Radical Peace

Troop Prayers?

2006-12-10T10:06:00.000-08:00

I am receiving many of the touching emails urging prayers for our troops: It goes

"Lord, hold our troops in your loving hands. Protect them as they protect us. Bless them and their families for the selfless acts they perform for us in our time of need. Amen." When you receive this, please stop for a moment and say a prayer for our troops around the world. There's nothing attached; just send this to all in your address book. Do not let it stop with you, please - of all the gifts you could give a US Soldier, Sailor, Airman, or Marine deployed in harm's way, prayer is the very best!!!

Yet there can be no division of prayers, no troops more in need of prayers than another. Praying for any over that of others is saying that some are more worthy than others, and is an attempt to weigh the scales and doom others to harm. There is no soldier who does not eminate from and live in God's heart. There is no soldier or country more loved by God than another. God sees no country, God sees no policy; God sees and knows us all only with a love that understands our mistaken focus to be causing us traumas. Establishing our Allegiance with God's way of life stops us from participating in actions that would harm ourselves and others.

All troops have families, all troops believe they are performing selfless acts. ALL troops need prayer as do those who send them and train them to combat, that they may feel and know other ways and priorities of living.

The most selfless acts we can perform is to live with love for the betterment of others. Why not offer true prayer of love for ALL SOLDIERS that they ALL be protected by and to create peace.

Forgiveness in Pennsylvania Shared With the World

2006-10-05T19:25:00.000-07:00

There is beauty in what, to human-focused eyes, appears to be a tragedy in the land of the Amish following the shootings of the children: Good things for individuals to hear of and know and live and good things for the world's people.

The media continue to follow that community, the people, the burials, and the world sees people who live a life of God's love and forgiveness -- A people who do not reflexively, habitually, culturally, personally, believe that a violent act requires a violent response. Indeed, a community that drapes its concern and prayers around the shoulders and souls of the family of the man who committed the act of shooting their community's children.

And what of the act of the man who pulled the trigger so many times and then turned the gun on himself? Consider this: Here is a man who was obviously haunted by fear and a self-loathing for something (real or imagined) done long ago and who did not, seemingly, believe forgiveness was anything he could expect. Yet, when he took steps to take even more horrific steps, where did he tread? Did he go to a local supermarket? Another school? No, he went straight to the one community where, despite anything he might do, he would be blessed with forgiveness by thousands -- as are his family. What a 'bank account of goodness and love' (I'd call it) was deposited for him and his family!

And, in the process of their soul's agreement to meet that day, the souls of the children and of this man have shared a message that can't help but make an impression on the minds of everyone who hears the stories on their TV and radio and internet. Forgiveness, love, "forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us." It's a stunning example many people's minds now have to get their hands around. Are you protesting against this? Not able to fathom it?

While you - we - have been living lives in various guises of fear, lack, defensiveness (with all the attendent traumas, angers, rumors, innuendo, defensiveness, etc etc that take such a brutal toll on our lives whether in our relationship to our boss, our family, our government's decisions, etc), everyday these people are free of the loads that weigh us down; because, in their own way of organizing their community, their beliefs have no place where those harmful concepts can hold onto/Velcro to. And, as a result and in their particular way, their community supports all in their community; and, because they don't construct dividing lines of where or how far love can be extended, they also reach out in prayer to the soul of the man who killed the physical lives of several children as well as to his family, for they, too, are reeling and in need of love.

What will your next response be when someone does something as trivial as "press your buttons?" Choose to let it go. It really is your choice. The larger tragedy is a learning experience we can all take into our daily lives.

Peace.

Reincarnation of India travel memoir, Moonlight on the Ganga

2006-08-30T20:08:00.000-07:00

Greetings,
Yesterday I posted the announcement about the new release of my latest book, Living A Radical Peace: Creating Life Anew (July 2006; PublishAmerica; $19.95).

Now here's double your pleasure good news --- My India travel memoir, Moonlight on the Ganga, has been "reincarnated" and is now back-in-print (thanks to The Author's Guild Back-In-Print program). It's available at online stores (amazon.com; bn.com) and directly through the re-release publisher, www.iuniverse.com ). I'm pasting a copy of the news release below for you:

Moonlight on the Ganga: India Travel Memoir Reincarnates

Moonlight on the Ganga (ISBN: 0-595-39655-0; $11.95), Claire Krulikowski's back-in-print travel memoir, shares stories of her experiences and insights as she walked along the Ganges River in India.

The trip to India wasn't one she'd planned, says Krulikowski. In fact, she says, it wasn't on her Top 100 places to visit, because of her initial perception of India as being overcrowded and filled with diseases, poverty, and assorted indeciperable gods. Yet, she counts her experience as demonstrative of the power of saying 'yes' to opportunities offered, because she was able to "leave everything I knew behind" (all the shoulds, rules, and beliefs she'd incorporated into her life) and experience the greater depth and meanings of life experiences that were offered to her.

Originally published in 2001 by a small press, travel memoir Moonlight on the Ganga has "reincarnated" thanks to The Author's Guild Back-In-Print Program. The re-publication provides opportunities for new readers to enjoy the poetic prose and insights that have been praised by well-known author endorsers Jean Houston, Lynn Andrews, Sheila Bender, Geoffrey Fox, and others (see endorsements below) . When originally published Moonlight on the Ganga won 3rd Place for "Best Editing" by the Northwest Association of Book Publisher's Awards.

The summery from Moonlight's back cover explains that, " 'Hooks of fear' clawed at author Claire Krulikowski on her first morning's awakening in India, a land she'd never planned to visit. However, in Rishikesh she heard the call of Ma Ganga, the Sacred River, and accepted its enticing invitation to leave everything she knew behind. Diving into the river of life teeming around her, including meetings with lepers, wounded monkeys, swamis, stalkers, pilgrims, shopkeepers, holy cows, and more, Krulikowski stepped outside her beliefs of how things "should be," trusting life and everything in it! She came to know happiness and peace moment-by-moment. Enjoy the stories in her pleasurable memoir..."

This re-released edition of Moonlight on the Ganga is available online at amazon.com and bn.com or directly through the publisher at www.iniverse.com . Check to ensure you are ordering the new iUniverse edition.

Endorsements for Moonlight on the Ganga

Jean Houston, Ph.D., author of Jump Time and A Passion for the Possible:
“This work flows with the wisdom and depth of the most sacred of all rivers.”

Lynn Andrews, best-selling author of the Medicine Woman series and Love and Power:
“Moonlight on the Ganga brings the sacred flow of the Ganga into the illuminating current of spiritual power within each of us.”

Reverand Dr. Lauren Artress, author and creator of The Labyrinth Project:
“Moonlight on the Ganga is lush in imagery, bold in articulating experience and allows the reader to reflect on the spiritual essence of his or her own life.”

Geoffrey Fox, author of Hispanic Nation: Culture, Politics and the Constructing of Identity; and Welcome to My Contri:
“Like a Sufi poem in prose, Moonlight on the Ganga illuminates the murky recesses of the soul and surprises us by finding the extraordinary in the most mundane of events.”

Sheila Bender, author of Writing Personal Essays: How to Shape Your Life Experience for the Page; and A Year in the Life: Journaling for Self-Discovery:
“In India, when the rich traditions of knowledge were first placed into written form, Krulikowski tells us, it was on palm leaves and tree bark displayed together and hung in cords. So, too, Ms. Krulikowski’s lyric, evocative essays about her life-changing trip to Rishikesh on the Ganges hang together, each one with sparkling gems of insight that enter the reader as easily as water.”

Sabrina Fox, author of Loved By Angels and Who Can Help Me Sleep:
“Claire’s willingness to let us share her time on the Ganga, without leaving us out of the most intimate of journeys – self discovery – is a great honor and an inspiration. You can almost feel the crisp touch of the Ganga’s water on your feet as Claire opens up her soul for us to share in her exquisite journey."

Jo Dunning, teacher of The Expanded Heartworks:
“This book is a delightful story of travel, insight, and personal expansion. It’s words flow smoothly, like the Ganga, creating a feeling of peaceful calm as each page unfolds its beauty and wisdom.”

Suzanne Piela, author of You Are So Beautiful Without Your Hair:
“At a time when our society is searching for deeper meaning, this book is certain to provide much food for thought.”

xxx

New Book released, Living A Radical Peace

2006-08-29T21:31:00.000-07:00

Book Promotes Living A Radical Peace

The newly released book by author Claire Krulikowski, Living A Radical Peace: Creating Life Anew (ISBN: 1-4241-2279-1; Publish America; August 2006), inspires and entertains readers as it explains that peace is our true reality and a potent energy assembled in a certain format. In Living A Radical Peace, Krulikowski weaves the potential of peace within us all. Using personal parables, illustrations from other texts, and also using Jesus as exemplary of one who defied the status quote and was not passive, Living A Radical Peace proposes that we are encoded as spirit before matter and capable of shaping physical substance and experience to create life anew.

In this book Krulikowski provides readers with five reasons people have come to fear peace, then questions the foundations of our beliefs and the illusions we create when we accept the standards of common authorities. It is, she states, when we each commit Allegiance to a "Higher Authority," rather than the common leaderships and beliefs ingrained within society, that we engage the full power of our soul's call.

A Much Endorsed Book

Living A Radical Peace has received advance endorsements from several well-known authors and media personalities, including the following:

John Randolph Price (author of The Superbeings, and The Abundance Book), finds Living A Radical Peace to be "...truly a book for our time. As a guide to a higher consciousness of peace, it is filled with special exercises to open the heart-mind to change behavioral patterns and to understand the coded imprints of our divine creation. In the process we discover peace within and without as a life-changing experience."

Soul Gardening author Terry Hershey states emphatically that "...Claire Krulikowski asks us to begin the more difficult journey for radical peace, a peace that must begin inside of each of us, and colors our relationships and the world around us. Living A Radical Peace is reflective, thought provoking, and challenging. Read it."

DavidPaul Doyle (The Journey That Never Was) says Krulikowski's book "...brings vision, passion, and understanding not only to the concept of peace but, most importantly, to living the peace of who you are in the world."

Cameron and Lucia Monette-Steele, Contact Radio hosts, are sure "Living A Radical Peace is a guide to help individuals understand what peace truly means and how to live life compassionately, which is the ultimate path to peace."

Radical Peace Book Availability

You can order copies of Living A Radical Peace: Creating Life Anew either from online bookstores amazon.com and www.bn.com, or directly through publisher PublishAmerica (http://www.publishamerica.com/), or by special order through local bookstores. Cover price is $19.95 and several sites are presently offering new release discount offers.

About the Author

Claire Krulikowski has authored three books, including the recently re-released India travel memoir, Moonlight on the Ganga (new ISBN: 0-595-39655-0) , and a collection of mystic, poetry entitled Rapture. A freelance writer and editor since 1990, she is well respected among writers in the Northwest. Her workshops for writers are enjoyed and well-attended at writer conferences, including the Willamette Writer's Conference in Portand and the Pacific Northwest Writer's Conference in Seattle, Washington; and regional seminars are also scheduled. Her company, Ashootingstarz Production, provides editing, copy writing, research, and PR services beneficial to both writers and business owners.

xxx

Jill Carroll Walks To Freedom

2006-03-30T05:38:00.000-08:00

In my February 19th blog I'd posted the following:

"The abducted woman reporter, Jill Carroll, requires assistance from us all. The illusion of hate has brought her to center stage. Let many of us link together to bring her out of the troubles with Love. The source of life is not politics, and there is something we all can do...Though the masses of the world have believed the material is the "real world", matter bends and reshapes to spirit, it is, in fact, ruled by Spirit as we allow it to move and breath and have its being. So, let us all get out of our heads and focus ourselves with Spirit regularly during our days, in the reality of Spirit and know that Jill Carroll is save, free to leave, and that there are many ways this can be accomplished easily..Let all of us unite and walk Jill to freedom."

Jill Carroll has walked to freedom. Her captors, whom she said treated her well, came to her and said, "We're going." She was whisked by car and left outside some Party offices in Baghdad. She walked in...

Thank you all - Now forgive, because that brings peace...and know this issue was all an illusion, not reality. Let's keep our thoughts focused on a Higher Authority and more potent belief, unbounded by "matter" and the "reality" of others; a more potent belief than our scripted fears, beliefs, and miscreations.

- ashootingstar

How We Declare War on Someone

2006-03-25T16:04:00.000-08:00

Business and personal empowerment counselors often advised that the most important aspect of human interaction is the ability to listen to what others are saying. However, what's REALLY most important is that we learn to listen to what we ourselves are saying. If you do then you'll probably be able to answer the following question:

When was the last time you declared war on someone else?

No, don't bother racking your minds for some event from your past that resulted in you truly declaring an all out, vengeful rampage against someone, be that slashing tires, getting their girlfriend (or boyfriend), passing lies about them, etc.

War is much more subtle than that.

For example, you're engaged in a political discussion with someone who is on the opposite end of the political spectrum about the war in Iraq/torture of prisoners/etc. What do you think is the intent of this sentence: "You just wait till something like that happens to you. Then you'll see! Then you'll learn!"

First, the person saying it is calling for something terrible /painful/awful/stressful to happen to the other person. They are wishing and hoping for and spell-casting so that other person will experience something dreadful. They've just thrown a spear directly at the other person's person.

Second, the person saying it is doing so because their beliefs (ego beliefs they have pledged their allegiance to) have been challenged by the other person, so they have fallen back on a habitual pattern of self-defense posturing rather than continuing the discussion toward understanding.

Third, the person saying it is needing to cement their "rightness"; the correctness of their belief; the "reality" to which they have pledged themselves, albeit unconsciously, perhaps. To do so, the other person must be proved wrong. To do so the person throwing the spear must believe that everyone will react to a situation in the same habitual way their beliefs have prepared them to respond -- so, having called down this awful scenario upon another, they can feel vindicated/correct because of their surity in how they believe they would respond (Note that it doesn't even have to actually happen to the other person whom they have called the curse down upon. The one declaring war will go about their business confidant that they'll be proved right).

This wish for pain to be felt by another is no less an attack/declaration of war than pulling out a gun or a knife or releasing an army. Think about a bar fight: Someone is intoxicated and feels insulted, pulls out a knife and says "Take that", stabbing the "insulter" through the gut.

So, I'm suggesting a) You pause and listen to what you are about to say so you understand it's real intent and potential and can decide if that is really the kind of person/kind of action you wish to promote/do to another;
I'm also suggesting b) if someone ever says such a thing to you, you lighten up instantly and forgive 'em mentally (coz they know not what they do), and begin a calm discussion that points out to the other that they have just called forth a wish for bad forces/painful things to attack you. "Do you really hope that...XYZ happen to me?"

This inquiry discussion path helps to deflect the war-filled wish and bring it out into the open where the sun can shine on it. The person may still defend that desire, and the two of you can part ways. However, the important thing is that by pointing out the underlying intent of that wish, a corrective idea has been planted into the other's consciousness; and that other person will recall it next time they start their spell-casting. It'll interrupt their thought pattern about it. When habitual thought patterns start to become interrupted, it allows a fissure for new ideas of being and relating to enter.

Consider this: What we wish for another is really being called upon ourselves.

So, war is not massive actions by others OUT there;by governments, by companies, by politicians, etc. War - and Peace - are the choices I and you make everyday.

Are you about to say something?

- Claire

How The Universe Disappeared in 1875 (well, at least for Westerners)

2006-03-14T18:59:00.000-08:00

In the desire/seeking/studying/reading/meditations upon/etc of spiritual studies there are theories, channelings, research, opinion, visions, feelings unbounded. While Eastern thought is far advanced in many areas, Western thought has contributed much of value to this .

Yet, I've been puzzled. Why, as we've come to understand that:

we create with the focus of our thought and desire;
that our reality and circumstances can change (no matter how achingly slow it may appear) as our inner beings are healed and our focus changes;
as we come to read or even witness how water molecules are completely transformed to beautiful or ugly/healthy or sick based on the thoughts projected towards them;
as Quantum Physics provides validation for the non-material nature of the world;
as we state we are spirit and not matter (well, some of us);
as we seek alternatives to traditional medicine
as millions of people read popular, insightful tomes by Deepak Chopra, Bernie Siegel, or books such as A Course in Miracles, or The Disappearance of the Universe, etc...

...Why, after all this, are massive numbers of people NOT demonstrating wellness from serious illness and injury (still most often thought of as "miracles")?????????

It has been done before - though you may not be aware of it.

The key ( as I point out in my soon-to-be-published book, Living A Radical Peace: Creating Life Anew), to any such powerful transformation is Allegiance to a Higher Authority than the material body and the material leaders and rules to which we continue to pledge our Allegiance every moment of our lives. As Yoda said in Star Wars, "Don't Try. Do."

So, despite the most advanced "contemporary thoughts" in the spiritual movement, I want to give credit where it is due, because it was in 1875 the universe disappeared for the first time for Westerners (well, :"the first time" that I know of).

The material universe shattered in the lives of hundreds and then thousands of people starting in that year that Mary Baker Eddy published her first edition (she expanded it about 45 times as her understanding grew) of Science and Health; Too, at that time she began sitting with sick people and awakening them to their actual state of true health. Many more sick or injured people simply read her book and were instantly healed ; other people began training with her to do the same. Meeting halls were jam packed to hear about Christian Science. of course, controversies - and gossip, innuendo, doubt, fear, anger - erupted. Mary, a woman in a very male dominated time, bucked the religious, gender, and medical - not to mention social - structures of those 19th Century times, utilizing and teaching non-medical means to bring people to wellness.

How? Her non-medicine method she called "Christian Science" and Mary came to it via the spiritual source document of her times, i.e. The Bible.

Her reading of it wakened her to believe that God's love could not create less than perfection; that humans are of God so if God is perfect and we're of God then humans can't be sick/hurt/injured. In fact, she stated (and how often have we read this in contemporary books?) that our fear/illness/injury was all an illusion, liken to a dream; that we could instantly come to our right mind and claim our actual reality of wellness.

The accepted, believed it, preached, assumed universe shattered as soon as that idea was advanced, it and disappeared entirely for the many who began accepting their lives as One with God's Spirit and began living by God's laws rather than matter's.

Thousands, then milliions did; so many that Christian Science organizing as a religion (and a religion that did not hold Jesus to be the (only) Son of God- which Jesus never claimed, by the way, stating he was the Son of Man); and a religion that has no pastors; whose texts are limited to readings from the Bible and also Science and Health.

I'm not a Christian Scientist myself, yet I appreciate and highly recommend you read Science and Health With A Key to the Scriptures . Written in the late 19th Century, it's author is far advanced in the substance of deed than our contemporary selves can claim.

Let us claim our rightful life. Where does your allegiance lie? To Spirit or to Matter?

Peace be with you,
Claire

Walk Reporter Jill Carroll to Freedom

2006-02-19T09:12:00.000-08:00

(I'd previously only sent this - below - to a long list of friends, and it will benefit for all readers to participate - Please do, and forward onto your friends as well)
2/10/06

The abducted woman reporter, Jill Carroll, requires assistance from us all. The illusion of hate has brought her to center stage. Let many of us link together to bring her out of the troubles with Love. The source of life is not politics, and there is something we all can do.

Though the masses of the world have believed the material is the "real world", matter bends and reshapes to spirit, it is, in fact, ruled by Spirit as we allow it to move and breath and have its being. So, let us all get out of our heads and focus ourselves with Spirit regularly during our days, in the reality of Spirit and know that Jill Carroll is save, free to leave, and that there are many ways this can be accomplished easily. Too, be with her, assure her that there are forces stronger than may be visible to her, and to allow them to work for her.

Please forward this to everyone you know, so they can forward it quickly. Let all of us unite and walk Jill to freedom.

Purpose of "The System"

2005-12-13T05:26:00.000-08:00

Former CRIPs leader, Tookie Williams execution by California authorities at 12:35 p.m. on 12/12/05 gives pause to ask the purpose of the system.

If the purpose of an action and result can not be to turn ourselves around to greater understanding so we can do good, has the rug been pulled out from the purported purpose. To the end of his days, Williams stuck by his claim of innocence. A governor said, basically, "Well, if he's still saying he's innocent instead of remorseful, there's no point in pardoning him."

A Catholic nun at the scene drew comparison that the governor's actions were gang mentality. "When someone does something to you, you get 'em back." Others who met with the Governor stated that his decision was politically motivated, based on the upsetment a pardon would do to his political base.

Williams recently stated, "There is no part of me that existed then that exists now." Pointing to his heart he said he had and created a lot of pain in his life, but "in here I am at peace."

These few snippets of news are provided for us all to consider: To whom are we in allegiance when we make our own consideration about the death penalty? Has a ever governor erred before? What good can we make of this?

Prayers for the living soul of Tookie that can do good in this world from the other side of this veil we so often fail to look beyond.

- Claire

Is the Best Defense an Early Defense?: Weather Modification

2005-11-01T05:33:00.000-08:00

I am laughing to read news reports such as the excerpt below, given that it was weather modification experts who created the extra strong punch of, at least, Hurricane Katrina. Perhaps they are putting out news like that below as an advance defense? Perhaps there is too much suspicion being felt in their corridors? Read this Nov 1st, 2005 MSNBC headline excerpt:

"Military wants the weather on its side
Pentagon studies ways to predict or even influence storms
The one-two hurricane punch from Katrina and Wilma, along with predictions of more severe weather in the future, has scientists pondering ways to save lives, protect property and possibly even control the weather.
While efforts to tame storms have so far been clouded by failure, some researchers aren’t willing to give up the fight. And even if changing the weather proves overly challenging, residents and disaster officials can do a better job of planning and reacting. "

NOT!
Rather than modifying weather to reduce damage and save property, the secret work of HAARP, its predecessors, and "co-defendants" is actually being utilized to see how weather can be utilized as a weapon to spread fear as well as misery. Obviously, such a program must be tested, and it is often tested. Areas of the Northwest and areas along the coast of California have witnessed it at times, for certain. Katrina was a startling example of how far the work has "progressed", if I might use that word.

Obviously, those who work on producing such "weaponry" have lost touch with the values that unite humanity and all concern for human life. They have placed their allegiance with a paltry authority of limited scope. This is just one more "hidden agenda" in the works that must be revealed.

Allow for this work to be publically uncovered and for its dissolution.

- Claire

"Pay No Attention to the Man Behind the Curtain"

2005-10-29T23:16:00.000-07:00

With the recent U.S. Grand Jury indictment of Cheney's right hand man, and promises of more investigations to come...including the promise of some things not even imagined by many, I'm reminded of The Wizard of Oz.

Just as Dorothy, all trusting, in need, and in complete awe of the "All powerful Wizard of Oz", followed the directions of this leader only to find him unmasked as weak, flawed, and a liar (It didn't take much to unveil him either - just a little dog who was willing to dig his teeth into the curtain and move it abit), so Americans are coming to an awareness that the man supposedly in control isn't.

("Oh what a tangled web we weave when we practice to deceive" - Sorry, I'm just filled with high arc literary quotations tonight, eh?)

While we should never have followed a leadership so shrouded, and one so intent on remaining shrouded, it is time now for "everything that was hidden to be revealed." The process will mean greater internal "pains" for individuals as the basis of all they've held in faith falls away as faulty foundations give way, but it's all for the good as we begin to create anew again.

Let us focus now on enabling the full truth to come forward on all matters, so that no forces remain in effect that can check the truth's forward progress. Call for it, open a place for it. Only when the truth is discovered can healing occur and restructuring of our character begin. Some things may be extraordinarily shocking, yet allow them to come forward and be known so that something better will be known.

"Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain." Pay attention to your soul's directional compass and pledge allegiance to a Higher Authority than we've allowed ourselves to follow prior.

Best,
Claire

Dissipating Wilma - Let's Stop Creating Disasters

2005-10-20T05:09:00.000-07:00

After Katrina, weather trackers kept the public on high alert status for the oncoming Rita. We had, it would seem, become a nation fearing hurricanes. We were daily notified we're in the path and millions of people around the nation focused on the storm and its damaging potential. Rita slammed in. Now we are on watch for Wilma.

When will we learn that what we focus on expands? Let's stop contributing to disasters. It is time now to take our attention off the fear and support, instead, peace and well-being. (To see, in a book filled with colorful photos, demonstrations of the power of our thoughts to change the shape of physical things, see A Message from Water by Dr. Emoto from Beyond Words Publishing).

Immediately and throughout the next few days, see the oceans surrounding Florida and the entire Gulf region and Yucatan as calm and if you notice or think of the picture of Wilma, calm her and allow her to dissapate out to sea. Know that you will not be alone as we all join in with this intent.

I wish you well,
Claire

Are We Connecting with the Pain of Others?

2005-10-08T19:15:00.000-07:00

The U.S. and its citizens have had its wake-up storm experience with the back to back Katrina-Rita hit along the Gulf coast in which entire cities were decimated, people suffered lack, and fear, and many hundreds died. We've seemed isolated from it before, and yet it did awaken us to a very personal/cultural view of the results of such destructive force and rescue confusions. It touched the hearts of all of us who related the suffering of others to our own lives, bridging us into aspects of understanding our Oneness with all. Yet, in the U.S. within weeks there is rebuilding and planning and commerce beginning to commence ("casinos just like in Las Vegas" the mayor envisions)

This week in Pakistan/India an a major earthquake hit, killing 3,000 people and devastating huge areas. Photos show entire huge buildings that collapsed on people, schools smashing children, etc. Now, let us look at this and feel again a bond of relating, empathy, and desiring to help and ease the suffering.

It takes courage to lead with our hearts, both in events of tragedy and, as well, in leading out day to day lives differently than before. Looking out upon the world and walking within it in ways that build and unify and uplift and bridge the landscape of our private as well as public worlds rather than walking in ways that judge and attack/destry, promote fearfully and divide. How have you allowed your own life to be changed that betters the tone and tempo of your own as well as impact others in your circle (even if only in subtle ways)? In what new ways can you face your daily work? Spend time relating with work or neighborhood acquaintances? Heal the cracks in family or friendship ties? Influence the decisions of governing agencies? Tend to the wounded in other countries - and down your own street?

Best,
Claire

Listening Skills? - Checks - Bush - Katrina - Authority

2005-09-08T18:57:00.000-07:00

During my 20 year career in management (which I left a decade ago thankfully), and also through various interpersonal training opportunities, one of the most emphasized skills necessary for success was lauded to be "learning to listen."

Thus, trainers un-numbered would teach(and still do teach) listening skill exercises such as: "Be interested". "Repeat back what they said." "Ask questions about what they said." etc etc.

The trainers only got it half right -- meaning they got it wrong. Listening to what you're about to say before you say it is equal if not more important than listening to what someone is saying to you.

Listening is the most important skill, but it's most important and enlightening to listen to what YOU have just said. Chances are you've blown it, demonstrated your total lack of empathy, humanity, understanding of the conditions/lives of your employees/family member/lover/neighbor... or citizen of a flooded state.

What we say is habitually based on our assumption that life for all is intrinsically like our own life and that everyone respects and likes us that way. Both are huge and incorrect assumptions that plow over the needs and sensitivities of those around us - or can effect us for good.

Here's some examples:
a) In one software company I worked for, the recently hired Director of IT (about 6 weeks with us) was handed his personal check in the hallway by the HR manager as she made her rounds to management. The IT Director accepted the check and laughed, saying (out loud), "What's this? Another check? I haven't even opened the last envelope yet." Dozens of nearby employees trying to afford the rent/food/child care/schooling on an every two week delivered paycheck heard "I'm making more dough than I need or can use." (The comment was even dumber if it wasn't true, don't you think?). If he'd listened to himself with sensitivity for the lives of others around him, he might have not made such a blunder.

b) When President Bush shows up for a quick tour of Katrina's devastation and says at the same press conference that: the FEMA Director is doing a good job (about whom all the press have shown timelines proving there was massive delays in response) ; followed by a statement that a (well- to- do) state official's home was completely - (he repeats) "completely destroyed too" and that he (Bush) looks forward to sitting on the rebuilt's house's porch, while he's in the midst of a region where tens of thousands of people are left with nothing, including no water for days...Well, let's just say there's a difference between the perspective of the person who said those things and the perspective of tens of thousands of displaced people, many of whom were living at the time in a New Orleans stadium where they were being raped, the toilets didn't work, and food and water were scarce and mothers feared their children would die. (Even if Bush didn't see this on his tour - and he couldn't have because he didn't go there - he could have watched it blaring from TV screens where the film made the destruction and anguish clear)

On the other hand, if President Bush had also mastered the art of listening to what others had to say -- he would have heard the painful cries for care, for sustenance and left his vacation earliar, released the military to help, air dropped water/food/medicine.

c) Here's an example courtesy of Barbara Bush (President's mother) : She stated on 9/5, in a segment at the top of the show American Public Media's Marketplace program (and numerous others) where she is on a tour of the Astrodome housing evacuees of Katrina that "Almost everyone I’ve talked to says we're going to move to Houston." Then she added: "What I’m hearing, which is sort of scary (italics mine - ck), is they all want to stay in Texas. Everyone is so overwhelmed by the hospitality. And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this--this (she chuckles slightly) is working very well for them."

Okay, so Barbara was probably taken back and not at her best, because she has never been surrounded by so many (thousands of) poor (or those whom she assumed had been poor before a hurricane destroyed their lives), much less black people, in her entire life (whom it must be stated weren't at their best either).

So, per her comments, Barbara's scared they all want to stay in Texas (her state), and (here it comes, are you listening?), these people had been so poor before that living jammed in a stadium with all their possessions gone, family members missing or dead, missing medicines, and wearing borrowed clothes, and having no idea how they are going to rebuild their lives, etc., is better than their lives before. She also was assuming that these bedraggled people had been destitute. Perhaps they just didn't think such massive disruption was possible, or that if they lived 20 miles or 60 miles inland that they'd have their lives turned upside down. But thousands inland have no homes, too.

Others hear Barbara saying that Barbara thinks all blacks are poor. Is it possible?

So, these are just three examples of how a person can fail to understand themselves (not to mention an outside situation) by failing to listen to the words we state that express our beliefs about others, and the scope of understanding of the immediate situations around us. We all do this. What do the words we voice reveal about us - and how do our words affect others?

The only authority that is worthy of being believed and followed is authority utilized for the well being and betterment of people's lives, society, and the world balance. Voice that,help create that, and you'll be fine - so will others.

Yours in Radical Peace,
Claire Krulikowski

Radical Peace, HAARP, Hidden Agendas, and Reconciliation?

2005-09-06T20:29:00.000-07:00

I've been asked how to reconcile the concept of living a Radical Peace with not only the "devastation of storms such as Katrina, the Administration's political blunders, and the likelihood of the military use of HAARP (military program for weather modification in existance since 1992, with other programs preceding it for decades prior) in actually whipping this hurricane into the surging fury it became 'quite suddenly' ".

Maintaining the clear vision of radical peace means that reconciliation does not exist nor is it required. Reconciliation would mean an attempt to have radical peace live with these other conditions, and that is not desired or possible. With radical peace we live as if in the eye of what seems to those not in the eye like a hurricane of emotions and news, yet in a higher vantage point than ground zero. From our vantage point we can see through the illusions, feel the heart of it, speak the truth about it, and lend our energy to healing the area and lifting limitations that will clear a passageway of truthful information to the heart of those in doubt and open passageways enabling the needed goods and services to reach those in need.

It is easy to be drowned or tossed wildly to and fro in the tumult of "disasters"; that is the habits we have grown accustomed to living by. So it is easy to see ourselves, our loved ones and become vicerally engaged, yet have no doubt, that accepting your self at ONE with those caught in the storm, left homeless, without adequate food, water, and sanitation, with children in danger of dying from malnourishment and disease, is the source of your freedom and their freedom. In its way, that is a good thing, because it shows your recognition deep, deep within you that we are all ONE. However, to become viscerally ensnared leaves you in dispair and powerless to lend your energies to raise the energy of these areas; you drown before being able to reach those you desire to rescue. On the other hand, to treat it as just "the news", perhaps as a self-protection mechanism, perhaps out of habit, breaks that bond we share with others in need upon Terra. So, of all those, it is the spiritual leveling rod of Oneness that weaves our web, our net, our humanity, our solutions.

It calls us to recognize ALL of it an illusion, because wherever there is lack of concern for those in need, wherever there is pain and fear, plots for control, etc., it is all based on beliefs in illusions. Radical peace sees the illusions of powerful people who don't share emotional concerns for the masses of humanity, but let policies and procedures and plans halt any potential opportunity to unite with and run to the aid of the poor and impoverished; Radical peace sees the illusions of powerlessness enculturated into the lives of people no matter where they live; Radical peace sees the illusory belief systems that allow people to be hypnotized into believing the statements and policies of governing officials rather than the mandate of God to care for all (as a dear friend once told me, "No one shall be truly fed, until not one person is hungry"). So, where does your allegiance lie?

And, yes, Radical Peace sees the illusory positioning and plots of officials and organizations that are designed to garnish power and wrest control for key individuals/organizations.

Once acknowledged, the fear previously stirred by illusions can either continue to capture a person, or the acknowledgement from a higher ground can free a person from the grasp of the illlusions; the latter because, once acknowledged, it is not the shadows that are our concern any more. We don't keep our eyes steeled only onto them anymore. Just a slight tilt of perspective means we focus our loving energies on the "hot spots" for healing, and thus lift the barriers that have kept the illusions in place. We act reponsibly so others act responsibly and, too, so some others are held responsible, and in the wash of all of that a great unravelling takes place. The immediate, unbounded public response to Katrina has contributed greatly to a massive unravelling whose effects will be seen. Already some hostile political plans regarding Iran have had to be shelved as a result of the compassion - and the critical eyes - surging up from Katrina.

Yet, what about HAARP and the plans of some to utilize it for political and military muscle? Well, what is HAARP, many of you are asking. On the surface, it's a research program and it even has its own website. Check http://www.haarp.alaska.edu/. However, it is also held to be the latest incarnation of weather and environmental modification technologies that date back decades (HAARP, itself has been holding experiments since the early 1990s). See another couple of websites, such as http://www.crystalinks.com/haarp.html and http://www.bariumblues.com/ .

Is it a threat? Well whenever it's used it provides a danger to life and the ways of free governance various peoples are accustomed to. Is it illusory? Well, yes, in that it is not based on a focus of life enhancement and anything that isn't is chasing illusions of other orders.
How do I reconcile such things with Radical Peace? Again, this, too, cannot be reconciled. It is not an acceptable way of living and we do not desire to reconcile with/accept an undesirable life. HAARP is outside the bounds of peace. The belief systems (and their cloaking) upon which such programs are based are to be undone. Yet so many people would not know, or complete disavow the possibility of such things existing. Combine the waking to their existance with a waking to more personal and direct focus on creating a well cared for life for all people feeds the unraveling. Radical peace focuses on what is desired and that freed focus allows things "other" to reach general awareness, for systems or investigations to begin, for more truths to come to center stage.

Radical peace thrives with are active engagement in living and creating life in accordance with a Higher Authority for the goodness of all.

Meanwhile, on another level of note, if you have some type of housing (short or long term) you can offer to people who lost everything in Katrina so they have a place to begin sorting their lives out, check what you can do at website: http://www.hurricanehousing.org/?id=5959-6308997-xy5ZnpT9uRqd3G16bSd0Ow . (If it doesn't open when you click on it, just copy and paste it into your browser, and "go.").

Blessings,
Claire Krulikowski

Join Candlelight Vigil Wednesday Aug 17th at 7:30 p.m

2005-08-15T17:31:00.000-07:00

I am reprinting an e-bulletin from from MOVEON.ORG in order to help spread the news about a way we can all link together and demonstrate the desire and strength of peace. Simple - show up with a candle and maintain a focused and peaceful gathering. Here's the bulletin:

"On Saturday, President Bush went on a bike ride. According to news reports, his schedule also included "a nap, some fishing, and some reading."1 But President Bush refused to meet with Cindy Sheehan, the grieving mother who lost her son in Iraq. Cindy is fast becoming an international spokeswoman against the war. But now, it's up to all of us to show that she's not alone in demanding answers from the president.

"Cindy has asked supporters to start candlelight vigils in our communities to remind people of the terrible price of war. So, MoveOn, TrueMajority and Democracy for America have teamed up to organize nationwide "Vigils for Cindy Sheehan" (and for all military and gold star families) on this coming Wednesday, August 17th, starting at 7:30 PM local time.
Since Saturday, folks have agreed to host close to 300 vigils, but we need to do better than that. Hosting a vigil doesn't take much time, but it'll offer lots of people in your community a way to connect. We've prepared a kit that walks you through exactly what you need to do. Can you host a vigil in your community?
Check here to see if there is a vigil in your neighborhood already.
http://political.moveon.org/event/cindyvigils/?id=5892-6308997-aB42xLKofgG1buIzJaz_PQ&t=3 (if you can't click to read, simply copy and paste it into your browser and "go").
If none are presently planned, click on the link (or copy and paste into browser and "go") below to host a vigil.
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=837&id=
When you host a vigil, you'll fill out an online form indicating where your vigil will be located. Then, MoveOn, True Majority and Democracy for America members in your community will log on to our website and be able to find your vigil and attend it. We've made it easy for you to manage your vigil, with tools to limit the size of the vigil, communicate with people who will be attending, and more.
Otherwise, you can find a vigil to attend in your neighborhood at:
http://political.moveon.org/event/cindyvigils/?id=5892-6308997-aB42xLKofgG1buIzJaz_PQ&t=4

Here is what Cindy said about the vigils: "I invite mothers everywhere to stand up with me so that no more of our sons and daughters lose their lives for a war based on lies and deception. Join me in demanding the truth—and an end to the war—by organizing vigils across the country, before one more mother's child is lost."

If you're an Iraq veteran, or a family member of a soldier, it'd be especially meaningful for you to join us. Bring a photo of your loved one to remind all of us what is at stake. Two great organizations, Gold Star Families for Peace and Military Families Speak Out, are leading the way to make the voices of military families heard loud and clear. Thousands of people are already doing a lot—organizing events and more—to help bring Cindy's stand to communities across America. Will you help too?

Hosting a vigil is really simple. All you have to do is choose the location, invite some friends and get some candles. If you can't host, it's really easy to attend one—just RSVP, get some candles and show up.
These vigils aren't rallies or places to give long-winded speeches. They are moments to solemnly come together and mark the sacrifice of Cindy and other families. We're asking people to gather for just a half hour or so. We've put together an easy way for you to sign-up to host a vigil or attend one. Once you register your vigil, we'll invite other MoveOn members in your community to join your vigil.
If you can't host, we welcome everyone to attend a candlelight vigil. Please click below to get started.
http://political.moveon.org/event/cindyvigils/?id=5892-6308997-aB42xLKofgG1buIzJaz_PQ&t=5
If we all join together and do our part we can show the sort of public support for Cindy the president can’t ignore. Thanks for all you do.
–Tom, Nita and MoveOn moms Carrie, Marika and Joan"

Vacation & the London Bombing

2005-07-19T20:10:00.000-07:00

Two notes today:
Why no posts for awhile?
First, there has not been a posting for some time, partly because I have been on vacation (or preparing for my vacation) along the Oregon coast, camping at Harris Beach State Park; attended tidepool and medicinal plant tours led by the Ranger, etc. Though it drizzled for several days, there is so much beauty in both the wooded hillsides, cliffs, and rugged shore that running through the wet dunes, exploring, or simply sitting for long stretches of time was charming no matter what the weather. Every once in awhile, we all need to "simply be."

London bombing
There has been the bombing of the London transport system, with its many stories of death, pain as well as miracles. One person's story stood out for me that might be ignored in the midst of the others - the story of the mother of one of the teenage suicide bomber. Worried about the type of rough life he was starting to become involved with in their poorer neighborhood, the family had sent him back to Pakistan for a time, hoping he would become grounded in better/different influences in their native country.

Place yourself in this mother's shoes, the feelings of a mother desperate for her son's welfare, trying in non-affluent circumstances to do what she could, only to learn that this one who tugged at her heart was the source of so much hurt to others. Imagine her pain. Imagine the types of pain echoing within the teen's mind that might have led to his choice (if it was, indeed, his choice) to become a suicide bomber. Do you have son, daughter, brother or sister, nephew, cousin, niece, neighbor? Relate to her and her son as if they were members of your own family (they are).

Introduce an antidote into this aspect of the situation, too:

Many people are already praying for the victims. That is good.
Also, pray for/"talk with" this mother, that her pain be elevated to some new level of understanding and peace, and she release the personal burden of any guilt from her own life, consciousnes, and soul.
Pray for/"talk with" the bombers and planners with genuine desire they
Seek new perspectives and levels of awareness concerning this, beyond the acts themselves. There are reasons for everything - yet we often only concentrate on the guilt or blame reasons, often failing to seek out the overriding, long term healing benefits or awakenings such acts bring about concerning, for example, the waste and violation of using violence, the level of human dispair that brings such motivations into such acts, how policies or prejudice can influence people. More to the point, we fail to understand how love, understanding, compassion, assistance -- albeit, beliefs in peace and new ways of interacting and governing would create other circumstances. So...look upon behavior in relation to what we could believe and do differently to create new scenarios.

Wage peace...for the mother, the children, the local neighbor or family member, and all the individuals making up our human family the world over...Wage peace in our thoughts, words, and deeds -- and how we view every circumstance.

Three Quotations That Caught My Eye

2005-07-03T08:50:00.000-07:00

How does the information and sentiment of these quotes affect you?

How To Lead The People:
"...of course the people don't want war.... But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship ...the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country" Hermann Goering, Nazi

Individual Responsibility:
"Individuals have international duties which transcend the national obligations of obedience.therefore [individual citizens] have the duty to violate domestic laws to prevent crimes against peace and humanity from occurring." : Nuremberg War Crime Tribunal, 1950

Priorities Too Dear:
"A strange species we are. We can stand anything God and nature can throw at us save only plenty. If I wanted to destroy a nation, I would give it too much, and I would have it on its knees, miserable, greedy, sick." -John Steinbeck (1902-1968), Letter in The Washington Post, 28 Jan 60

Peace Be With You,
Claire

Before the Invasion, There Was No Insurgency

2005-06-27T19:33:00.000-07:00

A cause for reflection.
Does the situation that exists in Iraq now look different to you from what you were told to expect when a war was being marketed? A decision based on false perspectives has a faulty underpinning. Let me remind you:

Before the invasion, there was no insurgency. In fact, there was no "Muslim" or "Islamic" or "Jihad" in what had been run politically as a very secular Iraq. Authorities who warned that an invasion could spark greater violence and anti-American hatred were ignored.

It was also a functional country with national health and hospital care, thriving businesses and car sales, a generally ongoing economy, cities and houses and buildings in one piece, running electricity and water, and roads that could be traversed.

There was no violence.People walked the streets freely and welcomed the few westerners into their homes who had come to their country as observers (having followed many of the visitors daily or weekly personal email messages, there were close and numerous bonds formed with people from the middle and lower classes). The people presented themselves in good spirits and humility.

It was also a nation of feudal war lords whom their people respected and followed in the ways of thousands of years. The nation (as many in that and other parts of the world) also had a dictator known to do cruel things and who lived very prosperously (and yet who rarely messed with the feudal lords.), and

It was a nation who had actually done away with the WMDs, as various official agencies and past weapon inspectors went on public record stating. It was a nation whose regular army had been devastated morale wise and hardware-wise, according to other experts (who also were rarely televised or given credence as the coopted media presented the american public with administration's pro-war PR)

After our invasion, our troops and imbedded media were shocked at the retreating army and the lack of air defense. Thousands of civilians died/die still - in air raids and in shoot outs.
The infrastructure (running electricity, water, roads, economy) collapsed and people still struggle daily for water, food, electricity. Hospitals are overtaxed (or destroyed) for the devastation and illness that became rampant. Hundreds of thousands of people protest several times for the U.S. to leave once Saddam is out of power. People became tired, hungry, tired, frustrated, and angry.

THEN, an insurgency developed. THEN, religious factions raised their voices and grabbed guns. Then Jihad strikes deep and we hear of the insurgency growing and becoming more organized, aided and abetted with "hundreds" or "thousands" of foreign fighters rushing across the border, daring to cross the line in the sand that had been drawn on our political and military planning boards.

The latest news has the VP saying things are getting better (again), while everyone else in authority, including the secretary of defense, has gone on record that the insurgency could go on for many years. Not the pretty picture painted for us in years past?

Have much easier it would have been if we had chosen the tactics urged by those other nations/other agencies/other individuals. We could have spared ourselves an insurgency and not fanned the flames of jihad.

When you do unto others what you do not want/fear they will do to you, you've ensured you get what you've given. It's been experienced time and time again. When we learn it, we will turn our beliefs and allegiance away from such paths and no longer offer blind loyalty to political and military leaders, because we will know (at last) they don't supply the answers and they are not looking out for our welfare.

Peace be with you,
Claire

The Reason Our Media Doesn't Report Real News

2005-06-18T20:50:00.000-07:00

Robert Kennedy, Jr. was speaking in Ashland, Oregon this Saturday and answered a question that has always bugged the writer and investigative journalist in me:

"Why isn't our media reporting the real news?" Despite claims by a political party that the media is "liberal", it isn't. To those who don't agree with the policies or beliefs being promoted by those making that claim, it is obvious that not only isn't the media "liberal" (as if that was such a dirty word), but that every significant topic of actual "news" isn't hitting the airwaves across the board whether in TV, radio, or news.

Kennedy, who has what I can only describe as a massive and encyclopedic memory for facts, figures, quotes, names, and dates and who talks without notes of any kind provided this fact:

He said that by law the media had an obligation to cover the news and to cover news affecting their community, and to cover all sides of an issue/event. That law was called the Fairness Doctrine. It also forbade the consolidation of businesses, including the broadcasting companies. "The airwaves belonged to the public...(the Fairness Doctrine) mandated local control and diversity of control, " Kennedy explained and that was the idea behind the writing of that law, which was called the Fairness Doctrine. “They used to have an obligation until 1988. (It was) the proviso that they used them to advance democracy and promote the public interest. That was the law."

That law and responsibility was abolished by Ronald Reagan in 1988.

Since that time mergers and consolidations have become endemic, and Kennedy points out that the media has focused more on gaining returns for its shareholders than keeping citizens properly informed as they were once mandated to do.

“(Now), instead of reporting the news, they’re entertaining us. They’re appealing to the prurient interest that all of us have in the reptilian core of the brain for sex and celebrity gossip. So they give us Michael Jackson, Lacey Peterson and Kobe Bryant, but they’re not telling us about global warming, the mercury in our food or particulates in the air which are causing our children to have asthma attacks. The typical American, when he learns that he can no longer fish locally — which is true in 19 states not a single freshwater fish is safely edible, in our 48 states at least some of the fish are now inedible — (the citizen) is not connecting that to the president’s policies, which he should be.” (He also revealed that recent medical tests revealed that there is twice the amount of Mercury stored in his body than agencies consider "safe." His doctor told him that there is no doubt that if he was a woman and gave birth, the child would suffer some type of retardation and/or blindness).

The reporting of this "whole truth" information is scarce and the lack of news coverage has resulted in a population that is under-informed as well as misinformed by talk radio celebrities, such as Rush.

“We’re the best entertained and least informed people on earth. There was a report, ... a massive survey that was done at the time of the election by the University of Maryland. And what it showed was that the values that Americans share — Republican and Democrats — are identical. There was no difference between red states and blue states, no moral difference, no values difference.“ The difference was informational,” he said.

The vast majority of ALL news media -(80 percent of newspapers and 6,000 radio stations) are owned by 6 major corporations. The business of news has become gaining market share and profit. It is also now in the business of promoting the policies near and dear to the corporations who own them. One corporation he named even makes the +100 stations under their leadership sign a contract stating they will not include negative news about the President of the U.S. Kennedy also quoted specific stats about the huge numbers of investigative journalists whose positions have simply been eliminated (over 80% of investigative journalists positions have been completely whited out, for example), so there's no one to dig teeth into stories that could effect change revealing information benefiting local constituents and the electorate.

Kennedy asserts that this informational deficit is directly attributable to the lack of coverage by the press. “It’s not that people don’t care about these issues,” Kennedy says, “it’s that they don’t know about them."

By the way, the book of his that was released in 2004 and is now in paperback is called: "Crimes Against Nature: How George W. Bush and his Corporate Pals Are Plundering the Country and Hijacking Our Democracy (HarperCollins, 2004).

- Claire

U.N. Funds Cut - The Pot Calling the Kettle Black

2005-06-17T19:04:00.000-07:00

The House of Representatives passed a bill cutting U.S. funds to the United Nations by half. It probably won't pass through the Senate or White House, but it's a nice publicity move by lawmaker Rep. Hyde.

Quoting scandals (such as sex scandals and rip off of funds in the U.N.'s Iragi Food for Oil program) the U.N. is targeted for a financial powerplay. That is to say that the largest international coordinating agency of relief efforts (medical immunizations and medical care, food, humanitarian work on other fronts, terrorism reports, and peacekeeping force is having needed funds "voted out". This by the legislature of a country known for its fair share of scandal (environmental impact reports re-written by an oil lobbyist, presidential sex scandals, prisoner abuse, suspicion of misleading reports to justify an invasion into another country, financial irresponsibility in driving up an astronomical deficit, cutting social and educational programs in order to shore up dwindling national resources that have gone to support a war, Haliberton fraud, suspicion of voter scandal, etc.

The idea is to force reform by threatening funding withholding. Most everyone else says this does not supply a good way to handle reform, cuts funds much needed by the suffering individuals in other lands, and places another separating wedge between the U.S. and other nations -- at a time and for purposes calling for greater unity.

People habitually look outside of themselves and throw blame on others for that which within themselves they either know they do, fear, feel quilty about, feel inadequate in and so manipulate for power purposes, etc. We need to look at ourselves as a country and as individuals and ask "Why would we do such a thing?" Fear and the desire for power to shore up fear? Fear and the desire to throw negative attention on another agency and away from the U.S. government's areas of weakness (called by others "corruption")?

We can call it and interpret it and dress it up all we want. It's a shell game of self deceipt on a global scale, benefiting no one ( Our tax dollars at work?). And just imagine all the trees that are having to be cut down to supply the paper needed to print out all the official legislative reports on the bill, all the additional newspaper space it takes up, all the additional emotional energy it dredges up and wastes. The better focus of all this energy and money would be towards focus activity on both reform and supplying programs with funds appropriately and quickly.

Radical Peace holds you outside the angst and centered in "what is important here for the benefit of those most needing to benefit" and "how can this be resolved on holy ground".

Best,
Claire

An Outside View - What You Read Is Not What You "Get"

2005-06-14T20:32:00.000-07:00

Something odd, but not totally unexpected, occurred as a result of my previous two blogs (read June 13, and June 12th).

After the June 13th blog (Only Two Forces and Paths to Take), several people sent direct email responses to me (rather than using the blog "comment" response ), all of them almost matching each other and the two conversational lines can be summarized as follows:

'The article was great/right on/very insightful and so true -- There are so many people who are hung up with their fears and they're continually driven to do such bad things to themselves/others/and back such awful political legislation. We feel sorry for them, but they just don't get it.'

and

'Can't wait for Bush to get his!' /'Why can't he see what he's doing?'

In both lines of conversation people are, as usual, pointing outside, away from themselves, to the others who have yet to "get it." You might observe accusations/separation/judgements/insecurities/anger in these "well-meaning" responses. Yet, a key factor in the June 13th blog is that we are ourselves responsible and that we can't point the finger at others, because we are generally unaware of how much we are all tied up into doing the same thing we accuse/fear/etc others of doing and in doing that we pour the foundation supporting continuance of the same old-same old.

Funny, eh? So, let's rephrase the question above and see how it and another feels to each of us. Okay, say these aloud: "Why can't I see what I'm doing?" and "What are my beliefs/actions/responses/thoughts/contributing to the world?"

The "morale (as it were) of the June 13th blog was to become aware of our SELVES and all the little and big ways we create, support, and weave the tapestry of war in our lives and into the energy of lives around us and the world. We are culpable. As Socrates (and plenty others have said) "Know Thyself." We can also be creating, supporting, weaving peace.

Become aware of the hidden recesses, peek under assumptions about who, how and why we are and why we respond to/plan things/nurse feelings in certain ways; realize that we have been dooming our future to repeat the past patterns when we live according to our past and our weaknesses rather than our strengths in our present.

Say this aloud: "As I release the ties that bind me, I free others."

Are you living in ways that sustain, support, and create peace or war? What's the payoff for you?

Wishing you a Radical Peace,

Claire Krulikowski (I do hope I continue receiving emails after writing this blog!!!!)

P.S. By the way, as a follow up to my blog of June 12th (Mark Felt's Real Significance) , in which I talked about how "connecting the dots" can lead to the conclusion that within the next couple of months a major scandal might "peek beneath the assumptions" held of and by the U.S. administration, pay attention to a news story about the memo uncovered by a British journalist detailing Bush's plans to fabricate information to justify an attack on Iraq. Some people are calling it "the smoking gun."

Only Two Forces and Paths to Take

2005-06-13T19:27:00.000-07:00

There are only two driving forces and directions in life: One is fear, the other is love.

Fear acts out of and builds on motivations of guilt, defense, anger, violence, blame, separation, and sees threats to personal existence everywhere: work, home, personal and professional relationships, world events, etc. It judges all around in terms of threat. It seeks to build the present on the past in order to ensure the future works out the same.

Love acts out of and builds on motivations of unity, helpfulness, empathy, compassion, solutions, support, generosity, and sees creative potential and similarities in all things. It doesn't hold the past as its springboard, sees what is now and creates the future from there only. The judgement that might have prevailed before is released so the tension and fears and threats, etc of the past do not intrude.

Fear limits and seeks seperation. Love joins and seeks to unite.

It's easy to look outside of ourselves, at the world's events and observe how running governments or organizations on the Fear Factor prompts decisions to attack, to withhold, etc. (And isn't it always so easy to see fault in another?)

It is less obvious for us to see we all contribute to the Fear Factor with our own entrained viewpoint, attitude, actions. We are all feeding fear and imbibing on fear -- or NOT, depending on how we choose each moment to relate to ourselves, people, and events. How we relate to the "external"stimulus (even if only in our thoughts or physical emotional response) reflect how you feel about yourself and demonstrates your motivation.

Example, if you have a new boss, does your internal dialogue keep track of how she/he's doing in terms of how things had been, or how he had been before/should be now, or how things always are? Are you afraid she/he might fire you or are you doubting yourself? Are you quietly waiting for she/he to fail?

Another example: Are you pissed off at the market checker? Are they going to do something "bad" to you, such as make you late? Or are they, perhaps based on their physical appearance, "typically stupid." With those kinds of reactions, you've (a) projected yourself to a different location at a (b) future time where you are experiencing "late" even though you are simply right now standing on the checker line. Making derogatory judgements about the checker also places you in a position of separation (obviously forgetting, forgiving, and/or ignoring all the times you've been less than efficient for others).

That tonnage of angst, fear, judgement you've opened yourself to experience hurts YOU a lot and affects the other by type-casting them/the situation and making it "how things/they always are"- and it/you are creating WAR.

When we can understand our own internal wars and forgive and forget our fears, we offer ourselves and others love and build up our strengths rather than continue to work the muscles of our weaknesses. Our energies can tie the world in a knot, but with each one we individually untie, something magical happens - We begin also releasing others to release the notes in them.

LIVING A RADICAL PEACE works news muscles and they're used to help build anew. It's not easy for us to face our own complicity. Then when we face it, it can seem to be harder to begin to implement change (old habits die hard?). Yet, if we always continue to be aware and take our focus back to the implications of love, we can begin to see how different our typical reaction/thought was (and how much it really hurt us as well as them/situation) from the radical new reality we'd wish to create. Then we see the new path clearer and can take next steps with increased awareness and surity.

And, if you think you've "fallen down/failed" along the way, just be like a kid again -- Laugh, pick yourself back up, and get in the game!

- Claire

Mark Felt's Real Significance: Connect the Dots

2005-06-12T19:40:00.000-07:00

The Real Significance to Mark Felt's

Announcement that He's "Deep Throat."

Several years ago I was offered advice that boiled down to this: "Claire Krulikowski, connect the dots of your life. Connecting the dots will tell you more about the whole of your life and where you're going than just the individual dots you've been focusing on."

That same advice works in preparing for upcoming events in the world also. The media went wild when, just as May was ready to slip into June 2005, Mark Felt came forward as being "Deep Throat," the man who some thirty years ago had fed Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein's information that had helped topple a fraudulent, illegal, and dangerous Presidential administration. It led to the only resignation by a sitting U.S. President in history.

Interestingly (and you should start tingling when you read this part), it had been a month of June when the Watergate burglars were caught 30 years ago, and a single reporter (Woodward) thought some of what he heard in their courtroom arraignment didn't sound quite right...and he was off and running for answers and therein lies a tale, a book, a movie, and the long time mystery of "who was Deep Throat?", now revealed as being a Washington insider - the #2 man at the FBI during Nixon's reign.

RESULT?

Mark Felt's announcement has gotten everyone in the U.S. (how about you folks abroad?) revisiting memories of Watergate and somewhere in those sparked thoughts is kindled the fact that a Presidential administration can be corrupt, that America and the President are not above the laws, and that though the agencies and citizens of the country kept believing in the President(and trying to "shoot" the messengers, i.e. the reporters and the Washington Post), eventually people understood they'd been misled in a real big way.

So - Expect a big revelation within the next couple of months regarding the Bush Administration which, without the preparation managed due to Felt's annoucement, might have dynamited the psyche of millions of Americans. However, now we can recall thanks to Watergate's Dot and Deep Throat's dot, there is a history of such possibilities. It doesn't seem so out of the questions.

There's already been other Bush dots beginning to form the picture, such as, for example, that he lied to get the U.S. into war with Iraq, and another dot about oil being the prime U.S. interest in that region, dating back into the 90s.
Plus, there's that other dot of the mindset that provides room for "reality TV" scenarios that just might play a part, no matter how subtle in this.

WHAT REVELATION MIGHT IT BE?

Let's consider something that hasn't been given much thought, much less credence, by a majority of Americans yet, such as voting fraud/stealing of the election!!!!

Yes, it had been debated before, people cried foul but, so far, the proof has not been able to come to the surface. However...what happens when there is undeniable and traceable PROOF. (FYI, Watergate took years to completely uncover. With the Quickening of info, I personally believe our upcoming "revelation" is going to come hard, fast, and down the middle, but we'll see). However, the scandal might be something else. I'm just putting my chips at this moment on stealing the election, because stealing the political election for Bush secured the block of financial and oil Interests to get the plan they wanted and needed implemented.

"Follow the money," Deep Throat advised Woodward regarding Watergate.

There are no accidents. A huge scandal will hit the Bush Administration and rattle Americans to the core, and, no matter the focus, the seeming anxiety and trauma will be beneficial, because it will (a) allow us all to examine what values are most important, (b) urge people to see themselves apart from the mythology of government and start placing trust in new directions and new dots to shift the future away from where they were being led prior.

Blog has been down awhile

2005-06-12T19:36:00.000-07:00

Apologies for my absence. For some mysterious reason, as soon as I loaded an "ad" feature to this blog, nothing I typed in ever made it to the public. Also couldn't access the host. It would be great if blog hosts also had emergency phone numbers for times like that.

Many months later, trying again. So far, so good.

Let's see what happens when I push this button...

Newsweek points out Dick Cheney's debate errors

2004-10-06T20:24:00.000-07:00

Below is the posting from Newsweek Magazine which tears to pieces VP Dick Cheney's statements during the U.S. Vice Presidential debates that occurred yesterday, Tuesday.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6192327/site/newsweek/ (just copy and paste it into your browser)

The purpose of posting it is not merely to clarify facts and straighten out misrepresentations. It is also another reminder that "all that was hidden (and attempted to be covered up) will be revealed." At this time in our evolution, there is no room for untruths, no excuses allowed for misleading people onto paths that are destructive to others. We are all held accountable; we are all responsible for our actions.

On a light note, I also believe it is also far better to dazzle others with brilliance rather than attempt to baffle them with bullshit.

- ashootingstar

Free read of a chapter from: A War Against Truth

2004-10-04T17:41:00.000-07:00

A couple of posts ago, I noted the release of the new book by Paul William Roberts entitled A War Against Truth, which is published in Canada.

Now, to read a chapter from this book, just go to the Globe and Mail website:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/ and, in their search, type in: A War Against Truth Paul William Roberts . It'll pull up a few selections from their archive, but click on the one regarding this particular book.

A noted author, historian, and university instructor, Paul William Roberts headed to Iraq just before the U.S. invasion. He lived there with the people through the coalition's entry and afterwards and shares the stories and experiences faced there in his unique style. This is a guaranteed good read!

- ashootingstar

Unspoken Spoils of Pre-Emptive War

2004-10-03T07:41:00.000-07:00

The net hasn't been tossed wide enough over the concept and decision to launch "pre-emptive war" which was the decision of the Bush Administration and has been a focus of the recent electoral presidential elections in the U.S. This is not merely a decision that can be decided by political decision nor a military decision, but one with spiritual ramifications and one speaking to the depth of a person's consciousness.

No one in the first U.S. Presidential debate spoke of the slaughter of innocents -- the deaths and mutilation and "Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome" of the citizens of the country of Iraq whose lives are shattered by "Shock and Awe" campaigns drawn on boards and virtual reality computer screens in the planning rooms of distant Pentagon's and White Houses.

As of this date I write this, there have been a minimum of 12,976 to a maximum of 15,033 innocent Iraqi's killed (see www.iraqibodycount.net) . The number mutilated and wounded, the numbers driven crazed by a civilian PTSS is uncounted; the number of those no longer able to work, the number of those who have lost so much and are drawn by grief and anger to now feel and act on a hate they had not felt before and join the "insurgents" is uncounted and disavowed. A whole new generation is born and raised into conflict and antagonism and pain that had not existed prior.

It is not merely our soldiers, it is not merely our families, it is not merely our industries, it is not merely our lives and lifestyles that matter. They matter.

So, the Pre-Emptor MUST have a defense for invading that is clear and undeniable: War cannot be waged when there is doubt or lack of evidence justifying it. War cannot be waged for vengence. War cannot be waged for profit. War cannot be waged to 'move things along', war cannot be waged to prove ones Might, war cannot be waged to prove righteousness -- Though all of these have rationalized many wars.

While Presidential contender Kerry used the phrase "global test" to describe this ability to withstand any criticism of fact, and to underscore that, in fact, the holes in the rationale for an Iraq invasion are big enough to drive several brigades through, he missed making a big point when even he forgot the "slaugher of innocents."

Administrations shrug these numbers off, stating they are "collateral damage." Those people are, in fact, our neighbors. Imagine yourself, for a moment, living in the suburbs of Baghdad for this last year, during the Shock and Awe air war, try sleeping in the middle of the night or eating breakfast or sending your kids outside to play or attend a weddingwhen you've no idea when a "precision attack" will land next door to you. Try feeling calm walking across a bridge to the market that is surrounded by foreign soldiers carrying big guns who are known to be nervous and have "accidentally" shot others living in your neighborhood.

War is a waste. (So is the debate.) War attacks symptoms. What caused the symptoms? What can be done to allevate the symptoms? Funnel funds and care on that, commit to fixing the foundation and lives and civilizations and cultures can then nurtured upon it.

Traditionally, the phrase "spoils of war" has been used to describe the riches invaders take from a country, yet the true spoils of war rot in the streets.

Just as it is more useful to pause before responding reflexively to a comment another makes - that pause allowing you to reconsider why you might be considering the statement shaping in your mouth and that pause allows you to rephrase a more meaningful and less "reactive" address - it is useful for leaders to pause before launching their plans and ensure their actions offer beneficial meaning and livelihood for all the people their plans will affect. When plans take precedence over people there is a value discrepency. No person, no culture is less valuable than another - or ours.

Consider, for example, the new personal meaning your choice regarding purposeful support and plans for war give to the following statement: ""Whatever you do unto the least of these, you do unto me."

- ashootingstar

MSNBC - Dateline special report: The last days of Jesus

2004-09-25T08:24:00.000-07:00

MSNBC - Dateline special report: The last days of Jesus

The report above appeared on the internet msnbc, 9/25/2004. The texts consists of interviews with scholars chatting about the "what happened" and "what really doesn't jive" in the biblical stories of Jesus' life and, particularly, his last 4 days. Within this full text , there is reference to the Radical Peace actions Jesus took as he walked, talked, taught to the people in the streets everyday. As summed up by one scholar, this was not a meek and mild man. His beliefs and the actions he took based on his beliefs threatened the foundations of the society and entire social struggle. He shook the conscience, he challenged the way things were.

Why are we sitting so comfortably? Why are we silent? What more can WE each do in alignment with a Higher Authority than our systems of governance?

- ashootingstar

Concerning A Thief in Baghdad

2004-09-02T05:53:00.000-07:00

Author Paul William Roberts spent time in Baghdad as the Americans launched their offensive (truly!) into Baghdad. His most recent book, A War Against Truth (Raincoast Books) is released in Canada this month, September, and shares what he saw while there. I'm a fan of his writing and perspectives, so I'm looking forward to reading his book which is sure to have information and insights overlooked by many others - and it's also sure to have information placed into new perspective and sensibilility.

While in Baghdad he wrote several magazine articles. Read this one for something fresh and "on point":

http://www.paulwmroberts.com/thiefofbaghdad.htm

Peace,
ashootingstar

Will We EVER Sign the Vietnam Peace Agreement?

2004-08-24T18:35:00.000-07:00

Every manner of behavior or policy that exists on the global, political, and personal scale is doing so only because there is sufficient quantity of the belief in it to continue its existence in whatever manner it is thriving (or not). True, some things may only be holding on due to emergency CPR being administered, but breathing they are, often as the shadow image that appears and wakens new and unsettled old feelings alert.

So, what's to be made of the controversy mounted by pundits and media regarding John Kerry's military record in Vietnam, as well as the not so well run or successful campaign to unearth/denounce the Vietnam era National Guard records of non-Vietnam serving present President George W. Bush? Why do the media and members of the populace seem interested in discussing it, investigating it, and rehasing the "truth" and "values" of it over and over and over?

I'll offer a few observations on that score (other than that the news agencies have no clue what real journalism is anymore) that you may not have heard elsewhere:

On one physical level and nationally, the US. nation - as an incarnated "group" of individuals - has largely never come to accept an understanding of its political manipulation into that war. As the Pentagon Papers so clearly demonstrated, there was no attack on a U.S. vessel justifying a commitment of such a vast invasion, and, even if there had been, it would not have justified the years of pains done to the citizenry there and to U.S. soldiers and citizens. Vietnam was a bloody war of (par for the definition of war) much waste with no clear vision of redemptive value for all the carnage created in it. Rout and loss could gain no one anything substantial except as a touchstone to the conscience. Yet, it's not easy for any one or any people to accept they'd being misled.

Fear draws people close and protective. People may mourn the dead of that war, but not yet accept the consequences nor the potential good of that conflict. There is some level of hurt that exists that many people protect with a "justification layer." It's true in small and large situations. After receiving a massive personal shock individuals overwhelmingly seek sustenance in "how things had been." It's security people seek at such times, and mistakenly believe that "how things had been" is the secure way.

Second: Odd, isn't it, how one aspect of the battle that is now really playing out is physically as well as metaphorically regarding security. It's taken shape in a new way for us to look at. Today, it's security that individuals now choose to either "confront" and uphold or "face" and reshape. Questions regarding Vietnam, such as, "How could we have done that or allowed that?" is not a question easily accepted. It is easier to say, "We were justified. We had to do xyz. How dare a future presidential candidate have denounced us."
It is time to forgive. A new war is a tell-tale sign calling forth our attention. It is easier to fall back on tradition and myth and what has always been a tried and true understanding of how the world is "supposed" to be. It's easier still to not talk about it, but few people were silent while the killing spilled from Vietnam into our livingrooms during the 6 o'clock news. People either justified it and dug their feet in or denouced it by stepping out marching in the streets. The polarization in expression is just as clear, though less visible, now. It is time to forgive - because we're at war again.

Third: Yet every act of violence is a touchstone to our conscience and a gauge of what we believe and will or will not continence in our lives. In calling up, searching out, judging, the standard of military service for Kerry and Bush, the people (symbolically) come face to face with whether or not we fought hard enough (or at all), suffered sufficiently, and really deserve to be whom we say we are. Then people gauge the level of "suffering" or "cheating" of both men and decide who is more trustworthy and strong. It's hard to see where you're going when you're turned around.
Forth: The political chat about it all is a manipulative cycle coordinated by other agencies and a waste of individual energy until individuals distance themselves from the politics and see the metaphor and potential good, step away and understand the benefit of this for the good it brings to our conscience:To decide whether we desire to continue fighting old wars again, and again, and again in new and different ways and places. A RADICAL PEACE calls for us to detach ourselves from the malaise, promotion, and commotion, and stand on the rock of our soul's knowing to which no news agency or "spin doctor" can truly appeal or appreciate.
Fifth: It's pointless to blame a decorated soldier of cowardice . It's pointless to blame a man for avoiding fighting. Each managed their path so as to be placed here today on the center stage wheree they can bring their experiences into view so that people who have bits of either or both within them might understand the many paths potentially in front of us, and have opportunities to forge the futures we desire.

Despite the fears and warnings raised by both political parties, on many issues neither of these two men truly hold (or state) a vision of exceptional change, and perhaps the reason is because they each represent (or are held back by) the ambivalent conscienceness of the people of the nation; because they each represent to some degree symptoms of old ways in different ways as well as differing visions of what shape their new world will take. It is choice. Perhaps, too, any credence given to aspersions cast upon a new candidate for leadership (symbolic) is due to a percentage of people still believing in blame and judgement (because, as noted earliar, people frequently accept behaving in ways we least like to be treated) and being too fearful to step out and chart truly new paths of behavior and care and constructive creation.

Yet change really happens one step at a time. It's easier to walk any path when we're facing forward.

So, let's just sign the Vietnam Peace Agreement that was placed on the table in 1/27/1973 and move on.

-ashootingstar

To Whom Do We Owe Allegiance?

2004-08-10T22:10:00.000-07:00

The foundation of my forthcoming book, A RADICAL PEACE:CREATING LIFE ANEW, rests on this question: "To Whose Authority Do We Each Owe Our Allegiance?" When we choose to follow the directives of physical authority figure such as a government directive, a military leader, a boss, a parent, a spouse, etc over our own sense of what is right concerning the wellbeing and treatment of ourselves or others short and longterm then we have chosen to follow a path apart from our own sense of ethics, value, responsibility, and spiritual guidance.

A Question of Allegiance

The question of allegiance to authority is a question that can be, though it is not actually yet, being pondered regarding the ill-treatment of Iraqi prisoners by U.S. forces. AND, this week we have heard that U.S. National Guard troops stationed in Iraq witnessed Iraqi authorites abusing prisoners and rushed in to protect the prisoners -- only to be told to "stand down," that it was not their responsibility (There had recently been a turnover of authority to Iraqi forces). Sadly, EVERY SOLDIER OBEYED.

Why did not one decide to disavow that order? The order wasn't accurate, for while duty may have transferred to these punitive Iraqi personnel, the responsibility for the welfare of the prisoners belongs to everyone witnessing events. To "stand down" in such situations is roughly equivalent to witnessing someone on the streets of a city you're visiting beating someone unmercifully and choosing to do nothing because "it's not your responsibilty."

Ingraining Obedience

The priming for such behavior was made in the preparatory groundwork:

Parents and friends of soldiers arrested in the Iraq prison scandel, for example, say the soldiers were just following orders and "that's what you are supposed to do in the military - follow orders."
Administration officials continue to attest that these were all isolated incidences despite mounting evidence that it was a wide-spread and condoned practice.
Some individuals continue to state that in war "these things happen" or that "you gotta do what you gotta do to get the information you need."

None of the horrors coming to light are truly surprising, though, because this is indeed the type of thing that happens when cultures and individuals choose to "NOT SEE" and accept the precepts and authority of a government and "superiors" over their own better judgement, over their spiritual instructions received from the time of youth, or, indeed, the simplicity of the golden rule's "common decency standard" that we do unto others as you would have done unto you.

Of all the soldiers within eye and earshot of act or photographs passed around from hand to hand why is it only one soldier said "This doesn't look right" and reported the situation. In a moment of such challenging choice, asking "what would God have me do?" levels the playing field. Why, more recently, when the order was given to the U.S. National Guardsmen to "stand down" did they not disobey that direct order?

Disavowing Our Knowing

International organizations spoke out about the Iraq prison abuse months and months before and were ignored by an administration chain that believed it held the sole authority over people and policy. While the media and leadership begin searching for whom to blame, and finding out "what did people know," surely we all know we knew better.

So, instead, a different question needs to be asked of everyone from soldier to general to politician to you and I: "No matter the directive (so far there has not yet been anyone attesting to being "ordered" to do any such thing) received, did it not at any moment strike you that what was being perpetuated in that jail or what you were specifically being asked to do was simply not decent or right?"

It was in that haloed momentous space between directive and action that awareness and choice existed so strikingly. It was then that our points of allegiance were drawn. Do we follow what God would have us do or an insititutionalized "boss?" The what and why of rationales matter little after that instantaneous moment of recognition of what we knew better than to do. We come face to face in the brief silence of that space between directive and act in which we knew "I know better than to do this."

A RADICAL PEACE hastens our attunement and level of service to humanity, as these statements attest:"We are mistaken when we believe that peace is exemplified by a lack of action, or, perhaps, by a personal calm that blithely ignores "reality." Peace is, actually, an energy of creation ..."*1"Peace is in fact feared by those running those institutions because peace undercuts the foundation of their control and profit motivation. So, nothing within our cultural structures motivates us to study peace much less achieve it! Instead we've inherited fears, judgements, assumptions, and attitudes...about the very basics of society and what constitutes order...*2"However, what we focus on expands. When we stand against something, we are focusing our energies upon it, lending our energies to the continuance of the battles, and we are being decidedly ineffective in attempting to live peacefully and create peace. We are also, as is typically the case, pointing a finger at others instead of considering our own culpability for any existing situation as well as our own responsibility for its continuance - and for its solution."*3

We each matter. Our every choice creates the form that the world's "reality" takes on.

Choose higher!
Wishing you peace,

ashootingstar

(*1, All asteriked quotations are copyrighted from the manuscript for the book, A RADICAL PEACE: CREATING LIFE ANEW,Copyright 2003, by Claire Krulikowski. All Rights Reserved.)

Hearing Is Not Believing (Is it?)

2004-07-31T14:18:00.000-07:00

It is rather easy for a person to be rocked about in their psychological and spiritual boat by every passing wave of occurance, statement, or belief system unless they're keeping their course and siting on a point that's beyond where forces (those waves of discombobulation) are seeking to draw their attention (seeking to keep them focused on exactly where they are in the storm tossed sea).

So, it's wise to recall there is a destination if we desire to head that way. It is wise to consider carefully statements made by individuals that may have a nice "sound bite" but lacks a sound foundation, and, indeed may be a deliberate deception that keeps us too confused to find a way out of the storm.

Let's take George W. Bush's July 30th address for example in which he sought to sway people from giving serious consideration to Democratic Presidential Nominee, John Kerry:

According to news reports (I'm reading MSNBC), George Bush declared: "They're (the Democratic ticket) going to raise taxes, we're not." -- That may sound quite disturbing to the public, and he came across sounding so definitive while rattling people's fear, didn't he?
However, it's incomplete. If we add what the John Kerry ticket has really said and which George purposely left out, how would it sound now as a soundbite to the American public: "They're going to raise the taxes of people earning over $200,000 and we're not." Hmmmm....
George W. Bush's speech that he was not turning back and that "results matter" was widely quoted. How many people heard the Kerry rejoinder, though, which was that "results do matter" and pointing out that Bush's policies have led to record deficits, skyrocketing health care costs, lower quality jobs, a military that is stretched too thin, and a nation isolated from its allies."

Hmmm...Well, every single person's focus and results can cause disaster - or wellbeing - for others. That's why it is so important to know what you desire in life and participate in creating only that. So, what is each candidate mirroring of own beliefs and desires and which results would you rather choose?
George Bush said that Kerry and Edwards "consistently oppose reforms that limit the power of Washington and leave more power in the hands of the people." Let me see, now, we have the Patriot Act that now allows the government to scan over my library book withdrawals, a desire on the part of the Bush's party to add a constitutional amendment defining what is done or not in a bedroom, a President who became President not by the Popular Democratic Vote (he lost that) but by a count of the electoral college (just try explaining that one to people overseas!); and there's plenty other areas of government oversight that could make your head spin.
How does that phrase go: America, "government by the people and for the people." Now, if indeed there was a significant move to take control out of the federal government's hands next week, would you bet that George Bush would not vote for reforms limiting the power of Washington and placing more power in the hands of the people. So, it seems that in statements such as that previously quoted, he's just reading the script of the "spin doctor" and marketing managers. It's best to ignore political marketing and get to the heart of the matter.
Bush stated that Kerry had not demonstrated any experience in reforming education or health care. Question: Did/has/does George Bush? Think so? You may have a difficult time proving that since President Bush neglected to specify his stellar numbers and actual accomplishments on an overhead projector for all to see. So, if we hear it, do we believe it?
Bush stated Kerry would erase gains made during the last four years in the economy and security. Since Bush has been steadily employed these last few years and earning over $200,000, I can understand how he would feel confident in the economy (and a little shaky about that tax hike on the wealthy), though the underpaid, unemployed and under-employed, the hungry, the sick citizens might not be able to relate. As for security, Kerry's too big a military man himself to start unscrewing things. (Wish we COULD get a non-military guided man/woman in office one of these days. Ooops, did I say that?).
As for Bush's assertion that he has a "clear vision on how to win the war on terror and bring peace to this world," it has not yet been presented though there's some thousand dead "coalition solders," a few thousand dead Iraqi citizens (latest news is that U.S. and coalition forces have already killed more innocent Iraqi citizens than the number of people who died in the World Trade Center so some people are wondering if we can perhaps bring our troops home now?) , an irate Iraqi citizenry, a couple "pre-emptively invaded" countries in turmoil and a vision that is glued only to a path of war - and war has never led to lasting peace.

This seems a perfect time to quote Einstein that it is impossible to simultaneously prepare for war and peace; and that it is impossible to solve a problem from the same frame of reference that created the problem.

In war people are actually attacking the results rather than seeking to know the causes and ultimate solutions to the original unrest, and it's not until you widen your peripheral vision and expand your scopes distance that more can be seen and considered.

Hearing is not to be believed.

So whereforth art thou focus? What is your vision? How will your choices, your discernment, your beliefs impact others? What will be created? Whose vision are you living? What else might be done?

Regards,

AshootingstarZ

Peace Is Misunderstood - Terror Compounds Terror

2004-07-23T20:07:00.000-07:00

Peace Is Misunderstood

If peace were understood by individuals we would be living peace-filled lives. We have been regularly taught, sometimes blatantly and most often subtly, that to be peaceful means we must be passive. Passive, we’ve been taught, means to do nothing, go limp, allow ourselves to be stepped on. So“Why would we want that?” is the next obvious question then. “If we go limp, they’re gonna get me!”

Even people who abhor war often misunderstand peace and voice confusion about what “doing nothing” offers. Peace, however, is a potent energy that’s assembled in a certain format and structure. Just as some atoms are structured to create the image of a tree, others may be purposely structured to create destruction, as witnessed by the nuclear devastation of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, among numerous other acts of terror perpetuated throughout history by nations in every part of the world.

The distress call that was heard around the world on 9-1-1, September 11, 2001, calls us all to structure ourselves differently.

As a noun, the word “peace” is synonymous with amity, harmony, and accord. The articulation of “peace,” as an adjective, is recognized as calm, tranquil, and untroubled. In its action state, though, “peace” is synonymous with being at peace, making peace, and keeping the peace. We are thus, mistaken when we believe peace is exemplified by a lack of action, or, perhaps, by a personal calm that blithely ignores “reality.” Peace is, actually, an energy of creation that can be and has been utilized through principles recognized in quantum physics.

For most of us, though, the major reason we fear peace is not a fear of someone else “getting us.” Instead, it begins as a deeply imbedded fear of who we might become if we begin to think, behave, and live on peaceful principles. What will we be called upon to do and say and how might that radically alter our individual worlds? At a deep, deep level we understand that our relationships with our own person, and our relationships with our family, our fellow employees, our jobs, country, and our present commitments, which all frame the basis of our known security, will be up for major shifts if we choose to live peacefully. What we do not yet consciously realize of this deep, deep truth is that in changing, we gain, not lose; in changing, new opportunities arise, new choices and creations become available to us. When we follow this deep, deep truth we are following our soul’s call to be who we truly are.

When we believe that someone else must make the first move, we're living out of fear and setting ourselves up for failure in subtle and obvious ways.

Terror Compounds Terror

Like creates like. Let's consider the world stage. In the "first strike" attack upon Afghanistan and then, with a "shock and awe" military campaign upon an indefensable Iraq (Were you shocked or awed that both as a government as as individuals we were willing to and continue to feel a responsibility to bomb, maim, and kill innocents?) we rained down upon others what we most deeply feared happening to us. The U.S. had, as a people and as a nation, had felt fear for the first time. Yet it was the nation that responded, and then the people, galvanized by the press, fell in lock step. Now, as more information comes out about how mislead the people were, the people's steps are beginning to falter.

Terror it seems becomes real to people only when they experience it, yet terror has existed daily in nations on many continents and the individuals of the U.S. have felt immune from it. Genocide exists today in nations on the African continent, for example, and yet we as a world people and as nations have not galvanized behind it, invaded it, stopped it (as, for example, the U.S. nation has used as one excuse for invading Iraq), because there has been no involvement of gain for us. Neither personal security nor potential profit (from, for example, oil) exist in such places on the African continent. Yet the daily plague of war and suffering and maiming and killing and orphans and disease exist for the people there. Could you deal with that?

There are other kinds of terror, but...hmmmm....how do you define terror? When the British were trying to squelch the American Revolution, several commanders of the British forces had horror tales to tell of these Americans who would rain terror down on their troops by shooting from behind trees then disappear into the brush (so unsporting for civilized people who were supposed to understand that the rules of the game were that forces of opposing armies meet out on a plain and face each other in combat). The colonists didn't play fair, we didn't care that we weren't giving their soldiers a chance to defend themselves!

Recently two individuals were talking in my office and stated "Terrorism is just the way things are. There's no escape from it. It's part of life." They acted as though this type of terror, fear, uncertainty of when the next bomb was going to drop (on our U.S. heads), had been with us forever. Yet, it has not been a daily living situation for the citizens in most of the "civilized world" (excluding the old Soviet Union and China terror campaigns against its own people, for example) and certainly NOT in the U.S. Yet their language revealed that they have both (and many others) come to accept this cloak of "existing terror" as having been ever present.

However, the nation of the U.S. has been the instrument of terror for people in claudestine spy, political and financial activitites in South America, the Middle East, Iraq, etc for decades and that has birthed children who grow up fearing and/or resenting American interests, and that is something that people have yet to grasp. In actions that have not hit the pages of the press (but are often part of freedom of information act releases), people in other countries have been oppressed in the name of "goodwill" and "American interests." We've assassinated leaders, derailed "democratic" elections, set up or helped utilize "non-existent" prisons of torture, and thus helped to create unease, fear, resentment that has birthed terrorism into a new definition of something that WE now have come to fear/defend ourselves against.

Breaking the Cycle

When people are willing to break the cycle and accept our own complicity by acknowledging that, for example, those people we are bombing in the name of government policy are no different than our family, don't deserve this, and we can no longer justify such actions; or that, for example, it has been our policies of the past that have contributed to the resentment that would unleash bombs upon us and begin instead addressing policies from a new perspective that strikes at the core of people's concerns wholeheartedly (let's address safety, food, clothing, health, education survival type issues), we will be addressing (and healing) the core issue rather than attacking symptoms.

Peace takes a stand for core issues. Being on the forefront of peace can be a (seemingly)dangerous place to be, yet how many millions of soldiers and civilians have died/continue to die as a result of a lack of belief in peaceful solutions and policies.

Individuals, not governments decide these things. We decide it in our choices. We decide whether we will follow manna or our soul's directive. We decide whether living in accordance with the policies of a leader, a nation, a boss, a spouse, etc is more important than how our Source/God/Creator desires us to live.

Are you, am I, living in accordance with a Higher Authority?