Category Archives: Spiritual

Not Kneeling or Lying Down

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Posted by on in Community, distraction issues, Inner Struggles, Personal Values, Poetry, Spiritual, Striving

December 1, 2016, Prescott-

I was raised to stand for what I believe.

Others may believe as they will.

None, though, will force me to toe a line,

which I cannot abide.

Those who spout foolishness,

those who maintain a false equanimity,

between good and evil,

will not get a hearing in my court.

I believe in the basic capacity for people

to work together and build a better world,

with all that there is,

in the way of raw materials.

I do not, nor ever will, however

believe in the right of the created

to assume equality with the Creator.

This is my response to those who say,

“But they mean well.”

There are no good intentions,

coming from an egomaniac.

My idea of good intention

is consistent, hard work

and consistent love for

the weak,

the vulnerable,

the dispossessed.

Clearer Vision

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Posted by on in children, Education, Family, Hiking and Nature, Matters of Faith, Social, Spiritual, Striving, Travel

November 29, 2016, Prescott- Now that my backlog of stuff has cleared up, somewhat, it’s time to consider what 66 has in store for me, or I, for it.

Fitness:  I like going to Planet Fitness, as there is a place for everyone, with a feeling of community and non-judgement.  People of all ages, sizes and ability levels exercise together and support one another, either silently, or as “spotters”.  My current plan has me there, three days a week.

Hiking:  Related to fitness, and to photography, my hikes vary in length and in difficulty.  They have sustained me, in many ways, for nearly 58 years.  The next twelve months will take me to:  Prescott Hotshots Memorial State Park, in Yarnell;  the southernmost three segments of Black Canyon National Recreation Trail, in New River; Spur Cross Ranch, Cave Creek; McDowell Mountains Desert Preserve, Scottsdale; the San Francisco Peaks, Flagstaff; the Grand Canyon and who knows where, in AZ and elsewhere.

Work:  I was asked to consider being lead teacher in my current classroom.  I respectfully declined, preferring to see a younger person have a shot at that opportunity- as I am not devoting more time to the courses necessary for re-certification, and  given that I plan to work full time, for 4 1/2 more years, then go on to other pursuits, at the end of May, 2021. Children, and their well-being, will always be one of my highest concerns, though, wherever I am.

Family:  This means both biological and of choice.  Thankfully, there is no one in my biological family who would not be in my family of choice.  The former consists of about 140 people, including my mother, siblings, son, maternal and paternal relatives, and in-laws.  The latter has grown to at least 300, including many who will read this, over the past twenty-five years.

Travel:  My main immediate priority is time with Aram, after Christmas and before he heads to Korea for his next Navy assignment.  Between now and the end of May, I will be mostly in the Southwest and southern California, as work and my Baha’i activities keep me close to Home Base.  Mid-March may find me in west Texas, re-connecting with old friends.  The summer’s focus leans towards the Northwest, and possibly the Great Plains, but much could change, in the interim.  My Back-East visit looks to be in December, 2017.

Spiritual:  As most of you know, I am a fervent Baha’i.  We will observe a significant anniversary, on October 22:  The bicentenary of the Birth of Baha’u’llah, Founder of our Faith.  A committee is planning a dignified and welcoming commemoration of the event, here in the Prescott area.  I will support and take active part in the event that is put together.

I also support the ecumenical event, known as Hope Fest, which will also occur in October, for its sixth year.  We all are living under the same blessings, coming from One Heavenly Source, in my view.

Writing:  I still very much plan to put together, and publish, a volume of mixed short prose and poetry, between January and March of the coming year.  Online, a series of posts on this site will be called 66 Days of Sixty-Six, being a random group of days that celebrate this age.

It’s going to be a great, if often challenging, year.  Stay tuned.

 

 

Keyholes

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Posted by on in Community, distraction issues, Personal Values, Social, Spiritual, Striving

November 26, 2016, Chula Vista-

We went to see the film “Doctor Strange”, this evening.  It’s a highly entertaining account of mystics being able to bend time, space and matter- for good or for ill.  One of the characters mentions to Dr. Strange that, in being concerned with his own ego, he is seeing the universe through a keyhole- and imagining his view to be all-encompassing.

So many of us seem to be seeing the world through keyholes of our own device.   The two extremes in out national politics have been doing so, for sometime. The keyholes seem to be also getting smaller and smaller.  It is also apparent that the backdrop, behind the door, is getting dimmer and dimmer.

Any time in history, when people feel totally disenfranchised, has been fraught with severe pendulum swings.  The decline and fall of Imperial Rome, the French Revolution and its aftermath, and the fall of the Soviet Union  are each an example of this, albeit differing in severity.  Jacobin France is one of the deadliest examples of people looking at the world through keyholes, and seeing nothing but enemies- even in the faces of those who were their allies, only a short time before.

It is no coincidence that the leader of a White Supremacist splinter group identified his personal role model as Napoleon Bonaparte.  This, to me, is a clear indication of the intentions of his particular entourage.  Sowing chaos, in this large and disparate society, may seem impossible- but look to Rome, and to Russia.  It only takes a relative few opportunists to bring it about- and with the advent of false news reporting, the mayhem can come about rather quickly.

Once again, to be safe, at any given time, is to be vigilant beforehand.  I do not see the answer to our nation’s current growing pains to be drawing our wagons into  tight circles, such as supremacist or nativist fantasies, or safe zones.  The real solution, in my humble view, is wider inclusion.  There will never be a time when I cut off my conservative friends to curry favour with people on the Left, or vice versa.  I will not shun my friends of colour or of sexual identities that aren’t my own, just so that my White and heterosexual friends are assuaged- or vice versa.

It’s time to open the door, for a broad view.

Dakota, 2016

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Posted by on in distraction issues, Spiritual, Striving

November 21, 2016, Prescott-

Beneath a pale moon,

above sacred ground,

misguided footsteps

go on the offensive.

In a battle over water,

the liquid itself

becomes a weapon.

Icy water, cold hard rubber

and pepper spray

all make for a rude awakening.

There are no dead,

in the wake of

the raid by the new cavalry.

The dead hearts are

miles away,

in a corporate boardroom.

It Has Come To This

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Posted by on in collaborating, Community, Personal Values, Service Activities, Spiritual, Striving

November 11, 2016, Prescott-  I had an exemplary Veteran’s Day.  Marching with a small group of humanitarians, known as Yavapai County Angels, I helped to send the message that, as I wrote yesterday, conservatives are not monsters and reaching out to those in need is a universal calling.

At a lunch afterward, the vocal women in our group excoriated anyone whose politics were not in line with the most ultraconservative viewpoint.   Yet, in the next breath, they extolled the estimable Dr. Ben Carson- hardly a dead ringer for Attila the Hun.  This tells me that Tea Party members are as fearful and confused as their “opposite numbers”, who have spent the past few days protesting and causing moderate mayhem, in several cities, large and small, from Flagstaff, AZ and Portland, to Dublin and Tokyo.

In my humble view, Donald  J.Trump, Sr. has 180 days to establish that he has a keen sense of right and wrong, and the ability to rein in both his own impulses and those of the most vulgar among us.  Barack Obama had to coach his own Vice President to not use profanity in any situation where words could POSSIBLY be overheard, then or later, by impressionable children.  Mr. Trump’s position may be somewhat reversed- it may fall to the devout Michael Pence to coach his boss, in the finer points of the Lord’s English.

Then, there is policy- and law.  My table mates want to see the recently ousted sheriff of Maricopa County, Joe Arpaio, as Secretary of Homeland Security.  I do not, if only for the simple reason that the stress would likely kill the man- he is 84.  There are more cogent reasons why I would not be in favour of such an appointment- but why quibble?  Suffice it to say, wanting to see people in high office, just because those people are loud and agree with one’s fear-based thinking, is exactly what gets nations in dire trouble.  Those on the Left need to remember this, just as much as those on the Right.

I want to see a Million Woman March take place- not to stop the inauguration of Mr. Trump, but to inform it, nonviolently, civilly and clearly.  It has come to this:  We are an organic whole.  The right hand cannot slap, stab, pester, annoy or bullyrag the left hand- or vice versa.

Rust Removal

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Posted by on in collaborating, Community, impediments, Personal Values, Social, Spiritual, Striving

November 9, 2016, Prescott-  This past summer, en route to visiting my family in Massachusetts, I stopped to visit a progressive friend, in Indianapolis, on July 5.  We caught up on events of the past few years, and agreed that life was taking a turn for the better, for a good many people who had previously been living on the edge of society, though there was lots of work still to be done.

Five hours later, I stopped for dinner, in Zanesville, OH, in the foothills east of Columbus.  As I took a drive through the town, my heart was breaking.  There is much about the “Rust Belt”, from Pittsburgh and Buffalo to St. Louis and Milwaukee, that deserves this nation’s gratitude and support.  This is an area which once kept our country moving, during the years of war, and in times of past economic despair, the Midwest was where our national economy got a reboot.

Zanesville presented a picture of a crumbling, somewhat boarded-up mini-version of Detroit, or of Buffalo at the turn of this century.  Its plight is, no doubt, replicated throughout the region.  The place needs believers.

In the past few weeks, the election cycle, just ended, featured one candidate insulting a wide variety of target groups.  Another candidate used the word “deplorable” to identify a large group of other people.  Both candidates claimed to care for those left behind by the nascent economic recovery.  Now, one of them has to make good on his rhetoric.

Human beings are not deplorable.  Behaviors and attitudes can be.  One such attitude is the view that people of colour are less than fully human.  Another holds that people who live in gender confusion, or are oriented differently, in terms of sexuality, need to be converted to a more conventional sexual identity.   A third, equally unfortunate, attitude holds that it is perfectly okay to leave uneducated, conservative people of European descent, in the rubbish heap of history.

My answer is :  None of the above is okay.  We saw what happened, twice, when the first two mindsets were challenged by a vocal electorate.  Last night, we saw what happened when the third mindset got its comeuppance.  There is, simply put, one overall solution:  Re-establishing community.    The White people of small towns and farms are not, inherently, the enemies of African-Americans, LGBT people, or Latinos.  The disconnect comes from not getting to know each other, and from relying on third parties to make each other’s acquaintance, and resume the practice of active listening.

I have friends across the political spectrum, and have made a point of traveling widely in the Midwest and South, for the very reason that every community is worthy of at least acquaintance.  Ignorance of others only leads to bloodshed.  History bears this out.

Make no mistake:  I will not abide an American Kristelnacht, or Jacobin tyranny, without speaking out and acting forcefully, if nonviolently.  The American Legion, to which I belong, vows to oppose tyranny of “both the classes and the masses.”  The first is outmoded and unnecessary.  The second needs to know that all its members are important.  “The People” refers to all human beings.

It’s time to scrape the rust off our souls, as well as off the factory towns of the North.

 

Coming Attractions/Distractions

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Posted by on in distraction issues, Inner Struggles, Social, Spiritual, Striving

November 2, 2016, Prescott-

Today, I was to report to jury duty- until I wasn’t.

I went by HR and dutifully reported that fact,

and took the day as a religious Holy Day,

which it was.

Baha’u’llah’s birth was commemorated,

having occurred on this day, 199 years ago.

As it’s marked, according to the Lunar Calendar,

next year’s bicentenary will fall in mid-October.

What the nation needs, in this time of turmoil,

is a champion.

So, as rain falls in Cleveland, and the two best teams

in baseball are tied, at the end of the 9th inning,

the nation will wait for its champion.

There are no champions visible,

in the political realm,

but who’s keeping tabs on that?

Kirk Douglas, God willing,

will turn 100, soon.

I wish him the best.

Now, I look forward

to two hard-worked days,

and a refreshing drum circle,

to end this long week.

 

 

Table Mesa, Part II:The Williams Mesa Trail

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Posted by on in animal and plant life, Spiritual

October 30, 2016, New River-  SAM_7410.JPG

I set out a bit earlier today, than last weekend, and the the traffic between Prescott and Table Mesa Road was decidedly sparser, this time.  The above photograph, taken at the South Fork of Agua Fria River, reflects the calmness I found today.

There was plenty of activity, especially in the river beds.  As I came down off the second ridge, to the nearly dry South Fork, a man was teaching his daughter how to negotiate boulders and sand, in the course of off-road exploration.  She thought better of trying to go over a two-foot ledge, and he certainly didn’t push the matter.  It was a successful lesson, and I encountered them again, at the Agua Fria itself, some twenty minutes later. There, the challenge was deep sand, but they again prevailed.

The river and its tributaries are the main features of Williams Mesa Trail, which is the western half of the Little Pan Loop.  I stuck with Williams Mesa Trail, going to and from, as it was  clearly marked, as opposed to the actual north link to the eastern Little Pan Trail, which I will explore from the south link, on my next trip to Table Mesa Road.

Here are several photos of the afternoon’s offerings.

Below is a view of the Agua Fria, from a southern ridge.  Notice how dry it’s been, this past month.

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SAMSUNG CAMERA PICTURESThe limestone and granite ledges offer a convenient set of steps, up the ridge towards Williams Mesa.

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Before that, though, I thoroughly enjoyed the blissful peace of the pools along the river bed.

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Above, is a view of the unnamed mesa that I viewed from Cottonwood Gulch, on a hike from Black Canyon City, last spring.  It drew me, with a sense that there is a goodly amount of spiritual energy there.  I certainly felt energized, after sitting among some rocks that had broken off from the mesa, and offer themselves as a resting place.

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I spent about twenty minutes here, writing in my BCT journal.  From there, it was back towards the Agua Fria.  The junction with the east Little Pan Trail was not in evidence.

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This marker appears to be turn-around point of some kind, though, and it was fairly easy to get back on the Williams Mesa route, and the Agua Fria.

SAMSUNG CAMERA PICTURESLooking closely at the river pool,  one can see the thick algae that results from the water standing too long.

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Cacti are certainly resourceful, as is this one, which look like a tongue sticking out of the rock.

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Look closely above, and note two Monarch butterflies, feeding.

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Here is another take on the late afternoon appearance of South Fork, Agua Fria.

A small family of cattle were enjoying the leavings from a pumpkin smashing party, that had apparently taken place, last night.

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No good morsel is left behind, in the Sonoran Desert.

So ended my 7.6 mile hike along Williams Mesa Trail, on a pleasantly overcast afternoon.

 

Embrace

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Posted by on in Community, Inner Struggles, Personal goals, Personal Values, Service Activities, Spiritual

October 22, 2016, Prescott-

A number of things happened today, far and wide.  Here, I was part of a large group who celebrated faith in God, and the healing that often results from commitment, both spiritual and emotional.

There were testimonies galore, at the fifth annual Hope Fest, a fine blend of vendor booths, children’s play sites and sound stages.  There were a number of self-help groups present, a puppet theatre,  well-trained young singers who belted out show and movie tunes and inspiring musicians and performers.

There was Todd, an accomplished country and Christian singer, a living testimony to Celebrate Recovery.  There were Mia and Bill, who have weathered one emotional storm after another, to stand before a thoroughly-supportive crowd and bask in our admiration.  There was Vanessa, an immensely-gifted young lady, who painted two portraits of Jesus the Christ, to the accompaniment of the two fine acts mentioned above.  She painted Him from images in her mind.  One was Christ in the Passion and the second was the Shroud of Turin.

As with last year, my larger role was to provide moral support and physical assistance to the sound crew at the Main Stage.  This work started when Todd thanked everyone for attending and the audience began to head home, at 8:20 PM.   We finished with everything at 12:30 A.M.  That is almost two hours less than we took last year.  We certainly had  more people helping, than last year.

So, I helped good friends accomplish a  major public event- and continue to honour both Spirit and Body, in becoming far more unified.

 

Double Tenth

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Posted by on in Family, Personal goals, Spiritual, Striving

October 10, 2016, Chula Vista-   Today is the National Day of Taiwan, established by Chiang Kai-shek, when he set up the Republic of China, on the island where he and his forces found refuge, in 1949.  “Double Tenth” is viewed as an auspicious day, good for the fortunes of the Chinese people.  Certainly, the industry and fastidiousness that the Chinese, individually and collectively, demonstrate- wherever they may be in this world, have made both Taiwan and the Chinese mainland models of commercial success, while remaining true to a deeper spiritual sense- even as the “gods” of commercialism and ideology have taken their toll.

Here in North America, some, primarily those in government and the financial sector, observe Columbus Day.  I have come to see this as ludicrous.  Other than a nice day to honour those of Italian descent, with parades and some fine cuisine, celebrating the arrival of three shiploads of people, who were bent on exploiting the resources of India, and instead found themselves on one of the minor isles of the Bahamian Archipelago, is little more than a ruse.

Nevertheless, I am feeling good today,  in this town that is one of the outgrowths of the Spanish colonization, that itself transpired from the Colombian Expeditions.  I am glad, in a sense, that Europeans and indigenous North Americans figure in my ancestry, although the way in which many of the former treated the latter was, to say the least, despicable.

This leads me to a remark made by a Native friend from Texas, on the occasion of my arrival here, a few days ago.  She expressed the wish that I would go to Standing Rock, North Dakota, and be there with our Lakota brothers and sisters.  My heart is there, certainly, as it is with all who suffer, as it is with those in the southeast, the Caribbean, and anywhere in the world, where people are going through the savagery inflicted by Man and Nature.

My soul compels me to stand by my offspring, and be here for him, in the few days available.  Soon enough, I will be back in Prescott, attending planning meetings, a drum circle, a Home Fire Safety event, and hiking another section of Black Canyon National Recreation Trail, before returning to work, a week from today.  Soon enough, my son will back on his own two feet and at his post on the USS Wayne E.Meyer.   Soon enough, the people of Standing Rock will be vindicated, and will realize the return of peace to their land- as will we all.

Stay firm, in the face of whatever tests and difficulties come your way.  You are all loved and cherished.