Peace is not the opposite of war.

War is a fool's search for peace. Peace is the presence of itself in the union of good and evil. It comes to all who want it passionately enough to clean up after themselves without expecting a reward.


Then it comes. To those who truly want it, it just comes as a promise fulfilled.

Everyday I tramp a secret path where all things wild do hide and grow.

You must think me mad to say it although I must declaim that it is so.

A madness is afoot beside the world you know; and in it dwells a heart so big you will not believe it so;

but belief is not at all involved in digging for what just may or may not be so

with a faithful dedication to your dream and the magic touch of a friend I want you to know.

I am reading about a woman who has lost her memory. She awakens every morning with the idea she is young and at the beginning of her life only to discover again that she is in her 40's and married and has had a child all of which she does not remember. Blank you might say. At the point in the story where I stopped reading she has come to fear the day she will awaken as an old woman thinking she is young and discover the truth and the reality she has nothing to show for her life for she believes all we are is our accumulated memories, and in a way she is correct. For most people it is so. It is so because most are asleep, in a trance, living only a pretend life. Playing roles in somebody's else's (Kodak) (Facebook) (Norman Rockwellian) drama. For those ones, the predicament is dire. And yet, they know it not so to be. I write for them.

Once the mouse of freedom met the military lion who had been sent often into war.

The lion pitied the tiny mouse and laughed in the face he wore.

Out of my way, you insignificant mite,

and bother me no more.

But the mouse, he grinned, and asked the lion the names of each of the badges he proudly wore...and, what were they given for.

The lion straightened up, puffed out his chest and let go a mighty roar.

Oh, said the mouse, for sounding off, is that what all that brass is for?

And the lion was angry and blew a whistle that called forth the entire corps.

For one small mouse? Is that bravery you salute? All dressed in a look alike suit? Why you polish your boots to march off a lost ghost among troops? To wage one more war without asking what for? Is that bravery you salute?  

Give Up Wickedness?

A paper lay on the table before the young person who had been told he is a citizen of a country with morals and ethical standards. He could not fathom such a possibility, that is, a nation having morals and ethics, things he associated with individual, living human beings. Then he was told to sign the document to show his agreement with its terms. As he read it, he wondered: who do these people think me to be?

The document read:

I hereby pledge to give up my wicked ways which are selfish and to instead lead a moral life of loyal trustworthiness in my dealings with all good citizens I encounter on life's way.

The young man signed and began immediately to live a wicked life grounded in deceit, competition, hatred, envy, greed, and malice, all of which were unknown to him before signing. Thus did the boy learn that a man who declares himself to be good is a bad man and he later wished he had remained in his original state.

And I Spoke

And I spoke to a stone, said,

“I want to be free”

And the reply came from a still voice I heard within me

it called my name softly, asking of only whatever I be

“In the name of Heav'n, tell the truth, to your own self not me,

whatever gave you the idea that you are not as you are absolutely 

free?"

And I knew I am that I am that is free;

free from all that entangles fellows like me.

Anonymous, on my own, nameless and free;

unknown and unknowable, alone and not lonely,

as still as a mind that is empty can be;

vast and deep, more deep than the famous bottomless Sea

seated on a stone, light years alone, nowhere in infinity, 

a place with no center, bearing nothing, I enter,

and yet another whole Universe pulses inside of me; 

and I gotta wonder

Da de da da…..de da da...de da da de da da de (pause)

How can it so be?

The UnGodly Dance of Good with Evil

All is One.

There is no sufferer.

Step by step: (we go)

1. You say you are not satisfied?

2. That matters not.

3. There is nobody here who is satisfied so look again into the question of Who Am I.

I recently found myself to be satisfied believing it was my duty to clean up a pile of shit so huge it seemed to me to be impossible to accomplish short of great, unwanted suffering. It may sound crazy but it was my time to learn what happens when one can see no alternative but to accept utter defeat, alone. Searching ends suddenly. Ceasing the search to find what one does not have reveals a still mind in a body afloat on a lake of deep satisfaction. Presto! A new intelligence arises. Tremendous energy with passion is available. Do not wait for me to tell you what it means.

Ask: Whatever caused me to think that what is difficult for me is bad and wrong?

By that, I mean, what caused me, as artist, to find it necessary to paint over the situation at hand with the color named difficult. It is, after all, the situation that is. I used to wonder whether it is possible for someone like me to refuse to accept the idea that when trouble arises I have to oppose it rather than merely to face it, deal with it, and end it. That is, never to let trouble take root in my mind. That is, to dump all bad memories and toss the color of difficulty away from my palette. That is, never again to open a drawer in the brain labeled memories of bad times, and be done with the practice of good and evil; and, by so doing, to know that God and Devil are one.

Many reading this will recoil at the suggestion of forgetting evil on the belief it is by remembering evil that we keep it at bay. Ha! Look at history. For all such persons evil remains attached to every good idea that will occur, generation after generation, unto the end of time. Consider the scripture: For the thing which I greatly feared is come upon me, the very thing I dreaded has happened to me, and what I fear most overtakes me. In that scripture it is possible for one to see his own role in every conflict.

I want to suggest here that it is my memory of evil that inevitably causes someone else to feel abuse in an evil manner which he must never forget and so on and on conflict will be passed until people find themselves in a situation exactly like the one we face today on Earth in 2017. All statesmen(women) and politicians speak thusly:

“Because we do not have peace we must go to war even though war can never bring peace.”

Peace is not the opposite of war. War is a fool's search for peace. Peace is the presence of itself in the union of good and evil. It comes to all who want it passionately enough to clean up their own shit without expecting a reward. It comes. It just comes like a promise fulfilled.

Chapter 5

Long ago, but after the beginning, it was impossible for one human being to strike another in anger. We knew ourselves to be the other. In that state, killing was not going to happen. Something went wrong.

Marriage is the name for a certain type of purchase of each party by the other. In fact, all attempts to manufacture a feeling of belonging are always going to be as a practical matter a sellout on both sides. Every contract, sealed or otherwise, is born from mistrust.  I once heard a wise man tell it that from the point of view of a Martian, for example, watching a Marine drill instructor discipline a bunch of recruits it would be logical for the alien to think the instructor who yells and threatens at the top of his lungs is begging the others to please do what he wants of them. Everybody had been bought. In another word: artificial life had been manufactured.

One must see for himself that there are these illusory ties that we have grown to serve to the point of death. The real ones, those given at birth to all- the real ties -those ones demand we grow to serve love and life and by so doing life and death are known to the obedient to be one. Fear is absent. Peace reigns.

As I see it, one thing is above all required to bring about a change of sufficient passionate force that nothing and nobody can prevent the arising of the longed-for realm of peace out of the ashes of a long, long line of warring and that one thing is to know that the value of the single life of the lowest, least worthy human being on Earth is far, far greater than the total combined pseudo-national interests of every flag waving citizen on Earth when considered through the eyes of the innocent. Until this is clear, one is to remain a slave in a darkness so great no amount of money and no armed force of the greatest magnitude can save you or the ones you claim to love. On the other hand, one glimpse into the heart of truth will set a man or woman free forevermore. Only the innocent love. But, listen closely, all people, all, at heart, remain innocent unto death.

In innocence will we know it is so that a human being is made by the same living force that set the Universe in motion and created it all. While all nations, all states, all counties, all cities and all marriages are the creation of man alone, writings on paper of mere words forged in spiteful disregard of the Master Building Plan, saying, in essence,

Thanks, but we follow You not. We know better.