S.B.T. 409

the dangers of wen

there she was in the hot seat, the camera closing in, as she tries to explain her story to katie cowlic:

"i didn't know what to think," she shrugs, her hands in front like she's holding a potted plant, "i received a promotional notice in my email for Wenever hair care products, it was convenient and easy," she paused, and then she pleaded, "i always saw the Wenever pp ads too late at night to phone in an order and never remembered to look up the website, so this "promotion" made it easy, because i was interested in the product, it just fell into my lap after a long while of considering the purchase"

"and so we heard about what happened. would you please tell us how it was that
they used your name and finances to traffic in slavery?"

"the Wen site that was linked to the email was a false front. my personal/credit and computer address info was placed in compromise and then used to fund some kind of transfers"

"oh my goodness! then what happened?"

"i was taken away by FBI agents and locked in a psychiatric cell for 37 days"
"why a psychiatric cell?"
"because i told them they were crazy to think i'd be involved in anything like that."
"what do you mean?"
"in that situation, they took what i said to be offensive or dangerous to them or something, and i was simply expressing myself in the same way i usually would do,
nothing loud or abrasive, just incisive. i think i accidentally hypnotized them with the word "crazy" (it rang a bell somewhere in each of them i mean hello) and they turned it back on me, it's what they are trained to do like a knee-jerk reaction, it was easy to lock me up if i was "crazy". and it was nothing more than a kind of cruel discrimination, especially if they thought i really WAS crazy, which they didn't, not really. imagine how people with mental disorders can be treated like slaves, that's the whole interesting thing about it."
"you use the word "slaves", what do you mean by that?"
"they are segregated and kept down, medicated and tossed around."

"and so what happened finally?"
"i was finally let go with no charges but i am now having the battle of my life trying to get my children out of the orphanage"

"well we're holding your children backstage, and here they are! c'mon out kids!"

"Mama! mama! MaMa!"

the camera pans the children rushing onstage and closes in on the group hug, katie is grinning, swinging her arms aw shucks.

"now we understand, dear, that the courts wont allow you to take the children home, but i have received permission to bring the children to my house where my nanny will see to their needs, and you can come and visit, until the whole deal is done."

"oh my god, my kids are gonna live with katie cowlic! that's gotta be the best thing in the world! thank you! thank you!"

"oh it's no trouble, and you're welcome any time i'll get your paw-print for the door-scanner, and you can come in."

"kids, what do you think?"

"she has six video game stations"
"a swimming pool and garden on top of a building"
"an aviary and a complete tech studio with kid-friendly computers"
"she even has a sauna and steam bath big enough for fifteen people"

"wow that sounds great. ok, let's do this!"
(((((((((((((group))))))))))))))))

"then, i hope you'll come over for dinner tomorrow, don't leave before i can scan your paws......thanks everyone, this is katie cowlic for the network. good night.

S.B.T. 408

Random Line Drawing

S.B.T. 407

treasure hunt

under the bar of remixed signals to the OS trapezoid fishnet stocking

a foot or so beneath a twisted beam one passes without walking on the real dirt earth, turn left at the stones and keep going til you see the shard of mirror catch the light

that's where it is,

hidden

         

S.B.T. 406

almost quiet enough to map the north star trail, looking back 
a gull stomps on the roof, laughing  -  kibble left out for the cats 
winter, they're hungry, the restaurants 
all shuttered in the unknown drifting landscape 





sunzowt 

the feral cats jump and roll in the snow, this is an easy day, the sun is out
the wilderness adapts with an ease.

S.B.T. 405

The Tiers

1. i have power and control. no question. it's mine, i have it, if you don't have it, too bad. but, i might try to help somewhere somehow 2. i'm doing fine, we have a lexus and a swimming pool, my son is in college and we just had a big wedding in newport rhode island for my daughter 3.i only want to be free to do and become what i am. any sense of dissatisfaction is a clue to what repels the reflection of what i'm creating. assuming that the thing is aligned with some deeper truth or destiny map. fulfilling that would be the right thing to do. 4. i have a job. i get the weekend off. sleep, pizza and beer, the game on sunday. the girls are at the mall. i might sound like a cliche but i'm not, i'm the salt of the earth so to speak. 5. i live day to day, i get breakfast at the diner for a dollar fifty. i work for about an hour every day, enough to make 10 bucks, carting old papers from the corner kiosk. my woman gets food stamps, and my kids get food at school too. we have soda and sandwiches on the weekends. i have to fix my old car up all the time, one thing after another, but i do it myself, we're lucky to have a car. 6. we're getting citizenship papers soon. there are 22 of us living in this one apartment, but not for long. we're joining a church, actually we're starting one, tax deductible everything! 7. i wander around. i sleep under the stadium in spring through fall, but in winter i go to the salvation army. i pick food out of the garbage behind restaurants and the trash cans where people throw their uneaten snacks before getting on board the harbor boats to nantucket. i had some lobster roll yesterday.

S.B.T. 404

reciprocity

play both big videos at once for a unique spin:)

and so being, this shows a kind of social concept that divides the whole, dis-unites, i'll tip my hat to the truth in that. though there's the flip side to consider, that chaos is often called for. but now at thanksgiving the family will gather and try to boost the boat above any turbulence with philotimo. philotimo—some good explanations of the concept in the film below, though i admit philotimo makes me feel we could stop talking and just do it. not that we aren't great. it's just better quality philotimo to embody that fact as routine operational. that delicate balance I was referring to. when being in a time and place where some basic tangents

are tipping, and we're staying above, above water

you hear me? slap!

)

we're gonna make it cuz you're not gonna stop til we get there.
you want a smack in the head?

the 21-day meditation with oprah and deepak chopra is now complete. it was really great. they sent around a questionaire, asking such things as: what would the matching CD set need to have for you to want to buy it? I guess they don't know about audio hijack. or maybe it's something more sinister hahahahaha as you can see the experience did me no good at all. and i'm comfortable with that;)

so i wrote:

i tell you oprah, the stuff just needs more heart. it's like ok ok peace is good, but i need inspiration on top of that, meaning "energy". not so much meditating just to quiet my mind because my mind is as such by nature, i only direct it sometimes towards chaos or disorder for reasons i could call philotimo.  i like the dream-life of it. i must confess, it'd take a lot to get me to buy the CD set. Like maybe you can come and visit, stay at the harbor hotel and have lunch. i can see it, my CD set wrapped in rice paper and tied with a ribbon. anyway, you asked.

S.B.T. 403

   

in the company of angels

it occurs to me that the self is a mystery. they say the true self is the self from the wellspring of harmonic fields, light=speed curved air and the eye of god. so, what would this "i" be able to know about it?

in energetically co-creating with the universe, one should have some idea what product in particular is coming down the line, at least for the sake of efficiency—having background in design/manufacturing, there's a built-in a stanchion for regarding all processes in terms of productivity.

a matter of setting priorities, highest good being all that it is. 

focusing on the highest good actually reveals a tier type of scale, in the middle and at the top and bottom there's the true self's desires and then there's the mystery self's boxes of stuff, really, bookshelves full of desires, some fulfilled, many discarded, some piled up in the corners hung on hopes for some other time. let's just let that go for now. sharavana bhava.

last night i climbed down musty basement stairs at the old family home, into a cellar so still and silent, with books and rusty tools and dusty ornaments left behind, departed loved ones, things that once were a part of family life, things that were kept, bought, collected, and used by any number of familial hands, hearts, eyes, stomachs. i was struck by a box of

glass bulbs, still shiny under the lid ajar, the box label shows it was from a store that was on the main street of this town some 50 years ago. long-forgotten lovely glass balls lying so still, where once upon a time i stood in front of the christmas tree marvelling at them, my eyes melting, imagination spinning around blurred edges of delicate glittery glass, sparkles and lights. 

i stopped, looked around. there were stacked chairs, the same chairs my grandmother once had circling her dining-room table. there was my father's leroy neiman framed golf print that once hung over the fireplace. there was my aunt's kitchen table, piled up with boxes of old gadgets and cook-ware. i drew a line with my fingertip in the dust between boxes and the edge of the table. a good part of my life was anchored at that table,

i remember live scenes, as if watching them happen now, on a parallel screen. where we talked laughed ate drew did homework read the paper sliced apples, rolled out pastry argued cried over onions played cards wrote letters, paid bills, strung popcorn garlands with cranberries, did knitting, polished the silver, and sat at that table, the joyful table of being safe, loved, loving, having a place-mat, the secure comfort of knowing one another well and reaching for the salt.  well and cared for, accepted, having the power to create joy just by being there, in the company of angels.
 
the shadows close in around me, a spec in my eye, an ache in my heart. i wonder if i will ever stand up to the magnitude of divine spirit, if i will actually place my feet squarely on the path carved through the woods ahead of me by whatever genie knows more about where i'm going than i do.  shreem nama.