Smells, sights and sounds fill childhood until Reason appears and darkness descends.

In the greatest confusion there is still an open channel to the soul. It may be difficult to find because by midlife it is overgrown, and some of the wildest thickets that surround it grow out of what we describe as our education*. But the channel is always there, and it is our business to keep it open, to have access to the deepest part of ourselves.

Yes, but… we don’t have a soul… we are Souls. We have bodies.

In fact, we can look at ourselves from a vantage point that’s even beyond that radical notion.

A person is neither a thing nor a process but an opening through which the Absolute can manifest.

We all carry within us our places of exile, our crimes, and our ravages. But our task is not to unleash them on the world; it is to fight them in ourselves and in others.

*Our formal education is ALL wrong. Let’s put the Arts aside for the moment, and focus on Science, the disciplines which form the core curricula just about everywhere… pushing artistic inclinations, interests (with respect for wildness and singularity) to the periphery of educational experience.

The origin of modern science in the 16th and 17th centuries corresponds with the origins of modern capitalism and the industrial system. From the beginning, the worldview and methods of science have fit in perfectly with the need of the capitalist social system to dominate nature and the vast majority of human beings. Francis Bacon made it clear that science was not an attempt to understand nature as it is, but to dominate it in order to twist it to the ends of humanity — in this case meaning current rulers of the social order. In this light, science must necessarily be subjected to social analysis by anyone claiming to call the present social reality into question.

Science is not simply a matter of observing the world — as it is taught in our educational institutions — excitedly experimenting with its elements and drawing reasonable conclusions. Otherwise, we would have to recognize children, so-called primitives and a good many animals as excellent scientists. Nay, even our most prestigious “schools” are modeled on a Prussian paradigm which most prizes conformity (a model which I would be honored to elaborate on upon request); for now let us just say that for all formal education’s obvious pluses, submission to authority and acclimatization to accepted societal routines are always the goals of schooling.

A word of warning: To those who haven’t picked up on our “society” NOT being threatened by your individualism or external evil, let me underscore that “society” can be understood as those who have the power to make decisions. Individuals only act as part of society to the extent that they submit to existent social conditions, and possibly try to influence those who hold positions of power. Anything else — who you are? — is not allowed to go very far.

I am most interested in those who have a deep, unpopular bond with their own mortality… and those who are suffering unnecessarily, incessantly. And singular artists. Children at heart with hearts on sleeves. Those who know in their bones that something’s heartrendingly wrong, and could/must be much better.

That’s why I’d like you to contact me. I do have a potentially earthshaking plan. It is only one of many possibilities, and I am not attached to it. It is touched upon here merely to reinforce the notion that a new paradigm for protest is not only necessary, but possible.

If you register to vote in the State of California, and vote for me as a write-in candidate for Governor in 2010 (with no party affiliation)… we could have a monumental impact on the planet… even if I lose by several million votes. That is, if a write-in candidate for the Seat in Sacramento garners, say, only a million votes (or anything remotely close to that) without any media support/prep (no campaigning making our accomplishment a total surprise!) and without spending a dime… only those completely bereft of imagination will fail to see the historic significance and potential for helping the public to self-educate, for us to demand (and get a lot of) change in our lives.

It wouldn’t/shouldn’t matter if you and I disagree on many fundamental issues. Not at all. The gangsters and incompetents who rule — different major candidates only telling different lies, not acknowledging the urgent need for authenticity and meaningful action — make it so that almost anyone could do an infinitely better job on virtually all counts… by simply having the spotlight that would come from having wrought a failing but miraculous effort/accomplishment in the electoral arena

What’s truly unprecedented gets lasting mileage.

It would be the beginning of the end of so much sickness that surrounds, envelops us.

Talk to me about what healthy steps we could take together for just ten minutes of your time.

Blessings in solidarity

Contact me at headburg@yahoo.com.
In our darkness, there is not a place for beauty. Every place is for beauty.
http://oxtogrind.org/archive/299 might be good supplementary reading for the above.