(original post-date: March 23, 2011)
It was extremely overcast in Los Angeles last weekend, so I was not able to see the Super Full Moon.
But I liked the idea of it, particularly given the current state of the world.
That Moon, brighter and bigger than usual, had a lot to shine on.
In Japan.
In Libya.
Where you are.
Where I am.
It’s impossible to address the current state of the world in one short essay. There are the actions of nature, which can be blamed on no one. There are the dangers of cultivating nuclear energy, which reflect taking calculated risks in an effort to meet the world’s complex needs. There is the chain reaction of unprecedented activism throughout the Middle East and North Africa – a man-made tsunami of social discontent.
… When I was in my 20’s, a boyfriend introduced me to the writings of Henry Miller, and I quickly devoured Tropic of Capricorn and Sexus. I used to joke that I’d read Miller with a dictionary in one hand and a vibrator in the other. Seriously – his erotic passages were as raw as they get. But that wasn’t the content that kept me reading. Miller’s writing climbs to amazing levels, eloquently reflecting his keen sense of the metaphysical, his passion for life and living, and his acknowledgment that the world is a precarious place, making every moment all the more valuable.
I have many favorite passages from both of those books, but the one that has remained in my head is this one, from Sexus:
Imagination is the voice of daring. If there is anything God-like about God it is that. He dared to imagine everything.
… I find the concept of God fascinating. I am, as they say on match dot com, “spiritual but not religious.” In fact, I’m so spiritual that I haven’t even told me what I believe. Bottom line is that I am utterly humbled by what I know for sure, and that is this: we’re all living on a big round thing that’s spinning so fast we don’t fall off.
Talk about imagination! Talk about daring! Anyway, acknowledging that little bit of proved science is pretty much all I can handle. If I think about it for more than a few minutes, I have to lie down.
And these days, it seems that this big round thing we’re all living on is really pissed off.
I don’t blame it.
And populations around the globe are upset by their societal circumstances.
I don’t blame them either.
Part of me thinks it’s damned remarkable we’ve come this far.
… I decided to dig into my old copy of Sexus to see what preceded that line that’s stayed with me. Interesting. Among other things, I love what it says about personal power:
The prisoner is not the one who has committed a crime, but the one who clings to his crime and lives it over and over. We are all guilty of crime, the great crime of not living life to the full. But we are all potentially free. We can stop thinking of what we have failed to do and do whatever lies within our power. What these powers that are in us may be no one has truly dared to imagine. That they are infinite we will realize the day we admit to ourselves that imagination is everything. Imagination is the voice of daring…
Yes, the powers within us are infinite, but only as long as we are alive.
That’s the catch; life is finite.
What we owe to the creative, imaginative, daring force that put us here is this: to embrace the blessing of every moment; to pursue our dreams; to do what is good.
That’s all we’ve got time for.
Showing posts with label Libya. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Libya. Show all posts
Monday, March 19, 2012
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
In Your Dreams!
I have a friend who is rather tenured in the realm of senior citizenry.
She’s also doing quite well.
Her mind is sharp as a tack (and much sharper than mine, most of the time). Her body? Not so much.
Among other things, she suffers from arthritis in her right arm, and because she is right-handed, the pain is more than inconvenient.
It also sometimes keeps her up at night.
So, a few weeks ago, she consulted her doctor. And in response to her complaint, he suggested she “up” the dosage on the pain-killer he had prescribed a few weeks earlier.
You should know that my friend is not a fan of pharmaceuticals, and so her doctor’s suggestion that she essentially triple the dosage of a pain-killer didn’t settle well with her. But he assured her that it was still a very small amount of the drug, and so, she agreed to the plan.
… I phoned her the next day to see how she was feeling.
“I slept well,” she reported, not sounding particularly relieved, “but in my dreams, I was punching everything in sight, and when I wasn’t punching, I was lifting. And when I wasn’t lifting, I was furiously writing. When I got out of bed this morning, my arm muscles were so sore from all the activity that I could barely lift my first cup of coffee.”
When I laughed, my friend scolded me.
“It’s not funny!” she said. “You have no idea how sore I was!”
“I’m sorry,” I replied, smiling over the phone. “I really am. But it’s just so ironic. You take a drug to make the arm pain go away, and your arms are so not in pain while you’re sleeping that they’re just busy all night.”
My friend accepted my apology, and – beyond that – she appreciated my observation.
… And I’ve been thinking about it ever since: pharmaceutical side effects that are dream-centric.
Imagine the possibilities:
I go to the doctor.
“Doctor,” I say, “I can’t sleep. I spend so much time thinking about how this country’s stupid political parties are wasting their time with ridiculous, counter-productive in-fighting.”
“Here,” he says, scribbling on a pad. “This will help.”
That night, I dream that I meet Sarah Palin, and we hit if off like nobody’s business. We go off into the wild and shoot a bunch of wolves. We laugh because we have no need for the wolves. We pledge to be BFFs forever (disregarding the redundancy therein) and from that point forward, we text each other every day.
… I go to the doctor.
“Doctor,” I say, “I can’t sleep. I spend so much time worrying about how I am going to pay all my bills.”
“Here,” he says, scribbling on a pad. “This will help.”
That night, I dream that I get a letter in the mail. It’s a pen pal request from a man in prison. Bernie Madoff has learned of my schemes, and I am his new hero. I smile devilishly and pass the letter along to one of my staff members – a man dressed in a scaled costume and looking a lot like Dick Cheney. Then, I head for the hot tub, where I bathe with rich white men, all in handcuffs and fully dressed.
… I go to the doctor.
“Doctor,” I say, “I can’t sleep. I spend so much time worrying about the situation in the Middle East and North Africa.”
“Here,” he says, scribbling on a pad. “This will help.”
That night, I dream of sitting at a grand table with the leaders of the “free” world. There’s a hosted oil bar, and it is free-flowing. We’re all drunk. As the waiters and busboys saunter by our regally upholstered chairs, we slip them million-dollar bills. Then we refill our glasses from the oil trough and laugh some more. Political power is such a gas!
… I go to the doctor.
“Doctor,” I say, “I can’t sleep. I keep thinking about what happened in Japan. I feel so bad for the people there.”
“Here,” he says, scribbling on a pad. “This will help.”
That night, I dream I am at an amusement park, where I strap myself into a shiny round seat. The first part of the ride entails a tremendous amount of random shaking. Thereafter, it morphs into a log-flume. I am doused with water. Lots and lots of water. I emerge wobbly and laughing – shook and wet, but okay.
But I’m not okay. There’s a glow emanating from me. And it’s not a good glow. My system’s been compromised by something unnatural.
… I go to the doctor.
“Nothing’s working,” I say. “These prescriptions are all wrong.”
He shrugs.
I walk outside the clinic, and because this is California, I notice a little shop.
Medical marijuana, with promises of no more bad dreams.
… Rich white men did not invent marijuana. Few of them therefore will ever embrace its values.
Besides, it’s a plant that they don’t need to manipulate in their labs.
From a profiteering perspective, they have no use for it. And so they certainly are not going to explore its capacity to heal.
Instead, they’ll just keep inventing drugs that give people messed-up dreams and a boat-load of side effects.
And they’ll make money from it.
…Need an aspirin?
She’s also doing quite well.
Her mind is sharp as a tack (and much sharper than mine, most of the time). Her body? Not so much.
Among other things, she suffers from arthritis in her right arm, and because she is right-handed, the pain is more than inconvenient.
It also sometimes keeps her up at night.
So, a few weeks ago, she consulted her doctor. And in response to her complaint, he suggested she “up” the dosage on the pain-killer he had prescribed a few weeks earlier.
You should know that my friend is not a fan of pharmaceuticals, and so her doctor’s suggestion that she essentially triple the dosage of a pain-killer didn’t settle well with her. But he assured her that it was still a very small amount of the drug, and so, she agreed to the plan.
… I phoned her the next day to see how she was feeling.
“I slept well,” she reported, not sounding particularly relieved, “but in my dreams, I was punching everything in sight, and when I wasn’t punching, I was lifting. And when I wasn’t lifting, I was furiously writing. When I got out of bed this morning, my arm muscles were so sore from all the activity that I could barely lift my first cup of coffee.”
When I laughed, my friend scolded me.
“It’s not funny!” she said. “You have no idea how sore I was!”
“I’m sorry,” I replied, smiling over the phone. “I really am. But it’s just so ironic. You take a drug to make the arm pain go away, and your arms are so not in pain while you’re sleeping that they’re just busy all night.”
My friend accepted my apology, and – beyond that – she appreciated my observation.
… And I’ve been thinking about it ever since: pharmaceutical side effects that are dream-centric.
Imagine the possibilities:
I go to the doctor.
“Doctor,” I say, “I can’t sleep. I spend so much time thinking about how this country’s stupid political parties are wasting their time with ridiculous, counter-productive in-fighting.”
“Here,” he says, scribbling on a pad. “This will help.”
That night, I dream that I meet Sarah Palin, and we hit if off like nobody’s business. We go off into the wild and shoot a bunch of wolves. We laugh because we have no need for the wolves. We pledge to be BFFs forever (disregarding the redundancy therein) and from that point forward, we text each other every day.
… I go to the doctor.
“Doctor,” I say, “I can’t sleep. I spend so much time worrying about how I am going to pay all my bills.”
“Here,” he says, scribbling on a pad. “This will help.”
That night, I dream that I get a letter in the mail. It’s a pen pal request from a man in prison. Bernie Madoff has learned of my schemes, and I am his new hero. I smile devilishly and pass the letter along to one of my staff members – a man dressed in a scaled costume and looking a lot like Dick Cheney. Then, I head for the hot tub, where I bathe with rich white men, all in handcuffs and fully dressed.
… I go to the doctor.
“Doctor,” I say, “I can’t sleep. I spend so much time worrying about the situation in the Middle East and North Africa.”
“Here,” he says, scribbling on a pad. “This will help.”
That night, I dream of sitting at a grand table with the leaders of the “free” world. There’s a hosted oil bar, and it is free-flowing. We’re all drunk. As the waiters and busboys saunter by our regally upholstered chairs, we slip them million-dollar bills. Then we refill our glasses from the oil trough and laugh some more. Political power is such a gas!
… I go to the doctor.
“Doctor,” I say, “I can’t sleep. I keep thinking about what happened in Japan. I feel so bad for the people there.”
“Here,” he says, scribbling on a pad. “This will help.”
That night, I dream I am at an amusement park, where I strap myself into a shiny round seat. The first part of the ride entails a tremendous amount of random shaking. Thereafter, it morphs into a log-flume. I am doused with water. Lots and lots of water. I emerge wobbly and laughing – shook and wet, but okay.
But I’m not okay. There’s a glow emanating from me. And it’s not a good glow. My system’s been compromised by something unnatural.
… I go to the doctor.
“Nothing’s working,” I say. “These prescriptions are all wrong.”
He shrugs.
I walk outside the clinic, and because this is California, I notice a little shop.
Medical marijuana, with promises of no more bad dreams.
… Rich white men did not invent marijuana. Few of them therefore will ever embrace its values.
Besides, it’s a plant that they don’t need to manipulate in their labs.
From a profiteering perspective, they have no use for it. And so they certainly are not going to explore its capacity to heal.
Instead, they’ll just keep inventing drugs that give people messed-up dreams and a boat-load of side effects.
And they’ll make money from it.
…Need an aspirin?
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
God's Big Flashlight in the Sky
It was extremely overcast in Los Angeles last weekend, so I was not able to see the Super Full Moon.
But I liked the idea of it, particularly given the current state of the world.
That Moon, brighter and bigger than usual, had a lot to shine on.
In Japan.
In Libya.
Where you are.
Where I am.
It’s impossible to address the current state of the world in one short essay. There are the actions of nature, which can be blamed on no one. There are the dangers of cultivating nuclear energy, which reflect taking calculated risks in an effort to meet the world’s complex needs. There is the chain reaction of unprecedented activism throughout the Middle East and North Africa – a man-made tsunami of social discontent.
… When I was in my 20’s, a boyfriend introduced me to the writings of Henry Miller, and I quickly devoured Tropic of Capricorn and Sexus. I used to joke that I’d read Miller with a dictionary in one hand and a vibrator in the other. Seriously – his erotic passages were as raw as they get. But that wasn’t the content that kept me reading. Miller’s writing climbs to amazing levels, eloquently reflecting his keen sense of the metaphysical, his passion for life and living, and his acknowledgment that the world is a precarious place, making every moment all the more valuable.
I have many favorite passages from both of those books, but the one that has remained in my head is this one, from Sexus:
Imagination is the voice of daring. If there is anything God-like about God it is that. He dared to imagine everything.
… I find the concept of God fascinating. I am, as they say on match dot com, “spiritual but not religious.” In fact, I’m so spiritual that I haven’t even told me what I believe. Bottom line is that I am utterly humbled by what I know for sure, and that is this: we’re all living on a big round thing that’s spinning so fast we don’t fall off.
Talk about imagination! Talk about daring! Anyway, acknowledging that little bit of proved science is pretty much all I can handle. If I think about it for more than a few minutes, I have to lie down.
And these days, it seems that this big round thing we’re all living on is really pissed off.
I don’t blame it.
And populations around the globe are upset by their societal circumstances.
I don’t blame them either.
Part of me thinks it’s damned remarkable we’ve come this far.
… I decided to dig into my old copy of Sexus to see what preceded that line that’s stayed with me. Interesting. Among other things, I love what it says about personal power:
The prisoner is not the one who has committed a crime, but the one who clings to his crime and lives it over and over. We are all guilty of crime, the great crime of not living life to the full. But we are all potentially free. We can stop thinking of what we have failed to do and do whatever lies within our power. What these powers that are in us may be no one has truly dared to imagine. That they are infinite we will realize the day we admit to ourselves that imagination is everything. Imagination is the voice of daring…
Yes, the powers within us are infinite, but only as long as we are alive.
That’s the catch; life is finite.
What we owe to the creative, imaginative, daring force that put us here is this: to embrace the blessing of every moment; to pursue our dreams; to do what is good.
That’s all we’ve got time for.
But I liked the idea of it, particularly given the current state of the world.
That Moon, brighter and bigger than usual, had a lot to shine on.
In Japan.
In Libya.
Where you are.
Where I am.
It’s impossible to address the current state of the world in one short essay. There are the actions of nature, which can be blamed on no one. There are the dangers of cultivating nuclear energy, which reflect taking calculated risks in an effort to meet the world’s complex needs. There is the chain reaction of unprecedented activism throughout the Middle East and North Africa – a man-made tsunami of social discontent.
… When I was in my 20’s, a boyfriend introduced me to the writings of Henry Miller, and I quickly devoured Tropic of Capricorn and Sexus. I used to joke that I’d read Miller with a dictionary in one hand and a vibrator in the other. Seriously – his erotic passages were as raw as they get. But that wasn’t the content that kept me reading. Miller’s writing climbs to amazing levels, eloquently reflecting his keen sense of the metaphysical, his passion for life and living, and his acknowledgment that the world is a precarious place, making every moment all the more valuable.
I have many favorite passages from both of those books, but the one that has remained in my head is this one, from Sexus:
Imagination is the voice of daring. If there is anything God-like about God it is that. He dared to imagine everything.
… I find the concept of God fascinating. I am, as they say on match dot com, “spiritual but not religious.” In fact, I’m so spiritual that I haven’t even told me what I believe. Bottom line is that I am utterly humbled by what I know for sure, and that is this: we’re all living on a big round thing that’s spinning so fast we don’t fall off.
Talk about imagination! Talk about daring! Anyway, acknowledging that little bit of proved science is pretty much all I can handle. If I think about it for more than a few minutes, I have to lie down.
And these days, it seems that this big round thing we’re all living on is really pissed off.
I don’t blame it.
And populations around the globe are upset by their societal circumstances.
I don’t blame them either.
Part of me thinks it’s damned remarkable we’ve come this far.
… I decided to dig into my old copy of Sexus to see what preceded that line that’s stayed with me. Interesting. Among other things, I love what it says about personal power:
The prisoner is not the one who has committed a crime, but the one who clings to his crime and lives it over and over. We are all guilty of crime, the great crime of not living life to the full. But we are all potentially free. We can stop thinking of what we have failed to do and do whatever lies within our power. What these powers that are in us may be no one has truly dared to imagine. That they are infinite we will realize the day we admit to ourselves that imagination is everything. Imagination is the voice of daring…
Yes, the powers within us are infinite, but only as long as we are alive.
That’s the catch; life is finite.
What we owe to the creative, imaginative, daring force that put us here is this: to embrace the blessing of every moment; to pursue our dreams; to do what is good.
That’s all we’ve got time for.
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