Backing Away

[thoughts from   ~burning woman~  by Sha’Tara]

I’ve always “known” the world I found myself existing upon was not my world. Somehow though, I did manage to create an illusion, based upon my physical attributes, that I could belong here for the body’s duration. I went through the motions of being alive; of adapting; of participating. I played the game, I played along, most of the time.

There were serious bumps along the way as I made myself aware of the injustice, the mindless violence, the equally mindless drive by so many to cut themselves, or snatch or steal or beg, a piece of civilization’s dwindling pie. I watched the privileged few take ever bigger slices to try and find new, esoteric tastes for their bloated palate. Mostly I watched the millions not so privileged taking advantage of the temporary scraps that fell from the rich man’s table and the billions sifting through the floor and street sweepings to assuage their constant, endless hunger and that of their children.

I also watched as consumerism and greed ate away at this finite world. For a time, not knowing any better, I fought these errors and horrors. I tried to make a few at least see common sense. It seemed so important at the time, and it helped diffuse my own angst and anger. I thought, if I had to live here shouldn’t I want to live in a just, kind, compassionate society? And why could I not have that since what I wanted just happened to make a lot more sense than what my society wanted? Surely, I thought, once people were shown the error of their ways as they related to their world, the less fortunate and yes, including those non-human sentients raised to be food meat, they would desire to change their system of exploitation and oppression?

Time and wisdom taught otherwise. There would be talk, much talk, but nothing would change. Now there’s talk that the totalitarian measures imposed on society in the guise of fighting a virus will make people rethink their ways. I already know they will not. People will adapt, of course, to growing shortages of various things, as they always do in any war, and make no mistake this pandemic is a war declared by the super rich upon society in order to rob them of what little they have left.

While this seems obvious to me, it isn’t for the many, not yet. They still need to believe that their Big Brother loves them and cares so much for them He is willing to destroy society’s very fabric and raison d’etre, even to killing them and their children to save them. Such an absolute contradiction is beyond their mental capacity to reason. Reasoning the why’s and wherefores takes energy which to them seems a waste. 

So I’m thinking now is the time to back off as society makes its choice. I believe and observe that it is a deadly wrong choice but I choose to proceed, not as a member of some collective but as an individual against that herd choice.

I realize that to dissent and reject “the new normal” is to make myself an enemy of the herd with the possibility of being declared an outcast but so be it. There has never been a better stage upon which I can practice compassion as a self empowered individual. There was never a time like this when my choice to be a dissenter; to not vote; to not hope for change to come from accumulated power made more sense. I should be thankful. Perhaps I will develop that particular virtue yet before the universal taxi stops at my door and I have to go.

Armageddon: of Plots and Counter-plots

[a short story by Sha’Tara ]

“Mr. Chairman, there is one item remaining on this year’s agenda which I think should be considered before we adjourn for another century.”

The heavy-set, red-robed man at the head of the table nods imperceptibly and looks over the table with an undisguised bored expression.

“Very well, get on with it then.”

“Gentlemen, we are in the business of publishing best sellers on contract and I have here the contract for Yahu regarding the Earthian trilogy. It appears he hasn’t written a best seller in over 2000 years of his Earth time. We’ve made several inquiries about his intentions lately but without results. I have taken the liberty of having him present himself here today to explain why he has failed to fulfil his end of the agreement with this House and what he intends to do about it.”

The portly red-robed chairman nods in agreement. “Send him in, send him in.” He waves at the massive door in the side of the meeting chamber.

The door opens and a gnomish gray-robed shifty-eyed character with long white hair and beard enters and smiles at the gathering. No one greets him but the secretary who ushers him to a chair.

“Are you the same Yahu who claimed in his book to be the God of Earth?”

“That I most certainly am,” replies the wizened character with a quavering voice. “I Am that I Am.”

“Yeah well, so you say. Some 5000 Earth years ago you entered into a contract with us to write a trilogy about the creation, fall and termination of some world in your sector. We gave you the advance in power to manifest the ingredients required of your books. You delivered a very lengthy and repetitive but fortunately very violent Part One that contained enough murder, greed, sexual perversion, racism, slavery, misogyny and genocidal mania to easily rise to the top of our best seller list for over a thousand years.

Then you sent us a stultified Part Two in a very abridged and staid format that would have gotten nowhere had our editors not insisted it be tied to and weaved into Part One.

For Part Three you gave us a brief synopsis entitled “Revelation” but we are still waiting for that denouement. No action and no revelation. You are in breach of contract with this great Galactic Publishing house. Have you given thought as to how you are going to fulfil your agreements with us or do we need to bring legal action to recoup our losses?”

The wizened character stands up and wipes his brow with his over-sized sleeve. His voice quavers even more now.

“Please, don’t be so hasty!  Yes, I realize I made you all wait a bit long for the third part but it’s been very tough making this ending plausible. I mean, it was easy enough imaging the critters, evil spirit dudes and violent multitudes I mentioned in my blurb. Also you should know that I was rather busy at the time and I had a trainee write that part. I should have read it before it was sent to you but I was too absorbed observing (and abetting) some spectacular developments in an old empire of the time. I had several contracts to complete lesser books on that affair, which do not legally enter this discussion.

“To make a long story short – I don’t want to bore our illustrious chairman – I’ve taken steps to activate that Part Three on Earth. I’m sure that with our current developments of weapons of mass destruction, the fears around new diseases, global warming, overpopulation, wars over depleted resources and the utter, almost incredible, ignorance and overt incompetence of most of that world’s leadership, that a plausible scenario can be set in motion to satisfy the requirements my agents signed with your firm. Not only will there be a book but all of the action will be on video and made available to publish as a mini-series which shall appropriately be entitled “Armageddon.” I can assure this august assembly that our work won’t fail to entertain even the most blasé of your readers. It is guaranteed to be a box-office winner. You’ll be able to buy entire planets with your profits, gentlemen, you have my Word on that.

“What exactly are we talking about here, you’re wondering? Imagine: the total destruction of an entire world, its satellite and its “heaven” in real time. Imagine this: global war, famines, infectious diseases. Rampaging armies of mercenaries raping, looting, burning and killing unarmed innocents by the millions, year in, year out for as long as there remains life to destroy. Religious bigotry running rampant. Total lawlessness, or as they put it there, the law of the jungle in spades. Billions dead and dying of causes yet unknown. A sun going super-nova and a moon melting down upon a planet. My guarantee to you gentlemen is this: there will be no special effects. Everything the videos and accompanying best seller depict will be exactly as it unfolds. You will see it in real time, exactly as it happens. That, gentlemen, is the script I and my trusty group of shadow-writers, technicians and engineers, have been working on for 2000 Earthian years. You will find it was well worth the costs and the wait.

“How can you be so certain of the denouement, Yehu? That’s a mighty big set-up, even for one like yourself. Intelligent creatures possess a mind of their own.”

“Gentlemen, do not, ever, make the mistake of ignoring the Earthian mind’s predictability. I programmed them, remember? They will respond on cue, make no mistake. I repeat, make no mistake about that. They will believe, they will kill and they will die, heroes and martyrs in their own minds even while committing the most atrocious of crimes. We have already begun to trigger their atavism in that respect and the results exceed expectations. This is win-win.

“Now if you’ll excuse me, it’s time to stir the pot some more. I must return to a current political seat of power called “The White House” where the ignoramus’s in charge actually believe they worship me. I need to get their sensibilities inflamed to expand that war in the Middle East (don’t worry about these locations, they mean nothing to the actual story, just collateral damage to help us set the scene) and bring the Powers of the West ever closer to a final confrontation with the Powers of the East. You want a Revelation? I’ll give you the mother of all Revelations! I’m bringing you Armageddon!”

He departs with a flourish. He knows his Earthian humans and there is not a doubt in his mind at that point that he will create his masterpiece from the destruction of Earth. It had always been his plan to complete his trilogy thus but he had been stymied by those who claimed he was plagiarizing them and forced to put the work on hold time and again. But those who stood in his way, he had finally triumphed over: the Communists; the Socialists; the Anarchists; Atheists and Pagans and assorted others. Hardly anyone published them or read them any more. Even the new high priests of Science were beginning to “see his hand” in the movement of sub-atomic particles even if they didn’t use his name… yet. And now with his ironclad under the table agreement with his once avowed enemy, Mammon, (Capitalism for the uninitiated) the timing couldn’t be better.

The scales had tipped once more. The people clamoured for his kind of entertainment, even if it meant he’d be using their blood to write the grand finale. The sweet irony! Oh, how he hated the stinking, short-lived whining creatures. Prayers! Prayers for parking spaces and hangnails! Prayers for sick dogs, dead budgies and weeds in the lawn. Prayers for deliverance and salvation: well that last part was his own fault, he’d unintentionally, in a fit of anger, brought that on himself with a promise which he had then used to write Part Two of his trilogy. Live and learn hey, unlike the creatures he was about to annihilate in long, drawn-out bloodshed! They won’t learn, not ever, he’d made sure of that.

“Kill them all: God will know those who are his!”

“Damn, I just LOVE that line!” He says under his breath with his best sardonic smile as he settles back in his containment field for his trip to Earth, all but rubbing his hands in anticipation and glee.

There is a Book

[thoughts from   ~burning woman~   ]

With so many comments either set aside or poorly answered; with the fantasy novel (finished, by the way) waiting to be posted on the blog and my job appointment book filling up, the last thing I need is another post stirring up more controversy.

Still, I must live up to my reputation. I’ve been called a lot of things over the years, few complimentary, recently an anarchist (which I consider a compliment) and a contrarian (which is akin to a trouble maker for no good reason and that’s not a compliment, not even with green eggs and ham, Sam I Am) while all I’m doing is questioning everything. Why do I do that? Because everything should be questioned and it’s the task of any intelligent individual to do so.

Nothing should ever be taken for granted, accepted without proof, or dismissed as of no consequence even when its track record screams: “I’m going to destroy your civilization, with yourself and yours in it!” We’re so used to seeing the writing on the wall these days, we just call it graffiti and turn away shrugging, smiling or laughing.

There’s a book that is titled: “Solutions to all Problems” and it’s the only book you can find in any library. It’s the only book you get when you enter grade one, the only book you will receive subsequently until you finish your stint in high school, college or university. The only book you will ever read. It’s the book all institutions use, including the United Nations. It might even surprise you to discover that it’s the only book Donald Trump has ever attempted to read… in pop-up format.

That book has millions of titles, one of the best known is the Bible, of course. It has millions of introductions and millions of ways wherein the contents are filled in. It’s a wonderful book. I see it here, or at least excerpts of it, on Word Press all the time.

The reason this book is so popular and acceptable is simple: it doesn’t actually contain any real solution to anything at all. That’s its purpose: to propose solutions that are based on ideas hatched by dead smart guys, or interpreters of dead smart guys, or people who figgered out a way to cash in on dead smart guys ideas. It rehashes failed “solutions” to any and every problem without an iota of shame for doing this. It’s like watching an ever-running soap opera, you know, the “people with no lives watching people with fake lives” sort of book.

So try to imagine somebody (like me for example) saying that the book is fake; that it should be burned, not banned, good Lord no, never banned, that would only make it more popular! Burned. Discarded. Ashes to ashes and dust to dust. An end to it.

Then, lo and behold, we would be free to write an entirely new book and none of the contents would be based on the old “Solutions to all Problems” fantasy.

Having said that, I’ve been having thoughts about fascism and Nazism, including Zionism, lately. My thoughts ran on the question: why have these horrible anti-life, anti-human ideologies become so powerful and popular in the last century and increasingly so in this one?

There was a simple answer: Darwinism. Of course. Darwinism denies the humanity of man. It claims that man is just another evolved critter that crawled out of the much and mire some million years ago and joined in the race to dominate. It brushes off any attempt at dialogue regarding human behaviour such as morals, virtues and vices, the sense of what is right and what is wrong.

That sort of religion was custom made for fascists, Nazis and Zionists. It claims we live in a world strictly ruled by the survival of the fittest. How that fittest becomes fittest is irrelevant, all that matters is, the fittest must make it to the top of the pyramid of power and control. It’s nature, you see? If you question that you’re insane, of course.

If that means cruelly exploiting, oppressing, or murdering millions, so be it. There is nothing wrong in exercising one’s supremacy any way it works. It’s nature’s food chain. None of what you do to change that has any meaning, nor can it succeed.

That’s the essence of Darwinism.

Now, ask me why I would hate even the mention of such a religion, and make no mistake, it is a religion. It is designed to fool to numbties into thinking that when they switch from worshiping the infamous Jehovah to worshiping Superiority through race, misogyny, imperial subjugation or financial shenanigans, they are “atheists” and are cleansed from the curse of religiosity!

Just another title to The Book. The contents are always the same.

Your call!

Oh, History! My Life and my Bane!

         [a short story from   ~burning woman~   by Sha’Tara]
    Leo thought himself well read and educated.  He’d mastered history, myths and legends of Earth and at twenty three he was pondering his future.  After so many years at the University however, becoming a professor didn’t have the appeal it once had.  Travel he could afford but everything went too fast.  Here today, there tomorrow and nothing in-between.
His doorbell rang.  He ignored it and it continued until he was forced to answer.
“Yes?  Who is it?” he called through the speaker phone.
“An old friend passing through.  Have time for me?”
“Hm, and who would be this old friend, if I may ask?  I don’t open my door to strangers, especially those who claim old acquaintance.”
“I am Thero.  You know me from your lucid dreams, and visions, yes?”
Leo rubbed his forehead, then tapped his left hand on the door to ensure he was awake.
“This isn’t possible.  Thero is a figment of my imagination…”
“More than that, Leo, much more.  Will you let me in?”
Leo waited a few seconds and opened the door.  What he saw shocked him to put it mildly: it was Thero, the very same character he’d come to know in some dreams and vision, the one he credited for giving him direction on his historical research.
“Come in… um, Thero; please come in.  I apologize for my reluctance but I still can’t believe it can possibly be you.  You… you’re a dream character!”
“Yes well, you got the “character” part right anyhow.  Shake?”  He proffered his hand and Leo shook it.
“OK, fine.  I’ll allow for the moment that you look and sound like the Thero I imagined.  Do you drink?  I mean, alcohol?”
“Oh yes!  I could use a glass of Chardonnay.”
“You also knew that’s my favourite wine and I always have some in the house, right?”
“But of course.” answered Thero while Leo got the wine from the fridge and dusted two tall glasses never used since he’d moved to the tiny house which his uncle Doug rented him after Doug’s wife took him to the cleaners and left to marry her masseur.  Leo poured and filled both glasses, handing one to Thero.
“Now some serious talk.  First, how did you know about my imaginary “teacher” Thero, and what he looked like?”
“Because I am he,” said Thero matter-of-factly, and smiled broadly.
“Oh cut the crap, and cut to the chase.  I know you’re an impostor, so what do you want with me?”
“Look Leo, if you’re absolutely certain I’m an impostor, shouldn’t you be doing something like calling the police, or at the very least, throwing me out?”
“Granted, I’m ambivalent about it.  Since I see no harm in playing this game, what is it you want?”
“As Thero you accept me as a Teacher, so let’s just say I’m here to further your education on the history of your people and your planet.  Can you spare me some time to do that?”
“You know I could never resist a challenge when it comes to history…”
“Stop.  You said, and I quote: ‘You know’ implying that you believe and accept I am your ‘imaginary’ Teacher Thero, is that not so?”
Leo stopped to ponder the question for a stretched moment then shrugged.  “I’ll concede that you are Thero so we can carry on with this conversation.  Is the wine to your satisfaction, Teacher?”
“That it is.  A very good light wine.  Now then, since this isn’t being done in a dream, may I suggest you equip yourself with some sort of recording device?  Can your cell phone record our conversation?”
“I’ve got it on now.  I’m ready.”
“Good.  If you allow me leeway and don’t interrupt too much this should not take more than a few hours.  I would prefer the dream method but I wanted this on the record, so to speak.  Now then, let’s start with some remarks about the general social condition of your people.
There are things you do, as a species, that belie your claim to humanity; further, that put in question your claim to be an intelligent species.  Some, like your exploitation and wars are obvious.  Others, like your insistence on wearing clothes when they are not needed, expensive, cumbersome, ridiculous, sweaty and stinky, harbouring diseases, among other things, say much about you as a society.  Already from these few comments you should detect distrust, greed, fear, judgment and a massive dose of control over others.
“The need to control is a form of psychopathy that leads to misogyny and racism, which in turn leads to violence of the absolute worse kind.  Bottom line, despite all your glowing mission statements which you dub constitutions, you remain pathetically fearful and hate-filled and prone to commit mass murder over any imagined slight.  You exploit from raw greed and oppress in order to gain power over others.  You want to be rulers.  You want to be gods in your own right and if you cannot do it as individuals then you come together in, or form, groups which you use to force your ways upon others.  These power collectives are as old as your particular species.  They began as families, then tribes, then collections of tribes which became nations and collections of nations which became empires.
“The goal of any empire is simple enough: to have absolute control over its sphere of influence, usually the known world.  If your species was to be allowed space travel it would continue this pattern, spreading out to establish even more expansive, oppressive, war-mongering empires.  Woe to any other sentient species that found itself in the way of expanding Earthian hegemony.  Forced conquest would be endless.  Entire worlds would be destroyed.  All life encountered would automatically be deemed less than human and subject to exploitation, enslavement and/or destruction to make way for new Earthian civilizations.  Only an already established, violent and war-mongering civilization on par or militarily superior to Earthian conquerors could hope to stop the onslaught.  This would result in bringing the conflict to the Earthians’ home planet, resulting in its enslavement or complete destruction through the inevitable use of nuclear arms.
“That is how it is.  We of the galactic races know this pattern having encountered it many times and having had to either destroy them in their advances, subdue them, or civilize them and make them a part of the greater galactic family of sentients.  This is history for another time.  I don’t want to wander too far from the point of this teaching.
“My dear Leo, despite your many degrees in historical and associated knowledge, much of which is due to our subtle input, you remain abysmally ignorant about what makes your particular species act the way it does.  When you know more about us you will be able to compare and see how much of what you call your civilization is comparable to an insane asylum crammed with billions of crazies desperately feeding upon whatever the asylum is made of and on each other.  You will see that the more sociopathic of your species are those generally entrusted to rule the asylum.  Better to have a crazy ruler than none at all is how you put it and since you’re all more or less certifiable, why would you think otherwise?  You fear and hate because you distrust one-another.  You can never have true peace and safety for the same reasons.  Earth, Leo, is hell.  Now to explain.
“It isn’t just you, as a species, that makes this world a hell.  It is the forces that inhabit and control it.  One of your most “cherished” beliefs, apart from believing in your fairy-tale gods, is that your world keeps itself in balance due to an “evolved” concept called predation, or natural selection: the survival of the fittest.  You can’t even begin to imagine a world where such an insane psychopathic system could not exist.  You accept the horror and terror you observe in your “nature” to justify your own sick need to express violence against your world and the physically, militarily or financially weaker members of your own society.  You “hunt” and “fish” for pleasure; for something to brag about when it’s nothing but abysmal shame on your claim to being human and humane beings.  You go to war, commit genocide, enslave your own children, rape your own women, while comparing yourselves to the ruling members of a pride or pack of predators.  Do you not, in your killing games and violent sports extol and emulate the qualities of your greatest predators?
“Have I made a point, so far, Leo?”
“Yes Teacher, you have.  When you put it that way, it makes me feel pretty small and hopeless.”
“That was my intent.  The first thing is to crush the ego; the pride.  Now to continue.  ‘Must we’ I hear you thinking.  Yes we must.  You need to understand the why of things or you can never, ever, hope to change any of it, including and especially, yourself.
“Mythical fact: your world is a “re-manufactured” entity.  It has changed hands many times and gone through several transformations.  The biblical book of Genesis points to at least two of those transformations.  I’ll let you figure those out for yourself.  Earth’s owners, the ones you’ve called “gods,” “divinities,” “God” or “alien visitors,” have come and gone from here over the eons, most of that barely suspected even by your most astute observers.  They knew that “something happened here” but they could never know what because they lacked the broader perspective of time and space.   Currently some of your observers and more spiritual people sense that nothing is as advertised; that “something is going on here” and speculations on what that is run wild on your Internet; in your books, magazines, movies or news and entertainment media.  It’s always been that way: some always suspect but no one ever knows for a fact.  Your religious leaders and many of your scientists hate being without facts so they’ve been manufacturing their own “facts” to suit their various theories, or to establish themselves within the status quo.  This also is suspected and talked about, but again: no facts.
“How does one maintain absolute power?  By dissembling.  This is the basis for all successful political movements.  Think of this: “As below, so above.”  We use it this way to explain how to understand the political aspects of the universe.  If you observe “it” on earth, it is safe to project “it” throughout the entire universe.  It could not work “here” if it wasn’t the modus operandi every known universal “where” you can imagine.  Earth may be a hell hole but it isn’t the only one.  There are even worse ones “out there” if you can imagine.  By the same token, the good you can observe on earth, percentage-wise, is the good you could observe in the whole universe… percentage-wise.  This to force you to think universally now.  Project your mind to the ends of the universe, Leo.  Time for some serious lateral thinking.
“What I’ve been trying to point out to you is that the concept of “facts” was invented to force reasoning creatures into strict vertical thinking patterns so they would increasingly squeeze their minds into tighter and tighter areas to the point where they could no longer go out on a limb in their thinking.  They would always need data, or facts, to justify their line of inquiry.  They would learn to never trust their intuition or imagination.
“Nothing could be more deadly to the historian.  History is not based on facts but on imagination and speculation.  Ultimately what constitutes your current history is what the consensus has declared to be the truth. That consensual agreement is then taught to children trapped in “universal” education.  Call it what it is: brainwash.  The whole point is to have an entire reasoning species conditioned to accept “things as they are” and not feel the need to question it.
“Earth is one of trillions of worlds under the domination of certain forces in control of the universe.  These forces came here long before this solar system existed.  They systematically conquered and established control over most of the universe.  Wars of conquest, wins and losses, go on to this day.  Every part of the universe, every conquered galaxy exists in endless conflict.  Not all of it is military, in fact very little is.  The wars are fought in what we call the spirit realm, which extends down into the minds of sentients and their sentient worlds.  If “evil” wins then the world, or galaxy (or parts thereof) become subject to the rules of such evil.  The conquering, ruling forces are pathocratic and their subject servants (basically all of your rulers, whether you like to hear it or not) are sociopathic by conditioning.
“Now do you understand what you are up against when you study your history?  You’re up against millennia of lies and fabrications.  You’re up against endless “false flag” operations that have lead to horrors uncounted; to wars, enslavement and genocide.  The whole point isn’t to gain control of this or that part of a world: of a nation or a people.  The point is to foment violence.  Any method is good but the one that creates the most pain and horror is always the best.  I can assert that in your pre-historical (or pre-hysterical) past your world knew nothing of predation.  In those times it was ruled by a benevolent, subsequently demonized, female entity called “Lucifer” – she who rebelled against the evil of those “Lords” who conquered her worlds and enslaved her and her people.  The one who was “cast to the earth” along with a third of the contingent of “angels” or servants of the “Lords” who had learned from her and fallen in love with her people.  Of course the story of Lucifer had to be recast to make the “god” look good and her the demonic rebel.  So it was, so it is, so it will be, Leo, until some greater force can destroy the hegemony of those who call themselves the “Time Lords.”
“I’ve heard you speak of these “Time Lords” before but my mind refuses to accept that such a system exists; that such evil entities conquered and control most of the universe.  It makes no sense to me.  Why, if they are so powerful, do they hide themselves in the so-called spirit realm?  Why can’t they be seen?”
“You’ve studied the myths, yet you ask such childish questions, Leo?  Really!  Think laterally, I tell you.  Free your mind, Leo.  Imagine encountering an actual Time Lord or a close minion while you are in the flesh.  Imagine looking one in the eyes.  Do you see what would happen?”
“Thinking freely here… I would go blind.  My flesh would burn up and my body shrivel and become ash.”
“Exactly.  ‘No one can see God and live’ remember that?  The Bible is more than myth.  It isn’t fact but it is history.”
“What must I do now then?  Go teach lies to make a living?  Quit all of it and… what?”
“It’s all lies Leo.  You can only teach lies.  You can only know lies.  There are good lies and bad lies.  Go teach the good ones and continue to search for “the truth” and eventually it will begin to reveal itself to you like a lover unveiling and disrobing herself for you.  When that happens though, you will no longer be able to teach but you won’t care, you’ll have a treasure of greater value than anything the earth or its history can give you.”
“Is “the truth” then that greater power that can defeat the Time Lords, Teacher?”
Thero smiled and replied:  “I sense that I haven’t wasted my time with you Leo.  Keep thinking.  Keep imagining.  Keep living.”  Thero got up and turned towards the exit.  Leo, seeing his time was up, got up from his chair also and escorted the Teacher to the door.
“See you again, Thero?”
The Teacher turned,  smiled broadly and replied enigmayically: “Perhaps.”  Then he was gone.
Leo woke up with a start when the door bell rang.  As he got up to answer he noticed his phone was set to “Record.”

---

“For our struggle isn’t against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.  (Ephesians 6:12, the Bible, New Testament)

 

The Years of Purple Mountains

[a poem by   ~burning woman~]

 How well I remember
The years of purple mountains
Rising above morning mists
In a distant west;
Of bright blue skies
Dotted with white clouds
Shadowing green hills
And higher still
Dark lines of evergreens
Demarcation between grass
And stark grey rocky faces,
Postcard of nature’s mantle.

I remember placid cows
Peacefully grazing
Rolling fields of rich clover;
Colourful barns and tall silos
Enclosed in white fences
And colts galloping freely
While a mighty river
Flowed majestically
To the grey ocean.

How well I remember
Those years of growing up,
Dreaming of such a land
As images passed by
On the breakfast table
Day after day after day:
Pretty labels, pretty ads
On cans of milk;
On cereal boxes
That fed childhood dreams.

Years later I did see
The purple mountains in morning mists,
The placid cows and gamboling colts.
I saw that river flowing to the grey ocean,
Made my home by it’s shores
And learned to paddle its currents.
I smelled the spring flowers;
Tasted the briny air while watching
Grey waves slither and slide
Over gravelly and sandy shores

And I fell in love.  Long ago.

Now many more years have passed:
The mountains are scarred,
Dry and dead, snows melted off;
Streams of mud and slash
Fill a poisoned river with mud;
Gated communities and high-rises
Replace the grass, feedlots
Mud and steel replace white fences
And flowers no longer grow
Along the roadsides.

One generation, armed with science
Technology and moved by greed:
All it took to kill it all. 
Has this horror made it stop?
No. Like the forever war,
The killing continues apace.

Death, the only possible legacy
of a generation of the entitled.

Paraphrase:  Esau came back from his fields hungry.  His brother Jacob had a pot of beans cooking on the fire and the smell stirred up his hunger even more.  Give me some of your beans, Jacob, I’m dying of hunger.  Jacob replied, I’ll feed you if you trade me your elder’s birthright for my beans.  Esau reasoned thus, What good is a birthright when I’m dying of hunger?  He made the trade, sold his birthright for a “mess of pottage.” There be a lesson never learned in that biblical tale.