NOV 5/06 - A NEW PARADIGM

“Live simply so others can simply live” - David Korten.

Ina & I went to a David Korten presentation at Univ. of Victoria, last Friday night, put on by the Values Based Business Network. The topic, ‘The Great Turning, from Empire to Earth Community’, was based on David’s latest book of the same name. I had just completed all three of his books, starting with his first, ‘When Corporations Take Over the World’.

David is saying that we are allowing global companies to pillage our home, Mother Earth, in the name of short term profits, while 2.1 billion people live on the edge of starvation. He is suggesting that this is unsustainable both in what it is doing to our fellow humans and also the environment.

His good news was that mankind will be extinct before completely eliminating all life on this planet.

It is a shame that we have to let things go this far before waking up. Why are we asleep anyway?

We have been trained to think in terms laid out in our educational system, which was put together by those well meaning people who believed that the concept of ‘treat your fellow man as you would want to be treated’ was not a concept that ought to be foisted unto our children.

As a matter of fact competing with our fellow man and accumulating wealth has been considered the more profound wisdom. This concept is labeled ‘competitive advantage’. Gross national product growth has become our religion. Whatever we need to do to continue that inexorable growth curve is in the world’s best interest, assuming of course, that our nation is on the receiving end of the increased standard of living. The fact that this game of Monopoly has most of the world’s wealth transferred to 20% or less of the world’s population seems to be acceptable.

The earth’s resources are being used up at an alarming rate to transfer this ‘free’ wealth into dollars for the already wealthy. This transfer is going on as if the earth can sustain the depletion of its oceans & resources forever. As David Korten & many others point out, it can’t.

What are we going to do about it?

Yes, we!

David points out that in the end, the wealthy live at the pleasure of the populace, the rest of mankind. If we have to play by the rules, the question might be ‘who set the rules’? Does large corporate funding of our politicians have anything to do with the way those corporations are able to amass tremendous wealth?

As long as we are in the coma of the ever higher standard of living progress mode, then how do we ‘see’ what is going on in the world around us? Bono, along with others, point out that this is not right and we ought to give some reprieve here and there.

Terrorism’s growing popularity & the willingness to line up for suicide missions should indicate to us that something is amiss in our One earth brotherhood.

Do we see this as a One earth brotherhood or is it them versus us?

Ina & I would like to propose that we consider a new business paradigm; making a difference WHILE making a dollar.

If we could look at the world through eyes of hope instead of eyes of fear, we might be able to develop a system that starts with the idea that sharing is more important than competing. If we could build our wealth around the concept of sharing with others, instead of competing with them for limited resources, then we might be on the path to salvation.

Sustainable practices are the expansion of abundance for all, not the hoarding of wealth for a few. If we believe that the world has a finite amount of wealth, then we will continue to compete with others to get our fair share. If we believe that life is the ever evolving energy of abundance then we will understand that working together & sharing is the road to riches.

The place where all this kind of thinking starts is between our ears. If we don’t get it, then others will tell us what the answers ought to be. But as David Korten says, in the end, we decide whether the state of things continues as is. We formed our governments, we allowed corporations to come into existence under our charter, & we can decide if they have gone beyond their usefulness.

When corporate executives are going to jail & major accounting firms are going out of business for things that any one of us knows are basic rules of honesty, then we have to look at the system that we have allowed to evolve in our pursuit of economic growth.

Anything goes in the name of business has got to be reversed. Integrity has to be put back into the system. Basic services such as food & education need to be established as a goal for all, not just for our favored nation.

There is a calling for a new business paradigm. Love of money is no longer acceptable.

Isn’t it odd that ‘love’ is the root of all evil? That is ‘love of money’.

‘Love’ itself is the missing ingredient. Let’s put it back into business.

Love is all we need, David.

OCT 28/06 - SHORT TERM PROFITS

The world is slowly capitulating to the ramifications of short term profits. Publicly owned companies have gradually eroded their executive integrity quotient in the never ending chase for higher returns based on their 90 day reporting cycles. Executives of public companies are being thrown in jail for what appear to be unbelievable acts of managerial fraud.

The pressure to perform in a short term world is driving management & their advisors to play financial games to give the appearance of progress & growth.

Billions of dollars have been siphoned from investors & pension funds in the name of capitalism. Sarbanes Oxley, or SOX, as I heard it referred to in a most recent meeting of some of the worlds largest banks, is legislation aimed at trying to control these crimes. However, SOX is now driving the move to privatize many public companies, leaving the shenanigans to go on in the shadows of non-regulation. When man is left alone with his greed, greed triumphs.

What are we doing in the name of capitalism, financial progress, or gross domestic product growth?

Our financial system is eating up the world’s natural capital, stored sunlight, or more commonly referred to as petroleum. Our push for a higher standard of living is dangerously tilting the world’s environment towards collapse.

We don’t understand the damage we are doing in the name of profits. Money has become more than a medium of exchange. We have become attached to the medium. We fight for and lust after that which is a want not a need. There is a continuous desire for more.

We are willing to use up our children’s inheritance in the pursuit of profit.

It was said many years ago that we cannot serve two masters, Life or Mammon. We are in the process of wiping life from our planet in many areas.

This pursuit of success is tantamount to madness. However, personal responsibility is sadly lacking in our materialistic culture. A change is needed & may be welling up from amongst the world’s less fortunate. Awareness & love are required to set the record straight.

We are capable of both love & evil. We can manifest that which emanates our physicality & connects us with all there is, spirit. Or we can let our personal self image direct our life & efforts. This part of us which is not real will lead our life to unhappiness & fear.

The choice is simple ‘thy will or mine’?

The humility required to repress the self image built over a lifetime, is often too difficult to maintain. Reactionary emotions leap out at every supposed slight. When money enters the equation, fear & competition, drive the actions.

Money, as a medium of exchange, is available to assist in meeting needs. However, when wants out-stretch the amount of money available, actions often become desperate. Desperation leads to deviations from truth.

Profit is not a bad word but the ‘love’ of money has been referred to as the root of all evil. We need a new business paradigm. We suggest a new goal might involve ‘making a difference while making a dollar’.

Can we detach from our current economic system enough to eradicate poverty?

Can we overcome the need for a massive military complex? Could we understand those things which keep us separated, requiring guns & fences, with the idea of removing those obstacles to human understanding & cooperation?

Does an economic system work, which allows less than 1% of the world’s population control 25% of the accumulated wealth & let’s over half of the world’s population live on less than $2/day?

The answer is that it is an unsustainable system. Our current war on terrorism is a symptom of the breakdown.

Pursuit of profits unleashed is the engine for demolition. The sun has a 5 billion year supply of energy left, so I have read, which means the Universe will begin all over again. Where will we be when we knock the environmental system out of whack?

Profits are no excuse & we have time to get that in perspective.

We appear to have saved the whales from extinction, now can we do the same for ourselves?

We should profit from our relationship with all that we see, not profit from ruining it. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but let’s not be blind to the destruction of all that is beautiful.

There is abundance for all if we take care to incorporate sustainable practices.

Sustainability & profitability do not generally wind up complimenting each other. Choose life over profit.

Choose love as a way of life.

David

OCT 22/06 – FENCES

It appears fences are ‘in’ these days. There is a big one being built between Israel & Palestine. The U.S. is beginning a fence on the Mexican Border. It seems that the words from the old poem ‘Fences make good neighbors’ may be coming back into vogue. But do fences actually enhance human relationships?

Did they when we built the Berlin Wall? Do we never learn?

Are all fences, physical ones?

Daily, I watch people that are closed to new ideas & skeptical of intentions. These are fences in the mind.

Ina has been convinced for a while now that we are born into this world, while dying from another. She also believes that we will die from this world to be born into another. It appears that she has no concept of fences even when it comes to life & death.

John Lennon sang, ‘Imagine no borders’, & Richard Dawkins, has just written a book ‘The God Delusion’. Richard professes to be an atheist. Richard does not relate to the possibility that he is life itself.

I do agree with Richard that God is probably not supranatural. I believe God is very natural, as natural as we are, as the birds & the flowers. There are no fences between God & humans. We are a part of all that is.

We start by creating fences or differences in our own mind & then we build them into our relationships & physical world.

We need to find solutions at the source, not by building fences on the frontier.

Sharing the wealth would help to allow people to stay home thereby not have to risk life & limb to receive a small piece of the pie. We have become very effective at accumulating wealth & increasing our standard of living. This gross national product increase has been at the expense of the environment & other nations. Maybe we ought to consider that fact that they call it ‘gross’. That is the source issue that we must address before the walls come tumbling down.

What was the old wisdom? Do unto others as ye would have them do unto you or love your God as yourself & then love your fellow person equally.

Does that last one give us a hint that maybe we are God & our fellow persons are also? Spiritually we are one but organized religion has drawn us away from the concept of spirituality.

Fences are for dividing, for keeping us apart. So what connects us?

If we & our leaders could concentrate on what connects us versus what we should be building to divide us, the world might be a safer place to live.

What is it that we have to protect or hide? We are protecting our standard of living or at least believe that we are & that living with the resultant fear is the price we must pay.

When will the lion learn to lie down with the lamb?

This is not about waiting to a far off day, waiting for a Messiah to come & take care of the things that human dignity would dictate are natural ways of acting. This is about us waking up & accepting personal responsibility. There is no secret that what we are doing is unsustainable & that we are definitely using up our kids inheritance, as the bumper sticker says.

We are using up the earth’s resources at an ever more rapid rate, those resources that it took millions of years to accumulate. Who do we think we are? That’s the point, we don’t ‘think’.

We are too busy to take into account what we are doing. We don’t have time to stop & contemplate the end result. We are like lemmings rushing towards the cliff. As someone who was born & raised in Vegas said the other day, “we just think that someone else must taking care of these things, even though we read about their significance, & it takes something like you & Ina coming to town to point out what’s going on before we actually realize that no one is taking care of it here”.

I suppose the next question will be ‘why did you guys have to come to town or at least if you did, why do you have to point out what is going on? We felt quite comfortable in our ignorance. Now we may have to act. Surely, someone can do what’s necessary & we can go back to work’.

What work, what is so significant, if we are not going to take care of our home, Mother Earth? A fellow from the Southern Nevada Water Authority said to me this week, “you mentioned that you are not from here, but that you are from Canada. When it comes to Mother Earth and her resources there are no borders, we are all in this together”.

Where have I heard those words before?

Imagine!

Will it take music to bring the world together? As Ina suggests, maybe in the beginning it wasn’t the Word but the Note. Maybe we will find our salvation in a song.

Definitely music breaks down barriers. Fences cannot contain the melody of love.

Love is the chorus & the whole symphony. Love is all we need.

Love is the glue that keeps the world together.

Fences replace lost love.

Let’s put love back in the next act & watch the walls come tumbling down.

This week we saw Elton John in concert at Caesar’s Palace. He said that his recent album is about how to handle success, & announced that he will write no more music.

He explained that he wakes up every morning with melodies in his head but that he is finished. The crowd was aghast & yelled “no don’t quit, we love you Elton”.

Elton said where were you when I wrote my first album, Captain Courageous, about failure & rejection & how to handle it?

A very emotional night & love flowed through the audience as Elton exited stage left. Will that be our swansong or have we even sung yet? Who said “wouldn’t it be sad if I died with my music still in me”?

Let love loosen the lips & let the words ‘We Are the World’ resonate from every portal.

You know who you are; you know what you need do. Don’t let the sun catch you crying.

Love is in the air.

Breathe deeply.

David

OCT 15/06 - THE DASH

At times it seems that our life is a dash & in fact at the end, that is exactly what they put on most of our gravestones. Usually you see the date of birth, the date of death & in between is a ( - ). That dash or hyphen stands for the life that was lived.

So in the end, it appears we are a hyphen in history. It also seems at times that life is a mad dash to the finish line. As I was walking through the University of Las Vegas this morning a ‘Dash 8’ private jet was landing & flew right over my head. There are many people, 38mil per year, that dash into Vegas, traffic & taxi’s rushing everywhere, hurrying to the buffet’s & shows, & rushing back to the airport to catch a fast flight home.

Everybody here cannot understand why Ina & I take a 2 day drive from Canada to Vegas & back again, when we could do it in 3 hours each way.

On my Dad’s pink headstone in the graveyard, our family put ‘In the Pink’, no dates or hyphens. The reason is that whenever Dad was asked how things were going, he replied “I’m in the pink”. I’m sure he feels just that way now also.

So we have a chance, no matter what point it is in our life, to change that hyphen to a meaningful story. I picked up a book about a 35 year old fellow with one of the world’s greatest company’s, Microsoft. He decided on a backpacking trip to Nepal, to quit Microsoft, walking away from huge money in his stock options, & dedicate his life to bringing books & schools to the millions of children & their mother’s, that would never get to read or write. At last count, after 5 years(now 40 years old) & using up all his savings, he has created nearly 3000 schools & libraries in Nepal, Vietnam, Laos, & India. You must pick up the book & read John Wood’s story. He just decided to change the world, one kid & one mother at a time. Go to his webpage at www.roomtoread.org. & his book is, ‘Leaving Microsoft to Change the World: An Entrepreneur’s Odyssey to Educate the World’s Children’, John Wood.

Was it Gandhi who said “the 1st 30 years are for learning, the next 30 for earning, & the last 30 for returning”? Well, Ina & I have taken that to heart & are in the process of doing just that. We asked ourselves a number of years ago, whether one couple could actually change the world. We decided, just like John Wood, that it was a matter of changing ones mind & then going into action. Since that day it has been an interesting ride & the path has found its way to Vegas. A call to Pender, out of the blue, with airline tickets for both of us.

We now have met Somer Hollingsworth, NDA, www.nevadadevelopment.org, who would like to make Vegas a world leader in Alternative Energy & the Green movement, LEED’s, etc. He has the Entertainment Capital of the World as a canvas to paint the picture. That has both positives & negatives. There are 38mil people a year coming into this town but he has to fight the image of that ¼ mile ‘Strip’ (pun intended). Somer & the Mayor of Las Vegas grew up together but nobody forgets that the Mayor in his prior career was the Mob’s lawyer. Sin City overshadows Somers’s successful move to have one of the world’s leading Alzheimer research centers here, which he accomplished. Ina’s Mom died of Alzheimer’s, so it seems appropriate that we should find ourselves here to help the fellow who is proud of setting up that institution.

Before coming here, & a number of years back, Ina & I got back together & she took me to see her Mom. Ina is convinced that her Mom, even with Alzheimer’s & years of separation, recognized me. I must admit that when Ina whispered my name into her ear, a smile crossed her Mom’s face, & I actually thought for a moment that she did recognize me. What if?

Well Somer is going to do all he can to find out? Ina may be in just the place she needs to be!

Ina believes music heals. There is no other place on earth with as much music going on nightly & year-round than Vegas. When she arrives this week, we intend to see The Phantom of the Opera. Broadway has arrived.

Another book that I picked up this week has some very good advice for those of us that don’t think we can make a difference, that it’s too late or we are stuck in the dash of daily living.

Daniel Drubin, ‘Letting Go of Your Bananas’: “Letting go of your bananas is a head space, an attitude and a decision to no longer accept the situations, people, and things that hold you back. And the big shift from where you are to where you want to be starts with the quality of your thoughts. Everything else you will create in your life will flow directly from the way you think. If you want a different life experience, you must be willing to think on another level. Your previous thoughts account for the behaviors that have created the life you have right now. Change your thoughts going forward and those new thoughts will create new behaviors, behaviors that will alter your life and free you of personal and professional limitations.
All barrier busting is about your desire to move forward, in spite of the limitations of the past. Barrier busting is all about direction. To free yourself of a past filled with rotten bananas, all of your mental energy has to be centered on moving forward rather than being anchored in old thoughts and behaviors. For you to advance beyond your present place, regardless of how long you have been stuck in that place, you must think, act, and vividly imagine yourself on the other side of where you currently are. When you think, act, and imagine yourself beyond your present place, your life will begin to move forward in a positive and constructive way. Now is the time to fully engage the power of your mind and utilize that power to create a better future for yourself.”

Good advice!

It makes me ask the question, what are we, who are we? Might we be one of the possible mystics that the next gentleman wrote of?

“Al-Ghazzali wrote: “in the time of the philosophers, as at every other period, there existed some of these fervent mystics. God does not deprive this world of them, for they are its sustainers.” It is they who, dying to themselves, become capable of perpetual inspiration and so are made the instruments through which divine grace is mediated to those whose regenerate nature is impervious to the delicate touches of the Spirit”, ‘The Perennial Philosophy’, Aldous Huxley.

No, not me, we might say. How could I really get in touch with my true self? I’ve lived a non descript life to this point, it’s only others who go out & change the world, & by the way, let’s hope they do because what I am hearing & seeing is not going in the right direction for our kids & grandkids. Surely others more intelligent or wiser must be taking care of things, aren’t they?

Who am I to change the way the world leans?

Huxley may have answered that question for us. “All things in fact exist at the intersection between a divine manifestation and a ray of the unmanifest Godhead”, ‘The Perennial Philosophy’, Aldous Huxley.

That is through each of us. Yes through us! All we need do is get out of the way. Yes, just get our small self, our ego, out of the way.

You mean miracles can be wrought through my out of condition body? Yes, that out of shape organism is the temple of the living God. We are the manifestation; we were made in the Image. Yes us, all of us, whatever creed or color. We are the carrier of the Light! Imagine!

Oh my goodness, this is beginning to sound like responsibility time. If we are going to go down this path, is there any sound advice that one could follow on a daily basis that might allow me to participate in changing the future for my grandchildren?

I’m glad you asked because Daniel Drubin, in his banana book, came up with something we can all take to heart.

Control your Thoughts….for they will become your Words.
Control your Words……..for they will become your Actions.
Control your Actions……for they will become your Habits.
Control your Habits……..for they will become your Character.
Control your Character…for it will become your Destiny.”

And remember, also, that ‘Love is a many Splendered thing’. David

OCT 8/06 – ACCEPTANCE

How does one deal with their kids & accept their actions?

How does one deal with life’s continuous surprises?

Patience is the answer but they both frustrate the heck out of me at times. This week has been one of those weeks. It obviously has been another learning experience or whittling exercise for Spirit.

From a metaphysical standpoint I’m realizing that it is imperative to step out of time, into eternity. The difficulty is how to do that on a regular basis, as needed. I’m beginning to see the ‘heaven on earth’ aspect of that procedure, though.

As I read recently we are a harp that we can allow the winds of Spirit to play or not. That is our free will.

We bottle ourselves up in the small self, the ego & the powers of the Universe rarely get to sing through us.

We tend to get all wrapped up in the day to day concerns of livelihood. What am I going to wear, when will they hire me back, how am I going to pay the bills, & get all those new ‘things’ that I need.

The physical world, the world we create, tends to absorb us. What we have created takes over. We then feel as though we are not in control.

The control mechanism is within the dichotomy of letting go. We need to turn within & allow the universe to flow through us. Acceptance is definitely part of that procedure. However, I just passed a sign on the Vegas Strip which said ‘Awareness is the only cure’. Definitely, awareness is something that comes over time & sometimes it comes like the turning on of a light bulb, click, eureka!

We have three parts to our nature but the physical one is the one we see most often. Since that is the case, we believe we are that. There is much more to us than we can see, just like the iceberg. If we delve below the surface, we can come in contact with that miraculous aspect of our being.
Acceptance is a path. Awareness is too. Some say ‘let go let God’. The question keeps popping up ‘who or what is God’? Islamic extremists believe they have the answer, as well as the rest of us, so how do we know who has got it right?

From a metaphysical standpoint, all of us are a part of that which manifested Creation.

In addition to paying more loving attention to our immediate family, Ina & I are going to concentrate on respecting Mother Nature, & helping to bring solutions to Her wounded fabric. Everywhere we turn these days, signs of the tremendous damage are apparent, under the oceans, in the atmosphere, scars on the landscape. What are we doing, or as my Starbucks philosopher said, we just ignore it because we might have to assume some responsibility for it?

What are we going to do about it? Are we going to accept it? There are things we should accept & there are things we shouldn’t. We often times get them backwards. We won’t accept our children’s behavior but we will accept the pillage of nature.

The abundance that nature has provided is the foundation of our ongoing wealth. This abundance has been & is being cornered by fewer & fewer of God’s creatures, us. This is bad enough but in the pursuit of short term profits, those few are over burdening the natural system, to the point of collapse.

At a seminar this week, the instructor here in Vegas, said that global warming is something we now have to face up to, that the Colorado River is going down at 10 feet per year, & that it will not be able to produce enough power for Vegas within three years. He went on to say that there will be a major fight between Las Vegas & Los Angeles over power & water. An investment banker from Portland/Seattle told me that Vegas wouldn’t be in existence in 20 years, if they didn’t get a handle on their water issues.

What is going on? If the water is that critical here, & not just over in those poor countries far away, what’s coming next? An American gal wrote recently, that our kids won’t be fighting wars over oil but water, in the not too distant future. We have both in abundance in Canada, so is it possible that our neighbor down here might want to send their military might north, soon?

My grandfather, 40 years ago, used to tell me that the Good Book prophesied that since Israel got the holy land back in 1949, the major blowups would come in the Middle East involving the U.S. & Russia.

At that time I said it doesn’t make sense, what reason would the USA have to go over to the Middle East?

Oooops!

He also said that the Good Book suggests that family will be turned against family. Since my kids are all U.S. citizens, should I suggest that we would never be in conflict, that they would never cross our border looking for oil or water? Would my kids turn a blind eye to what their country was doing?

Is it possible that we could get to the point that there would not be enough? Checkout what is happening to the environment, we may be closer than we think. We’ve got to get a handle on this!

Tonight is Neil Sedaka night; hope they have waterless urinals in the casino.

Awareness, acceptance, each has its place, let’s wakeup!

Love, David

OCT 1/06 - RETURN TO SENDER

I just arrived in Vegas this morning & I had been listening to Elvis' CD, on the way through the desert. Just before that, I had been listening to Wayne Dyer, on Enlightenment, Awareness, & Transformation.

As Elvis sang 'Return to Sender' it made me think where I would be sent back to. Who sent me into this world?

Where did we come from?

If we think we are our body, then we are returning to dust. If we think we are our ego, since we created that self image, it will perish with our body. It is 'our' self image not someone else's, certainly not our Creator's. It was not sent by our Source but created since we arrived.

Before reading any further, would you take your right index finger & point at yourself.

Yes, point at yourself for a second or two.

Try it.

Where did you point to?

Most people will find themselves pointing to their heart. We are not in our heads & we are not in our feet. We inhabit the body but we come from a deep quiet place.

Our spirit is a part of the larger Self, but our portion animates our body. The larger Self has many names and is the flame which flickers through our candle, our temple.

For us to find ourselves & thereby find happiness, we have to reach out. However, to reach out, we must first reach within.

Deep down within our nature lives our core being. We are the watcher, the unseen. This unseen aspect of our real self is immortal. As we shed our body, the immortal we 'returns to sender'.

When we arrived as a little baby, we appeared helpless & in awe. Where did we lose our awe-ness?

We had to count on others to look after us & through a mother's enduring love, we were protected. Looking back that seems like it would be a very scary event, a very helpless one at least. Our return to the place from which we emerged, would seem less risky or scary.

I heard Larry King say that the thing he feared the most was dying. Larry may be living as his body or within his ego. Either of those is destined for demise, so I can empathize with him as to it being worrisome.

Once we can transcend those parts of our anatomy & find the Source of our being, then peace can enter our countenance.

Like the mother's enduring love, we are part of that Universal loving flow. Love can flow through us if we let it.

The relationship between man & wife can have that same pure puppy love connection. Ina & I have had that connection since the first time we looked into each others eyes in grade three.

Does that suggest that we didn't have any rocky years in between, far from it; we lost our way, at least I did for sure.

Might we meet our Sender before leaving these earth-ly bodies? Our Sender is part of our very Soul. The separation has been our choice. We choose when we return or in computer terminology, we default to aging to take care of it.

We are love incarnate. We were sent to spread love. We will return to a loving womb.

Elvis suggests loneliness & a lack of love, when his letter is returned. We never have to experience that outcome. Our letter always will be received & opened with joy.

As Dyer says "we are not human beings trying to be spiritual, we are spiritual beings trying to be human".

As the Beatles sing, 'All We Need Is Love'.

This is a roundtrip journey, not a one way ticket.

Can we evolve to a higher state of being through this journey? The choice is ours.

The letter is yet to be finished.

Sincerely,

The Source,

David

SEPT 24/06 - NATURE SPEAKS

Or as Ina puts it “more weeding less talking”.

Nature creates in abundance, we over harvest & wonder why species disappear. Our approach to our environment is unsustainable.

We ourselves create the scarcity that we fear.

We must make peace with Nature.

Our arrogance leads us to believe we are the only species that thinks. Is it possible that trees & animals communicate?

Is there intelligence behind Nature?

Universal energy is throughout all of the plant, animal, & aquatic worlds. We need to be at one with all.

The indigenous tribes of all nations knew of a spiritual world beyond. We have lost that sense to ‘see’. We lost our sight through focus. Our perception took a turn for the material.

We are looking in the wrong direction for fulfillment.

Interacting with nature can be meditative. We can look to nature for all the answers that we need.

Dr. Joe MacInnis, who located the Titanic, once told me that he thought what we are doing to nature ties in directly with the terrorism that we are witnessing worldwide.

If we are not going to have respect for that which provides us sustenance, then we must not be surprised when it is no longer sustaining.

Many of us have a religion which we practice regularly, but never give much thought to the plants & animals of creation.

It states in the Book of Wisdom that we were given dominion over all creation, but might we have interpreted that as domination. We feel it is our right to scrape the oceans bare, spread harmful toxins across the landscape, & pursue various animal species to extinction.

A botanist friend mentioned that “if we don’t take care of nature nothing else will matter”. That comment reminded me of a friend in Mexico, who not long ago said “once the oceans are gone, man cannot be far behind”.

‘Nature in all its awesome wonder’, so the words of the hymn go. Do we really have ‘awe’ for what has been created or do we take it for granted? Do we believe it will always be there or do we care? Do we even spend time understanding what we are doing or do we, as the young Starbucks chap in Vegas claimed, ignore the fair trade aspects because with awareness comes responsibility.

Why do I bring up nature? Because in the beginning was the Garden of Eden. There the Creative Spirit worked Its wonders. Man came later, man took control. Man is paving it over.

We are watching the ‘death of life’, as Ray Anderson of Interface, Inc states.

We can’t chop down the trees that give us the clean air that we breathe & not expect to be choked out of existence. We can’t continue to spew carbon dioxide into the air by the tons & not expect cancer & other diseases to kick into high gear.

We can’t keep using up the earth’s water supply, shrinking glaciers at ever increasing rates & not expect a significant result.

Today we fight wars over oil to run our cars, tomorrow our kids may be fighting over the right to water. Certainly, fighting is a heritage we appear to be passing on.

Ina & I believe that we must first make peace with nature before we are ever going to make peace between nations.

If we found a way to live sustain-ably with nature, it would involve using sustainable resources. This would obviate non sustainable resources, such as oil. If we were not to need oil, then we wouldn’t need to repair the Middle East.

If we didn’t blow the remains of oil out of our tailpipes, then global warming would be less of an issue melting our water supplies.

Paying attention to what nature is telling us, could have unlimited peaceful consequences. What did the natives know that we have missed?

We came & plundered their land, then took the ones that weren’t killed, & forced absorption into our culture, with the resulting alcoholism & defeatism.

Could we unlearn what we have learned? Could we relearn to live in harmony with nature? Is there time?

Of course there is. We have a window of opportunity & at least in this household, we are waking up.

If our kids did not get enough of our attention while they were growing up, we can make a lot up to them by paying attention to their future habitat, Mother Earth, Gaia.

Sustainability is a key word & one that you will hear more about as time goes on. Try to understand the key issues involved & when you see people upset on the streets of Seattle, try to understand what their concerns are.

People don’t generally go out on a Saturday afternoon & trash a Starbucks & the WTO (World Trade Organization) for entertainment. It certainly woke up the Corporate Globalization crowd. By the way, who are they & what affect do they have on our kids & grandkids? Read Francis Lappe, ‘Hope’s Edge’, or Jane Goodall’s new book.

We are at a turning point, maybe every generation is, but will we let it slip by without understanding the ultimate effects. Life enters the world through the birth of a new child, a new fawn, a new plant, a new spring.

At those times, love is in the air. Love is a state of being.

Let love endure, in the air that we breathe.

It is our choice.

David

SEPT 17/06 - WHAT MOVES US

It is well known that children can move us emotionally but read that title again.

What actually moves us to action?

Raffi, the children’s songwriter, came to Pender yesterday & his message is that all little children are born with many creative gifts, they just need to be developed. We are the gardeners of our children’s future, we provide the environment in which they live, we care for the air & water that they require to grow, together we are the village that nurtures them.

What does it take for us to get up and move? Is it courage, energy, or fear?

How many of us fall into the routine of a lifestyle that we accept but don’t like? How many relationships have been over for years but never terminated?

Do we find ourselves accepting the inevitable when there is no such thing? Do we live out our days wishing for something else?

Children sense our dissatisfactions, and would be happy whichever way our life winds up, but we often believe for their sake we will stay miserable. When action is finally taken, not only do they adapt but they are happy that we are happy.

This message took me a long time to learn & Raffi reinforced the message yesterday, unknowingly most likely, although, the twinkle in his eye might have meant something.

Raffi sang , ‘what are we going to do about it’, & I thought he was looking at me. The question that I had, was doing what about what? His songs were of a cheery nature but also described an environment that has been abused by those of us more ‘mature’ than the little ones that played on the lawn in front of him.

Raffi sang of the economics that we have used to justify our existence, and that we have accepted as the way of life in our ‘1st’ world order. I thought that maybe our naming the less fortunate as ‘3rd’ world dwellers was a bit arrogant on our part. Raffi sang ‘1st world, 2nd world, 3rd world, too, we are all ONE world, for me & you’. I remember, when living in Mexico, that I didn’t want to use the term 3rd world, so described that country as ‘developing’. The Mexicans, with their terrific centuries old culture, thought of N. Americans as recent visitors, with our 200 year history.

We in our young ‘culture’, if you can call it that, have definitely honed Gross National Product growth to a fine art. Raffi says that Canada will be adopting a ‘Well Being Index’ shortly. This index will measure the things which are important in life versus the one dimensional measure of ‘economic’ growth.

We will be looking at the costs of natures resource depletion & the degradation of the environment, the garden, in which we raise our most precious assets, our children.

Most of us baby boomers will live longer than our forefathers & we have the wisdom of age & the ages. Together with our children we can ‘turn this world around’, as Raffi suggests. A Garden of Eden is possible. Anything is possible!

Are our children the only children in this picture, or do we retain the child within?

Where did that ‘wondrous’ child go that was born into our flesh & bones? That child that had dreams & wishes, have they been satisfied? Is that small child still there yearning to be let free?

Did the environment & circumstances of our upbringing dictate the path we chose to take? Was that path fulfilling or have we much to offer & to discover still?

Is there a new path to be followed? For some of us, a new path is forced upon us by others. The fear of the unknown can immobilize us & leave us living out an empty life.

Acceptance of where we are, who we are, & who we are with, is a choice & that choice can be reconsidered at any time.

Our life is our life & in the end when we face our Creator, we will find ourselves looking into a mirror, ‘made in the image of God’ means just that.

Many are hoping to meet Jesus or Allah, but one thing seems to me for sure & that is we are finally going to have to face up to our self. Our self is not the false image we have created. That is the product of the limitations we have placed upon ourselves & the environment in which our body grew older.

Watching our body age has a transfixing affect on all of us & we can fall into the trap that we are not the immortal child within.

We look in the mirror & relate directly to that covering that looks a little ragged from wear & use. The child within continues to dream & yearn to be let free, to dance.

Ina & I found our selves dancing in the living room last night. What prompted our feet to move? What prompted our getting off the couch? There is a place within each of us that never grows old.

Music brings us together. The Pied Piper is not dead. Raffi names his calling, The Troubadour.

What can make each of us dance again? Life!

If we can redeem the life that we once thought possible then we will find ourselves dancing. Nature awaits our discovery of the music within. When we begin to dance the birds & dolphins will continue to sing. If our music ends, the birds & dolphins can’t be far behind.

Don’t snuff out the candle, don’t snuff out the light, don’t snuff out life. Live!

We are all interwoven within the mural of life. We are all part of one world.

We are spiritually one, birthed from the ocean of love, to develop in a physical case all the creativity that comes with our Parenthood, Mother Earth & Father Spirit.

‘All we need is Love’.

Child-ishly, David

SEPT 9/06 - ORGANIC, SHADE GROWN, FAIR TRADE COFFEE

This morning Ina read me the above from the back of the bag of coffee that she bought from the Organic store this week. She says she goes to the places that sell that type of product & pays extra to get it.

I was commenting on the flavor but got a lesson in values.

At the same time, I was reading a book Ina gave me called Child Honoring: How to turn this World around, Raffi Cavoukian. Apparently, Raffi is coming to speak at our Pender Island bookstore next Saturday. We, as well as he, will be there at 1 p.m.

In his book, there are numerous writers including Barbara Kingsolver who writes “our history of overtaking the autonomy & economies of small countries with large corporations, our wars & campaigns that maintain our fossil fuel dependency – these have finally brought us costs beyond our wildest fears. Cancer is expensive too; so are topsoil loss & species extinction. The costs of global warming will eventually bring us to our knees. When I have to tell my kids someday that, yes, back at the turn of the century we ‘knew’ we were starting to cause catastrophic changes in the earth’s climate that might end their lives prematurely, do I have to tell them that we just couldn’t be bothered to change our convenience-food habits?”

Mary Gordon adds, “It is not just a matter of what you stand for but what you stand up for”.

Wow, what a morning already & here I was just enjoying an early cup of coffee.

However, I believe all these women, including Ina, are on to something & I’m beginning to think it comes from their maternal instincts, let alone their ability to emotionally relate far better than us male species. However, it is the men who run the world.

Now, having put it that way, maybe I see more clearly why we have such a mess going.

Logic, competition, & materialism have been our male dominated Western societal approach for the last few generations. That approach has led to its ultimate conclusion, weapons of mass destruction to defend the rights inherent in the survival of the fittest. We believe we are the fittest.

Some other guys who see things a different way, Islamic extremists, differ with our point of view & have the weapons to fight back. Heck, we even sold them the weapons.

Now what a sorry state, eh?

Pres. Bush has declared a never ending war on these heretics. Burning witches at the stake might soon gain in popularity again.

“When will we ever learn” as the words Peter, Paul, & Mary sing, in ‘Where have all the flowers gone’.

Bombs fall, innocents get killed. We at home ‘wish’ it all would stop. As Mary Gordon suggests above, it isn’t just a matter of wishing, it’s a matter of what we will stand ‘up’ for.

An amazing thing happened this week, as I read about Wisdom University, www.wisdomuniversity.org, check it out. I sent an email to the President, Jim Garrison, & asked how we might be of help to them. Little did I know that he would email me back but he did & that led to a phone call & a discussion where he brought up the name Paul Ray. Paul was the author of a book ‘Cultural Creatives’ that I had read 3 years ago. Google ‘cultural creatives’ & LOHAS.

It came to light that they were thinking of doing an up date of Paul’s research when he was a sociologist Professor at the U. of Michigan. They were looking for funding & I offered to help find the funds.

This group of people, which they believe to be fifty mil strong just in the USA alone, could change the world if they had a unified voice. Why not help to give them one?

This group had been referred to in another book that I had just finished, ‘The Left Hand of God’, Rabbi Michael Lerner. He suggests that if their voice of compassion had been heard in the last U.S. election, we might have a different world today. He is probably correct & it might not take very much to change the course of history. Look how close the votes were in the Gore/Bush race.

Let’s not discount the value of our standing up. Ina does that, apparently, every time she goes to the grocery store.

I often go through the depressive thought process that it really is not possible to make a difference & how hard it is to get anyone motivated to give a damn.

That thought process is the opposite one to the thought that we ‘can’ make a difference. The power of thought is what will change the world. We first must change our own mind, then the action begins.

Many people are out there eating the right foods, looking out for the welfare of people & rain forests far away. The oxygen that these rain forests give off, will of course keep us all alive & our future generations, as well. Thank goodness people are out there caring, acting & eating healthfully.

What can we all do to help? The first thing is to become aware. Don’t think that the culturally creative are all kooks. They are us during the ‘60’s. On that note (no pun intended), I should tell you that we are going to see Herman & the Hermits tonight. ‘Mrs. Brown, You’ve Got a Loverly Daughter’, ‘Henry the 8th, I am, I am’, & who knows, if reincarnation has any validity, why not.

What would old ‘Enery’ think if he could see our world today & would Mrs. Brown be worrying about whether it was worth bringing a daughter into it.

You might be asking whether I relate to the doomsday prophecies. I believe what was prophesied can be changed. We were given free will & a fertile mind. What was envisioned isn’t necessarily the way it has to end up. The current course of history might make us think it is going to but our spiritual makeup can change the whole complexity of the outcome.

he key to the change is within each & every one of us. We can focus on our own self-ish needs or we can take a compassionate sharing approach to the world’s issues. One of the first things we could look into is how to stop 29,000 little children starving to death every day. Isn’t that a shocking statistic? Many people just think of it as a statistic. This number, 29,000, is of deaths that are preventable. Preventable!

So let’s start with our morning coffee, organic – no pesticides, shade grown – keep the rain forests, fair trade – livable wages for the third world workers who cultivate that enjoyable morning cup for us.

We are all connected, we are all one. Planet earth is an interconnected eco-system & we are all part of its fabric. When we unplug, we blast innocent civilians in the process, & classify them as collateral damage.

Dying children, collateral damage, species extinction, & global warming have all entered our lexicon these days. These terms roll off the tongue fairly easily when I listen to the newscasters. What emotional impact do they have on each of us? If we are not moved to action, moved to stand up, then there may not be a world to plant when our grandchildren get old enough to know the difference, as Kingsolver points out above.

I’m expecting to hear ‘Time is on our side’ tonight (I know it is a Stones tune), but wondering if it is true. We definitely do have time to reverse the damage we have done. It is a matter of understanding what we have done, what the base causes are, & then voting in the solutions, or at least the people with the integrity & guts to do so. There is more than enough money out there; it is just how it is spent.

Ina & I are excited about what the next 30 years will bring. We spent the 1st 30 learning, we spent the following 30 earning, & now we get to spend the next 30 ‘returning’. Giving back is a big part of our gratitude for the blessings bestowed upon us in the last 60. We were born, we had a great childhood, we met each other, we had lots of terrific ups & downs on the path, but we are still alive & our health is good, we live on a deer filled island, & the future holds lots of possibilities.

We haven’t always had these thoughts. As a matter of fact, ‘getting’ was a big part of our past. Balance is now a big part of our future.

Well the show must go on & we must be off to it.

A ferry to catch. A life to live.

Love heals all.

David the 8th.

SEPT 3/06 - UNI-VERSE or One Song

Wayne Dyer quoted the above in a CD of his. It has been said before that ‘In the beginning was the Word’, could the Word have been in song?

Are we all singing the same tune? Could we be?

Are we all One in Spirit? Are we all emanated from the same Source?

Is the background music uni-verse-all?

Does the sun come up every day? Do we expect it to?

Is morning always there when we expect it will be?

These are questions that many of us don’t give much thought to. However, we live our life by the movements of the Uni-Verse.

Life is omnipresent. Life carries on no matter what deteriorates.

Deterioration takes place in all things physical. Once manifested, deterioration sets in.

We are very lucky to be alive. We were the winning sperm amongst billions competing to come to this earth.

Now that we are here with the few that won, you would think we could get along. What divides us?

Together we are capable of miracles. We were spawned through love.

Love is the energy that keeps the Uni-Verse together.

Music can touch our hearts & bring tears to our eyes. Birds singing can liven up our day, & when traffic drowns out nature, our mood moves away from peace.

The tune we sing is the life we live. We can spread music or dissension.

Music is a uni-verse-all language. Music can be healing.

What stops us from singing or as Dyer puts it ‘don’t die with your music still in you’.

The Pied Piper pulled on the strings of the heart. Children understood the message.

What keeps us from expressing our internal music?

We have been raised in a culture where money, a medium of exchange, has become a goal in itself. We cannot get past the ‘need’ for it. We are imbued with a presence that has taken over our collective lives; it is called our standard of living. We are no longer free to sing & most of us won’t sing for free.

How might we get beyond this power over us? How might we get in tune with the Uni-Verse?

The Beatles brought us ‘All we need is Love’.

Elvis brought us gospel.

The Three Tenors bring joy to millions.

Is singing in the shower the only place that most of us will be heard?

Let out your music, or as the Stones sang, ‘Time is on our side’.

What is time? Time is a man made measuring device, timed with the movements of the Uni-Verse. To our Source there is no time, everything is immortal.

If we had all the time in the world, would we live our life differently?

Getting beyond time is to find peace.

Why do we struggle with people, because we haven’t overcome our obsession with money & success? We compete because we want to be right & we are taught to win. This competition often throws us out of tune. Disharmony sets in.

What can bring us all back together? Recognizing our Oneness is the place to start. ‘Imagine a world without borders’ as John Lennon sang, ‘no religion too’.

We might want to look at the things that divide us & begin by putting those out of our lives. Listen to the words of ‘Where have all the flowers gone’, by Peter, Paul, & Mary.

Dylan penned many a tune that expressed our disillusionment with the way things were. We now are the way things were.

Are we going to leave this plane with things as they are or are we going to make beautiful music?

Let’s all sing the same tune, the Uni-Verse-all one. We can get in tune with nature by starting to undo that which we have done. Many species of plants, animals, & fish are no longer with us but we can conserve what’s left without having to leave them in the Mandalay Hotel & Casino Shark Reef. That is as close as many kids get to knowing what used to be in our oceans.

Be sure to catch the movies ‘Deep Sea’ in 3D at IMAX & ‘An Inconvenient Truth’.

Can we all make music, can we sing in harmony, let’s at least try.

Let’s show the world that ‘Love’ is not only at the Mirage.

Let’s let it flow, to show the world it is not only in our memory.

We have had many good times in our life but ‘the best is yet to come’.

Let’s not go out on a sour note. Let’s go out singing.

“She loves me, yea, yea, yea, she loves me”.

As do I, David.

AUG.20/06 - STARBUCKS & AWARENESS

I have been sitting in a Las Vegas Starbucks recently reading Jane Goodall’s book, ‘Harvest for Hope’ & Peter Urmetzer’s, ‘From Free Trade to Forced Trade’. One of the employees,at the store, asked about the books & mentioned that Starbucks is for ‘Fair Trade’.

I asked how Fair Trade impacted them personally, as the other employee came over to join the conversation upon hearing the topic. They both said that it didn’t benefit them financially but that it gave them peace of mind. That comment interested me, so I asked how the customers felt about it. They told me that a few customers commented on it favorably.

I responded by saying that I suppose most customers are unaware of what it really means. The next answer really surprised me.

They then said they believed that most people ‘choose’ to be unaware!

Isn’t that interesting? Most of my life I have taken the position that I couldn’t do anything to affect what is going on around the world & that others must be taking care of things.

It has come to my attention, through books like Jane Goodall’s that others are not taking such good care & I should ‘choose’ to get involved.

Some of her quotes like ‘gradually I moved into different circles, where I began to learn more about poverty………and I came to understand, listening to the voices of the wise, that humans are following a path that could easily lead to the end of life on earth as we know it. We have so far to go to realize our human potential for compassion, altruism, and love.’ ‘Fortunately…….the situation is not hopeless. Not, that is, if we take steps immediately to reduce fossil fuel emissions; bring to an end government and consumer support for industrial agriculture, including animal factory farms and fisheries, that harm the planet; and start subsidizing and supporting more sensible and sustainable ways to feed human beings. “Take immediate steps” – that is addressed to each one of us. That is why I have spent countless hours I did not have working on this book.’
Jane says the same thing that Mother Theresa says, ‘that it is up to each one of us’. Apparently one person can change things, at least Mother Theresa, Gandhi, Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King, & Jane Goodall, believe so. That is the attitude that each of us must adopt. It is a perception issue. We perceive that we are just a number lost in the confusion of world events but what we think is tied irrevocable to what happens in the world around us.

This week we had a visitor from Canada, the ex CEO of a major public company. His comments were that the solution to all our problems is unity. He said that our problems stem from our attitude of domination. As humans we want to dominate our fellow persons, the environment, & other countries. I mentioned the biblical quote ‘in the beginning man was given dominion over all animals & nature’.

He said that we have interpreted that to mean we can dominate everything & everyone. It is definitely worth considering his concept as we are in conflict with the environment & with many other cultures around the world. We can sit back & watch it unfold on CNN or we can make our voice heard to the leaders of our nations.

Jane suggests we even understand what we eat & where it came from. She believes that what we are doing to the environment & to animals is part of the problem for world peace. What is the connection? You will have to pick up her book.

Interestingly, Dr. Joe McGinnis, an ex Director of the Canadian United World College, told me that he believes what we are doing to the environment is directly connected to the terrorism that is going on in the world. Now that is an interesting thought. How might we all become aware of his hypothesis? I believe he has written a book on the subject, you might want to go to Amazon.com & look him up. Joe is the fellow who found the Titanic & helped his childhood friend produce the movie.

It is interesting to see all these people’s names & to think that we are all connected through thought. Our name has not yet joined their circle only due to the answer our Starbuck friends gave, ‘we choose to be unaware’.

Once we become aware, we become moved. Once we become moved we become involved. Once we become involved we can make a difference. All things are possible with God. Who do we think God is? God is us. God is within us, we were made in the image of God. We are fragments of the ultimate reality. We are like waves are to the ocean. It takes all of us. We each have a part to play. We can ‘choose’ to or not to get involved. We can sit on the sidelines & give our opinion or we can get out on the field & play.

What’s going on out there in the world takes all the resources we can bring to the party. We can vote through our mouths, as Jane points out. What we put in our stomachs isn’t as important as what comes out of our mouth, as some old wisdom points out, but it definitely will have an impact on our health & that of the world we live in. If that last sentence doesn’t make sense to you then read Jane’s book.

Once informed our thoughts can add to the voices of the less fortunate & begin the changes that our society currently requires. Altruism, as Jane points out, is one of the keys to world peace, & our lifestyles will determine how far we move in that direction over the next few years.

Let’s not let the Mayan calendar become prophetic, let’s renew it. Life is immortal, are we?

Life will regenerate everything we destroy. It may take it millions of years but it ‘will’ happen. ‘Thy will not mine’ is still some of the best advice we have been given in the last few thousand years. Finding out who ‘Thy’ is, probably is a good place to start. However, don’t go looking elsewhere it all starts with each of us; we are the manifestation of ‘Thy’.

Once we are able to grasp the divinity of our nature, we can connect with nature. The 1st Nations people understood much of this spiritual connection, but in the furtherance of progress, we proceeded to wipe them out.

We did that on our way to industrialization. Industrialization, we then forced on to other 3rd world nations, in their best interests mind you. Industrialization has almost irrevocable ruined the environment, but we have time to reverse that course. Can you see the reason why we need to become aware? If not, get Al Gore’s book, An Inconvenient Truth’.

Starbucks may not be the best coffee in the world & they may not be perfect at their support of ‘fair trade’ but they are making a start. What are we each doing daily to become more aware of the basic issues that affect life on this planet? Our kids & grandkids will probably appreciate our efforts.

The world is our home, nations are man made lines drawn on the surface of the earth. When we can overcome those boundaries, we can begin to ‘see’ beyond our perceptive limitations. We are a family. We are one. We are not a nation under God; we are a world under God.

Nationalism breeds conflict. Materialism breeds greed. Greed breeds conflict. We must first connect with the power within & then share those creative talents with our fellow human beings. If we were in a space ship together wouldn’t we think it would be best to work together?

Well, guess what, when the moon landing took place the astronauts took the picture which tells all of us that we ‘are’ on a spaceship, called Mother Earth.

What is your place in the sun? When is it your time to shine? Heaven is as close as your ability to light up & lighten up. Enlightenment is a part of our future if we let it happen. Awareness is a choice, as the boys at Starbucks point out. Wisdom can be found in the most amazing places. Out of the mouth of babes!

Aren’t we really all babes, when it comes to enlightenment? The older we get, isn’t there so much we realize that we really don’t know?

Let’s open our eyes & our ears to the needs of those less fortunate than ourselves, & bring social justice with our pursuit of personal gain.

We are as old as we feel. We can be young at heart. The dreams we had as youngsters are not forgotten & definitely achievable. We must become as little children to reach that state known as nirvana.

Killing people in the name of God, or our new God, materialism, has been going on for centuries & practiced by most all religions & nations. It is time that we overcame those things that divide us & begin to practice ‘fair trade’.

To become aware is the first step. So have a Starbucks on me.

Love, David

AUG 13/06 - AWASH in CONSCIOUSNESS

Are we living in a Sea of Consciousness?

Do we have to get out of ourselves to ‘see’ the medium that we live in, as a fish may have to leap out of the ocean to see that within which it lives?

Yesterday, I went to the Luxor Hotel Imax Theatre & had the direct experience in one day of walking on the bottom of the ocean & on the surface of the moon, done in both cases through 3D.

I learned that millions of tiny plankton comes out at night, in the oceans by the light of the moon, & the giant Manta Ray comes out to eat them. I watched as a giant fishing net dropped to the ocean floor catching everything in its filament, while the announcer described this fishing practice as having wiped out 90% of all sea life, to date.

This made me think of our friends, Mike & Sherry McGettigan, Baja, who swim with the Manta Ray & are trying to save the Sea of Cortes from these devastating practices, www.seawatch.org.

I then watched as the lunar module fired off its base from the moon leaving behind human debris, including that module base. This has happened numerous times to date.

In the beginning God said “let there be light”. Hopefully, we are not going to turn out our solar light, like we are wiping out our oceans.

However, since we are pumping out the last of the ancient sunlight, oil, from the earth’s crust & firing it into the atmosphere from our exhaust pipes, creating a global warming effect, maybe we will make the Mayans prophetic, as the Mayan calendar ends in 2012.

As we wipe out species after species, on land & under the oceans, what should we assume is the end result, when we are living within a fragile ecosystem?

What do we actually know about the bed that we sleep in, this organism called Mother Earth?

We need to understand that it is a living breathing organism & when we choke its lungs, we are choking our own.

The breath of life comes from the ‘air we breath’ as sung by Air Supply.

It seems as though we are racing to see whether we can blow up the environment faster than we can do it through the armaments industry. Whichever way we do it, it will be the same result.

What can we do to change the outcome or is it already prophesied, a fait accompli?

We can become aware. We can bring into our consciousness, our awareness, the issues that will affect our grandchildren.

As Peter, Paul, & Mary sing, “how many cannonballs have to fly before they are banned”, “how many people have to die before we learn how to cry”?

These words were sung in the ‘60’s but turn on CNN after you finish reading this & see if things are similar.

When do we change things or am I a lone voice crying in the wilderness?

Together we can create miracles; together we can change the world. Those of us in first world nations have had a blessed life over the last 30 years, since Peter, Paul, & Mary sang those words; think what we all can do together in the next 30 years.

Let’s not go out with a whimper, let’s stand up & cry, NO!

We are conscious beings & conscious beings can change the world. We have a voice; we have a heart, let’s use them both.

It’s the words that come out of your mouth that make the person.

We are who we ‘say’ we are.

Beauty surrounds us in nature, what is our nature? We are spiritual beings not that which returns to dust. Let’s grasp our inheritance. We are immortal beings, let’s not give up & die.

Why go away when we can stay?

Why not be a part of all that is? Why not create unity by recognizing that is our true nature?

The change is within each one of us, not ‘out there’.

If we look to others to change then the picture looks bleak, it leaves us powerless. When we realize that the change in the world starts within then anything is possible.

Gandhi, Martin Luther King, & Nelson Mandela, were all just like us but did more with what they had & in their cases what they didn’t have. Just think of it, a young Hindu lawyer standing up to the world’s most powerful nation at the time, staring down Churchill, freeing a nation, India, then a young, black, Southern preacher, standing up against the new world power, the USA, with an idea of equality. After that you get a black, South African, convict that changes a nation.

Mother Theresa says “”do not wait for leaders; do it alone, person to person”.

Remember that we ‘are’ spiritual beings, we ‘have’ a body & we ‘have’ a soul.

Once we wake up, immortality sets in. Once we become conscious, the dream ends. We can overcome.

We have dominion over all nature but we have become immersed in that which we manifested, materialism. What we think is what we manifest. We are what & who we ‘think’ we are, no more no less.

How little do we believe ourselves to be? How great thou art!

God is not some higher power elsewhere. ‘Ye are Gods’, as the Book of Wisdom discloses. Let’s recognize our divinity.

We are interconnected. What happens to one of us happens to all. What we do to nature comes back tenfold. We are interconnected with all life on this planet & out there in space.

Let’s not screw it up, let’s become aware of what we are doing. We are divine, let’s act that way.

Does that mean that money is the root of all evil? NO!

The ‘love’ of money is where things go funny. The chasing of money is where we get off devastating the oceans & the earth, in the name of commerce, our standard of living. It has become our right to rip off future generations’ birthright. The sad thing is that we don’t care, or we profess not to understand. We let it happen & say what can I do?

As a matter of fact, we participate when we say let’s go out & get a 2nd SUV. Believe you me, I am as much at fault as anyone else.

What to do?

Simple things are possible; by getting to know what sustainability is all about. Investing with our values, or values based investing, is a great way to start. What are your values? Now there could be an interesting exercise. If you need any help, call Stephen Whipp, a values based financial planner in Victoria, Canada at www.stephenwhipp.com

Or check our Vancity Credit Union, Vancouver, Canada, at www.vancity.com.

I’m sure there are many more out their doing things to help each of us find our way. We can make a difference while making a dollar, that is the point.

It is not all about us; it is about all of us.

Truth-fully, what is the answer?

Well let’s turn again to Peter, Paul, & Mary, as they sing “the answer, my friend, is blowin’ in the wind”.

Love is in the air, let’s keep it clean.

I love you all. David

AUG. 6/06 - TO BE or TO DO

‘To be or not to be, that is the question’, is a far better known statement than the one I propose above. However, I think for our modern times this new question might sum up our alienation from the Spiritual world.

We are a society of doers. We are continuously busy at accumulating & other mundane activities. We do not have much time to just be. In fact, we avoid time alone; time to be with our own soul, our true self.

Our very being cries out to us, creating a feeling of lack. No matter how much we accumulate material goods or money, it is never enough. We do things we dislike but ‘feel’ are necessary & go on doing them for years at a time.

Our connection with each other & all nature lies in our willingness to go within & just be. We are a part of all that is & we need to ‘feel’ that.

However, ‘faith without works’ is another way of looking at doing.

Happiness lies not just in being but also in doing but it is what we do that makes the difference. Service is the root of ‘our’ happiness.

We need times away, a place of refuge. Going out into the desert was a method used by prophets of old. However, just going to a quiet place & not quieting the mind does not accomplish the action of just being. Some may call being inaction but it does take effort.

How often during the day are we able to still the mind & when activated again, how much of our time is taken up in thoughts of what we might do for others, instead of for ourselves.

To be is to connect with that stillness that pervades all life. Surrounding all activity is the lull in between. Surrounding all of our talking is the silence in between.

Glory to God in the highest is to allow oneself to rise to the highest level of ones divinity. It is the connection between ones lower self & that which is sacred within. To be is to be with the divine within.

We were made in the image of the Creator. We are the temple of the living God. We are thinkers & co-creators. In the beginning was the Word & the Word was with God. Our words emanate from our heart, just ask Mel Gibson.

So how powerful is God? The only way to find out is to plug in. To plug in is to go within & just be. We are human beings not human doings.

But how do we pay the bills, how do we prepare for retirement? It can get quite tiring preparing for retiring. Are we primarily here to do, to prepare not to do?

When is enough, enough? When do we stop earning & quit yearning? Is it true that the Creator knows our every need & would take care of us without our help?

Were those words spoken by someone that was irresponsible or were they true wisdom?

Can we do anything about world events or are we just a small being, not the manifestation of the Creator itself?

Energy & dust came together to make us who we are? Are we the dust or are we the energy? Can our energy emanate the dust at will? Might we resurrect the body at a time & place of our choosing?

There is more here than meets the eye. What we don’t see is far more powerful than that which we believe we know. What is undiscovered could provide more answers than that which has been discovered in all of human history.

Everyday humans will come up with more inventions & these will lead us towards destruction or enlightenment. Our dual nature will continue to pull us in two different directions. The way we sway will dictate our future & the future for our kids & grandkids.

Should we leave it up to them to change our dangerous direction or can we make the critical turn between now & our leaving this physical plane? The answer to that question is up to each of us. We each have a part of the answer because we each are part of the Creator of all. It takes more than one piece to make up a jigsaw puzzle and more than one thread to make up a mural.

The mural of history is being put together thread by thread, what piece do you play? Where in the jigsaw do you fit?

The answer to that question lies within. Go deep & ask the question? That which you ask in earnest will be answered. That which you pray for, sincerely, will be manifested. You are the manifestation of the Word, your words will be manifested.

It is not what we put into our mouth that is hateful but what comes out of our heart. Bigotry is a seed that is expelled from the body in hurtful ways.

Peace is a state of mind. Calming our inner fear leads to peace.

Peace be with you.

David

JULY 30/06 - BEYOND RELIGION

Is it possible for us to get beyond religion?

Beyond to the world of Spirit that which is behind all that we can physically see?

“Men in all ages according to their lights have seriously subscribed to erroneous notions, and no one who has ever lived has been exempt from error. There is no call to perpetuate notions or to regard them as in some special or mysterious sense true just because they have been conserved by a priest-hood, or are found in the Bible, or in any other work held to be sacred or inspired. Neither is it legitimate to employ different standards of judgment in testing validity or veracity because one set of records is regarded with greater reverence than another.” The Passover Plot, Hugh Schonfield.

Wars have been fought for centuries in the name of religion. Currently, we are witnessing them daily on CNN.

The Hezbollah from Lebanon & the Hamas from Gaza are fighting the Jews from Israel.

The Shiites are fighting the Sunni, & the Kurds, in Iraq.

The Taliban are fighting the Christians (USA & UK) in Afghanistan.

The Hindu’s & the Pakistani’s are fighting over Kashmir.

Conflicts continue in the name of God.

Even at home here, Christianity is divided into numerous camps, every one of which professes to have a truer version of the ‘Truth’.

Do we need to have someone interpret a spiritual message for us or might we be able to commune directly with our Source?

I would subscribe to the concept that the answer to that question is obvious. Our Source is ready to communicate anytime we are ready to listen.

There is nothing untoward about teaching young children the difference between right & wrong but when it moves into the area of dogma, it goes beyond helpfulness.

We are the compilation of ego & Spirit. Ego is the self we have developed & think we are. Spirit is the aspect of us that is the real Self. Can we get beyond our self image, our ego?

The Spirit is ‘beyond religion’, it is the basis of all, and nature is a perfect example. There is nothing more beautiful or miraculous than nature. How could we improve upon creation?

Man is the one animal that is willing to blow up his own home, knowingly. What we are doing to the natural world is a sin but we are gradually becoming aware of that fact.

The values based investing movement is a growing realization that that which is dear to our heart should be preserved for our children & grandchildren. In other words, we should put our money where our mouth is.

Materialism, which is a religion in & of its self, is beginning to look like a false God. We have worshipped at the wrong altar for too long & we are beginning to wake up to that fact.

The road to peace & happiness lies within our own identity. Are we our self image or have we overcome the ego & realized the originality of our being?

When we are able to get beyond our ‘self’, we are on the road to getting beyond religion.

The path is narrow but the door will be opened when we knock. We do not have to wait for some future event. The future is now. We are the answer to our own prayers. We are the gift we seek.

Winning the lottery does not bring happiness; it brings that which is Caesar’s. It brings that which others will want to steal. Happiness lies within our own soul. Centering within our own foundation is the rock that will withstand any storm.

Seeds of purity lie within strands of unity. Our DNA as a community lies within the Spirit of nature.

The 1st Nations worshipped the Spiritual aspect behind all nature & tried to live in unison with that Spirit. We might learn a lot from their, so called, primitive cultures.

Where was God when we, the Christians, slaughtered the Indians? God was right where (s)he has always been, within our hearts. We were made in the image of God. We allowed the self image to take over & forgot our heritage. Murder then became justifiable. Can we make amends or does it really matter?

Everyday that we wake up alive within our physical temple, we are given another chance to align with our Spiritual nature. Honing this perfection is often times a life long endeavor but we are that close to heaven.

What would each of us do if we could? It has been written that anything is possible with God. God is Spirit. Spirit is our real nature. Then anything is possible for us.

Together we are a compilation of Spirit given talents. Getting together is the answer to prayers. We have to be willing to get beyond religion, to the root of all Creation, for unity to flower.

Spirit is the root of the vine. The vine that produces is fruitful. The fruit we eat is part of who we are. We are part of all that is. Unity is the essence of nature & unity can be the essence of overcoming our differences.

How might we promote unity? We can begin by ‘seeing’ our commonality instead of our differences.

Humankind is one Spirit. Mother Earth is where our physicality arose. Father Spirit is what animated that dust.

Connecting to our core is the balm for our sore.

Beyond our reality lies the real.

Beyond our sight lies the root.

Beyond religion lies the truth.

Beyond separation lies unity.

Beyond our horizon lies love.

Love-erly isn’t it. David

JULY 23/06 - WAR & A WEDDING

Ina & I just got back to Pender Island from my niece’s Wedding Reception last night & turned on the news to ‘A Week at War’.

We stopped at Starbucks before getting on the Pender Island ferry & ran into an old friend, who commented on the number of divorces today versus when he was a kid, along with the cost of living problems for a single parent family unit. Ina believes that the breakup of the family is a source of many of our social ills.

Anderson Cooper reflects from Beirut that “at times you just have to turn your eyes away” from the bloodshed, the reality.

On our trip back from Vegas we stopped through Alberta & Kelowna, B.C., where we heard about the Native Land Claims negotiations with the British Columbia government. The 1st Nations people believe we are raping Mother Earth.

A Lester B Pearson, United World College Board Member, told me that he thought that what we are doing to the environment contributes to terrorism. Pillaging natural resources has been an accepted way of life for our generation for as long as I can remember. I’m reading a book called ‘The Golden Spruce’ which outlines the clear cut logging techniques that our Province is famous for. The story is about a fellow who contributed to that desecration & then realized what he was doing. Once he decided to do something about it, the book suggests that he had a vision & acquired a messianic complex.

The writer goes on to state that there are many professionals today that understand that type of psychological complex or illness.

The question I have is ‘what is reality’?

I once saw a movie during my University days that showed a French town evacuated due to war which left all the inmates of the insane asylum with the gates unlocked. Over a few hours the inmates got out of the asylum & took on all the roles of the community. One played the Mayor, another the Sherriff, another the Bishop, another the town prostitute, etc.

They wound up running the community with love & peace. When the first soldier arrived he couldn’t fathom the crazy antics of the peaceful community. The rest of the soldiers arrived, realized what had happened, & got the nuts back into the insane asylum, saying “let’s get on to finish this war”.

The first soldier, having witnessed love & peace, in the midst of war, jumped off the army truck & was last seen at the asylum gates, stark naked, knocking for the Catholic sisters to let him in.

I left the theatre wondering who was really crazy. Had the patients abandoned reality or reconnected with it? When people enter catatonic or Alzheimer states, are they happier or less fortunate?

We live in a world where good & evil exists. It exists within each one of us. Once we are able to overcome evil, are we to be diagnosed as a messianic personality. Would Jesus & the prophets be diagnosed as mentally ill today?

Are we headed to a cataclysmic conclusion or as the good book suggests, Armageddon? The Islamic fundamentalist running Iran seems to want that conclusion. Is the end a religious war, a Jihad?

My grandfather said he had lived to see Israel gain back a homeland, 1949. In 1969, I told him that was true but I didn’t see how the USA would ever wind up in the Middle East to fight Russia, & over what.

Since then we have had OPEC & now Iraq, over what, oil, of course.

A book I read over the weekend, ‘See No Evil’, about a CIA agent, says that the State Department is influenced strongly by the large oil companies. He claims that the companies wanted the U.S. to support the Saudi family, who has the most oil, & the Saudis have supported the most terrorists. The 9-11 roster was mostly from middle income families in Saudi Arabia.

What are we missing?

What are we to do, if anything?

Has the end been foretold, & is it a forgone conclusion?

Humanity was given a choice from the beginning. We are a cross between good & evil. There but for the grace of God go I.

Let’s not waste time or our talents.

We have more than enough talent, money, experience, & time to change the direction this planet, Mother Earth, is taking. We don’t have to “look the other way” as Anderson Cooper suggests.

We can look right into the face of evil & stare it down. That stare starts at home. Home is where we live. Where we live is in our temple. Our temple is our physical body. Our being is our God self.

Meeting our true nature may be classified a messianic event, but that is no reason for us to delay the experience. Our choice is a product of our perception. Overcoming the grave is our last battle. Our perception is our future.

This experience has been referred to as thirst quenching.

Come drink at the life giving well.

The groom awaits.

Love is in the air.

David

JULY 16/06 - DARK SOUL

Ina & I are from British Columbia, Canada, & recently part of the local news has been about an American fellow embezzling millions of dollars from Victoria people & then crossing the border to hide in Seattle.

Just yesterday, as we were leaving Las Vegas, Ina & I stopped to visit with the Director of one of the major Governmental Agencies. He began telling us about a fellow that came from Victoria, Canada, with two jets & spent $25,000 on a dinner at the Bellagio for all his American relatives. The return of the conquering hero was the essence of the story but the Director’s response to the wild spending was that the returnee was either selling drugs or embezzling money.

He, of course, turned out to be right & went on to say that the returnee, when young, was always a flake, a ‘dark soul’.

It’s amazing to me that on such a whim, our short visit just minutes before leaving Vegas that we would run into a fellow that knew the individual that has caused such travails to our country men in Canada.

I have also been reading ‘A History of the Jews’, Paul Johnson. In it he discusses the Holocaust, Hitler’s Jewish eradication policy in Europe. Now there was a fellow with a dark soul.

That got me to thinking about what really is a dark soul? Is it a soul without any light? What is a soul?

Is our soul the connection we have with our Creator, the Source of all light? In the book of wisdom, it states that the Source said “let there be light” and the light overcame the darkness.

How does this apply to us, or is the ‘dark soul’ comment just for the other fellow, Hitler & our Victoria embezzler?

The night before we left Vegas, some friends took us out to dinner, & we were discussing the everyday business world. We touched on Enron & the real estate business in Las Vegas.

Enron seems to be a blatant example of one’s fellow man taking advantage of others. Some believe Ken Lay never really knew what was happening, but he is now dead at 65, probably of stress over facing the rest of his life in jail & losing face in the community. The second Enron victim was found in a London Park this week, apparently a suicide. Did these two gentlemen, along with their co-conspirators, have dark souls? Could they not see the light? Was the light absent from their lives?

In Las Vegas real estate we discussed the difficult times that the town is facing, & the unwillingness, on the part of local realtors, to face that inevitability. We, personally, experienced this reluctance & the corresponding smoke that results, or B.S., as they refer to it in the U.S.A.

We were discussing how easy it is to vary from the straight & narrow, the willingness to vary from the truth, integrity issues.

I asked Ina what a ‘dark soul’ means & she said “a soul without love”. Is love & light synonymous?

Do each of us experience the dark night of the soul? Does that happen when times are tough? Do we go overboard and murder our neighbor or maybe just gossip & singe their credibility a little?

When does our soul go dark & when does the flame flicker bright?

For the answer, I went again to the good book, & found some possible advice, “connect directly to your Source & then pass the power onto your fellow persons” (paraphrased).

This then appears to suggest that we are a conduit built much like a tree, except with the capability to think & love. We can be very productive & bear much fruit, like the fruit-full tree, or we can be barren, without love or very little of it that we pass on.

When we don’t love our self &/or we are self-ish, the light dims perceptibly. When we are there to share, life ‘lightens’ up, people want to be around us.

When the light shines brightly we are closer to our Source, & when it grows dim, we are closer to our grave. When our physical machine gives out, do we want to be floating above or grounded below?

Material accumulations weigh us down heavily, the lack thereof allows for a light load. The good book says that it is much easier for the poor to ‘get it’ & for the rich “it is tougher than a camel going through the eye of a needle”.

Ina thinks the soul is our essence, the spiritual aspect of our being. So from a spiritual standpoint, the ‘light’er the load, the easier the path, it seems. Does our individual piece of the Source, shine brightly, or flicker dimly until it finally goes out?

The answer lies in love. The further we fall into love, into the Source of all love, the brighter our light burns. The brighter our light burns the more others will be attracted to the light.

The more we share the fruits of that love, the more we will have to give, “give & it shall come back tenfold”.

The fruits are our God given talents & the more we share those, the more they multiply. The more they multiply, the better we feel & the closer to our Source are we.

For a long time now, I have been trying to apply what I read & hear on Sunday’s, to our everyday existence. This idea of the dark soul has brought me closer to those answers, “seek & ye shall find” is starting to make sense.

When I picked up one of the first spiritual books, maybe it was ‘A Course in Miracles’, it said that “now you have started on this path your search will never end”. I said “yea right”, this is probably the first & last book of this type that I will ever read. Well, here ten years later, I’m starting to understand the words “the water that quench-eth all thirst”.

From Victoria to Vegas, from the embezzler to the government official, it is amazing to me how interconnected we all are. Six degrees of separation, the 100th monkey, & other such comments are starting to tie together in my logic.

We were made in the image of our Creator & given the ability to think & love. I, for one, do too much thinking.

Love comes from the heart, thoughts come from the head, it is time we allowed the heart to rule our head. The Kingdom of Heaven is within, it is within our hearts. Open the door & if it is closed, keep knocking.

The self image, the ego, is the last battle.

Love conquers all, even the ego.

Happiness can be here now.

Love yourself, David

JULY 9/06 - ‘IN THE BEGINNING WAS THE WORD’

That phrase can be found in the Book of Wisdom. What exactly were they referring to & where was the word?

They go on to say “and the Word was with the Creator”. Where was & is the Creator?

They said the Creator is in Heaven. Where is heaven?

Heaven has been described as the Kingdom of God. Leo Tolstoy wrote the book, The Kingdom of God is Within.

The Book of Wisdom says that we were made in the image of God. Are you starting to get the drift? We are attached to the Creator of all. Does that mean we are attached to All? That would be a fairly easy assumption. The Creator created nature & it is nature-all that we be a part of all that is.

We were endowed with Divine Intelligence. We were given the ability to discern between good & evil. We were imbued with a piece of that Universal Wisdom. Together we are the ocean of wisdom & together we can create miracles thereby.

How is the Intelligence & Source of all life transferred to us? As it says in the good book, do we know where the wind comes from & goes to?

Ina & I drove to Scottsdale yesterday & went through the Lake Mead National Park, by accident, if you can believe that. Ina commented about the rays of sunshine coming through the clouds & reflecting on the lake. Those rays transfer light & heat from the sun & as they do that, so does the invisible realm of the Kingdom of God or heaven, transfer to us the wisdom of the Word.

We manifest that which we think. As we think so do we become. Whatever we believe is possible is possible. Whether we actually manifest our dreams is up to us.

The spoken word is what comes out of our mouth & comes from the heart. The heart is the place from which we emote. The brain is the place from which we analyze.

Heaven on earth is created from the heart. Hell on earth is created from the brain. From both places words come forth but the meaning can be quite different. I want you to do something for my good or you’re good. That subtle difference can cause wars.

Terrorism can be part of family life; it doesn’t just involve Islamic fundamentalists.

Words can be soothing. Words can have many meanings. Words are what make the world go round. Check out the extensive use of email in recent years.

So, ‘in the beginning was the Word’ & ‘the Word was with God’. That Word, that life giving force, was breathed into a physical carcass, called humans. Life was manifested. Made in the Image came before made in Japan & the quality is immeasurably infinite.

Built in obsolescence is not in the vernacular of the Word. Infinite wisdom is the operative Word.

Will our physical coat, the coat of many colors, return to dust? Of course, from dust to dust. Where does the Spirit which emanates our physicality return? To its Source, of course.

Where do the rays of the sun go? Check out Al Gore’s new movie, An Inconvenient Truth or read the book, The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight.

Many of us are in the waning hours of our physical journey & on the cusp of a new dawning. Can we reach the horizon ahead of the final hour of sunlight?

Wisdom is available, the Word is clear for all who have ears to hear. Do we really want to ‘see’ that which has been given us from time immemorial? Do we care what the new world holds in store?

If happiness has any interest then we can witness the new world here & now. The words ‘thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven’ could become a way of living, if we can grasp the words between the two commas in the last sentence.

How does one become a conduit for the Will of the Creator? How does a tree pass through its life giving force from its roots to the fruit? Just think of the fruit that we could produce if we could match the ability of a tree.

Some seeds fall on unproductive ground. How productive are we?

Are we careful with our words? Are we aware of their affect on others? What comes out of our mouth is a reflection of what is in our heart. Is our heart full of love or filled with disappointment?

We don’t ever need to worry about what we are going to say if our hearts are pure. Kid’s hearts are pure & kids will say the damnedest things.

Kids are a reflection of the world around them; they, of course, were made in the image of their Creator & have not yet taken on the self image that develops as they mature into the society around them.

So if in the beginning was the Word & the Word was with God, & we were created in the image of God, what took us on the path that we have chosen, & to where do we return?

Those are questions worth finding an answer to, just as buying a field with a valuable diamond planted somewhere in it, is. The words, ‘don’t spend your time accumulating that which moths can eat & thieves can steal, but think on those things which affect your soul, for what is it worth to lose your soul’, are true wisdom & come from the place where, ‘in the beginning was the Word’, was meant to describe.

Whatever way we want to describe it our life entered our body from another dimension & it will return to that dimension with the added spice that we give it during its journey here on earth. ‘Salt that loses its spice’ is worthless, don’t lose our soul is the message.

We are here for great things; we are not just a number in the mass of humanity. Finding our purpose is the journey.

We are a diamond in the rough. If you don’t believe that then go in & ask to have your DNA checked.

Words can be put to music & our life can be a beautiful song. Birds whistle in the trees while we fret on the ground. Maybe getting our head into the clouds wouldn’t be all bad, as we might soar.

In the beginning!

What have we forgotten?

Who is our Father & who are our brothers & sisters?

This world can be a better place & it starts with each one of us.

Heaven on earth, that goal ‘is’ possible.

Give & ye shall receive.

All of these words are wisdom, check them out.

Love is not just playing at the Mirage.

Love, David

JULY 2/06 - BILL, WARREN & the HOLY SPIRIT

Bill & Melinda Gates have over $29 billion in their foundation. This week Warren Buffett gave them an additional $30 billion.

This morning I was reading Matthew, in the book of wisdom, & he said the following; “for unto everyone that hath shall be given, and he shall hath abundance: but from him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath”.

That verse, 29, from Ch. 25, always struck me as odd. But, here Bill & Melinda gave away $29bil & someone comes along & doubles it. Those are billions with a B.

Oprah put it this way, “to those that much is given, much will be expected”.

Angelina Jolie, when asked, said that she gave 1/3rd of her income to those less fortunate because she felt she was paid a ‘silly’ amount for her work. Her work is movies & apparently she gets paid $15mil per movie.

It seems Bill & Melinda’s $29bil, was 1/3rd of their fortune & when Warren doubled it, they must have been thinking ‘you just can’t give it away fast enough’.

In the Good Book it talks about some trees producing fruit & some seeds falling on fallow ground. It talks about those trees that don’t produce good fruit & the tares sown amongst the good seeds, will all wind up being consumed by fire, in other words thrown away.

Are those points referring to our God given talents & the fact that some people develop them & others don’t? Could the Book be talking about the fact that some people develop those talents, give back in recognition of the fact they have been very fortunate, & therefore wish to multiply their good luck.

Verse 29 in Matthew actually references ‘talents’, although the meaning appears to refer to a specific currency or form of money used in those days. As a matter of fact the young prophet that was speaking those words suggested that if it was currency then give it unto Ceasar, who created the currency, & if it was God given talents then share them with your fellow man or woman.

He went on to say that when you helped out your fellow person, you were helping out God. That seems to connote to me that God is within each & every one of us.

The young prophet went on to say that we have only one Father & that we are all connected as brothers & sisters through that one Father, our Spiritual Father.

He went on to say that our one Father sends the rain to rain on all of us, good & bad alike. We all get the blessing of that life giving water. He suggests in a prayer which is quite well known, that we forgive the trespasses of others, & if we don’t then we won’t be forgiven our own mistakes. What goes around comes around, is another way of saying the same thing.

It seems to me that Warren Buffett, Bill Gates, & Oprah, have done quite a lot with their God given abilities & have recognized how fortunate they have been in receiving these talents & therefore have taken the advice to give back in full measure.

Each of the rest of us has God given abilities & the opportunity to use those for good within our own surroundings. As a matter of fact, if God is within all of us, our common Father, then each of us have miracle making capabilities inherent in our nature. However, many of us never take the opportunity to use these talents & therefore like the other fellow in Matthew 25, ‘what little he had was taken away’.

I always thought that was terrible but then it dawned on me that he did it to himself. We do the same thing to ourselves, when we don’t realize our inherent abilities & live a life of lack. This approach comes from our own self image, our own perspective.

We were originally made in the image of God & then our ‘self’ image took over. We became ‘self ’-ish, so to speak. As the young prophet says ‘we must become like little children again’.

He, also, goes on to say that the ‘meek shall inherit the earth’. Checkout who is benefiting from a major chunk of Gates & Buffetts’ wealth.

What is motivating these men?

Are they trying to buy a ticket into heaven or have they discovered what the young prophet was trying to tell everyone, that heaven is here & now.

Don’t miss it. Every one of us has God given talents. They were given freely. Give of them freely. That is today’s message. It’s a message of Love.

Love is the Holy Spirit.

It’s obviously moving amongst us.

Love, David

JUNE 25/06 -ANGELINA & AFRICA

Angelina Jolie has appeared in a number of places this week. I first saw her on Anderson Cooper 360. Anderson asked her why she gave one third of her income to the women & children refugees in Africa. She said that she was paid a ‘silly’ amount of income & that they needed the help.

AC pursued it further by saying that a lot of people made more money than her & didn’t give away a third of their income. Angelina responded that after going to Africa she had a different perspective of how she was blessed in this country.

She was referring to the God given ability she has been given & the amount of income that that God given opportunity provides. She ‘sees’ that it should be shared. However, Anderson is suggesting that others don’t see it the same way.

What is God given ability & who is God?

God seems so elusive & so far away. How do we bring God ‘down to earth’? It seems Angelina has. Haven’t we all, but just don’t ‘see’ it that way? Where did we come from? We got our body from our physical parents but where did the life that emanates that temple come from?

Is it a temple or a casket?

The choice is ours.

Forbes ran this weeks cover with a picture of Angelina & suggests that she may be doing good to help offset her bad girl image. Angelina agrees with Forbes that that could be a byproduct. Is that bad?

Doesn’t it make sense to bring God into our daily lives & our business careers? What is wrong with recognizing where our talent comes from?

Doesn’t one of the oldest known prayers in the Christian religion state; ‘thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven’? How is that possible?

Angelina seems to have found out, that the recommendation from a young prophet 2000 years ago, to recognize the Father of all, first, & then do unto others as ye would want done unto you, covers the how. This is really not rocket science!

USA Today put Angelina on their front page this week & then went into their headline story discussing all the folks in the entertainment world that are ‘getting it’ so to speak. Headlining the whole group is Oprah Winfrey, who they quote as saying “to those who are given much, much is expected”. I don’t believe she is referring to being given money but to her God given talent, which generates the money. However, in addition to her time, she gave $51.8 mil last year.

They then go on to say that Bono is everywhere, spending time & money. He is sacrificing income & risking his reputation by taking stands on poverty & third world debt relief.

They mention that Woody Harrelson is going to great lengths to protect the environment & through Ted Danson, his Cheers co star, he is supporting the world’s oceans. We’ve often mentioned our friend, Mike McGettigan, www.seawatch.org, who spends a lot of his time & money saving the Sea of Cortes, in Baja.

As you all know, Ina & I, spent a lot of time & money trying to found a United World College, www.uwc.org, in Mexico, until their board turned us down. That was a disappointment but we are now assisting Ray Parks, with his youth center at Braefoot Park, Victoria, B.C.

Where am I going with all this?

I am trying to tie our notion of God to our everyday existence. We have life because of our Spiritual Heritage. We are part of the Universal Wisdom. We are all one through that Eternal Light.

We often times forget this aspect of our nature & get wound up in our physicality, the flesh. This forgetting added to our created self image, the ego, leaves us believing in death. From that belief fear arises & becomes part of our everyday life. Faith takes a back seat. When fear replaces faith, then consumption, image, & greed enter the picture. We get wrapped up in the rush, rush, of daily existence. As ABBA sings, “when all is said & done, rushing doesn’t really matter (Para)”.

The entertainers that I have mentioned aren’t any different to the rest of us; we are all acting out our part in the cosmic play. Many of us sit in the audience & don’t think we can be on the stage but the drama of life carries us along whether we stand up or not.

Whatever our circumstances, the best is yet to come!

Often times we get caught up by the past & can’t let it go. However, there is so much to look forward to & particularly if you have been able to overcome the idea of death. Just think, if you knew that there was life beyond physical death, wouldn’t the picture be a lot brighter.

Well there is. Check it out in the book of Wisdom & try to understand what it is saying. It is all a matter of perspective.

Live a life of love & find out.

Love, David

JUNE 18/06 - GATES & GORE

“I believe that when God created us (and I do believe evolution was part of the process God used). He shaped or breathed life and a soul into us, and then set us free within nature, not separated from it, giving us intimate connections to all aspects of it. The relationship we have to the natural world is not a relationship between ‘us’ and ‘it’. It is us and we are of it.

“Our capacity for consciousness and abstract thought in no way separates us from nature. Our capacity for analysis sometimes leads us to an arrogant illusion: that we’re so special and unique that nature isn’t connected to us. But the fact is we’re inextricably tied.” Al Gore, ‘An Inconvenient Truth’.

‘Gates passes baton at key time for Microsoft’, reads this weeks headline. Bill Gates has apparently decided to quit his day job. To do what, you may ask? The answer is to run his foundation with his wife, Melinda, & see if they can come up with the solution to malaria & help a good part of the people of Africa.

You might read Ina’s part of this page today to see her reaction to Al Gore’s movie of the same name as the book. However, this week it has become quite apparent that Al & Bill are going to join Bono, U2, in doing something significant about the issues that face humanity & the environment. Al intends to save our Mother Earth & Bill intends to save a lot of our brothers & sisters.

Is this exactly what Jesus meant when he said “put God before all else & then second look after your fellow beings” (para). Can God be found in nature? Is God nature? Are we God? Are we inextricably tied?

This morning’s ‘Business Section’ has these headlines: ‘Rising gasoline prices threaten to make other consumables costlier’, Cyber trash going green’, & Prospector sees gold in toxic-waste dump’.

It appears daily now, people are beginning to ‘see’ green ($) in the green movement. The new head of GE has stated as much, & is betting on renewable resource development such as wind power.

There are many ways that we can get away from our addiction to oil & its deleterious affect, CO2 emissions, on Mother Earth. Why would we want to continue to have our children killed in wars, in the oil fields of the middle east, just to pump it through our automobiles into the atmosphere, where it creates global warming that melts our sources of water, glaciers (they are going to have to rename Glacier National Park), which ultimately wipes out our descendants?

Now that might be a too simple way of putting our insanity but?????

If you want to know numerous ways we can individually affect that outcome, pick up Gore’s book & look in the back, for his interesting ideas which are available at your local store.

Ina’s reaction to the movie was, ‘let’s forget adding on to the house & go out & trade our SUV for a hybrid vehicle’.

I think John Lennon, one of the major rock stars to speak out like Bono, probably realized the extent of our madness. Many of us lumped him into the ‘60’s hippy movement. A new movie is coming out about his activism, www.theusversusjohnlennon.com. At one point in the ‘60’s, Lennon compared the Beatles to Jesus Christ. They not only took tremendous heat about that, from the Bible belt, but in addition, John ultimately got himself killed, as Jesus did. What an ending for such talented performers & sincere activists.

What goes through the mind of a person who walks up & shoots someone he doesn’t know? What goes through our mind as we watch our kids shoot people that none of us know? Was John’s song ‘Give Peace a Chance’, just a cute tune or a message for our time? Is it time? When do we ‘Just Say No’ as Nancy Reagan suggested?

Gore says there is about 10 years left before Global Warming becomes irreversible. Might he be right? What if he is? Do we care?

The Mayan Calendar ends at the year 2012. Did they know something that we don’t?

The baby boomer generation is now moving into the Golden Years. What is this huge, talented, educated, wealthy group of people, us, going to do with the next 30 years?

Are we going to gorge ourselves on the fruits of our labor? Are we going to buy bigger cars & second homes to further pollute the environment? Are we going to sit passively by & watch our kids deal with the trash that we have created? Or are we going to get up, get healthy, & become the activist that our spirit yearned for, as we listened to the Beatles & the Stones, in the ‘60’s?

We can live again. It is not over. As a matter of fact, it may just be starting. If we look at the last 30 years as the earning years, we can ‘see’ the next 30 years as the ‘returning’ years. We have been blessed with abundance in our 1st world society & now it is our turn to give back. In giving back, we will change the world. That’s what we idealized in the ‘60’s.

Imagine!

This is our time, let’s not squander it. Our grandkids will thank us. Even if they don’t, we will feel full-filled & our eternal journey will be easier to take. Why ride on into the next sphere regretting anything? We are not going to take it with us so let’s do something with it. What do we think our kids are going to do with it if we leave them ‘nothing’ to work with?

There is time, that’s the good news. Apparently, Gates & Gore have prioritized with that in mind. Their approach is thinking beyond themselves, self-less. We have the opportunity to do the same. If we can get beyond our little self, we have the chance to meet our ‘real’ self.

Spirit awaits our arrival. Some call it love, & as the Beatles sang, ‘All We Need Is Love’.

Paul is still looking but the rest of us owe him a great debt of gratitude for all the happy moments, his & John’s music, has brought us. Don’t miss ‘The Beatles, Love’; at the Mirage in Vegas, McCartney was here, himself, sitting in the audience with The Beatles producer, George Martin, on Thursday night.

Love to you all, from Paul

& David.

JUNE 11/06 - THE BEATLES – LOVE

George Harrison, before he died, approached the founder of Cirque de Soleil to create a production around the Beatles music. Apparently, it is the one project all the Beatles agreed to, including John Lennon’s widow, Yoko Ono.

The production opened this month at the Mirage, Las Vegas, & replaces the popular Siegfried & Roy, white tiger spectacular.

Ina was so impressed she called it the “best stage show she has ever seen”. It incorporates Sergeant Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band & of course, based on ‘All We Need Is Love’.

The performers were terrific & we had seats surrounded by the stage. The singers were on both sides, in front, & swinging high above us.

Ina believes the Universal language is music & after this event, I believe she is right. Words do not unite us, music does. Check it out, more people voted for the American Idol than vote for the U.S. President. The U.S. President has the power to obliterate mankind; the American Idol unites hearts.

We are currently in the City of Music, the City of Lights. However, there is the under current of what goes on here stays here. What goes on in the dark is not revealed by the light of day. What a distinct line, clarity & ignorance juxtaposed.

Hasn’t this been the way it is from the start? What was the beginning?

‘In the beginning was the word’ or was it the Garden of Eden & the ignorance of good & evil?

I just completed reading the Book of Mormon & the writer, Joseph Smith, said that he was confused about which religion had the right answer. He turned directly to God for the answer, through prayer, & received the Book of Mormon.

The Book states that God sent the Spirit into the body of Man, which was made from the dust. Apparently, until the Spirit or Universal Mind entered our forefather, Adam, we were just like the animals, dumb & content. We did not worry about where our next meal was coming from or whether we could make the house payments.

When Jesus (upon whom Christianity is based) arrived, he fought & overcame the Devil. Now who is this character? Are he & God, two different color individuals that live somewhere out there or are they intrinsic within our own makeup? Are we not a combination of both?

Is not the love we express from the time we are born, our true God Self, & is not the self image or ego that we create over time, the Devil or ignorant side of our nature? Are not these two often times at odds with each other?

Don’t we primarily look out for our self & expand our concerns to what we call our immediate family & friends?

Love, in the Beatles music sense, is about unity of all mankind. John Lennon went on to write ‘Imagine’, which further spelled out his philosophy.

What is different about their stated position & that of the Father of Christianity? Maybe He was God incarnate but aren’t we all? Wasn’t that Jesus’ point?

Isn’t the struggle of life a personal one? Isn’t the struggle between our own Spiritual Self & our smaller self image? Isn’t the answer to the success over death which side of our nature wins our undying faith?

Isn’t the answer to eternal life embedded within that decision?

Love isn’t a way of living just to be nice to others; it is the solution to life or death for each of us.

The choice we make is the course we take.

In the beginning was the Word & the Word was with God. The word entered our being & what was in our heart came out of our mouth.

The admonition, ‘watch out what you ask for as you might get it’ or ‘think before you speak’, applies here.

If we are truthful & sincere, then we don’t have to worry about what is going to come out of our mouth, or as Art Linkletter noted, ‘kids say the darndest things’. Kids watch our actions more than they listen to our words.

God isn’t somewhere else, God is within. It is our natural being. We are living in ignorance, behind the veil, so to speak. When the light finally dawns on us, we will ‘see’ clearly.

Our family is the human family & we are all unified by that same Power that emanates us. Jesus apparently saw that clearly & lived his life that way. Was He right? We will find out.

Will He meet us at the pearly gates or will we see heaven on earth, here & now? We may never witness Pearly Gates ‘unless’ we see` it now.

All of these terms are metaphors for a simple concept that seems to elude most of us.

Maybe the Beatles got it, & All We Need Is Love.

Come see the show, you will Love it.

Love, David & Ina

JUNE 4/06 - FLIGHT 93

Last weekend Ina & I saw the movie referred to above. It is definitely a disturbing event. Here were two different cultures on the same plane both praying to ‘their’ God. One group was on a suicide mission & wanted God’s assistance for success, the other group was praying to their God for their safety. We, of course, know who succeeded.

Does that mean that God was on the side of the group labeled terrorists? Why do the bad guys seem to win more often than the good guys & who are the good guys? The Dixie Chicks were on Larry King Live last night to defend their statements about their own country which had them labeled as traitors.

The Infallible Word of God, the Christian Bible including the Old Testament, states that the end will come in the Middle East where everything will explode, with all the major powers being brought together in conflict.

On opening Yahoo this morning it states that the religious leader of Iran gave a speech yesterday & said that the U.S. better not attack Iran even though they will continue with their nuclear research. The leader said the research is for peaceful purposes even though they have stated that Israel needs to be wiped from the face of the earth.

A number of nations in the world are being drawn into the conflict. Oil & religion is at the center of the issue & could we think of a more combustible element than oil when ignited. We know people are willing to give their life for religion. Could a nation give up their combined lives for their beliefs?

Could the seeming suicide mission track that Iran appears to be on be one that could draw the whole world into a cataclysmic event as prophesied in the Infallible Word? Would that not achieve the result that the religious zealots are looking for more effectively than just downing 3 or 4 planes & a couple of buildings?

Will the rest of us just sit by & watch it all unfold on CNN or might we join the Dixie Chicks in speaking out & taking action?

Between oil, a non sustainable resource, & pollution of our Garden of Eden, Mother Earth, it appears we may be moving inexorably towards the last book of the New Testament.

Is there any hope, or as the news portrays, is it all gloom & doom? The mass consumption spending of our society, at ever faster rates, appears to be a sign that intuitively we believe that we better eat & be merry for tomorrow may ‘not’ be another day. Buying two SUV’s may be feeding into the end result, helping to make it a self fulfilling prophecy.

Is there any ‘Good News’? There are many religions in the world that claim to have the Good News. The different interpretations lead to the exclusion of the others. So while we chew incessantly over those differences, we can’t ‘see’ our oneness.

Preaching versus teaching becomes the standard. What we say versus how we act becomes the end. If our lives were lived as one of loving compassion, the results would be a reversal of our current course. We can steer away from the edge but we need to know the path.

The path is one of sharing our wealth with the rest of mankind, our brothers & sisters. We must discontinue ‘seeing’ them as our enemy. Compassion for those less fortunate is the message of the Infallible Word.

War, on these our brothers & sisters, is not the answer, as the Dixie Chicks claimed. In a recent Quentin Tarantino movie, was the following line; “The goal of a warrior is to lay down his sword.”

Right after the warrior did just that they killed him. What message was Tarantino trying to give? What is the message?

Follow your heart. Feel the answer. Love heals many wounds, including our own.

Love, David