Epistle 27

 

My friend     01312022

Much has emerged during the past few hours. After heavy downpour yesterday, this morning we have patches of blue sky and sunshine. I drove the car for the first time in a month to visit a Dr. and jaywalked successfully. Small towns are good for that.

A change in perspective has been encouraging as well. Who would have thought the simple act of 'signing' a pledge on some random website could solidify and resolve the already fertile ground of my mind. Commitment is like that! The Children's Fire.

Last evening I applied to a fellowship I was offered by email.

The process was inspiring and enlightening, I sent it out to contacts who might be working towards alternative possibilities. I feel a strong sense of foundation in the principle or law or basic understanding that humanity/me and everyone else could hold sacred  both women/womyn and all those birthed, including the trees and herbs, mushrooms, landscapes, mountains and water. How many times will it need to be said that we are all related until it lands? Until it is understood and acted from.

Our acting out, 'mental disturbances' rage and suicide, rape and addictions are symptoms of disconnection. All this 'structure' around us, The military industrial complex managing systems; running supply chains of goods and services, employing thousands of people in a self perpetuating spiral into entropy and oblivion as we ravish the planet in a cannabilistic orgy of chaotic ignorance. Sad.

I find hard not to write about this travesty, I have skin in the game as they say and this conversation allows me to fine tune my thinking and understanding. Creating possibilities for articulating relevant wisdom to share from gleanings and experience.

There is within us all, one thing.

A desire to participate in the living of life.

 A child is born into whatever circumstance, surrounded by various related characters, or not, plus all the inherent cultural and environmental constructs of the period that soul/spirit manifests currently. Whatever shore that seed washes up on, however it became fertile and germinated, it wants to thrive. To mature and bear fruit. Possibly fertilize others. In an ideal world all that happens. Unfortunately trauma and domination have interupted the flow. And have been doing so for millenia. Within the history are lies. Manipulations and suppression. Stories, entrenched beliefs, attachments and structures.

 I hold out hope and trust that the consciousness of humanity is big enough to transition towards an egalitarian, respectful engagement, leading to cohesive harmonious community. Polarity is uncomfortable but has the potential to encourage the emergence of realistic replacements for dysfunctional structures through the chaos and destruction of traumatizing systems. There are places on this great spiral, moments of ignition or collapse. They are always there, waiting for enough focus and intention, group mind, alignment and affinity. We are approaching these moments. And they pass by unnoticed until the energy is felt in enough people that they act.

The algorithms are birthing something as well and we need to pay attention to how easily we are hijacked by the economic engines driving the bus. And where it is taking us.

So many intersecting subjects.

Virtual reality interfacing with the 'real' world.

Who speaks for life itself?

I do.

Be well

CM

Riff off Men's SchoolFace Book post on Initiation

 
From FaceBook The Mens School group
Jan Darwin Hutchins
 ·
INITIATION: "There is, as Carl Jung writes, a clear pattern, a fourfold cycle, within the rites of initiation across the world: First there is a separation from the mother, then a trial is undertaken, then a metaphorical death and lastly, there is atonement with the father.
The father, or the symbolic father, the tribe of manhood, as Joseph Campbell writes, is the priest of initiation, and when a boy outgrows the embrace of the mother, it is the duty of the father, no matter his status in wider society, to encourage the boy’s spiritual passing from the sphere of the mother, of dependency and nurture, to the sphere of the masculine.
In our time, there are no systems that bring a boy away from the mother and onwards to the undertaking of the ‘quest for the father’; our fathers and our old men no longer provide a spiritual way for boys to separate from the mother. And so it is a common experience now for a grown man to feel that he is not a man at all, that nothing significant has changed since the beginning of his adolescence.
For men intuitively know that manhood can only be achieved through trial, sacrifice, and effort — mature masculinity does not happen of its own accord; a man must become a man. And if there is no intervention by older men to encourage boys into adulthood, then boys, sensing that manhood awaits them, will try to initiate themselves, often through rebellious, immature and irrational behavior directed at people of authority, particularly the mother.
So what is happening nowadays is that boys are being initiated, dishonestly, by other boys — and older men have vanished from the maturation process.
The breakthrough between the two worlds — from the world of the mother and to the father — is necessary if we wish to have real men and real leaders in our society, and not merely boys who plead and pander to the majority.
As I have mentioned above, this passing of the spirit was once facilitated by all the men in the tribe or community — fathers, uncles, grandfathers. But our culture is oblivious to the necessity of this exchange, and so we have a generation of men who are still stuck in the maternal world and who spend their lives moving from one form of dependency to another, forever having to ask for permission and approval, and always apologizing for their true nature.
Possibly there is an appetite today for a rite of passage, for men of all ages to come together and celebrate and share — but we are not going to achieve this in our lifetime, because the desired rituals and symbols, if they are to have true and honest meaning, take time to come about and mature naturally. However, the principles and archetypes behind the ancient rite of passage remain true.
In our age, on the cusp between the old world and the new, men must learn to lift themselves onto the higher ground and leave the walls of the grand palace, the walls that have so far imprisoned men from the true experience of life.
Life is initiating us at every moment, and it is our duty to accept this initiation, to find joy in self-conquest, to play with the burdens of existence, to feel privileged in hardship. Once we have taken up responsibility and declared ourselves accountable for ourselves, the childish ego will collapse under the weight of our own pressure, and once this happens, we will be on our way to reconciliation with the father."


CliveMichael Justice

writes
Still true and more relevant than ever if community is to manage itself wisely, sustainable and in harmony with chaos and transformation. Language is evolving with consciousness and my choice is to embrace empathic and compassionate relationship with my local relations.
 Domination has brought us to the cusp of opportunity while holding us to the edge of destruction. 

Then
On Initiation

Initiations of the past emerged and evolved out of groupmind, social commitment and serendipity. Magic, Spirit, Sacred, Divine however it gets defined remains a player in relationship in the reality that I believe is a necessary element in the sustainability of human species.
 Domination has brought us to the cusp of opportunity while holding us to the edge of destruction.
What that means for me is an engagement with the place I Iive, in the weather, geography and the people. What relationships have been created with the rivers and forests, the land itself. Who stewards the fish, the birds the growing of food and the education of children? If not all of us then where is the community cohesion? Where is the essence at the core of spirit? Without an experience of that belonging, that unity or affinity, I’m not grounded. Cast adrift in a maelstrom of distracting influence, opportunities and myriad possibilities.
As an adolescent when my testosterone was stimulated I had the capacity for great destruction, emotion driven powerful energy and unguided creativity. This is one of the pinch points of society. Initiation certainly can be an indoctrination, a manipulation of hormonal expression towards a common goal of submission, compliance and embraced engagement. Welcome to the tribe. Here is a marker of your journey. Now you truly belong, we have you, we have your back and this is how you live your life, according to our (you did agree to this, right?) standards and values. Our expectations and obligations, reciprocal arrangements that benefit us all….right?
Not necessarily as was experienced, not necessarily as was arranged or delivered. Not necessarily received or embedded or allowed.
We humans have  great propensity for ignoring the past( insert appropriate quote) and to generalize, exaggerate,  make assumptions and look for confirmation bias. Part of our need to belong, embrace the reality, be comfortable and anonymous. And out there; flamboyant, outrageous or celebrity as a means to access resources, status and power. How far out on the extreme  will we go? It was safer in the middle, without definition, struggling, however it best manifests, to maintain a hold on whatever solidity appears. Whether it be education, career, furniture, or a house to put it in we all need land to stand on and that land has to be providing us with something more tangible than wood for our fires, stone for our buildings or sustenance from its fertility. I have not felt truly connected to the spirit of these places. I have relationship cultured over time with stories and events of significance that describe  a history subjectively focused mostly on the structures created, not the actual energy and experience of each location.How is that I am disconnected and misguided? what is preventing this great wave of belief and engagement I’m unable to access? Why all this resistance to the basic essence, the primal note and harmony that resonates through our beings that I’m somehow isolated  from and pushed aside? There is a great  imbalance and a huge potential for disharmony stress and trauma. Mental illness, homelessness, addiction and entropy on a scale beyond comprehension. We are compelled to comply, in complicated procedures that impitomize  force and submission rather than embracing and landing something welcome and appreciated. Becoming part of and integral to any ongoing success as an entity. The free choice ‘discussion’ rears its’ philosophical neurolgical head here and I say that I believe we are deeply embedded in a possible opportunity to manifest a greater harmony through participating on existing wavelengths of sound, magnetic resonance and likely unnamed and defined waves emerging into particles if we want to create that possibility. Everything we do is the result of an almost endless laying down of behaviour, response to stimulae and adaptation to our environments. Our need to make sense of it all provided incentive to intitiate, to improve, to explore possibilities.
But not all possibilities are either possible or useful.
This moment in time like all others has the capacity for transformation. Depending on what choices we make what patterns we hold and what we are willing to let go of, we can create something  new and old, something vulnerable and fierce, something humble and resilient.

Blog on dude#1

 Where is this leading? All the homelessness, addiction, susceptibility to infection, disrespect and disdain for  the other, the stranger, the competition. Maybe that’s where it all started?
There are numerous historical accounts of individuals with charisma accumulating power, wiping out the neighbouring kingdom or religious enclave in order to sequester resources enjoy the “spoils” of war and crow about their superiority. Whether  the motivator of this be moral, religious or basically greed something seems to have been lost, discarded or neglected in the evolution of our education and nurturance of children to have arrived at this juncture. What must emerge from the chaos are collaborate investments in our survival that address the great gaps that have appeared. Like blind spots in our vision, filtered out words or sounds, smells and tastes avoided we may be out of touch with what it is to be members and participants on the planet.
It won’t be enough to embrace humility and clean up the mess, treat all the symptoms and hope it all goes away soon. No, this involves a greater sacrifice. Reducing our needs? sounds oxymoronic. What is needed is a dismantling of the social structures,  cultural standards, the foundations of power, status and values. Embedded deeply in this are the memes of racism, sexism and a patriarchal domination perspective that holds a certain type of personality as superior. Therein lies the key, the linchpin, the mental construct. Superiority as a concept; judgement and discernment with a hormonal response. How our visceral response to a stimulation rules our choices. Is this where ethics appears in the story?
Somehow somewhere, someone/many individuals chose to impose their strength, their physical presence on others. Sick children are likely candidates. A number of sleepless nights in a dodgy circumstance and how do we deal with the noise? These parents’ might became their right and the benefits became greater than the intimate rewards of sharing.
Imposing any kind of agenda on a large scale smacks of authoritarianism and what I imagine to be possible is a stretch of my imagination. But the magnetic resonance, the wave of conscious energy circling the planet is a reality. How we access it is to be determined.
Meanwhile our planet is delivering  responses to our actions, consequences of our ignorant violations of basic necessary practices for sustaining life.
I can relate to the people standing up and saying NO!  STOP!
The stream of consciousness, the stream of behaviours, existing structures and process encourage me  to take it all for granted, not recognize signs of failure, not acknowledge my own body’s  my own visceral response and go on living like it will never end.
That is not working for me. The pain I experience personally and around me through my compassionate, emotional triggered hormonal response continues to warn me of danger to my  being. How much more can we take?  01 05 2022

Marafa to Magarini with Hell's Kitchen in Between

Having a dedicated and trusted driver is an asset in Malindi. I’ve seen a number of posts recommending it, although of course (bila shaka) it costs. As we found out when we asked ours to take us to Marafa from the PolePole Beach resort. Famous for the nearby ‘depression’ (does that sound appealing?) also known as Hell’s Kitchen there is a stream of tuk-tuks and cars making their way out most evenings to catch the sunset over the vast and startling landscape that has become an enigmatic attraction there. We, however, were spending some nights in a local guest house before heading to the Magarini farm and school site. Our driver brought us right to the door, literally, collecting his payment that must have made up for the extra driving he’d had to do previously. It all works out eventually.
Watching our daily entry and exit  from the guest house in Marafa, a family of brightly dressed children called out ‘Ciao!’ to which we replied ‘Jambo’.  Which brought forth a chorus of Jambos and laughter almost every-time. All attempts to speak Swahili were greeted with smiles of appreciation and often a welcoming Karibu.
Stepping out into the ‘street’ and I use that term loosely, we took a short walk down the main drag checking out the possibilities in Marafa. From one end to the other it  takes all of 5 minutes. Another 5 minutes out of the village to the bar at Hell’s Kitchen, where in spite of the large lettering declaring Italian cuisine, there is, unfortunately, none available. In fact getting a meal in Marafa is a bit of challenge. Generously our hosts invited us for dinner where, surrounded by her flock of ducks, Jescar and her daughters pulled together many evening meals by the light of solar lamps and the rising moon. We had breakfast daily at the New Shalom cafe (not yet on TripAdvisor) and afternoon beers at a couple of  fairly anonymous establishments.
After breakfast we climbed onto  pikipiki/bodaboda/ motorcycles and out to Magarini Childrens Centre. As I’m rather large I had one to myself while Elke rode with Emmanuel. In the first days we set up the Safari tent and met the onsite staff. When our volunteer AJ was scheduled to arrive we took the minibus/daladala back to Malindi, and purchased supplies: mattresses, cookware, gas bottle and stove. AJ attempted to arrange sim card for his phone (bring an unlocked phone!). Transort arranged and we were delivered with all our purchases directly to the school and then on to to Marafa for the night.
Once the second tent was set up the following day we celebrated by stopping at Hell’s Kitchen and doing the tour through the quite impressive terrain. Winding down the trail into this ‘depression”  some local children were doing flips and acrobatic moves on the sandy floor. Superlatives don’t begin to describe the place. Erosion at it’s most colourful, not a place to be in a downpour though! Climbing around outcrops, standing in mini canyons and under overhangs and mushroom shaped hoodoos,  twisting back and forth takes about an hour. Then a climb up and out and along the rim where the more inaccessible portion (with occasional visits from troops of baboons) is visible. Pictures barely touch the majesty of it, but here are a few.

Tanzanian Exit

Once again we are on the move. An early rise and breakfast at our friend’s in Arusha  before loading up and heading off to catch a bus. At the main road, Old Moshi highway, the traffic is at a standstill so our driver pulls around and takes us on a dirt track between houses that snakes around, bumps us up and down, back and forth emerging onto another artery that brings us through a roundabout and to the bus. Elke had reserved the front seats in the bus so I climbed aboard and placed our backpacks on the seats.
People arrived in various conveyances, the ticket touts running alongside to sell them tickets, and grabbing their bags to be thrown or lifted, depending on the weight, onto the roofrack.
Once the luggage was up, tarped and tied down we said our goodbyes, not knowing if or when we will see these folks again. The challenge of living and working as a Mzungo in Tanzania has become difficult and when the rules change without notice, the official message seems to be
"not welcome".
On the road again, the landscape stark, dry and  dusty, the ever present herders watching as we pass by, Maasai in shukas and tire sandals carrying their long sticks, trudging single file along well worn tracks toward some destination in the distance. Every bridge over a dry riverbed, the earth eroded deeply showing the layers of deposit, back who knows how many years?
We drove west out of Arusha, then north and east with the sun directly in our faces, hot already at 9 am. The hills and Mt Meru to the  right clothed in green bush, no sign of any habitation, the herders preferring the open plains to the left, grey and brown interspersed with an occasional acacia.
Our driver seemed to know almost every second truck or matato, waving as they flashed their lights.
Occasional tiny settlements with the mandatory speed bumps, folks standing around; goats and cattle crossing and commerce of some description occurring.
In between the tree cover well off the road I could see bomas, the small round mud shelters of the Maasai with thatched roofs and adjacent corrals of sticks and thorn bush to secure the animals at night. Three zebra, a large curly horned antelope, various birds and a long tailed rodent racing across the road were the sum and total of my wildlife sightings.
At the Kenyan border we  lined up all our luggage outside the facility and they brought out a sniffer dog. Then Elke filled out a survey for the two governments and we were processed through. This time the wait was more reasonable although the Maasai women were even more persistent standing beside my window showing me every item and ignoring my insistence that I didn’t need or want what they offered. I remarked on one woman’s ear adornments, but they were not for sale.

Beachtime!

From Nairobi“Take the train” they said, it’s scenic, new and comfortable, along with sold out and unavailable as we soon determined. Including the scalpers at the tour companies. The next best choices were a long bus ride to Mombassa along a highway famous for it’s fatalities, then overnight in a hotel before another 6 hour bus north to Malindi or overnight for 9 hours (read 11 or 12) direct. After a few moments of thought we chose to fly.
2 years previous we had stayed in a lovely Italian owned ‘hotel. More like furnished apartments, it is close to the beach, a few nice restaurants and in case anyone’s interested, Vasco de Gama’s self erected monument. This time though, we  decided to treat ourselves to beach house resort style accommodation. A little ways south out of Malindi is Watamu beach; white sand, a reef offshore keeping the surf away from the beach and the (mostly) Italian tourists.
Our driver, prearranged to pick us up, assured us he knew exactly where we were going. Unfortunately he was mistaken, as the Pole Pole restaurant was not the Pole Pole Beach house. Pole pole means slowly, slowly and is also an expression of sympathy, singularly (pronounced poe lay). We were moving pole pole after leaving the tarmac, picking our way over coral outcrops and avoiding holes. Our eventual destination was apparently not well known.  After driving both ways twice, we arrived, in the dark, to a welcome reception. Dida the Ethiopian cook even provided us with a small bit of food and drink before we installed our bags in our room. Once that was accomplished, Ken from reception walked us through and around the building then down to the beach, past the pool, shared by the three other facilities on the property. Idyllic? Coral sand with crushed shells, an almost full moon, surf rolling in the distance, Swahili architecture, furniture and ambiance. Breakfast included. Paradise and posh for the same price as the hotel in Nairobi.
After  breakfast in the morning we walked the beach.  Flat whitish sand stretching almost to the reef with the low tide stretching to the horizon  left and right. The ocean a number of shades of blue and green with warm sun and a constant gentle (mostly) breeze off the water. Higher up in front of the resorts the seaweed being raked away from the tourist path gave me a chuckle, definitely a daily make work project.
Walking north we stopped at the great outcrops of ancient and dead coral sharp as razors with bits of the flotsam and jetsum hanging off the edges. Much of the plastic tidal deposits are also being raked away out of sight of the tourists.We sat quietly on the beach enjoying the temperature and the view...

However our reverie was soon interupted by a insistent stream of rasta boys hustling. These young men are fluent in Italian (English German and..?). The parade of bikini’s accompanied by these fellows is a sight to behold, often chaperoned by husbands, boyfriends and occasionally children. and we witnessed the un -endearing habit of these well meaning (I imagine)  foreign adults handing out sweets to the local children. Which explains the constant greeetings of "Caio' where ever we went. Our hotel security kept the rasta boys and children off the property, but they'd be hanging close by waiting for the next 'best friend" to provide a reason to guide someone into an opportunity to hand over cash. When informed we had none 'amna'  they generally left us alone.
 I  wanted to swim in the Indian ocean but the constant wind and timing of high tide full of seaweed encouraged me to use the pool, which was filled with salt water, so technically, I did swim in it…Then I lay in the sun and collected a very good sunburn. Who knew my overhanging belly would make stripes?  As we lay there Elke and I spoke about personal value, the old messages about what we deserve, what we allow, what brings up guilt. There is a big piece of entitlement and privilege or the lack of it enmeshed here. Equality, assumptions and access.
On our last night we ate an exquisite meal at a nearby hotel resort on their dining patio, outside but covered by the high thatch roof. Romance is how we make it.

Culture, Then and Now

I’m not a big fan of ‘tourist attractions’ but… We visit Boma’s of Kenya in Nairobi, a museum offering ‘traditional dance” performances, a restaurant and a number of recreated family clusters from many of the traditional tribal groups. Multiple wives need multiple residences, at least in this country. They also have multiple granaries and some have an inner wall to keep the livestock out of their bed. All made of mud with thatched roofs. The granaries were mostly very large baskets, some also plastered with mud and all belonging to the women.Visiting these little groupings was almost like a trip around the country, somewhere around 30 of them; although by the end there were not so much groupings as examples of slightly different construction.
Speedily walking past the inevitable venders we continued on into the main hall to watch the dancing. Many of the seats in the large circular auditorium were lined with school children in uniform. Rows of red, yellow, brown, green and blue with tourists in groups breaking up the random colour schemes. That was worth a picture and I spotted a few tourists filming the audience although I chose not to.
The dancing was fairly vigorous  and entertaining. I cannot speak to it’s authenticity although the costumes were well made and dancers enthusiastic. A couple of the males would pull individuals out of the stands (mostly female) to the immense appreciation of the rest of us and in some cases embarrassment of the ‘volunteers’. After a number of these performances we made our way off the site walking  towards a nearby shopping centre, passing by a group of baboons nonchalantly checking out the garbage bins around the perimeter.
Another entertaining environment! I hadn’t seen so many white people since Europe, once we got past the security check and into the mall. I scored big, finding a number of packages of my favourite chocolate… no longer available back home, I bought all  they had assuming it was the end of the stock. (Days later in another mall I saw more but I restrained myself).
We sat and had a hot drink  watching the parade of blondes and men in shorts, the occasional Africans with higher status and money hanging out with the colonials and tourists. Yes extremely judgemental but there we were and thats what I saw, or at least make up about what I saw. Your experience may be, no, will be different. It was quite pleasant, civil and enlightening and after looking through the arts and crafts market (where the vendors made complimentary comments about my Tanzanian shirt) we called ‘Little’ an Uber/taxi service and made our way through the traffic back to our friends’ residence for sundowners, conversation and dinner.