Just turn back now if you’re already running low on spoons… Or have not enough bandwidth to process more (possibly) mostly bad… and very little good news in today’s blog.
Or if you’re just overwhelmed, I’m gonna say, go get yourself a warm/cool beverage, put your feet up and relax with a bit of meditation… or cool jazz, hip hop, thrash metal, christian contemporary, whatever your jam… and chill.
But…
If you wanna hear some of the recent ramblings from here at the HARN… Read on.
On Line 3 and Minnesota Environmental Protections:
While the Appeals Court dissent on the PUC case seemed the grounds for the MN Supreme Court taking up a case that considers the very future of, not just Minnesota, but our entire planet [Just my opinion], nevertheless, the Minnesota Supreme Court decided not to take up the case.
Today the ruling on the MPCA case comes. Will this be another arbitrary and capricious decision? Or will justice for Mother Earth be served? Will the Water… and thus the People, be Protected?
We’ve seen a big uptick in rain here of late… which is good for Enbridge as, if we were still in drought, the farmers themselves might bring pitchforks to protest their water usage for cleaning the mud from the roads. One could argue that they shouldn’t be mucking around in the mud anyway… as it is harder on the equipment and more dangerous for the operators, not to mention, it just being a huge mess.
But a billion dollar Canadian Corp with access to 5B gallons of our Minnesota water, thanks to the state’s Department of Natural Resource… just does what it wants. They’re in a hurry installing this pipeline as they’ve been delayed for many years by Water Protectors in courts and on the land standing to prevent this project from bringing ruin. The industry is on the brink of bankruptcy so, if Enbridge is to recoup it’s many recent losses, it REALLY NEEDS THIS WIN. [Though based on a lack of investment in the tar sands, I’m wondering what the loss of all our trees and invasions to our land will really bring Minnesota in any taxes… especially as Enbridge’s recent wins in tax court (mostly as Minnesota failed to show up for the work) means they will pay less and less for their more and more unwanted infrastructure.
Not much doubt for most of us locals about Enbridge being a factor in the proceedings around the rivers running dry. This graph depicts the drops in water levels in St. Cloud… which seem to coincide with the Enbridge dewatering, approved June 4th:
As reported in St. Cloud on August 17th: “The city of St. Cloud announced Monday that it was shutting down the second unit of the hydroelectric dam after water flows dropped to just 700 cubic feet per second. The city says this is the first time it has had to completely shut down the dam since the drought year of 1988.“
We have failed over and over to convince the Minnesota Governors, DOC, PUC, DNR, PCA, and even the USACE to join us in holding water more sacred than oil. While it’s cold comfort, we’re surely being proven right now, as we watch unfolding climate devastation on never before seen levels.
We’re now watching Hurricane Ida… last year we got to Zeta. How much worse are the storms going to get? We’re in early days of the season, eh? And it ain’t looking good at all for Louisiana thus far. Not good at all. New Orleans has lost power. Yes. The. Entire. City.
“Asked how he will fill his new firetruck if the state’s worsening drought continues to drain local water sources, Manning took a long pause and said: “That’s the big question, isn’t it?”
Interesting piece… though not for the faint of heart [Man, it’s so depressing, I don’t even feel like I can make a pot joke anymore. Is that one of the signs of the apocalypse???]
As I write up this blog, Gaazhii finds himself in the woods, escaped from his leash… again. We’ll see how he does… and I’m hopeful he comes back to the porch soon. I can hear the wolves howling nearby.
Seems people are getting less and less consideration by governments and corporations around the world. We are feeling more each day that we’re reaching a breaking point.
Robert F. Kennedy on including the cost of cleaning up after yourself… and how polluters pass this on to us. 28 minutes
RFK tells some great stories about the Hudson River… and by great… I mean horrible. My old employer, GE (though I was at Aircraft Engines), polluted and privatized the commons… not cleaning up their mess.
We see the ever-growing Sock-Puppet Agencies, the Compromising of the Press, the Local Sovereignty Elimination, and the End of Transparency. People are saying, “Enough is Enough!”
I mean, we’re supposedly working to stay below 1.5 degrees Celcius… and we’re already at 1.23?
Last week in Minnesota, we saw:
Standing with Indigenous groups, Physicians call on Biden to revoke Enbridge’s permit.
Enbridge has said the upgrade is needed for safety reasons, to reduce maintenance needs, and to “create fewer disruptions to landowners and the environment.” But opponents from the medical community disagree. According to Health Professionals for a Healthy Climate, or HPHC — the advocacy group that organized Tuesday’s nationwide protests — the project poses both immediate and long-term threats to Minnesota communities and Indigenous peoples, whether from an oil spill or from the pipeline’s contribution to climate change.
Vishnu Laalitha Surapaneni, an assistant professor of medicine at the University of Minnesota who helped organize the rally in St. Paul, told Grist she is particularly worried about the pipeline’s potential impact on water quality. “We’re in the Land of 10,000 Lakes,” she explained, using Minnesota’s unofficial nickname. “This is not something that is compatible with healthy water.”
The protests will start with a rally in Trafalgar Square on Monday morning, 23 August. This is the anniversary of the Haitian slave rebellion of 1791 and the international day for the remembrance of the slave trade and its abolition. XR said its events were also intended to show solidarity with people in the global south who are worst affected by climate breakdown.
We are not powerless – you have more power than you think. We are the collective power to be the change that we need.”
Tim Crosland, of the pressure group Plan B, who was found in contempt of court for revealing early a supreme court ruling relating to Heathrow’s third runway plans, said: “We are targeting the City because these are the kind of people who are the real contributors to this crisis.”
He spoke out against recent claims by members of the Conservative party that reaching net zero emissions by 2050 – the government’s target, set out in law – would cost too much money. “It’s embarrassing to claim that it is too expensive to save young people and our country and our planet. This is extremist ideology from some parts of the Conservative party,” he said. “They believe science will have to give way to the market, but it is not going to work that way, it’s the other way round. The economy will have to adapt to the science.”
By the time this posts, we’ll likely be hearing news from Trafalgar.
And if YOU Want To F*ck The System That’s Been F*cking You? – WATCH THIS!
Protest, Protect, and Build! A coherent movement. Ends should be human well-being and means should be money, economy, industry. Instead, we have a consumption-based economy that cares little for human well-being. The means are Nature and Humans. Remaining individualistic, we continue to suffer.
In other words:
Slavery never went away. It just got better clothes.”
Dan… as we watched the video
We cannot have social justice without environmental justice… until we behave justly to the planet upon which we live, our host system… our Mother.”
Russell Brand 10:47
Individualism is rooted in Separation. Division must be overcome. Long live difference and diversity… [as we eliminate caste?] dancing together. … We Belong to Each Other!”
One of the most beautiful ways to understand the essence of Spiritual Direction is that you enter into a dialogue with the intent of letting your spirit reveal to you the story your are living that is your life. No one is born knowing who they are or what they are meant to do in every moment of their lives. What we are meant to do is search. We must each find our way and along the way, discover who we are, what we believe, what we value, what holds meaning for us and what does not, how to love and who to love. We are our own mystery.
I walk through what I gleaned from this part 1 of 8 series… which is all I’ve seen of the series… though, whew! It’s a lot!! And perhaps I’m too cryptic… so maybe you need to simply listen to the whole thing?
Here we go…
I love how Carolyn begins with prayer and meditation… in the first 5 minutes. Thomas Merton – This Day will never come again… so let’s pray that we find goodness in this day. Water of your Soul meditation… is good stuff. [Listen And she leads with books…. Lord of the Flies and Animal Farm… both really educational books on the topic she discusses. {18 minutes}]
One word of truth exchanged through the eyes of another is enough to bond two human beings for eternity… the power of a sacred union.
Carolyn Myss speaks of how we seek spiritual direction – archetypically, our nature is stronger than anything else and it seeks… itself. We still don’t even know our own selves… or our own real beliefs… We have no clarity of a God we Trust. But there comes a time of reckoning when we stop seeking and begin to devote our lives to no longer search… perhaps deciding to no longer feed our inability to commit… and ask ourselves not what we’re seeking, but what we believe.
Without direction… teachers and physical directors, we are forced to figure out how we work. Our NATURE / Instincts become our teachers. Perhaps as we sit in Covid World… we are all doing this… to “manage our survival”. Much of this work is being done in fear… and when we are in base fear, our instincts go to survival.
Mentors are helpful to prevent us living solely at the survival level. Intellectual curiosity and pursuit of knowledge come when we are not in fear for our survival (where control and acquiring are a focus). When we have only survival in mind, we have little time for understanding and often simply react in fear. Instructors guide us to get beyond our own instincts and prevent our lowest base instincts from being dominant.
Carolyn argues that Survivalist Programs are regressing us to our primal selves as we return to a level of base fear. “We are regressing to survival instincts.”
The Soul needs to know truth… The Mind wants to create… The Body must have meaning in each part as it carries a critical purpose. The Soul maintains authority over the Mind, governing our own Nature. “This is what conscience is about and our own inner direction.” Else, the mind is left to wander and take instructions from what it sees, what it wants, and emotional reactions of our base nature.
When our conscience works with our soul and our mind and our body, this instinctual system of life allows us to understand our selves… which THRIVE on Truth. When we fall out of alignment with our comfort zone of our personal truth, our soul comes in… mind directs and soul seeks truth.
Animating our conscience, guiding our heart, sensing what is unfolding in our world, feeling what is coming… Without the soul, we seek financial gain, glamour, or whatever is unfulfilled in our wounds. We want to make ourselves feel better from our wounds. When we have no sense of who we are Uwounded, we will stay in our Wounded self. Spiritual direction beings Truth that can heal.
First, we must Purge. Purge that which is NOT truthful. This is painful… talking about what is bothering us. Though it MUST HAPPEN. Carolyn helps us tweak this searching we think we’re doing… as we try to figure out truth… living in cycles that go nowhere… and begin instead… asking questions that take us to a place of answers instead of continued confusion.
Confusion comes from unanswerable questions, like: “Why did this happen to me?” There is no answer! [30 minutes in… she explains what we say to someone who comes to us asking why we hurt them. and this is really powerful. LISTEN TO IT. I’m not going to write it here as I want you to listen for one minute at 29:55 – actually, listen until 31:10… or longer.]
The Purge… starts with looking on the outside.
The Age of Reason has brought us to our most Unreasonable place. We have not made decisions based on understanding… but instead make decisions that show how little we understand about ourselves. As we enter the era of psychic energy – being more conscience of how things all fit together – we’re becoming more disconnected from the Earth… going in the opposite direction. The 1960s took us away from our spirit, not closer.
All our “issues” with words (Goddess, not God!) and religion (prayer and soul are not words to use in secular society…) in the Age of Reason, have created a place where we need to find an “off-planet god” to give us a reason. A God who has a courtroom… earth justice, according to His court of justice (that we define)… based on reason… allowing us to put God in our Mind but not our Being.
This withdraws the notion of divinity in the organic… Air… sacred atmosphere.
If the divine was real – a sacred force in our lives, no one would put a hand on the bible and lie… no one would walk the Earth’s sacred ground without taking off their shoes… no one would dare say they don’t have time for a sacred practice… Though we do these things all the time.
Our spiritual practice would be the whole of our lives if we truly understood the sacredness of our life in this world. Truth is the way. She references scripture… and her understanding about 40 minutes in… very interesting.
Start Listening.
No instruction can come until you are able to listen.
In the long ago time, there wasn’t all the distraction of today. Life existed as the silence of the physical world – no boats and emails – and the heavens. In those centuries, the focus was on physical survival and survival of the soul… which was EVERYTHING. Today we would think this preposterous – to concern ourselves with the consequences to our souls… with each action we take.
Our illness and suffering bear witness to the consequences carried in our souls. We wear the consequences in our psyche and our medication. The Soul is a vessel of truth – purging via confession… which we have largely eliminated from our daily lives. We no longer purge the demons which eat our mind and destroy our hearts.
Acting against our moral and ethical codes… for all this time… without purging this toxicity from our selves… these acts, not aligned with our beliefs, create suffering.
In the 1960s, we decided we could do our own thing… without direction. In this process, we threw out babies with the bathwater. Pursuing self… when the self can manage itself, it is good to “walk about”. However, without management of our soul, heart, nature… taking off on our own, without any sacred understanding… or declaring arrogant understanding where it is not complete, we become experts on what we don’t believe and novices on what we do believe. The result is no beliefs at all… a licensing of elimination of our conscience.
We no longer know who we are… or what we believe… or even why a belief is important. What is the vulnerability of having “No Belief”? Is there possession? Are we magnets for the chaos around us? Declaring there is no evil in the world… as we build the universe as we believe it to be… praying when we believe it is important… denying the words we do not “like”…. we struggle forward.
We are not conscience… No Creed is The Way. Accepting realities… what is IS.
The world is here… before me… and after me… I’m NOT SPECIAL, contrary to the upbringing and education I had that taught me I was. :-] I am NOT Exceptional. What has always been and always will be long after I am Gone? I cannot rearrange the cosmos.
Looking for our Specialness in life will always be a disappointment. Living a humble life, within our own human nature, on this planet that governs us, we cannot feel exceptional. We must abide by the rules… we get in trouble when we don’t abide by the rules. [Listen from 55:22 to 57:10. And a bit further if you want to hear about those Christmas newsletters…] Specialness is a curse.
What Do You Believe?
What is the difference between a thought and a belief? What is truth?
Truth is only functional for us as individuals. And… We are ALL connected. So what affects the one, affects all.
LIVE Truth. Purging can be made easier by understanding the “building” [listen at 1:02:30]. First floor people see the world literally but the penthouse sees farther out – only mountains and air and silence, while on the ground, there is traffic, dust, light pollution and noise.
Accept the Divine AS-IS… stop expecting as you have designed God. Stop praying as a narcissist assuming God screwed up. God is not our lawyer, surrogate parent, or book of answers to unanswerable questions. When you accept the world around you, peace comes. [Listen 1:07:25 to 1:14:30 to learn about forgiveness.]
Our nature is to strike back when we are hurt – we seek to understand our nature… and how it drives us. When we feel that need to strike back, we understand our own inner self… ruthless with proper provocation. The real admission is that the other arrived first… to their own inherent understanding of ‘power’… though we can learn from their provocation… to not be provoked to the same kind of harmful actions.
This is where the work begins…. Ask yourself:
What Are Three Things I Believe? What three things Govern Me? What is true about the “God” in which I believe?
[Mine were 1) I believe we are all doing our best. 2) I can change my mind. 3) Love is the answer.]
What do I need divine guidance for in this moment?
[Direction… on a daily. Does it come from my soul?]
What are my spiritual needs? Are there consequences from not meeting my spiritual needs? Are my physical or emotional or psychological needs actually spiritual needs? Absolutely.
Every human being needs time to reflect on how they are making choices in their life. How and why you make the choices you do…. what motivates you… whether or not your choices reflect what you really feel… what you really want to say… whether or not they’re coming from you or being forced out of you… whether or not what you do is compromising who you are or has integrity.
That you end the day feeling your spirit is going to sleep with you or is it fragmented through your life… through the day, where have you left your soul? Where is it? … Is it all inside of you as you have come to rest for the night. This is an essential spiritual need.
Not a religious question but a question on the nature of the soul. Determining our congruence. Not acting out of misalignment… Not giving a piece of ourselves to someone else to control because we are frightened, weak, dishonorable. If we do, we will begin a life of self-loathing. This will bring us to targeting someone to blame… as we cannot live with this misalignment. If no target is found, we will find addiction.
There is no alternative, no exception to this, it is the way of our Nature. It is what happens when we are not aligned with truth, we become abusers. Self, psychic, emotional abusers… we become abusers until we purge ourselves. We can get very comfortable with lying and acting in darkness… through ignorance or conscious choice… until conscious truth disrupts the behavior.
Playing with the truth makes us hate ourselves… and we can create neuro-lashout to disrupt. Become manic, depressive, find something to disrupt our own self-hatred.
Our history shows… this is the way of humanity. We need an archetype for those who tell the truth – Whistle Blowers.
Couples today need counselors to tell each other the truth… They don’t KNOW how to tell each other the truth. You are not KNOWN because you are not able to speak the truth in your relationship. What does it mean to know someone? There’s something to ponder.
“Inner self tells me… I should talk to you about this.” “How about you just talk to me about this… and leave your inner self out of it?”
Inner self is an anomaly ego of our time that we’ve created to allow us to speak our truth without judgment and humiliation. Half relation-with-God (or revelation from God) and half the vulnerability inside us… this is an irresponsible ‘divine inside voice’… because I cannot speak truth on my own… confidently… with you. It can become a weapon… as any tool can do.
“That’s how truthless we’ve become. That’s how incapable we are of managing truth. … It’s because we really have not ever dealt with the role truth plays.”
Retired at 45 