Commitment Two: Stay in the Now

The next major "Commitment" that is required, in order to effectively achieve Freedom, is a solid focus into the NOW MOMENT.

Someone once said: "Yesterday is history, tomorrow is mystery, but today is a GIFT (that's why they call it the PRESENT).

Also: "The Now Moment is a Multidimensional Vehicle that can take you anywhere and anywhen you wish to go. The only thing you must remember is to keep your hands and feet inside the car!"

Ranked solidly behind a commitment to inner (and outer) freedom --- thereby helping us gain clear access to what it is that we truly desire --- a focus into the NOW is the grand accelerator of the Multiverse. This is because it is, literally, the only time there is.

Many people talk about time travel. Many more swear that the government already has its own Time Machine (I am not among them, btw, and if they do, it is screwed up) --- but, as experience has taught us --- the present is NOT the product of the past. Both past and future are designed and manufactured in the Now Moment.

Each Now Moment is a discreet universe that is its own designer and director of cinematography. The past and future are variations of "clip-art" that are pasted on, so to speak, in order to give color and texture to the Now.

How do you think it is that a person can imagine the future with such clarity and accuracy? How, indeed, can a human being imagine what it's like to go somewhere he has never been? The answer is simple. In the Multiverse, everything is NOW. And we've all been there ......... already! Everything is happening simultaneously in one, fragmented, undulating Moment ........ divided and compartmentalized by a veil that allows for everything to maintain its sense of definition, regardless of how the sequencing is arranged.

Stephen Hawking blew everyone away when he asked: "Do you think it's possible for us to remember the future?" For the un-initiated mind, this sounded fantastic. For a seasoned metaphysician, it's first-level stuff.

If we haven't dealt with it before, we'd best deal with it now. We are where we are, doing what we're doing, because we each created it that way. And, even though it often appears as such, nothing happens by happenstance. It's all custom made to order!

Time Travel --- or Space Travel, for that matter --- is simply a case of skip-hopping from Now Moment to Now Moment, within an ultra-changeable continuum of possible/probable alternatives. Knowing that these exist, and piloting our "vehicle" with a reasonable amount of focus and intention, we have an excellent chance of being able to navigate ourselves anywhere.

The pitfall, of course, is a little thing called continuity. Once we invest ourselves, within a particular "version" or sequence of Now Moments --- and become attached to an outcome --- our consciousness decelerates itself until it becomes hardened into physical matter. In other words, what is happening in that universe "matters" to us, and we become stuck there.

To commit ourselves into the Now Moment is to, in essence, put our head down and WHIRRRRRRRRR through the Multiverse until our vibration locks on to our strongest desire. The word "desire" means "of the Father" --- "de" + "sire" (father). Once that connection is made, the journey is instantaneous. After all, there's really nowhere to go, eh? It's all here, it's all Now, it's all YOU.

I ask: "Do you know what you did yesterday?" "Everything."

"Do you know what you'll do tomorrow?" "Everything."

It's only TODAY --- it's really only NOW --- that you can do Something.

So here we have it --- Commitment #2. Being PRESENT in the NOW. Everything else is scenery. If it can't be done Now, let it be. Everything will stack itself up, exactly as you created it. Therefore, sit back --- relax. Climb aboard your nice, shiny, new NOW MOMENT --- arrive where you want ON TIME, and in beautiful style!

Commitment One: To Freedom

The commitment of greatest importance is a DEDICATION To FREEDOM at all levels of society, and in all dimensions of our existence.

By this I mean a true reverence for allowing life and reality to be as it is, rather than demanding it to be what our mind, or our experience, tells us how it should or should not be. The oneCommandment that is foundational reads: "Harm no one, then do what thou wilt."

In this one Law the whole of the Mosaic Law is contained (or any other law, for that matter). It allows for free expression in all aspects of life ......... and also begs for clear and unbridled reflection on our own individual immediate universe, once our commitment has been made. There can be no such thing as exercising MY freedom if another person's freedom is impinged or negated. That is a violation of the prime directive, yes?

We are beginning to wrap ourselves around the idea that there are many inner elements which have to be cleared, functional, and in motion, before any powerful, demanding outer elements can be installed. Otherwise, we are like a young lad who buys himself a car (and signs on for huge monthly payments) without really knowing how to drive. In fact, some of us barely know how to "walk" some of these personal areas. We may talk the talk, but walking our talk is an entirely different matter. Learning to do so is a momentous responsibility.

There are many inner commitments that must enacted before any external joining can breathe and be successful. We all arrange them in different order. And, indeed, the hierarchy of these elements quite often changes according to the life plan it supports, and their very diversity is absolutely essential to the FREEDOM and EVOLUION OF THE WHOLE.

This dance of Life is called "See Me/Show Me"........... and the administration of the dance steps begins and ends with the edict: Harm No One.

What would be the nature of harm in the context of this one universal law? Surely, it would be to "prevent someone from doing what he or she wants to do, mandating that they do or be what we want instead."

A commitment to freedom, at all levels, is automatically a commitment to Rigorous Honesty, theTruth of Reality. After all, once freedom is insured, why would one need to lie?

The need to distort our truth, our "reality," and thereby limit our freedom, in order to survive goes all the way back to our childhood and the family system. In fact, it goes back all the way to the myth of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. Remember what the core of the technique is? We withhold food (or other bodily necessities) in order to curtail or limit the freedom of others in society.

There is much we will discuss about this during the continuing course of time. How we handle children and families in this world today is a serious threat to the healthy continuation of both. At the core of this issue is a basic lack of commitment to freedom.

Any "security" that is gained through loss of freedom is a Commitment to Fear. Any nation that puts "national security" above personal freedom has lost its power base. In saying this, I am not suggesting that any individual, or this or any other country, should suddenly lower its guard against all enemies (both real and imagined) that we have amassed through the years. That would produce mental whiplash of grand proportion in the collective consciousness. And, again, that would be aninner element that must be changed before the outer condition can be corrected.

This is why politics is NOT the answer to what plagues the human condition. Politics is like a horse trainer who seeks to bridle up and train our collective energy so that it will function for the good of all. Inner freedom is like the horse whisperer who spends many long hours sitting quietly with our "animal" to discover what the burr is that is stuck under its tail.

Remember the famous line that Robert Redford spoke in the movie "Horse Whisperer?" The female character says to him: "I hear you help people with horse problems." He looks up and responds: "No, ma'am. I actually help horses with people problems."

I must state, once again, There are no political, economic, 'religious' or military solutions to what is primarily a spiritual problem in the world today, the "We-Them" syndrome, and the lack of commitment to Freedom and Rigorous Honesty. We, all of mankind, must learn and know that "We are all ONE."

Before we can see clearly to take the mote out of our neighbor's eye, we must remove the log that exists in our own. That takes lots of inner work, and lots of personal freedom to be and do and watch and feel.

We must ask ourselves honestly .... if someone doesn't want to give us something, why would we still be manipulating for a way to get it anyway? And if we really don't want to have, be, or do something in our lives, who do we think we're really kidding when we force ourselves to create an outward appearance that doesn't match our inward being?

Harm no one, then do what thou wilt. That's a tall order, and it takes guts to carry it out. It means simultaneously giving up control and opening to the good that longs to take us forward into our adventure.

The Overturn of Citizens United is of the people, by the people and for the people.

There is a lot of propaganda being passed around the internet that the Democrats are trying to stifle the 1st amendment rights of free speech by getting rid of the egregious corporatist "Citizens United" decision by SCOTUS. In that decision money was equated with speech. Money is not speech. This is a nation where one person has one vote and one voice.

Under corporatism, most wealth and power is concentrated in the hands of giant corporations and big government is used as a tool by these corporations to consolidate wealth and power even further. In a corporatist system, the wealth and power of individuals and small businesses is dwarfed by the overwhelming dominance of the corporations. Eventually, the corporations end up owning almost everything and they end up dominating nearly every aspect of society. As you will see below, this very accurately describes the United States of America today. Corporatism is killing this country, and it is not what our founding fathers intended.

In an article that was posted earlier this year on Addicting Info, Stephen D. Foster Jr. detailed how our founding fathers actually felt about corporations....

"The East India Company was the largest corporation of its day and its dominance of trade angered the colonists so much, that they dumped the tea products it had on a ship into Boston Harbor which today is universally known as the Boston Tea Party. At the time, in Britain, large corporations funded elections generously and its stock was owned by nearly everyone in parliament. The founding fathers did not think much of these corporations that had great wealth and great influence in government. And that is precisely why they put restrictions upon them after the government was organized under the Constitution.

After the nation’s founding, corporations were granted charters by the state as they are today. Unlike today, however, corporations were only permitted to exist 20 or 30 years and could only deal in one commodity, could not hold stock in other companies, and their property holdings were limited to what they needed to accomplish their business goals. And perhaps the most important facet of all this is that most states in the early days of the nation had laws on the books that made any political contribution by corporations a criminal offense."

Don't be duped by the right winged corporatist agenda and propaganda. Read the senate bill.

Senate Joint Resolution 19

Section 1. To advance the fundamental principle of political equality for all, and to protect the integrity of the legislative and electoral processes, Congress shall have power to regulate the raising and spending of money and in-kind equivalents with respect to Federal elections, including through setting limits on –

(1) the amount of contributions to candidates for nomination for election to, or for election to, Federal office; and

(2) the amount of funds that may be spent by, in support of, or in opposition to such candidates.

Section 2. To advance the fundamental principle of political equality for all, and to protect the integrity of the legislative and electoral processes, each State shall have power to regulate the raising and spending of money and in-kind equivalents with respect to State elections, including through setting limits on –

(1) the amount of contributions to candidates for nomination for election to, or for election to, State office; and

(2) the amount of funds that may be spent by, in support of, or in opposition to such candidates.

Section 3. Nothing in this article shall be construed to grant Congress the power to abridge the freedom of the press.

Section 4. Congress and the States shall have power to implement and enforce this article by appropriate legislation.
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There is one and only one faction that will not benefit from this, and that's the corrupt sitting political establishment and the people who pay them large sums of money to make our nation a corporate utopia at our expense.

Starfish

Eleanor Lerman

This is what life does. It lets you walk up to 
the store to buy breakfast and the paper, on a 
stiff knee. It lets you choose the way you have 
your eggs, your coffee. Then it sits a fisherman 
down beside you at the counter who say, Last night, 
the channel was full of starfish. And you wonder,
is this a message, finally, or just another day?

Life lets you take the dog for a walk down to the
pond, where whole generations of biological 
processes are boiling beneath the mud. Reeds
speak to you of the natural world: they whisper,
they sing. And herons pass by. Are you old 
enough to appreciate the moment? Too old?
There is movement beneath the water, but it 
may be nothing. There may be nothing going on.
And then life suggests that you remember the 
years you ran around, the years you developed
a shocking lifestyle, advocated careless abandon,
owned a chilly heart. Upon reflection, you are
genuinely surprised to find how quiet you have
become. And then life lets you go home to think
about all this. Which you do, for quite a long time.


Later, you wake up beside your old love, the one
who never had any conditions, the one who waited
you out. This is life’s way of letting you know that
you are lucky. (It won’t give you smart or brave,
so you’ll have to settle for lucky.) Because you 
were born at a good time. Because you were able 
to listen when people spoke to you. Because you
stopped when you should have and started again.
So life lets you have a sandwich, and pie for your
late night dessert. (Pie for the dog, as well.) And 
then life sends you back to bed, to dreamland, 
while outside, the starfish drift through the channel, 
with smiles on their starry faces as they head
out to deep water, to the far and boundless sea.

The 1912 US Presidential Election

Free Markets Killed Capitalism

If you want to understand political economics in America, study the election of 1912. Teddy Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, and William Howard Taft, (with just a dab of Debs). That's the point where you clearly see the three main ideas that still sort of dominate how we think about political economics in America today.

First wasTaft with the idea that private feudalism is okay. The Republican Party’s message was pretty straightforward. It was, to paraphrase, “Just let us take care of business for you. We’re wise, we’re expert in it—“

The second idea was that of the Progressive's Bull Moose Party. Teddy Roosevelt’s basic stance in 1912 was to acknowledge that the capitalists had concentrated control over entire industries. What we needed to do, he thought, was make sure that system works for the public benefit. Regulate the monopolies.

The third idea in 1912 was that of Wilson's, that all concentrated power is dangerous. Power overly concentrated in public government is dangerous. And power concentrated in private corporate government is even more dangerous.

Wilson also acted to ensure that farms were not taken over by giant combines, that small businesses, small stores were not taken over by giant chains like Walmart or Amazon.

And then came WWI.

Anniversaries of traumas can trigger vivid memories and more:

***

Bringing to mind Winslow Homer’s “The Veteran In A New Field”, Aaron Spangler's “Government Whore” portrays a shell-shocked war veteran amid the comforts of home, yet still clinging to his SKS rifle while in bed contemplating past sins. Flowers, bundles of sage, a Bowler hat, and a farm house are juxtaposed with a cow skull, animal claws, palm leaves, and an ascending soldier to create a dreamlike sequence of the rivaling environments of Vietnam and the United States....

...“The Valley Below” celebrates the peace, beauty, idealism, and magic of the undomesticated life “off the grid”, which has often become the destination of many in the hippie movement following wartime. A prominent Barn Owl, which is known to actively hunt for prey only under the cover of darkness, seems to beckon the viewer back to the land and its groves in search of a simpler way of living.

***
Selected writings of mine can be found at the link.  http://hortongallery.com/exhibition/57/government-whore

Proportional Representation

I am one who would favor having a proportionally representative form of government...there are way too many disenfranchised people within our two party system...which is why our country is so divided, as badly as it was before the civil war...very nearly. I may align myself with only 5% of other people in the USA, but then we should have 5% of the representatives in government...all our voices need to be heard. So what if it's slow and cumbersome...it would be better than the get nothing done representatives we have now.