Deer Medicine

Early this morning. Glad to have new break discs and front-end alignment as I came upon the most beautiful buck in the middle of the road. Less than 15 feet apart, we stared eye to eye for over 10 seconds before he turned and ran away. So let's see what the deer medicine is:

Woodland dreams of intuition come with the graceful deer. I greet you, brothers of the forest. Your gift of magic will brighten my life. Transformation will come to me. Like you, I stand listening to the drum beat of life, Poised to follow my guiding spirits. Gentleness and Innocence

Deer teaches us to use the power of gentleness to touch the hearts and minds of
wounded beings who are in our lives.

Don't push towards change in others, rather gently nudge them in right direction
with the love that comes from a Deer totem.

When a Deer totem shows up in your life, a new innocence and freshness is about to be awakened. There is going to be a gentle lure of new adventures. There will be an opportunity
to express the gentle love that will open new doors for you.

This afternoon after a visit to the hospital for pre-op, Buck, my partner and I, stopped at Lake Greenwood. For just a few minutes soaking in the beauty of the water and the fall colors. Yum.


me in the dEEr

Busheleon talk*

Some of the lastest from dear leader ... the president has called [for] a "new era of cooperation," Bush is already looking for areas of common ground with Democrats.

So why was it that he was the most uncooperative president up till now? Puhleeze!

There are just way too many serious problems that have been created by this man and his administration, (Lies about why we went to war, outing of CIA agent, Valerie Plame, Secret meetings with oil execs, Constituional threats, like the discarding of FISA, incompetence like Katrina), the list goes on and on and some that were narrowly avoided(Social Security Reform, for one). But now we have Bush saying in the face of defeat, "new era of cooperation" like he thought of it.


GET REAL.

Would I condemn him? No. I don't condemn anyone. I forgive. But that is not to say that we should disregard laws of the land. We must bring truth to light or suffer the consequences of further atrocities in the future. If laws have been broken, we need to hold people who took on responsibility responsible. No one has power, but responsibility, yes. The people, regardless of how divided we are, no matter how ignorant we are, no matter how biased we are, have the power and the responsibility to demand the very best we know for all Americans. We hand over the responsibility, not the power. No one in office should ever forget that.

Politics for some is equivilent to manipulation. Manipulation of anyone for any reason. Service, true service is so much better. Service to all, not just your party, your friends, your interests.
Here's hoping for service from our new leadership in the two houses. Honest and loyal to the ideals of the United States of America.


*as a chameleon changes color to protect itself from predators, Bush changes his language, his talking points, to adapt to criticism and defeat to seem to be ahead of the "game", which is way ahead of him.

Rep. John Murtha's response to Bush's press conference.

Coming attractions

me in the EE

Outlaw Empire Meets the Wave

A new book by Tom Engelhart: "Mission Unaccomplished"

The wave – and make no mistake, it's a global one – has just crashed on our shores, soaking our imperial masters. It's a sight for sore eyes.

It's been a long time since we've seen an election like midterm 2006. After all, it's a truism of our politics that Americans are almost never driven to the polls by foreign-policy issues, much less by a single one that dominates everything else, no less by a catastrophic war (and the presidential approval ratings that go with it). This strange phenomenon has been building since the moment, in May 2003, that George W. Bush stood under that White-House-prepared "Mission Accomplished" banner on the USS Abraham Lincoln and declared "major combat operations have ended."

That "Top Gun" stunt – when a cocky president helped pilot an S-3B Viking sub reconnaissance Navy jet onto a carrier deck and emerged into the golden glow of "magic hour light" (as his handlers then called it) – was meant to give him the necessary victory photos to launch his 2004 presidential reelection campaign. As it turned out, that moment was but the first "milestone" on the path to Iraqi, and finally electoral, hell. Within mere months, those photos would prove useless for anyone but liberal bloggers. By now, they seem like artifacts from another age. On the way to the present "precipice" (or are we already over the edge?), there have been other memorable "milestones" – from the president's July 2003 petulant "bring 'em on" taunt to Iraq's then forming insurgency to the vice president's June 2005 "last throes" gaffe. All such statements have, by now, turned to dust in American mouths.

Click on book image to read full article at Antiwar.com.

Orion the Hunter

Constellations

What's up with Orion, now very clear in the western sky around 5:00-6:ooam? I got a good look at Betelgeuse , (60,000 times brighter than our sun! One of two first magnitude Super-Giants) this morning in the upper left of the constellation- (Orion's right shoulder) But there's something more and it's on Orion's Sword!

Orion (the Hunter) climbs the sky. Orion's belt, Mintaka at right, Alnilam in the center, and Alnitak at left, runs through the middle of the picture. Betelgeuse is the bright reddish star at upper left, Rigel the bright star at lower right, Bellatrix the star to the right of center above the belt. Saiph is centered near the lower edge of the picture below the belt. Orion's head is marked by the trio of stars at the top of the picture just left of center, the brightest of which is Meissa. The the red glow in the middle of Orion's Sword is the Orion Nebula, which is lit by Theta-1 Ori.
The pink circle in the image is of a star with two circling planets.

THE ORION NEBULA

The Orion Nebula, which appears to surround the central star in
Orion's Sword , is a vast cloud of interstellar gas and dust some
20 light years across that is lit by a quartet of hot stars (the Trapezium) at its apparent center. Some 1500 light years away, the Trapezium and Nebula lie in front of a cold, dusty "giant molecular cloud" that hosts regions of intense star formation. The stars of the Trapezium electrify a blister on the front edge of the molecular cloud, which makes it glow.

More technically, energetic ultraviolet starlight (most of which
comes from Theta-1 Orionis C) ionizes a portion of the molecular
cloud, that is, it strips electrons from the nebula's atoms, which
are mostly hydrogen. When the charged ions recapture the free electrons, the energy is given back up as (in part) optical light in the form of emission lines.


This image of the Orion nebula, taken by NASA's Spitzer and Hubble Space Telescopes and released November 7, 2006, shows an infrared and visible-light composite that indicates that a 'gang' of four monstrously massive stars at the center of the
cloud may be the main culprits of mayhem in the
familiar Orion constellation. The stars are collectively
called the 'Trapezium' and can be communally identified
as the yellow smudge near the center of the
image. Swirls of green in Hubble's ultraviolet and
visible-light view reveal hydrogen and sulfur gas that have been heated and ionized by intense ultraviolet radiation from the Trapezium's stars.



Great stuff in the Cosmos!

Close view of Betelgeuse

Here's a close up of Betelgeuse. I never noticed how it pulsed before this morning. I've been looking at Orion for a long time now, Even the picture pulsates!

On the Rumsfeld Resignation

There are still alot of unknown knowns about Rumsfeld as well as unknown unknowns which we seem to learn each new day. But who will be nominated to replace the superlocutious super pooper pants is now a known unknown (Robert Gates)where as Bush's busheleon brain, (stay the course- neverbeenstaythecourse-capturethedynamisim- constantlyadjustingthestrategy-freshperspectiveand finally let's work together) is still in the unknown unknowns always the last to get it but preaching as if he always knew, as if he is the new knew of unnew unknew. Whew.



Please quote me on that.

Update on Bush's new "bipartisan tact" from Unclaimed Territory

"It is vital to remember that we already have a constitutional crisis in our government. The choice is not whether to create one (since it already exists), but whether to confront and battle it, or acquiesce to it (as the Republican Congress has done). While it is nice that Democrats have taken over the Congress, it is vital to remember that we have a President who has repeatedly made clear that Congress is irrelevant in our system of government and cannot limit the President in any way. Re-establishing the rule of law -- and the principle that the President is not above it -- is still the most compelling priority for our country."

Update article by Chris Floyd: The Deeper Reality Behind Rumsfeld's Resignation

As Don Rumsfeld is tossed overboard by the panicky Bushes (who value loyalty to themselves above all other virtues but never, ever, practice it toward others; there will be many more bodies left behind as the Family rallies to clean up Junior's mess again), Steve Gilliard steps in below to remind us that what we are actually dealing with here is not politics, not some Beltway horse race, or some idiotic media game of "who's up, who's down." The issue is mass murder -- thousands of Americans, hundreds of thousands of Iraqis -- and human suffering beyond imagining for millions more.

This is the reality. This is what really matters about Rumsfeld and the other architects of the war crime in Iraq. And although all the talk about the election's political ramifications for the Bush Administration is entertaining and diverting, as most gossip is, and not without some importance, on the most essential level it is a moral obscenity.

me in the rumEE

Election Results

List of news about yesterday's elections:

Resurgent Democrats win control of House

Gay Marriage Ban Rejected ion Arizona

Democrats take majority of governorships


Bush disappointed at Republicans' Losses

South Dakota voters axa restrictive abortion law


Update:
Concessions give Democrats control of Senate

Quick, get the door, but it ain't Pizza

Pot Users Relying on Home Delivery by Tom Hays, Associated Press Writer



NEW YORK (AP) -- In a city where you can get just about anything delivered to your door - groceries, dry cleaning, Chinese food - pot smokers are increasingly ordering takeout marijuana from drug rings that operate with remarkable corporate-style attention to customer satisfaction.

An untold number of otherwise law-abiding professionals in New York are having their pot delivered to their homes instead of visiting drug dens or hanging out on street corners.

Among the legions of home delivery customers is Chris, a 37-year-old salesman in Manhattan. He dials a pager number and gets a return call from a cheery dispatcher who takes his order for potent strains of marijuana.

Within a couple of hours, a well-groomed delivery man - sometimes a moonlighting actor or chef - arrives at the doorstep of his Manhattan apartment carrying weed neatly packaged in small plastic containers.

"These are very nice, discreet people," said Chris, who spoke to The Associated Press on condition only his first name be used. "There's an unspoken trust. It's better than going to some street corner and getting ripped off or killed."

Read all at link above.

Saw this at The Raw Story



me in the wEEd

Quotes

"Force is the weapon of the weak."
Ammon Hennacy


(July 24, 1893 - January 14, 1970) was an American pacifist, Christian anarchist, vegetarian, social activist, member of the Catholic Worker Movement and a Wobbly, and was known for establishing the "Joe Hill House of Hospitality" in Salt Lake City, Utah and never paying taxes.


saw this quote at antiwar.com

On Saddam's Sentence

No joy for humanity is felt here for yet another killing in the name of "justice". I have no elation to witness the "good" killing the "bad". It is a deception to point one's finger to another and say, see we are rid of him, he who was evil, he who had harmed so many, while all the while setting aside one's own aggressions and multitudes of "sin." See here , here , here, here. I was pleased to find this article by Mike Whitney at the Smirking Chimp titled."Bush's Carnival of Blood". From it:

This is a dark day for Americans and Iraqis alike.

Killing Saddam Hussein isn’t justice; its vengeance. Only Bush believes the two are the same.

How are we supposed to feel now that we know that Saddam will be hanged for his crimes?

Elated? Energized? Jubilant?

Will it wash away the oceans of blood that Bush generated with his misguided and tragic war?

The administration clings to the foolish notion that killing Saddam will somehow justify their unprovoked invasion and slaughter of 650,000 Iraqis....

....After the verdict was announced, Saddam issued brief a statement to his people which made him appear reflective and patriotic. He said:

“Pardon and do not take revenge on the invading nations and their people…and unify in the face of sectarian strife.”

Saddam's message of forgiveness and reconciliation won't be warmly received in Washington where they were hoping that he would fall to his knees and beg for forgiveness. That was another miscalculation. Saddam may be a brutal tyrant but he was never a coward. His courtroom performance will only strengthen the resolve of the resistance and make life that much more difficult for occupation forces.

The whole charade has been costly blunder for the Bush team; nothing was gained.

Saddam’s death will have the same effect as the appalling photos of the hooded prisoner at Abu Ghraib which offended the sensibilities of decent people everywhere. It's just another addition to the long list of transgressions against the Iraqi people.

This isn’t justice. It's an example of a nation’s dark shame.

Oh, dear humanity, when will we come to see that there is a better way? As Bush bloats about vindication for invading Iraq, he and his followers are simply unaware of the damage being done and remain ignorant and uncaring. If anyone would have asked if killing over 600,00 people to get rid of one dictator would be the right thing to do would you have said yes? If anyone had lied and then caused so many deaths for this purpose would you congratulate him and hold him in high regard? Is there anything that you would trust this person to do honestly after that?

Bush claims it to be a milestone in Iraq's young democracy. There is no milestone or democracy, only a sad and sorry state of affairs, made worse by ignorance in high pleaces and supported by unthinking, unfeeling and UNchristian neochristian americans and all those who are vindicated by man's inhumanity, man's separation from his divinity, from love for each other.


“Although Saddam and his allies carried out those crimes, it should not be forgotten that Saddam’s Western supporters also paved the way for him to carry out those oppressive acts and crimes.”
Mohammad Ali Hosseini, Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman


more here: Rumsfeld and Hussein: Partners in Crime

So, by all means, let's talk about Saddam Hussein's guilt and how much fun it will be to kill him. But let's remember who supported him for decades. And let's ask ourselves what the 650,000 Iraqis we've killed already were guilty of. Wasn't the plan to liberate them, not murder them? Here is guilt aplenty for Rumsfeld, Bush, and Cheney, and the corporate interests they serve.

Peace to all.


me in the EE

Barber's Adagio for Strings

All Things Considered, November 4, 2006 · In November 1938, conductor Arturo Toscanini led the NBC Symphony Orchestra in the premiere performance of Samuel Barber's "Adagio for Strings." The concert was broadcast from New York to a radio audience of millions across America.

Celebrated for its fragile simplicity and emotion, the "Adagio" might have seemed an odd match for Toscanini, known for his power and drama as a conductor. But according to Mortimer Frank, author of Arturo Toscanini: The NBC Years, despite the director's force and intensity, he was capable of "wonderful delicacy and tenderness and gentleness."

The year 1938 was a time of tumult. America was still recovering from the Depression and Hitler's Germany was pushing the world towards war. Toscanini himself had only recently settled in America after fleeing fascist Italy. The importance of the broadcast performance during this time is noted by Joe Horowitz, author of Understanding Toscanini: "Toscanini's concerts in New York... once he was so closely identified with the opposition to Mussolini, the opposition to Hitler -- these were the peak public performances in the history of classical music in America. I don't think any concerts before or since excited such an intense emotional response, and I don't think any concerts before or since evoked such an intense sense of moral mission."

Read all at link above. You can also listen to the piece there.

Feeling a depth of sadness I have not felt in along time I sought out my friend Kahlil Gibran and he said: "Sadness is but a wall between two gardens." So is this Adagio a most beautiful wall and perhaps not so solid, not so insurmountable, perhaps more like a veil. Oh thank you, sweet friend. Thank you.

me in my sadness in the gardens of the EE with Barber, Toscanini, Gibran, John, Jesse, and you...

A little bit about my day

Today. Things I did, am doing.

Music: Beethoven, "Moonlight" Sonata, some vocalizing, William Blake's Songs of Innocence for guitar and voice and other instruments. I have a cut on the tip of my left index finger (!) So not much playing.

Also: creating a new CD of the Eternal Ecstasies through my d-music site. I have 3 CDs there now. One is solo piano, "Shaman's Hand",which is the edited version of the background music for The EEs, "Morning Sun", which is songs for voice and guitar and other instruments, and then "The Eternal Ecstasies", which are the readings of Mystic John Suter.

Food: Yummy, Golden Butternut Squash Soup. Campbells has it in a box. Something I discovered in Taos, New Mexico, on a little vacation where I met a lady from Mad Town, Madison Wisconsin, my home state. We had a great time for a few days doing different things in the area.

Health challenges: Squamos cell carcinoma. Anal/rectal tumors are not fun. But I've lost a lot of wieght, not that I wanted to, and have an opportunity to do some healing work which involves watching what I think, what I feel at all times. Every time anger, frustration, anxiety rears it's ugly head the pain increases. Every situation is an opportunity for kindness, patience, love, healing, laughter, remembering the EE.

This morning's featured Constellation: Canis Major. Do you know it?

War Crimes, Quotes

August 14, 2006 | Puppets pose inside a Veterans for Peace convention in Seattle this summer. On November 14 a group of lawyers and other experts will come before the German federal prosecutor and ask him to open a criminal investigation targeting Donald Rumsfeld, Alberto Gonzales and other key Bush administration figures for war crimes.

Saw this at truthout.org



"Anyone who has proclaimed violence his method inexorably must choose lying as his principle."
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

found at Antiwar.com and:

"Everybody's worried about stopping terrorism. Well, there's a really easy way: stop participating in it."
Noam Chomsky



War, what is it good for? Absolutely nothing. from??? you tell me...


Me in the italicized EE (he he)

EE talk

There are two things to the unenlightened mind, that which is and that which seems to be. Not knowing which is which leads to many systems of beliefs, whether secular or religious or spiritual, or whatever label one uses.

We tend to test our perceptions out on or with or against others as a way of validating our beliefs and temporarily claiming the "this is what is and all else is not" authority. It's the little ego making claim to something that it cannot grasp in limited concepts. It is the proverbial cart before the horse.

Those claiming secularism over religion are doing so with limited understanding of both and vice versa, those claiming religion(their concept of it) over secularism seem to have an even greater limitation of understanding and indignation to boot when challenged.

Jesus, (not his name, as you may know), the "man of God" or the beholder and extension of, (I am the vine ye are the branches), what IS, is as scientific philosophically as anyone has ever been and more so than most.

What limited minds make of religion and the "Big J", by their belief and some by disbelief changes not what really IS. We muck about in the seeming claiming what we percieve to be is what IS. But perception cannot grasp being, always perceiving as if detached and separate-a false premise, so what follows is false.

Law, reason, truth, permeate all things and not limited by what seems to be. We all fall short in our awareness of what is. Knowing that we do not know is the doorway as "Jesus said: I am the open door which no man can shut. I am, the being which IS, I am and no limited concept, (perception, misperception) can imprison what IS- not even and especially my own, no matter how good these concepts make me feel temporarily or how horrible they make me feel so that I might attain something greater as if seeming ever leads to being- as if illusion is real.

Peace to all here.


me in the EE

Star-like mingles with the Stars

Keith Olbermann's special comment on Kerry's Joke Part 2

Keith Olbermann's special comment on Kerry's Joke Part 1

Quotes

I learned nothing from war. War is not an activity for human beings; war is for criminals—rape, robbery and murder.


Roman Podabedov (Russian anti-tank gunner)





thanks to Antiwar.com

Seymour Hersh slams Bush at McGill address

Pulitzer-winning investigative journalist Seymour Hersh slams Bush at McGill address By Martin Lukacs The McGill Daily

“There has never been an American army as violent and murderous as the one in Iraq”

“The bad news,” investigative reporter Seymour Hersh told a Montreal audience last Wednesday, “is that there are 816 days left in the reign of King George II of America.”
The good news? “When we wake up tomorrow morning, there will be one less day.”

“There’s no reason to see a change in policy about Iraq. [Bush] thinks that, in twenty years, he’s going to be recognized for the leader he was – the analogy he uses is Churchill,” Hersh said. “If you read the public statements of the leadership, they’re so confident and so calm…. It’s pretty scary.”

An interesting comment by Conservative Andrew Sullivan: the president was "so in denial," comparing the Rumsfeld endorsement to applauding the job FEMA's Michael Brown did on Katrina: "It's unhinged. It suggests this man has lost his mind. No one objectively could look at the way this war has been conducted, whether you were for it, as I was, or against it, and say that it has been done well. It's a disaster. Other pro-war reconsiderations here.

When speaking of the devil...During an interview with conservative pundit Rush Limbaugh, US President George Bush expressed deep concerns about the possibility of the United States leaving the Middle East, raising fears that extremists could topple governments to "control oil resources."

ISN'T THAT A GOOD DISCRIPTION OF WHAT THE U.S. HAS DONE AND IS DOING? Forget about bringing peace and democracy and freedom and stories of WMDs, regime change, mushroom clouds, yada, yada, yada.

Add to the Discumbobulation of this administration and these times for the USA: "Horrific Irony" of an award given to Michael Chertoff, presider over the abomination that was Katrina and other Home-land insecurities.

Discernment is not required in the EE, but does come in handy when so many seem to be caught up in illusion. Peace to all. A peace that passeth understanding. We would not judge, only record their deeds, and enter not further into a world percieved and acted out by others for their own purposes. In the end we are all learning, all part of a greater whole, all part of the perfection which simply IS- concious of it or not.

me still in the EE

Bush and Kerry -Bad pokes and bad jokes

I've decided not to give up very much time , effort and attention to what the President's been saying lately during his political tour, using fearmongering and deception to stir up the Republican base. I saw this article at the Smirking Chimp. Bob Geiger has some good points about Bush and Kerry, whose 'flopped joke' has kindled a wild-fire. Take it away Bob:

Our President is a Lying Scumbag

It's difficult to pick any one day when George W. Bush is [worse] than another. He's clearly the sorriest excuse for a president in our country's history and yet, amazingly, he still finds ways to be even worse almost every day. *

He hit another low on Monday when, while speaking at a Republican rally in Texas, he spent the majority of the speech saying that if people vote for Democrats the terrorists win.

"Some say, immediate redeployment. Some say they wouldn't spend another dime on our troops in Iraq," said Bush. "Some say that the idea that we're going to win this war is an idea that unfortunately is just plain wrong. Well, however they put it, their approach comes down to this: The terrorists win and America loses."


Update: Keith Olbermann's commentary: Bush owes Troops Apology, Not Kerry


*When I recently heard him, (Bush) on the radio I thought he same thing.

Graphic is also from Smirking Chimp.

me in the EE, where are you?????