I jumped out of my car and ran to the truck.  I realized I knew the truck, it was my cousin Leon’s truck.  Him having been dead for a decade should have alerted me to the dream state, but no luck.

I ran up the steps and burst in to the living room.  My grandfather was sitting at the dining room table eating breakfast with his cousin Pete.  The fact that Pete is also dead should have woken me, but again, no luck.

“What happened?” I asked my grandfather.

“Grandma has breakfast ready,” my grandfather said between bites of crisp bacon.  The bacon was still hot, I could see bubbles of grease still on the bacon, and the smell was wonderful.  Now I could smell breakfast at their home again.  Bacon frying, biscuits almost ready to come out of the oven, coffee in the percolator.

I walked through the kitchen, looking for my grandmother, upset that Grandpa and Pete seemed oblivious to the truck sticking out of the house.  Walking down the short hallway to my grandparents bedroom I could hear my grandmother crying softly.

I turned the corner and found her sitting on the side of the bed, looking at her hands, and crying.

“Grandma,” I whispered. “Are you alright?”

She looked up at me, smiled, shook her head yes, and then looked at the wreckage that had been her bedroom.  The hood of the truck was at a strange angle as it rested on the bathroom sink and a nightstand.

“He didn’t mean to do it,” she said without looking up at me. “He just forgot and drove right in to the wall, honey.”

“Grandma, why isn’t Grandpa at the rest home? Why is he home, and why was he driving?”

“He didn’t mean to hurt anyone,” she said taking my face in to her hands as she cried.

I knelt down before her, and let my head rest on her lap.  I held her there as she sobbed quietly for a timeless moment.

“I love you Grandma.”

The Jewel in the Heart of the Lotus from Glenn Marshall on Vimeo.

A short animated guide to Buddhist breath meditation, using the metaphor of an opening lotus. The narration was adapted from a talk given by Ajahn Brahm, a popular Buddhist teacher, author and abbot of Serpentine monastery, Perth.

Ayn Rand Interview with Tom Snyder, (1, 2, & 3)

1 of 3

2 0f 3

3 of 3

What do you think?

If you would like to see her books on Amazon, please use this link: http://bit.ly/aynrandamazon

In that smile she must have seen that I was worried and so she reached out and her tiny hand clasped my forearm.  I looked down at her hand on my arm and it was a study in contrast.  My arm is thick and strong, I am not a small man, my skin has a Mediterranean tint to it, my hair dark.  Her hand was whiter than normal, the kind of white skin that the elderly get – thin skin and liver spots; but her grasp was strong and true.

“Everything will be alright son,” she said without sounding condescending.  I somehow knew she wasn’t talking about what my grandfather is going through, or the trials I face in life; somehow I heard her tell me that all of this will make sense one day.  With that the elevator stopped on the 6th floor and she got off without looking back.

I have been thinking about that little woman this morning.  She had never seen me before, will likely never lay eyes on me again, but she reached out to me nonetheless, and she affected my life in a small way, but a meaningful way.

We are all related, we are all the same energy, we need the same exact things to live.  Food, water, shelter, and a chance to live outside of suffering.  I want you to take a few moments from your life, from your busy day and night, and watch this movie.  It is only about 20 minutes long, but it is worth it.

What Would It Look Like?

He closed his eyes, tears dropping from his cheeks, and pulled the blade from her chest. Slowly he blinked his eyes open again and looked out over her body, into the calming din of battle, and felt their eyes turning to him. The woman who he once called his love, the woman who had been his queen, lie now at his feet, looking into his face without malice. For the first time in centuries, he could see love behind her eyes.

Those eyes, the colors of lilac petals, looked deeply into his and then went dark. Her life-force freed from its fleshy jail, returned to the earth and was at peace.

He held her body and wondered: How could it have come to this? How could this have happened within the Court of Flowers?

“My Lord,” his chamberlain whispered from behind him.  “My Lord, you must stand and assume the crown once again.  The Queen of Thorns is gone now… and the King of Flowers must offer his power to the realm.”

The King, on his knees, still cradling the lifeless body of his Queen, remembered the Realm and why he had returned.  He let her body lay upon the earth fully now, and she was no more.  The ground accepted her wholly into itself, and she was gone.  The only remembrance of her was the golden rose bush that sprang to life in that spot.

The King of Flowers stood now, looked out across the masses, and lifted his right hand into the air.  A shimmer of golden dust swirled around his outstretched hand and blew over the gathering.  The warriors on both sides sheathed their weapons and knelt facing him.

Peace had returned, but with it, a deep saddness within their King.

The crown of my head becomes sand, like a dry sand castle I crumble
and my body falls away to reveal
nothing.

All that I am becomes one with all that there is. In an ocean of knowing
I am become (we become) all that is one.

My breath is the smell of mountain rains, sea-mist, prairie grass, and the earthy loam of the forest floor.
My hands can touch the faces of every person at once, the stars can be held close — I am all of those and more.

The skin that covers my face is the petal of every flower across the universe, my hair every blade of grass, every twig on every plant, mixed with the stuff of nebula… and the skin falls away again to offer me a clear white light, flowing forth from the center of me. The center (of me) splits and becomes two, becomes four, becomes more and more again, until all that there is shows this same wonderful clear white light.

I am all emotion, all devotion
I am a stone on the beach of a racing river, I am the mountain and the sea, I am whole worlds, the galaxy, the universe, the cosmos, and no where at once — time itself falls away to show me that I am nothing to call me.

Peaceful, I sleep in this knowledge (fully aware), I am everywhere, as all points (one point) are contained within what is known
There is only the one place
The one time
The one thought by
The one entity

Check out this quote:

“The fact that we are conservative does not equal allegiance to one political party. Blind allegiance to any political party, in my view, is never good. Conservative means allegiance to a set of principles and you have to look and see… If people are not representing these principles they do not deserce the support of the conservative movement. It’s that simple. And this is a much bigger discussion than the oil issue.”

This is a quick list of statistics from Anne Korin’s speech

• The U.S. has about 3% of the world’s conventional oil reserves
• The U.S. accounts for about 25% of the world’s oil demand
• During the oil embargo on the 1970’s the U.S. imported about 30% of its oil
• Today we import over 60% of our oil and the number continues to grow
• The transportation sector is 98% petroleum dependent
• 66% of our oil consumption is in the transportation sector
• 2% of our electricity generation comes from oil
• 35 years ago the countries of OPEC produced 30 million barrels of oil per day
• Today the countries of OPEC produce 32 million barrels of oil per day
• In the same 35 years non OPEC production of oil has doubled
• OPEC countries have 75% of the world’s oil reserves
• The global oil market is currently about 85 million barrels of oil per day
• Flex fuel vehicles can run on any combination of gasoline, ethanol or methanol
• 90% of cars sold in Brazil in 2008 are flex fuel vehicles
• The U.S. produces its ethanol from corn
• Brazil produces its ethanol from sugar cane
• It is much cheaper and more efficient to produce ethanol from sugar can than from corn
• There are 100 countries in the world with a suitable climate for producing sugar cane
• All cars that General Motors will sell in Brazil in 2008 will be flex fuel vehicles
• There is no tariff on imported oil in the U.S.
• There is a 54 cent per gallon tariff on imported ethanol in the U.S.
• It cost an automaker $100 more to make a flex fuel vehicle than one that runs only on gas
• 17 million cars are sold in the U.S. each year
• The average lifespan of a vehicle in the U.S. is about 17 years

The sound of my own whimpers brought me close to waking at this point, but I could not break free from the dream until my wife shook me and held on tight telling me that everything was okay.  But, my eyes were open now and the room was dark in the predawn hours… I crawled out of bed, told Abbey to come with me and we went to sit on the porch.  I sat there in the muggy darkness, listening to the sounds of a sleeping world, patting my dog as she sat beside me.

“If the government cannot lower the cost of living it simply has to leave. If the police and UN troops want to shoot at us, that’s OK, because in the end, if we are not killed by bullets, we’ll die of hunger.”
– A demonstrator in Port-au-Prince, Haiti

In the past few years I have opened my eyes to how this world operates, who operates and how 99.9% of us sit back while a very select few gain more at our expense. Make no mistake, they are people who revel in our suffering. Only by helping those around you can you attain happiness, not by collecting more money, or homes, or cars or whatever… Only by feeding the hungry, clothing the naked can we find an end to suffering.

Another piece of information in this article that should make you pay attention is this:

In addition, for several decades the World Bank and International Monetary Fund have refused to advance loans to poor countries unless they agree to “Structural Adjustment Programs” (SAP) that require the loan recipients to devalue their currencies, cut taxes, privatize utilities, and reduce or eliminate support programs for farmers.

So that explains it fairly bluntly: wealthy nations force those who are in need to subjugate themselves for the help they are receiving. Clearly, it is not the intent of the World Bank to lift the poorer nations out of poverty, but rather to enslave them.

Anyone remember this quote?

“Whatsoever you do to the least of my people, that you do unto me.” (Matthew 25:40)

For a nation that calls itself Christian, America is doing a woeful job. We are truly one people. There is no real distinction between you, me and the starving child in Haiti. None.

Food Crisis And The Failure Of The Capitalist Model is the article at CounterCulture.org.

I welcome your comments.