all too often misunderstood Federal Reserve by completely privatizing it away from all public control or regulation. Next would be to redirect said Monetarily Sovereign government’s exclusive unlimited power to create its sovereign currency and allow the Beasts of Wall Street Banks to take over that function. Wait till you see that form of austerity that Rep. Paul Ryan, in his learned economic ignorance, can’t even image with his anti-American System of Economic philosophy: a shiny new form of modern slavery that the makes the Money Handlers drool for and have sought the power to have, dating back (in recent history) to the murder of Abraham Lincoln, all because of the Greenback and debt free money the Greenback represents, for which, if fully implemented (Lincoln’s Greenback) would have put the bankers in their proper place, just like ICELAND recently had the balls to do; bankers become servants to government and its citizens instead of managing or taking over such as like the happenings here in the U.S.A and preventing a bankers view of world dominance. This Confederate-Constitution Viagra, is likely permeating, at least in my opinion, the nocturnal wet confederate dreams likely occurring in the legal minds of Justice Alito, Justice Scalia and Justice Roberts.
The Middle Class job makers (rich people do not create jobs, they only create capital gains) should have dominant consideration and control in this Nation due to the fact that consumer spending creates income, income creates sales and sales create jobs. Instead, workers experience ratcheting of pay downward or the intentional keeping wages stagnant for over thirty years, while hearing the Wall Street generated explanation stating the blame for said stagnant wages is because middle class adults are suffering from being ‘lazy’, that productivity needs to be increased, or that the middle class is too dependent on government assistance: pick-your-style-of-propaganda narrative. I’d rather be dependent on the power of government; otherwise I would be under the thumb of some type of power wielding an opening of an epigenetic form of Corporate Fascism which redirects attention away from their hypocrisy of Corporate America begging for Government handouts. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain, as in the Wizard of Oz!
So the natural focus of the middle class narrows due to pressure in providing basic necessities for themselves and their children, while the ever-increasing demands of time being placed upon them, little time is left for taking into account of any details of they are actually trying to negotiate through or figure out, whether it be how to pay the bills or how to vote in an upcoming election. They’d have to be a Svengali to realize how much they are being screwed by the Rentier Neoliberal economics that the Hobbesian Bestiality of the Republicans (mostly, i.e., Sen. Rand Paul, Sen Ted Cruz, Sen. Tom Cotton et al) and some stupid Democrats (fewer) are force feeding the middle class.
What little news manufactured through sleight of hand editing to supposedly assist the “99%” is experienced as a constant pounding into their heads via mainstream media that the Federal Government is Evil and has been on an ongoing orgy of spending, which data shows to be patently false 3. The truth of the matter is that “No Government has wasted money on the scale that the Private Financial Sector has done, in this crisis and the consequences of the crisis.” 4
Yet, the question remains: evil compared to what? An unforgiving set of Wall Street Beast Bankers who want the concept of a debt jubilee erased from the history of the consciousness of citizens, so that it doesn’t matter what rational voice arises from the Public to shout out that mathematics shows debts can never be repaid; that the purveyors of the loans don’t want you to realize the grand pyramid scheme they have developed for the future incarceration of humanity? 5. With the propaganda that the Hobbesian Beasts are promoting from their refined Black Magic of Advertising to cover up their trail of corruption and legalized extortion of our citizens that privatization yields, coupled with the lethal effectiveness of blindsiding developed by our paid for saintly scientists in behavioral psychology. If for one moment you think Government is useless or evil, then the Beastly Bankers have succeeded in manipulating the fears and desires of your mind.
These Beastly Business Boys want you to Submit, be compliant and complacent, as they willfully infuse the demands of their greedy, cancerous, lust-after-money Souls whose pustulation infects and leeches off the majority of working class families or individuals. They not only want the U.S. Government to give them the power to regulate everyone, but also they themselves want to privatize the public holdings, public jobs, and anything workers have produced, including pension funds, while convincing you with a dance of semantic-prestidigitation to buy ‘the sizzle of their steak’ right there in your distracted, busy mind that is seeking relief, as they physically put a stake right through the heart of your freedom and then refuse, reject, and charge interest for your desires, growth, and liberation.
People need to get a proper grip, an accurate perspective through genuine sources that can demonstrate why what the Beastly Finance & Political Boys say is NOT SO in regards to the National Debt and Deficits; the actual U.S. Monetary system does NOT operate in the way it is mischaracterized and misrepresented by political and contract-paid-to-censor-talking-Barkers in corporate news profit centers such as CNBC, MSNBC, CNN, ABC or NBC or CBS (FOX NEWS is not a News organization (imo) so I will not use them as example). I will criticize CNBC, CNN and MSNBC, since I believe the latter two can be held to higher standards of news broadcast, while CNBC is owned chattel of the investment banks.
I have Best Ratings, Never Mind the Lies
For example, there are people who are paid on contractual terms such as Chris Matthews (who has produced high quality of work in historical political writings-opines) or ‘I am a respectable Republican’ Joe Scarborough (who more often than not comes across as “I am god therefore do not even attempt to disagree with me”) of MSNBC, either of whom can be depended upon to constantly mischaracterize and misinform their public, on the nature of how Federal Debt and Deficits function, not unlike smart ass schoolboys who really don’t know what they are talking about NOR will their network, producers or sponsors correct them by providing a counterpoint to the Science of Stupid, Economic Nonsense (i.e., Federal Deficits, Balanced Budget & Federal Debt) they spew. This says what about their Producers (CNN, MSNBC, or NBC, et al) or so called news network agency and the agenda of all sponsors whom they Barker for?
Some lucid people can see through the chimera of their angered responses when guests attempt to talk outside or challenge their “paid for” boundary. Even though I respect Matthews’ political history, he becomes an Archie Bunker of the Science of Stupid Economic Nonsense when it comes to ‘Federal Balanced Budget’/Debt and Deficits like a crackpot who is full of shit. This is then reinforced in the early morning hours with Joe Scarborough, who may be a decent human being and respectable Republican with some political opine, but he too, becomes a crackpot while narrating his producers’(?) NBCs’(?) Science of Stupid Economic Nonsense about how ‘Federal Balanced Budgets’ are needed and how money in the Federal Budget works with debts and deficits, which is entirely full of shit because it is pure falsehood. He gets paid to misrepresent/mischaracterize the actual functioning of US Monetary system and how our money actually works providing a one-sided balance sheet lingo serving the paymasters who employ him. The Moderators on CNN are hardly worth mentioning other than that they are just as bought and paid for to spew complete nonsense about how Federal Deficits & Federal Debt actually function and how ‘Federal Balanced Budgets’ are needed (NOT). Both (News) institutions use advertising payola as incentive for their talking-heads to promote think tanks supporting the censoring economic facts and processes that disagree with the larger corporate economic business agenda of undermining the Nation. And they penalized Brian Williams? What hypocrisy and a joke.
It must be nice to be paid to misinform people; Hell, I know, only the ratings matter. But hey, they are perfect examples of the big chief egos paid to beat on their chest by the Billionaire Peterson Foundation, Koch-brothers, et al. You can depend on the mainstream media to lock you out of what is truly going on, for example, like the advertising/monetizing campaign CNN hosted by giving ISIS way too much time, visibility, and profiting from their audience’s fear.
It must be nice to be paid to misinform people; Hell, I know, only the ratings matter. But hey, they are perfect examples of the big chief egos paid to beat on their chest by the Billionaire Peterson Foundation, Koch-brothers, et al. You can depend on the mainstream media to lock you out of what is truly going on, for example, like the advertising/monetizing campaign CNN hosted by giving ISIS way too much time, visibility, and profiting from their audience’s fear.
Genuine answers of how Money actually works coming from rational Economists whom actually advise the Federal Reserve Board (e.g., Dr. Stephanie Kelton6 ) are intentionally censored out of mainstream media discussions. You wouldn’t even know there are those who can easily and effectively debunk the mainstream economic sales pitch of said news organizations who intentionally censor it from being heard on a regular basis. Here are a few of the economic rock stars from my book for you to explore: Professor Michael Hudson, Dr. William K. Black, and Professor Steve Keen. And here is one clear example for you, of an uncensored economist speaking to Senators for a few short minutes. You tell me if Professor Mark Blyth’s explanation here (video) sounds close or resembles what you hear coming from MSNBC’s Chris Matthews or Joe Scarborough, or any on the Wall Street-banker-owned CNBC or CNN news cited above.
Thank God for The Real News Network (TRNN) and to their contributors. Without TRNN there would be little if any video source for Americans to gain insight from salient (some cited above) economists and the lucid economists who present sensible, reasoned unedited thought content based on Reality for the American people while silently calling out the mainstream media obfuscation.
We here in the USA need to get a better grip on what is happening to our time and space, we need more time to understand who we are voting for and why. This could be easily accomplished with a National week-long Voter’s Holiday, but instead we get the money-equals-speech psychosis from the Supreme Court of the United States. Teflon or not, time needs to be freed in order to expose the fallacies occurring in the workplace, business practices, and the incentivized fraud. Time needs to be freed in order for us to negotiate our way through this intentional mess. Once the findings are expanded into common awareness and then knowledge, we will be able to see some of the trimmed facts become untrimmed, and heal into further truths that are presently being cleverly excluded from the mainstream media outlets and all the aficionados being paid for by the Billionaire Boys Club, hopefully before the point of no return comes.
The Billionaires have harnessed the black-magic behavioral power of advertising in the 24/7 entertainment news sector to utilize the powerful techniques and advertising’s ability to brainwash and manipulate viewer’s time and space; harnessing any possibility of a viewer’s focus of attention/perception while purchasing a Nation, with the full unknowing compliance of a citizenry lacking insight into the facts and truths of the American System of Economics history, in order to realize why they are being forced to SUBMIT to the demands of the Business Beasts on Wall Street. This is one place where a voice for Labor is essential in equilibrating All constituents voices regarding healthy legislative process to assist a balanced ordering of legislative outcomes pertinent to all, not exclusively to the voice of Corporate Class.
Until then, watch out for the Teflon cleverly being manufactured to coat your time and space unnoticeably moving you to slip away from your families due to living to work. If we are unsuccessful in ‘Getting a grip’ on the demands of this modern life being imposed upon us through lack of awareness on our part, we stand the chance of losing access to the volitional consciousness that enables us to remove the Teflon on time and determine what we want, not what the Beasts want.
Stand up and pursue your life with liberation, freedom and happiness, but VOTE before you are silenced; before SCOTUS’s psychosis of money-equals-speech along with your right to Vote is erased from your use by Mutant Republicans who are promoting our Nation to slide into privatized Corporate oblivion. Remember what our Founders did: “Whole point of American Revolution was to overthrow the Corporate State the British had imposed. 7”
Moneyed interests can buy almost any behavior they want in American workers to produce the results they seek whether the effects damage the future of those workers or to damage the Nation those workers are being protected by; Federal powers seek to protect its citizens from enemies both foreign and domestic. Unions are just one of many scapegoats used to redirect your emotional attention in order that imbalanced Corporatism can undermine your liberty. Essentially, we are angry because innately, unconsciously we know we are being bullshitted about how money is being mishandled and thus increasing the expansion of inequality whether it be income, political inclusion or resources. This is a war to rollback our Republic to a NeoFeudal-bank-rulership version of history: Slavery (see: Michael Hudson, The Insiders Economic Dictionary) and unless we take back control of our time, the problems of inequality are just a beginning.
Gain some understanding so maybe you can prevent your children from slipping on the well-placed Teflon into modern slavery. Remember, Life is Fair, but there are some people who seek to make it unfair for anyone around them.
In Part Two of this commentary we will uncover an even more unseen and unlikely source contributing heavily to the behavioral disturbances.
Dr. Amy K. Glasmeier. “Living Wage Calculator.” implemented by West Arete, http://livingwage.mit.edu/ ↩
Joe Firestone, Thoughts About the Trans-Pacific Partnersip, New Economic Perspectives, http://neweconomicperspectives.org/2015/03/thoughts-about-the-trans-pacific-partnership.html (March 26, 2015) ↩
Brown University Economist Professor Mark Blyth’s testimony to The Senate Budget Committee early March https://youtu.be/r4EJsR7U9uQ↩
While driving to school the other day, I heard on the radio an ad that made me perk up my ears. It was for a Spa located in Gilbert, AZ, and the name of it was – Spiritude -. Hmmm, I thought, what a cool word! Dr. Strickler has quite a talent for making up descriptive words during his Saturday evening knowledge lectures, and we, his students, have come to anticipate with almost childlike glee the gems he comes up with…Genuinosity, idiotsyncrasy, and most recently, tonguefused (instead of “confused’ while stumbling over words) to share a few… so I have been conditioned to attend to unique verbiage over the years. As I had been contemplating the topic for my upcoming Spiritual Climate article, the word Spiritude immediately resonated deeply within me and I knew my topic had found me.
Spiritude is not a word dwelling in print, as of yet anyway, in Merriam Webster, but the suffix “tude”, indicates a condition, state or quality. The word Spiritude therefore, is a created word indicating the condition, quality or state of Spirit. Did you ever ponder the quality/condition/state of your Spirit? Probably not something the normal Joe spends too much time thinking about, but the readers of Spiritual Climate being more introspective than most, quite possibly have had some thoughts in this regard.
In essence, the state/condition of your Spirit is perfection, but your life experiences and reflection of your Spirit, as your Soul extends from Spirit into this most dense of physical manifestations called Earth to gain experience and grow, are far from perfect. Spiritude, as interpreted by this writer, is more indicative of your relationship to your Spirit, the quality or condition of Spirit that your consciousness selects to express through your experiences, choices, relationships and interactions with fellow travelers along this journey. With the high speed, do it all now, never a moment to rest and breathe hectic pace of life we are subjected to day in and day out, how in the world can I find a moment to consider the condition of Spirit that I am reflecting into this negative plane of existence, you may ask? Based upon some insight I have gleaned over years of personal introspection and discovery, I query back, how can you possibly choose to remain mindlessly oblivious to the small still voice that ever beckons, ignoring the nudges and whisperings that urge you to question the seeming futility of the day in and day out struggle of just getting by?
Having personally gone through the frustration of countless shades of the overwhelming futility of the “Life’s a bitch and then you die” syndrome in the past, I had chalked it up to aging. Recently, however, most likely in preparation for writing this article as I look back on it, I have had the unique experience of exchanging thoughts with some incredible younger friends and family, who have expressed their discontent with the state of their Spiritude without being consciously aware of What was speaking through them. (HINT! Ding, ding, ding, ding! That’s how it works!) I have come to realize this feeling of unfulfilled destiny, of time slipping by while waiting for life to happen is not an age related phenomena, but rather a shared expression of a common discontent crossing all boundaries of age, gender, and profession. It is a direct reflection of the illusion of separation from Spirit and Soul.
We, as a society in general, feel as though we have no choices, that we are tied irrevocably to the job we need to desperately cling to in order to repay the monetary debts we have incurred. The more we do, the better we perform, the more we are expected to produce and give, until there is no life left in living, there is only the stark repetition of daily drama reenacted ad nauseum, reducing us to nothing more than robotic slaves at the mercy of having to “earn a living”. Strange twist of words, when you really give it some thought, isn’t it? That living is something to be earned? Living is a gift of the Life Power, not an item to be earned. How subtly we shape our beliefs by planting seemingly innocent phrases in the fertile soil of our subconsciousness which then does all it knows to do, duplicate whatever we plant there… And so we do, in fact, in the very truest sense, reap what we sow.
The life that Spirit sent your Soul into existence to experience in this incarnation is far more meaningful and beautiful than the dull trap of the endless spinning of the gerbil wheel in the cage that it feels as if you are imprisoned within. How to escape is the question; when in the world can I make time in my already filled schedule to do anything else? There is an answer, one that I have learned from Dr. Strickler, which he gives freely to all his students. By practicing this formula for years now, I can state with “genuinosity” that I am more in touch with and more able to truly reflect my Spiritude as I move through my daily activities.
Start by simply giving yourself the gift of fifteen minutes each day to quiet the incessant babbler in your head in a still, calm place without distractions. Turn your attention inward, asking sincere, genuine questions of yourself, the direction you need to move into, and the choices of experience that stand as open doors before you. Listen with receptivity, constantly seeking, but don’t expect a voice to boom down from on high and give you a ready-made answer in 140 characters or less. Pause, be still and open to hearing the urgings of your Spirit as it speaks through Soul. Initiate contact by knocking; as your hand reaches up, a hand will reach down to guide you, but first you must make the choice to make contact. Then by taking action one small step at a time, you can begin to make your escape from the drudgery of darkness and move into the light of a clear reflection of your Spiritude.
By giving yourself permission to take the time to listen to the urgings of Spirit as it speaks through Soul weaving into the fabric of your life in your daily exchanges with those around you, you can raise your awareness of the direction that your Spirit via Soul is beckoning you to take as you traverse your course through life and begin truly living rather than merely earning a living.
May you more clearly and with active awareness increase your connection to and reflection of your true Spiritude, so your way becomes more meaningful and your clarity of discernment grows into a knowing that permeates every aspect of your life. – Christine Ford
Before this article is misunderstood it needs to be clarified it was written from an extremely narrow point of focus. It should not be construed this writer is ignorant of the crucial role relationships, interactions and genuine communication with “others” plays. But some are so narrowly focused on themselves they cannot, or do not, take into consideration any but themselves. It is equally true there are some who are so focused on others they fail to take the steps of looking inward. This article focuses on the inward journey and introspection required that can lead to being able to genuinely communicate with the many layers of ourselves that in turn will assist in our quest for genuine communication with and love of others.
Another Valentine’s Day has come and gone. Bet you forgot to write a love letter to the most important person of all: YOU. Sounds like the epitome of egocentricity, yet when a moment is taken to really think about it, You are all you have. Your body with its organs, your container, is merely a physical vehicle through which the Life Power expresses and experiences itself as You. It can be stunning, even overwhelming, to think about in those terms. To consciously become aware, to come to know this, can take years.
What more appropriate time to write a love letter to the expression of You than on the day when the Universe’s heart takes a beat? That’s what Valentine’s Day really is. Historically it has been linked to the day to express friendship. (http://grove.ufl.edu/~leo/val.html)
Thanks to the sophistry-based philosophical foundation of business in the United States, Valentine’s Day has become imbued with an economically based significance and import of epic proportions. The commercial world wants one to believe that extreme guilt and anxiety should be experienced if one doesn’t go into debt over the day; unless expensive jewelry, candy, cards, dinner and flowers are lavished upon your love you will be thought to be a loser. The true meaning of the day has long since been lost to modern society.
Back to that love letter. You are comprised of many layers and levels, and each needs to be able to have open and unobstructed communication with the others. Sometimes we are aware of a communication but most of it takes place on the sub conscious level. It takes training and work to become consciously aware of the subtle communications.
Every one of us has had the experience of having an argument or discussion apparently with oneself. That is usually indicative of one part of the psyche attempting to communicate and come to an agreement with another. Only in the most highly trained individuals is it ever a direct communication with Soul, even more rarely with Spirit and it IS NEVER GOD TALKING TO YOU. Most commonly one’s attention is drawn to times when a decision needed to be made about some action or comment. The “discussion” might have gone something like this:
“I really don’t want to do that. But it’s the right thing to do. I know but I really don’t want to do that because I might end up looking like a fool. Would you rather look the fool or take a chance and have something great come of it? I don’t know. If I do it then I have to really commit to it (whatever “it” is). Yes, and by committing to it there will be a cost. I know, but I’m not sure if I’m willing to put myself out a limb like that. Why not? Because I did something like that when I was in second grade and ended up being really humiliated and I don’t ever want that to happen again. Oh, that’s right. Guess you are correct. That felt awful and we don’t want to go through that again. Never mind.”
This self-talk is what Dr. Strickler calls “the Babbler”, that never ceasing internal voice that yammers on and on seemingly without rest about the most inane of subjects, asking questions, answering questions, sometimes even contradicting itself, providing a running commentary about the most trivial of things, giving advice whether solicited or not, jumping from topic to topic without thought or contemplation. Training and practice in immersing oneself into the flow of the Meditation of the Source will result in the silencing of the Babbler enabling the clearing of the communication lines between You and the various areas of your psyche.
Writing a love letter to yourself can kick start the process. Use a writing instrument and a physical piece of paper, not a computer keyboard. The physical act of putting words on paper establishes a connection and starts the communication flowing. Ignore the quality of the handwriting. Write your thoughts down. Don’t try to edit as you go that will interrupt the flow between mind and paper. No one else should ever see this letter; it is for your eyes only.
Now you sit with a blank piece of paper and a writing instrument in hand thoughtfully pondering the task. If you’ve never done this sort of thing before you might just be fidgeting and staring at a blank piece of paper thinking, “where do I start? This seems pretty silly, what if I look like a fool?” Is there anyone who can honestly say they have NEVER looked or felt silly or like a fool? This is just you and You communicating. If you can’t talk to You then there is really a major problem.
Start out with whatever salutation you wish. Sit quietly for a moment. Put down several topic areas such as What I like about Us, The Things I Love about Us, We like spending time together because… No negative headers. As ideas occur to you put them under some kind of category. The term “Us” was used intentionally. There are many parts and levels of YOU. You are made up of many identities, i.e. Mother, Wife, Sister, Daughter, Father, Husband, Brother, Son. Add to the mix all the functions you perform, i.e. chauffeur, housekeeper, cook, accountant, coach, tutor, referee, healer, advisor, then add in any professional or job related titles or descriptions and You are a conglomerate. You are your own corporation.
Then there are the levels from which You operate: the physical expression of You operating within the physical container of your body, and the Etheric, Astral, Soul and Spirit levels of You each with their own levels. With all the identities, functions and descriptions all operating from simultaneous levels, you are your own AT&T. And this is only on the internal side. Now add to this all the types of communication and input being fed into your circuit boards from the outside, from your physical senses. Is it any wonder we all suffer from internal communication breakdown of unanswered ring tones, busy signals, interrupted or dropped calls, crossed wires or short circuits from time to time?
The physical act of sitting still and putting pen to paper quiets and turns down our attention to much of the internal and external cacophony. Most of us have been trained from early on that it is not a good thing to be boastful or brag about ourselves. So writing a love letter to You may seem quite daunting, egotistical or even wrong. It is not being a braggart or boastful when an inward search is being conducted. So many of us have such a difficult time acknowledging even to ourselves what we are really good at or areas where we shine.
Self-deprecation has been instilled from our earliest memories. To act with modesty and humbleness are virtues to be sure when interacting with others socially. Few of us have ever been taught how to go about conducting our genuine personal and inner inventory. Without an inward looking and searching, it is impossible to discover who we really are. This inner inventory should be a continual process of discovery leading to identification of strengths as well as weaknesses.
It is from within this inner sanctum of You that you develop the courage to first acknowledge that there are some things you may have been or are wrong or mistaken about and then, through further work, discover they resulted from an erroneous perspective or error of interpretation. It is only from within your inner Fortress of Solitude that you will uncover the errors, discover the truths and develop the courage to acknowledge even to yourself, “I was wrong” or “I may have been wrong about that. In light of new information I may need to rethink my position or opinion of belief.”
If attempting to put thoughts into words on paper becomes too frustrating just walk away and come back later. Your subconscious has been given the task and is already working on it. When you come back, set a timer for 5 minutes. Your ego can generally handle short periods of contemplation, reflection and examination more easily than an open-ended amount of time. This will tend to head off the ego’s response of “oh my gosh this is going to take forever and I really don’t want to be doing this and I might get called out or found out and I really don’t want You to find out the truth about an illusion or erroneous belief or bias because then I might have to change and I am perfectly happy being in charge of You and dictating how You think and feel and if You really knew how things are I might have to relinquish some of my control to You and then where would I be?” Don’t worry about spelling or editing, don’t worry about grammar or syntax or even if it is making complete sense. Just let it flow onto the paper. It might be surprising what comes out.
When you are done, read it out loud. Putting physical vocalizations to your words is valuable. We’ve all had the experience of thinking something in our head then saying it out loud realizing “it sure didn’t sound like that in my head. That isn’t what I mean to say at all.” Your letter will have the same effect.
Be prepared for the unexpected. Don’t be too surprised if the writing triggers some strong emotional responses. Pockets of emotions, both positive and negative can be hidden and lie festering under the surface until we poke them a bit and shine the light of the quest or truth upon them. Don’t shy away or look away. Allow yourself to acknowledge, face and examine those emotions. Give those emotions the chance to express themselves. Feel them, experience them, and then let go of them with a silent thanks to You for bringing them to your attention.
Have an extra sheet of paper nearby to jot down questions or topics you want to further look in to or research. Your writing might trigger questions or areas you may need to address with friends or family members. If you are giving yourself the gift of self exploration through the aide of a doctoral level psychologist trained in EMDR techniques this can serve as a source for signposts the two of you may need to address. http://www.emdr.com/
It is important to date your letter and keep it secreted away to be pulled out on occasion. Pull it out every year and re read it, read it again out loud. As the letters grow in number over the years notice your growth and development. If you don’t see any changes ask “why not?”
Your Love Letter to You can serve as a homing beacon for your Soul. Your Soul is continually attempting to make the contact with You, the differentiated portion of Itself. The Soul has lessons it needs to learn and purposes that need to be served. The only way the Soul can learn, resolve, grow and evolve is through physical experience. Your letter can serve as a bridge, as an opening through which the vertical communication of the Soul can be “heard” or received by its lower vehicle of expression, You.
Through the writing of your Love Letter you can start your journey and process in opening the lines of communication with the many other levels of You. We all know the multitude and complexity of problems mundane miscommunications can cause. The quality and clarity of our internal communications is even more critical.
So give it a go. See what you experience when you write the Ultimate Love Letter. – Wendy Ford
The Alchemical process of becoming has never been comfortable for anyone or any living thing for that matter. Take for example, from nature, the life of a bird. The very begging of the life cycle carries with it hardships for the parent birds with keeping the eggs safe and warm and not leaving the nest for days or even weeks at a time; the parents undergo several hardships. Next comes the actual birth with the first and possible hardest physical struggle the baby bird will endure, as it struggles to break free from the shell that kept it protected from the elements until then. In this stage, the bird has to make it out of the shell in order to survive; if it is unsuccessful, it doesn’t make it beyond that point.
As a student of Ha Qabala as taught by Rev. Strickler, I have found myself faced with many layers of shell (a.k.a. barriers), each standing as a challenge to my own process of becoming. Each stage of spiritual evolution required the breaking down or dismantling of some barrier in one form or another. I have experienced these barriers as taking on forms that challenge the mind as well as one’s ability to exercise the free use of will in order to achieve the goal of continuing along the path of enlightenment. Most barriers in the beginning were straight forward and clear as to what was required; over time this becomes a little more complicated, but the basic premise still remains the same. One must ACT. The need for physical as well as the intellectual and emotional movement is required for these challenges or barriers to be overcome; this remains a constant part in this ongoing process. At times this seems to be the biggest challenge, even if only in the shadow of the mind.
At times a challenge takes too long or is missed and timing points are not met so blessings that were available are no longer attainable; in other words, certain blessings require the meeting of deadlines and overcoming of challenges in order to make one ready. As time passes and barriers are overcome, new challenges seeming to require new understanding and different approaches present themselves and new teachings or training are needed to overcome these challenges. Or is that so? Are the barriers truly requiring higher level of struggle or sacrifice in order to be overcome?
At times I found myself retracing my steps trying to decide if I truly wanted to progress and move beyond the barriers I had in front of me. There are many things these barriers hide and insulate. On one hand, I find myself claiming to have chosen to move forward, yet my actions and even inaction have proven my words meaningless. I hear people speaking of how they find themselves in similar situations, repeating old patterns and falling into a seemingly endless loop of minimal gains followed by failure over and over again. The perpetual cycle of win- fail, win-fail leads many people to give up on making any progress at all regardless of what the goal may be. At one point the drive to strike out for achievement, to break out beyond old barriers becomes an acceptance of the limitations and an adaptation to the environment of insulation that resides within the shell of insulation. It is hard to watch someone give up like this. It is much harder to realize that it is yourself that has been laying down having failed to meet a goal or miss a meeting point.
As barriers are cleared and experience is gained with each stage of the Alchemical process, there are new levels of understanding and an ongoing self-examination in order to prepare for the challenges that wait at the current level of awareness. At each level the ongoing revelation of the Universe takes on new perspectives, that in and of themselves, could be challenging on every level of awareness. There have been and continue to be times when all I want is to just forget about effort and struggle for a moment, and just rest for a tiny little minute, or two or three. I know there is a huge difference between pausing for a breath and allowing myself to slump down into the material lethargy that I miraculously find a way to keep carrying along with me on my path along the way.
It is so easy to just curl up and sleep half the day away. Far too easy to spend the day staring at the television numbing my senses and forgetting about my goals and self-respect that I managed to gain over the years by breaking through barriers along the path. The long ago adopted mentalities of competition were, if I was not able to give one hundred percent of my energy to a task, that I should not even bother is revealed as flawed. I was tired, I had a long year, I got a lot done in short period of time, the excuses drone on for days until a weekend becomes a week and then a month. Soon what was gained is obsolete and new ground is lost as a new barrier is formed. Yes, a new barrier that I myself created; most barriers are created the same way, but this one is special.
It is at this point that the mother of all gut check moments occurs, I did this. All the warnings and sign posts along the way trying to grab my attention as to what I was (or was not) doing went ignored. Now it is the teacher staring at me face to face. I can tell when he enters the room, I feel it. The words I have heard so many times before in so many different forms and yet here I am listening to them once again, as every aspect of my being comes to full awareness in this moment. “You are not done yet. Get up.”
There was a time when an experience like this would leave me shaken and I would have probably wasted energy in compensating for my mistakes using the same old tactics that helped me in creating some of my biggest barriers. I could create a whole new barrier or fortify old ones, but I was taught better than that. While I recognize that I never would have made it this far in my growth and journey through and out of the darkness of my past mistakes, I also have to realize at some point there is a reason I was helped. So in learning to use the tools of understanding to gain the riches of knowledge as I have been taught by Rev. Strickler, I know how to reach into my own situation and make adjustments. The old mind set of all or nothing can only work for so long and has so limited a range that it is time for an upgrade of new understanding.
One of the analogies Rev. Strickler uses to explain different concepts and principles of Alchemy comes from his experience in early computer programing. While he has the ability use one analogy for a seemingly endless number of explanations, this is one that sticks with me as I find our talks end up at one point including computer technology in some form. I remember he talked about the old punch card operation sequences that he would sit for hours writing (I would go nuts) and how just one misplaced comma or period would throw an entire program sequence off the mark causing a failure. The first time I heard this I remembered doing the same thing in computing class (writing out the code instead of making punch cards) and the frustration when there was a failure in the sequence. Just like the failure in my sequences that lead to the creation of a new barrier.
Regardless of how many barriers are dissolved or resolved through calcination, the process of becoming can still be hindered by the misuse of the process. After ten years of breaking out of shells and remembering the punch cards and program writing, after ten years of sitting with the master teacher (Rev. Strickler), I can see a gaping flaw in my own sequence. It is time to adjust the mentality from an “all or nothing” approach to a “do what you can with what have available to you to the best of your ability until you can do more” approach. The energy will always be there available for use, provided I continue to exercise the ability use it properly in the right form and manner. I set up the illusion of being too tired or burned out, I had more space to operate in than I did a year ago and I was too enamored with my materialist ego to realize what was going on until I was confronted with the truth.
There will always be something more, something bigger and better to reach for and to learn, there are more revelations to uncover and grow from in the ongoing process of becoming. It appears as if the drive and desire to reach can be hindered so much by perspective at times it can be frightening. We operate in a world where the most advanced technology can be bogged down by a simple misplaced comma, makes me even happier to be a human being working on becoming instead of waiting for someone else to come along and find the hanging comma that may holding me up.
The process of spiritual evolution that comes with the Alchemical work is long and can take on some interesting twists and turns. As Rev. Strickler keeps pointing out, it’s not necessarily a good thing to have a high pain threshold. Breaking through to new levels may require the pain in order to understand tolerances and other important aspects that may serve as guides and early warning systems. It is in the learning to work with what is available in the moment, not push until you feel as if you can’t move anymore, whether it be mentally, physically or otherwise, that progress is made.
There will always be a new level to reach for; that’s the good news. As far as the bad news goes, that is matter of how you want to set your sequence of operations.
