horrifying to hopeful

!Hola my integral compadres! Allow me to share with you several points of interest--from the horrifying to the hopeful--that I came across during my morning reading.

Bob Jones III, president of Bob Jones University, in a post election congratulatory letter to Dubya:

Put your agenda on the front burner and let it boil. You owe the liberals nothing. They despise you because they despise your Christ.

Paul Hodges responding to Canadian bioethicist Peter Singer's assertion of the nearly unlimited philanthropic application of nanotechnology in third world countries:

Well I love such naiveté. It’s sweet. But it’s not logical. Frankly, of course it’s true that nanotechnology could benefit the poor, of course it’s true that there’s areas of these technologies that in terms of energy, water and so on, that could be beneficial to the poor, and maybe some day will be beneficial to the poor. But the reality is, the issues are not what it could do, it is who owns it and who controls it. And the ownership and the control of this technology is initially with the world’s largest corporations and with the military of the world’s largest countries. And their interests are not the poor, their interests are to make sure that they are able to use technologies at the nano scale to benefit themselves and to make sure that they actually can use such a pervasive technological tool to strengthen their control over marketplaces, and naturally will not help the poor.

And last, Howard Zinn on hope and the nature of socio-political evolution:

Revolutionary change does not come as one cataclysmic moment (beware of such moments!) but as an endless succession of surprises, moving zigzag toward a more decent society. We don't have to engage in grand, heroic actions to participate in the process of change. Small acts, when multiplied by millions of people, can transform the world. Even when we don't "win," there is fun and fulfillment in the fact that we have been involved, with other good people, in something worthwhile. We need hope.

An optimist isn't necessarily a blithe, slightly sappy whistler in the dark of our time. To be hopeful in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness. What we choose to emphasize in this complex history will determine our lives. If we see only the worst, it destroys our capacity to do something. If we remember those times and places--and there are so many--where people have behaved magnificently, this gives us the energy to act, and at least the possibility of sending this spinning top of a world in a different direction. And if we do act, in however small a way, we don't have to wait for some grand utopian future. The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory.

On the home front, last night I dreamed that I "saw" my false self--it was a muddy brown, somewhat amorphous mass which seemed to be composed of swirling sewage and festering flotsam and jetsam. I didn't have much of an emotional response to the series of images, I simply observed them in an impartial but curious way (whereas my waking self would have been so averse I'd probably have run screaming for the shower). All of a sudden the dream became lucid, and I said to myself, "Oh, you're dreaming this! How funny! It seems significant--be sure to remember it once you wake up!"

Wednesday night I had a conference call with Paul Salamone and Marco Morelli to discuss the possibility of me assuming editorial direction of the upcoming I-I and I-U newsletters.

Opening the call, I was slightly anxious, feeling on the fringe of Paul and Marco's simpatico, but as soon as I confessed my nervousness I relaxed open into curiosity about how the conversation would unfold and began relishing the simple FUN of connecting with people I'd only communicated with through email.

As of now, the plan is for the newsletter(s) to launch sometime in December (naturally, the most insane month of the year!). Marco would network a series of sources for me to solicit copy from, and after polishing the various pieces, I'd have some wiggle room for my own AQALuscious creative embellishment. Paul (who's got some serious aesthetic flair) would then take charge of the layout and artistic dimension, ensuring a presentation with panache.

I really, really liked Marco and Paul's vibe--to my perception the interchange was very warm and expansive and I felt like the communication was clear, unencumbered, and consummately enjoyable.

My dream is to eventually assume a greater number of hours with I-I so I can quit my day job as a postal whore and maybe even arrive in Boulder already hooked up with fulltime employment. Now that would be creamy. =)

Taking back Jesus from the new Roman Empire

Excerpted from Tom Hayden's editorial in Boulder Weekly, Learning From The Loss

(AQALuscious disclaimer: the "faction factor " in this piece is a bit annoying, but it's underlying thrust--shed of it's partisan posturing--is right on the money.)

Instead of "Jesus Saves," we need to save Jesus. This is no time for the Democrats to begin pandering to any on the Christian Right who have turned Jesus into a symbol for a vast and potentially illegal political network of tax-exempt, church-based, right-wing partisan activism.

Let’s look at the numbers. White evangelical born-again Christians, who were 23 percent of the total vote, gave Bush a 78 percent margin, and the very secular John Kerry 21 percent. White Catholics (like Kerry) provided 47 percent support. On the other hand, "white Jews" voted 75 percent for Kerry, voters who attend church "a few times a year" gave him 54 percent, and those who never attend religious services produced a 62 percent Kerry majority. People of color were Kerry’s strongest religious base.

In the wake of the election, many Democrats no doubt will begin repositioning themselves as born-agains. Instead they should articulate moral and spiritual values rather than misreading the separation of church and state to mean that such concerns are constitutionally out-of-bounds. They should also attack the transformation of institutional churches into de facto partisan agencies, and everyone, Christian or not, should battle to take back Jesus from Empire.

Jesus was a dissident on the fringes of the Empire of his day. As Father Gregory Boyle says, "Jesus stood with everybody who was nobody. He made a beeline [always] to stand with those on the margins, those whose dignity had been denied, the poor and excluded, the easily despised, the demonized, and those whose burdens were more than they could bear. And they killed him for it." Father Luis Barrios agrees, saying that the historical Jesus was ignored by the authorities until "he went downtown" to challenge the elite. As the Christian radical Cornel West writes in "Democracy Matters," "prophetic Christianity" is being eclipsed by "Constantian Christianity"; that is, the very Empire that crucified Jesus later transformed him into the symbol of an expansionary state religion. This is what the Machiavellians like Rove and the neo-conservative non-believers have done through the Bush presidency: build the beginnings of a theocratic state just beneath the surface of the Republican Party, a shadow network of believers nesting in every crevice of bureaucracy available.

It is no accident that the young men and women killing, dying, being maimed and disoriented in Iraq come disproportionately from God-fearing families in small towns, or that the Pentagon hierarchy still supports a general who promotes the superiority of "our God" over the Muslims. For some conservative Christians, neither the Crusades nor the Confederacy are over. They continue in whispers, in code, covertly, awaiting the moment when the Good News can be proclaimed again, from Washington to Babylon. For these people, the second term of Bush is the Second Coming.

The only way to counter this trend toward state religion is by engaging the Christian community, especially the conservative evangelicals, in a moral and theological dispute about Jesus. Talk of the Constitution and Bill of Rights is not enough to break their paradigm. Pronouncements by liberal religious bureaucracies will not be taken seriously. The "people of faith" networks organized late in the presidential campaign are just the beginning of a populist spirituality as an alternative to the corporate-Republican cooptation of the faithful.


Stay tuned for a report of my conference call with the boys behind the scenes at Integral Naked...

Genpo Ox Herds all the way to Super Freak

Hey yall! My little trauma fest has ended (for those who commented, thanks so much for the support--it means a lot) and The AQALuscious One is back in her usual fine form!

Saturday morning I drove to Kanzeon for Genpo Roshi's Zen Ox Herding workshop. Upon entering the zendo and noticing rows of chairs rather than the usual array of zafus, my mind turned instantly from mundane concerns and the thought arose, "Dammit! A perfectly good outfit wasted on the expectation of sitting on the floor!" (I'd worn jeans and a sweater when I'd rather have opted for an ensemble befitting my fabulous fashion sense.)

The workshop was AMAZING. Rather than providing opaque conceptual elaborations, Genpo rendered transparent the stages of enlightenment as portrayed through the ox herding images by directly engaging the participants in different exercises (drawn from the voice dialogue he incorporoates into his Big Mind process) turning their attention to the immediacy of their present awareness.

There were quite a few new people in attendance and Genpo made a particular effort to ensure he didn't lose anybody. With about an hour and a half to go, he inquired of a newcomer seated in the front row about her immediate experience, and she responded that she suspected that "all of this is pointless. There's no meaning in life, there's no reason for being here, and I really get the idea that everybody--including all of you--are full of shit and parroting stuff from a philosophy book."

Genpo immediately hooked in and asked with an undercurrent of humor, "Ah, am I speaking to the Pessimist?" After having a lengthy dialogue with the Pessimist, he called out the Cynic (who he called the Pessimist's "kissing cousin") and invited a thorough airing of it's grievances. He then asked to speak to Great Doubt, which he engaged with an intensity even exceeding the previous voices. I noticed his Presence, his absolute non-resistance--never wavered. Not once did he attempt to talk the voices out of their respective positions, nor did he make the slightest attempt toward pushing the self to disidentify with them. On the contrary, he affirmed and validated the voices through reflective listening and inquiry, pushing not for disidentification but for full ownership of the perspectives belonging to pessimism, cynicism, and doubt. He even went so far as to own similar experiences in himself and praised the voices for their perspectives, explicitly stating that he believed they were worthy of more respect from the self than they were accustomed to receiving. (The participant, without intending to be, was delightfully, charmingly comedic, and her humored flowered with every passing minute.)

After fully entertaining these voices, he asked to speak to Big Mind, and in a series of masterful pointing out instructions (accomplished through inquiry) which in no way negated the previously expressed perspective, he succeeded in revealing the Source and Suchness of the these perspectives. In a final stroke of brilliance, he brought the exercise full circle by laying bare the utter point-less-ness of Big Mind, demonstrating that it is not any point, but the Ground of all points and all perspectives. (After class, it turned out that the pessimistic participant paid her monthly dues and became an official Kanzeon member, and me, well, I hooked up Sensei with Saul Williams, since he's got a major soft spot for hip-hop.)

Saturday marked the end of a month long sesshin and there were people from all over the world in attendance. In celebration, a party was announced at Diane Hamilton's house. (Diane is Genpo's senior student, right hand woman, and is closely aligned with the integral psychology domain of I-I.)

The sangha was swingin'! It's not everyday that you see Genpo grooving with his dog to Super Freak, or Diane gyrating on a table, standing on her head, leading group prostrations, or conducting a seance from her bedroom. (I shit you not!) The live band had everybody singing to Brown Eyed Girl, Pretty Woman, and old Dillan songs. There was bellydancing in the back room, a tango performance by two women, and as the night wore on, kissing all around. The shindig was potluck and the dining room table was turned into a smorgasbord, and from the dozens of bottles on the kitchen counter, it was obvious that just about everybody had made a run to the state liquor store.

One guy in particular had overindulged, and expressed with all the earnestness his intoxicated self could muster that I was a manifestation of sky, and that until that night he had seen the sky but never I Am The Sky (I was wearing a sky-blue, fleece jacket, and found his confession both humorous and endearing.) I don't drink and by the night's end I commented to Genpo that I was fairly certain I was the only one not thoroughly inebriated.

Doen Sensei, Vice Abbot of Kanzeon has said he doesn't like gloomy sanghas, that he doesn't like centers where the teacher projects an air of inaccesibility. After Saturday's shindig and jitterbugging with Genpo (and every other member there), it's clear that the danger of this at Kanzeon is right up there with Dubya publicly declaring his sympathies with Satanism. =)

"got my rape hat on, but honey, I always could accessorize"

I am numb, but I feel my edges curling in like burning paper. From the center of the cyclone I blow, trying to asphyxiate the flame, knowing I started the fire to snuff me out--

Ashes.

I am angry. And very sad. Ruined. I don't tell it to anyone this way, I don't tell it while I'm touching it. You don't fly a keyed kite in a lightning storm while standing in a puddle--

Shocked blank.

North face, sheets of snow. Reflective, white, smooth, pristine. Shock waves, reverberations, avalanche. Rocky crags--

Exposed.

Masculine gaze. Monological maze. Lost in the labyrinth, Minotaurs in pursuit. Caught, captured, ensnared, stripped. Cut and clawed to pieces, marred, defaced--

Marked.

The mind shares the secrets, the heart does not. Photographic negatives proffered, black and white psuedo-disclosures. The color hides in the heart, redness concealed from vampires who drain it dry--

Dead.

(Talk about ghostwriting.)

purging my baser instincts on 11/7, dammit!

Salutations, my hygienically enlightened blogophiles! ;)

Oooh, it's a very temperate (60 degrees), steely gray, rainy day here! Magnifico! I feel very cozy here at work, if it's possible to feel cozy in black, nearly knee-high boots with four inch platform heels. (I swear, I must be like, six feet tall today--from this perspective, I've become totally fascinated with the parts in people's hair.)

By the way, this entry was actually composed TODAY (November 7th), but because I saved the links in a draft on Saturday, the date reflects 11/5.

For everybody who hasn't had the pleasure, allow me to introduce you to my illustrious forum friend, the Turquoise Troubadour. One of his latest contributions really struck a chord with me and touched on the deeper realizations that are dominating my awareness at this time (ie, that I can trust the integrity of my immediate experience), and I wanted to share his offering in the hopes it might speak to you as well:

How to move from controlling and being impulsive, to being spontaneous? ...It's about trusting. But I believe that you can’t really trust others FULLY unless you can trust yourself first. I’ve got to accept myself, every one of my many faults, not trying to change them, not indulging them, just accepting them, and trusting that I’m on a journey and its OK to be however I am right now. That’s what it is to love myself unconditionally. Unless I can do that, how can I love YOU unconditionally? And if I DO forgive myself – which is what it really amounts to – I find that I’ve spontaneously transformed into someone who can live for others, open to whoever and however they are, welcoming their quirks and overlooking anything they do to hurt me, because they’re on the journey too, they’re learning to dance too, and we’re both going to tread on each others toes now and then… Isn't that being integral? Understanding and seeking to compassionately embrace others, not naively blind to who and how they are but able to spontaneously trust in the divinity which can shine through them?

I'd like to follow that up with a gem from one of the most Open, equitable, and unfailingly friendly people I've ever had the pleasure of knowing. His words ran deep with me.

To know how to hold on is easy. If you want to you will. When your grip is slipping, and [others] are stomping on your fingers, do you feel the pain? Good. Does it matter? No. If you are being what you want to be, without holding anything back then BE. You will hold on if you want to or if you must let go you will. Release the mind and follow what your heart tells you. It will show you what you need to be shown. Trust that what happens is not just you but [for others] too.

Heartfelt thanks, David and Shawn. (For anybody interested in seeing these crazy diamonds shine their subtle stuff full force--if you'd like to read their words as originally contextualized--click here.)

Hey, big thanks to everybody who responded favorably to my last entry. Having been relentlessly raised (razed?) to be a "lady" and to repress and deny all the courser elements of existence, I yet harbor fears that manifesting the more raw dimensions of myself will find my blog boycotted and myself branded as inveterately vulgar and somehow less than lovable.

That said, I may not relish raunch, but come on, the gross realm (and it can be gross) is fucking funny, is it not? I mean, the stuff the Witness watches, the descending current, the manifest nature of this moment, the earthiness of the Absolute, (how's that for a paradox?) is just too damn comical not to capitalize on, too amazingly mirthful not to mock!

As my friend Tim says, "Everybody has an asshole." In other words--and here I am compelled to quote The Great and Mighty Bald One:

You are not objects out there, you are not feelings, you are not thoughts-you are effortlessly aware of all those, so you are not those. Who or what are you?

One thing's for damn sure, for those of us aware of our assholes, it is clear that we are not these assholes, which leaves us free to witness them (figuratively, of course--contortionist's excepted) rather than be them, and this is good, because frankly, what remotely sane person wants to be an asshole?

Now, moving explicitly into the upper right quadrant (perty, eh?) and keeping with the spirit of my previous post, I give you The Five Stages of Bush:

The fro
The fade
The cactus
The crew
The snatch(ed) bald (viva la GentleLASE)

Hair is EVIL. That's right, evil--like right up there with depleted uranium, Monsanto's terminator seeds, the militarization of space, and mullets. As far as I'm concerned, it has no business being anywhere on my body except here, here, and here (pointing to head, eyebrows, and eyelashes.)

Ken hasn't covered this as yet (it belongs rightfully to his Post-Metaphysical/Wilber Phase 5 corpus), but female body hair is a product of the Fall, of evolution run amuck, of a kink in the kosmic order. The biblical passage that talks about "wrestling against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places"? HAIR, people! (And you mythic-membership literalists thought it was referring to Republicans.)

Fortunately, having come to the light, I have conquered the evils of hair--those little bitches are history! My illicit relationship with the razor ended a year ago, and let this be a lesson to all you unbelievers: with God (and a nuclear-strength laser), nothing is impossible.

(Having now purged the baser instincts from my system, I promise a return to the tame and tasteful blog that is in keeping with my higher AQALuscious nature.)

I am clean and you are (probably) not ;)

The Five Stages Of Bush...

Denial.
Anger.
Bargaining.
Depression.

Acceptance?

(Sing it, Stu.)

For anybody who hasn't peeped Fuad's latest post, I strongly urge you to take a gander: http://fuism.blogspot.com/2004/11/election-reflections.html

I hate it that I don't blog more regularly, but I tend to be an all or nothing, extremist kind of chic--moderation just don't float my boat. I cruise by other people's blogs, and they're content to post these pithy little offerings which nevertheless pack quite a punch, like, thank you for visiting my crib, now that I've enlightened you, get the fuck out, get a life, and have a nice day. But no, El Loquacious Inebrianto must run on ad infinitum, like you people have nothing better to do than read my drivel, like my life is just sooooooooooo sexy the porno people are just clamoring to install video cameras in my laundry room coz me chucking wet clothes in the dryer is just so hot that it's fit for pay per view.

Speaking of hot, or trying to retain some semblance of it, I've been doing the gym thing before work rather than after, which means I'm arising at 7:00 am. I've seen some amazing skies on my way to the hell that is the stairmaster, and I'm making sure not to mar the pre-cardio serenity with the insertion of i-tunes into my ears. The immediate imposition of sound that soon after waking is a subtle violence to my soul, so until my body kicks into high gear I savor the silence that's just beginning to crack open as the world pecks itself awake out of it's sleeping shell.

My brief hiatus from the cushion is over. It feels good to be back. I'm actually finding that I'm wanting to sit for far longer than I have time for, like, um, Brand, get your ass up and go brush and floss your teeth--it's imperative if you want to keep your friends. (Who would have thought that sitting could ever preempt my hygiene rituals which are so regimented as to practically qualify as compulsions?)

Can I just be really offensive here and say how disgusting I find the average person's idea of personal hygiene? People, do you really think your teeth can be adequately brushed in three minutes? Do you really think that flossing is optional? (Ewwwww!) Do you understand that sliding a bar of slippery soap under your armpits for ten seconds does not qualify as sanitizing your shit? (ABRASION people--it's the key to clean.) And don't get me started on the oft overlooked areas--elbows, knees, between your toes, behind your ears, under your fingernails, for god's sake. And is it really necessary for me to tell you that yes, your butthole needs special attention, and girls, if you want to get what you're giving (and all who don't understand the reference need read no further), take a clue and realize that the Golden Palace's inner sanctum needs reburbishing, and not just it's facade (this would include the shrubbery).

Okay, rant over. That was harsh, I know, but it's for your own good.

It's grandly, gorgeously beautiful here today. The trees are still clinging to the last of their leaves and the sky is that deep, unperturbed blue that arises only after harvest has ended and the earth seems to somehow settle into it's orbit. Even though it's perfectly dry in the valley (and the temperature's tolerable at 61 degrees), the mountains are covered in snow and when the sun sets this evening the mountains will blush a brilliant pink. (Have you witnessed this phenomenon? Do you live in place where you know that snow reflects the colors of sunset? It's one of the most beautiful sights you'll ever see.)

I dreamed the other night that I was in the ocean swimming in rough waters not far beneath the surface. I came up for air at the dock and Genpo Roshi was there. He showed me how to dive deep, far beneath the commotion of the waves, and "spotted" me as I dived into the water. Needless to say, I found this dream very significant. Looking forward to sitting with him again on Sunday...