MY MISTAKE...

It's easy to see people as one dimensional without respecting every atom of life they have had before meeting them. Stress, ignorance and malice all contribute to how badly people are treated at times. A woman at the Mall was in such a hurry to get to the coffee counter she pushed past me imperiously snorting "excuse me" as she went. Does that pass for 'big egos at dawn' that passes these days for existential chic? You know what I mean: "me and my dignity and self-possession at all costs." I see 'em every day, day in day out - the jolly old high everyone's got stuck on in this start of the 21st century. It deserves scorn godammit!
I treat people like this at times, when I'm tired or low, I'm no angel - it was worse in my last job - at times I hit the kids or kicked the dog. That's stopped and it got stopped deliberately because I knew it was happening and why - because of my standard of living goading me to believe my family only needed 'it' to be happy - now it's gone (all but something half decent still) I need to heal from the self abuse of abusing others and grow taller under the sun in the sky.
I listen deliberately to what is said around me and avoid selfish or nasty people who lack goodness. I can cry at the picture of a dog being tortured ( see link to Ashram website) because I must have such a tendency because I am human and humans can do that. I cried because people are duplicitous and got called mad. When I hold up a mirror to this silly Race, I see me.

Autumn

On our way home Laura and me collect conkers, I tell her they're smooth and shiny - just great to pick up and collect. She loves me finding them for her and thinks I'm a great dad, I love sharing this time and just filling up our walks home. The weather makes me think it might be an easy winter - hope to God it isn't really cold and frosty! It's Libra now until the 22/10 and on the 7th it'll be one month since the eclipse so I wonder what will come give or take a day or two. I found out on Friday the mark on my left calf is a melonoma so I guess there's a chance it could've spread, I guess I think it should really be OK - haven't really dwelt on it though! F### worrying about it - could be a mild winter!

Misogyny

Misogyny and misanthropy bring out the worst in the male gender. Goes back to the attributes of all those grumpy old men, not to say all grumpy old men are misogynists or misanthropists. Some claim that people generally are odious, some that women are particularly nasty, most have had a couple too many hot dinners! On a good day, people-haters can feel almost well-disposed toward their fellow men and women, but soon old habits return. Men like to joke about how absolutely impossible it can be to figure women out - I have my own views, perhaps one needs to be misogynistic to fully respect the power and beauty of women. But this suggests different forms of misogyny such as consist in, disrespect, dislike, disgust, distrust however, up requires down, left, right and in,out. The man who allows himself only to admire women or the one who hates women sees only half an image, women defy judgement of one kind or another such that to understand women requires only that one ceases to judge them.

Love

National Cowboy tumbling down
The Motor-4
Give me some time
Give me some space
To see her face
Shining back
In the steamy, dreamy Autumn dawn.

Fragment

N’ERE LONG ENOUGH THE MORTAL DAY
LOVE’S SHADOWS LONG TO MELT AWAY
N’ERE BRIGHT ENOUGH THE SEEKER’S SPARK
TO LIGHT THE DEPTHS OF NOAH’S ARK

Racial Competence

Too many white Brits moan about immigrants not speaking English yet most make little effort to learn the cultural identities of predominantly black and asian Brit/immigrants who speak English very fluently. What chance have the former got (among them Somalians, Kurds and East Europeans)when the latter arouse utter indifference in many indigenous Brits?

I managed a team of white mental health workers in St.Pauls, Bristol, notorious for riots at the time of Broadwater Farm. One day a Black male agency worker joined the team as a facilitator of the weekly African Caribbean group. Soon the white members of the team started to pick on him calling him lazy and unprofessional. Co-incidentally I had presented "Institutional Racism - The Stephen Lawrence Enquiry" at the interview for the post in St. Pauls so I thought I had a good idea what that meant. Unfortunately I put the case to my team who erected a cross immediately and nailed me to it. That was my experience of attempting to reason indigenous Brits about institutional racism.

The point being that that man experienced discrimination because of a lack of appreciation of his cultural identity viz. his understanding of what boundaries mean to him as an african caribbean in the middle of an african caribbean community plus his poor(!) understanding of the Protestant work ethic...

The Brits are notorious abroad, the French moan at me that my countryfolk make little effort to get along with their hosts when staying for their holidays, what chance then foreign nationals who cross our borders looking for safety and social security? When accepting and integrating different viewpoints on our institutions could be so enriching it seems indeed a far off hope Brits might learn immigrants' languages in Great Britain itself!

Immigrants I speak to attest the fact that England is one of the least racist countries in Europe which may surprise a couple of people. Yet I hear to day that minorities integrate more fully and fulfillingly in the U.S. The U.S. though has admittedly a different set of historical givens. I'm convinced though that were those white Brits who embrace multiculturalism to fully accept the logic of institutional racism and practise cultural diversity, there would be a girding of the loins among the population as a whole during their next foray to the Costa Del Sol or the Mont Saint Michel.

Hypocrites 'n Hustlers

Who's not busy being born 's a busy dyin', was one the other's: a preacher with two coats is a hustler. Quotes I think that kick ass in this bourgeois world. I'm so busy being born I can't tell if I'm on my ass or my elbow - my personality is a veritable caesarian section whose children produce offspring as frequently as rabbits. But how can I, say you, crow about possessing some sort of lotus ego? "Bollocks" of course - I have balls! You try standing naked in a blizzard or a hurrican, every day, day in day out. I fucking dream about being naked (days of pristine nudism) and I try not to wear a frigging mask if I can help it. How many people do you know who shut up until something honest spews out of their gob? I don' run with the crowd, I don' talk very loud, I'm just one step ahead of the blues. But this is the crack matey - I aint no saint, just a buffoon who's known some folks who really did do the business. Hey ho - practice makes perfect.

Furry Friends

And the scaly and feathery ones... referring to cattle and sheep, all plural without attribute, are you mad? All my pets proove one indubitable fact that each creature and I do mean bugs and the slimey too, express personality and individuality. I averted my gaze from a calf in a cattle market on the telly because I saw it was really frightened about what was happening. That's pretty bad as I enjoy eating meat. My pets sense when I suspect they have a personality and I connect with their awareness and sense of me. Animals are good teachers as well as companions being just as much of the moment and sensing reality in exactly the same way - animals accept the barbarism of people, should I?

Pathetic Pope

What a prick he's turning out to be, seen him strut around like a pompous peacock. Woe betide us with such a batch of inadequate leaders, more fool us for tolerating them! Moral: don't expect much from idols with feet of clay. I wish the Pope hadn't cocked it up, I wish Blair hadn't and Bush. To Hell with the Christians actively provoking their so-called Armageddon. Power to the non-believers in their struggle to wrest power from our half mad brothers and sisters. "Religion as institutional psychosis" - there's a mouthful. I call for the madduns to be committed into the asylums and let the real people free, those committed by mad doctors and mad politicians.

Experts and authorities

My head man wears a whistle and flute, all my tribe jump to his tune, we have all manner of head men and head women. The doctor knows my body and mind better than I do sometimes I think. He's glad to be so helpful and the Chief provides well for him. He tells me things I never knew so sometimes I envy his great wisdom. We are so lucky to have wise men around us it makes our lives easier so we don't have to think about those things. My doctor really has earned my respect I couldn't do the work he does, I am so grateful he cares about me. I think he works too hard, I scarcely think I'm worth his attention - I know nothing about these illnesses he is such an expert about. I must do what he says, he is so good about saving my health and my life, it would be wrong to ignore him, he would think me foolish and also my family. I'm so glad they're in charge - gord bless 'em the luvlies!
[PUKE]

BIGOTRY

U conservative? Get off my blog. U liberal? F*** off. Don't waste my time dude I only deal with radicals.
Some prick yesterday as old as TB wanted to know, insisted to be told why the parents wouldn't help their young homeless kids.
F*** you grandad - you couldn't figure out in that wise, oak-matured head of yours that these people are all care leavers or victims of abuse.
And Jeeze you're not alone!! All your wise tutting toe-tapping garrulous clones mimmick the tune of decrepit conservative England.
I sure f***ing hope I die before I grow old.

There is only magic

To say a Libran is focused would be to say he is balanced, when a Libran is unfocused he would be nuts! Librans make judgements about others by 'weighing up' their attributes in finely-calibrated scales of justice. Librans are more tolerant of other Librans and will gravitate towards them socially or in the workplace. There are one or two signs that Librans also tolerate at a push - Aquarius, Leo and Virgo with perhaps a little Scorpio.

The lunar cycle turns now towards release and completion like a dead egg shedding from the womb. Preceding existential tensions during the last few days finally see fruition (and death?) before the cycle picks up again with fresh hope. Moon sets her tone for our lives people people it and planets and stars lead us briskly in the merry dance of souls. T'were n'ere more ancient than such, t'were n'ere more so.

The Cat that got the cream

A recent film that chronicles an episode in the life of a young Che Guevara is receiving modest acclaim at a time when world communism is momentarily on the wane.

Many heads have sought evidence of the seeds that Karl Marx so apocalyptically predicted would spell the downfall of capitalism.



Yet capitalism continues to prevail as the most succesful world economic model.

Was Karl Marx wrong to make such an assertion?

I don't think so - Marx evolved an economic model that in itself appeals to the brighter side of human nature at a time when democratic models were also first emerging and appeared to better complement capitalist economics.

Marxist society is an altruistic one whereas capitalism is not, democracy is representational whereas communism is participative. Capitalism does 'me' where communism is more suitable for I/Thou social relationships, in fact Marxism does 'society' much better than capitalism whose protagonist, Margaret Thatcher intoned, "there is no such thing as society."

Finally, Karl Marx achieved an even greater feat: he foresaw the future of politics and economics. How? Because he was probably a visionary and a prophet. What he could see, far away, was the ultimate state of human beings, namely a regime without any model, a free and voluntary association which currently is not able to be named because it cannot be described.

Why am I so tired?

I wonder if my home will be repossessed? It's not happy about that I think - infact it seems a bit angry we're giving up. Is my home the ashram I feel it is? I wonder if there are many out there who feel that they live in an ashram too? I'm lucky to have spent time in two rather ad hoc ashrams, ad hoc means minus the chanting and incense (although I like incense, not chanting). I wrote once about being in a holy place....words have a double face - somewhere where my mind was free. And here I am thinking my home is becoming an ashram too and it does have a spirit and it is so sad that we might leave. What to do? Can't pay the mortgage, can't live comfortably yet here is the love, our heart of hearts, y'know?

Cheerfully though, do you know about prototypes? Ever felt ure a prototype? We are really all the same, all us bloggers, all us new vision, new groove wee beasties. That's why we need ashrams, lots of little laboratories of human evolution, concious developers of psyche and physique (not me mate I'm a nineteen stoner plus view my profile!). So welcome to my ashram but my body is not a temple! My home is my temple and so is my blog - enjoy!

Falling for a Fable
That pierces my sky
None bar the knell of Doom
Burning Promethean pyres

Blue resembles little clarity
An idea only but dim
Beneath the scope of prose or rhyme
Good love harbours my pyromania

Swarming flies parade pansy-like
Below the promontory of blue rock
Dimming a blind note of sapphire irony
To cry and shed no earthly tear

Béchamel to sweet the ether black
Ragged rats bounce a bourgeois jig
Lacking the noose that clamps the cord
I simply die to be born!

AQUARIUS

Hard men and women are winning the first decade of the third millenium, never has dog been so eaten by dog! It's the old armadillo joke though - "crunchy on the outside, soft on the inside" isn't it?? The world is bristling with aggression whose only solace is others' aggression on the understanding that well, y'know, none of us reckon it's a barrel of laughs. This implicit distress is surely a saving grace of the class of hard knocks? My fiftieth decade promises to be the reverse of my first in social terms, once we were all loved up, now we're all ****ed up!! That silent yet overwhelming revolution has reached maturity and recent generations still explore its possibilities - the olduns smuggle its precepts into Britain's institutions and parents still learn to liberate their children - my generation has battles still to fight, against those remaining who intellectualised the revolution - the real oldies - and those who descried it - the straights. Among emerging young adults (I know this!) there are strong traces back to those days, much of the language and much of the rejection with less straight parents to fight back - we move ceaselessly on into the Aquarian Age and there's not one thing we can do about it.