Thursday, October 19, 2006

Whirling Words about the World

My latest addiction is Itunes Radio. I know everyone does it and I've done it forever but my awesome iMac, that doesn't serve much of a purpose other than feeding music at my workstation, sends ethereal ambient tunes from Drone Zone on SomaFM, served best chilled, safe with most medications. Since recently I've been spending a lot of time thinking about the mediocrity of the human race in comparison to the cosmos, it seems best to have a soundtrack reminiscent of space. The music actually has a vibration that resonates through my brain and compels a certain meditation. For those who don't know, my son Jake attends a religious school, the JCC-ECP, the Jewish Community Center-Early Childhood Program. It's awesome. It's a really wonderful school and though I am not religious AT ALL, I have no problem with their very beautiful education about God. If I have to align with a religion, I'll take God's chosen. Nonetheless, this is not a diatribe about religion, what I am embarking on here is that my son comes home with many questions and statements about God. "Why does god make the clouds?" was one. I skirted that one with "Do you think God is a man or a woman?". "Woman", my gorgeous, intelligent young son said. Good Boy. You see, I ain't raising no dummy. I also don't spend a lot of time skirting issues by the way. If he asks me about God, I quickly explain that some people believe that God created the world, but Science very clearly explains away (atleast to me) any chances of some ethereal sort creating the world in 7 days. I mean come on. It's pretty obvious that our ancestors are little hairy types and maybe even a few fishies. As a matter of fact, not to be insulting, but I would say that we are really more of a product of de-evolution as opposed to evolution. Once upon a time, there was a planet void of toxins, trash and war. Are we really anything more than a dirty little vermin, slowly killing off this planet like a nasty disease that no antibiotic can kill. All the other planets are pointing and laughing at Earth. Poor guy. He's got those nasty humans and he can't shake them no matter how many earthquakes, monsoons, hurricanes, etc. So sorry. I just had to get that off my chest. I think my mind wanders too much and sometimes, well, we as people just take our lives so seriously that we stop living it. We are so busy working to buy better cloths, houses, cars, jewelry, groceries, upgrading, not re-using, not recycling, not re-planting. Our world is a consumer world and we can't stop churning out more shit, way more than we are extinguishing, wouldn't you say? We are so consumed with the next buy, even me, I'm not placing myself outside of this guilt. I just can't get over consumption. Target, Wal-Mart, Sears, Home Depot. Is this product or trash? I know I rattle on all the time about this, but what are you and me and everyone else doing to make this a better world? A healthier planet? Life has to move outside our inner circle. We have to look at the bigger picture. I get an opportunity to meditate almost daily at the end of my yoga sessions. Recently, in the last year, I've started looking forward to these times and deeply appreciating the moment, I get excited. I used to think it was such a waste of time. Laying there, flat on my back, I sink into the earth and my mind opens to a broad space. I begin to have a sensation of lifting above the earth and being a part of everything. At that point my thoughts become so large (that's the word) that I can't herd them into any one place. I just grasp a greater sense of being and feel both very small yet connected to everything. Mind you, this is not a religious moment, it's a sensation that we are individually very small, but as a race we are great and can do huge things. As a population we can change direction. We can all meditate, for a brief time everyday and float into a bigger space and realize that we are both great and small in our minds. But if we put our minds together we can change the direction of a huge motion of negative energy and swooping wide, we can change the tide. Wanna try?