Monthly Archive: January 2011

Update

Everything’s pretty good here. Kinda hectic. We moved Tesea and her two children in upstairs, which, along with all the food distribution we do, has made the upstairs pretty cramped.  I had another Tamil lesson today, Geetha has been very very patient with me.  We found a good website for learning from, it has the English meaning, the transliteration, the Tamil script, and a sound file of the word(s) being spoken.

It is at least another month before I can get a job in Peer Support. I’m mostly sitting here knitting and playing my music online (SecondLife), taking care of myself, etc.  I’m glad I have the car to drive, and hope I get the shocks replaced soon.

Everything else is just hunky-dory, or close enough.  Been texting Cousin Amy, my best friend gets to go home Tuesday from the nursing home (still has both feet)… keeping in touch with friends as much as I can.

Hugs,
Me

Weekend Woes… well, not quite

I had a good weekend. OK, I was expecting a great one, so I could decide to be disappointed, but it was a good weekend.  I drove to Chattanooga for Chattacon, an annual science fiction convention. I got to sit on a panel and do a one-hour concert, as well as 2 short nights of filking (that’s music, people).  But most of the rest of the time, I didn’t have anything much to do and didn’t know anybody other than some of the very few filkers.  The setup was spread over hundreds of acres — it was over a mile from the Art Show to the Con Suite, all outdoors (although they did have a free shuttle service most of the day and into the night). The room parties all seemed to be centered around mixed drinks; the con suite had both good and bad beer. No parties with beer, just carousing people getting sloshed. Talk? No place to sit (except the con suite). The weather was bright but chilly, making long walks less of a good thing.  I’m not a glass-half-empty type, the glass was at least 2/3 full… I was hoping for more. I’ll live.

I did stop off and visit an online friend for the first time after I left on Sunday. Got lost going there (he told me the wrong highway number — I was supposed to be on US 27 and he said Highway 24, which is the Interstate highway from Nashville to Chattanooga… I got there anyhow, thanks to my reliance on maps).

Missed the NFL playoff games. Well, “missed” is the wrong word. I didn’t watch them, but didn’t even think about them.

And, after a week of scammers and pornsite links, I finally got a real person (I currently believe) to respond to my personals ad on Craigslist. I’ve closed all my other personals profiles except NLL (where I mostly help people find alternatives in mental health; rarely get anyone talking about relationships, and those conversations don’t last long).

Back to playing online. I’ve got some open mics schedules on SecondLife, as well as a concert coming up. If you’re on SL, let me know and I’ll tell you when and where.

Hugs,
Me

State of the Universe Address 2011

Swami’s 2011 State of the Universe Address

The Shift Has Hit the Fan …
And All Heaven Has Broken Loose


By Swami Beyondananda

The shift has hit the fan. And all heaven has broken loose.

You say, “Heaven?? Where the hell do you see heaven?”

And yes. If you look at the news headlines from the past year, you’d have a hell of a time finding any heaven. It’s a dogma-eat-dogma world out there, and everyone seems caught up in the bipolar insanity. Even Poland is polarized – the North Poles and the South Poles. We talk about peace in the Middle East and we can’t even make peace in the Middle West. Here in America, we have a deeply divided body politic. Half the population believes our election system is broken. The other half believes it is fixed.

In 2010, political anger became all the rage, as town hall meetings turned into “I scream anti-socials,” and enlightened discourse into heated detestimonials. The Tea Party Movement, a coalition of civil libertarians and uncivil libertarians, provided an ideal cover for mining interests (as in, “that’s mine … that’s mine … that’s mine”) to throw barrels of anonymous money into Congressional races to defeat Democratic candidates.

Of course we all know that when it comes to defeating Democratic candidates, no one does it better than the Democrats themselves. In the area of self-defeat, the Democrats are simply unbeatable. Somehow, in just two years they turned a mandate into a man-who-can’t-get-a-date.


A Wolfowitz in Sheepowitz’s Clothing?


There is one prime cause of disillusionment, and that is illusionment. And in these challenging times, it’s understandable how a population can get strung out on hopium. America has been going through a dark night, and who wouldn’t want a white knight on a dark night – albeit a slightly darker white knight?

But a lad and a lack. So far, our lad seems to lack the will or the power to stand up to the forces of endarkened self-interest. Barack Obama’s neo-liberal foreign policy looks pretty much like George Bush’s neoconservative one, and disheartened progressives who believed in Obama’s election rhetoric are beginning to think they fell for the old “debate and switch,” and we ended up with a Wolfowitz in sheepowitz’s clothing.

On the other hand, how can we expect a President to stand tall, when the body politic is so sickly and out of shape? After all, we’re still suffering from the lingering effects of Mad Cowboy Disease and chronic electile dysfunction, not to mention irony deficiency and truth decay brought on by weapons of mass distraction. And let’s not forget the Deficit Inattention Disorder that led to our near-debt experience.


American Middle Class Tops Endangered Species List


To add injury to insult, the American middle class continued to top the Endangered Species List, caught between the lowly criminal at the bottom, and the highly criminal at the top. Maybe I’m old fashioned, but I’m nostalgic for the good old days when people robbed banks. Once again in 2010, Chase chased us, Wachovia walked over us, and the name Goldman Sachs tells us all we need to know: We have been sacked by the gold men. Gold-collar criminals have overruled the Golden Rule with the Gold Rules Rule: “Doo-doo unto others before they can doo-doo unto you.”

And let’s be honest. Not just the people at the top, but everyone seemed to buy into the boom that could never go bust. And then … BOOM! The bubble popped, and just like that, we’re busted. So, the moral is: Don’t put your faith in false profits.

Sadly, the financial fleecing didn’t awaken the body politic, but it was harder to sleep through the alarming oil spill in the Gulf last spring. So perhaps it takes a pillage AND a spillage to wake the village to stop the drillage and wildlife killage.

The upwising continued to gather esteem in 2010, and the irony curtain is becoming more and more transparent. Wikileaks emerged to challenge our official media, Weaky-Licks, to help end the other “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy – that’s where the American people promise not to ask what the government is doing to “keep them safe,” and the government promises not to tell them. When the people choose to not see what is too uncomfortable to look at, the inevitable result is Not-Seeism.

Time to Gather Under One Big Intent


But enough about our small world down here. This is, after all, the State of the Universe, and there’s a big, big Universe out there, which is pretty much purring in perfection. Which is to say there is a hell of lot of heaven out there.

So, you are asking, why the hell isn’t heaven here, already? Everything seems to be crashing down, and heaven is nowhere to be found!

As a cautious optimystic, I say that contrary to the way things appear, the sky is not falling. It only looks that way because we are ascending. Yes, thanks to the evolutionary upwising and the recently declared state of emerge ‘n see (where we emerge from fear and separation and see how we are connected), we humans are better able to rise to the occasion than ever before. And when it comes to rising above whatever has been bringing us down, nothing works like levity.

Now I certainly would never want to impose my spiritual faith on anyone else, but I must declare that I am a FUNdamentalist, accent on the FUN. While some of the less fun fundamentalists believe that heaven is above us, we FUNdamentalists believe that heaven is where we make it. FUNdamentalists are strictly non-dominational, so we have no commandments. But we do have One Suggestion: “Let’s go for heaven on earth, just for the hell of it!”

“OK,” you protest, “that’s the ideal, but how do we deal with the real deal?”

It’s simple, although it may not be easy. If the uncommonly wealthy have hijacked the commonwealth, we the people must higher-jack it. And we do so by acting on another FUNdamentalist suggestion: We’re not here to earn God’s love, we’re here to spend it!

That is how heaven is breaking loose, with people spending their love like it’s going into style. Think about it. Someone comes into a room overflowing with love, and 300 people leave with that love … and pay it forward somewhere else. Love, joy and laughter … they are the loaves and fishes of spiritual nourishment. Yes, heaven has broken loose and we are here to put it together. Each of us – if we so choose – brings a piece of heaven. You have a little piece here, a little piece there, and before long, you have one big peace everywhere.

So … now is the time for all those heaven-bent on planetary transformation to gather under one big intent that reflects the heart core values shared by humans the world over: “We are here to re-grow the Garden, and have a heaven of a time doing it.”

And when the cosmic beings ask, “Oh, by the way, how did the human race turn out?” the answer will be, “They won. They achieved Oneness and won.” This is the true second coming. The human drama achieves a pleasurable climax, as everyone comes together.

© Copyright 2011 Steve Bhaerman. All rights reserved. Swami Beyondananda is the cosmic comic alter ego of Steve Bhaerman, and can be found online at http://www.wakeuplaughing.com/ And seriously … read Steve’s serious book with Bruce Lipton, Spontaneous Evolution: Our Positive Future and a Way to Get There From Here, available at http://www.wakeuplaughing.com/ along with some free bonus articles. For reprint information, please contact info@wakeuplaughing.com

More Commercial Insanity

Got two this time. I listen a lot to ESPN Radio. Mike Golic and Mike Greenberg apparently make a lot of money doing commercials for various sponsors.  Their current Big Wow is an exercise program called P90X.  The really fun commercial for P90X, which I note is no longer running, was where Mike Golic said he’d tried “all the fad diets, and they don’t work.”

Why was this spot pulled?  Because, just prior to P90X, Mike and Mike were selling NutraSystem. I bet they didn’t like being called a “fad diet”. Dan Marino (NutraSystem shill) might be offended.

OK, and now… Another popular spot is Rosetta Stone Software. Their current spot has a guy calling in and asking, “You’re offering a free demo of your software. What’s the catch?” “There’s no catch. We’re so confident that you’ll love our software that we’ll send you a FREE DEMO.”

OK, so what’s the catch here?  IT’S A DEMO, PEOPLE.  Not a fully-functioning, complete lesson (like Video Professor will send you, for shipping and handling).  A demo.  Get over it.

Hugs,
Me

Rezzing Up

New Years’ Resolutions 2011

  • Reduce weight to under 230 (target 225)
  • Keep in touch with friends
    • Robbie
    • Beverly
    • Cynthia
    • Frankie
    • Gloria
    • Brigid
    • Christine
    • Sabrina
    • Sky
    • Linda
    • Amy
    • Cardea
    • __________
    • __________
  • Complete Maple Academy editing course
  • Attend conventions
    • Chattacon Jan 21-23
    • ConCarolinas May (Memorial Day weekend)
  • Get PSS Certification completed, get work as PSS
  • Complete 5 discs in Project Moss
  • Complete debt reduction
  • Remember Family birthdays
    • Mom & Dad
    • Chandra, Dan, Camilah, Moses
    • Laura, Beth, James
    • Meade, CJ, Willow, Brigid, Rory, Cardea
    • Beverly, Frankie, Gloria, Sky
    • Amy, Linda
    • ___________________________
    • ___________________________
  • ________________________________
  • ________________________________

Those blanks are there for a reason.  If you would like to make some suggestions (including having your name added to the list of people I’m remembering), please do so.

Hugs,
Me

Late again

I did my New Years’ Resolutions… guess I’ll post them next.  Always good to have a verified copy to see how well I did.  I’ve really been doing quite well — not 100% on anything, but at least 40% on almost everything.  This is not Pass-Fail, it’s a sliding scale leading to my growth.

Speaking of growth:

I AM NOW A CERTIFIED PEER SUPPORT SPECIALIST!!!!!!

Just called the office this morning to see how the process was going… and checked my mailbox and the certificate was in it!

Hope I can get a little work.  A few clients at $8 per hour will be more money than I’ve been making at Eternal Press.

Hugs,
Me