At Linda’s request, I’m going to tell my rebirthing story. Now, don’t be confused. “Rebirthing” is nothing at all like being “Born Again.” And, from what I’ve been able to read on the Net, the current methods of doing “rebirthing” are nothing like they were when I did it.
Let me preface this story by explaining that I have always enjoyed experiences that lead me to more self-discovery. Like most people, I find that I fool myself even better than I fool other people. Like most, I’ve gotten pretty good at denying, rationalizing, ignoring, blaming etc. etc. So, every once in a while, I need to find a way to hold up the mirror of truth to my own soul. Of course, being a dedicated dilletante, I don’t just find one system for doing this kind of introspection and stick to it; I like to try out new ones all of the time. Transcendental Meditation, Yoga, Chi Quong, Tai Chi, guided imagery, self-hypnosis, sacred psychology, feminist spirituality, poetry therapy, active imagination, rebirthing…….. Basically, they are all ways of getting oneself out of usual patterns of “thinking” and allowing one’s natural intuition and wisdom to find a way through all of the nasty noises of our conscious and critical and constricting minds.
So, for a while I took a lot of workshops. I took so many that I got so good at some that I started to give workshops of my own — a kind of hybrid of feminist spirituality and guided imagery and active imagination and poetry therapy ……. Someone once said that you teach best what you most need to learn. How true. How true.
O.K. Rebirthing. I went through the process almost ten years ago, but from what I remember, this is how it went. I went to an introductory meeting and made the decision to commit myself to a three consecutive 10-hour days of a rebirthing workshop. I was paired with a buddy, and the agreement was that we would help each other through the process, which took place over a weekend. The process involved long periods of meditation — some guided, some not — and, of course, “sharing.” That was pretty much what we did on the first day. On the second day, after more and deep meditation and increasingly emotional sharing, etc., we were guided to to re-experience our own births — to feel ourselves in our mother’s wombs, listening to what people were saying about us, feeling the physical sensations of safety and warmth being violently disrupted, etc. etc. I don’t know what happened on the third day, and here’s why.

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A long time ago (by some reckonings) or not so long ago (by others), I decided that I wanted two twin beds that could be linked together somehow to make a king-sized bed. Because? Because I knew that I would be moving at least several more times in my life, and it’s easier to move smaller beds and mattresses. And sometimes I am in a relationship and want a big bed available, and sometimes I’m not and prefer sleeping alone in a single bed and using the other bed to pile my clothes on until I get around to hanging them up. When I’m not in a relationship, I tend to let my housekeeping skills (meager at best) to really slide.
O.K. Now, cut to another scene, happening simultaneously, wherein I decide to take a re-birthing workshop, since I’m always looking for ways to help me understand who the hell I am and why, for example, I want two beds that have the choice of either being together or apart.

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Don’t know much about the complexities of the politics (big picture) of the Internet, but I imagine that the freedoms we hope to continue enjoying and exploring here are preserved and protected in the same way all freedom is preserved and protected.
So I quote here from a post by Stanford Law Professor Lawrence Lessig as part of a blog conversation the purpose of which is irrelevant to me. What is relevant is what he said, some of which is quoted by b!X (which is how I found Lessig’s entire post), and some of which (the part that I think is most important) I quote here:
My point is that if this community does not begin to spend at least as much time as it spends watching Hollywood movies fighting Hollywood, or to spend at least as much money as it gives DSL providers on those who fight broad based control , then this extraordinary space that you….. built will be taken away. Not by superior blogs, and not by witty /. postings. But in the old-fashioned way: through regulators who have been bent by the forces of those who can and do buy Washington…..
You say I should stop complaining, and open up a blog….. I say that in addition to blogging, and coding and whatever, we’ve got to do something that matters to these people who think a blog is a typo. You, or we, or someone has got to get this community to deliver a different kind of message. One that east coast coders can read; one that says: we won’t let the freedom we ….. built be regulated away.
And it’s not just a matter of getting to the point where everyone in Congress has his/her own blog, although that certainly wouldn’t hurt the cause — if, of course, their blogs all had a Comments feature and if we all used it. Heh.

Heh. George Partington’s got the goods on Frank Paynter in his intervew with the prolific interviewer himself. The microscope gets turned around and Frank shows his warts and all.

If you know Golby’s blog, you know what I mean. No matter what, you should go and trip out with Mike in the interview he did with Frank Paynter. It’s Golby at his careening finest as he zips through life, the universe, and everything sacred — all to the tunes of Bob Dylan. Part I is here. Part II here. Keep an eye out for whatever whips by next.

My mother is obsessed with the Pope. Of course she is. She’s 86, Catholic, and Polish. She’s had the Global Catholic Network filling the television screen full-time since Wednesday, when the Pope began his visit to his homeland.
Hey, we all have our obsessions, and she’s certainly welcome to hers. But what’s driving me crazy, is she tries like crazy to make it mine. She wants every episode of his trip videotaped, but, of course, she doesn’t know how to work a vcr, even if I set it to the channel and tell her to press “record” when she wants to start taping.
And it’s not just the Pope. It’s everything she believes that I don’t; everything she sees as desirable that I don’t. It’s been like this all of our lives. So, why, my friends often ask me, am I doing this.
Why do I live across the hall, almost constantly available to someone I wouldn’t have as a friend if she weren’t my mother? My only answer is — because she is my mother. When I needed her financial support she was there for me. When my kids got sick and I had to go to work, she got on a train and came up to take care of them. She’s my mother. In my family, we take care of our old people for as long as we can.
It just seems so bizarre to me these days. My country’s a mess. We are on the verge of destroying the planet. Yet, each day of my life is a separate reality, a world unto itself — decisions to be made, appointments to keep, food to prepare. I do what has to be done and find small ways to give myself something to keep myself going. I blog. I take sewing workshops (just started making a “bog coat”). I get ready to sell my shawls and hats at what probably will be my last craft fair. I begin taking over a partnership in a local dance magazine for which I write — which will mean more writing, more editing, learning how to do some things in Quark, and getting out to cover dance events in the region. I keep trying to create a life that has creative meaning for me around an existence that has at its core major responsibilities for taking care of someone who adds very little to what my life is or can be.
I tell my friends that, if there’s such a thing as karma, I’m building up some major stash of it. And, if there isn’t, well, I guess I will feel that I’ll have done what I believe was the right thing to do. Because I do believe in the golden rule. Because I can’t save the world, but I can make one person’s life — at least the last part of it — a little easier.
But I’m sure glad this Pope stuff is going to be over today. Then she can just play the tapes over and over again. She does know how to press “play” and “stop.”

Burningbird pointed to an Open Letter to America from a Canadian published in the Baltimore Chronicle that holds the mirror of truth up to the face of America. I don’t disagree with anything he says. No wonder I’m depressed. This is only some of what he sees reflected out to the world by this sad excuse for a free democratic nation:
With your government’s support, crooked multinationals like Monsanto buy up the world’s water supplies, and take possession of the world’s vegetation through Frankenstein technology already known to cause illness.
Does the FDA care about any of this? It does not. It has long been on the bandwagon to foist genetically altered food on the Guinea Pigs of the country–including every man, woman and child on America’s increasingly toxic soil.
You are a nation of suckers, America, to be bled dry of your hard-earned pay through outrageous bank schemes, Wall Street rip-offs and fake government budget grabs. Your Pentagon cannot account for trillions in lost dollars.
Does this bother you? Not in the least.
Your whole economy is controlled by what is for the most part ravenous, international private banking interests in the form of The Federal Reserve, which with your government’s consent leads you down the garden path to certain financial ruin thanks to a national debt you will never be able to repay.
How is it that private banks are responsible for issuing your currency? How is it that they are allowed to charge ridiculous interest rates on what they issue? By decree, this was supposed to be the responsibility of your government, which could create its own currency without charging interest.
Do you realize your congress could dismiss these banks in an instant if it so wished? But don’t ever count on it. More important matters are pressing. The upcoming election needs investment.
These very same money men are the ones who, through unmonitored and unrepresentative world committees, are driving countries like Argentina into hopeless debt and social upheaval. These greedy overlords are creating strife and suffering on a scale too tragic for words in nation after nation. Just look at Africa.
Read the rest here. It’s the end of the world as we know it. And I don’t feel fine.

An interesting comment from a female friend of mine, whose male live-in significant other has just finished undergoing treatment for prostate cancer, which included injections of female hormones. He tends to be a pretty aggressive guy, and he reported that he could actually physically and psychologically feel his aggressiveness diminishing as the hormones took effect. Just another example of how we are at the mercy of our biology and chemistry. (And maybe how we don’t have to be if we don’t want to. And I’m not advocating that aggressive men take female hormones!)

As b!X quotes from a Harper’s article by Lewis Lapham, who refers to the Wall Street Journal’s reference to America’s lost “ethical compass,” I think about how so many of the “compasses” that we humans have built to guide our journeys are also lost — or at least malfunctioning. The religions that were supposed to point the way toward moral, caring, inspiring behaviors don’t work when and where they’re most needed. The educational systems that are supposed to point the way toward meaningful, fulfilling, life-enhancing work and life-enhancing lives have lost the sense of that direction. The sciences to which we look for answers and solutions are being swept away by the greedy seas of politics and markets. The family, clan, and tribal systems that once guided, protected, and nurtured our hearts are rusting away.
So, what do we have left? Maybe only our individuals selves and what stabilizing connections we can forge with other individuals. Maybe only our shared readings of the stars to keep us from drowning (or from drowning alone). Am I feeling Apocalyptic? Yes I am.
Meanwhile, I’m glad that I gave b!X a subscription to Harper’s for last Christmas/Solstice. He always pulls out the really good stuff.

On the surface, she’s probably as unlike me as possible: she’s younger, I’m older; she’s loves the cutting edge of various technologies, I’m lucky if I can put the code in for a link without screwing it up; she’s not into “girly” things; I color my hair blonde, wear make-up, and have closets full of clothes and shoes (including sexy ballroom dance stuff); she’s not into having kids; I’m really into my two and my new grandson; she likes Tolkein, I like Zimmer Bradley. She’s happily married; I’m once-married-long-ago and now happily single. She probably drinks coffee (don’t all techies?) and I only drink tea. But I’ll bet that if we sat down with each other across our libations of choice, we’d find that we laugh at the same things; want the same things from the world in general and the opposite sex in particular; and have very strong senses of who we are, where our strength and “power” lie, and how we want to exercise them. We also use our voices, clearly, confidently, and appropriately. I it would be interesting to find out how those voices harmonize in a two-way conversation. It’s not likely to happen, given where we live and how we live. But I still think it would be way cool!