Sorting Through It

Since the election I've - we've - been experiencing shock, grief, fear, futurizing, all sorts of emotions. Personally I'm looking into a bleak and sometimes terrifying future. In my mind we've just experienced the beginning of what Germany experienced in the early 30's (1933?) when Heir Hitler was elected to office. The Third Reich lasted only about 12 years, til the end of WWII, rather than the thousand years it was  projected for. I don't think I'm being too hysterical if I think of America now as having just initiated the Fourth Reich. We may be looking at 8 years of extreme damage, and a  lot of extreme damage can be done in that amount of time, as we so clearly know. Nothing the president elect is saying or doing offers hope; everything he is saying and doing supports my thesis.

I'm writing this because I haven't been able to write lately, not knowing what to say,  sorting through my feelings and thoughts, struggling to find a place to "land" with it all, knowing there may be no such place. Wondering what "leaving it open" means now. I've read various Buddhist writer's blurbs (see Lion's Roar magazine online) about how to approach this situation. Some I find saccharine and unsatisfying. Some make some sense to me. Between the extremes, for me, of  taking to the streets and passivity, I'm searching for how to be loving and compassionate - I still hold these as dear, and now somewhat more challenging than before - while remaining realistic, aware, prudent, not wedded to fear or anger or numbness, non-violent both outwardly and inwardly.

When the burnings and shootings and hate crimes and political policies of destruction take serious hold, will I be able to remain "accepting"? Will I offer myself, my children, my beloved wife, to the fires of hatred without resistance, calling it, and meaning it, God's Will?

Any way, this is where I am now, so probably the tenor of the blog has changed for a while. When I'm in this moment, and not in the future I'm seeing, or the past I know about, it's pretty ok. Maybe that's really all we have, after all, which I'm sure is true, and yet now not all that reassuring. We're off to Bangkok by air today, then on to Chiang Mai for just a few days before heading up to Pai for a couple of weeks, and then down to Thung Wua Laen for the imagined longer haul. All is in flux. All is open. All is unknown (or is it?)

Be well, dear friends and family. Take good care of each other. 

Oh........My.........God.

Anyone else ready to think about leaving the US now?
I know......jobs, kids, family, etc. Of course, all important reasons to stay put. But Jesus H. Christ. What does it take to make you wonder, for real?

I can only see this latest horror as another signal of the collapse of the American Empire, in the way that every previous empire has collapsed of its own accord. Surely, ours will follow suit. Or so one can hope.

We're deeply disturbed by the just won presidency by a person who ought never to have been taken seriously by virtually anyone, let alone gotten himself elected to this office. And of course it isn't just the presidency. It's the control of Congress and the Supreme Court as well, with seemingly no real limits in place to temper the onslaught of heightened insanity that is about to come. True madness here. Diagnosable pathology. The real deal. The damage that will be done is....................well, I was going to say unthinkable, but I know better now. Now I'd say it's predictable.

If we thought the economic collapse starting in 2008 has been bad, I think it's entirely reasonable to be expecting something of an even greater magnitude now. Will we see bread lines again in the good ole US of A? Will Social Security as we know it disappear? Medicare? Certainly, it seems, The Affordable Health Care Act will get repealed, with no elected power to stop it. Legal abortion rights?
Planned Parenthood? Medicaid? Food Stamps? Higher education out of reach for all but the super rich? Climate Change accords, finally signed, now ignored?

Achhh. Who knows where it will all end? Well, it's been a while since the world has seen a large, major Fascist State dedicated to the worship of a morally bankrupt, but "charismatic" personality. Maybe it's time again. The cycle of things. The Kali Yuga. The Wheel of Samsara.The raison d'etre of Planet Earth?

May all beings be happy. May we remember to allow for the evolution of souls in the midst of the devolution of governments. May compassion not be lost, especially. May we understand more deeply the surrender to that wisdom which we cannot see or fully comprehend. Shit happens. Always has. Always will. And so does Grace, let us not forget.

Be well, my friends. Be kind.