My Mom Was A Rebel, And Because Of Her, I Am Too

OBOS has been called one of the most influential books ever written. First published in the
1970s, it remained in print until 2018, and is now only available on line. My rebel
mom had it in her library back in the day, and it changed my life.

Today we celebrate International Women's Day, a day when we recognize influential women across history, and across the globe. 

Who would these women be? Mary Wollstonecraft perhaps, or Betty Friedan? Or Gloria Steinem? Yes, all of these and more. 

Today I pause to reflect on the most influential women in my life. While all the famous women have done amazing things, none of them has affected me as much as my own mother.

Every day of my life I give thanks for the achievements of Margaret Mooney, my rebel mom. You could call her an "early feminist" I guess, unless you realize that women have been fighting for equality for much longer than the 1970s. 

How about the 1770s? Yes, and no doubt, before then, too.

So mom was not the most famous, and she was not the first, but she was the sole woman to not only bring me into this world, but also teach me about the role of women (and men) in society.

My mom is one of the strongest persons I know. She birthed and raised 5 children, virtually alone. Since dad, a wonderful man, was a traditional 1950s guy, child rearing was not his thing. Bringing home the bacon was his sole domain, and he did it well. 

Not that it was easy for him, but come on, who had the more difficult job? Not only did mom raise 5 wild children, she also broke free of convention and went back to school to get a degree later in life. Then she entered the work place, as if she didn't have enough to do already.

Ultimately, she emancipated herself from her traditional role, and that takes some kind of strength. Just ask any woman, Rosa Parks, perhaps, about the struggle to be free of the bullshit of a racist, misogynist patriarchy. 

It is hard, but it is worth it. Where there is no struggle, there is no progress.

It was my mother's example that made me not only a feminist, but also helped me to emancipate myself from the same sick system that she railed against. If not for her, would I have even known that I was also in chains, that we all were, and that it was up to me, to each of us, to break those chains?

So today, I celebrate all women, famous or not. But mostly I celebrate the most important woman in my life - my mother.

Thank you, mom. I am, because of you. But not just that - I am free, because of you.

Putting The Sacred Back Into Nature

Experiencing the sacredness of nature can cause feelings of blessedness, joy, ecstasy, and serenity.

Humans have not always seen the natural world as a soul-less void passively existing to serve our needs and wants. At one time we knew that everything was alive, and crackled with life, magic, and soul. Trees, rocks, mountains, birds - every thing was sacred.

One of the beautiful things about believing in the sacredness of the Earth is that you don't see yourself as separate from it, and therefore hesitate to harm any part of it. The Earth does not belong to us. We belong to the Earth.

In the 1800s, Chief Seattle explained his peoples' take on this. He said, "Every part of this soil is sacred in the estimation of my people". That is certainly my personal experience when I interact with natural surroundings.

"How can other people not see this, feel this?" I wonder to myself. For me it is powerful and unmistakable. Everything, in my perception, is crackling with energy, magic, and life.

Being in touch with the power of nature can awaken us to the spiritual dimensions of our existence.

Take the "sacred" designation away and distinctly un-natural things happen. We think we can "own" nature. We think it is all inferior, dead, and put there for the sole use of humans. Where did the sacredness go? How did we lose such an important part of ourselves?

In the book, Ancient Wisdom for Modern Ignorance, Swami B. V. Tripurari gives one possible explanation of how we arrived at seeing an essentially dead environment made for our own benefit.

"Our present environmental crisis is in essence a spiritual crisis", he says. "We need only to look back to medieval Europe and the psychic revolution that vaulted Christianity to victory over paganism to find the spirit of the environmental crisis. 

Inhibitions to the exploitation of nature vanished as the Church took the "spirits" out of the trees, mountains, and seas. Christianity's ghost-busting theology made it possible for man to exploit nature in a mood of indifference to the feelings of natural objects. 

It made nature man's monopoly. This materialist paradigm has dominated the modern world for last few centuries."

His solution? Put the sacred back into Nature. Give it the reverence it deserves, and see our selves as an integral part of the whole. Kind of like Chief Seattle was saying.

"The current deplorable environmental crisis demands a spiritual response", says Tripurari. "A fundamental reorientation of human consciousness, accompanied by action that is born out of inner commitment, is very much needed.”

Another special spot in my backyard woods. I look at the trees -  they look back at me. We are one.

Would you like to experience the sacred in nature more often and more powerfully? It is possible to learn to cultivate a relationship with nature that enhances our experiencing of the sacred. Such spiritual growth leads to positive change in our relationship with the Earth. We feel powerful, connected, at peace, and unafraid.

Putting The Sacred Back Into Nature

1. Find a special place in nature. How? Usually, such locations are not simply chosen, and rather, are revealed to us after a bit of a search. You will feel drawn to such a place. Allow yourself to listen to the call. Let it lead you. You will know, you will feel, when you have arrived.

2. If you are fortunate enough to find such a place, go there regularly, when called, or when the occasion requires it. In any case, go to the places that call you, and be open to their influence.

3. Repeated visits to special places help develop your sense of connection to nature. A special place could be in your backyard, your garden, a nearby park, a special tree, stream, hill or mountaintop. Visit at all times of the day, and in all seasons. Let yourself merge with it.

4. Meditating on the ceaseless rhythms and cycles of nature opens the gateway to sacred time vs clock time. Nature meditations allow one to touch eternity, and feel touched by it in turn.

5. The sacred is most powerfully available to us during times of transition -- sunrise, sunset, midday, phases of the moon, equinoxes and solstices. Take advantage of these moments, whether through cultural celebrations, or immersing yourself in a special spot.

6. Be alone, be still and silent. Silence is the key to opening a gateway into solitude and communion with the divine. Psychologist Clark Moustakas studied loneliness, and found that, “In absolute solitary moments, humans experience truth, beauty, nature, reverence, and humanity.”

7. Don't rush, be calm. These things take time. Insights will come when one is ready. But they will come, be assured.

When we are in intimate dialogue with nature, we can have powerful moments of insight and illumination. These moments are confirmations of our faith in the possibility of re-integration and wholeness, a confirmation of the healing process by which one can restore one’s relation to the world. 

When we feel the sacredness in nature, the meaning of human existence is revealed, even if it’s only for a moment. In these glimpses, we are put in profound contact with our own basic humanity and the nature of Being. We experience being part of the whole of nature.

Our individual being merges with the being of Earth. We are one.

It is this state that will change everything. Our actions become ones which honour nature, rather than exploit it and use it to satisfy our own greedy desires. We become sympathetic to the rocks and trees and air and water, because we see that they are us, and we are them.

This is the change in human consciousness that needs to happen in order for us to save the planet, and ourselves.

Summer Reading

Beautiful nature in our neighbourhood park is a nice respite from global turmoil.

Summer is here - the season for relaxing and reading. This morning I was checking out a piece by William A. Cohn, professor of jurisprudence at New York University. In it he was explaining how the whole Brexit thing was just more obfuscation, of which there is plenty these days.

Contained within his writing were some suggestions for summer reading that I thought I would share.

Cohn wrote that "thankfully, starting tomorrow, we will have to hear less about the so-called debate on Brexit – a debate which has been marked by lies, omission, and fear-mongering."

Unfortunately that describes most of the crap emanating from governments, corporations, and their media enablers around the world these days, as they prepare us for the ultimate corporate take-over.

"New issues will capture the headlines, Cohn says, "and new false choices will be presented. Ignore them as best you can."

You can't ignore the fact that it is summer time, an opportunity to read and relax. I am not sure if these titles will provide a break from the turmoil, but they will improve our knowledge base, and therefore our ability to counter anti-freedom forces. In spite of their potential heaviness, I will be visiting the library to check some of these out... before they are banned by the corporatocracy.


The following are the books the good professor recommends for the beach this season:

"Bad Samaritans" by Ha-Joon Chang

"News: The Politics of Illusion" by Lance Bennet

"Absurdistan" by Gary Shteyngart

"Democracy Incorporated" by Sheldon Wolin

"Johnny Got His Gun" by Dalton Trumbo.

"Knowledge is potential power, to be acted upon, towards building new and better ways of organizing our world."

Read, rest, relax. And change the world at the same time.

Advertising Avoidance

Advertising programs us to buy, buy, buy, whether we notice or not.

Many people report feeling that advertising doesn't work on them. That is understandable. No one wants to be led around, especially toward buying things they know they don't need.

But advertising is more insidious than many realize, and may be more effective than we want to believe.

Researcher Laurie Manwell outlines the mechanics involved in glancing at an advertisement:


“In fact, visual stimuli, transduced by the rods and cones in the eyes, and sent by electro-chemical signals to the central nervous system via the optic nerves does not go directly to the occipetal cortex which is the primary region responsible for processing information. 

Instead, it first goes to the lateral geniculate nucleus of the Thalamus, another region of the brain that is a part of the lymbic system and important to emotional arousal.

"To put this in simpler terms", she says, "this means that you can experience an emotional reaction to something before you are consciously aware that you have even seen it."


Knowing how your brain works can help guard against the mind parasites that advertising plants, often without you even being conscious of their burrowing. It is important to understand that we can react to something before we even are aware of it.

Armed with this knowledge, we can identify the initial emotional rush, then wait for the higher order thinking that will eventually come. It of course, will tell you not to buy anything you don't really want or need.

Those sneaky ads don't even have to worm into your consciousness in order to have an effect. Considering this, the frequency of advertising may have more of an effect than we know, whether we are paying attention to the ads or not.

If ad frequency is the problem, ad avoidance is the answer. The Centre for a new American Dream also proposes that we take a look at reforming advertising rules.

They say on their site:

"Advertising pervades every aspect of our lives and stimulates demand for junk we don’t need. We need to reform laws on advertising to better constrain it, to limit children’s exposure to it, and to stop mental pollution. 

The good news is there are ways we can do this, and some bold political leaders are working to do this."

You can read more on their website about places like Sao Paulo, Brazil where officials declared victory in their battle with billboards, effectively banning them from the barrio. It looks like freedom to me.

When the globe goes ad-free and ends the hyper-commercialization of everything, we will find out what we really want, and what we really need, not to mention what we can really afford.

In the meantime, avoid advertising at all costs.

No Empire Monday

"The decline of Empire has begun and the revolution against it is in progress." - from Empire, M. Hardt and A. Negri

In Trainspotting, the main character, Mark Renton, decides to go clean and quit heroin. He is successful in doing so, and tries to "choose life" like the regular people he sees around him. Why, I am not sure.

Eventually Renton gives up his addiction, and looks forward to a 'better' life of mindless consumer addiction while living a culturally approved script.

"I'm going to be just like you: the job, the family, the fucking big television, the washing machine, the car, the compact disc and electrical tin opener, good health, low cholesterol, dental insurance, mortgage, starter home, leisurewear, luggage, three-piece suit, DIY, game shows, junk food, children, walks in the park, nine to five, good at golf, washing the car, choice of sweaters, family Christmas, indexed pension, tax exemption, clearing the gutters, getting by, looking ahead, to the day you die."

This is what he quit drugs for? This is what we have traded our freedom for? It is no wonder the masses are growing restless, and are beginning to challenge notions of Empire. The dream of democracy, and a better life has turned out to be a bit of a nightmare for millions of pacified workers.

People are working more and more for less and less, and are not happy about it. Negri and Hardt in their book Empire, have good news for these victims of contemporary global capitalism. They say that capitalism, "although seemingly impervious to anti-systemic challenge, is in fact vulnerable at all points to riot and rebellion."

Maybe the Mark Rentons of the world will find that consumer addiction and adhering to the regular life script can be as hazardous to your health as hard drugs. But rather than go back to heroin, perhaps they will join a protest somewhere, and hit back at the dead end choices we are offered by the men behind the curtains.

Perhaps they will say no to the addictions of capitalism and stuff, and gain their freedom through living simply. Perhaps rather than support it, they will help bring the Empire down.

The Empire is falling--they always do--and when it does, The People will resume control. Together we will create better, more sustainable and equitable ways of doing things.

Change Happens One Individual Action At A Time

"Do not let what you cannot do interfere with what you can do." - John Wooden

The social and environmental problems the world is faced with are seemingly overwhelming. But our problems accumulated by one individual action at a time. One drive to the store. One plastic bag, one act of discrimination, one flight at a time. The solutions will happen one action at a time, too.

Our individual choices have created an unequal, planetary toxic waste dump. They can just as easily create a global garden of sustainability and sharing. Whether this comes around by voluntary actions, legislation, or some combination of the two, it still all comes down to individual compliance to make it work.

The voluntary shift toward increased sustainability needs not be any more of a burden than making a painting, or writing a song. It may take a lot of work, and it may not be easy, but it is a glorious opportunity to create beneficial changes to the social and environmental landscape.

When enough people seize the opportunity, our cumulative decisions and actions create something great, something larger than the sum of the individual parts. Isolated behaviours develop into a movement, then the movement reaches a tipping point. This is when revolutions happen, when we change paradigms and discover new and better ways of living. But it starts with what we think and do. It starts with individual choices.

But first, baby steps. Research shows that individuals choosing to take small steps toward change initially are more likely to choose to take greater steps later. It may start with voting for the first time, buying a fair trade product, or eating one vegetable-based meal per week, but it could signal the beginning of an exciting, liberating lifestyle shift. And if we fall along the way? We will not scold, we will not judge. We will simply help each other back up.

Finding your own answers to "What can I do?" is empowering. Adopting small actions that positively affect social and environmental conditions can have profound impacts down the road, locally and globally. Many times a day each of us has the opportunity to choose actions that will help create a better world.

"What can you do? You can do a lot. You can support justice for all by speaking out loudly to your family, friends, community, politicians, and religious leaders. You can support foundations that do good work. You can volunteer for humanitarian organizations. You can vote regressive politicians out of office. You can do many things to move the world toward greater harmony..."        - Dr. Izzeldin Abuelaish