Let's Go Fly a Kite

 Let’s go Fly a Kite

“When you send it flying up there, all at once you’re lighter than air…” 

--Richard and Robert Sherman 

My daughter and I watched Mary Poppins a couple of nights ago. That was after we watched “Saving Mr. Banks,” how Walt Disney persuaded P.L. Travis the author of Mary Poppins to allow him to make the movie.

Neglected kids had a magical nanny come to take them on outings, play games, never be cross or cruel, never give them castor oil or gruel and never smell of barley water…. They got to laugh on the ceiling, jump in and out of chalk drawings, and Mary Poppins, instead of allowing Mr. Banks to fire her, tricks him into taking this children, Jane and Michael, on an outing to the bank where he works.  The father, George Banks, gives Michael, his son, a tuppence to start a bank account.

On the walk to the Bank, Michael sees the old Bird Lady at the Cathedral and wants to spend his tuppence to feed the birds as the old Bird Woman pleads but is dragged along reluctantly to the bank.

The bank wants the money, the tuppence. They want it enough to grab it from the boy’s hand. In the tussle, noise and confusion there is a run on the bank.  

Any reference here to us?

The movie was about saving Mr. Banks, about personal crisis and redemption. It takes Travis’ tragic childhood and writes a happy ending to it.

 The healing value of Art.

When you don’t know what to say, say a nonsense word like  "Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.”

Take a sad story and write a happy ending.

And go fly a kite.

 

"Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious,”

Jo

 

 

 

"Don't think about making art, just get it done. Let everyone else decide if it's good or bad, whether they love it or hate it. While they are deciding, make even more art."--Andy Warhol

It is Today. It is not Yesterday. It is not Tomorrow. It is Today.

 

I want something uplifting.

I want my life back!

This morning, I made a conscious choice NOT to read anything political. I didn’t read the “experts” who popped up in my email box. I didn’t get caught by any Google images or headlines with dire warnings. I didn’t go to any of the “expert’s” sites I’ve been reading. And I never watch regular television news.

As I searched the Internet for uplifting sites, a quote from Jane Roberts popped up as an image.

“Suffering is not good for the soul unless it teaches you to stop suffering.”

I woke up this morning from a nightmare—which I rarely have—grateful the dream wasn’t real.

If you’ve been reading me, you will know I’ve been in grief over the election and how I feel about our country. I felt, and still feel, that our freedoms are, one after the other, being dragged from us.

Then I read that suffering is not good for the soul unless it teaches you to stop suffering.”

Teach me.

I have no magic wand. I have no brilliant advice to bestow.  I have learned that you do not change anyone’s opinion or belief by arguing. It just makes them dig in deeper. They have a principle to uphold, and so do I.

However, we can inch toward the light.

Our souls are good, but we have been neglecting nourishing them, at least I have.

Last night, from the documentary The Mindwashing of My Dad, I learned how Nixon turned a blue US into a red one. A media mogul groomed him to think that Americans were dumb, lazy, and wanted to be fed. From Nixon, we learned that the only thing that trickled down from the Trickle-Down Theory was meanness.

WHO ARE WE?

Actually, we are people who want TO TRUST.

We want to learn THE TRUTH.  

Once, we looked to Newspapers, columnists, and journalists to bring us the news. We can’t all go out into the world and collect it. We have lives to live, families to feed, work to do, creativity to express and enjoy, so we trusted the collectors to bring it to us.

We paid them to do their job.

We trusted that they had reliable sources, that they were ethical, and that truth in reporting was not only morally essential, but the law.

That morphed into television- a great potential to bring us together, give us information, and tell us how the world was doing. However, it can be bought like most everything else. It became a fight for control and attention. We didn’t think it was our job to legislate morality. Foolish us.

We have been blatantly lied to, fooled, bought, or wrestled by nefarious means into a corner. And this wrestling has been skillfully orchestrated—so much so that people don’t trust anything. We can be manipulated. Take a good magician using the shell game: They can remove the ball from under the cup without us even seeing it. I once heard a magician say that even magicians can be fooled.

We aren’t lazy people. We are confused people. We’re tired.

Keep the people stirred up, and they are controllable. Give somebody the military, and we are sitting ducks.

WHO ARE WE?

WE ARE THE PEOPLE who once stood behind the principle that we are a GOVERNMENT FOR THE PEOPLE AND BY THE PEOPLE.

Once, we believed that “our problems were caused by man; therefore, they can be solved by man.” (Or women or humankind.) Then we got the idea that it wasn’t happening fast enough and that we ought to force it.

The mystical part of who we are is bleeding.

I searched Oprah and found that the real purpose of her show was to teach responsibility. That the choices we make every day have to do with what we receive.  She has paid attention to the soul since beginning of her television appearance. At first, she was afraid television wasn’t ready for it, and it wasn’t. Now she isn't afraid to mention the Soul--as in Soul Sunday, and her interviews. Many of us believe our internal Knowingness can lead the way.

Some points I learned or were reminded of this morning are:

• Don’t try to convince anyone of anything.

(It leads to anger and despair with little chance of improvement.)

• Do my positive thoughts or negative ones affect the situation?

(You are in the gap from where you are to where you want to be. That is often the case)

• Get an idea that rings your soul.
• Find something you can focus on and allow well-being, like the pity-pat of rain on the roof, to pour down on you.