Katydids in Cloudland

As the sun sets on Cloudland Canyon, the sound of the Katydids conquers the air and pulses through the forest.
Not the sound of missiles and bombs, not the chatter of mid-Eastern potentates, not the bombast of politicians, not the cries of the civilians lost in the crossfire, not the horns of angry drivers, not the noise of the dying world,
just the Katydids.


Our cabin was our sanctuary this past weekend. Our nieces played with their puppy, Geisha. The girls told stories of their week in Atlanta at camp. As they slept, we drank Pedron Tequila with their parents and talked of our upcoming journey to Puerto Vallarta. On day two, Starr arrived, we dined at the Canyon Grill, and drank champagne.

During that halcyon weekend, we hiked down to the base of the two waterfalls. We talked well into the night as we sat in the rocking chairs on the screen porch. We saw deer, including a speckled Bambi roadside. Meanwhile, we all listened to the Katydids.

Cloudland Canyon
photo by Jameson

Next stop: Night of the Iguana.


Trails,

Jameson

Veto of Science

Our president has finally decided to use his veto power. What a wonderful humanitarian and Christian act to stop stem cell research. We know how much Bush cares about life from his war in Iraq that has brought tens of thousands of deaths. We know how much he cares about humanity from his allowing torture to take place. Perhaps he will next show his compassion for life by casting a veto of an increase of the minimum wage, if the Republicans in Congress can take time away from passing more tax cuts for the life-loving CEOs who fund their campaigns.


Jess protests.
news photo
from Aljazeera







Then, maybe he'll veto Global Warming and Evolution.

Photo from
The Nation

Be afraid.

Jameson

Sun Worship

Sunning myself poolside this weekend, I recalled the revelation I had at Delphi on my first of several visits to that sacred site, namely, that the Sun, rising over the hills above the temple of Apollo and lighting the space in an ever moving arc is Apollo, Sun God.

Sun over the Aegean Sea
Photo by Jameson

To me, belief in the Sun God is far more comprehensible than belief in an invisible, bodiless projection of such raw, negative emotions as jealousy, possessive insecurity, and fear. Forget the Being-In-and-For-Itself. Give me a God I can feel, whose warmth bathes my naked body in a glow.

If you need more convincing, read D. H. Lawrence's The Woman Who Rode Away. Or, if you won't read the original, there is some good commentary (By Joyce Carol Oates).

Epicurus was right, however, that such gods have no use for humans.
The Sun-God might well be concerned for Earth, follower of the Sun, suffering the blight of that bacteria, that filthy mite and scurge-- humanity, a cancer on the Earth's skin. But the Sun God would no more care about those individual mites than we would care about the dust mites under our bed: nuisances to be rid of as soon as possible.

So praying is pointless. Worship Tawa, Ra, Aten, Apollo, HUITZILOPOCHTLI...

By basking in his warmth, using his gift of energy wisely, and by seeing the Light.

We shall pay him homage on the beaches of Puerto Vallarta in two weeks.

Temple of Athena,

Delphi
Photo by Jameson

Bask! While this summer lasts.

Jameson

Cape Cod Contentment

View from Lands End Inn
photo by Jameson




What better place than Provincetown to celebrate the 4th of July.

Not only is P'Town the landing site of the Mayflower Pilgrims, it is also the beacon of freedom in this nation today. Same-sex couples there, married and single, hold hands among a populace that celebrates the rainbow of creative difference. Art thrives. Theatre thrives. Clean air from the sea clears the head.



For a little history read:

The Pilgrim Monument

The Inn where we enjoyed living in two rooms:
first, the Sunset Room; second, The Moroccan Tower:
Lands End Inn

Proud Display:
Old Glory
photo by Jameson

Get to know radical P'town:

Read P'Town's The Edge

4th of July Parade
Photo by Jameson




Happy Dune Trails

Jameson

Vows, Love, and Truth

Oh happy day when we say vows of love and receive vows in return. I will; I do, 'til death...

In that moment of bliss and love, it is easy to overlook the everlasting factor. My love and I did not vow to forsake all others. We focussed on our own love, on our pledge to love and honor one another in sickness and in health. Ours was a vow of trust and compassion. We vowed to cherish one another as long as we lived.

Vermont Vow: rings and roses
photo by Cecile

Life is often long; we go through many changes that weigh upon those vows. It is time that makes lies fatal to our vows. Each year a lie is perpetuated, the betrayal of trust thickens, becomes harder to overcome. The lie is a worm that grows in the heart, devouring love and trust. Ultimately the heart gives out.

William Blake's poem is but one example:

The Sick Rose

O rose, thou art sick!
The invisible worm
That flies in the night,
In the howling storm,

Has found out thy bed
Of crimson joy,
And his dark secret love
Does thy life destroy.

Only forgiveness can conquer the invisible worm, can mend the injured heart. And forgiveness will come only when the pain of truth removes the love-killing lie.

Poet Regina Hill provides wise, if sentimental, advice:

Foundations of Marriage by Regina Hill Love, trust, and forgiveness are the foundations of marriage. In marriage, many days will bring happiness, while other days may be sad. But together, two hearts can overcome everything...In marriage, all of the moments won't be exciting or romantic, and sometimes worries and anxiety will be overwhelming. But together, two hearts that accept will find comfort together. Recollections of past joys, pains, and shared feelings will be the glue that holds everything together during even the worst and most insecure moments. Reaching out to each other as a friend, and becoming the confidant and companion that the other one needs, is the true magic and beauty of any two people together. It's inspiring in each other a dream or a feeling, and having faith in each other and not giving up... even when all the odds say to quit. It's allowing each other to be vulnerable, to be himself or herself, even when the opinions or thoughts aren't in total agreement or exactly what you'd like them to be. It's getting involved and showing interest in each other, really listening and being available, the way any best friend should be. Exactly three things need to be remembered in a marriage if it is to be a mutual bond of sharing, caring, and loving throughout life: love, trust, and forgiveness.

http://www.foreverwed2.com/Religious_Ceremonies/poems/other6.html

With love,

Jameson

Two Fs

Fundamentalist Christians and Fascist Skinheads joined together to protest in Poland and Romania the heroic marches that took place despite threats of arrest and violence. Here's the account in the Bucharest Daily News of the brave fight for Human Rights:

Thousands march peacefully in Warsaw gay rights parade
AP

About 3,000 people marched peacefully through Warsaw Saturday in the Polish capital's annual gay rights march, an event that has been marked in previous years by official bans and violence.
The demonstrators marched through downtown Warsaw amid a heavy police presence, to the strains of loud music and led by a truck with a banner reading "Homophobia Kills."
The Equality Parade comes as an increasingly vocal gay rights movement faces off against conservative leaders who have openly denounced homosexuality.
Homosexuality largely remains a taboo in Poland and much of the region, and activists are up against a widespread belief that it is a perversion. This year's march attracted supporters from western Europe.
Farid Mueller, a Green lawmaker from the Hamburg state parliament in Germany, marched with a group of more than a dozen green-shirted activists.
Mueller said he was worried that the government would play "conservative politics regarding the rights of the minority, which are not a private or internal affair of Poland."
Also in Warsaw was Volker Beck, a prominent German Green who was beaten by nationalist youths at a gay rights march in Moscow last month.
"It is the first time in this part of Europe that we have had such a happy parade," Beck told the crowd at the end of Saturday's March.
Former Warsaw Mayor Lech Kaczynski, now the country's president, refused to grant permits for the parade in 2004 and 2005, saying allowing homosexuals to demonstrate openly threatens civilization.
However, marchers rallied last year in defiance of the ban - met by opponents who threw eggs and stones - and the attempt to stop the march drew criticism from throughout Europe. This year, city authorities granted permission for the event.
A right-wing youth group that is linked to a junior partner in Poland's coalition government called off a planned counter-rally Saturday, citing concern for public order.
"We do not agree to being pushed into a ghetto," said marcher Ania Kurowicka, a 21-year-old Warsaw University student.
"We do not want to be publicly called deviants, sick people or criminals," she added. "We don't want young people to think it is OK to throw stones at us because we are different."
Gay parades have been boycotted and booed in the whole region.
Many of formerly communist Eastern Europe's anti-gay groups find support for their position in the church, which has regained a strong foothold in society since the demise of communism in the early 1990s.
Last week, ahead of a gay rights march in the Romanian capital, Bucharest, the powerful Orthodox Church and conservative groups slammed homosexuality as immoral and abnormal.
The 500 homosexuals who turned out for the Bucharest parade were insulted and hammered with eggs.
In Russia, a small group of gay activists who defied a ban on a rally in Moscow last month were met by neo-fascist skinheads -- alongside fundamentalists from the powerful Russian Orthodox Church and other counter-protesters.

http://www.daily-news.ro/article_detail.php?idarticle=27347

As in the Civil Rights Movement in the U. S. in the Sixties, it appears often necessary to
risk life and safety to achieve equality.

15,000 Orgasms on ...(Bathing Hot with Sigur Ros)

The last time I mentioned Sigur Ros ,

I cited the review comparing their music to "Sucking God's Cock."

As I lay in my bath, fragrance from Hawaii, lavender salts from Argentina, citris mint soap from Barcelona, their rhythm is like God's Orgasm. I slipped into joy-- mental orgasm--floating ecstasy.

Icelandic Geysir;
the Original Geyser
photo by Dar

Fifteen thousand physical orgasms on, it is pleasant to contemplate the joy of more such ecstasy to come (pun intended).

So goes my bubble bath. Cleanliness next to Godliness. Music is my drug of choice.


Yesterday I wrote a letter to the Atlanta Journal of which half was published. Here it is in its entirety:

The U. S. Senate, after much debate, voted not to amend the Constitution. I agree with your editorial (Waste of Front Burner, 6/7) that this was a misuse of important time in Congress. Even Mary Cheney, daughter of the Vice President, has become disgusted by this pandering to the far right. No liberal, she is exactly correct in claiming that this issue is a generational one. Those old men of the Senate are out of touch with the rising youth of the country. Who won the MTV best kiss award? You got it: the cowboys of Brokeback Mountain. Republicans need to get used to those kisses, or kiss their political future goodbye.

I would have put "their political ass goodbye," but that would have been amputated too.

What drivel fills our newspapers and broadcast news these days...

Excuse me while I go back to my Sinead O'Connor disc.


Sing Out.

Jameson

Jesus, the Bible, Christians, and Religion

Long before Jesus, there was religion and the sacred quest for the divine.
Stonehenge.
(Photo by Jameson)




Mark Twain said it best:


If Christ were here there is one thing he would not be--a Christian.

Truer today than when he wrote it.

Now that I've gotten (and deleted) nasty comments from zealots, I want to write one entry on Jesus Christ and the Bible ; then move on. Zealots love to thump the Bible and talk about abominations.
"Homosexuality is an abomination..."

Never mind that eating shrimp is an abomination.
So is cheating in business.
So is touching pig skin (like a football or expensive gloves).
So is remarrying someone you have previously divorced.
There are over a hundred references to abominations to which Christians pay no attention.

Get out your concordance. Look them all up.

Far worse than an abomination is breaking one of the Ten Commandments-- you know, the ones zealots want to place in front of the courthouse. Why aren't the zealots of the religious right wing clamoring for the arrest and damnation of people who work on the Sabbath? People who commit adultery? People who bear false witness or covet what their neighbors have?
The list of marriage rules in the entry before this one is universally ignored. But the zealots say they take the Bible literally as the word of God.

Then there are the words of Jesus, conveniently colored red in my King James Bible. Not one word about homosexuality. Just a lot about loving thy neighbor and thy enemy.

A lot about NOT judging others.

Nothing about Family values. A lot about rejecting greed, rejecting love of money, opposing war and opposing killing. Jesus was much more of a socialist than a capitalist. In fact, he condemned everything on which capitalism is based. Go ahead, read his words-- in red-- in the Bible.

Jesus of Barcelona
Sagrada Familia
(photo by Jameson)


The best analysis of faith, the Bible, and Homosexuality I have ever read is in the book of a Baptist minister: Peter Gomes. I recommend him to all who want to reconcile their Christian faith with being gay or loving gays.

Read the revelatory article God and Harvard: A profile of Rev. Peter Gomes by Robert Boynton, published by the New Yorker.

Gomes' wrtings:

The Good Book, and The Good Life offer us spirituality at its best.

All Saints Chapel,
Sewanee
(Photo by Jameson)

Like philosopher Bertrand Russell, who wrote Why I am Not a Christian, I find my reason and feelings to be other than Christian . Like John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Ben Franklin, Abe Lincoln and other fathers of our country, I am, perhaps, a Deist. I have empathy with Buddhism. I don't deny that there is a spiritual, or supernatural dimension to existence. But I agree with Sartre and with the moral founding philosophers of our country, above mentioned, that the idea of a personal, omniscient, unchanging, all powerful god is self-contradictory. Read the works of the above and think for yourself-- this link is a great starting point.

Likewise, I support freedom of religion for others to believe whatever they like-- just so long as that belief does not deny freedom or equality, or the pursuit of happiness for others who believe differently. Jesus turned the water into wine, not the other way around --as the zealots would do. Thank God for a little intoxication to clear from our heads the cobwebs of superstition.

Amen.

Jameson

When a *Kiss* is not just a kiss...

Brokeback Mountain's momentous kiss, winner of the MTV award for best kiss last night,
makes a good image to send in reply to George W's ploy (See what Bush really thinks...)to rouse the bigot base of his party by urging the Senate to pass a "defense of marriage" amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

The Radical Right, rather like the KKK, makes most of us cringe with their hatred of all that is different from their narrow-minded, uninformed selves. Religion should be about love and caring for others, not intolerance, damnation, and hatred. Unfortunately, it remains the source for the death of Socrates, the Inquisition, the horrors of the crusades, the suicide bombings of radical Islam, and the list goes on.

All the misguided attempts to suppress love, to call it sin, to make it forbidden, have only made those stolen kisses that much more ecstatic. It is a thrill to see and experience the kiss denied us for so long. At long last, love is conquering those trolls and potentates of religious oppression.

More on the Madonna Kiss...

More on Batman kiss


Finally, we all should have a good laugh at the people (and Congressmen and Bush) who tell us to follow the Bible on marriage:

Here are the rules:


Biblical Principles of Marriage

* Women are the property of their father until married and their husband after that The value of a woman might be approximately seven years’ work

*Marriage consists of one man and one or more women.

*Nothing prevents a man from taking on concubines in addition to the wife or wives he may already have.

*A man might choose any wife, provided only that she is not already another man’s wife or his [half-]sister, nor the mother or the sister of a woman who is already his wife. The concept of a woman giving her consent to being married is foreign to the Biblical mindset.

If a woman cannot be proven to be a virgin at the time of marriage, she shall be stoned.

A rapist must marry his victim - unless she was already a fiancé, in which case he should be put to death if he raped her in the country, but both of them killed if he raped her in town.

If a man dies childless, his brother must marry the widow.

Women marry the man of their father’s choosing.

Inter-faith marriages are prohibited

Divorce is forbidden.

Better to not get married at all - although marriage is not a sin.

Article with citations:

http://www.samesexmarriage.ca/equality/biblical_marriage.htm

Provincetown Kiss

Smooch!

Jameson

Summertime (and the livin' is easy)

A trek to Asheville and the Blue Ridge Mountains marked for us the beginning of summer.

Dar Rocks
Pisgah Inn

As an Epicurean, I enjoyed the local brew, the food, the art, and the nightlife of alternative Asheville. The city's progressive attitude and awareness was everywhere evident, from downtown religious dancers to the dancers of Scandals and other clubs. Starr and I toasted the latter with cosmos in real martini glasses-- our choice in a world of plastic.

We hiked along the trails of Pisgah also, a world removed from the daily bombardment of bad news: air pollution and smog days in Atlanta, faulty levees in New Orleans, U.S. Marine massacres of civilians-- women and babies included--in Iraq, the threat of nuclear warheads in Iran, whose leader denies the holocaust and assails Israel.

Sometimes it's best to regard the beauty of tiny wildflowers to remain sane.

wildflowers along the
Blue Ridge

Photo: Jameson

Happy Trails.

Jameson

What would Spinoza think?

Salon's essay,

Everybody loves Spinoza,

Illustration by Bob Watts/Salon.com

and Rebecca Goldstein's interview, Free Radical

easily lead me to wonder just what Baruch would think about the World today.

He was a Jew living in the world's most liberal city and country in the 1600s:
Amsterdam, Holland.

He witnessed religious intolerance: Spain expelled Jews and Moslems, as did Portugal. The Jews went to the Netherlands. Yet the Jewish community also expelled Spinoza for his philosophy.

Spinoza exalted Nature, saw God and Nature as one, became in the eyes of many, a Pantheist or even a Panentheist.

How instructive is it to see our own universe through the lens of this lens maker, this Rationalist, this man of Ethics?

We would see that nothing has changed. There are still religious wars. There is still intolerance. Man continues to rape Nature, failing to find harmony or nurture. No doubt Spinoza would remain the optimistic fatalist he was 400 years ago. The wise man, he thought, sees the world from the point of view of eternity. Spinoza, like the Buddhist, was a determinist. Nothing can be otherwise than it is. Individual freedom of action and choice-- mere illusion. So too the sensory world. Knowledge through reason alone can bring happiness. The ladder of knowledge, using reason, leads up to God where God, Nature, and the Mind become mystically one. No wonder there was no Mrs. Spinoza. Just one substance exists in Baruch's universe, God is ultimately alone. The monist becomes a solipsistic God. Yet he is filled with self-love, love for all those marvelous manifestations of God and Nature in the modes and attributes. Narcissus adores the pool of himself.

Spinoza, like so many modern workers, died in the dust and the pollution of his own work. The dust of lens grinding contributed to his death by consumption, at the age of 45. The individual death, though, is but an illusion: from the lens of the eye of God, Spinoza's thought, the only meaningful reality, is immortal.

I like what Shakespeare, Spinoza's near contemporary, wrote. The words seem to apply to Spinoza, himself:

His life was gentle; and the elements
So mixed in him, that Nature might stand up,
And say to all the world, THIS WAS A MAN!

William Shakespeare

Happy Thoughts...

--Jameson

Buddha's May Moon

Last night the full moon marked Vesak :
The Birth, Enlightenment,
and Death of Siddhartha Buddha.
All in May. All on the May full Moon.
What better cause for meditating on the meaning of life, or lack therof.

Full Moon over Palm Springs
photo by Jameson

If nothing else, our global awareness and omnipresent access to the World's events, give us food for thought. I still recall standing in the Blue Mountains of Australia looking at the same moon I've seen at home, the same constellation Orion, and delighting in the familiar sky of another continent. Everyone on the planet sees the same full moon; why can we not all see the same divinity? And what better divintiy than Buddha to unite us and bring peace? (OK I wouldn't forget Pan and Dionysus-- maybe we can have other favorites to supplement and individualize our Buddhisms).

Think of it: The same full moon, lighting the lovers in the garden, lighting the lake enough for skinny dippers to catch a glimpse, lighting the bombed out hovels where soldiers look for an unknown enemy, lighting Washington and Moscow, and Baghdad evenly. Lighting the Parthenon, the cliffs of Dover, Stonehenge. Would we could harvest this light and illuminate our souls with it instead of dousing our souls with the dead, dark residue of the dinosaurs.

"From the aspect of eternity," wrote Spinoza. I'll take the cosmic, the universal, the global over the local any day-- unless the local is my very own GARDEN OF EPICURUS.



Happy trails in the sky,

Jameson

Asheville

Next stop:

The mountains of North Carolina
and the city of Asheville.


For Memorial Weekend we shall drive through North Georgia and take the Blue Ridge Parkway to Asheville where Starr will join us for a few days of hiking and enjoying the ambience of this progressive, artistic town.

Here are a few photographs of recent treks to the Blue Ridge:


Looking Glass Falls






















Brother John at the Devil's Courthouse




















Dillard House Field






All Photos by Jameson





Asheville News

(click)

Our Photos of Asheville and friends

(click)

Blue Ridge Mountain photos

Our Asheville page





Happy Trails...

Summertime

"Take from the trees of summer
All their leaves
And wed them to you" -from The Preludes
James Land Jones





 
Fergus 
on the path to Moon River



On this long Sunday afternoon of rain and birdsong, my thoughts go back to Moon River, Johnny Mercer's house near Savannah to which I moved in May exactly thirty-five years ago.


From my screen porch, I watch the squirrels scurry up the wet bark of oaks, rodents and tree trunk both the color of centipedes. The deep green canopy of rain dripping trees recalls the lushness of Moon River.

This afternoon a single mocking bird convinces me that birds must believe in the Sun God, in Apollo, Tawa, Helios, Huitzilopochtli ... for they sing their prayers to summon the Sun from the night, from the rain, from a total eclipse with all the faith and optimism of Bodhisattvas. What purity fills this simple bird cry. It is untainted by the dark world of war, disease, poverty, and ruin humans have produced.

Indoors, I listen to Spanish guitar, Rodrigo's Concerto de Aranjuez, equally pure evocation of a world removed from the horrors on televised news. And there again I find my friend Jim, now in Mexico, gazing at Orizaba, snow covered, pure, rising above the horrors, the Mayan sacrifices, the Aztec obsession with death, the black holes in the universe that are the eyes of suffering. Always more real and lived in Mexico than in the sanitized U.S."Take from the trees of summer..."

If enlightenment is anything, it must be the purity of birdsong, and have the  harmony of Spanish guitar.

Jack

May Day

Today is May Day,
Lei Day in Hawaii,
International Workers Day--

A Day of demonstrations:
A Socialist Day for workers of the world to take to the streets: Mexicans, Latinos in the U.S. by the millions...
Chicago, 1889, 2006.

Just give me the English maypole
or the Valborgsmässoafton-- Walpurgis Night of Sweden.
Or Beltane:

Also known as May Eve, May Day, and Walpurgis Night, happens at the beginning of May. It celebrates the height of Spring and the flowering of life. The Goddess manifests as the May Queen and Flora. The God emerges as the May King and Jack in the Green. The danced Maypole represents Their unity, with the pole itself being the God and the ribbons that encompass it, the Goddess. Colors are the Rainbow spectrum. Beltane is a festival of flowers, fertility, sensuality, and delight.

http://www.circlesanctuary.org/pholidays/Beltane.html








A day to be leied.

May your maypole be merry.

Lei before Buddha
photo by Jameson
(click to enlarge)

--Jameson