Everything Must Change

Change alone is eternal, perpetual, immortal. ~ Arthur Schopenhauer

Who looks outside, dreams, who looks inside, awakes ~ Carl Jung

 We measure the passing time in many ways, with religious festivals and national holidays, days of remembrance to commemorate historical events, personal anniversaries that mark relationships and birthdays and by revolutions of the earth in the course of its travels around the sun and through the vast cosmos of stars to create the days and the seasons. Some say we are living in the Age of Aquarius, a time characterised by a consolidation of power by those unconcerned with the true spirit of love. As we shift from the house of Aquarius into Pisces in this other indicator of the movement of time, I ask myself whether the changes we are witnessing today symbolize a grand shift in thinking, or simply more of the same.

Life belongs to the living, and he who lives must be prepared for changes.

~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

And in the end, it's not the years in your life that count. It's the life in your years.

~ Abraham Lincoln

If we don't change, we don't grow. If we don't grow, we aren't really living.
Gail Sheehy (author of the excellent ‘Passages’)

I’ve witnessed the countless festivals of various cultures in many nations, from the bizarre and somewhat frightening Good Friday celebrations in Granada, where widows carry candles in remembrance of the nights of mourning for the Christ. From Bayram sacrifices in Istanbul to Independence Day fireworks in America’s capital to Hogmanay in Scotland and the devilishly inspired Feast of Saint Antoni in Mallorca, Christmas in France, New Year’s Eve in Tunisia, Toronto, London or China, people light candles or lanterns to celebrate special days.

It is not more surprising to be born twice than once; everything in nature is resurrection ~ Voltaire

Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.

~ Leo Tolstoy

Never believe that a few caring people can't change the world. For, indeed, that's all who ever have. ~ Margaret Mead

All that is true, by whomsoever it has been said has its origin in the Spirit.
~ Thomas Aquinas

We can be who we want to be in this brave new world of the global village, as ethnicity becomes a selective method of altering identity and technology insinuates its way into every aspect of our lives. Birthdays come and birthdays go but the process of change is inevitable and continual.

From our birthday, until we die, is but the winking of an eye.

~ William Butler Yeats

As I count the birthdays that have passed, I look forward to each coming day as a new experience of a wonderful life that has given me opportunities to live in the knowledge of a revolution of spirit that can transform this world in the twinkling of an eye. In a continuously changing humanity the ability to adapt is a positive trait that enables permanence of character when all around us is in chaos. I have learned that age is not only a chronological number and to be confused with the feelings one has about life; I feel younger today than I did several years ago, and that is about making life choices that make us happy and not notches on a calendar.

I thank my lucky stars, regardless of which cosmological or astrological sign they emanate from, to be blessed in the nature of being while I am yet becoming. Continuity and process are like reason and faith – they need each other to maintain the equilibrium of spirit.

Consider that it isn’t a single day or event that changes us, it is we who choose to make the changes everyday that improve life. So, despite the tribulations of this passing age, make a wish and blow out the birthday candles, look to the true light in a spirit of love, and in concert with one another we can try to ensure everything will change toward a brighter future .. for all people.

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Children of the Rising

.. the revolution is being televised ..

We must become the change we want to see in the world. ~ Mohandas Gandhi

It’s funny what happens when we get to a point in life where we realise we have outlived our guiding lights. I don’t believe in ‘heroes’, probably because I have had to be one myself occasionally – to my children when they were young and in my own life when facing challenges and situations I never knew I would have to encounter. However, people we regard with respect, those we looked to for their opinion or whose lives reflect a piece of what we hold true still influence our thoughts and perhaps even the path we follow.

Jesus, John Lennon and Jack Kerouac all died younger than I have now become. What do we do when those to whom we looked for direction haven’t come as far as we have? Do we look back in hesitation, or strive on regardless? I blaze my own trail; yet often stumble in this dark wood of existence – echoes of Dante, but where is Beatrice when she is needed? Who is Beatrice, a bright angel sent to protect and lead, a tangible presence – the soul of an honest woman trusted by the gods, or perhaps the ethereal muse of our own spirit conjured up in times of liminal stress to remind us of our purpose and goals?

Change is the law of life. Those who look only to the past or present are certain to miss the future. ~ John F. Kennedy

Once the path that was trodden before us by such luminaries as those quoted here no longer reveals footprints of the vanguard, from where do we draw courage to continue – alone and confused, perhaps even frightened by the unknown?

When we look around the world today, often led by the media whose purpose frequently seems obscured by and interwoven with the very events they presume to be reporting on, we see revolutions in the streets of once impenetrable societies.
 

Egypt, Tunisia and other near East nations are currently undergoing upheavals in ways thought impossible or at least unlikely just a few years ago. People in other nations are rising in opposition to the greedy and decrepit old systems that oppress and preserve distinctions to maintain a stranglehold of wealth and status on the ordinary people of this earth we all share. What is remarkable and beautiful about these ‘revolutions’ is their general peacefulness. Until the forces resisting change appeared, led by the real opposition – those who seek to maintain power, there had been only demonstration of non-violent means. Most people are simply standing their ground – demanding action through passive means, and isn’t that phenomenal and remarkable for its propinquity and courage?

Life is either a daring adventure or nothing. To keep our faces toward change and behave like free spirits in the presence of fate is strength undefeatable.

~ Helen Keller

In what way are these social demands being directed? Networks form through methods unavailable a few years ago – social media and the internet are now valuable access points for so many, and yet people have always managed to gather and press for change when turning points in history have overwhelmed enough people. The Egyptian government shut down web servers and mobile phone carriers, yet still the people are rising - in suggestion of a parallel with common myth of the ‘hundredth monkey’ 'phenomenon' – when enough people have reached the point of frustration with their situation the movement toward transformation becomes inevitable.
 



As an anthropologist I can readily accept that sociological enterprise is the point where revolution can be achieved, however as a man of independent mind, I believe in praxis. What are words without action?

Imagine all the people living life in peace. You may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one. I hope someday you'll join us, and the world will be as one. 

~ John Lennon
 

I grew up in America at a time when the Jungian collective conscious was pressing these values into we children who lived in hope for a better tomorrow - after all the Vietnam war was raging nightly on the news and the latest technology was beaming images from the moon to our living rooms. Many of my teachers were students of the 60s – perhaps their values of free spiritedness and revolution by peaceful protest, discourse and the tension of personal transformation rubbed off, or maybe these thoughts arise within me, a result of independent thinking processes brought about by personal experience and an informed wisdom of history.

 

Listening to Radio 4 or NPR or watching BBC, Al Jazeera, PBS or any so-called alternative news sources can be informative and we can become emotionally involved or engaged in the stories that challenge our thinking and presumptions about the people who are out there ‘making the news happen’. But, are they just another sedative for the masses?

Great things are not accomplished by those who yield to trends and fashion and popular opinion." ~ Jack Kerouac

Are these methods of instruction and the discourse and debate that seems so lively and necessary to change the entrenched institutions that devalue humanity simply another way to subjugate the meek and override the weak? ‘If we are talking we aren’t fighting’ goes the old saying, but if we are so dependent on the words of others to console and confirm our own troubled thoughts, then we are just another bystander – passing on the other side of the road to avoid conflict or involvement that forces taking sides in controversial situations.

A state without the means of some change is without the means of its conservation. ~ Edmund Burke

These outlets provide recognition of the world’s ills and look to address the faults, but they remove us from responsibility. Are they not just another ‘reality show’ served up in the guise of educated discourse for those with higher ambition and reasoning skills? The need for action dissipates in light of the ‘words and conversation’ that come to us as wisdom. Is it merely junk food for consumers of finer wines? And who are we as people without action?

Praxis is essential to spiritual growth, and spirit drives the revolution. The word in Greek for spirit, psyche, is related to mind – the two are an interlinked and interdependent source of inspiration (synonomous as the mediating force between body and soul - or regarded as the principle of life - breath); mind is spirit and we use our minds to think outside the frame of the purely material existence that is used as anaesthetic to repress imagination and truth.

There can't be any large-scale revolution until there's a personal revolution, on an individual level. It's got to happen inside first. ~ Jim Morrison

I watch the news, though often think I shouldn’t bother for I usually find it more depressing than enlightening, and wonder at the stupidity of man. Yes, man as in men. How dare these mullahs and backward jerks in Iran and Nigeria and other repressive places sentence women to the ancient punishment of stoning for the so-called crime of expressing their love for another in a sexual manner? Who are they to judge the heart?

Adapt or perish, now as ever, is Nature's inexorable imperative.
~ H.G. Wells
  

Two thousand years ago, when asked to pass his judgement on a similar situation the Christ said, ‘let he who is without sin throw the first stone’. Yet these fools still have yet to learn. Whoever you believe said it first, the point is it was actually written and read almost 2000 years ago and these illiterate asses have yet to understand the point, and are still wielding assumed authority over other people.

Iran has banned the Valentine’s Day celebration of personal love as a Western attempt to subvert Islamic values. Fools! As the ordinary Muslim tries to express a free and independent choice of mate selection, there are always some dirty old men peering over their shoulders to point an accusatory finger – to try to suppress the beautiful spirit of love by suggesting it is a bad or even unclean act. Fools! These are the evil ones – and the world must address this issue – it seems so simple on the surface, but underlying this nastiness is a deeper more tyrannical authoritarian attempt to drag humanity into a dark age of ignorance.

Love is something strong .. direct action. ~ Martin Luther King Jr

It isn’t only in political regimes such as that in Iran. Governments learned a long time ago to provide ‘bread and circuses’ and that is what they are giving the workers of the world – imported ethnicity in the form of specialty pasta sauces, and satellite television showing documentaries on how to save the planet, and ‘reality’ shows that numb the mind with their ever more generic music and bland personalities – with little regard for the irony of the means of production or dissemination of this information. So, the poor get poorer in their imitation of an improved status that masks ignorance. Witness all the Jade Goody and Katie Price wannabes of the ‘real world’ of television fame.

 

The spirit of democracy is not a mechanical thing to be adjusted by abolition of forms. It requires change of heart. ~ Mohandas Gandhi
 

Who has not seen the bankers and their politician friends squeeze the life and spirit from so many ordinary people in the West? Who has not witnessed the assassinations of so many of the ‘heroes’ of our age? Are those in other better-fed nations so apathetic as to allow their own lifestyles to suffer with barely a hint of a whimper? Or, will it take a few more acts of vandalism against the human spirit?

At what point will the pot boil over? How many will lose their houses, their jobs, their savings, even their lives, before people finally demand change – not just on a personal or financial level – but a transformation of the system that supports a reserved place for some and circumstantial poverty for others.

A revolution is needed - a revolution of spirit. In this swirling bubble of ideas even Lennon and Jesus get absorbed in the shifting landscape and become silenced martyrs utilised to justify the struggle to promote a diversity of thought. As free thinkers we can't allow the submersion of creativity in the slippery haze of vague opinion.

If everyone demanded peace instead of another television set, then there'd be peace. ~ John Lennon

Diversity is good, but it is also divisive. We all think we are unique and expressive of creativity, and want to be - but are we simply inside the bubble looking out through the swirling texture with a slightly altered vision of whom we think we are? We must gather together to overcome these evil forces that are hanging on to old methods of authority in the face of a changing paradigm. Are we being increasingly oppressed through consumption of ignorance and constantly replaceable material goods? The perspective is shifting - who will decide how you view the world?

All meaningful and lasting change starts first in your imagination and then works its way out. Imagination is more important than knowledge. ~ Albert Einstein

 

Whether people desire change for economic reasons, for a slight modification of political thought, for the need to grow in what is a socially connected interactive world or personal spiritual development is actually irrelevant. What is important is the recognition that we are no longer chained to the fruitless ideologies of the past. Our futures are linked with people the world over and it is up to each of us as individuals, as part of the global collective, to realise that this revolution is an uprising of mind over matter – so, get off your couch – quit sitting like a drone in front of the telly watching artificial reality shows and be a part of this wonderful movement of life.

Catch the spirit, see the spark of freedom in another’s eyes, look to the future, share this advent of a new day, be your own hero -or be left behind wondering where all the heroes have gone.

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Burns Baby Burns

Aye, it was a braw bricht moon licht nicht thon nicht.

On the birthday of one of the world’s most celebrated poets, Robert Burns, or Rabbie to his friends, people gather in almost every nation to deliver tribute to the Scottish Bard’s verses, sing songs in homage to well-deserved reputation, and of course, partake of the haggis and whiskey. Whether you’re in Scotland, the USA, Spain, Singapore or Turkey, “wherever ye may roam into the wild or the tame, the Bard he does remind us of the place we all call hame”.

On the eve of the commemoration I was invited to ‘Selma’s Diner’ to entertain the assembled masses with a performance of Burns’ poetry, and was honoured to slip into brogue and curl my tongue around the rolling Rs for a personally inspired Anglo-American interpretation of several of his best-loved pieces.

With a mother from the most violent wee town in the west

Or Greenock as they call it

And a father from Stirling where Wallace fought his battles

I lay claim to all his honour

So when you hear me speak of the dales

And reminisce in my blathering blether

Remember that tho’ to chill the bones it's blowin' gales

The icy rain does fall as sleet

And we dine most nights on simple stew

In my soul and through my blood

Scotland forever will run true.

KW

Ross, in traditional dress, played a technically perfect version of Scotland the Brave on the bagpipes. Then Jacqui addressed the haggis with a rendition of Burns’ renowned poem before stabbing the mighty belly of the timorous wee beastie. It was a fabulous night that continued ‘til the wee hours with much revelry and hearty humour.

It is a shame that Rabbie is generally only recited on the occasion of his birthday, but then again, what man wishes to be reminded of his passing age more than once a year.

The highlands are astonishingly beautiful at this time of year, with the mist gathering along the hillsides and thistle grazing the legs of intrepid explorers to the upper reaches. Hiking through the glens and into the lush purple hills, breathing the brisk fresh air and scent of heather is a pleasure all should experience. It is one of the simple joys that will stay in the mind and gladden the cockles of the heart for all time.

Honest wealth is in the heart

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder

Follow the light in the eye

That window to the soul

For how far can real beauty go

If one’s vision of life began

By looking to the spirit

Rich as a deep blue sea

And recognise within that heart

The true essence of each man

KW

I never tire of the scenery in Scotland, and were it not for the inclement climate would consider living there forever – but then again, were it not for the weather t’would no doubt be a mighty crowded place.

My empathy with the struggle for liberty in life is amongst the honest and friendly people who see rogues amongst us stealing the rightful place of noble ambition and watch in tired bemusement as titles and lands are handed out as honours for fools and slaves to the wicked. As my family motto, as engraved on the crest exclaims: Pro Libertate. A man is nought if not free. Liberty has been hard gained for so many, yet it is a constant battle against those who would oppress, to maintain that cause for liberty of thought and expression in this world today - just watch the news, as so many are still attempting to attain that right (for a right it is). In these difficult economic times when the material riches of this world that twinkle as so much tinsel are held aloft in false esteem by brigands and pompous pretenders as if in their insecurity of mind they must lord it over the poor and decent, then, understand good people, as Rabbie said:

You see yon ca’d a’ lord who struts and stares an a’ that

Though hundreds worship at this word

He’s but a coof for a’ that

For a’ that an’ a’ that

His riband his star an’ a’ that

The man o’ independent mind looks and laughs at a’ that.

On the Balearic Islands and the turquoise coast of the Aegean, over the past year I have wandered into ecstasy easily as a phantom to discover the meaning of life. I want so little more from life than to ramble along the beaches of this beautiful world in union with the sun, eat hamely fayre and share honest company with others who too dare to be free. With peace of mind to sleep beneath a starry sky beside a true love of gentle spirit and warm persuasion I feel as wealthy and welcome as the princes who once trod these distant and often mysterious lands.

Interestingly, Scottish beaches – especially those in the far north, are often of the purest white sand and dotted with palm trees due to the Gulf Stream waters that bring a little bit of the tropics to the high latitudes and create the illusion of warmth along the windswept coast of these magnificent Western Isles.

Only the sparkling cerulean seas and lochs that attract visitors from near and far to view the magnificent panoramic vistas match the clear blue skies of this magical land. Oh, to be in bonnie Scotland when my love, like a red red rose in the winter, is so very far from me.

Gie fools their silks and knaves their wine

A man’s a man for a’ that ..

The honest man tho’ e’er sae poor

Is king o’ men for a’ that

.. let us pray that come it may

(as come it will for a’ that)

That sense and worth o’er the earth

Shall bear the gree an a’ that

For a’ that an’ a’ that

It’s coming yet for a’ that

That man to man the world o’er

Shall brothers be for a’ that

Robert Burns

I am now looking forward to the first blossoms of spring, but enjoying the winter sunshine that keeps the spirit youthful and character strong. As I continue the adventure, learning and growing, friends around this world have given me reason to believe that a brighter day is dawning. Though I despair for the earth, I have faith in the spirit. While I see a bleak future for this world as it is going, individually I have hope in a better tomorrow.

So in raising a glass to toast the Scottish Bard, here’s to health and happiness wherever your head does lay, optimism is a better way to think it keeps the spirit bright, for only in this brief life can we expect such hardship and more often work than play.

*     *     *

Read one of my Scottish dialect poems here. You can learn more about Robert Burns here, and this is Scotland's official tourist site. Thanks to Scott for the pic.

On Kerouac

Little ditty ‘bout Jack and Dean ..

Over the course of a continuing lifetime I have taken many trips, across nations and continents, to the tops of mountains and through vast lowland swamps, traversing oceans and deserts, down back alleys of sprawling cities at night and gravel strewn country lanes into cloistered villages far removed from the hustle and bustle of the frantic and of course, with the initial guidance of teachers and shamans, into the deepest recesses of my own mind. Carlos Castaneda, Voltaire, the Odyssey and the Iliad, Johnny Quest, Sinbad and Dorothy have all been inspirational, but never have I sat more frequently with groups of friends around the world discussing the ramifications of a classic novel of adventure and discovery than that of ‘On The Road’ by the famous beat-generation writer Jack Kerouac.

The anticipation of the journey is often more exciting than the arrival. I have always felt most free and cognisant of spirit when ‘on the road’. Many of us are simply born with that desire to keep moving and exploring the world and our selves as active participants within it. As I wrote in a poem, with an obvious aside reference to Kerouac, ‘.. the memory of forgotten promises reminding me of Dharma bums and hobo days, it’s always easier for the one who goes than for the one who stays ..’

When Jack Kerouac published ‘On The Road’ it was said he began the “greening of America”. That is, he pulled the world that had been existing in black and white, a model of society defined and accepted by the majority, with its shades of grey disguising intention in a cinematic fusion of outward perception into an era where colour and the revelation of awareness of self could blossom into a new age of freedom and introspective purpose focused on locating the 'I'.

It was the first time ideas of self and collective consciousness of identity outside restrictive group norms had come into being on such a scale. Post World War Two America was searching and questioning and Jack opened the doors to perception through reinventing the classic quest story for the modern middle classes.

Unlike so many tales of adventure, the archetypal hunt for fortune or glory with good and evil outlined in caricature, the characters in Kerouac’s story in a morally vague period of liminal transition, are on an expedition to find themselves; not something without but something within. In this vision of America, as it existed then, there is greater wonder in learning who one is and in rejecting a past that has for all intents decayed along with the anachronistic opinions of ‘anyone over thirty’. The world, post war, has changed, and the old paradigm no longer addresses the concerns of contemporary youth.

Kerouac attempts to redefine culture beyond the familiar frontiers of geographic territory whilst utilising the physical trip across that seemingly endless country as a setting, for California now marks the edge of the map, toward a search for the meaning of personal existence in this new and complex age of information and its constantly shifting transient society of individuals. Our protagonist, a veiled Kerouac himself, voyages through time and space meeting others who reveal the secrets of life through their own narratives of the journey to realisation; a new consciousness for a new age.

During the account of this rambling and often hectic jaunt back and forth across America Kerouac introduces various characters, each struggling to reconcile their here and now with a troubled past that no longer holds a truth for the future. For those who have read ‘On The Road’ it becomes obvious that the most poignant and lasting of these often-tragic figures is his frequent companion, the ‘crazy’ Dean Moriarty.

Alas, poor Dean Moriarty. To be thought insane or sane would in and of itself as definition deny the revelation of the character who stood outside convention – for only through the yes of the non-insane is the determination of the state of mind by which we measure such things. Is insanity an arbitrary notion? I think not.

Schizophrenia is one of the culturally manifest mental illnesses that have been shown to have universally applicable criteria (manifests itself culturally but with recurring features cutting across lines of acceptable social interaction and recognised norms of believability), and Dean doesn’t exhibit those distinguishing attributes. Yes, that dividing line may be tenuous at times and run down the centre of the road as a median we hesitate to cross yet edge along running our wheels close to the fringe of the acceptable, however what separates those who would veer to the other side from those who resist the urge is the measure of sanity.

The line is a gauge of the fragmented self and as broken hearts and minds in a disjointed world we vacillate through the gaps as the need to conform presses against the desire to follow instinct.

Dean represents both the past and the inner child. At the end of the book he stands amongst his associates, bandaged thumb protruding as a mark of ugly challenge – the iconic symbol of the perpetual hitchhiker, in blatant refusal to grow up when Sal and his friends are ‘settling down’ and coming together as suburban couples with the ordinary dreams of jobs and homes. With his dirty t-shirt and cackling laughter he is an unsightly reminder of the pain and suffering each has endured ‘on the road’ to coming of age in the new world.

As friends and compatriats they have travelled this highway of grief and are ready to accept the conformity each successive generation has faced, while Dean has yet to leave the anguish behind and see the future as one of adult requirements to reshape society in an original vision of hopefulness. Much to their discomfort, Dean is still trapped in that boxcar of the dark chilly night bouncing through the endless prairie of that old and depressive dustbowl heartland.

The suggestion of distance as miles travelled and space as the distance between places are themselves fluid concepts and subject to interpretation, or with the intention of being more accurate here, distance becomes time. The Lakota Sioux, for example, measure distance as the time it takes to travel from one place to another, that is, one does not say ‘my house is 5 miles away’ but rather ‘my house is an hour from here’. However, we also perceive distance as the space between events in our lives (we’ve come a long way since then .. etc) and measure that by what we have learned or how we have grown from each experience, or perhaps even how we have become ‘distant’ from ourselves and others as we lived in a remembered past.

This harks back (so to speak) to Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland adventure, in that the protagonist finally returns to the upper world of manners and accountability after her hallucinatory experience filled with a new awareness of self, ready to meet those who dispute her progress in becoming a woman of her age (and/or time).

She recognises the need for change and lets go of childish desires while holding fast to imagination as a source of inspiration to her self, the creative play in her mind suggesting it is possible to have ‘sane’ thoughts beyond the norm and yet integrate them into personality that is still within the realm of acceptability – as “all the best people do”.

Dean, however, is not the fresh idea of change and integrated composite self, but rather the moribund form of the lost innocence of youth. Sal is touched, yes, by the sentiment of Dean’s entrance, but he is also saddened by the inability of Dean to reinvent the adventure – the quest must continually evolve, or that which we seek is no longer meaningful. By trying to stay the same, in continuing to live as he always had, Dean had lost the plot; for him the story was at an end.

Change is an essential aspect of the journey and Dean did not change with time, he didn’t grow and learn. This is Dean’s insanity, the inability to amalgamate his past with his present, his repetition without restructuring.

Constantly reliving his disappointments he was swallowed by the misery of his childhood and was forever sentenced to repeating the failures of his past. We observe in Dean the inability to grapple squarely with responsibility and mature resolution of parental flaws, and he remains the burden of truth and the image of regret for those who cannot move forward to realisation of the unified self.

The road beckons for all of us, for the road is itself a metaphor for life, with the point on the horizon where we finally arrive being that state of becoming a complex yet complete person for whom the adventure continues but the quest is variable.

Many times I have, along with friends, followed the whim of adventure; rolling along highways and back roads, discovering truths of existence and filling our heads with multicoloured dreams. I have journeyed near and far and I continue the quest today – still seeking resolution of freedom and independence with the security and comfort of knowledge of self.

However, I no longer seek me, as I am quite aware of who I am, rather I seek others – those like minded individuals who share the road as fellow travellers in life, and the exploration of space itself – the places I encounter as landmarks on the way. For where will our thoughts take us if not towards a union of spirit, the spirit of discovery – of the past and the future?

The present is a fleeting moment of existence, whereas who we have been and who we are becoming are the sincerest revelations of self. I find myself reflected in the eyes of others, on the road that forever winds and twists through the experiences of a spirited life into the heart of a new day.

I look within my own mind as the thoughts of those who have gone before are reconfigured to define my age and time for an empathetic world yet to be, and I know this path is for me the best of all possible roads.

*     *     *