The headlines lately are often about the devastating weather, most recently the tornados striking hard in the midwest, storms of a magnitude not recorded before. Two weeks ago, the headlines proclaimed record-breaking floods in the Mississippi Valley, erasing entire towns from the map. And this week's NEWSWEEK Magazine says we're in for more in a cover story entitled, "ARE YOU READY FOR MORE?."
Below are 3 posts in the series, "THE DEADLY SIDE OF THE WAVE," from the FPL blog on the phenomenon I've been calling "The Wave" for a year and a half now. Fear not, though. The Wave need not be deadly for you. In fact, it can be exactly what you need to "surf" on forward at an accelerated rate to your place of highest excitement.
THE DEADLY SIDE OF THE WAVE, PART 3!
The headlines today are all about the enormous earthquake, the largest in the country's history, and the subsequent tsunamis that struck Japan Friday, devastating towns and cities, causing a meltdown in four nuclear reactors, and killing thousands people. Below are 3 posts from the FPL blog on the phenomenon I've been calling "The Wave" for over a year now.
THE DEADLY SIDE OF THE WAVE, PART 2!
Beginning in January of 2010, I wrote about an energy surge moving across the planet, The Wave is what I called it, and I wrote several articles about its impacts. Two weeks ago, I wrote that The Wave was back in full force, and indeed it is. And in one piece, I reminded my readers that there was a "Deadly Side of The Wave."
The day after Christmas 2010, I wrote this:
"Now, before 2011 has even begun, I am already hearing stories of sudden deaths, relationship break-ups or financial crises, coupled with splendid bursts of new love and creative expression and prosperity."
And it's not over yet. The collective news yesterday and today is filled with the horrific mass murder in Arizona that was part of an assassination attempt on a Democratic Congresswoman, Gabrielle Giffords, and in my own personal reality, a dear friend died suddenly three days ago.
I'm not writing this here now because I'm "worried" about anyone, though. I know that "death" is an illusion of 3rd-dimensional physical, linear reality. I'm writing this because you may know that you have something that you desire to do yet in this particular lifetime, something that you actually planned to accomplish. It's never too late, of course, but there are windows of opportunity that we collectively open up from time to time through which we can accelerate our journey. That's what The Wave is. An opportunity to take the fast track to your highest joy and excitement and fulfillment, or to make a fast exit.
It's always up to you. And you'll always have another opportunity, but why wait?!
Good-bye, my old friend. Happy trails!
THE DEADLY SIDE OF THE WAVE, PART 1!
Every day, I am hearing stories from people of sudden and dramatic deaths, or near death experiences.
The Wave that I've been writing about since January is no joke, folks.
In today's news: one fifth of Pakistan is now underwater from dramatic flooding. Read that entire story HERE.
TODAY'S QUOTE!
"Our job in this lifetime is not to shape ourselves into some idea of what we imagine we ought to be, but to find out who we already are and become it."
Steven Pressfield
Steven Pressfield
IF YOU BREAK UP AND ARE HAPPIER, DID THE MARRIAGE COUNSELING WORK?!
This blog post, "Why Marriage Counseling Doesn't Work," by Erica Manfred, author of "He's History You're Not: Surviving Divorce After Forty," was on the Huffington Post. You can read it HERE.
I felt compelled to respond and did so in the following letter:
As a psychotherapist with extensive training in marital and family therapy, and with over 30 years of experience working with couples, I have to say: "Wow, Erica, your bias is really showing!" While your statistics accurately reflect the reality that many people who come for couples counseling do not end up staying together, and while I do agree with you that "most therapists aren't good at it," the judgment that you make that "most marriage counseling doesn't work" because "thirty-eight percent" end up divorced is extraordinarily misleading and misguided. What many studies do in fact confirm is that most people who get divorced are happier as individuals and better parents to boot than they were before the split. The Emotionally Focused Therapy "success rate" claim that you site is exactly that - a "claim," skewed by their interpretation of the data. If you measure the success of any kind of therapy by the happiness and functionality of the people who sought said therapy, not by some arbitrary, societally-induced investment in couples sticking it out in a marriage, then the statistics change, don't they?
Peter Loffredo, LCSW
I felt compelled to respond and did so in the following letter:
As a psychotherapist with extensive training in marital and family therapy, and with over 30 years of experience working with couples, I have to say: "Wow, Erica, your bias is really showing!" While your statistics accurately reflect the reality that many people who come for couples counseling do not end up staying together, and while I do agree with you that "most therapists aren't good at it," the judgment that you make that "most marriage counseling doesn't work" because "thirty-eight percent" end up divorced is extraordinarily misleading and misguided. What many studies do in fact confirm is that most people who get divorced are happier as individuals and better parents to boot than they were before the split. The Emotionally Focused Therapy "success rate" claim that you site is exactly that - a "claim," skewed by their interpretation of the data. If you measure the success of any kind of therapy by the happiness and functionality of the people who sought said therapy, not by some arbitrary, societally-induced investment in couples sticking it out in a marriage, then the statistics change, don't they?
Peter Loffredo, LCSW
"HOW I ROLL" - A TRIBUTE TO THE ROLLER FROM THE O'NEILL STUDIO!
This is a piece from The O'Neill Studio blog on how the use of the roller, a Core Energetics therapeutic tool very familiar to my patients, is being implemented by an acting teacher and dramaturg with his acting students:
That's How I Roll
A quote contributed by one of our group:
"Anything worth doing is worth doing slowly." - Mae West
O'Neill's plays require a very intense emotion connection. With the introduction of The Roller, we all found a shortcut to that place. It takes a lot of such work to create permanent access to that place. And yes, it is a slow process, but each of you are in it.
From ALEX: “I really enjoyed working with the roller. It was key in helping remind me to play and find humor in the darkness. That's what that piece really needed.”
Alex remind us that you have to go with your inclinations. To quote Jack Nicholson “I go with my instincts no matter how wrong I think they are.”
FROM LYNN: “It was also cool two see the other actors work on the roller, before I did, because I got to see it's impact before actually experiencing it. What a powerful tool. Man, I could have stayed on that....It's all about relaxing for me, and the roller just confirms it even more. Every thing I need as an actor is inside me. The more I relax the more there is available for me to work with and the deeper I can go."
The roller shows us how barricaded we often are within ourselves. We have to keep the ramparts thin.
FROM MICHAEL: "One thing that I keep thinking about is that after I worked on the roller, I felt ready. It was interesting cause I was in this relaxed yet energized state. To put it in a different way, I felt like I was about to kick ass. Really. I felt confident, but not worried. Like I was filled with a precise energy that I could use, rather than let it use me. I remember coming up and feeling like I could do anything. A few of my teachers talk about how athletes will be 'in the zone,' and being one myself I have felt that feeling (although very sparingly). After the roller, I felt in the zone. Focused, confident and relaxed. What a feeling. When I went into text however, I felt it was lost a little bit. It was refreshing to not know where the monologue was going though. Less stress.”
Michael reminds us that when we are free, before we know it, we're on a roll.
It is one on which O'Neill's words can freely roll too.
That's How I Roll
A quote contributed by one of our group:
"Anything worth doing is worth doing slowly." - Mae West
O'Neill's plays require a very intense emotion connection. With the introduction of The Roller, we all found a shortcut to that place. It takes a lot of such work to create permanent access to that place. And yes, it is a slow process, but each of you are in it.
From ALEX: “I really enjoyed working with the roller. It was key in helping remind me to play and find humor in the darkness. That's what that piece really needed.”
Alex remind us that you have to go with your inclinations. To quote Jack Nicholson “I go with my instincts no matter how wrong I think they are.”
FROM LYNN: “It was also cool two see the other actors work on the roller, before I did, because I got to see it's impact before actually experiencing it. What a powerful tool. Man, I could have stayed on that....It's all about relaxing for me, and the roller just confirms it even more. Every thing I need as an actor is inside me. The more I relax the more there is available for me to work with and the deeper I can go."
The roller shows us how barricaded we often are within ourselves. We have to keep the ramparts thin.
FROM MICHAEL: "One thing that I keep thinking about is that after I worked on the roller, I felt ready. It was interesting cause I was in this relaxed yet energized state. To put it in a different way, I felt like I was about to kick ass. Really. I felt confident, but not worried. Like I was filled with a precise energy that I could use, rather than let it use me. I remember coming up and feeling like I could do anything. A few of my teachers talk about how athletes will be 'in the zone,' and being one myself I have felt that feeling (although very sparingly). After the roller, I felt in the zone. Focused, confident and relaxed. What a feeling. When I went into text however, I felt it was lost a little bit. It was refreshing to not know where the monologue was going though. Less stress.”
Michael reminds us that when we are free, before we know it, we're on a roll.
It is one on which O'Neill's words can freely roll too.
MOTHERS WHO KILL THEIR KIDS! READ THIS!!
THIS is from an article entitled "MOTHERS WHO KILL CHILDREN" by JOCELYN NOVECK:
"How could she?' It's the headline du jour whenever a horrific case emerges of a mother killing her kids, as Lashanda Armstrong did when she piled her children into her minivan and drove straight into the frigid Hudson River. Our shock at such stories is, of course, understandable: They seem to go against everything we intuitively feel about the mother-child bond. But mothers kill their children in this country much more often than most people would realize by simply reading the headlines; by conservative estimates it happens every few days, at least 100 times a year. Experts say more mothers than fathers kill their children under 5 years of age. And some say our reluctance as a society to believe mothers would be capable of killing their offspring is hindering our ability to recognize warning signs, intervene and prevent more tragedies."
The "experts" mentioned in the article, of course, want to "study" the problem, as if matricide were some kind of anomaly unto itself and not part of a truly endemic cultural disorder. In fact, mothers are killing their children all the time.
According to Alexander Lowen, the famous psychiatrist who coined the term "body language" and created the treatment process known as "Bioenergetics," a majority of children are abused in one way or another because our basic ideas of childrearing are tantamount to crushing the child's spirit, whether that be through direct abuse, neglect or yes, overindulgence.
To a vast majority of parents, having children is an ego-oriented process. When asked their motivation for having kids, close to 100% will say something that starts with "I wanted..." "I wanted to experience motherhood." "I wanted to have the same number of children my mother had." "I wanted that measure of 'success' as a woman." And worst of all, "I wanted to be loved."
In other words, it is usually the fulfillment of a mental image or the alleviation of an emotional deficit that drives most people to procreate, and that process doesn't end with the birth of a child, but rather becomes more intense and exacerbated over time. The result - kids are gutted of their independence and self-reliance, indeed of their true sense of self, or they become ruthlessly and joylessly driven to please, succeed or conquer in order to continue to get the parental approval fix they have become addicted to or never had.
Make no mistake, here, folks, this amounts to spiritual murder, not much worse than the physical version, except that up to a certain age, said offspring can still get some form of intensive therapy to try and "re-raise" themselves, in a very real sense.
I have been very tough on parents on this blog for a long time. With good reason. I've said it once and I'll say it again:
Of all of the adults available to raise kids, parents are the least qualified.
"How could she?' It's the headline du jour whenever a horrific case emerges of a mother killing her kids, as Lashanda Armstrong did when she piled her children into her minivan and drove straight into the frigid Hudson River. Our shock at such stories is, of course, understandable: They seem to go against everything we intuitively feel about the mother-child bond. But mothers kill their children in this country much more often than most people would realize by simply reading the headlines; by conservative estimates it happens every few days, at least 100 times a year. Experts say more mothers than fathers kill their children under 5 years of age. And some say our reluctance as a society to believe mothers would be capable of killing their offspring is hindering our ability to recognize warning signs, intervene and prevent more tragedies."
The "experts" mentioned in the article, of course, want to "study" the problem, as if matricide were some kind of anomaly unto itself and not part of a truly endemic cultural disorder. In fact, mothers are killing their children all the time.
According to Alexander Lowen, the famous psychiatrist who coined the term "body language" and created the treatment process known as "Bioenergetics," a majority of children are abused in one way or another because our basic ideas of childrearing are tantamount to crushing the child's spirit, whether that be through direct abuse, neglect or yes, overindulgence.
To a vast majority of parents, having children is an ego-oriented process. When asked their motivation for having kids, close to 100% will say something that starts with "I wanted..." "I wanted to experience motherhood." "I wanted to have the same number of children my mother had." "I wanted that measure of 'success' as a woman." And worst of all, "I wanted to be loved."
In other words, it is usually the fulfillment of a mental image or the alleviation of an emotional deficit that drives most people to procreate, and that process doesn't end with the birth of a child, but rather becomes more intense and exacerbated over time. The result - kids are gutted of their independence and self-reliance, indeed of their true sense of self, or they become ruthlessly and joylessly driven to please, succeed or conquer in order to continue to get the parental approval fix they have become addicted to or never had.
Make no mistake, here, folks, this amounts to spiritual murder, not much worse than the physical version, except that up to a certain age, said offspring can still get some form of intensive therapy to try and "re-raise" themselves, in a very real sense.
I have been very tough on parents on this blog for a long time. With good reason. I've said it once and I'll say it again:
Of all of the adults available to raise kids, parents are the least qualified.
IT'S NOT EASY BEING GREEN... ESPECIALLY IF YOU HAVE KIDS!
I have often written on this blog about all of the irrational and erroneous reasons that people, totally unqualified to be parents, have children. I have written even more often about the damage done to children by said unqualified parents. Well, here's another angle to the issue that I've thought about, but never written about, articulated in a very thoughtful blog piece by a mother, one Toni Nagy, entitled: "The Hypocrisy of Being Green and Making Babies."
Here's Toni:
"Now that I have a baby, I realize that every choice I make is a potential environmental catastrophe. How do I reconcile the fact that I am glad she is alive, but that every life is a budding threat to the health of the earth? I don't want to live in denial, but feeling the guilt of creation rather than its beauty is exceedingly stressful."
Bravo to Toni for being so brave. It is a paradox of sorts, a dilemma, to simultaneously feel love and devotion for a human being, one's own flesh and blood offspring, and yet know that it may have been personally and socially dysfunctional to have born that child.
But a genuinely responsible adult doesn't shy away from looking at themselves and acknowledging their motives and "mistakes." Many, if not most, children are born into less than optimal situations to less than self-actualized adults. The real disastrous consequences of such actions for all involved, including the planet, come moreso from the adults' denial of that reality than from the actions themselves. Facing up to one's actions, without guilt or shame, but simply with self-reflective self-responsibility, can lead to corrective action that will benefit all the children born under these circumstances, and therefore benefit all.
Here's Toni:
"Now that I have a baby, I realize that every choice I make is a potential environmental catastrophe. How do I reconcile the fact that I am glad she is alive, but that every life is a budding threat to the health of the earth? I don't want to live in denial, but feeling the guilt of creation rather than its beauty is exceedingly stressful."
Bravo to Toni for being so brave. It is a paradox of sorts, a dilemma, to simultaneously feel love and devotion for a human being, one's own flesh and blood offspring, and yet know that it may have been personally and socially dysfunctional to have born that child.
But a genuinely responsible adult doesn't shy away from looking at themselves and acknowledging their motives and "mistakes." Many, if not most, children are born into less than optimal situations to less than self-actualized adults. The real disastrous consequences of such actions for all involved, including the planet, come moreso from the adults' denial of that reality than from the actions themselves. Facing up to one's actions, without guilt or shame, but simply with self-reflective self-responsibility, can lead to corrective action that will benefit all the children born under these circumstances, and therefore benefit all.
HOW DEPRESSING IS YOUR CAREER?!
An article on Health.com lists the ten careers with the highest rates of depression.
Fascinating to examine the findings, though the bad news for me is that I belong to three of the top five depression-riddled professions, coming in 3rd, 4th and 5th in this order: social workers, therapists and writers!
What?! Well, at least I'm not in the top two!
The highest rate of depression? It's among people who work in nursing homes and/or child care facilities. Yep, those primary care-givers come in at number one. In a sense, taking care of old people and little kids is sort of the same thing. Older adults who have not done the self-work necessary to break free of their character structures often revert back to toddlerhood and infancy in the golden years, and of course, any parent who is honest about it will tell you that taking care of children is mostly an exhausting, thankless job. Tots, just like demented seniors, will not remember anything you've done for them!
Not at all surprising, is that the number two spot goes to - waitresses! While 10% of food servers in general reported an episode of major depression in the past year (which is high by itself), almost 15% of women in this field did so. Personally, I imagine that being a waiter is one of the worst jobs in the universe, and certainly even worse if you're a woman. I mean, you get to work for menial wages under triple-A stress conditions for ungrateful patrons who bring all of their unmet oral needs to the table, literally, and expect you to serve them with perfection, the way their own mothers never did. Ugh!
Now, onto my three professions -
Social work? Yeah, pretty depressing. I left the field proper in 1986, though I stayed in part time until 1990. Worse than the low-pay of the profession is the powerlessness. And it's not just because of the incredible bureaucracy and mountains of paperwork that totally bogs down the process of actually trying to help anybody... it's the whole notion of trying to help anybody.
When I left the field of agency social work to become a psychotherapist in private practice full-time, it was because I came to realize that facilitating a process, one person at a time, in which the client/patient could choose to shift their own consciousness was the only true road to self-empowerment and self-actualization. I could no longer participate in an enabling profession that saw it's clients as helpless "victims" of an unjust society. As I came to understand that we create our own reality, I understood that becoming a conscious creator was the solution to all of life's problems, individually and collectively.
With that clear in my mind, as a psychotherapist, I found high levels of gratification, definitely not depression. I believe that so many psychotherapists are depressed, however, because they have "sold out." No one who has ever delved deeply into the inner lives of others can believe that psychotropic medications or behavioral quick fixes is a viable solution to what ails a person's soul. Healing is an in-depth, mutual experience that can only occur in the vehicle of a real relationship. Most therapists have been conditioned not to engage in any kind of real relationship with their patients, and so they are impotent to really offer any effective assistance. Furthermore, to guide someone else into the deeper regions of suppressed primal emotions and forbidden thoughts, the therapist has to have gone there, or be going there, as well. Sad to say, most would rather not. So, they follow the example of the utterly insane psychiatric and medical establishments whose idea of healing is to drug, slash and/or burn patients.
Writing? Depressing?! Ha! It depends. If you don't mind waiting ten years to become an overnight success, then it's not depressing. It's not depressing at all if you are immune to having your life's work rejected because you couldn't cleverly sum up your entire concept in one 4-word catch phrase like "Man discovers he's dead." If you are able to write dialogue that is realistic, but still always smart and witty, without ever repeating yourself; if you can create characters who are complex yet "accessible" and likable, even when evil; if you're adept at developing story lines that have never been used before, but are somehow familiar and make sense to everyone; if you are able to do all of that while working at your full-time day job, taking the kids to school, having a relationship that includes sex and watching Dexter at night, then you wouldn't find writing depressing at all.
I don't. To tell stories, a critical human urge since prehistoric times, to create characters to deliver messages or share life experiences, to touch the oneness that is the nature of All That Is through words and images? It's a glorious career.
Writing, a cause of depression? Quite the contrary. Unless of course, you are absolutely not willing to sleep in your car for a year or two if you have to.
Fascinating to examine the findings, though the bad news for me is that I belong to three of the top five depression-riddled professions, coming in 3rd, 4th and 5th in this order: social workers, therapists and writers!
What?! Well, at least I'm not in the top two!
The highest rate of depression? It's among people who work in nursing homes and/or child care facilities. Yep, those primary care-givers come in at number one. In a sense, taking care of old people and little kids is sort of the same thing. Older adults who have not done the self-work necessary to break free of their character structures often revert back to toddlerhood and infancy in the golden years, and of course, any parent who is honest about it will tell you that taking care of children is mostly an exhausting, thankless job. Tots, just like demented seniors, will not remember anything you've done for them!
Not at all surprising, is that the number two spot goes to - waitresses! While 10% of food servers in general reported an episode of major depression in the past year (which is high by itself), almost 15% of women in this field did so. Personally, I imagine that being a waiter is one of the worst jobs in the universe, and certainly even worse if you're a woman. I mean, you get to work for menial wages under triple-A stress conditions for ungrateful patrons who bring all of their unmet oral needs to the table, literally, and expect you to serve them with perfection, the way their own mothers never did. Ugh!
Now, onto my three professions -
Social work? Yeah, pretty depressing. I left the field proper in 1986, though I stayed in part time until 1990. Worse than the low-pay of the profession is the powerlessness. And it's not just because of the incredible bureaucracy and mountains of paperwork that totally bogs down the process of actually trying to help anybody... it's the whole notion of trying to help anybody.
When I left the field of agency social work to become a psychotherapist in private practice full-time, it was because I came to realize that facilitating a process, one person at a time, in which the client/patient could choose to shift their own consciousness was the only true road to self-empowerment and self-actualization. I could no longer participate in an enabling profession that saw it's clients as helpless "victims" of an unjust society. As I came to understand that we create our own reality, I understood that becoming a conscious creator was the solution to all of life's problems, individually and collectively.
With that clear in my mind, as a psychotherapist, I found high levels of gratification, definitely not depression. I believe that so many psychotherapists are depressed, however, because they have "sold out." No one who has ever delved deeply into the inner lives of others can believe that psychotropic medications or behavioral quick fixes is a viable solution to what ails a person's soul. Healing is an in-depth, mutual experience that can only occur in the vehicle of a real relationship. Most therapists have been conditioned not to engage in any kind of real relationship with their patients, and so they are impotent to really offer any effective assistance. Furthermore, to guide someone else into the deeper regions of suppressed primal emotions and forbidden thoughts, the therapist has to have gone there, or be going there, as well. Sad to say, most would rather not. So, they follow the example of the utterly insane psychiatric and medical establishments whose idea of healing is to drug, slash and/or burn patients.
Writing? Depressing?! Ha! It depends. If you don't mind waiting ten years to become an overnight success, then it's not depressing. It's not depressing at all if you are immune to having your life's work rejected because you couldn't cleverly sum up your entire concept in one 4-word catch phrase like "Man discovers he's dead." If you are able to write dialogue that is realistic, but still always smart and witty, without ever repeating yourself; if you can create characters who are complex yet "accessible" and likable, even when evil; if you're adept at developing story lines that have never been used before, but are somehow familiar and make sense to everyone; if you are able to do all of that while working at your full-time day job, taking the kids to school, having a relationship that includes sex and watching Dexter at night, then you wouldn't find writing depressing at all.
I don't. To tell stories, a critical human urge since prehistoric times, to create characters to deliver messages or share life experiences, to touch the oneness that is the nature of All That Is through words and images? It's a glorious career.
Writing, a cause of depression? Quite the contrary. Unless of course, you are absolutely not willing to sleep in your car for a year or two if you have to.
TODAY'S QUOTE!
"Self-knowledge, then, is not an aim in itself, but a means of liberating the forces of spontaneous growth. In this sense, to work at ourselves becomes not only the prime moral obligation, but at the same time, in a very real sense, the prime moral privilege."
Karen Horney
Karen Horney
HAPPY YEAR ONE OF THE SECOND HALF!
In honor of someone who is celebrating a special birthday today, below are several links to posts by me on the joys of the "Second Half" of life as a human being.
Happy Birthday, MC!
HALF TIME!
DECLINING WITH AGE? NO, WITH TIME!
SEX IN THE SECOND HALF!
DON'T FEAR THE REAPER, BE THE REAPER!
FREAKING OUT ABOUT TURNING FIFTY? HA!
Happy Birthday, MC!
HALF TIME!
DECLINING WITH AGE? NO, WITH TIME!
SEX IN THE SECOND HALF!
DON'T FEAR THE REAPER, BE THE REAPER!
FREAKING OUT ABOUT TURNING FIFTY? HA!
WE REALLY STILL AREN'T ALL THE SAME! BABY SOULS WRITE WOMEN OUT OF HISTORY!!
I am going to be politically incorrect, somewhat intolerant, and a bit 3D here.
As my readers know, I have from time to time written posts on the theme: "We're not all the same." My point is to demonstrate that a fair amount of harm is done when we presume that all human beings are at the same levels of emotional, mental, social and/or spiritual development. In fact, we are all better off individually and collectively when we accept that we are all of different "soul ages," relative to our earthly incarnation cycles. It can really be a life-changing realization to understand that just as you can't expect a 3-year old child to effectively drive a car, you likewise can't expect a "baby soul" to be enlightened in their behavior.
A case in point currently making headlines. Believe it or not, and if you don't believe it it's at your own peril, two Hassidic newspapers in Brooklyn photoshopped the now historic picture of President Obama and his inner circle watching the killing of Osama Bin Laden.
Why?
Because in the actual photo, there were two women present, including Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton. The self-described "ultra-Orthodox" newspapers have a policy of never printing photos of women in its pages because they think such photos could be "sexually suggestive."
I hope you're saying "WHAT?!" right now, if you haven't already heard this story.
But aside from the preposterousness and hilarity at one level that such a ludicrous system of beliefs exists in which the mere visibility of women is considered "sexually suggestive" to men, who presumably must be considered not to have the maturity level of pubescent boys, there is a 3D reality here that is not so funny.
These guys are rewriting history under the guise of religiosity.
Removing people from photographs of historic events is fascist at best, insane at worst, and unless you consider things from a 4th Dimensional perspective, in which case you would see the Hassidic "ultra-orthodox" as infant or baby souls, these folks really need to be called out as primitives living in a world that is trying, albeit erratically, to evolve.
Whew!
As my readers know, I have from time to time written posts on the theme: "We're not all the same." My point is to demonstrate that a fair amount of harm is done when we presume that all human beings are at the same levels of emotional, mental, social and/or spiritual development. In fact, we are all better off individually and collectively when we accept that we are all of different "soul ages," relative to our earthly incarnation cycles. It can really be a life-changing realization to understand that just as you can't expect a 3-year old child to effectively drive a car, you likewise can't expect a "baby soul" to be enlightened in their behavior.
A case in point currently making headlines. Believe it or not, and if you don't believe it it's at your own peril, two Hassidic newspapers in Brooklyn photoshopped the now historic picture of President Obama and his inner circle watching the killing of Osama Bin Laden.
Why?
Because in the actual photo, there were two women present, including Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton. The self-described "ultra-Orthodox" newspapers have a policy of never printing photos of women in its pages because they think such photos could be "sexually suggestive."
I hope you're saying "WHAT?!" right now, if you haven't already heard this story.
But aside from the preposterousness and hilarity at one level that such a ludicrous system of beliefs exists in which the mere visibility of women is considered "sexually suggestive" to men, who presumably must be considered not to have the maturity level of pubescent boys, there is a 3D reality here that is not so funny.
These guys are rewriting history under the guise of religiosity.
Removing people from photographs of historic events is fascist at best, insane at worst, and unless you consider things from a 4th Dimensional perspective, in which case you would see the Hassidic "ultra-orthodox" as infant or baby souls, these folks really need to be called out as primitives living in a world that is trying, albeit erratically, to evolve.
Whew!
MC ON "RELIGION REWRITING HISTORY!"/PL RESPONDS!
Here's MC:
As I witness the carnage that is created through the guise of religion I often ask myself; When will it end? It will only end if we refuse to be passive followers of "ancient doctrine" and use our intuitive gifts and critical thinking abilities to make discerning choices. As we continue to create new choices that are based on acceptance and love, regarding our lives and the lives of our fellow humans inhabiting this earth, we will eventually dismantle the lies and gain a new and healthy perspective on the truth of what it means to be human. What the Hassidic newspaper story illustrates is something deep and insidious. It's not just simply this event in which a religious group has taken it upon themselves to rewrite history. Any and all of us that have seen our human history through the eyes of religion have been deceived many times over and continue to be deceived to this very day. At a certain point in our human history most, if not all, documentation through the written word was filtered through religion. These "facts" have been manipulated to create a version of reality simply so that the ones in control could remain in control. This is another tragic example of how organized religion continues to infect the minds of it's blinded followers. Sadly, these followers start off as the hostages we call our children who are bombarded with lies and then become yet another herd of adult sheep who then blindly follow false truths and perpetuate these lies throughout the ages.
Here's PL:
I agree with you, MC. Makes you wonder how humanity could have evolved at all, linearly speaking, which is an interesting topic in and of itself.
Thanks!
As I witness the carnage that is created through the guise of religion I often ask myself; When will it end? It will only end if we refuse to be passive followers of "ancient doctrine" and use our intuitive gifts and critical thinking abilities to make discerning choices. As we continue to create new choices that are based on acceptance and love, regarding our lives and the lives of our fellow humans inhabiting this earth, we will eventually dismantle the lies and gain a new and healthy perspective on the truth of what it means to be human. What the Hassidic newspaper story illustrates is something deep and insidious. It's not just simply this event in which a religious group has taken it upon themselves to rewrite history. Any and all of us that have seen our human history through the eyes of religion have been deceived many times over and continue to be deceived to this very day. At a certain point in our human history most, if not all, documentation through the written word was filtered through religion. These "facts" have been manipulated to create a version of reality simply so that the ones in control could remain in control. This is another tragic example of how organized religion continues to infect the minds of it's blinded followers. Sadly, these followers start off as the hostages we call our children who are bombarded with lies and then become yet another herd of adult sheep who then blindly follow false truths and perpetuate these lies throughout the ages.
Here's PL:
I agree with you, MC. Makes you wonder how humanity could have evolved at all, linearly speaking, which is an interesting topic in and of itself.
Thanks!
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