Recovery and Restoration

This begins the process of restoring our balance, reducing the impact of all those stresses on us, getting us centered into our deep-heart values, and enlisting the positive power of our emotions so we can move forward toward making constructive change in the world without betraying our own identity.

Redeeming our Emotional Resources

Emotions: Are They Friend or Foe?

In the face of a lot of stress-management writings, Eastern ideas about non-attachment and New Age dogmas, I need to address the power and value of our emotions. Plus, I’ve implied that our emotional reactions might be problems. They can be – if not allowed to do their job. Our emotions have been betrayed by some of the things we’ve been taught. One of these betrayals is that some emotions are blessed as being positive and others are judged to be negative. We’ve even been told by one writer that there are only two emotions – love and fear – regardless of the wide spectrum of emotional responses that we all experience.

Another potential pitfall is the teaching that we should only attend to positive, elevated emotions, and not give attention where we don’t want energy to flow. Sometimes this works, but it is only a partial truth. Of course, we have a choice whether to feed an emotion by fixating on it and replaying the memories that created it, but it is fruitless to deny what is already there. We must distinguish between suppressing an existing emotion, on the one hand, and re-generating emotions we don’t want on the other.

Our emotional system is just not as simple as some would like us to believe, and I’d like to present what I think is a more useful perspective.

So, what are they for?

We have, I think, four primary emotions, each with its own functional purpose in our lives.

• Each is a form of perception of our relationship with some aspect of the world.
• Each is an agent of valuing things, people and events.
• And, each is an attempt to resolve some issue with which we are faced.

In short, our emotional system is a form of perception, evaluation, response and problem-solving – if we allow it. There is a difference, of course, between naturally-occurring emotions and those we generate ourselves or contaminate with judgment, intent or attachment. Also, they can be incorrect, inappropriate, misplaced, mislabeled or based on false realities; but they each serve a purpose that, if recognized, helps us to know who we are and what we are being called to do. If not recognized, however, they create distress in the system.

Again, please note that I’m talking about the primary emotions not contaminated with judgments, or incorrect labels. These basic emotions are sadness, fear, anger and joy. Anger, for example, is an honest emotion, while hatred is not. Hatred includes a judgment, and a target marked for aggression – one whom we have decided no longer deserves the respect we say we value. As another example, feelings of betrayal are usually a mixture of disappointment, sadness and anger.

The specific functions and value of emotions should be clearer if we look at my “Emotional Toolkit.”

The Emotional Toolkit

We have four primary emotional tools.

• Anger is a response to a perceived violation. It helps us maintain personal boundaries and to get our needs met.
• Anxiety is an instinctive response to protect us from a perceived threat.
• Sadness makes us aware of the absence of something (or someone) we value.
• Joy shows us what our lives need for renewal. (My hypnosis instructor many years ago told me, “Everything necessary for the preservation of life, the Creator made pleasurable.”)

Of course, what I’ve put forward here is the ideal. In real life, our emotional systems can get distorted by inadequate or misguided parenting, needs for approval, gender expectations and emotional wounds. But that’s not the fault of the emotional system itself. Rather, it’s our failure to understand and nurture the proper development of these tools of living.

When beset by an emotion, we might ask:

• What does my anger want me to change? What boundary has been crossed? What or who has held something from me (or someone else) due me?
• What does my sadness show me I’ve lost? What does my sadness show me I value?
• From what is my fear trying to protect me? Does it really need to? Is there a deeper fear under what I’m feeling?
• What does my joy ask me to make more time for in my life?
• What do I want? What do I really want?

That last question is one of desire, more than emotion. Desire is another often-misunderstood human function. Desires are often dismissed as transitory and shallow, which they can certainly be. The desires we should pay attention to, however, are those that seem to come from deep within us – usually desires related to our core values for they tell us who we are.

When the work of the emotion is complete, it leaves us of its own accord – unless, of course, we feed it, or we have mislabeled it. This means we need to recognize it, find some way to express it honestly, and then let it go.

So, each emotion and desire are signals about who we are and our perceived relationship with some event, person or idea in our environment. In addition, they carry the energy to realize and express our identity and maintain our sovereignty. To reject, disown, degrade, or dismiss our basic emotions are all forms of willful soul loss, self-abandonment, and self-suppression.

Further self-reflection can help us evaluate the appropriateness of our emotional states and make better use of them. We are not trying to analyze them away, but to embrace the meaning of each one and its relevance to our lives. Here are some considerations to test the validity of the basis of an emotion. (Note that we are evaluating the validity of the basis of the emotion, not the emotion itself.)

• First, how much of the emotion actually belongs to me? Is there some portion of it that I absorbed from those around me or when I was a child under the influence of adults? (Whether you consider this a transfer of actual emotional energy, or a kind of sympathetic response is not as important as being able to distinguish what is ours and what really belongs to someone else.)
• How much of what I feel is manipulated or generated by what I’m reading or seeing? And how much by what I’m replaying in my head?
• How much of what I feel might I have absorbed from a social wave of emotion?
• Does this emotion cover some deeper or rejected emotion?
• How much of this is an emotional memory from my past?
• How does the emotion relate to its purpose as noted in the Emotional Toolkit?
• To what degree does it relate to my core values?
• How can I use its information and energy to support and express my core values related to this?

Note that this self-assessment is in no way intended to invalidate or immobilize the emotion. Rather it is to give it its true place, to honor your perspective and allow you to take the appropriate action based on current external realities, internal needs, and your core values.

Speaking of core values, we’ll next look at their place in our health, stress-management and as a moral compass as we address the stressors of our time.

8. Religious Evolution, Structure and Belief

The shift from animism to polytheism to dualism to monotheism to attempts at sectarian dominance and dogmatic theocracy have reduced the willingness of some religious factions to tolerate diversity, along with ambitions for political control. This is a bad sign.

In addition, for thousands of years, we have had religions and religious-like movements blatantly rail against equality and democracy, against science and against respect for one another and for oneself; religions that value personal loyalties over everything else; religions asserting that their god has given them rights that supersede any social contract or common morality. Thus, we see drives for theocracy not only in some Islamic states, but also in Christian-dominated countries, including the United States. History shows us how religion has been used to support the conquest of new lands, to oppress indigenous peoples, suppress women, censor science and oppose equality of individual rights. Since the Roman take-over of Christianity, (and before) women were treated as second class humans and, for centuries, not even given credit for having souls. This shaped and supported the abusive patriarchal culture we inherited.

Religion, it seems, is particularly vulnerable to being corrupted by secular power.

9. National Karma – An Oppressive History Creating Guilt, Anger and Injustice

I’m using the term “karma” here as a general term noting that actions have consequences. And there are lingering – and festering – consequences to America’s history of privileged classes building an economic system on the backs of slaves, the theft of others’ land and resources, suppression of women’s wages, cheap labor, and upward wealth distribution. “States’ rights” has been used as a cover for policies that support such immoral activities, making genuine discussion of states’ rights difficult, if not impossible.

Many who have enjoyed the benefits of this system are afraid of losing ground as the underclasses claim their due.

10. Constitutional Challenges

Constitutional challenges have been used since the beginning of the history of American government to clarify an unfolding understanding and interpretation of the meaning of such things as equal treatment under the law and due process rights. Arguments about the meaning of the Second Amendment have taken a moral/religious tone on both sides, making common ground difficult to find. Congressional committees are using public relations in the release of selected information instead of adjudicating issues through transparent bipartisan investigation. And the separation of powers seems to have broken down. (Ironically, many of those touting devotion to the constitution are those we see trying to circumvent it.)

Thus, those of us who look to the American constitution for equal treatment, justice and due process are seeing an erosion of respect by those sworn to uphold it – another source of today’s stress.

11. Personal Issues and the Illusion of Individuality

As if the chaos we see in the world around us weren’t enough, we each have our own personal issues, distortions, blind spots, shadow and karma, if you will (along with our gifts, talents and spark of the divine, of course). Consequently, we add our own personal stresses into the mix – stresses about social acceptance, career, health, taking care of our families, threats to retirement security, the changing economic landscape, family harmony, etc.

What’s more, we labor under the strange idea that what happens to and within us is about us alone – that we are somehow separate from the world, and from other people (which takes us to the twelfth potential source of our stresses – one that goes to edge of the known materialistic world we usually live in).

12. “Invisible” Forces

Collective Consciousness

It’s not a popular concept in our individualistic and materialistic Western culture, but we are a part of a collective consciousness of humanity: other people’s actions, thoughts, emotions, attitudes and secrets are also a part of us – as ours are a part of them. This idea has been around for ages among mystics, but science is catching up in its discoveries of “connectivity” among living systems. I’ll discuss something of that connectivity toward the end of Part II of this article.

Stress waves

For reasons I’ll explain in Part II, I’d like you to think of this “stress wave” not as symbolic, but a literal physical-but-invisible wave of emotion that is contagious and influential, and is a significant part of the stress we have all felt in the world – and to which we have contributed in the arousal of our own anger and anxiety. (Not that anger and anxiety are not warranted, but it’s how they are handled that determines whether they are helpful or destructive.)

In addition to these “stress waves,” we also see “emotional viruses” – contagious defeatism, resentments and negativity passed along in social networks, in work places, families and across the country, especially when a politically savvy group can take advantage to discount opponents or motivate advocates. But it’s not just humanity that contributes to these invisible stressors.

Geomagnetic Aberrations – from the Sun, from humanity

Perturbations of Earth’s ionosphere caused by solar events have been correlated with events and behaviors such as crime, accidents, and morbidity from heart attacks. Also, ongoing experiments have shown that mass reactions to global events can also affect otherwise random activity of computers. My point here is that there are potential stressors that are astronomical in nature and simply part of the way the world is. There is exciting research into the question of how a focused humanity might alter the ionosphere, thus improving its return influence.

Metaphysical, Religious and Shamanic Concepts: Thought-forms and Spirits

I already mentioned Itzhak Beery’s shamanic observations, but similar ideas have been floated on the fringes of things, suggesting that there are destructive spiritual forces at work (“Satanic” of otherwise), along with witches’ spells, secret societies, and various real or imagined conspiracies.

The bottom line here is that we are all in this together.

The Deleterious Effects of Stress

As if the stresses weren’t enough by themselves to wear on us, they have other consequences that detour our efforts at personal growth. What we are beset with from the outer world can take our attention away from our efforts to heal the wounds inside of us – wounds that occurred long before this last year. It is too tempting to focus on the person(s) who scratched open the wound (and keeps scratching) and neglect what is necessary to heal it from its original source. As we sometimes hear said, it’s hard to remember our objective is to drain the swamp when we’re up to our asses in alligators. We get distracted from attending to our own reasons for living by the stressors that assail us.

Finally, even though others may trigger our wounds, the wound still belongs to us and we are left with the responsibility to do something with it.

Time for Reflection

Whether you agree with this critique or you are offended by it, let’s get beyond the divergent content of thought and deal with the reality that, on either side of the issues, the emotional content is often the same. Regardless of whether we are right or wrong, anger, anxiety and depression have deleterious effects on our physiology, including our sense of well-being, our immune system, our ability to think clearly; and, the fact that our attention is being manipulated away from our own core values and sovereignty.

It doesn’t matter all that much which side you’re on if you generate the same emotional states of stress, anger and judgment. It doesn’t matter that you might have the moral high ground or a more valid right to the anger and judgment, because of three things they will do.

• They have an adverse impact on body and mind, even if you are right;
• They obscure the realization of your core values; and
• They contribute to the general stress wave around the planet.

Furthermore, when two sides lock into their opposition to one another, each becomes little more than a negative reflection of the other and neither can move toward a better outcome without the other one objecting.

It might sound like I advocate not reacting and not acting, but that is not at all my intention. I will explain how the stress turns to harm, and why and how you can and should still care. The goal at the end of this of all this is to be able to still care, and have that care nurture and strengthen us rather than torture us. For the time being, we are not interested in ideology, but the realities of being a human creature with awareness, with choice, with a body designed for survival, and a heart designed for healing and joy.

How to move on

So, after identifying some of our stresses (probably feeling all the more stressed), can’t we just go on to doing something about them? Yes, we can, but first I’d like to assert why it’s as important to be aware of how we are as it is to plan what we do. This is not a new issue. Centuries ago, Aristotle (384 to 322 B.C.E.) put it this way:

“Anyone can become angry. That is easy. But to be angry with the right person to the right degree at the right time for the right purpose and in the right way, that is not easy.”

Acting out of our stress will be less effective than acting out of our inner values, which is the point of Part II. So, we will begin setting things aright with ourselves in the next section as we, first, deal with the mismanagement of one of our most powerful resources – our emotions.

In Part 1a of this series, I noted that the stresses that emerged around Donald J. Trump’s election to the presidency did not originate solely with him, but that he was a catalyst for pre-existing, underlying conditions. In this and the next section, I’ll lay out 12 of these social conditions.

1. Public Indifference & Disaffection

Let’s first recognize the fact that only about half of eligible voters voted in the 2016 election and less than half of those voted for this president. But the politics of gerrymandering and complications of the electoral college allowed someone with one fourth of the country on his side to take over the rest of us, despite losing the popular vote.

For many people, the two major parties have become indistinguishable in their structure and investment in power, although espousing vastly different values. Both parties can be said to have betrayed their basic principles to stay in power and to cater to wealthy donors. Third parties have not been successful in escaping challenges of irrational ideologies of their own, charges of personal grand-standing, lack of financial clout, or having their own questionable backers.

Many citizens don’t see their influence in the face of powerful forces that benefit from public apathy.

2. Manipulators of Legislators – a Shadow Government

Lobbyists register and work openly to influence legislators, but there are also shadow organizations that work mostly outside of public view. This movement began some decades ago. One example is the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) – founded in 1973 – whose agenda has been to draft corporate-friendly legislation to be passed into law at the state level and to promote their policies. They write up bills and give them to sympathetic state legislators who, in turn, introduce them into state governing bodies. Also in the 1970s, Exxon-Mobile’s research scientists concluded that their products were contributing to anthropogenic climate change. The company’s response was to initiate a misinformation campaign to discredit others who came to the same conclusion (using some of the same people who tried to discredit research on the dangers of smoking tobacco). Please note: it is not the conservative or liberal nature of such groups that are of concern, but their operation as a kind of manipulator of public (mis)education and government. In addition, we also have various super PACs on all sides claiming to be public welfare organizations, but clearly operating as political agents.

I suspect that the discrepancy between our façade of a citizen-driven democracy and the reality of influence by powerful organizations and donors is a source of stress for those of us with only one vote.

3. Tribalism, Tribal Boundaries, Loyalty and the search for Certainty

Political discussions are too often presented in absolutist, either-or, all-or-nothing, for-or-against terms in ways that undercut communication and the engagement necessary for various factions to work toward viable solutions. That is, there appears to be more investment in boundaries and brand-loyalty than in substance, common values and compassion. We see this regarding climate science, gun issues, women’s healthcare, immigration, gender, race, ethnic equality, economic policy, civil rights, environmental safety, corruption in government and business, to name a few. Furthermore, autocratic leaders are less interested in truth or solutions as they are in loyalty and conformity.

I see anxiety motivating this kind of behavior – an outgrowth of felt threat of a loss of identity, status or power, which brings us to the next point.

4. The Unheard Voice of the Left Behind and Socially “Victimized”

Part of this president’s popularity has come from the fact that there are people who have felt victimized by what most of us would consider social progress, as well as those who have been left out of the economic riches of the country while others prosper. Each time the previous president talked of economic growth, these folks were not seeing it in their world. This discrepancy has been a fertile field for mobilizing opposition to the establishment, with a desire for radical change – no matter the cost.

Among the “victimized” are people who outright distrust most any form of centralized government. They distrust its power over their lives, object to restrictions on their behavior, and want to keep more of their earnings that otherwise go into taxes that sometimes pay for things they don’t believe in.

Some are afraid that raising the status of people who are not like them is a threat to their way of life and even their identity as Americans. Thus, civil rights for others seem, to them, to be a reduction of their rights.

5. News media and social media

We have media – news and social – that appear to be more interested in generating their own wealth than serving us, often operating by an “economics of outrage.” That is, they present news items in provocative ways without proper analysis or fact-checking. Opinions are stated as facts, speculation as reality; and we get recurring false equivalence or grossly slanted presentations. (Slanting might be expected, but distortions are dishonest and misleading.) It has become work to find out the truth behind much of the news, especially when the algorithms of search engines tend to “feed” us with our own biases or what is trending – not with what is reliable.

Contrary to the modern myth of the so-called “liberal press,” most news corporations are owned by a few wealthy conservative businessmen.

Finally, our news feeds are constant. Whereas we used to be faced with news at the end of the day, after dealing with our own lives, we now are subjected to it on the web, on our phones and on social media.

Thus, we are constantly faced with a flood of “information” that may or may not be true, is provided in order the sell something, and can come through a variety of channels amenable to manipulation. We have the stress of too many words, too little truth, and even less meaningfulness.

6. Our Abusive Patriarchal Culture, sometimes called a “Rape Culture”

There has been a struggle against “political correctness” that hides a desire to dispense with expectations of respect for others. This is little more than an attempt to institutionalize bullying and the expression of anti-social behavior.

What’s more, under a general category of abuse of power, we see a more insidious practice of powerful men displaying underlying misogyny and opportunism as shown in increasing numbers of accounts of sexual harassment and financial corruption, reflecting in part, the religious dynamics of a patriarchal church built on the values of ancient Rome and Greece with their subjugation of women. We’ve not yet recovered from that conceit of male superiority.

The pervasive nature of this cultural defect is only recently becoming evident, although women have been aware of it for centuries. Church and state have colluded in downgrading the power, influence and wealth of women, including the battle for control over their bodies and medical needs. Women are still treated as if they were property in some factions of our 21^st century society. We should remember that women were not even given the rights of citizens to vote until 1920 – less than 100 years ago.

This gender inequality (to put it mildly) may be one of the most significant failures of our culture, and certainly is a major source of stress for us all.

Furthermore, our high regard for successful business executives turns out to be support of predatory greed, theft of wages, and ownership of anything they can bend to their will. This structure of approved institutionalized predation is a threat to all of us not sitting in the offices of power. Any of us could be fodder for their engines.

7. Climate Change and the Industries of Denial – Hijacking Science

Tremendous efforts have been made to undercut legitimate scientific studies and, as I noted before, since the 1970s Exxon Mobile mounted a campaign to dismiss evidence of global warming that they found in their own research. George W. Bush and this president have both tried to downplay, if not censor, the significance of scientific data regarding climate change (and other critical environmental issues). Propagandists posing as scientists, paid by oil companies and other corporations, are given equal press against legitimate scientific studies and the scientific process. Ideology has taken precedence over reality – a stressor for anyone aware of what is happening to our land and seas.

Likewise, scientific concerns about food quality, pollution, toxic industrial products, sustainable energy sources, and sustainable agriculture have come under fire. Progress toward more sustainable and safe sources of food and energy have been curtailed in favor of dying industries.

Science is, after all, our reality check on the nature of the world around us, our impact on it and its impact on us. One would think a rational person would want as much true science as possible. The profits of the few have been elevated over the well-being of the many.

More to come. . .

I’ll continue my listing of the dozen underlying conditions that supported the rise of such an administration in the next posting, and then begin to address the adverse impact of the resulting stresses, and how to deal with them.

This is the first of a multi-part blog divided into three main sections 1) to identify some of the significant sources of stress over the last year, 2) to restore our own balance in the face of these stresses and not forget who we are, and 3) to move forward on a foundation of our core values (without necessarily becoming like that which we abhor).

Some of what I say here may make us aware of old wounds. More precisely, as we look into the stresses of our time, we may recognize wounds that have been activated by the peculiar nature those stressors. The important thing in this is to accurately connect the old wound with the current stressor to better deal with both.

When I began talking about stress-management 20 to 30 years ago, everyone’s focus was on the mind-body connection and our ability to manipulate our internal state to reduce the influence of events outside and inside of us. It was mostly a self-healing, self-focused activity. Today, however, I do not think we can achieve healing and wholeness for ourselves without some degree of healing the wounded world around us. In that, we must also recognize our relationship with the world. It is because of that relationship that things out there stress us out. It is also because of that relationship that we can influence our world. In all real relationships, influence goes both ways.

Stress, Chaos and Revelation

This past year – particularly since the 2016 presidential election – has been one of extraordinary stress for many people. It shows up in social media, in real conversations, in counselors’ offices, clergy consultations, and professional publications: our national psyche is beset with waves of stress, anger and anxiety. I present my observations not to add fuel to partisan fires already burning, although that seems unavoidable. Rather, I invite you to beware of your automatic reaction, whether for or against what I’m saying or about the topic. Instead of reacting, I suggest a moment of self-reflection. When you are tempted to respond to something I’ve written, ask yourself the following questions:

 

• Why do I want to respond at this moment?
• What is my emotional investment in this?
• What is missing, or what do I really want here?
• What do my answers to these questions say about my values?

 

Now back to my observations and thoughts.

 

The Unique Qualities of Today’s Stresses

We live in a unique time and are beset with stress waves and one emotional virus after another, both arising from a plethora of sources. In addition, we are becoming aware of the fact that we are all connected by media, by electromagnetic forces and by our very existence in the collective consciousness of humankind. We face choices about how aware we want to be, and how to evaluate the validity of information coming to us. Shall we react in kind, or respond from the heart? Can we respond to a monster without becoming monstrous ourselves?

To begin, let’s identify the threads that have come together to create this situation.

 

The Election and Post-Trumpmatic Stress Disorder

The escalating stress to which I’m referring seems to have begun with the 2016 presidential election. “We” elected a man whose behavior has always been outside the bounds of our expected presidential decorum and decency. His supporters are delighted to see someone speaking his mind and shaking things up, and are disgusted at the intolerance and judgmentalism of his detractors. His critics, on the other hand, are appalled that a man of his character has been put into the highest elected office of this country.

His amorality should be no surprise. He repeatedly created businesses that went bankrupt (meaning he used others’ resources without compensating them) while enriching himself. His sexual exploits and racism are legendary. And his war on “political correctness” was a code to battle against the expectation that we should treat one another with respect.

The distress of the time that now focuses on him, however, is not just from this one man’s day-to-day behaviors or position. Many people who have been subjected to bullying in early life – in the military, in business or industry – find old hurts and resentments reawakened. Many people (mostly women) who have been sexually assaulted, harassed or otherwise abused have found a resurgence of their old wounds – a reactivation of post-traumatic stress arising from earlier experience. Given that the man at the head of this nation glories in his ability to bully others and evade accountability, and who brags about his predatory sexual exploits (and then denies and hides them by bullying his victims), it is only natural that unhealed wounds and unresolved resentments have been triggered.

Some mental health professionals have broken with tradition to openly question the president’s mental state, character and fitness for his office. The first book I became aware of was A Clear and Present Danger: Narcissism in the Era of Donald Trump, and the more recent The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump: 27 Psychiatrists and Mental Health Experts Assess a President. Both books are edited by psychiatrists. Mental health professionals find him an easy diagnostic subject, and his impact on citizens has been noted with a newly-coined term, “Post-Trump-matic Stress Disorder.”

(A webinar can be found called Post-Trump-matic Stress Disorder and Other Psychological Aftermath of the 2016 Presidential Election at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eIWTuXeP7O4.)

They may skirt the issue of outright diagnosis because of ethical considerations, but they do not avoid the dangers of having this kind of person in a position of power. It’s the man’s behavior and attitudes (not diagnoses) that put us all in danger.

Coinciding with these mental health perspectives, there are shamans who say that “. . . I must conclude that Trump, the GOP and his supporters are possessed by what we term evil spirits. They are not “deplorable” as Hillary Clinton suggested. Their soul is trapped and they are suffering. Undoubtedly, their actions fit all the markings of traditional evil spirit possession.” (Itzhak Beery, http://realitysandwich.com/321732/trump-is-possessed-a-wakeup-call/) Again, whether or not you accept these conclusions is not as important as recognizing the behaviors on which these judgments are based.

Finally, clergy and Bible scholars are questioning how a supposedly “Christian nation” can take such actions as the immigration ban, withdrawing support for the poor, and enacting economic policies that give immediate benefit to the wealthy and powerful, while leaving the poor and vulnerable subject to “the market.” Biblical passages calling for welcoming the exiles, feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, etc. appear irrelevant to whatever faith these people profess. This is not the Christianity with which most of us grew up. What’s more, for Earth-centered faiths, exploitation of the Earth and her natural resources, and the introduction of toxins into soil, water and air are surely a violation of the sacred (not to mention that our personal health depends on the health of the environment around us).

 

Regardless of which side we take in all these issues, we are all subject to the consequences of the president’s actions and character, and the stresses they provoke in our society. Those who consider him a savior to a set of problems nevertheless face a backlash from most of the rest of our citizens (and the world). Those who consider him an affront to American decency are faced with the reality that he has garnered the support of the Republican party (for its own ends, of course) and certain religious groups in his efforts to dismantle and re-shape government and remove protections of vulnerable populations.

Our attention may be repeatedly focused on the president, but he is not the source of these issues. And, as much as he might like us to think otherwise, Donald J. Trump did not come to his position on his own, nor is he the only source of what faces us today.

 

In the next two postings, I’ll note 12 of the pre-existing social conditions for which Donald J. Trump has been a catalyst. Without addressing these underlying conditions, we leave open the door for the entry of the next demagogue, regardless of what happens to this one.

 

My recent absence from my Facebook community has made me consider my relationship to such things. My world does not seem amenable to postings or, perhaps, I don’t know how or grasp why. It’s not that I don’t have a life, with eating, drinking, people I love and people I don’t, joys and pains, death and renewal, holiday celebrations, reactions to news and the political stage. Nor am I indifferent to people’s troubles. Something, though, seems out of rhythm; and short reactive postings don’t have the luminosity I seek. After all, it took the writing of three books to get through my ideas and experiences with reincarnation, past-life therapy and karma.

I’m attracted to the novel, but less in entertainment and consumption than in ideas that take me into deeper thoughts, and experiences that take me into explorations of sound and rhythm through poetry and music (or yet another musical instrument). For me, a few good conversations make for a good month. Media outlets are unfaithful seductresses, luring me in with mostly-empty promises of escape, enlightenment or communion. As enjoyable as media at times might be, my yearning is for intimate conversation, the heart’s shelter, words of truth and the flow of inspiration that comes from an invisible world beyond anything the captains of industry can comprehend.

The spirit of this time is provocative, though transitory, full of manufactured emotional reactions, passing (though enjoyable) fashions. Although not devoid of its beauty and inspiration, there is another spirit that would call some of us into the deep end of humanity’s divine and animal natures – deep enough that these – that seem so far apart – meet as one, and call us into the invisible world of ancestors and spirits, and into the things of this world that are simply overlooked by virtue of the speed of living or garish clamor thrown at us by those who want our attention and thereby profit from our distraction.

There are also events that happen inside: thoughts we didn’t know we could think, ideas we didn’t know we had, concepts that come to us from another place, images that come from another world or another time, and the voices of poets, wild women and men, and the uncanny silence of the listening forest. Don’t get me wrong: I love the sensory world – landscape, curving form, music and laughter, well-spiced food, a voice speaking from the heart of truth, winds, rivers and trees, and a hearty beer. They all have their value and beauty in their own right, but they can fragment me or make me whole, drain me or enrich me, depending on whether I take the time to honor the god that brings them or the god that’s in them – and that requires investment in the non-sensual and, at times, the nonsensical.

All that said, I’ll still post on Facebook, but more of my effort will be put into this blog. In a couple of days, I’ll start posting a seven-part series on the extraordinary stress of the last year or so, and what to do about them without becoming like the miscreants to which we object.

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