Thanks to The Wellcome Trust and Leicester Uni [my future research abode i hope] interesting facts on deadly doings of the 1600s to the 1800s are being revealed in this series.

Art by Jasmine Becket-Griffith

For decades 

she tried

to comprehend

the pain

reflected there

in those liquid pools

◊

She searched

those eyes

the ones that stared

back at her

the ones

that held

all her secrets

◊

They gave

only brief glimpses

of what resided there

careful

not to expose

too much

◊

She tried

to let others see

but her eyes

denied , lied

covering

the agony

 inside 

◊

Until

one day

it no longer mattered

she

gave

up

The end

~✥~

ς 

This is a holiday weekend and I may take some time away to relax.

Happy Memorial Day

(remember the reason for the day)

And since I write about romance and I was a police officer, I feel I can offer an interesting perspective that ties to both. The reports say she had been stalking the victim. It seems she had developed the feeling she could not live without him and could not have anyone else have him. It is not unusual for stalking suspects to eventually kill the object of their fascination just for this reason. I am not a phychiatrist, but I know there is a name for this syndrome. I see Miss Arias in this category.

I saw the interview she did where she asked for the death penalty. Many people wondered why she would want to give up her life. My perspective is because she feels she cannot live without the victim, she may have intended to kill herself after killing the victim, but chickened out. I have been on crime scenes like this. The perpetrator can be standing over the victim but still get cold feet. As an officer on the scene, the perpetrator will threaten the cops so the officers may have no choice but to kill the perpetrator. We call this suicide by cop. “I can’t do it so please kill me to complete my goal.” My belief is Miss Arias got cold feet and left the scene. Then when she was caught she saw the opportunity to have the twelve members of the jury convict her to death so she in the end has made a suicide by jury. This woman is sick.

That being said, I say let her rot in jail for the entire rest of her life. Don’t give her the opportunity to follow her lover into the next world. That is what she wants. She thinks death will not separate them.

I believe in romance. It is a wonderful feeling. But it does not always turn out to be happily ever after. This story is as dark as Romeo and Juliet. There are countless stories of romances filled with such promise that turn dark and can lead to the demise of one or both. How can something so wonderful turn so dark? Yes, romance can have a dark side. Life has light and dark sides. It is for us to always go toward the light! Fortunately, most romance novelist stay on the light side, even when they use dark circumstances. I hope that will continue but we need romance stories like this to show us there is always a dark side

So, here I am today. I took off work because I knew it would be a rough day. I stayed at Mom’s last night; I was in town for a meeting for Relay for Life, so I stayed. We had a good conversation, and she genuinely thanked me for staying. We’re having dinner with some friends and family tonight. But I’m struggling because I feel like I should do something to honor him today. You know, something grander than going to lunch at his favorite spot or having a Bacardi and diet to honor (or spite) him. Something that I could make a tradition. But maybe that’s putting too much pressure on myself. A tradition is something I’d have to follow year after year, and that I would make myself feel awful about if I missed. Maybe today is just about thinking about him and going on with my life. He’ll always be with me, and it’s not like I’ll ever forget him – the good and the bad.

I don’t necessarily understand why people are scared of death and definitely don’t see why they should feel guilty for being glad to be alive.

Death is unknown to us, thus the fear most people have of it.  However, why do we fear the things we do not know?  That is question I often ask as I see this fear in ways great and small throughout the day.  People often freeze when making decisions for even mundane and meaningless things because they don’t know what will happen or how things will change.

I work in retail and every day I watch customers stare at faucets or countertops or cabinets unable to make the most basic decisions because they are afraid of this thing that is different from the things they have always known.  They cannot or will not see the possibilities of this new thing and it freezes them.

Something like death is something so monumental that it is no wonder people freeze when thinking of it.  They don’t know how to deal with it because they have avoided thinking of it for their whole lives.  When they do think of it, it is in the context of loss, specifically their loss.  They are most affected by the hole left in their lives.  If they are good people, and most people are good people, they are also sad that the people closest to the deceased no longer have that person in their lives and they are sad that the deceased is no longer here to enjoy this life, to see another sunset.

They are also affected by the thing they don’t want to talk about, that they are glad they are not dead.  They are happy to be alive.  To me that is what funerals and wakes are supposed to be for.  They are to lay the deceased to rest, but also to give us a way to celebrate their life and our own continued existence.  These events should celebrate life and find the joy in its continuation and remind us that our time on Earth is short and we should live it to the fullest.  We should feel no guilt for being glad to be alive.

Your death bed is the time when you should not have regrets for the things you didn’t even try.  It is expected you will fall short sometimes and have disappointments.  Everyone who has lived has dealt with disappointment.  However, those disappointments should stem from trying things, living life.  That is what death teaches me.

If you have ever studied Zen Buddhism you have probably been instructed to contempt daily on this simple saying, “I may die today.”  You do this to make you think that you may die today and ask yourself if you have lived a life worth leaving behind.  If you were to die today, were your last acts in this life worthy of your life.

I started writing every day the day I read those words.  This is what death teaches me:  Live your life as best you can by treating others as you wish to be treated and leave no regrets by finding your passion and following it to its conclusion.  You will be successful, maybe not rich or famous, but when you die the people you touched will throw a hell of a party to remember you.

It looks like the authorities aren’t so sure about rapper Tim Dog‘s death. Despite reports that the Bronx native died from complications from diabetes back in February, a warrant has been issued for his arrest in Mississippi. Born Timothy Blair, the rapper was convicted of swindling a Southhaven women in 2011. Prosecutor Steven Jubera says that if he’s alive, he’s going to jail. “I need proof,” said Jubera. His family is being asked to present proof that the hip-hop star is indeed dead.

via:hiphopblog

Photo credit: http://www.presstv.ir/usdetail/301510.html

Apparently I am not alone. A study was done that showed a good possibility of a link between country music and suicide. I know sometimes I would rather put a bullet in my brain than have to listen to one more country music song.

Here is an interesting article about that.

http://www.scribd.com/doc/2917738/The-Effect-of-Country-Music-on-Suicide

 Despite the very likely link that country music makes one want to jump off the Golden Gate Bridge, no attempts have been made whatsoever to silence this menace to society. Had the same link been made with gummy bears you can bet there would be a ban on gummy bears.

Now I’m not one to take away anyone’s personal liberties. If you like country music then by all means listen to it until you lose the will to live. That is your prerogative. But why do I have to listen to it? I did not choose to have my senses assaulted. Yet everywhere I go there is country music playing on the loud-speaker and I have no choice in the matter.  My only recourse is to grab what I need as quickly as possible and get the heck out of there. Forget about any impulse buys. I’m just frantically trying to get out the door.

I do have music that I like that no one else likes but it is kept confined within the ear buds of my iPod. It’s not playing over the loud speakers. I don’t have it blaring out my car windows as I drive by. It’s my music and only I can here it.

How much is it to ask that the same courtesy be paid to me about country music? Why can’t all the country music fans just keep it to themselves? Roll your windows up, turn the stereo down or buy some earbuds. Maybe I don’t want to be depressed and suicidal today.

Related articles

• Dixie Chicks’ Natalie Maines Confesses: Country Music ‘Burned My Ears’ (kfrog.cbslocal.com)

Initially this situation seemed like a usual robbery, but an investigation by Columbia College journalism students show otherwise. There are numerous inconsistencies in the witnesses’ stories and flaws in the investigation. Officer Haile was cleared only six hours after the shooting. The round table only lasted 40 minutes, and the officers and investigators didn’t wait for the autopsy results.

Also, there was only one identifiable fingerprint on the gun’s magazine, and it did not match Brooks or Rivera. The fingerprints weren’t matched to Haile or Fairley’s and still remains unknown.

According to the Round Table police report, on September 14, 2001 at 1:50 a.m. Officer Robert Haile, #12431, of the 007^th District, who had just gotten off duty for the night and was in civilian dress went to Reese’s Lounge, 1827 W. 87^th St. When he arrived, the bar was closing so he did not enter. He went over to his friend Sylvester Fairley who told Haile about damage that was recently done to his beloved midnight blue Corvette. Both walked to the lounge garage driveway where the car was parked to observe the damage.

Then the two headed back to the lounge, walking north on Honore. Soon after leaving the car they noticed a man, later found out to be Lajuanzo Brooks, 21, wearing a blue hooded sweatshirt with the hood up, jeans and white gym shoes, come out of the alley and quickly approach them.

The two split to let Brooks go between them and once he was three or four steps ahead, he turned around to face them. Brooks then raised his sweatshirt to reveal a handgun in his waistband, which he then drew and pointed at the two men. Brooks announced a robbery and told them they might as well “give it all up.” While Fairley reached into his pocket for his valuables, Haile, who was slightly behind Fairley turned sideways to reach behind his right side with his right hand as if getting his wallet.

Brooks asked Haile what he was doing because he was taking a longer time and Haile responded that he was getting his money. Instead, Haile unsnapped his service holster and pulled out his pistol. He pointed the gun at Brooks and told him, “Police, freeze.” Brooks did not drop his weapon, and this was when Haile fired at him five times, hitting Brooks three of those times. Haile was able to demonstrate his movement during the shooting where he shifted his feet to keep Brooks in front of him as Brooks moved toward and past him. Haile said he fired standing two or three feet away from Brooks, and that he was in fear for his life and that of Fairley’s.

Instantly after Brooks was shot, he fell to the grassy parkway and a Chevrolet came from the alley and pulled up near his body. The driver, Jose Rivera, ran from the car to his friend. Officer Haile identified himself and told Rivera to stop. Rivera confronted Haile, so Haile grabbed him. Rivera broke free and tried to grab Brooks’ gun, but was unsuccessful. He was later caught and detained with the help of fellow officers.

Soon after Brooks was taken to Christ Hospital, where he was pronounced dead at 2:45 a.m. Melvin Burnside, the owner of Reese’s Lounge, stated that his lounge attracts many police officers as customers. Everyone included in the Round Table Panel works for the police department, and within this 40-minute meeting the police investigators cleared Haile and decided he was innocent instead of waiting for autopsy results and other key interviews.

Meanwhile, just across town and minutes after Haile was cleared, Dr. Eupil Choi of the Cook County Medical Examiner’s Office began conducting Brooks’ autopsy. In the autopsy report he wrote notes on his primary observations of the exterior of the body including Brooks’ fingers having ink on them, meaning his fingerprints were already taken, which he admitted in his deposition as unusual.

Choi was not able to determine the order of the bullet wounds, so he describes them from the top of the body to the bottom. The first was located eight inches from the top of the head at the midline level in the back of the neck, “0.5 inches in diameter with abrasion rim extending from 6 to 12 o’clock.” The fact it had an abrasion rim makes it known that it was an entry wound, and the last part indicates the direction of the bullet by the abrasion or scratch, in this case it went from left to right. The exit wound for this bullet was located on the right side of the neck below and behind the earlobe, and he could tell it was an exit wound due to the minute lacerations surrounding it. This shot did not strike any vital organs and was the least harmful out of the three.

The second gunshot wound is located three inches left of the middle of the back and 18 inches from the top of the head. This wound had a thin marginal abrasion rim, and the direction of the bullet was right to left, back to front and upwards. After entering the skin this bullet struck and fractured Brooks’ ninth rib (counting from top to bottom). The bullet then went through both the lower and upper lobes of the left lung, which caused blood to enter the lung and would make it difficult for Brooks to breathe. The bullet exited through the chest at 12.5 inches from the top of the head.

Gunshot wound no. three entered the body 25 inches from the top of the head and 3.5 inches to the right of the spine, where a thin abrasion was present at the right lower margin of the wound. The bullet entered the abdomen and caused a hemorrhage, then went up through the backside of the kidney and through the stomach. The bullet remained in the body and was found in the front of the spine between the esophagus and the bronchus (the windpipe area). Choi stated that this wound was the most severe because it struck main organs and caused internal bleeding.

In conclusion, every bullet had the same direction, back to front, and all were pointed upward. There was also no stippling around any of the entry wounds, which means the shooter (Haile) was more than 20 inches away from the victim (Brooks). The differences between shots were the bullet angles; the first went from left to right, and the last two went from right to left. Choi explains a toxicology analysis was done to check for alcohol, cocaine and morphine; all three came out negative.

But none of this would matter. Even when police officials learned of Dr. Choi’s findings, they ignored them.

Thomas Smith, chief investigator at this time, spent 26 years with the FBI, nine with the Office of Professional Standards where his duties were to reorganize investigations, get training up to standards, and to make the investigative process more of a scientific and interview basis.

But Brooks’ shooting is a case that shows Smith did not do his job, the investigation, properly.

First of all the autopsy results raised unanswered questions to how exactly Brooks was shot in the back, none which were noted as asked or answered. Smith said the only possible options are that Brooks started to run away or run to the side of Haile after Haile started shooting.

No witnesses were further questioned after the Round Table Report, and some key witnesses are missing such as the still anonymous 911 callers who had a lot of specific detail of what happened.

Cory Wilson, a man who was punched by either Haile or Fairley, is not mentioned in the OPS final report. Detective Lukas basically just rehashed what was said at the Round Table.

After Haile gave his account at the Round Table, he was never called back in for questioning.

Smith also said that he doesn’t know if the detectives canvassed the area, but that it should always be done.

Haile voluntarily submitted to an alcohol breath test, which indicated that his blood alcohol level was .006 at 5:24 a.m. This means Haile had a trace of alcohol in his system only a little over three hours after the shooting occurred.

The only clear fingerprint, on the gun magazine, did not match Brooks or Rivera. It was not compared to Haile or Fairley’s and still remains unmatched.

There were also several witnesses, Wilson, Gant, Burnside, Brown, who never mention seeing a gun next to Brooks’ body. When Smith was questioned as to why he thought Brooks didn’t return gunshots he said, “The critical thing is whether or not Brooks had a gun.” He also agreed that the gun’s serial number should have been traced so they could know who the last owner was.

Smith admitted to signing off on the investigation without actually reading the whole thing, “Well, you know, I probably should have read all of this report, but, you know, it’s apparent I didn’t read all of this.”

Smith declared that he still wouldn’t change his mind from agreeing with Lukas that Haile is not guilty, even if he knew about the fingerprints.

Here’s to those who are no longer with us.

Remembering Darius.

Mother’s turn next in a few days.

News outlets reporting Blair’s death in February quoted a news item from a Hip Hop website, TheSource.com. But the original report has since been deleted from The Source‘s website. The original report did not mention the circumstances of Blair’s death, such as where he was found or how he died.

Prosecutor Jubera says he will drop the lawsuit if Blair’s family can produce a death certificate proving Blair is really dead.

Related articles

• A Warrant For The Arrest Of Rapper Tim Dog Has Been Issued Although It Is Said The Man Is Dead! (obnoxioustv.wordpress.com)
• tony blair gordon brown approved margaret thatcher funeral details (thesun.co.uk)
• Arrest Warrant Issued for “Dead” Rapper Tim Dog (wreg.com)

Cycles of War, Cycles of Birth … What Can Be Done: Changing the Patterns of Millennia Requires Learning That Feeling Good Is Not Bad

Men Would Rather Be Manly Than Alive and What Say We Leave a Planet for Our Offspring?

Why We Invite War, Allow Fascism, and Pollute: Our Coming Into the World Makes Us Want to Leave It

The question posed at the end of the last chapter was whether we had opened the door to an unimaginable armageddon or were experiencing the birth pangs of a massive consciousness transformation and subsequent Earth rebirth. Are we going to self-destruct, bringing death to the entire planet along with us, or will we become good citizens of this planet and our species continue on?

What Say We Leave a Planet For Our Offspring?

Most folks would think there would be only one answer to that question desired by virtually all humans. But in previous chapters, especially Apocalypse Emergency, Chapter Five: Death Wish – Thanatos Walking, I showed how, and why, that common-sense notion would, amazingly, be wrong: We saw how there is a huge percentage of our human Earth citizens, and a part of all of us, that wants to “throw in the towel.” This has always been true of humans, but it is of critical importance only now.

But I will assume anyone reading this will at least consciously be wanting our vital question to be answered in the affirmative. You know as well as I that the folks on the other side of this question are doing vastly different things right now than us and are nowhere to be found around here.

How Do We “Like” Life?

So the next thing to be addressed is how we might change our fortunes and live. Since continuing on is not just of matter of deciding it—voting “like” on it or checking its box—as we saw in Chapter Five: Death Wish, how can we get around this part of ourselves and our population that wants to do us all in? We need to know how to derail our perpetual cycles of war and violence. We need know how to quit bringing pollution and suffering on us. We have to know how we can stop our secret desire to take comfort in failure, how to “unlike” self-sabotage on our inner “profile.”

How Do We “Unlike” Fascism?

I have written a great deal on this question, including an entire book in 2011 on the way we act out this masochistic tendency politically and culturally by taking comfort in totalitarianism and embracing fascism. [Footnote 1]

For our purposes presently I will focus on the element of it all that is critical to answering our question. So we first need to look into the place from which emanates our dilemma. I showed that this bugaboo is our Will to Death.

Our Coming Into This World Makes Us Want to Leave It

Now we need to get more specific on this negative inclination of ours. As we have seen this Will to Death arises from human’s unique-among-all-species primal pain rooted in our singular way of coming into the world, our unique human birth.

We Need Look Deeper

We need to look deeper into the elements of that part of ourselves that would have us take us all down. We need inquire into that tendency of ours to choose pollution over health, tyranny over freedom, war over peace, enslavement over autonomy, violence over pacifism, oppression over liberty, misery over happiness. We must derail the cycles of war, violence, and fascism. We must know how to “like” happiness.

We Need Know Where Exactly to Focus Our Efforts to Be Successful

To do so, we must separate the skeins of this inner entanglement and shed light into this darkness within. We need to know specifically, precisely where to place the lever of effort we will apply to truly move the world, to derail it from its current acceleration into oblivion.

So we look now into the elements of that perinatal unconscious manifesting currently as a will to die on the grandest scale imaginable.

Cycles of War, Cycles of Birth

We find there are two researchers who are particularly relevant to our understanding of the elements of the perinatal unconscious in a way as to avert collective, worldwide disaster. These are Stanislav Grof and Lloyd DeMause. [Footnote 2]

Men Would Rather Be “Manly” Than…Alive…

DeMause writes,

[T]he group-fantasy shared prior to wars expresses the nation’s deep feeling that the increase in pleasure brought about by the prosperity and progress that usually precede wars “pollutes” the national blood-stream with sinful excess, making men “soft” and feminine”—a frightful condition that can only be cleansed by a blood-shedding purification. [Footnote 2]

Men are more terrified of appearing “feminine” than of losing their lives. Why we invite war.

DeMause is saying we go forever into war because after a while peace makes men feel guilty, “sinful.” Men have uncomfortable, even shameful…homophobic…feelings of being “soft” or “feminine” when their lives are good. So men choose the “purifying,” masculinizing ritual of war to fight off these feelings. Nothing distracts one from looking inward better than a “good, old-fashioned” life-or-death struggle, and war is the most all-encompassing of them.

Men are more terrified of appearing “soft” than having the boot of totalitarianism on their neck. Why we allow fascism.

What DeMause says about bringing war upon us can be said also about allowing fascism, inviting totalitarianism. For whether we are fighting enemies of another nation or struggling to survive against oppression at home, we are involved in a daily struggle. Secret to us, we feel better being engaged in a dramatic battle, though it brings us suffering and misery.

We simply can’t hack peace for very long. We feel guilty, for some reason, lolling on the beach. You ever notice how at the end of your vacation time, you are anxious for it to be over and to get back to work? That feeling—that one where we feel…guilty?…uncomfortable…tense?…unfulfilled?…(you tell me)—that’s it. That’s the one I’m talking about.

It happens the same way collectively after we have experienced a “vacation” of national peace—for example, in the Nineties when we were prosperous and mostly peaceful under Clinton. At the end of it, with Bush, we ended up getting the misery and struggle many in America were driven to want, though no one would ever admit that.

A quick aside. The fact that the majority of Americans actually didn’t vote for Bush and so tried to choose happiness over struggle is a source of hope for us in all this. That’s a hint of what’s coming.

Cycles of Birth, Cycles of War … The Four “Colors” of the Perinatal Veils and Why Women Fear Fatness and Men Fear Femininity

Four Kinds of Early Experience Color Our Adult Experience in Four Distinct Ways … Cycles of Birth and War

Four Kinds of Experiences in Our First Nine Months Imprint Us for Four Feeling “Flavors” as Adults

But for now, let us get back to this opening provided us. We can make better use of deMause’s insight on the birth feelings that take us into war using Stanislav Grof’s delineation of this birth unconscious of ours. Let us review as described earlier and further stipulate on them: Grof explains we are moved as adults by four specific kinds of drives emanating from our earliest experiences. These specific tendencies in us relate to four different times in the birth process which involve four radically different kinds of experiences.

Grof uses the term, basic perinatal matrices (BPMs), to refer to these four aspects of our inner urges. I will describe them here and refer to them along with DeMause’s cycles of social-historical violence and war to pull apart the roots of our current apocalyptic dilemma. [Footnote 3]

Our Tendency to Always Screw Up a Good Thing, BPM I

The first of Grof’s aspects of our unconscious he terms Basic Perinatal Matrix I, BPM I for short.

Prosperity and Progress Equal Feeling “Soft” and “Feminine”

Grof’s BPM I is sometimes described as “oceanic bliss” and involves the experiences and feelings related to the relatively undisturbed prenatal period. On the social, macrocosmic level, it is the period described in the quote by deMause above in which there is a period of “prosperity and progress” and feelings of being “soft” and “feminine.”

The strong connection between individual experience (personal psychology) and collective realities (social-historical events and elements) is patent here since in BPM I experience the individual is still in the mother’s womb and to some extent shares her identity, which is of course feminine. Being unborn and not having gone through the “toughening” experiences of birth and later trauma, which predominantly create one’s defenses, the individual is also “soft,” in other words, undefended.

“No Pain, No Gain,” Hell, Satan, and Poisonous Placenta; BPM II

“No-Exit” Claustrophobia

To further review Grof’s schema and its relation to deMause’s cycles of war, I want to remind you that BPM II is related on the individual level to the time near the end of pregnancy when the fetus is no longer rocking blissfully on the waves of oceanic bliss but is trapped in an ever more confining womb. As the fetus grows in size, the suffering becomes greater; no doubt this is the source of the common-sense belief that growing has to involve suffering, for example, “No pain, no gain.” At any rate, the feelings are those of claustrophobia and “no exit.”

There is heavy non-agitated depression here, since there appears to be no hope, no change in the situation that would indicate a way out of the suffering. Indeed, this period continues practically right up to the time of birth, ending only when the cervix becomes dilated and, experientially speaking, there appears suddenly to be a “light at the end of the tunnel” and therefore hope.

Where the Hell We Get the Idea of Hell

However, up until that time there are feelings of being totally unempowered, completely in the hands of an entity—the womb—that imposes a horrifying reality that appears to be unending and eternal. Herein we have the psychological roots of notions of hell and Satan. Feelings associated with this state include despair, victimization, blame, and guilt.

“You’ll Wallow in Your Shit, and You’ll Think You’re Happy.” – Kurt Cobain, from the Song, “Sad”

As birth comes nearer, “fetal malnutrition” increases, since the neonate’s increasing size and weight press down on and constrict the blood vessels that carry blood to and from the placenta, when the mother is standing. The decreased blood supply means a reduction of life-giving oxygen as well as the buildup of toxins that would otherwise be taken away by a normal blood flow. So feelings of suffocation as well as skin irritation and other feelings of wallowing in waste matter—deemed poisonous placenta by deMause—increase. [Footnote 4]

“You’re Really in a Laundry Room.” – Kurt Cobain, from the Song, “Sad”

As I have said previously, deMause has found that these feelings exist to an extraordinary degree in a society and its leaders prior to its engaging in a war. Similarly, they precede, and obviously can be held to be accountable for, individual acts of violence—including everything from murder and rape to unfortunately all-too-common and ordinary spousal and child abuse in the household, and of course everything in between.

Bloody War, Bloody Birth — BPM III

BPM III is birth. Its social analogue is war or violent assault. Feelings that accompany this state on both the individual and societal level include rage and intense aggressiveness, all-encompassing struggle, and sexual excess.

Nothing’s Ever Good Enough, BPM IV

BPM IV relates to the time of actually coming out of the womb and the post-natal period. On the societal level it is the ending of a war.

“Busting Out All Over”

Feelings of expansiveness, release, exultation, coming finally out into the light and/or being “on top” of things, and victory are feelings associated with this matrix, whether in the individual birth or the collective war cycle.

As I said the societal analogue to BPM IV, or actually being born, is a war’s end. It is no coincidence that in triumph or peace, the two-finger peace symbol is used. What better way to signal we have come from constriction into openness, specifically through the vise of a mother’s cervix, out from between two legs. As John Lennon so aptly put it, using the peace sign frequently, “War is over (if we want it).”

Mission Accomplished … Not!

Interestingly, just as in recent times harsh modern obstetrical practices and the removal of the baby from the mother can leave lifetime feelings of success not bringing with it the expected rewards and thus a post-accomplishment sort of depression, so also the ending of successful wars sometimes also leaves a society with a sort of letdown. For example, the euphoria following George H. W. Bush’s Gulf War—which catapulted his approval ratings into the ninety percent range in 1991—was followed, only a year later, by the increasing agony of a recession and Bush’s defeat at the polls.

Cycles of Birth, Cycles of War

All of this is to say that in society, as in the womb, a period of uninterrupted and relatively undisturbed feelings of growth leads to feelings of depression—being too “soft” and “feminine,” but also “too fat” in the womb and, therefore, extremely constricted and compressed.

Why Women Fear Becoming Fat and Men Fear Appearing “Feminine”

Another way of saying this: feelings of expansion are followed by a fear of entrapment. And I agree wholeheartedly with deMause in saying that it happens this way in a nation’s cycle of feelings because it happened that way to us prior to and during our births. We have these patterns of feelings as collective groups of individuals because our first experience of expansion was followed by extreme depression, guilt, despair, and then struggle and something bloodily akin to war—our actual births.

What to Do to Stop War and Violence: Changing the Patterns of Millennia Requires Learning That Feeling Good Is Not Bad

To Derail War and Violence, Replace Self-Sabotaging With Self-Actualizing … We Can No Longer Afford Our Delusional Ways

What Can Be Done?

So knowing this, how can we use it? In previous chapters, I explained how and why we see the dynamics of this perinatal unconscious, not coincidentally right now, on the ascendance, just at the time when it is crucial we deal with it to survive. I called this an emerging perinatal unconscious, and I went into detail about why it is happening now, what it means, and how we should take advantage of the opportunity it brings that could aid us in our current dilemma.

For now, I need only remind that is imperative we face these unconscious forces instead of turning away from and thereby insuring our continued ignorance of them and helpless acting out of them.

So, how do we consciously participate in these drives, not merely be driven by them?

Lloyd DeMause, in his article, “Restaging of Early Traumas in War and Social Violence,” printed in the spring 1996 issue of The Journal of Psychohistory, called for kinder and gentler birthing and child-caring practices to mitigate the ferocity of these forces within humans and help us avoid an otherwise inevitable planetary disaster. He was restating what other pre- and perinatal psychologists…I am one, by the way…including Thomas Verny and Stanislav Grof assert. [Footnote 5]

However, I believe we need to go further than that. I, along with Grof, call for a larger awareness of and efforts in the direction of healing these perinatal elements in the consciousness and unconscious of those already alive right now. For unless we act to heal the people currently inhabiting this planet, we might not leave a planet that babies can be born into!…let alone people to conceive and give birth to them. Healing the perinatal traumas can be accomplished through, at this point, thoroughly tested and effective techniques of experiential regression and emotional release.

But it is impossible for everyone to take advantage of these techniques, especially in the short time we have to make the changes. But something short of that ideal may be sufficient to stave off otherwise inevitable doom.

Let me explain what I mean by that.

Finding the Weakest Spot

Of course only time will tell what will be the result of this emerging perinatal unconscious for our species.

Real, not blindly delusional, action is required.

But to get an idea of what we might hope for, given a readiness to actually do something about this, I offer a perspective. This understanding requires we remember some critical aspects of the cartography of the psyche described above. Looking into them we might begin to see where are the openings allowing for realistic action to be taken to bring about true, not just blindly delusional, change for our species.

We can no longer afford otherwise.

For our purposes here, the most important part of the cycle is BPM I. Societies, according to deMause, go through these cycles of war and peace and have been doing so for as long as we know. But we can no longer afford these wars, as World War I and World War II have shown—with each one being an increase in our ability to destroy and to commit atrocities. We cannot afford to have a World War III as that most likely would end life on our planet.

Indeed, as I’ve been pointing out, we cannot even afford the less extreme forms of acting out of perinatal trauma that we have been doing in our poisoning of the earth and air, global overpopulation, and the ongoing regional wars to give just a few of many examples I could have used. These things, along with many other current quite insane tendencies of ours, have the capacity to end our species and possibly all life on this planet.

Feeling Good Is Not Bad

So the cycle of societal perinatal acting out must be stopped. And the most obvious place to derail the insidious cycle is at the point of societal prosperity and progress. Feeling soft, undefended, and feminine are, rationally speaking, not things to be alarmed about.

Quite to the contrary, it is rational that prosperity should make people feel good. It is rational that feeling soft should be a source of contentment, sensitivity, and intimacy with others. It makes sense that men should have no shame about feeling feminine because that only means that they have access to sensitive and nurturing feelings that are a source of joy, “color,” and fulfillment in life.

Changing the Patterns of Millennia

But how do we do this? How do we convince people that feeling good is not bad? For these unconscious forces, these cycles of violence, have been pulling our strings for at least tens of thousands of years. How can we change such an engrained pattern?

Chasing the Mirages of the Future

Well, again, we get our leads from the experiences of individuals undergoing experiential psychotherapy.

“It’s never enough.”

For individuals also, if they are to heal themselves, have to learn how to appreciate success and to stop sabotaging themselves in the myriad of ways they do. Individuals act out their mini-cycles of “war” in their struggles to achieve. And people are driven to struggle to achieve because they cannot be pleased with what they have.

Relating back to deMause’s societal schema, people cannot simply enjoy their “prosperity.” People cannot stop to smell the roses occasionally. We cannot count our blessings and feel contented with what we have. Nor can we enjoy the natural pleasure of being alive in the moment.

“Wrong…It IS enough.”

No, instead what characterizes we humans—for the most part because of our having birth trauma—is a persistent drive to always have more than we do. We find that every accomplishment or success is short lived, with inexplicable depression following it. For each new attainment does not bring the expected (unconscious) rewards and leads us almost immediately to a new struggle, a new accomplishment to be sought.

Humans are driven to chasing mirages of better times somewhere off in the future, and we fail to live in the present. We feel unsatisfied with what we have and are continually deluded that some new possession, accomplishment, or love “conquest” will bring with it the missing happiness.

Becoming Self-Actualizing Instead of Self-Sabotaging

When people are aware of the way they unconsciously sabotage their happiness, they sometimes seek help. And if they seek help in the experiential psychotherapies, they are enabled to work through their birth trauma so that they are no longer driven out of the moment, with its pleasure and pain, into an imagined but never attainable pleasureful and happy future.

Learning that it is enough

So people derail their cycles of drivenness and their tendencies to sabotage their successes by learning to enjoy their “prosperity,” even if it is the simple pleasure of being alive. And when they act to add to that pleasantness, they do so, not out of drivenness, but out of feelings of flow and the simple joys of acting and actualizing one’s tendencies, talents, and desires. They become self-actualizing instead of self-sabotaging.

Can You Handle Happiness? What to Do – We Get By With a Little Help, from Our Nature … Stand in the Place Where You Are

A Hierarchy of Healing … Becoming Human Beings (Not Doings): Removing the Hood from Homophobes, A Hard Rain, and Stand

OK, knowing this, one might ask if I am suggesting that to save our species everyone needs to get into experiential therapy. While that would be nice, it is not practical.

But I believe it is not necessary either. There is an element of that societal period of prosperity that can be used and focused on in order to make the societal change of pattern, the societal derailing of the tendency to self-sabotage through war-making.

Getting By, With a Little Help From Our Nature

And that element is this: During times of prosperity, when one is less engaged in a struggle to survive, we find that one’s body will naturally try to heal itself of unresolved and somatically imprinted trauma by bringing into consciousness the repressed traumatic memories needing resolution.

Hierarchy of Healing

This occurs in a manner similar to that of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. Basically, one’s needs to “grow emotionally”…i.e., clear away the unresolved trauma…can only come to the fore when one’s physical survival needs are relatively taken care of. And arise they unerringly do, given any opportunity to do so.

“Don’t just do something, STAND there!”

However, when these traumatic memories come up seeking resolution, they, also unerringly, bring with them the associated feelings of depression, unease, and pain. But because these feelings are anything but pleasant, to their detriment most people seek to avoid these feelings through addictions and other forms of “acting-out” behavior. So addictions and acting-out behavior emerge after periods of relative stability precisely because that stability allows unresolved feelings an opening for emergence and a possibility of resolution and healing.

Allowing Our Society to Be Honestly, Blatantly “Sick”

So there you have it; that is the crux. The period of societal prosperity can be maintained and added to if that society refuses to run away from the negative feelings that come up with success. As I have said, one needs to get “sicker” in order to get really well.

“Stand in the Place Where You Are … Just Stand.”

Societally, we need to allow the social, formerly repressed, “sicknesses,” negativities, and the pain that comes with them to arise and be socially worked out, to be hashed out, rather than to escape them by resorting to scapegoating enemies and waging war against them. [Footnote 6]

Are We Doing This?

But can societies do this? Are they doing this?

Apparently Not

It does not seem so at the moment. For we have extreme acting out going on from Tea Party type elements. The homophobia that characterizes them is an indicator of the degree to which they are fearful of that feeling of being “soft” and “feminine,” I mentioned.

But Then Again…

However there is a pattern in change that things can not really change until the negative slide has “hit bottom.” These negative forces cannot be gone beyond until they have wasted themselves in desperate acts. At this time also, positive forces are strengthening in the wings, burnishing their skills, tempering their character and nobility, fully capable when the time comes to take over. There are so many examples of this in social and individual histories, but not to get bogged down, I will mention one powerful one—Nelson Mandela. You can take it from there.

The more common thing to mention about change is that prior to a major paradigm shift, the forces on the decline always wage a fierce, desperate battle…a bloody retreat, a burning of the fields, near suicidal and totally reckless forays.

We see people do this, too, just before they are about to change. We see people who self-destruct being the ones whose last desperate battle before awareness can dawn being something that takes their life and perhaps others with them.

We currently can point to Gaddafi, Assad, and other tyrants. We can observe reckless tea-baggers willing, as in the debt ceiling clash, to bring down the country for ideals that, however rationalized and spun, are at their roots as simple and crude as jealousy—of those smarter and more capable; hatred—of minorities, the poor, the “dirty,” the “slobs,” the “lazy”…basically all the scapegoats society allows them to vent the rage of their inner fears and hurt on; and homophobia—that fear of being “soft,” feminine, unmasculine, and being willing to kill or be killed rather than to let oneself be seen that way.

Homophobes Don’t Fear Homosexuals … They Fear What’s Inside Themselves

Before continuing, one big misconception around that last point needs clearing up: homophobia is at base not fear/hatred of homosexuals, it is terror/hatred of the “feminine” and “softness” inside of the man himself who is homophobic. And this is the result of tens of thousands of years of “civilization,” still continuing, in which men are threatened with disapproval, ostracism, ridicule, attack, or worse for not repressing their softer sides down to the level of the norm of their group.

Boys Learn They Must Be Less Alive to Survive

Boys learn they must constrict their potentials and diminish themselves to that which coincides with—and does not threaten—the older males in their group or face severe punishment. Boys learn the consequences for not becoming less than they could be are severe, often from their own fathers.

Girls Learn They Must Feel Less Pleasure to Be Liked

And by the way, something similar goes on with young girls and the reduction of their potentials. We see a blatant example of this in the practice of cliterectomy—also called female genital mutilation—in some cultures. In this practice the older women—mother and aunts usually—are responsible for this brutal and extremely painful and bloody attack. It tells little girls they will have no pleasure more than that which was allowed the older women, themselves, in that patriarchal world. So girls must diminish themselves in order to not be hated and ostracized by the women of the group, who, already having been diminished, would be jealous of someone being allowed to have what they have not. This is an exact mirror image of the process that goes on in the diminution of the personalities—the potentials—of young boys.

A Hard Rain’s Gonna Fall

Now to continue: So seeing so much of this pathos, hate, and bitter fear and anger is hopeful for us to be near the end of the cycle. Certainly it could get worse. But I personally don’t see how we could go much further on this path to oblivion without going past the point of no return. Perhaps we are not meant to succeed. Perhaps we are doomed. But I know in my own life, and that is the only true basis anyone can have for knowing how things really work, that, without fail, every seeming “loss of ground” was a prelude to an even bigger “advance.”

As Jung said, we need to take two steps backward to make a big leap forward. That is the way individuals are. And societies and populations are just collections of individuals. As the Tao symbol depicts, the seed of light is in the depths of darkness. So we can hold on to that, for one thing.

So Let Us See. A Scenery of Healing?

With these considerations in mind, the next chapter will evaluate our current social-cultural scenery for our prospects. In Rebirthing Rituals – The Sometimes Messy Scenery of Healing—we will look for any indications that this standing firm in the face of the rising up of the repressed social Shadow—allowing the pain of it and facing it foursquare, hashing it out—is to be found in the current social arena.

If we can find this being done, we may allow ourselves at least the hope for a change in consciousness radical enough to save us from extinction. On the contrary, if we find little or no evidence for this kind of auspicious, fruitful healing activity, we might as well consider ourselves doomed.

Continue with Rebirthing Rituals, Part One: There Is a Cycle to All Events … The Spiral Dance, Why We Can’t Get No Satisfaction, and Where There Is Real Hope

Return to Apocalypse No, Chapter Seven: Through Gaia’s Eyes – Nature Balances HerSelf

Footnotes

1. The book mentioned was posted online in two places in August, 2011: Culture War and Culture War, Class War.

2. Lloyd deMause, “Restaging of Early Traumas in War and Social Violence.” The Journal of Psychohistory 23 (1995): 2. Reprinted with permission on the Primal Spirit site.

Stanislav Grof, Realms of the Human Unconscious: Observations from LSD Research. New York: Viking Press, 1975; LSD Psychotherapy. Pomona, CA: Hunter House, 1980; Beyond the Brain: Birth, Death, and Transcendence in Psychotherapy. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1985; The Adventure of Self-Discovery: Dimensions of Consciousness and New Perspectives in Psychotherapy and Inner Exploration. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1988; The Holotropic Mind: The Three Levels of Human Consciousness and How They Shape Our Lives. San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1993.

3. I explain this in more detail in Chapter Seven: We Ain’t Born Typical under the heading “Elements of Birth Experience.”

4. “You’ll wallow in the shit and you’ll think you’re happy” and “You’re really in a laundry room” from, and with appreciation to, Kurt Cobain. These are lyrics in his song, “Sad.” The video and lyrics are reproduced again here for your convenience:

Nirvana – “Sad” (also “Sappy” and “Verse Chorus Verse”) – Lyrics

And if you save yourself You will make him happy He’ll keep you in a jar And you’ll think you’re happy He’ll give you breathing holes Then you’ll think you’re happy He’ll cover you with grass And you’ll think you’re happy Now You’re really in a laundry room, You’re really in a laundry room Conclusion came to you, oh And if you cut yourself You will think you’re happy He’ll keep you in a jar Then you’ll make him happy He’ll give you breathing holes Then you’ll think you’re happy He’ll cover you with grass Then you’ll think you’re happy Now You’re really in a laundry room, You’re really in a laundry room Conclusion came to you, oh (x2) And if you fool yourself You will make him happy He’ll keep you in a jar And you’ll think you’re happy He’ll give you breathing holes Then you will seem happy You’ll wallow in your shit Then you’ll think you’re happy Now You’re really in a laundry room (x3) Conclusion came to you, oh Alternate lyrics: And if you kill yourself You will make him happy

5. Lloyd deMause, “Restaging of Early Traumas in War and Social Violence.” The Journal of Psychohistory 23 (1995): 2. Reprinted with permission on the Primal Spirit site.

Stanislav Grof, Realms of the Human Unconscious: Observations from LSD Research. New York: Viking Press, 1975; LSD Psychotherapy. Pomona, CA: Hunter House, 1980; Beyond the Brain: Birth, Death, and Transcendence in Psychotherapy. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1985; The Adventure of Self-Discovery: Dimensions of Consciousness and New Perspectives in Psychotherapy and Inner Exploration. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1988; The Holotropic Mind: The Three Levels of Human Consciousness and How They Shape Our Lives. San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1993.

6. “Stand in the place where you are…just stand” from and with appreciation to R.E.M. While it seems no one understood the group’s huge initial release, “Stand,” it is quite meaningful in the current context. A video and lyrics are included here for your consideration:

R.E.M. – “Stand” … lyrics

Stand in the place where you live
Now face North
Think about direction
Wonder why you haven’t before
Now stand in the place where you work
Now face West
Think about the place where you live
Wonder why you haven’t before
If you are confused check with the sun
Carry a compass to help you along
Your feet are going to be on the ground
Your head is there to move you around
[repeat 1st verse]
Your feet are going to be on the ground
Your head is there to move you around
If wishes were trees the trees would be falling
Listen to reason
Season is calling
[repeat 1st verse]
If wishes were trees the trees would be falling
Listen to reason
Reason is calling
Your feet are going to be on the ground
Your head is there to move you around
So Stand (stand)
Now face North
Think about direction, wonder why you haven’t before
Now stand (stand)
Now face West
Think about the place where you live
Wonder why you haven’t
[repeat 1st verse]
Stand in the place where you are (Now face North)
Stand in the place where you are (Now face West)
Your feet are going to be on the ground (Stand in the place where you are)
Your head is there to move you around, so stand.

Derailing the Cycles of War and Violence – Audiocasts

“Part 1; What Say We Leave a Planet for Our Offspring?” – the audio by SillyMickel Adzema

For the author’s reading, with elaboration, of this part, click on the link to the audio site above or click the audio player here:

http://ecdn0.hark.com/swfs/player_fb.swf?pid=pffbztrfkv

“Part 2; Can You Handle Happiness (And the Pain That Comes With It)?” – the audio by SillyMickel Adzema

For the author’s reading, with elaboration, of this part, click on the link to the audio site above or click the audio player here:

http://ecdn0.hark.com/swfs/player_fb.swf?pid=syglfhsvld

Continue with Rebirthing Rituals, Part One: There Is a Cycle to All Events … The Spiral Dance, Why We Can’t Get No Satisfaction, and Where There Is Real Hope

Return to Apocalypse No, Chapter Seven: Through Gaia’s Eyes – Nature Balances HerSelf

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Homeless Man Kicked To Death

This was a headline in a national newspaper not long ago. The culprits were three (barely) teenage boys, who did it because they were bored. But back to my point – how many crimes are in this headline?

Friday morning dawned and I went about my daily business. I teach American Sign Language to a group of home schooled students each Friday before work. As I left the school, I just barely missed getting through a green light. After that, I got stuck behind an RV doing exactly the speed limit. In my impatience, I began to get frustrated. I didn’t want to be late for work, but at the rate things were going, I was going to be cutting it close. Then, the billboard which displays pertinent traffic information announced an accident at my exit, and subsequent slowdowns beginning a short way ahead. Again, my frustration began to rise. As I neared the back end of the traffic jam, I could clearly see the involved vehicles. I was about five or so cars back, but the traffic was at a complete standstill. I decided to get off the freeway at that point and go around. Little did I know at the time, the accident I saw was not the one causing the slowdown. This accident was the result of an individual failing to stop when coming up on the back end of the traffic jam. Her car was mangled; glass shattered, and turned the wrong way in the shoulder. As I drove slowly down the exit ramp, I turned to get a better look at the accident. I was not expecting to see the driver of the car, hanging out of the open door, clearly dead from this fatal crash. After getting over the initial shock, my day was put into serious perspective. Yes, I had a headache, but I was alive. Yes, my co-worker was pushing my buttons, but I was alive. Yes, my life is imperfect, but I am alive. Then, the most sobering thought came. God protected me. My loving and faithful father made sure I was not one of those vehicles, five car lengths in front of me. I was not the car that was rear-ended at 60+ miles per hour. I was spared by my sovereign Savior. Wow.

As if one encounter with death isn’t enough, I witnessed a patient pass away this week as well. I was again struck by our helplessness when it comes to death. No matter how much my team or the family, or even the patient willed to live, there was nothing we could do to cheat death. This individual was not planning for the pre-procedure goodbyes to be the last. That morning was not expected to be the last sunrise of their life. That was not the day they expected to meet their creator.

I sit here this morning with a heavy heart. Who will be next? I have a slew of unsaved friends and co-workers. What would I do if one of them passed away before I had the chance to share the Gospel? How would I go one knowing they are spending eternity separated from the goodness of God? I feel a renewed sense of urgency to share my faith. None of us are guaranteed our next breath. I need to make each breath count. I pray the Father uses my imperfect life and graciously uses it to draw others to Himself. I pray for boldness in the face of criticism. I pray my friends come to love Jesus even more than I do, and that God glorifies His Son through the transformation of their lives. I thank God for shaking me out of my complacency and rekindling my flame for the Gospel.

People expect for grief to work simply. You cry, you eventually get over it. For me, however, that’s not how it works. It comes in waves. Or geysers. Or volcanoes that are overdue to erupt.

Anything can trigger it. Someone can ask about him. Or I can look through the pictures he kept and see what he saved.

I know that he lived a good life for the most part. He is loved and he loved. He was prepared for this and he made sure that I was as well.

I’ll be posting some pictures that I found later.

Rest in Peace Daniel Mark Tucker
November 25, 1959 – May 15, 2013

Some of us look up for answers, some of us do not. Some look down upon beauty, untold glory of the most serene nature, maybe it is here we may find our answers.

20 paintings 33cm x 33cm, Acrylic, Newspapers, and Posca On Reclaimed Plywood