Decatur Street Beat!

 

Durham-based Dixieland Band - A good time group! Heard them at Pittsboro's General Store in May. Thanks for the memory....

What Does it Mean to be a "Free Spirit"?

“The human challenge is to learn to be a free spirit, to cope with and to rise above what we experience in the physical world.”  (JOH, K. Oddenino, 381)

“All addictions are the result of the belief system that we have been involved with from the beginning of our life.” (JOH,326)

As I think about what it means to live and to learn as a human being, I’m grateful to my parents, to all mentors, for their motivation to teach, to share their lives and knowledge and wisdom gained through living.  The phrase “free spirit” has been familiar to me as long as I can remember. When I think about it and try to pinpoint how I’ve interpreted it from others’ descriptions, and what it symbolizes to me now, I’m amazed at the way we snag little bits of truth (energy units) which make sense to us long before our minds can truly articulate an expansive understanding of them. This tells me something about how our energy system is designed as sensory beings, and how our minds work too, as we’re stimulated by and through the experiences we create.


Recently I’ve been reading about the Ten Commandments, as represented by the ocean of Internet sources, and thinking about how they relate to the Ethical Values as Kathy Oddenino teaches through Spiritual Philosophy. As stated, the first four commandments relate to the relationship of the human being with God and the rest to the relationships between people. In the New Testament, Jesus is said to have repeated some of the commandments to one of the disciples and condensed them elsewhere into two general laws: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.” Matt. 22:34-40. Looking back at the list of commandments from the Old Testament, then, I see a rule book of behaviors, the last six of which are what NOT to do. That tells me that we have the rules only because we do not know how to behave ethically. Ethically means we treat each other with love, truth, and equally as human beings, because we are created with the same energy sensory design and purpose.

I think about what freedom means to me. I know the energy fluctuations I have felt as I’ve lived my daily experiences, making choices, doing physical things. I know which feel good, when I’ve felt sad, which rile me up (as some of us say in the South), which bring deep joy within me, from the Universe that I am and that I share. Until I was taught to think of these fluctuations as Energy, I was often confused by the flux of feelings and sometimes did not know how to interpret them in a way that was inspiring, truthful, and therefore productive. I understand, too, how we can think we understand what it means to be “loving,” truthful, and equal, as an intellect, or as a person who believes we live our emotions on our sleeve, and not truly know what it means to be a free spirit. That’s why we evolve as a consciousness! The Ten Commandments, as written in history as this rule-book of behavior, are just that- a strict guide for wayward souls that needed a light to stay on the “straight and narrow.” The Ethical Values explain another level of what it means to “be good.” The trinities of Ethical Values open a searching mind to the harmony and rhythm of joy, of happiness, of sharing as the stabilizing energy which increases our power of learning as we continue to create and share our experiences.

As a teenager and as a young adult I floundered among rules and rebelled against many. Not because I wanted to “be a rebel without a cause,” but because rules as physical rules did not help me to know myself as an evolving energy being and therefore to know that I carried these beliefs with me as energy through lifetimes to learn, change, and grow as I recognized beliefs that no longer served me in living as a free spirit. Rulebooks that related only to what-not-to-do only went so far as physical guidelines. The “why” which created the need for such a rulebook is what my mind was looking for. That “why” was the energy I’ve lived throughout my lifetimes as a human being, on Earth, interacting and sharing with all other energy.  I’ve learned from Spiritual Philosophy, and the opening of my mind, that our greatest addiction is fear. I know this is true, because I can map my mind’s “eye” and the legend of my experiences as I remember them.  Metaphysical teachings explain the seven levels of energy as: Being; God; Truth; Knowledge; Energy; Creation; Human and Divine Relationships. As I think on these explanations I recognize how fears grow into phobias, how habits can reinforce superstitions and therefore beliefs whose origins become lost in the forest of our busy lives, how we can resist the joy and adventure of consciously learning to know ourselves simply because we have not been taught to think of ourselves as evolving sensory energy beings.

Reading Rebecca Skloot's book The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks fits in here, too. I'm amazed and fascinated by how she relates, for example, the superstitions so strongly held about hospital care in the first half of this century, particularly in the Baltimore area, i.e., Johns Hopkins. Hopkins himself founded the hospital as a place that would offer care for those could not pay for care, of any race, creed, religion, and including children, especially orphans. Scary stories of "colored children being snatched in the night," in the dark, dangerous streets of the hospital area, gathered many beliefs together and enhanced the ignorance of such fear into an incredible example of why knowledge (communication) is a gift of power. Images persist and grow through ignorance, and the communication of knowledge, through compassion of sharing and learning (love), goes a long way to eradicating fear and inviting love. This affects each mind, each following generation. I remember dreams and visions I had as a child, of caravans of tribes rumbling down our small hallway in the dark towards our bedroom. To begin to know the origins of these fears as ancient beliefs, which can be changed once we know how, is truly a gift that affects all generations.

The Art of Food

An - Asian fusion in Cary, NC
A treat to celebrate my beautiful niece's high school graduation - desserts to live for! A perfect follow-up to The Voracity blog link I posted on facebook yesterday.....Ahhh, the art of food....

The Flowers Respond

I had a dream about lucid dreaming. I googled the term, then “Wikipediaed” (these new relations make me think of Anthony Burgess’s 1962 novel Clockwork Orange – layered of course with graphically memorable images of Malcolm McDowell and more), and scanned the information, history, ideas, scientifically-accepted thoughts, etc. This brought Clockwork Orange to mind again…and not in a good way. I hadn’t thought about this book in many years and now, twice, a reminder: this dream within a dream, and my cousin’s book report which I read.  In my dream were many layers of dream and reality, in which I was being shown the reality of the dream, and the reality of what is, as shown by all waking moments. Sound obtuse? Not if you had been in my dream! As I reflect upon Sir Ken Robinson’s TED address (see earlier link) and his inspiring message about creative teaching and learning, I think of lucid dreaming and my dream this morning. We’re so programmed to ridicule, to deny, keeping silent about our infinite thoughts and dreams rather than being taught to explore them as the energy they are, part of us as energy, which makes them infinitely more interesting. We’re used to pontificating rather than communicating (sharing), controlling rather than listening. In my mind, during my dream and upon waking, I felt myself expanding, with the optimism and hope of listening more carefully, more compassionately, more usefully. I felt the shift of energy as I awoke, the way the physical energy focus felt – like placing my feet solidly on the ground, feeling the earth “move under my feet.” I turned on the TV to watch Holmes on Homes, and heard him say, I didn’t build this house, but I’m fixing this house!, as he proceeded with his teams to take care of each layer of problem they found to fix a solid structure without the risks that preceded him.  I listened to the water run as I filled the sink. I listened to the birds as I opened the door from the sunroom. The heat of the sun increased, and I watched the flowers respond.  Then I sent an email about Kathy Oddenino’s upcoming Joy of Health class, in which she wrote about Why do we expect to be sick? We can learn to know we are energy, even if we haven’t been taught this from our conscious beginning.

 We listen, we hear, often we judge – we already know that, we don’t want to hear that, we wish we didn’t have to know that, etc. It’s amazing how we have crafted our thinking selves. What inspires us? We have poured ourselves (and therefore our money) into building the systems we live with and struggle to support. The ones that sail on (fewer and fewer) we seldom think about. In yesterday’s NY Times was an article about the Human Genome’s promise and progress to date, 10 years past the mapping. We are complex beings. One conclusion is that in some respects, taking a good family history yields more helpful data. Our continuing stories reveal who we are at every level, if we open our mind to our eternal nature. As the Gulf Oil spill continues to present the current pictures of our challenge, we are invited to learn, to know, to respond, and also to acknowledge, again, that if we turn away and act like “that’s not me,” we are consciously declaring that we prefer to be ignorant and irresponsible; unfeeling. We prefer to live the meek or dragon role in the myths of our childhood, pretending that they are still only fairy tales, not images from our own minds as we reflect the reality we create.  So much for my own pontificating, programming, ignoring! The complexities of us are simply beautiful, once we know who we are.

Conception(s)

"We cannot conceive of the reality of timelessness."  (JOH)

I’ve been thinking on this concept since I read it recently in The Joy of Health. This is how I began: We cling to time as we resist change. We cling to what we think IS, or what we want IS to be, because we fear change. First, we fear changing our perception (belief), which would then…motivate us to change our behavior.  This is why we identify so intensely with the physical world around us that we experience any loss with fear (not knowing/loving self).

Our perceptions of right/wrong are related to or dictated by time more than we know or accept.  We can see how we create and how easily we accept change as “time passes.” Dylan Thomas wrote, “Do not go gentle into that good night.” As I live my life (age), and as those I know and love change, I am encouraged to more gently, graciously, appreciate this gift, this art of life and how precious such love is. I remember little gems from my father as they flash into my mind’s eye: excitedly talking with him when I was a child, clamoring for his full attention (as I saw it) because what I had to say was all-important and really all There Was in that moment. I remember his expression as he patiently listened, even as he continued tinkering with his project of the moment. I remember his nodding as he listened, every now and then looking out the window. I remember his comment as he watched the birds, which he loved to do: I wonder why that bird keeps coming back to that one spot. I remember stopping for a flash, looking where he looked, maybe seeing the bird, then diving back into the well of thought I’d been whipping up for him to taste. Where was I? He smiled, continued listening patiently, inviting my attention to the bird, to the air, to the quiet. He might answer directly too, but mostly the point was he listened, and he invited me to listen more deeply.

As I listen to a friend’s disappointment about the outcome of an application, another’s intense adventure in a new job which requires full focus and adjustments with high stakes, as I continue the daily maintenance of a life – a house, a body, a mind, a pool, a car, a tree, a flower, I remember the power that guides us as energy in motion. We’re encouraged to fight (do not go gentle), to rage against what we feel are injustices, and we interpret, express this “fight” in many different ways – some violently, some persistently, some gently, some quietly, etc. I appreciate the drama of passion as the power of love and creation – birth and death as cycles of change as the best example. Firmness, dignity, growth, humility – as an Ethical Value passion is paired with discipline and knowledge. I understand this more clearly now. Passion, in its pure joy of creation, seeks, savors, and requires the knowledge of discipline and the structure of us as energetic beings. This is how we know and expand our power – to share, to love, to feel compassion, to enjoy the pure freedom of choice, will, and intention in our life, despite the challenges that may come (what dreams may come!) Our choices reveal our intentions, and in every expression, always visible as energy, our attitude about change as our most intimate internal relationship.

Over the Rainbow

We’re used to testing ourselves based on “trust everyone and everything” until proven “wrong” (innocent until proven guilty), or skepticism (“prove it”). Reading The Joy of Health again, I understand better now how we learn through opposites. As I think about and review my experiences up to now, I can see why and how I made the choices I made at different times and “crossroads.” When I think about the reality that “we do the best we can with what we know” at any given moment, I recognize how wise it is to feed ourselves the knowledge that helps us to “grow big and strong” as a mind. This is the same as truly appreciating (living, choosing, sharing) food as fuel for our physical body as we live each moment of every day. It seems so obvious, doesn’t it. Yet obviously it isn’t, or we wouldn’t have the level of disease experience and the constantly revving research and development and treatment engines that we have come to believe are essential for us to survive. When we know what’s good for us, we do it? Countless examples come to mind. The tobacco industry’s internal memos ever so slowly came to the collective surface as we reached a level of change in public behavior about the fact that smoking dramatically raises the incidence of diseases. How long did this take, and with how much cost? I smoked cigarettes for years, beginning in high school. (Happily, I gave it up years ago and my cells are happier for it, as are those I am around!) My parents didn’t smoke and were amazed that I did, encouraged me to stop.  Yet, I continued, off and on, for years. Why? It’s just an example to me of so much of our collective behavior and how we resist change, we resist thinking more deeply about the energy of our lives in motion and the ripple effects of our energy in motion as we live, breathe, eat, drink, laugh, dream, heal, die.  I still hear people say, everything that tastes good isn’t good for you!  That belief definitely could use a software update! And, this medicine isn’t working for me, there must be another that I can use. There are always alternatives.

The BP Gulf oil spill is another example in which I recognize how we aim to show ourselves how, seemingly despite our best intentions sometimes (we tell ourselves), “accidents happen.” As we begin to look at the causes and effects at each level of interaction (cause and effect), “accidents happen” is not enough of an explanation. Why? What can be done differently? Why did each cause happen? What were we thinking and why? What does each event tell us about our thinking and our true intention. Because we haven’t understood that we are energy beings first and matter second, we tend to think of who to blame (persecute, who will “pay”) first, not what were/are our true intentions and are we happy with the results.

“Only we know, on a subconscious level, if we are being true to that Higher Energy of ourselves within us as our personal guide.” (The Joy of Health)

How do we determine what is “best” for us? First, knowing that we want the best for ourselves is an important thought and energy focus. I did not always use this thought energy – Often I didn’t truly know what I wanted, or denied it.  I resisted learning. Why? I did not resist all learning. I loved certain information, certain people, full moments (which I didn’t know then to call “energies”). What level did I resist and why? What I resisted vehemently when pressured was change – changing my image and attitude about myself. Why? I did not like to be controlled (as I felt it then), yet the beliefs I held on to internally if not consciously, were the fetters I used to control my own thinking and feeling. Is an advanced level of thinking knowing what’s best for us and acting (choosing/living) in harmony with that energy of love? When we deny ourselves as an energy being (disavowing our mind, harboring negative emotions, abusing our senses), we react as animals cornered, or kept in a cage  - we must learn that the cage is our own beliefs.

Spiritual Philosophy teaches us that we are energy first, matter second – we’re encouraging ourselves to open our mind and consciously use our energy of thought as a Universal force of Good – i.e., being guided by the Ethical Values that are our internal design, not swayed by the small minds’ (ego) winds of change. Our physical identity as we are growing into “knowing ourselves” is not attached to a physical association of any role except that of a human energy being, first.  We’re patterned to be successful. What does it mean to each of us to be “successful”? Our country’s founding fathers (note, fathers, not mothers) honored their intention in a commitment to the right of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. A friend years ago told me, You speak as though you know what you want, but you do not act as though you do.  I remember this often, and now that I have grown into loving the life that I live – this is very different than seeking to live the life I love.  Whatever our commitment is to ourselves, as a human being, we must know that we have one, and nurture ourselves with that knowledge. How do we do this? We each choose our ways, and enjoy them, must nurture them, share them. This is how we honor our creation and expand our infinite pleasure.

We Have to Change Our Industrial Model of Education.....!

Begin by loving the self that you are

"Developing awareness is the most exciting, creative gift that man can present to himself. It allows you to see the world with new eyes. It allows you to appreciate that which is usual, that which is new, that which is old, and that which is different. It broadens the perspective of life from a singular focus of self, to a multiple focus of All That Is." (JOH, 138)

Watching older people as they make their way to airport terminals and gates, so carefully, and, most, so gratefully, moves me to tears sometimes. Just now, watching a vibrant youngish woman dressed to dazzle, guiding two older women, perhaps sisters, I smile as they wait for the cart to take them, as they climb aboard, the younger woman sitting at an angle so she can hold an arm of each as the friendly driver turns and begins to move the cart in the other direction. An older man, limping but strong and strong-willed, has lived this self-confident role of finding out what needed to be known - directions, time, details to help be efficient - still taking care this way, and clapping the back of an employee who answered his questions.

Appreciation can never be overrated.

There is no appreciation like the way we might fully feel ocean waves, wind, remembering childhood moments of pure innocence, singing, softening each node's intimate opening into the shallows full of life it takes true looking to see. Tiny life notes. I think of my handsome nephew, my view sitting next to him as we ate - his scruff of chin growth, his eyelashes light-colored, long and heavy, like a butterfly lifting over slate blue eyes.

"I'm not smart enough to understand what she writes," someone tells me when I ask if they have read Kathy Oddenino's Joy of Health book. I'm shocked by this, from this someone who has such gifts, such a caring and grateful heart and appreciative mind in so many ways. As I listen to my niece talk about her classes, I hear the way she perceives that Health is being taught, or learned. Some learn a lot, some nothing. Health and History class may be among the least popular, the least interesting to the most. I hear another grad student speak of her nursing job, her pleasure and sadness in working with the children in pediatric oncology - and her eagerness and hope to be part of the continuing research to "find a cure." She truly cares. I can't help but think, Yes! We must first only begin to remember the food, air, and water which revive our very souls, the complex cells within us.  We are energetic beings. I try to remember my 15-year-old, my 21-year-old mind, then 25. How do I "see myself" and my education now? I reflect on the way we perceived education in our history  - the Renaissance, the Greeks, the times before radio, television, the orators of old, the King and I-tutors. We have degraded learning into a primarily physical focus, another subject - "types of learning and techniques of learning." What does knowledge truly mean to us? How does it serve us? What does knowledge do for our minds? Our health? Why do we learn? Is it fun?

Travel Time

Beauties

Watching the news these days I’m almost mesmerized by the scenes. Rushing, flooding water, raging fires, buildings reduced to rubble with people standing at the periphery just staring with the profound weight of that shock evident in their faces and bodies. Lately I’ve gotten into this rhythm of reading and being urged to find books that help me understand the reality of what I’m watching, what we’re experiencing at these grand scales. The book I’m reading about the Atlantic Ocean has even more meaning now, with the Gulf of Mexico’s Oil spill - the aerial views of the currents, the multiple reflections of the surface sheen and the heavier crude oil at other depths; the gannet’s oil-soaked feathers. I remember some of those beaches well. We have spent many family vacations at Gulf Shores, Pensacola, Seaside, Gulfport, Apalachicola. (I met a photographer named Richard Bickel while visiting St. George’s Island years ago – take a look at his beautiful black-and-whites of the Bay area.) The white sand and blue water is always memorable, beautiful, and made more so by the memories of hurricane-force winds and tar debris blown onto other shores with rain. So many ways we’re reminding ourselves how everything is connected, and that everything is Energy. The cooperation between agencies, between neighbors, between friends and family is always more evident and real in such disasters, and this is a gift to be reminded of anytime.

Another wonderful book I’ve been reading now, recommended to me by my cousin, is Wild Comfort: The Solace of Nature by Kathleen Dean Moore. Once I started reading I wanted to know more about Moore, so looked her up and found out about her Spring Creek Project, among other things. I was delighted to find her emphasis on “the philosophy of nature,” as this emphasized the poetic beauty of her lovely expression and experience as part of nature. In the section I read recently she quoted Rachel Carson, one of her heroes: “Those who dwell . . . among the beauties and mysteries of the earth, Rachel Carson believed, ‘ are never alone or weary of life.” (68) Moore believes this too. In this section she writes beautifully about floating in her kayak on a small one Memorial Day in the mountains. The water was cold, the air colder, the fog rose and the colors disappeared as the silver world wrapped itself around her like a scarf suffused with light. She felt herself becoming part of the evening, suffused with the light, the dark, the quiet, the brightness. “There are no edges in this world,” she wrote. “The water, the snow, the bear, the memory of the blackbird, the urgent growth of the lily are all one beautiful, mysterious thing, and we are part of that one thing. How, then, can we ever be alone? That’s what I was thinking about, out there on the water, and how odd it was that when Rachel Carson wrote those brave, true words, she was a frail woman, dying of cancer, surely weary, surely alone in the dark on the frayed edge of the Atlantic. But maybe there was a moon that night, a waxing moon, fat and yellow. Maybe moonlight rode the leading edge of the surf at her feet, and when the surf slid back to sea, maybe the moonlight sizzled with that sound of sand on sand.” (68-69)

I love how she expresses this…becoming aware of all nature, including herself, as one.

Yesterday was a day I felt I lived in a ragged rhythm. After a wonderful sleep, the day started slowly. I’d had plans to work/play more in the yard, cleaning and tending to the flowers and more, but by the time I began, the heat and humidity were intense and my energy was no longer motivated by that activity. I’d wait, I decided. Each thing I began it seemed I trailed off as momentum faded. Interesting to be conscious of this energy change. I put my feet in the cold water in the pool, lay back on the hot brick, and let my mind sense the clouds, the breeze, the heat, the flow. Mother’s Day reminders bring my mother even more to mind, and I am sharing that cloud sense with her, with my siblings, and more. It was a great interlude, the cold feet, hot brick, cloud sensing. When I went in again, there were beautiful cut flowers in the bright blue vase on the table - irises to write home about! We sat outside for a while as the evening cooled, remembering orators of old, and childhood pleasures. There are no edges in this world….

A Red Guitar, Tornado Remains, Leadership, and the Ocean of Knowledge

Sunday I went to Kathy Oddenino’s latest Spiritual Philosophy seminar on The Joy of Health. Last week I clicked a Facebook link to a lecture called Solitude and Leadership posted by William Deresiewicz. The lecture was delivered at West Point last October. I had read it a few times before going to the seminar. As we talked about the Ethical Values, how we have to get used to change as human beings, what makes us resist change, how we are eventually compelled to ask ourselves what our mind is going to do with change – I was reminded of this lecture.  During our dialogue we asked ourselves about our character, our personality, and our intentions. How much integrity are we living as we live our life? What is our physical condition? How do we care for ourself? Do we find joy in life?

I love that Spiritual Philosophy teaches me to keep thinking and exploring the infinite levels of energy that create us. As we do this, as a mind, we learn to consciously use the energy that makes us who we are and therefore expand our energy and our creations. I want more!  As I think about my experiences to date, now I “run through them” like a flip-book, with new energizing wafts of images and thoughts and feelings each time. There is full joy in learning and changing. Babies already know this! In the seminar we were asked about our self-perception. How we do perceive ourselves, who do we perceive ourselves to be and why? We talked about the many challenges happening on Earth now, and whether or not we are using our energy to support our spiritual self or our physical self. Are we still attached to negative (toxic) energy? If so, why? We can always find the answers to these questions if we want to know.  Think about this: Energy is the most real thing on Earth.

If we cannot maintain our momentum, we slide backwards. Think about riding a bike up a hill. I remember well the determination required to keep those wheels turning, even when my thighs were burning. Eyes on the prize! Movement, growth, reaching that particular point of destination requires commitment, determination, persistence, patience, strength, courage, endurance, motivation, all Ethical Values. And, first, the plan! Earlier in my life I did not think much about my role as a human being. For a long while, I was more self-centered and treading water.  Now I’ve found that “love of my life,” the internal knowledge that becomes wisdom as we grow and change, I’m more interested in momentum and the joy of the breeze, the healing that comes with freedom of thought and change. I appreciate this maturing of my mind as I age, and I understand more clearly what it means for us to “choose our role” as a human being.  During the seminar, Kathy exclaimed, Negative energies are going backwards, not forward. We have to care, to love seeing the human species grow and change! If we do not know we are energetic beings, we will not know how to truly live as spiritual beings. This is about knowing that we are creative energetic beings. Spiritual Philosophy teaches us The Ethical Values, as it has throughout time in the minds of those who earnestly seek to Know themselves with the utmost humility of this gift of life as Thinkers (what we once mistook perhaps as “gods”).

I have been a lover of literature, of Art, of words, of many “things” and people in my life, beginning with my family. I have had to grow into “loving myself” as loving life itself.  This has inevitably and beautifully led me into growing my love of humanity – the care and feeding of us as humans, just as I am.  I am not a scientist, I am not educated specifically in medicine and its science. I am educated (“formally” ) in the “Humanities.” I understand the wisdom of that choice, for me.  As my mother lay dying, with her amazing internal strength and the grace of counsel and care she received, I received another education in the “humanities” and the “science of medicine.”  

Lately, as Kathy has done Energy work with a friend’s daughter who has a brain tumor, I’m reminded of the absolute compassion and powerful care that true healers feel and always live. Healing,  the joy of health in all expressions, is primary.  Learning to focus our energies as a spiritual being is a great gift, not only to us but to all we know. As we think, so we create, and so we attract.  The Earth which supports our life is erupting and expressing itself (herself) very strongly right now, and we must pay attention. 

My grandmother was born in Yazoo City, Mississippi. As I watched the news reports of the city’s damage, and heard the slow drawl of those who experienced the wonder of such wind power, I mentally saved the image of the red guitar and its strings being plucked by the Delta dweller whose house was a big pile of boards behind them. When I talked to my Aunt in Memphis about the weather, I also told her about Kathy’s energy work and the friend’s daughter’s brain tumor. I said, I don’t know about you, but if it were me, I’d love to know someone who knows healing and the energy of us this way. I’d rather share this healing of support than to have my head cut open by the most well-meaning and skilled of surgeons. To some this sounds crazy, I know. I can only express my own growing compassion for what we create as human beings, and the infinite healing power we have as we begin to use our own energetic potential and Ethical spiritual design. 

In the “Solitude and Leadership” lecture is this quote: “That’s the first half of the lecture: the idea that true leadership means being able to think for yourself and act on your convictions. But how do you learn to do that? How do you learn to think? Let’s start with how you don’t learn to think….”  One way Deresiewicz defines thinking is: “concentrating on one thing long enough to develop an idea about it. Not learning other people’s ideas, or memorizing a body of information, however much those may sometimes be useful. Developing your own ideas. In short, thinking for yourself.” 

Recently someone asked me what I was reading. I told them a book about the Atlantic Ocean. They said, Oh, that’s too deep for me! Funny, yes – but not so funny that a book about the ocean is too much “work”! I’m reading a few pages at a time, and learning about the ocean’s life. The language is poetic, as is the ocean rhythm and change. Aren’t we excited to know about the “ocean of knowledge”? I’m fascinated with how we develop/ed our ideas and beliefs about “thinking.” Learning is fun, when a mind is fresh, eager, and not bogged down by the habits of feeling overwhelmed and used to “not thinking.” Spiritual Philosophy teaches the Joy of Health, because the joy of health is the essence of loving life.  Who doesn’t love love? What is love? This brings us back to our self-perception. Do we want to be leaders or slaves? Are these our only choices? In our world we’ve accepted, and we’re taught, that our power comes from our intellect. What part of us are we feeding?  Here is a quote from The Joy of Health: “What you do with your life, what you become in life, depends totally and completely upon the way that you relate to the self within. Graduating from Yale does not make you a good person. It does not make you a success in life. It does not make you happy. It makes you a graduate from Yale.” (74) I have an old friend who graduated from Princeton, and several other prestigious programs. He told me once that he was completely disillusioned as an undergraduate – he quickly realized that what he was being taught was not true to what he wanted to learn. He eventually changed programs, through much disagreement with one parent, and went on to jobs which didn’t fulfill much of his dreams of happiness either. As life continued, he chose changes that began to make him happier.

Spiritual Philosophy teaches that being a leader is being true to the “God self,” the Ethical Values which define us as spiritual energetic beings. One of my goals in life has been to gain wisdom. Somehow I knew deep inside that wisdom would lead me to happiness. I was right.  I knew that experience is our teacher, but I wasn’t always a willing student. I didn’t always appreciate the role of knowledge as it relates to experience. Knowledge about who we are as energetic beings is an eternal gift. Our crises of education, of our economy, of our personal, national, and international security, our health and our disease care system – all will benefit from a shift in our thinking to ask ourselves honestly, Do I want to be someone who helps Earth or destroys Earth? This is not a question of melodrama, though I know how tempting this dismissal is. 

It’s exciting to know we have a starring role in our own growth, that we are designed with infinite healing potential, and that knowledge truly can set us free.  The best leaders teach us to think. We must listen, support them, encourage them, learn from them, honor them. Accepting responsibility for our own growth is how we heal ourselves, and the most important way we begin and expand our role as human beings in saving ourselves and enjoying our world.

They Call it Stormy Monday

I read David Byrne's Journal (blog) now and again, and lately I was reminded to visit by an NPR review of his latest musical (ad)venture with Fat Boy Slim - a conceptual creation of the theatrical potential in Imelda Marcos's "life as theater."  All the world's a stage?

Here Lies Love -“The story I am interested in is about asking what drives a powerful person—what makes them tick? How do they make and then remake themselves? I thought to myself, wouldn’t it be great if—as this piece would be principally composed of clubby dance music—one could experience it in a club setting? Could one bring a ‘story’ and a kind of theater to the disco? Was that possible? If so, wouldn’t that be amazing!”—DB, from the introduction

In the Journal I also read this: "In the most inexcusable behavior I saw a manifestation of a common human trait - that when all restraints are removed, we tend to lose our moral compasses. I think it could happen to any of us." Byrne talks about Abu Ghraib as an example - people put in a situation where they are handed absolute power; that the whistleblowers in this case were not the soldiers themselves but the leaked pictures. This brings a familiar saying to mind - absolute power corrupts. Why?

I've thought a lot about this, as lately our philosophical hot topic has been "what does it mean to live the Ethical Values"? To live as an Ethical Being? "Trust is the behavior of truth" is one pearl we have been thinking about in our dialogues.What is our "moral compass"? Where does it come from? What makes us aware of it? We've talked about conflict and confrontation. I used to believe that confrontation was a negative behavior. Confrontation meant challenge, challenge = provocation, and provocation led to argument, or ultimately, to war. Still, I used to argue a lot (habit!) What I thought I believed was not how I behaved. A thinking friend told me she realized an old belief she had that to speak her truth meant she would be treated badly. When we begin to accept truth as the ethical energy of our spiritual being, these perceptions fall away as we live.  It is only one step to recognize and acknowledge that "my truth" may be different, is different, from "your truth." Beyond that awareness begins the awareness of an absolute value of truth - as love, and the equality of being, as energy. Ah, details, details, details...

In the May issue of Food & Wine magazine I read another great example of this awareness in an article by Ray Isle called "Red Wine & Vegetables: Friends of Foes?" He wrote about Randall Grahm (California's Bonny Doon Vineyard) and winery chef Charlie Parker and their collaboration. Grahm, known to some as the Willy Wonka of wine enthusiasts, has made a lot of changes recently due not to the economy but, as Isle notes, a "philosophical crisis." A short description of Grahm's growing the Bonny Doon "public image" through the 2000s then leading to the net "reinvention." Here's how Grahm describes it: "I was giving speeches and writing articles about biodynamics and terroir, saying terroir was the only interesting thing about the wine business ... But there was nothing congruent between what I was saying and what I was doing. So it was clear I needed to make a big change." 

 Last week I got angry at having to respond to DMV bureaucratic rules (long story) - a remedy seemed simple, yet the steps to get to the solution seemed too many and too slow, an exercise without true purpose except the procedure itself. I felt the energy funnel of my anger as I waited, telephone in hand (again), remembering all of the time taken, the energy expended. The energy of our memories moves us, motivates us. Our emotions move and change within us with all the character of clouds. It is silly to get so frustrated at such a "thing," yet a casual patience sometimes simply reinforces that not only is the frustration (and I know I'm not alone!) understandable but that simply commiserating adds to the sense of conflict too, more than the resolution. Our thoughts are absolutely powerful! There's an old saying, Rules are made to be broken. They remind us, if we're open to "seeing," that we made them - they did not one day appear from thin air, cast in stone.

Courage is an inherent characteristic of our human spiritual design, and communicating with the conscious sense of change in motion adds momentum and excitement to experience. Change invites that golden laughter that rings like music to almost any ear.

While going through files I came across an old letter from when I was working at the Library of Congress. The letter was one sent to a handful of us re: "Meritorious Service." Here's the quote - "demonstrates your concern" for the nation's patrimony. In this regard, your work serves as a model..."  I've been thinking about courage, and about the language in this letter. Such awards acknowledge appreciation on behalf of several levels of "community." In our culture and in our world, we've created ways to honor "meritorious service" as we determine its value to us. Humanitarian awards acknowledge the level of our global community.

To act in concert with the Ethical Values of our human design means to honor the best in us at all times. In the LOC, I did what I was asked to do. As the events unfolded, I learned about the world of thievery, and my "insight" and awareness expanded as I watched, listened and talked with others. I haven't thought about this event for many years. I'm glad I kept the letter. I read the words in a different context now. I recognize a layered pattern of "honor code," as the Ethical Values which make up our design, and the strength and joy that come from honoring and respecting them as a way of life.

Think of these phrases: "just for the sake of argument"; "devil's advocate"; "facts"

Every thought counts. The energy of every word becomes a playground, an arena, an ocean to an open mind. What motivates the thought, action? Honor? Respect? Truth? Value? Appreciation?  "I need proof." What do I accept as proof? Change? Conflict or resolution? Peace or war? Who do we want to be? Trust is the behavior of truth.

Spring, Locally

The New Normal

If you’ve never seen the TV show The Ghost Whisperer, I hope you’ll watch at least two episodes. I saw a scene in which “the ghost whisperer” (Jennifer Love Hewitt) tearfully explains to her new (and old) love interest that she sees ghosts, has since she was a little girl. She is concerned about how her friend will accept this, whether it will “send him away.” This, after he has mocked news of a house being haunted and a “ghost-hunter” showing up to track the energy emissions. Being a cynic and I-know-it-all for years, I would have scoffed at this too. The list of creators and contributors can read like the best-seller list of experts in “crossing over.” It is no coincidence that people are more and more interested in understanding the “paranormal,” even as more and more of us are sick and dying from our sickness. Sounds trite maybe, but the greater point, to me, is fantastic, amusing, and profound. The plot of the GW episode unravels the communication between these two people in simple ways, their experiences opening each next move with their choices along the way: the choice to open our minds to what is “unseen” as real, or to reject love simply because of a belief. We must honor the courage each of us has to live the truth within us if we want to be spiritual people, and as we honor ourselves in truth, we honor each other and all who have gone before in the most respectful and loving way. Question what we have accepted as “normal” and why!

One reason I am so glad I finished my book while my parents were alive and could read it, is that this was in one way my “love letter” to them. The book was one way for me to express my exploration of the heritage I was becoming conscious of as an energy being, given life by them. My parents believed in people THINKING and knowing the conviction of their beliefs and behaviors. Not thinking is lazy, and lazy is an excuse and a waste of gifts,of being alive. My beliefs and experiences challenged some beliefs my parents lived and taught, because they challenged mine. Some things I wrote challenged beliefs of friends and family too. Some have written or talked with me about my book, a few enthusiastically. I am very conscious of the benefit of the encouragement to think, and the foundation of life our parents taught us. As a mind, we must begin somewhere and some time, to recognize apathy, to think more deeply about where we came from, to enjoy creating, to smell the coffee and feel the wind in our sails! Without understanding that we are energy beings, living infinite lives, I had trouble figuring out faith, trust, or even truth in a way that made sense to me. I’ve had to understand God as Spirit energy – we are energy first, and matter second. The physical concepts/beliefs began to  diminish as my mind became more open, the beliefs less “substantial,” then began to glow, to illuminate more as an energy field glowing with these ethical values that make us who we are as a spiritual design. My book, now, is a fading image of “me” as I know myself, because I continue to live and learn. I believe in “ghosts” (energy is real!). I believe in the absolute beauty of eternal life, creating us in physical matter to live, love, learn, and expand our spirit consciousness – sail and enjoy the breeze, the play of light on water, the spectrum of light and dark below and above the water and sky. I now believe in love and its infinite patience which guides us, as we listen and hear. I’m conscious of the transitions I’m living as I test this “new normal” every moment. Love, or fear? (Have you seen the National Car Insurance ads with John McEnroe? Choose any car! Yes! It's true...You choose...) Change is not always easy, but I now know it is infinitely rewarding.

I look every morning at the African violets by my bed. They were a gift from this friend and mentor who knew my Mother loved violets and had them on the window sill in their home for many years. They continue to bloom in their cycles, with vibrant color, reaching for the sunlight. I smile every time I look at them. They are wonderful reminders to me of the power of love and the beauty of color. Just think.

"The illusion of death does not change what is"

“You grieve for the loss you feel, not for the individual, because internally you understand that when death becomes the choice of the soul and spirit, it becomes an opportunity for that soul and spirit to begin again, to start a new and fresh existence. But your focus as human beings rests upon you and your feelings about the experience. Your feelings that are there to help trigger this unity of soul and spirit.” Loss, Death and Grief, K Oddenino

Recently I sent an acquaintance a message acknowledging the death of his mother, and the sudden loss. He posted a beautiful message about his sense of loss, including his lingering at the windows in his home deep into the silent night, watching the snow fall. For the first time he felt the big soft snow flakes as tears falling from the sky. He described the apathy he felt after his Dad died, and the wind going out of his sails. He lost the passion for doing even the things he loved; his actions were robotic. Then the gentle breeze picked up, and he regained his love of life. He trusts, because he knows, this will happen again in its own time. Because your parents’ deaths came so close together, you’re probably still bobbing gently, he wrote. The breeze will come for you, too. What a wonderful message. Communication is one of the ethical values, and always a gift.

“Bobbing gently” is a good description of how I have felt sometimes since my parents died. I understand how apathy makes what were “normal” activities rote and less interesting. I’ve realized with a fresh mind that this “new normal” is the opening expression of love beyond what we have known before. What makes life interesting begins with the energy of the breeze, the spirit that inspires us into life and supports us in leaving life to begin again. I remember this. The “new normal” is a fresh sense of life, a new attitude about consciously expanding myself as spirit energy, adventure beyond what we had grown accustomed to. This is why we create change, and why change is absolute for us.

Yesterday Kathy and I were talking at work. She commented about a mutual long-time acquaintance, saying that over all of the time she has known this person, never have they talked about how this person really feels, who she is. This is a sad statement to me, too, and I remember old friends knocking on my mind and heart’s door sometimes for years with great patience! (John Prine’s famous song, Angel from Montgomery, says it so well!….How the hell can a person go to work in the morning And come home in the evening and have nothing to say.) I realize what a wonderful education and gift it is to open a mind and heart to express itself, whether the sad beauty of snowflakes as tears as we think of our “lost” mothers, or the delight of throwing snowballs just where we want them in the thrill of cold air and laughing children (big or small). When I am impatient (angry) I think of the infinite patience of mothers (our spirit symbol), and I am grateful for such love. Thank you for all of the stories told through time! Let’s keep sharing our memories of what it means to be human. This is one of our best antidotes to disease and war.

Always More to See

I have the nerve

I have the nerve to walk my own way, however hard, in my search for reality, rather than climb upon the rattling wagon of wishful illusions."
     - Letter from Zora Neale Hurston to Countee Cullen

Recently I watched a PBS program on American Masters about Zora Neale Hurston called  "Jump at the Sun." The program first aired in 2008. I’m so glad I saw it. I’ve long been interested in Hurston’s personality and passionate life. I’ve read some of her books. I was drawn by her unique personality, the way she captured certain ways and times and people and their expressions in a way no one else could. Passionate, raw and bold, and still a Lady, she was brave and talented and also fierce in some ways.  She was well-loved by many, and adamant about capturing and preserving the life of her community on paper and film – the life as she saw and lived it.  One event in her literary life really got my attention. She and Langston Hughes were good friends. He traveled with her in Florida, documenting the ways of the community, learning along with her. They wrote a play together. Before the play was produced, as the story in the program was told, Zora disappeared for 3 years, and she removed his name from the manuscript and produced it under her own name. The two never spoke again. I think about this story and how sad it can be when close friendships are shattered. Also, how important it is when they are, for each party, and for others influenced by them. These two literary personalities influenced many, and the reason we hear about it now is because of their cultural presence and influence. If Zora was so adamant about copyright, about getting her own voice heard in its “truth,” then why would she have treated Langston Hughes this way? How would she treat an “enemy”?

Brave, talented, funny, fierce – and human.  Friendships in my life have come and gone as I have grown, moved, changed, and as my friends have moved on, changed, grown. Facebook has recently provided a new window into the worlds of many friends whom I haven’t spoken to since early school days (lifetimes ago!).  Contact revives memories. What creates the bonds of relationships?  One friend wrote me a letter once, a hard one to write, which taught me much about myself, and helped me appreciate my friend in infinite ways. We are not active friends now, except in the bonds which formed at another time and space. Her gifts to me live on. As I have studied Spiritual Philosophy and the Ethical Values of our human design, I have begun to realize the absolute nature of love as the energy of creation. I have come to think about loyalty beyond what I knew before. I fit full-blown the Taurus personality, as astrological signs describe – and I have always thought of myself as a very loyal person. Loyal to friends, loyal to family, loyal to…? I realize now that for much of my life I was loyal to beliefs more than truth, to beliefs more than unconditional love, which supports and inspires change and the graceful kindness which embodies loving change.  To begin to know my own mind – gaining the wisdom to know the absolute mind guided by love and the other Ethical Values which are our human spiritual design – feels very different than the sometimes chaos and confusion of “trying to be true.” It is not enough to “speak my mind” – how I act and how I am reflects the energy of who I am as a human being in this time and space. My relationship with my own energy has grown up!

If you've never read Dust Tracks on a Road, Hurston's Autobiography, pick it up sometime, flip to any page and you will find a sentence that makes you laugh out loud! I'm so glad that her books began to circulate again! "Out of print" is a sad declaration for such gifts.

The Courage of the Artist

"I think that sometimes the beauty in art is not in the image itself, but in the delayed reaction of the viewer. It is beautiful if it inspires deep emotions in the viewer, including disdain. And partly too, the beauty is in the courage of the artist—the willingness to explore his or her inner world." Roderick McIver, Heron Dance

If you haven't been introduced to Heron Dance, I hope you will visit McIver's site. I received their newsletter years ago and have enjoyed lots of aspects of their work since. Recently I read the bit McIver wrote and quoted about Matisse in the painter's early years of exhibitions, when his paintings were jeered at by the public. The overall collective responses seemed to be ridicule, because the images or portraits were not what "the public" thought was appropriate as a "realistic representation." Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas bought one of the paintings because it was disturbing. This gave Matisse confidence, and he painted a new portrait of his wife, this time emphasizing aspects that were ridiculed before (the green line on her face, for example - see reference for the description).

I remember an old New Yorker cartoon which showed an old guy in a white toga (or something), long white beard, sitting lotus-like on top of a mountain peak. The caption said something like, How's that enlightenment working for you? When I think about courage, and about art lately, this cartoon comes to mind. Over the weekend I went to my 3-year-old niece's birthday party, which was attended by her friends of many ages. What joy it is to be with such joyful energy! She, even so tired her eyes glazed over, was a bundle of energy, smiling, jumping, dancing, bouncing the brightly colored balls given to party-goers.  I'm so glad to have such reminders of this joyful exuberance - with my tasty (adult) margarita in hand, I danced to the happy sounds of the steel pan band along with the others, and it was wonderful.  Later in the evening, when my eyes began to water and itch, and my sinuses began to hurt, I suddenly remembered that some chemicals in some margarita mixes are "poison" to my sinuses! I began to drink more water to ease the flow. This didn't diminish the joy I felt during the party  - it reminded me of how we, as adults, are responsible for learning these details of what supports and encourages that "pure joy" that keeps our feet happy, our sinuses open, and our cells singing. When we are children, our parents guide us, protect us, enjoy and support that joy of life - if we are in tune with this responsibility and love it and ourselves and our children.

My brother and his wife are good hosts, and they tend well to encourage everyone's comfort. The party is not just a "child's moment," but our moment of acknowledging this beautiful child's creation, and the family of friends who live busy lives coming together to enjoy collective moments of celebration. I think of this and how I am host of my own cells, my own brain, my own energy every moment that I breathe and move. A true artist of life, to me, lives the exuberance of a child and the responsibility of a spiritual human being. As I live I keep learning what it takes to use my mind in this ethical energy which is our design as a living human being.  Live well, choose wisely, love forever. Next time maybe I'll (think) remember the sinus-bomb before I have the margarita!  The guacamole was fantastic!

Jamie Oliver's Help - Living Our Truth

“I wish for your help to create a strong, sustainable movement to educate every child about food, inspire families to cook again and empower people everywhere to fight obesity.” 


TED is a small non-profit dedicated to Ideas Worth Spreading, and Jamie Oliver is their 2010 prize winner. I watched his presentation a few weeks ago, and it lit more sparks in me about what we can each do to LEARN, to "save lives," beginning with our own. As I've watched Anderson Cooper and so many more covering the stories, the real dramas in Haiti over the last 6 weeks, I've been profoundly reminded of how easily distracted we are with so much, in our world of "so much." When Anderson Cooper relayed how tears would well up in his eyes at random moments, such as climbing a stairwell, how people he met clasped his hand hard and warmly, looking right into his eyes, my heart was touched by the beautiful humanity we are, when love is visible as we live. Living love, for me, now also means understanding this miracle of our design as energy and matter. In Jamie Oliver's video, he shares a moment with friends he made in West Virginia. You're killing your children, he says to one friend, a mother whose eyes fill with tears as she sits facing him, touching, listening intently. We can change this, he says. Ignorance is what kills. Why do we pay more attention to killing than we do "saving," healing, learning?

I think of my Dad and his simple appreciation of all life offered. He had such an appreciation of the gifts of life, and how the truth of life was in the living, the humanity before the abundance of " things." I've been reading Kathy Oddenino's first book again - The Joy of Health (1989), as we prepare to reprint it. The information is more important now than ever. As we work with the book I am reminded, Our thoughts are living energy. Awareness is not static, but it is a fluid sense of knowing self.  I'm eager to begin this year's focus of classes on The Joy of Health, because this is lifetimes' worth of growth potential, and, as Sean Penn said on Larry King last night referring to helping Haiti, this is a turning point - we can make a difference NOW that will affect all of our relationships, as a country, as nations, as a world. Beyond that, my/our choices affect our past, present, and our future.

I'm reminded NOW to "smell the roses."  To love.  We are energy. What gifts.

We Have a Lot to Learn!

While going through some of my parents' papers, including some letters from their early time in Nigeria (mid-1950s), I came across this. A double-sided photocopy with no other references. I have no idea where it came from or when.  So far in my immediate Google search, I haven't found the exact copy. Thinking about Kathy Oddenino's upcoming Joy of Health class (Feb. 28) makes this find all the more amusing and emphatic! It's always important to "get a second opinion"! Do most modern "medicine men" really have "low vital energy"? Superstition? Spirits? Gold sickness? Primitive cutting? Machines? Poisons? A good laugh. We have a lot to learn!

"Notes on Primitive & Superstitious Practices of U.S. Medicine Men Observed During Visit"

By Dr. Baba Sigidi, Oka Village, West Africa

In the U.S. all sick people must leave village and go to house of medicine man just to get naming-of-sickness. They wait many hours with other sick people. They have much time to teach each other names of new sicknesses, medicine man then must treat each man for his sickness plus several new ones that the sick man learned while waiting.

Medicine man cannot see inside body without special machines that damage the body. He cannot see spirits of dead ancestors or elementals near sick man. He cannot see colored light around head made by sick man's spirit. We meet many medicine men here, but none are able to see spirit activity. This is shocking to us and we wonder how U.S. doctors have remained so primitive while our medicine has advanced so far.

In first room we watched medicine man try to have an eye and cheek sickness. He had forgotten his demon masks and tried to scare the evil spirits with ropes from his ears to look like snakes and a large round shiny eye on forehead. But it did not fool evil spirits. They called uncles and grandfathers and all the spirits were rolling on the floor having a good laugh.

Dr. Chan wonders why no one in medicine man house can see spirits work? At least one child in ten is born with this gift. Where are they? Why aren't they used as medicine men in U.S.?

Do U.S. people have special disease (like the white-hair-pink-eye disease) that goes from father to son and which blinds them to spirit? Very puzzling. We must do special research on this. Maybe it is just superstition which blinds them, bu tit is hard to believe that such ignorance still exists in the 20th century.

U.S. medicine men still do the cutting medicine which most of us gave up many centuries ago, we see much cutting and killing of body parts in these medicine houses, but the sick man's will to live and the spirits of his ancestors are able to save him in spite of this barbarism. It seems that this is how the great spirit makes Americans survive. He gives Americans cutting medicine to eliminate the weak and to control the population so that he can save famine for us.

For example, a sick man who is going to have body parts cut out, is given strong poison to drive his spirit out for several hours. This they do to reduce noise of screaming in medicine house, but it makes much more work for ancestor's spirits who must work extra hard to keep sick man's spirit from continuing on to the home of ancestors. Sometimes a sick man doesn't have enough ancestors to save him from both the poison and the cutting.

Other poisons are given to drive out sickness but this works poorly because many times poison does more harm to body than sickness did. Must send root and flowers specialists to help them learn proper way to drive out sickness without killing body. (Also send out latest technical journals on uses of urine and manure.)

Many U.S. medicine men seem to be suffering from the epidemic of gold sickness which has swept the world in recent years. Their minds are so occupied with dreams of gold do nothing but collect gold from the sick people and whole houses of helpers who count the gold. They have other helpers who loan beds and healing equipment to sick people in exchange for much gold. As we have learned in our own countries, no one is safe from the gold sickness. It has destroyed some of our best medicine men. U.S. medicine men must be taught the special prayers to cure gold sickness because if it does not stop, we fear the American sick people will start cutting off body parts on the medicine men.

U.S. healing equipment is very poor, absolutely no imagination- no masks and costumes. During cutting of body parts they all use same pale green cloth without decorations on them. No wonder they have trouble controlling evil spirits. Those masks could not scare running nose-sickness. No rattles observed. Not enough noise in curing room - need gongs and bull roarers. Evil spirits falling asleep with boredom.

Most medicine men here have low level of vital energy and are not strong enough to battle with sickness spirits. This is because of poor diet in U.S. wood grubs and seaweed not regular food for U.S. medicine man.

Our last day we visit special government house for crazy sickness. We see many people with evil spirits controlling their mind, but medicine men do not know how to start treatment. They know nothing of prayers and meditations. Nothing of root teas, we also find out why we do not meet anyone in U.S. who can see spirits and see into body organs. In America it is called a sickness and people who have it and talk about it are put in crazy house for their time on earth.

Then we find idea for our foreign aid program. We will tell our governments that gold, which we have plenty of in our countries, will be sent to U.S. and given to medicine men if they promise to stop primitive and superstitious ways. This will make America healthier right away. In return for gold, U.S. government will send us all the people from their crazy houses. We will exorcise them and return them home quickly. We will keep those who have spirit vision and make them strong with seaweed, wood grubs and sexual revitalizations. They will be taught by our best medicine men in the jungle villages in the ways of modern demonology, use of natural foods, naming of sickness by spirit colors, balancing of energies, acupuncture, etc. When they are skillful, we will send them back to native villages in U.S. to teach their fathers and brothers to give up primitive cutting and poisoning and learn our modern ways which are better and safer."