“Do you see O my brothers and my sisters?
It is not chaos or death—it is form, union, plan—it is eternal life.
It is Happiness.”—*Walt Whitman.
I call upon you brothers and sisters to see your role in this great play. I ask you to be part of the form, union and plan, along with me. Wherefore do we get our strength?
Do you remember studying the play Our Town in high school? I loved that play, and the English teacher, Miss Mallon who brought it to our class, to our innocent ears and naïve minds and our longing hearts.
Thornton Wilder set the stage in Grover’s Corners, a small New Hampshire town not unlike the rural PA town where I grew up. Here we watch the Gibbs and the Webb families acting out the simple and sublime aspects of their daily lives, from snapping beans, to falling in love, to singing in the church choir, and finally to childbirth that also brings death.
I remember how I identified with Emily, the young protagonist. Especially when she made her way back to Grover’s Corners after she died.
“One last look!” She exclaims to the all powerful Stage Manager who allows her a short reprieve from the cemetery of waiting souls. And so, she returns to earth and relives her 12th birthday, but this time, she has the awareness that the moments are transitory, full of opportunity for love and meaning, and beauty. And it about breaks her heart to notice, “Doesn’t anyone realize life while they live it? Every, every minute?”
“Saints and poets, maybe, they do some,” replies the Stage Manager.
Now is the time to listen up, and listen up good to the Saints and the Poets. It may even be a good time to become one.
How do we spend our days? These precious days on earth?
I, for one, spend a good portion learning. I read substack, listen to podcasts and converse with likeminded individuals who are “waking up,” and I use the present tense deliberately here, because it is an ongoing “now” experience, that doesn’t end.
As much as I say I need to stop with so much information grab, I just feel compelled to take in more and more and more. And, guess what, I think it’s a good thing. No, a great thing. Because I am “realizing life while I live it!” I am accepting that instead of keeping my nose to the grindstone, instead of participating in the “machine,” I am in fact, removing the chains. I am liberating myself.
In the words of Psalms: “Who dares to face their fears, to break down the prison walls, to walk with Love?”
There seems to be a fear-a-day.
Today I have the Bejesus scared out of me thinking about AI! What the heck? Have you read Paul Kingsnorth, The Abbey of Misrule? He has a mind-blowing look at our escalating runaway technology phenom in his article, “Four Questions Concerning the Internet, part one.”
So, here is the trick. You read these highly inflammatory pieces, by virtue of their content, that raise your blood pressure, raise your cortisol and stands your hair on end, and then what? Oh, la, de da, “get back to work.”
No my friends, no. Do not go back to work. That is like going back to sleep! Stay awake. Feel the feels, and then go to your nearest poet, or saint and find out what they have to say about *REALITY (See Walt Whitman.) You will find what you need there. You will.
OR, go to your nearest park, woodland, beach and stay there in silence. You don’t need to stay all day. Stay for 30 minutes. Get your grounding, get your heavening. And then go back to work—if you must.
Think about this. Wasn’t it a bit foolhardy to think that our dreams could be achieved through chasing the dollar? The game is rigged. We knew this deep down, but there seemed no other way. Just a little money would lift our business, and lift our spirits.
So now, can we let it die? The dollar I mean, not our dreams.
O brother and O sister. I look to you as the expert. Not to my institutions, not to the credentialed, not to the authority. I look to you to help me stand my ground. To teach me how to use herbs, install a deer fence, invest in hard assets, listen to my own guidance, preserve my homegrown foods, advise me about parenting adult children:) and sharing a meal. And, I will do the same for you.
We will be watching the demise of the dollar and we will be participating in the rise of our own: imaginations, ingenuity, humanness, and ascension. One part sounds pretty damn scary, the other sounds, well, exciting.
Here is what I would like to encourage. Because we are learning beaucoup amounts on the scary side, try flipping to the “we can do this side.” Consider trying different strategies along the lines of what do I want this world to look like, and feel like. How can I begin this in some small, experimental way right now?
It’s Spring in North America. We have waited lo these many months for the warmth that touches us on some special April days. It would be unseemly of us, would it not, to be unable, because of frightful storylines involving evil, genocidal controllers, to ignore still and all the flight of a single bumblebee?
I watched one on my deck for a good five minutes. And, they do, in fact, look like alien space ships as they hover in stillness with wings beating faster than you can see. And, then zoom, off they go!
That bee, and those evil do-ers, of which I speak, and read about, exist together at the same time in my life. And each will get my attention, in equal measure. With the pleasure and the pain that each engenders.
From Man of La Mancha: “This is my quest, to follow that star, no matter how hopeless, no matter how far.” And that quest is “to realize life while I live it, every, every minute.”
Yes, artists too—musicians, actors, writers. Besides the saints, and the poets…turn to the artists. Become one.
My poem for today:
I am an information alchemist (not a conspiracy theorist.)
I do not theorize. I gather, like a squirrel hiding nuts for the long winter.
I discern.
I separate wheat from chaff.
I meet with witches and take their potions. I practice seeing beyond sight.
I receive blessings from the heavenly realm, and seeds from the earth. Moonlight and mist co-mingle and then all is transmuted into useable practical, sensible substance.
Dear ChatGPT,
This I can write, because I am me. Not you. (whoever/whatever, “you” is?
“That bee, and those evil do-ers, of which I speak, and read about, exist together at the same time in my life. And each will get my attention, in equal measure. With the pleasure and the pain that each engenders.” ... That right there is maybe the best paragraph I’ve read all month. Kinda sums it all up for me. I live out in the country and spend a lot of time looking up. I am still in love with the beauty of the sky even as I loathe and curse the chemtrails and the pilots spraying them. Perhaps all the more so - more love than ever before for the sky. I stare at it more than ever. And on the days I can’t stare because it’s too depressing I mourn. And then I get back to work, fighting to get the sky back.
Poetry about poetry! I am swooning. I am so happy I chose this to read out of the ten thousand and fifty Substacks I’m behind on.
I wrote a fairy tale about witches and potions, but not the kind you mean:
• “The Vapor, the Hot Hat, & the Witches’ Potion: A Fairy Story” (https://margaretannaalice.substack.com/p/the-vapor-the-hot-hat-and-the-witches)
I first experienced “Our Town” through the documentary “OT: Our Town,” which captures the transformative power of art to awaken and enliven the soul:
• https://www.amazon.com/OT-Our-Town-Jose-Perez/dp/B00TYDYX9I/