Tuesday, June 20, 2006

Putting it all together

It was 2 in the morning, and the Lost Soul was walking around the neighborhood. Firefly, thought he, as an illumined unit of flesh and awareness flew before him and disappeared again in the dark. The moon, like a half of brie in the sky, was illuminating the path. And on the other side of Bradford St. was paradise.

Small cozy houses nestled amid trees that must have been there for centuries. One of these trees was overhanging the street, its branches and leaves hanging down, enfolded in cobwebs of fog. When Elvis Costello said "They lead you half-way to paradise, they leave you half-way to bliss" he was speaking about incomplete task. It has become up to us to complete it.

"We could do nothing for them, so we did not" said evil little voices. Except I could and did. It was wanted extinct and buried; but his love and respect for it only grew the more this was being done. Along with it grew passionate rage. And when they asked Balak to curse, and instead Balak blessed, he had been doing nothing different from what he was now doing.

"Bad crop," was said. "The worst generation." Not exactly, he said, and he meant it. He loved these people, and he was willing to live for the beauty that they had envisioned and put in craft. And if he was to deal with what they were dealing with, he was game.

He was loathe to learn incomplete lessons. A lesson that is a function of an interest or a worldview was bound to be full of distortion and fallacy and either error or deliberate lies. It was said that the Jews were hard-headed - would not they have to be in order to be the people of God? Would not they have to suspend their judgment from what the world told them in order to carry on the work? Would not that be thought psychotic by those who equate each society with the whole of reality and want to define people by reference to their status within it? And would not they have to go elsewhere besides the societies that hate them for insight and wisdom and personal truth?

He was loathe to learn incomplete lessons. The wrong lesson learned, he reasoned, is worse than no lesson learned at all. And better than both is right lesson learned, which can only be a result of complete perspective. To see all the forces involved in a situation, he reasoned, was higher form of justice than dumping on singular people who were used as emotional garbage dumps for the civilization. And so he traveled, read, explored, spoke to people from many cultures and occupations and ways of thought.

They ask Balak to curse, but he blesses. You might call it enabling; however the choice was to help beauty to thrive and have beautiful existence. No change was required; why change something so sublime? Rather clear the paths, improve the condition, and then she blossoms into resplendor and sets example for the future that beauty is good and viable and very much part of the real world -

- when people use the reality of their actions to make it so.

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At age 15 he saw essences intermingling and was told this was evil, but he dived in. It gave information and understanding of what was happening. If Adam was made in God's image then he was made to create; and the process required knowledge.

How can there be free will when one is not cognizant of the forces on which will is based and with which it deals? Such will is not free at all, but rather wielded despite itself by one or another such force.

How can there be responsibility without knowledge? Responsible action can only take place when one is informed of the full range of consequences of one's actions and can thus act in an informed manner, without unexpected consequences due to ignorance, and can take responsibility for the result.

Thus: Any concept of responsibility that excludes knowledge and what it takes to acquire it is therefore a transparent lie. True responsibility presupposes knowledge -

And true will presupposes understanding of that on which it resides. After which knowledge it can become truly free.

Now go tell that, students of life, to the Midwest.

So he explores. He feels. He thinks. He combines experience with observation. He trades places all the time to know how life by people in those places is experienced.

He does not use the will to bludgeon but to explore.

He recognizes the social, political, ideological, historical, economic conditions - all things that those who blindly mouth the lie of responsibility without understanding that uninformed action makes it impossible for one to actually be responsible - would rather people living under their spell ignore.

Through this whole process, the false foundations of will are eroded, and it becomes more informed and more free.

And then, with this wisdom gathered as to the internal and the external world, it becomes possible to use the truly freed will to act in a truly responsible manner.

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Many societies tell people what to do, but I've observed in some something yet more insidious: People being told what to WANT. Is that not a form of enslavement? The first being only circumstance-based, the second being internal?

Does it matter what circumstantial freedom man has, if his mind and his wishes are not his own? And to formulate people and then set them to compete against one another and call that liberty - is that not a deception?

Is not freedom of thought - freedom of mind - the root of all other freedoms? Are not man's actions guided by mind, and what forms mind becomes expressed through action in the world? And to force mental similitude and then call that freedom - is that not conmanship?

And does not conmanship and deception belie the claims of integrity and ethics that one professes to espouse?

The societies that derive legitimacy from claims of providing for human happiness, get very angry when humans within them want something other than what they want them to want. Such a thing is a blow to their claims of legitimacy and a refutation, by counterexample, of their worldview.

It takes someone with an outsider's and insider's perspective to see such things. More on this later.

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A golden tree grew up through him as she left him at the Poughkeepsie train station. And in the morning there were many bikes. The train rides here and there the little lakes glimmering with reflected clouds and all-eating swamps and giant Edwin Church forests.

Scott Lasch said that we are morally at sea. So learn to swim with the mermaids.

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In order to keep the love of the mermaid, the prince had to learn to swim. She was out of her natural element in the palace. The Prince, wanting what in the landed mind passed for a normal relationship, could not get that with someone who came from the ocean and thus could not completely subsume her marine nature however much she tried to be pleasing to the Prince. And because she was no longer the mermaid, what made her lovable to him in the first place was gone.

So the Mermaid runs out to the sea. Her golden hair flies in the wind, as tears run down her cheeks. She has come to throw herself into the ocean and end her sorrow and the Prince's frustration.

Then a sound magnetic - a sound warm - a sound resonant - reaches to her from the ocean. It's indistinct at first; it gets louder. It tugs on aorta and squeezes the lungs. A face comes up to the beach.

It is the Dolphin, her childhood friend. He reminds her of where she comes from.

And she knows now. She knows beyond the slightest doubt.

That in order for their marriage to continue, the Prince has to experience the ocean.

And then he would know her world and understand her.

And the love that he had for her - the love that developed in his heart when he knew her as the mermaid - will go on, now enriched with understanding of what made her lovable in the first place.

And they will both be complete, in knowledge of both the Appolonian and the Oceanic.

And then they can truly live happily everafter, having completed the task of attaining marine and landed intelligence and become the fruition of both.

IN ORDER TO LIVE HAPPILY WITH THE MERMAID, THE PRINCE HAS TO LEARN TO SWIM.

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I like to vanish into people's worlds. I like to experience them from the inside. I like to feel them and be one with them. And then I like to make sense of them, using both mind and heart.

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Everything happens for a reason, and some reasons are better than others.

Are things singularly caused? Overdetermined? Patterns from chaos? Games? Fractals? Relative? Quantum swirls? Holographic? Karma? Ionized multiplicity?

What does one do with Einsteinian reference frames that are individuals' and cultures' perspectives?

Does their being incomplete make them worthless? Or merely incomplete - convex mirrors, the curvature a function of the perspective - and thus worthwhile in part and self-defeating in another?

And does not clarity develop by putting an object in middle of convex mirrors, so that mirrors see both each other and the object, and it becomes possible to reduce the curvature in all and arrive at greater clarity of referential frames and clearer picture of the object?

It's hard to remove the beam from one's own eye. But to abrade multiplicity of perspectives to clarity - by pointing them to the same object and getting in them different pictures - which pictures then show the natures as well as the incompletenesses of the perspectives - there, is a way to reduce the amount of beam in everyone's eyes, while letting them all gain greater clarity as to themselves and to each other.

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An inner world is not understood completely except from within. The outside manifestations are not understood completely except from a multiplicity of referential frames working in synthesis. A DC ghetto is seen one way from liberal America; another from Midwest; another from China; another from Africa; another from Russia; another from Cherokees. In combining these perspectives is arrived a more complete picture of the ghetto - and in the process of checking each other also a more complete picture of liberal America, Midwest, China, Africa, Russia and the Cherokee tribe.

As these perspectives check each other in understanding of a single object, their own agendas and incompletenesses - as well as their virtues - become apparent. An integrative perspective is formed of the object being studied and of the things that are studying it. Flux is created; both beams in the eyes and the eye-matter itself become seen more completely. The result as these perspectives battle each other is reduction in amount of beam in everyone's eyes.

The multiple pieces understand each other; they see each other and are seen themselves. The incompleteness in each perspective is corrected, and the virtue in each perspective is seen, by having to arrive at a complete representation of what is being studied - and through attaining this representation seeing each other and seeing themselves.

De Tocqueville was able to write insightfully about America, because as a Frenchman who had lived in America he combined the subjective experience with outsider's perspective. Thus he was able to see both the experience and the external effects.

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Leo Tolstoy said that all happy families are alike, but unhappy ones differ. This means that according to him there is a single model of happiness that applies to everyone, and any deviation from it leads to misery.

I do not believe that people are such fools or such clones of each other. If what's right for people is function of what is inside them, then there will be many forms of happiness that are right for different people.

Each person being an integrative function - of general human traits; inner propensity and biology; culture and nation; gender; psychology; guidance; and one's own choices -

And what is right for the each person being, functional to this, widely different.

And if I am to be the change I wish to see in the world, then I will be knowledgeable, generous, gallant, giving, inspired, and full of passion and fire of life -

produce work worthy of having been written -

While also empowering in all ways possible that outside myself which I am rejoicing to see -

Which I find valuable for what it is, what it embodies and what it attains.

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Kino dived into the ocean to retrieve a beautiful pearl. After trying to sell it, and having his child killed on the way, he returned to the ocean and threw the pearl back in it. The pearl was full of faces.

But the pearl in itself is innocent. Rather in it are placed like gnarled roots and hedge the corruptions and incompletenesses and cruelties of the world. These are the distillations of context in which it is found. It is possible to say by the root and the hedge just what the soul has been through and what is the shape of the context.

And by looking at the pearl that is the soul, it becomes possible to know what world exists at the time.

Some say that pearls are pathological. Yet it is the pearl that adorns the necklace of the beloved.

The Russian way is to embrace the pearl and have the tragic worldview that sees the world as hopeless.

The American way is to cut out the pearl.

The way that combines Russian and American in the highest synthetic manner, is to remove roots from the pearl and allow it to continue, now pure and innocent, to enrich the world.

And thus to achieve the completeness of civilized process, in which can coexist the oyster and the pearl - the natural and the human - the matter and soul - the ongoing and the sublime.

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Pasternak said, "If it was so agonizing to love the woman, then how much more painful would it be to be the woman and inspire the love?"

How much more painful indeed to have to be absolutely at the top of everything, emotionally, mentally, physically, and carry unbearable emotional loads while remaining a lady in all ways?

How much more painful indeed to be the embodiment of the emotional striving of millions and carry that load while straining under unbearable personal tragedy? And in the process to be attacked on one side for daring to be ladylike and on the other for not being entirely a servant or not being entirely one of the tribe?

How many tons of unbearable baggage could they have placed on one delicate frame? And by what miraculous feat of strength was she able to carry it all?

The Mermaid had no context for herself on the land, and lacking experience of the sea the people of land had no intrinsic awareness of her world and thus treated her without any empathy. And their referential perspectives, being shaped in pursuit of one or another land-interest, attacked her in every way. And the only way for her to endure it -

Was to know that she is the Mermaid -

Was to know what Mermaids are made of -

And to stand on the truth of her Mermaidhood and to determinedly bring ocean's intelligence to the parched lips.

The dolphins have been bashing themselves against shores recently in large numbers. Maybe they're tired of mermaids being misunderstood and misrepresented and seek to bring people the truth of the ocean, whatever it does to themselves.

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There are people who are of the belief that the romantic perspective is untrue to reality.

The question to be asked is then, What is the composition of reality?

Reality is an integrative function of myriads of influences, some natural, some manmade, some spiritual, some inherent, some created, some eternal, some changing with the times.

And a large part of the composition of the reality - indeed a huge chunk of its composition - is people's actions guided by their beliefs.

So that, if one has belief in beauty, in passion, in excellence, in fairness, in generosity, in compassion, and is willing to make these beliefs count in his life and those of others, then he will use the practical reality of his action, pursuant to these convictions, to make these things more and more an aspect of reality.

A concept of realism that ignores man's role as active participant in shaping reality, according to his beliefs, is a completely inadequate concept of realism. It is a concept of realism that ignores man's ability, as an active participant in the constant shaping and reshaping of reality, to change it in any direction! And for someone who claims himself to be a realist, to ignore something so fundamental in shaping of reality, is to commit a fatal logical error according to his own system of thought.

There is that which exists and cannot be changed; there is also that which man does using the practical reality of his actions, pursuant to his convictions.

And the more use the practical reality of their actions to make life more beautiful, the more beautiful the practical reality of life becomes.

And that, is a far more complete and inclusive realism -

One that recognizes man's role as participant in shaping of reality -

And thus recognizes and values and empowers true responsibility and true will.

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I majored in psychology and economics. I think in both economic and psychological terms. The economic perspective is to combine the inputs in such a way as to make the best outcome. Combine, for example, the best businessmen with the best workers; or the best government with the best population; or the best women with the best men.

Thus, when American business goes to China, the result is extremely efficient production and improvement in quality of what is produced - along with lifting 500 million people out of abject poverty in less than three decades.

The same mentality can be applied to social and psychological issues. Combining the best of the complementaries across the world. Bringing talent, mind, heart, passion, man, woman, everything, where they can do the most good and where they can be most appreciated and justly rewarded.

Combining the psychological forces where they can be most effective and be rewarded the most.

Computing psychological costs and in so doing creating a system of valuation of psychic inputs.

And thus to make the most of all components, resulting in optimization of human process -

With incentives for what is emotionally enriching and beautifying -

And disincentives for what emotionally grinds people into the dirt.

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The error - indeed the crime - of failing to compute psychological costs is the error that leads to abomination in all forms and conditions. The prince wants to see the Mermaid's erotic resplendor as worthless, and then he wants to feed on it while attacking her in the process for not being completely made of land. And however much the Mermaid disfigures herself or tries to please the Prince, it is never sufficient: Nothing will satisfy him except her complete evisceration. And then he catches himself in a double bind. If the Mermaid was no longer the Mermaid, then what he loved about her would be gone. And if the Mermaid in any part of her being remains the Mermaid, then that is a violation of his lie of normalcy. He catches himself in a double bind; he catches her in a double bind. He wants her to feel her gifts worthless and meaningless; he wants her to feel trapped and helpless. And in the meanwhile he's preying on her magnificent energy, with his own actions of being with her and preying upon her denying the supposed worthlessness that he has to her ascribed.

These Gordian knots require participation of mind and heart to untie. The mind by itself would not see the insides of the knot. The heart by itself would not know how to untie it. Put them together, and there is no longer the need for the sword.

THE GORDIAN KNOT IS TO BE UNTIED BY MAN'S WITS, GUIDED BY MAN'S DESIRE.

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The biggest ongoing error that keeps insidiously creeping into psychology is that of introjecting into the mind the method used to study the mind, and judge it instead of understanding it should its processes be found to run by a logic different than that of that method. That is of course a betrayal of the very rationality one claims to espouse. The purpose of scientific analysis is to study and comprehend. And if that which is being studied runs by logic different from one used to study it, then that is simply how the thing is made and deserves to be understood for its nature rather than being bludgeoned to death for difference from one's own methodology.

A corollary of the same damnable error were such abominations as logical positivism, which made the incredible irrationality (for people regarding themselves rational) of discarding all that did not parse with their concept of logic instead of finding out the logic by which the thing was in itself made. This, of course, is the highest of irrationality; and while the movement is supposedly dead, it is important that it remain dead.

As should historical errors such as imperialism, which damned and sought conquer-worthy all other civilizations for supposedly using different methodology or supposedly having different attributes (attributes that oneself did not create, could not create and thus is not licensed to be judging).

It is important that such abominations and all similar manifestations not only be dead, but have their graves covered in spit.

Is reason " a higher function"? Let me ask a stupid question: Wherefrom comes reason? Then does the person who claims to be rational being rational in claiming credit for it while attacking all else? A higher function? I repeat, wherefrom comes the higher function? Did the supposedly rational person create it? Then what is the rational thing to do with this supposed higher function: Attack other functions - ones that one has not created - or to do something with it - to make something with it - to use it for something of benefit?

As I am using my own, innate, function, of insight for the benefit of deconstructing sophistries - in this case, sophistries spun by misuses of rational mind.

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What is the logic by which something exists? Of what is its existence a function? What is its nature, what is its essence?

What things are functional of that essence, and what can be most made with it?

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What logic motivates a flower? What is a flower? A flower is the completion, the consummation, the mature form, of the species, as well as its link to the future times. The logic? CONSUMMATION and CONTINUITY, both functional to what the flower IS. As the consummation of the species, it is the flower's nature to be exquisite, self-demanding and bent on pursuit of excellence. As the link to the future times, it is the flower's nature to be forward-seeking and fiercely determined toward nurturing future generations. The first makes the flower delicate, vulnerable to criticism and determined to be her most splendid. The second makes the flower self-sacrificial and most concerned for the future.

A corollary of being the consummation - and the incredible mental work it takes to remain at that level - is a very legitimate longing to be seen, appreciated and adored for the inner-directed effort. This can easily get her in trouble and may be slandered and misconstrued. "Who does she think she is," ask many. I tell you who I think she is: A splendid, giving, loving, generous, and rigorously self-demanding human being - a flowering of humanity, its mature form and manifestation, desiring as part of her nature to be her most magnificent and justly seeking to be rewarded for the colossal emotional and mental effort it takes to be at that level of Being.

Which is of course only fair. And which fairness becomes likewise functional to the ethic of the flower - for the same reason as fairness was advocated by Socrates: Because it is necessary for ongoing, resentment-free, harmonious, perpetuation of life.

With (from economics) incentives created for all that leads to magnificence:

Rewarding fairly, by computing the psychological costs, for the work done by the flower to make the highest resplendency of herself.

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The erotic becomes an aspect of being a flower, as the erotic is blood of life. The flower is filled with erotic energy and seeks rightly to be for it seen and appreciated. The erotic becomes likewise a path to the future; a lifeline toward the next generation and the next step. The flower sacrifices herself for the future and is fiercely determined to make the lives of the coming to be a success; to not only protect them and educate them while they are growing but to likewise make sure that the environment in which they grow up be peaceful and friendly to their development and existence. That's no illogic; that's how the thing is made - rightly - and it is by looking at the process, intrinsically, instead of adjudicating it referentially to a mode of cognition that is acquired not only understanding and empathy - empathy that the logicists sorely lack - but knowledge and wisdom and ultimately a path to the future where flowers can blossom.

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There are many who refer people in America who like European culture, or literature, or poetry, or art, as posers. My response: Who cares if you think they're posers? These are people who seek to have beauty and class and elegance in their lives. If they go for it to Europe or to Japan, then that's simply because those places know how to cultivate class and beauty. And I say furthermore this:

That by bringing class, beauty and elegance to American soil, they enrich America.

And it is by bringing the best from all of the world that America grows and redefines itself into ongoing greatness:

An E PLURIBUS UNUM of all that is of highest quality, weaving the talents, the wisdom, the greatness, contained in each into completeness that serves one and all.

It takes someone who's lived on the outside and on the inside to have an integrative perspective -

And it takes someone who's seen both worlds at times to remind America, lost as it often is and most countries are in one or another shroud, of what it can and should be.

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We have been living in times that have waged a war on beauty.

An attack was waged on the psychological foundations of beauty, leading people to wrongly believe beauty to be narcissistic.

An attack was waged on the economic foundations of beauty, leading people to wrongly believe beauty to be impractical.

An attack was waged on the philosophical foundations of beauty, leading people to wrongly believe beauty to be a temporary artifact of a male-dominated society.

An attack was waged on moral foundations of beauty, leading people to wrongly believe beauty to be shallow.

An attack was waged on beauty at the political level, leading people to believe it elitist.

Until the nation was robbed of beauty, and all that was of beauty was in one or another bind, allowing the enemies of beauty to claim that this was what beauty led to naturally and to perpetuate in so doing their wicked worldview.

Many people were led astray into hideous places by such hideousness. And through manipulation of social climate and psychological climate the people were led to participate in this abomination, with climate (and resulting lessons) manufactured to lead people to make deliberately contrived, fallacious, conclusions, to validate this fallacious worldview.

So man rises.

The fire from the center of the earth, bound down by the crust, which is itself a congealment of plasmic fire, rises.

He bursts through the crust. In order to tower at the top of the crust. Not so that he could itself tower - no, not for anything nearly so vain or short-sighted.

But so that water, the solvent of life, the love of man that is the feminine counterpart.

The life-giving substance that is the reason for life; that being pure in herself dissolves into herself all forms of rubbish, and thinks herself the vilest things on earth when it is the reason for life and is in itself utterly indispensable and sublime.

With people calling her damaged goods if she were to dissolve into herself any rubbish, and in so doing becoming accomplices in the original crime of dumping the garbage into the water instead of doing what justice demands and removing the trash.

Water, that is the reason for all of life, and that by ingratitude and malice and jealousy and ideologies catering and justifying malice and jealousy is contaminated with all kinds of poison.

Could seep into the top of the volcano.

Into the crater that congealed fire has made for her.

And bask at the top, under the sky, in delicacy and enchantment - dissolving minerals, and yet being completely and utterly clear, transparent, and enchanting - at night reflecting the stars and at day being dressed in fog and white gossamer webs of clouds.

So that people could journey for thousands of miles, to the crater, and not only be healed of their ailments. But to behold life as life can be - as is the attained merger of elements - as is the result of man's action guided by inspired and principled passion - as is the wisdom embodied in the planet.

And as is finally, after all the horror and error and misdirection that has been done through incomplete study and incomplete understanding - after web-spinning, fabrication, illusioneering in service of hideous motives and hideous worldviews - after all the fallaciousness and worldview-fabricating - after all these things, at long last, weaving a gordian knot around the soul and silencing it into extinction 0 is by the reality of man's action made part of reality of the world.

So that beauty can be by practical reality of man's action made a part of the practical reality. That by the fire rising from the depth of being, at the sight of horrible social manipulation leading the world's most sublime things into extinction, is grounded in deepest human reality and informed, intelligent, ethical choice. That, being aware of this manipulation, is based on the highest human intelligence. That, by man's action out of love based in profound aesthetic sensibility and rightful wrath upon seeing beloved water contaminated with debris and usurped and denatured and robbed and denounced, is grounded in greatest motives known to man. And that, by being what it is in itself, becomes a complete manifestation of what is possible here on earth, and inspires others with sight of accomplishment based in deepest human reality and reaching toward states worthy of the world that we have been given and that makes us worthy of that world.

This, consummation of love, a volcanic crater lake, solution to the disease of the times, flowering of truth of humanity and inspiration for generations to come.

It's better to learn no lesson than it is to learn a wrong lesson.

If things don't parse with theory, check your premises.

And a lesson that is most profoundly premised, is based on the depths underlying reality.

It's based on the Fire at the Center of the Earth.

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Then can the frames of reference be redintegrated around this plasmic fire. Then can ideologies can be stood on their heads and seen for their incompleteness. Then can commonsense - the mental shroud of the times - get punctured as is the seeming, and visible resplendor becomes the embodied reality of human mind, of ethics, of sensibility and pursuant that of the civilization.

The commonsense redintegrates around this reality, and becomes servant of it as is its nature.

Don't have common sense? Good for you. Reach for inspired truth, and make that formative to a more informed commonsense.

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Love is an unexpected guest at the table. Tsvetayeva: "they dressed the table for the six, but seventh one they did forget." They forgot her, and she came unannounced. Did not knock at the door, did not call, did not ask for an invitation. They banished her; they thought she was a mirage.

What is a mirage? A reflection, across the sky, of something real that dwells on the other side of the desert.

And which as such is a sign, to the parched traveler, that there is a world outside the desert - a real world, a rich world, and a world that is worth traveling through the desert to find - as it is itself trying to find the traveler through its reflections that the sky sends to him on his path.

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There is love general, love Christlike, love directed toward one and all.

And then there is love particular, love preferential, love passionate.

There are many who, practicing first form, are hateful of second form. That is a bad error.

To reward the magnificent - for making the effort to be magnificent - with gift of romantic passion, is to give people incentive to be resplendent -

While rightly rewarding those who make such an effort -

And in so doing to help make the most of people and the most of humankind.

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What happens to a dream deferred?

More importantly, what happens to an ability suffocated?

It becomes cancerous. It eats from the inside. It tears out the lungs.

The hobbled minds and emotions either turn outside in jaws or are gnarled inside.

It becomes a poison that injures oneself; or it becomes a criminal that injures others.

The more it is attacked, the more obvious becomes the cruelty and abomination and hypocrisy of what it takes to constrain it.

Until someone who's seen both perspectives reminds people of what E PLURIBUS UNUM means.

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E PLURIBUS UNUM means this: That there are multiple valid abilities, that can produce multiple valid results. That there is not a single way that is right for everyone, nor a single hierarchy, nor a single "adequacy," nor a single mode of computation, but multiplicity of pursuits and modes. It means that there are multiple intelligences, all expressed to different extents in different people. It means that there are multiple ways to the top of the mountain; it means that there are multiple valid endeavors; it means that there are multiple mirrors; it means that there are multiple PATHS.

And by allowing people a fruition of what they are given - in paths that are right for them - more and more of the human potential is given a way to expression for the good of one and all. Economically; academically; artistically; and in multiplicity of endeavors.

That, is the meaning of E PLURIBUS UNUM.

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A neighborhood kid tried to teach me what he called player tips. I stopped him right in his tracks.

A relationship that is based on deception will be toppled by any manifestation of emotional truth.

The process of defending such a relationship involves spinning an ever-more-wide, ever-more-oppressive, ever-more-strangulating and ultimately ever-more-transparently-dishonest web of deceit, in order to not only keep what the partner truly wants from appearing, but to keep the partner so shackled and guilt-ridden and miserable as to not be capable of seeing the deceit or extricating herself from it.

The lie grows; it becomes more ensnaring. Everything in the partner that is receptive to emotional truth is torn up and destroyed. The people cannot give love to their children or to handle in them sincerity or give them emotional understanding, because such things are a menace to the falsehood that is their existence: A foil for it and, as something of sincerity itself, a frame that makes apparent their own insincerity.

The people retreat behind closed-gate neighborhoods and develop groupthink, allowing lies to build up while aggressively excluding anyone with any other ideas. The church comes in to justify the lie, profaning itself and the name of God in the process. Psychology comes in to make people believe that they don't think what they think and don't feel what they feel. Social movements come in to deal with those who would not be deceived by either of these methods.

Criminalized, the emotional truth becomes criminal, while the lie becomes the law.

It becomes, in the words of Steven Jay Gould, "Shared dogma masquerading as objectivity" - and defining all people, all abilities, all perceptions, all values, all mindsets, all personalities, in reference to - itself.

Creating a bigger and bigger shroud; a bigger and bigger falsehood; and a bigger and bigger skein of self-perpetuating and mutually-perpetuating lies.

It has been often observed that suburban life is hypocritical. I've just explained why and how.

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If something exists at a rate greater than chance, then there is inevitably a reason. Thus many of the things that are stereotypical are based on actual root causes. The task becomes to see the underlying mechanism.

"Jews are hard-headed" - well yeah, and I've said why they have to be. "Black people in America are lazy and violent" - many aren't, but historical analysis would refer to it as learned helplessness in face of having all of their work expropriated. "Women aren't rational" - while many are, the ones that aren't simply think along different lines which are functional to another level of nature.

To know this, is a way to move out from cultural dogma masquerading as objectivity -

And toward actual examination of cultural, historical and psychological forces that are necessary for integrative portrayal of people at levels individual and collective -

And, once this wisdom is quantified, making possible for actual, informed, responsibility to be the fact of people's lives.

================================

It has been this experience: That whenever faith is put into something that is incomplete, follows a refutation by counterexample. Someone puts faith in brotherhood of man - and gets stung by a scorpion. Someone puts faith in himself - and to survive keeps having to draw on other forms of knowledge, on friendships, on alliances, that expand his horizons beyond himself. Someone puts faith in work or responsibility - and as the work builds all kinds of unexpected consequences arise, that demand more knowledge, that call on more faculties, that expand the definition of work and responsibility and activity that is useful that was not previously known as work. Someone puts faith in empiricism - and as empiricism builds on itself it finds out, through Einsteinian relativity, quantum mechanics and game and chaos theories, that it is not the absolute truth. People put faith in logic - and get Kant and others using the logic for suicidal epistemologizing. Communists put faith in mankind - and get the worst of what man can be.

All and further along; these aren't tricks, these aren't illusions, this is not human condition, these are simply manifestations of how the universe is. The false theories get tested and deconstructed, with their shortcomings becoming immediately or sometimes not so immediately made apparent. Does incompleteness of all these things render them worthless? No, but it renders them incomplete.

Through interpolation among convex mirrors the amount of curvature is made fathomable, and the legitimate, being separated from the illegitimate - as is grain from the chaff - gives clarity of perspective; clarity about perspectives; and sets in forth the dynamics by which the beam in everyone's eyes is reduced to undistinguishable quantities.

There is more.

==================================

The human being, from perspective of self, can be said to possess self-interest and other-interest. If evolution is true, then man is both self and part of the greater whole. This avoids the two errors - objectivism and communism - on either side: There is the self; there is the whole; and both are valid. One is not only a wave or a part of the ocean; one is both part of the ocean and the wave. There is the collective identity; there is the individual identity; both are valid, both are real, both are incomplete and both enrich each other.

Thus, the completeness of human beingness is accomplished when people are allowed to make the most of self-interest and likewise to do the most good for the fellow human beings. In this way is fulfilled constructively, for good of all selves and good of the whole, the totality of human beingness. And it is by encouraging both of these directions that can be made the completeness of man and the completeness of humankind.

==================================

The pomegranate contains myriads of seeds. The seeds are the function of their unique selves, and of the fruit around them. The fruit is the function of itself and the seeds. Through integrative synthesis, tug-and-play, checks-and-balance and ultimately synergy between levels of substructure and superstructure, is created the best fruit and the best seeds.

At any given point in time, based upon analysis of the seeds, patterns emerge, explanations, apparencies. These apparencies become the worldview; the worldview that claims to speak for the world. They will claim that they speak for the whole of the fruit and for all of the seeds. At one point or another will appear a seed that refutes the pattern.

Such a seed will be pressed from all sides. Such a seed will be maligned and attacked. Such a seed will be seen as a threat - a threat not for what it IS, but for the fact that, by being what it is, it is a REFUTATION OF THE WORLDVIEW - of the shared dogma masquerading as objectivity. Few things are more threatening than challenges to worldview; the result is what I call WORLDVIEW PANIC. And the first and most frequent response to the worldview panic: Destroy what causes it.

And for any such pioneer seed, faced with such dynamics, the correct answer is this:

Identify with the inherent truth;

Identify with the entirety of the fruit, which it is by being what it is - and refuting the temporary dogma - serves to a far greater extent than does the dogma;

And stand, both on the grounds of the unique embodied essence in it embodied and on the ground of the fruit's shared interest -

Identifying with self as well as the shared -

The seed becomes tuned into the reality of itself and the fruit -

Reality which is an integrative function of the given and the newly created -

And which it serves by making the most of itself and the fruit (or wave and ocean, or self-interest and shared-interest).

At which point again becomes manifest this:

A more complete understanding of human interest, as interest of each self and interest of the totality - working through integrative synthesis:

And which, through commingling and interaction among levels of structure, not only refute temporary shared dogmas -

But in fact complete and become and make manifest the totality of human process:

AS EACH UNIQUE SELF AND THE WHOLE WORKING IN SYNERGY -

And through which synergy among substructure and superstructure, as shown, is actualized the totality of that which is man and that which is humanity -

And reality of both attains the highest functionality -

For good of each person and good of mankind.

================================

Then the seeds fall out; become themselves; and give birth to the new fruit.

Succession of the seasons. The way of the universe.

Bring in will guided by wisdom and goodwill, and build the next level.

Not only cyclical as in the East.

Not only linear as in the West.

But understanding integratively - intrinsically and through synthesis of referential planes - arrive at an ever-more-complete, ever-more-clear, understanding.

And then use the real mechanism of will, informed by real knowledge and real benificence, to make the most of - reality.

To build the next level, now inspired with passionate embrace of the resplendent -

And to make it an ongoing, continuous, practical part of the reality of the world -

By using the practical reality of man's actions inspired by the resplendent to make it so.

===================================

Ilya Shambat.

Monday, June 19, 2006

Conveying states

A common situation that writers have is that, in expressing an experience or a feeling, they are loved by those who have experienced similar things but ridiculed by those who have not. When a reader has experiential ground for a piece of writing, the writing reflects a subjective state with which he is familiar; this creates a sense of recognition and a sense also of being understood. Both of these are helpful, and both evoke respect and goodwill. The person who has not experienced the same feelings or lifestyles, on the other hand, has no recognition; and he is therefore typically left wondering what has been written - as well as whether it's anything worthwhile.

How indeed does one convey an emotion to someone who has not felt it? How if not through metaphor - through comparing the processes to something with which the reader is familiar - or by attempting to put it in terms that reflect the reader's neurological state? A person who has no context - or limited context, or erroneous context - for what's being conveyed may not only be annoyed but become full of hatred. The feelings that he has either not known or decided wrong-made - or both -
now come at him though a random piece of writing. So what is this reluctant reader to do?

Let's turn this around; What is the writer to do in order to make his work palatable to the reluctant reader? At stake is more than the writer's popularity; at stake is how the world views the emotions conveyed. And this means: Figuring out how the reader thinks and what he has known; and present the work in reference to this knowledge. And when the issue is with feelings, I believe that it's worthwhile to
describe them as they are felt - intrinsically - and then, once referential (external) analytical perspective is possible to come up with referential definition.

And then feed them into each other - feed heart and mind into each other - in the process checking, improving, completing, enhancing and finally mastering - until they produce beautiful work.

There is also of course the hostile-takeover model (derived from corporate law): Conveying something so powerfully and beautifully that even the cynics will be swayed. The first model is that of catering to the consumer; the second is that of overpowering his defenses with truth and beauty of one's work. I believe there is room for both, and I hope that devices such as extended metaphor and intrinsic-referential synthesis can be used by people to convincingly and completely convey emotional and intrapersonal states in order that the totality of human experience - or at least more and more of it in pieces - can be made available to the reader and thus both felt and understood.

Sunday, June 11, 2006

Hooting with the owls

Written in Summer 2005.

This one's a doozy. Feel free to skip it if you find it boring. The people referred to are posters to the Internet, with whom I have had debates.

Some of the ideas in here, however, I believe are worth looking at.

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So Mr. Bat had a fine ole night hooting with the owls! And not only the owls, but the howls. The owls make the howls and the howls make the owls and over the backbone of the H they form a mirror image of each other. As in, eviLive.

It's been a fine night for Mr. Bat, out on the streets of Alexandria. First I read Mr. Khodorkovsky's epistle from the jail: "True freedom is within," "a result of pursuing one's principles" - and of course the main question to ask is, "Are your principles truly yours?" And then, "By what authority?" And then, "After what process?" And finally, "To what extent true?" (and of course the idea that Scorpio stuff is destructive: No, you first reject what you don't like, then you figure out what you do like and affirm it). (and the correlated concept of self-awareness: Self-awareness in terms of a false set of beliefs is wrong and can only be done in terms of true beliefs) (and the corollary concept of taking responsibility for one's life: That only becomes possible truly when you've studied and experienced and have an informed knowledge of what you truly want: all else leads to wasted lives). After philosophy class (continuing education program) at the community college, in which was discussed Spinosa's concept of God being self-existing manifesting through all people who are nodes (and it is the purpose of the node, I presume, to refract the light until it creates a picture that is most appealing, with each node shaped by substance & reshaping substance and self and - hey, Mr. Self-existing One, could you please notice me and what I've done with your substance (oh and tell me the true causes of things, in what cases it's linear & in what cases it's over-determined & in what cases it's a web & of what or what behind the web (and as a mode could I be good this way or could I be good another way or could I let you be me for a second so you could show me the ropes or could you let me in your shoes here for a moment so I have compassion for you or could you and I work together here for a second and to reshape one another with our essentiality so that we could establish flux between the self-existing and the merely-existing and allow the emanation to respond to the core with experimental results its actions [true/false/transcendent] while the core enlightens the emanation with its continued manifestations of self-existence) - I see this fashionable black woman rubbing lotion on her hands, and I say she smells tasty, and she asks "Do you want to eat me?"

So I get out of class, it's 10:25, my bus leaves, it's a gorgeous summer night so I walk down the street. I keep hearing "Theirs not to make reply, theirs not to reason why, theirs but to do and die" - while professors leave the parking lot, one in a Beetle - and I keep merrily heading down the road, occasionally kissing a flower. I see the den of the enchanted she-spider hanging in the air between the trees. That den of the enchanted she-spider, thank the grounds of being for that, I can just get lost in those embraces and those enfoldments and that gentle caressing mist between trees seeking to shroud life with its delicacy and bring it into its complete resplendor. And all night long it's something with "95" (year of the enchanting she-spider) it's something with "56" (year of my muse) or the next number "57" (year of Sputnik in space - not coincidental) it's something with "7:07" or "9:11" or all along the same line.

I remember from previously: The movement outward is hardest from most closed-minded places and easiest from most open-minded. The worst ones are the hardest, while the better ones are freer because much of the work has been done for you. The places with greatest political and social obstacles are ones that have least to offer, and whose people have most legitimate reason to go somewhere else. The same is true for all propaganda, family-values, militaristic, religious, Marxist, feminist or any other: The less the place has to offer and the worse it is, the more propaganda and moral bludgeoning it requires. Which creates an inverse relationship between actual moral quality of the social order and amount of moralizing done by the social order. A social order that is most malignant is one that is most moralizing. The more malignant, the more moralizing; the more actually morally upstanding, the less propaganda and moralizing required. Which is the reason that moralizing societies lead to the worst abuses against people. Some think this is coincidental, I see direct and inevitable relationship.

I see some toughs loitering outside King's Pizza and wait at bus station, walking around the corner and stand at bus stop watching restorateurs leave in cabs, and here I am again in treespace while bus does not come and I keep walking. And there I run into the whole sociopath nonsense and say in response that that is a concept that underlies the economic system and political system and to apply it to Wollmann without applying it to Gates is despicable - and then I keep reiterating: What we have here is a science selling out to a political interest: adopting as health the interest of American middle class and its dogmas and pathologizing what speaks otherwise: That it speaks to American dogmas rather than Soviet ones does not make it any less of a manipulation. And then I notice something more on this issue: Through manipulation of social climate and attitudes and actions and reactions pursuant those attitudes, consequences are assigned to actions that are not natural, but rather artificial & create an impression of good actions being bad and bad actions being good. We see that run through all societies and times. We have, for example, Pakis saying that romance is disastrous and proving it by killing those who fall in love. We have, for example, Cubans saying that business is antisocial and proving it by killing those who do business. The idea of God being through all things is used to excuse deliberate social manipulation, by nodes and creators of nodes, as though those were divinely ordained rather than manmade. The obvious problem is that substance may manifest through nodes, but nodes, involving choice, mean that they are not obligated to the ground of being but are as such nodes capable of deliberate choice, God-ordained or not!

And then it is used to impose this order as though it was divine. Which requires calling the bluff. If God is through all things, in other words, then not only the order you create but the order I create is manifestation of God - as is the order created by any of your other enemies.

So we have environmental science claim that environment exists according to its order, unless disturbed by man (devil #1). We have systems like Confucianism that claim society as a matter of social order having a place for everyone - place according to divine order - unless that order is disturbed by man's ego (devil #2). We have economic science that has applied this to economic activity and said that all things are guided by "invisible hand" when in a "free-market" context, with everyone competing against everyone, unless disturbed by intellectually conceived and goal-directed political action (devil #3), even as this same science adopts will and ego and montarily defined self-interest (combination of devil #1 and devil #2) as basic concept of legitimate human interest and claims the competition within framework of law to be the natural order. After which we have the concept of intellectual-political action uniting people in what it believes to be intellectually right ideology; that seeks to educate people based on intellectual and philosophical ideas and shared interest (and which the economic mindset sees as meddling or evil or arrogance - the same way the social interest was to the economic mindset from the beginning - even as the media-intellectual-political ideas created anyway necessitate for the people to move toward a place of politics and philosophy and awareness of their civilization beyond the dogmas of laissez-faire and even to protect laissez-faire demand political and intellectual action on the part of the business class). In this political-intellectual order the devil (devil #4) is spirituality, which main proponents of this ideology see as being one or another form of mental malfunction - much like the capitalists think of the political-intellectual. Once that stops working, after many corpses and disfigurements, and people start realizing after collossal battling that, no, spiritual experience is real, the next step seeks to create an order of people united in their spiritual experience and loyal to their knowledge and conception of the divine. In that order, the devil #5 is attained will (the people familiar with the subject know what I'm talking about). In all cases, we see a concept of nature, then society, then economy, then intelligence, then spirituality, then attained will, being divine; which order in all cases starts through one or another stage of will-assertion. Each level considers itself divine - unless disturbed by the artifact of man's deliberate act of choice and of will as it stands to disrupt these supposedly divine workings. And what each level fails to understand is that the case of something being divine does not make what goes to the next level less divine.

Each of these deified orders regard the next one as being demonic in origin. It refers to it as one or another form of hubris, without realising that according to a previous order it itself has been regarded as hubris, and that what works is for gradations of hubris to build on itself! We have Dan Mocnsny here, an evolutionist, saying that the problem with the world is that "freaks won't know their place" when if his belief in evolution is true then it is the freaks that are the source of all evolution, and it is their "place" to move the world forward (and yes Dan, you most certainly are a freak and there is nothing remotely bad about it - the problem is what you do with your mutation). The social order is based on man - the demon vis-a-vis the natural order. The capitalist economy is based on ego - the demon vis-a-vis the social order. The politics and ideology are based on ideology-based action, which is the demon vis-a-vis capitalism. The same dynamics work at the next levels. And what we are seeing at every level is, essentially, demonization of the next stage of liberty, until it is either supplanted by it or unless it subverts it to perpetuate itself.

How do I define liberty? AN ACT OF DIRECTING WILL DELIBERATELY. Liberty is an act of saying, essentially, I EXIST. And as corollary of that: I direct my action. And note to Gail and Mickey: Whether you like it or not (and note number 2: If God did not like arrogance then he would not have created signs Leo and Scorpio, and especially He would not have created a Scorpio with Leo rising, Pluto opposite Jupiter and Uranus square Saturn).

The interesting part consists, once again, in the absolute insistence of each preceding order ind the demonic quality of the coming one. The new order gives promise to lift man to a higher level; the previous order attacks by claiming that motive to be based in thinking oneself better than the authority by which the order is believed to be ordained (and to which will is made to believe to be subjugated). Essentially each order considers the preceding level to be divine and the following one as based in disruption of divine order. Both are right, and both are wrong. If all is God, then so is what man does (and to all the you-think-you're-God people, the response is: "ye are gods" is part of the New Testament, it's a matter of how you use it). As the situation rises, the deliberateness quotient rises, but the complexity of the system builds. The life becomes more free of the preceding level, but more tied to the following level. The devil becomes the shaper and is then himself exceeded.

Now based on similar observations made two centuries ago, was developed a historical inevitability model: That politics would overcome capitalism and lead to a global order based on all-unifying political action based in shared interest of all. The problem with this model was a problem common to Tauruses: A grossly incomplete concept of human nature, that accepts what he believes to be bottom line as the only legitimate interest and anything else as form of deviance or insanity: A concept we see among many in the capitalist world that Marx tried to supplant and whose error he perpetuated in its essence while claiming to overcome it in ideology. He took a futuristic outlook and put it in service of barbaric mentality and created just what would be expected: A futuristic barbaric order! An order that put the first man in space while keeping its people in a barbaric condition. The very people he claimed to speak for - at the expense of all actual human traits.

Now based on the step-by-step approach I've talke about previously, we see in many cases a hierarchial mentality develop: Of claiming the next level of separation from the ground of being to be the higher level of mind, beneath which all else is to be subjugated. I object to this idea because even the most technologically advanced order has not created anything approaching a rainforest, a tiger or an experience of romance, and the so-called lower levels possess legitimacy and deserve respect just for their sheer complexity. That something is preceding does not make it inferior, and true human experience involves experience of such things as nature and passion (or at least, anyway, an experience that I seek for myself and seek to make possible to similar tastes).

The problem of hierarchial thinking - and the resulting cruelty and oppression against experience that make the most of existense - led to thought, among feminists among others, that this model is patriarchial, whereas the feminine way is holistic and regarded to be more in tune with life. Now while noticing as needed an obvious reverse snobbery in this situation - to regard yourself as being in tune with life for being a woman rather than a man is as ridiculous as it is to regard yourself more human for doing manual labor rather than for being a professor - we are confronted with two potentials for improvement and two potentials for evil. The problem in hierarchial thinking is suppressing experience of life, seeing emotions or sexuality as lower functions, spitting on nature, despising things one had no chance of being able to create and robbing life of its color. The problem with holistic thinking is that fails to differentiate in quality and seeks to achieve similar outcomes - a condition that of course shackles the best.

The problem with American feminism, as I have repeatedly stated, is that it is just as authoritarian, as abrasive, as cruel and as malicious in enforcing the feminist social role as the patriarchy was in enforcing its concept of what women should be. Which has rightfully led to reaction by many women of intellect and initiative. We see many educated upper-class young women in India deliberately choosing subservient role because they see it as natural. We see many women in America reject feminist values because they rightly claim them to be inappropriate, wrong, limiting or against their religion. The beautiful, successful, intelligent Russian women of my acquaintance, my generation or previous one, all tell me the same thing: That American feminists are insane; that they don't understand what being a woman is all about; that they rob women of the best qualities that come with being a woman and impoverish not only what she is but what she can get out of life. That they've bought into man's value system and in so doing destroyed the uniquely good and beautiful in the woman - in the same way as, well, as Marx bought into the materialistic value system and sought to make it a part of his collectivistic ideology and as a result caused a still more oppressive form of materialism to the very people whose interests he claimed to espouse.

As I see independent-minded women say again and again, Unisex does not work. It is not right for them; it is not fulfilling for them; it is not what they want. The problem with former system was not its differentiation of feminine traits and masculine traits; it was the belief that one set was superior to the other - which I, of course, regard and always did regard to be complete idiocy. (Priest says: Men and women are different in roles, not in value). As a poet, I am in love with female beauty, tenderness, gentleness, and emotional richness - the qualities that I see, in women who have them, to be far better than traits of the next man (or, rightfully, of the woman who does not have these traits). These are the qualities that make a world worthy of human habitation! These are the qualities that I, rightly, would like to see more in the world - whatever the woman in glasses in the academia has to say about it - and that most certainly does mean protecting the women who have these qualities from those, women and men, who would like such traits not to exist! The problem is not the beautiful traits; the problem is a competition-based culture that fails to value, respect and reward such traits! And if feminism is in any way to be honest to its claimed goals - to give woman freedom of choice and of who to be - then it has to live with women choosing, deliberately, to have these traits, whether or not the feminist wants them to have them - whatever it thinks about their cultural origin or their psychological fundamentals - and what it, in its arrogant claim to speak for the rights of all women while denying the real women the right to be who and what they want to be, completely overlooks as virtues that women are uniquely capable of having and that make life worthwhile, for women who have these traits and for people around them, when they find the way to a man who rightly appreciates them and rightly rewards them for having such qualities!

It's not "feminist vs. misogynist" or any such nonsense. It's this: That under the pretext of women's advancement you people denied women the freedom to be what you do not want them to be! And yes, we are seeing women rightly rejecting this authoritarianism left and right, in the same way as we saw the world righty reject Marxism. And in standing up to - that - women truly assert their liberty. It's very heart-warming to see women say to the psychological bullies that claim to speak for them that, no, they don't represent women. In the same way as it's heart-warming to see black people stand up to the African "big men" and gangsters who claim that they represent Africa while killing Africans - and to see industrial workers stand up to the unions that attack workers for working well and say that they don't speak for them either.

The problem with feminism is the same as the problem with Marxism. It adopted the enemy's value structure and concept of what makes a genuine human interest or mentality, and then sought to beat them at their own game. This can be done only at the expense of hideous disfigurement and ultimately degradation of the very people the ideology claims to help. And the next step beyond feminism - as articulated by smart, strong-minded women again and again - is HEALTHY HETEROSEXUALITY - defined as CELEBRATION OF DIFFERENCES BETWEEN MEN AND WOMEN WITHIN THE FRAMEWORK OF MUTUAL LOVE AND RESPECT. And yes, that does mean standing up to bullies on either side of the aisle, both idiots who think women to be inferior and monsters who want to rob women of being women.

To go back to the hierarchial model. What I seek to state is that the fact of something being on a lower level in the hierarchy of organization does not make it inferior or having less to offer people. Thus, for example, we see many people, who are quite capable of intelligent thought, do such things as commune with nature and revel in romantic passion. The reason is this: To do such things is to experience the totality of life as life is meant to be experienced in total. The beauty and interconnectivity of nature does not go away because man lives in St. Louis; indeed it is in that interconnectivity that is found an aspect of mankind that corresponds with life itself, at the level near the ground of being that is most profound and is in many ways the most complex (What economy ever produced a rainforest?) Romantic love, I explain in the same way as did Ayn Rand: A passionate affirmation, with the totality of one's being, of the other person: An act of saying yes with one's whole entity to what the other person is; a statement that puts one in touch with the truth of life as it is expressed throughout one's beingness and in the other, in both one's consciously known values and unconsciously known ones. It is, likewise, a case of experiencing life at a more profound level and a more complete level - and to make such things possible (and to make possible for such things to thrive and survive longterm) is a secret to securing life worthy of human existence.

Now there is much ado about the idea that a man who presumes to act out of his volition or use his mind is seeking to be God-like. To people of such conviction, I would like to offer the Biblical story at Mount Sinai, in which God was going to kill off the Jews until Moses told him that if He were to do so, He would be seen as negating His promise. This shows of course that, whether God be omnipotent, omniscient, or omnipresent, He is not infallible - that man's perspective supplements God's perspective - that man comes up with ideas that God hadn't come up with - and that is further the case not only for people regarded as wise by one or another culture or priestry, but especially for people who have unique ways of combining information, whom cultures may not regard wise or benevolent at all, but whose perspective, being unique, supplements that of the culture and corrects it in its endemic errors (in the same way that sometimes even a carpenter's perspective supplements that of God).

I keep developing the psycho-ethical equilibrium concept: The world at any given time is at equilibrium point among people's just-world concepts; which equilibrium is constantly shifting as people's condition changes and so do just-world concepts, with both feeding into each other. I remember my comment that, when someone is being bullied, there's a pressure on people to regard that person as wrong - then I recognize how difficult it is to maintain one's sense of self as good in presence of constant nastiness or to maintain sense of another person's good when they are being savaged or the sense of goodness of self and the world in presence of hideousness all around - and well, that still may very well be a flaw in design, but one I see as something that can be overcome - though not simply by effort of will, by no means, as will simply embodies one's basic beliefs and convictions - but rather by having a structure of convictions that are structurous of a will and by which these convictions manifest and are part of formation of interdependent reality pursuant your just-world convictions.

I hear about God-in-all-through-all of Spinosa, Jungian version of this, Platonic and I look at how this is exclusive of free will - at the same time I have to watch for barbaric beliefs of people who are not schooled in such concepts and deliberate manipulations of those who want to blind people to cultural factors especially when those be their own - and I say that hey, Confucians equated social order with this ("li") and Taoists claimed it to be part of natural way toward which deliberate action and social order is hindrance - and then I say how we've seen an abomination of all abominations: American psychology deriving from spirituality the idea of collective consciousness and then used it to mean what they wanted psychosocial environment to become - creating a "li" type condition to freeze-dry in eternities a sociocultural moment and set of false convictions and interests - using the consciousness movement sellouts to deify precisely the thing that they sought rightly to overcome and shoving, through character destruction and psychological violence, the lie of the deliberately created construct being natural or divine, down people's throats. Creating this abomination of all abominations; Bigotry, barbarism and sheer malice using spiritual tools to enforce itself and claiming to be spiritual consciousness of civilization! Treating its dissidents as demons! And claiming for itself absolute authority over people's lives, while denying them any freedom of will and choice and thought: An encompassing American "li," the deviation from which is deviation not only from sanity but indeed from divine order! Confucianism on American soil, ladies and gentlemen, denying not only deliberate choice but denying people the knowledge of the Choices That Went Into Creating This Situation - that pass off social construction as part of divine will or all that is while not only ignoring the fact of human will (modes, right?) in formation and co-formation of social reality but denying people the RIGHT TO MAKE A CHOICE, period!

Which means that any meaningful concept of liberty means breaking down that construct.

So I'm walking down the street and still seeing the den of the enchanted she-spider in front of me and pulling me further ahead into her grasp. Oh! You know how much I need you, devour me, why don't you, and turn me into food for webs. The she-spider laughs. I would be corrupt if I were to use such feelings for short-sighted purposes. I'm only pulling you to where the self-existing one lives. That's whom you want to talk to, then you could actually have informed choice & to reason why would be yours.

I remember "in the middle of the road only yellow stripes and dead armadillos" and I walk between yellow stripes and a SUV approaches from behind and I think maybe I could disprove that but it shows no signs of seeing me so I move off and well I think the middle-of-the-road view can sometimes work and in some cases may even be optimal, but it also is taxing and hard to maintain energy (and some things are furthermore not to be integrated, as compromise with what wants you dead leaves you half-dead: Dialectic works for legitimate pairs of existents, while in other pairs of existence one is all-good and other is all-bad in which what is needed is not dialectic but radicalism, and in other existents still we have some convoluted mixture), so on occasion it will happen that one extreme topples the moderate and then the two need to fight or make up and, well, just that you came up with this solution in DC as a politician at 50 does not mean that it it true for Puerto Rican at 30 or the 15-year-old rape victim or the German retirees or the bus driver in India or people in Ethiopia or Ukraine. And yes, I do expect the same things to be said by the next or the preceding, and see that as part of the job. Moving equilibrium, right? Composed of just-world hypotheses, shifting all the time.

And then - far right. Path to the greenery, and inside it a brook. I'm in my shorts with bare feet, and I hear Well if you're so in touch with the light then go into here, through darkness, through brambles, and let it carry you. I do, while at one point laughing at a vine above me (she once swung on a vine too and it broke but she lived - here I think vine is a helping hand, a high place extending me hand I need as it hangs off the emanation of the self-existing and looks like umbilical cord but only apparently mimics that adaptation to lead out and up) - and so I walk through and find myself in the brook, and I stand as they tell me, and I let she-spider weave all around me and be enfolded by her skin and remember the river nymphs and know the true meaning of communing. The river nymphs Ms. LL said were always lonely and sought to be loved, but found upon contact with man that he saw them as satanic and wanted to either kill them or put them in horrible place - and I said I am with you I won't stand to let you be killed whatever that means to my salvation - and then I hear about hardness of walls and I say that I will show what is under the wall ("earth hard - fire under it"), as I rummage through rocks - rocks polished by water - rocks arranged meticulously - I take a rock that has flat bottom and circular top, the presentation I presume of model of being - until I find WHAT WAS UNDER THE WALL.

This one is all black, containing many black rocks within a fused-together ground of being shape of an L. No spheres, no polish, nothing. Absolutely uncompromising. A bit of a nematode I conjecture, a bit of a coral reef I conjecture, a bit of a colony in which each is its own seed and whole being manifests through all. So I think OK this is the integrative synthesis, with self and structure reshaping both and belonging to each other, making best of each other and best for each other through synthesis and abrasion and creating synergy within framework of checks and balances - actually I think this later, what I think here is:

If you WWIIers or Xers still don't get a clue, the clue is as follows. That particular society combined the worst of spirit and matter: Regimented and intellectually oppressive as in religion and barren of all emotional and spiritual experience as in rationalism. And the purpose of mind is to combine the best of all possible worlds. A world that makes the best of spirit and matter: Full of emotional and spiritual and experiential richness (the best of spirit) - and with real liberties and well-being (the best of matter). And yes that means the best of all possible worlds; and if you say you can't have the best of all possible worlds then I say that it is the purpose of mind to make the best of all possible worlds and if we don't have the best of all possible worlds then we either aren't thinking or are being sabotaged or are sabotaging ourselves.

("And what if humanity does not deserve that?" Whether or not that is so, your job as a human is to make that possible. "And what about original sin?" Well if there is such a thing as original sin then it speaks to the totality of the human nature including all agendas belonging to it, including desire to control your children or run your community or control people's behavior or make money or shape your country or stand in anyone else's way, so the concept applies to anything you may do and is for that reason meaningless to all practical action - in the same way for example as the concept of all things being illusion becomes meaningless by the same standard.)

So I am out of the stream and walking past a cemetery. It says "Mitchell" (Hey you know who) then "Bowie" and before all of them in the middle, "Shepherd." (and I guess the ones behind you are sheep, and well guess where they are now). Then: "Onion" and "Simpson" (I start laughing: Hey boss, thanks for that) followed by "Stuart." OK, you got my attention (someone else knows significance of that too).

Then there's the church that talks about 11:00: Christianity 101: Repentance and I see this as initiation ritual akin to all others in other religions (you reject sin or the world of sin or ego and then you proceed on path to illumination or enlightenment) and then I think I don't repent things under consideration so I hear then let's manipulate the events in society and in people's lives in such ways that they would suffer negative circumstances and you would be seen as a culprit or as a wrongdoer and I say This is your social manipulation done using deliberate effort of will and mind and is in no way a natural consequence of those actions, so the one guilty is not me or my loved ones but you. I remember the observation that said non-Christians got headaches and mental pain and I remember that state of affairs when in Christian school and of course this is not natural state of being non-Christian but state induced by Christian people's thoughts and prayers - you think you don't do magic? Your whole mindset is magic - and so I start thinking well am I not bringing murderous memes of Christianity to those whom I don't want killed and - that was the problem before, I kept bringing shit to those I did not want to bring shit and I hoped Christianity would free me of that

So I reiterate what I said before, There's the true spiritual attitude that fills world with richness and the religious component that regiments, and there's the logic-based worldview that gives circumstantial liberty but disallows any feeling or thought or existence that actually makes life worthwhile, and I say there's ways to combine it with 00 rate of return (religious applied to behavioral standards - material applied to emotion: no liberty, no richness, aka pure evil), 01 (religious applied to behavioral standards - spiritual applied to emotion: no liberty, but richness, the experience of the Mexican), 10 (material applied to behavioral standards - material applied to emotion: Liberty, no experience, the experience of the Unitarian), and the prize: 11: Material applied to society and spiritual applied to experience: Liberty AND life worth living.

Now this has happened once in American history: The path from 10 moved to 11. The Transcendentalism. A more traumatic transition: From 00 to 11: the Hippies. And in both cases they were described as being spoiled. Will you people learn? IT IS MEANINGLESS TO GIVE PEOPLE CIRCUMSTANTIAL LIBERTY, OR PEACE, OR PROSPERITY, IF THEY ARE NOT ALLOWED TO LIVE! What happened was not merely rebellion; It was improvement: It was progress: It was the next level. It was the innovation upon what existed previously. You've created a civilization in which people have rights. Now, it can be a civilization in which people can actually live. AND Integrate the spiritual component, while Building it, On top, Of, The, Intellectual, Structures, That, You, Created!

In other words: Liberty AND emotional richness! Mind AND spirituality! Not only have statutory liberty, but make it possible to actually live! Like I said, what's the point of being free if you are not allowed to feel, or to live, or to have beautiful experiences and beautiful existence? We have New Agers freeing themselves by saying that they must essentially be a world to themselves - that others are reflection of self but not important - that romantic love is a myth - that everyone creates their reality (corollaries: that everyone who's being mistreated caused it, that the privileged Westerner created conditions of his privilege and the Ethiopian has done the same for himself, that any feeling worth having is to be exculcated, that leader can do anything to his subjects because they would be creating their reality through his actions and you can do what you want to another because they caused their reality) - and what I'm saying is, This is monstrous! So you've found a way to be free, I see that; but you've done it by becoming cold and heartless and malevolent! And utterly lacking in compassion, ethics or any sense of what your ideas would mean for the world as a whole.

The problem I've seen with a lot of spiritual adepts is that they become cold, heartless, and cruel, and that's simply not a direction I would accept any spirituality taking me! What's the point of having spirituality if you end up cold? "You are the river" - no, a river is a flow, it is a flux, it is a relationship. "Just be love" - an impossibility: You cannot be love because love is something that is felt by one thing for another - you can love but you cannot be love: You can be fire, you can be light, I've been motion and verb for a while, you can even be self-existent for a while if you swing that way but you cannot BE love. The Bhakti Yoga is not based on "being love"; it is based on devotional love of God bringing one into Godspace. In the same way as love for the next person creates similar flux that reshapes both.

And meanwhile we have (from a Castaneda group leader and publisher of "Tucson Poet") the poetic imagery of the civilizaition being a giant eros-extracting mechanism directing lifeforce toward consumption. What does this mean, and where does this lead? If eros is something to be extracted and used to fuel economy - what world do we have? As Robert Tkotch rightly stated, a population completely and deservedly emasculated in every respect that counts. A population in which, to paraphrase Onion, 90% of the population are permanently sedentary, all their life force expropriated. A population that attacks the true river - the true flux - the true manifestation of eros: The passionate love between man and woman. And that, by attacking the basis of all true emotional experience, becomes this and this absolutely: An expropriation and usurpation of life. Itself. Apparently "God is love" becomes "military-industrial complex is love" the upshot of which is: Pepsi loves you.

I've seen this malignant element in thought of aforementioned spiritual adepts: Their claim of passion between woman and man as "a shortcut." A shortcut? A shortcut to what? Enlightenment? What if they aren't interested in enlightenment - what if they are simply interested in living? No, it is a better technology. It is a claim on existence. It is a birthright of human beingness. It is the truth of experience, and without such things being possible all the progress you have means nothing!

Don't you YET understand? To have liberties, is meaningless unless you can actually have an existence worthy of experiencing! It puts a question to the whole idea of, "Well what do we have these liberties for?" To have legal liberties, without a freedom to feel, to experience, to have life worth having, is like having walls without a building inside of it! Once again, WHAT ARE THESE LIBERTIES FOR? Is it worth fighting to protect liberties without it being acceptable to live? if it is impossible to have a fully human, fully passionate, fully experienced, existence? Don't just say you've made this building (and everyone owes you their life, and then go down in history as yet another set of tyrants who fed in order to choke while people legitimately start asking if maybe it's better to surrender some of these liberties for the sake of spirituality), make it habitable so that your work actually BENEFITS the world! Put furniture, paintings, carpets inside so that somebody actually BENEFITS from what you've created! Put this work in service of human interest, use hardware to carry beautiful works and beautiful artifacts and ideas that allow people to develop beautiful thoughts and emotions and by implementing them in their lives and sharing them with each other not only make life beautiful for each other but actually create a social order that does the world the honor for existing - that makes possible life worth living - that Consummates the Edifact of Civilization and allows light to manifest through the structures of manifestation and create a livable world rather than simply a working economy!

So we hear intellectualists argue that emotions are necessarily entrapping and regressive, and I say, Ridiculous - and to paraphrase someone, what's so freeing or rational about the emotion of hate. And then we hear religious people argue that you're not independent. Well, I may be independent or I may not be independent; Khodorkovsky just told us a way to be free whatever the circumstances. And there's Mickey saying that that makes you arrogant and I say SO BE IT, Be arrogant when dealing with people like Mickey, STAND BY your thoughts, STAND BY your feelings, stand by your being and right to exist as an independent unit of volitional consciousness and a being who feels - and for people to be able to do that is the only way to defeat dictatorship and oppression by any name, whether it come from people who think you arrogant for having your own thoughts or people who think you infantile for having feelings worth having or from the marriage in hell between psychology and religion to create an encompassing American "li" the devation from which is a deviation from sanity and goodness itself (and Scott Peck as its ultimate arbiter). Yes, I read that the idealist's strategy is to create a holistic synthesis that gets everyone to agree - and I keep saying that's fine and good and a noble project, but don't tell me that that means I have to submit to this if I see and know to the contrary!

So I see two complementary half-rights half-wrongs: Religion being oppressive of behavior but enriching of experience, and rationalism creating circumstantial liberty but denying freedom to feel and to experience life. And I say that the poet's way is to combine the best of both: To have circumstantial freedom and the freedom of passion and beauty and inspired, beautiful, passionate, romantic existence. You may claim the latter to be an impossibility. But I've seen it work and would fight for it for the next person. And to the people who regard such things badly, I say, This is the prize of existence, and anything against that is against all the good in humanity. It is for this that every great person has ever striven, and to make such things possible for the next person is one's duty before America and one's duty before humankind.

Renaissance man vs. specialization

The problem with the ethic of specialization is that it creates minds that are good at one thing but are ignorant of other things. Thus, they make choices based upon the mentality of one area of human endeavor while having no knowledge of the others (and frequently having contempt therefor). This leads to errors; it also leads to bad citizenship. The people begin deciding that their specialization is the only one that matters, and develop disregard and contempt for all other human endeavors no matter how worthwhile they are. The people begin judging intelligence, character and all other qualities according to the standard of their profession and imposing upon the world that standard. Until we get to a situation in which programmers start attacking everyone else for supposedly being stupid because the professions they
practice demand a different way of thinking - and say such things as "Can artists program in Java?" - to which the correct response is "Can programmers fly F-15"?

The ethic of specialization leads to a rock mentality, in which people are ignorant of the world they inhabit and of all the richness of cross-fertilization and human endeavor and forms of intelligence that makes it possible. The ethic of specialization makes people unappreciative of all else that it takes to make the world work. Finally - and this is the most sinister of these situations - the ehtic
of specialization makes people intolerant of other qualities and talents besides ones used in their profession, resulting in a caste-like system in which people prevent their children from developing abilities no matter how much they stand to contribute through their development.

The ethic of specialization furthermore has a negative effect on the people themselves. They become rigid; intolerant; paranoid; adapted to only one niche and afraid to step out anywhere else. The fear of the unknown - unknown because they are specialized in only one thing and are not prepared to understand or accept anything else - leads them to cruelty and intolerance. Far from being bliss, their ignorance becomes a cause of nightmarish existence, both for others and for themselves.

The specialization ethic creates people who are incomplete; and being incomplete are not accepting of anyone else's completeness. It creates people who become mistrustful of anything other than themselves and of any gifts people have other than ones they choose in their professions. The infrastructure required to sustain this state of affairs becomes rigid, cruel, and turns easily toward malevolence and oppression. These aren't coincidental; these are direct and inevitable result of the
ethic of specialization.

When a person is versed in many things, on the other hand, he becomes more and more the completeness of what he can be. He also becomes a better citizen, capable of checking the wrong in any given pursuit and capable of assisting the right that is in it. He is not as ignorant of the world and therefore not as paranoid or intolerant. He understands the value of other ways of thinking and other professions and is more willing to let people around him find their way to pursuits for which
they are suited the most, while appreciating those engaged in other pursuits. From rigid narcissism that refuses to accept any other professions or modes of thought or abilities or forms of intellect than what one practices in one's specialization, one turns to greater wisdom and greater understanding and greater tolerance. The inner experience is enriched; disposition improves; likewise grows respect for, compassion for, and understanding of others. People improve; so does experience of life; so does the civilization.

Which means that moving from ethic of specialization to ethic of Renaissance will improve the lives of many and the condition of the civilization as such.

Ilya Shambat.

More poems

She-Spider

The glorious enchanted she-spider
Is weaving her web again
The lights of the street lamps are wider
And branches are drenched with rain

The light of the moon pours diffusely
Through fog upon the ground,
The headlights of cars shine profusely
And through them the web is wound -

Night cloudy and full of vapor:
Night foggy that pours forth soul
The den of enchanted she-spider
Holds heart and then makes it whole

Caressing, expressing, impressing -
Delirium it will instil
To all of the world's faults confessing
And from it forging Will

Which she will in her web hold
And make it bear great fruit:
Who knows it? Who ever told?
And if so, who could refute?

The glorious enchanted she-spider:
She who makes love from pain,
Beauty and truth beside her:
Fog, and beyond it, rain:

Tender still night, and silent
And in it dwells respite:
Indigo, yellow, violet -
Greet this, the holy night!

Greet she-spider, her the angel
Of beauty and delight,
Greet the intent and danger -
Greet and gain second sight!

Greet her, she's again here
Showing what's warm and sweet,
Greet her, and her revere:
And in her web let's meet -

There within her embraces!
In her web midst the trees!
There where she life entrances -
And puts the mind at ease -

While making it to blossom
And bear the fruit that's true.
She-spider! You are awesome!
And I thank you for you!

====================================

Pieces

I will send a piece of me to you
Through the thinness of the morning air,
It will penetrate your eyes of blue
And remain inside your heart forever.

I will send a piece of me to you
Over poppies, vilets and roses,
It will vanish in a church's pew
And resurface where your soul reposes.

I will send a piece of me to you -
You alone in all of humankind -
It will disappear from my view
And become a figment of your mind.

I will send a piece of me to you -
Nowhere else I'd send it to instead -
I will tell you to take it - take two -
And retain them all inside your head.

I will send a piece of me to you
Over oceans and over lands,
It will be so supple and so new -
Mold it, mold it, mold it with your hands.

I will send a piece of me to you -
A created piece, a piece complete -
Let it be your own, I say this too,
To just trample underneath your feet.

I will send a piece of me to you
I do not know where, nor even when,
I will send it how, I wish I knew,
To expire and live in you again.

I will send pieces of me to you
In the winter, summer, spring and fall,
And inside your being they'll accrue
Until I am none and we are all.

============================

Heaven in her Mind

The heaven in her mind
Has no boundaries or separation
No darkness
No edges
No limit
And absolutely no evil.
The heaven in her mind
Shines like sun through a cloud
Luminous white
Melodious
And perfecly soft.
She reaches down to me
And she guides me
Gently
Skillfully
With musical fingers
Drawing light to shoot to her from my heart.
The heaven in her mind
Shines softly and supernaturally
And tells me to listen
Submerge myself
To quiet my mind
And to love her.
And I kneel before her
And shroud my head in heaven
And merge with her soul.
She takes me to heaven.
I've been to heaven today.

============================

Universal Splendor

All was arranged like an orchestral chamber,
The music - synthesis of heart and mind.
The symphony of universal splendor
Was ringing through the ears of all mankind.

Who was the judge, and who was the contender?
Who won, who lived, who fell, who bled, who died?
All this is known to universal splendor
As manifest in nature and mankind.

It was not long before, as I remember
That good and evil had been ill-defined
Until the light of universal splendor
Came blazing into eyes of all mankind.

As I's and You's are put into a blender
And blades bleed them to blackness as they grind,
The smashing arm of universal splendor
Descends upon the nature and mankind.

In inspiration comes the soul's defender
And as it burns on every side, I find,
The glory of the universal splendor
Invigorates the hearts of all mankind.

In states like this, you cannot sit or stand or
Attempt to see - You'll utterly go blind:
Such is the flame of universal splendor
That vitalizes nature and mankind.

You look at galaxies, and you surrender
To universe so gloriously designed:
You come in face with universal splendor
And its creations: Nature and mankind.

As each poetic spirit bears the standard
Of passion and of beauty deified,
Through them will blossom universal splendor
And through them reach the essence of mankind.

In heart aflame, abraded to an ember -
In heaven and inferno intertwined -
Will burn the truth of universal splendor:
The truth of love, of nature and mankind.

===============================

To Embrace You with Blue Horizon

To embrace you with blue horizon
And enfold you with starry night
Means to see through the man's devising
And by Passion to set it right.

That Life shines with galactic splendor
And arises in purple dawn
Means in Humankind to engender
Beauty that reaches to the bone.

In the foam of caressing clouds -
Like in foam of the ocean waves -
Floats Life's Essence - and the mind's doubts
Find inside them Etheric graves.

Can you hear me? Oh can you hear me -
Can the Wind from the Southern shores
Take your atoms and bring them near me
That I feel the one I Adore?

Can the air that last week caressed you -
Air that bathed you along its flight -
Bring to me Cosmic Truths which blessed you
And delight me with your delight?

Droplets! Rain! I am jealous of you
That you touch her, and I cannot -
And from gusts that come streaming from you
Wisps of Julia to me float.

Wind and clouds! Wanderers of heaven!
Flying from the South to the North -
As you Swirl, Sail, Uplift and Travel -
Bring to me my love!

Love, come forth!

And before all that Lives will vanish
In the final glory of rays
I'll enfold you, the one I cherish,
With Horizon that I embrace.

========================================

Heart of Darkness

Into the heart of darkness,
Viciousness and despair -
Into the very Tartarus -
Enters the prince of Air.

Ceiling is bleak and starless.
Nobody knows your name.
Inside the heart of darkness
Flickers an open flame.

Everywhere, creeps and scoundrels
Feeding upon the souls.
Under the heart of darkness,
Broken glass and coals.

Think that I might take flight, less
I also burn to death.
But through the heart of darkness
I must create a path.

Something ignites and startles
Amid the sulfur fumes.
Inside the heart of darkness
Torment of souls resumes.

Demons and fiends and gargoyles
Crowd me on every side
As through the heart of darkness
I take a tourist ride.

Skin catches fire and sparkles
And from it pours hot blood.
Within the heart of darkness,
Boiling and ruddy flood.

"Have you lost all your marbles?"
"If I did, would I care?"
Inside the heart of darkness
I can't tell here from there.

Place is unmapped and chartless.
All roads lead to Rome -
That is, to heart of darkness -
And from it rises foam.

Nothing is seen apart; yes,
Mirrors on every wall
Reflect the heart of darkness
At everyone and all.

Evil has many partners
And many a disguise.
Look in the heart of darkness
And train your ears and eyes.

You cannot tell apart us,
Me and the souls on fire.
It burns, the heart of darkness,
Outside, inside, and higher.

Where do I stand or start? Yes,
Write with a piece of chalk
Map of the heart of darkness
Upon a lotus stalk -

Lotus that, like most marvels,
Grows in the thickest mud
And through the heart of darkness
Reaches to heart of God -

There will be no more markers
Upon my path, as I
Burn through the heart of darkness
Into the open sky.

====================================

Mirror

I will become your mirror
Showing you what you are
Making your beauty clear -
Clear as a shooting star -

I will reflect your nose
And your blue giant eyes
Your tasteful, fitting clothes
And your athletic thighs

I will reflect your hair
Elegant, long and white,
Your haunting, soulful stare
And loving, healing light,

Your noble, gorgeous features
And your heart, soft and warm
And all the precious creatures
That you hide from the storm -

I will reflect your kindness
And your internal state,
Your talent and the timeless
Beauty that you create,

Your incandescent passion
Your love and tenderness
Your elegance and fashion
Everyone that you bless -

See your reflection in me
That I give back to you
What you evoke within me -
And if it be untrue,

Shatter me like a mirror
Scatter me wide and far
Forcing me to revere
As you say au revoir,

And as I piece the fragments
Into a disco ball
It will show without raiments
Essence and heart of All.

================================

You are a Masterpiece

You are a masterpiece; true work of art
And your whole being, and its every part
Is masterwork of nature and mankind
Which in you is accomplished and refined.

Your hair, like hanging gardens of the queen
Of Babylon, swing down, and in them seen
Are ivy, cherry blossom, orchid, rose
Blooming together in resplendor. Those

Blue eyes, in which we see Monet, Renoir -
The beauty fathomed specially from afar,
That are more haunting, beautiful and true
The greater distance between me and you;

A nose that like a yacht upon the seas
Engulfs the essence of the ocean breeze -
That stays aloft in turmoil and in flood
And sends the chastened air through the blood -

The lips that like the opening to a cave
Conceal a warm and delicate enclave
In which the sparkling teeth and gentle tongue
Lead food inside and air into the lung;

A neck that like a Doric column stands
Majestic, long and white; the lily hands
That craft calligraphy and highest art
Sustained by rushing turbines of your heart;

A chest with pair of Taj Mahals adorned
That puts all human craftsmanship to scorn;
The voice, like a piano or a flute
Resounds through many octaves or stops mute,

The strands of spirit that are entertwined
In the refining furnace of your mind
That fills itself with majesty and love
And forges them into a treasure trove:

The legs like those of cheetah or gazelle
Are elegant and long and run like hell;
The stomach that like delta river's sand
Is smooth and soft and tender to the hand;

And terraced hills and paddies of your ears,
And morning dewdrops of your gentle tears,
And the Saharah Desert of your back,
And the Forbidden Palace in its track:

In you the world is manifest, in you
Is sun and sky and every worldly hue,
The flowers, stars and sculptures and the word
Of masters and the dreamers and the Lord.

I love you all; and, feeling with my heart
Your whole entity and every part,
I rise in passion and, inspired, fall
Into the Sistine Chapel of your soul.

==================================

Nightingales

Nightingales give to the forest
its meaning and its fulfilment
its passion and its consummation
Weaving into magnetic sound its essence of flying pollen and playing leaves.
they flap their wings and they perch at the top of trees
and from their beaks comes out the melody
of branches brushing past each other
and squirrel climbing up a tree.
Into the heart of madness
And out with the notes of delightfulness
Into the heart of darkness
Out with the trill of love
Into the heart of oblivion
And out with the unforgettable coral mix of piano notes and dripping dew.
Does it please you to know that you will die
And all that you knew will be obliterated
Crumbled into the ground and decomposed for flowers to bloom through you?
The nightingale wings make a breeze
And in it the butterflies flutter and pollen floats from flower to flower
And sun shines
And people love
And people love.
Nightingales reach for the sky with their song
The sound rises far above summer canopies
Hoping to fly with the clouds and water the earth like rain.
It is said that nightingales do not die
And they don't
They live within the heart of the listener
Reminding him of the ground and the forest and the sky full of stars.
You will see a nightingale sing
Then fall to the ground
As if thunderstruck
And you will go to your life as if nothing had happened
And sun will rise in the morning
And rain will fall in the afternoon
But you will be addicted forever to nightingale trill.

===============================

Start the Fire

Start the fire - Higher, higher!
That's the word the dead will hear
That the World, Complete, Entire,
Is Entitled to revere -

Start the fire - let it simmer
Let it singe the wooden branches,
Let the sparks above it shimmer
And reach out to all man's natures,

As they burn - no intervention
Burning freely, bravely, truly,
Burn the darkness of convention
And inspire the living fully,

Burn, O bonfire! Burn completely
Leave no trace of loss and sorrow
Burn in love and indiscreetly
Flare the past, light up tomorrow

And keep burning into Now
Till the moment is a Fire
And all in it starts to Glow;
Fire, keep burning - Higher, Higher -

That's the word the dead will hear
That's the word known to the living
Who have vanquished all the fear
And thus overcame Deceiving:

Tell me, fire, spare not my feelings,
How do I appear beside you?
Will the truth you be revealing
If I put my arm inside you?

Will it burn or become vapor?
Will I hold or scream in pain?
Will it light up like white paper
Or be drenched in soothing rain?

I am burning, I am burning;
And through passion made by fire,
In the fire the truth discerning,
I Alight, Complete, Entire -

Blue and red and orange-yellow
Flames are reaching all around me,
Blazing fire, screaming shadows -
Do you seek now to astound me?

Do you know what you are facing?
Do I know who, what, made you?
From what unbeknownst places
Did you come - where going to?

All the things I ever wanted
Came to me before I chose them,
And their memories are haunting,
And are cutting like a rose stem,

But the rose is worth the prickles
And the warmth is worth the pain
And though blood from my mouth trickles
I would do it all again.

I would burn like I am burning
I would yearn like I have yearned,
Staying fiery, never learning
Lessons not worth being learned:

But inspired with life's essence
Through unbridled Love's embrace
See through all of man's false lessons
And burn them without a trace

And then reach into the soul
And there feel light from the heart
And discern the timeless whole
As reflected in each part -

Which in plasma come together
Like electrons' quantum rings
In which lives key to Forever
And the truth from which it springs -

And inside it I'll be burning
With the essence of each minute:
Know what Truth is worth discerning?
Look at Fire - I am in it!

And in fire, where I am standing,
I'll send Light into the world,
That its life be never-ending
And the Living hear my Word.

==============================

Snowstorm in December

Snowstorm on winter evening
Air full of light and snow
Mind feels as though it's dreaming
As ground reclines below

Tree branches just like rivers
From their eternal source
Leading through air that shivers
Into the sea of earth

Branches overlaid with snow -
Fairy tales, like Renoir's
Paintings - together flow -
Past flakes that shine like stars!

Snow flakes here fly illumined
With light from a streetlamp
While from the sky exhuming
Winter night's cold and damp

As it falls on the ground
Under the evening sky
Makes bed of fluff and down
Where the trees' shadows lie.

Snow flakes on a December
In their chaotic flight
Make an orchestral chamber
Where music of the night

Resonates true and clear
And bursts into a song
Where passion, hope and fear
Carry the heart along -

Carry, to truths revealing!
Carry, to joys sublime!
Carry each Thought and Feeling
Into the heart of Time

And in eternal Now
In which resides true Peace
Make Essence merge with Tao
And bring eternal Bliss.

Snow, the exalted water!
Substance of life on high!
Earth's truth and heaven's daughter!
When brought into the sky

Turns into perfect matter
Each one unique, yet all
Crystalline, and they scatter
Everywhere as they fall!

Give us the truth of heaven,
Water congealed in height!
Take us to where you've traveled
On this December night -

Give us what you have mastered -
Place where the truth of life
Turns into alabaster
Crystals! To us arrive,

Each one unique, each real -
Perfect by its own code -
Soulful, incorporeal -
From its sublime abode

Falling upon the ground
And swirling on its course -
Carry your truths profound
And in them bathe the earth.

Water to heights exalted -
To place all poets seek -
Turns into truth embodied -
Each perfect and unique

Each beautiful and tender
And each reflecting light
Each to completeness rendered
And in it bathing Night

As snowflakes shimmer dancing
In chilly winter air
Heaven in them romances
Earth away from despair:

Snowflakes dress trees with beauty
And carpet breathing earth
Onto which is exuded
Truth of the soul's rebirth:

Water reaches the clouds
And there becomes attained,
And then falls on the ground
As snowflakes or as rain

To hide it in the cold
Or feed it in the heat
And the life's truth enfold
In rain, snow, ice and sleet.

Through every time and season
Through every night and day
Passion combined with reason -
Purpose combined with play -

Makes the accomplished matter
Which with the truth of soul -
The Noumenal unfettered
From the Phenomenal -

Brings the embodied splendor
And feeds what may exist
That on the earth is rendered
This divine painter's feast.

Total as life is total,
And unique, one and all -
Both anecdotal
And experimental -

Subjective and objective
Yin and yang, age and youth,
Passive and overactive
Make manifest the truth!

All elements combining
Makes what did not exist
Dualities refining
Where they like gene strands twist

Until they are most splendid
And then they all combine -
Finest and most candid -
Into the truth divine.

There passion turns to matter
And becomes absolute
There preconceptions shatter
And truths untruths refute

There Life strives for existence
Amid the strains of Time
There Seed strives through resistance -
There all becomes sublime!

There water reaches air:
There all is true and wise
There is true beauty - there -
There is no room for lies!

There soul becomes embodied
And then the ground it flails
As though overloaded -
Which its new task entails -

Here to become its most - and
All of its gifts impart:
Unique and universal
In body, mind, and heart!

Upon an earth-shaped canvas
Painting sublime designs
In world we have, that has us,
Making the most of time:

That, being made of water,
And crafted out of ice,
Makes of the time's iota
What will transcend all times:

There, to complete life's substance!
In snow or in rain
And as the snow flake dances -
There, let the soul remain

To consummate the coming
And inspire yet-to-be
And, when the rain comes drumming,
Then let the winter flee!

Then let the sun come beaming!
Then let the life return!
And until then - be dreaming
During this winter storm!

Snowstorm on winter evening!
Both journey and the goal!
Both giving and receiving!
In you, the human soul!

========================

Enchantress

My incredible!
Almost edible!
Infrared and, well,
Ultraviolet!
Full of warmth and light -
Gorgeous, timeless sight
Taking mind on flight
To the never-land.

Your blonde hair swings down
On your velvet gown -
In you voices drown,
Like in concert hall.
Unbelievable!
Inconceivable!
Sun will rise and fall
On your gorgeous soul.

My enchantress, you!
Giant eyes of blue
Like a cloud that flew
Over turquoise skies
Singing melodies
Of the galaxies
Ending fallacies
And becoming wise.

Gentle like a dove,
You are queen of love -
I can't get enough
Of your tenderness!
Goddess of the sea!
How you sing to me
How I long to be
In your soft caress!

Cherry blossom, you!
All that's good and true!
Pink and white and blue
Like a carnival,
Like a rainbow, free!
How you spell-bind me!
How I long to be
In your heart and soul!

In your love I'll swim
And your voice will sing
An eternal hymn -
No regret at all!
Inexorable!
Most adorable!
Uncontrollable!
Unforgettable!

============================

Abyss Has Opened

"Abyss has opened, full of stars" - Lomonosov

Abyss has opened full of stars.
Pluto to Venus, Moon to Mars -
We see the universal force
Charting the cosmos from its source.

Abyss of stars; in stars, abyss -
From depths to heights - from ague to bliss -
The life is manifest in all -
In every part, key to the whole -

In whole, key to every part.
The mind to soul, the breath to heart -
All of life's pieces intertwined
And through the synthesis refined.

The void in me, the stars in you -
The will to be, the sight that's true -
Will intermingle and imbue
The world with light of every hue,

That will commingle into white
And frame and sanctify the night
Shining throughout the day with sun -
And in the night, when course is run,

Return again to their source
And be the parcels. And of course
Inside each star, its own piece
Of wisdom, ecstasy and bliss.

Abyss has opened, full of stars.
Come with me darling, let us parse
The code contained within the whole
Into the knowledge of the soul.

We are the stars; we are the void -
The burning passion is employed
To light the path, to guide the way
And let the cosmic forces play

Within the whole, as holes within
Are by the interplay worn thin
And disappear in the night
To reabsorb into the light.

Galactic wisdom knows it all;
Spacetime collapsed in a black hole
As world around it rushes by
And man asks what, and how, and why;

The incongruity within -
The passions torn, the mind worn thin -
Reflect the daylight and the night
In endless love; in endless fight.

Through all abysses in the space -
Through all that in abysses plays -
Through quasars, galaxies, red shift -
Through truth, invention and deceit -

Through spirit's longing and heart's pain -
Through reasoned words and speech insane -
Through passion, terror and delight -
Through day and twilight and the night -

In all that lives; in all that's here
In ocean, island, atmosphere
In jungle, desert, tundra, steppe
In every place on which I step -

In atom cracked, its core undone -
In colors blending into one -
In forces crumbling on themselves -
In the commingling of the selves -

In space collapsed and rearranged -
In mind extended and deranged -
In lyre of life, in drum of death -
In Keats, Neruda, Rumi, Plath -

In senses shattered to the core
Till Present touches Evermore -
In every minute flung ajar -
I be abyss; you be the star.

===================================

Little Star

Twinkle, twinkle, little star.
From a trillion miles afar -
Your rays penetrate the night
And avail of your delight.
Through the curvatures in space
Where the moments are erased
You forge onward in your course
To the sun and to the earth,
Both a photon and a wave -
Both a master and a slave -
Matter, energy and speed -
Both fulfilment and the need -
Self and space-disturbing force
Charting journey from its source.

Twinkle, twinkle, little star
Shimmer as you fling ajar
Door between the mind and heart -
Tear the manacles apart -
Make it shatter; make it bleed -
Water flowers; cull the weed;
Burn outside and burn within
Till the mind begins to spin
And avails of Northern Pole
To attain into the soul -
There to manifgest as light
And achieve unending might
That can burn, and warm, and heal -
Universal truth reveal -
And allow it to break free
Like volcano in the sea,
There to reach into the clouds
And to exorcise the doubts
Of what's lovely - of what's good -
And what, if it only could -
If it only had the force -
Make a paradise of Earth.

Twinkle, twinkle, little soul,
Be my journey, be my goal,
Be my transcendental truth
And don't fall into misuse
But remain, all woes despite,
To give solace, courage, might -
To inspire the ones beneath
And direct them into bliss:
Burn and shine, and from my mind
Wipe false thoughts that make me blind
And replace myopic eyes
With the true, the good, the wise.
And as you reach in my bone,
Make it shatter like a stone,
Tear it, shake it, mold it, burn
From the sundown till the morn.
In the sky and in the eye
In the place where shadows fly
Disincarnate, free at last -
Free from future, free from past -
And existing anyhow
Living in eternal now:
Through the evening, through the dark,
Like a condor, like a shark,
Like a laughter, like a tear -
Through the moody atmosphere -
Little star! Twinkle and shine!
Burn me, scorn me, and be mine!

===============================

Orchid

Soft and warm is your heart, gentle orchid,
Sweet and tender are petals you bear
Bumblebees crowd your pistil. They lurk. It
Sends golden dust everywhere.

Would I knew where your tenderness comes from
Would I knew how your softness is made
Would I knew how your love makes the soul roam
To the heights and the depths, unafraid.

Would I felt your incredible beauty
On my cheeks, on my lips, in my heart,
Would I had one desire undisputed
Within my soul: to impart

Every beautiful thing that you know
To the people who need it the most,
By transmitting your tender glow
To their hearts and their minds. Though it cost

Me a lifetime, to give your true glory
To the world, to the stars, to the sky -
And though I never know your full story
I will never allow you to die -

No, I'll take you through time, you just glow,
I will take you to Venus and Mars
And when you are about to go
I'll establish you among the stars.

===============================

Wish

What thunder told me is that I must hurry
To be forever, and forever new;
What wonder brought me is a bit of worry
That I can't conquer time and sky of blue.

I want it all; to overcome Forever
And leave a lasting imprint of my life;
To fathom all that's beautiful and clever
And at existence's essence to arrive;

To see the souls and let them bloom in season
To water hearts with poetry and soul;
To make true understanding with my reason
And with my intuition know the whole;

To have the wisdom young enough to matter,
To know how to fulfil the people's dreams;
To cut with manacles through every fetter
And heed to every spirit's rending screams;

To add to knowledge that man has fathomed
And have new insights into life and love;
To see into the core of every atom
And of each wave to make a spirit - of

You and me to know the shared being,
To know the secret of true love's delight,
How to restore the eyes to the unseeing
And to the visionaries give the might,

How to create with all that I've been given
And from all parts to make a greater sum;
I want it all. But though I've been forgiven
I know I'll have to do with only some.

===================================

Lost Mind

I lost my mind today -
Oh boy -
and all the thoughts I had -
just seemed to vanish -
in the haze -
surrounding my head

It seemed so wise -
so potent -
so infinitely dull -
complete with thought, effete with pomp
emblazoned on its skull.

An ounce of heart
a pound of spleen
a smattering of phlegm
A bit of code
a bunch of will
and a thick soup of memes:

All this was all mixed
and cut to bits
a chewy marble blend
from which I built
a vague relief
of life that I intend:

Where has it gone, do tell me?
Where is my upscale mind?
I look without,
I look within,
But nothing can I find.

It seems the mind has melted
and I must build anew
today's mind-melded structure
with but a quart of glue.

===============================

Bubble

We made a bubble of our minds -
Connected over the distance -
Our nerves together intertwined
And in their center, Our Existence -

Heartbeat to heartbeat - will to will -
Passion to passion - and to reason:
Keeping us in there from the chill
In every day - in every season -

And in the middle - in the core -
Were our own centers: In this bubble
They will be there, forevermore,
All times protected from the trouble.

The walls us from the world will keep
And in there we will be together:
In day, in night, in wake, in sleep
Like swallow safe within her feathers.

We made a bubble of our souls -
How hard it was though to sustain it!
To wait all day for you to call -
To keep away all that was tainted -

To keep alive, this heart to heart,
This mind to mind, this soul to soul,
To love you though we be apart -
And to retain this perfect whole:

The mental energy it took
Made me make most of every moment
My spirit tore, my body shook,
And I was in a passion's torment -

And then the bubble's walls concussed
As all its contents lay there scattered:
Eternal, present and the past
Of both the spirit and the matter.

The bubble burst; walls fell apart
And what was thought inside protected -
The throbbing souls, the beating hearts -
Were there, open and dissected.

It was as though the skin was flayed
As centers lay there undefended
I felt destroyed; you felt betrayed -
But something happened unintended:

I saw the beauty that is you,
You saw how much I cared for you,
I saw you from a closer view
And knew indeed that I adore you:

The bubble burst and spilt its core
But yet the dream has not been shattered:
I see you - clearer than before -
And I can love you even better.

=============================

Heat Lightning

Hello my friend heat lightning!
How beautiful you are!
All of the sky alighting
The heaven's avatar!

Illumined and transparent
Bathing the sky like milk -
Weaving the webs apparent
Of white majestic silk!

White, yellow, luminescent -
You shimmer through the clouds!
Delicate, effervescent,
And making not a sound -

Shining each place, all over,
Completely unafraid
In platinum, in silver -
Like cobwebs overhead!

And through them beams like sunshine
The electrical charge -
The unremitting passion
Of universe at large!

And then the rain starts drizzling
And thunder then erupts
Gentle, magnetic, sizzling -
Like coffee from a cup -

And as comes forth the power
Which in it was contained
The sky, on midnight hour,
Erupts like cannonnade!

Like nerves spread out and screaming,
Like bursting light-filled veins,
The lightning punctures Seeming
And augments joy and pain -

Is frame for all illusion
With its electric light -
Who can bear this intrusion?
Who can believe this sight?

The nerves of man, spilled out
And bursting in the sky!
Hate, fear, worry, doubt
In heaven - how? Why?

What makes you, and who are you?
You, madman's random trails,
You, baobabs on fire
You, yachts without sails!

You, turmoil incandescent!
You, agony and glee!
You, passion effervescent!
Are you now seeking me?

I'll see you and I'll feel you
I'll sense you in my heart
The truths you are revealing
That you wish to impart,

And with my feet on gravel
And head held out high
I'll watch the roads you've traveled,
Unraveled, in the sky.

===========================

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