[First posted 29 October 2013]
Wednesday, April 25, 2018
Basiran Nasional? ... Embarisan Nazional? ... Barbarisan Nastianal? ... Borosan Nasikangkang?
Once again, with apologies to Malaysiakini, I just have to repost this classic from the indefatigable Dean Johns...
What BN really stands for
Dean Johns
14 March 2012 / Malaysiakini
On the face of it this is painfully obvious, at least to most Malaysians. BN stands for Barisan Nasional, the coalition that has ruled them increasingly crookedly and incompetently for the past half-century.
But as ‘Barisan Nasional’ means ‘National Front’, the question remains what and who BN is a front for, and how much longer it can get away with all the ugly realities it strives to hide behind its carefully-crafted facade.
How much longer, for example, can some apparently sentient Malaysians keep taking it seriously as ‘Barisan Nasional’, when, as I pointed-out in a column some months ago, BN is so evidently a front for what could justly be called ‘Basiran Nasional’?
I recall that at the time several readers complained of my calling BN ‘basi’, which I had discovered in my trusty pocket Malay-English dictionary to mean “stale, rotten, out-of-date”, on the grounds that it was abusive.
An accusation to which my response was and remains that, after 54 dreary years in power, BN has come to stand for so much that is basi, not to mention buruk and busuk, that it’s ridiculous.
And if this plainly evident fact strikes anyone as abusive, or even ABUsive, I’m delighted. BN has subjected Malaysia and Malaysians to such an intolerable burden of abuse, of everything from public funds to human rights and civil liberties that no amount of verbal abuse by me or anyone else can come close to restoring the balance.
Especially in view of the fact that the rot goes on unabated, so that Barisan/Basiran seems to be not just a false front or throwback to the dim, dark ages, but a veritable Barahsan Nasional.
Cancer mutated into conspiracy
A cancer that has grown from barely-detectable beginnings in a formerly apparently benign political coalition, and mutated and metastasised into a malignant criminal conspiracy that threatens the livelihoods and even the lives of Malaysian citizens.
If you think I’m exaggerating in the life-and-death department, take a look at the what BN expects Malaysians to Barinsanely stand for at the hands of their Nasional law-enforcement agencies.
Not only the unexplained, uninvestigated and of course unpunished homicide of ‘suspects’ in staged ‘shoot-outs’ and in custody, and charges and counter-charges between senior police and law officers allegedly in league with organised crime, but such dereliction of ordinary, everyday duties that communities have to pay private security organisations to ensure their own and their families’ safety, and the fatality rates on Malaysia’s pathetically-policed roads are 10 times of those in countries like the UK and Australia.
Then there’s BN’s legendary standing as Borosan Nasional, extravagantly spending and squandering so much public money on its members and their relatives and cronies as to threaten to reduce the rakyat to ruin.
The prime minister and his shopaholic consort spend fortunes jet-setting around the world and throwing glitzy parties using either public funds or mysteriously-amassed millions of their own. Billions disappear in ‘commissions’ on submarines, armoured personnel carriers and other ‘defence’ deals, and countless more billions go missing in ‘soft loans’, ‘bail-outs’ and ‘development’ schemes and scams.
And in case the poor suckers who pay for all this get wise to how wantonly they’re being cheated, short-changed, ripped-off, and thus take to complaining or - horror of horrors - avenging themselves at the ballot-box, there’s the ultimate expression of what BN stands for, Barisandiwara Nasional.
What a show of shows this is. What a dazzling display of deception, trickery, illusionism and sleight-of-hand. Roll up, roll up and see BN’s ‘world’s best democracy’, never mind BN’s world-class anti-democratic laws, phoney BN ‘reforms’, rigged BN electoral system and BN ‘transformations’ that turn out to be just more of the same old BN transfornications.
Tune-in to the BN show-trials of opposition leaders, and selected scapegoats in BN scandals where ‘justice’ has to be seen to be done by a hand-picked BN judiciary.
Sit through years of fraudulent BN ‘inquests’ and ‘royal commissions’ that eventually end but never come to any actual, actionable conclusions.
See, hear and read all the exciting, sordid details of BN allegations against its critics and opponents, and thrill to the thunderous silence about BN crimes and misdeeds in the BN-biased ‘news’ media.
Chorus of sectarian discord
Feel the peace, love and harmony of a BN-united 1Malaysia, and never mind the dreadful din of the BN-conducted chorus of racial and sectarian discord.
Barisan Nasional is no doubt a front for many more evils than those I’ve identified among those that BN stands for.
But I’m right on deadline for this column, so I haven’t much time to come up with any others. In any case, despite my ownership of the dictionary I mentioned up front, I’ve pretty well exhausted my store of BN-appropriate Malay words.
Or to put this another way, I’m monolingual or what I guess you could call homotextual in English, unlike many of you readers in Malaysia who, ‘homo’ being a no-no, are pretty well all heterolingual or even heteroliterate and thus far better-equipped to come up with some more ideas.
But whatever language we all manage to communicate in, I’m sure that the vast majority of us are on the same page when it comes to BN.
Only a 1Malaysiac, 1Malaysiaccomplice or 1Malaysiaccessory would stand for another minute of Barisan, Basiran, Barahsan, Barinsane, Borosan, Barisandiwara or any other kind of Nasional anyone can think of that BN stands for.
With the notable exception, of course, of the words that those of us who can’t stand BN for another minute would love to see come true: Burysan Nasional.
-------
DEAN JOHNS, after many years in Asia, currently lives with his Malaysian-born wife and daughter in Sydney, where he coaches and mentors writers and authors and practises as a writing therapist. Published books of his columns for Malaysiakini include Mad about Malaysia, Even Madder about Malaysia, Missing Malaysia and 1Malaysia.con.
[First posted 15 March 2012, reposted 3 December 2013]
What BN really stands for
Dean Johns
14 March 2012 / Malaysiakini
On the face of it this is painfully obvious, at least to most Malaysians. BN stands for Barisan Nasional, the coalition that has ruled them increasingly crookedly and incompetently for the past half-century.
But as ‘Barisan Nasional’ means ‘National Front’, the question remains what and who BN is a front for, and how much longer it can get away with all the ugly realities it strives to hide behind its carefully-crafted facade.
How much longer, for example, can some apparently sentient Malaysians keep taking it seriously as ‘Barisan Nasional’, when, as I pointed-out in a column some months ago, BN is so evidently a front for what could justly be called ‘Basiran Nasional’?
An accusation to which my response was and remains that, after 54 dreary years in power, BN has come to stand for so much that is basi, not to mention buruk and busuk, that it’s ridiculous.
And if this plainly evident fact strikes anyone as abusive, or even ABUsive, I’m delighted. BN has subjected Malaysia and Malaysians to such an intolerable burden of abuse, of everything from public funds to human rights and civil liberties that no amount of verbal abuse by me or anyone else can come close to restoring the balance.
Cancer mutated into conspiracy
A cancer that has grown from barely-detectable beginnings in a formerly apparently benign political coalition, and mutated and metastasised into a malignant criminal conspiracy that threatens the livelihoods and even the lives of Malaysian citizens.
If you think I’m exaggerating in the life-and-death department, take a look at the what BN expects Malaysians to Barinsanely stand for at the hands of their Nasional law-enforcement agencies.
Not only the unexplained, uninvestigated and of course unpunished homicide of ‘suspects’ in staged ‘shoot-outs’ and in custody, and charges and counter-charges between senior police and law officers allegedly in league with organised crime, but such dereliction of ordinary, everyday duties that communities have to pay private security organisations to ensure their own and their families’ safety, and the fatality rates on Malaysia’s pathetically-policed roads are 10 times of those in countries like the UK and Australia.
Then there’s BN’s legendary standing as Borosan Nasional, extravagantly spending and squandering so much public money on its members and their relatives and cronies as to threaten to reduce the rakyat to ruin.
The prime minister and his shopaholic consort spend fortunes jet-setting around the world and throwing glitzy parties using either public funds or mysteriously-amassed millions of their own. Billions disappear in ‘commissions’ on submarines, armoured personnel carriers and other ‘defence’ deals, and countless more billions go missing in ‘soft loans’, ‘bail-outs’ and ‘development’ schemes and scams.
And in case the poor suckers who pay for all this get wise to how wantonly they’re being cheated, short-changed, ripped-off, and thus take to complaining or - horror of horrors - avenging themselves at the ballot-box, there’s the ultimate expression of what BN stands for, Barisandiwara Nasional.
What a show of shows this is. What a dazzling display of deception, trickery, illusionism and sleight-of-hand. Roll up, roll up and see BN’s ‘world’s best democracy’, never mind BN’s world-class anti-democratic laws, phoney BN ‘reforms’, rigged BN electoral system and BN ‘transformations’ that turn out to be just more of the same old BN transfornications.
Sit through years of fraudulent BN ‘inquests’ and ‘royal commissions’ that eventually end but never come to any actual, actionable conclusions.
See, hear and read all the exciting, sordid details of BN allegations against its critics and opponents, and thrill to the thunderous silence about BN crimes and misdeeds in the BN-biased ‘news’ media.
Chorus of sectarian discord
Feel the peace, love and harmony of a BN-united 1Malaysia, and never mind the dreadful din of the BN-conducted chorus of racial and sectarian discord.
But I’m right on deadline for this column, so I haven’t much time to come up with any others. In any case, despite my ownership of the dictionary I mentioned up front, I’ve pretty well exhausted my store of BN-appropriate Malay words.
Or to put this another way, I’m monolingual or what I guess you could call homotextual in English, unlike many of you readers in Malaysia who, ‘homo’ being a no-no, are pretty well all heterolingual or even heteroliterate and thus far better-equipped to come up with some more ideas.
But whatever language we all manage to communicate in, I’m sure that the vast majority of us are on the same page when it comes to BN.
Only a 1Malaysiac, 1Malaysiaccomplice or 1Malaysiaccessory would stand for another minute of Barisan, Basiran, Barahsan, Barinsane, Borosan, Barisandiwara or any other kind of Nasional anyone can think of that BN stands for.
With the notable exception, of course, of the words that those of us who can’t stand BN for another minute would love to see come true: Burysan Nasional.
-------
[First posted 15 March 2012, reposted 3 December 2013]
Saturday, April 21, 2018
Grey Filastine ~ Visionary Poet, Percussionist & Prophet of the Apocalypse
A selection from Filastine's YouTube channel
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| Photo: Max Shay |
In short, he has spent his artistic life heretofore straddling the line between unrelentingly political statement and action, and the lost-in-music euphoria of the broadest possible definition of pop music. His debut album, Burn It (on kindred avant spirit DJ /rupture’s UK-based Soot Records), steams with juddering hiphop/modern R&B rhythms, South American breaks, North African trance, and a grip of vocal and instrumental contributors from every corner of the world.
Recent years have seen an overwhelming influx of Asian and Middle Eastern textures in pop production, with gargantuan hits like “Get Ur Freak On,” “Baby Boy,” and “Toxic” threading undulating tablas, screeching Bollywood strings, etc. into their black-lit melodrama. While some of Burn It’s tracks mine these veins in a way just as instantly gratifying and club ready, Filastine’s appropriations are more legit.
A voracious traveler and student of various global musics, he has studied with Indian tabla virtuoso Zakir Hussain, spent weeks at the feet of the Master Musicians of Jajouka, and dug deep into the ancient-to-the-future music of Brazil. Like many great producers, Filastine is also a great instrumentalist, and his years of rhythmic study lend magnificent depth to Burn It’s varied and intricate programming. [Source: last.fm]
[Thanks to Gino 'Der Hammer' Galan for alerting me to this extraordinary guy, Filastine, who can magically transmute ugliness into beauty, despair into hope ~ the mark of an authentic artist-shaman! First posted 24 June 2012, reposted 19 November 2013]
Tuesday, April 17, 2018
WTF, PEOPLE... STILL FAST ASLEEP??? (reprise)
I became aware of the cosmic backdrop to my own existence only at the age of 19, following a spontaneous kundalini experience which opened up my chakras to the perception of multidimensionality. In that heightened state of awareness which mystics call satori (Japanese) or samadhi (Sanskrit), there is absolutely no doubt that every single atom is a living entity endowed with consciousness and that we are integral parts of a magnificent and mysterious web of dynamic energies governed by precise mathematical, musical, and geometric principles.In effect, to conduct our human lives upon this earth with so little consideration of other lifeforms - mineral, vegetable, animal, elemental, angelic, and deific - is a recipe for calamity and eco-apocalypse.
Yet, that is how most humans have been programmed over the course of many generations - particularly since the introduction of alphanumeric intelligence and the start of so-called history (which really exposes the Male bias, because what about herstory?)The difference between Aboriginal and Industrial consciousness can be found in the divide between Animism and Book Religion. The animistic mind experiences life as a magical continuum and anything and everything can be charged with spiritual power, even a rock or a river or a tree or a bird.
However, the industrial mind tends to quantify and calculate and manipulate, opting for an anthropocentric, anthropomorphic view of the concept of sacredness or divinity. The notion of God as Father or Celestial Lord (with no reference to the Mother Principle or Earth Goddess) marks the beginning of our self-destructive hubris as a technology-using and abusing species.
Technology is neutral and can be useful (Internet, digital video, free chat) or totally useless (nuclear weaponry, top-secret crowd and climate control tech like ELF and HAARP and chemtrails).
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| HAARP: the secret technology of climatological warfare? |
No doubt a tiny cabal of well-connected families profit obscenely from perpetual war - while the rest end up enslaved by a benighted economic system or wiped out by large-scale epidemics and unnatural disasters (I won't discuss the possibility of man-made earthquakes, droughts, cyclones and tsunamis but the debate rages on this). Now if you're curious where this is leading... I'm suggesting we take stock of our ontological bearings and re-valuate what our Book Religions have indoctrinated us into unquestioningly believing: that Man is the Crown of Creation, granted dominion over Nature by none other than the Archetypal Patriarch, God Himself! This mode of thinking severs us from the flow of life, makes us insensitive to natural beauty and harmony, and causes us to believe we have a right to colonize other lifeforms and cultures and build vainglorious empires wherever we go. And yet it has been the dominant ethos of human civilizations (so-called) since the Year Dot.
To understand where this imperialistic and warlike tendency originates, we shall have to open our minds to the distinct possibility that our "creator gods" were not some "Supreme Being" - but a very much watered-down shadow aspect of the Procreative Force. Sumerian cuneiform tablets dating back 6,000 years refer to these creator gods as Anunnaki; and in the Hebrew version of the Old Testament, they are called the Nephilim (meaning: "Those Who from Heaven Fell to Earth"). This is a very large study and I shall skip the details, leaving the reader a few links with which to begin in-depth research, if so prompted.The way out is also the way back in to our own Core Essence - which is a fractal of the Nuclear Intelligence of All Existence. It doesn't create and enforce artificial hierarchies, nor does it demand sheeplike obedience, or exclusive worship. The idea of a "jealous god" that we should fear is utter crap!
What Nuclear Intelligence does do is EMPOWER each of us as INDIVIDUALS to reclaim our evolutionary heritage as Cosmic Citizens sojourning on a beautiful physical planet who has undertaken our education, redemption and transformation even as she prepares to quantum jump to the next spiral of her own evolution as a baby star. When we realign our core beings with Mother Earth and Father Sun, our agendas and priorities will also get realigned and rectified. Spiritual maturity, physical beauty and cosmic wisdom will become our goals - not economic, political and military dominance over others!Antares © 2008
[First published 23 May 2008 under the heading "ALL RIGHT, PEOPLE, TIME TO WAKE UP!!!"... Reposted 5 December 2013]
Sunday, April 15, 2018
In Response to the lovely Lisa Lee (updated & revisited)
Early one morning in January 2009 a very charming blogger left this comment on my blog after I had gone to bed. She made some pertinent statements about Malaysian politics that prompted me to respond at length. I feel this exchange deserves to be upgraded to a blogpost in its own right rather than left in the comments section... (thanks for inspiring this post, Lisa!)...
Lisa Lee said on Jan 17, 2009 @ 4:32 AM MYT:
Honestly, I do wonder if BN will ever lose control? Because the livelihood of many will be affected. Peace and harmony is my hope for Malaysia.
The thought of BN losing may impact so many people and for this reason, I hope peace prevails. Desperation sets in and who knows what may happen.
Having said that, I hope that Pakatan Rakyat would be a strong cohesive Opposition. Maybe not take over in this sitting but next election, consolidate their hold in Malaysia.
I do hope that Malaysia will be like USA (Democrats vs Republicans) and England (Labor vs Conservative) - in a sense that we will have a strong two party system to have the check and balance there.
Can you share your views on this? I like to learn from you. TQ :)
My dear Lisa,
Imagine you're a princess adopted as a baby by pirates who slaughtered your parents, ransacked the palace, and set themselves up as the new government of the land. They spared your life because you were cute and harmless and posed no threat to them (even pirates must have some vague memory of almost-forgotten human feelings). In fact, the pirate king saw that you were destined to blossom into a true beauty and fancied he could acquire royal status by marrying you once you were of age.
In other words, you grew up knowing no other authority apart from this band of brigands who began to dress quite well and were soon able to pass themselves off as "respectable folk." Nobody dared inform you who your real parents were and as time passed you came to regard the pirate king as a beloved uncle and trusted him implicitly. After all, he did possess a sort of rakish charm and was actually quite a clever chap (though some might call it "rat cunning"). He told you stories about how he had heroically rescued you from the evil clutches of an ogre and now you owed your life to him and were duty-bound to wed him.
One day, walking through a forest, you chance upon a humble cottage and out of curiosity decide to find out who lives there. As you approach the cottage, the front door swings open and a smiling old man steps out to offer you a cup of tea. You accept and soon find yourself engaged in deep conversation with this mysterious hermit of the woods, who reveals the truth of what happened to the land when you were just a newly born.
The old man shares with you a secret that forever changes your destiny. He was the loyal adviser to your biological parents, the King and Queen of this land, who were cruelly murdered by the marauders. He managed to escape the massacre and fled to the forest along with a handful of others who have long awaited the day you were old enough to rule the land as the rightful Queen. For years this band of survivors have lived in hidden caves, dreaming of the day when they would be strong enough to reclaim the land and liberate it from pirate dominion. He concludes by asking you if you are ready to take your place as the leader of these true patriots who desire to see the end of pirate misrule and justice restored.
Now, this is your current dilemma, Lisa. Having known no other form of government apart from the piratic (and parasitic), can you remember what true leadership is all about? Pull the wool from your eyes and you will see that for decades the Barisan Nasional has attracted mostly those who seek to aggrandize and enrich themselves at the expense of the land and of the people. They care little for the sufferings of the common folk and even less for the health and well-being of the land itself, having inherited the rapacious tendencies of their pirate ancestors who understood only rape, pillage and plunder.
In the name of greed, these self-serving parasites continue to destroy the landscape through mining, logging and insensitive "development." They support those who share their own destructively uncreative urges - namely, ruthless businessmen with megalomaniacal tendencies - while suppressing, through barbaric and repressive laws, all those who desire to see the wealth of the land equally and wisely shared.
In effect, dear Lisa, the simplistic scenario I have outlined is a parable for the sort of misgovernance we have been subject to on this planet for countless generations - a top-heavy Humpty-Dumpty sort of power structure wherein the most aggressive and unprincipled amass the greatest amount of wealth and then proceed to hijack the processes of government via almost absolute control of the mass media, education and financial systems, even religious institutions (I mean especially!).
However, the time has come for those who truly love the land - and I mean Planet Earth - to reclaim our sovereign power as conscious individuals, liberating ourselves from generations of inherited robotism (living our lives according to factory defaults) and fatalism (believing it is our lot to suffer in this "vale of tears").
We must think globally (nay, universally) and act locally. So in Malaysia our foremost duty as true patriots is to remove Barisan Nasional completely from power - because they have abused the power entrusted them for too many generations.
In the most basic terms, BN must not retain control of the police force, the national purse, and the mass media. Those are the mechanisms by which they have ruled us through fear and greed - a powerful combination of intimidation and bribery. Any population subject to such misgovernance eventually becomes infantilized, demoralized, and dehumanized.
Ultimately, we shall be turned into a nation of human robots while our energy and spirit are vampirically depleted by an elite cabal of demonically possessed humans devoid of compassion and empathy... UNLESS we succeed in booting out these piratic and parasitic entities and replacing them with open-minded, open-hearted leaders who genuinely believe that being a public servant means precisely that - you serve the public, not private interests!
There isn't a single individual in Umno/BN I can name as somebody I love, respect and trust.
On the other hand, there are many in the various component parties of Pakatan Harapan I wholeheartedly applaud and support in their candidacy to lead and govern. Among these I would unhesitatingly name Anwar Ibrahim, Nurul Izzah Anwar, Tony Pua, Gobind Singh Deo, Mat Sabu, Rafizi Ramli, Liew Chin Tong, Wong Chen, Sivarasa Rasiah, Tian Chua, Nizar Jamaluddin, Dyana Sofya, Zairil Khir Johari, Elizabeth Wong, Hannah Yeoh, Azmin Ali, Guan Eng and Kit Siang, Teresa Kok, Teo Nie Ching, Charles Santiago, Husam Musa, Khalid Samad, Dzulkefly Ahmad, Salahudin Ayub, Dr Mujahid Yusof Rawa, Dr Nasir Hashim, Dr Jeyakumar Devaraj, and S. Arutchelvan (I have omitted many others but these few are the ones that immediately spring to mind).
Apart from the professional politicians, we now have the civil society movement and a slew of dynamic NGOs - a loose coalition of public intellectuals and true patriots consisting of popular figures like Adam Adli, Hishamuddin Rais, Haris Ibrahim, Ambiga Sreenevasan, Maria Chin Abdullah, Malik Imtiaz Sarwar, Kua Kia Soong, Wong Chin Huat, Azmi Sharom, Cynthia Gabriel; and countless other politically aware citizens (including myself). And, don't forget, public intellectuals like Toh Kin Woon, Zaid Ibrahim, Amir Muhammad, Pang Khee Teik and Din Merican who will certainly play a significant role in reshaping the new Malaysia once the country is free of this stubborn and debilitating disease called BN.
Lisa, the only people who will be terribly upset when BN loses control of the police and Petronas are an overfed coterie of fat-cat capitalists who have enjoyed more than 30 years of monopolistic access to the nation's resources and established huge empires based on political patronage. The competent managers amongst them will be able to adapt and continue doing well under a new government - so long as they genuinely serve the public good. Those who have corruptly made their money as crony rent-seekers will either be allowed to retire in comfort (if they donate a fair portion of their ill-gotten gains to charity) or face a therapeutic spell in prison.
When Pakatan Harapan takes over as government, it will not exactly be a one-party management. With PKR, DAP and Amanah joining forces with Dr Mahathir's Parti Bersatu as equal partners, there will effectively be at least three different political ideologies - many more if you include a few independent parties from Sabah and Sarawak, plus the remains of Gerakan and PPP - working together (preferably in perfect harmony and hopefully with minimal friction) towards one common goal - the rescue of Malaysia from the economic and ethical doldrums and the creation of a healthy national ethos in which every citizen regardless of skin color, culinary preferences and creed can at last feel a sense of belonging - and therefore a sense of authentic pride.
It remains to be seen whether Umno will survive as the Opposition. Without its reactionary and dangerous Ketuanan Melayu agenda - and suddenly deprived of the chance to carry on robbing the nation - these descendants of pirates will almost surely disintegrate as a political party. Those individuals amongst them with any intelligence and ability whatsoever will swiftly realize that the horse is DEAD - kaput, finito, expired - and proceed on foot till they reach the next oasis where they will rest and reassess their lives and, insyallah, come to their senses and become decent human beings.
No, Lisa, we don't want Malaysia to become like America or Britain where the illusion of democracy, not the real thing, prevails. We don't want a Tweedledum and Tweedledee type of two-party system (like the Donkey and Elephant parties or the Tories and Whigs). In fact, we don't want to be obsessed with government and politics any longer than we need!
What we want is a clean, efficient administration that will work quietly and with minimal histrionics to ensure that everyday life just keeps getting easier and pleasanter for more and more of the population. Ultimately, the government of a country ought to be just like the plumbing in your house - we don't want to be distracted by it or even notice it. A properly designed plumbing system carries out its functions unobtrusively, without complaint, and with negligible maintenance problems. Indeed, the plumbing in a well-built house ought to last at least a hundred years!
With government out of the way and internalized, we will at long last become a nation of self-governing individuals with nothing to stop us from each fulfilling our true destinies as free citizens and achieving our maximum potential as evolving humans.
And, take my word for it, Lisa dear. It's NOT going to take another two generations. Perhaps two terms under a new, enlightened government!
[First posted 17 January 2009, reposted 14 December 2013]
Lisa Lee said on Jan 17, 2009 @ 4:32 AM MYT:Honestly, I do wonder if BN will ever lose control? Because the livelihood of many will be affected. Peace and harmony is my hope for Malaysia.
The thought of BN losing may impact so many people and for this reason, I hope peace prevails. Desperation sets in and who knows what may happen.
Having said that, I hope that Pakatan Rakyat would be a strong cohesive Opposition. Maybe not take over in this sitting but next election, consolidate their hold in Malaysia.
I do hope that Malaysia will be like USA (Democrats vs Republicans) and England (Labor vs Conservative) - in a sense that we will have a strong two party system to have the check and balance there.
Can you share your views on this? I like to learn from you. TQ :)
My dear Lisa,
Imagine you're a princess adopted as a baby by pirates who slaughtered your parents, ransacked the palace, and set themselves up as the new government of the land. They spared your life because you were cute and harmless and posed no threat to them (even pirates must have some vague memory of almost-forgotten human feelings). In fact, the pirate king saw that you were destined to blossom into a true beauty and fancied he could acquire royal status by marrying you once you were of age.In other words, you grew up knowing no other authority apart from this band of brigands who began to dress quite well and were soon able to pass themselves off as "respectable folk." Nobody dared inform you who your real parents were and as time passed you came to regard the pirate king as a beloved uncle and trusted him implicitly. After all, he did possess a sort of rakish charm and was actually quite a clever chap (though some might call it "rat cunning"). He told you stories about how he had heroically rescued you from the evil clutches of an ogre and now you owed your life to him and were duty-bound to wed him.
One day, walking through a forest, you chance upon a humble cottage and out of curiosity decide to find out who lives there. As you approach the cottage, the front door swings open and a smiling old man steps out to offer you a cup of tea. You accept and soon find yourself engaged in deep conversation with this mysterious hermit of the woods, who reveals the truth of what happened to the land when you were just a newly born.The old man shares with you a secret that forever changes your destiny. He was the loyal adviser to your biological parents, the King and Queen of this land, who were cruelly murdered by the marauders. He managed to escape the massacre and fled to the forest along with a handful of others who have long awaited the day you were old enough to rule the land as the rightful Queen. For years this band of survivors have lived in hidden caves, dreaming of the day when they would be strong enough to reclaim the land and liberate it from pirate dominion. He concludes by asking you if you are ready to take your place as the leader of these true patriots who desire to see the end of pirate misrule and justice restored.
Now, this is your current dilemma, Lisa. Having known no other form of government apart from the piratic (and parasitic), can you remember what true leadership is all about? Pull the wool from your eyes and you will see that for decades the Barisan Nasional has attracted mostly those who seek to aggrandize and enrich themselves at the expense of the land and of the people. They care little for the sufferings of the common folk and even less for the health and well-being of the land itself, having inherited the rapacious tendencies of their pirate ancestors who understood only rape, pillage and plunder.
In the name of greed, these self-serving parasites continue to destroy the landscape through mining, logging and insensitive "development." They support those who share their own destructively uncreative urges - namely, ruthless businessmen with megalomaniacal tendencies - while suppressing, through barbaric and repressive laws, all those who desire to see the wealth of the land equally and wisely shared.
In effect, dear Lisa, the simplistic scenario I have outlined is a parable for the sort of misgovernance we have been subject to on this planet for countless generations - a top-heavy Humpty-Dumpty sort of power structure wherein the most aggressive and unprincipled amass the greatest amount of wealth and then proceed to hijack the processes of government via almost absolute control of the mass media, education and financial systems, even religious institutions (I mean especially!). However, the time has come for those who truly love the land - and I mean Planet Earth - to reclaim our sovereign power as conscious individuals, liberating ourselves from generations of inherited robotism (living our lives according to factory defaults) and fatalism (believing it is our lot to suffer in this "vale of tears").
We must think globally (nay, universally) and act locally. So in Malaysia our foremost duty as true patriots is to remove Barisan Nasional completely from power - because they have abused the power entrusted them for too many generations.
In the most basic terms, BN must not retain control of the police force, the national purse, and the mass media. Those are the mechanisms by which they have ruled us through fear and greed - a powerful combination of intimidation and bribery. Any population subject to such misgovernance eventually becomes infantilized, demoralized, and dehumanized. Ultimately, we shall be turned into a nation of human robots while our energy and spirit are vampirically depleted by an elite cabal of demonically possessed humans devoid of compassion and empathy... UNLESS we succeed in booting out these piratic and parasitic entities and replacing them with open-minded, open-hearted leaders who genuinely believe that being a public servant means precisely that - you serve the public, not private interests!
There isn't a single individual in Umno/BN I can name as somebody I love, respect and trust.
On the other hand, there are many in the various component parties of Pakatan Harapan I wholeheartedly applaud and support in their candidacy to lead and govern. Among these I would unhesitatingly name Anwar Ibrahim, Nurul Izzah Anwar, Tony Pua, Gobind Singh Deo, Mat Sabu, Rafizi Ramli, Liew Chin Tong, Wong Chen, Sivarasa Rasiah, Tian Chua, Nizar Jamaluddin, Dyana Sofya, Zairil Khir Johari, Elizabeth Wong, Hannah Yeoh, Azmin Ali, Guan Eng and Kit Siang, Teresa Kok, Teo Nie Ching, Charles Santiago, Husam Musa, Khalid Samad, Dzulkefly Ahmad, Salahudin Ayub, Dr Mujahid Yusof Rawa, Dr Nasir Hashim, Dr Jeyakumar Devaraj, and S. Arutchelvan (I have omitted many others but these few are the ones that immediately spring to mind).
Lisa, the only people who will be terribly upset when BN loses control of the police and Petronas are an overfed coterie of fat-cat capitalists who have enjoyed more than 30 years of monopolistic access to the nation's resources and established huge empires based on political patronage. The competent managers amongst them will be able to adapt and continue doing well under a new government - so long as they genuinely serve the public good. Those who have corruptly made their money as crony rent-seekers will either be allowed to retire in comfort (if they donate a fair portion of their ill-gotten gains to charity) or face a therapeutic spell in prison.
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| While de facto Opposition Leader Anwar Ibrahim languishes in jail, his old enemy Dr Mahathir unexpectedly emerges from retirement to lead the charge against the Umno kleptocracy (Malaysiakini) |
When Pakatan Harapan takes over as government, it will not exactly be a one-party management. With PKR, DAP and Amanah joining forces with Dr Mahathir's Parti Bersatu as equal partners, there will effectively be at least three different political ideologies - many more if you include a few independent parties from Sabah and Sarawak, plus the remains of Gerakan and PPP - working together (preferably in perfect harmony and hopefully with minimal friction) towards one common goal - the rescue of Malaysia from the economic and ethical doldrums and the creation of a healthy national ethos in which every citizen regardless of skin color, culinary preferences and creed can at last feel a sense of belonging - and therefore a sense of authentic pride.
It remains to be seen whether Umno will survive as the Opposition. Without its reactionary and dangerous Ketuanan Melayu agenda - and suddenly deprived of the chance to carry on robbing the nation - these descendants of pirates will almost surely disintegrate as a political party. Those individuals amongst them with any intelligence and ability whatsoever will swiftly realize that the horse is DEAD - kaput, finito, expired - and proceed on foot till they reach the next oasis where they will rest and reassess their lives and, insyallah, come to their senses and become decent human beings.
No, Lisa, we don't want Malaysia to become like America or Britain where the illusion of democracy, not the real thing, prevails. We don't want a Tweedledum and Tweedledee type of two-party system (like the Donkey and Elephant parties or the Tories and Whigs). In fact, we don't want to be obsessed with government and politics any longer than we need!What we want is a clean, efficient administration that will work quietly and with minimal histrionics to ensure that everyday life just keeps getting easier and pleasanter for more and more of the population. Ultimately, the government of a country ought to be just like the plumbing in your house - we don't want to be distracted by it or even notice it. A properly designed plumbing system carries out its functions unobtrusively, without complaint, and with negligible maintenance problems. Indeed, the plumbing in a well-built house ought to last at least a hundred years!
With government out of the way and internalized, we will at long last become a nation of self-governing individuals with nothing to stop us from each fulfilling our true destinies as free citizens and achieving our maximum potential as evolving humans.
And, take my word for it, Lisa dear. It's NOT going to take another two generations. Perhaps two terms under a new, enlightened government!
[First posted 17 January 2009, reposted 14 December 2013]
Monday, April 9, 2018
THE SULTANIZATION OF UMNO LEADERS ~ by Hussein Abdul Hamid
Here's an excellent essay from blogger Hussein Abdul Hamid that expands on exactly what I've been saying in recent months about Umno...
OVER THE YEARS we have seen UMNO assuming the role that was once the prerogative of the Sultans of the various states in Malaysia. It was a process started by the British and ironically concluded by the Malays themselves, albeit through UMNO. These tendencies towards Sultanization have evolved over the years to what it is today – an UMNO president living in splendid isolation in a grandiose palace called Sri Perdana in Putrajaya, surrounded by all the trappings of wealth and power. But I am getting ahead of myself.
The quest by UMNO leaders towards their own Sultanization began with a partiality to ostentatious consumption: Zahid Hamidi's very costly watches, silk shirts, expensive suits, really expensive cars, and grand houses. Khir Toyo’s palace is the manifestation of these tendencies to a tee. The Prime Ministers motorcade, the legion of people that seems to surround him everywhere he goes, and the splendid, splendid office at Putrajaya is all par for the course. Of course, to maintain this lifestyle on their meager salaries as Ministers and YB’s means that they are all susceptible to corruption on a grand scale.Personalization of authority
In Malaysia all power resides with the Prime Minister. In the state the Mentri Besar title says it all – BIG Minister. This concentration of power in the PM at the federal level and the MB at state level can only give rise to the politics of patronage and nepotism, as all largesse flows from these leaders. The wholesale change that is the norm whenever there is a change of these individuals gives rise to the ‘make hay while the sunshine’ mentality. So where the Sultan was ‘king’ in his state, it is now the Mentri Besar that dispenses favor to the Sultans – in business opportunities, in extending credit to pay gambling debts, in keeping under the lid the excesses of the Royal family.
Historical Identity
Like the Sultans who are normally descended from an immediate family tree – UMNO too are comfortable with accepting its leaders when they are descended from families closely associated with UMNO - possibly with the exception of Mahathir – because his Indian background precludes that possibility. But at times, even when your Father is a Class-A leader, his genius will skip a generation or two. How else can you explain Najib and his cousin Hishammuddin?
For now the Sultans still cling to being the head of religion in their own states. But we can see this too is increasingly becoming the function of the religious authorities – whose salaries and appointments are the function of the central government – controlled, for now, by UMNO. So, effectively, even in these areas UMNO will have a say if not absolute control to do as it wish – with just a passing nod to the Sultans as a mark of respect.
So in reality these UMNO leaders – have not only taken power from the Sultans but have also assumed the Sultanization of their own selves in the very mould of the Sultans that they have now deposed in everything but name.
The Malays have always been loyal to their Sultans and are expected to obey their commands unquestioningly. We are all aware what Hang Tuah had to do to appease his Sultan: kill a loyal friend, Hang Jebat. I do not think any Malay today would want to kill a loyal friend for a pretender to the throne that calls itself UMNO. Not when the Sultanization of these pretenders was done without due consideration of the rights and aspirations of the Rakyat.
Hussein Abdul Hamid
[First posted 23 September 2009, reposted 8 January 2014]
Reflections on Death, Resurrection, and the Afterlife
Weddings and funerals are major social events in every Orang Asli community, bringing everybody together - just as they are in every other community - obviously because they are markers in the cycle of life and death. At Bayo's funeral on June 5th, I listened to the lay preacher (a Temuan from Tanjong Malim Calvary Mission) recite the last rites just before they covered the tiny, hastily knocked-together plywood coffin with earth.
Bayo's family is one of two in Pertak Village who converted to Christianity, probably in the 1980s, before the Orang Asli Affairs Department began taking a dim view of missionary incursions (apart from Islamic) into Orang Asli communities.
"Let this be a reminder to us all," the lay preacher intoned, "that our existence on this earth is only temporary. What God gives, God also takes away. But even death is temporary, for our souls are immortal; and those who believe in Jesus Christ shall live forever in Heaven."
It's been a long time since I heard such outright nonsense uttered. I drifted out of earshot and let the brief ceremony proceed. The lay preacher was merely parroting a doctrine handed down a hundred generations. Few question these pious platitudes, because nobody I know has returned from the grave to report on the afterlife (apart from a few who survived near-death experiences and whose stories have been recorded). True, the entire basis of Christianity revolves around the belief that Jesus was bodily resurrected from his tomb and appeared before the Magdalene and the Apostles on what is now known as Easter Sunday.
However, the Koran explicitly disputes that the Master Jesus was actually crucified. "Another took his place," the Koran says - and this view is supported by the account of the Christos Incarnations recorded by the oracle, A'shayana Deane (initiate of the Melchizedek Cloister Emerald Order), as well as many other esoteric writings. But as it all boils down to a question of belief and faith, it's pointless to get into a heated debate on this issue, since opinions widely diverge on the subject.The Orang Asli concept of the afterlife isn't all that different from the Christian version - except it doesn't require believing that Jesus is the only begotten Son of God. The physical form is only our fleshly baju (clothing), say the Temuan elders. Our roh (soul) does not die and already exists before we are born. Indeed, there doesn't seem to be much difference - apart from terminology - between what animists believe and what Christians, Muslims, Jews, Hindus, and Buddhists claim to believe. The common thread is the idea that the physical form is temporary, and the spiritual essence immortal. Now that is difficult to dispute, seeing as how plants, animals, and humans all go through a specific lifespan and then wither away before our eyes.
What distresses me, however, is that this devaluation of physical existence tends to make humans careless about the natural environment, Mother Earth, that gives rise to and supports their being. It makes a big difference whether people regard their homes as permanent and bequeathable - or only rented, and therefore temporary. Why invest so much effort in beautifying a rented property when, at any moment, you might get evicted by the owner? Would this explain why the Earth has been so badly treated by her human tenants? When generation after generation is told by professional priests (regardless of denomination or sect) that their sojourn on Earth is but temporary, that their true home is in the afterlife, can you blame humans for not taking proper care of their bodies - and, by extension, their earthly home? This sort of "teaching" also serves to placate the impoverished masses who might otherwise decide they've had enough of being exploited and oppressed by the "ruling class" and join forces to overthrow the Management (a scenario that has occurred several times within recent history, but invariably it's a case of "Meet the new boss, same as the old boss" as Orwell depicted so memorably in Animal Farm).
Add to this the Buddhist and Hindu teachings of karma and reincarnation (which some interpret as "fate" or "predestiny") and you have a ready-made excuse to shrug off other people's misfortunes by saying, "Oh well, it's their bad karma that they got napalmed by the Americans."
Excuse me, but I'm inclined to view America's military adventurism as the result of an egocentric and opportunistic foreign policy rather than the workings of geopolitical karma. Bad management can be identified and redressed - and each citizen of every country shares the onus of restraining their leaders from gross, power-intoxicated misbehavior on the world stage.
And if we each paused for a moment and consciously decided to wholeheartedly appreciate and esteem the natural beauty around us - instead of taking it all for granted as we seem to have done for generations - then, perhaps, we may begin to realize that we lose absolutely nothing by investing our energy in making our earthly sojourn as heavenly as possible. So what if each of us can only enjoy it for a brief lifespan? Indeed we may discover that when life on earth becomes truly paradisal, we might decide to extend our visas indefinitely (instead of complaining that "life's a bitch"), thereby making translation to an abstract notion of Heaven merely optional.
Many of my friends have been interested in the idea of Ascension for years - though nobody appears to know exactly what the process entails. Some believe they can accelerate it by becoming vegan or by abstaining from sensory stimulants like caffeine, nicotine, and alcohol. They cling to the words of the Ascended Masters and secretly aspire to attaining similar spiritual status. Quite frankly, I seem to be looking at it all through the "wrong" end of the telescope in that I clearly remember what a joyous accomplishment it was to finally be able to inhabit a physical vehicle and explore reality in a dense body with all the miraculous sensory organs we have evolved over the aeons. In this respect I'd much rather identify with the Descended Masters. Having experienced physical existence on this incredibly beautiful and boundlessly fascinating planet many times over (I've certainly had multiple flashbacks of parallel incarnations over the years), I've opted to adopt Earth as my base of operations and my permanent Home.
[First posted 8 June 2007, reposted 10 March 2016]
PINK FLOYD ~ PULSE 1994 (full concert!)
The above videos have been taken down by anal retentive copyright grinches.... but (for now) you can still watch the whole show in HD HERE.... the finale will leave you enraptured!
Saturday, April 7, 2018
Where do the brains go when they drain out of Malaysia? That's right, Down Under!
The Lost Thing, which took over three years to create, is a 15-minute fable about a boy in Melbourne who, while collecting bottle caps near a beach, discovers a strange creature that seems to be a combination of an industrial boiler, a crab and an octopus.
The son of a Malaysian-Chinese father and an Anglo-Irish mother, Tan, 37, came to filmmaking after a career as an award-winning author and illustrator.
The Lost Thing, originally the story of a lost pet, was written by Tan in 1999 "on the kitchen table of a share house." He says the deadpan lead character is partially based on himself as a teenager.
That teenager was once interested in becoming a genetic scientist, and studied chemistry and physics as well as continuing a childhood interest in drawing and science fiction, before studying literature and art history at the University of Western Australia.
Despite moving to Melbourne in 2007, Brunswick resident Tan remains strongly tied to the west, where he grew up, inaugurating The Shaun Tan Award for Young Artists, (for shcoolchildren aged between five and 17 years) which sponsored by the City of Subiaco. A mural he painted adorns 20 square metres of the wall at the Subiaco Public Library.
Andrew Ruhemann, owner and producer of Passion Pictures, worked as a producer at Richard Williams Studios, which made the animated feature Who Framed Roger Rabbit. He said he was "immediately drawn" to the book of The Lost Thing when he encountered it at the Bologna Children's Book Fair.
[Read the rest here.]
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| Andrew Ruhemann & Shaun Tan with their Oscars |
The 2011 Oscars have awarded The Lost Thing as the Best Animated Short. Check out the full interview with talented filmmakers Andrew Ruhemann and Shaun Tan who reveal how they made the film happen and the journey they took from illustration to CG animation.
Congratulations. When did you first write this and how long was this in the making from when you mentioned it to when it actually made the screen?
[Tan] Okay. I originally wrote this story in, I think, 1998. I was an unemployed illustrator. I wrote it on the kitchen table of my share house. Worked on it for a year. Developed it as a picture book, which was then published in Melbourne in the year 2000. Shortly afterward, it was exhibited in an international book fair in Italy, which is where Andrew came across the story. And we began discussions about developing it as an animated film at that point. So, the whole project for me has spanned, I guess, some 13 years.
So, you originally started as an illustrator. How was that going into animation? CG animation nonetheless?
[Tan] Well, I started off as an illustrator with absolutely no formal training aside from high school. And so, when Andrew originally approached me and suggested adapting this for animation, my first reaction was I am not a filmmaker and secondly, (inaudible) and I still managed to do other stuff as an artist. And so, I basically just asked everybody I knew in the film industry about animation, and I started studying handbooks. And also, Andrew came down to both Melbourne and Perth and Western Australia, and we had very intensive story boarding sessions and, I guess, part of that was actually a degree of mentorship. You were explaining to me narrative flow in pictures. I was already working in that in illustrated stories, but film is obviously a different animal and I guess, if anything, it helps me bridge that gap.
This is another win for Australia, this category. What do you think is going on down there in the animation business?
[Tan] You know, it’s not just animation. As an illustrator, I know it’s in the world of children books (inaudible). It’s something to do with the fact that we don’t have any existing tradition. Something like that. And we experiment. And we go a little crazy. And a lot of our projects are very small. And our project was extremely small as well. And both Andrew and our producer, it’s basically just two other guys. It’s one animator (which is very unusual for even a short animated film) Leo Baker, and one digital artist, Tom Bryant. The three of us; myself, Tom, Leo, we did all the visuals that you see in the whole film over a period of three and a half years. With very little outside intervention or anybody to come in and say, no, it should be like this, it should be like that. We just thought this looks right to us, we will just give it a go, and we thought it worked, and obviously it’s working for other people now, too.
THE MIGRANT'S EYE ~ by Shaun Tan
(Note: This essay is by a different Shaun Tan, not the creator of The Lost Thing)
[First posted 20 December 2011]
Friday, March 30, 2018
Ricardo Chavez Tovar ~ Sacred Ritual As Art
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| The Muse Is Not Available (December 2009) |
“Commercialism and industrialism now threaten, alas, to turn art into just another economic activity - and the artist's ceremonial and magical role into a purely ornamental one. No doubt a certain superstitious awe still attends the artist's endeavors; but in this consumerist age, the artist-shaman's contribution to the success of the hunt has been reduced to churning out effective advertising and public relations for the vulgar new gods of materialism - or fashionable new trends for the children of the privileged.” ~ Antares Maitreya (Inner Technology of Art: Making Public the Private, 2001)
It’s not often that I get the chance to quote myself, so I decided to grab this opportunity. I feel the above statement is particularly relevant to what Ricardo Chavez Tovar is all about. He is one among a handful of artists with whom I’m personally acquainted who has consciously reclaimed his magical lineage as a brujo – a practising shaman. Technically, he is as conscientious and competent as any professional artist you will find anywhere in the world. It’s just that Ricardo doesn’t give two hoots about public relations and the glossy hype that permeates the art milieu.
I don’t claim to know the man at all, but he apparently knows something about me, since he keeps inviting me to officiate at his openings. And now he is twisting my arm to write a foreword for his catalog, even though he must suspect I no longer feel fired up enough about art to wish to pontificate about it. In any case, Ricardo says I should view it as an honor and not a chore, and so I will.
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| Rare photo of the artist with some of his students |
One thing is certain: Ricardo Chavez Tovar is not bothered by the games people tend to play and the elaborate pretenses that surround the rarefied precincts of fashionable and marketable art. Would he otherwise spend months and years working on exhibits that can’t be sold and proudly displayed in the finest suburban homes?
Nonetheless, having said that, I can picture Ricardo’s evocative installations occupying pride of place in some prestigious contemporary art museum anywhere in the civilized world - so I hope he maintains an open mind about the prospect of sudden, unexpected global acclaim.
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| Altar to the Muse (December 2009) |
Ricardo’s series of installations dedicated to the Muse - conspicuously absent, yet ubiquitously present - now exist only in photographic form lovingly documented by Ung Chirt Min - having been exhibited to no more than a tiny number of hardcore aficionados. In effect, Ricardo Chavez Tovar is one of those rare artists who can operate quite happily without an audience, since his art is his personal form of worship, his own sacred ceremony.
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| Morning Stretching Of A Golden Fool On The Awakening Balcony |
Ricardo spent three years in China learning the language and absorbing the culture. Then he relocated to Penang where he has taught for nearly twenty years. His best buddy and artistic accomplice in Penang is Askandar Unglehrt (a German married to a Kelantanese princess) who shares Ricardo’s eye and taste for the surreal, the epiphanic and the ephemeral – and also the luminous, numinous, humorous, ludicrous and (conceptually) intoxicating.
I mention Askandar because his contribution to Ricardo’s evolution as an artist-magician cannot be discounted. Every artist, shaman, sorcerer or wizard derives inspiration, nourishment and nurturing from those who recognize, acknowledge and believe in him.
Well, Ricardo, let me state here for the record that I, too, recognize, acknowledge and believe in you. Live long, prosper (if at all possible), and influence the course of human destiny (if you so desire).
Antares Maitreya
Magick River
6 August 2009
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| October’s Full Moon Party at the Tropical Gardens of Lady Luna (2012) |
A Note of Apology from Antares
Ricardo emailed me in January 2007, asking if I would say “a few words” at the opening of his installation, The Muse Is Not Available.
I agreed, of course, since everybody says it’s an honor to be invited to officiate at such events.
My dear friend Askandar Unglehrt, in his program notes to this event, describes Ricardo’s work as “a visual poem about presence and absence - or, more precisely, about the presence of the absence.”
I know Ricardo as an artist who lives his art. And we know that life imitates art as often as art imitates life. I was looking forward to being present at his opening in Kuala Lumpur. And yet my absence is proclaimed by this note. I was compelled by unavoidable circumstances to deliver this message by proxy.
One of my daughters celebrates her 10th wedding anniversary today on Langkawi Island and she insisted that her Daddy be present. Without consulting the calendar I immediately agreed. Knowing her, she would not be amused if I didn’t show up for her grand party.
Ricardo, I know, has already forgiven me. Indeed, he wants me to officiate at his next opening. I promise I will make myself available on that happy occasion. For now, I can only trust that my absence will add to, rather than detract from, the magical presence of Ricardo’s uniquely imaginative and evocative work.
Thank you, dear friends. May you enjoy and be enriched by the work of this extremely talented and passionate artist.
Antares
1 June 2007
Thursday, March 29, 2018
And the beat goes on ~ a percussive interlude!
What these amazing talents reveal... is that you don't need multi-billion-dollar budgets to get astounding results. Those who can't afford expensive equipment can improvise with plastic buckets, a bicycle, even an invisible drum kit!
Yup... it's all a matter of timing, folks... keep your spirits upbeat.... won't be long now... it will be curtains for Umno/BN!
[First posted 24 August 2012]
Monday, March 5, 2018
A liquid poem by Weedflower
MAGICK RIVER
The first time we met
Unaware I was swept away
Hesitant resistance
I dip my toe in the river
The second time we met
Trust in myself and then you
A tribute engaged
I walked in the river
The third time we met
We embrace and dance
Surrender and control
Intertwined we played
Now my legs are dipped
And soon my being will flow
In the vastness of you
I'll come and visit
to remember
to remember
Photo & poem by Weedflower aka Paik Yin.
First posted 10 February 2011.
The first time we met
Unaware I was swept away
Hesitant resistance
I dip my toe in the river
The second time we met
Trust in myself and then you
A tribute engaged
I walked in the river
The third time we met
We embrace and dance
Surrender and control
Intertwined we played
Now my legs are dipped
And soon my being will flow
In the vastness of you
I'll come and visit
to remember
to remember
Photo & poem by Weedflower aka Paik Yin.
First posted 10 February 2011.
Friday, March 2, 2018
An Enlightening Chat With Robert Happé
Robert Happé was born in Amsterdam, Holland. He dedicated himself to discover the meaning of life and studied religions and philosophies in Europe. He also studied Buddhism, Vedanta and Taoism in the Far East for a period of 14 years, while living and working with people of different cultures, such as the Indian, Nepalese, Tibetan, Cambodian and Taiwanese.On his return to Europe he felt the need to share his experiences in consciousness and did so at various universities, where he learned to work and share information with groups of people who were interested in self-development and discovering their true potential as creative beings.
Since 1987, he has been sharing information in the form of seminars in many European countries, as well as South Africa, Australia, USA, Argentina and Brazil.
He works independently and is in no way associated with any religious organizations, cult or group.
[Kindly brought to my attention by Gushiv Wo. First posted 23 March 2010]
Wednesday, February 14, 2018
Andy McKee ~ Amazing Fingerstyle Virtuoso
[Thanks to Divya Nair for introducing me to Andy McKee!]
NOW HERE'S 11-YEAR-OLD SUNGHA JUNG DOING A COVER OF ANDY MCKEE'S RYLYNN...
[First posted 5 January 2009]
Friday, February 9, 2018
What Rhymes With Aphrodisiac? An Interview with Rob Brezsny
Found this brilliant interview with ROB BREZSNY - multidimensional genius without portfolio - conducted by Sarah Phelan for Metro Santa Cruz in August 2005. I just have to blog it, if only because Brezsny comes pretty close to saying it all for me, and probably a lot more elegantly too!
GRAVE ENCOUNTER
In which we bury a symbol of paranoia in an effort to break on through to the other side with astrologer Rob Brezsny
By Sarah Phelan
Photographs by Dina Scoppettone
It began with an email from Rob Brezsny, that renegade genius whose syndicated Free Will Astrology column runs in 130 newspapers nationwide, including Metro Santa Cruz. Only this time Brezsny, who lived in Santa Cruz for 14 years and has since moved to Marin, wasn't writing horoscopes, but pushing his newest book, Pronoia Is the Antidote for Paranoia (North Atlantic Books; $19 paper).
"Reading it is interesting and helpful, too, but a lot of good stuff can happen if you just let its edgy benevolence seep into your dreaming mind," wrote Brezsny, who urged me to sleep with a copy of Pronoia under my pillow for at least three nights.
At 296 pages thick, the copy of Pronoia that happened to be sitting on my desk didn't strike me as a dream pillow—even in softcover. But Brezsny's email did get me leafing through his weighty tome, whose cover (a flaming heart at the center of a labyrinth) and optimistic subtitle (How the Whole World Is Conspiring to Shower You With Blessings) had already piqued my curiosity. And once inside its pages, I was unable to resist the "dear gorgeous genius" love letter, or the "luminous tease page," which in typical Brezsny fashion exhorted me to "rebel against your horoscope," and "sip the tears of someone you love." And then there were Brezsny's miribilia reports, which reportedly come "live from your repressed memory of paradise," and include freeing gems, like the uplifting news that "black sheep have a better sense of smell than white sheep."
Promising to place my copy under my pillow (beauty sleep be damned), I emailed Brezsny my request for a face-to-face interview—something he deemed "so 20th-century, but fun, too."
He ended up suggesting that we meet at the Evergreen Cemetery in Harvey West Park to carry out a ritual burial of my share of paranoia, cynicism and snark.
"Not that you have any more than the rest of us; we all need to bury our load of psychic garbage," wrote Brezsny, adding that if I wanted to bury my paranoia then I should bring a symbol of it.
And so it was that after deliberating on paranoid symbolism for the next two weeks, I found myself standing beside the white picket fence that delineates Evergreen Cemetery, a picture postcard of George W. Bush in my hands. Brezsny says he chose this graveyard for our meeting because of many fond associations he has with the place, including meeting the love of his life, Ro Loughran, who he first spied "flailing like a whirling dervish on top of a sepulcher during a performance art event called "A Happy Birthday for Death."
Oddly enough, my first impression of the historic site, which contains the tombstones of some of Santa Cruz's earliest movers and shakers, was of a lover's quarrel, thanks to the pasty-faced goth couple with matching jet-black hair, who standing beneath the cemetery's metal archway were hurling poisonous insults at each other, as I approached.
Not wishing to invade their space and with Brezsny nowhere in sight, I wandered between the cemetery's white entrance pillars and up the redbrick path that meanders into the hills that flank Harvey West Park. Halfway along the path, I encountered a woman whose body was silhouetted by a blinding sheet of white light. Temporarily disoriented, I was just beginning to wondering if this lady—and the goth couple for that matter—were ghosts, when the apparition stepped out of the sunlight and into the shade, revealing herself to be Metro Santa Cruz photographer Dina Scoppettone, who told me that she had just found an old headstone inscribed with the name "Sarah"—a site she thought might be perfect for my paranoia burial ritual.
Just then an exuberant gaggle of school kids caught our attention as they entered the cemetery screaming happily and followed by a man with windswept silver hair, who was wearing a white lab coat over black clothes and carrying a clipboard and pen. As the sun glinted off the man's Harry Potteresque spectacles, I recognized him as Rob Brezsny, "the master of rowdy bliss" as he calls himself in Pronoia, who was here to help me bury my postcard of Bush "without hate." And so we spent the next hour, sitting on the some cold stone steps that led to a nearby grave and talking, as solitary yellow leaves drifted down from the tree canopy and onto the trails, where wind swept them along in dry rattling rustles.
METRO SANTA CRUZ: What can we do about paranoia in light of the fact that Rove is still roving and Bush just got, er 're-elected'?
BREZSNY: The worst thing is to let any of our responses to Bush make us like him, like the fundamentalist virus, which makes us believe the way we see things is correct.
Confess your fundamentalist virus.
My daughter is always busting me when I'm prejudiced against rich people. The mark of a fundamentalist take on things is that it's totally serious, literal and personal. Those are the three death grips.
How long have you been assuming your lab coat identity?
About six years, part time. I like some of the ways that scientists look at the world, how they shed their personal biases, how they don't jump on a little bit of data and make up stories, but just deal with what's there. One of my hypotheses is that the world is conspiring to give us exactly what we need, not from my ego's, but from my soul's, point of view. I put on the lab coat to inspire me, mostly. To remind myself that I'm a scientist, a researcher, not a know-it-all. I like to say I'm looking for the answers so I can destroy them and think up better questions.
Do you think that people sitting there, saying, 'Bush is our greatest teacher,' even as bombs keep killing people in Iraq, can lead to dangerous apathy?
I think the answer is to try to live in both of those realms and maintain a dual perspective. Yes, everything is going exactly as planned, but from the perspective that we as small egos can't see, it will work out in a way that may be immediately difficult and painful, but will be good for all. So you can sit there, but also be prepared to fight fiercely for beauty and justice and harmony, to be absolutely devoted to kicking ass in the most tender way possible. Being a pronoiac doesn't make you passive. There's a lot of fierceness in my particular approach to creating goodness and truth and beauty.
I notice you say 'pronoiac' and not 'pronoid.'
Pronoiac rhymes with aphrodisiac. Pronoid rhymes with paranoid.
By rhyming with aphrodisiac, pronoiac emphasizes a love of life?
Yeah, this pronoia is celebration. It's not a passive optimism. It's not an "ignore the darkness" kind of optimism. This is not a shopping-mall-in-Indianapolis kind of pronoia. This is not a gated-community kind of pronoia. It's a let-the-chaos-in kind of pronoia, because the Goddess is bringing us chaos over and over again. That's how she creates. So, pronoia's got to thrive on chaos. It can't be afraid of it.
A woman with a heavy Spanish accent called our paper a few months ago from Watsonville, and said, 'Rob Brezsny, he hates Aries.' She claimed your column always bashes Aries. Do you have a secret hatred of Aries?
(Laughs rowdily.) No, I love all the signs equally, but as you can imagine, I'm a huge projection screen for people. In general, that's probably pretty good. They can project onto me their inner teacher. They can imagine that I'm somehow the source of this information, when it's actually coming from them, because it's all in how you interpret my work. I think when I'm working at my best, I'm standing in for each person's inner teacher. Since lots of people don't know they have such a thing, I can provide a service, I can materialize it in the outer world.
Your work, then, is all in the interpretation?
I try to keep my intentions extremely clean and pure and loving, because I think that's the only thing that's going to work to ensure that people take what I say and use it in the best way. It's so important that your intentions don't get subverted, or appropriated by the ego or your desire to be loved or please other people. Not that those are terrible motivations, but to do what I do best, I have to give without any strings attached, with the smartest love I can summon.
What made you leave Santa Cruz?
My wife was going to grad school in San Francisco. I also had that sense that as long as I lived in Santa Cruz, that because I resonated so deeply with the starving artist archetype, I would remain a starving artist. I don't think everyone who lives here does that, to the contrary, but I felt I'd remain insular, if I stayed. And within a couple of years of leaving, my column took off and got syndicated, and I made a lot more money.
Do you pray for clarity?
I do. Most of my prayers start with gratitude, asking Goddess what I can do for her, rather than what she can do for me
Is Pronoia a character in Greek mythology?
In Greek mythology, Pronoia was the consort of Prometheus, the divine rebel who stole fire from the gods and brought it to humanity. Pronoia is an ancient word that's been used in different contexts, but used to mean providence, or the abundance of spiritual gifts.
Do you see Pronoia as a female figure, or as a belief system?
I like to say it's a mode of perception and try to take out of realm of belief. I do like to see it as a muse, though, as a somewhat elusive but generous muse, which for me, because I'm a heterosexual man, tends to take a female form, and a muse that bestows an abundance and surprise and clues to me as a researcher. ... It's critical that what we call the archetype of the Divine Feminine returns in full force before we kill the world — or kill the world as it's inhabitable for us.
In 'Pronoia,' you call yourself Global Village Idiot and Fool Czar?
Right, although the president hasn't responded to my request to be appointed Fool Czar.
So, as Fool Czar, how would you exhibit compassion toward George?
I'd love to kiss his ass. I even offered to kiss Rove's butt without his underpants on, but I haven't had any response. And I'd love to talk about the fact that George W. Bush and I share astrological signs. We're both Cancer with Libra moon. I'd like to talk about ways we're similar.
What are those ways?
We're both good at touching into the collective imagination. However, in my opinion, he manipulates that for the powers of greed, of elitism, of militarism and materialism, whereas I'm trying to, I suppose, manipulate it in the name of beauty and truth and the elimination of hierarchy, of pure democracy and feminism. I'd like him to consider creating some new holidays. One of them would of course be the Bliss Blast.
As part of one of the exercises in your book called 'Rank Your Favorite Doomsday Scenario,' I went on the Internet, typed in 'paranoia' and got tons of hits. Waco. Men in black. The Bay of Pigs. The Bermuda Triangle. Chemtrails. Black helicopters. UFOs. Tinfoil Hats. The missing WMDs and 9/11. Bin Laden. Seems like it's a pretty good time in the history of world to be paranoid.
A pretty interesting time.
So, you're swimming against the stream with your pronoia?
I'm not gonna claim that the news is 95 percent good, but I would like to work on the hypothesis that maybe it's fifty-fifty. I think that the absurd domination of bad news is curious and suspicious. It seems to suggest that those who identify themselves as educated and elite communicators in our society believe the opposite of what the poet John Keats said, which is, 'If something is not beautiful, it is probably not true.
The media and a lot of politicians seem to say the exact opposite, which is, if something is not ugly, it is not true. And that's a cockeyed view of world. I'm not advocating that we ignore the darkness and pretend, for instance, that we're not living through a mass extinction event. For example, biologists say we're living through the greatest extinction of species in 65 million years. However, in my opinion we're in the midst of tremendous abundance as well — tremendous beauty and joy and pleasure. The apocalypse is not happening sometime in the future, it's already under way. It's a slow motion apocalypse and it's both apocalypse in the current sense of word, which is a collapse, a degeneration of things falling apart, but also in the ancient sense, which is an awakening. So, right alongside all this collapse and degeneration is awakening and birth and fountains of incredible creativity and reinvention. To be honest, as educated intellectual people, we need to report on the other side.
Tell me about the homeopathic medicine spells in your book. Do you put the bad, negative stuff inside them?
Yes, you recognize the negative. You put it in its place and surround it with blessings, with a spell of protection, so it won't reach out and grab some part of our subconscious mind and say, "This is true. You are like this." So, in a sense, these spells protect us against our temptation to resonate with ugliness, evil and ungenerous anger. Jung talked about the shadow, that part of ourselves that is wounded, sick, that never grew up right. So, we have to have a relationship with our shadows. If we try to deny or ignore their existence, they will bite us in the ass, subvert our good intentions, undermine what we're trying to do. We need to make sure that before we go out and ask the world to change, that we're in very close contact with the ugliness in ourselves and that we're working to redeem that and transform it.
We take a break, during which Brezsny retrieves a long-handled shovel from his car for our burial event. But as he poses beneath the cemetery's metal archway, and I dig a hole safely away from the graves, including the "Sarah" headstone — a police car turns onto Evergreen Road and slows to a crawl, its uniformed occupants eyeing our merry trio with detached curiosity.
Immediately, my paranoia, which I have not yet buried, springs back to life, taunting me with questions, such as, 'Is it illegal to bury a photo of the U.S. president, especially if you're an immigrant on a green card?' Not knowing what else to do with the evidence, I jam it into my pants, with the unintended consequence that Bush's photo ends up kissing my ass. (Hey, maybe the exercise is already working!) And the minute the cop car passes by, I hastily dig a shallow grave, lay Dubya's picture in it with as much kindness as I can summon and cover it up with soil, moments before the cop car cruises by again and Brezsny and I resume our interview.
In 'Don't Think of an Elephant,' George Lakoff warns against framing the debate in the opposition's language. Are you dancing around on the philosophical side of that equation, with your vision of pronoia?
In the Jewish magazine Tikkun, almost immediately after the November election, Rabbi Michael Lerner began talking about how the left can't keep ceding spirituality to the right. We have to add a spiritual aspect to our perspective. That's why a lot of people just gravitate de facto to the right, because at least they recognize or include the element of spirituality. But there are people on the left who represent the spiritual side of left. We do have a moral vision, a very powerful vision about what's good for most people.
As the aftermath of 9/11 showed us, clearly our fears can be manipulated. Is there also a button for happiness?
Right now we as a society are addicted to fear. We need an intervention, to talk in 12-step language. We're so accustomed to being motivated and moved and fascinated by fear that we've lost the capacity to even imagine that pleasure and joy and regeneration and integrity can be interesting. I think it takes a retraining, on a personal level... The first step is to have the intention to be happy. Who'd have thought of that?
What do you believe in?
My personal belief is that there are many other dimensions besides this particular one and that there are beings that are not physically manifest: some are stupid, some smart, good, some bad, some in between, just like in the material realm, but I believe the caricature of angels, kind of a New Age parody, if we look back at John Milton and William Blake, who consorted with angels and many great literary and intellectual minds who took angels very seriously, seriously, not just as a metaphor, not as some empty hope, but as literal entities. I believe in angels, angels who are working full-time to create beauty and truth and love in the world. Unfortunately, they want and need us to identify and ask for what we need, and most people don't do that.
Why do people need to ask?
Because this is a collaboration, not a fascist regime. Contrary to what fundamentalist Christians would say, this is a collaborative effort. The whole point in free will is to participate in a collaborative effort, not leave it to some all-knowing spiritual forces. In a greater sense, I believe in God or Goddess, a single divine intelligence that animates the universe and is simultaneously aware of 500 million galaxies and their function and the six kittens that were recently born to you. From the ego side, that sounds impossible, but I don't think a belief in angels and divine intelligence is required. Some of the greatest spiritual workers on the planet are atheists, but they are supremely ethical, their spiritual work having firmly to do with improving conditions on earth.
In 'Pronoia,' you write, 'I'm allergic to dogma. I thrive on riddles. Any idea I believe, I reserve the right to disbelieve as well.' So, after 'Pronoia' has been out for a while, you're not going to tell us you don't believe in it anymore, are you?
My policy is to believe in the things that inspire me about 75 to 80 percent. I say that about astrology, too. I would never think of saying that I believe in astrology 100 percent, or in feminism or in the perspective of psychology, or leftist politics. All those things, when you identify yourself so entirely with them, that there's no "you" outside of those ideologies, then I think you lost, you're upset, you're possessed by ideas. That's always dangerous, even if the ideas are great ideas. So, I think it's important to maintain skepticism about pronoia. Some people have written to me in a critical way that I expected. Most people resonate pretty well with the philosophy of pronoia, but some say, "You are deluded, you are helping to spread stupidity and laziness." I can understand the fear that if we work at seeing things optimistically, we might lose sight of everything that's wrong with the world. I don't think I'll do that, but that's a valid fear, so in that sense, I'm skeptical of pronoia and I'm not going to promote pronoia as a cure all.
What about the flaming heart in the labyrinth on the cover of 'Pronoia'?
It's the heart on fire, the heart inflamed with the desire to bring beauty and truth and love and justice and harmony to the whole world. Pronoia is not a passive thing. It's fierce, it's filled with strong intention to bring that message that life is much better than it's being portrayed right now, that there's a lot we can do to emphasize what works, and we have to do that aggressively.
William James, the philosopher, talked about how we need a moral equivalent of war. What I take that to mean is that we all have this martial force within us. It's an inherent part of every human being. Unfortunately, it's usually expressed as war and conflict and anger, but there are other ways to express that martial force. As aggressiveness expressed in the name of feminine values. That's my particular angle. That's why I call myself a macho feminist. I want to bring the message of relationship, of intimacy, of love, of caring for other human beings with the same force that a macho dude might use in his struggles to take over the oil fields in the Middle East. This has macho force behind it, but it's done in the name of joy, peace and harmony. That's what that image says to me.
What was your motive for writing 'Pronoia'?
When Henri Matisse started his work, critics said he threatened to undermine civilization, that's the power artists had in some eras of history. It's hard to imagine anyone saying that about a painter or an artist today. It's been demonstrated that art has the power to remake the world, whether to subvert existing values and/or create new ones. I'd like to return to the Henri Matisse kind of place.
So ended our interview, and shortly thereafter, strange stuff started happening. No, the Bush regime did not immediately crumble to dust under the weight of its lies, like vampires in full daylight. Instead, things I thought I'd been paranoid about for years in my personal life turned out to be my angels whispering in my ear all along. And when I confronted the truth it turned out to be more beautiful than the ugliness of living in a lie. So, be advised: burying your paranoia may change your life, not necessarily in the way you were expecting, but in a way that will free you to see the truth and beauty in your own life—perhaps even with humor. As for the bigger picture, I'll leave you with a vision that Brezsny describes in Pronoia's "I Have a Dream" section:
Metro Santa Cruz © 2005
"At the risk of seeming ridiculous, let me say that the true revolutionary is guided by great feelings of love." ~ Ernesto Che Guevara
GRAVE ENCOUNTERIn which we bury a symbol of paranoia in an effort to break on through to the other side with astrologer Rob Brezsny
By Sarah Phelan
Photographs by Dina Scoppettone
It began with an email from Rob Brezsny, that renegade genius whose syndicated Free Will Astrology column runs in 130 newspapers nationwide, including Metro Santa Cruz. Only this time Brezsny, who lived in Santa Cruz for 14 years and has since moved to Marin, wasn't writing horoscopes, but pushing his newest book, Pronoia Is the Antidote for Paranoia (North Atlantic Books; $19 paper).
"Reading it is interesting and helpful, too, but a lot of good stuff can happen if you just let its edgy benevolence seep into your dreaming mind," wrote Brezsny, who urged me to sleep with a copy of Pronoia under my pillow for at least three nights.
At 296 pages thick, the copy of Pronoia that happened to be sitting on my desk didn't strike me as a dream pillow—even in softcover. But Brezsny's email did get me leafing through his weighty tome, whose cover (a flaming heart at the center of a labyrinth) and optimistic subtitle (How the Whole World Is Conspiring to Shower You With Blessings) had already piqued my curiosity. And once inside its pages, I was unable to resist the "dear gorgeous genius" love letter, or the "luminous tease page," which in typical Brezsny fashion exhorted me to "rebel against your horoscope," and "sip the tears of someone you love." And then there were Brezsny's miribilia reports, which reportedly come "live from your repressed memory of paradise," and include freeing gems, like the uplifting news that "black sheep have a better sense of smell than white sheep."
Promising to place my copy under my pillow (beauty sleep be damned), I emailed Brezsny my request for a face-to-face interview—something he deemed "so 20th-century, but fun, too."
He ended up suggesting that we meet at the Evergreen Cemetery in Harvey West Park to carry out a ritual burial of my share of paranoia, cynicism and snark.
"Not that you have any more than the rest of us; we all need to bury our load of psychic garbage," wrote Brezsny, adding that if I wanted to bury my paranoia then I should bring a symbol of it.
And so it was that after deliberating on paranoid symbolism for the next two weeks, I found myself standing beside the white picket fence that delineates Evergreen Cemetery, a picture postcard of George W. Bush in my hands. Brezsny says he chose this graveyard for our meeting because of many fond associations he has with the place, including meeting the love of his life, Ro Loughran, who he first spied "flailing like a whirling dervish on top of a sepulcher during a performance art event called "A Happy Birthday for Death."
Oddly enough, my first impression of the historic site, which contains the tombstones of some of Santa Cruz's earliest movers and shakers, was of a lover's quarrel, thanks to the pasty-faced goth couple with matching jet-black hair, who standing beneath the cemetery's metal archway were hurling poisonous insults at each other, as I approached.
Not wishing to invade their space and with Brezsny nowhere in sight, I wandered between the cemetery's white entrance pillars and up the redbrick path that meanders into the hills that flank Harvey West Park. Halfway along the path, I encountered a woman whose body was silhouetted by a blinding sheet of white light. Temporarily disoriented, I was just beginning to wondering if this lady—and the goth couple for that matter—were ghosts, when the apparition stepped out of the sunlight and into the shade, revealing herself to be Metro Santa Cruz photographer Dina Scoppettone, who told me that she had just found an old headstone inscribed with the name "Sarah"—a site she thought might be perfect for my paranoia burial ritual.
Just then an exuberant gaggle of school kids caught our attention as they entered the cemetery screaming happily and followed by a man with windswept silver hair, who was wearing a white lab coat over black clothes and carrying a clipboard and pen. As the sun glinted off the man's Harry Potteresque spectacles, I recognized him as Rob Brezsny, "the master of rowdy bliss" as he calls himself in Pronoia, who was here to help me bury my postcard of Bush "without hate." And so we spent the next hour, sitting on the some cold stone steps that led to a nearby grave and talking, as solitary yellow leaves drifted down from the tree canopy and onto the trails, where wind swept them along in dry rattling rustles.
METRO SANTA CRUZ: What can we do about paranoia in light of the fact that Rove is still roving and Bush just got, er 're-elected'?
BREZSNY: The worst thing is to let any of our responses to Bush make us like him, like the fundamentalist virus, which makes us believe the way we see things is correct.
Confess your fundamentalist virus.
My daughter is always busting me when I'm prejudiced against rich people. The mark of a fundamentalist take on things is that it's totally serious, literal and personal. Those are the three death grips.
How long have you been assuming your lab coat identity?
About six years, part time. I like some of the ways that scientists look at the world, how they shed their personal biases, how they don't jump on a little bit of data and make up stories, but just deal with what's there. One of my hypotheses is that the world is conspiring to give us exactly what we need, not from my ego's, but from my soul's, point of view. I put on the lab coat to inspire me, mostly. To remind myself that I'm a scientist, a researcher, not a know-it-all. I like to say I'm looking for the answers so I can destroy them and think up better questions.
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| Grave New World: Both Rob Brezsny and George W. Bush share the same astrological signs - Cancer with Libra moon - yet only Brezsny adheres to the ancient Spider-Man koan: 'With great power comes great responsibility.' |
Do you think that people sitting there, saying, 'Bush is our greatest teacher,' even as bombs keep killing people in Iraq, can lead to dangerous apathy?
I think the answer is to try to live in both of those realms and maintain a dual perspective. Yes, everything is going exactly as planned, but from the perspective that we as small egos can't see, it will work out in a way that may be immediately difficult and painful, but will be good for all. So you can sit there, but also be prepared to fight fiercely for beauty and justice and harmony, to be absolutely devoted to kicking ass in the most tender way possible. Being a pronoiac doesn't make you passive. There's a lot of fierceness in my particular approach to creating goodness and truth and beauty.
I notice you say 'pronoiac' and not 'pronoid.'
Pronoiac rhymes with aphrodisiac. Pronoid rhymes with paranoid.
By rhyming with aphrodisiac, pronoiac emphasizes a love of life?
Yeah, this pronoia is celebration. It's not a passive optimism. It's not an "ignore the darkness" kind of optimism. This is not a shopping-mall-in-Indianapolis kind of pronoia. This is not a gated-community kind of pronoia. It's a let-the-chaos-in kind of pronoia, because the Goddess is bringing us chaos over and over again. That's how she creates. So, pronoia's got to thrive on chaos. It can't be afraid of it.
A woman with a heavy Spanish accent called our paper a few months ago from Watsonville, and said, 'Rob Brezsny, he hates Aries.' She claimed your column always bashes Aries. Do you have a secret hatred of Aries?
(Laughs rowdily.) No, I love all the signs equally, but as you can imagine, I'm a huge projection screen for people. In general, that's probably pretty good. They can project onto me their inner teacher. They can imagine that I'm somehow the source of this information, when it's actually coming from them, because it's all in how you interpret my work. I think when I'm working at my best, I'm standing in for each person's inner teacher. Since lots of people don't know they have such a thing, I can provide a service, I can materialize it in the outer world.Your work, then, is all in the interpretation?
I try to keep my intentions extremely clean and pure and loving, because I think that's the only thing that's going to work to ensure that people take what I say and use it in the best way. It's so important that your intentions don't get subverted, or appropriated by the ego or your desire to be loved or please other people. Not that those are terrible motivations, but to do what I do best, I have to give without any strings attached, with the smartest love I can summon.
What made you leave Santa Cruz?
My wife was going to grad school in San Francisco. I also had that sense that as long as I lived in Santa Cruz, that because I resonated so deeply with the starving artist archetype, I would remain a starving artist. I don't think everyone who lives here does that, to the contrary, but I felt I'd remain insular, if I stayed. And within a couple of years of leaving, my column took off and got syndicated, and I made a lot more money.
Do you pray for clarity?
I do. Most of my prayers start with gratitude, asking Goddess what I can do for her, rather than what she can do for me
Is Pronoia a character in Greek mythology?
In Greek mythology, Pronoia was the consort of Prometheus, the divine rebel who stole fire from the gods and brought it to humanity. Pronoia is an ancient word that's been used in different contexts, but used to mean providence, or the abundance of spiritual gifts.
Do you see Pronoia as a female figure, or as a belief system?
I like to say it's a mode of perception and try to take out of realm of belief. I do like to see it as a muse, though, as a somewhat elusive but generous muse, which for me, because I'm a heterosexual man, tends to take a female form, and a muse that bestows an abundance and surprise and clues to me as a researcher. ... It's critical that what we call the archetype of the Divine Feminine returns in full force before we kill the world — or kill the world as it's inhabitable for us.
In 'Pronoia,' you call yourself Global Village Idiot and Fool Czar?
Right, although the president hasn't responded to my request to be appointed Fool Czar.
So, as Fool Czar, how would you exhibit compassion toward George?
I'd love to kiss his ass. I even offered to kiss Rove's butt without his underpants on, but I haven't had any response. And I'd love to talk about the fact that George W. Bush and I share astrological signs. We're both Cancer with Libra moon. I'd like to talk about ways we're similar.
What are those ways?
We're both good at touching into the collective imagination. However, in my opinion, he manipulates that for the powers of greed, of elitism, of militarism and materialism, whereas I'm trying to, I suppose, manipulate it in the name of beauty and truth and the elimination of hierarchy, of pure democracy and feminism. I'd like him to consider creating some new holidays. One of them would of course be the Bliss Blast.
As part of one of the exercises in your book called 'Rank Your Favorite Doomsday Scenario,' I went on the Internet, typed in 'paranoia' and got tons of hits. Waco. Men in black. The Bay of Pigs. The Bermuda Triangle. Chemtrails. Black helicopters. UFOs. Tinfoil Hats. The missing WMDs and 9/11. Bin Laden. Seems like it's a pretty good time in the history of world to be paranoid.
A pretty interesting time.
So, you're swimming against the stream with your pronoia?
I'm not gonna claim that the news is 95 percent good, but I would like to work on the hypothesis that maybe it's fifty-fifty. I think that the absurd domination of bad news is curious and suspicious. It seems to suggest that those who identify themselves as educated and elite communicators in our society believe the opposite of what the poet John Keats said, which is, 'If something is not beautiful, it is probably not true.
The media and a lot of politicians seem to say the exact opposite, which is, if something is not ugly, it is not true. And that's a cockeyed view of world. I'm not advocating that we ignore the darkness and pretend, for instance, that we're not living through a mass extinction event. For example, biologists say we're living through the greatest extinction of species in 65 million years. However, in my opinion we're in the midst of tremendous abundance as well — tremendous beauty and joy and pleasure. The apocalypse is not happening sometime in the future, it's already under way. It's a slow motion apocalypse and it's both apocalypse in the current sense of word, which is a collapse, a degeneration of things falling apart, but also in the ancient sense, which is an awakening. So, right alongside all this collapse and degeneration is awakening and birth and fountains of incredible creativity and reinvention. To be honest, as educated intellectual people, we need to report on the other side.
Tell me about the homeopathic medicine spells in your book. Do you put the bad, negative stuff inside them?
Yes, you recognize the negative. You put it in its place and surround it with blessings, with a spell of protection, so it won't reach out and grab some part of our subconscious mind and say, "This is true. You are like this." So, in a sense, these spells protect us against our temptation to resonate with ugliness, evil and ungenerous anger. Jung talked about the shadow, that part of ourselves that is wounded, sick, that never grew up right. So, we have to have a relationship with our shadows. If we try to deny or ignore their existence, they will bite us in the ass, subvert our good intentions, undermine what we're trying to do. We need to make sure that before we go out and ask the world to change, that we're in very close contact with the ugliness in ourselves and that we're working to redeem that and transform it.
We take a break, during which Brezsny retrieves a long-handled shovel from his car for our burial event. But as he poses beneath the cemetery's metal archway, and I dig a hole safely away from the graves, including the "Sarah" headstone — a police car turns onto Evergreen Road and slows to a crawl, its uniformed occupants eyeing our merry trio with detached curiosity.
Immediately, my paranoia, which I have not yet buried, springs back to life, taunting me with questions, such as, 'Is it illegal to bury a photo of the U.S. president, especially if you're an immigrant on a green card?' Not knowing what else to do with the evidence, I jam it into my pants, with the unintended consequence that Bush's photo ends up kissing my ass. (Hey, maybe the exercise is already working!) And the minute the cop car passes by, I hastily dig a shallow grave, lay Dubya's picture in it with as much kindness as I can summon and cover it up with soil, moments before the cop car cruises by again and Brezsny and I resume our interview.
In 'Don't Think of an Elephant,' George Lakoff warns against framing the debate in the opposition's language. Are you dancing around on the philosophical side of that equation, with your vision of pronoia?
In the Jewish magazine Tikkun, almost immediately after the November election, Rabbi Michael Lerner began talking about how the left can't keep ceding spirituality to the right. We have to add a spiritual aspect to our perspective. That's why a lot of people just gravitate de facto to the right, because at least they recognize or include the element of spirituality. But there are people on the left who represent the spiritual side of left. We do have a moral vision, a very powerful vision about what's good for most people.
As the aftermath of 9/11 showed us, clearly our fears can be manipulated. Is there also a button for happiness?
Right now we as a society are addicted to fear. We need an intervention, to talk in 12-step language. We're so accustomed to being motivated and moved and fascinated by fear that we've lost the capacity to even imagine that pleasure and joy and regeneration and integrity can be interesting. I think it takes a retraining, on a personal level... The first step is to have the intention to be happy. Who'd have thought of that?
What do you believe in?
My personal belief is that there are many other dimensions besides this particular one and that there are beings that are not physically manifest: some are stupid, some smart, good, some bad, some in between, just like in the material realm, but I believe the caricature of angels, kind of a New Age parody, if we look back at John Milton and William Blake, who consorted with angels and many great literary and intellectual minds who took angels very seriously, seriously, not just as a metaphor, not as some empty hope, but as literal entities. I believe in angels, angels who are working full-time to create beauty and truth and love in the world. Unfortunately, they want and need us to identify and ask for what we need, and most people don't do that.
Why do people need to ask?
Because this is a collaboration, not a fascist regime. Contrary to what fundamentalist Christians would say, this is a collaborative effort. The whole point in free will is to participate in a collaborative effort, not leave it to some all-knowing spiritual forces. In a greater sense, I believe in God or Goddess, a single divine intelligence that animates the universe and is simultaneously aware of 500 million galaxies and their function and the six kittens that were recently born to you. From the ego side, that sounds impossible, but I don't think a belief in angels and divine intelligence is required. Some of the greatest spiritual workers on the planet are atheists, but they are supremely ethical, their spiritual work having firmly to do with improving conditions on earth.
In 'Pronoia,' you write, 'I'm allergic to dogma. I thrive on riddles. Any idea I believe, I reserve the right to disbelieve as well.' So, after 'Pronoia' has been out for a while, you're not going to tell us you don't believe in it anymore, are you?
My policy is to believe in the things that inspire me about 75 to 80 percent. I say that about astrology, too. I would never think of saying that I believe in astrology 100 percent, or in feminism or in the perspective of psychology, or leftist politics. All those things, when you identify yourself so entirely with them, that there's no "you" outside of those ideologies, then I think you lost, you're upset, you're possessed by ideas. That's always dangerous, even if the ideas are great ideas. So, I think it's important to maintain skepticism about pronoia. Some people have written to me in a critical way that I expected. Most people resonate pretty well with the philosophy of pronoia, but some say, "You are deluded, you are helping to spread stupidity and laziness." I can understand the fear that if we work at seeing things optimistically, we might lose sight of everything that's wrong with the world. I don't think I'll do that, but that's a valid fear, so in that sense, I'm skeptical of pronoia and I'm not going to promote pronoia as a cure all.
What about the flaming heart in the labyrinth on the cover of 'Pronoia'?It's the heart on fire, the heart inflamed with the desire to bring beauty and truth and love and justice and harmony to the whole world. Pronoia is not a passive thing. It's fierce, it's filled with strong intention to bring that message that life is much better than it's being portrayed right now, that there's a lot we can do to emphasize what works, and we have to do that aggressively.
William James, the philosopher, talked about how we need a moral equivalent of war. What I take that to mean is that we all have this martial force within us. It's an inherent part of every human being. Unfortunately, it's usually expressed as war and conflict and anger, but there are other ways to express that martial force. As aggressiveness expressed in the name of feminine values. That's my particular angle. That's why I call myself a macho feminist. I want to bring the message of relationship, of intimacy, of love, of caring for other human beings with the same force that a macho dude might use in his struggles to take over the oil fields in the Middle East. This has macho force behind it, but it's done in the name of joy, peace and harmony. That's what that image says to me.
What was your motive for writing 'Pronoia'?
When Henri Matisse started his work, critics said he threatened to undermine civilization, that's the power artists had in some eras of history. It's hard to imagine anyone saying that about a painter or an artist today. It's been demonstrated that art has the power to remake the world, whether to subvert existing values and/or create new ones. I'd like to return to the Henri Matisse kind of place.
So ended our interview, and shortly thereafter, strange stuff started happening. No, the Bush regime did not immediately crumble to dust under the weight of its lies, like vampires in full daylight. Instead, things I thought I'd been paranoid about for years in my personal life turned out to be my angels whispering in my ear all along. And when I confronted the truth it turned out to be more beautiful than the ugliness of living in a lie. So, be advised: burying your paranoia may change your life, not necessarily in the way you were expecting, but in a way that will free you to see the truth and beauty in your own life—perhaps even with humor. As for the bigger picture, I'll leave you with a vision that Brezsny describes in Pronoia's "I Have a Dream" section:
"I'm the president now ... and so are you. I am the supreme Commander of the United Snakes of the Blooming Haha ... and so are you. And what we proclaim is that in the New World, we will love our neighbors as ourselves, even if our neighbors are jerks. We will search for the divine spark even in the people we most despise, and we will never dehumanize anyone, even those who dehumanize us. I have a dream that sooner or later, every one of us will become a well-rounded highly skilled, incredibly rich master of rowdy bliss—with lots of leisure time and an orgiastic feminist conscience."
Metro Santa Cruz © 2005
"At the risk of seeming ridiculous, let me say that the true revolutionary is guided by great feelings of love." ~ Ernesto Che Guevara
[First posted 30 November 2007]
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