Kali Yuga (A Snippet)

The lie becomes truth
Up becomes down
The bold inherit the earth

Poles shift
Weather changes

We rearrange
Our lives

Today in Florida, I Will Attain Enlightenment (a Vow)

 

today

to benefit the manatee

I will attain enlightenment

today

to benefit the gopher tortoise

I will attain enlightenment

today

to benefit the panther

I will attain enlightenment

today

to benefit the scrub jay

I will attain enlightenment

today

to benefit the indigo snake

I will attain enlightenment

today

to benefit the key deer

I will attain enlightenment

today

to benefit the bonneted bat

I will attain enlightenment

today

to benefit the Miami blue butterfly

I will attain enlightenment

today

to benefit many tiny mice

I will attain enlightenment

today

to benefit the sea turtles

I will attain enlightenment

today

to benefit the sturgeon

I will attain enlightenment

today

to benefit the pigtoe mussels

I will attain enlightenment

today

to benefit the wood storks and roseate spoonbills

I will attain enlightenment

today

to benefit the American crocodile

I will attain enlightenment

today

to benefit all sentient beings

I will attain enlightenment

a word witch

11-10-2021

sliding into this dark abyss

 

climate change
global pandemic
sixth extinction

    I'm washing lettuce
    at the kitchen sink

Gulf Stream collapsing
ice caps melting
wildfires burning

    beautyberries turning purple
    outside the dining room window

science deniers
conspiracy theorists
angry coup organizers

    fox squirrels in the field
    deer feeding near the fence

    autumn light approaches

(c) lfm, 8/7/2021

Two Poems on the Parinirvana of My Buddhist Teacher/For Bardor Tulku Rinpoche

 

not apart, yet
not together

how to explain
this grief, this joy?

an orphan, with
mind full of jewels

I step into the world and
try to shine

**

year to year
month to month
week to week
day to day
hour to hour
minute to minute
breath to breath
everything changes

4-3-2021 and 4/28/2021

What Are the Barriers to Springs Restoration?

Why are efforts to save Florida's freshwater springs so often doomed to fail? I think it's because of significant barriers that exist throughout our culture--knowledge barriers, legal barriers, funding barriers, political barriers, barriers of vision and value. Would we have more success if our water defender groups joined forces with groups outside "the choir" that are working to break down some of these barriers? What are other ways we could be more effective at dismantling or breaking through these barriers? It's clear that we need some outside-the-box thinking.

• Apathy/feelings of powerlessness (public, elected representatives, government agency officials, etc.)
• Greed (ex: special interest political campaign contributions lead to outsized influence on elected representatives; resistance by corporations and businesses to behavioral changes that would result in lost profits)
• Ignorance, including:
• Ignorance of Florida's hydrological cycle
• Ignorance of interconnections throughout the Floridan aquifer
• Ignorance of who makes water-related decisions and how those decisions are made/political issues
• Myth of an infinite supply of freshwater
• Failure by elected representatives and agency officials to recognize water as a public interest/common interest
• State of Florida funding favors South Florida needs over North Florida needs
• Free water in rural areas/need for tiered water pricing to encourage conservation
• Lack of accountability for state agencies
• Current laws permit damage to natural systems instead of preventing it/natural systems lack their own rights to exist and to thrive
• Regulation of non-point sources of pollution prohibited at the federal level
• Ineffective Best Management Practices (BMPs), Basin Management Action Plans (BMAPs), Minimum Flows & Levels (MFLs), Total Maximum Daily Loads (TMDLs) that offer only an illusion of protection for springs
• Reliance on ineffective water models and cherry-picking of model data
• Shifting baselines:  Few know what we have lost.
• Decreasing levels of state enforcement of environmental regulations
• No environmental checks and balances:  water management district board members appointed by the same person (governor) who appoints the head of the Florida Department of Environmental Protection, no water defenders/environmentalists on water management district boards
• Economy and environment falsely perceived and opposing interests instead of linked interests
• Effects of regional water usage beyond the control of local agency officials
• No widely agreed-upon water ethic
• No clear definition of "public trust" in Florida water law
• Short-term thinking trumps long-term thinking on the part of the public, elected representatives, agency officials, business and commerce

Mistress of Magic

Note:  I originally published this post on March 24, 2009, but I took it down at Janis Nelson's request because she was not happy with one of my other posts that appeared on this blog; that other post was not about her. I have today learned that Janis died last year (2020) so I am re-posting what I wrote, because I believe that she has an important story that should be remembered. The website mentioned at the bottom of the article is no longer operational and I don't know if Janis ever felt as if she had received a "big victory in the city of the young." I do know that I am a wiser person for having known her.

 "...Morgan le Fay was not married, but put to school in a nunnery, where she became a great mistress of magic." -Malory, Morte d'Arthur

So begins one of my favorite novels of all time, Marion Zimmer Bradley's The Mists of Avalon—a riveting re-telling of the Merlin and Arthur legends from the point of view of the women involved.

The "mistress of magic" quote has always reminded me of my friend Janis Nelson. I first met Janis in the early 1990s, when I heard about her from a co-worker. I have been fascinated by things psychic and occult since I was very young, but was actively discouraged from pursuing these interests by my parents, who wanted me to be grounded in the "real world." (I'm still trying to figure out where and what that is, by the way.)

I had two aunts and a maternal grandmother who encouraged my interests, however, but I did pick up a healthy dose of skepticism somewhere along the way, so I never actively sought a psychic reading until my friend Sheri mentioned that she and her mother knew a psychic who did not advertise, but did all her business by word of mouth. I immediately decided that was the person I wanted to see—Janis Nelson.

I'm betting that if a Hollywood screenwriter had written a script about Janis's life, it would have been rejected by every major studio because no one would have believed it. Born and raised on Gallows Hill in Salem, Massachusetts. Largely self-taught in astrology and the Tarot while living a hermetic existence outside Woodstock, New York. Spirited away to Palm Beach, Florida, where she became the city's first licensed psychic and began reading for the rich and famous. Thrown into the middle of one of the sleaziest, most publicized private divorces in history, that of Peter and Roxanne Pulitzer. Libeled in numerous major media outlets, including Time magazine. Lost her reputation, her possessions, her livelihood. Sued for libel, but had her case thrown out of court because of mistakes in its presentation. Went from waltzing with Pavarotti at The Breakers to wandering barefoot around Gainesville and eating from dumpsters.

One day, shortly after her libel case had been thrown out of court, Janis went to the mailbox to find a flyer for a new series by Time-Life Books: "Mysteries of the Unknown." The first volume? Psychic Powers.Up until then, books about psychics had been hard to find. Today, they're everywhere.

Janis rebuilt her clientele, slowly, over the years, and she has written a book about her experiences—a psychic's eye view of a celebrity divorce. Her writing is unique. But even more than her writing, it's her story that intrigues me, because it speaks to what we as a culture have done now for thousands of years—banished what we don't understand about the psychic and the feminine to the netherworlds of silence and shadow.

Thankfully, things are changing. A psychic in Kingston, New York, predicted many years ago that Janis would have a big victory in the city of the young, a place where the devil lives in a big hole in the ground and the River Styx flows. Just northwest of Gainesville is Devil's Millhopper State Geological Site, a huge sinkhole; just southeast of Gainesville, down by Cross Creek, is the River Styx.

Janis is still waiting for her big victory in the city of the young. In the meantime, she's put up a website you can visit at:

http://janisnelsonpsychic.com/

And in a bit of serendipity, I just noticed that the word of today at www.dictionary.com is thaumaturgy, "the performing of miracles or magic." Hmmmmm....

Standing Up Instead of Standing By

(Note:  Names have been changed.)

Circa 1973-74
I’m driving home to my duplex apartment just outside Tampa after my yoga class at the University of South Florida, where I’m studying anthropology and Asian religions. Yoga leaves me somewhere between fully energized and completely relaxed; it’s a pleasant space for both brain and body and I’m looking forward to some quiet time to do homework as I pull into a parking space, shift my black VW Beetle into neutral, and switch off the ignition.

I’m almost to the door of my apartment when I notice that the door to the apartment opposite mine is wide open—not characteristic behavior for Jerry and Fred, the two black men who are renting there. While I exchange friendly hellos with them, we don’t socialize too much; however, I have learned from them to appreciate the soulful voice of Barry White, whose records seem to be in continuous rotation on their turntable.

Concerned about the open door, I knock on the doorjamb and peer inside. Furniture has been upended and is in considerable disarray. No one answers my knock. Almost without thinking, I enter, walk through the apartment and go out the back door, which is also wide open.

There on the ground, Jerry is struggling while being forcibly held down by a couple of white men. Another white man, our landlord, is holding a large grey concrete block right over Jerry’s head, obviously getting ready to bash it in.

Adrenaline kicks in and I start screaming as loud as I can. “Robby!! Stop it!! Stop it right now!! What are you DOING???”

Robby stops and looks at me blankly, as do his two friends. “He hasn’t paid his rent!” Robby explains, as if this is justification for assault or worse.

“You can’t do this! That’s not a reason!” I keep up the high-pitched screeching and now other neighbors are coming out of their apartments to see what is going on. With an audience gathering, Robby and his two friends back off and Jerry jumps up.

“I’m calling the police and this needs to stop,” I declare, and retreat to my apartment. I leave my front door open in haste as I head to the phone to dial 9-1-1. One of Robby’s accomplices appears at the door and says to me, “You don’t need to call the police, it’s just that he didn’t pay his rent.”

I give the guy a cold stare while I’m waiting to talk to the police dispatcher. “That doesn’t matter,” I say. “That’s not a reason to hurt or kill someone.”

There is a flicker of surprise on the guy’s face. Evidently that is a new thought for him.

I finish the call and head back to the scene of the crime just in time to see Jerry break a large Coke bottle against the side of the duplex and point the shards straight at Robby and his two friends.

“Jerry!” I scream again. “You can’t do this! I’ve called the police and they are on the way! Put that bottle down right now! The police are coming!!” I keep screeching and more neighbors appear.

Jerry puts the bottle down and backs off. When the policeman arrives, I tell him that I need to talk to him before he leaves, point him to my apartment, and make my retreat.

The questioning goes on for a while and thankfully, the policeman remembers to come talk to me. I tell him everything I witnessed, in sequence. I am fairly sure there will be an assault charge for Robby and his friends.

The policeman tells me that the assault will be written up as a “landlord-tenant dispute.”

Jerry and Fred move out of their apartment shortly after this incident.

Circa 1996-97

The public relations office of the college where I write press releases and newsletter articles is going through a transition. Our graphic design coordinator has left to take a teaching position, and we are getting complaints from employees in other departments that their graphics jobs are not being completed in a timely fashion. Those complaints are starting to pile up.

Our boss, Layton, calls a staff meeting to clarify who can accept work and how jobs are to be prioritized. He announces that instead of routing all work requests through the graphic design coordinator, each designer is now able to accept those requests from other offices at the college.

We begin discussing the progress of several jobs that have landed on the complaint list. When our one black employee, Teresa, reports that she has accepted a job from a black employee who works in the library, the conversation takes a surprising turn.

Layton and Patty, the new graphic design coordinator, don’t think that Teresa should have accepted that job from the librarian. They begin to light into Teresa and as their criticism escalates, Teresa bursts into tears. Layton agrees that she should take a few minutes to collect herself. Teresa leaves the room.

When Teresa comes back to the conference room table with her Kleenex box and sits down, I think, “Good, now this will stop.”

But it doesn’t stop. Layton and Patty light into Teresa again, and again Teresa starts to cry.

“Hold on just a minute,” I say, as calmly as I can, holding up an outward-facing palm. “What is the problem here? You have just told us that anyone in graphics can accept jobs from other offices, and now you are telling Teresa that she can’t? Please stop and think about what you are saying, because you’re talking out of two sides of your mouth.”

Layton begins to seethe. I have openly challenged his authority. The meeting breaks up.

As time goes on and Layton avoids speaking to me, it becomes obvious that I’m in trouble—and finally, word comes down from the college’s human resources department that my contract is not going to be renewed for the next academic year.

The college president, for whom I sometimes draft speeches, calls me to ask what has gone on. I tell him. “Who else knows about this?” he asks me. “No one,” I tell him, “because I haven’t discussed it with anyone outside this office.”

There is a pause and my intuition tells me that the president may be getting ready to intervene on my behalf, or may be wondering if there’s something else he can do. “I will say one other thing,” I offer. “It’s okay with me if I am let go. Why would I want to work for someone who doesn’t want to work with me?”

Later, it dawns on me that this was a racist incident—that if Teresa had been a white employee, she would not have faced chastisement in front of everyone in the department, but would have instead been called into a closed-door meeting with only Layton and Patty in attendance. I communicate that insight to the president of the college and to the head of human resources, with whom I also have a long conversation about exactly what happened.

The end of the academic year approaches and with it, the end of my job. Teresa visits me in my office one day. “Do you think that what you did in that meeting has something to do with why your contract isn’t being renewed?” she asks.

“Yes,” I answer, “it has everything to do with it. And I’ll tell you something else. I’d do the same thing again in a heartbeat, because it wasn’t right and it should never have happened.”

After my job ends, I apply for unemployment. I realize that I probably won’t receive it, since I had been a contract employee serving at the pleasure of the college’s administrators. Getting unemployment in that circumstance is unheard of.

I get called to a meeting with a woman in Florida’s unemployment office. I briefly describe what happened and she checks her computer; she’s obviously reading something and I see her blink and sit up a bit straighter in her chair. She looks a bit shocked.

My unemployment claim is approved and I receive money from the state for the next six months while I look for another job. I’m fairly certain that the college’s human resources officer supported my request.

I use part of my newfound free time to do something completely different. I travel on Friday nights to Cassadaga, Florida, where I take classes in psychic development with Eloise Page, a well-known Spiritualist medium and inspirational speaker.

You can’t always get what you want, but sometimes you get what you need.