Thursday, December 3, 2009

How and Why I wrote Alexandra’s DragonFire


The telling of this story of Alexandra’s DragonFire began when my daughter, Ashley Alexandra, was about one year old. Every night, she would receive a bedtime story read by either her mother or myself. Many a night, instead of reading her a bedtime story, I would make one up for her. Most times, these stories involved a little girl, who, wandering alone in the woods, finds a dragon, and together they share many adventures.

Now, although my little girl has since become a young woman, this story is still for her. Now, however, it is no longer a bedtime story. It is a wake up call.
When she was younger, and I was telling her of dragons and such, she would often interject with comments like, "Don't be silly, Dad. That would not happen like that." She would often question the adventures I made up; but never once, did she question the existence of dragons.

During the writing of this book, Ashley continuously read and commented on the story. She made suggestions about the characters' behavior. She insisted that I discard some ideas and add others. She changed Alexandra's dialogue. She still, never once, questioned the validity of the tale of a girl and her dragon.

This story is not just for her, (it is hers too, in the telling, as much as it is mine); it is also for all those whose psyche responds to myth and magic.
Myth and magic, as Joseph Campbell so eloquently pointed out, are defining features of the human psyche. Any individual's search for meaning and purpose, usually ignited in the teenage years, finds apt metaphor in the mythological, inspiration in the magical.

Mythic heroes like Hercules exemplify the struggles and virtues of a developing human being. He is half-god, half-human; half divine and half mundane; half saint and half sinner—such as are we all. Hercules and the other heroic characters of Greek mythology defined the cultural mythos of the time.

Alexandra's namesake, Alexander the Great was inspired—no, more than inspired—he was compelled to live as he did by his cultural mythos. The Oracle at Dodona had told his mother, Olympia, that he was a demi-god destined, like his ancestor, Hercules, to become a creature of mythology. Alexander lived his life accordingly. The result was the great city of Alexandria and its' glorious library, the genesis of the finest aspects of our current culture.

We are all, in some way or another, like the historical Alexander and the imaginary Alexandra, also compelled to live our lives according to our own cultural mythos. But what is our mythos?

Today, in this age of scientific rationalism, humanity is devoid of a defining mythos, vainly attempting to find metaphor in the pages of National Enquirer, People magazine or their broadcast counterparts, hopelessly struggling to find inspiration in materialism. We live our lives accordingly.

The heroes of today's youth are morally bankrupt sports figures, movie or pop stars with inflated egos; the tragic-comedies of their commonly amoral and irrelevant lives followed as avidly as once were the tales of Hercules' moral and relevant, divinely appointed tasks.

And what of our Oracles? Mythic, larger than life, dragons? NO! Instead we have double-speak politicians and drab-suited economists, interpreted, not by the poetic visions of the maidens of Delphi, but by the scripted sound bytes of television anchor persons.

What results from this lack of an appropriate defining mythos for our times? Inner city youths kill without conscience for a pair of their latest basketball hero's branded running shoes. Intelligent and educated teenage girls struggle to define their identity by dressing and acting like the latest and greatest, neurotic pop divas. Children use assault weapons to murder their schoolmates, emulating their movie house action heroes.

What results from our mediocre self-appointed visionaries, our oracles? Cities full of people turned into addicts, mind-numbed television junkies, who vote, as told to, for the war on drugs, or any war against the flavor or villain of the week, whilst imbibing their martinis, shaken, not stirred. There is always some dragon that needs slaying. A trillion dollars per year is spent on weapons of destruction. Mere millions are allocated for the health and education of those who need it most. Tens of thousands of children die, every single day of every single year, from starvation and disease whilst food rots in granaries and medicines sit on shelves waiting for those who can afford to pay the price. Our rainforests, coral reefs, mountainsides and the waters of rivers, lakes and oceans are despoiled, ravaged and plundered to assuage our fast food, short-term thinking.

There are many, unlike Ashley, who may question the validity, in today's 'rational' world, of this story of a Dragon/Oracle passing on the secrets of the meaning and purpose of life. This mythological tale is dedicated to them. This is not a bedtime story. It is a wake up call.

It is plain to see that we all need a little magic and a different mythos. We also need a new type of hero, one who does not need to go out and slay dragons, real or imagined.

The mythic hero of this tale is not Pythos, the dragon from the past. It is the heroine, Alexandra, to whom the future belongs, and with whom we can all empathize and identify as she takes on the Herculean task of creating the future. A future filled with ideals and visions that inspire each and every one of us to look to the god-half of our natures, to aspire to be worthy of becoming mythological.

Ashley is the muse; so are all our children. This is their story. I am merely the one who did the typing.

Saturday, November 21, 2009

The Changing Focus Of My Paranoia

When I was a young lad, it seemed like my mother knew way too much about me. “Don’t even think about it,” she’d say as I was planning some small deviation from the established rule book. How could she know what I was thinking?

Later, as my sins grew more adult-sized, it was the God of my Catholic education that was always looking over my shoulder and knew what was going on in my day-to-day life as well as my most secret thoughts and feelings.

For a while, I was concerned about the growing tendency of the governing power elites to act like Big Brother, tracking every element of our lives and using that data to control what we believed, thought and did.

My mother no longer seems omnipresent. The Creator is too busy playing with Quarks to pay attention to my insignificant stuff. Governments, power elites and Illuminati have proven to be bumbling idiots who can’t actually get their own act together, let alone control the rest of us.

So, who scares me now? Google, that’s who.

Google has become the omniscient and omnipresent presence in my life. It knows almost everything about me.

Google knows exactly what I am interested in each and every day. How? Like you and millions of other people, I search for information using the Google search engine.

Even if I'm not using Google search, Google still knows who I connect to, what information I have accessed, and all my online activities. How? My primary Internet Browser is Google Chrome. Feedburner tells Google what I subscribe to, so they know what I am reading. Just to ensure they don't miss anything, they've added Google Reader.

Google knows who my friends and business associates are and what we say to each other. How? I use Gmail.

Google even knows what I am thinking and talking about each day. Even when I blog using Wordpress instead of my Google owned Blogger blog, Blogger grabs my Wordpress blog posts and reposts them.
<<<--- See the left hand column? My most recent Wordpress blog posts are right here in this piece of Google property. And, of course, there are also my YouTube posts.

Google knows what projects I am working on before anybody else on the planet. How? I use Google Docs as my project planner.

And, now they’ve convinced me to tell them anything they might have overlooked about me by giving me the space to tell the world about myself and my activities by introducing Google Profile.

What else? They know where I am planning to go. I use Google Maps and Google Earth.

They are everywhere. They know everything. They see everything. They are watching all the time. GoOgle is the all-seeing eye. They're probably listening in to my cell phone calls and have installed mini-cams in my bedroom too. Google Streetview catching me exiting my local pub? Ha. Soon it will be Google watching me sleep at night, tracking my REMs to see when and what I am dreaming about.

It's gotten so bad that when I want to find out about myself, I no longer sit down to reflect about my life, I just Google myself.

Monday, February 2, 2009

Good Cop/Bad Cop?

Time to celebrate. Gone are Karl Rove’s lies. Gone is Cheney’s snarl. Gone is the worst president the USA ever had. Gone is eight years of bully politics.

Now we have a big sigh of relief, a shining ray of hope, a smile and plenty of charm. So, why am I titling this post “good cop/bad cop”?

Ok, we all know the scenario. After the tough guy who’s slammed you up against the wall and screamed in your face leaves and the nice guy with the cup of coffee comes in to offer you a cigarette and an apology for the other guy’s behavior, there is a big sense of relief. But the truth is that you are still in custody and the intention is still to lock you up in prison for the rest of your life.

So, here is the question of the day… is America still stuck in a police state?
I haven’t heard any talk from Obama about repealing the Patriot Act and the other assaults on the Bill of Rights and the Constitution of the United States brought in during the Bush administration.

No Habeas Corpus. Wiretaps without warrants. Search and seizure without warrants or probable cause. Indefinite incarceration without access to lawyers or a speedy trial. Threats to Congress of martial law.

What I have seen from Obama is support for bailouts of banks by taxpayers. Citicorp, Lehman Brothers, Goldman Sachs are shareholders in the so-called Federal Reserve, the guys who get to print and control the money. Think about this, the Federal Reserve is giving money to its own shareholders and getting the American citizen to be responsible for paying it back. They are foreclosing on your homes and you get to pay for their bad debts. And when you end up behind bars or razor wire, they will probably charge you rent too.

Hey, I know it is too soon to be too critical. And I am, like so many others, hopeful that Obama will bring about real meaningful change. I also know that he is stuck between a rock and a hard place. He’s been left a huge mess to clean up.
I like the guy, he looks good, he carries himself well and he communicates exceptionally well. And he appears really sincere in asking the American people to communicate with him in order to shape a real grassroots democracy.

I really truly hope he is the real deal; I think that he is genuine about wanting to bring about real change; but I am cynical enough to keep the metaphor of the bad cop/good cop alive in my mind and hopefully yours too.

The globalists have an agenda. The Bush regime made it easy for them to push forward this agenda by putting the interests of the corporatocracy ahead of the individual American citizen. Let’s see how Obama deals with that. On January 20th, Obama swore an oath to protect and defend the Constitution of The United States. The Patriot Act violates the protections provided in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.

In any case, let me remind you that real power is internal. Your own conscious awareness, your own willingness to stand up for what is right, your own ability to think for yourself, to discard outmoded beliefs and limiting paradigms is your true place of power.

True political power lies not in the barrel of the gun as Chairman Mao once said and as the Bush/Cheney regime sought to impose on the world. True political power lies not in the control of money and the economy as the international banking cartel believes and is attempting to prove right now with this manufactured global economic crisis. True political power lies not in the backrooms of Washington where lobbyists seek to buy off Congressmen and Senators for the special interests they represent.

True political power lies with an enlightened, courageous and committed people.
Obama says that he wants to empower you. Great!! Be empowered.

Educate yourself. Speak your truth. Stand up for yourself and those others who cannot stand up for themselves. Join Obama’s “Organizing for America” and tell him what you think needs to be done. It is not just your democracy that is at stake. It is your future and your children’s future that is at stake; it is the choice to be free or to be imprisoned.

I’ll leave you with some quotes from Thomas Jefferson.

“A Bill of Rights is what the people are entitled to against every government, and what no just government should refuse, or rest on inference.”

“All, too, will bear in mind this sacred principle, that though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail, that will to be rightful must be reasonable; that the minority possess their equal rights, which equal law must protect, and to violate would be oppression.”

“Rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add ‘within the limits of the law’ because law is often but the tyrant’s will, and always so when it violates the rights of the individual.”

“I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around [the banks] will deprive the people of all property until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered. The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs.”

“Do you want to know who you are? Don’t ask. Act! Action will delineate and define you.”

Jefferson fought to secure your freedom. He struggled to ensure your rights as a human being. What will you do for yourself and for future generations?

Tuesday, January 6, 2009

Finding Your Purpose

The purpose of life is to live with purpose and on purpose. That is easy to say; but, for many people, it easier said than done. It seems like the great majority of people tend to go through life without any real sense of purpose while vainly struggling for some imagined ideal of material success.

Of all the many questions that people email me to ask, there are two that I get asked over and over again… How do I achieve the success I desire? and… How can I determine the purpose of my life?

They are, in a way, the same question, phrased differently. If you know the purpose of your life and you are living it, then you are successful.
The how of life may be complex, but the why of life is simple. It is to revere, relish and contribute.

If you honor the sacredness of your life and all creation, you are living on purpose and with purpose. If you enjoy the pleasures afforded by life and are grateful for them, then you are living on purpose and with purpose. If you are making a conscious contribution to life, then you are living on purpose and with purpose.

How you choose to honor the sacred is up to you. It does not matter if you do it in a temple or in a forest. It does not matter what ritual you choose to use and what form you imagine divinity to have. It only matters that you consciously, and daily, honor the sacredness of your own beingness and the sacredness of all creation. Being grateful for the gift of life by honoring the sacredness of your own existence within a miraculous universe provides both meaning and purpose to life.

How you choose to enjoy life is up to you. It does not matter, so long as you harm no other, what form your pleasures may take. Of course, if you are already honoring the sacred in all things, you will not be choosing to take pleasure from harming anything, including yourself. Relishing the many pleasures that life has to offer is, in fact, one way to honor the sacredness of life. Being in a state of gratitude for these same pleasures is yet another way to honor the sacred. Life is meant to be a joyful event. Get out there and enjoy it.

How you choose to contribute is up to you. It does not matter how you choose to contribute, only that you do. Maybe you want to contribute by helping to end world hunger; maybe you want to contribute by making the world’s best chocolate chip cookies for yours kids and their friends. Both are valuable contributions. It does not matter how you choose to be of service. It only matters that you choose to be of service and that you are grateful for the opportunity to be of service.

Now let me tell you a BIG secret. If, every day, you wake up to recite a little prayer of gratitude to the sacred for the immense pleasures of life and the opportunity to be of service, you will never, ever wonder what the purpose of your life is, for it will become clear to you and you will simply go about living it.

Wake up. Connect for a few moments to the sacred. Say thank you. Then get out there and enjoy what you do, or do what you enjoy, while doing your best to make a contribution to all that you are honoring as sacred and you will be happy, fulfilled, and, this may surprise you…extremely successful.

How do you discover the purpose of life? Find your passion. Pursue it. Honor it as sacred. Enjoy the ride. Commit to being and contributing more and you will become wealthy. You will have found the purpose of your life. You will have a life of purpose and meaning. You will live each moment ‘on purpose’ instead of accidentally. You are blessed. Life is abundantly sacred. Life is abundantly enjoyable. Life is abundantly in need of your contribution. Become an ever-greater blessing and you will be even more abundantly blessed.

The most practical way to find your own unique purpose is to decide what your ideals are and what you are most passionate about and then simply go about making these personal ideals and passions manifest in your world.

The how of life may be complex (and thankfully it is, or it would not be very interesting), but the why of life is simple. Revere, relish and contribute.

How do you create the success you envision and desire? Live your purpose. Be passionate about it. Pursue it. Persist. Purpose plus passion plus persistence = prosperity.