Musical Interlude: The Moody Blues, "Question"

Full screen recommended.

A Spadecaller video of The Moody Blues' "Question"

Please do visit the Spadecaller channel link above.

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Matthew Schwartz (AKA Spadecaller) is an artist imbued with 

deep convictions. His galleries of original art and photography 

are available for viewing and purchase at:  

- https://matthew-schwartz.pixels.com/

A magnificent talent...my very highest recommendation.

“Americans Using Homes As ATM; Don’t Lose Everything; Housing Bubble Unsustainable; Real Assets”

Jeremiah Babe,

“Americans Using Homes As ATM; Don’t Lose Everything; 

Housing Bubble Unsustainable; Real Assets”

You really need to view this video...

And you'd be wise to view this article:

"Here's How 30 Preppers Have Adapted 

And What They Foresee Happening Next"

Musical Interlude: Nickelback, "If Everyone Cared"

Full screen recommended.

Nickelback, "If Everyone Cared"

"A Look to the Heavens"

“What makes this spiral galaxy so long? Measuring over 700,000 light years across from top to bottom, NGC 6872, also known as the Condor galaxy, is one of the most elongated barred spiral galaxies known.

The galaxy’s protracted shape likely results from its continuing collision with the smaller galaxy IC 4970, visible just above center. Of particular interest is NGC 6872′s spiral arm on the upper left, as pictured here, which exhibits an unusually high amount of blue star forming regions. The light we see today left these colliding giants before the days of the dinosaurs, about 300 million years ago. NGC 6872 is visible with a small telescope toward the constellation of the Peacock (Pavo).”

- http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap160426.html

The Poet: Wendell Berry, “A Warning To My Readers”

“A Warning To My Readers”

“Do not think me gentle

because I speak in praise

of gentleness, or elegant

because I honor the grace

that keeps this world. I am

a man crude as any,

gross of speech, intolerant,

stubborn, angry, full

of fits and furies. That I

may have spoken well

at times, is not natural.

A wonder is what it is.”

- Wendell Berry

"Do You Believe..."

“Do you believe,’ said Candide, ‘that men have always massacred each other as they do today, that they have always been liars, cheats, traitors, ingrates, brigands, idiots, thieves, scoundrels, gluttons, drunkards, misers, envious, ambitious, bloody-minded, calumniators, debauchees, fanatics, hypocrites, and fools?”

“Do you believe,” said Martin, “that hawks have always eaten pigeons when they have found them?”

- Voltaire

The Poet: Theodore Roethke, “The Geranium”

“The Geranium”

“When I put her out, once, by the garbage pail,

She looked so limp and bedraggled,

So foolish and trusting, like a sick poodle,

Or a wizened aster in late September,

I brought her back in again

For a new routine -

Vitamins, water, and whatever

Sustenance seemed sensible

At the time: she’d lived

So long on gin, bobbie pins, half-smoked cigars, dead beer,

Her shriveled petals falling

On the faded carpet, the stale

Steak grease stuck to her fuzzy leaves.

(Dried-out, she creaked like a tulip.)

The things she endured!

The dumb dames shrieking half the night

Or the two of us, alone, both seedy,

Me breathing booze at her,

She leaning out of her pot toward the window.

Near the end, she seemed almost to hear me -

And that was scary -

So when that snuffling cretin of a maid

Threw her, pot and all, into the trash-can,

I said nothing.

But I sacked the presumptuous hag the next week,

I was that lonely.”

- Theodore Roethke

The Daily "Near You?"

Ellijay, Georgia, USA. Thanks for stopping by!

"Can't You See..."

"Can't you see that the courage to risk, to dare, to toss that gold coin up in the air over and over again, win or lose, is what makes humans human? They are fragile, doomed creatures, blinder than worms yet braver than the gods."

- Jennifer Donnelly, "Stepsister"

Free Download: Kahlil Gibran, “The Prophet”

“The Prophet: On Good and Evil”

by Kahlil Gibran

“Of the good in you I can speak, but not of the evil.

For what is evil but good tortured by its own hunger and thirst?

Verily when good is hungry it seeks food even in dark caves, 

and when it thirsts it drinks even of dead waters.

You are good when you are one with yourself.

Yet when you are not one with yourself you are not evil.

For a divided house is not a den of thieves; it is only a divided house.

And a ship without rudder may wander aimlessly among
perilous isles yet sink not to the bottom.

You are good when you strive to give of yourself.

Yet you are not evil when you seek gain for yourself.

For when you strive for gain you are but a root
that clings to the earth and sucks at her breast.

Surely the fruit cannot say to the root,
“Be like me, ripe and full and ever giving of your abundance.”

For to the fruit giving is a need, as receiving is a need to the root.

You are good when you are fully awake in your speech,

Yet you are not evil when you sleep 

while your tongue staggers without purpose.

And even stumbling speech may strengthen a weak tongue.

You are good when you walk to your goal firmly and with bold steps.

Yet you are not evil when you go thither limping.

Even those who limp go not backward. 

But you who are strong and swift, 

see that you do not limp before the lame, deeming it kindness.

You are good in countless ways, 

and you are not evil when you are not good,

You are only loitering and sluggard.

Pity that the stags cannot teach swiftness to the turtles.

In your longing for your giant self lies your goodness: 
and that longing is in all of you.

But in some of you that longing is a torrent rushing with might to the sea, 

carrying the secrets of the hillsides and the songs of the forest.

And in others it is a flat stream that loses itself in angles and 

bends and lingers before it reaches the shore.

But let not him who longs much say to him who longs little, 

“Wherefore are you slow and halting?”
For the truly good ask not the naked, 

“Where is your garment?” 

nor the houseless, “What has befallen your house?”

Freely download a PDF version of “The Prophet” here:
-https://onemorelibrary.com/

“7 Things Fear Has Stolen From You”

“7 Things Fear Has Stolen From You”

by Marc Chernoff

“There is no greater hell than to be a prisoner of fear.”

- Ben Johnson

“Courage doesn’t mean you don’t get afraid; courage means you don’t let fear stop you. Everything you want is on the other side of fear. Don’t ever hesitate to give yourself a chance to be everything you are capable of being. Although fear can feel overwhelming, and defeats more people than any other force in the world, it’s not as powerful as it seems. Fear is only as deep as your mind allows. You are still in control. The key is to acknowledge your fear and directly address it. You must step right up and confront it face to face. This tactic robs fear of its power, instead of fear robbing YOU of…

1. Your true path and purpose. Fear of being different… Don’t be fooled by what others say, especially when they try to tell you what is right for you. Listen and then draw your own conclusions. What is your intuition telling you? There is not a clear path that everyone should follow. Your greatest fear should not be of failure, but of succeeding in life at all the wrong things. Choose a path that fits YOU. Those who follow the crowd usually get lost in it. Challenge yourself to ask with each and every step, and each focus point that consumes your energy: “Does this thing I’m doing right now truly serve me and those I care about in the next few minutes, few months, and few years?” Whatever you settle on, just make sure you don’t gain the whole world by losing your soul and purpose in the process.

2. Self-respect. Fear of not being good enough… Don’t be too hard on yourself. There are plenty of people willing to do that for you. Do your best and surrender the rest. Tell yourself, “I am doing the best I can with what I have in this moment. That is all I can ever expect of anyone, including me.” Love yourself and be proud of everything you do, even your mistakes, because your mistakes mean you’re trying. If you feel like others are not treating you with love and respect, check your price tag. Perhaps you subconsciously marked yourself down. Because it’s YOU who tells others what you’re worth by showing them what you are willing to accept for your time and attention. So get off the clearance rack. If you don’t value and respect yourself, wholeheartedly, no one else will either.

3. Your ability to make concrete decisions. Fear of commitment… You cannot live your life at the mercy of chance. You cannot stumble along with a map marked only with the places you fear, or the places you know you don’t want to revisit. You cannot remain trapped, endlessly, in a state where you are unable to ask for directions, even though you’re terribly lost, because you don’t know your destination. You have to commit to goals that speak to you. You have to stand up, look at yourself in the mirror, and say, “It isn’t good enough for me to know only what I DON’T want in life. I need to decide what I DO want.”

4. Priceless opportunities and life experiences. Fear of change and discomfort… As Thich Nhat Hanh so perfectly said, “People have a hard time letting go of their suffering. Out of a fear of the unknown, they prefer suffering that is familiar.” In many cases you stay stuck in your old routines for no other reason than that they are familiar to you. In other words, you’re afraid of change and the unknown. You continually put your dreams and goals off until tomorrow, and you pass on great opportunities simply because they have the potential to lead you out of your comfort zone.

You start using excuses to justify your lack of backbone: “Someday when I have more money,” or “when I’m older,” or the over-abused “I’ll get to it as soon as I have more time.” This is a vicious cycle that leads to a deeply unsatisfying life – a way of thinking that eventually sends you to your grave with immense regret. Regret that you didn’t follow your heart. Regret that you always put everyone else’s needs before your own. Regret that you didn’t do what you could have done when you had the chance.

5. General happiness and peace of mind. Fear of facing inner truths… If you keep looking for happiness outside yourself, you will never find it. Happiness is found from within. What you seek is not somewhere else at some other time; what you seek is here and now, within you. The more you look for it outside yourself, the more it hides from you. Relax, remember the source of your deepest desires, and allow yourself to know their fulfillment. A choice, not circumstances, determines happiness. Each morning when you open your eyes, say to yourself: “I, not external people or events, have the power to make me happy or unhappy today. It’s up to me. Yesterday is gone and tomorrow hasn’t come yet. I only have today and I’m going to be happy in it.”

6. Your willingness to love, truly and purely. Fear of not being loved in return… Although it is nice when gestures of love are returned, true love is one-way traffic. It’s a pure flow of giving and expecting nothing in return. Anything else is a contract. Notice how whenever you allow love to flow you are always clear, calm and strong. It is only when the thought arises, “What have they given me in return?” that there is confusion and resentment. Ego transacts, love transforms. Life is too short for all these meticulous contracts and transactions.

Look out for yourself by focusing your love in a direction that feels right to you, but once you decide to love, remain clear, remain bright, and remain strong. Love without expectation. Don’t let fear get in your way. When the love you give is true, the people worthy of your love will gradually reveal themselves over time.

7. The right company. Fear of being alone… Sadly, no matter how much love you give, some relationships simply aren’t meant to be. You can try your hardest, you can do everything and say everything, but sometimes people just aren’t worth stressing over anymore, and they aren’t worth worrying about. It’s important to know when to distance yourself from someone who only hurts you and brings you down. When you give your love to someone, truly and purely without expectation, and it’s never good enough for them, there’s a good chance you’re giving your love to the wrong person.

The bottom line is that long-term relationships should help you, not hurt you. Spend time with nice people who are smart, driven and like-minded. And remember, good relationships are a sacred bond – a circle of trust. Both parties must be 100% on board. If and when the time comes to let a relationship go, don’t be hostile. Simply thank the relationships that don’t work out for you, because they just made room for the ones that will.

Next steps… Your biggest fears are completely dependent on you for their survival. Every new day is another chance to change your life, and it’s way too short to let fear interfere. Today, focus your conscious mind on things you desire, not things you fear. Doing so can bring your dreams to life.

Your turn… What has fear stolen from you? What has it stopped you from doing, being, or achieving? Leave a comment below and share your thoughts with the community.”

- http://www.marcandangel.com/

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“Overcoming Fear And Anxiety”

by Tony Robbins

"Relax..."

"Relax. They're not going to kill us. They're going to 

TRY and kill us. And that is a very different thing."

 - Steve Voake, "The Dreamwalker's Child"

"The False Choice Society"

"The False Choice Society"

by The Zman

"The false dichotomy, sometimes called the false choice, is one of the most popular rhetoric tricks used in liberal democracy. The point is to frame the debate in such a way as to either avoid some unpleasant topic or narrow the scope to the benefit of one party in the debate. “We either do X or we allow this terrible thing to continue” is an effective way to compel action. After all, everyone knows that doing nothing in never an acceptable action. Only monsters choose that option.

It is fair to say that our political system is built upon the false choice. Every election we are asked to choose between the two offerings put forward by the parties. In most cases, one option is ridiculous. That is why over 90% of incumbents win reelection. In races with real competition, the options put forward are nearly identical. Both parties offer up a plank of wood spouting whatever slogans are popular at the moment. The voters select between two robots programmed by the same people.

The reason this is a false choice is there is at least one other option. The voters could stage a boycott of the election. Maybe demand some reforms as a condition of rejoining the charade of democracy. Of course, the voters could riot at the polling stations, hurl the voting machines into the river and burn the ballots. They could vote for a third party candidate as a protest. Picking from one of the two options offered up from the uniparty is a false choice, because there are other options.

Of course, people do not select the other options because they are constantly reminded that those are all bad options. No rational person votes third-party. Even the most cynical critics of democracy say the third party option is a waste of time. Similarly, boycotts are dismissed as pointless. Rebellion, of course, is dismissed out of hand, despite the fact the country was literally founded on rebellion. The one thing everyone seems to agree upon is you have no choice but to pick from the two parties.

Another example of where the false choice is the foundation of liberal democracy is in the current Covid panic. The reason the rulers took a wrecking ball to society is they were sure they had just two options. It was either the wrecking ball or do nothing and we all know that doing nothing is never an option. They had to do something, and all of the choices were bad, so they happily went with the bad option. When you eliminate the best option, you are always left with the worst options.

The false choice plays out in more subtle ways too. Unwilling to leave well enough alone, the rulers are now trying to impose a vaccine passport. The idea is to require this for travel or to attend public gatherings. Given that liberal democracy looks a lot like fascism, businesses and banks are making noises about requiring the vaccine in order to have a job or use the financial system. You can get the vaccine, the choice is yours, but you may not be able live in society.

People are rightly upset about this turn of events. House broken conservatives are banging on about how the vaccine passport if just like when their grandparents made the Jews wear gold stars. The point of the yes/no debate on the vaccine passport is to distract from the real problem. The people in charge of public health are incompetent and have turned a minor public health problem into a disaster. Worse yet, they seem to take some pleasure in being incompetent at it.

Not so long ago, proof of vaccination was a common requirement for travel. People were given a card that showed their vaccinations. This was before computers when the people in charge were somewhat competent at their jobs. People went along with it because they understood it was for public health. They could trust the people in charge enough to go along with it. The people who cured things like polio and smallpox were proud of it and the policies that made it possible.

Today, of course, no one trusts anyone. There can be no public pride in collective accomplishment because we have accomplished nothing, other than putting men in dresses and desecrating some statues. This is why half the public is skeptical of the vaccine and the passport business. Instead of dealing with that reality, we choose to have a debate about the passport itself. The false choice here is whether to get the vaccine or not. Whether to have a proof of vaccine or not.

The promise of democracy is that public policy is no longer set according to the narrow interests of a small ruling class. Instead, the marketplace of democracy will set the priorities and select the polices based on majority will. In reality, democracy is a mass delusion where the public debates pointless issues and selects from identical options, all in order to avoid facing reality. Say what you will about aristocracy, at least everyone knows who is in charge and who is to blame.

The Covid hysteria underscores how the false choice society staggers on through inertia and dumb luck. Faced with a real crisis, the current regime would collapse in a pile, with the people bickering with one another over how best to celebrate the pile once the dust settles. The false choice society is a society built on lies the people tell one another in order to avoid reality. The trouble is reality is the thing that does not go away when you stop believing in it."

- https://www.theburningplatform.com/

- http://thezman.com/wordpress/

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"The corrupt establishment will do anything to suppress sites like the Burning Platform from revealing the truth. The corporate media does this by demonetizing sites like mine by blackballing the site from advertising revenue. If you get value from this site, please keep it running with a donation. [Jim Quinn - PO Box 1520 Kulpsville, PA 19443] or Paypal at the website": https://www.theburningplatform.com/

"How It Really Is"

 

"Have It Done..."

”Never explain. Never apologize. 

Have it done and let them howl.” 

- Winston Churchill

"The Trouble With Most People..."

"The trouble with most people is that they think with their

hopes or fears or wishes rather than with their minds."

- Will Durant

Chet Raymo, “Walking Wary”

“Walking Wary”

by Chet Raymo

“Virginia Woolf called them "moments of being," those unanticipated encounters with something in nature (including, of course, human nature) that sets one back on one's heels, drops the jaw, sends chills up the spine. I use clichés, but the experiences are anything but clichés. What makes them special is the way they break through and illuminate what Woolf calls "the grey cotton wool" of everyday experience.

Sylvia Plath describes these rare and precious encounters in her poem "Black Rook in Rainy Weather." "Spasmodic tricks of radiance," she calls them. A "celestial burning" that takes possession of an ordinary object, setting the sight on fire. A wet black rook, arranging and rearranging its feathers in the rain: Something utterly ordinary that suddenly flares out as miraculous.

We are not talking about rooks alone, of course. We are talking about the self in interaction with the world. The flare flows both ways. The rook is illuminated by mind. The mind is set afire by rook. Don't go to psychologists or neurologists to explain what is happening; they are a long way yet from understanding. Go to the poets and mystics, who can't explain but do describe. "Hallowing an interval otherwise inconsequent," says Plath. And so it is that we walk blind and deaf through a world that by and large seems commonplace, inconsequent, and mute, whereas in fact even the most ordinary thing - a leaf, a cloud, a face - is miracle enough to exhaust our analytic powers, waiting, hoping, for the touch of grace, the breaking through.

I am aware that the two writers I have quoted, Woolf and Plath, were ultimately overwhelmed by the "dull, ruinous landscape." A particular sensitivity to the contrast between light and dark was surely part of their genius; it would seem that their savage gods demanded the ultimate sacrifice as the price of their Promethean gifts. As for the rest of us, we live without their depths of darkness, but also with the minor lights, those treasured moments of being when we are gifted with the understanding that the apparently ordinary is blindingly special.”

- http://blog.sciencemusings.com/

Musical Interlude: Gnomusy, "Shadows in the Wood"

Gnomusy, "Shadows in the Wood"

"The Odds Are Stacked Against Us..."

"Our world is not safe. It is a toxic swamp populated by predators and parasites. The odds are stacked against us from the moment of conception. We survive only because we fight the elements, hunger, disease, each other. And, although civilization promises us safe harbor, that promise is a fairy tale. Only the storm is real. It comes for each of us. And we cannot win. We can only choose how we will suffer our defeat. We can meekly take our beatings, and die like lemmings, finding solace in the belief that we shall one day inherit the earth. Or, we can plunge into the chaos with eyes wide open, taking comfort instead from the bruises, scars, and broken bones which prove that we fought to live and die as gods."

 - J.K. Franko, "Life for Life"

"The worst part is wondering how you'll find the strength tomorrow to go on doing what you did today and have been doing for much too long, where you'll find the strength for all that stupid running around, those projects that come to nothing, those attempts to escape from crushing necessity, which always founder and serve only to convince you one more time that destiny is implacable, that every night will find you down and out, crushed by the dread of more and more sordid and insecure tomorrows. And maybe it's treacherous old age coming on, threatening the worst. Not much music left inside us for life to dance to. Our youth has gone to the ends of the earth to die in the silence of the truth. And where, I ask you, can a man escape to, when he hasn't enough madness left inside him? The truth is an endless death agony. The truth is death. You have to choose: death or lies. I've never been able to kill myself."

-  Louis-Ferdinand Celineo

"Dare..."