Posts
Path
Thinking about my sometime inner conflict between, “let go and let God (or the Flow)” and “ God helps them who help themselves ( acting from inner morality, or the Te of natural justice)”, I remember I have had a recurrent vision, was it perhaps once a dream?, of walking a stony outcrop path along a mountain ridge, valleys on either side, down the hillside, mountains distant, sunny, cloudy, not difficult but have to watch my steps around the sharp outcrops of rock. A lot like the hillside behind our house so many years ago in Oliver in the Okanagan Valley in BC, that led up and away to wild mountain ridges… Contented, difficult walking, all my own space and place, strong purpose just to do it, no end in sight nor needed to know.
The Path is Due Process
I want to highlight this, what has happened to it? If we insist on it, in all places, at all times, maybe we could find a way out of the traps we seem to be in, environmental, and societal? Let us have DUE PROCESS for all of life not just human. Not just debating what results we want, but first debating what is due process; what process do we insist on following? So our effort now ought to be in debating process, forget for now the result we want, until we get the process agreed.
Deep in the woods, by Beaver’s pond, or on a rocky hillside, I notice how “right” the process here is, how the result is always beautiful, no matter how unexpected. So when we follow due process in the way of the Tao, we would encounter the Te of natural Justice, Natural consequences, and be accepted in the Ching, the great calm ensuing.
Why do we still think, after so many millennia of failure, that we can guard the Peace with the weapons of War? Why do stern implacable faces march in solid ranks in uniforms on Remembrance Day, or to bury fallen police or soldiers? Do they seem peaceful? What are we remembering with this display? War, not Peace. We used to call it Armistice Day, for the peace we all longed for. Why is this not what we remember now?
War is a dreadful, seeming ever-recurring event. Peace is a process. We will not have an end to bloody conflict, the misery, without adopting due process. A place where all can have a say in the process, where all voices are heard, the seeming ignorant, inadequate, angry, as well as the calm and reasoned. When all speech is exhausted, the answer will emerge, the answer we will all support and we will call it Peace. “When all conflict is ceased, when all is said and done, and calm is restored, the people will say, “it just happened naturally.” ” from the writings of Lao Tzu.
Friday, December 26, 2014
Wednesday, May 21, 2014
To move or not to move, the furniture
To move or not to move, the furniture
After all my years I have only a few things to say to myself or anybody else who wishes to hear them.
The best thing you can do for your children, yourself, for others, is to clean up your own act. The best thing you can do period, is clean up your own act. The only thing you can do, is clean up your own act. Anything else is just moving the furniture around.
To live long, worry free, live in vegan territory, and defend it.
Do not cause suffering, and heal it, wherever, whenever, you can.
Offer small or large gratitude, to yourself and others, and the great spirit, whenever you get a chance.
Be alert to experience awe, bathe in it long.
To move, or not to move, the furniture, that is the question? No, tao get rid of the furniture, that is the question and the answer.
The purpose of life in the Universe is to find and create moments of perfection. The purpose of human life is to learn to realize these moments.
Thank you, I’m grateful for your attention, in awe of readers and writers everywhere…
Donato May 21 2014
After all my years I have only a few things to say to myself or anybody else who wishes to hear them.
The best thing you can do for your children, yourself, for others, is to clean up your own act. The best thing you can do period, is clean up your own act. The only thing you can do, is clean up your own act. Anything else is just moving the furniture around.
To live long, worry free, live in vegan territory, and defend it.
Do not cause suffering, and heal it, wherever, whenever, you can.
Offer small or large gratitude, to yourself and others, and the great spirit, whenever you get a chance.
Be alert to experience awe, bathe in it long.
To move, or not to move, the furniture, that is the question? No, tao get rid of the furniture, that is the question and the answer.
The purpose of life in the Universe is to find and create moments of perfection. The purpose of human life is to learn to realize these moments.
Thank you, I’m grateful for your attention, in awe of readers and writers everywhere…
Donato May 21 2014
Friday, April 25, 2014
Atonement
Atonement
The word contains and conflates “at one-ment”
So recognizing we have disturbed another’s path, perhaps that of earth life itself, we feel…what? and the word is this to heal the perhaps wound we seem to have caused.
But how can we blame ourselves or others? Which of us knows the outcome of our actions?
All is one- there is no outcome particular to any one action which itself is part of the great flow, the One flow. The error lies in the cultural use of the word, suggesting the need for guilt, or shame, for retribution or restoration, for sacrifice.
It’s about disturbing the balance (so-called) between good and evil. So if there be no final good, no final evil, there is no balance between them to disturb.
There is a balance though, between being aware of our own at one-ment with all, or being unaware. All I know right now is to act right now from my sense of natural justice, trusting in the flow, in the Tao. Thus I am at one, at one-ment, with the Tao, no matter who thinks I am responsible for some outcome he sees and doesn’t like.
The word contains and conflates “at one-ment”
So recognizing we have disturbed another’s path, perhaps that of earth life itself, we feel…what? and the word is this to heal the perhaps wound we seem to have caused.
But how can we blame ourselves or others? Which of us knows the outcome of our actions?
All is one- there is no outcome particular to any one action which itself is part of the great flow, the One flow. The error lies in the cultural use of the word, suggesting the need for guilt, or shame, for retribution or restoration, for sacrifice.
It’s about disturbing the balance (so-called) between good and evil. So if there be no final good, no final evil, there is no balance between them to disturb.
There is a balance though, between being aware of our own at one-ment with all, or being unaware. All I know right now is to act right now from my sense of natural justice, trusting in the flow, in the Tao. Thus I am at one, at one-ment, with the Tao, no matter who thinks I am responsible for some outcome he sees and doesn’t like.
Tuesday, March 4, 2014
Threats and Opportunities
Threats and opportunities
In my dream a long time ago God spoke to me and said I give you what you want before you ask
And so all I want is opportunities to grow my soul, and here they are, all available now, not least because I can now recognize them...
Threats
climate change, water, air and land pollution and shortages
global ecosystem and monetary economic system collapses
End of cheap energy and cheap food
authoritarianism, violence and civil unrest and warfare
scarcity of social justice
lack of trust among neighbors, between communities, in governments, in justice systems
Justice systems become control of resources systems favoring the rich
class warfare
epidemic disease, failure of health care systems, constant stress from unhealthy life styles, unhealthy environments, excess human populations
ignorance, inability to do critical thinking, failure of education and information systems
Environmental pollution, and resulting diseases, destruction of ocean and land ecosystems, shortages of oxygen,
Disease from radiation, nuclear meltdowns and warfare and radiation emitting industrial products
All the many mental, physical, emotional ills and imbalances that come from being out of touch spiritually with spirit, with the earth part of ourselves.
Antidotes and opportunities
Aim for community
Learning interesting stuff useful survival skills
Frequent study circles rather than discussions and arguments
emotional support groups
creative work, writing, poetry, photos
gardening, for self and bees and birds
dinners with others
cycling adventures
travel adventures
garage sales, giveaways, dinners, (chick) swaps
Our conversations are not about me convincing you of anything, although I might get energy from that, they are about me learning something, but really, the core of them for me is what God promised me, the opportunity to grow my soul, what I asked for and always have, without knowing that was what I wanted.
Donato Cianci Mar. 4 2014
In my dream a long time ago God spoke to me and said I give you what you want before you ask
And so all I want is opportunities to grow my soul, and here they are, all available now, not least because I can now recognize them...
Threats
climate change, water, air and land pollution and shortages
global ecosystem and monetary economic system collapses
End of cheap energy and cheap food
authoritarianism, violence and civil unrest and warfare
scarcity of social justice
lack of trust among neighbors, between communities, in governments, in justice systems
Justice systems become control of resources systems favoring the rich
class warfare
epidemic disease, failure of health care systems, constant stress from unhealthy life styles, unhealthy environments, excess human populations
ignorance, inability to do critical thinking, failure of education and information systems
Environmental pollution, and resulting diseases, destruction of ocean and land ecosystems, shortages of oxygen,
Disease from radiation, nuclear meltdowns and warfare and radiation emitting industrial products
All the many mental, physical, emotional ills and imbalances that come from being out of touch spiritually with spirit, with the earth part of ourselves.
Antidotes and opportunities
Aim for community
Learning interesting stuff useful survival skills
Frequent study circles rather than discussions and arguments
emotional support groups
creative work, writing, poetry, photos
gardening, for self and bees and birds
dinners with others
cycling adventures
travel adventures
garage sales, giveaways, dinners, (chick) swaps
Our conversations are not about me convincing you of anything, although I might get energy from that, they are about me learning something, but really, the core of them for me is what God promised me, the opportunity to grow my soul, what I asked for and always have, without knowing that was what I wanted.
Donato Cianci Mar. 4 2014
Tuesday, February 25, 2014
An Existential Definition of Community
Defining Community by Observing It
Travelling recently I saw a flock of maybe 50 wild turkeys scattered over a large snow-covered field. Most were busy pecking and scratching. I've never seen so many together. They usually travel in much smaller single family groups. Of course, I thought, they become community minded when times are tough and survival is threatened. The more that are out hunting and pecking at the snow, the better the chance that some one or few of them will find some grain, and all will eat.
The Inuit people of old did the same. In winter, several hunters would go out for days in different directions, to different holes in the ice where a seal might rise for breath. When one hunter got a seal, the whole village ate.
From each according to his ability, or luck, and to each according to her need.
A long time ago, I was a junior person working in a large oil company that was having difficulty finding oil on the Canadian Prairies. At some meeting, I noted that a few of the many small companies also seeking oil did in fact find quite substantial fields, and asked the vice president in charge of that department in our company why we did not simply buy into a number of those small companies, say 25% in each, and this increase the probability of getting control of more oil. His answer was "We will not give our expertise to other companies".
Neither the turkeys nor the Inuit would have survived with such a creed. But somehow, we think our society will survive, though it is the creed of our governments and our corporations.
Travelling recently I saw a flock of maybe 50 wild turkeys scattered over a large snow-covered field. Most were busy pecking and scratching. I've never seen so many together. They usually travel in much smaller single family groups. Of course, I thought, they become community minded when times are tough and survival is threatened. The more that are out hunting and pecking at the snow, the better the chance that some one or few of them will find some grain, and all will eat.
The Inuit people of old did the same. In winter, several hunters would go out for days in different directions, to different holes in the ice where a seal might rise for breath. When one hunter got a seal, the whole village ate.
From each according to his ability, or luck, and to each according to her need.
A long time ago, I was a junior person working in a large oil company that was having difficulty finding oil on the Canadian Prairies. At some meeting, I noted that a few of the many small companies also seeking oil did in fact find quite substantial fields, and asked the vice president in charge of that department in our company why we did not simply buy into a number of those small companies, say 25% in each, and this increase the probability of getting control of more oil. His answer was "We will not give our expertise to other companies".
Neither the turkeys nor the Inuit would have survived with such a creed. But somehow, we think our society will survive, though it is the creed of our governments and our corporations.
The Prodigal Son
The Prodigal Son
We know the story. The youngest son goes wildly adventuring, womanizing, loses jobs, fails education, parties, does drugs, damages his health and endangers his life, finally in despair returns home becoming a child again seeking his parents. He is exuberantly welcomed by his father, who with tears of joy exclaims this my son was lost and now he is found and now I am happy, now we we will have a feast and gifts for him!! The older son looks on with barely concealed anger. I have done everything correctly, got my education, got and kept a good job, visited my parents every week, sacrificed myself to raise my family, look after my wife, why should my brother get all this celebration and I get nothing?
My Thoughts
The elder son is not made happy by his own rectitude and correct behaviour. He obviously takes his cue to be happy from what his father thinks of him, not of what he thinks of himself. His anger toward his brother and father comes because he tells himself he gave up his freedom to do what his brother did, followed his fathers’ rules, and now feels unrewarded. Evidently not capable of rewarding himself for his choices, he now doubts he is worthy in his father’s eyes. He doesn’t see that the father is not rewarding his brother for his profligate lifestyle, but is celebrating his safety, his returning home. The elder could join in the celebration but he mistakes the reason for it and so doubts his father’s love, and so doubts himself, and his fear makes him angry.
The younger son was evidently not made happy by his adventuring and reckless so-called self-indulgence. (How is it an indulgence if he is not happy?). The younger son set out to find himself in opposition to his fathers ideas, and found only suffering, and then he was desperate to get home, to get healed, to feel nurtured. He has not grown up yet, no matter how much the father celebrates him. Both sons have yet to learn about themselves, to have respect and love for themselves, regardless of what others may think of them. When they do, they will attain the wisdom of the father, who respects them both, loves them both, scolds neither of them, and shows them how he feels when he feels it.
This parable is played out daily in our culture. More sons and daughters than ever in recent history are returning home because they have not found themselves in the world, and seek safety and comfort of home and parents, like the children they still are. They have yet to grow up. Elder brothers ( and sisters) abound, scolding those who return to their childhood home, scolding the street people, scolding the poor, scolding those without jobs, those on welfare. Scolding the government for not looking after them better, granting them more roads, lower housing costs, better jobs, less taxes, etc. Younger brothers and sisters protest in the streets, demand the return of a nurturing government, demanding jobs, minimum pay, demanding governments do better, stop oppression, organize work and a meaningful place in society for them.
Yet returning to the childhood home may be the first step in healing our society for all of us. The childhood home is the nucleus, or ought to be, of a viable community. Where each cares for all and all care for each. And given what is coming to our world habitat, massive and life endangering climate change, the breakdown of our global monetary system, the end of cheap oil fueled energy. Perhaps a time when most of those in developed countries will have to spend their own personal energy growing and making, in order to survive. Will we not need the comfort and skills of small communities of friends and, good neighbors, to survive?
It is all about our fear, of violence, of sickness, of hunger, of loss of goods and shelter, loss of love. We call it insecurity. We crave security, and give up our freedoms and often our social justice systems, hoping to get it.
There will always be predators. All classes in society are afraid of the predators. The rich bar their doors at night, co-opt police forces to do drive-bys, travel only on well lighted safe streets in fast expensive vehicles, enter only buildings protected by security guards and passcodes, spend time only with others of their class, surrounded by security.
Why all this emphasis on security? Why does the United States have 11 battle groups of thousands of warships, costing billions upon billions, army expenditures in the trillions, equal to the next ten largest armies combined? Why does that same country insist on having 3000 tanks and 6 billion rounds of ammunition, and much more, for their homeland security apparatus within their own country? Why do the rich in the developed countries all live in gated communities, and co-opt their governments into making the entire country a gated community for them?
They are afraid to lose what they have, afraid of the predators. And even the poorest, the street people, have a well founded fear of predators, seeking to rob them at knife point at night as they sleep on a subway grate in the cold and snow of winter.
It is all about fear, this desperate search for security. And there is no such thing as personal or even collective security. A life destroying disaster can happen to any, any time. The elder son in the prodigal son story discovered his self regard, his personal security, shattered when the father celebrated the younger in spite of his profligate behaviour. The younger son will wake the morning after the feast and know the insecurity of understanding he must leave home again sometime, to an unknown future.
The only security we will ever know comes from within. Learning not to doubt, learning not to fear, learning to trust and be open always to all the possibilities for joy, moment by moment, in being alive.
Donato Cianci Feb. 25 2014
We know the story. The youngest son goes wildly adventuring, womanizing, loses jobs, fails education, parties, does drugs, damages his health and endangers his life, finally in despair returns home becoming a child again seeking his parents. He is exuberantly welcomed by his father, who with tears of joy exclaims this my son was lost and now he is found and now I am happy, now we we will have a feast and gifts for him!! The older son looks on with barely concealed anger. I have done everything correctly, got my education, got and kept a good job, visited my parents every week, sacrificed myself to raise my family, look after my wife, why should my brother get all this celebration and I get nothing?
My Thoughts
The elder son is not made happy by his own rectitude and correct behaviour. He obviously takes his cue to be happy from what his father thinks of him, not of what he thinks of himself. His anger toward his brother and father comes because he tells himself he gave up his freedom to do what his brother did, followed his fathers’ rules, and now feels unrewarded. Evidently not capable of rewarding himself for his choices, he now doubts he is worthy in his father’s eyes. He doesn’t see that the father is not rewarding his brother for his profligate lifestyle, but is celebrating his safety, his returning home. The elder could join in the celebration but he mistakes the reason for it and so doubts his father’s love, and so doubts himself, and his fear makes him angry.
The younger son was evidently not made happy by his adventuring and reckless so-called self-indulgence. (How is it an indulgence if he is not happy?). The younger son set out to find himself in opposition to his fathers ideas, and found only suffering, and then he was desperate to get home, to get healed, to feel nurtured. He has not grown up yet, no matter how much the father celebrates him. Both sons have yet to learn about themselves, to have respect and love for themselves, regardless of what others may think of them. When they do, they will attain the wisdom of the father, who respects them both, loves them both, scolds neither of them, and shows them how he feels when he feels it.
This parable is played out daily in our culture. More sons and daughters than ever in recent history are returning home because they have not found themselves in the world, and seek safety and comfort of home and parents, like the children they still are. They have yet to grow up. Elder brothers ( and sisters) abound, scolding those who return to their childhood home, scolding the street people, scolding the poor, scolding those without jobs, those on welfare. Scolding the government for not looking after them better, granting them more roads, lower housing costs, better jobs, less taxes, etc. Younger brothers and sisters protest in the streets, demand the return of a nurturing government, demanding jobs, minimum pay, demanding governments do better, stop oppression, organize work and a meaningful place in society for them.
Yet returning to the childhood home may be the first step in healing our society for all of us. The childhood home is the nucleus, or ought to be, of a viable community. Where each cares for all and all care for each. And given what is coming to our world habitat, massive and life endangering climate change, the breakdown of our global monetary system, the end of cheap oil fueled energy. Perhaps a time when most of those in developed countries will have to spend their own personal energy growing and making, in order to survive. Will we not need the comfort and skills of small communities of friends and, good neighbors, to survive?
It is all about our fear, of violence, of sickness, of hunger, of loss of goods and shelter, loss of love. We call it insecurity. We crave security, and give up our freedoms and often our social justice systems, hoping to get it.
There will always be predators. All classes in society are afraid of the predators. The rich bar their doors at night, co-opt police forces to do drive-bys, travel only on well lighted safe streets in fast expensive vehicles, enter only buildings protected by security guards and passcodes, spend time only with others of their class, surrounded by security.
Why all this emphasis on security? Why does the United States have 11 battle groups of thousands of warships, costing billions upon billions, army expenditures in the trillions, equal to the next ten largest armies combined? Why does that same country insist on having 3000 tanks and 6 billion rounds of ammunition, and much more, for their homeland security apparatus within their own country? Why do the rich in the developed countries all live in gated communities, and co-opt their governments into making the entire country a gated community for them?
They are afraid to lose what they have, afraid of the predators. And even the poorest, the street people, have a well founded fear of predators, seeking to rob them at knife point at night as they sleep on a subway grate in the cold and snow of winter.
It is all about fear, this desperate search for security. And there is no such thing as personal or even collective security. A life destroying disaster can happen to any, any time. The elder son in the prodigal son story discovered his self regard, his personal security, shattered when the father celebrated the younger in spite of his profligate behaviour. The younger son will wake the morning after the feast and know the insecurity of understanding he must leave home again sometime, to an unknown future.
The only security we will ever know comes from within. Learning not to doubt, learning not to fear, learning to trust and be open always to all the possibilities for joy, moment by moment, in being alive.
Donato Cianci Feb. 25 2014
Saturday, February 22, 2014
an example of being blind to the real problem.
Public or Private Medical Care, an example of being blind to the real problem.
Thoughts when I was asked to comment on an initiative by the Ontario Health Coalition, an organization that seems devoted to the status quo, ensuring that nothing important will ever be done for the first time.
(Roy Brady, Peterborough __High Priority Campaign to Stop the Dismantling of Our Local Hospitals and the Contracting-Out of Hospital Care to Private Clinics)
Why should we waste energy debating this or that minor fix, public vs private clinics, etc. when the system is fundamentally broken?
What Brady seems to be saying is that the people who can afford to pay for medical care that lets them jump the queue will be getting substandard care. What they will get by getting their surgery early rather than late is perhaps a better chance to to stay healthy longer than those who have to wait in line for the the public system, while their illness perhaps gets worse. Why should we care what happens to those who choose private over public? They have as good information as any of us on what they will get and what risks they will run getting it.
What’s wrong with the medical profession and system everywhere is that it reacts, and does only palliative care, and makes huge profits for the big Pharm. companies, but still has a stat showing that 70% of health care costs go into chronic (that is incurable ) disease caused mainly by people’s addictive self indulgent life styles.
Feet (insufficient exercise), forks (poor nutrition) and fingers (smoking), are the indicators of the health crisis we are all in. And it looks like the system will crash from lack of sufficient money or positive results, before the medical profession will wake up to the fact that this is a mental health system crisis ( fixable only by understanding the human neurological system through quantum mechanics ( waves not particles, interacting fields of energy) rather staying with the out of date paradigm of particle physics and chemistry based on Newtonian 18th Century mechanics.
The science used in the medical system is getting close to 100 years out of date. And humans’ inability to control their addictions to consumption and to lives of sloth and ease, shows no signs of weakening either.
Plus we seem, collectively, unable to define the real problems. Too much traffic? Build more roads, so we can sell more cars create more havoc in the environment. The real problem? Too many roads. Eliminate 50% of all roads, force people to live closer together, work closer to home, shop closer to home, and so on...
Education costs too much and has poor outcomes? Stick with the out of date model of huge daily warehouses for students spending most of their time bored into stupor listening to stand up teachers who spend 80% of their time lecturing or marking, and practically no time interacting with students, and argue about how to afford smaller class sizes. Why do we not insist on changing the model entirely, to one where students use the internet resources for learning material, and teachers spend 80% or more of their time facilitating homework for individual students who need some one-on-one?
Too much warfare or threat of it? Spend billions on surveillance of every communication, and on weapons and weapons trainings that are 30 years out of date by the time they are delivered. What’s the real problem here? We don’t trust each other. So work on building trust rather than building jails, walls and armaments, that only decrease trust, making the problem worse.
Donato Cianci Peterborough Ontario
Thoughts when I was asked to comment on an initiative by the Ontario Health Coalition, an organization that seems devoted to the status quo, ensuring that nothing important will ever be done for the first time.
(Roy Brady, Peterborough __High Priority Campaign to Stop the Dismantling of Our Local Hospitals and the Contracting-Out of Hospital Care to Private Clinics)
Why should we waste energy debating this or that minor fix, public vs private clinics, etc. when the system is fundamentally broken?
What Brady seems to be saying is that the people who can afford to pay for medical care that lets them jump the queue will be getting substandard care. What they will get by getting their surgery early rather than late is perhaps a better chance to to stay healthy longer than those who have to wait in line for the the public system, while their illness perhaps gets worse. Why should we care what happens to those who choose private over public? They have as good information as any of us on what they will get and what risks they will run getting it.
What’s wrong with the medical profession and system everywhere is that it reacts, and does only palliative care, and makes huge profits for the big Pharm. companies, but still has a stat showing that 70% of health care costs go into chronic (that is incurable ) disease caused mainly by people’s addictive self indulgent life styles.
Feet (insufficient exercise), forks (poor nutrition) and fingers (smoking), are the indicators of the health crisis we are all in. And it looks like the system will crash from lack of sufficient money or positive results, before the medical profession will wake up to the fact that this is a mental health system crisis ( fixable only by understanding the human neurological system through quantum mechanics ( waves not particles, interacting fields of energy) rather staying with the out of date paradigm of particle physics and chemistry based on Newtonian 18th Century mechanics.
The science used in the medical system is getting close to 100 years out of date. And humans’ inability to control their addictions to consumption and to lives of sloth and ease, shows no signs of weakening either.
Plus we seem, collectively, unable to define the real problems. Too much traffic? Build more roads, so we can sell more cars create more havoc in the environment. The real problem? Too many roads. Eliminate 50% of all roads, force people to live closer together, work closer to home, shop closer to home, and so on...
Education costs too much and has poor outcomes? Stick with the out of date model of huge daily warehouses for students spending most of their time bored into stupor listening to stand up teachers who spend 80% of their time lecturing or marking, and practically no time interacting with students, and argue about how to afford smaller class sizes. Why do we not insist on changing the model entirely, to one where students use the internet resources for learning material, and teachers spend 80% or more of their time facilitating homework for individual students who need some one-on-one?
Too much warfare or threat of it? Spend billions on surveillance of every communication, and on weapons and weapons trainings that are 30 years out of date by the time they are delivered. What’s the real problem here? We don’t trust each other. So work on building trust rather than building jails, walls and armaments, that only decrease trust, making the problem worse.
Donato Cianci Peterborough Ontario
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