Gene's Blog

Reality check

Yesterday, I mentioned in passing, that one of the places, jenna leaves messages for me is where she knows I’ll see them. Well, one of the things I’ve read every day for, oh I suppose it is going on 42 years, less the three I spent in the Army, is the astrology column in the StarTribune. NOT, as I said, because I give any credence whatsoever to astrology as a science, but as an entertainment medium, I enjoy it. And, she has led me to some very interesting places in recent years with it, not as prescience but as a way of pointing things out to me. Well, each day, for many years, this particular one has been, interesting to say the least. As I said, it is one thing she knows I will see every day. It gives her another way to open my eyes, which as my Ansir profile clearly points out, can sometimes be shut very tightly as I’m locked into my own inner vision. So this from today’s paper I found amusing.

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22). If you are poster child for anything, it’s common sense, common honesty and common dignity, the most beautiful virtues to grace a poster. And in practice, it turns out that those qualities produce something uncommon indeed.

And yes, I’m going to tell you why. :^).

In the ANSIR realms, I am Thinking: Healer, Working: Philosopher, and Emoting: Extremist. There are but four of us in the 450,000 plus who’ve taken their profile test who match this profile, for the longest time until somewhere upwards of 300,000, I was the only one. For me, the combination could not be more perfect, for in the in the simplest terms it tells the truth of me. And Holiday Mathis, the author of the Strib column, has captured what I believe, perfectly today. Common sense – what good does anything produce if it makes no sense spiritually, physically or economically? Common honesty, well the philosopher in me asks what other kind is there? And how could one accomplish anything if no one could believe what you say? Or believe that you believe it anyway? And, if you have noticed a common theme throughout this blog, it is that I believe most strongly that EVERYONE deserves common dignity. THAT is why I’ve reproduced the quote from Hubert Humphrey about the moral test for government a couple times. Everyone, regardless their particular circumstance, deserves to be treated with common dignity. In my career, so far, I have been in public service, and one of the things I look for when I hire is people who believe that even the poorest of the poor must be treated with common dignity, especially they, for they have the most fear. I put those three principles into my every day. I think our world would be a better place if everyone did. And, if I could, I’d make ’em – THAT’s the extremist in me, giggle. Yes, I know, free will, blah blah blah. And I buy that theory too. But still, if there were three values I could make all parents teach their children from the moment of conception, it would be those three I’d choose because the outcome of all them together is love, unconditional love for self and all others. If you live in that state, you do not become a terrorist, you do not try to impose your values on the rest of the world, you do not wish to have that which comes at the expense of another and you treat everyone as you would have yourself be treated. So where’s the harm in that? :^)

Now, I didn’t say that is the only one I read each day, jen’s led me to a variety of places over the years, and so I get a handful of these each day. Not every one, every day speaks to me, but often, there is a spark of an idea, or a glimmer of hope, in each one; they are nuggets in a way, that I can use as I begin my day. Yesterday I talked about waking dreams and having this feeling of being on the cusp of something? So today into my inbox wanders this:

Virgo
August 23-September 22 Friday, Oct 05, 2007
Don’t under-estimate your own abilities today. You may be feeling like others are a little more in control of your destiny right now. Just remember that you’re probably quite capable of working hard and devoting yourself to achieving some larger and more important goals at this time.

You might also have the feeling that many things may soon be about to change for you, and you may very well be right. Just try not to allow fear or guilt to cloud your mind and hold you back right now.

Then, this one, You may not be totally happy about your position right now, but remember that it’s only temporary. If it doesn’t feel that way, look around for small signs that things are getting ready to change.

And there is no doubt this one is true too. It is fear, and yes, some guilt, that has clouded my mind, particularly since my son’s death 10 1/2 years ago, the long dark night of the soul I’ve spoken of here and on my main site. I’ve been working on releasing those things for quite some time, it is they which have caused the sleepless nights the past 9 years. Progress can be slow, and some of that is very hard to let go of, it has been part of me so long, but to move on, it is necessary to shed the past, as Sarah explains in Full of Grace, “its just that we stayed too long in the same old sickly skin”, and let love and hope be born afresh each day. I find that easier to do first thing in the morning. Gets a little harder as the day exacts its toll for passage, sometimes. And some days I lose the battle entirely, but the “war” for my soul can’t be lost, the outcome is assured, the light experiences prove that to me, for me, so fear just can’t ever win me over. When you don’t fear death, I mean really don’t fear what comes next in the slightest, it changes your outlook on what happens here. Or it does for me. The extremist part of me might feel that way anyway, even though in my early years, well heaven and hell were always part of the thought process, I couldn’t avoid that given the circumstances into which I was born. But there came a day, between the light experiences, between the white globe and the golden, when I let go of that fear too. The philosopher part of me had been thinking, okay, if this guy, the devil has as his sole purpose the purchase of my soul, then why does that rascal make himself so hard to find? I mean, watch the movies, you gotta draw pentagrams on the floor, light candles, do chants, all sorts of machinations to get this guy who wants ME, no matter the cost, to show up at all.

Well, I thought, if he really wants ME, he’s going to have work a little harder than that, and I am certainly NOT going to do that work for him. So, one evening, okay late, late, late one evening, and after a few more than a couple beers, while out walking in the middle of the night – which I am still prone to doing quite often, walking in the middle of the night I mean, what the hell else do you do when you can’t sleep? So, I sat down on a bench and invited him to come visit. Said we could start a negotiation, tell me what he had to offer, I was willing to listen. Never showed up that night. Nor any other night. So when I read in book 1, God saying there is no such entity, well, I wasn’t exactly shocked, lol. The devil, hell, is just another invention of men to control other men, and women and children too. Something to threaten us with if we don’t let them tell us what to do and pay them for the privilege. What a racket THOSE guys have going. They’re the ones pleading poverty and getting rich through paying no taxes on real estate, or anything else, and STILL pleading poverty – those abuse settlements have hurt them, I guess. I despise those hypocrites every bit as much as did Jesus in his day.

So, reality check. I come home from work tonight to find that not only has my “health” plan decided that complicated bereavement is not a medical condition but they have billed me $1500 for the pleasure of finding a way to finally sleep for a few hours again. So, I canceled my Monday appt with the good sleep doctor. Then, I find a message from my remaining son, who’s lost his job because he is in the middle of an ugly divorce and having to stay home to take care of his children, both of whom have asthma, one as severely as does he, was not important to his employer, only his presence was, and now he has had his appeal for unemployment benefits denied because he accepted their “severance or be fired package”. Now about THAT I have no guilt, the asthma did not come from my side of the family, that comes from his mom – and it isn’t as if she could help it. Even that is sort of a joke. I think the reason so many kids have auto-immune diseases, asthma, autism, ADD, is because of the environmental poisons we have been spewing into the air and pouring onto our farm lands since the end of WWII (the war to end all wars, it turns out, only ended Hitler, it continues to exact its human toll to this very moment) and I understand how Neale felt in those moments he raged at God in the beginning of book 1. The only difference, really, between us, is that God spoke to him. And he found a way to help himself and those he loved, indeed found new love himself. Me? I have a gentle loving voice who sings to me and doesn’t even have a Visa card. So? Astrology? Fun. But it reflects my own reality no better than anything else.

What I would really like to do is find this key that turns on this big creation machine we are, book 1, and use it to make a difference. Not for me. I, honest to god, do not care about me, I’ve been here 58 years and certainly have served out whatever useful purpose, or sentence, lol, I came here to serve. But there are so many things “wrong” here, that could be made “right” so easily. And we haven’t the will to even try. Somehow, for some reason, I feel guilt about that too. What will it take to make a difference I wonder? A real difference. A little difference doesn’t matter to me. The Extremist in me doesn’t notice little differences. The Philosopher cares enormously about the state of this planet’s mental health. And the Healer in me is filled with tears that no one seems to really care one way or the other about anything except themselves and what advantage they might gain from whatever alliance they make today. I think I may have just defined the word conundrum. So, here, in the early evening, I am left hoping tomorrow dawns with hope, because for this evening I need spend some time alone with my tears and my jenna and see if there is any sense to be made of this at all. I’m not interested this night in flowery language and lofty ideals. But I could use an an idea. That would be good. Maybe by the time I take my 2 am walk, I’ll have one. If you have one? Let me know. g’nite all, much love, :^) gene.

If today brings even one choice your way
choose to be a bringer of the light :^) gene