Tuesday, January 31, 2017

Nature photo of the day

Nature photo of the day - love the patterns and shapes here on the tree and shells. This is day 2 of 7 day challenge. Now to nominate someone else?

Good advice for today

Even in a world that's being shipwrecked, remain brave and strong.

Hildegard von Bingen (gratefulness.org)

Sean Spicer defends detention of 5-year-old: It’s ‘misguided’ to think kids don’t ‘pose a threat’

White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer said on Monday that the Trump administration would not apologize for detaining a 5-year-old Iranian boy…

rawstory.com

Monday, January 30, 2017

MIGHTY EIGHTH AIR FORCE IN WW2

There is a wonderful museum of the "Mighty Eighth" in Savannah. I get to go back to interview the last pilot of the bomber Liberator B24, which flew from England to Germany at night on bombing missions. 26000 airmen died (2 of 5 did not make it). Thousands of more were injured or became POW's like Sgt. Tom Barnhart(the Hogan Hero), who was one of my first interviews.

This will be our 61st interview.

Attachments area

Isle of LIGHT

The Brilliant Isle of LIGHT! Near Little River,. S. C. thanks to Jacqueline Boyce for allowing me to visit many times, much of that time checking on the safety of Turtle Nests.I was fortunate to be able to see over 70 eggs hatch with most scamperiing to the sea. A few wayward one had to be helped just a little.Miraculous how they fan out naturally and know which way to go insuring more of them make it past their predators. At this time, their worst predator is the almost translucent even dainty-looking Ghost Crab,..\
Photograph by moi, Ron Alexander

Ron Alexander with Jacqueline Boyce.

January 30, 2016

Death is not extinguishing the light

Death is not extinguishing the light; it is putting out the lamp because the dawn has come.

First they came for the Muslims....

First they came for the Communists And I did not speak out Because I was not a Communist Then they came for the Socialists And I did not speak out Because I was not a Socialist Then they came for the trade unionists And I did not speak out Because I was not a trade unionist Then they came for the Jews And I did not speak out Because I was not a Jew Then they came for me And there was no one left To speak out for me - Pastor Martin Niemoller

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Offer yourself as a healer of misery

I swear I will not dishonor my soul with hatred, but offer myself humbly as a guardian of nature, as a healer of misery, as a messenger of wonder, as an architect of peace.

DIANE ACKERMAN(gratefulness.org)

Sunday, January 29, 2017

All the time in the world,

As long as the candle burns, there is time to make repairs.

Rabbi Salanter(gratefulness.org)

Malignant narcissism

Janie Mallard:

Malignant narcissism ..... only one week in and everyone should realize his mental illness is so dangerous for us all !

Anti-social behavior

Sadism

Aggressiveness

Paranoia

Grandiosity

Entitled

Regressed

Manipulative

Destructive

Egocentric

Use of projection

Lack of conscience

Narcissistic

Gartner says that individuals with malignant narcissism often lack impulse control and empathy. He also says many who suffer from this disorder believe that others around them don’t recognize their greatness.

‘We’ve seen enough public behavior by Donald Trump now that we can make this diagnosis indisputably,’ Gartner claims.

Saturday, January 28, 2017

Just one moral duty:

Ultimately, we have just one moral duty: to reclaim large areas of peace in ourselves, more and more peace, and to reflect it towards others. And the more peace there is in us, the more peace there will also be in our troubled world.

Etty Hillesum (gratefulness.org)
“Buddha taught that in its true nature, the mind is empty, cognizant, and uncontained. When this mind if free of ignorance, hatred, desire, and all the misconceptions, afflictions, and emotions that derive from them, the mind becomes clear, pure light, pristine awareness and peace. That enlightened state is there, in all of us from beginningless time.” The Dalai Lama

Friday, January 27, 2017

Finding your "Inner Trump"!

Nancy Boyd: Ron Alexander My take on the Jungian thinking is that we work on and change our own "inner bully" which then changes the collective consciousness through ours. In other words, we don't change them, we change US. And that changes them. Kinda paradoxical I know, but I have also heard this from some very wise teachers from all kinds of lineage streams.

Donald Trump is going to snap very soon, and here is how I know

Posted on January 22, 2017January 26, 2017 by Richard Willmsen

I believe that rather than smashing our own glass houses to pieces in the act of destroying Donald Trump’s Presidency, we need to be aware of our own inner Trump, to reflect on our own tendencies to think and behave in catastrophically immature, venal and insecure ways. I therefore offer up this short account of my own personal emotional development, and then explain why I think it helps explain why Trump is heading for a breakdown very, very soon.
I used to suffer from a quite disabling insecurity, particularly when it came to things like being creative and forming relationships with other people. I got better, partly by virtue of living in and studying Portugal, learning about its people’s tendency to swing between moments of self-aggrandisement and self-abnegation, from ‘we are great’ to ‘we are nothing’. I also learnt about my own habit of projecting my own feelings onto others, both people and countries. The work of the Portuguese poet Fernando Pessoa showed me that we’re all characters on a stage acting out different roles, and that that is okay. I identified strongly with the philosopher Eduardo Lourenço’s diagnosis that Portuguese people tend to suffer from taking on too many identities, and I took enormous inspiration, consolation and guidance from his insights that Portugal is ‘marvelously imperfect’, ‘no worse and no better than anyone else’, and that progress comes from accepting one’s limitations.
Living in China taught me to accept the existence of other perceptions of my own identity, even if I feel embarrassed about it, particularly in terms of my national identity. Everyone has one and I can’t let the fact of my British or Englishness inhibit me unduly. Writing about my misunderstandings of Chinese society and about my role there helped me accept that I, like everyone else, have an ego, and also that I can use writing as a vehicle for making connections between things and to help find people who’ve noticed the same things, who share my perspective. Spending time with a Lacanian psychoanalyst in London helped me develop confidence in my own voice while also teaching me about the foibles of my tendency to overthink. I got better (although not necessarily good) at identifying and cultivating friendships with other people. I met the woman who later became my wife, who loves me for who I am rather than who I pretend to be. Through my job I became better at listening to people and more accepting of others and myself. I learnt that honest self-reflection is a more effective medium for personal development than alcohol is. Through acquiring other languages I discovered that learning is one of the things I most enjoy and value about being alive.
I still screw up, as we all do, but I accept that doing so is part of life, and when I do or get something wrong I try to apologise without fear or recrimination. I know that I’m not mad in any meaningful sense. I accept that I have some ability to write entertainingly and insightfully, and I have less fear than I did before of saying what I want to say. I have a wonderful editor in my wife and I accept that I sometimes miss things and perhaps expose some parts of myself to criticism and ridicule. I know that what I write doesn’t and doesn’t have to please everyone. I accept that everyone is fallible, and that it takes hard work to produce writing of quality. Sometimes I don’t put in enough hard work, and that’s my fault. I try hard not to depend emotionally on the responses or lack of responses to what I write. In a nutshell, I’ve matured, to the point where I can now face the prospect of becoming a father, something which, say, 15 years ago was (so to speak) inconceivable.
All this means that I understand something of the fragility of Donald Trump’s ego. Having struggled to maintain friendships in the past, I can see how Trump can get to a point where he has, according to a piece in Newsweek based on several months spent around him, no close friends. As I’ve acknowledged before, it’s essential for us to have the humility to recognise that we don’t have the ability to diagnose Trump at a distance. But that there’s something of the manchild about him is inescapable.
These first two days of his ‘Presidency’ saw paranoid and recriminatory tweets, a speech to the CIA in which he ranted bitterly about media reports of his coronation, and his press spokesperson being sent out to deliver another paranoid self-pitying rant. People are mercilessly taking the piss out of the piss-poor attendance at his pitiable inauguration, and Trump appears to be following every single one of them on Twitter. It’s clear to me that whatever means he’s used to survive up until this point aren’t going to work in his new role. There’s simply too much scrutiny and ridicule, and it’s going too deep. He’s too much of a shallow narcissist to ignore it. Trump is going to learn the wisdom of Jacques Lacan: “the madman is not only a beggar who thinks he is a king, but also a king who thinks he is a king”. Whatever monster he has buried in his mind is going to rise up to bite off huge chunks of him from within.
Trump is famously hostile to the notion of learning: no-one has anything to teach him. He was born rich, and that means he’s a genius and that everyone must respect him. He appears to have no ability for self-reflection. The mirrors he has in his mansion may be framed in gold, but he’s never been able to bring himself to look into them for more than a few seconds. Instead he’s surrounded himself with people who tell him what he wants to hear, who repeat back to him his inner mantra: you’re the richest, the best, the greatest writer, builder, statesman, etc etc etc. But it’s his inner voices that are the problem, the ones that tell him that he’s nothing, a failure, that everyone sees him as a joke. The ones that (presumably) sound a lot like his father.
His tweets in particular reveal that at some level he knows that his self-aggrandising self-image is hollow and brittle. So he lashes out, including physically. And it’s getting worse. People are laughing louder. He’s now put himself in a position where the entire world knows that he is venal, insecure, stupid and deluded.
He’s become in two days the paranoid and deluded ruler of so many novels by Latin American and African writers. Usually this point is reached after several decades of rule and the imposition of terror and a cult of personality. He’s the kind of leader that the U.S. has imposed on so many other countries; there is an element of chickens coming home to roost. He obviously took enormous consolation from his media image, the idea that he was ‘America’s CEO’. He believed this and seems to have internalised it, but is also taunted by a nagging awareness that it was little more than a joke, a stupid slogan to sell a TV show. His supporters may not know that, but some will learn. He’s already starting to turn some of them against him. As he attacks their standard of living and doesn’t have the political skills necessary to calm their anger, they will see through him to the delusion, insecurity and vanity within. He’ll have no more defences and will be unable to hide from the stark fact that his flatterers don’t respect him. Putin in particular is evil but not stupid. He knows that Trump is an absolute moron. And he can’t control that smirk of his.
Lacan said that what matters in psychoanalysis is not so much what the client says, but what falls out of his pockets while speaking. Trump appears to have absolutely no idea what he has in his pockets, and now everyone on the planet is picking up things, inspecting them and telling him what they are. They are teaching him things about himself that he cannot bear to learn. He also knows that he is President in name only, and that’s not enough to sustain his ego.
He will snap very, very soon.
Our job is to increase the tension.

What you resist persists?

Nancy Boyd

Someone said something today that struck a chord with me and I wanted to share my insights about it with you.

What they shared was a quote that I have heard many times, and know to be true:

"What you resists persists."

Now, ever since Trump took office, I have taken a position of. . . yes. . . resistance to his rulings and policies, because they hurt the planet and the people. I have thought of myself as a resistor. A Fighter against evil things.

But thinking about this quote. . . I am changing how I view what I am doing (NOT changing what I am doing.)

Here is how I am reframing things:

I am transforming what is ugly and cruel into something that is beautiful and helpful.

Can we just change things up a bit and take them that one or two levels higher in how we think about what we are doing? I believe it will make a HUGE difference!

Shall we try it and see? I am. Because for one thing, I do NOT want evil to persist. And because I truly want LOVE and beauty to prevail.

What do you think about this? I'd love to hear.

Patricia Jay Thompson:I love it! Reminds me of this saying... "Row, row, row your boat, gently down the stream..." It doesn't mean we accept what is complacently, but what it does mean, is that we stay unruffled and continue to express the Truth in all our thoughts, words and actions. In other words, we BE the change we want to see in the world. But, again, that does not mean milk toast lalaland new age focus on love and light. Noooooooo, we still point out the negativity...all the horrors of this world and advocate for Truth. We still look at the reality of what is going on, and work hard to raise awareness and compassion, but we do not allow ourselves to become swallowed up in it.

Doc Shar I am choosing to re-frame this whole thing as the wake-up call we all needed to clarify our values and beliefs. We are dualistic creatures. We need to know black in order to know white, hot to know cold, up to know down, etc. Trump will show us more clearly what we do NOT want, so we can more fervently and purposefully pursue what we DO want! Thanks Donald!

Ron Alexander Non-violent resistance is what Gandhi and MLK used to change the whole world. Can we reframe "resistance" to "boundaries"? We love our children, however they need and appreciate "tough love". Trump is acting like a child, a bully son. What does a parent do in this case? I am a spiritual person, and I believe in most of the platitudes expressed here, however I have also studied WW2 closely, and observe Trump using fascist "evil" tactics to take over our government. Do we just pray him away?

LikeReply155 mins

Doc Shar "Praying" is too passive... we need to take decisive action here!

What do you suggest Doc?

Doc Shar Keep reminding Trump we are watching him in any way we can... especially in larger numbers than he can draw himself lol. I don't think we need to do much more than challenge him constantly. I think he's going to implode... self-destruct... shoot himself in the foot with his own narcissism... wait for it!

Ron Alexander Jung writes about the collective conscious and Unconscious. That we consciously observe and point out unconscious actions can help change the collective. Can we change a "bully son" by helping him see the "light"?

Nancy Boyd: Ron Alexander, My take on the Jungian thinking is that we work on and change our own "inner bully" which then changes the collective consciousness through ours. In other words, we don't change them, we change US. And that changes them. Kinda paradoxical I know, but I have also heard this from some very wise teachers from all kinds of lineage streams.

Doc Shar I'm not too hopeful about that

Ron Alexander Thanks Nancy and all you commenters, this is a very thoughtful dialogue. I have learned a lot here. Keeping our peace while taking positive non violent action seems to be what I am learning? You?
Nancy Boyd: Doc Shar For sure the more negative attention he gets the crazier it makes him. Ron, from what I have heard from respected psychiatrists and psychologists, there is very little effective treatment for NPD, which not not a hopeful prognosis in Trump's case for being able to effect any positive change.

What I personally feel about Trump is that even if his soul has an awakening (and I'm holding space that it can and will) -- he will have a difficult time overcoming his personality tendencies, The kind of change we need to see from him may not be possible.

Nancy Boyd Yes, Ron. To me, this is what the union of male/female energies is all about. I am going to post something in a moment that captures it perfectly (and I wish *I* had said it, because it's about as clear as it could be.) It's a quote from astrologer Anne Harris and it's BRILLIANT.