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Ingrid Naiman
| | Posted on Thursday, October 11, 2001 - 01:20 am: | |
Several people have suggested that a topic be opened for discussing leadership, power, and hypothetical issues such as how one would handle the present world situation if you were in a position to make the decisions.
I have thus created this topic and will kick it off with a few ideas of my own, based in large part on the tremendous amount of past life recall I have facilitated and compared to the content of horoscopes.
In the very first lesson of my correspondence course, I divide the planets into three groups: dynamic, passive, and neutral.
The four dynamic planets are the Sun, Mars, Saturn, and Pluto and each relates to a particular way in which power is used, but before going much further, it might be well to say that these descriptions also align very well with the Hindu concept of gunas, rotation of chakras, or movement of energy.
Initially, all energy has to be collected and organized. This is a magnetic process and works under the influence of the passive planets and fixed signs. Once energy builds to a certain point, it can be expressed. This is a radiatory process. It involves release of energy and interaction with other energies, giving rise to the need for right relationships.
The third mode is mutable, neutral, and reflective. It gives the capacity to interpret experience and use the knowledge to perfect expression.
All radiatory energy tends to function linearly and with a preconceived notion of hierarchy that may or may not be articulated, but it is definitely perceived by others. For example, in the military, Mars, there is a chain of command as well as a supreme leader. The individuals who are part of this system take orders and are often willing to sacrifice all for the ideal which prompted their allegiance to a leader. The leader may, of course, be human, such as a general or king. The leader may be God, but then, it is obvious that care must be taken to know whether one's actions are truly ordained by God or merely motivated by those who purport to speak for Him.
The highest example of a true Mars type is not to be found in Western civilization at all, but rather in the Bhagavad Gita where Krishna instructs Arjuna, the ideal warrior, to defeat evil. Arjuna does not want to use violence but is told by a deity that he must fulfill his destiny and prevail.
People throughout time have been weaned on fairy tales and other stories of battles and heroism and valor and noble causes, but how noble are the causes?
Christian knights went to the Holy Land where they committed atrocities and returned home either disillusioned, febrile, or rich. St. Francis, one of the gentlest of all souls in the whole of Christendom succumbed when he witnessed the horrors of war and went into delirium from which he emerged as the saint many have tried to emulate.
Saladin, the hero on the Islamic side appealed to the Quran and through intense commitment to his cause drove the infidels from the Middle East and established himself as sultan in Egypt which once again became a center of learning and culture.
Throughout history, there have been political wars and religious wars as well as wars motivated by money and dreams and delusions. The question is how does a deity such as Krishna or a demon such as Hitler motivate so many to serve and risk and sacrifice? It goes completely against all instincts to stand up before a barrage of arrows or bullets and fall down just because some else suggested this was the right thing to do.
Common sense offers exactly the opposite conclusion. It was incredibly foolish to risk all for a cause for which one cannot oneself benefit so all warriors must believe in something that completely transcends their personal selves and attachments as well as their families, friends, hopes and ambitions, and dreams for the future. They must be willing to forego the opportunity to unfold psychologically and psychically, willing to pass into the great unknown with blood on their hands and prayer in their hearts.
In is one of the great incongruities of human nature to imagine that a God that teaches mankind not to kill would nevertheless welcome the warrior into eternal paradise . . . so we are well-advised to ask whether anything works the way warriors believe or whether there is instead something in the psyche of the warrior that resonates to marches and so easily puts aside one body merely to circle endlessly through life after life so as eventually to fulfill one's mission.
Part of the blame for the anomaly of a warrior's behavior is no doubt to be found in the effects leaders have on followers, and thus it is for followers to understand leaders in order not to be led astray by misguided individuals with agendas that do not serve the good of the people.
To be continued. |
Ingrid
| | Posted on Thursday, October 11, 2001 - 01:46 am: | |
The next kind of power is Saturnian. It operates with delegated authority and is thus only as great as the power conferring the authority.
Ari Fleisher is an excellent example of this kind of power at this time. He has a very sensitive job, but he tows the line completely, maintains boundaries, no doubt enjoys his position exactly as long as he does his job the way he is told. In other words, while he might have a certain level of visibility and responsibility, he has no real power of his own, only as much as the powers that be permit him to use from one moment to the next.
Depending on how one looks at this, he is a pawn or agent or an individual who is elevated higher than many others of his generation and background. However, his position is precarious to the extent that those behind him could remove him or themselves be removed.
When such power is used, it is generally used judicially and carefully, not with the passion of Mars. Such individuals need to be competent and trustworthy, but they, also, are seldom creative because they do not have the latitude to explore personal potential beyond their ability to maintain a certain position.
Confucius might have taught civilization that the order and predictability of society very much depend on the those who fulfill their obligations and conform to expectations. However, it is very easy to for such societies to lose their verve, to become stagnant, and unprogressive. There is nothing inherent in the system that makes this invariably true, but when people follow orders without thinking, it becomes increasingly likely that those taking the orders are failing to innovate. Most large corporations and governments suffer from this syndrome. Manuals are written to define jobs and job responsibilities and people begin to limit their concepts of themselves and their potential by the routines they carry out rather than the skills they might unfold. In other words, in exchange for order, there is likely to be much waste of talent and ability and potential.
Those higher up the ladder like it this way because it is very easy to control people who obey. Those who obey benefit by predictability and security and suffer from ennui and depression because they express only a small portion of themselves when not able to offer a fuller and more personal response to situations that arise.
More to come. |
Anonymous
| | Posted on Friday, December 14, 2001 - 07:35 am: | |
"It is the duty of the patriot to protect his country from its government."
-- Thomas Paine |
Anonymous
| | Posted on Thursday, November 21, 2002 - 07:06 am: | |
14 local governments have now passed resolutions opposing the USA PATRIOT Act. Santa Fe, NM (Oct 30) and Santa Cruz, CA (Nov 12) are the two most recent. More than 35 other cities, including Portland, Corvallis and Seattle are working on similar resolutions.
Check out this site for more information: www.gjf.org/NBORDC/OtherLocalEfforts.htm
On Monday November 25, Eugene could become the 15th city to pass a resolution in opposition to the Act and recent Executive Orders which abrogate our Constitutional guarantees under the Bill of Rights.
Please don't forget to mark your calendar -- November 25 -- when we the citizens of Eugene will appear at City Hall to state in a Public Forum we want the City Council to pass a RESOLUTION -- not a letter -- opposing these violations of our civil liberties.
Please go to our website and read the proposed resolution (http://www.efn.org/~lcbordc/lcbordcresolution.htm) to see what the effects of a resolution passed in Eugene will be.
ACTION ITEMS:
You can print petitions online, and continue to get voters' signatures before November 25. We hope to present completed petitons to the City Council on the 25th. We now have more than 2000 signatures. So please collect more signatures so we can show the strength of our support. This week's Peace, Justice and Civil Liberties Conference is an ideal place to petition. 6:30 p.m. Columbia 150 (NE corner of 13th and University); Saturday and Sunday at EMU, both on University of Oregon campus. See Eugene Weekly for current schedule.
Please write letters to the editor, urging our city to pass a strong resolution opposing the USA PATRIOT Act, and recent Executive Orders.
Please tell everyone you know about the Public Forum on Nov 25th, when Eugene citizens will call out in large numbers for our city leaders to protect our freedoms.
Wear your "Dissent is Patriotic" button to the Public Forum on the 25th. Buttons are available at the Conference this week.
Peter DeFazio has stated publicly that the momentum of our efforts to undo the harms of the USA PATRIOT Act could lead to its repeal. Thank you for becoming involved in restoring democracy to our city and indeed, our nation.
Hope Marston
Lane County Bill of Rights Defense Committee
hmarston@epud.net
www.efn.org/~lcbordc |
Ingrid
| | Posted on Friday, November 05, 2004 - 12:56 am: | |
For an ordinary person, it is almost impossible to imagine the extent of the scheming and manipulation of power going on behind closed doors in the White House and other places of inordinate influence around the world.
We believe that we have the right to free speech, but are we heard? Where is the influence felt? The spinners are everywhere and they are paid handsomely to dispossess us of both the right to accurate information and the right to process that information ourselves. The recent election campaigns across the Nation were banal, vicious, and boring. We should all be glad it's over and that we turn on our TVs, we will not be assailed with another message approved by an egomaniac in pursuit of more power. The lingering question, however, is what to do about that power.
One of my friends has gone back to Nature to nourish her soul, and I suspect this would be healthy for all of us, but when we attune ourselves in this way, we not only feel the Oneness of all Life but the sanctity of life upon which survival depends. What is constantly obscured by both parties is this sanctity.
I will take some pot shots at both candidates because they were both abysmal for different reasons. Bush is probably not the idiot he is often depicted to be. However, he has a serious schism in his brain that renders him dangerous. For example, and this one applies to both parties as well as the head of the junta on Pennsylvania Avenue. Bush is anti-abortion (and stem cell research) but for capital punishment and war. The total incongruity of this savage position was not challenged effectively by anyone in the major media much less by Kerry in the debates. Bush won big time among the Christian right but his religiosity is completely at odds with the teachings of the Bible he thumps and allegedly studies. For instance, "Blessed are the peacemakers . . ." The Bible is full of teachings about loving your enemies and forgiving, but Bush seems to have inspired a following among those who see him as the precipitator of Armageddon and catalyst for the Rapture. This is an eccentric and sectarian bias that tends to distort Christianity beyond recognition. So, the question that arises is how people so suicidally inclined--I mean people who are anxious for the Rapture--cannot see what makes foreigners so angry that they would self-destruct to inflict a wound on the biggest agent of global terror in the world: George W. Bush.
Saying this, I am not for a moment suggesting that the attacks of 9/11 were carried out by foreign terrorists. I decided this on the first day when no Arab names were found on any of the passenger lists released by the airlines. I also do not believe that people in Afghanistan have the technological sophistication to overcome our air defense systems. So, the hijacking has to have occurred, at minimum, with the consent of the highest echelons of our own government.
Moreover, since Foreign Secretary Jack Straw stated unequivocally that the campaign in Afghanistan was planned in July (before 9/11), we know that the murder and displacement of Afghanis had nothing to do with 9/11. Yet, we are to accept that the man who ordered these attacks is a Christian and that the reason for his popularity in certain circles is that he holds moral high ground over liberals who are generally pro-choice and anti-capital punishment. Isn't this insane?
There is no consistent ethic in either party. Each is pandering to a base formed by some ironic consensus that is itself illogical. The truth is, everyone should be for life. We all want to live: every tree, every bird, every bear, and every human being wants to live and no other human being ought to have moral jurisdiction over life. This is regulated by a higher power. Personally, I grant that government has the right to remove dangerous people from society but it also has the obligation to rehabilitate the social ills that breed the kind of acting out that is not acceptable.
We can go further with the analysis of the deep schism in the brain of the man in the White House. He was a substance abuser. We know he was an alcoholic and most believe he was a deserter from the National Guard during the Vietnam War because he was high on cocaine. In the presidential debate with Gore, Bush said, "When I was young and irresponsible, I was young and irresponsible." In the world of born again Christians, this is evidently the basis for total forgiveness. However, his family made its fortune in the Opium War; his father ran the CIA which is the Younger is allegedly fit for the presidency despite years of substance abuse. If this is true, then either drugs are not all that dangerous or his sudden conversion rehabilitated his brain. Personally, I do not see any signs of such rehabilitation. What I see is a smug and short-sighted individual who is completely incapable of understanding the ramifications of his own behavior, either for himself or the Nation he purports to lead.
In a few years, he more than any person on Earth has turned worldwide sympathy to animosity, an energy that is a danger to himself and every American anywhere on the Planet. This is not the behavior of a peacemaker; it is the behavior of a crazed person who is completely out of touch with all realities except those he hopes to control through his own power and abuse of the power in the office he has seized.
In martial arts, we are counseled to allow those who misuse force to fall into their own black holes. If we were to apply this on a widespread basis, it would suggest that we absolutely ignore Bush & Co. until they fall on their own swords. No one really has to raise a hand to precipitate this event; they have created the momentum themselves and there is not enough opposition in the whole world to stop the inevitable.
So, what people do in the alternative world is build the alternative, step by step. Every now and then, I have to watch the now quite old video, "Brother Sun, Sister Moon" to remind myself of a true Christian who built his vision one stone at a time. If we look back on history, we will see that the Roman Empire fell, the Ottoman Empire fell, the Third Reich fell, but the Franciscan faith survives in the heart of everyone who dares to love. So, pictures of blue skies and birds are restorative whereas abuse of power is self limiting.
What happened to Kerry? Basically, if you ask me, he failed to reveal his heart. I do not know either man, but I suspect Bush does not actually have heart energy because he has too much ego to know the difference between love and the obsequious behavior surrounding him. I can't think of a single achievement in his entire personal history. He has not lived a socially significant life. His claim to fame rests on buying some political positions, bankrupting some companies, selling a ball club, and legally executing more people than anyone else in modern times. How come Kerry could not beat someone with such a pathetic track record?
Kerry completely failed to convince the electorate of the one thing for which he should be proud: his anti-war record. I don't know that he has any other claims to fame either, but when Bush was young and irresponsible, Kerry was an activist. However, he refused to take the risk of proclaiming the wars unjust and appealing thereby to all peace loving people in the electorate. Instead, he pandered to this and that and had films made of his heroism in Vietnam. He started talking about hunting and carrying a gun. He tried to appear like a man's man and this left little room for voters who want a peacemaker leading the Nation. I think Kerry is probably an environmentalist and peacemaker and I think he was the better choice, but he failed to make a strong enough case for himself . . . but he probably had many more votes than have been shown us by Diebold and other Mafioso.
So, what do we do now? We apologize to the rest of the world and beg them to give us time to oust this administration. We build the alternative by walking our talk, by communing with life and with Nature, by making choices that support a world in which everyone has a right to live and breathe and experience the opportunity to unfold destiny.
(Message edited by admin on November 05, 2004) |
Tom Owens
| | Posted on Monday, November 15, 2004 - 11:35 pm: | |
Ingrid,
I just recently started reading the contents of
this website and somehow had the impression it
was inactive and all of the info was a couple
years old. I was very surprised to find this
recent posting of yours.
Strangely enough, my own way of dealing with the
disappointment of the return of Bush was to find
websites that made me feel better about life.
A number of sites that used to exist no longer do.
So I found myself here. Many things here have
made me feel better. I resonate well with your
approach to things (I've spent quite a bit of
time at the Kitchen Doctor site).
Before this election I had told a small number of
people in my own "inner circle" what I thought
about the US's future. In short, the country has
been in decline for 40-50 years from its post-war
peak in the 50s. Capitalism, in spite of whatever
benefits it may have, is extremely wasteful. This
attitude of "consume, consume, consume" is
obviously going to lead to our downfall. So, my
conclusion: We're in the dying days of the US
democracy due to the failure of capitalism.
I voted for Kerry but was really voting for the
"Anti-Bush." I had no illusions about what he
was going to be able to do. If his only effective
official act was to veto the renewal of the huge
tax break for the wealthy, he'd be worth it.
Other than that, against such an overwhelming
Republican presence, he'd be almost totally
ineffective. Which is also a good. Bush's
agenda would be stopped in its tracks. So, those
would be the two accomplishments of Kerry's
legacy and it would be worth it.
However, our race to the bottom will not be
stopped by any politician(s). Our future is
wrapped up in the bad policy that got us here in
the first place. Not just Bush but all the
administrations leading up to him. All the way
back to Eisenhower and beyond.
A HUGE (and I mean HUGE) grassroots effort is
our only hope. The phenomenally huge anti-war
protests were unnoticed by the media. Kerry
was undermined even by the mainstream media.
Bush continues to get a free ride. There will be
no change until We the People turn off the TV
and unplug the corporate power base by ignoring
their dangerous products.
I had a gall bladder problem a couple years ago.
The diagnostic efforts of Medical Science did not
find it. I figured out what it was when a friend
told me stories about his wife's gall bladder
issues that went undiagnosed for over a year. The
monthly trips to the ER made this misdiagnosis
all the more profitable.
Lucky me, I found the Kitchen Doctor web site
and discovered "Stone Free." I ignored all the
conventional warnings about how your gall
bladder can't heal itself. And here I stand
(or sit) with a healthy gall bladder. The answer
was not surgical mutilation or toxic drugs. Just
some simple pills that contained mostly spices.
Many of the answers to our most pressing questions
are very simple. The world is not what it is
presented to be. I finally truly understand this.
We have all the power. The power to say no.
The existing power structure will collapse very
quickly under Bush. The Kerry version would
simply be slower and less catastrophic. But it
will collapse. And of it's own weight.
We just need to say no.
|
Ingrid
| | Posted on Sunday, December 12, 2004 - 03:50 am: | |
Tom,
Thanks for this nice post. I agree with everything you wrote, everything. Sometimes people say this when they haven't really read anything, but we are on the same page . . . and I'm happy to hear about your gall bladder recovery.
You thought that this bulletin board is inactive. It is whatever people such as yourself choose to make it, but I am thinking of turning my energies into blogging, starting with the important idea you have suggested: make your consumption count.
I think WE THE PEOPLE can pull this off. In gthe beginning, I was working mainly on boycotting. Imagine what would happen if people really stopped using Aspartame and Round Up, but now I am looking into everything from green web hosting to how to mobilize the global economy in the direction of sustainability. I am very encouraged by the power of dissent and positive action, including consuming less and making what we consume a vote for environmental ethics and conscience. |
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