New Civilization News: Grotto    
 Grotto12 comments
picture19 Feb 2005 @ 06:23, by John Ashbaugh

February eighteenth into the nineteenth, friday into saturday. Just bouncing around the web, looking for things to read that grab my attention long enough for me to want to pursue the sense of it. Also like to look for new and novel kinds of pictures, and particularly like the pre-industrial age painting tradition of Europe. Can be rather fun to find a wonderful very old painting never seen before, for the first time, and feel it sear into your heart.

Then there is creating imaginary landscapes with wireframe mountains and geometric objects and texturing them and directing a light source and creating a painting on the wall of the cave that will last very little beyond the next rainfall. The task of teaching an introductory course in economics, and creating a course about the effects of globalization on the mosaic of human cultures that bejeweled the planet before the onslaught of the corporation began devouring minds is challenging. Getting into the heart of contemporary subject matter brings forth an array of logical constructs which are entertaining as long as I don’t entertain the notion that I am going to change anyone’s mind. There can be a fair amount of passion expressed between alternative interpretations and it is not my role to take sides. My general position is pretty much clear, but the argument is between them. They need to attempt to defeat the other’s logic, and the avenues can become quite convoluted very easily. I like to draw them into something amongst themselves and then quietly exit as the voices multiply. Just looking for fuel to keep the cauldron simmering keeps me bouncing around the web looking for material. There is some really good stuff that comes through ncn, and I’d just like to pass on a thanks to the brilliant minds that make this thing happen and keep it going. Here are a couple of articles I found interesting today, a Bill Moyers article on the marriage of religion and politics in the contemporary world, and another on the co-contemporary role of money. Nothing new, you’ve read it all before, in one form or another, and you know what’s going on, and some people have nice ways of writing it all out in engaging prose. I’ve had one of my students, a bright young attentive mother of two, refer to the prophecy as a mirror of contemporary events, and then there is another who has an empathic, spiritual relationship with the holocaust, and goodness only knows what lies behind the voices which cross over the space between the walls of our room. They keep me on my silent toes. I’d say it’s as much of a learning experience for me as it is for them. Thought for the day.

There Is No Tomorrow
By Bill Moyers
[link]
The Star Tribune
Sunday 30 January 2005

For the Love of Money
By David Korten
[link]

http://www.wga.hu/index1.html
Karl Blechen
Grotto in the Gulf of Naples
1829



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12 comments

19 Feb 2005 @ 13:05 by swan : Great painting you found.
I love the rich imagery that you create with words, for example :" I like to draw them into something amongst themselves and then quietly exit as the voices multiply."  


20 Feb 2005 @ 15:37 by jerryvest : Great Article & Links
Thank you for your creative and earthy article and links. After reading Moyers and the corporate article, I immediately wanted to shout to the heavens--Stop this Craziness-how much more pain can humanity and our planet withstand?  


20 Feb 2005 @ 21:48 by astrid : Totally agree
with Jerry and you, koravya. This is insanity and to hide behind "oh, we believe -and follow- every word of the Bible!...SHOULD NOT BE TOLERATED!... because that is shere BULLSHIT!!!!...
not a single funadmentalist can hide their OWN PERSONAL HIDDEN AGENDAS/REASONS behind such a "noble" statement as "believing in....." because THEY DON'T.....: they pick and choose EXTREAMLY CAREFULLY what ideas to "believe in and follow" ; ONLY the ones that will support their own Agenda and further their POLITICAL/ "Cause" .... under the guise of "religious"... their ironclad statement that DOES hold SOME truth in it AS LONG AS WE REMEMBER that Religion is the same as PSYCHOLOGY -only two different words from two different Eras!!

We HAVE to BECOME MORE BLATANT IN UNVEILING THE SHIT AND CHALLENGE THE LIES and STOP being polite because they call it "Religious"
What idiots are WE then, jus nodding our heads to them.
WE have ONLY TWO CHOISES: either stay putt and not let ONE SINGLE IDIOCY AND LIE GO UN-CHALLENGED any longer
OR
PHYISICALLY REMOVE US 100 % from their Action field... which is pretty much all over...
The reason why these dorks don't let us do that is because they are 100% DEPENDENT on our SPIRITUAL ENERGY !!... A MILLION TIMES MORE THAN THEY are dependent on (their) MONEY!....-or even we, for that matter!

Money is just the Ghoast-BAIT WE are expected to eat daily...on the other end of that fishing pole is a SICKO holding that bait for us!.... SO WHICH ONE IS IT FOR US?????? WHAT COURSE OF ACTION DO WE CHOOSE?????

THANKS, John for the Bill Moyers article!

Remember, guys, this statement from Ming's blog: It isn't what happens, it's how you deal with it.(That would US, who don't want to end up in the "Destrutction City")...  



20 Feb 2005 @ 22:52 by sprtskr : Right on sis
I read Bill Moyers article on Theres No Tomorrow and it shocked and dismayed me about the ignorance and stupidity. No wonder there are people out there fighting for the ecology,animal and people rights. Their standing up for all of us,shouldn't we give them a hand. Its always easiest to follow the crowd then to stand up one at a time but we need to do it!  


22 Feb 2005 @ 05:38 by koravya : Continuing
Thank you, Swan. Every once in a while,
a poetic sentence comes through, and I would like to find my space where those kinds of patterns incrementally modulate.
Jerry, delving into the complexity of it all, and the articles flowing through this website alone are enough to keep my retinal blackboard scorched, is depressing, maddening, and anger inducing. One of my left-wing students was so incensed by one of my right-wingers a few days ago that he had to excuse himself from a quiz because of the furies that had been aroused by their interchange. Just like we hear coming from dear Astrid here, I most certainly prefer to remove myself from that Action-field, because there is no argument to be made, again and ever that is going to change the mind of for example the very a-political, sincerely religious person in my class. Becoming more familiar with
Federal Reserve drug money laundering and arms dealing scenarios and so on is extremely annoying to me, since it is the forces of life that need to be attended to. For all of the garbage that needs to be waded through, I do my best to sow some seeds of insight into the minds I have to speak with, and hope that somewhere down in the fermenting substratum of human consciousness, some roots may find nourishment in truth. What can one person do? As much as one can.
*/-_/*^
 



22 Feb 2005 @ 08:28 by ashanti : Just stopping by...
...to say how much I love your writing. Your writing is just wonderful - thank you so much for sharing it that we can all be enriched.  


22 Feb 2005 @ 15:28 by astrid : Good Morning John ( et Co.) !
I can for my life not make up if you agree to any extent with my statement above or if you are upset about " so much to do demands" ? Somehow I get a feeling you felt owerwhelmed. Is that correct?
Or is it a language barrier issue (from my part) here?
Well, everything in my earlier comment here :"... We HAVE to BECOME MORE BLATANT IN UNVEILING THE SHIT AND CHALLENGE THE LIES and STOP being polite because they call it "Religious" What idiots are WE then, just nodding our heads to them."(end quote) is dealt with by me/us acknowledging to ourselves their lies to be lies instead of just "eating " it all as their "religious convictions" that needs to be respected" and thus taken AS granted (by all the so called leaders)

IF we continue scraping our foot, bowing our head in silent agreement, we also continue to give them the same ol' Green Light as we've done for thousands of years, which now has taken us to the Crossroads of Life or death to/of the whole Planet.
I warmly recommend ALL to read this particular page (first and then ALL the rest of the pages ) from http://www.shamanic.net/articles/shamanicdreaming.html; the very best web-site/info yet! ) From this page everyone who is motivated at all to help the Planet can easily grasp why it is vital for each and everyone to see the lies and the rest of the shit and why we need to say to these people : "HELL NO! I can see through your lies and I do not respect you because of them , though I do respect YOU (whomever that happens to be at any given time ) as a GOd's Child, ORIGINALLY made perfectly Divine...etc.etc") This link-page also makes it very easy to understand why choosing an image ( of Heaven on Earth, for instance ) and hanging on to that image and ACTING in SYNCH with that whole concept is so important.

We don't need to take the first Flight to DC and ask for Audience to Capitol Hill or Oval Office, just remember in that VAST Field of Life where we are NOT tangible we are all connected!... So, MOST of our beings ARE connected!

You don't think you/we talk to them "all the time"?: Yes you/we do!

Well, based on this Cosmic Fact: WE CAN ACKNOWLEDGE and tell them "NO" and then CHOOSE the AMENDS for ourselves to do!
I have given several really silly small examples from my own every-day "how " I do that: EX (once again just to stimulate you to remember) I stopped using Chlorine the very day I understood how bad it is for our water(ways) etc. I don't buy into THE LIES about the Goodness of Chlorine, that the Makers of Chlorine put out through the TV Commersials for instance.
I love Water to be clean and healthy more than I respect their right to have their idiocy unchallenged, especially when NOTHING -REALLY- is easier done than that.... provided one truly chooses LIfe!....

Money can be handled just as easy, which I also have told a few times...: I BLESS my ("Federal Reserve Money" ) to find its way to heal and support Life when it leaves my hands! I ask that Money to find the ones who truly need it and who are willing to put it to work FOR Life! Not a big deal! And I constantly look for ways to NOT buy products the hurt Life ( Nature/ Animals/Environment ). It's not like I'm the only one on this path!......The companies that have taken a moral stand to support Life by MAKING products that are Nature /Animal/Enviro friendly are on my side of the fence, aren't they?

Yes, I am ALSO looking into new alternatives ( why should I be any dummer than the people who handle all of China or France or Japan and Germany, among many others for that matter?... They are all looking into the Itacha Money system, certainly as ONE viable monetary System to replace the World system in place right now and dictated by the rise or FALL of the US Dollar! I bought the Itacha Money Kit and I am learning ( more and more ) about it as we speak.

John, WHERE do you perceive me demanding "impossible things". ( not that you SAY those words, but your whole comment (to me ) emanates that energy/message).
These things I just repeated here are not difficult at all to do, and I really thought that MANY of us here on ncn really did /do have a new -better, as in HEALTHIER- Mankind, world and Planet in mind and thus as my/our Daily Goal! Am I even more mistaken than I already have had reason to see?...

Did you guys see yesterday in the News, the very brief (but at least it was there!) report from Brussles, "W" arrival did NOT go unchallenged! People had all these short and sweet statements: "Bush is NOT Welcome" /" Bush is a LIAR" etc. These guys happened to be in the Hood (at the opportune moment ) and they decided to seize the moment! Don't you just love them?! I do.

AND, now that we're at it: remember to put ALL( expressions of Life ) each in their Love & Light Bubbles to be healed and protected!..... including yourself and your Loved Ones.... once again IF Life Matters enough to you, you will gladly do these things.
NONE of these suggestions demand you to give up (or even alter your Daily life- routine "too much") , quite the opposite; they will give you more Life eventually, MUCH MORE !...
To me the anticipation of a New Bright, Beautiful Tomorrow is the "Carrot" BUT I cannot have that to be so UNLESS I "know my Enemy" (Know Thy Enemy) = WHAT NOT TO DO and such, if I choose Life. Life DECREASES DAILY or INCREASES DAILY! It's up to us. This why I so loved Moyers' Artcile: "There IS NO Tomorrow" UNLESS we know our enemy = what actions are life decreasing vs supporting. Life does NOT care for "Who" , only "WHAT".
My/Our ability to respond correctly to the "WHAT" will grow as time goes on, but ONLY if I/we do what I need to do to align my self with that side of Reality.  



23 Feb 2005 @ 08:58 by koravya : We shall overcome
Tuesday into Wednesday, twenty-second into the twenty-third. Bright full moon emerges from the dark fluffy cloud drifting by overhead. First the glow around the edges, then the outline of the pearl before she reflects her glow onto the concrete slab in the backyard.
Tonight’s course is something called Art in the Electronic Age, designed for Multimedia students who are learning game design. Supposed to be a non-technical input into their otherwise technically complex education. Two students, total, who are both way out there ahead of me on what is the latest on everything that is already out there. (Check out animusic.com) So I look for things that might stir their creative imaginations. A few weeks ago, I found Princess Mononoke. Next week will be a video on the life and work of M.C. Escher. Also had a look at the work of Norman McLaren. Watched Stephen Spielberg’s Artificial Intelligence on my own two days ago, just to keep up with the general sense of the subject matter, contemporary computer generated imagery. My students had already seen that and knew what was good and not good about it. Brought in Lord of the Rings tonight. They have both already seen it. I’ve never seen any of those movies or read any of those books. To them, this is a visual feast, and they are only too happy to watch it again. Each of us is brought into this lifetime for some purpose, nurtured from the depths of the evolutionary slime. Frodo has come into this world to carry the ring given to him by someone else, and the ring has a life of its own, having traveled for thousands of years from its inception. At this point, I know nothing beyond what has happened in the first episode, but the old wizard Gandolf told the young man that the purpose was given to him, that he had a thing to do, and there was no not doing it. The evolutionary direction of the great rivalry between the forces of good and evil has brought forth many players, and each of us has our voice, and our direction, and the choices we must make. I am given to the purpose of seeking truth, and to cut to the chase regarding semantic convolutions, the simple antithesis is the lie, and each of us carries our own shades of meaning in a little black box called our conscience. There is compromise. There is purpose. There is reason, and each of us will die carrying our own personal story back to the slime from which another soul, another story, another purpose, will emerge, another link in the story we all carry together. No one knows for sure if this is a doomed species or not, but some of us see the light that all of us are already a part of. The clouds can be very thick some days, rolling endlessly across the sky, allowing fragmentary glimmers of the sun or moon. Sometimes the clouds evaporate. There are many voices clamoring for peace, and compassion in this world. These are the voices that must prevail we know, for that is the only way to a sustainable human population. We are accountable to ourselves and to others for our actions and our words and every choice will carry us forward in our direction, so thank you for reminding us, Astrid, that every little choice we make is vastly important, and that wisdom gives blessings to all that we send out into the world. *.- I don't mean to imply, Astrid, that you are demanding impossible things. Only that I find certain situations and people rather challenging to my personal ability to penetrate and get through to the grounds of their perceptions. I take inspiration from your tenacity and determination to challenge the powers of our adversaries. -.*  



24 Feb 2005 @ 03:33 by astrid : Your Pen is a Paint Brush,, John!
..... : )
>"I don't mean to imply, Astrid, that you are demanding impossible things." <
THANK YOU John, I'm glad to hear that that wasn't the case. ( the fear of that, sent me into "Panick City", though, for a moment !... : )
I do not intend to make anybody's world smaller /by making them more confused or overwhelmed.... we all get enough of that from the establisment we're in!... / bu the opposite: I want to open windows into The World of Possibilities beyond what's out there already... in other words; I only want to / try to point to maybe new Angles of new Cosmic Fields to be explored by the Adventureous Ones.That's all.

>"Only that I find certain situations and people rather challenging to my personal ability to penetrate and get through to the grounds of their perceptions".<
No kiddin'g John!... yup.... Not only do we get challenged daily just by the interactions in our Daily Social life, but then the Universe throws in a curb ball by all these Cosmic Energy surges that we have to deal with , go with ( their NEW flow, etc,etc)!.... Enough to make my head spin and me to screaaam.... EEEEECCCKKKKK !....

>" There are many voices clamoring for peace, and compassion in this world. These are the voices that must prevail we know, for that is the only way to a sustainable human population. We are accountable to ourselves and to others for our actions and our words and every choice will carry us forward in our direction,"< Isn't that the truth! THANKS John.!
Be Safe & Sound, dear friend!  



24 Feb 2005 @ 09:33 by koravya : Sound
Wednesday into Thursday, twenty-third into the twenty-fourth. Is time turning to the right, or is time turning to the left? The night is wet with the haze of a drizzle, the wettest late winter I’ve known here, and since 1863 or so. So there’s a dampness in the air, a welcome prelude to the equally welcome hot dry summer. Spring’s horizon. Time for making final presentations in economics tonight. One good one on Islamic banking and how that is supposed to work. The one and only outstanding student in this class. For the other eight, it seemed a drudgery at best, although more may have sunk in than is overtly apparent. I hope they can get something out of this that they can take with them. Some little fragment of insight. Time enough for The Twin Towers, tonight. Perhaps familiar to many and perhaps not to others. A lot of characters and marvelous scenery to one who has never been to such a place, all coming down to the great battle between good and evil over some place called Middle Earth where basic goodness prevails. A few lines from one conversation between a man and a woman. [(m) My path is hidden from me. (f) It is already laid before your feet. You cannot falter now. If you trust nothing else. Trust this. Trust us.] About fifty minutes later, in another scene, a simple sentence. “There is an end to war.” Then there was that entire scene with those Great trees coming into the battle. The Life of the Earth taking charge of the situation. This sweetheart is an organism and she is going to rid herself of whatever disease or cancer is infecting her spirit, and this spirit is within our heart. There is a little forest in this back yard, and the roots are getting soaked, this rainy season, getting on to just under four inches in two months. Now all they’ve got to do is make it last through the summer, with a little help from an occasional cloudburst. The war for the continuing life of Middle Earth is not yet over, but we know that it will, as it must, resolve itself in accordance with the wishes of the mother in our hearts.*-_
Astrid, you want to open windows to the world of possibilities, . . . That's All!
Well, you're doing it.!
*  



25 Feb 2005 @ 10:06 by koravya : Moonlight
Thursday into Friday, twenty-fourth into the twenty-fifth. The thick clouds overhead tonight disperse moonlight into a wide soft glow. Reflecting citylight. Where does one and the other each begin? The air continues damp and cool. Noteworthy today is another round of final presentations in economics, topic of your choice. This is a group of twelve, who are all trying to get something out of this course. I’ll be getting most, if not all of this group in Group Dynamics next quarter. A lot more gets done with a relatively cohesive group of students who know how to cooperate with one another in the learning process. For their presentation research project, they can choose to work alone, in a team of two, and occasionally in a team of three. One group tonight talked about the economics of Iraqi Reconstruction, one fellow did the changing face of the economic world through the internet, there were presentations on the history of money, the economics of research and development between the military and the civilian sectors, transportation economics in the United States, and the progress and extent of economics in grade school and high school education. Quite a round of things to learn a little more about for one evening. Now there is time in the evening to visit with The Return of the King, the finial episode of the Lord of the Rings Trilogy. Lots of major battles in this movie. One line I picked up on. “Things are now in motion that cannot be undone.” So here we are scattered about on the plains and in the valleys, and through the mountain regions, and along every shoreline, and through every river valley, and the tides of something are now in motion that cannot be undone. There is a surprise smoldering within the depths of this planet, and she is at the center of each of our individual hearts. “Become who you were born to be.” To each of us. To our planet, as she was born to be. *-_-*  


26 Feb 2005 @ 06:51 by koravya : Before Tomorrow
Friday into Saturday, twenty-fifth into the twenty-sixth. The sky is clear and the moon is bright tonight. Another round of economics presentations this afternoon. How about uranium mining in northwest New Mexico in Navajo land? All Anita needs to have something to talk about is something close to home. Here is something she knows and she has a voice for it. The night is calm and there is time for The King of Hearts with Alan Bates from 1967. The message is not to be told in words with a description. The news of the day and the story of the state of the world is an endless barrage of analysis and opinion about the collective mentality. Putting it all into one place is a release. The population of the planet is approaching a decimation. All forms of social organization beyond the local level will become extinct. It is hoped that there will be enough intelligence amongst those who survive to understand the necessity of peaceful relations between neighboring groups. It is hoped that the planet will begin to rejuvenate and re-populate in a peaceful rather than a warlike manner, or the entire scenario will have to be played out again until the generation comes that can get it right. This is the time of transition between two planets, the one from yesterday, and the one of today.  


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