The New All-American, Green, Vegan, Good-Karma Breakfast.

Simmer Oats in a saucepan for 15 minutes on low heat. (follow directions on box).
When cooked, stir in 1/4 cup of hemp milk (well-shaken)
Add 3 tablespoons hemp seed and 3 tablespoons flax seed.
Stir and add 1 tablespoon honey and 1 teaspoon raw brown sugar.

Bring 2 cups of water to a brisk boil.
Pour into a 1 pint ceramic cup.
Add Camomile tea bag.
After steeping, add 1/3rd cup hemp milk and 1 tablespoon honey
Stir.

Add 1 teaspoon of Vitamineral green to 3 ounces of water and stir well.

Wash one medium size apple.
Drink the vitamineral green and eat the oatmeal.
When you finish the oatmeal, drink your tea leisurely.
Then, on your way out the door, put the apple in your coat pocket.
Once you lock your house, take the apple out of your pocket and eat it on your way to work.

You just had the new all-american, green, vegan, good-karma breakfast.

The Old Testament & The New Testament

Today I had the opportunity to talk to a sister who reads the bible daily both old testament and new.
She said some interesting things when I asked what she got out of the old testament.

"The old testament is about a vengeful God. He created man to be loved and obeyed, but man was not capable of doing that. So he became a vengeful God. He realized that man was not capable of living up to his expectations especially with the devil left to do his thing. So that's where Jesus came in. Jesus represented a chance. It was God giving man a way out. Knowing he could not follow his will, he gave us Jesus, for if we could accept him, as a man, then man could find salvation."
"Jesus was perfect, but a man, but perfect as the son of God. The thing he did that no other human could do, was follow God's will. he lived in God and followed God. he knew that he was going to die and be on the cross and three times (in the book of John), when he's in the garden, he tells God he doesn't want to go through with the plan."
"There are so many messages in this. God's son was forsaken, tried, convicted, beaten and crucified. So there is no one who suffers, no one who is lowly or forlorn or forsaken, where God does not love or see. How can anyone suffer and feel that they are forsaken, when God's own son and our savior suffered as much as any being?"

This last point resonated with me, having read Uncle Tom's Cabin. Harriet Beecher Stowe makes a clear reference to God in the person of Uncle Tom. his ruthless beating, his refusal to "repent" for that which is against his principles, and the acceptance of his fate and forgiveness of his persecutors, even the conversion of his persecutors from the power of witnessing his quiet suffering and the power of his faith.

My experience with reading the old testament has been pretty disappointing. Yes, there are some good passages, and it's an interesting history, but I have found it generally to be devoid of much religion. It is more, in my mind a cultural document and an interesting living history of the evolution of religious ideas and the reinterpretation of mythology as religion.

It's beautiful to hear personal stories of faith, just as it is beautiful to hear personal stories of any human experience.

For me, Christianity is much like the moon. This huge undeniable, indelible image and reality within our lives that forever remains as a enigma, except for those fleeting moments when either by faith, or transcendence, the truth and beauty shines through.

One day, I will come to love and accept Christ fully. Not Jesus Christ. Not the Catholic Christ, but the Christ of Slave Row. The Christ of the lowly and forlorn. The Christ of Faith and Salvation. The Christ of the meek, of the last. The Christ of God.

The Irony of Uncle Tom.

Boy, Uncle Tom's Cabin has really gotten a bad rap.

Many Black folks cringe when the subject is brought up.
Not to say that Black folks are so literary, whether they hail from the Ivy league or the ghetto, that their taste for fiction has lead to a unanimity in distaste for the 19th century work.
Far from that. The main ingredient in their taste is the name of the book and it's connotation to kow-towing Blacks.

I can speak personally about that same feeling for it resided within me.
I've always been hesitant about the book.
As an analogy, it's as if I had never tasted honey and for the first time, I stood by a beehive in a net mask, as angry bees buzzed and attempted to sting and kill me, as a tender pulled honeycomb from deep within the bowls of the insects lair and then implored me to taste the golden sap of the bees vomitus.
Well, taste I have, and I love it.
Harriet Beecher Stowe's book is much the same.
What on the surface may appear, sound like and feel racist, is but the most sweet delicacy of thought and exposition.

I never really understood the role of Uncle Tom's Cabin on the history of the United States.
It was always included in discussions of abolitionist movements, and as a seminal piece, but the impression formed within my mind was that this novel was blaxploitation, and that it's success was, rooted in the same vein as minstrel shows, stepin fetchit, hattie mcdaniel, bill bojangles robinson and a host of other negative depictions of Blacks.
Seeing drawings from the book, or posters, they were all in a manner of Black supplication to Whites.
Uncle Tom is often pictured with a young white girl, much the same as "Uncle Remus"
And there you have it. The old, aged, supplicating, Black slave, and the golden, beautiful flower of humanity, White girl.
There is much more to the relationship, but just as a picture tells a thousand words, the words of love and love of Christ were not words told in that picture.

The folks who have damned Uncle Tom, could have chosen another character to hold forth as a champion of the novel. They could have chosen Eliza's husband George.
Light skinned from several generations of plantation rape and sexual exploitation of Black women,
George was proud, held himself in a princely manner, was intelligent, industrious, proud and willing to fight to the death in order to achieve his freedom. A man who once he got his freedom, he relocated to France with his family and earned a College education. Then returned to America with his family before heading off to Liberia to take part in the great experiment of creating a free, new and world recognized nation and home to a new generation of Black power and self-sufficiency. This man was a production of Harriet Beecher Stowe's immense faculties, and he was a model for the future coming of Frederick Douglas, W.E.B. DuBois, A. Philip Randolph, Marcus Garvey, Paul Robeson, Robert F. Williams, E.D. Nixon, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King and Huey Newton.

And yet in this, many Blacks could find fault. For his light skin would be seen as a commentary on his intelligence and worth, despite the fact that George himself states his own wish that he were "two shades darker, rather than another shade lighter". A man who was Black, suffered as a Black and was proud and loving of his Blackness. Yet in this character, Stowe did not use him to comment on in-race hierarchies. He was a man, complete and whole and an undeniable product of years of the parallel track of sexual bondage and sex trade of Black women that sat squarely and equally protected within the evils of Slavery itself. how many Blacks in the south, after 200 years of rape and sexual exploitation, did not have White blood? Was there not much debate about the "percentage" of blood that made one Black? 1/32nd Black was "Black" that's if you had a single Black great-great-great-great-grandfather... And bottom line, if your mother was "Black" it made no difference, you were a slave. Surely there were probably many children that were so white in appearance, that it would have been "unconscionable" to place them in the field among those that look obviously Black. but such occasions were rare. There are more than a handful of U.S. Presidents that have had offspring with Black mothers and it is alleged that 5 U.S. Presidents (not counting Barack Obama) were African Americans.

And so race, is the history of the United States.

I assumed that the books popularity and oblique role in abolitionism was in perhaps the anger and rage it caused within abolitionist.
I didn't understand it fully.

My curiosity has been in this way pricked and sedated over the years.
I was ok with the book, and it's legacy being so closely identified with the black struggles and sufferings during slavery.
None of us had any choice in it's history.

But reading Frederick Douglas' "My Bondage, My Freedom" he spoke in a neutral tone about Uncle Tom's Cabin." He may have praised it a bit. He did not shrink from it, nor feel offended by it. The subject matter was distasteful, but it seemed more from the subject matter itself, rather than the perspective or wounds inflicted by the piece.

And so, If Frederick Douglas, as intelligent, acute of mind, a former slave, and leader of the Black abolitionist movement, was fine with Uncle Tom's cabin, then what right have any present day Blacks to object? In fact, it would seem that the proper course would be to read the book.

And read it I did.

could a more beautiful book be written?
In the world there are in truth, two kinds of books.
Truth and Fiction.
In my experience the most powerful Truth has come from those who have survived incredible situations, such as memoirs from Treblinka, Sudan, slave narratives, shipwrecks, natural disasters, people against the odds who miraculously survived. In these stories, the only thing to be done, is to tell the tale. circumstance provides all the drama. The experience is the setting. The task, is to survive. These stories are the most powerful. Not the dramatized.

"Uncle Tom's Cabin" captures the power of such truth and tells a story built upon innumerable stores of Truth, reinterpreted and woven together, by Harriet Beecher Stowe. Her intent, her history, her family, the time, the circumstance, the reception and it's importance all play but minor roles to the overwhelming beauty and skillfulness of the prose.

All of which adds up to the inescapable conclusion that to call someone an "Uncle Tom" is so completely backwards and misbegotten to the Truth of Uncle Tom.

Even the Title, "Uncle Tom's Cabin" is a reference to a line by George Shelby, a soon to be ex-slave owner, who frees his slaves, and allows them to work for wages, free from the capriciousness of death and re-sale. He tells them to look upon the cabin of Uncle Tom and let it forever be a memorial to the man, his beauty, his immense love and faith, as well as the preciousness of freedom.

All of this must be contrasted with the reality that today, to be called an Uncle Tom is to be called less than a man..
in reality, Uncle Tom was Christ-like.
He endured his fate like Christ.
refusing to do wrong. refusing to hate, refusing to betray trust and loyalty. shielding others, being selfless, and always in the bountiful grace of his lord and savior.

Uncle Tom is surely one of the most beautiful, moral and meek martyrs there ever was or could be.
He in fact gave his life and was beaten to death for not divulging the whereabouts of two female runaway slaves.
He even told his "Masser Legree" that he knew where they were, but the regardless of what happened, he could not, would not ever betray them. and for this he was beaten to death. and with his dying breath, he forgave his attackers and prayed to God for their salvation.

And now we call "Uncle Tom's" the guys who have the exact opposite of the qualities of the original.

And Harriet Beecher Stowe, hastened the end of slavery and struck one of the mightiest, if not the mightiest blow against the entire system of slavery. A staunch abolitionist, daughter of a preacher, sister of a preacher, from a family of abolitionist. she did everything she could to lay the thing bare.

This book was the second best selling book in the United State in the 19th Century, right behind the bible. You'd be hard pressed to find any book, by any author, written at any time that was more respectful, more praising of Blacks, more condemning of slavery than Uncle Tom's Cabin.

it is truly an irony, that as we've matured in the battle against discrimination, we have trampled this holy book underfoot, and declared it a racist artifact, despite it's power, it's beauty, it's intention and the vast work that it achieved in the struggle for freedom.

And if there could be any doubt in the minds of any as to the motivation, intent, truth, morality and ethics of the author, then they should forsake the reading of the book, and read chapter forty-five (45) the last chapter. There, plain and simple, is where the truth lay for all those who have any desire to know of it, and once having read it, there should be no need for speculation, interpretation, analysis, debate or deconstruction.

An Immense Struggle. Seeking the Ox.

not to make it sound like I've got the shit signed, sealed and delivered, 'cause i surely don't.
life is an immense struggle. doing new things is trying, taxing and hard.
to be consistent, is at times, the utmost difficulty.
when you're doing wrong. you measure your successes, not by how many times you've failed, but how many times you've succeeded.
when you're doing right. you can still measure the distance from where you need to go, by how many times you have failed, despite your successes.

diligence, equanimity.

If I had to honestly appraise my spiritual development in terms of the ten ox herding series. I'd be very, very generous to say that I'm somewhere between #4 (getting hold of the ox) & #5 (taming the ox).

the fires of emotion, frustration and self harshness are quieting, but still beckoning, breaking lose, causing damage and set backs. Not tamed in the least. but calming. Still a wild stallion, capable of calming in the presence of the one that can break him, but at times wild and certainly not amenable to the will of others, or the way. A wild animal that for a moment is calm, is not to be mistaken for a wild animal that has been broken and tamed.

the degree to which we fall short of our goals, are always measured in miles, unless we are consistently making progress. missing left and right. all over the place. not missing out of ignorance, but missing in knowledge.

am i the person i want to be?
I am the person i want to be, surely. decidedly, but my view of the path ahead, is so clear and so far beyond where i find myself.
do the thing man!
go where you can see.
follow the path.
when you get blocked or can not find it, then you can dilly dally in earnestness...
am i getting closer?
yes, I'm getting closer.

but, there is a slight anxiety that i may run out of time before i get a chance to do what i know I'm capable of.
and to be struck down at this point, would be very disheartening. not because i didn't have time, but because of how much bullshitting and lack of will and consistency, I've displayed.
i could surely do much better.

there are many disappointments on this trail of tears.

and many beautiful weigh stations where it looks so beautiful.

but make no mistake, this is an immense struggle. there are many miles to go. errors all about and i participate freely in the conspiracy to dissuade myself from the path to glory.

this is an immense struggle
this is an immense struggle
this is an immense struggle

life is a trail of tears. tears of sorry, and tears for beauty.

Be kind to yourself, even when the only thing you are guilty of, is falling short of that which only you knew you were capable of.
Don't beat and drive yourself like an eqyptian slave in the mud pits.
Treat yourself as you would a babe on the knee of the most loving, patient and kind grandmother.

Why? Because the same part of yourself that was urging you to fall below your grace,
is the same part of yourself that now wants to punish you with scorn and shame.

And the part of yourself that is most at home fulfilling your potential, must wait as this one part of yourself, puts you through endless cycles of temptation, desire, humiliation, scorn, shame and indignity.

This part that does these things is known as "ego"
It is the part we want to train and tame and bring upon the path.
It is the Ox that we seek,
It is the Ox that we want to allow to roam free, with right intent and love.

Losing Breath

I finally found where my breath originates.

In watching breath meditation, as a beginner, it was hard to watch my breath, without also controlling my breath.
It was always a little bit frustrating, seeing as all day, when i wasn't meditating, rarely did i think of breathing or even become very much aware of it.
Yet, when I did meditate and become aware of it, it almost burdened my mind.
not really though. Meditation proceeded and benefits were gained. Immense benefits.

but the other day, i focused on losing my breath, while watching it to see where it went. and i found it!
Breath, begins in the low belly. the diaphragm, like an undulating jellyfish, expands, as if pulled from outside and contracts.

Whereas in my meditation, my breathing would move to my upper body and upper chest, i found that my true breath, my natural, unthinking breath, originated in my belly. and while it was in my belly, it was effortless and found it's own rhythm. In fact, it was hard to control this breath, as long as it remained in my belly.

it made me think, breath, is the blooming and closing of the god-flower within our belly.

Next, I did the same thing to lose my eyes and relax and "lose" the awareness and muscle control of my eyes. having located the breath, i found my eyes and quickly lost them.

meditation is now so much more beautiful. so free, so much more relaxing.
So much easier to settle into myself quicker and more deeply and blissfully.

i look forward to becoming ever more at home and peaceful in this new found position.

There is Only One Moment

Woke up last night kind of tripping on how fast the days and weeks were flying by.
It was the middle of the night, and in that clarity, I saw that there is only one moment.
No seconds, Hours, Days, Weeks, Years.
Only a single moment where we live our lives.
A single moment where everything we do, is done.
And so we can change the clothes of these moments and feel that we have ordered them as if they were newspapers.
but newspapers are newspapers, whereas the moment we live in, is ever new, always alive, never burdened with the past, nor concerned with the future.

and what can we know in life, if we do not know this moment?
everything we do and experience, is truly, first and foremost, this moment.
is there anything we think, anything we do, anything we feel, which is not, in reality, attributable to this moment, and not to whatever it is we thought it was other than the moment?

Is not intimacy, all intimacy, merely and truthfully, intimacy with the moment?
we use surrogates, people, experiences, but in truth, intimacy is primarily with the moment as well as the individual.

there is nothing we think, or can think, or have thought, or will thought, which is not in truth pretzel'd around this moment.

would it not be to miss, to go though life, never having known this moment?
this same moment, which is our constant companion and the "God" of our creation?

the moment is our umbilical cord with God, ourselves, others, earth, breath, love, desire and karma.

we can come to know this most beautiful of breezes, of flowers, far more intimately than we do at present.
there are many ways to come to know this moment.
this one moment.

The First 14 Chapters of, 'Uncle Tom's Cabin' by Harriet Beecher Stowe

Harriet Beecher Stowe (June 14, 1811 – July 1, 1896) was a famous abolitionist and poet. daughter of a preacher and firmly against slavery, she was encouraged to put her feeling son the subject into writing, the resutl, was uncle tom's cabin. (1852), written two years after the fugitve slave law of 1850 (which along with the dred scott decision and the infamous majority decision by Judge Taney which stated that a bBlack man had no rights that need be respected by white men) was seen as the final precoursors of the civil war. The book sold over 300,000 copies the first year, and made slavery, it's evils and the complicity of every American (though the fugitive slave law) apparent. It promoted abolitionism in the north and anger in the south. It is said that when Abraham Lincoln met Beecher Stowe he remarked, "So this is the little old lady who started this new great war!

Perspective:
it’s unfortunate that the term “Uncle Tom” has become such a standard term of racism and of Blacks with no awareness of racial issues and for Blacks that kow-tow to the racist demands of society. It’s a shame, because it makes the book “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” something that Blacks naturally come to avoid. They are told that Uncle Tom is immensely racist, and the assumption is that Blacks are painted in a very negative light. Also, the author, being white, and the work being fiction, there can be a hesitancy that the story and the portrayals are anything close to accurate.

Yes, it’s a shame, because this novel surely is one of the greatest works I have ever read. So many arguments are annunciated and teased out. The nuances of the entire debate, philosophical, moral, human, legal, psychological, etc, are laid out so plainly. Blacks, in all their diversity are represented. Their different intelligences, talents, and the nature of their family history, and history of rape and sexual use and exploitation are laid bare. The characters, both black and white are rich, full, humane and grave. The arguments well structured, natural. The contrivance of different scenarios are astounding, the coincidences, fantastic, yet, believeable, poetic and classic in structure.

This is a fantastic book. And when it came out, it helped push the agenda of abolitionist and contributed to a vast enlightenment in the north of the true horrors of slavery from every possible angle. This book, written in response to Beecher Stowe’s disgust for the fugitive slave law of 1850 and her anger and hatred of slavery, was truly divinely inspired and one of best works of American fiction ever produced.

It should be mandatory reading for every White and Black person as well as all Americans who want a candid, full look into the horrors of this nations 250 year affair with slavery.

Synopsis:
The story opens on slave row of a certain plantation. The plantation owner is discussing selling one or more of his slaves to a slave trader to settle certain reckless investments and speculation on his part. His choice is simple, either settle with the trader, or the trader turns in the debt and his home and property and all of his slaves are lost.

The slave trader is interested in “Uncle Tom” a very loyal and hardworking slave. Tom in fact has been sent to Cincinnati, in free country on his own to conduct business for his master and returned, never thinking about running, or in this case, walking to freedom. It seems that for Tom, his honesty, his own sense of what is right and wrong, is the only thing he has. Although he thinks of himself as a man, he implicitly accepts slavery as his condition, and having forged a bond with his master, who he looks upon as a very kind master, he feels his loyalty to his master, is warranted over his sense of his own right to freedom. (thus the term, “uncle tom” has become a label of lackey Blacks who have no sense of their own self-worth, and back down to racist encroachment upon their humanity)

Tom in addition to being loyal, has “got religion”.

In the midst of the gentle bargaining and drinking of wine and brandy in the parlor room, little Jim, “Jim Crow” comes in. the master very kindly throws several raisins on the floor for Jim and then Jim performs several imitations of others on the plantation, as well as performs a few jigs. The slave trader is instantly enamored and wants to purchase Jim Crow and Uncle Tom to settle the slaveholders debt.

Eliza, is Jim’s mother. She hears the conversation and becomes worried that her precious son will be sent down south with the trader. Her mistress calls her silly, and accuses her of foolish pride in thinking that anyone would want her son, simply because Eliza thinks the world of him. She ignorantly sooths Eliza’s anxiety and brings her to calm. Later that evening, the Master and his wife have a conversation, and he in fact admits that he has in fact sold Jim and Tom to the slave trader because he has no choice. This despite the fact that Tom was promised his manumission for his years of loyal service.

Meanwhile, Eliza’s husband is experiencing trouble on the job. He is apparently too smart, too polished, proud and handsome. And in addition to this he carries himself as one who is special and elegant, almost princely. His intelligence is such that he has devised a machine for cleaning hemp that has been replicated and saved countless dollars for his employer, who rents him out from his master. His master is spiteful of “Mr. Wilson’s” intelligence, and takes him back to the plantation to do backbreaking work, even though he could make far more (double, triple) if he were rented out. He then brands him and threatens him with selling him down south if he continues in his uppity ways.

Mr. Wilson meets with Eliza and explains that he will run away to freedom. His manhood can no longer be subjugated in this way. Eliza begs him to reconsider, but his mind is set. He plans to one day rescue her from slavery also.

Later, Eliza hides in a closet and hears her mistress and master discussing the details of the sale of her son. She emboldens herself to run off too and make for freedom to avoid losing her dear son. She can not bear to lose her child.

Mr. Wilson and Eliza both make their escape separately and unknown to one another. Meanwhile, up north in Ohio a senator is speaking with his wife. She can not believe that congress has passed law forbidding anyone from abetting or aiding a fugitive slave, in fact, anyone who assists a slave and does not help in his capture, is subject to fine and possible imprisonment. The husband is not pro-slavery, and in fact is quite humane, however, being intelligent, he recognizes that this law of 1850 must be passed in order to keep law and order and the sanctity of the union intact.

The husband and wife argue, the wife wins many points and the senator must shut up, because he can not bring himself to say that he in truth agrees with the morality of this new law.

Eliza is found by the slavetrader and she is mere feet from capture at the Ohio river. The river is filled with ice in large and small chunks. But the banks where she stands is separated from the next bit of ice by a ten foot gap of wild current. Eliza, with Jim in her hands, leaps out and lands onto the ice. She then, to the astonishment of all, makes a mad dash for the Ohio side. Slipping, tripping, teetering and jumping from ice raft to ice raft, cutting her feet, stirring up water and nearly dying a thousand times in the frozen river, until she makes it to the other side and is helped by a man on the other side of the river.

Back at the plantation, Tom resigns himself to his fate. He realizes that his master has no choice than to sell him. And he feels proud to be able to save the farm by going down south. He looks fondly upon the 6 children in the bed and spends a last night with his wife in preparation for the next days journey.

The slave trader meets some slave catchers at a tavern and engages them to find Eliza and return her for $50 down payment. The trader wonder aloud if they can take this on. They figure between the three other Blacks that they are chasing, two of them can be brought back dead or alive, so that makes it much easier. They consider their reply and accept the slave traders money.

Later, Eliza appears at the door of the Senator and his wife nearly frozen and semi-conscious from cold. The Senator and wife forget their philosophical debate and quickly tend to Eliza. They contrive to deliver her to a farm 7 miles up river owned by a man who used to be a slaveholder in Kentucky, but then freed all of his slaves, and relocated to Ohio with them. The way is treacherous and ill, but they eventually find their way to freedom and the man agrees to help Eliza and her child. The senator continues to the city, in order to cover his tracks and provide a plausible reason for his late night departure.

Later, in Kentucky, two men argue about slavery. There is a notice to be on the look out for “Mr. Wilson” who may be trying to pass for White. Just then, a very smartly dressed White man appears with his slave. They all three engage in conversation. One of the two men who were arguing is Mr. Wilson’s former employer, but he does not recognize him. Finally, Mr. Wilson announces himself. His former employer tells him that he is wrong to run away, and that he must return. Mr. Wilson tells the story of his mother and sister. Both bought to be sexual companions of their master, while the children born of this union are one by one sold off. Mr. Wilson then produces a bowie knife and two pistols. He tells his former employer that he will either find freedom, or the grave.

Eliza makes her way to a quaker village where she is shielded, but still, due to the fugitive slave law, she can not rest. She has her eyes on Canada, even though she and her son are welcome in the village for as long as they please.

Meanwhile, the slave catcher is riding down the Ohio River with Tom. During one stop, a woman gets on with a small baby. The slavecatcher tells her that she is now his property. Her master told her she would be doing down south to work as a cook on the same plantation that her husband was sold to. It was a lie to place her smartly in the hands of the slave trader. She resigns herself to her fate. yet, later the slave trader is approached by a man who is interested in buying the womans’ 10 month old child. He offers $10. the slave trader says he would accept nothing less than $50, because in a year, the child will be worth $100 and the next year $200. they haggle a bit, and finally, the slave trader agrees to sell the child for $30. when the woman is sleeping, he takes the baby and hands it to the man in exchange for the money. The woman awakes the next morning to find her child gone. She does not cry for the blow was too sudden and too deep. She sits down despondent and depressed and during the night, drowns herself in the river. The slave trader awakes the next morning in the same way the woman awoke the day before, to find that his property is missing. He is upset, but quickly marks it down in the loss column and continues on his way…

Later Eliza has been transferred to a friends settlement in Indiana. She is in a home where one of the ladies is married (like her) and has a child (like her). One of the ladies husbands comes home. He hears them talking about Eliza’s husband (whom she misses). And he realizes that George Wilson is the same George Wilson who recently escaped from slavery and is on his way to their settlement the very next morning. All are glad and when Eliza awakens the next morning, it’s in the arms of her husband. It’s not a dream. They embrace and bathe one another in their tears.

Meanwhile… down the Mississippi river, Tom has endeared himself to all of the workers on the barge, as well as the slave trader. Tom has gone from sleeping in fetters every night to being relatively free about the boat. In his spare time, where there’s no one to help, he sits high upon the cotton bales and slowly reads his bible. Then, a young beautiful girl comes on board with her father. Everyone is taken by her beauty and countenance. Tom especially, missing his children, and his former master’s children, endears himself to the young girl by producing many carvings, flutes and other nick nacks he has horded or has manufactured. They become “friends” the girl tells Tom that her father could buy him. Later, when the ship pulls out of port and starts and stops suddenly, the young girl is thrown from the boat into the river. Tom, luckily was below and jumps into the river to save her. The young girls father haggles lightly with the slave trader and they strike a bargain. Tom has a new master and mistress.

'A Record of Awakening' by David Smith

check out, 'a record of awakening' by david smith.
it's a very slender, yet powerful book

i'm not sure why i bought this, but it was back around '00 and i was in a bookstore in los gatos. i didn't really understand it, but it was so beautiful (looking) and it just struck a chord with me because of how it looked. the title was provocative, and the reviews positive.
then, when i read it, i found it to be strange as he talked about "levels" and all these different depths he would fall to. his explanation of levels were so in depth and detailed, it just somehow made me doubtful. as if what he was describing was in his head and not so much about depth of realization.
it didn't make sense to me at the time, in my thinking you either you had the "eye" or you didn't. it kind of reminded me of cannabis review in 'high times' where they talk about "citrus-sy" "heady" "visual" etc, etc, it's like, you freakin' high!
but now that i'm in a practice, and it's deepening, i went back it and read it again, and what he's talking about really resonated with me this time. I had faith in the book, but thought that his path was just too different from my own. now, a few years later, i can see, our paths were similar in some sense, but that he was far ahead.
i just read a little excerpt where he talked about how in the west we think of the heart and the mind and it was a "problem" for him, because as he started to meditate, he felt that they were becoming one.
that really resonated with me, and when i read the words, it made me realize that he really articulated something i felt, but hadn't really realized or put my finger on.
so, yeah, anytime someone can articulate something you have inside you, but were only aware of peripherally, yeah, that's something worth paying attentin to.

not to mention the fact that after i read but a few paragraphs, i was in a much more loving, complete, open and accepting state of mind.

keep this book on your short list.
the next time you do a bump and grind through town, go to a book store and peruse it. you may want to buy it.
i think it has tremendous value.
especially now that i'm trying to get to a point where i can control the flow, and not just content with a deep insight every few months on the spontaneous tip.

evz-yoyo nightly report; 8/13/09

the sleeping/lying down meditation
waking up and as soon as you do, instantly going into meditation and then moving into the entry of sleep.
your mind can hold the meditation even in sleep
dreams, if you have them, are are more lucid and seen in a slightly brighter light of truth
and in addition, you are meditating, which is always a good thing.
the god-mindset is one in which you don't have an idea, or a single thought, rather, your mind is motionless within the realm of transcendence. all thoughts which dare to come close are purified by this nirvana...
(from the classic evz-yoyo)
i thought i needed a pen
but before i could write
i thought
what would i write it on (that was not a piece of me)
what would i write (that i did not already know)
who would i write it to (that i wasn't already)

for it was the thought that i wanted,
needed
sought/seeked
and had seeded
and repeated
and deleted
an incompleted mind
as much blossoming consequentialed

some mantras (can't have enough of those)
the better you are, the better you become.

Ideas = mc2

thought-verbal-action

the opening pages of uncle tom's cabin.
never read it, but for whatever reason, i ended up listening to the beginning about 5 times.
each time, it was more beautiful. the tapestry more vibrant, the words more resonant and the power undeniable...
in rapid succession we are introduced to jim crow, uncle tom, the slaveowner, the slavetrader and every despicable aspect of slavery along with all of it's hypocrisy and inhumanity, including rationalizations which are neatly, poetically and absolutely laid bare.

conversation from my dream last night.
me: i'm tellling you, someone has a little time machine they can focus on individual events.
chris robertson: no, no, they can't
me: did you just see that? there's no way that could happen
chris robertson: it's impossible
me: how do you know?
chris robertson: a very imminent scientist performed the calculation and it's been verified. if there was even one ripple caused in any dimension, it would create a fatal flaw and that existence would be destroyed. whether that machine had been created in the past or future doesn't matter.
me: how the fuck would he know?
chris robertson: the calculations were done on a supercomputer
me: oh a computer?
chris robertson: no, no, it was verbal, it's been handed down. the computer just did the calculations
me: oh, i get it, it was on a scroll of something, oh, oh, the dragon scroll right?
chris robertson: i'll tell you why i don't like people meeting to solve the world's problems.
until the solution is performed in thought, action and deed, the problem has not been solved.
and no one can solve that problem for anyone else.
we must solve that ourselves


have a great day.
--

E.D. Nixon, the Greatest Freedom Fighter you Never Heard of

Edgar Daniel Nixon was born in Montgomery, Alabama on July 12th, 1899. A trade union leader and close associate of A. Philip Randolph, Nixon was the leading activist in Montgomery from the 30's through the 60's. Through his efforts and strategic vision and despite a limited education, he was able to start and/or found over a dozen prominent grass-roots organizations, each tailored to achieve a different goal with a particular focus and strategy.

As a young man E.D. displayed incredible focus, forcefulness and strategic acumen and so he was trained by the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters as an organizer. In 1940 he organized 750 Black men to march on the Montgomery County Courthouse to demand the right to register to vote. He became president of the Voters League of Montgomery in 1944. He was also leader of the National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People (NAACP) in Alabama. Undoubtedly it is the E.D. Nixon who coordinated the choice of Rosa Parks as the icon of the Montgomery bus boycott as well as his organization of the boycott itself and the selection of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. to be the leader and front man of the Boycott that will forever be the foremost legacy of E.D.'s efforts. E.D. was able to recognize that Rosa Parks had the wherewithal to sustain a legal fight to challenge public transportation segregation for the year that it would take to obtain justice. Previous candidates lacked Rosa Parks wherewithal and understanding of what the fight would entail. For years Parks served as a secretary with the NAACP, so she had an experienced apprehension of the political side of the struggle.

Once Parks was arrested, Nixon moved quickly to arrange her bail and coordinate a meeting to plan the scope and strategy of the planned boycott Nixon called together many of the most prominent preachers in Montgomery to organize the effort. E.D. was greatly disappointed to find that the Montgomery preachers were timid and fearful and advocated a course of action that would assure that the white community would not be aware of, or intimidated by the boycott. E.D. challenged their manhood and called them all cowards. The Rev. Dr. King stepped forward to defend his manhood and with that he accepted the Presidency of the newly created (by E.D. Nixon) Southern Christian Leadership Council (SCLC). In anticipation of the religious leaders trepidation, Nixon had previously pushed for King to be chosen to lead the SCLC because his lack of experience in Montgomery, would likely make him less likely to be intimidated.

During the boycott, which lasted over thirteen months, 17,000 black people in Montgomery walked to work or obtained lifts from the small car-owning black population of the city. Eventually, the loss of revenue and a decision by the Supreme Court forced the Montgomery Bus Company to accept integration. The boycott came to an end on 20th December, 1956.

Nixon and Martin Luther King also created the Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA) as a way to enact other radical strategies in a way that could bypass the conservative and mainstream concessionist perspective of the NAACP. At the time, and as was often the case, the NAACP was far behind the curve in supporting the burgeoning grass-roots efforts across the south and north that erupted into the full-blown civil rights struggle. The NAACP did not endorse Dr. King's provocative non-violence approach seeing as it was an untried strategy that could potentially backfire by angering the NAACPs conservative Black and liberal white supporters. The NAACP endoresed protracted and dignified legal fights, not uneducated negroes demanding their rights in the streets.

Edgar Daniel Nixon died in Montgomery, Alabama, on 25th February, 1987 after retiring from the front lines of the civil war battles due to a feeling of being neglected, diminished and pushed to the side.

When recruited to join the Committee to Combat Racial Injustice (CCRI) E.D. Nixon put his feelings on paper and wrote the following:

"for 25 years I have been working in this feel to help bring freedom to un-freed people. I have organize over 15 organizations including the Montgomery improvement association, and it was I who found rev. king. As a spokesman he is very good but no one man can do this job, but when people give all recognition to one because of his academic trainging and forge other who do not have that kind of training but are making a worth while contribution to the cumity that make it hard. You can hardly find a project in Montgomery that I did not start bit but after it got going I have been left out of the picture. I have spent long hours and thousand of my own money to bring about these things and now exist and each time I be push in the background, frankly I do not care to be hurt any more. I just want to be let alone now."

What E.D. Nixon shows is that It's not Education or Academic Skills or understanding the vernacular of a particular social science that counts when it comes to community organization. It's the strength of your message, the boldness and strength of your leadership, and the example you set.

E.D. Nixon, took part in the core movement that resulted in the civil rights victories of the mid 60's and he did it in relative obscurity. Whereas MLK, Malcolm X and others share an enduring glow in the spotlight, the name of E.D. Nixon is destined to always remain a footnote, a scribble within the margins in the biographies of the greatest leaders of the civil rights movement. Despite this, the fact remains, his effort, his work has effected everyone living in America today.

Just finished reading, "Frederick Douglass, My Bondage, My Freedom"

Frederick Douglass stood at the podium, trembling with nervousness. Before him sat abolitionists who had travelled to the Massachusetts island of Nantucket. Only 23 years old at the time, Douglass overcame his nervousness and gave a stirring, eloquent speech about his life as a slave. He had not intended to speak, and was only at the conference because he had overworked himself and needed two days rest which coincided with the abolitionist meeting. Douglass remarks of that speech that it was the only speech he gave, where he does not remember a word of what he said. Soon, he began giving more speeches, sticking to his own personal narrative, with no interposition of philosophy or meaning, so as not to betray his enormous intelligence and make those present wary about whether he was an actual slave.

Douglas gave many speeches, sticking to his narrow script, until he could do so no longer and rebelled against his well-meaning white handlers and began to expound upon his experiences. Soon, he found himself on board a steamer to England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland, where he stayed for two years living life and enjoying freedoms he thought were unavailable to a Black man anywhere in the world. when he had returned, it was with several thousand dollars to start publication of his abolitionist paper, "The North Star".

The son of a slave woman and an unknown white man thought to be his slave owner, "Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey" was born in February of 1818 on Maryland's eastern shore. He remarks that the location of his birth is notable, only for the low character and baseness of it's inhabitants. He spent his early years with his grandparents enjoying the unrestricted pleasures of childhood, ignorant of slavery, until the day his grandmother tricked him and left him at the plantation. Over the course of the next 14-odd years, Douglas was exposed to the degradations of slavery, witnessing firsthand brutal whippings, deplorable conditions, near-starvation, whippings, rapes, beatings, and, at the other extreme, extreme opulence and wealth that dazzled all, Black and White who beheld it.

By a strange happenstance, when he was eight he was sent to Baltimore to live with a ship carpenter named Hugh Auld. His wife, religious, and loving of her child and "Freddy" whose job was to protect her child, ignorantly took pride in Freddy and taught him to read, amazed at his progress and intelligence, until her husband found out and forbade it, and gave his wife an exhaustive speech on slavery, subjugation and the politics, culture and philosophy of keeping slaves ignorant to perpetuate the system of slavery. Unbeknownst to either of them, Freddy stood and listened and received a 5-star education, on the psychology of the slave master and justification for brutality and inhumanity for systematic ends.

Douglass spent seven relatively comfortable years in Baltimore before being sent back to the country, where he was hired out to a farm run by a notoriously brutal "slavebreaker" named Edward Covey. And the treatment he received was indeed brutal. Whipped daily and barely fed, Douglass was "broken in body, soul, and spirit", yet, he took a stand and refused to allow himself to be beaten anymore. he did not strike Covey, but he fended his blows all the same. In this Douglas became one of those rare slaves, that is not beaten, while others get more than their fair share as an example.

Douglas purchased a book with earnings made on the side, that had speeches, essays and an argument between a slave and slave master, where the slave bested the master in reason and won his freedom. This became Douglass' dream. On January 1, 1836, Douglass made a resolution that he would be free by the end of the year. He planned an escape. But early in April he was jailed after his plan was told to the slave owner by one of his accomplices. Two years later, while living in Baltimore and working at a shipyard, Douglass would finally realize his dream: he fled the city on September 3, 1838. Travelling by train, then steamboat, then train, he arrived in New York City the following day. Several weeks later he had settled in New Bedford, Massachusetts, living with his newlywed bride (whom he met in Baltimore and married in New York) under his new name, Frederick Douglass.

Always striving to educate himself, Douglass continued his reading. He joined various organizations in New Bedford, including a black church. He attended Abolitionists' meetings. He subscribed to William Lloyd Garrison's weekly journal, the Liberator. In 1841, he saw Garrison speak at the Bristol Anti-Slavery Society's annual meeting. Douglass was inspired by the speaker, later stating, "no face and form ever impressed me with such sentiments [the hatred of slavery] as did those of William Lloyd Garrison." Garrison, too, was impressed with Douglass, mentioning him in the Liberator. Several days later Douglass gave his speech at the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society's annual convention in Nantucket-- the speech described at the top of this page. Of the speech, one correspondent reported, "Flinty hearts were pierced, and cold ones melted by his eloquence."

Despite apprehensions that the information might endanger his freedom, Douglass published his autobiography, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, Written By Himself. The year was 1845.

Ever since he first met Garrison in 1841, the white abolitionist leader had been Douglass' mentor. But the views of Garrison and Douglass ultimately diverged. Garrison represented the radical end of the abolitionist spectrum. He denounced churches, political parties, even voting. He believed in the dissolution (break up) of the Union. He also believed that the U.S. Constitution was a pro-slavery document. After his tour of Europe and the establishment of his paper, Douglass' views became more pragmatic. In 1851 Douglass announced at a meeting in Syracuse, New York, that he did not assume the Constitution was a pro-slavery document, and that it could even "be wielded in behalf of emancipation," especially where the federal government had exclusive jurisdiction.

Frederick Douglass would continue his active involvement to better the lives of African Americans. He conferred with Abraham Lincoln during the Civil War and recruited northern blacks for the Union Army. After the War he fought for the rights of women and African Americans alike and was one of the charter members of the Red Cross.

God does play dice

man, that Jesus was one crazy motherfu**er.
it's hard to fault the son of god, but it seems to me, the one thing he lacked was a sense of humor.

if you read the account of his final days, it's easy to see where he fu**ed up.
I've made that mistake a few times.
y'know. waiting for god to help you out a little.

i mean, if there's one thing you can say about god,
it's that he don't give a fu**.

the lord will work miracles until the cows come home,
but if all that is required is a little ingenuity or forethought on your part, and you decide that's when you want to "test" god,
then he'll let you fall flat on your face.

“the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all.”

god aint at the race track, and if he was, he'd be out back breakin' fools with a hot hand of dice.

The Fugitive Slave Act & The Oberlin-Wellington Rescuers

4,000,000 people enslaved.
cassious clay parker.. john parker's son.

william still. the grandfather of the underground railroad. 1 year and one day of formal education.
reach for the star.

oberlin
fugitive slave act of 1850.
jerry mchenry apprehended in new york
was taken to jail. yelling for a knife to commit suicide. he did not go easily, a mob of 3,000-5,000 people mobbed the jail.
then 1852, uncle tom's cabin was relesed and sold 100,000 copies the first year. it was a political novel that exposed the horrors of slavery.

eliza harris, taken in by the wife of a state senator, barefoot with a baby $1,000fin, $1,000penalty and 6 mos in jail.


anthony burns, 1854 arrested in boston, broke into court house, killed a martial. president pierce intent upon enforcing the slave law, he called the marines. they secured anthony burns. they roped off the court house. thousands in the street. they chained the courthouse, so they had to crawl into the church to work. (the revolution began). the trial was brief. burns unable ot speak in his defence. guilty ordered to returned to slavery.

coffin "here lies liberty"
10,000 people lined the street when he went to the wharf. cost 100,000 to secure his arrest. he was sold for $900... a pivotal movement in the anti-slavery movement

1857, the dred scott case. chief justice taney's decision reduces all slaves to property, "can not be citizens. they have no rights which white men are bound to respect". these words, this decision, secured the inevitibiity of the civil war.

new england had black elected officils.
richard henry dana (the mast) assisted by a black attorney (burn's lawyer).

on a national level, no aid, no assistance for blacks. it upped the ante, and put enormous pressure on the movement. this also effected free blacks.

after dred scott, a fugitive slave, john price, captured on the outskirts of oberlin... the cradle of freedom for 60 plus years.

the oberlin-wellington rescue, 1858. hundred's the whole town stormed the wellington hotel and escaped. rescuers arrested. they expected them to pay bail. they refused (like kiing) fill up the jail. and they issued an arrest warrant for the slaveholder who captured the former slave.

the rescuers became hero's toth ecuase. they set off a chain reaction that went around the world. this motivated one of oberlin's native sons, john brown to escalate. his father was the first conductors on the underground railroad in oberlin.

this lead to harpers ferry.
the ultimate underground railroad. to bring freedom to the blacks in the south. occured 1 year to the day of the oberlin-wellngton rescue. blacks were assisting him. in a sense, he did not care if he was caught. in this there was no "failure" he forced the nation to make hard decisions that they were avoiding.

must be seen in contrast to slave act and dred scott. there was no where else to go, besides armed resistance.

then, the civil war. blacks fought for freedom. not th efirst time they fought for freedom, but the first time,they won it.

the emancipation proclamation 1863.

underground railroad became relief organizations for the legions of af-am's that were not free. the real work had just begun.

nurse, scout, spy harriet tubman. fought for suffrage and black freedom until her death at the age of 93. before she died, she was reunited with many of the slaves she freed. two hours before she died march 10, 1913. ft. hill cemetary new york. with military rights.

if blacks and whites can work together 150 yeras ago with all of the dangers they faced, we have no excuses today.

Irony

As the story goes, as I was told, (and I believe it, seeing as, at least in parable, it's wholly true), somewhere, in an underground bunker in the rocky mountains, there are several of the world's most powerful supercomputers, dozens of assistants and researchers and editors, with live satellite and sensor and probe feeds, with access to the best information, and most classified reports maned, scanned, and deciphered by a cadre of theorist, rocket scientist, historians, doctors, and holy men all in support of 7 of the world's most intelligent people, selected by a committee composed of the top 2000 university administrators and department heads, from the world's top 200 institutions, along with all of the world's surviving Nobel prize winners, and members of the top scientific societies from throughout the world. These 7 super-intelligent beings, have, in fact, solved all, ALL of the world's problems...

Amidst the Ruins of Rome... A Moment of Clarity

Simon Bolivar had been in Italy to witness the coronation of Napoleon as the King of Italy. A few days before, he had been informed by his teacher that he would receive an enormous inheritance when he turned 21. In fact, he would become one of the richest men in all of Venezuela and southern America.

During the coronation, several times, (as Bolivar reports), Napolean looks in his direction as if to inquire, "who is this man?" it is after this, that Bolivar walked a short distance to the ruins of Palantine hill, dropped to his knees with tears in his eyes, sighing heavily and pledged his life to the liberation of Southern America from the grasp of Spanish rule.

When Bolivar was 17, he met the love of his life and his wife. Yet, soon after they married, she died. He was struck with grief and admits that if she had lived, his life would most likely have been quite different.

Bolivar's own parents died when he was 3 (his mother) and 9 (his father). he was raised primarily by a Black slave whom he loved, in fact, he stated that she was his mother, and that he knew no other, and that the bond between him and her was unshakeably, as mother and son.

He was educated in Europe. Travelled through Spain, France, England, Italy, and learned and studied languages.

History is made by individuals... ...Bolivar made History as he liberated 5 individual countries from Spanish rule.

every second, 1,000,000,000,000 beautiful things....

Every second, there are a trillion beautiful things going on around us. literally right in front of our faces. I haven't bothered to count all the things going on behind us, under us, or obscured from our view. Neither have I bothered to count the things going on over the far lands, seas, skies, etc, etc, etc.
[someone/anyone could give you a gift. but if you did not realize that they gave you a gift, then it wouldn't be a gift to you. In this same way, existence is exposing you to a trillion beautiful things specifically for you, but if you don't see them...]
If you are able to see one truly beautiful thing every five minutes, you are doing very well. Of course, you are seeing many more than that. In fact, you are seeing all trillion. So what keeps us from being conscious of the immense cavalcade of beauty all around us? our head space. our awareness. our ability to separate our own bullshit, from the world around us.
It is helpful to remember the trillion things, even when we are feeling especially good, because there are so many beautiful things, we should pay respect to them, by remaining ever aware of them, and their each unique, special gift to us. when we are off our game, and we can at least remember the trillion things, then we must look to see them. a human being, is not just a person, but a living breathing, feeling, thinking repository of everything that makes a human. with trillions, upon trillions of experiences. surely, at least one of the trillion things.
Even if all we can do is acknowledge the beauty. even if we can not experience the beauty, then we have avoided missing. Open your eyes. see. feel. hear. think. we are being bombarded with beauty, possibility, opportunity, love and most notably, life, incessantly, every moment of our experience.
If we are able to become aware of at least one beautiful thing every five minutes, then we are doing very, very well.
one trillion seconds equals 31,546 years