Thank You for Not Being that TOWT Person on My Vacation

This is me, trying not to start sentences with the word, I.

It seems that when I start out with the word, I, I inevitably get stuck in some belief that I have about me.

Lately she (me) has discovered that she does not have to adhere to the mythology she has created around what she does in any given circumstance or how she is in some situations.

Okay, wait, this is makin’ me dizzy.

There has to be a better way to refer to one’s self other than using the word I or the Queen’s we or she.

All right, for the sake of getting this point across, I’m gonna start calling me, in the first person… um… The One Who Talks.

Well, TOWT  has been pretty stuck in her ways over the years.

She says things like I’m this kind of person or I do this when that happens, or I don’t really like… yada yada yada.

Yeah, TOWT is always touting something about what she thinks is true about me.

Well this is me saying those things don’t have to be true anymore.

I am allowed to change my mind, my ways, my responses to my environment, and become a different kinda gal if I want to.

So, here goes…

I will now live my life as though I am on vacation in a foreign country, without all my familiar rituals and the accouterment that keeps me stuck in the beliefs TOWT has about me.

Have you ever noticed how much more versatile we become when we’re traveling in a foreign land?

We seem to be more receptive to different ideas and more flexible and open minded about the way we respond to our new environment.

We grow, we adapt, we take in new information, and we change according to the new things we experience.

So I‘m gonna leave TOWT at home while I go out and explore new ground in the undiscovered foreign lands of my own perspective.

I don’t know who I will become on this adventure, but maybe she will do some of those things that TOWT thinks I am afraid of or maybe she will learn things that TOWT thinks she already knows, or maybe she will find a way to like zucchini after all these years…

Hey this is the cheapest vacation I have ever been on!

Thank You for the Strong Arm

My Uncle Everett only had one arm.

He lost the other one in an accident, working at Dow Chemical in the early 60’s.

After he healed, Dow Chemical gave him a new job as a security guard— since he couldn’t do the job he had before with only one arm.

But Uncle Everett could do more with that one arm than any man with two.

I never heard him complain, cuss, or say anything bad about anybody.

He was a quiet sort of guy with a dutiful demeanor.

As a child, I would try to emulate Uncle Everett as he worked in the garage or did tasks around his house and yard.

I wanted to see how it felt to try to do things with just one arm.

I always gave up and ended up using both my arms, and remained in awe that he could accomplish the things he did.

He could paint a house, move furniture, and hug kids with that one arm.

Sometimes, when I feel limited by circumstance or feel like “my hands are tied” I think of those days when I would follow Uncle Everett around, trying to do the things he so creatively accomplished.

Sometimes, we just don’t know what we’re capable of until life shows us how strong we are.

And even though Uncle Everett was not the sort of guy to bully anyone or be pushy about anything, he sure did know how to Strong Arm a situation when it was needed.

Sometimes I need to Strong Arm myself in a situation when I think something is impossible.

And usually I find out that my strong arm is more creative than I thought.

Thank You for Intimate Visitors Who Don’t Return

It has been my great fortune to have limited exposure to Western Medicine.

I have lived for fifty years without being poked, prodded, or cut into, except for annual physicals and a couple of sprains.

My hospital experiences are primarily as a visitor or family member.

Today I get to see what it feels like to be on the inside, while some doctor gets to see what it looks like on my insides.

Later today, my internal organs will be on display.

I probably won’t get to see them since my mind will be preoccupied by  anesthesia induced daydreams about fields of bunnies.

I’m thinking that’s probably best.

I’m not so curious about the interior decor of my internal affairs.

I do, however, wonder what will show up on the little tv screen for the doctor to evaluate.

I wonder if my insides are kinda like my outside, you know, organized with an artistic flair and some interesting color.

I wonder if a person’s insides reflect the way they see the world and the way they live their life.

I am imagining the surprise on the doctor’s face when she discovers the art galleries, the book shelves, and the highways that lead to metaphors and abstract concepts lining my insides.

Won’t she be surprise when my internal organ starts playing classical music and reciting poetry ?

I imagine the furnishings are a little bit Zen with some multicultural punctuation.

I hope the doctor doesn’t decide to stay long just because it’s such a fun place to be.

In fact, I’m hoping the doctor decides my internal affairs are so uninteresting that she never wants to go in there again.

Here on the outside, it’s a lot of work preparing to welcome the doctor into the inside.

All the cleaning and washing down the walls has got me tuckered out.

But after this intimate visit, I am certain to  be very grateful to keep all my other visitors on the outside, where it’s not so scary and unpredictable.

I like it better when my relationships with new people aren’t quite so in-timate.

Thank You for “Solstice”

Latin definition: solstitium (sol “sun”+ stitium, from sistere “to stand still”).

The  Sun “standing still” may  be a cause for a bit of anxiety but the solstice is more about the Earth tilting on it’s axis than the sun standing still.

And tilting on my axis gives me a bit of anxiety (even though I should probably be accustomed to tilting on my axis by now).

So there’s the sun, hangin’ out over the Tropic of Capricorn, lookin’ like it’s standing still, while  the “darkest night” is ushered in by Capricorn the Goat and abandoned by the Sagittarius Centaur for those of us in the Northern Hemisphere.

The darkest (longest) night…More anxiety.

Who can get anything done when the sun goes down at three in the afternoon?

Here, in the Great Northwest, the longest night is a real problem.

I get sleepy when the sun goes down and automatically retire to cozy, indoor mode.

Of course if you are as far north as Alaska, your darkest night is far more of a nuisance.

You folks probably just wait until May to do your laundry and wash your car.

But at least I know the hard part is almost over.

The Sun is returning and all the Gods in ancient history have conquered darkness once again (like they did every year while the agrarians waited with bated breath and seeds to plant in their anxious little palms).

Welcome Solstice.

Welcome Capricorn the Goat!

Is it light out yet?

Capricorn the Goat

Painting by Lea Kelley

Thank You for Sleeping Next to My Neighbor’s Boyfriend

I have a new neighbor.

I’ve never seen her face, but I know she is in L.O.O.O.V.E.

That’s love with a whole lot of oh, oh, oh’s.

She is making me miss the last neighbor, you know, the one with the maniacal hammer. (Thank You for My Neighbor’s Hammer Potential)

Now, it’s not that I have an aversion to folks being in love or anything.

I just don’t want to know about the intimate details when I’m trying to go to sleep on the other side of the wall, in my own apartment.

We have previously established that I am a visualizing kind of gal, and there are some pictures I don’t want dancing around in my head.

My faceless neighbor, naked, in a Santa hat , yelling Oh, Oh, Oh while riding a reindeer is one of those pictures.

It prevents me from appreciating the innocence of Christmas.

And it’s not just the oh, oh, oh’s.

Evidently, her bed is on the other side of the wall, directly lined up with mine in a way that reverberates pillow talk through the three pillows over my own head, here in the sanctuary of my furniture placement challenged abode.

I suppose I could go over and knock on the door, introduce myself, tell her she has a beautiful voice, and politely suggest she get a job with one of those 900 call numbers.

Or maybe I could anonymously slide a note under her door that reads : “I know what you did last summer.” and draw little pictures on it, of bunnies doing what bunnies do.

Perhaps I should fight fire with fire and rent Debbie does Dallas, turn it on full volume, and let her figure out how thin the walls are here, in apartment land.

I don’t know.

There’s probably something for me to learn in this scenario.

But for now, sleeping next to her boyfriend makes me appreciate not having to buy reindeer antlers for one of my own .

Thank You for the Tree of Remembrance

The Pagans used to celebrate the Winter Solstice by hanging apples and fruit on a conifer to represent future harvest bounty during the darkest night of the year (December 21).

Then they would light candles to represent the light of the sun.

The evergreen conifer represented eternal life.

On the New year, they cut down the tree and burned the Yule Log, to let go of the past year while they planned for Spring by the fire.

This probably got them trough some pretty tough winters.

Now folks have a Christmas tree.

They decorate a conifer with trinkets and baubles, light it up, and put wrapped gifts underneath to offer future bounty to friends and family in the form of socks and ipods and such.

Most of these gifts will probably be worn out by Spring.

Somewhere between then and now, the evergreen tree came to symbolize a lot of religious hubbub that I don’t really integrate into my holiday season, but sometimes I enjoy watching other folks get all mushy about it.

I don’t usually put up a tree during the holidays, but my pal, Victor brought me a rosemary tree.

It’s about a foot high and I put a cloisonné hummingbird on top of it.

Rosemary is called the herb of remembrance and it symbolizes loyalty and friendship.

It’s also been known to enhance one’s memory.

The hummingbird is my personal totem and it represents gathering the nectar of life with love and joy—far superior to a north star or an angel with a trumpet.

So I like this new holiday combination.

It’s a perfect symbol for remembering the joy and love of life.

But this one will live all year long.

And instead of burning the yule log, all I have to do is bake something with some of the rosemary, and my home will be filled with the bounty of friendship and good memories from solstice to solstice.

Thanks, Victor!

Thank You for Hybrid Humanoids and Terminator Seeds

With the advent of pesticides, biotechnology, genetic patents, and other nature altering mechanisms like the terminator seed, we are depleting our historical roots to nature and becoming more dependent on corporate farming—which is not like farming at all, but more like production.

The terminator seed creates a crop that does not reproduce a second generation of seeds.

My mom might have had a couple of these seeds in her womb.

Only one of her four offspring had progeny.

I wonder if my mom ever talked to anybody at Monsanto about this.

If Human seed production fell prey to the same corporate patents and gene splicing that food has been subjected to, we might be a little bit more resistant to pestilence, but we probably wouldn’t need to worry about our offspring—on account of… we wouldn’t have any.

We are beginning to see some of the ramifications of not adhering to that old adage “Don’t mess with Mother Nature.”

I’m wondering how far we will let this go before we understand that we really will reap what we sow.

Presently, humans cross pollinate.

We have the capacity to generate our own seeds and plant them wherever we want.

Nature likes it like that.

It creates human diversity and healthy people if they don’t breed with their cousins.

But what would happen if Monsanto decided they wanted to patent human seeds and create a terminator gene for a more sturdy crop of humanoids?

What if they told us it would better the world, alleviate diseases, and create a bountiful crop of shiny, happy people holding hands?

But what if the catch was…

There’s only going to be one crop of these people because they have a genetically modified terminator gene?

If you wanted more people, you’d have to buy breed seeds from the folks who held the patent and eliminated all the previous breed seeds through propaganda and lawsuits against organic birth givers.

Then what?

I’m just sayin’.

Maybe we should reconsider where we plant a terminator.

Thank You for the Doze Code

I have a code in my doze.

Last night I took Nyquil before bed.

It helped me doze off, but it did not cure the code.

Some folks say that stress causes a person to catch a code.

I say dirty rotten germs give a person a code, and then run away to some other unsuspecting person’s doze to plant another rhino virus code.

It’s hard to crack this particular code.

But some folks are working on it.

I hope they don’t doze off until they figure it out.

click photo for link.

A multi-institutional team of researchers has deciphered the complete genetic sequences of all of the world’s 99 known strains of human rhino virus, the viruses responsible for the common cold. The sequences provide a detailed blueprint for the virus, showing how new strains develop and revealing pressure points that may lead to new antiviral drugs. Here, a rhino virus particle at atomic resolution is superimposed over a representation of the RNA molecule that encodes the virus genome. (c) Ann Palmenberg, UW-Madison

Thank You for Daydreams, The Final Frontier

Space is not the final frontier (as it says in the opening of Star Trek) but Dreams may be.

Sleeping Dreams are always interesting —especially if one is an existential sort of Jungian interpreter of such things.

But I think Waking Dreams tell us more about the final frontier that is our lives in the corporeal.

By Waking Dreams, I am speaking of those things we daydream about while we are driving our car, standing in line, sitting in the bathtub, or wishing for when we blow out the candles on our birthday cake.

We all have these waking dreams and sometimes they are just a Litmus Test for the things we are not quite certain we want to incorporate into our lives yet.

Sometimes we take the waking dream test a step further and share it with others. We speak our wishes and our daydreams aloud to friends or strangers on a bus.

We say such things as… “If I won the lottery I would…” or “You know what would be great?..” or “I wish I could…” or “when I get the time I’m gonna…” or “If I had a… I would…” or “ If that person loved me I could…”

I think maybe there is a reason we keep some of these waking dreams from manifesting into tangible situations.

I think if all our wishes and daydreams came true we might not be quite as happy as we were when we just daydreamed about them.

Nonetheless, we continue this activity, exploring the frontier of what may or may not be our true life desires.

When we don’t know quite what we want, we daydream about it in a nice safe way to test it out.

If we manifest one of our daydreams into reality, we can be ecstatic or we can say “OOPS! I didn’t think it would be like this!”

So when you are daydreaming try to include as many details and angles as possible—just in case.

Some wise guy in history once said: If you would like to know what you truly desire, look at what you have.

I am thankful for all my dreams that came true and I am thankful for the ones that did not.

But I will continue making wishes and day dreaming.

I have faith that the seeds of my wishes will take root when I really want them to.

photo by me

Thank You for Tickling my Funny Bone

I am becoming addicted to this 17 second video.

I can’t stop watching it.

And I laugh every single time!

Thank You for Food Not Bombs

I first heard of this organization when I lived in San Francisco.

This is me and James Bowen, singing at a concert in Golden Gate Park to benefit Food Not Bombs.

We sang Find the Cost of Freedom.

I think it is time to revisit the meaning of that song.

Click the Poster to see Food Not Bombs website.

This organization has fed many hungry people.

Thank You For Crazy Normal Genius People

Take a handful of exceptionally creative people, several geniuses, prodigies, and artists.

Put them all together, and you got  a room chock full o’ nuts who used to seem a titch off the social norm scale.

You have an interesting party where the conversation evolves around the many reasons that creative, sensitive people struggle with reality and a normal lifestyle, right?

But that party is getting pretty crowded these days.

Everybody is an exception to the norm these days.

Everybody has some crazy specialness that separates them from normal people.

There are a lot of folks who claim they don’t want to be normal as if normal is some blasé term for dullards or something.

But normal is actually becoming an obsolete concept as the social curve from which it is defined has taken some real dips and turns.

Normal has become special in a world gone mad.

If you can maintain a steady lifestyle, raise a healthy family, and have a relationship that lasts longer than five years nowadays, you are an exception to what is evolving into the norm.

And you are probably finding it difficult to locate peers of your own social standards.

If you have found a way to adapt to the excellerated changes of our society without antidepressants, 12 step programs, underground cult participation, psychotherapy, insomnia medication, or neurosis of the living, you must be some kind of normal genius.

Or maybe you’re just maladaptive.

Moody artists,  autistic mathematicians, narcissistic composers, and  some crazy geniuses have contributed much to our culture with romantic notions about struggling artists, insane inventors, and abnormal creative genius during times when the majority of people were establishing normal as a norm.

When inspired people are willing to explore new concepts and go to places that normal people don’t, they are often considered insane.

So, now that we have created a norm of being abnormal and everyone is trying to be a creative genius or an exception to the previous norm, we must look to those rare, exotic folks who are just living their lives without much ado, and revere them as the normal geniuses of our time.

We are in awe when someone celebrates a fiftieth wedding anniversary.

We admire those who have no anxiety to be quelled with medications, no dramatic behavior due to some philosophical conflict with society,  no need to change the world with a mono focused obsession to invent or create.

We respect a stable person who has lived in the same house their whole lives and raised a family of healthy children who never get arrested for drugs or join a gang.

I predict that there will soon be an award winning talk show that seeks these normal people out and interviews them while the rest of the world watches in amazement and becomes inspired by their eccentric genius.

Thank You For What Happens When You Turn ME Upside Down

Original post August 2008 by Lea Kelley

Thank You For the Needy, the Needed, and the Greater Good.

Last night a friend came by to announce to a few Pie Night stragglers that he had received a financial windfall.

This friend is a very kind person. He shares his time, his food, his belongings, and his loyal friendship with all of us, as well as those of lesser fortune.

He offered up his windfall check to serve mutual friends with a question;

“All of us are having a hard time right now, What could I do with this money that would help us all the most?”

There were some spontaneous verbal responses;

“Loan me money, I’m a good investment.”

“Invest in a building where we can all be productive.”

“Buy ….etc. etc.”

After some sincere pondering, we came to an agreement that actually served everyone among us.

My friend should keep the money, use it for things he needed for his own stability and creativity, and to help him do what brought him joy.

We figure when he is safe, sound, and happy, that the rest of us benefit more than we would if his windfall was divided and diluted into temporary relief for many of our individual circumstances.

Misery does not love company.

It actually wants hope, inspiration, and an example of the alternative.

Also, somehow, when those we care about are happy, we tend to feel like things are getting better, and then they do.

Thank You For Being a Good Sex Driver

A healthy Libido has a good drive but not always a good sense of direction.

It is unfortunate that a libido does not come with a GPS locator and a steering wheel.

There are a lot of traffic hazards and collision incidents that could be avoided if a libido had better maneuverability.

Some folks are sporting dents from bumping into other libidos while trying to pull out of various parking spaces and charging onto entrance ramps without forethought and observation skills.

Some folks, the ones who practice sex driving without insurance, have  their own  issues—many named after their grandparents.

Some libido owners start sex driving before they get their learner’s permit.

This may result in careening libidos, out of control—without a steering wheel or a GPS, one must acquire a feel for the road before moving ahead.

Some folks exercise poor judgment as sex drivers.

This may be influenced by vodka and orange juice—you know, Screwdrivers.

Screwdrivers do not benefit sex drivers in anyway.

They instigate chase scenes and tailgating.

Screwdrivers also cause sex drivers to misinterpret oncoming traffic as coming on to them.

A good sex driver has read and practiced the manual before getting on the freeway.

Here’s some important tips in the sex driver’s manual:

Residential parking is preferred to street parking.

Do not toot your horn unless it is required by law.

Prior to starting engine, place gear shift in neutral.

Know when to release the clutch.

Do not fill the gas tank prior to driving

Drive at a reduced speed until signs indicate otherwise.

Stopping abruptly may cause stalls.

The most important one:

Get the big picture.

Look around, know what’s behind you, in front of you, and in your peripheral vision.

Stay awake.

A good sex driver has a hand book to refer to when the libido is temporarily parked.

Thank You For Emitting 192 Degrees of Heat on the Summit

WHATCHU TALKIN’ ‘BOUT?

Click Photo to see videos on the impact of Climate Change

Thank You for Sound Surroundings

I have a difficult time being of sound mind when my my mind is being blasted by external sounds.

I was once one of those girls, with flowers on her head, dancing directly in front of the amplifiers at Grateful Dead concerts.

But these days, my flowers are a bit more sensitive.

They wilt at high volumes, and turn into thorns that poke the thoughts right out of my head.

I don’t have that kind of auditory fortitude anymore.

I cannot concentrate clearly when my surroundings are operating at high decibels or multi levels of superfluous noise.

Uh oh, I am turning into that woman that shouts “Turn that thing down!”

I used to think that woman was a grumpy old lady who just didn’t get how much fun it was to blast your mind out in a car.

I used to think that grumpy old lady needed to smoke a doob and mellow out so the music could free her soul.

I used to think she was lacking in enthusiasm, or stuck in some Lawrence Welk nightmare that prevented her from expanding her repertoire.

Now I think…

I am her.

(replace Lawrence Welk with Hits from the Seventies playing softly in the background)

I don’t know how this happened.

It’s a bit dis concert ing.

But I do know this:

If you want me to act like a person of sound mind, if you don’t want to see some middle aged woman breaking into your trunk to pull your hip bass speaker out by the wires with her bare hands, if you don’t like the idea of a person who has all the thoughts poked out of her head running around to neighboring night clubs in flannel pajamas with electrical wire snippers, if you want to remain secure in the thought that a grumpy old lady is just a harmless nuisance with wilted flowers on her head…

then…

You better turn that thing down!

There now.

How about we have a nice quiet talk and share a sip of Geritol.

Thank You for Navigating New Territory Somewhere Else

Colonoscopy.

There,

I wrote it out loud.

This is on the new list of my least favorite words, which all begin with C.

My body has a message for all those words:

Photo by Lea Kelley’s Brain.

Brought to you by words that begin with B.

Thank You for Corny Aspirations to Goodness, Leaving Greatness to the Fate of Humans

Bad news…

We’re all gonna die.

Good news…

We get to live until that happens.

We don’t spend a lot of time thinking about our death, but we try to circumvent the inevitable by aspiring to some greatness that will last longer than our bodies.

It seems we are not too inclined to focus on the bad news while we are making the most of the good news.

And that is probably best, otherwise things could get a little maudlin and we might forfeit our aspirations as pointless, miss out on a lot of action words, and just sit around waitin’ for the reaper to harvest us like corn.

It may seem like Corn doesn’t do much.

It just stands there and waits for the bad news.

But the thing we don’t notice about corn is that the whole time it’s standing there waiting for the bad news, it is quietly aspiring toward goodness with the good news.

Corn does not aspire to Greatness. It doesn’t try to be a rock star, attempt to write a great novel, acquire the nobel prize, or seek honorable mention from peers in the corn field.

It just aspires to goodness.

If all the corn in Nebraska decided to aspire to Greatness one day, separate itself from the rest of the corn, stand out as a leader among corn, and claim territory in the archives of history as an individual ear of corn with exception, then what would happen?

I’ll tell ya what, we’d have a bunch of self centered, egomaniac, scared-to-die corn stalkers running around and a whole lot of people would live without the goodness of tortillas and nachos, that’s what.

But no, Corn knows what the deal is.

It does not aspire to greatness.

It does not seek the transient accolades of seeming special, does not live in some illusion that it is better than the field it grows in, or superior to the people who eat it.

Corn is wise in it’s social standing and sagacious in it’s true purpose in nature. It does not need Greatness.

But humans, on the other hand seem to need a bigger goal.

They like their mythology. They are attached to their beliefs in the afterlife, and work very hard to assure that the bad news won’t make them disappear from the field forever.

And again, that’s probably best.

But I think we can enhance the good news by learning from Corn about goodness.

Goodness outlives Greatness.

Greatness has individual brilliance, intellect, power, and social significance.

But Goodness is at the heart of the matter when it comes to the good news.

Thank You for Jumping Through Hoops

Jumping through hoops of red tape can be stressful.

But sometimes it just has to be done.

A being can only jump through one hoop at a time— even if there’s cat food involved …

Thank You for My Other Body

I just discovered my other body about twenty minutes ago.

She looks just like me.

There she was, sitting at my desk, taking up the same space as this body, while I was busy making phone calls, shuffling through papers, mumbling to myself, and acting like some kind of chaos driven woman in the midst of hubbub with a headache.

My other body was quietly sitting there (here), doing nothin’, acting as though she didn’t have a care in the world, and life was some kind of Utopian meditation or something.

“Wow” I said to her, “Get up and do something, will ya?”

She just smiled, put her hands (which look just like my hands) in her lap, and looked out the window.

I noticed she was taking deep breaths and her face had that dreamy calm to it that I used to get when I didn’t feel overwhelmed or was having a quiet moment of relaxation.

My other body started humming some song from the seventy’s and kept looking out the window.

The phone rang.

She didn’t answer it.

The cat came up and crawled into her lap (which looked just like my lap) and started purring.

Then my other body spoke to me in some kind of psychic language.

She said “ Look, if you’re gonna get all this stuff done without making us both crazy, I’m gonna have to take a break and think about things for minute. So you just wait right there until I’m ready to get back to work.”

What could I do?

I was powerless.

She had my cat.

I think my headache is going away now.

Image: Conjoined twin sisters from the  Nuremberg Chronicle (1493).

Thank You For Attachment to Buddhism

Heheh

This thought popped into my head when I woke up.

I’ve been chuckling about it all morning.

Yeah, me and Siddhartha Gautama, we got a streak of irony in us, eh?

Thank You for Unbound Souls and Modern Day Demons

Historically, the Devil has played a big part in barter, trade, and retail folklore.

Mephistopheles, the old retail master, has come a long way since that Faust legend of trading a soul for a wife.

These days we seem to be making all manner of deals with the Devil.

But the Devil doesn’t just want your soul anymore.

His standards for fair trade have changed a bit.

Hell is presently experiencing an economic glut in souls—supply is exceeding demand.

Mephistopheles will now accept other fees.

So if you’re looking for a good deal, Carpe Diem!

And right before Christmas, too!

Now, I’m no investment specialist, but I have noticed some real bargaining going on out there in the fray of our dealings with the Devil.

Most of these bargains come with Ginsu knives and many offer bonus deals if you dial 1-800-Gimme right now.

But if you go straight to the Devil’s warehouse, you can look in the Vanity Aisle, on the Convenience Shelf, into the Ignorance Case, (the one with fool proof glass) and on the Sale Rack of Fate, to find these special items and strike a bargain with the old trade master, in person.

Descriptions of what you can buy…and…What it will cost you—later.

Personal Convenience:

Easy to install and operate.

Runs on complete lack of responsibility with rechargeable credit cards, loaded with immediate gratification.

Comes with automatic thought controls and a powerful, spontaneous consumption engine that may be steered rampantly over human value, extinct species, healthy food, and personal integrity, by corporate propaganda.

A very reliable generator of justifications has been built in by marketing experts.

On the receipt is a coupon for two round trip tickets to bathe in Moon water after making a mess on Earth.

Bonus feature: Sturdy petroleum base product with Banker seal of approval.

Price to be paid: Social and Ecological Bankruptcy

Security

Includes a colorful alert system and a monitor enhanced with a panoramic view of all your neighbors, a specially designed toggle switch that leans to the right for easy operation, and a temporary thrill seeking device that allows the user to experience intermittent shock waves through media manipulation, inducing a euphoric inspiration to get naked in airports and a self righteous exhilaration derived from profiling races other than one’s own.

Price to be paid : Ten Bills of Rights and some change

Emotional Comfort:

Comes with smooth to swallow pills and easy to digest health related labels, which are artistically created in think tanks and laboratories to accommodate any sensitive reaction to a culture that is completely irrational and short sighted.

Guaranteed to alleviate that nagging feeling that something is very wrong here.

Provides a quick fix to any questioning type thinking and maintains a palatable social climate with a built in pull string lullaby to abate any revolting side effects.

Price:  Your Mental Stability and Confidence in Reality

Complacency

Gently used, and gift wrapped by indigenous people who are being exploited in places you’ve never heard of, so you don’t have to think about them while global homogenization settles like dust on your imported furniture.

This item is user friendly with flexibly lined edges and non resistant conformity for superior feelings of entitlement and relaxation.

One size potentially fits all. Diversity not included.

Price: Your Humanity

Spirituality:

This is an exceptionally good deal since the Devil doesn’t really need your soul any more.

You can obtain this item outside the Devil’s warehouse without a contract.

There are a myriad of Con men, Cult leaders, Megalomaniacs, New Age Promulgators of invented truths, and Predators of your need to find answers in a world gone nuts, who are willing to give you this for mere cash.

But for those other things—and more, you’re evidently gonna have to cut a deal with Mephistopheles.

Unlike Dr Faustus, your exchange contract may stipulate a collection due date that extends beyond twenty four years, so your kids might have to pay for these purchases later, but Hey, you get to have ‘em now!

And…

You get to keep your *Soul!

Woo Hoo!

*May be limited to what’s in store.

Thank You for Leftovers

By the way, now that you are full of turkey, check out this movie.

It will feed your mind.

Thank You for Todays Favorites:

 

 

Thank you for Living until Tomorrow

Appreciation: Be here now.

 

 

Thank You for the Woman With Talking Eyes

Thanksgiving

 

 

Thank you for Roaring Vulnerability

Acceptance and  family.