One Evening of Joy in a Chaotic world

 

I pull myself back from a ranting session regarding the conditions of this country, walk into a room full of people, and find a soft fluffy cushion.

With a groan, I gently lower myself onto the floor—it used to be so easy, but I cross my legs at the ankles and sit entranced by the people in the room who spark like exposed electrical wires.

A hardwood floor buffed to a golden shine creates a frame for the soft, fluffy, beige rug spread at its center. A beautiful fragrance drifts past me, and I look to my right where a crystal vase of Star Gazer Lilies sits on a credenza against the wall. Besides that one piece of furniture there is no other except a few folding chairs and cushions. Every person has a beverage of their choice, coffee, tea, water, or vino, sitting beside them on absorbent coasters. The air becomes as charged as the people when folks introduce themselves and share what they are into. There is a machinist in the bunch, a physicist, a painter, a seamstress, and a mother glowing with love after the birth of long-awaited twins yet enjoying her evening out.

There are writers in the group; some write articles, or books, and some journal only for themselves. Others express that they detest having to write anything, even to the extent of getting in trouble with their boss for late emails. A professional glass blower is nursing a burnt hand while saying glass blowing is his calling. He feels transformed while doing it and hopes to continue into old age.

Others murmur that they, too, feel joy while doing some creative endeavor. Even the chemist who finds that growing fungi in a petri dish never ceases to amaze him.

The glass blower mentions that there is a stained-glass window in a Cathedral in France, where images in the glass look like sign waves of music.

“Could that be a recording?” someone asks.

Another suggests that secrets such as Leonard Di Vince painted on his canvases might be embedded in the glass, and the room sparks with enthusiasm about some of the mysteries scattered about the earth.

I’m sure the Muse is outside the door listening and waiting for a lull so she can come in and whisper in the ear of each participant.

Someone mentions a documentary they had watched, “How to Find Joy in A Troubled World” which brings the room down a bit, but when someone suggests we watch it, and we all eagerly sit up and turn our attention to the television the hostess wheels into the room.

For the next 90 minutes, we all sit transfixed as we watch a Buddhist monk, the Dalai Lama, and the Christian Jesuit Archbishop of South Africa, Desmond Tutu, tease each other, laugh and joke like two ten-year-old boys, and refer to each other as their “spiritual brother.” Archbishop Tutu even gets the Dalai Lama to jiggle in a supposed dance, and the Dalai Lama leads a meditation. They eat birthday cake and laugh some more.

We end the gathering while everyone is musing or laughing or crying, and although most people would prefer talking into the night, it appears that luminous clouds have appeared beneath everyone’s feet, and after hugging each other, we all agree to meet again, and we float away to our respective vehicles with the refrain of two men singing in our ears:

“No dark fate determines our future. We do. Each day and each moment, we are able to create and re-create our lives and the very quality of human life on our planet.

“This is the power we wield.”*

*From The Book of Joy by the Dalai Lama and Archbishop Desmond Tutu, narrated by Douglas Abrams

 

P.S. I am continuing with this Newsletter, and posting it on Substack. You can read them there if so inclined. No fee, just a sign in--which would help my site of course. Thanks for reading. May the Muse be with you,

 

Oh My Gosh, Look at This

 

Saturday April 5, 2025

 

Isn't this incredible?

People are saying I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not going to take it anymore. Tariffs, turning our friends to the North, aka Canada, against us, making enemies in the world, saying our country will take theirs, renaming the Gulf of Mexico (its birth name, how can he do that?), shipping off Immigrants who haven't done anything wrong, bashing people who have been out of office for eight years, aka Obama, good heavens, give it up. The way to lead is to win over the people, not antagonize them.

The idea of saying that anyone who voted against the present administration is an enemy is beneath contempt.

I read a good comment in a novel the other day. The chief of a tribe in Africa commented—this was in the 60s when a supposed democratic government tried to be in place, that when you have a vote, he wondered, "How can it be fair?" You have the elders who have been around the block (through the jungle) a few times, and you have the young ones who quickly say, "Let's vote." The elders say we ought to have a discussion. The young ones get impatient, call for a vote, and you end up with a 48 to 52 win. The winner takes all. 

That way half of the country is angry.

On top of it, the leadership in the country was put into effect by outside forces, so it wasn't fair in the first place; chances are unscrupulous people had rigged the voting process, and then a divided country turned on itself, the government cut stipends to workers, people had no money, people were desperate to find food, were dying of starvation, and there was chaos in the land, while the one in power was spending millions building himself a castle.

The chief was trying to get virtually 100% in favor—although that's not possible, but a point to consider.

And so we at home in America have half the country mad at the dismantling that is happening, mad that prices, which they believed would go down, but find instead are going up, tariffs that are angering our shippers of foreign goods of which we need and want, and the increased foreign prices will go to us. Workers of essential jobs are being fired right and left, while the President is taking his entourage and playing golf, and using Air Force One, the plane of which the logistics of is costing taxpayers millions of dollars, and the people go home to have a mental breakdown.

Does that sound like leadership to you?

I'm not saying that some things don't need to change. I'm saying that letting business people run the country, people who are intimidating because of their position so people suck up to them, men who are used to having their way—bosses, you might say—who control their own companies, that negotiate when it means pleasing their suppliers, CEO's who can fire and hire at will, all to save their protect, their money, and to please their stockholders, are not the people to run the country.

 John F Kennedy said that the one who governs best is the best governor. (Open to debate of what "the best" is, , but poignant.) ( How in the world did Martin Luther King Jr. convince a horde of people that non-violent resistance was the way to go?) Oh, we will get healthier; supposedly, anti-vaccers will have their sway, childhood diseases will come back, and what about Diphtheria, Smallpox, and Polio, which were virtually eradicated from the earth?

Well, people, is that what you voted for? All because you didn't like black people or Hispanics, or Immigrants, or the previous administration (You know, throw the bums out principle.) You didn't like the way they were handling the wars overseas or that you thought vaccines were giving children autism. Pharmaceutical companies were overcharging you (they are), and while you are at it, let's discredit Scientists who are working their butts off trying to learn how it all works. And, forget the Forest Rangers trying to manage our wild spaces and the life forms that are precious to us.

This is craziness.

I know most of us felt overwrought and needed to do something, therefore a drastic change occurred. 

 So, you are angry and want to tear things down. Well, go to the dump and beat up an old refrigerator. (Except that will probably get you arrested.)

No, go into your backyard, dig up the soil, and plant some vegetables so you can get fresh, nutritious food that is not sprayed with chemicals. And buy some ladybugs to eat some predators who will love your veggies.  Or keep some bees that will help pollinate those fruit trees you will plant.

And then bring back common decency.

Man oh Man, Don’t let the Present Administration Take Everything Away from Us

 

 

Look at those magnificent Forest Service Mules.  Try walking over the ground they are walking over.

We fear for their future.  Close down the Forest Service and what happens to them?

Is there nothing the long arm of this present administration can't reach???

Why are we letting this happen?

I am so mad I don't have any saliva left.

 

There  has been a long-standing use of horses and mules in managing the forest, the Parks, and the wild lands.  (Mules can carry more weight than horses and are more sure-footed over treacherous terrains. Horses generally carry a rider.) Think of the Rocky Mountains of the United States.

The forest service is being attacked by the present Administration. 

 Don’t we care about the wilderness or Nature anymore? Are we so stuck up with our gold faucets and following men who can spend their billions on buying people and elections that we can’t see the forest for the trees?

Did we know what we were signing up for when some of us voted for a  President who doesn’t give a flying rat’s ass for the environment, the forest, the health of the planet, or human life—like sending innocents to a horrible jail—now he is going after the animals.

Oh, you didn’t like the previous administration? Well, change it, for crying out loud, but don’t ravish the earth and its people in the process. I thought we had a system for due process of law, but it seems that has changed, too. 

When a man convicted of 34 felonies can walk away, a free man and step right into into the presidency, the highest office in the land it is serious.

"The court was rigged," so said the felon.

Anything against him is rigged, so he says. 

Justice was blindfolded that day.

We didn’t spend 300,000 years evolving to become barbaric. Once, we believed in the advancement of our species. Now, all too many people are falling into lock-step behind the power structure.

What about the rest of us? Oh, we are enemies within. No, we love America. the land of the FREE.  

Remember who we are.  

We brought the Emancipation Proclamation into being. We marched for Peace. We marched for Civil Rights. We marched for votes for Women. We marched for a war we felt was unjust.

We followed a leader who preached Non-violent resistance. That leader patterned his philosophy after a man of color. We voted for Fair Housing, against Gerrymandering, against Segregation. We voted for due process of law. We voted for Women’s rights, for Pro-Choice, not because we believed in killing babies, but to give a woman her right as an individual to make her own choice. Force a man carry a child that he didn’t intend to have or was coerced or forced into conceiving. Force him into a lifetime of caring for that child while making a living and see what happens.

Gee, men, you learned that women were for more than cleaning your house and carrying your babies. A Black, Hispanic, Asian, or Caucasian woman could get a Medical Degree and save your sorry ass.

 In a court of law, women lawyers, red, yellow, black, or white, could get you acquitted.

We discovered that preserving wild spaces was essential to our health and sanity and connected us to something greater than ourselves. We found that as the animals go, so do we. We learned that as we lose touch with nature, we lose our hearts, our souls, our humanity, and our spirituality.

Once we believed in “Send us yours tired, your poor, your hungry masses to breathe free.” Once other countries respected us. Now Canada, our dear friends to the North don't want anything to do with us. Well thanks, but no thanks Mr. President.

Once we cared that our children were saved from the childhood diseases that plagued people my age when we were children. If you can prove that vaccinations are harmful, then fix them so they are good. We learned from the Milkmaids who got a little cow pox and it saved them from getting the full grown version.

(Actually, the principle that have a small doze of a virus can render a person immune to the disease began in 1768 when Dr. John Fewster’s observation of a farmer who did not respond to the vaccination told him that he had cow pox of a vicious degree years earlier. The beautiful skin of the milkmaids is a pretty story, and true, but not the first. It was only when pharmaceutical companies began adding mercury, aluminum or other preservatives to vaccinations that they became suspect. And the Covid 19 was not a true “vaccine”—meaning give a small dose of the virus to create immunity, but dealt with the RNA of the body.)

Most people with smallpox recovered, but about 3 out of every 10 people with the disease died. Many smallpox survivors have permanent scars over large areas of their body, especially their faces. Some are left blind.

 

Thanks to the success of vaccination, smallpox was eradicated, and no cases of naturally occurring smallpox have happened since 1977.

Once, we encouraged our children to go after the arts and the sciences. We believed in the American Dream, that people could accomplish what they set out to do. We believed in progress, and once upon a time, one person could support a household. We could have that again if we weren’t climbing on the backs of each other.

You can see I’m mad. I’ve been waiting for that man in the White House to fall on his face, and it’s causing too much damage to wait any longer.

I believed that America was great without some slogan telling us we could be great again, insinuating that we were not.

People bought the lie.