{"id":77363,"date":"2014-06-14T08:17:23","date_gmt":"2014-06-14T12:17:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/?p=77363"},"modified":"2014-06-14T11:04:51","modified_gmt":"2014-06-14T15:04:51","slug":"glimpsing-a-clear-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/by-judith-gayle-2\/glimpsing-a-clear-day\/","title":{"rendered":"Glimpsing A Clear Day"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Judith Gayle | Political Waves<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

On a clear day
\nrise and look around you
\nand you’ll see who you are.<\/p>\n

On a clear day
\nhow it will astound you
\nthat the glow of your being
\noutshines every star.<\/p>\n

From\u00a0the movie<\/a>\u00a0On A Clear Day You Can See Forever<\/em><\/p>\n

Lyric by Alan Jay Lerner<\/em><\/p>\n

\"PoliticalI’m writing this\u00a0on Friday\u00a0the 13th, wondering if\u00a0the shock wave<\/a>\u00a0from the three X-class solar flares that erupted from the sun earlier in the week will disrupt either my work day or my entire life. That, and the Full Moon that’s only a few minutes off my natal Mercury at 22 Sagittarius, activating what I call the Family Karma, as my two kids are closely linked to that configuration. Proving — as in bread rising, experiments confirmed — the echo of past as present, cycles repeating and returning, the shocks and surprises of the last few weeks have reopened a dire wound that occurred in our lives thirty years ago this April. Moldy-oldies in the family fridge, revisited. So just call me Dances With Centaurs, galloping forward with my arrows aimed at the stars, hooves kicking up dust of an old karmic occurrence and awaiting my moment of clarity.<\/p>\n

As weeks go, it all went to hell quickly, didn’t it? And just when everything was beginning to look up. Well, except for the religious schisms exploding into Iraq’s inevitable civil war and the Pottery Barn contract we signed in American blood and treasure that makes it nearly impossible to let well enough alone. Bless Obama for calling this Maliki’s problem and declaring it regional, although we will likely try to prevent Iraq from becoming another Syria, destabilizing the area further. So damn him, then, if you must, for sending the carrier, U.S. George H. W. Bush, on its way toward the gulf, capable of shelling and providing armed support, although Obama assures us no Americans will be deployed. And oh-my-goodness, the George H. W. Bush? That stirs some echoes, doesn’t it?<\/p>\n

Question of moment: What If? What if Saddam hadn’t threatened to kill Poppy Bush? What if George W. hadn’t taken umbrage to pull support from trouncing the Taliban for harboring militants, and start Bush War II? What if we’d left the ONLY secular country in the Middle East alone and let the heavy-handed thug that ruled the country keep out the infamous Al Qaeda? Clearly, if we’d brought an international policing effort on terrorism to bear instead of playing out the delusional nonsense of superiority, vengeance and lust for power we call warfare, the\u00a0Islamic State in Iraq and Syria<\/a>\u00a0(ISIS, ironically, putting old hatreds back together again) wouldn’t have found the dry tinder of religious suppression to blow into flame. This is a group so extreme that even Al Qaeda, now entrenched in Saddam’s Iraq, wants nothing to do with them.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

And what if, as the end of that occupation drew near, the Powers That Be had listened to funny old pratfall-and-Bozo-nose Joe Biden, who insisted that a three-way split of territory between the Sunni, Shiite and Kurds was the only way to prevent further conflagration? But, since that was so laughable, so absurd, flying in the face of deluded hopes that the American presence in Iraq would continue to make the billion-dollar investment in the world’s largest embassy worthwhile, the Petraeus surge that brought stability to the region was left in the hands of those who had no interest in sustaining it.<\/p>\n

Do allow me to stop here and blow a large, wet raspberry at George W. Bush, blithely painting pictures of himself in the bathroom today while the ‘democracy’ he and his Neocons established in Baghdad strips off its uniform and runs for the hills. In defense of the 30,000 Iraqi\u00a0soldiers who cut and ran<\/a>\u00a0in the face of 800 ISIS rebels, the average Iraqi argues they don’t have a dog in this fight and little or nothing to die for in defense of Malaki’s government, which has failed to bring Sunnis and Kurds under the national umbrella, and has instead punished them whenever possible. That Iran has sent in some of their elite Guard to help with defense against the jihadists shows that Maliki, in calling upon the U.S. for assistance, is playing both sides without a clear political vision other than saving his ass. Sounds like more quagmire, doesn’t it?<\/p>\n

Some have called this situation Vietnam 2.0, and if we get our foot too far into this sticky mess, having just recently pulled it out, perhaps we’ll actually see some of that 60s protest we yearn for. Some, but not all. That protest came along with burning selective service cards and American flags; with a university system that encouraged dissent and confrontation, that valued independent thinking and disapproved imperialism. It came with a fiery passion to bring forth a more tolerant, expansive future, but we didn’t finish the job when we let Nixon — ultimately, poster boy for the corruption of the political class — off the hook. And, although the 60s fostered enormous change in our social outlook, courtesy of the Pluto\/Uranus energies that reframe our evolution every forty or so years, it also brought us a generation of disillusioned young men returned home with broken bodies and dreams.<\/p>\n

It also brought us a glaring hole in our unexplored American presumptions, a chink in the armor of our mythology of untarnished heroism: America is exceptional — except when it isn’t. It wasn’t exceptional in\u00a0My Lai in 1968 when Americans<\/a> murdered everyone in sight. We weren’t exceptional in Danang in 1975, lifting off in choppers and leaving behind so many that had allied themselves with our shifting priorities.<\/p>\n

And while we’re at it, let’s explore the\u00a0Veteran’s Affairs scandal<\/a>\u00a0of 1970 to see how long the political class has dragged its feet, snowing its citizens with timely spurts of outraged rhetoric along with chronic inaction. We can all be pleased that the Sanders\/McCain Act has passed through Congress without a murmur, hopefully bringing relief to the hundreds of thousands of veterans anxious for medical services, but let’s not kid ourselves that this latest ‘scandal’ was anything new. Starting post-Revolutionary War, this nation has a history of chewing up those who defend it and spitting them out. When it comes to rewarding those who sacrifice, we’re extremely unexceptional. period. end. of. topic.<\/p>\n

But that was an earlier time. Now, post BushWar II, all we’ve got are the broken bodies and dreams, and a case of war weariness that has pushed us closer to the isolationism favored by Libertarians. Our universities have been reduced to great black holes of commercialism and mundanity, our wars are being fought by an underclass of kids turned military professionals with few dreams more altruistic than a sustainable career and paycheck. Meanwhile, the remarkable music of a generation of visionaries — the music that inspired and compelled and revealed us to ourselves — has been reduced to the stuff of PBS specials. Like the disillusioned Iraqis, a lot of us look at our government now and wonder if fighting to right these wrongs would provide a payoff worth the struggle.<\/p>\n

Still, we’d made a bit of progress these last few weeks; things had begun to look up. Well, except for the wing-nuts doing a victory dance on the bones of dickish arch-obstructionist and House Leader, Eric Cantor, whose primarying has ousted the last non-Christian in the House of Representatives along with any hope of moderation from a Grand Old Party nearly paralyzed with fear of its own. The House is now almost fully Franken-fascist, the mindless creation of religious paranoia, self-centered fiscal policy, and cultural littleness put forth by think-tank Republicans of an earlier era, their experiment gone out of control and biting back. Looks like we’ll be getting a closer look at what the anti-science movement has wrought, making a case for educational reform that hopefully has more ethical merit and intellectual substance than that proposed by big-check-writer, Bill Gates.<\/p>\n

And really, those working for the good of the people were catching some headwind, except for the terrifying delusions of gun-wielding, anti-government radicals that haven’t changed their whiny little song since Tad Lincoln sat on his daddy’s knee in the Oval Office. Those delusions brought a pair of dissidents out of the woodwork in Las Vegas this week, pushing a shopping cart loaded with guns and ammo up the street for miles — unnoticed, they say, by all those who have become inured to this kind of thing — until finding a resting spot at Wal-Mart. There, high on white supremacy and anti-government and liberty from tyranny and any number of other selfish, fearful viruses that attack the human brain when improperly nurtured, educated and\/or medicated, they killed a couple of young policemen having lunch.<\/p>\n

Like ISIS, too rage-filled and radical for Al Qaeda, this self-destructive couple were thrown out of the Bundy encampment, where it’s said that the young man, Jarod, sobbed like a baby at his ouster. When even your own don’t want you, there is only nihilism left, which might explain the eventual suicide of this pair, but truly, this particular brand of low-level tribalism has plenty of acolytes. It wasn’t that long ago that a similar type went on a rampage here in Kansas City, going after Jews and killing three Christian bystanders, proving his racist bona fides<\/em> to those of his tribe that questioned his devotion to white power. And because these folks are Caucasian, remember not to call them terrorists; we save that distinction for people of color.<\/p>\n

So here we are, cycles within cycles, configured to take us through these painful stumbles and seemingly useless baby steps\u00a0to our constant sorrow, and yet\u00a0the truth is that things change, they really do, but so slowly that it’s difficult to notice. In the 60s, on the other side of the clash of civilization those on the right thought would unleash Armageddon, we came out of the tunnel with a new way to see the world, a growing tolerance and freer\u00a0social manifesto, but sadly, a loss of innocence that became rock-hard cynicism by the time Nixon was forced out of the White House. It was THAT changeling America that authored our problems today, that fostered the push-back from St. Ronnie the Reagan, and later, the\u00a0racism-inspired movement<\/a>\u00a0that became the Moral Majority. Boomers had pushed the nation left, leaving\u00a0conservatives to scramble to secure a hold on the neck of the working class, but because enough is never enough, what they gained then they’re in danger of losing\u00a0again.<\/p>\n

Today, the spirit of rebellion has shifted to those on the right, scared spitless that the burgeoning left — the blacks, Latinos, gays, socialists,\u00a0 pagans, and ahem<\/em>, the astrologers — will wrestle their dwindling power from them, and unless they learn how to yield, to collaborate, to get their needs met, they have every right to be frightened. The nation is leaning left, caught in another clash of civilization that will take us through the tunnel and deposit us on the other side.<\/p>\n

Armageddon has turned into the Zombie Apocalypse, and our cynicism has gripped us with a lethargy we must work to overcome, but be assured, history is not on the side of those who will not change. If we cannot flex, we cannot hope to survive, which is why the life-cycle of the average human works so well to push our cultural evolution forward. And those who fight modernity, it should be noted, are dropping like flies, unable — perhaps unwilling — to make their way into the spiraling energy of a new era.<\/p>\n

If we need to be impressed with the enormity of this moment, it’s worthwhile to confirm that our energy is being influenced by the Galactic Core, imprinting us with signals that we can receive if we are willing to open ourselves to all things profound. And from a behavioral point of view, we’ve been given so many opportunities to decide who we don’t want to become, haven’t we?<\/p>\n

The collection of poster children we’ve reviewed in recent years is not a rogue’s gallery of devolution so much as a series of cautionary tales that take us on a review of the darker experiences we no longer wish to feed within humanity. And there is no doubt that on the other side of this tunnel we’re in, we will be changed. What we do with that today — and\u00a0tomorrow, and the next day — will define the behaviors we will have welcomed as worthwhile, those we have outgrown put behind us and replaced by, one hopes, more workable models of behavior and compassion for one another.<\/p>\n

And, seriously, on a clear day …<\/p>\n

You’ll feel part of<\/p>\n

Every mountain, sea and shore,<\/p>\n

You can hear from far and near<\/p>\n

A world you’ve never never heard before<\/p>\n

And on a clear day<\/p>\n

On a clear day<\/p>\n

You can see forever and ever and ever and ever more.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

On a clear day, we can see so much more than we imagine. The 1970 musical noted at the top of the page has long been a favorite, not just because I was a Streisand-o-file long before she became famous, but because watching it now reminds me how far we’ve come, as well as how little the vital core of humanity has changed. Open the link to check it out. It’s corny and wonderful and breathtaking, reminiscent of simpler times and social experiments. New Yorkers will enjoy the scenery, those into retro will love the lush costumes, and mystics will get the reincarnation story, loud and clear. And me, I ever and always appreciate a song with a singable lyric and lovely tune, one that opens my heart just a bit more.<\/p>\n

“On A Clear Day”<\/em>\u00a0can do that for me, stretch my smaller sight into an awareness of timelessness. Life is longer than we know, and we’re not hostage to it, we ARE it. In fact, as I steep in the karmic soup of my current circumstance, this is the very awareness that made healing possible for me. With old wounds\u00a0long ago put to rest and now respectfully remembered and appreciated as the further adventure of my soul signature, what almost killed me made me stronger. And bolder. And more aware. And set me on a path of forgiveness. Thirty years! How time flies and what an amazing universe we all share when we allow unconditional love to lead the way!<\/p>\n

With Pholus and Ixion and Chiron shooting arrows all around, do let’s be mindful of our attitudes this weekend. Be peace if that is what you wish to experience — the premise is simple, but its fulfillment requires practice. A Full Moon\u00a0on Friday\u00a0the 13th won’t happen for another 35 years, by the way, so if you’re among the handful of humans not spinning out into the ethers with this heady energy, at least give Luna a nod for yet another extraordinary\u00a0show and admire her luminous, rotund self.<\/p>\n

And because I’m as fond of fathers as I am of mothers, let me wish those of you that fit that description a very happy Father’s Day. May\u00a0your children bless you, and your children’s children. May these days bring us healing, and may we all find our way forward with an open and forgiving heart.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Judith Gayle | Political Waves On a clear day rise and look around you and you’ll see who you are. On a clear day how it will astound you that the glow of your being outshines every star. From\u00a0the movie\u00a0On A Clear Day You Can See Forever Lyric by Alan Jay Lerner I’m writing … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"generate_page_header":""},"categories":[1744],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77363"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=77363"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77363\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=77363"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=77363"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=77363"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}