Like, Who Does She Think She Is.

This is an excerpt from a letter i may or may not send.

I saw Rick Steve's show on Fascism last night. The Mussolini, Franco, Hitler triad that shocked the world awake for a minute or two, sent chills up my spine and raised my hackles. The feminine snarl can be a more powerful device than the slogan,"don't tread on me." As she is protecting the well
being, the health of the future and puts herself on the line, fierce and loving at once. This is the  "she" the ancient Greeks feared! (okay is theory, but makes good sense)

Please see this PBS Special yourself. Rick did an elegant job of portrait painting. The show, the script, the details are at:

https://www.ricksteves.com/watch-read-listen/video/tv-show/fascism

Using old footage and current monuments, showing the past, illuminating the patterns, this special was an elegant reminder, a poignant show and tell.

Exposing the twisted charisma of what has been called a Godot, a Deus ex machina, a "powerful" character, these dictators donned the masks of shape shifters, illusionists.  They took advantage of the fear and discontent in the 1930s. It is not difficult to lay this script over the current era and see common threads. The what to do now is where the change can manifest.

Just in case that "be the change you want to see in the world" is not trendy enough now, it is from Gandhi. Back in the late 90's it was printed on backpacks and hoodies, another era of naive activism. But it was/is a step none-the less!

Cut to the personal impact experiment of fashionRIP now!

Yesterday, i heard a man tell his friend, "it's texting, us old people have a hard time with technology"  repeating the meme of voluntary diminishment.  Next time i see him, i plan to ask him why he wanted to tell himself this sort of thing.  If it opens a space, i might suggest a rethink like,  "Oh technology has it's place, i use it and make sure it doesn't use me" or "it's good to learn new things, keeps our brains alive"..something!

Earlier in the day, i helped a woman stow and hold her cart, after lifting up a seat to create a niche, at the front of the bus. I had wondered about her and her cart of large pack toilet paper, but when a man yelled at her for blocking the aisle, creating a trip hazard, to "move up front like other's do," and she moved, i realized she wasn't trying to be a princess, she just didn't know the etiquette. My offer to help was really appreciated. She told me her daughter used to pick her up, but she was ill and she had to get some necessities. A lovely lesson in assume NOT!

 I said, "I think we are here to help each other help each other, tho many of us have forgotten " She and i both beamed, felt like an energy flow in neon!  And yes, i said it loudly. Because we can "remember."

I'm telling you because i think specificity sets the individual, the unique space/time relevancy that is as important as the whole in that it is integral to the whole. It's what reverberates, ripples and makes changes in consciousness, like water through mountains, new thoughts to neural connections, it is interrelated, connected.

Okay this is part of my theory of everything, mentioned a year or so ago and i'm still finding it difficult to attract, solicit, generate feedback ....nevermind:-)

Anyway, if this is true, if it sets up a simple positive reaction that transforms negative emotional energy, then the pattern is altered and if it is altered in the micro, it alters the macro. Thoughts are energy, thoughts put to action are actualizations. Now as beliefs become actualized, (A Goswami, the Quantum Activist)  then the reverse is also true. 

Consciousness expands as beliefs change and then "we change what we actualize" Therefore being the change is instrumental and Gandhi like other great thinkers,  leaders of movements, artists and activists, was right minded at the space/time of his action. 

I am busing to work until the weather says "car time."  I enjoy the serendipity that  arises in public spaces. Opportunities to connect in meaningful short term ways is part ,of my practice, my experiment in trusting life itself. (I am pulling from the life spark idea that resonates with the biological event of sperm hitting egg, love it!) There is a health/joy benefit in these moments.

I know our busy goal-oriented templates have corroded our collective awareness. The noise, odor, all the pollutants and toxins of contemporary existence are easily filtered out with headsets and apps. We are adept at filtering out what we have been taught to think of as irrelevant. This too has a history and comes from stoicism and a work on ethic, however working through the pain can be really detrimental.  Blocking the emotional, physical, spiritual stresses with X, has consequences.

We can continue this crazy ass version of  "growth progress"  or we can question the "authors" the thinking at the time of the "set-up" and all the babble, the smoke and mirrors that we erect to fool ourselves and each other.

Aren't we due for a real change here? A change from the pattern repeating default story, that story full of dictators, data miners and prophets that "see" the evidence but do not understand the crime.

Let's put our naked truth on the table, let us be brave and vulnerable, strong and humble at once! After all, we are humans and we deserve a better story.

Love,

deborah

Gaiad Theory Intro 1

Glass Ceiling -3rd and Pine

When i started fashionRIP, i had no idea i would end up playing with a theory of "everything."  This sounds absurdly grand (and out from under the Physics department, so nervy) and yet because it is about connections, relationships and expanding consciousness to expand possibilities, it covers an immense range. "Everything" expands as well, thus it remains wide open.

With fashionRIP as a catalyst, i learned to plan for and set do-able temporary goals. This strengthened my risk/faith muscles. The more i learned, the more challenging and challenged the projects. I learned i must change to accommodate new knowledge. So what started out as an eco fashion arts collusion is now moving deeper into the core of why, who and what we are.

I am a mother and a new grandmother. I was taught to trust in the USA , at times i altered my course to suit the "real world's"  demands. There were rebel years, but even so, i had faith in this thing called (N) America.  Then that trust started to really erode. The sell, the system, the Dream all failed to add up to what i was actually experiencing, hearing and seeing.

As i dealt with this cognitive dissonance, i delved into more documentaries, more history, more science, more economics.  As i shifted my vision, everything started to change  This is still an experiment, but now i am far enough along to share results past the individual projects.

I know we thrive with change (adults this means no dumping these issues on the young, shame on you!) and apply what we know, even when it is counter to years of conditioned responses.  We can throw out the dogma and spread our wings, we can fly, evolve and we had better.

The gift in all this is how alive one feels when going down a path that our curiosity, passions and joy unfolds. Yes, at times it feels lonely, separating from the herd has a down side.  This is probably what forces us to share, so there you are, that curse and blessing juxtapose. See, we already know a lot of this stuff, we just don't act on it, we fear the cat calls of the herd or ?.

I also believe we should decide to remain inquisitive. We can continue to learn from as many disciplines/teachers/mentors/guides/friends/loved ones/acquaintances/events -as much we can handle. Every field, every person, every experience has viable, healthy and corrupt information files. That is ok, the more you learn the easier it is to sort it all out. This is fun, we are born to embrace the aha moments.

Our current education system (USA) is a hierarchical projection of Newtonian material and mechanistic (tech rules) philosophy and as such appears ill equipped to handle these new ideals. This means that though we are in this together, right now we need new ways to spread the info until it is safe enough for the herd and herders.

On getting back to finding personal paths and experimenting with the life you have now, some of my personal background story may be helpful. Everyone is different, but if you take a few minutes to assemble vibrant memories and jot them down,  you will have some starter pieces of the puzzle that will help you navigate. Explore a while, dabble, take classes, go out of your way, stray out of your comfort zzzzzone, wake up to the moment. Even when you feel silly, laugh and do it anyway. It's just a friggin' experiment, relax.

I started writing the story of Isa and Lucas as a fashionRIP Project. I liked the idea of the Ice Queen thawing out in the global warming and then having to deal with her demons, Lucas being one of them -as this is a discomfort-able love story.  I saw their path towards co-creative love as a metaphor for healthy global unity.

That was rich on its own. It was a great way to introduce the gift into what looks to me like a massive economic/elitist agreement to ignore the consequences of ignorance; to save face, justify positions and fortify the reflective materialist model (aka defending the turf).

All this feather fluffing, teeth baring and raging charges are classic, understandable, forgivable and best of all, stoppable. (My Q: How do we not see this for what it is?)

 Weaving history into science into art into life, becomes what it will.

The "Journey to the Center of Being" (now part one of Isa - Ice Queen) emerged when i realized that getting Isa and Lucas to unite connected to some of the issues in my personal life.

Well that was interesting. My process of aligning project, product, service had jumped it's "work world" borders.  The interactive network expanded (micro to macro) now everything matters more.

Example: For several years i have been  trying to understand the love i have for a man that made no sense, that grew after the damage was done and confused me to the core. In trying to solve the puzzle, i opened my heart/mind  to allow for more emotional, spiritual connection. I accepted to feel all the pain, doubt, extreme joy and serendipity and i asked the uni-verse for help.  My barricades started to tumble...funny, because i thought the wall was his alone.

This helped me see how my own truths were embedded in cultural stories and how they distorted my world view.  This pissed me off. I realized i had been trying to be me and live up to an image of what me should be, based on some very arrogant ignorant agendas that got handed down over the years.  Cloaked in words like tradition, custom and the way the world works...period, they color perception, create beliefs, many of them false, more.These parasites live through us. What the hell! 

So I had to figure out another way to "navigate." I started dancing with the uni-verse and that was cool. Then i realized i had to be a worthy partner, that after the dance there was homework. This is an interactive relationship and i learned to prep for the next dance.  I think the uni-verse likes to mix it up, even the lesson repeats are uniquely formatted. 

I also started deconstructing western mythology.  This started as a way for Isa to see her self in all the stories, and as a means to untangle my own truth from classic dogma. Aside from the general obvious I wanted to understand more about a "knowing" experience i had a few years ago. Looking up at the aforementioned enigmatic man, i "heard" that he was "the one i have  been waiting for all my life."  Then the real crazee. "He is my king."

See,  i don't think like that, not at all! So what was going on?  What was the source? This remains a mystery.

(I later discovered the word king has roots in common with kin or of one's clan or tribe  (this "other" is like self) which is interesting as Amit Goswami calls love an expression of acceptance from the immune system.) 

I dared not share this experience with anyone except my mom. Many of us have been taught that "reason" smashes intuition, thinking is stronger than feeling and "it isn't real if you can't prove it." That no longer resonates.  Fear stopped me when it mattered most, but now i am ready to write my way through this as best i can, Honesty and vulnerability go hand in hand, this is Isa courage.

FYI: What i imagine doesn't come from the place that this "knowing" does. Mind is more than brain and we are more than we are taught to think we are. So there it is. Whatever it is.

 to be continued.