Tag Archives: intellectualism

Staying Centered

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Posted by on in collaborating, Community, distraction issues, impediments, Inner Struggles, Matters of Faith, Personal Values, Service Activities, Social, Spiritual, Striving, Travel

August 31, 2024- After running into a couple of Prescott’s elite, this evening, and being greeted with a nod and a sneer, I used Next Door.com to speak to those who would promote Progressive values, many of which are laudable. The progressive elite in this community tend to speak from their heads, not their hearts. After absorbing this, and “sucking it up”, for thirteen years, I finally had enough and let them know. Anyone who wants to foster the community has to first love the people. Having intellectual knowledge of what would be useful does nothing to help, unless the heart is in sync. We have seen the effects of a purely intellectual approach to social discourse and common issues, time and again: Soviet Communism, Kampuchea (Cambodia), North Korea, Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela-none a bit better than Hitler’s Germany, apartheid-era South Africa, or the enslavement culture of the Antebellum United States, in my book. The heart and head have to be in synchronicity, or the best ideas will die on the vine.

I will shortly be headed to the Philippines, and will spend 5-7 weeks in heart-focused work, all the while keeping a clear head. Some days, I will be in modern accommodations; other days, in small huts, or maybe sometimes in a lean-to. At all times, though, my heart is looking to my mind for direction-and vice versa. In a time of rapid change,which will only accelerate in the final months of this year, such centeredness is the only guarantee of real sanity. One of my well-wishers here in Prescott told me, this afternoon, that there is nothing I have done, in the past three or four years, that is “ordinary or uninteresting”. That may be an overstatement, but it is comforting. It also underscores my need for staying centered.

So does a long month come to an end, and my preparation for a time of lightning-fast change begin. May all be in harmony.

“No Bad Things”

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Posted by on in Assistance, children, collaborating, Community, Education, Hiking and Nature, impediments, Inspiration, Personal Values, Social, Spiritual, Striving

March 12, 2023- “There are no bad things that happen, only things that you like and things that you don’t like-but from which you have not drawn the lessons they offer.” Such was the position taken by a member of the Kaballah denomination of Judaism, in a Zoom session, this morning.

I tend to take a sunny view of many things that happen, and to soldier on through much of the rough stuff. It wasn’t always that way, and I have to own that a fair share of whining has come out of my mouth, over the years. I do draw the line at the slaughter of children, genocide and the greed of the powerful, yet Kaballah sees the Will of the Divine in those events as well.

The silver linings playbook offered by these mystics is arguably worth considering, and I have no idea about how the individual lives of Kaballists have played out-save one, who spent much of my brief encounter with her attacking my character and level of intelligence. I do not regard that individual as having been typical of the mystics.

The organizer of the discussion tends to regard my comments as rather banal, so I limit any responses to the highbrow commenters. Intellectual discourses, at a stellar level, are indeed above my own intellect, but the Kaballist grabbed my interest, with his provocative stances. Suffice it to say, that in the aftermath of a catastrophe, I tend to regard my own role as one of being full on in the cleanup crew. So, in the broader scheme, “soldiering on”, tends to be wont.

In the afternoon, after spending an hour or so with a pre-teen who showed how to do finger knitting (similar to Cat’s Cradle, for the uninitiated) and who tried his hand at origami (I’m no good at that, either), I went to Watson Woods Riparian Area, and hiked along the east bank of Granite Creek. The goal was to ascertain the water level of this creek that feeds into Watson Lake. The area walked was the southeast corner of the preserve, a segment in which I have spent little time in the past. It revealed that the creek is in good shape right now.

Across the creek lies Cottonwood Peninsula, about which more tomorrow. The trail does not distinguish between the intellectual and the raconteur.