{"id":77487,"date":"2014-06-21T08:17:40","date_gmt":"2014-06-21T12:17:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/?p=77487"},"modified":"2014-06-21T14:07:15","modified_gmt":"2014-06-21T18:07:15","slug":"farther-down-the-road","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/by-judith-gayle-2\/farther-down-the-road\/","title":{"rendered":"Farther Down The Road"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

I like to watch Charlie Rose on PBS, not because I’m a big Rose fan but because — in this age of sound bites, tweets and wall-pinning — one becomes privy to a full, hopefully in-depth conversation. Or mostly, anyhow. I feel the same way about Charlie as I did about Phil Donahue, back in the day: he’s really good at what he does until he hits his own personal wall of understanding, and then we’re all blocked from moving farther down the road. Because I’ve always been eager for that bit of conversation on the other side of the roadblock, I’ve been known to disturb fellow watchers by upbraiding the host at length when that gate swings shut.<\/p>\n

\"PoliticalThis week Rose interviewed Kenneth Branagh on the final days of his production of\u00a0MacBeth<\/em>\u00a0at the Park Avenue Armory in New York.\u00a0MacBeth<\/em>, like\u00a0King Lear<\/em>, is one of those epic plays that serious actors must mature into and Branagh and his Lady MacBeth, Alex Kingston, spoke to that issue, as well as their feeling that their characters aren’t so evil as they are passionate players at life and love, caught up in an epic mistake (murder) for which their guilt and regret ultimately destroy them.<\/p>\n

As Joseph Campbell put it, \u201cRegrets are illuminations come too late.\u201d Key words: too late. Makes for a messy end. That’s a very nuanced reading of the Shakespearean classic, more often portraying MacBeth and his Lady as ambitious, conniving and unredeemedly villainous. No denying the couple were killers and, yes, they paid the price in madness and death. Probably the reason that even during those repressive periods of history in which Shakespeare fell out of fashion, the church approved\u00a0MacBeth<\/em>\u00a0as a “morality play” that aligned with it’s own notions of sin and the sure punishment of the Almighty.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

I’m inclined to agree with Sir Kenneth, although Rose had to poke around the concept of this infamous fictional couple as victims of their own flawed desire, looking for easy entry into an alternate psychology (he never quite accomplished.) Indeed, Lady MacBeth’s famous “out damned spot” soliloquy shows a capacity for self-reflection missing in the purely sociopathic, reducing her from the Elizabethan equivalent of Cruella de Vil, bent on skinning puppies for the sheer pleasure of adornment, to a merely flawed human creature for whom redemption is possible.<\/p>\n

Too bad our own collection of villains — Dick Cheney, Paul Bremer, Doug Feith, Paul Wolfowitz, Tony Blair, and others including he who fancies himself a maverick and former Iraqi ex-pat, Ahmed Chalabi, who wooed a too-willing Dubya into thinking the Iraqis were counting the minutes until Shock ‘n Awe — aren’t similarly impacted by their previous errors in judgment. Me, I’d like to see a bit of hand-wringing about now. So would Truthout’s\u00a0Will Pitt<\/a>, who finds the attempt to pin culpability for Iraq’s devolvement on Obama an infuriating example of Republican pathology, with no cure in sight.<\/p>\n

Cheney in particular has caught the public eye, not for his unsurprising disapproval of Obama’s foreign policy — calling the Prez both treasonous and a fool — but for his dogged denial of culpability during the Bush years, and now. He and his daughter (who seems about the last of his unquestioning supporters) have birthed a group called The Alliance for a Strong America, pitching U.S. vulnerability since we are no longer stomping across the face of the planet like a rogue elephant.<\/p>\n

The Alliance considers itself a “mission to educate and advocate for the policies needed to restore American preeminence and power in the world.” You can\u00a0watch Uncle Dick here<\/a>, forced to present his newest idea on YouTube (to flagging interest, with a mere 62,000+ hits. Wrestling kittens get a bigger audience. And why, I wonder, have comments been disabled?) Evidently, preeminence and power ain’t what they used to be.<\/p>\n

In tandem with his group’s roll-out, our former Machiavellian Veep gave us this clever quote in a recent Wall Street Journal op-ed, regarding Obama’s foreign policy: “Rarely has a U.S. president been so wrong about so much at the expense of so many.” This from the man who told us the decade-long, trillion-dollar war in Iraq would likely be over in “weeks, not months.”<\/p>\n

A few days later, asked about Cheney’s blunt criticism, and in response to that quote, retiring press secretary Jay Carney finished his tenure by delivering the best line of the century, thus far: “Which president was he talking about?” I have obviously under-appreciated Mr. Carney. There was laughter at the quip, but I believe it deserved, at minimum, a standing ovation!<\/p>\n

Harry Reid, referring to everyone’s least favorite Dick as the ‘architect of the Iraq war,’ told Congress, “The wrong side of Dick Cheney is the right side of history,” and even FOX News’ Megyn\u00a0Kelly confronted Cheney<\/a>\u00a0on his glaring mispronouncements during BushWarII, a somewhat combative exchange. Dick can’t get no respect these days. Final nail in the coffin? Glenn Beck told his audience that Liberals were right about the war.<\/p>\n

Can’t you just hear Cheney’s private thoughts with so little apparent support, and after all he’s done for this ungrateful nation? “Oh, sharper than a serpent’s tooth ….” Whoops! Hold on, that’s\u00a0King Lear<\/em>. Gotta wait another decade for that level of regret and breast-beating, if ever. And since privilege got Cheney a nice new heart to wait it out with, he’ll probably outlive us all. If God\/dess is good, some day that stranger’s heart will ask him to rethink his position. But us, you and me? We can ‘t wait that long.<\/p>\n

Thanks to the Libertarian leanings of the Baggers, who value isolationism almost as much as gun rights, no one seems overly eager to engage further American blood or treasure in a country reluctant to deal with its internal strife. That holds true in Iraq AND Afghanistan, where the billions spent to train a fighting force seem money down the drain. Still, there will be a vote soon in the House about the viability of sending in combat troops to a war theatre considered ‘won,’ and that requires our making our wishes plain to lawmakers. Far fewer will vote for such an action this time around, but we can’t take a chance that group-think from yesteryear wins the day!\u00a0Write a quick note<\/a>\u00a0to your legislators. Let them know where you stand!<\/p>\n

I suspect that those hearing the internal political details of this Middle Eastern dilemma will be impressed with its seriousness, and surely they’ll be cautioned that the concerns of ‘American interests’ are at stake. If that doesn’t set off nuanced yellow flashers for the average citizen, by the way, then s\/he hasn’t connected all the dots. American interests usually involve quashing those of others, a legacy of our faltering colonialism and lately masked as a desire to liberate everyone from any political construct unlike our own — and for their own good, or so we tell one another.<\/p>\n

It’s also clear that Obama is caught between a rock and a hard spot in his role, as Will Pitt has it, of First Mate handed the wheel to the Titanic AFTER hitting the iceberg. Besides considering the use of missiles and drones, he has sent in 300 U.S. advisers to help out. This is, as usual, a misnomer of the first water. The 300 are Navy SEALs, Army Rangers and other high ranking officers, essentially an elite fighting force. Some are finishing up the removal of those in danger at our Vatican-sized embassy, but I’d bet money they’re preparing for Malaki to step down — or BE stepped down — in favor of someone less polarizing. The obvious vacuum of power in this sectarian throw-down begs something or someone to come rushing in. Whoever that turns out to be, we can’t allow it to be us!<\/p>\n

Populist House member Alan Grayson recently sent out a memo in support of two amendments to the defense spending bill proposed by\u00a0Representative Barbara Lee<\/a>. If I’d stayed blooming where I was planted, she would be my representative now and that makes me proud of my home town. Lee was the only person not to vote approval for Bush’s Authorization for the Use of Military Force way back when, and this week she offered defense amendments defunding further military action in Iraq. She continues to stump for peace, despite the conflicted nature of our times: these remarkable times that are as full of Joseph Campbell’s archetypes as any Shakespearian play.<\/p>\n

Like Michelangelo, Tesla and Einstein, it’s said that Shakespeare wasn’t “one of us,” in the mortal sense. These souls brought impressive other-dimensional credentials into this lifetime of which we, and perhaps even they, were unaware. They thought outside of the box, and their legacy of revelation and societal revolution invites us to do the same. They were moved to risk, to experiment, to push past the comfort of tradition. Their level of creativity could be compared to meditation: time folded, concepts blazing with Light and possibility, following their bliss.<\/p>\n

Joseph Campbell was such a one, when he told us:<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you do follow your bliss you put yourself on a kind of track that has been there all the while, waiting for you, and the life that you ought to be living is the one you are living. Follow your bliss and don’t be afraid, and doors will open where you didn’t know they were going to be.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

That bliss comes with an added awareness not of the little self, but the larger Self. It understands its place within the whole, to both create and advocate — able to walk and chew gum at the same time — because the bigger picture compels us to act within the flow of life on a multidimensional level. Said Campbell, \u201cWe’re not on our journey to save the world but to save ourselves. But in doing that you save the world. The influence of a vital person vitalizes.\u201d We need only taste a little of that in order to realize that our path lies in the same direction.<\/p>\n

Marianne Williamson recently lost her bid as representative for California’s 33rd District. Within days she had returned to her earlier responsibilities as a motivational speaker and spiritual advocate. She wrote a piece for Huffington that spoke to her experience, the implications of her branding as a ‘spiritual guru’ and a few days later, put out another at Common dreams titled\u00a0“War, Iraq, Enlightenment.”<\/a>\u00a0I take some pleasure in these reads because she inevitably goes farther down that road of possibility, pushing past the shut gate of mundanity, of unwilling minds and closed hearts, to enter the rarified air of untapped possibility.<\/p>\n

Williamson asserts that we have come to that place where the gate is swinging open and asks if we’re willing to take our journey farther down the road. Those who complain that faith-based actions don’t get us where we want to go need to re-think what faith is about. How far have non-faith-based actions taken us, I wonder? We’re going to put our faith in something, why not the infinite? Why not the extraordinary, the spontaneous, the remarkable?<\/p>\n

We won’t find that highly-charged unified field in discussion of the mundanities, my dears, nor in the experience of conflict, not that we can pretend those things aren’t part of our daily life and consciousness. It’s a constant challenge to honor our Higher Self and our ability to connect with heart-energy while living in a world steeped in the dark remainder of 3D conflict. We’ve had plenty of experience there, haven’t we? The first years of this century were an unexpected lesson in polarization, in losing balance, and consequently, losing our way. Life isn’t black\/white, it isn’t either\/or. It’s both\/and. It’s All That Is.<\/p>\n

Our continuing journey of polarization has only just begun. We need to be constantly on guard to maintain balance, personal and political. Williamson gives us five principles for spiritual activism:<\/p>\n

l) Atone in your heart for your own warlike nature \u2013 any thoughts or behavior of judgment or attack — and seek to change your life where necessary.<\/p>\n

2) Spend at least five minutes a day in prayer or meditation, knowing you are part of a global field of consciousness at work on the inner planes to bring about world peace.<\/p>\n

3) Seek to organize your own community of like-minded individuals to join you in prayer or meditation groups for world peace.<\/p>\n

4) If it applies, atone with others for the behavior of your country if it has in the past, or is now, participating in unjust military activity.<\/p>\n

5) Practice mercy and compassion towards yourself and others, particularly resisting any temptation to monitor someone else\u2019s journey rather than your own.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

As much as we think it’s THEM — over there — responsible for all this conflict, it starts with us, it ends with us. The opposite poles that define love and war live within each of us, swinging wildly if we aren’t aware of our internal process and thought system. If we want to change that, we have to change ourselves.<\/p>\n

Campbell puts it this way: \u201cInstead of clearing his own heart the zealot tries to clear the world.\u201d We’ve seen a lot of that lately, haven’t we?\u00a0 A Course in Miracles <\/em>puts it similarly: “God is very quiet, for there is no conflict in Him.”<\/p>\n

Campbell’s “hero’s path” asks us to devote ourselves to something larger than ourselves if we are to find fulfillment. And as he advised us, in\u00a0The Power of the Myth<\/em><\/em>:<\/p>\n

\u201cShakespeare said that art is a mirror held up to nature. And that\u2019s what it is. The nature is your nature, and all of these wonderful poetic images of mythology are referring to something in you. When your mind is trapped by the image out there so that you never make the reference to yourself, you have misread the image.<\/p>\n

The inner world is the world of your requirements and your energies and your structure and your possibilities that meets the outer world. And the outer world is the field of your incarnation. That\u2019s where you are. You\u2019ve got to keep both going. As Novalis said, ‘The seat of the soul is there where the inner and outer worlds meet.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It’s solstice, and it tugs at us to remember who we are. Even as we long to throw ourselves into the deep Cancerian waters of feeling, it’s d\u00e9j\u00e0 vu all over again in our heads, the logic and persuasion of competing opinion trying to trap us in repeating cycles that, lately,\u00a0speak with Dick Cheney’s voice and John McCain’s convoluted rhetoric.<\/p>\n

Let’s not forget that when we act from our authentic selves, the wind comes up to meet our wings, changing not just our trajectory but our destination. All the great ones tell us we’re not alone, we’re a part of the whole. This is a day to push farther down the road, to see what we can find — within and without — to bring peaceful change and wholeness into our awakening world.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Judith Gayle | Political Waves I like to watch Charlie Rose on PBS, not because I’m a big Rose fan but because — in this age of sound bites, tweets and wall-pinning — one becomes privy to a full, hopefully in-depth conversation. Or mostly, anyhow. I feel the same way about Charlie as I … 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\/77487"}],"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=77487"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77487\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=77487"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=77487"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=77487"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}