One Nation under G U N S | Land of the Free, Home of the Bewildered | United States of Apathy

What could be the change? Which do you choose? Amassing stuff & money, or interacting with nature, in body and spirit, for free?

I don’t know about you, I have only my experiences from my own family life where i was raised in a small town in Pennsylvania among cats, dogs, trees and lots of exposure to arts, education and appreciation and love of nature. And every subsequent contact and influence through people i met throughout my life as well as what information I’ve been put into touch with. I know that I don’t need diamonds, gold, jewelry, shiny objects, ivory, animal heads that I’ve conquered to mount on my wall, remedies from exotic animals for this or that dysfunction…nor do i need to keep gathering objects and amass things. I don’t need a car. I love bicycling. I also continually appreciate very little things, and find amusement and delight in the natural world. I prefer to be outdoors, and fortunately, am not currently homeless > I do enjoy a stable, calm, peaceful place to prepare my two meals of the day and sleep.  

I don’t need to continually purchase, clothing. I have been wearing the same sneakers for walking, bicycling, in rain or snow. And just got a second hand pair of shoes for free, for dressy occasions, when I can wear one of my 6 dresses that I brought with me in my luggage which are classics, that don’t change with fashion circuits seasonally. I brought my cleats with me as well, which I use wherever I live, when I find the local ultimate frisbee pickup games. blah, blah, blah

I looked outside of my window from the high rise room in Berlin (extremely tight and difficult shared housing situation) last evening, and noticed how many red glowing lights were in the sky. They are all cranes, except for two smoke stacks. I counted about 16 cranes that I could see from the day, from stretching to look right and left, except for the large square office building blocking my view straight ahead. 

WTF is the need for continued building? What the fuck is the need for supporting guns? What is the need for victimizing people who are fleeing dangerous situations (political turmoil or warming climate destroying their ability to survive and eat) when in fact it is predominantly the western developed world who are energy hogs and who have intermittently and with regularity destabilized regions politically, destabilized the climate, and recklessly and relentlessly invested in oil (and coal) when they know for a fact, if they have any kind of a clue and read anything, that our climate and entire ecological environment is endangered. 

I don’t want cranes.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-09-24/what-i-learned-counting-cranes-in-san-francisco

I want live cranes in our beautiful world. Nothing is more precious than clean air, water and the beauty and exhilaration of interacting with the nature of our beautiful world.

What is it not to get (understand/realize), that our lifestyles and demands and insistence on endless upgrading and getting immediate satisfaction, and lack of active statements and protests and going up against the powers that be, who want nothing more than for everything to stay the same, and the consuming public to continue to consume – and subsequently their power and control and amount of money in their bank accounts forever increase? 

Endless building, endless construction, endless buying, consuming without end. Putting more and more satellites into the atmosphere to create yet more junk, thanks a lot, not, Elon.

We need a radically different economic system that is not leveraged on the artificially crafted value of money, and our complete dependency on it. 

Instead of being radically separate, we could be joining together in person, in communities; research & development, idea sharing, creating gardens, building things, crafting, talking, laughing, dancing. We really don’t need to collect and amass all this stuff. 

This blog was unplanned, a spontaneous result of reading headlines about another mass shooting in the USA and of hospitals filling up by youth harming themselves.

Did anyone of my FB friends bother to read the transcript i posted of Gabor Mate’s talk about healing through ayahuasca? Because he is clearly talking about the TRAUMA INDUCED BY THE ENVIRONMENT (FAMILY, SOCIAL, POLITICAL, ECONOMIC) and the fact that many people i the western DEVELOPED nations, and particularly the LAND OF THE FREE, are enmeshed in a web of trauma. 

Gabor Mate transcript Gabor Mate speaks the truth, eloquently. 10 years ago!!!

It is essential for the emotionally, psychologically and spiritually sick population of the Wealthy western world (derivative and export of our fine hypocritical social and economic system of Capitalism) because healing and awareness is available. 

Dr. Gabor Mate On The Healing Power Of Ayuhuasca

this is outrageous! Let’s just keep doing the same routines and not thinking about what is wrong with a system that bails out bankers and cuts education and healthcare to the people, who have huge stresses with high housing costs…

“The portion of American hospital beds occupied by children with suicidal or self-harming behavior has soared over the course of a decade, a large study of admissions to acute care hospitals shows.”

Carol Keiter aka nomadbeatz welcomes donations for her writing, photography, illustrations, eBook and music composition. The PayPal donation button functions in Safari and Firefox, however is broken in Chrome.

Above statue at the grave of Frederick Chopin at Père Lachaise cemetery in Paris. We need less stuff, less occupation with work, and more play, laughter, togetherness, song, dance and psychedelics. Less is more. 

‘War Made Easy ~ How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us To Death’ film within | Corporate Media has Colluded, Acting as Stenographers for the Pentagon

Startling, frightening, no Hollywood horror movie could be more chilling than this political documentary. A Brown University study reveals that the USA has engaged in conflicts with 100 countries. The corporate media has colluded in all the conflicts, acting as stenographers for the Pentagon, rather than questioning and investigating.

“20 Years After Iraq Invasion: “War Made Easy ~ How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us To Death”. Critic Norman Solomon alleges that many government administrations have distorted facts and manipulated the media to sell the necessity of war to the American people.”

“War Made Easy” Full Movie | How Presidents & Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death from Media Education Foundation on Vimeo.

Following the film, some activists, writers, educators, stated that we merely have to educate ourselves and focus on ‘media, education, and labor’. The message also was that

‘We the People’ should be the one’s dictating democratically foreign policy, not government leaders behind closed doors, opaquely, and the corporate Media echoing the propaganda and like puppet strings, shoving patriotism down our throats. 

Great discovery of very unpleasant information. The messages by the film maker is that the corporate media has been not only complicit, but major persuasive players in holding the line of leaders. The film talks about the blatant propaganda to convince citizens of the need to go to war, often colluding ‘supporting the troops’ with patriotism, conflating being against the war, with not standing by the troops. The film also talks of how the media brandishes the glorification of weapons and always stays clearly away from questioning motives for war or getting close enough to actually see on the ground, the horror and inhumane and immoral nature of war. Those journalists who have expressed a different opinion than blindly towing the line, have quickly been removed.

Well worth it. In most wars the USA has perpetually carried out, many more civilians have been the victims. Only a few members of Congress have stood up against war. Dennis Kucinich talks of American Imperialism. If you want to see a scary movie, in terms of blatant tactics of deceit, this is a documentary horror flick. Leaders state that they’re pulling out, ending the conflict, while actually injecting more money into increasing arms. I recommend informing yourself. The message also was that the people should be the one’s dictating democratically foreign policy, not governments and corporate media pulling the strings and then shoving patriotism down our throats. A Brown University study reveals that the USA has engaged in conflicts with 100 countries

Through Roots Action, I learned of this online Screening and Panel following it on zoom March 20th. Pulled it off, though it started at 6:45 ET which is 11:45pm German time. 

Carol Keiter aka nomadbeatz welcomes donations for her writing, photography, illustrations, eBook and music composition. The PayPal donation button functions in Safari and Firefox, however is broken in Chrome.

Arundhati Roy’s Powerful Speech about Power ‘Come September’ multiple 911’s

I am profoundly moved and awakened, each time that I’ve listened to Arundhati Roy’s ‘Come September’ speech which she boldy presented at the Lannan Foundation in Santa Fe, New Mexico 2002, in which she states

“Nuclear weapons are stockpiled, to make the world a safer place.”

Roy quotes Thomas Friedman talking about the US policy of using war to support their control of resources. Each of the recent US wars fought for oil.

I read Arundhati’s book “God of Small Things” and have listened to her recently, 2020, as a guest of Amy Goodman on Democracy Now. She is still active and bold in her declarations. She’s a heroine for sure. 

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ET7I9jvP4Ic

Carol Keiter aka nomadbeatz welcomes donations for her writing, photography, illustrations, eBook & music composition

A letter to my sister | preciousness of life | Carl Sagan: freedom through scientific skepticism | Le Petit Prince

I was looking over my blog stats and saw someone read this, posted several years ago. I decided to post it again, since it’s relevant, from a moral and political standpoint – uh, yes, at one time I believe, the two were part of the same fabric. uh, now wait a minute, maybe morality and political leadership have rarely been paired, and that it is an exception! I mean, as long as royal leaders, and tyrants, and corporations have the reins, morality has little to do with the people who wish to maintain their power, control and profits.

Here’s the letter:
I am certainly happy to hear from you. Naturally I think about you every time that I enter the room to look at the lovely paper lanterns you hung for Mother’s birthday party and the teepee you constructed in the yard – which I‘m still raking! Memories of things people share and artifacts that they leave behind imbue all of these things with the spirit of the person. I am sorry that we had difficulties communicating at times. I have not been ‘above’ reacting emotionally to someone’s emotional reactions towards me. However, that doesn’t mean that I can not attempt to move beyond my reactions to reach out with more compassion and understanding.

Antoine de Saint-Exupery, author of Le Petit Prince
The Little Prince

Antoine de Saint-Exupery was a pilot, and author of the remarkable children’s book, for adults, Le Petit Prince/ The Little Prince. There appear to be exceptions to this formidable quote, if the person happens to be morally repugnant and arrogant!

Le Petit Prince, written by Antoine Saint-Exupery
the Phenomenon

I went out with a family friend last night and afterwards, realized that he knows even more profoundly how precious life is, as he has lost both of his parents. Certainly, if we all had an acute awareness of death (sitting on our shoulders) – Carlos Castaneda style i.e. “the Teachings of Don Juan” – in each response to every moment, we would never be anything but kind to all people and creatures, at all times.

That sounds like a pretty heavy way to live. The context is not, to be continually fearful, but rather, continually present with the fact that every moment of life is precious. People need to accept the rights of others to be and perceive as they will. It is a rather large task, to put differences and competitiveness, jealousy, envy and judgments … aside. Yet it’s the only way for everyone to get along. (I just read in Salon dot com a rather scathing article about the writer Carlos Castaneda, saying that Don Juan was not only an astounding hoax, but that Castaneda went on to form a bizarre cult.) He nevertheless had strong poetic and spiritual points to emphasize in his writings.

It’s pretty much a life-long task, given the fact that all humans have a tendency to subjectively interpret and judge other peoples’ actions. I do it, we all do it, from personal complaints, grievances, expectations, disappointments on up to community and cultural, political and religious differences of interpretation, that result in the worst cases to prolonged wars and strife between ethnic groups and neighboring countries.

This appears to be one of the biggest challenges and aspirations for humankind; to look beyond differences and strive for understanding, compassion and kindness. The ‘tree-hugger/environmental activist side of me’ is kicking out judgements every time I see people’s actions or material opulence (not to mention hearing about plans for more gas drilling in the arctic etc.) which I perceive as offensive. I put them into a box I label offender/perpetrator; a personal judgement which is my own way of playing in the ‘us against them’ scenario. So, I’m as guilty as anyone. The obvious extreme is the fact that people are blowing each other up in the Middle East …. and that wars and conflicts and ominous actions of manipulation continue to proliferate worldwide, despite the fact that most humans have access to rather extraordinary tools.

We are technologically light years ahead of where we are emotionally!

As Carl Sagan mentions in this interview “A Way of Thinking” in which he delivers insights into the dangers in our present culture; based on the fact that we’re a science and technology-based culture, the inner workings of which few comprehend. That puts us in a position in which we are in danger of being more easily manipulated.

Sagan points out that science is a way of skeptically interrogating the universe. And that it’s dramatically important for each of us to ask skeptical questions about everything, particularly to those in authority; otherwise we are up for grabs by the next charlatan, political or religious, that comes along. He mentions that Thomas Jefferson said that people need to be educated in order to practice their skepticism, otherwise ‘we don’t run the government, the government runs us’.

Carol Keiter the blogger

Carol Keiter aka nomadbeatz welcomes donations for her writing, photography, illustrations, eBook & music composition

The PayPal donation button functions in Safari and Firefox, however is broken in Chrome.

Clearly Unclear Place > Trust Mentors’ Inspiring Words

Deepak Chopra I am here to serve, inspire and live my truth.

I have come to a place where I am indeed stuck, hence the title, clearly unclear. I had catapulted myself, with ease actually, out of Pennsylvania, with several hours of creating a profile and investigating a work-exchange site, specifically a WWOOF position. The host needed someone immediately, and then I miraculously found an automobile to transport across the country, that also was so urgent, that the owners tossed in an extra 100 dollars to entice someone to drive it. So I reduced what I’d take with me to two bags and was off. It was with ease that I also found my way back from the west coast destination for the automobile, back to my host in rural Arizona. I would make it work, the idea was to be isolated with electricity and internet access, to complete my eBook and start composing music again, while writing my blogs. It was a choice just beyond homelessness, and closest to an artist residency. And then I learned that I was the only worker there, that unlike other work-exchange operations, that this was not 5 hours a day, 5 days a week, but every day, and pretty soon I discovered that there was way more work to do than could be easily snipped off at a 5 hour point. Then personality differences ensued. After delicately communicating expectations against the reality and letting reproachful comments slide, one morning the tension fractured, and I was asked to leave immediately. I had just enough time to wash the alfalfa hay and dust out of my hair and pack. When I had the audacity to finally make a statement about the current situation and express my own opinion while being driven from the remote farm to the next town, the tires screeched to a halt and I scrambled to make sure that I could get my valuables, now three bags, out of the vehicle before it sped away.

Eckhart Tolle Life will give you the experience necessary

I felt more of a sense of relief, than panic. I had been maintaining a meditation practice and had scooped out a bit more time through my own demands to at least do a little bit of my own work in between sleeping and working on the ranch. The animals I loved, the people were angry and overworked. I still remained calm as I stood on this dusty road in the middle of nowhere hitchhiking. A woman of the church finally stopped, she brought me to a place where I was able to approach a man sitting with his iPhone and laptop, to ask if it would be possible for me to poach some of his internet waves in order to send a message to my cousin, who I was pretty sure lived in Phoenix.

Charles Eisenstein We are Interbeings Anything happening in the world happens to us

It turned out that in the very small allotted time that I sat there with WiFi through this guy whom I had some nice conversation with, that my cousin had returned my email with his contact information. I figured I’d start hitching to Phoenix, and discovered that my cousin lives in Tucson, the other direction. I found rides to take me there also effortlessly.

Charles Eisenstein Trust you Intuition be guided by Love

I have been here a little over a week. I have not had a clue of where to go. I have never warmed up to Los Angeles. I like to discover a city through having the option to walk around narrow streets and bicycle. I like to be in a place where I don’t HAVE to have a car, but can easily find the local ultimate frisbee pickup games, tennis courts, having a place to swim nearby is also lovely…and being among people who are artists and musicians with full hearts and open minds.

Wayne Dyer How you react is your karma

Suddenly it occurred to me that Tucson is this progressive place, particularly since it has a university, that is like an oasis in the desert of massive business chain entities that line several of the wide 4 lane highway streets that cut through the city. You know, the massive chains that are everywhere in the United States, as soon as you get out of the ‘old town’ or central quaint neighborhoods, you are confronted with these massive familiar businesses that are like flavors of ice cream, their brand names are so familiar to everyone.

Carlos Castaneda Your Perception Changes

So I decided, yes, I’ll look for work here, and housing, and then I had an experience one day that said, no, this is not what I want. And then I had another day that gently encouraged me to go with this new plan – do the duty, pay the price – and then the following day I was again feeling discouragement. As I communicated in a letter yesterday, perhaps I shouldn’t have come across and listened to, most of my adult life, the words and messages of Carl Jung, Carlos Castaneda, Joseph Campbell, Martin Luther King, Mahatma Gandhi, the Dalai Lama, Eckhart Tolle, Deepak Chopra, Charles Eisenstein, Wayne Dyer…

i.e. Tolle “Awakening to your Life’s Purpose”, Campbell “Follow your Bliss”, Jung “synchronicity” “Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.”, Chopra ‘I am the creator of my best life”, Castaneda ‘the teachings of the shaman Don Juan”, Charles Eisenstein “We are all here to contribute our gifts toward something greater than ourselves, and will never be content unless we are.”

Carlos Castaneda Does the path have a Heart

And in my confusion, I’m delighted to have opened up this to read today.

http://charleseisenstein.net/books/the-more-beautiful-world-our-hearts-know-is-possible/nondoing/

“If we are stuck and do not choose to visit the empty place, eventually we will end up there anyway. You may be familiar with this process on a personal level. The old world falls apart, but the new has not emerged. Everything that once seemed permanent and real is revealed as a kind of hallucination. You don’t know what to think, what to do; you don’t know what anything means anymore. The life trajectory you had plotted out seems absurd, and you can’t imagine another one. Everything is uncertain. Your time frame shrinks from years to this month, this week, today, maybe even to the present moment. Without the mirages of order that once seemed to protect you and filter reality, you feel naked and vulnerable, but also a kind of freedom. Possibilities that didn’t even exist in the old story lie before you, even if you have no idea how to get there. The challenge in our culture is to allow yourself to be in that space, to trust that the next story will emerge when the time in between has ended, and that you will recognize it. Our culture wants us to move on, to do. The old story we leave behind, which is usually part of the consensus Story of the People, releases us with great reluctance. So please, if you are in the sacred space between stories, allow yourself to be there. It is frightening to lose the old structures of security, but you will find that even as you might lose things that were unthinkable to lose, you will be okay. There is a kind of grace that protects us in the space between stories. It is not that you won’t lose your marriage, your money, your job, or your health. In fact, it is very likely that you will lose one of these things. It is that you will discover that even having lost that, you are still okay. You will find yourself in closer contact to something much more precious, something that fires cannot burn and thieves cannot steal, something that no one can take and cannot be lost. We might lose sight of it sometimes, but it is always there waiting for us. This is the resting place we return to when the old story falls apart. Clear of its fog, we can now receive a true vision of the next world, the next story, the next phase of life. From the marriage of this vision and this emptiness, a great power is born.”

Alas, as I take in information with my brain and heart, and also stop and allow new messages to come in, I must trust that I’ll find my way.

Charles Eisenstein message to his Self of the Past The organic intelligence will become visible, the answer will find you.

Dalai Lama War and military establishments the greatest source of violence in the world.

I’m still looking for that artist residency and community….

Carol Keiter the blogger

Future Generations: Sorry Prince Ea | Stand for Trees | Severn Suzuki | Anjali Appadurai

I just came across these messages which echo in their empathy for the inhabitants of the earth affected by their environment and for the habitat loss of species; it’s about what we can and must do to actively engage in changes.

Dear Future Generations: Sorry Prince Ea

Prince Ea describes what a future generation may come across, when the Amazon Rain Forest becomes the Amazon desert…or when a tree is a thing of the past, yet stops himself to beckon the audience that it is not too late.

He urges to “look at the root, not at the branches of government…..we must globally warm our hearts….If we don’t all work together to save the environment, we will be equally extinct.”

Dear Future Generations: Sorry Prince Ea. If we do nothing, regardless of racism, sexism, inequality… we will be Equally Extinct

Prince Ea says he was inspired to write this piece after visiting Africa and witnessing the destruction of the rain forest, where animals are losing their habitat at enormous rates.

And with reference to sorry doesn’t cut it, because we still have a chance to act; he brings up Stand For Trees, what he has chosen as an action to offset carbon.

Every time you buy a Stand For Trees Certificate, you help local forest communities around the world keep a specific forest standing and prevent a tonne of CO2 from entering the earth’s atmosphere.

Stand for Trees certificate

Stand for Trees How it Works You Buy a Stand for Trees Certificate – offsetting a ‘tonne’ of CO2 – allowing forest to stand

This will naturally help communities living within these local forests to protect and honor their trees and want to maintain the forest as well as maintaining the corridor of land for all the species whose habitat is within these forests.

I came across the speeches of two young girls who had the courage to extend their voice to adults meeting in two separate climate summit events.

One features the Words of Wisdom of the 12 year old girl at the time of here speech in 1992, uploaded April, 2008 onto youtube.

Severn Suzuki in Rio De Janeiro Earth Summit 1992

Severn Suzuki was the ‘girl who silenced the world for 5 minutes‘.

I am only a child, and yet I know, that if all of the money that is spent on war, was instead spent on environmental policies, Severne Suzuki girl who silenced the world for 5 minutes. She claimed that her father informed her, “You are not what you say, you are what you do.” She was speaking at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro 1992 – United Nation’s Conference on Environment and Development (1992)

Severn said that her father informed her, “You are not what you say, you are what you do.” Investigating, I found that her father is certainly saying and doing things to inspire us. https://digesthis.wordpress.com/2016/03/08/sustainability-david-suzuki-creative-consciousness-same-name-but-different/

At that time, Severn Suzuki was speaking for (ECO) The Environmental Children’s Organization – which she and several 12 and 13 year old friends started to engage with the world to make a difference. She came 5,000 miles from British Columbia to Rio to tell adults how their actions were causing her to lose her future. “I am only a child, and yet I know, that if all of the money that is spent on war, was instead spent on environmental policies.”

Severn Suzuki speaking at Earth Summit Rio 1992 if all the money spend on war was spent on ending poverty and finding environmental solutions.

Severn Suzuki grew up in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. In her speech she said, “In my country we make so much waste, we buy and throw away, buy and throw away, and yet northern countries will not share with the needy. Even when we have more than enough, we are afraid to lose some of our wealth, afraid to share…

If you don’t know how to fix it, please stop breaking it!”

Here is the full text of Severn Suzuki’s speech at the Earth Summit Conference in Rio, 1992.

She is since married with two children, intent still in making a difference through her education and activism. Think Global Green, listing Facts and Solutions about the environment.

19 years later, another young articulate and bold young woman spoke to a different climate conference, this time the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Durban, South Africa in 2011. As a representative of the College of the Atlantic representing the Youth Delegation, Anjali Appadurai urged the dignitaries attending the UN summit for climate justice, demanding them to “Get It Done”!

Anjali Appadurai, representing the Youth Delegation of the College of the Atlantic speaking to United Nations Climate Change Conference in Durban, South Africa 2011, covered by Amy Goodman of Democracy Now

Carol Keiter aka nomadbeatz ~ As an avid blogger who is presently picking up where I left off with my eBook to complete it and and beginning again to compose music, I ask you rather unambiguously and unabashedly to please donate, if you are able. !-))

Carol Keiter the blogger with Tibetan prayer flags, Native American dream catchers and green plants

A letter to my sister | preciousness of life | Carl Sagan: freedom through scientific skepticism

I was looking over my blog stats and saw someone read this, a very early blog. I decided to post it, since it’s relevant, from a moral and political standpoint – uh, yes, at one time I believe, the two were part of the same fabric. uh, now wait a minute, maybe morality and political leadership, have rarely been paired, and that it is an exception! I mean, as long as royal leaders, and tyrants, and corporations have the reins, morality has not a fucking thing to do with the people who wish to maintain their power, control and profits.

I am certainly happy to hear from you. Naturally I think about you every time that I enter the room to look at the lovely paper lanterns you hung for Mother’s birthday party and the teepee you constructed in the yard – which I‘m still raking! Memories of things people share and artifacts that they leave behind imbue all of these things with the spirit of the person. I am sorry that we had difficulties communicating at times. I have not been ‘above’ reacting emotionally to someone’s emotional reactions towards me. However, that doesn’t mean that I can not attempt to move beyond my reactions to reach out with more compassion and understanding.

Antoine de Saint-Exupery author Le Petit Prince
The Little Prince

I went out with a family friend last night and afterwards, realized that he knows even more profoundly how precious life is, as he has lost both of his parents. Certainly, if we all had an acute awareness of death (sitting on our shoulders) – Carlos Castaneda style i.e. “the Teachings of Don Juan” – in each response to every moment, we would never be anything but kind to all people and creatures, at all times.

That sounds like a pretty heavy way to live. The context is not, to be continually fearful, but rather, continually present with the fact that every moment of life is precious. People need to accept the rights of others to be and perceive as they will. It is a rather large task, to put differences and competitiveness, jealousy, envy and judgments … aside. Yet it’s the only way for everyone to get along. (I just read in Salon dot com a rather scathing article about the writer Carlos Castaneda, saying that Don Juan was not only an astounding hoax, but that Castaneda went on to form a bizarre cult.) He nevertheless had strong poetic and spiritual points to emphasize in his writings.

It’s pretty much a life-long task, given the fact that all humans have a tendency to subjectively interpret and judge other peoples’ actions. I do it, we all do it, from personal complaints, grievances, expectations, disappointments on up to community and cultural, political and religious differences of interpretation, that result in the worst cases to prolonged wars and strife between ethnic groups and neighboring countries.

This appears to be one of the biggest challenges and aspirations for humankind; to look beyond differences and strive for understanding, compassion and kindness. The ‘tree-hugger/environmental activist side of me’ is kicking out judgements every time I see people’s actions or material opulence (not to mention hearing about plans for more gas drilling in the arctic etc.) which I perceive as offensive. I put them into a box I label offender/perpetrator; a personal judgement which is my own way of playing in the ‘us against them’ scenario. So, I’m as guilty as anyone. The obvious extreme is the fact that people are blowing each other up in the Middle East …. and that wars and conflicts and ominous actions of manipulation continue to proliferate worldwide, despite the fact that most humans have access to rather extraordinary tools.

We are technologically light years ahead of where we are emotionally!

As Carl Sagan mentions in this interview “A Way of Thinking” in which he delivers insights into the dangers in our present culture; based on the fact that we’re a science and technology-based culture, the inner workings of which few comprehend. That puts us in a position in which we are in danger of being more easily manipulated.

Sagan points out that science is a way of skeptically interrogating the universe. And that it’s dramatically important for each of us to ask skeptical questions about everything, particularly to those in authority; otherwise we are up for grabs by the next charlatan, political or religious, that comes along. He mentions that Thomas Jefferson said that people need to be educated in order to practice their skepticism, otherwise ‘we don’t run the government, the government runs us’.