Category: Uncategorized

To those who say, “Move on”: Whenever what is dark and ugly is suppressed, it does not go away. The forces involved go deep, further under cover, and gather strength. Moving on invites even greater disaster. The magma of that ugliness and destruction will break through, worse than ever.

There must be justice. And by justice I mean punishment. No matter who it is.

The survivors? My mind seizes up on knowing what can be done for them. Apologies? For sure. From the abusers. From the system. From a people—all of us, beyond borders.

Other than that? 

Electoral change of course is essential, but insufficient. Transformation is needed at the cellular level, and this isn’t just on you, America. People are damaged, all over. Whatever else, let’s look to simple things. Sing in the kitchen. Paint. Write silly poems. Read a book with someone.

Listen.

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Recent music, For Emerging (possibly for reflection):

Spotify:
https://open.spotify.com/album/7i1XTzIf0LE1msbIFMQ7Rq?si=CgACAvB_QFCnZ-jXpC_6Uw

Apple Music:
https://music.apple.com/ca/album/for-emerging-single/1824860872

YouTube:
https://youtu.be/QZDkpQVyC2c?si=Oy_QqwSI5CxDKWtW

I am having distinctly medieval vibes around the Epstein revelations, and much that we have already known about the crowd involved. Raping, pillaging the people. Ludicrous wealth. People feeling powerless. How can we move beyond incoherent bewilderment-becoming-rage? And not just ‘move on’—which would make us complicit with the evil.

It makes sense if we find something of feudal order here, and deep rot. In medieval times, people lived with a reality that those with power were without any such thing as accountability. The elite could act with impunity. All the rest were just to endure. What’s different now? We’re having the curtain pulled back to see the reality, and sense there can be a difference.

We’re not stuck with incoherent rage; we are capable of moral clarity. We can overcome the narrative of inevitability. We can can support those working to pry open the doors that powerful people are desperate to keep shut.

It is appropriate here to speak of apocalypse—not the B movie kind—but in the sense of ‘unveiling.’ What has been hidden becomes visible. The powerful are revealed as fallible, even monstrous. The king is seen as a fraud. The order of things is revealed as an elaborate stage set for the elite.

The current apocalypse isn’t the end. Just an end to the lie.

I’ll have more on this.

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Some let’s-get-moving music: It’s Thirds Day

Spotify:
https://open.spotify.com/album/2XERrGMvOz8ZkftMOu8l1W?si=TQp3M-3qSMGBH-aAQuEKrw

Apple Music:
https://music.apple.com/ca/album/its-thirds-day-single/1876665297

YouTube:
https://youtu.be/7xZ4YSgAtrg?si=rNzD0gpy8m8AU5rz

I have seen some reaction to Bad Bunny’s expression of America as a hemispheric entity. The reaction has concern for the history and character of America the nation, America being a short form of United States of America. I get that concern (It would be hypocritical of me, as a Canadian, with some of our recent elevated concerns, not to get that concern for national identity).

But let’s look at it this way, from say, lower Earth orbit. We see, as we always hear, no borders. But we know that, in reality, there are definitely individual countries. But zoom in and you see that those individual countries have distinct jurisdictions, regions, with their own identities and character. They are not dissolved by being part of the country. Zoom in further to individual communities. I’m in Toronto. Toronto, like any city, has individual neighbourhoods, rich in character. But that character is not threatened by being part of the larger community.

Can we not agree that, born out of history, there is an entity referred to as America that is both an individual country and a larger hemispheric reality? We have had, it seems, no trouble referring to that larger grouping as The Americas: a bi-continental reality that is distinct from, but part of and (hopefully) integrated with a larger reality called Earth.

Someday, we may have the further opportunity, and challenge, of seeing our Terran life and character as part of larger cosmic neighbourhood.

In short, along with Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio, let’s broaden our perspective, not shrink it.

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Latest music release, In the Fullness of Timing:

Spotify:

Apple Music:
https://music.apple.com/ca/album/in-the-fullness-of-timing-single/1872571704

YouTube:

 

However smart it may be, an overwhelming portion of our idea-making is made suspect by its use for self-promotion and image-making. Well okay, self-promotion isn’t a bad thing, but it is if it’s exercised at the expense and, often, manipulation of others—done in the service, ostensibly, of some greater good (This is the classic excuse of the manipulator, who really just loves the accompanying power and control).

Even when exercise of the mind is as pure as it can get, even in the service of altruistic goals, there is something missing: What place for beauty (even allowing for a certain beauty in the pursuit of truth)? There is a kind of wisdom in beauty-in-itself that is beyond any other kind of meaning—“wiser than wise,” I claim. How to source this deeper wisdom? Turn from the heights of thought to the depth of one another’s eyes.

And so, I heroically (he says humbly, with a slight cough) attempt to express this in song:

https://open.spotify.com/track/2wVYgWDP4Ey0SklE0AONdu?si=3sHqNDGQTBK5gXjSvo3bUw

Making Boxing Day Chilli. It’s the chilli I usually make, but it’s Boxing Day, so … Actually, it’s Boxing Day 2021, so it’s BD21 Chilli. After all, we really only ever do anything once, just once. Everything is once-for-all. Even chilli.

There was chaos enough. I mean in Nova Scotia, like everywhere in these strange times. But it has descended there into something few of us can truly apprehend. 

Even at the best of times, I suspect you are not unusual if you have, not all that far beneath the surface, and even when things seem to be bumping along ok, a sense that it wouldn’t take much for everything to just fall apart. I suspect, further, that that beneath-the-surface thing is one reason routine is important for us. 

A very common pairing of words in the Bible would seem significant in how we can help one another with these under-the-surface things. I just used it: one another. Love one another, for instance. Our decisions, for good or for ill, even when they seem to concern only ourselves, have an impact on others. There are incalculable factors that lead up to the decisions we make, but there comes that moment when it is our decision to make, to say or do this or that.

We may never know what led to the Nova Scotian shooter’s decision to do what he did–though that is a necessary investigation– but it was, in the end, a decision (let’s not ask what drove him). It erupted in devastating chaos and darkness for many. 

I, for one, am reminded, especially given the fears and insecurities that may already be just beneath the surface of those I may affect, to take care regarding the decisions I make. Not, actually, a bad thing to pray at the start of each day.

Remarks recorded for the online funeral service, April 5, 2020, for my nephew, Geoff Kitson.