The Way is lit by an inner light
It's the Moon's day . . . waning toward New
“I will not allow my life's light to be determined by the darkness around me.” – Sojourner Truth
To see through the darkness, you have to take off the rose-colored-make-believe glasses.
Allen Ginsberg was born 98 years ago today in 1926 Newark, New Jersey.
“As an American, I condemn a Republican Fascist just as much as I condemn a Democrat Communist. They are equally dangerous to you and me and to our country. As an American, I want to see our nation recapture the strength and unity it once had when we fought the enemy instead of ourselves … It is high time that we all stopped being tools and victims of totalitarian techniques—techniques that, if continued here unchecked, will surely end what we have come to cherish as the American way of life.” – Senator Margaret Chase Smith, in 1950. Cited by Heather Cox Richardson in Letters from an American.
… our elders, the trees, are issuing us a collective call to: "grow down, small humans, grow down” … Back in 2020, in the midst of the unknowing of that time, a tiny bacteria invited us, among other things, into a quieter and darker space, where we couldn't grow upward anymore ." – Victoria Loorz
[The] wisdom teachings are paradoxical: we come home to unconditional love not by looking to receive it from outside ourselves but by finding it to be the true nature of our own boundless mind and heart. – Susan Gillis Chapman
Either … Or
It's Sol's day …
All that you are is the result of what you have thought in the past. All that you will be is the consequence of what you are thinking in this moment. – The Upanishads
So … what are you thinking at this moment?
We are a part and therefore a participant in the unfolding of a creating Universe. How much more “special” do you want? – Richard Rohr at The Center for Action and Contemplation.
People are unhappy because 99% of what you do is for yourself and there isn't one. – Wei Wu Wei
English novelist and poet Thomas Hardy was born on this day in Higher Bockhampton, Dorset, in 1840.
"The business of the poet and the novelist is to show the sorriness underlying the grandest things and the grandeur underlying the sorriest things." – Thomas Hardy.
Turn and face the strange . . .
It's the Satyr's day … beautiful heavy fog surrounded the mailbox this morning, making The Way more felt than seen.
So . . . now what? What happens as the dust settles will be a great test of American democracy.
Judge Marchan has a lot on his contemplative plate between now and July 11th. There'll be a s**t pile of pundit speculation between now and then. Among the tempering considerations:
> Trump is a first time convicted felon.
> Only one of the 34 convictions actually rises to the level of a felony and it is the lowest on the rung of the criminal latter at a category “E” in New York.
> Previous offenders of this ilk have rarely, if ever, been jailed. Usually fined. Occasionally paroled.
That said,
> Judges usually look for some contrition – mea culpa apology, owning the mis-do-in, and usually an expression of a desire to “do better” in the – and Trump has insisted on just the opposite, posing not only as a victim, but a proud one.
> Trump has violated a Marchan gag order 10 times, each one as serious as the one before.
> Trump's gag orders have included attacks by him on Marchan's family and, perhaps more importantly for the judge, threats to the jury.
> Trump does not fit the “first time offender” statistic.
> Finding balance in a circumstance with no historic precedent would keep any one of us up at night, regardless of how much dust settles. That much dust likely will meet the EPA measurements for years.
Trump will double down... hands down winner of every logical fallacy form starting with his preferred “straw man”... From here on out he will no longer be running against Biden but against the rule of law and democracy. Media will still try to make it a “horse race” – the duality of “let's you and him fight while we watch” – creating a false equivalency with post-card-snap-shot polling data already out of date.
On a lighter note … Today is Alanis Morissette's birthday. She was born 50 years ago on this day in 1974, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada… And why some of us admire her genius.
Our dilemma:
Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced. – James Baldwin