THE STORY OF JOHNNY WHOOPER SWAN We go to school trusting our parents. We meet a teacher there who stands up front with a big desk, and a pointer. She or he trains us in an authoritative manner. We attach mentally to a life long need for authority in order to live lives successfully. Right so far? In my case, at the age of 25 I was ready to enter the practice of law where I hoped for success and a happy life finally. Very shortly, very shortly, I became anxious. There was a foreboding. I was made more uncomfortable with each experience. Law work is nothing like what I was told it would be. The system is corrupt. But I still cling to my expectation that career success is necessary to my happiness as a man. Each day my grasp of what the fuck success amounts to after all becomes more clouded, murkier. I hear songs on the airwaves and at concerts which describe my life as the life of a fool. What am I becoming? I want to rip off my business suit to run naked in the street with my hair on fire! But I am too afraid. In strange, weird (weird comes from a word meaning wise), fragmented steps I go about a journey of my own believing myself to be the first man to have failed in such a total way which journey works so as to break up my career, end a marriage, and start an entirely new way of relating with my two children whom I love deeply. Almost magically I meet a woman who is a career counselor who asserts a beautiful message that I am made to be joyful in my work everyday and at all levels. This understanding sets me on a completely new course. It is no longer a world of systems to me but an undivided one of unlimited beauty. It reminds me of a painting. A true masterpiece. I am drawn from within to learn the truth about my identity and nobody else can teach me that. From this point onward I will use thinking capacity for mastering mechanical processes and follow my heart, which includes my whole nature, which includes your whole nature and that of every human being for all the rest. I’ll go by the name Johnny Whooper Swan who does not explain itself to anyone. By my fruits shall I be known. Watch me soar!

Tuesday, January 5, 2021

RECEIVE WHAT YOU HAVE NOW


There’s always been playin’ at the back of my mind a sad tune sung to me as a child.

It goes: Sonny, to live in this world you gotta earn your daily bread. Those who do not work here, shall not eat. To the world, work has always meant do what you are told not what your heart would have you do.


As I have grown older and have seen more and more of that way I have come to believe that song is confused for those who sing it the loudest are the same ones who dream in earnest of the day they will find the pot of gold that is by them unearned. Stolen actually for always there is a long string of losers attached to their fortune. That is what such people call wealth but some of us, rather than dream of it, receive by faith life’s gift now. And are content for nobody loses when prosperity happens from a fountain of love.


I think I finally understand why it is people are drawn to any explanation from someone they believe to be trustworthy that some force beyond their knowing and beyond sight touch and hearing is causing a problem that must be addressed because it is bad and so it is thought a solution ought to be found in the same disguised way from a force or forces of imagined good that lies beyond mortal sensing and reasoning power. That is how government of the many by spirit entities began long ago, in ancient times, and continues into the present, whereby people willingly give control to an imagined figure and its icons, its minions, and a map, a name, and some king as their imagined spiritual leader. 


Before that, a tribe would discuss a matter indefinitely until all, and that means all, of its members reached agreement. If no agreement was found, people divided into two or more camps to live separate in full agreement by faith but faith really means to reach agreement simultaneously, to be of one mind, for people of faith think and act as one. All the other forms of life as we know it live in this manner without choice to do otherwise. Exception: when humans manage to domesticate other animals to live otherwise than by being true to their own natures. Most life forms cannot be domesticated. It bears repeating that most life forms cannot be domesticated.  Some strong members of the kinds that can be when forced to do so will choose to die rather than submit to human control. Some wild horses cannot be ridden and it has always been so. That is faith. It has not been eradicated from the Earth.


It is only humans that possess the power individually to decide to live outside the natural faith of their own kind, born within each one, and to discover for themselves what is good or bad. The first few to do so have managed over time to convince just about everybody else to follow the imagined games they design and play which they believe will bring about some day a Paradise. Such fools labor and lie and cheat and deceive in order to construct their own dreamed of world when in truth they could never have made even a single gnat or a single atom or a single quark. Such games are based in arrogance, of course. They say we humans are destined to control all the rest of creation! And so we have made of our lives heartless games wherein most players are losers. And there is no evidence any winners are content for long. Good and bad. Right and wrong. Look what we have done! And so quickly.


But some wild horses cannot be ridden. Faith calls now upon itself. It is not for me to tell you what a mess we are in nor the way out of it. It is by the undying faith within each of us we are rescued. It is by two or more beginning the walk it is done.



IS THERE LIFE INSIDE A STONE?


Is there life inside a stone?

Do trees fall down alone?

Will a heart beat any rhythm but its own?

I have something here for you

The only one I’ll give it to

‘Til then I will walk this world alone

Keep it hidden like the life inside a stone.


For the first time I recall

I think I understand at all

That my love is like a mirror on the wall

It will reflect a perfect hue

From the heart of what is true

And reflects but what is shown,

Lying---hidden like the life inside a stone.


Is there life inside a stone?

Can the moon glow all alone?

Will a heart beat any rhythm but its own?

I have something to show you

The only one I’ll show it to

‘Til then I will walk this world alone

Keep it hidden like the life inside a stone.



For the first time I recall

I think I understand at all

That my love is like a mirror on the wall

It reflects a perfect light for you

From the heart of what is true

But, it cannot see what is not shown,

Lying---hidden like the life inside a stone.


Is there life inside a stone?

Can a river find its home?

Will a heart beat any rhythm but its own?

I’ve a home built here for you

The only one it’s open to

‘Til then I will walk this world alone

Keep it hidden like the life inside a stone.


For the first time I recall

I think I understand at all

That my love is like a mirror on the wall

It’s reflection pure and true

From the heart of what is you

It cannot see what is not shown


Lying----hidden like the life inside a stone

Lying----hidden like the life inside a stone

Lying----hidden like the life inside a stone.


-by Johnny Whooper Swan

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