Mind Your Own

As we rapidly approach the fated date of 2012 our future seems more and more uncertain. What we believe is probable today seemed unfathomable one year ago, and where we find ourselves one year from today may be an even greater challenge to fathom from where we now stand. Our collective march toward this time is like the ascent of a great mountain, not knowing exactly what will be over the mountain top, but hoping it is worth the struggle of the climb. In the coming Sun cycles we will be cresting the great peak, gazing out over our new world that so many have fought and died to help create. And though they are not here with us now they are seeing through our eyes, and all of our ancestors, all of our relations will feel the collective sigh when the light of the new day shines in.

Without knowing it, without understanding it, we have been struggling on this ascent on the colder, darker side of the mountain, and the great valley we are moving to is full of glorious sunlight. In this darkness we have been tricked, robbed, enslaved, and employed by others who preyed on our weaknesses and ignorance. But in this new world there will be no shadows in which to hide, where darkness once reigned light will fill in the world with information, understanding, and with that comes compassion. We will one day look back on the time when we would harm another person to perpetuate a legal fiction as a period of collective insanity, as a society of sociopaths who worshiped false idols. And this light will reveal the nature of one of most basic designs of the universe and our places in it; everything we do is compelled by either love or fear. We may not be able to wipe out fear, but when we understand this base principle we can more accurately assess our behavior and choose our repsponses.

And when we assess our collective behavior we find one consistent concept instilled in our laws and social structure that lies at the heart of nearly every problem we have ever faced. For two thousand years humans have entertained a shared delusion called "property" or "ownership" that has caused more heartache than it could ever hope to amend. We draw imaginary lines between people and things, or places that connect them by claim, yet we are temporal and can only have temporary relationships with places and things. And of course it is the concept of "property" that lies at the heart of slavery, and the abuse of workers. It is "property" that lies at the heart of kingdoms and empires, property causes wars for resources. Property is what makes it possible for someone who has never worked an honest days labor in their entire life to extract the profits (fruits of labor) from those who work the hardest, this in essence is "capitalism".

And this is the ultimate trick that we have been duped into on this cold shadowy mountain side as we slowly march toward the peak. In fact, consider the word "ploy" which is the root of the word "employment", think of this when those who horde the wealth refer to themselves as "job creators." They would rather we think of them as the creator of jobs than to contemplate what that implies, that they necessarily are not the workers of jobs, they aren't doing their share of the work. If the last two thousand years had left us with only brute rule, where we would simply be the slaves of those who could physically dominate us, that would no doubt be a failure of humanity. But for us to be enslaved to those who utilize their brain power is no better, especially considering that they use their brains to subordinate those with the greatest strength to do their bidding and secure their aristocracy by force.

This concept of "property" which is today blatantly defined as a legal fiction, has always been nothing more than a spell of glamour cast by those with great mental prowess over those who wrongfully believe in the benevolence of their lords. Our modern day landlords play a remarkably similar role to the Lord of the land under feudalism, when one must continually pay for the right to a home they are truly enslaved to the masters of employment and housing. Ironically when those with the bulk of the property would like to defend the concept they suggest that property rights prevent someone (or the government) from taking that property away from you. But 99% of the time it actually does exactly the opposite, allowing one who has no need for a home to physically force out those who have no other home. This can be a person who owns multiple houses and chooses to rent out one or more to "tenants", or it can be a legal fiction like a bank or corporation that acquires a mortgage.

And when one suggests that all people have a right to a home and no person needs more than one home, those who have multiple houses claim that being limited to one constitutes theft of their property. This concept of property allows not only for some to have more money (another legal fiction) but also to have as many houses as they desire while others have no house at all to call a home. Property which justified slavery until just 146 years ago also justifies the descendants of slave owners rights to the wealth extracted from the free forced labor of African American slaves over a period of 400 years. While the rich suggest that the poor black descendants of slaves should just "get a job" they themselves don't need jobs for basic needs like food and housing, and in fact can have almost anything they want without performing any labor to earn it. While some are forced to earn every crumb they get, others simply claim rights to the whole cake because they bought it, paid for it, or inherited it, they own it.

While we now see a movement forming to embrace this new world and end our mindless allegiances to false idols and their anti-democratic authorities, we may not understand where we are headed every step of the way. In the statement from the Occupy Wall Street General Assembly we have given our declaration of independence, not from a king but from hierarchy itself. In defining what is wrong with our current system we have also clearly shown what we will not tolerate in the new world we create, just as the authors of the American Declaration of independence described tyrannies in great detail. It is in the same spirit that turned so many honorable men against the king they were programmed to adore and obey, that we stand up against the false idols and legal fictions that demand our adoration and obedience by threat of force. It has never been one nation, one leader, or one flag that can capture the righteous justice that is the essence of democracy, and democracy is the one thing that can unite the world while simultaneously delivering us from the tyranny of central authority and the aristocratic parasite class it creates and sustains.

Allowed to fully flower, true, global, direct democracy will right all unnecessary wrongs if relentlessly pursued. Ownership is chief among those wrongs that democracy can dissolve through following it's natural course. These connections we have with the people, places, and things in our lives are real on some level, but the idea that we can somehow own them will someday be understood as delusion. However, there is a reality to ownership that binds us to our actions, when we are accountable for our mistakes we "own" them, or "own up to" them. It's no surprise that our property laws have allowed for some to claim ownership over people, places, and things, while shielding them from accountability. The wealthy want to own everything in the whole world, except their own mistakes. All hierarchies have firewalls that never allow the heat of discontent to reach those who are responsible for turning up the fire. In modern times all one needs to do is contemplate the concept of "limited liability" at the crux of the corporate/capital model. While the corporate aristocracy extracts the wealth from industry, none pay any price for criminal negligence, even when it results in the destruction of many innocent lives.

Needless to say, Jesus the man would be leading the marches on Wall St. against the imperial guards of the aristocratic ruling class. Jesus was there in the beginning of this magic spell called property, though empires had ruled for eons they had done so by brute force. But the intellectual activity that was percolating around the banks of the Mediterranean Sea began to give us complex ideas about currency and ownership, buying and selling and loaning monies. The money changers that Jesus assaulted in the temple were the predecessors to our modern day bankers who were developing ways to create wealth from wealth so that they may spare themselves a life of hard labor. Taxes and usury were imposed by those who had wealth against those who had none, a design that always inevitably leads to the enslavement of one class to another. From the Greeks to the Romans to the Jews this concept of ownership was hashed out in such a way that created and sustained an aristocracy that would continue until today. The movement of the 99% may not know it yet, but they have started something that will eventually slay this 2,000 year old beast once and for all.

Music is my Religion

I believe in Music. And though I cannot see music, or touch it, or smell it, I have faith that it truly exists, it is all around us, omnipresent. Music is a force that guides my every step, my very soul. Music is a sea of sonic bliss and my guitar is a tiny ship sailing the gently folding waves. Music is the ultimate key to harmony in the universe, the one song we all share. We are but single voices singing out in a great choir of voices filling the air with music, with energy that infuses spirit with our matter. Even when we are silent, or when we sit in silence, music, notes, voices sing to us from just beyond the veil of reality. The greater the silence the greater the pitch whistling in our ears. Could it be that our ears are still ringing from the big bang? Perhaps the universe is just one big drum head and the big bang was the last time the drum was struck?

Time is nothing but rhythm, and our actions are notes coalescing into harmony and melody, our world, everything that is, is music. Instruments are merely a way to tune into this higher order, to begin to explore it and contemplate it's design. To study music, to play an instrument, to sing, is a spiritual practice that can bring one closer to their spiritual center and more in tune with the greater spiritual reality. To express ones self in words does not guarantee that the content of those words will be a greater truth. But expressing ones self, right or wrong is how one processes information in a healthy way, letting it come out rather than holding it inside. Someone may listen to a song you wrote in a dark phase and think it represents who you are, but the song represents who you were before you expressed the darkness. We are not what we ex-press, we are what we re-press. This process is natural and can be enhanced with conscious intent, music leads us to our next step if we are willing to follow it.

With music as a religion all one has to do to "pray" or "worship" is to pick up an instrument and play, or sing, hum, or whistle. When you walk become conscious of the fact that you're really dancing to a song in your head, your steps keep the beat or keep shuffling it up. Writers, performers, and fans of musical theater are well aware that anything spoken can be sung, and all of the unspoken words are best expressed in song. One does not need to write a song to have a song in their head, or their heart. To "write a song" is to tune into a cosmic radio station and take from it what you will because our Earth bound plagiarism laws don't have jurisdiction outside of our stratosphere. Music can be molded like a lump of clay and we can learn much from doing this in every which way, but music often comes to us already formed with little else to do but work it out on our instruments. Music can be your "church" and there is no right or wrong time to go there, and there is no need for someone to stand between you and your "god."

Music has many prophets, those whose words were intentionally enlightening, if not revolutionary. In the human story music has always been a magic spell that allows one to say what otherwise cannot be said, the music forgives the words. With music one can win favor while simultaneously using the favor, if the music feels good the message feels true. This is especially true if the words are coded or difficult to understand, one can listen to Bob Marley singing "Talking Blues" and love the song without ever really hearing the line "I feel like bombing a church, now that you know that the preacher is lying." This is one of his more revolutionary lyrics seamlessly placed over one of his usual feel good reggae riddems. John Lennon wrote a "Christmas song" towards the end of the Vietnam war with a children's choir singing these simple lines "War is over if you want it" in direct defiance to the powers of the president, Richard Nixon. And to take it a step further, he used his own money to rent billboards around New York city to display those words in large print.

When we look back over human history we can see that music is and always has been a religious experience, institutionalized religions would be nothing without music. Our music theory is the result of hundreds of years of monks chanting incantations. Today music is still an incantation, a prayer, a walking meditation. From the many masters whose words and works have stood the test of time, music as a religion has more saints and prophets than all other religions combined. Pythagoras is perhaps the "Jesus" of this musical religion, if a religion really needs a "Jesus." He understood the music of the spheres, that the planets were singing in their orbits, that the world is a great song. To Pythagoras the three essential elements of education were not "reading, writing, and arithmetic" but "Astrology, Numerology, and Music." But something tells me that Jesus the man understood this musical reality, anyone who speaks (or thinks) in terms of allegory can see that life is "like" a song. And when you are a deeply spiritual thinker, you know that the analogy is true, life is a song.

DIY Reality!

Before the world was dark with threats of terrorism and worse, constant Bushisms, there was a flowering of consciousness that was quickly labeled the "New Age Movement." And as labels go, this period was quickly labeled and as quickly dismissed by many as a marketing ploy to sell books and dream catchers. Of course this "movement" didn't just disappear but it did submerge under the gravity of the Bush years in much the same way the flowering consciousness of the 1960s' receded during the Nixon years. Many of the books that came out in the 90s' had the theme of "Create your own reality" and this became something of a slogan among many who followed in kind. But there was an over simplification inherent in the slogan itself leading many to a quick disillusionment that soured them on their own creative potential. On it's face it comes off as a false promise, and many people were led to expect something for nothing. But in it's oversimplified form, it is a puzzle, a riddle for us to unfold.

"Create your own reality" sounds like a command or suggestion, as if there is some element of choice over whether or not you will or can do it. The first thing one must discover is that they are creating their reality now, always have been and always will be. Perhaps the only choice we have in the matter is whether we create consciously or unconsciously. This realization sets us on the path of reconciliation and recapitulation with the world, there is so much in our past to reconsider. If one truly wishes to create consciously one must first take full responsibility for everything in their world, and see all of their experiences as their own doing. This is perhaps the most difficult task one can engage in, you never know how much you blame on others until you try to take it all back. It also sets us up for a battle between our mind and our spirit, one must completely rethink the law of "cause and effect" in order to take full responsibility for their experience. And to look at the world through the same lens many serious moral questions arise as one tries to eliminate the "victim" and the "criminal" from the narrative of the daily news.

The process of reconciling one's past experiences with this new conscious responsibility is where we hash out the mechanics of how we create our own realities. It doesn't matter whether you're trying to forgive your older brother for holding your head underwater in the pool when you were 10, or if you're theoretically contemplating how a baby could create it's own death, this victim-less world is a challenge to realize. Needless to say, for those of us who are passionate about equal rights and justice, it can be extremely difficult to reconcile the political world view with this rather uncompromising spiritual world view. It's not easy to ask yourself "How did Africans create their own slavery?" or "How did the indigenous peoples of the world ask to be colonized?" These topics may spur lively debates, but we may never truly know how and why other people, or groups of people create their experiences. Asking ourselves a lot of "what if" questions may or may not be fruitful either because we can only truly discover what is. Each of our own personal experiences are enough to keep us contemplating our creations for an eternity.

There is a simple answer to how we create our own realities, and it brings us to the place where our power truly lies. Our minds are not unlike computers, we run programs consisting of lines and lines of code. And just like computer code our minds use words, characters, and numbers. Whatever we program into our minds begins to create the world around us, but much of it comes to us from the external world. Just like computers our minds are vulnerable to malware, spyware, bugs and glitches, and it's up to us to keep them protected. Sometimes we need to clean house so to speak, go through our code and look for old outdated patterns that no longer serve us or do not align with our higher order. The lines of code in our minds are what we call "Beliefs" and we run them without deliberation the same way a computer unquestioningly obeys it's program. Virtually everything we say, every sentence, is a belief, a line of code that helps to create our reality. Even when we say the opposite of what we believe we use a sarcastic tone so that our belief is still implied.

It is not enough to program a few positive beliefs and expect the world to instantly change, or to change at all, and this is how many people approach this concept. There are many beliefs that must be eliminated before a contrary belief can operate unimpeded. One may want to believe in the positive idea, but when we believe in the negative idea for so long we must build the positive idea to be at least as strong. Our minds are not computers of course, in a way our minds are more like gardens and everything in our garden represents a belief. A well tended garden is one that only grows what is intended, and each item in the garden receives all of the vital nourishment from soil, water, and sunlight. If the garden is over run with weeds one must first remove the weeds before planting the new additions, otherwise they may languish due to lack of sufficient nutrients and space. In this world however, we must stand guard at the garden gate and carefully inspect the seeds that others are pitching us, which may subvert our intentions.

It can be a stressful and dizzying affair to try and tackle each one of these beliefs one by one and determine which must go and which can stay, and which ones just need a little tweaking. It may help to make it a top down affair so that all of the little beliefs can be aligned with one over riding belief, a cornerstone for our whole belief system. Asking one's self to choose a single belief to be the foundation for the rest brings us to the depths of our spiritual capacity to emerge with a key, a guide in our quest for reconciliation. It's not at all necessary that we agree what this belief should be, but I suspect that in essence many of us agree on what this fundamental truth is. So I'm happy to volunteer my personal foundational belief, the one I check all others by and toss out those that are not in harmony: ALL IS ONE. Though many institutions and individuals can say that they do believe this, they also believe a lot of things that contradict it. So to suggest this as a criterion for all other beliefs is subversive to most people, but ultimately leads one to create their dream garden, and reality.

Goddess is Goodness

It is widely understood in religious theology that "God is Good", no doubt why our words for the two are so obviously similar. Many tenets of Christianity also strongly suggests that "God is everything" in fact the Latin definition of "catholic" is "Universal, all inclusive." This makes perfect sense as any religious theology must at least claim to be universal, if it can't explain everything it must be missing something. So the glaring contradiction between being "Good" and being "All" is apparent, if you are everything you are both "Good" and "Bad", or dare I say it "Evil." But the Christian "God" has some external demigod-like enemy super villain named Satan. If God were describing all of this to his therapist he would quickly receive the diagnosis of "Bipolar." And who knows, maybe he has been medicated over the past 2000 years of the Age of Pisces. That would explain an awful lot.

Is it possible that the "Devil" is just God when he's in a bad mood? Looking through his behavior as portrayed in the old and new testaments it's hard not to at least consider the possibility. The word "devil" is semantically related to the words "deviate", "devious", and "deviant." So how can a universal, all inclusive religious theology be deviated from? It's like a rule with one enormous exception, one that undermines any attempt at universality. It is natural to divide the world into duality; masculine and feminine, inner and outer, above and below. What set's one up for disaster is in identifying solely with one half and demonizing the other half. Even if the intentions are "good" the results are mixed and the world seems somehow much too "evil" for our liking. Christianity's' obsession with the "Devil" is an eternal war in the spiritual plane, the only chance for resolution is the illusion of vanquishing evil once and for all.

Paganism is actually universal, all inclusive, with no exceptions. For pagans, the duality of masculine and feminine is enough, there is good and bad in everything. We don't need devils, our gods and goddesses can be mischievous, which is rarely as cruel as the Christian God reportedly was to his devout follower Job. On this day Christians observe "Easter", from the word "Oestara" the pagan celebration of the vernal equinox. It's entirely possible that 2000 years ago "Easter" originally fell on or near the vernal equinox in the same way that "Christmas" falls near the winter solstice. It is widely understood that Christian officials at the time were developing "Holidays" in their quest to convert the pagans in the countryside and all over Europe. The word "Pagan" comes from the Classic Latin "Pagani" which translates to country dweller, or farmer. Christianity was a largely urban affair and when they sent their missionaries out into the country side they met with considerable resistance from the farmers.

It was one thing to get people in the cities of the Roman empire to give up their old gods and goddesses for one really great guy named Jehovah, but the farmers actually needed their gods and goddesses and all of the rites and rituals that kept them in tune with the seasons. The tenacity of the people in holding fast to their ways and customs is the true original motivation behind the two most prominent Christian holidays, or Holy days. Pagans gave Christmas the trees and gifts, and they gave Easter the eggs and bunnies. If the Catholic church did not incorporate these elements of pagan ritual, they might very well have failed to convert pagans to Christianity over time. For pagans Oestara, the vernal equinox was a very important time, the snow had melted and the farming season could begin. Whereas the polarity of light and dark was represented in the summer and winter solstices, the equinoxes represent balance of opposites. Perhaps it is this ancient balance that must be resurrected to end the war between "good" and "evil" on the spiritual plane.

Savior Self

If there is one overwhelming factor that deters me from institutional religions it is that they are an external "authority" on matters that I believe can only be addressed within. I am my own guru, my own philosopher, my own savior. To you I am an external source, or authority if you deem me worthy, but to me I am the one. And to you, you are the one, you can be your own guru, your own savior. Spirituality is not a hierarchal plane of existence, no one should accept such inequities in the spirit realm. If, like me, you are one who chooses to go tell it on the mountain, you may be tempted to join one of the institutional religions. After all, they're already established and you can jump right in and people will listen to you. Choosing to be a priest, preacher, rabbi, monk etc. is like choosing to own a part of the McDonalds franchise, it's already established and you don't need any original ideas.

It's understandable why someone would want to buy into a franchise, starting a new business can be tough. One can spend most of their budget on advertising alone trying to establish a customer base from scratch. If I were to join a religion and align my philosophy with established dogma I would be able to get a gig in a church somewhere where people would listen to what I have to say. As it is, why should anyone listen to me? In fact we have taboos in our society against preaching if you are not a "preacher", against lecturing if you are not a professor. For some odd reason people dislike being preached to unless they're in church, and they dislike being lectured to unless they pay someone to do it. So it is the institutions that we are taught to trust, not people. And these institutions don't just assume their authority in matters of higher learning, they seek it out and undermine the authority of those not affiliated.

In the spiritual world we see this represented in the concept of blasphemy, an actual threat against speaking ones' own truth on spiritual matters. This threat for centuries was two fold, you may first be tortured to death by an inquisition and then spend the rest of eternity in the bowls of hell. And if we lived in those times, I would be on the rack this moment suffering for the sin of speaking my truth. Lucky for me, I believe neither in their dogma nor in their ultimate threat called "Hell." Though the Catholic church has toned down it's more draconian methods of suppression, they are now two thousand years entrenched and far less concerned with the threat of blasphemy. On the political front however, we have relatively young institutions called nations who are so insecure that they still fear the blasphemy they call dissent. There are political prisoners around the world whose only crime is to speak their truth, and there are many more who have died for this crime. If these powerful entities have such fear of an individuals words, perhaps they know something we don't.

Our words have power, in a way our words have a power far greater than any nation, any army. And when one speaks truth, truth is on their side. But there are so many people already speaking their truth, why has it not brought down these giants among us who promulgate fear and ignorance to retain power? They do not fear a handful of people speaking truth to power, they fear everyone rising as one to speak this truth, they fear truth. It's not the spark but the potential for a chain reaction that they wish to avoid. Make no mistake, these secular institutions we call nations are currently the greatest barrier to our spiritual development. They may not seek to be our liaisons to the gods, but they do keep us divided and distracted from our spiritual truths, our true reality. So it is in our vital spiritual interest to speak truth to the powers that be, whether religious or political. Our soul put us on this Earth to be nurtured and cared for and to nurture and care for the planet, it is our political "leaders" who oppose this mission and they are more determined than we at the moment.

Maybe you're not a "writer" or "philosopher," maybe your ideas aren't exactly clear or well formed, speak your truth anyway. You're ideas are unclear precisely because you have not yet begun to explore them. It doesn't matter if you are "right" or "wrong", it doesn't matter what you believe, speak your truth and the universe will correct you over time. Speak your truth even if you disagree with mine, speak your truth even if it causes friction in your relationships. The world is quickly changing all around us, and our words have the power to steer our collective reality. You can hold in your truth, but you may wake up in ten years and not be happy with the direction the world has gone, and then you will wish you had done something, said something. I do not wish to be anyones' guru, I wish for everyone to be their own guru, their own spiritual authority. I may have a gift for lecturing without a lectern, but I prefer dialog to my own monologue, it's true. There is a spiritual awakening taking place now and in the coming years, and it will only fully flower if we all bring our piece of the puzzle to the table.

1: Start a blog (or three)

2: Speak your truth!

3: Encourage others to do the same!

Get Left with Goddess!

There is a common saying among Christians that one must "Get right with God", especially if they're in poor health and just might meet their maker in the foreseeable future. And it becomes an equally common joke when Christians speak of the rapid conversion of an atheist on his death bed. But what of the Pagans who believe in both God and Goddess? Is it possible that when you "meet your maker" it might be "makers?" It's entirely possible, as are all spiritual and religious theories, but it may be even more probable than monotheism. One can certainly understand the spiritual need to "Get right with God" when "right" means "aligned" and "God" means "Spirit." It shows the duality of "God and Man" but not the duality within "God" and the duality within "Man." It's clear that there is duality in both "God" and "Man" and it is the same dual nature, gender. So the pagan would correct the phrase to be "Get right with God and Goddess!"

But there is another way to define the phrase "Get Right with God" because "Right" has more than one meaning. For those on the "Right" of the political spectrum the confusion of this term lends them legitimacy, to be on the "Right" side of any debate just sounds, I dunno... right? A simple mind can believe that, if they are "Right" in a political debate then they are right as opposed to wrong. To those people, I would trump their spurious rhetoric with the very real truth that all of our hearts reside left of center. And this is true in the political arena and in life in general, our hearts are always guiding us to the left. In the duality of gender the feminine aligns with our hearts, and the masculine aligns with our heads, which are sometimes cool and often hot. Neither the masculine nor the feminine are superior, neither are perfect in spirit nor form. Either can be right or wrong, benevolent or malevolent. It is balance that makes one a more perfect soul, not division. Perhaps we should be saying "Get Left with Goddess!"

It's not just in times of ill health for an individual that we hear the phrase, it's also when there are "end times" scenarios in the near future. With the end of the Mayan calendar approaching and the many industrial and natural disasters unfolding we're going to be hearing this call to our very souls beckoning us to come to the church and renew our connection through their devoted liaison. But for those churches built to worship Jesus, Jesus himself would not go. Jesus was a very balanced soul, he showed the power of both the masculine and the feminine, the left and the right, and the wrong. If we are to believe the words of Jesus that have survived so many edits by popes and kings, then it's possible Jesus had no belief in a Goddess sharing his fathers kingdom. But he showed the empathy and passion of someone who was aware of the presence of a Goddess, the equal power and validity of the feminine. And if he spent much time with Mary Magdalene he must have seen the Goddess in her.

As an astrologer I know that we are about to enter a phase of heightened spiritual presence as Neptune, the planet of spirituality and transcendence enters Pisces, the sign that Neptune rules. The planet of spirituality is coming home and in a very spiritual way, so are we. There will be many difficult times ahead but we are heading for a new world that will deliver us from the old ways and power structures. Giants will rise before they fall but the meek will indeed inherit the Earth, and then we need to take very good care of her because our mother is very sick. This is the time to put your spirit first, to align yourself with your heart and balance the masculine with the feminine. We have been worshiping a great Father in the sky for far too long and the imbalance must be over-corrected before it can be corrected. We must take from the Father what we have handed over to him in order to give back to the Mother what is rightfully hers. It is not enough to march woman to the beat of a mans drum and call it womens liberations, we must liberate femininity as a whole.

If you don't get Right with God, you might get Left with Goddess!

Unclear Power

The planet is currently watching another devastatingly toxic tragedy unfold as the recent 9.0 earthquake and subsequent tsunami struck the north east coast of Japan triggering multiple explosions at the Fukushima Diachi nuclear power plant. Over the past week since the earthquake struck the situation at the Fukushima plant has consistently deteriorated, though so far none of the effected reactors has become a full scale meltdown, or at least there has been no official confirmation of a meltdown. The internet blogosphere and social media sites lit up with all kinds of speculation in the days after the initial explosions about how far reaching the radiation cloud would be and how potentially toxic. Noticeably absent from the sea of fresh content was any official news source confirming or denying the negative potential of a radiation cloud on North America and the overall environment. However, as in any case with the potential for widespread panic and social chaos, there were many voices essentially dismissing any threats or any precautionary measures.

Certainly no one would make the case that an over reaction is an appropriate response, it's an over reaction specifically because it's an inappropriate response. Unfortunately, we live in a world of information wars, and there is nothing in the definition of "Information" that denotes fact, or even veracity. Therefore lies qualify as information even when the liar is fully aware of the veracity of their statements. But we as humans tell many lies that we aren't aware of, we often call this denial when we choose to believe the information that makes us feel better and dismiss the information that can cause us pain and suffering. Sometimes our denial is apparent to those around us as the truth is difficult but not impossible to deny. But in the case of the Fukushima disaster and nuclear power in general, we have a collective incentive to brush off any information that may cause a panic among millions. And to make things even less clear, the nuclear industry is heavily invested in by governments and individuals and therefore we simply cannot trust those who stand to gain from understating any threats.

Scientists are more likely to come out and tell us when there is a serious risk in a technology that they have been contributing to, but they are dependent on grants from industry and government and are often silenced or marginalized for speaking out in an effective way. And when science does address design flaws and potential hazards with new designs and technologies the implementation of newer, safer technology is dictated in the boardrooms with a profit first mentality. Industry heads know that there is a public out there that demands to be informed but they have subverted much of the institutionalized media to produce disinformation when it matters most. Main stream media is commercial media, it is payed for by industry through the purchase of advertisement and the underwriting of programming. In the same way that significant political campaign contributions often have strings attached, so does this money that keeps the 24 hour news channels pumping out "information."

Our universities are equally vulnerable to this kind of manipulation from industry as they underwrite large grants usually to the university science departments. This was the case when British Petroleum gave UC Berkeley half a billion dollars to start a new research institute on the campus bringing into question the influence of the global oil giant on academic freedom. Within a short while after this controversial grant BP was embroiled in the unfolding tragedy in the gulf coast as one of their deep water offshore oil rigs exploded creating an under water leak spilling millions of gallons of crude oil into the gulf. It hardly matters who exactly is to blame for the explosion and subsequent oil spill, there is no doubt that many of the parties involved we're negligently sacrificing safety for profit. And the University of Berkeley was in no position to criticize BP with whom they had recently formed a $500 million dollar relationship. If the oil industry would take their PR budget and political campaign contributions and instead invest it in safety measures, last years oil spill may never have happened at all.

But there are a lot of common threads running from the BP oil spill to our current Fukushima nuclear disaster, especially in the similar ways the nuclear industry is invested in the nexus of media and politics. But there is little discussion of the BP oil spill in this new year of 2011, almost as though we were experiencing a collective denial, it's too painful and we're just glad it's over. Our atmosphere is very much like the ocean, in fact the ocean can be seen as the heaviest and therefore bottom layer of our stratosphere. Fish are like birds who fly through water and birds are like fish who swim through the air. The main difference is that we live above the water and we fail to recognize the physical properties of the air all around us simply because it's invisible to us. When we saw the images of the BP oil spill on the sea floor with sea creatures swimming through the toxic plume, we all died a little, seeing the impact of our oil dependency on the other creatures in the environment. But now we are watching our own environment being directly affected with this toxic nuclear plume that threatens to continue spewing radiation into our sea of air for at least as long as the oil spill continued to leak.

I wrote then that oil was a dark, powerful substance that we fail to fully comprehend but has parallels in our spiritual world. Uranium and Plutonium are also deep, dark, mystical forces that have parallels in our spiritual world, and these powerful substances are not understood enough to be manipulated for our petty short term gains. No matter how many scientists work on this puzzle, no matter how many billions and billions of dollars we throw at this nuclear mystery, we humans are but infants playing with a loaded gun, sucking on the barrel and fingering the trigger. We are sadly aware of the fact that no living human has the capacity to give us unequivocal (or unbiased) facts that can bring us some assurance that nuclear power is safe. But that doesn't stop many people (amateur to top scientist) from making this claim ad nauseum. For those of us who are aware of our collective naivety on the matter, these false assurances are a sure sign that the information source is unfortunately corrupted or deluded and simply cannot be trusted. This is not to say that we must live in a state of constant fear, but until we make this collective realization we fail to respect the dangers we face.

Nuclear power is Unclear power, we attempt to consume it at the risk of being consumed by it.