I say tell them it is not AA that is the Giver...it is Life itself! And it is not any Religious Group either. Nor is it any national symbol writ upon a piece of paper with a seal.
And it's for everybody on equal terms. No one is excluded. And joyful fulfillment is the result of a real life...really lived. AA is a symbolic aid for calling a meeting of folks who want to have a better experience. Think of it like the torch in the hand of lady Liberty welcoming all the world to come. That's all. We can only point to what has always been so. Alcoholics
tend to be desperate enough to listen is all.
True Self has the answers for each one of us insofar as we remain in line with divinity's beam.
Life cannot be explained. Accept this much for now and flow with me. Authority has us in complete denial about it most of the time. This blog wants to show there is a whole different way to live and humans can do it and have done it before. It is hoped we get that job done.
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!
Wednesday, July 17, 2019
Saturday, May 11, 2019
HASTEN YOUR OWN EVICTION
You have allowed yourself to become entangled in the blues.
Pay close attention to the entanglement to hasten an eviction.
But, do not tarry.
You have allowed yourself to become entangled in the blues.
Pay close attention to the entanglement to hasten an eviction.
But, do not tarry.
For this task you will require a great deal of the deepest sensitivity of the kind only truly wild creatures carry
observing the entanglement of your plans up in blue to the point the pain is more than the boiling point in you, you shall un-der-stand…once again
observing the entanglement of your plans up in blue to the point the pain is more than the boiling point in you, you shall un-der-stand…once again
observing the entanglement of your plans up in blue to the point the pain is more than the boiling point in you, you shall un-der-stand…once again
whether you be or whether you be not…
and beholding Parallel Heaven’s amazing similitude so grand you cannot withstand caterwauling gratitude
hasten a sudden eviction…
You be taking nothing with you from the home of the blues, so,
before you go, nail up a notice with fiery fingers of conviction
to any soul lost tonight in the sorrowful blues fearing eviction
I be outta here, Blues…
nail it up so tight it will never be forgot…whether I be or whether I be not?
Tuesday, May 7, 2019
Monday, March 11, 2019
There is a pitcher. Everyone alive has such a pitcher. A pitcher that something fills with precious fluid. I keep pouring mine out on the ground, leaving me holding an empty pitcher in wonder. The pitcher is refilled for me. I do not know what the fluid is for. I want to do something with it. I pour it on the ground and wonder. This has been going on for more than forty years. I am no more aware of the purpose of the precious fluid today than I have ever been. Still, the pitcher is refilled. It is not refilled because of any merit on my part, I know. I continue to pour mine out on the ground and stand holding an empty pitcher wondering what this has all been about. This is my story. And still the pitcher is refilled.
I have learned this much. Each time the pitcher is refilled, I can feel the fullness within it and that feels good, I know. It is satisfying, I know. It took a long time for me to understand this much. I lived many years ignorant of the feeling of satisfied contentment available at such a trivial price and with so little required of me. Those years were chaotic. I lived in dread most of the time. I was trying mightily to achieve some goal or other that might bring me satisfaction and peace. Nothing I tried brought more than a fleeting feeling of excited pleasure that seemed always to dissolve even before the goal was reached into another faraway goal to be reached. All the while, this feeling of satisfaction was lying inside as a refilled pitcher of precious fluid, refilled for me time after time by some unknown source that must have been taking an interest in me even though I was pouring the precious fluid out on the ground.
In truth, I have explored possible ways to use the precious fluid and none have seemed to be anything other than simply pouring it out on the ground and standing rather foolishly, embarrassed, in apologetic wonder. I have heard of people who are able to do something worthy with their pitcher of precious fluid. They use it to grow some lasting fruit trees that continue to produce good fruit. I must admit I do not have evidence of it. Only stories. Whenever I have attempted to locate one of these people they elude me. Like smoke they elude me. So, I am left here holding a pitcher of precious fluid that has been refilled by grace without my deserving a drop of it and , not knowing what else to do, am pouring mine onto the ground to stand again in wonder. How are you doing?
Thursday, February 28, 2019
A STILL MIND
Once man saw himself dead he was afraid. Maybe what spurred him to create language was the urge to converse with others about his fear of losing his life and plan ways to resist death. It has had no real effect, has it? Perhaps it has even increased the fear which is so often expressed by killing someone. Strange. They say those who most fear death are enjoying life least. Weird.
I am aware that we are being spoken to by the whole world constantly. Are you?
Of course, are you listening?
The stars, the wind playing tunes on so many flutes, the calls in the dark night, the paintings in every sky are but a few of the whole world’s many songs. What are we being told? Why did we let fear take our attention? Can we get it back? What is anonymity, really? How precious is it?
Are you aware there are humans alive who are really happy who have no fear of death? They tell of a happiness, or joy, that removes any worry about it. And, they never kill anybody. Never hire anybody else to kill for them. What is anonymity, really? How precious is it?
I sometimes see children in reading circles at school being taught the effective way to learn and digest all that fear. The fear of lack is the fear of death.
We have two minds, all of us. One is still. The other is very busy thinking. The one that thinks is not the anonymous one. The one who fears is a person who thinks he has something to lose. Now we are near to it. It is clear that there can never be wholeness as an experience when two minds are working. Join those who have only a still mind. Listen for your invitation.
Sunday, February 17, 2019
A New Day
It is a new day. The old way will not serve us now, never did, as anyone of us can tell.
Yet there are a million voices coming from that dead, defunct, most hopeless time. Mechanical voices calling to everybody else “follow us” as if they are certain we are certain
we must follow some body.
That’s the same bus full of nuts that brought us to want to close the shop and give it all up.
It’s these identical parrots from the museums and crusty old school houses groomed in the old way to stand apart as leaders who want to ask us to give another chance to what has never worked, I tell ya. It’s a gaggle of authors, musicians, actors, film makers, therapists, entrepreneurs, politicians, scientists, all of them afraid not to be bosses. They must think us inept.
To top it off, these gangsters turn profits that satisfy paltry, selfish motives by capturing on legal documents the ownership of all the art made and being made by lonely, devoted individuals who go venturing into the deepest recesses of life to keep promises each remember were made to life’s giver at the moment of first breath. Do you recall you made such a promise? If you do, this is a new day for you.
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