Wake Up Call

A myth is something which is not true on the outside, but is true on the inside.

Anonymous 4 year old girl.
****************************
Life is a journey through the jungle of the senses. I think the two most important activities of the human race are art and science. In fact, viewed in their essence, everything we do is a combination of those two things. There are many great, young ideas lurking in the corners wanting to be found. But how can humanity survive and reach it's full potential of perfection by accepting only the appearance of things?

The senses don't give us anything except closed doors. The poet knows that. Every flower is a prayer of desire and exaltation, pleading to the earth and the sun for life and embracing it. And the earth and the sun, globes like millions of others in the vast universe all circling around the invisible idea of existence.

Our lives are filled with myths. There are ancient and modern myths, all wanting to be understood and yet we stare at the myth instead of what it tells us. There are people today trying to figure out just what body of water Moses and the Israelites crossed on their way out of Egypt. Others are trying to locate the remains of Noah's ark. Still others are searching for the stones that once were the tower of Babel and the original Garden of Eden. To me that's like counting the beans in a pot instead of cooking and eating them.

Some people say that we never went to the moon. Did Neil Armstrong make his "one small step" on it's surface? Sure. But it was more than the achievement of centuries of science and technology and more than the culmination of centuries of poetic wonder. It was a mythic act, and it's real meaning is still lurking and wanting to be understood.

John Adams wrote "Politics are the divine science, after all." And yet when we look to politics what do we find? People yelling and insulting each other, fist fights, corruption, people grappling in a pit over issues that should unite us but that are dividing us, rage, hatred, fear. Where is the divinity? Why has it become impossible for anyone to see the moon walk of inspired human government? Here we are, like the flower, pleading for life and trying to embrace it but ignoring our own human spirit. We have become so enamored and confused by the hissing beasts and tangled vines of the jungle of our senses we forgot we were trying to go through it. We have accepted as true only the outside of the myth and discarded the inner truth.

There are those who cannot accept that time and space are human concepts and therefore malleable. What will be left when the doors of our senses finally open and the great waking up occurs, and where will we be?

DB - The Vagabond
**********************

WEEKEND PUZZLE

You're at the end of a dark tunnel.. There is no turning back. The way out is through one of three doors. Behind the first door is a pack of fierce hungry tigers that haven't been fed in a month. Behind the second door is a raging fire. In front of the door is a large bucket of clear liquid which is either water or gasoline. Behind the third door are a bunch of assassins with daggers, swoon to kill anyone who opens the door but they are all blindfolded. Once you open one of the doors you can't close it and change your mind.

Which door do you choose? Why?

2 good solutions so far.

dbdacoba@aol.com

DB
****************

Congress Of What?

The true champion of justice, if he intends to survive even for a short time, must necessarily confine himself to private life and leave politics alone.

Socrates
********************
I often wonder if there is any nation on Earth for a good man to live in where the government isn't destroying it's own country. I also wonder why anyone would want to get into politics considering how corrupt it is. Even if it is not overtly corrupt with bribes, inequities and influence buying and selling. It is covertly corrupt by the fact that few politicians understand what life is like for the average citizen.

Now we have a nation where politicians can be bought by big corporations. There is nothing new about that, it is that it used to be covert corruption but now the court has put it out into the open as legal practice.

The government is considering digging into Social Security benefits for older Americans thus creating hardships and, in some cases, homelessness. Are their eyes only on government expenditures or on their absurd fear of Socialism? Whatever umbrella their action may sit under it is "government against the people."

I think I would be ashamed to be a Congressman right now. That such measures are even being considered at any time is rabid, bile spitting injustice. What happened to common sense?

The government wastes money on wars we can't win, overfunded useless programs and
Congressmen's extracurricular activities. Greedy Big Business wastes money buying Congressmen to protect their greed. Who doesn't waste money? Last week I bought a quart of apple juice, an expenditure I can't afford.

If they cut back on my Social Security benefits I won't be able to pay my rent, along with thousands of other seniors, and that's a fact. The government will say "move." And who is going to pay for that?

The biggest, fiercest injustice in the land is the irresponsability of Congress and it's failure to face facts. They tell us what the American people want without asking the American people. The last time I was asked what I want by the government was 9 years ago when I had the option to have money taken out of my Social Security to pay for more Medicare.

My quiet, solitary protest is for Congress to stop wasting our money, stop the wealthy corporations from gouging us and not paying their fair share of taxes, stop funding useless programs, put the money to work for the nation. Spend it on improved education for our young, including better teacher's salaries, taking care of the unemployed and underemployed, strengthen the US Postal Service so it doesn't go out of business, and, for mercies sake, continue to provide for us older citizens who for years have voted, paid taxes, obeyed the laws and given our lives working for one American industry or another.

Dana Bate
The Vagabond