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Bob Couchenour - Out of My Mind I can do nothing on my own authority; I judge only as God tells me, so my judgment is right, because I am not trying to do what I want, but only what he who sent me wants.

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Last Updated: 12/1/2009

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September 27, 2009 - Sunday 4:34 PM

We used to call this "head music"
9-25-09 
Sometimes 
it's just the way we feel it
Relax
Prepare your mind
Enjoy
Ed Talbot - Keyboards
Bob Couchenour - Guitar

Download this MP3 - (Right Click)
..
Download link: Head Music 9-25-09
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September 27, 2009 - Sunday 4:19 PM

I saw this for the first time yesterday morning, but in another YouTube Clip. But after seeing this scene, I think I need to get this movie.
The entire film can be watched at YouTube at this playlist
This video has been synchronistically approved ... Thanks Deb and Radine
 
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September 24, 2009 - Thursday 2:51 PM

WARNING
Spiritual issues considered and discussed
Read further at your own risk of contamination 
otherwise ... just watch the video ... or not

About four or five days a week, for about an hour to an hour and a half each day, I stack sticks … and clear brush … and cut down saplings … and in general move out of the way whatever it is that I find in my way. And although I am not a health nut, the exercise that this provides does have its positive side. 

I own virtually nothing. I don’t really work for money. Oh … my needs are provided for, and the only thing that would make me more content would be a good woman. But knowing what all that would entail is not the kind of thing I want to hamper myself with (been there – done that … yada – yada –yada)… not now … but there will be a time. 

It is a simple fact that a single man can live freer and take the risks and follow vision, dreams and opportunity much easier than a man entwined with all the affairs and responsibilities of an attached man. I suppose the same would hold true for a woman, but not being an independent living woman, you’d have to find one and ask one yourself, if you really want to know. But, I am now free and independent … such is my fortune in life. I don’t have squat … but I have my freedom. And I have my vision and dreams – which is something I did not have – not so long ago. Oh … I thought I had it … but it was an illusion. The details are not necessary for most, and those who are my friends already know, and those who are becoming friends will know … as I choose … at my discretion. And my friends are here to whom I will disclose all they wish to know. 

You know … In all my research into spiritual things and the person of Jesus (the one known as the Christ) regardless of the religious resource (and I include many esoteric and heretical writings), the person of “Jesus” by NO accounts was ever considered any kind of religious freak or treated in a derogatory manner. On the contrary … his teaching made a new kind of sense that people just seemed to recognize and gravitate too. Now … this must be qualified … because the general modern secular conception – which IS primarily deduced from the teaching and perspective of the contemporary ‘church’ – would tend to make him out to be some kind of deluded maniac into his own fantasy world. Of course that is a generalization, and I know for a fact many of my friends and contemporaries have much broader and open minds. But the image projected by the church’s perception leaves little other conclusion for a rational mind to consider. 

But Jesus – at least some of the stuff purported to have been taught by him, does make a lot of sense. But not always in the way the religious folk might tend to shovel it. And it must be remembered, that not everything he taught was meant for everyone to actually “get”. Some things are simply over the heads of those who are not prepared to receive it. And I have to say that the church often times (if they don’t actually “get it”) will often exercise their creative nature as they are creatively made in the image of god and “make something up” that will seem to conveniently fit the need. They haven’t come to realize that it’s called “bull shit”, that designation simply not fitting into their religious lexicon. 

But Jesus was purported to have said “If you say to this mountain, be cast into the sea, and believe in your heart, it will be done” … or … at least something very much like that. Well … this is currently my mountain. One of them. The principle of believing and dealing with that mountain is all the same. 

As I walk through this space, I begin to see things that a few years ago – as far as most were concerned – were only a fantasy … some simple … non-entity … harmless … delusional aspect of my character. And being who I was (and am – but only now better guarded) I shared things openly. Maybe too openly. I don’t know about that anymore. But I have dreams and vision … and as I am now able … I follow them. There is more that I see … but I will not disclose that to everyone … some simply can not handle it. But there are a few … and these will see and see even more than me. But …

 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E8VS02pFAvk
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… I do not believe in what has been portrayed historically as a “Biblical” god. But I believe in something … I have been most active in recent years allowing myself to search for what that is and trying to figure it out. I will be one of the first to agree that the “Bible” as a presumed “spiritual” text, is the most manipulated, altered and polluted document relied on for its so called spiritual content. But recognizing the faults as they have evolved and currently exist does not preclude the fact that within its framework are many nuggets of value and deeper insight. Most, don’t just jump out at you, they have to be experienced and lived before they make any sense. Organized religion can not make any sense of them for you. Organized religion only adds to the clutter and confusion. But … like picking up sticks … and putting them in piles … I can make my own sense of them. To most these would be just so many piles of sticks that will eventually be burned in the fire or left to rot. But to me personally … and most likely to me only … they are an ordered means of navigating the paths that “I” have cleared. I use the Bible primarily because I immersed myself in it as a scholar for nye on 35 years. If I had been a Muslim, it probably would have been the Koran, or if a Hindu the Bhagavad-Gita. In more recent years my studies have included the Gnostic” texts deemed heretical and condemned by the “organized” Orthodox Church and many – many – more “New Age” documents and more contemporary writings. I have found none to hold any kind of absolute ALL encompassing perspective of the nature of “what is” or “appears to be”. But there are nuggets here and there. And most often no one else can show these to you … they have to be searched for … and often remain hidden until they choose to reveal themselves. But the one thing that does seem certain is that if you do not look for them … you most certainly will never recognize them.

There is a lot of crap out there … The “Christian” church is not the only entity with a monopoly on “bull-shit”. But there is a lot of wisdom also … nuggets for the miner … and food for the fisherman. It comes in many forms and packages. And modern science, when not restricted by its own dogmatism, increasingly does a great deal to substantiate or corroborate many mysteries of life that the modern mind has forgotten as we have grown so sophisticated in our own estimation and narrowness of opinion.

All spirituality is personal. It can be nothing else. Religion condemns us to someone else’s (anyone else’s) pile of sticks and the paths that have worked for them. Eventually all that is left is a lot of rotten wood filled with ticks and maggots that the birds and critters find temporary homes in. But it is not suited at all for human habitation. That … we all have to build ourselves.

 
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September 17, 2009 - Thursday 9:53 PM
This is inspired by a comment by Karin to a “quick message” I posted recently regarding Christian political ignorants (not ‘ignorance’ though it does apply, but “ignorants”. I see the one as a condition and the other as the persons). So what if I’m an arrogant, opinionated SOB. You can’t please everyone and I really don’t care to try much among certain segments anymore. It’s all relative depending where you find yourself on the religious/spiritual and/or political planes of thought and perspective. “To thine own self be true”.

FRANCIS SCAEFFERindex.aspx In the mid to late seventies I was intimately involved with much of what was evolving within the Evangelical/Fundamentalist Christian community. My own  ‘Christian’ spiritual and religious understandings were yet in the early stages of development, though my approach to knowledge and truth were more highly influenced by my earlier questioning of  authority as realized and manifested in my rebellious “hippy” years of the late sixties and the early seventies. Generally speaking, I was a zealot, but without a great deal of foundation to express my arguments regarding what I ‘believed’. I found myself sitting under the teaching of a highly intellectual pastor who consumed religious information at a rate that would boggle the minds of most and disseminated this to his congregation weekly and through the week through various courses. But prior to becoming a part of this I had already spent over a year travelling with an independent Evangelical evangelist who taught his trusts how to research the resources of the Bible and utilize these to “get it for your self”. This ability to think and study freely eventually led to challenges to the system that were disconcerting to some and perceived as rebellious by others.

L'Abri Switzerland In the late seventies I was first introduced to the teachings of Francis A. Schaeffer through a series of videos produced by Frank Schaeffer, the son of Francis, entitled “How Should We Then Live”. The series was excellent and if you are interested in history in general, art and the influence of both art and Orthodox Christianity on Western culture it is well worth the time. This led me to explore many more of the writings of Francis A. Schaeffer. I have read about 15-20 of his works including reading twice a trilogy of his philosophy/theology considered foundational to the rest of his writings. In his later years he wrote numerous books including “A Christian Manifesto” which is loosely a Christian response to Marx’s ‘Communist Manifesto”. There are many more, but time and space precludes enumerating these, and a history of  L’Abri, although I can attest that from the perspective of a conservative theological and historical understanding of what is “true” these are excellent works. The reasoning and logic is virtually unarguable. BUT … that is “assuming” that the “Orthodox” perception of history and reality is in “fact” true. Should that “assumption” be proven to be “false” and that the “Bible” is not in fact the absolute measure of “truth” … the reasoning is just so much religious dribble and rehashed lies, even though presented in all sincerity and “faith”.

Now, having said that, I will say that I do highly respect Francis A. Schaeffer and the insight he has exposed through his writings regarding many issues that should concern both Christians and non-Christians. I simply think the foundation upon which he builds his logic is faulty … but I respect the man and many of his conclusions.

frank_schaefferkoop The problem became, as Francis’ works were becoming popular, a second video series was produced by Frank Schaeffer, in collaboration with his father Francis and the then surgeon-in-chief at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, C. Everett Koop (who later became U.S. Surgeon General under Ronald Reagan), entitle “Whatever Happened to the Human Race?” This series galvanized the conservative Evangelical movement regarding the “abortion” “right to life” issue. As the more “Fundamentalist” segment of Evangelicalism (the Farwell’s and Pat Robertson’s) became receptive of Schaeffer’s highly persuasive “Biblical” stance, more ultra-conservative politically motivated religionists (Rousas John Rushdoony, Gary North, Greg Bahnsen and others) began surfacing and injecting their own formulas of  “reconstructionism” and theocracy into the now more consolidated Evangelical/Fundamentalist movement.

This “reconstructionist” – “dominion theology” perspective is now what parades itself as Christian absolutism. It is this religious-political-socio economic ideology that demonstrates itself on the streets of Washington D.C. and permeates the Republican Party. It isn’t a matter of thinking and reasoning. It is a matter of a few conservative intellectuals presuming an absolute based on a limited perspective of history and rejecting all others, and an unwillingness to consider that the church at some point may have gotten it “wrong”. It is the same lie that the Roman imperial powers of the early fourth century recognized as feasible and necessary in order to establish some form of universal control and thus manage itself and those it would rule. The church, willingly – or unwillingly – succumbing to the influence of power and wealth, and thus prostituting itself as a matter of its own security and preservation.

9780891072911 “God” (although I do question the religious conception) did not die with this act on the parts of those who invoke his name, but the “church” as a spiritual entity (at least to the greater degree) did.

That raises more questions than what this blog is about. This is about the Schaeffer’s and the influence they have had on contemporary Evangelicalism.

In the late eighties I began to notice that Frank Schaeffer (the son) was beginning to speak out on his own. His first works were regarding the shallowness of most “Christian” art “Addicted to Mediocrity: Contemporary Christians and the Arts”. Later his writings included more critical examinations into basic assumptions of Orthodoxy and political and economic matters (Is Capitalism Christian?, A Modest Proposal, Bad News for Modern Man: an Agenda for Christian Activism, A Time For Anger - The Myth Of Neutrality). Eventually I became aware that Frank had left the Evangelical wing of Christianity and had taken up association with the Greek Orthodox Church which had always leaned more in the direction of the “mystical” aspects of the faith. Though Greek Orthodoxy may be more open to mysticism, it is still fundamentally “Orthodox” and in my own estimation and research, less than what the “faith” was pre forth century.

So … within the “Christian” environment there is some hope that thinking minds can be heard. But I fear over all the rest of the clamor, that is a very very small chance. The difference between Frank Schaeffer’s thinking and my thinking is that Frank Schaeffer remains within the box of Orthodoxy and I have stepped out of that box. Other than that, I think we would get along pretty well.
 
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August 18, 2009 - Tuesday 4:57 PM



I managed an automobile repair shop under the name of one of the major oil companies for twenty three years. It was a complex contractual arrangement but essentially, we were a branded outlet. Early to mid eighties were relatively good times. Technology was certainly complicating things, but all in all it wasn’t too bad for the auto repair industry. Though I have a few friends who might feel some offence at this statement, I regret that the overall quality of American cars produced during this era was far less than it could have been, which made the repairs side of things more regular besides more complicated.

Coming out of the eighties and into the early nineties as contracts were periodically reassessed and “upgraded” or renegotiated (a more polite way of saying get ready to be screwed) an operational word began to be hammered into the lower end managers from the big boys at the top ... you know the ones you seldom ever really have any contact with but take it upon themselves to dictate how it is that the operations of your business should be handled. And not because they have any real experience in these situations (though some may have limited experience) but rather they have studied the models and have listened to their “efficiency” experts and have determined for you what is the best way to relate to your customers without actually having a relationship with them. You see, your customers are not really their customers; your customers (that you have spent years developing a trust and rapport with) are only numbers to them. OH ... I know their rhetoric would not make it sound this way, but how many of them realize a common time invested bonding with these they would call “customers” and in many cases “friends”. I dare say ... none. My customers and my relationships, the ones coming across the driveway were only one thing to these progressively higher echelons of business administration ... numbers.

It was during this time that the need to become more efficient became the mantra of the big boys, but it was not a matter of better serving the “customer” which I had always been taught and believed was the reason for being in business, but rather to make it possible to grab a higher percentage of the gross that may be realized. Of course as more numbers of individuals were expected to now come across the drive, more profit was expected to be made, thus justifying the lower percentage a small business person could expect. But what the hell there will be more customers, and surely streamlining your operation would cut costs and make it possible not to lose the net that had been realized prior. After all, many if not most of the less efficient operations will eventually be forced out of the market driving more “customers” to the survivors.

There is a certain “limited” logic to this model. But it falls way short of what is a human model. Business ... as it has evolved in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries ... is a far cry from what Adam Smith originally perceived. To Smith, who in fact was a moralist over and above being an economist, compassion was the foundation for capitalism. I know that sounds strange to many, but a minimal amount of research will bear this out. To Smith the purpose of the market was to assess and recognize the needs and desires of a society and thereby adapt itself to meeting those needs. Thus through meeting the actual wants and wishes of society, the customer is served and a reasonable profit can be realized. Everyone is served.

Adam Smith understood that a capitalistic society could not function “as a free society” unless the compassion motive was the foundation of the system. Well ... we’ve come a long way from that baby!!!.

Over the years, and this has been a slow but progressive raising of the market temperature (I think we’re boiling now – ready for consumption) the system somewhere along the path diverged from its moral imperative (some would argue it never had one). The market no longer serves society, but the (choke) “customer” is now only another commodity in the expansive and evermore expanding dominion of corporatized culture. Business no longer serves the needs of the society, let alone the individuals that make up that society, but the smaller parts only exist to submit to and serve that economic structure that evermore demands that greater part of the gross, and as it may be allowed, ultimately devours all it can. We are told what we need, we are told what it is we want, we are psychologically probed and manipulated to believe what it is they want us to believe, not for our benefit, not to serve, but to consume, and increase the net, but not that which we may enjoy and take comfort in, but what becomes the assets of the money managers pulling the strings.

It makes little difference whether there is one corporation accomplishing this or numerous ones of varying states of economic status, the effect is all the same. Compassion and serving the needs of the “customer” ... the individual ... the persons ... which thus make up the collective society ... this is not the purpose of business .... The purpose is profit ... and the customer a commodity ... a number to be counted coming across the drive. A fast food patron sold on the benefits of convenience and imported beef products and supplemented genetically engineered veggies. A part of the herd to be channeled through the stalls of Disney World, and satisfied with the illusion of experiencing world cultures all within the few acres set aside and molded into the image deemed to illicit the most “real” (gag) pseudo-experience imaginable ... and at a healthy profit too. And it all seems so real to us ...

Is there anyone else who gets the picture? ... Is there anyone else who can expand on just what is happening? ... Or am I in my own “never-neverland?”



 
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August 15, 2009 - Saturday 1:17 AM

I may have shared bits and pieces of this in the past, I  don’t really remember, but forty years ago tomorrow (It was August 15, 1969) I was along some county or state highway in mid state New York walking to a place that I had no idea would become legendary.

August 15, 1969, it was a Friday.  It was my 18th birthday.  My birthday present from my parents were tickets to a music and arts festival that I’m sure they never imagined would be so significant in my own life or that of my generation.  I’m sure if they’d known better I would never been given permission to go.

We’d set up our tent and left the car in some farmer’s field.  I’m walking down this highway, in the middle of a traffic jam, just following everyone in front of us.  We turn down this side road,  down the road we can see where everyone was moving more to the right and what appeared to be into the woods.  We passed a lot of porta potties and not to far past them in this clearing, just before the woods, was what appeared to be an encampment.  Walking past I noticed what looked like school buses and every sort and color and a small staging area.  I did not know at the time, but was told later that was the Grateful Deads entourage.

We passed some fences that were not fully erected, and heard somebody declaring it was now a free concert.  At this point it was pretty easy to know which direction to head to, just follow the sound of the music.  We came out of the woods along the ridge at the top of the hill.  To our right going further up the hill we could see some A frame like structures.  Directly in front of us we could see the light towers and sound booth and beyond that a large stage and one hell of a sound system.  But between that stage and to our left and to our right a sea of people that I found virtually unfathomable.  I had been to Anti-War and peace demonstrations on the Mall in Washington, DC and thought I understood what masses of people were, but this was pure fantasy.

I do not have a clue what artist was onstage, at the time I know it was some of the lighter fare.  But at this point the music really didn’t matter.  There was something bigger than the music happening.

Despite popular opinion while I was wandering around not once did I indulge in what was supposed to be ever so pervasive.  I tell you not joint one … nada … zilch.  And to tell you the truth I couldn’t tell you if anyone was trying to sell any acid or anything like that, I simply didn’t give a damn.  I didn’t f**king need anything.  Though you might ask me “are you sure you weren’t already tripped out?” You’re damn right I was tripped out, and it had nothing to do with altered states of consciousness.  The fact is something beautiful was happening and I couldn’t fully explain it, I’m not sure I can fully explain it, but I think after so many years of being separated from it and returning realizing what was missing, I am now able to recognize it.

I asked a friend if she considered herself to be a part of the Woodstock generation, she replied, “yes- i do consider myself to be of that generation but i am not so proud of it lately. it seems the generation that was going to change the world did-and not for the better. we have become a self absorbed greedy-me-me-me-i want it now generation. we have squandered a great opportunity to make the world a more generous and loving place and sadness is the outcome.” She is right.

These are my thoughts in reply “Yes "that generation" blew it. But I think some of us are coming out of it - realizing our stupidity. But I can't really hold any to blame ... there were (and are) no hard fast absolutes that could easily be taught, and I suppose each generation has to figure it out on their own. Maybe our biggest encumbrance was the megalith of the system we had to deal with, and it has certainly grown exponentially since. Yet at the same time I think some of us have matured to a point that dying for what has become our “absolute” inner sense of right and wrong is not such a bad thing, as there is in actuality no such thing as death - only transformation. They can't kill us all ... or can they? What is the nature of the battle? Are we willing to become engaged in it (you know that I do not infer any kind of violence). But what is the strength of our character as over and opposed to those who would exploit everything for their own temporal benefit?”

To be continued …
 
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August 11, 2009 - Tuesday 1:07 AM

The Unthinking Man


I am regularly accused of thinking too much.  Or over-thinking certain things.  But I have no reason to apologize for my thinking.  I have no reason to apologize because I think unconventionally.  It is not a matter of “I think therefore I am”,  but rather, I am and thus I think.  I’ve been told to put away the monkey brains.  You know what I’m talking about ...  The mental capacities that have arisen and have themselves been defined as our ego personalities.  The entity that we think is us but in actuality is only the mechanics of the material infrastructure, only real on the lower planes of thought and dimension, divorced from our deeper hidden conscious being.  Now all this sounds fine at first listen, but I have not been told what to replace them with, nor has it been demonstrated to me that it is actually possible to do this.  Not on any kind of a consistent basis at least.  It would seem to be quite a simple matter to just empty one’s head and for a period of time let everything out.  And I have absolutely no doubt that many actually do this.  But I’ve yet to find even one who can do this consistently and still function and communicate in the real world, notwithstanding the virtual world.

It would seem to me that my problem with thinking is not my problem with thinking but others lack of thinking that cannot tolerate my thinking.  You see this transcends philosophy or ideologies, religion or spirituality. It is simply the nature of the lower material human being to find comfort and security in the knowledge that has been thus far attained and to measure all things by it, thus circumventing the necessity to have to do the work and actually consider new possibilities that may have previously been overlooked or sidestepped.

I do not find it necessary to apologize for the fact that I search through ancient philosophies and doctrines, mysteries and religions as I glean my way in search of what I can attest to as “my perception of the nature of reality”.  I do not presume that the Newtonian – Cartesian scientific mindset is absolute for judging the nature of what is.  Neither do I fully accept unequivocally the more modern quantum explanations as utterly sustainable.  But neither do I discount these.  They are only models.  Models do work well for a time, and are quite useful in helping us understand what it is we can understand to the extent that these can be proven true.  But like any model, the model is only valid to the degree that observation substantiates it.  The same holds true with religious mythology.  The difference being mythology should never be taken literally.  And as the mythology is only a metaphor it can be reevaluated, reinterpreted and carry its fundamental truths and multiple perceptions of truth as they relate to the human condition as we seem to be separated from that which is our innate being and connection with ourselves, our environment, and the rest of creation.

I am not so sure that modern man is the “crown of creation”.  It certainly would seem that there’s a great deal that we must remember if not altogether relearn.  It would seem to me that rather than scrapping our minds and ceasing to think it would be more to our advantage to reconsider the purpose of thinking in relation to our whole human character, and allowing that to occur in us as we, the human being, have evolved to be capable of.  That does not imply that we allow unfettered logic and reason to dominate what it is we are, neither do we allow ignorance and laziness to define what it is that is or is not acceptable thinking matter.

This I know ... “I have been told we can create our own reality” ...this I also believe. I believe it is an intrinsic innate quality that is the human being. “I have been told intention plays a great part in this” ... this I also believe. Despite and often in spite of what may appear to be temporal circumstance, I believe we – on deeper levels of consciousness are active in the creation and manifestation of our reality. Don’t ask me to prove it, I can’t, but it is something I “know”. Sure ... it is subjective. And some will choose to consider this aspect of my thinking delusional. So what? There are some who can not conceive that the process of meditation can be beneficial to “clearing out the crap that has accumulated in ones mind”. So what? There are many who have chosen to regard every possibility of psychic or ‘spiritual’ phenomena as bunk, or at the very least rooted in natural material reality. So what?

I believe I experience and realize a spiritual plane of existence that transcends the material. I normally would not speak of this openly, as our culture (though slowly progressing) simply can not handle it. But ... to one degree or another ... each and everyone of us have to relate to this lower common culture if we are to exist, let alone survive and prosper.

All I really want to do is play the stupid guitar. It doesn’t sound like to much to ask  ... a simple request. But there are a lot of things that went into learning to play that dumb inanimate configuration of, wood, brass and steel, and polymers. Many long hours of practice, playing the same riffs over and over, working past the tender fingers and cramped muscles, to reach a level of physical competence that allows me to move virtually anyplace I want to on the neck of the guitar ... “without thinking about it”.

But being able to go where I wanted to go was not a great deal of help, unless I knew where I wanted to go. So after so many years of following the chord charts of this song or that one, and haphazardly doing leads that may have been unique (but certainly were not very melodic), I decided to apply myself to understanding some music theory. This has been a long and slow process, but over the years a rather large collection of music concept has been accumulated and is both part of my mental and “real” library to be drawn on virtually at will, and as often as live interaction takes place ... on the fly ... as I choose to do it. To a degree I have reached a point that I can determine where I want to get to... and know that I have the ability to get there ... without thinking about it.

But ... for this to occur ... a lot of stuff had to be experienced first. A lot of that was mental discipline ... and a lot was purely physical training. The result is, in the appropriate environment, I can express and realize a spiritual manifestation that communicates across the barriers between the spiritual and the material. This is what artists do ...

I have found (and I speak for my own satisfaction, not anyone else’s) there are levels of human existence that some realize in differing degrees. And it would seem that the higher the level of perceived or presumed spiritual attainment (I balk here because all too many presume all too much) the more difficult it is to communicate and relate to the poor slobs down on the lower end of the ladder. Don’t ask me where I am on the ladder; I really don’t have a clue, moment to moment. I just know it seems like I’m going up and down as it suits the need.

But for me to interact and relate to the lower end, the part where I need to concern myself with eating and sleeping, and keeping off the streets, a great deal of mental acumen needs to be exercised. Not that I particularly like it, but it does seem to come with the territory. And, as much of my dream – the dream I want to realize - will be experienced down here, the tools of the dimension (my mind) have proven to be a necessary factor in working it out.

At the same time, the issues that concern the lower end reality, whereas I access a higher end vision, need to be assessed and considered in order to apply a higher level value judgment. Though some may consider this non-applicable, I have found my mind to be beneficial in understanding and applying the “more” that I “know”. Higher levels of mind express themselves no less in the material than the spiritual, but logic and reason are more often than not requisite.

Our minds are like fine instruments. They can be learned to be used appropriately, and mastered, and produce great things. Or they can be used to churn out slop rock ... It makes no difference to the mind ... It would be just as happy doing either. Or ... with the proper work and mastery, it can produce masterpieces of insight ... transcending itself ... I think there were a few who managed it ... but I do not believe they ceased thinking ... but took it to a higher level. I’d kinda like to do that ... the same as with the guitar.
 
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August 5, 2009 - Wednesday 3:13 AM

..Aug 4, '09 1:02 PM..
for everyone


Random Thoughts 8-04-09

There are many levels of reality. For the longest time, like the most of us, I could only perceive but one. And even in that one, that which we might have called “spiritual” is not what it was presumed to be, but only a manufactured perception of what we desire broader dimensions of reality to be. A fabricated illusion hopefully sufficient enough to contain and hold all that we find to be the mystery that transcends our one common material plane of existence. But confined as we are to the limitations of the material, perception can only be perceived as theory or speculation. Not that this is true for all, but is a common experience of all. Some, and not necessarily those who are the most imaginative or vocal, are endowed, by whatever source it may be, to see beyond the limitations of the material. And some, though anxiously desiring to see that which is the unseen, will never enter into the realms of perception transcendent to time and space, as their material mental capacities are so centered on the egoic conceptions held in their minds.

I am an “alpha male”. But that is a naturalistic designation, deduced through the scientific study and observations within the dimension of material reality. But this is only a partial truth. For two alpha males to coexist a deeper relational experience needs to be realized. To live and function in relatively close proximity together, a lower level standard of rules and obligations can be established, one may voluntarily regress in their nature and submit to the other, or a higher level or dimension of experience can be entertained, entered into and experienced. This is no easy task, and depending on the lower level natures of the two may take some relative drastic reassessment of what it is to be “human” in relation to other humans. By “human” I mean more than that part of us that is the “animal” – the beast at the top of the food chain. I believe regardless of the lower level deficiencies and impediments that may be our material nature – the transcendent “human” nature that does reside in all humanity can surmount these and rise to a higher level of existence and relationship. Will we? … I mean the human race? I believe it is possible. But not as long as we stubbornly try to retain archaic and limited perceptions of truth as have been handed down to us and disseminated throughout human conscious thought without critically appraising what it is we believe. Change is threatening. And those dominating the lower level arena of commonly held perception will not find rising to higher levels to their advantage. Rising to higher levels of being implies an acceptance of egalitarianism that places perceived lower level “inferiors” on an equal level, or is perceived as lowering ones own elevated “lower level” status. Is it any wonder that the “unspiritual will persecute the spiritual”? Or … “except a man be ‘born again’ he cannot enter into the Kingdom of Heaven”?

Do not confuse these normally spouted Biblical concepts as the same as the usual Evangelical Fundamentalist dribble that they have been associated with. There is NO connection … But there is spiritual truth … and it is not conventional religious “Christian” truth. It is truth transcending the religious literalism that would button-hole humanity into an empty and dead spiritual illusion, designed and propagated to keep the “human” from experiencing the full potential of that humanity, and maintains a religious hierarchy and order that serves the political and economic masters intent on controlling the masses. Religion equals control … Spirituality is freedom. But it is not the “freedom” defined by the managers of the world systems. It is the freedom to be who you are … regardless of the system that wishes to define, manage and dominate what it is you are.

We are held captive by our fears. And if our own immediate personal fears should prove to be insufficient to cause us to voluntarily acquiesce to the “authority” that is presumed to safe guard our ”freedom”, we can be sure that new reasons to fear will be created and manufactured for us in order to manipulate the collective consciousness of humankind and drive us, as the herd, into pens and corrals to be counted and made the commodified property of the Wal-Marts and Disney Worlds, and the cannon fodder for Halliburton and all the rest.

My humanity is more than this. And I ask myself … “How should I then live?” … I can’t go back … nor do I want to.
 
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July 15, 2009 - Wednesday 4:06 PM

Born out of observations and private discussions, “Everyone Wants to Come to America” is a collective work, the seeds and impetus being primarily that of Ed Talbot. As I might describe myself as a junior partner in some of our enterprise, Ed churns out words and ideas – we collaborate on the concepts – more meat is added – a collective vision is embraced and developed – and a product manifest – a message delivered. 

What we were, what we hoped to be and what we are, are often distorted and made the stuff less than noble opportunists would meld and manipulate to control the collective consciousness of peoples, not for the benefit of “the people”, but rather their own perverse vision and advantage. 

America, though less than perfect by any accounts, was a noble experiment in the process of peoples finding their way to experience ever evolving realities of freedom, righteousness and equality. That desire and vision is not dead, though it has been stymied and perceivably thwarted by a mind-set that sets “self” and presumed “sacred” value above those of the innate dignity of “ALL” humankind or the consideration we, as the perceived most highly evolved of creation, should be taking for our own shared world. 

A friend of mine refers to humanity as “glorious and noble”, though she also realizes there is the “dark side” of what is our human nature. In recent times we have allowed this “dark side” to rest control of that which manages our collective experience. In the guise of religious righteousness less than “glorious and noble” ideological cartels have persisted and learned the tricks of the trade and stolen what it was that was the “noble experiment” and turned it into their own playground … and we … the most of us … held captive by our own partial knowledge and incomplete understanding – and hope in ideals that have slipped through our fingers while we scurried for our own piece of the pie. 

America – or that part that is “glorious and noble” – is not a nationalistic state. It is not a country. It is not a religion – or a coalition of similar religious ideologies. It is not a self assumed right to a standard of living. That which is “glorious and noble” of America, is the same that is “glorious and noble” for the ALL of humankind – the freedoms – the innate right to pursue ones own human “happiness”, the recognition that there are rights of others and these, though differing from ours, are not to be accounted as inferior or subject to our arbitrary discretions. But this we have allowed in the forms of our religion, and economic self-centeredness, and enabled a political machine to emerge that can only exist by means of consuming its own trusts.

No … the vision of America is not dead. But it is distorted. It is a bundle of contradictions and compromises, and we are having trouble seeing – let alone understanding – what these are. “Everyone Wants to Come to America” is our perception of this “glorious and noble” reality – albeit … a little tainted and worse for wear.

Ed's Statement

Through out history music, folk song has been used to celebrate or vilify; and indeed propagate popular opinion under the very noses of the "masters".
Troubadours spread the news at a time when most common folk had been denied an opportunity to become literate.

Today, as more and more of us are afforded greater opportunities; and even a single voice has the potential to reach and affect the minds of so many, we here at SonXpro offer up this perspective on American culture.

Cast in the best of lights, American values are of universal appeal: Who would speak out against concepts such as Freedom, Liberty and Justice, the inalienable rights of all people, "...the concepts we have founded for everyone." ?

The obverse is the impression, shared by many [and not without ample evidence] that many Americans are apathetic, motivated primarily by means of emotional manipulation rather than intelligent reflection.

As in any powerful ideological group, America is plagued by those who employ sophistry and chicanery as a means to self empowerment and enrichment; while simultaneously denying those less crafty citizens their fair share.

Presently, we had conjured up for us, a new era of fearfulness and resultant "war mentality" for these post "cold war" times.
A fearful population is more susceptible to manipulations on an emotional level; and severely disadvantaged when trying to employ logic and intelligence while awash in anxiety and stress.

The Light of Truth shines on even the darkest corners of our history - All it needs is time.

"Balance now, we must the Scales. 
Truth and Justice will not Fail. 
The Dream will be reborn, 
Oh America."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cym3TLzsOkA

 

Download Link: http://cid-9614ea4e72ba7b3b.skydrive.live.com/browse.aspx/VIDEOS

 

 
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June 20, 2009 - Saturday 5:12 PM
Talbot-Couchenour

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