From an Upper Floor

I spent two days of non stop rereading Clan of the Cave Bear by Jean Auel recently. When the book first came out it did not have the effect on me that rereading did.  I came away from it this time as I did with Doris Lessing’s Shikasta series, that everything in life has to be taught; every emotion, every concept, every step in thinking.

I had to dismiss the erroneous thought I didn’t know I carried which was a stumbling block to further understanding,  that everyone is the same.

The only reason being to think differently was a matter of will; either we didn’t care to think or were too lazy and wanted to have fun.  Never giving space to  culture, or genetic historical anguish or even environment and climate with its impoverished elements, all effecting growth.

A democracy states that all have a fair chance to succeed.  But even children know when  playmates have more toys or books than they have.  So starting out equal is not so.

One realizes then that thought processes are different.  We come from homes and worlds that are different, not necessarily better, just diverse.  The Clan book points this out clearly.

Creb, the Mogur, or shaman comes to understand that Ayla, the young girl rescued because of climate calamity, was able to conceptualize and learn his tribe’s language and behavior because her brain was open in ways his was not, to learn hers.

I felt his difficulty concluding this.  New knowledge must rearrange all preconceived thought and demands work. One’s entire belief system, philosophy, must be reconsidered in new light.

His people had hammered through hundreds of generations ways to survive in mostly bleak conditions while Ayla’s had come from more conducive conditions to allow growth and less isolation.  Her abilities were evident and she aroused jealousy.

Our biographies begin as tribal groups and wandered the world looking for fertile ground.  Tribes merged often when settling with those of similar habits.  Evolution opened areas in lives when members mated joining differences in cultures.

Often the migration of aggressive tribes caused conflict while many merged in peaceful affiliations.  When isolated there were incestuous unions and less growth and change.  Much energy was devoted simply to survival.

As time passed their concern was to keep what was known.  Discouraged was acceptance of those who were different to continue for centuries we know as discrimination.

From early man to the present, from wandering tribes to modern civilization, evolution stagnates when isolation is adopted.  It prevents man’s progress to healing ancestor’s anguish that continually festers.

It is senseless to celebrate lives of peacemakers of countless worlds then prevents the merging of those worlds that could elevate human behavior.  Think on it, then vote.

By My Heart’s Authority . .

It was after our David left this Earth that I went back to classes at the University.  I was taking a class in English Lit when the professor and I were in a discussion  about religion and he said that no doubt religion was a great help to me during this time.

I told him I was not a member of any and he was aghast.  But how,  he asked,  with no religion, do you know what is right and what is wrong?

This time I was thunderstruck.  I, an adult, had had three children and was the parent on premises and in charge of many commitments at that time.  I was the authority on right and wrong and ethical premises since the age of reason.

I knew, without being told by anyone,  by my thoughts and reasoning and a heart whose veracity I did not question what I should and should not do.  (Some simply call it conscience.)

I did not need  those in high places whose power was mantled onto them by those whose authority has always been questioned and compromised.  Recent events have confirmed this.

I knew he was taken back.  Horrified would be the term.  And I too, wondered how one gets to tenure in such an institution of learning without conviction and assurance in one’s ability to meet life with maturity and lead the young to knowledge and confidence in judgment.

I trusted that to learn must also include the freedom to ask questions and search out what one doubted and did not understand.  What better surroundings than the classroom to catch the struggling neophyte safely?

I was told by my Mentor not to delve deeper than one can muster out.  My response after a lifetime of falling deep into the pits was to dig down as far as my mind questions.  How deep only I know when my head butts bottom.

And then I dig out,  with fingers and teeth if I must, to get a toe hold to climb out.  And then to climb higher and higher until one crashes the gates of heaven,  if one must.

If not, then it is all hope and conjecture and one continues to pay for a keeper.  Religions call it tithing.  Under the cloud of not knowing anything for sure.  And Dante’s Inferno is for real NOW.

Photo by Jon Katz
(Shekhina–Hebrew female counterpart of God)

The Who Of a Mystic . . .

Daddy, daddy don’t hit him! He is my brother!  I screamed and my father  was confused because he was protecting my life and my brother was out to kill me.  I was the younger sister who craved the balsam to squash with my teeth and his was the dream of building the perfect plane model.

I was the cause of the trouble and their emotions landed in my stomach as the anger of my father whose peace was disturbed and the frustration of my brother whose dreams were shattered.

My own emotions collided with theirs.  I was possibly 9 years old but already handicapped by a stomach that was a pit stop for the emotions of our whole family of ten.  24/7. . .

Born into this world with a foot still in the world I left is not easy.  It leaves one vulnerable from birth unto the grave.  Can one be a mystic in a secular world?  A mystic is someone who takes the essential elements from religions and the highest principles they claim from other worlds and tries to make them work where they are.

Children automatically do this. When thrust into a family who are simply versed in the secular and orthodox religions, is at best a trial.  At its most difficult,  puts one in a place where one is different but for unknown reasons.  Just different.  Not special, not spared, just forced to participate to be like everyone else.

And never knowing why one feels outside the circle, sees and hears what others do not, learning early to be careful with speech, never sharing one’s thoughts for fear of ridicule.  I ran home from kindergarten as fast as I could because hearing sirens I thought my house was burning and my mother dead; somehow feeling responsible.

Being born with memory puts one on the defensive early.  In religion class I told the priest what I knew.  And it was not what he was teaching.  My head spoke in languages with those I held to be mentors from an ancient past.

Into adulthood I was appalled by the actions and words of those held in great repute.  Yet needing to be sure of being an anchor to those I was committed to.  It is possible as I chalk off another year in my dotage,  I say it is possible to be a mystic in a secular world, but not without peril.

That I crashed in my third decade in the midst of life too busy for composure, was simplified by the psychiatrist saying ‘I don’t know how you have managed so well for so long.’

Life holds sounds more than the average person hears.  Life holds sights more than the average person sees.  There are more levels of everything evident than what daily occurs to people.  One cannot imagine what these words imply.  What more?

I try to explain but words fail.  Just as I do not understand why what is evident to me is not so to everyone.  I know this only because I have lived it and have had years of mental therapy.  The medical conclusions, ‘you’re different.’

I was happily raking leaves off a neighbor’s lawn because they were busy with family when another neighbor approached asking, ‘you doing this for fun or money?’  ‘For love’ I said.  Puzzled, she said ‘you are so different than others, you know.’  Lacking the courage to hear her reasons,  I did not ask why.

Life would have been simpler if I had parents educated in the deeper aspects of life.  Immigrants worried about bread on the table.  What we do is what we can do.  I took my commitments seriously and books were best friends.

I am, I guess, an example of someone living to old age with knowledge, not faith,  of life ongoing and other worlds.  The psychiatrists called me mystic when I did not know the meaning of the word.

Not easy, but unacceptable would be anything else.

When one desires to lead as an example one’s peers,  one assumes a countenance of leadership.  One has studied and served in various capacities throughout one’s life to ably serve fellowman so that they will be free to progress in whatever area they require.

One does not play games with futures of people  and have them guessing on whether they as a country or as a world will survive.  Dealing with Nature as we know is enough of a challenge.  One does not take their time from the tasks of growth and progress which they require to aspire to their human potential.

Leaders free people of the task of worrying what government does that is detrimental to their well being.

This is the point of a democracy.  We elect officials to do what is best within laws which we voted  for and had instituted for the well being of all.

To prevent accidents at corners we instituted laws and lights to prevent chaos.  We have stop and go lights telling us when to proceed and when not.  We do not make a left turn after three p.m.  because this is what we know and this we learned when we became adults to drive.

And when we break the law we are hailed to stop and the local gendarme is a once classmate of your sons and is as embarrassed to arrest as you are to be arrested.

We hire lawyers to litigate,  congress to legislate and have the courage to make decisions not based on their reelection but based on their legal knowledge of the constitution which we had instituted as a protection of the people living in this democracy.  We hope that the people we put in offices and pay our taxes for their livelihood will consider the importance and responsibility connected with the work and position.

We do not want them to bully or be bullied, nor take advantage or think they are above the law.  In other words,  we want them to be as good as we try to be and better on the whole than what we think we are.  That said,  we don’t want to point the finger at their flaws and say they buffalo us.

We don’t want their dark sides evident in daily dealings with our futures.  We don’t want to point out that they are lacking courage,  lacking truth and decency, lacking the backbone to say this is wrong and hurtful when we  are telling them that we cannot believe them.

We don’t want speaking with forked tongues nor speaking out of both sides of their mouths.  We don’t want opinions changing because of a tweet or some slight by some talking head on the master screen that screeches day and night someone’s wind that smells to high heaven.

What we want are grown ups that have given careful thought, careful and studious thought to matters at hand by a bevy of cultures that are diverse in this world and have a validity of presence due all people.  We expect a courtesy of behavior giving also studious comportment to all people because  they are deserving of it simply because they are human.

This is too much to ask?  I ask you is it too much we would ask of a parent of a young child they had given birth to?  We would be dealing out in measure that which is courteous and loving because we are a caring people.  We would be teaching our children these manners because they in turn will mete out what they have been taught as they go out the front door.

This is progress and what we as people are concerned about.  We expect it of our leaders so that all humankind will progress and we as an example to all worlds will not be ashamed.  That seems to be a lost emotion in these times and embarrassment as a word for behavior seems also to be lost.

The only excuse offered by those committing these behaviors is the old cliché of being only human.  Well the divine also resides in us and we give a bad name to our divinity.

Of course the problem with pointing the finger at flaws of those we elect to govern is that the thumb points at us revealing our flaws in duplicate.  We can identify them because we can relate.  So the question is when are we going to grow up?

All of us have work cut out for us.  To educate ourselves and make ourselves well versed in what we expect others to do, to behave, to treat with courtesy, honor and trust that we would like.  We are all wounded with the arrows from our own bows.

We would like to hide our own faults and think only we know of them.  I heard with unbelief an elder say that people only know what we let them know.  If I know something and have seen it, then someone around the corner has taken a picture of it and the bird in the tree has carried the words and has sung them down the street and it is now common knowledge.

My god has spoken to your god and the gods’ network is as volatile and furious as the old boys’ network.  So consider that we are participants in both visible and invisible worlds.  Take a quantum leap because

we are common knowledge from the beginning.