Sirens Calling: Junk Phone Calls, Junkmail and Junk Stories

I get a small number of junk calls to my cell. I never answer them since I never answer a caller that is not in my address book. (It's simple to get into my address book - just leave me a message that appeals.) I get a lot of snailmail junkmail - I sort my mail in the garage so that junkmail goes straight into the recycle and never gets carried by me into the house. I work to keep my home a sanctuary of only the highest intentions. My two email providers do a fine job of filtering, and so I see little junk spam.

Odysseus on the journey home from the ravaging of Troy devised a way to hear the Sirens' songs and survive. Their songs were believed to be irrestistably 'beautiful'.

I get glanced by junk advertising from the ranks of TVs at my fitness center. I watch little television at home - it is a sanctuary of the highest intentions - so don't get tugged at by them. Little advertising seems beautiful to me. Much of it is apparently irresistable ... to many. Ho hum ...

... and then there are junk stories. SirenSinging into the individuals and the collective of our 'culture'. Few are 'beautiful', and so they are opposite to the beauty of the mythic Sirens. Thus ... their collective sirenSong is hideous ... and tsunamiaic. Oh well ... who cares about that?

You Become What You Read

Which almost certainly ensures that you become like what you write. The cause is to write the opposite of junk stories. Which is what many of us do. And ... I know with complete confidence, that there are so many who want, and seek out, stories that are not junk.

Since stories teach ... and inspire ... and remind ... and hearken ... and lead ... then ... you become in mindfulness what you read. The SirenSongs of stories that heal are beautiful. And are worth being touched by.

"We writers share in the godlike power of the shaman. We not only travel to other worlds but create them out of space and time ... Our stories have the power to heal, to make the world new again, to give people metaphors by which they can better understand their own lives." - The Writer's Journey by Christopher Vogler

The Audience is There

The audience is there. They are those who want human beings to treat each other, animals and the whole Divine Creation 'better'. That is a wonderful audience to have ready to be written to.

Namaste! I bow to and honor the light within you!

A Small Masterpiece: The Blue Germ by Maurice Nicoll (Review)

This is a review that I wrote last year for Amazon. I'm publishing it again since I'm planning to review some fiction by 'Seekers of the Truth', as Nicholl most certainly was, and, indeed, by finders of 'The Truth'.

Do seekers of the truth write different kinds of stories that are 'healing' to culture, in a general sense? The answer is ... yes. That idea interests me, since I have a deep and passionate interest in how we, collectively, create 'culture/society', and how that creation in turn informs us or makes us ignorant and unthinking. Anywy ... enough preamble ...

Maurice Nicholl, who wrote this under the nom de plume of Martin Swayne, was one of the great Fourth Way teachers of the 20th century. Nicholl wrote fiction in the years roughly 1911 to 1924. This is "science fiction". And it is science fiction of the type and style written in this period in the UK. Its style is quintessentially "British", its pace Edwardian, its techniques simple yet setting up a protagonism between points of view spiritual and materialistic. And it is a flowing, compelling story. Except for the techniques used to make manifest the ending.

The story of The Blue Germ is simple and intriguing. Two doctors, one Russian and one English, discover a bacillus with powerful properties. The story begins with Dr Harden tripping over his black cat, hitting his head, and, in the consciousness shock that follows he comes to the perception of an immense scientific discovery. Together with his colleague Sarakoff they perfect the Sarakoff-Harden bacillus. The properties of which are ... to kill all other germs in the human body. And the consequence of this ... well ... human beings will be immortal. Unless they are actively killed, of course.

So, what better way for an Edwardian scientist to test his "theory" than to test it out ... in real life. And so the pair of them introduce the bacillus into the water supply of Birmingham in Midlands England. The bacillus flourishes and creates the "Blue Disease", since fingernails and eye whites turn blue. Together with the fact that all those who are currently ill have their illnesses removed at a fast pace.

Well ... huge changes in "society" will be needed ... and ... how will different characters and personalities react to the prospect of immortality? Hah!

The Blue Germ is actually a compelling story well told. The conciseness of it is pretty similar to that of Michael Crichton. Style too, stripping away the Edwardian-ness of Nicholl writing as Swayne. And the story ... well ... there are many stories about "germs" in our modern consciousness. We seem to love them! The Blue Germ would make a marvelous, Crichton-esque movie. The ending? Forgive the book the ending - it is "poor". But getting there is not! Enjoy it. No guns, car chases, electronic eavesdropping, mayhem-in-general. What would you do if you were told that you are now immortal ... exactly, exactly as you are (age, appearance etc.) right now.

Namaste! I bow to and honor the Light within you!

Wheat Belly – Let Us Together Gut the Belly of the Beast of Hypercapitalism

I write fantasy and magical realism. Right now I’m reading a fantastical and terrifying science fiction story of the destruction of the human race. Except it is a true story. And that is even more frightening …

Yesterday I bought Wheat Belly by Dr. William Davis. My chiropractor and healer (strongly) recommended it to me.

Wheat Belly is full of stories. The story of the author’s journey as an overweight and diabetic physician is inspiring. He is a physician who did heal himself. The stories of people he has cured, many with multiple and drastic symptoms, are impressive. There is a story telling of one of the many threads of hypercapitalism’s history - the quest for more of this stuff called ‘money’ regardless of the costs to peoples and planet. And then there is the story of the creation of frankenfood modern ‘wheat’ itself, put together, just as Frankenstein was, from bits and pieces of wheat and plant this-and-that.

And so … once upon a time … long before hypercapitalism … there was wheat. And it was good … And then scientists – and this is such a common motif in our hypercapitalst society – as is their wont (of ignorance) decided to make wheat ‘better’, and at the same time make LOTS of this stuff called ‘money’ for a small number of people. Who in turn became privileged and … but that is another story.

On page 25 Dr. Davis tells us – “… these products of agricultural research were released into the food supply without human safety concerns being part of the equation.” And the rest is history. “… over the past fifty years thousands of new strains (of wheat) have made it to the human commercial food supply without a single effort at safety testing.”

I personally believe all the stories in Wheat Belly are true. Including the one that modern ‘wheat’ is bad. I’ve been trending away from it for a long time – I am not very tolerant of gluten. But now I am done with it.

Of course ‘wheat’ is only one component of the American food lobby’s package that they bribe and bully the rest of the world into consuming. Their top-tier package is – wheat, cheese, tomatoes, beef, corn syrup, potatoes, sugar, milk. Just think of the last time you saw an advert for a pizza or burger. ‘Wheat’ holds or wraps it all together, of course.

In passing let me say … We are also doing the same to our archetypes. Exactly the same. Modifying them. Creating hybrids. Changing them … partly, I think, because we are scared of their purity and the purity of their balance, and the fact that purity is Guiding. And the consequences of that modification program, by writers for studios and games, causes much of the paralleled frenzy and deadness in modern culture. There are no effect-less causes. But all that is another story … to be told at another time …

Repeat: there are no effect-less causes. Feed a population a diet of ‘wheat’, and … Feed a population a diet of frenzied, flattened and mayhemic ‘archetypes’, and …

To be a true revolutionary one has to (at least partly, but most definitely) elect and actively choose to live outside some of the currents of the society that we live in. Quite honestly, there is no point wanting a ‘better’ society while financially supporting the entities and processes that create and sustain the factors in society that we want to change. So it is with the American food lobby – which, in sad fact, is the de facto food lobby for the whole world. We, collectively, do need many of us (we don’t need all of us) to fight hypercapitalism by using one of the most potent capitocidal (that which destroys capitalism) remedies that we have – Money. Or ‘Money’. By surgical withdrawal from one part of the hypercapitalist body and application to areas outside hypercapitalism. Funny huh? It's kind of like a fractalled homeopathy, where we take a diluted small dose of what the 1% love, and use it against them.

“Wheat’ is one good way to begin with the American food lobby. Which in itself is part of the larger Industrial-Military-Financial-Spying Complex.

And … but wait there’s more! Not buying the story of ‘wheat’, and plain not buying it, breaks what I call the White Rabbit conspiracy – “One pill makes you larger, And one pill makes you small”. And the White Rabbit conspiracy is … one part sells you stuff that makes you fat, and another part sells you stuff, they say, that makes you thin. One part sells you stuff that makes you look bad, and another part sells you stuff, they say, makes you look pretty and beautiful. And so on … What an elegant and perfectly balanced conspiracy, that is so easy to maintain, so elastic and cohesive, and so well-hidden because it is in plain view, lauded by terabytes of advertising per day.

The oppression of forced ill-health is BAD. As a writer it is good to fight. You may quote me on that. These stories from our ‘real world’ do impact me as an artist. It is time, I feel, to re-read 1984 and Brave new World.

Namaste! I bow to and honor the Light within you!

and below ... I still love this song, and their 'energy', after all these years ...

Activist Artists Don't Cross Picket Lines (and other ways to walk the walk)

I'm an activist artist. As an artist my focus is to invite people to consider changing their consciousness. I have changed my own consciousness "so much" since my upbringing in early 60s Scotland. Many boundaries expanded. Many concepts, understandings and ignorances discarded. Changing consciousness is the true revolution.

The Scotland of my childhood was a union country. There was still large-scale shipbuilding, large-scale coal mining. Even then, I noticed that our communities were intra-supportive.

And so to an entwined story about me and two of the local grocery stores I shop at.

I've been shopping at my local Nob Hill store for more than eight years. A short while back (November 2012) management decided they wanted to, essentially, get rid of the union. Short story version - There was a strike that lasted nine days ... the union won and the kinda clumsy management lost. The saturday (grocery shopping day for this family) in the middle of the strike I went to Nob Hill ... to shop. Pickets were out. My friends who serve me there were on the pickeet lines. We talked. I didn't cross the picket line. No way, for more than one reason. Including ... activist artists don't cross picket lines.

So on to January 2013 ... John Mackey, co CEO of Whole Foods Market, a corporation that espouses radical and very good ideas around shop local, fair trade, organic food and so on, denounces Obamacare as "fascist". Well ... I was horrified. I've been shopping at my local Whole Foods store for more than eight years.

I wrote to my local Wholefoods Market store denouncing this. And, received an acknowledging reply. Here is an extract -

"Thank you for contacting Whole Foods Market to share your thoughts on John Mackey’s recent comments in the media. We understand and are concerned about your feelings of disappointment. We are hearing from many of our customers about this, and we are sharing all of the feedback we’re receiving with our leadership team, that includes both co-CEOs. I want to acknowledge that we may not be able to provide a response that satisfies your comments ...Thank you for your feedback. Again, I understand this message may not win back your support, but I do hope you'll reconsider and please know that we are listening and working to make our stores (and our company) a positive part of your life."

I'm boycotting them now. It is sad and awakening, both, to realise that some people who claim to actively be for a "better" human civilization are actually one-percenter elitists at heart. The several large goods that Obamacare brings to the healthcare chaos in this country are huge.

Activist artists don't give their business to elitist one-percenter wolves in sheep clothing. No way.

And ... by the way ... my new current work (short stories) goes well. More on that and these another time.

Namaste! I bow to and honour the Light within You ...