I have lived most of my life in shame and emotional penury. I have only very rarely felt valuable, worthy, or deserving of anything good or wonderful. In the context of the magnetic (or holographic) universe, I, of course, have always attracted influences that reinforced that which I though myself to be. The next result of my learning and reinforcement has been such that I have always felt justified in feeling worthless and shitty – especially in feeling that I did not deserve any better. When something wonderful did happen, it was always overshadowed by the sense that I did not deserve it, or I would immediately taint the experience in some way (i.e., demeaning the value of my accomplishment, or slopping gravy on my brand-new silk tie).

What has developed in more recent years is gratitude. Being grateful for my life, my life experiences, my suffering – ultimately for each and every experience I have had that has shaped and enriched me – has given me numerous opportunities to mourn my losses and grieve my past. This process has allowed me to “clear the decks,” as it were, making room for new growth. It is only through letting go of the past that I have managed to stay alive (i.e., not commit suicide) in the face of the otherwise overwhelming mass of decimating negative data and the encumbering weight of my own heartfelt invalidation and unworthiness.

Greed Addiction

I believe that the addiction to greed is the most pervasive and least discussed addiction on the planet. If one were to ask 100 people what single thing would improve their lives, the greatest majority would give some form of answer relating to money. Because, for most people, acquiring more money means having more power, more ability to control and manipulate the world, an increased sense of well-being related to an enhanced ownership of material goods and command of services. Usually though, the acquisition of more money is seen or felt to give an increased sense of self-esteem, as if having more money would make one a better person.

An addiction is a sort of self-replicating virus that once set in motion needs no further inducement to replicate. In this it is linked to the idea of ideological hegemony. If one can be induced into believing that a particular action is beneficial (or even self-serving, if not beneficial; or that one deserves to participate or indulge in such an action or substance), then one will repeat it without further induction or reinforcement. In fact, it will likely become self-reinforcing, even if the action or substance may ultimately be viewed as self-destructive or harmful. One will continue to use even if one “objectively” notes the destructiveness; because the addiction is taking place, is living, as it were, on an emotional level. No amount of cogitation or intellectual discourse will ever effect a lasting change. (The intellectual understanding of addiction only makes it more frustrating in some ways because one believes one may [delusionally] believe that one may think one’s way out of it. I use the word “delusionally” purposefully because one may develop a fixed idea that one may think one’s way out when all indicators are to the contrary. Indeed, the intellectual understanding of addictions should rightly only come long after one has successfully stopped the using, and has some relatively long period of abstinence. It is then that the intellectual understanding may become useful in giving a context to what one has already experienced and hopefully begun to integrate.

And what better “business” to be in for a profit-oriented organization (all the way up to and including the corporate state) than one in which one’s adherents willingly consume whatever product they are hooked on, do not question the origin of the addiction itself, and will actually pay money to one in order to maintain it? This is the “perfect plan” that is being executed by the US Government and its ties to large corporations, especially banks. Such horrendous activities as the bailout of the savings and loans in the 1980s and the bailout of the major banks in the 2000’s are just typical examples of the utter bamboozlement and addiction of the American people who have stood still and been raped repeatedly while being told that what is occurring is for “our own good.”

The process of being blinded begins with socialization, wherein one is taught through repeated instruction to abandon one’s own autonomy and put one’s faith in external authority; to vest one’s decision making in the outer, the other; and to forego one’s questioning of authority in order to be further wrapped in the dubious blanket of “security.” One is taught from the very beginning that one’s parents (and other adults) have one’s own best interests in mind – and that one must surrender one’s will and one’s desires, interests and opinions in order to bask in this pseudo-certainly of collective will manifesting through authority figures who represent the system as a whole. It is rarely, if ever, revealed that these seemingly sterling citizens are simply furthering their own self-interests while ostensibly serving as representatives of the “people’s power.” An entire disinformation system (much of it hidden under the aegis of “national security”) has become devoted to convincing people of the massive lies and misinformation being fed to us, in order that we might blindly keep working and feed the system. Meanwhile, the cultural elites bask in ever-greater sunshine and personal resources. These cultural elites further delude themselves in the belief that they have a divine right to rule and control vast resources because they were born to money or power. This is, in fact, the social Darwinist position.


I Am The Gift


I have searched my whole life long for the magical gift
that would change my life irrevocably,
remake my deteriorated interior landscape.

I hoped and prayed many, many times daily, crying out,
my pain horrendous, wanting desperately to transform
the massive depression and despair
I always saw everywhere around me –
yet really and truly never inside of me.

While I constantly screamed, slashed by the thorny lash
of self-flagellation and invalidation,
seeking, always seeking a cosmic relief of some sort,
even the proverbial hand reaching down from the sky
when all I could manage on my own behalf
was vulgar castigation and decrepitude.

But I was the victim! I cried!
I was the injured party! I wailed,
as I retreated into my wounded injured child;
huffing, puffing, and throwing my considerable bulk around,
to the fear and consternation of all who knew me (or not) –
to see this monster raving and pillaging the environment,
seeming bent on their destruction while pursuing really my own,
in small ways that re-enacted the horrors of my childhood enslavement,
in idiosyncratic ways in which I sought safety from the torrential
storms of self-repudiation and destruction raging within my chest
violently seeking release and redemption.

There seemed no antidote for this poisoned imperative –
neither drugs nor sex, not money or therapy.
Not matter how much I seemed to grow,
it was simply more fuel for the fires that burned
constantly out of control within me, nurtured at every turn
by the aching awareness of my inability to ever be enough,
enough for me, enough to feel valuable and worthy and free.

My frequent suicidal ideation interrupted by cosmic interventions,
and driven by a lifelong vision, I persevered –

I had been shown that a different life would one day be mine,
though at the age of eight it was incomprehensible
that I would experience and survive the artifacts of my life;
that I would be standing, perhaps not necessarily upright,
but even if knocked down and severely beaten,
I would get up from the ground and stand again,
ready to take on whatever the next challenges might be –

though part of me always longed to be held and comforted,
taken care of as if still a child, wounded and longing.

I hid this aspect of myself in shame and penury,
so contaminated did I feel that I should not allow these feelings,
and the behaviors they spawned.

I lived in a shadow world, even long after I stopped using drugs;
and made some serious resolutions about my sexual addiction –
though nothing really ever stopped the craving
to be more whole and relatively free,
to be more completely me and face the world with a greater calm,
love and acceptance, seeing in every face some variety of my own suffering;
seeing in every face some divine aspect of my own beingness.

Sunshine appeared one day in the midst of my cloudy daily resignation,
in the form of a man who offered me an opportunity to experience myself
in a brand new way, and lay down my burden of sorrow
by revealing my deepest needs and pain to myself,
witnessed in the loving presence of other men
who would hold a container of strength and courage for me
to let go of all that I had held in shame and isolation.

Not once, but repeatedly,
have these outstanding individuals stood up
and welcomed me into their circles,
greeted me as “Brother” and made known to me
their forthrightness, honor, and strength –
made known to me the depth and breadth of their love and commitment
to utterly transform the darkness that has ruled the hearts
of humanity for these many millennia, “one man at a time.”

I have been well and truly blessed by these amazing men –
yet I must credit my own self for being willing to step up
to receive the blessings and honor they have shown me;
for being willing to find the courage to own my shame,
to let it go, let it show –
to not be ashamed or crushed
by my perceived lack of “manly manness,”
when I am actually elevated to new heights
by the tenderness and sensitivity of my heart;
to a realm where needs and feelings are met when expressed;
honored for honesty and love, the entrance to the gate.

I am blessed and honored far beyond anything I could have imagined,
and I am told, there is yet so much more for me to receive.

I am graced in this magnificent brotherhood,
by men who are as strong and as weak as I –
and unafraid to shed their skins publicly
in order to open to the new life coming for us all;
to embrace that new self, that is the birthright of us all,

freed of lies and conflicts, obscured by eons of deception and illusion,
hidden by seeming need and necessity,
at the behest and demanding mandates of machine culture –

NOW being systematically freed by men
throwing off the shackles of aberrant conditioning,
and stating in a clear, strong voice, one and all:

“I Am The Gift.”

I am the gift I have always sought,
a precious treasure locked in my heart of hearts all along,
hidden from my view by obsolete necessities,
buried beneath the rubbish of violence and restraint
out of fear and the shame of being seen for I am,
now I am unarmored after lifetimes of fighting and war,
both within and without –

“I Am The Gift.”


April 24-25, 2010
Camp Wa-Ri-Ki
Washougal, Washington

April 26, 2010
Manzanita, Oregon