tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25646460895882572252024-02-06T22:04:26.940-08:00leilalandHere I post my thoughts and dreams, ideas and schemes.
Here I hope to share and inspire, create and conspire.
Here I send a beacon to all sentient beings, a greeting of delight and reverie!
Long live the pure who can feel and see!a Lost Coast Media Endeavorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15697973125841557220noreply@blogger.comBlogger86125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2564646089588257225.post-87153588379007663232010-02-15T14:14:00.001-08:002010-02-15T14:14:13.936-08:00<object classid="clsid:D27CDB6E-AE6D-11cf-96B8-444553540000" codebase="http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=6,0,40,0" height="234" id="mbox_player_7a9bdfb41f10edc4f5" width="416"><param name="movie" value="http://www.motionbox.com/external/hd_player/type%253Dsd%252Cvideo_uid%253D7a9bdfb41f10edc4f5" /><param name="allowScriptAccess" value="always" /><param name="allowFullscreen" value="true" /><embed src="http://www.motionbox.com/external/hd_player/type%253Dsd%252Cvideo_uid%253D7a9bdfb41f10edc4f5" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" pluginspage="http://www.adobe.com/go/getflashplayer" width="416" height="234" allowFullscreen="true" allowScriptAccess="always" name="mbox_player_7a9bdfb41f10edc4f5"></embed></object><div class="blogger-post-footer">This content was created by Leila Kincaid.</div>a Lost Coast Media Endeavorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15697973125841557220noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2564646089588257225.post-86667363625447634862009-10-10T07:45:00.001-07:002009-10-10T07:46:10.839-07:00<a href="http://www.wordle.net/show/wrdl/1213712/leilakin" title="Wordle: leilakin"><img src="http://www.wordle.net/thumb/wrdl/1213712/leilakin" alt="Wordle: leilakin" style="border: 1px solid rgb(221, 221, 221); padding: 4px;" /></a><div class="blogger-post-footer">This content was created by Leila Kincaid.</div>a Lost Coast Media Endeavorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15697973125841557220noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2564646089588257225.post-42476955996722830142009-05-15T19:50:00.001-07:002009-05-15T19:50:39.095-07:00A Tyranny Against the WindA Defense of Romanticism<br /><br />I would begin to unwind if I could just find a reason. Ahh, my heart is so very put upon by delusions of the perfectly romantic. My heart is put upon by the absence of love. I do love myself, but that is only so much masturbation. I need to share my love with another, but not just any other. My beloved must be able to requite and in so many ways. To be saved from this put uponness, yes, I need to share my love with another. What great selfishness and cruelty is it that says we must love simply ourselves for happiness, and to need another to love is unhealthy??!! That is the sentiment of the impotent to love. <br /><br />I would begin to unwind into some perfect tapestry if I could love you. Now, I am all knotted up in balls of despair over your absence, dear love of mine. And love has the singular right to possess. My love. It is the solitary privilege of the beloved, to be loved solely. <br />And I say to you bastards of love, those of you who no longer know what it is to sing to the night hopelessly, because you love so much, and those of you who condemn us “hopeless romantics” because we “love too much”; and to all the insensitive fucks who have written me off, to you, I say goodbye and good luck. Go live your petty lives of liking and caring, revel in your hatred. That would be good. No, you could not even do that; you lack the passion to hate. Hate, a preference to dislike for the true lovers and dreamers of true love. You feeble minded mockers of the romantic soul are like a pestering wind beating against my bedroom window at night when I try to sleep and dream of love. You feckless idlers who cannot decide, cannot commit to anything, you, the wind that blows away all of my romantic fibers and twists them into knots. I can joyfully say that I hate the wind of indecision, of middle-paths, and frozen minds, fickle hearts.<br />Ah, but at least the fickle hearts have some inclination to love….<br /><br />And I would lay down and bask, in the silent passion of the lover’s night, I ask, who doesn’t want to find completion with another being? Who wants to die alone, let alone live that way? <br />I lay down and I ask. I lay down on the earth’s heaven ground and croon to the sky; at least you accept my love. Still, the hopeless romantic spirit in me waits countless eternities for you to croon back, “I love you, too.” And even if I didn’t hear these words, I would give myself to you to save you from suffering, and take away all your bad habits, strip away all your bullshit, chip away your porcelain veil…and free you. And in your letting me love you, I would begin to unwind.<br /><br />But still, I suffer endless and tiresome retreats into the lonely passages of love. I am strung out on a romantic buzz with no one to share it with. I do ask, I do beg and plea, I do pray and wonder, desperately, like a naked beggar in city streets. Where, who, when, and how, love? I have standards that breach the heavens and this is why, I am certain, I suffer this despair. No one is equal to my capacity to love, when I do. And in this great feat, I am abandoned to life, loveless. So I cry and I moan, I write unyielding words, feverishly, as if to conjure the one true One –for one is all there is, in romantic love. I dance stunning solos for the setting sun and all hope of requition. Then I lay down and die a thousand deaths; I crawl into silent corners and retreat. I wonder who is there that is like this, out there, in the world. I dream. Ah, dream is the salvation of lovers. It offers a momentary relief from the cutthroat necessity to shed the brightest loving light onto the beloved, however unimbued with the ability or desire to reciprocate the feelings the beloved is.<br /><br />Ah, the hopeless romantic rants. The hopeless romantic chants this tirade in hope of an answer from her love, whoever, wherever he may be. And in the twilight, finds her final repose. At least the sun loves the west, unwaveringly. And, watching the sun sink toward the body of the earth at the horizon, she finds some subtle relief in this, the singular salve of night: a glimmer of hope, even if only symbolic.<br />And hope is the mana of the hopeless romantic, hope, the worst thing to come out of Pandora’s Box. The hopeless romantic thrives on hope like air to a normal human being, and this is why the hopeless romantic is hopeless, or at least always almost to the point of running out, but a true and total junkie. The hopeless romantic is singularly astonishing in resourcefulness. Only the hopeless romantic can always find a glimmer of hope somewhere, somehow, someway. The hopeless romantic is a master rationalist, adroit at finding evidence for loving, of maintaining hope. Maybe, the hopeless romantic is more full of hope than any other, and thus, the most sublime, for hope represents belief in the possibility of a finer reality, attained.<br /><br />But as for the search for “ideal” love, the “perfect”, it teaches hope.<div class="blogger-post-footer">This content was created by Leila Kincaid.</div>a Lost Coast Media Endeavorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15697973125841557220noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2564646089588257225.post-17343987833186387802009-05-15T19:39:00.001-07:002009-05-15T19:39:52.493-07:00The SpellCrimson deeper speeding over the darkness <br />Crashing into oneness<br />Someone witness this <br />I can’t stand the idea that I’m here alone<br />Project my experience on the silver screen<br /><br />I haven’t got time to feel like shit<br />Can’t you see I don’t like it<br />Kill myself a thousand times<br />And wonder why everyone wants me alive<br /><br />God dam it<br /><br />Who the fuck is anyone?<br /><br />I would take something from anyone<br />I would take your shoes <br />And fall in love with your bleeding feet as you walk across the razor blade beam<br />If I knew it meant <br />Heaven<br />Nirvana<br />Salvation<br />Enlightenment<br />Peace<br />For all<br /><br />One<br />Or <br />The many<br /><br />Why don’t you know the truth <br />It isn’t something you have to prove<br />It’s just the way you feel<br />And what you think see breathe <br />And everything about the way that you wanna be<br /><br />I can’t tell you anything <br />About the future<br />So what am I?<br /><br />Never saying anything about the realities that you experience<br />It’s just a fucking waste <br />Of something<br />That could be true<br /><br />Why do you say<br />Nothing<br /><br />It’s a pathetic fucking god dam waste of energy<br /><br />Kill yourself and do the world a favor<br /><br />Because if you are not in touch with what’s real<br />Then you are wasting a life<br />Die<br />Reincarnate<br />Come back as something better<br />Like a rain cloud or a daffodil or a cat <br />Or some kind of Buddha<br /><br />Otherwise<br />GO TO HELL<br /><br />I thought you had a connection to the truth<br />I thought you had a connection to the truth<br /><br />Everyone was saying something<br />I can’t hear anything<br />No one is saying what they mean<br />No one is aware of how they are<br /><br />It’s scary and lonely and fucking weird<br /><br />Is this happening<br />Right now?<br />Where are we?<br />Do you know?<br />Does anyone? <br />What have they all said?<br />After you are dead you realize all this shit was just an illusion<br />And finally<br />You are free<br /><br />But the passion of the body <br />Keeps us here<br /><br />Pleasure induces<br /><br />Pain repells<br /><br />The taste of you reminds me that there is something deeper in me <br />That wants to heal<br /><br />I could rejoice at the thought of us on the wild beach at night<br />stars crashing down<br />Our naked bodies melting<br />together in the heat of the burning stars’ flame<br />Perfect death<br /><br />There is but only this:<br />You and the spell<div class="blogger-post-footer">This content was created by Leila Kincaid.</div>a Lost Coast Media Endeavorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15697973125841557220noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2564646089588257225.post-71764891786296017292009-05-15T18:17:00.000-07:002009-05-15T19:44:20.686-07:00THISi don't want the center of the stage<br />i don't want to be right or care about punctuation and grammar<br />i rave in the darkness with the rain<br />i dance naked in the fire and die inside this rampant madness<br />disintegrated wholly yet resurrected in desire<br /><br />i can't see any reason not to be<br />splayed out with this intensity<br />i lay down on the road and beg you to run over me<br />i stand up and make a single motion<br />signaling this as the thing that matters:<br />drowning with the fervent certainty of hell<br />in our delicious ocean<br /><br />the plants need watering and everything is cut down<br />i want the overgrowth and wildness and flooding mystery of passion<br />i'm blind and lost in this great season<br />open my eyes like a child at dawn<br />my heart is wild among the lush blooms<br />i follow the footsteps through the garden<br />strung out on treason<br /><br />i can't even lay down or sit still or begin to think about anything<br />i want to thrash on the keyboard and bang drums with my bare hands<br />i want to roll in the mud and get dirty<br />i want to break everything and scream YES!<br />and go running in the sands that came from the degeneration of great mountains<br /><br />until it all means something<br />and everything is nothing again<div class="blogger-post-footer">This content was created by Leila Kincaid.</div>a Lost Coast Media Endeavorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15697973125841557220noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2564646089588257225.post-42974396831878572352008-12-19T12:01:00.000-08:002008-12-19T12:02:26.899-08:00A Hole at the Center of the GalaxyThis morning, I opened up the latest issue of Time magazine and read that a team of German Astronomers has confirmed the existence of a giant black hole at the center of the Milky Way.<br /><br />"How interesting, how cool, how.. scary!" I thought.<br /><br />I immediately thought of all the reading I've been doing about the Mayan and Incan time prophecies for 2012. These prophesies suggest that the Earth will be at the center of the galaxy in 2012 and that there will be huge and life changing shifts on planet Earth at that time.<br /><br />So, then, I thought... if the black hole is at the center of the galaxy, and Earth will be at the center of the galaxy in 2012, does that mean Earth will be in the black hole in 2012? What will happen if Earth is in a black hole? Will we live? Will we be conscious? What kinds of changes can we expect?<br /><br />This is very stimulating information that I wish to explore and meditate upon.<br />The first thoughts and feelings that come to me about the prospect of Earth being at the center of the Galaxy with the Black Hole is of peace and joy, of glorious movement and deep transformation. I feel good about this. It feels like a wonderful thing!<br /><br />So, over tea, while looking out at snow covered land, I pondered this. I stared at the sky, a pale blue in the dawn's light. My sight traced the lines of snow along the douglas fir branches across the way as my internal sight envisioned the galaxy, a gorgeous swatch of stars and dust and light and movement, with US, all the beings on Earth, dancing in the center of it in a climactic celebration of all that is.<br /><br />My tea cup empty and my back stiff, I got up to heat more water and stretch. Then I made my way up to my office, an alcove with a nice western view of the fir trees and sky. I opened my gmail to see who might be communicating to me this day. And there, a letter from Alberto Villoldo, a shaman in the Incan tradition and founder of the Healing the Light Body School. Every month I receive a newsletter from him, and I always find the information he shares to be relevant and timely.<br />What a giant smile grew widely across my being as I saw the title of his newsletter:<br /><br />THE HOLE AT THE CENTER OF THE GALAXY<br /><br />So I read....<br />And I'd like to share it with you.<br />Here it is, in entirety, from his website at http://thefourwinds.com/newsletter/DEC2008/hole-alberto.html :<br /><br />"The Hole at the Center of the Galaxy<br /><br />Xibalba is the Mayan underworld, the "place of fear." The prophets and day-keepers of the Yucatan described this as the dark rift in the Milky Way. This is the place of our beginning and of our return. An according to lore, the gates of Xibalba would open before the great planetary alignment that would occur on December 21, 2012.<br /><br />Recently I read an article entitled "Milky Way's Giant Black Hole Awoke from Slumber 300 Years Ago" authored by scientists Robert Naeye and Rob Gutro of the Goddard Space Flight Center. It seems that the gigantic black hole at the center of our galaxy, with a mass that is more than 4 million times that of our sun, has awakened from a long sleep, and begun to emit huge outbursts of radiation.<br /><br />Black holes in space are so dense that not even light can escape from them, as they gobble up anything and everything in their path. But it appears that they also play an important role in the birth and formation of galaxies, and seem to be at the center of many of our nearby constellations. How did ancient astronomers know that this was the source of beginnings and endings? And why did they refer to it as the "place of fear"?<br /><br />One of the meditation practices of shamans-in-training consists of finding your "star". To do this, you scan the night sky and find a distant sun that calls to you in some way. Then you sit quietly and gaze at the point of light, following instructions to direct your awareness along that beam of starlight back to its source. Even though it took millions of years for that light to reach the earth, the seers of old believed that the mind could travel instantaneously. Just like in dreams when we are able to journey to distant lands, or even visit relatives and friends from the past, the shaman's discipline allowed them to ride a beam of starlight to its source. Once you found your star, it would protect you and guide you throughout the rest of your days.<br /><br />The lore of the shamans say that even as you can travel along a beam of light, then you can also travel along a beam of darkness, of the invisible starlight. We know that the black hole at the center of the galaxy has woken up from its long slumber and started to emit invisible radiation, massive outbursts of X-rays. Could the seers of old have made this fantastic journey to the center of the Milky Way, to the "place of fear"? As I was musing about this, I asked myself if even consciousness would be trapped in the immense gravitational pull of a black hole. How close could you come to the edge of infinity?<br /><br />The galactic center is 26,000 light years away. On December 21, 2012, our solar system will come into perfect alignment with the center of the galaxy, an event that occurs only every 26,000 years, and that the Maya and other indigenous peoples of the Americas prophesied would be a time of tremendous upheaval, the end of one way of life and the birth of a new one. They foresaw the journey back through Xibalba and through the time of fear that many are experiencing today. And they left us a message of hope.<br /><br />This is a time of birth, of beginnings, a moment in history fraught with opportunity. It is a time for courage, for purity, for integrity, and for holding forth our highest dreams and hopes. A time of the dawn of a new day.<br /><br />Have a joyous holiday season, and join us on December 21, 2008 for a meditation, in ceremony or around a fire – a candle, a bonfire, or by your fireplace, to give thanks to Mother Earth for her bounty and to the Great Spirit, and to dream a new world into being.<br /><br />In Peace, Alberto Villoldo PhD"<br /><br />I hope you enjoyed this!<br />What do you think about the Earth being in the center of the galaxy in 2012 with the black hole that lives there?<br /><br />In harmonic love and delighted joy,<br />Leila<div class="blogger-post-footer">This content was created by Leila Kincaid.</div>a Lost Coast Media Endeavorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15697973125841557220noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2564646089588257225.post-58256125557563244212008-12-18T10:37:00.000-08:002008-12-18T10:38:15.346-08:00Now we connect online... and it's socially acceptable behaviorBut, I remember a time, years ago (sometime in the late 90s), when people in my life thought there was something wrong with me for talking to people online.<br /><br />Now, communicating with people online is ubiquitous.<br />It's happening everywhere, all the time.<br />It is how businesses are run, it's how many people socialize and keep abreast of current events.<br />It's a way people share and commune and express and even create.<br /><br />The way people can react with such fear and paranoia, with judgment and de-valuation is an interesting phenomenon that seems so common to the history of humanity.<br /><br />Perhaps when we are ignorant of something, when we don't understand it, and it is strange and new, it can seem scary and threatening, so we react in fear.<br /><br />I suppose this is why my roommates, family, boyfriend, and others thought that I had a problem, that the people I spoke to online were "not real". Yes, I kid you not, that is a term that was often used regarding the people I interacted with online. They were fake or imaginary.<br />Are you imaginary? I think you are very real.<br /><br />This is why it struck me as so bizarre that the people in my life could not imagine another human being sitting at their computer typing back to me. They could not grok that we were talking, interacting, sharing, socializing, and being together through cyberspace.<br /><br />There was a time when people thought that chatting at work was counterproductive, or "goofing off on the job", and now, how ironic that chat is actually conducive to greater work productivity when people can make a few taps with their fingers and accomplish incredible efficiency in their work. Instead of walking across the department, or flying to another area of the world for a meeting, instant chat is right here, waiting for us to leap into the acceleration of space and time with immediate information and energy exchange.<br /><br />It's amazing!<br /><br />I've longed appreciated the paradigmatic change that online socializing represents.<br />It brings people together who normally would never have met or had anything to do with one another. It's how I met my husband.<br /><br />It helps bridge barriers to social connections, in that it allows people to overcome or completely bypass any fears based on insecurity about appearance.<br /><br />Communicating online circumvents any inconvenience based on travel cost and time.<br /><br />And isn't there something totally disarming and empowering (yes, I use those words together for effect) about sitting at home, free to say and express and share whatever you dare, whatever you deign, whatever you can muster that you might not normally achieve in an in person social setting.<br /><br />Yes, I think that talking, interacting, and socializing online can help to encourage us to say what we think and feel and mean, to take the time to explore that, and to reach out to people in ways we might not if there were no internet.<br /><br />And have you noticed that you can sense another person's vibe, mood, quality of being, way of being, personality, energy, essence, while interacting with them online? It's not just dry words on a screen. It's THAT person, and you can feel and experience them as them, and not as filtered through some cold, impersonal mechanism that I hear so many luddites labeling the internet as.<br /><br />Indeed, I think there is something profoundly "spiritual" about online socializing because it takes away a lot of the physicality and even psychological reference points and allows you to connect, in perhaps a more pure and refined way, with others. Even though you are sitting "alone" at your keyboard and monitor, you are in reality "WITH" the person on the other end of your online interaction, sharing a social engagement that is just as real as meeting for a movie or coffee or a drink.<br /><br />....<div class="blogger-post-footer">This content was created by Leila Kincaid.</div>a Lost Coast Media Endeavorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15697973125841557220noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2564646089588257225.post-56244500755760011482008-11-26T12:17:00.000-08:002008-11-26T12:47:01.390-08:00Giving Thanks and Being GratefulI am thankful for so many things.<br /><br />Often times I forget this.<br /><br />Isn't that weird?<br /><br />Often times, I notice that I notice what I'm not thankful for. <br /><br />Why do we send so much negative energy out into the world? Just the mere act of thinking about something we don't like, of judging and place a valuation on a thing that exists is a damnation, a blasphemy of existence, yes, a sin.<br /><br />I've been studying the <a href="http://www.scienceofmind.com/">Science of Mind</a> with <a href="http://spiritualwisdomstudio.com/">Amy Aspell</a> and two other amazing women. In this workshop, I'm re-learning about the fact that <span style="font-weight:bold;">our thoughts create reality<span style="font-style:italic;"></span></span>.<br /><br />It's true.<br /><br />Long ago, while sitting on the rocky shores of Baker Beach in San Francisco, alone, in the fog and wind and cold mists, as I spied the tips of the Golden Gate Bridge, peaking out from the moody depths of grey, I scrawled in the sand with some driftwood:<br /><br />THE POWER OF THOUGHT<br />THINK IT - MAKE IT<br />THINK IT - BREAK IT<br />THE POWER OF THOUGHT<br />CONCENTRATE - CREATE<br /><br />I was 17 at the time that I wrote this.<br />I hadn't read it anywhere. <br />I was staring at nature's majesty and heard this message come in with the crashing waves.<br />It felt so powerful. It was so novel to me, that I had to write it in the sand.<br />I then sat there and watched as the tide slowly came in and the water rushed up and washed away my message.<br />But I never forgot the words.<br />What I forgot, and remember, and forget, and remember is the truth of them...<br />We do have the power to create reality with our thoughts... And time and time again I hear affirmations and reminders of this all around me...<br /><br />In this workshop I'm reminded about the power of the <span style="font-style:italic;">Law of Attraction</span>, which has been popularized in the book, <a href="https://shop.thesecret.tv/Shops/Items.php?Category=BOOK">The Secret</a>, by Rhonda Byrne. <br /><br />The most important message that I am receiving in my life at this time is that I have the power to create my own experience of life. <br />This makes me think of Aristotle's line that you can judge the character of a person, not by what happens to the person, but by how the person deal with what happens to him or her...<br />I've always been struck by this. I first read that line long ago while studying Philosophy at Berkeley and other universities around the world. I read the <a href="http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/nicomachaen.html">Nicomachean Ethics</a> and <a href="http://www.philosophypages.com/ph/aris.htm">Aristotle</a>'s ideas about happiness and the meaning of life.<br />I had a fantastic professor who advised that anyone interested in this should read <a href="http://www.mythosandlogos.com/heidegger.html">Heidegger</a>, who is "a long series of footnotes on Aristotle."<br /> <br /><br />I highly recommend reading Heidegger's Being and Time and Aristotles Nicomachean Ethics.. It's good bedtime reading.. something to chomp off and digest in your subconscious while sleeping...<br /><br />But now... as we are experiencing a Holiday in the United States that seems to have been founded on genocide and acculturation, I find that I'm keenly aware of experiencing gratitude.<br /><br />I'm thankful for the fact that I'm not living in a war zone, that I don't have AIDS, that I'm able to hear Beethoven's illustrious 9th Symphony and watch movies and sunsets and crashing waves on jagged shorelines.<br /><br />I'm thankful that I have a loving husband who is gentle and funny and oh so kind.<br /><br />I'm thankful that I have a roof over my head, a warm bed, a computer with internet connection and fingers to type with.<br /><br />I'm thankful that Jesus Christ died for my sins... that he came to show us the secret of RESURRECTION and eternal life....<br /><br />I'm thankful for all the mystics and sages who have pulled back the curtain on life's secrets to help us all become more conscious.<br /><br />I'm thankful for all the people in the world who are doing what they can do end suffering, raise consciousness, and create a better reality for all of us.<br /><br />May we be part of this good.<br />May we be inspired to recognize the beauty in the world and reflect that beauty in all we do.<br />May we act from wisdom and compassion, like the great Bodhisatvas.<br />May we align ourselves with Right Action, Right Mind, Right Thought, Right Feeling.<br />May we be peaceful, kind, loving, and aware.<br /><br />At this time, may we all realize how connected we are to one another. May we all participate together in dreaming the most amazingly beautiful and peaceful reality into being. <br />At this time, may we all join in prayer for the GOOD OF ALL.<br /><br />I am grateful for you reading this.<br />I am grateful for this.<br />I am grateful.<br />I AM.<div class="blogger-post-footer">This content was created by Leila Kincaid.</div>a Lost Coast Media Endeavorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15697973125841557220noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2564646089588257225.post-8939092000440654292008-11-26T12:13:00.000-08:002008-11-26T12:16:57.078-08:00I've been FacebookingI've been very active on <a href="http://www.new.facebook.com/profile.php?v=info&edit_info=all#/profile.php?id=790093619&ref=profile">Facebook</a> lately. Check me out, there. It's a nice way and place to interact with others in a non-linear time-frame.<br />You can post information about yourself, what you are doing, share thoughts, notes, photos and check out what people you know are up to without needing to interact at the same time. <br /><span style="font-weight:bold;"><br />Facebook represents a new paradigm of communicating and sharing and being in community.</span><br /><br /><a href="http://www.new.facebook.com/profile.php?v=info&edit_info=all#/profile.php?id=790093619&ref=profile">Check it out</a>, sign up, it's free.... and fun!<div class="blogger-post-footer">This content was created by Leila Kincaid.</div>a Lost Coast Media Endeavorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15697973125841557220noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2564646089588257225.post-36267551086099378402008-10-28T14:52:00.000-07:002008-10-28T14:53:57.542-07:00Be Vigilant and Attentive!!!<span style="font-weight:bold;">"We must be vigilant and attentive without engaging the world with drama. Now is the time to heal ourselves and our culture, to reevaluate and reexamine all belief structures, to cull what needs to be shifted and to allow ourselves to be renewed and reborn..."</span> -<span style="font-style:italic;">Alberto Villoldo</span><div class="blogger-post-footer">This content was created by Leila Kincaid.</div>a Lost Coast Media Endeavorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15697973125841557220noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2564646089588257225.post-85481170549797040682008-10-25T15:53:00.000-07:002008-10-25T19:52:17.417-07:00become conscious of how we direct the power of our spirit...I'm very introspective these days. I've spent the week alone, reading spiritual texts, meditating, praying, writing, and doing yoga and belly dancing.<br />It's been nice to be alone a lot, and spend quiet days tending to my spirit.<br /><br />I have also listened to the complete Sacred Contracts audio course by Caroline Myss.<br />Wow! I love her background as a Catholic, a nun, and a psychologist who studied archetypes and schizophrenia for her Masters.<br />Years ago I listened to her seminal work, Anatomy of the Spirit, while driving the back roads of western Marin County, while searching for a way out of my unhappiness. <br /><br />I love her direct, no nonsense, somewhat smartass way of talking. She's cool. She's powerful. She's articulate, and she's paved the groundwork for very concise language about the human spirit.... Caroline Myss teaches us everything we didn't learn in Kindergarten through graduate school and didn't know to ask.<br /><br />If the free people of the world, and by free I mean not in torture chambers and war zones and poverty and disease stricken gagged, bound, and raped masses in the third world... I mean the free bourgeois of the first world nations who sit in front of TV sets and computer monitors fretting over stock indexes and broken fingernails...<br />I mean us.<br />It's these free people who have the power to change the world for the better, for if they (we) could all understand that the source of our own pain and our own happiness is within ourselves and starts right in our own mind, our way of seeing and thinking and being, this world would transform, dramatically, for the better.<br /><br />In this spirit, I'd like to share a bit from Caroline's <a href="http://www.myss.com/news/archive/2008/092408.asp">latest newsletter</a> here:<br />"Ideally, our task is to become conscious of how we direct the power of our spirit into acts of creation during the course of our life. More or less, that sums it up. An illuminated soul is one who is on to the game, who really understands what Buddha meant by seeing clearly through the world of physical illusion and not being controlled by that world. Jesus would say, 'Be in the world but not of the world.' Same truth, different words. What we are meant to become conscious of is how well we live in accordance to these high cosmic truths while in physical form....<br /><br />This is what your inner work is all about: learning to discern what is truth from illusion – at all times, in all places.."<div class="blogger-post-footer">This content was created by Leila Kincaid.</div>a Lost Coast Media Endeavorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15697973125841557220noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2564646089588257225.post-68877041312000681792008-10-14T18:07:00.000-07:002008-10-14T18:13:51.198-07:00Barbara Hand Clow and The Mayan CodeI listened to a 2005 talk with Mayan Calendar and 2012 scholar, Barbara Hand Clow, in which she predicted that there would be a major economic crash in the fall of 2008 surrounding the housing market.<br />She was right.<br />This made me check out her website and wow! <a href="http://www.handclow2012.com/astroflash.htm">Check it out</a>! <br />She's on to something.<br />The most important things she says is to be aware of how quickly you create reality with your thoughts now, due to time acceleration. She says monitor your thoughts and be careful about what you create. Focus, pray, and be clear with your intentions to create and experience beauty.<br /><br />She discusses the transfiguration of the human species and more! <br /><br />From her site, I copy this text:<br />"<blockquote>We are in the midst of an evolutionary critical leap that inspires us to heal our bodies, transmute our emotional blocks, clarify our minds, and discover our souls, and Barbara and Gerry assist students with this growth. Barbara is well known for her work as an astrologer, especially for her groundbreaking study of Chiron. In light of the building galactic alignment, she has written The Mayan Code: Time Acceleration and Awakening the World Mind based on Carl Calleman's Mayan Calendar hypothesis and her own study of Earth's alignment with the Galactic Center in 1998, which intensified time during the Galactic Underworld-1999-2011. "<br /><br /></blockquote><div class="blogger-post-footer">This content was created by Leila Kincaid.</div>a Lost Coast Media Endeavorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15697973125841557220noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2564646089588257225.post-47812895558774454292008-10-14T09:35:00.000-07:002008-10-14T16:44:54.839-07:00The Categorical Imperative and ConscientiousnessThe categorical imperative operates on the principle that one should act according to how one desires everyone else to act. Deontological in its application, the categorical imperative is a moral philosophy, but also a tenet of optimism and hope, for it sees the best in everyone and hopes for that to be a reality. <br />Treating people as though they are valuable in themselves and not as a means to some end (like getting that position on the Board or using your neighbor's hot tub) is both the goal and the process of this ethical standard.<br /><br />The widely acknowledged achilles heel of the categorical imperative is its <a href="http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/apriori/">a' priori assumption</a> that all agents (us thinking, feeling, acting sentients) operate rationally and use logic to guide our actions. Naive at best, preposterous at worst, I still love the notion of the categorical imperative and have since the days of my youth sitting in halls at the University of California at Berkeley, and now I talk about why herein.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjC1UzvVJRwz8U8zDyKhptq0ng9Zk-2kPZd82L5qbGH7MUTCX37eNxTrAQ71F4x1AG8a0CLee_rykAp4FYqKtdWY31v24Fcre_Qc1xXbiS6MX1GEHvuqPo4aM1RkxNbuxybikjsUGAYSbU/s1600-h/calvin_ethics.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjC1UzvVJRwz8U8zDyKhptq0ng9Zk-2kPZd82L5qbGH7MUTCX37eNxTrAQ71F4x1AG8a0CLee_rykAp4FYqKtdWY31v24Fcre_Qc1xXbiS6MX1GEHvuqPo4aM1RkxNbuxybikjsUGAYSbU/s320/calvin_ethics.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5257158002164668370" /></a><br /><br />What is so wrong with wanting to treat others the way you want to be treated? <br /><br />People scoff at the notion. Pollyannaism. Foolish idealist fantasy-landalism.<br />People judge and scowl and scorn and dismiss.<br />People are scared and fearful and easily miss the fact that acting in loving, caring, kind, compassionate, conscientious, and thoughtful ways can make them feel safer, more fulfilled, happier, more powerful, cooler, neater, sexier, stronger, and better.<br /><br />It's true.<br />What you think about before you do can greatly impact your overall experience of reality.<br /><br />I often do this when I interact with people. Before I talk or make an action I analyze it and feel out the appropriateness of it. I ask myself if this is the best way to say what I mean and the best way to deliver this information to the recipient of said communication. Often, I'll find that I reword it before speaking or writing. I fine tune the message content to match the situation, my intention, and the recipient's overall personality, demeanor, and my interpretation of their needs at the time of communication.<br /><br />For instance, a friend might be talking about how her job isn't what she really wants. She talks about it all the time and seems to run a tape when she talks about it, so that I hear the same words every time this is the subject of her talking.<br />Instead of saying, well, gee, you always talk about how much you hate your job but you aren't doing anything to change it, so shut the heck up because I'm tired of hearing it.<br /><br />No. Instead, I breathe in and think of my friend in a compassionate way. I delve within myself to find what she most needs from me at that given moment. What she needs is understanding, compassion, moral support, and a friend. She does not need me to fix her. Nothing needs fixed, as my friend Barbara likes to say.<br /><br />So in my moment of conscientiousness about my friend and her job issue, I stop and think what would I want to hear from my friend if this were a challenging issue for me, if I had an unhappy job experience that I desperately needed to shift?<br /><br />I know what I'd need. I'd need to feel that the person I was speaking to about the issue heard me,really heard what I was saying. So, I mirror back to my friend what she says. I repeat some of her words, and I paraphrase and ask if I'm understanding what she's saying. She breathes in deeply and smiles. Thank you for understanding this, she says. I smile. Yes, of course, I do. Because I put myself in her shoes, and grew a heart for her. In my moment of conscientious compassion, I mirrored her pain in articulated description so that she no longer felt alone and burdened by this stress. At least for the moment.<br /><br />And that's all we can do: be present for the moment. The moment is always happening, it's eternal. It is always right now. So, showing up in the moment to be there for my friend in compassion and understanding is the best thing I can do. It's better than telling her to shut the f up and stop complaining or do something about it.<br />Perhaps in reality she will greatly benefit from acting on her job issue rather than complaining about it. <br />But clearly, the complaining is her attempt to change the situation. <br />And a compassionate friend who acts on the categorical imperative that if I act the way I want people to treat me and I act for the good, then I add good to the world, and in so doing, I increase the quantity of goodness and help ease human suffering. Ah, pollyanna sounding again!<br /><br />If I told her to shut up then I'm projecting that as an appropriate way to act and am validating that it's okay for people to talk to me that way. And, it's not.<br />It's not okay for people to treat me with disrespect.<br />I want to be understood, honored, respected, valued, and grokked.<br />And to that extent I must strive to understand, honor, respect, value, and grok others.<br /><br />That is how the principle of the categorical imperative is at work in my life.<br /><br />While talking with my friend, I don't just mirror her words and paraphrase her statements to show her that I grok where she's coming from.<br /><br />I also seek to sense what it is she's needing from her situation. Does she need to quit her job? Does she merely need to communicate something to someone so that she can keep her job and resolve the issue that's causing her suffering? Can she simply shift her perspective and feel happier with her job? Must drastic measures be taken or is there some easy quick solution?<br /><br />Once I assess this information, via compassionate questions and listening to my friend, I will offer a suggestion or two. Gentle suggestions, phrased the way I'd want someone to speak to me and stated in ways that the human psyche can receive. <br /><br />I might say something like, it sounds like you don't really like banking and would prefer to go back to teaching. I wait and listen to her reply or reaction to that statement. She might say, oh god, no I don't know if I can teach again, my mortgage is too high for that, and with Dan being laid off and the kids in private school, I need to keep the banking job. To that, I must react with understanding, mirroring her, paraphrasing, validating. I see, yes, teachers don't make what bankers do do they?<br /><br />No. I hear her sigh.<br /><br />Then, I try to address the specific issue at her job, which is, her boss never lets her finish a sentence, and she feels that she's always interrupted and not heard. This includes making suggestions for improving her performance, but then her boss interrupts and takes credit for the idea and even treats my friend as if she is incompetent. So, I suggest, if Janice does not allow you to complete sentences then perhaps what you need to do is have a one on one talk with her. Let her know that you really respect her and love working with her. Tell her that you enjoy being on her team and you are available to assist her for anything. Tell her she can count on you. <br /><br />My friend hears this as if she's having a revelation.<br />I told her this because that's what I'd want someone to tell me. Something wise and insightful that could help me address my situation in ways I hadn't thought of...<br />My friend reports to me the following month that she had exactly that kind of meeting with her boss and then they went out for lunch several times since then and all the interrupting had stopped.<br /><br />I'm not sure if this is making my point, but in putting myself in my friends shoes' in acting conscientiously, that is, in thinking about how I'd want to be treated, and in thinking about what would most benefit my friend in terms of what i was able to provide while she was talking/complaining to me about her job, in acting on the Categorical Imperative I helped her change her attitude and her situation so that the suffering she had earlier described disappeared!<br /><br />And maybe, maybe my friend comes back a month later with the same story, complaining about her job situation and I ask her if she had a meeting with her boss and she says no. The, I go from there, I find out what is going on in her head. Why didn't she meet with her boss, and offer the most compassionate support I can.<br /><br />It can often be our reaction to a complaining friend to secretly roll our eyes to ourselves while smiling and nodding or frowning if that's the seeming appropriate face to make. <br />But I don't think this helps our friend. If you pause and look within, look at what you would want from a friend in a situation in which you were complaining and suffering.. although you might not see it that way. To you it might be that you are describing an unfair or bad situation. Would you want your friend to just nod and go uh-huh, I see, oh really, oh that's too bad, etc..? <br /><br />I don't think I would. <br />So I operate on the principle that what I need deep inside is my guide. And what I need deep inside is a feeling of authentic connection, of compassion, of deep trust and care, and not only a feeling of being honored, respected, and valued, but also of being deeply understood and seen. So, I strive to give this to others. I strive to give what I want to the world.<br /><br />If I hear a friend complain I offer compassionate listening and authentic care, and I also actively strive to suggest a friendly, non-judgmental solution, as that is what I want. I want my friends to help me see a different perspective on my problem.I want them to hear where I'm coming from and understand all the nuances and really grok my personal suffering. And in this connection I feel more connected, more at peace, more whole.<br /><br />I do think this is a matter of acting in ways that you think it's okay for everyone else to act. It's about acting conscientiously, for the good of others. It's about saying, would I want someone to do or say this to me? If not, don't do it. Rethink your approach, and strive to live a more conscientious life.<br /><br />The Categorical Imperative was championed by <a href="http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/kant-moral/">Immanuel Kant</a>. For more information about its history and origins, reference Kant, and other philosophers and movements, including Plato, Sartre, and Christiandom.<br /><br />Thank you.<br />Leila<div class="blogger-post-footer">This content was created by Leila Kincaid.</div>a Lost Coast Media Endeavorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15697973125841557220noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2564646089588257225.post-65897719057517351932008-10-10T08:50:00.000-07:002008-10-14T16:28:22.087-07:00A time for turning within<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNjDxqsM7y_yfTBjH3PCRqFKq269cnvA3-tI9McX6GdD3Jp0DEuPdZcYTC_mSheeiCoC67bMIimU9HVxifxviek9l31dOFjLotMXq6G0y3bRI04u4j8fr45RSMhexK-7PxwzurVeuqHP4/s1600-h/autumn+goddessgif"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNjDxqsM7y_yfTBjH3PCRqFKq269cnvA3-tI9McX6GdD3Jp0DEuPdZcYTC_mSheeiCoC67bMIimU9HVxifxviek9l31dOFjLotMXq6G0y3bRI04u4j8fr45RSMhexK-7PxwzurVeuqHP4/s200/autumn+goddessgif" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5257155495351710642" /></a><br /><br />Ah, Fall comes, and I feel a deep turning within.<br /><br />There is something about the air, the cool, crispness of it, that makes me consciously take more deep breaths than I do during the dry, hot Summers or warm and wet Springs.<br /><br />There is something about the sky, the way the colors start to skew down into the Maxfield Parrish realm, as the Earth tilts away from the Sun, that makes me calm down and notice more. <br />I find I can just sit and stare. I can just be here and see the beauty that surrounds me.<br /><br />October is my favorite month, leaning.<br /><br />Fall is here and the leaves are falling off the trees outside my office window. I stop and stare at that miraculous moment of simplicity. <br />"It's true," I tell myself, I am that leave, turned deep brown and falling off the tree to merge with the earth. <br />I have been high and hanging out and blowing in the wind and clinging and now I am free!<br /><br />It's true. That leaf is me. <br />And now I'm happily laying on the ground under a giant maple with sprawling craggy branches. <br /><br />I'm going deep within. Now is the time for turning within.<br />I'll rest here for the fall until I decompose and transform again. <br />I'll break down all my components and morph once more into the heart of the earth and creep up to the core of the tree I once fell from.<br /><br />And one day the essence that is me will flow, nutrient rich, up through the tree, and I'll sprout out there on that farthest branch. That one there, hanging out over the sea.<br /><br />And I'll hang out there, listening, until it's time to fall again, and contemplate the Eternal Return.<br /><br />October is my favorite month, leaving.<br /><br />It's Fall again.<br />Amen.<div class="blogger-post-footer">This content was created by Leila Kincaid.</div>a Lost Coast Media Endeavorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15697973125841557220noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2564646089588257225.post-78728830496618922702008-10-05T20:38:00.000-07:002008-10-06T20:13:18.977-07:00A Situation in WhichA situation is an occurance, a happening, an event.<br />It's a setting of sorts, but not a locale.<br />It's not a "where".<br /><br />This past year I've been acutely aware of how often I hear the phrase:<br />"A situation where..."<br /><br />I cringe.<br /><br />I hear this from NPR djs and interviewees, noted authorities on various subjects, CNN news anchors, talk show hosts, politicians, and, of course, those I'm personally in contact with in my daily life: friends, family, colleagues, acquaintences.<br /><br />The fact is, the phrase, "A situation where", is ubiquitous!<br /><br />Why? Perhaps because the fine art of grammatical instruction has fallen by the wayside. I shudder to think that perhaps we all learn this horrid way of speaking in our classrooms. I give credit to teachers everywhere in the hope that they work in earnest to help us develop more than adequate communication skills, including the ability to construct a proper sentence, both in writing and speaking.<br /><br />Perhaps, it's in the home and the school hallway, the social gatherings and even (now) online conversations that induce and allow us to make a muck of our fine language,and thus, make very little sense.<br /><br />I've always thought that the beauty of a language is in the moment that it gives reality a definition. The way words, syntactically structured into groupings of linguistic meaning, have the ability to connect subjective (and perhaps objective, as in female, or day, or wood) meaning to the perceived world of experience through symbol, sound, and thought. <br /><br />Language influences perception.<br /><br />And, to that extent, when I hear the utterance, "A situation where", I feel seriously worried about the level of consciousness of the speaker. It makes me feel alienated. I suppose because I'm in a state of judgment. But, perhaps, it is because in the misuse of the English language, I discern a certain careless unconsciousness about what we are all doing here and why.<br /><br />Yes, at some level I'm offended by the grammatical error. But at a deeper level I'm knocked into some state of existential despair as to the meaning of it all. And hearing someone say something like "a situation where" dismantles some delicate part of me that depends on the belief, or perhaps dire hope, that design, symmetry, and purpose hold us all together.<br />And grammatical structures, and the rules which hold them together, help me feel a sense of control and power over my experience of reality.<br /><br />Who knows...<br /><br />I just know that I wish I could hear, just once, on NPR, or out of Barak Obama's mouth, "A situation in which", rather than, "a situation where".<br /><br />That would be a situation in which I am a happy Leila!<div class="blogger-post-footer">This content was created by Leila Kincaid.</div>a Lost Coast Media Endeavorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15697973125841557220noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2564646089588257225.post-43753453133013157852008-10-02T08:58:00.000-07:002008-10-02T09:04:05.311-07:00Barbara Ehrenreich on Capitalism in the U.S. 2008 and MarxRead her pertinent article, published today in <a href="http://www.thenation.com/doc/20081013/ehrenreich">The Nation</a>, and copied, with permission, here:<br /> <br /><span style="font-weight:bold;"><br />The Communist Manifesto Turns 160</span> <br />By Barbara Ehrenreich<br />October 1, 2008<br /><br />This year marks the 160th anniversary of <a href="http://www.anu.edu.au/polsci/marx/classics/manifesto.html">The Communist Manifesto</a> and capitalism--a k a "free enterprise"--seems willing to observe the occasion by dropping dead. On Monday night, some pundits were warning that the ATMs might run dry and hinting that the only safe investment left is canned beans. Apocalypse or extortion? No one seems to know, though the populist part of the populace has been leaning toward the latter. An e-mail whipping around the web this morning has the subject line "Sign on Wall Street yesterday," and shows a hand-lettered cardboard sign saying, "JUMP! You Fuckers!" <br /><br />The Manifesto makes for quaint reading today. All that talk about "production," for example: Did they actually make things in those days? Did the proletariat really slave away in factories instead of call centers? But on one point Marx and Engels proved right: within capitalist societies, or at least the kind of wildly unregulated capitalism America has had, the rich got richer, the workers got poorer, and the erstwhile middle class has been sliding toward ruin. The last two outcomes are what Marx called "immiseration," which, in translation, is the process you're undergoing when you have cancer and no health insurance or a mortgage payment due and no paycheck coming in. <br /><br />Marx predicted that capitalism would fall in a spirited, proactive, fashion: the workers, fed up with immiseration, would revolt, seize the "means of production" and insist on running the show themselves, that being the original, pre-Soviet, notion of socialism. The revolution didn't happen, of course, at least not here. For the past several years, American workers have sweetly acquiesced to declining wages, rising prices, speed-ups at work, disappearing pensions and increasingly threadbare health insurance. While CEO pay escalated to the eight-figure range and above, so-called ordinary Americans took on second jobs and crowded into multi-generational households with uncomfortably long waits for the bathroom. <br /><br />But all this immiseration--combined with fabulous enrichment at the top--did end up destabilizing the capitalist system, if only because , in the last few years, America's substitute for decent wages has been easy credit. Until about a year ago, we got almost daily messages, by telemarketer and by mail, urging us to consolidate our debts, refinance our homes, transfer our debts from credit card to another and try tasty new mortgages that didn't even require a down payment. All too often, we bit. It sounded so reasonable, for example, not to let our assets just "sit" in our houses but to start spending that money now. <br /><br />At the other, Learjet, end of the economic spectrum, there was the problem of what to do with too much money. Yes, this can be a problem. Some of the super-rich have to hire consultants to help them spend their money: Where do you get a $20,000 bottle of wine or find a Picasso for the bathroom wall? More seriously, there was the problem of what to invest in. As Chuck Collins of the Working Group on Extreme Inequality has pointed out, huge concentrations of wealth can function like rogue waves, smashing around recklessly in their search for ever higher returns. A lot of these money waves flowed, directly or indirectly, into the dodgy credit schemes that were engulfing the un-rich majority, leaving even the fat cats imperiled by the toxic debts of the subprime class. <br /><br />Marx's argument was that the coexistence of great wealth for the few and growing poverty for the many is not only morally objectionable, it's also inherently unstable. He may have been wrong about the reasons for the instability, but no one can any longer deny it's there. When the greed of the rich collided with the needs of the poor--for a home, for example--the result was a global credit meltdown. <br /><br />Obviously, the way to address the crisis is to deal with the poverty and inequality that led to it: bail out people facing foreclosures, increase food stamp allotments, extend unemployment insurance and make a massive job-generating, public investment in infrastructure--and, since medical debts are the number-one cause of personal bankruptcy, enact universal health insurance immediately. But not even Obama, whose lawn sign I still proudly display, seems to have the stomach for such a "trickle upwards" approach. He has announced that he won't bother taking the bailout as an opportunity to change the bankruptcy law so that people facing foreclosure can renegotiate their mortgages. <br /><br />So happy birthday, Communist Manifesto--although I'm hoping that capitalism survives this one, if only because there's no alternative ready at hand. At the very least, we should get some regulation and serious oversight out of any bailout deal, meaning that, yes, the economy will look a little less like "free enterprise." But one thing we should have learned in the last week, if not the last year, is that, when applied to enterprise, "freedom" can be just another word for someone else's pain. <br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">About Barbara Ehrenreich<br /></span>Barbara Ehrenreich, the author of Nickel and Dimed (Owl), is the winner of the 2004 Puffin/Nation Prize. more...<div class="blogger-post-footer">This content was created by Leila Kincaid.</div>a Lost Coast Media Endeavorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15697973125841557220noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2564646089588257225.post-31256641932955366532008-09-30T17:35:00.000-07:002008-09-30T17:36:30.986-07:00Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of HappinessWhen the government obstructs the people's ability and right to pursue these ends, and when the government taxes the people without representing them, it's not a democracy.<div class="blogger-post-footer">This content was created by Leila Kincaid.</div>a Lost Coast Media Endeavorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15697973125841557220noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2564646089588257225.post-2207761018116462252008-09-29T14:13:00.000-07:002008-09-29T14:31:50.925-07:001000 JournalsI went to the Port Townsend Film Festival this weekend.<br />Set on the northeastern tip of the Olympic Peninsula, in Washington State, this hip waterfront town boasts views of the Cascade Mountains and the Puget Sound. It's pretty cool there. I loved it and want to go back.<br /><br />While there, I saw <a href="http://www.1000journalsfilm.com/">a movie called 1000 Journals</a>. It's a documentary about a dude in San Francisco, who goes by the title "Someguy". He has this idea that he has to send out <a href="http://www.1000journals.com/">1000 blank journals into the world</a> to see if they ever come back to him. He buys several journals at a time and puts his stamp inside them, and numbers each journal.<br /><br />Andrea Kreuzhage, the movie's editor, director, creator, contacted Someguy and tracked down several of the journals and the people who had them in possession, all over the world...<br />The documentary follows the life of some of the journals and interviews the journal(ists?) /journal(ers?) about their experiences. <br /><br />As a journaler of 20 plus years I found this to be an awesome, intriguing, inspiring story. I respect Someguy for starting this.<br />Now, with a book about it, a <a href="http://www.1000journalsfilm.com/">documentary</a>, and an upcoming SFMoma interactive exhibit, Someguy has made quite a name for himself.. but.. what is his name?<br /><br />If you see any movie this year, see 1000 Journals!!! Get <a href="http://www.1000journals.com/index.php?view=Book%2FIndex">the 1000 Journals book</a>! Check out <a href="http://www.1000journals.com/">the 1000 Journals website</a>! And.. be part of the new project, <a href="http://1001journals.com/">1001 journals</a>...<br />Or just write in and create your own.<br /><br />I love that people have the need to express their experiences of reality. I love that we can share each others' expressions, and in that moment of being alone in our perceptions and expressions we can reach out and bridge some tangible gap between me and you, I and thou, self and other, us and them...<div class="blogger-post-footer">This content was created by Leila Kincaid.</div>a Lost Coast Media Endeavorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15697973125841557220noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2564646089588257225.post-3387289848115980862008-09-16T10:37:00.001-07:002008-09-16T10:39:48.146-07:00Capitalism Caves in on ItselfI love <a href="http://tom.acrewoods.net/research/philosophy/ideology/marxism-capitalism">this essay</a>. <br />I think what's happening right now in the market is exactly what Karl Marx predicted 150 years ago in his seminal work,<span style="font-weight:bold;"> <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Das_Kapital">Das Kapital</a></span>.<div class="blogger-post-footer">This content was created by Leila Kincaid.</div>a Lost Coast Media Endeavorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15697973125841557220noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2564646089588257225.post-29130769034127234932008-09-08T07:51:00.001-07:002008-09-08T08:43:52.928-07:00America, please, snap out of it..."We, at our own peril underestimate the incredibly strong streak of mega delusional running through our collective experiment known as America... Complicity with being conned."<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">Visionary Activist</span>, <span style="font-weight:bold;"><a href="http://visionaryactivism.com/">Caroline Casey</a></span>, always informing the structure of reality for the good of everyone, on the Presidential Elections.<br /><br />She likens Sarah Palin to a sorceress with odd energies at work, and states that what's bad about Palin is "...not who she is but what’s animating her."<br /> <br /><a href="http://www.kpfa.org/archives/index.php?arch=28211">Listen to Casey's awesome, refreshingly sharp September 4th talk</a> on the Presidential Campaign shenanigans at <a href="http://www.kpfa.org/archives/index.php?arch=28211">KPFA.org</a>. Every week at 2pm on Thursdays, and streaming for your convenience in archives.<br /><br />"Let's invite irony, but not sarcasm...<br />May everyone be surrounded by a fiery wall of their own better nature...<br />Empire going down.. collaborative ingenuity coming up...." <span style="font-style:italic;">Caroline Casey</span><br /><br />And what I want to know is, why is Sarah Palin so anti-wolf? She votes again and again to have them killed and wiped out. And she votes again and again to have the Alaskan Wildlife Refuge drilled.<br /><br />Don't vote for the drilling and killing ticket...<div class="blogger-post-footer">This content was created by Leila Kincaid.</div>a Lost Coast Media Endeavorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15697973125841557220noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2564646089588257225.post-57879413588948254342008-09-02T11:56:00.000-07:002008-09-02T12:02:08.090-07:00Chrome Comic about the future of Internet BrowsersOkay, everyone. Here you are, on the internet. Yes, it's a place. It's Cyberspace!<br />And here we are, in the Brave New World of instant communication and information exchange!<br />Don't get lost and overwhelmed by all the information that is now so readily available to you.<br />Ease your way into a relationship with the internet that allows you to define what you wish to experience and protect your boundaries.<br /><br />Now that you're here, I want to share with you a cool, layman speak, informative comic about this internet that you use, and about the cutting edge of technology that is poised to drop into our laps for free (<span style="font-style:italic;">thanks to Google's new open source browser</span>, <span style="font-weight:bold;">Chrome</span>).<br /><br />Take some time to study t<a href="http://www.google.com/googlebooks/chrome/index.html">his 30+ page educational comic about the internet and Chrome</a>.<div class="blogger-post-footer">This content was created by Leila Kincaid.</div>a Lost Coast Media Endeavorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15697973125841557220noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2564646089588257225.post-54228619522652668642008-08-29T17:03:00.001-07:002008-08-29T17:09:26.288-07:00Noble TruthI can't just sit here.<br />There are storms raging and worlds coming into being inside of me.<br />While you sit there all calm and stare.<br />Are you quiet in a wandering repose of saline peace or does your silence emit from a void?<br /><br />I'm all wrought with this vital noise that's blaring in my head.<br />I'm sure you can hear it. Perhaps your vacant gaze is ignorance. Perhaps it's the sage in you who knows all too well that my fervent rantings render naught.<br /><br />But can't they do something? <br />Can't they claw at the night in a rabid madended seeking? <br />Can't they grope toward meaning like the lepers to Christ. <br />See me. Touch me. Heal me. Make me whole! Give my life meaning and let me live again.<br /><br />I know what soft promises the cowards and the liars make to themselves in the dark when I'm laying in a pool of blood <br />sinking into the truth of I AM.<br /><br />I see gentle lucid souls shining vibrantly and it makes me want to die to something more intense and powerful.<br /><br />Each second is raindrop of perfection. I know. <br />I caught the stare from God when I slammed my jaw on the pavement that July and felt teeth and bone and tearing open tongue and throngs of this red life stuff gushed down my chin and down my neck. My breasts were all red. <br />Very pretty. <br />Very pretty in all red.<br /><br />At last I know it's true that after all this fecklessness, there is me.<br /><br />And in the core of my body is a noble truth. In the core of my body is a noble truth.<div class="blogger-post-footer">This content was created by Leila Kincaid.</div>a Lost Coast Media Endeavorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15697973125841557220noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2564646089588257225.post-19109143969672053912008-08-29T08:55:00.000-07:002008-08-30T21:08:48.537-07:00It's All About Communication!After spending some time with family this summer, I realized that the thing I trip over in our familial interactions is mis-communication.<br /><br />Ah, yes, that again. It seems that most of my grievances regarding social interactions revolve around communication problems. Why? Because people simply do not say what they mean or tell people what they are thinking and planning and feeling and doing and experiencing. It results in a maddening guessing game of half truths and running around bushes and hide and seek and all that other B.S. that wastes our life energy and time.<br /><br />I notice that so many of us do not say what we think, want, feel, or mean. We hide. We beat around the bush. We second guess. We self edit. We censor. We lie.<br /><br />We're afraid to tell people the truth. We're lying to each other and ourselves. We're avoiding who we really are. We're not being authentic. We're not being real.<br />And I think this is the one true sin. <br /><br />Sanity must truly be the ability to communicate your experience of reality to others, and to that extent we are mostly crazy, because we don't.<br /><br />To Thine Own Self Be True! Heralds the poet and prophet and saint.<br />Communicate your experience of reality! urges the shaman, healer, and sage.<br /><br />What have you got to lose if you don't tell the truth? If you don't say what you mean? If you avoid, hide, obfuscate, and pussyfoot? EVERYTHING! Yourself! Reality!<br /><br />Schools, churches, parents, and our media DO NOT TEACH CLEAR COMMUNICATION.<br />This much is clear to me. <br />We must change this! And we can. Each of us. Right now! Starting with ourselves...<br />Tell the truth. Say what you mean. <br /><br /><br />How did I come to the observation that so many of us are plagued with the inbability to communicate?<br /><br />I think it's rooted in my upbringing. With no television, living out in the country, surrounded by books and public radio, I grew a literate, curious, and communicative mind.<br /><br />I was always ahead in my classes in school in reading and comprehension because of all the reading I did at home. Between the ages of 8 and 12 I read Mark Twain, Kurt Vonnegut, Carlos Castaneda, Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, the entire King James Bible (several times), the Oxford English Dictionary, and the plays of Sophocles, Euripedes, and the Platonic Dialouges. Then, I cracked into Shakespeare, Nietzsche, Rilke, Kerouac, and the New York Times in my early teens. <br /><br />I lived with a small American Heritage in my backpack, bag, and bedside table at all times. <br /><br />And I wrote. I wrote every day, in journals, and notebooks, on crisp white pages in an old Remington, and later on keyboards in Word Perfect, and finally MS Word. <br /><br />I was always thinking, wondering, asking, reading, writing, and wanting to know the nature of reality and being. I wanted to know why people were the way they were and what we were all here for and how we knew anything. You know, the eternal human questions...<br /><br />I think that having had an almost completely self-taught and totally self-earned classical education throughout my childhood and teens, via reading all the classics in philosophy and history and literature, and then going to the world's most famous university for Classics Studies, yielded a very precise and discerning mind that seeks, desires, and functions with clear communication.<br /><br />And I'm not talking about grammar and spelling and punctuation and knowing facts. I'm talking about that curious, open, and honest thirst for knowledge and understanding, the deep drive that spurns one to read and gobble everything in its quest to KNOW, in its quest for knowledge... The Faustian equation... But I didn't sell my soul to the devil for it. Did I? No. I always thought, for sure, it was the business majors and people who seemed only to care about money and how they looked that sold their souls. I remember days in undergraduate school urging people to take up studies in the humanities and give up their material pursuits... Naive and silly, perhaps. But authentic, nevertheless. And that is what counts, right? Authenticity. being real and true to who you are, no matter what.<br /><br />Ah, clear communication marks this missive from the denizen of literary misfits and intelligentsia.<br />How can we entreat others to state what they mean, with courage, verve, and resolve?<br />I ask you all, my fellow human beings, my brothers and sisters, and co-habitators of the planet Earth, to please communicate clearly, say what you mean, and have no fear to be forthright in communication your experience of reality to others. For, in essence, your experience of reality is the only thing you really have. Isn't it?<br />So give it boldly, proudly, and effusively!<br /><br />If life is about anything it's about being here and experiencing what there is, and what's the point if you're unable to share that with others, to experience it with others, to describe your experience, to share your reality, and bridge, and connect! It must surely be through this sharing of our experience of reality that we can attain some form of eternality and immortality.<br />If not to carve an imperishable legend through magnificent deeds, then at least to share in this grand experience.<br /><br />And how can you share if you don't communicate your experience of reality with others, be it through words, art, gestures, music, architecture, painting, moviemaking or some form or method of communication that allows you to open up to the world and say, "this is me, this is my experience, hello you there, this is me here Hurrah!"?!?!<br /><br />So, do it.<br />Please, if you care about anything, care about this. Care that you are important and valid and real, and that you have every right, and thus, responsibility to honor what and who and that you are by sharing and affirming it through communication, the way we go from solipsistic isolation to glorious and expansive meaning making with others.<br /><br />If you aren't real with others about who you are, how do you expect to ever experience anything truly real with them? Let them know the real you. Open up and give that. Give that one, true, diamond-gem that you possess wholly and truly and always: YOU.<br />How can expect to ever get, find, be, experience, or do what you really want to in this life and in this world if you don't have the integrity and audacity and responsibility to BE YOURSELF!?!? <br />And <span style="font-style:italic;">being yourself means expressing yourself and sharing yourself and you do this through clear and honest and open and upfront and raw and naked true communication.<span style="font-weight:bold;"></span></span><br /><br />CAPICHE?<br />Understand?<br />Got it?<br />Grok?<br /><br />Good.<br /><br />----<br />This is a couple days after this post and I just got an email from the Course on Miracles with this quote:<br /><br />"In order to truly communicate, we must take responsibility for the heart space that exists between us and another. It is that heart space, or the absence of it, which will determine whether communication is miraculous or fearful.<br />—Excerpted from A Return to Love: Reflections on the Principles of A Course in Miracles"<br /><br />Perfect!<div class="blogger-post-footer">This content was created by Leila Kincaid.</div>a Lost Coast Media Endeavorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15697973125841557220noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2564646089588257225.post-91437775945273350212008-08-28T13:37:00.000-07:002008-08-28T13:40:04.121-07:00We Can Solve It<span style="font-weight:bold;">We can.</span><br />I like this idea. I like the vibe. It's positive! It's affirming! It's more than hope, it's a plan to ACT!<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">We Can Solve It</span> is an organization spearheaded by Al Gore to help the world shift into a new way of thinking about energy usage and natural resources.<br />It's a way to change the world.<br />It's indicative of the paradigm shift that is happening on this planet right now.<br />Be a part of it!<br /><br /><a href="http://www.wecansolveit.org/content/pages/371/"><span style="font-style:italic;">Check out their latest video!<span style="font-weight:bold;"></span></span></a> It's so scary and true.<br />What I like about WE is that they show you the scary truth, and then they show you how you can get involved in solutions. <br />YES!<div class="blogger-post-footer">This content was created by Leila Kincaid.</div>a Lost Coast Media Endeavorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15697973125841557220noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2564646089588257225.post-24169620038165982352008-07-19T09:21:00.000-07:002008-08-29T17:11:44.242-07:00The Dark Knight Review<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhILVoY8lRnd_d_q0wjjwDMMImTiF9fOYCzA76IzJR8awMy-MzXvNHdEo-ZwVei67kGPAfw5rpDp4UhZlM5glEhe8Yprl21RjhlgCak-9xZxco7uJqYT76ZiP0BJpDBhTZB6JU-I8RDUL8/s1600-h/16_darkknight_lg.jpg"><img style="float:center; margin:0 15px 15px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhILVoY8lRnd_d_q0wjjwDMMImTiF9fOYCzA76IzJR8awMy-MzXvNHdEo-ZwVei67kGPAfw5rpDp4UhZlM5glEhe8Yprl21RjhlgCak-9xZxco7uJqYT76ZiP0BJpDBhTZB6JU-I8RDUL8/s200/16_darkknight_lg.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5224768730019555426" />Heath Ledger as THE JOKER. Photo Courtesy of Warner Brothers</a><br />I don’t know what to think, exactly, about The Dark Knight.<br />My first impression is that Heath Ledger was amazing and this movie should have been called The Joker.<br /><br />My second impression is that the editing felt jolted, often ill-timed, and left me feeling frustrated. It turned me off. There was a moment when Batman comes into a fundraiser that he, as Bruce Wayne, arranged, for Harvey Dent. The Joker has crashed the party and now he’s got Rachael Daws at knife point. Batman interrupts him with his low grumble, “Then love me”, and he goes in for the attack to save his beloved. This scene doesn’t work because the editing confuses the dialogue and the focus of the scene. I wanted to rewind it to figure out what the director’s intent was. It felt like a gaff. There were several instances of this odd, ill-timed editing throughout the movie and I felt really irked by it. It reminded me of what was wrong with a near brilliant piece of movie art: Gangs of New York (the editing).<br /><br />My third impression was that the pacing of the movie was chaotic, dysfunctional, off. It didn’t build and it didn’t ease off. There were no contrasts. It was all jump, action, jump, confrontation, jump, blow things up, jump confrontation, jump, action, etc.. You get the picture… And the thing is, none of these action scenes were fresh or new. None of them had the artistic vision I'd expect from a director like Nolan. <br /><br />I felt that many of the dialogue driven scenes were cut short and I was not given enough time to sink into the mood or find an overall theme in them. I wanted to meditate on the ideas and the words and be with the characters, but every time I started to get into a scene it would cut to something entirely different, not thematically or visually related. Again, it felt jolted, patched together, unpolished. Perhaps Nolan will have a director’s cut? I hope so.<br /><br />I’m not sure if the lack of continuity and narrative is in the script or the editing, but it stands out like a pink elephant in a dining room. <br />Even Christian Bale, who I always look forward to seeing in movies, and who never fails to deliver mesmerizing performances, doesn’t get a chance to shine in The Dark Knight. The movie doesn’t give him enough screen time or a developed character arc. And this is highly frustrating, because, as a viewer, I want to watch the transformation of Batman into The Dark Knight, and the only real hint of it I get is at the end when Batman tells Lieutenant James Gordon, sensitively played by Gary Oldman, that he is not the hero that Gotham needs right now. Thus, he has to go into hiding and let Gordon “chase him”. This is all dialogue and it’s fast and short at the end of the movie and feels confusing and cheap.<br /><br />I wanted this movie to be better. I wanted it to be as tight and complete as Batman Begins, a true work of movie art.<br /><br />As much as I respect Christopher Nolan and love his movies, with The Dark Knight I feel disappointed, confused, and upset. Perhaps I feel disappointed because the contrast with Batman Begins leaves this movie lacking, and definitely as this is Heath Ledger’s last film performance (unless Terry Giliam manages to include some footage of Heath in his new film). I wanted the movie to be perfect and amazing. Ledger’s performance is, and for now, I will see this movie as an homage to his unique gift as an actor, and not as a tour de force by Nolan.<br /><br />After writing the above, I have found some other, more established and well-known, movie critics voicing similar sentiments about The Dark Knight, as follows:<br /><br />MTV's Kurt Loder's review, <a href="http://www.mtv.com/movies/news/articles/1591147/story.jhtml">The Dark Knight: Ledgerdemain </a><br /><br />David Edelstein's 2 parter:<a href="http://nymag.com/movies/reviews/48514/"> Bat Out of Hell</a> in which the reviewer states that "Even its most wondrous vision...can’t keep the movie airborne", and <a href="http://nymag.com/daily/movies/2008/07/why_youre_still_wrong_about_th.html">The Dark Knight of My Soul</a> in which he says, "the plotting is herky-jerky, the psychology perplexing, the action scenes incoherent".<br /><br />Fox News' <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/blogentertainment/?bbPostId=Cz1i5LlBc2vLrB7uZGMKbDHu2BEOFrZ25AgadCzEJdhSLG94Zf&bbParentWidgetId=B98VxfFxNxsUCre3huaR58T">Four Reasons to Skip The Dark Knight</a> in which the reviewer says "the film borders on pastiche" and asks "is it too much to ask that a Batman movie be about.. Batman?"<div class="blogger-post-footer">This content was created by Leila Kincaid.</div>a Lost Coast Media Endeavorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15697973125841557220noreply@blogger.com0