The Puggers Made Me Do It

Те кто не может помнить прошлое осуждены повторить это. -Джорджа Сантаяна

We are part of the earth and it is part of us.
The perfumed flowers are our sisters;
the deer, the horse, the great eagle,
these are our brothers.
The rocky crests, the juices in the meadows, the body heat of the pony, and man–
all belong to the same family.

So, when the Great Chief in Washington sends word that
he wishes to buy land, he asks much of us...

If we decide to accept, I will make one condition:
The white man must treat the beasts of this land as his brothers.
I am a savage and I do not understand any other way.
I’ve seen a thousand rotting buffaloes on the prairie,
left by the white man who shot them from a passing train.
I am a savage and I do not understand how the smoking
iron horse can be more important than the buffalo that
we kill only to stay alive.

What is man without the beasts?
If all the beasts were gone, man would die
from a great loneliness of spirit.
For whatever happens to the beasts,
soon happens to man.
All things are connected...

This we know:
The earth does not belong to man;
man belongs to the earth.
This we know.
All things are connected
like the blood which unites one family.
All things are connected.
Whatever befalls the earth befalls the sons of the earth.
Man did not weave the web of life,
he is merely a strand in it.
Whatever he does to the web,
he does to himself.

-Chief Seattle

If you are preoccupied with people who are talking about the poor, you scarcely have time to talk to the poor. Some people talk about hunger, but they don't come and say "Mother, here is five rupees. Buy food for these people." But they can give a most beautiful lecture on hunger.

I had the most extraordinary experience once in Bombay. There was a big conference about hunger. I was supposed to go to that meeting and I lost the way. Suddenly I came to that place, and right in
front of the door to where hundreds of people were talking about food and hunger, I found a dying man. I took him out and I took him home.

He died there. He died of hunger.

And the people inside were talking about how in fifteen years we will have so much food, so much this, so much that, and that man died.

See the difference?

-Mother Teresa

WTF?

I wake up to a stream running through our back yard, as well as a river raging down our street. This weather is insane and it doesn't look like it's about to stop any time soon. I'm telling you, this planet is about ready to swallow us whole. Sometimes I think that wouldn't be such a bad thing. Like Smith said in The Matrix:

"I'd like to share with you a revelation I've had, during my time here. It came to me when I tried to classify your species and I realized that you aren't actually mammals. Every mammal on this planet instinctively develops a natural equilibrium with its surrounding environment, but you humans do not. You move to an area and you multiply, and multiply until every natural resource is consumed. The only way you can survive is to spread to another area. There is another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern. Do you know what it is? A virus. Human beings are a disease, a cancer of this planet. You are a plague..."

To add to my jovial mood, I heard the oddest sound a few minutes ago. It was an air raid siren. You know, the kind that starts slow and builds into a high-pitched wail? I have no idea where it was coming from, but it ended after 2 or 3 minutes. Anyone local know something about this area that I don't? (FYI- Westover is about 20 minutes from my place, so I doubt it was coming from there).


In other news... I can finally stop using the silly nickname "Crusader" for my friend Marc Adams and share with you all that I am officially a board member of HeartStrong! HeartStrong is a non sectarian organization established to provide outreach to gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgendered and other persons adversely affected by the influence of all denominations of religious educational institutions. HeartStrong is also committed to educating the public about the persecution of GLBT’s and others at religious educational institutions. You can learn more at: http://www.heartstrong.org/

The best part is that the annual board meeting is being held in Miami this year. So I get to pack my bags for a few days in April and head to the sun and surf. And Kat's coming, too! We scheduled the flights so we'd get a little bit of time to check out the local scene and enjoy the beach. God, it's been so long since I've felt sand between my toes or smelled that salty air. I can't wait!

I recently read "The Passion" by Jeanette Winterson. What a fantastic book- lyrical and intricately woven. It was a nice surprise after attempting "Sexing the Cherry" and finding it a struggle to slog through. Here are some of my favorite quotes:

They say that every snowflake is different If that were true, how could the world go on? How could we ever get up off our knees? How could we ever recover from the wonder of it?

There's no pawnshop for the heart. You can't take it in and leave it awhile in a clean cloth and redeem it in better times.

Love it seems can survive even a war and a zero winter. Like the snow-raspberries, our host explained, love is like that, and he told us how these flimsy delicacies appear always in February, whatever the weather, whatever the prospects. No one knows why, when pines are withered at the roots and rough sheep have to be kept indoors, these impossible hot-house things still grow.

I looked at my palms trying to see the other life, the parallel life... Is this the explanation then when we meet someone we do not know and feel straight away that we have always known them?.. Perhaps our lives are spread out around us like a fan and we can only know one life, but by mistake sense others.

Whoever it is you fall in love with for the first time, not just love but be in love with, is the one who will always make you angry, the one you can't be logical about. It may be that you are settled in another place, it may be that you are happy, but the one who took your heart wields final power.

Passion will work in the fields for seven years for the beloved and on being cheated work for seven more, but passion, because it is noble, will not long accept another's left-overs.

The mystics and churchmen talk about throwing off this body and its desires, being no longer a slave to the flesh. They don't say that through the flesh we are set free. That our desire for another will lift us out of ourselves more cleanly than anything divine.

So I added new quotes to my website today. I ran across a ton that I loved and couldn't resist. Here are just a few selections:

The only way out is to go through. -Robert Frost

There are only two mistakes one can make along the road to truth- not
going all the way, and not starting. -Buddha

To be nobody but yourself - in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to
make you everybody else - means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can
fight; never stop fighting. -E.E. Cummings

The world is before you, and you need not take it or leave it as it was before you
came in. -James Baldwin

I do not want my house to be walled in on all sides, and my windows to be closed.
Instead, I want the cultures of all lands to be blown about my house as freely as
possible. But I refuse to be blown off my feet by any. -Mohandas K. Gandhi

You are a child of the universe no less than the trees and the stars. You have a
right to be here. And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is
unfolding as it should. -Max Ehrman from The Desiderata

Wonderful...