Self Defence Beginneth in the Brain, Heart

Happy New Year all. Apologies for the lack of posts, but everyone and their pet iguana has been online in Cyprus over the past few days. Which means the internet connection has been too nightmarishly slow to try to blog.

So. 'Tis the first month of 2008. Which means, I need to set targets and get my sluggish self motivated.

No, I'm not going to do the resolutions thing - besides, it's not even a new Moon, and Mars is retrograde for a mite longer. I am, however, going to fire off some stuff that's been on my chest.

Firstly, I cannot wait till the end of Pluto in Sadge. Not that Pluto in Cap won't be tumultuous and trying in its own way, but I am so sick and tired of the self-righteous, 'us-versus-them' bloodshed and aggression. Granted there always was that, but the Lord of Death's passage through the Truth (or heat)-seeking Archer has certainly signalled volatility of the first order.

I've been thinking a lot about 'us' versus 'them' these days, for a lot of reasons.

The issue has been in my mind because of the way the Republican candidates in the US presidential race have been trying to John Wayne their opponents by how much tougher than anyone else they're going to be on illegal immigrants.

Because of the way our own society in Cyprus has really been struggling with the realisation that its wealth and affluence will incline those from far-less-fortunate countries to want to live and work in our country - and yes, that commonly means folks of 'black', 'brown' and 'yellow' races.

And just generally because of the way powerful governments worldwide continue to divide people and amp up all the areas where we don't see eye to eye.

Recently, I also stumbled across the following website: http://www.360defence.co.uk/ whose personnel is trained in Israeli self defence techniques (Krav Maga and the like) and who offer urban protection skills, to allow people to survive hi-jackings, hostage situations, muggings and the like.

Now, I have nothing against defending oneself in times of danger. I, personally, am a fan of martial arts, have been a Karate, Kendo, Tai Chi and Fencing student and plan on taking up Aikido later on down the line.

However, all of these disciplines (with the exception of competitive fencing that doesn't really have a philosophy per se) teach respect of both oneself and one's opponent, and cultivate humility and discipline in one's training. They do not encourage their adherents to focus on a hostile, aggressive and dangerous world.

One could argue: but the world is hostile, aggressive and dangerous. To that, I would say, how much of that is real, and how much of that is media and political hype? Yes, there is real sectarian and military bloodshed in Somalia, Kenya, the Congo, the Sudan, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Afghanistan, Iraq, Gaza, Thailand, Pakistan etcetera etcetera.

But our response to such violence and atrocities is key. One can acquire the skills with which to make the best - hopefully defensive - decisions for oneself in the worst case scenario, but that doesn't mean we have to think of the world as a dangerous and hostile place.

Why? Because, I believe, as it is taught in the esoteric wisdom traditions, that what you believe, you create. Thoughts are as powerful as actions. Words, symbols also.

It all comes down to energy. If we are all investing energy in believing we live in an 'us-against-them' world, then that is the world we will continue to live in.

I don't know about you, but I, for one, am sick of it.

There is no 'us', there is no 'them'. We are all one.

Yeah, if some psycho ever attacked my family, I would defend them and I would defend myself. Would I ever kill someone if my life was in danger? Probably. I hate the thought of it, but I have recognised an instinct for survival in myself that has nothing to do with my civilised, pious self. There is definitely the primal force inside me for self-preservation.

That is why I fear the collapse of civilisation so much. I know how little it would take for that instinct to take over the majority of us. To become vigilantes or organise ourselves into gangs and steal, murder and rape for resources, power and, worst of all, pleasure.

DIGRESSION: I am not an Augustinian btw - I do not believe humankind is inherently evil. But what little I know of evolution's processes does make me fear the reptilian brain with which we are all still endowed and that can kick in at times of threat.

But to get back to my original point: if we look upon everyone as equals, with needs and fears and hopes identical to ours, if we can view everything that lives as precious, we would create a far, far less violent and aggression-fuelled world.

That is why I found the offer of urban 'survival' training particularly disturbing. Because it's sort of a business based on the perpetuation of a hostile world view.

Do I feel better about free, police-offered training? Yes, because I still think we need the police (which, of course, means I acknowledge the existence of a level of crime). And it somehow feels less 'hysterical' than training for scenarios such as hijackings and terrorist attacks.

Actually, there's the rub - there's something 'hysterical', it seems to me, about offering services to train people against 'terrorist' attacks and hijackings.

How many terrorist attacks and hijackings is the average person ever likely to experience? Which isn't to say there shouldn't be training for it, but I think, again, it should be done through the police, in a less fearmongering way.

Do I object to shops and stores and banks and offices having security guards? No. But again, having guards on such premises is, it would seem to me, adequate to tackle the sort of crime one finds in the real world.

At any rate, for those convinced that I am merely a confused, naive, self-contradicting idiot, there will always be arguments for better 'protecting' ourselves against the bogey man.

I still maintain, though, that our 'enemies' and 'aggressors' are, to a great extent, the product of self-interested power games at the geopolitical and economic level.

Bottom line: yes, I would like to know how to defend myself. But no, I do not believe that that is where my responsibility to myself - and to others - ends. If I want to live in a better, more harmonious world, first of all, I have to be open to believing it already exists.

It is my hope that as we realise how perilously near we are to destroying life on this planet, either through insidiously engineered wars, environmental destruction or economic pillaging, we will want to protect what is precious and the birth-right of all - our world.

I propose that where such 'protection' would have to begin is in our minds and hearts. By envisioning and believing in a world - which includes humankind - worth honoring, cherishing, and preserving.

Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow

I have just finished reading a non-fiction book: The Psychology of Spirituality by Baha'i author and psychiatrist and lecturer H. B. Danesh (http://www.amazon.com/Psychology-Spirituality-H-B-Danesh/dp/1895456053/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1199044724&sr=8-1) that was a little dense, though interesting and well-written nonetheless.

One of the things he talked about a lot was how humankind was beginning to enter the age of maturity after going through a rebellious, individualist and self-centred stage. When I say interesting, I mean from the point of view that so many writers from different camps are, today, talking about a new paradigm shift that's very close to coming to pass.

The New Age community is abuzz with the energy and conciousness changes that are apparently affecting earth and humankind, and the potential for a new, enhanced, creative and loving existence for all beings. Scientists, environmentalists and economists are predicting a dramatic shift in world infrastructure - the breakdown of an unsustainable model of living the world over and a possible return to an earlier, agricultural society. And now, I stumble on this psychiatrist talking about our spiritual maturity to come.

"When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things." 1 Corinthians 13:11

If we are truly on the verge of new understanding, a new walk with God, with fellow human beings and with all of creation - as I believe more and more that we are - why am I so scared?

Well, I'm scared because the 'shift' can mean anything. Change is in the air, and I'm terrified. Will there be dire world poverty and woe as economies on a mass-scale collapse? Will there be wars over scant resources and pandemics and crippling waves of immigration?

These are certainly some of the scourges of climate change predicted by scientists today.

Will there be pole shift in 2012 and wipe most of us out?

And if any or all of this comes to pass, will that truly prompt a spiritual breakthrough?

I dream of a world where problems are dealt with in true cooperation. I dream of a world where everything is powered by clean, renewable energy; where natural spaces are protected and revered; where war is unheard of - as is any kind of violence; where children are always wanted and brought up in the midst of a loving, wise community in which young and old are both respected and represented.

I dream of a time where the planet will be blessed by the commonplace awareness on the part of all living beings of the interconnectedness of everything.

I dream of a world that is motivated and run by love. And yes, I know that, right now, such a place can only exist in my imagination. But that's what keeps me going to reach beyond my fear of the unknown, deprivation, pain, sorrow and death.

"Après moi, le déluge" or "After me, let the floods come" is a quote attributed to the French King Louis XV who preferred, in his reign, not to tackle the serious problems he saw affecting the monarchy, allowing them to proliferate and fall on the lap of his successor.

World government-wise, this is where we seem to be at right now - and how I wish the US elections were done with and that we didn't have a year to go.

But this is where we're at. Waiting. And on almost the eve of the New Year, I know that change and the unknown are very, very ordinary, common things. Change is the one constant and the best way to embrace it is with hope, faith and love.

I guess the Christian take on things filters through whenever I least expect it...

The Danesh book was lent to me by my former teacher; I returned it today to him on the occasion of a gathering he and his wife were holding at their village home to mark the Baha'i feast day of Sharaf.

After a tasty lunch, we set off for a walk in the countryside along a path that followed the river. Along the way, we were each asked to reflect on a quote from the Baha'i writings. Mine was as follows:

"The gift of God to this enlightened age is the knowledge of the oneness of mankind and of the fundamental oneness of religion. Wars shall cease between nations, and by the will of God the Most Great Peace shall come; the world will be seen as a new world, and all men will live as brothers."

As we continued on our way, we came to a place where there were dignified olive trees, laden with fruit. And I gazed at their beauty, and the heavy, ripe olives, ready to be picked and pressed to oil, and the richness of the mud and water and stones and rocks around me. And I marvelled at how the natural world somehow manages to keep its purity, despite the indiscriminate garbage dumping and pollution that abounds. I guess some places are still sacred.

This is all rather strange and new in terms of outlook. I never used to be such a green freak before. I was always respectful of nature, but didn't think about it as intensely as I do now. I guess the thought that it might be ruined beyond all measure - and to wake up to how much we are dependent on the natural world to sustain us - has changed my view on things entirely.

Actually, my life has never before been so focused on survival, death and resurrection as it is now. The death of a beloved biology teacher when I was in my early twenties took years to get over, but the drastic life-or-death scenario that I believe the world is confronting today is something altogether different.

But then, I'm also older. My parents are older. My life has no particular shape or direction and, for the first time, I realise I have no real claim on the future - only an expectation.

For so many, that is a fact of life they live each day.

How many in Bangladesh or Indonesia or Africa or Pakistan or Afghanistan or Iraq or Kurdistan or Gaza really feel like they have a future?

Their best hope is for tomorrow. Not ten or twenty years. Just tomorrow. Or, perhaps, just getting to the end of the day.

I have never lived that way, and have no idea whether I could. I suppose if I had no other choice...

Sometimes I wish I could switch off my brain. Mercury in Aquarius, Virgo-rising, Moon within five degrees of the Sixth house and Cancer Saturn squaring Pluto and Venus do little to curb my ability to dream up horrors.

Tomorrow is the last day of 2007.

May the new year bring us understanding, peace, goodwill, wisdom, compassion and cooperation. Our future depends on it as never before.

Goodbye to All That, or 2012 and the End of Time

I may as well confess that one of the reasons I've made a commitment to keep writing this blog is a profound fear of death.

I'm not quite as unhinged as when Tennyson undertook the mammoth 17-year task of writing In Memoriam A. H. H to come to grips with the passing of a very dear friend of his - and to keep from going mad from grief - but the sheer, animal fear on the bad days, and the duller-but-still-persistent existential malaise at the thought of annihilation, has fallen like a shockingly effective sound blanket - heh, couldn't resist the filmmaker allusion - on the buzz and hum that was my former drive for living.

It's rather hard to live well and to feel strong enough to tap whatever wit, passion or courage for adventure and growth one has if one is busy struggling, every day, with the idea that time is running out.

And it seems to be running out very quickly. And I go back and forth on this doom-laden stance, sometimes retreating to a more hopeful position, other times swinging back to preparing for the end.

But how did all this begin? Well, some months ago, I had finally signed up for a correspondence course on Astrology. The problem is, the course is offered by a mystery school whose founder and supporters are, as I write this, preparing for a cataclysmic disaster the like of which will render 90 percent of life on the planet dead. To wit: they're preparing for pole shift - as in the shifting of the earth's axis, not to be confused with a shift of the planet's magnetic poles - and are warning those who visit the site and are open to the thought of the end of life as we know it, to resettle in latitudes greater than 65 degrees North.

Effectively, that means within the present Arctic circle.

As I have understood it, this planetary event is meant to occur on December 21, 2012, at the end of the Mayan long count or 'calendar', after which 'life' will continue, but only those evolved enough to survive the energy shift - which is apparently the true cause of the pole shift - and who, presumably, have relocated to the Arctic circle in time - will be around to experience it. The rest of sentient life will physically perish and be reincarnated into other worlds of a lower energy vibration - suited to their level of spiritual evolution.

In this scenario, what I fear most is dying of fear or somehow surviving to find people closest to me dead and a new stone age beginning.

Now, there are other sites in the New Age blogosphere that argue the labours of 'lightworkers' of every kind from around the world has 'ameliorated' the prophesied changes to the lesser (though still deadly to many) natural disasters we are currently dealing with, and that the earth's changes are a mirror of the true transition - the heightening in spiritual consciousness - that all of life - including humankind - is experiencing.

Some also argue that the material world is not what we think it is, but a common dream/illusion we are choosing to participate in.

Still others believe we are living in the 'end times' apparently foretold in the sacred writings of several religions and faith traditions, not least those of indigenous peoples, the Bible, and those who claim to be in touch with the earth's spiritual masters - the mysterious Heirarchy.

This camp believes that, on December 21, 2012, those who are evolved enough to endure living in the fifth dimension - or, at any rate, on some sort of multidimensional plane where linear time no longer exists - will be taken up to other levels of existence, some versions have the process aided by far more evolved aliens in spacecraft (the New Age version of the Biblical 'rapture') - while the rest of humanity will undergo the dreaded Tribulation mentioned in the Bible's Book of Revelations - which apparently entails physical phenomena such as land masses disappearing (eg. much of Southern California and New York) extreme volcanicity, earthquakes and ultra-powerful winds. Meanwhile, the moon will disappear temporarily and all will be pitch darkness.

After the end of these terrors - which in some versions last about a week, but the timing is sketchy - those fortunate few who 'ascended' before the calamity will be returned to rebuild the earth and usher in a new golden age.

Now, ordinarily, a sceptic like myself would have rejoiced at the mention of aliens - not because I don't believe there aren't other inhabited worlds out there - but because my mind just sort of shuts down at such a quasi-comical, Sci-Fi B-movie-plot-sounding scenario.

I might also have taken heart from all the New Age blogs writing about the apparent new generations of spiritually-evolved and highly-gifted kids (the Indigo, Crystal and Rainbow children) being born to assist this incredibly powerful transition to a new Earth and new spiritual plane.

And then there's the fact that several discount the idea of the Mayan long count being an actual numerical calendar - arguing that it was meant to be symbolic, and not actually chronologically linear, not to mention that many such folks also believe the 'true' Mayan count comes to an end on October 28, 2011.

However.

Somehow, deep, deep within, I fear our collective annihilation just the same. It could be just that I am supremely sensitive to suppressed Collective fears (actually, I am - no doubt about it) and that we're all experiencing the despair borne of the enormously impulsive, savage, fundamentalist and commercially greedy era of Pluto (bringer of death and transformation) in the sign of Sagittarius (the Higher Mind, religion, Truth with a capital 'T', philosophy, higher learning, restless travelling and reckless optimism).

It could be all of the above and the fact that I have desperate-for-security Saturn in Cancer, which has also recently been rattled by the transit of Mars in Cancer (currently retrograde and heading back into Gemini) opposing Pluto at the end of Sadge and about to enter Capricorn towards the end of January 2008 AND the fact that my growing interest in Baha'i has led me to learn of Abdu'l-Baha's prediction of a calamity such as "to make the limbs of men quake" that must be endured before a new age of unity and peace can begin.

At any rate, even if we're not going to be wiped out by pole shift in 2012, as of now, we're sure as hell plunged up to the neck in crisis with the mounting danger of climate change and the potential collapse of civilisation as we know it, given the increasing demand on shrinking resources. Can we all work together to stop the grim countdown that the eco-crisis seems to portend?

I don't know.

What I do know is that I have to find a way of breaking through the sheer paralysis from fear when I contemplate famines, droughts, heightened earthquakes, volcanoes, tsunamis, floods, hurricanes, savage wars over life-sustaining territory and a million different ways to die - or survive on a planet that could prove hostile in ways unimaginable to someone born and raised in the privileges of the Developed World.

At any rate, if this really is a countdown to some catastrophe from which few shall escape with their lives, I pray I may be used to help and heal people and be as creative as I can. I had great hopes for my life, but of late I have had to entertain, more and more, the idea that I am truly insignificant in the grand scheme of things. 'I' have, more and more, ceased to exist. At least the old me, that used to want fame and a successful film career and professional respect.

How can I be important when innocent babies are born to the torment of life in a Darfuri refugee camp or the open air concentration camp that is beseiged Gaza or the ravaged, war-torn Iraq or Afghanistan or a million other places where people live in poverty, anguish, hunger, suffering and despair.

I should rejoice in the knowledge, then, that I am truly insignificant. And yet, there is a part of me that wants to live. To live expressing my highest, most wise, most compassionate, most creative self, for however long or brief that might be. May I choose wisely as time thunders to 2012, and may I be receptive to being used by God in service to others, however it best pleases the Universe.

Funnily enough, having mulled over these thoughts as I took my walk today, Christmas day in the West, once at home, I stumbled on a poem I apparently wrote October 22, 1999, and had completely forgotten about. It's rather rough - a sonnet of all things (Petrarchan for those who care, though it slips up in the sestet to rhyme cdcdcc for some reason...) that I must have intended to return to and refine, but put out of my mind instead. A strange synchronicity, given that it reads:

Stopped Time

There are those words that are far better stored
within the heart than uttered by the tongue.
And if such occult hymns are muted sung
impatient ears must hearken to the bawd,
whose music both offends and pleases, poured
brazen from more wanton lips. For naught, young-
er and less experienced notes softly hang
in unrequited hush, to be ignored.

I may grow lean, grey-pallored, dull of eye,
abbreviate my steps, speak slower yet,
but age, which brings me greater wit, will play
not winter on these pipes. Still green, bereft
of voice, I wither on and on, to be
love’s stoppered vial, in dumb eternity.

If, beyond 2012, I am alive, I will have been reborn, indeed. Become 'immortal' one might say, since, as far I can make out, you can only die once in any given incarnation! Either way, it will be a very interesting countdown to my 37th year - particularly as Pluto inches towards my natal Moon in Capricorn.

A profound death and resurrection awaits.

On Strictures of Daily Life in Gaza

I do read the New York Times (http://www.nytimes.com/) most days, despite its oftentimes milquetoast reportage.

Here is a good bit of multimedia from the Times about the struggle for Palestinians to live in a Gaza Strip that has been squeezed and squeezed and squeezed by the West's and Israel's blockade, following the Hamas victory in the 2006 parliamentary elections, and Hamas' takeover of the Strip from Fatah in June of 2007.

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2007/11/18/weekinreview/20771118_GAZA_FEATURE.html#