2014---Optimism, Suburban Tofuvian Practitioners and Simplicity

I'm feeling optimistic about this year. Like I've been given privy information that this will personally be a good year. I can't shake this foolish optimism that the cards are lining up right and that good fortune awaits.

Can't help but feel inspired as a new year begins. But as you get older, you realize your opportunities to have a good year are getting fewer and fewer. Wisdom is what we are supposed to acquire with age (along with crows feet and some degeneration of bones--and hopefully some dollars in the bank). I'm not a fan of the pithy quote, especially when it has some sort of psychological construct--due to the inherent selfishness of most of those "Life is what you think it is" bullshit narcissism. 

Most spirituality/psychology is masturbatory navel gazing which attempts to elevate the ego to an Egocentric View of the World. Especially when practiced by aging middle class suburbanites who've left the traditions of a thousands of years old Mystic that just might have something to teach them in order to seek out the odd, pagan, Eastern ideologies whose only similarity to one another is that the Suburban Tofuvian Practitioner thinks there might be something there. Eastern thought negates any thing Pagan. And Paganism is dialectically opposed to any Eastern Religion.

The images we collect, the Buddha's, the Ganesh's, the sand art whether it be Tibetan or Navajo, the sexy naked females of modern Pagan art that arouse and titillate; these are reduced to nothing more than spiritual trading cards similar to collecting baseball cards or Pokeman. I'll trade you a Jesus for a St. Germaine, a Dalai Lama and an emaciated Monk to be named later.

 These images live in our houses and gardens but rarely challenge our behavior or demands changes of downsizing said bank balance mentioned earlier. And so you will read platitudes of "Life is what you think of it" and "Change yourself, change your life" and, oh I don't know, go read Joel Olsteen. Or Starhawk. Or whoever the new Guru in India that empty spiritual thrill seekers flock to now that that master faker Sai Baba is dead (his name a rip-off of a former saint) -- happy to exchange their dollars for a bit of absolution (yet absolution is available close to home, though it is much more dull than traveling to a desperate country where the dead are picked up off the streets daily and burned on pyres near their rivers). And as the tourists tour Monastery treks in Nepal, local Communist Guerillas fight for those very earthly values just off the Monastery path; working with the poor, talking about attainable worlds where there are no rich, no poor; all happy.

Despite this rant, I feel oddly hopeful about this year.

And I walk with confidence--and with a deep love of this third from the sun planet. I love this breath--the simplest definition of Spirit. I love the playfulness of the coyote. The delicious sexy, sensual touch of earth, home, lover. The sharing of this mud home with four other humans, three canines, two bunnies and a cat. And the bats that live in the ceiling, wintering in style amongst our rafters. My mind is sharp. Values firm. I know what and who I love. I know who I am and what I stand for. And I know what I defend, and intend to spend the rest of my life defending, in the most creative of ways I know, this earthly paradise that I so deeply love.

Spirituality is simple. It doesn't require other realms or a heaven. All it really needs is the potential to breathe, to honor your senses, to have a deep love in your heart, the desire to not take advantage of anyone or anything, to have eyes to see beauty, hands that touch and feet that can walk barefoot on the earth. No large churches required; just your backyard. Church. Love. Let's Save This Planet from the Greedheads and from ourselves.

Simplify, Simplify, Simplify.

Sentiment without action is empty.