human rights

We are first each a sovereign human being on this planet with dominion over our own bodies. Article 3 of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights acknowledges, “Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person.” 

In recent weeks and days, however, more and more folks are being coerced and ultimately required to take a medical treatment. This, despite the fact that voluntary informed consent has been a foundational element of medical practice heretofore. And forcing a person to choose between a medical treatment and their livelihood is not a choice, it is force.

Regardless of where anyone stands on the vaccine itself, it should not be difficult to see that mandatory medical treatments constitute a fundamental and immoral violation of human rights. Medical mandates are antithetical to freedom.

If the public permits mandatory medical treatments in this moment, we open the door to a very dangerous future. One would be truly naive to think this tool would not be used mistakenly or in unforeseen ways, good intentions or bad.

We cannot allow fear to drive us down this very treacherous path of submitting our bodies, and our children’s bodies, to government or corporate control.

We must speak before it is too late. It is a moment that requires courage in the face of overwhelming messaging from the state and corporations, coupled with unprecedented censorship to prevent discourse.

We must stand together for the good, and the health, of all.  Regardless of our personal decisions, loud and clear, we must say no to mandated medical treatments.

Stand for freedom. Stand for love.

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liberté

A segregated society is neither free nor healthy. 

This is a lesson taught too many times already, and yet, here we go again down this destructive and terrible path. Fear makes it all too easy to lure one down this ugly road. 

There is still time to stop it, to say no to the devastation of further segregation and all that goes with it. We must have the courage to stand against it.

In an environment drenched daily with fear, we must say no to the fear and reach instead toward our own inner intelligence and compassion. It is a matter of  survival: our own, our children’s, and for healthy and free societies around the world.

Do not be one that stands aside and watches as your brothers and sisters are shunned and segregated.  If you would be healthy and whole, stand now for love, stand for freedom.

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still walking the path

Some years ago, I became vegan. It happened incrementally over a period of many years, until it became a conscious decision. That decision was a way point along a much longer and larger spiritual journey. I did not realize at the time that it was a choice that would facilitate my capacity to continue deeper on that journey, to walk a path of compassion.

Lately, I have been pondering the spiritual metamorphosis that continues to blossom in ever more amazing ways in my life. 

Even as all the church buildings were shuttered last year, I suspect the ensuing months were very spiritual ones for many folks. With so much on our minds, the constant fear peddling, loss, and our limited in-person contacts, who could help but be introspective, reflective about what actually matters? 

Now, as we attempt to reclaim our freedom and ways of life, the spiritual self cannot be ignored. The spiritual self is integral to all facets of the way forward. Rather than be corralled into an ever-smaller world of fear-driven mindsets, protocols, and division, the spiritual self expands and aspires to wisdom in the broadest spectrum.

It seems we are at one of those classic forks in the road. We stand at a moment of opportunity to reach toward a much more whole and healthy kind of society. 

The spiritual self points to the path of compassion, to love not fear. 

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wise one

My eyes open to the soft darkness, instantly aware of the now familiar unease. Closing my eyes again, willing myself back toward rest, I feel the fatigue of this anxiety we are all lugging around. We labor together to haul the uncertainties, the fears stoked to fever pitch and still amply fueled by so much in the gaping absence of trust.

In the quiet, troubled dark, I feel the velvet brush of the cat’s paw on my forehead, so soft and gentle. I can hear his deep, radiant purr. He speaks to me with some other kind of knowing. 

I can find my way back to joy. My heart beats not for my place on this chart, my statistical or economic value, my pool of data. No, my heart beats for the unquantifiable. The ecstatic mysteries of life and love are wholly mine, ours. It is there where all possibility remains. I turn my eyes in that direction.

Slowly, I am lulled back to restful slumber, feeling the cat’s soothing undercurrent of purr close against me.

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this day

as the birds warble me awake
into the yet dark birth of a new day
i slowly pull away from already forgotten dreams
and the mantle of anxieties begins to weave around me

i watch as the light comes
and the birds cease their song, they fly,
as if they, too, know this world’s troubles
but the birds, they know who they are

a decision drifts like haze in the air
then takes form, a rock, left unpainted, in my hand
this day, no,
i will not wear this cloak of human constructs

i loose the creeping fingers
i can remember who i am, i can,
i do remember the air and the blue of the sky
i know the arms of the ever-giving trees

this day, i fly with the birds
this day, i am home, child of earth and stars 

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just questions

What becomes of children raised in a society laser-focused on fear and separation?

What becomes of people in the context of ever-deepening loss of community, connection, and culture?

What happens when people lose their personal privacy, integrity, and decision-making?

What becomes of a society that loses respect for differing opinions? A society in which debate, discourse, other points of view, and ideas that don’t fit the narrative are not acceptable, but rejected and censored away?

What happens to people’s health as social fabric disintegrates and the true tenets of health are ignored, obfuscated, and not supported?

What happens to a society relying on quick fixes like experimental medical treatments instead of actually taking care of health through true nutrition, exercise, rest, purposeful work, and good social connection and support?

What becomes of a society which tolerates the loss of autonomy and freedom, and the growth of state regulation, propaganda, and tyranny?

What becomes of children raised in a society that is very good at virtue signaling but fundamentally lacks compassion?

Just questions…

pulse of truth

you are more than this
beloved
more than this

clinging without thought
desperately clutching
the narrative

even if in your heart
you notice a persistent quiver
the pulse of truth

still you walk the path to which you are pointed
shuffling along with the rest
turning your eyes away as your own heart calls out to you

the one voice you could trust

you have a choice
the path your heart knows looks insurmountable and fearsome
only until the moment your foot alights there

once you are on it
you flow like a waterfall
laughing

then you see all the others still trudging
the appointed path 
you wave and call out to them

you are more than this, beloved

meet up

come out of the dark place
let us find each other there
where fear is not the dictator
but love finally rules the land

freedom and fear

So this morning while standing waiting behind another person at a service desk at a big box store, I got yelled at by a store employee for not positioning myself by a red X. I was not too close, mind you. I was actually at a further distance from any one else because no one else was in the vicinity and it didn’t matter. 

I turned around and looked at the man who had yelled at me. I looked him in the eye, both of us masked. I just stayed put.

I fear the mentality with which we are dealing right now. I fear where that mentality is going. 

I see both sides of the freedom versus fear schism we are watching in society right now. 

The fear people are all about following the rules to make sure we are all somehow safe, trusting that masks and distancing and locking down and all will make us safe. 

The freedom people have a heightened alertness to the dangers of those protocols. They are more questioning about the information they are given to justify the extreme measures.

The fear people resent the freedom people for not being considerate about everyone else’s health. The freedom people resent the fear people for not allowing them to make their own decisions and for not questioning the information and spectrum of risks associated with their actions.

And people are digging in their heels, like my store employee this morning feeling so emboldened with a perceived power he has never had before to actually yell at a person for not conforming to the red X. 

Is this how it’s going to be? And where, exactly, does that go?

I confess I left the store feeling very down and very concerned for this path we are on. I don’t feel safer on any level for all the mandates. If anything, I feel far more at risk now than I have ever felt. Worse, I fear for the world we are swiftly creating for our children and theirs.

At the end of the day, we are all just people. We need to find our way together rather than picking sides and doubling down.

descent into depravity

Yesterday, the United States almost had its first federal execution since 2003. The scheduled execution was halted by a last minute ruling that questioned whether the intended pentobarbital method constituted cruel and unusual punishment.

Late yesterday, the Supreme Court expedited things in a whirlwind, handing over a 5-4 decision at 2 a.m. allowing the execution to proceed. The dissenting justices question the constitutionality of capital punishment.

Why, after all these years, and in the midst of a ‘pandemic’ where everyone breathlessly watches daily death counts in manifest fear, is the federal government aggressively pursuing the death penalty? 

It solves nothing in any given case. It can only be designed as a demonstration of the absolute and brutal power the government is prepared to wield against its own citizenry, and serves to engender a climate of fear — as if we don’t have enough of that going around. This, while giving societal ills the brush-off.

There is no man or woman who can properly sit in judgment with the power to dole out death. Aside from the fundamental moral void of such a presumption, we have seen far too many instances in which “justice” has been delivered to the wrong person. It is a revolting hubris that presumes the power to deliver death in judgment. It is depraved. It is all the more barbaric in the hands of a government so assiduously courting the disaffection of the people on so many fronts.

Last night’s ruling paves the way for four executions in the near term death queue, with more on the calendar later this year. Given that there have been three federal executions carried out since 1963, this is a disturbingly enthusiastic leap back into this sickening protocol. According to the Bureau of Prisons, a total of 37 federal executions took place since 1927 — that’s a span of almost 100 years. The administration plans to make up for lost time, apparently.

No. Stop. It is time to absolutely abolish the death penalty, both at the federal and state level. It is time to halt our descent into further depravity.