Meaning Making, Story Telling and Camp Songs

As much as we would like to think that we have modernized and become intellectual and as fully invested in "reality" as we seem to be, we make the same silly decisions time after time and allow our decision making to be informed by the same myths we have had for two centuries. We make meaning from the predominant stories that we are told day in and day out. I fancy myself a storyteller, but I frequently diverge from the formulaic story telling of the ancients. I try, most often, to craft my stories using real life events and salient observations that reflect both the things that remain the same throughput time as well as the changeable world that we find ourselves in. The "take away" message (and oh, how I hate that moniker) is not at all like take out food in a styro-trash clam shell. I might find a way to incorporate such an iconic and ubiquitous element within a story, but only to act as a placeholder for a larger picture, a deeper set of values and actors within the story. We each have the power to make our own meaning from whatever story we are told and for that matter the entire internal landscape of our minds is our responsibility. The story teller is only entrusted with the stories, civilization is based on the myths within the stories and those are eternal. the way we look at them may change, but birth, death, love, hate, joy, pain and life remain constant.

The most topical stories often reflect age old struggles between power and weakness, lovers and haters, the rich and the poor or the dreams and realities of individuals who act as stand ins for all of those elements of ourselves. How we reflect upon the stories and what we infer from them are our own part in the age old process of deciphering the ciphers. Now, the best story tellers have the power to lead us right to the precipice, where the view is expansive and the danger is great that we might plunge over the edge into madness, but also keep just enough ground under our feet that we can remain sane. As can be seen from a study of many folk tales from a variety of cultures, there has been an attempt to soften many of the messages and events that they spoke of, seemingly to avoid scaring the children. This paired with the rampant depiction of death and dismemberment that children are exposed to on television seem odd, but that perhaps is better left for another post.The myth that we operate on today seems to be the one about our own intellectual development. As greater minds than mine have said, "Our belief in the myth that human-caused climate change is debatable has been manufactured by many of the same people who told us that the scientific evidence that smoking is bad for your health was either unclear or make-believe."

The greatest story tellers have a very deep well of stories inside them. They have stories for nearly every occasion and to teach a myriad of principles that societies across the arc of time depended on as touchstones and points of reference over the ages. One of the most useful functions of the storyteller is the ability to allow us to look at upsetting or difficult data sets and make sense of them in light of a longer view. The worst story tellers, and we are facing greater and greater threats from these, distract us from what is important and hides truth from the listeners for the sake of driving us over the edge of that cliff I mentioned earlier. The words of Ozzy Osbournes "Crazy Train" come to mind. His story was designed to be a warning, though many did not understand it at the time. For some, this song has become an anthem for self-destruction, but it was a cry for sanity in the face of overwhelming craziness. Ozzy's admonition was to step off the crazy train, or a call for help to everyone to step off. Who on Earth today can't relate to that?  We are dangerously close to the edge of environmental catastrophe, social collapse, political annihilation and intellectual collapse. Whenever times get hard, it causes stress. This stress is frequently accompanied by increases in fundamentalist religious beliefs, rebirth of old stories and old myths that got us through the last period of stress. Today, we see this happening. Trouble is, myths are only helpful when everyone shares them. The world is shrinking around many facts that disprove many of the myths we based our civilizations on over the eons. If we are to grow and prosper in the future, we need to develop more inclusive stories, that allow us to grow out of dysfunctional myths of the past, band together as a cohesive crew on Spaceship Earth and move beyond the limits or "us-them" thinking.

At the risk of sounding like a Dr. Bronners Soap Bottle, "ALL ONE!" Humans are beginning to see the truth of the matter. We are all more akin to a single organism than an endless series of individuals. For some, the myht of individualism will die hard, but for those among us who have understood this for years, it comes as no surprise that the shrinking of the intellectual landscape that has been possible through the internet means that we can plainly see beyond the arc of the Earth. Events that may take place in my tiny corner of the planet are inexorably tied to things that happen in Australia, Denmark Slovenia and Bolivia. Oddly enough, even streaming a few electrons into "the cloud" can have effects worldwide. Strangely, just in the past decade or two, the myth of the butterfly's wings being able to create thunderstorms halfway around the world has been surpassed by the power of electrons which are even less discernible. The power of moving electrons has now toppled despotic leaders in several countries and the instability is growing. The patriots who fight for the souls of their countries are growing in number and strength, in Madison, Wisconsin, across the nation with the advent of the #occupy movement across the United States and in nations across the planet. what is needed is the intestinal fortitude to relinquish out-dated myths in favor of a more universal set of ideas and insights that allow us to understand our new world order and how we can affect positive change for the next seven generations.

Anyone who has ever gone to summer camp knows the power of the myths that they teach, the songs and stories that get passed around the campfire. When I began to sing them and tell them, I wondered about the origins and meanings that each one conveyed. Oddly enough, the older I get, the more meaning I find in them and the more important they become. The camp I worked at, College Settlement Camps of Philadelphia, provided services for many of the most difficult children of the "City of Brotherly Love". Many of the children who come to that camp have had the hardest of lives. without security, comfort, or hope, many young people who came to our camp had handicaps that are not evident on the surface. Our programs were designed to heal some of the damage caused by poverty, malnutrition and neglect. Some of our campers only had three meals per day for two weeks each summer and for many, knowing that they were cared for took a bit of time to begin to make sense to them. Our myths were not about rugged individualism and harsh realities of the streets, but of abundance and caring for one another. It was occasionally like trying to speak Chinese to chickens, but oddly enough, pairing the same messages with compassion, love and honesty slowly began to make sense for many of our charges. Sadly, at the end of their two week respite from their harsh lifestyles, we had to turn them back over to many of the worst neighborhoods of Philly. Just as the experience helped me to find my way and my voice, I am sure that the songs and stories that we shared each night at campfire are still a peart of those people's experience. what they do with it is ultimately up to them, but at least they heard the truth once in their lives.

Wherever you are, whatever station you find yourself in, never forget the powerful act of storytelling. Sharing your stories, especially if they help us to approach the most horrible truths safely, have the power to transform culture, inspire positive growth and change that has the power to outlive us. Be careful about the stories you choose to believe and even more careful about those you choose to share. The future of humanity may depend on making the right choices today. The planet surely does, and we all depend on the abundance of a healthy planet. As has been said many times before, you may be on the right track, but you will still get run over if you do nothing. Even something as ethereal as a story can help move our culture forward. Have fun and in closing, peace, Love and pass the ammunition!

Myth Making 101

First, we must understand that myths only serve a culture when each and every individual within the culture believes the myth. As with any experience in story-telling requires, there must be a suspension of disbelief for them to function. Case in point, Paul Bunyan, with his blue ox, giant axe and legendary appetite. Let me tell you, it is easier to explain the deforestation of most of the "North" by him and Babe scything down acres at a single whack than it is to understand the complexity of our own kind devising ways to extract the most timber the quickest. In some cases, railroads only existed until the timber was gone, then the pillars of industry pulled up the track and went elsewhere to "mine" more trees. Paul and Babe are certainly easier to imagine.
I contend that human beings are myth-making machines, we will make our minds up about anything and hold to nearly any idea as dearly as if our whole way of life could be threatened by it's removal. We are "sold" myths all the time, so understanding the subtle differences between actual fact and myth can seem hard, until you try a few cases. There is a pattern. Actual facts are known, myths are imagined.

One of my favorite myths of creation involves beaver plunging to the bottom of a vast ocean to fetch a bit of earth for the sky princess to sit upon, holding as much soil as he could in his mouth, beaver spat it upon turtle's back, creating the Earth as we know it today, with all of it's landforms and river systems, on the turtle's back.

For a time, I believed this to be true, until I began to understand my first point, a myth is only of use when all the members of a society believe the same one. We truly are at the dawning of the age of Aquarius. In about 150 years, the water-bearer will unseat the age of Pisces. 150 years seems long until you look back and think of the great changes that have occurred in the last century and one half. I imagine and want to tell the story of a race of people who stood up for truth and fact in a way that no other cadre of individuals ever had. They had seen photographs of the Earth from space, they understood the concept of Starship Earth. What happens anywhere on the planet affects each and every other part inexplicably. They understood the fact that all races and creeds were arbitrary "differences" amongst one people. For them, there were no valid boundaries amongst the vast brotherhood of human kind.
When we begin to relegate ego to a lower status than our true self, we often see relationships differently and value our surroundings differently. Because we have purposely forgotten to take the liberty of judging each and every thing we can think of, we create a pattern new to many. I call the sheeple style of not learning, just filling in time, relies on the myth of knowing. A cult of knowing has grown up in a hotbed of technocratic sentiment, "scientific research" and worship of experts generally. I have learned enough to be in the early stages of really understanding how little I actually know. Living in the times we do, it is amazing that anyone can come to know themselves. Too much interference greets each and every one of us at nearly every moment than our organism was set up to handle.

Having a mythology that assures us that we can multi-task and that it will lead to something better if we can just do a few more things all at once, or that the best way to get ahead requires us to be workaholics or live as indentured servants, may be "good for business", but the costs to our children, our culture and the generations that will follow us far outweigh the short term expediency of those who fabricated the myth. The hidden price that we pay for the belief in this fiction is more dear than we can afford. First, we sacrifice our children, because they realize right away that we are not listening to them, or sharing important information that will help them to function in the world. Secondly, out health goes the way of the Western World and hypertension, stress, heart disease and cancer begin eating at us from the inside. We respond to the stress by trying to get more out of each day and accept "fast food" rituals that cause more havoc inside our own skin and bones. Finally, the endless shuffling around, chasing education, income, places to procure goods and services, even entertain ourselves and you have a whole package of activities that are contrary to what we are designed to do naturally.

Just like the marketing geniuses who brought Bible passages to life through art, therefore making it possible to brainwash large numbers of illiterate heathens, in our day there are those who spin the webs of deceit that lead us to shuffle our children off to event after event telling us that it "makes them into team players" or that the "enrichment" that we are able to provide is not enough for their blossoming talents. So, we seek a long line of professionals who supposedly know what our children need better than we do and the cycle is completely broken. In our time, we no longer sit around firs at night, sharing the stories that lead to understanding our great myths. There are new forms of technology that can elucidate a thousand conspiracy theories or present "facts" that lead us to become evermore estranged from our families, our cultural roots and the myths that held us together as families, neighbors, citizens and humans. The myth makers have far more power than we could have ever imagined. In the past, we trusted our elders to tell the stories. Today, anyone with access to a keyboard can make up our minds for us and lead us into territory that the glowing screens will confirm is dangerous, full of hazards and pitfalls and that requires us to do more things at once for the opportunity to "participate" in the brave new world of 2012.

You and I may not believe that the world was created in seven days by a guy who looks like half of us. We may not actually accept that turtle swam down to the bottom of a vast sea to reclaim a bit of Earth, which we all have to share and care for. The fact is, what we truly believe in may be as unique as the time we are living in, but we have the power and ultimately the responsibility to create myths that help us to function and remain healthy in the world. The only people who seem to be served by the prevailing myths today are large corporations that use us as pawns in a giant chess game of power and control. My myths and yours allow us to remain wage slaves, funneling the vast majority of our earnings into the coffers of multinational corporations and therefore the pockets of their CEOs. As technology has grown, we have always had the myth of increased leisure. Anthropologists have been aware of this for several decades, but the lies keep piling up on themselves. The demand for nearly every consumer product is based on the belief that their lives will be better if they could just procure this one item. The shake weight, or a Snugglie, or a pan that never needs to be washed. During my recent construction process there were several times that Nancy asked, "Isn't there another way to do..." Like when the toxic compounds were used for the plastic plumbing drain pipes. The containers said in no uncertain terms that exposure to the fumes will kill you, but the old way was to use cast iron pipe and seal the joints with molten lead, assuring brain damage instead of liver failure or cancer. Like with doctors, science and technology generally refuse to give up an old, expensive, gruesome and dangerous methodology until a more dangerous, more gruesome and even more costly and aggressive one is waiting in the wings to replace it.

In the end, it is up to us, what we will decide to believe in. I choose to listen to the elders, integrate the myths that seem to be based on loving one another, only taking what is necessary and giving back tot he larger community that allows me to enjoy a lifestyle full and rich with friends, time for enjoying the natural beauty and abundance of Mother Earth and having the time to give each thing that I need to get done my undivided attention. Those myths can be hard to find sometimes, but the rewards they bring are peace of mind and a deeper level of satisfaction than I can describe in words. This is an exciting time to be alive because the #occupy movement and growing numbers of people worldwide are expressing a new myth, one that says that we the people are at least as important as our overlords. The monied interests are not in a position to give back anymore and that is what led us to the current breakdown in society and culture. What growing numbers of people protesting is really all about is our right and responsibility to forge a mythos that leads us out of the darkness of the post industrial age with our dreams, our dignity and a semblance of life intact. Wresting our time and effort from those who own us today will take some powerful myth making, but it has been done in the past and will be done in the future. What is necessary in my mind is that we all take the time to respect our own ability to guide the culture that we all share into sustainable relations with the planet, our place on it and the neighbors that we have both right down the street and across continents and the vast oceans of this Earth. To that end, I continue to tell the stories that inspired me to trust the planet to provide my needs and rely of things that have proven value, not the over advertized accoutrements of "modern culture".

We all need air, water, food, shelter, a safe place to breed and raise our young, and affection. I distrust any product or service that will not fulfill at least one of those very real needs. When we all begin to trust our own ability to make myths, rather than seeking "experts" who can tell us what to believe, we should also notice that we make better decisions that lead us to be able to lead better, healthier and more enriching lifestyles and simultaneously live far more comfortably on much less. The myth of consumerist culture is on the ropes and our future as a species may depend on scrapping our old beliefs for new ones as quickly as possible. Everything we have tried so far has not worked, trying the same thing over and over and expecting a different outcome is one definition of insanity, the time has come to strike out in new directions and with new found love for ourselves, one another and the planet. Make your myths reflect that and it will change the world for the better, subscribe to the existing myth that he who dies with the most toys wins, and you can plainly see where that will lead.

The Other Side Of Oneness

We have been led, like a bull with a ring in it's nose, to the belief that duality surrounds us. If x,then y, black and white, sciencey thinking are partly to blame, but our religions and arts have mostly failed to keep pace with the truth of the matter. Since that photo of our planet from space, the undeniable truth is that we are one. The agape love that we use to define love of creator, needs to be shared for not only our brothers and sisters, but for the other creatures we share the planet with, the Earth itself and the many diverse people inhabiting her. Human history has led us to believe in competing forces, spoils and conquest as inevitable forces in a giant complex relationship of power and control. The nature of oneness has been relegated to esoteric works of philosophy and spirituality while our mundane world is billed as dog eat dog and a lifelong struggle over scant resources.

In fact, this warped view has such a massive amount of human energy bound and gagged, tied up in struggle as to be crippling for the whole of the human race. The very fabric of cultures has been frayed, the dialogue that could lead to harmony and sustainability has been largely ignored. Instead we are spoon fed rhetoric that accentuates difference and worships the adversarial charade that those who hold humanity captive orchestrate for our diversion.  When American corporations hold 1.2 trillion dollars as security against the unknown future but the government felt desperate enough to borrow that much to float the ultra rich more loans, the last thing you want to be telling people is that we are all brothers and sisters, entitled to peace and security, hospitality in our own nation and among the nations of a shrinking planet. A smaller and smaller number of billionaires have discovered how to extract more capital from the  bamboozled public, the sleight of hand which they hide behind allows our rage to be parried, our anger to be sublimated onto the innocent and our tastes to wander in the direction of feeding them more money faster. Like the trend in weaponry, in which every major development resulted in being able to kill more people faster, in capitalism, the development of the entire system are based on extracting more wealth faster as well.

Being one with our neighbors has a frightening side. This is most apparent to those who bought into the myth of increased leisure, perpetrated by technocrats, those who are extremely nationalistic and folks who cannot grasp the immensity of the big lie. Security lies in a different direction than we have ever been allowed to look. The hippies came the closest to straying, almost unintentionally, into that turf. Peace Love and Understanding are not just trendy ideals, they are the only way to assure that we step back from the precipice of mutually assured destruction. Luckily, we have had some talk about ending the nuclear era, but much needs to be done to eliminate further forays into this desperate realm. Never will the costs of 10,000 years of "safe storage" of nuclear waste offset the benefit of running an air conditioner or refrigerator. Those who have installed solar and wind energy are being made to jump over higher and higher standards, while the nuclear industry is getting their regulations reduced and the standards and practices they are required to maintain are being slashed. It makes the people paying attention wonder why the public should take the risk for the "development" of a new series of nuclear generating stations. The billions that are being proposed to bail out this hazardous and net energy consumptive industry could liberate us from our stagnant economy if we would only spend it on renewable sources that are available on the shelf, today.

As odd as it will sound to those who buy the corporate line, there is no other side of oneness. The lies perpetrated by the duality crowd need constant propping up, at tremendous cost and which will never achieve stability. The truth needs no support, it stands alone as a testament to itself. Reaching out to one another requires nothing more than listening to our hearts, rather than our brains. Act in accord with what you feel to be true, not what you have been told, and things will turn out just fine. When we reflect on our lives, we never say, I should have destroyed more, I should have invested in more death camps, more pools of poison gas, more weapons and more subterfuge. Few, if any, ever tell themselves, I should have left my children more debt, more ill-will or more messes to clean up. Tragically, this is what duality has led to. the duplicity and deception reflected in most of our politics and virtually all of our media have done more to keep us afraid and alone than the world's religions combined. Kill your television is now possible, not the box with the cathode ray tube, but the prepackaged rhetoric that continues to cleave us apart rather than inspiring oneness. fight for your right to choose to hear the truth, educate yourself and welcome the Aquarian Age. the time has come to follow the water bearers into the new age of love, peace and understanding.

The Last Winter Solstice Lunar Eclipse was in 1638

Galileo Galilei was still alive when this event took place. Remember, he was the fellow who wrote: "I do not feel obliged to believe that the same god who has endowed us with sense, reason and intellect has intended us to forgo their use." He was the first to use the refracting telescope and witnessed the phases of Venus as well as discovering the moons of Jupiter. His astute observations and scientific rigor allowed him to prove the validity of Copernicus' theory that the planets revolve around the Sun. For this he was subjected to the inquisition, convicted of heresy and sentenced to life in prison which was reduced to lifelong house arrest because of his ill health and old age. Nearly four hundred years ago, the powers that felt threatened by his discoveries took it upon themselves to make him recant his support for Heliocentrism, although "primitive" cultures dating back many centuries had known the central place of the Sun in their cosmology. The Earth, when it eclipses the Sun, has the power to darken the Moon, just as our earthly ignorance and quest for power has the ability to block out god's love and our ability to perceive the goddess in her abundance as well. After nearly four hundred years, the powers that be are still trying to get us to forgo the use of our sense, reason and intellect. We must stand in the face of their oppression and take back these god given aspects of our make up.
The miracles that I have witnessed are things like animals hibernating. They appear to be completely dead then come out of their torpor to live again. If a frog, turtle or spider can be reborn, should we claim that they have died for our "sins" and worship them? Three days for a human is pretty good, but many animals hibernate for months! The Solstice is the most likely reason behind the season, we should all agree to disagree with the Jesus Myth. It was predated by several similar myths from far more ancient cultures. I don't want to rehash all of that again, but if you want to know more, watch the Zeitgeist movie, or study your history. Another miracle that I have witnessed is the fact that a single seed can increase itself with such vigor as to produce many thousands of times it's own weight in food while creating many times it's mass of oxygen, transforming the Earth by it's very process of living. We could learn a lot from something as delicate as a dandelion seed, or a pea. The lessons that are attributed to Jesus Christ are alive in the cornucopia, a pagan symbol that predates Jesus, the star, which is shorthand for Earth, Air, Fire, Water and Spirit and dozens of other ancient pagan symbols. The ignorance of our age is to mistake what we must all ultimately take responsibility for, our own ultimate power, for some sort of esoteric and unproven "power" that we give a story, to guide our lives.
I have been told by well-meaning Christians that my attire, behavior, beliefs and lifestyle relegate me to burning in hell for eternity. I have seen these same folks use power and control to oppress their wives and children, unleash their hatred and anger on innocent beings, lust after both neighbors' possessions as well as their wives, destroy nature and disavow intellectual development in favor of what they call "The Word". I'm with Galileio. If subscribing to their way of thinking means that my sense, reason and intellect must be forsaken, I want no part of it. Look no further than ancient folk wisdom or the current television series in which the CEO goes to work at the lowest level in their own company to see that the clothes certainly don't make the man. I have not acted with malice toward anyone, though I do refuse to submit to the power trips of others. I believe in Love, Peace, Liberty, Truth and Justice but understand that without living in a spiritual way, few of these qualities can be understood or defined with clarity. I also believe that many of my X-tian friends and neighbors are tormented more surely on this
Earth, than they ever could be in their imaginary "hell". Fearing corruption is nearly as dangerous as hating it. In either case, the mere granting of it quarter assures it's continued existence. If we fear something profoundly enough, we will "see" it around every corner. Likewise, when we hate, our energies somehow act as a cosmic funnel, bringing the object of our disgust back into focus for us to "get a better look".
A new place in time requires new approaches and a sense of honor for those who came before. Without their insight and awareness, we cannot hope to advance the cause of humanity without the dangers of repeating their errors as well. Yes, there really is a Santa Claus, as we come to realize as we enter adulthood, the personage that we sent our letters to is a fallacy, but the abundant spirit of giving is alive among us. Some of us keep that spirit alive throughout the year, others, only when they bake more cookies than they can possibly eat themselves. So too, the spirit of the Christ Child, the young man seeking the truths of the sages of India during his "lost years", even the heretic who sought to live as the light and love of our Creator and the man who was crucified for his insubordination are imaginary as well, they live within us, not in chapter and verse of a plagiarized document translated through half a dozen languages to meet our ear or mind. It behooves us to make a distinction between the fables that we are told and the truth that lies within them.
During this time of quiet reflection and the rebirth, of the Sun, may we all find ways to more purely abide the Golden Rule, stand for what we believe in, and accommodate the needs of others in our own struggles to find happiness. Once we find the prince of Peace within our selves, may we find ways to share that personage with others. Our closest burning star gives without measure and we need to follow the lead of that heavenly body, supporting life, affirming the abundance that the sun "son" personifies. Let us not get hung up in what our parents may have told us when we were young and impressionable. Growing up requires us to make a distinction between truth and fantasy. At some point we must "let go of childish things" and take full responsibility for our own salvation. Blessed Be this day and for all time, may your spirit soar and your body be healed through right livelihood and mutual respect for all beings.