Presiding over the tarnishing, degradation, loss of the credibility and respected reputation of a great nation hardly qualifies the current leadership of the U.S. for the term « Administration. » That label implies orderly structure, competence, coherent planning and implementation of a thought=out agenda consistent with values and policies evolved and developed over more than 200 years of democratic regard for people, their rights, and a sense of justice and equality.

What we have now instead is a chaotic travesty of « administration » suggestive of a comedy for the Three Stooges, but not at all funny.

And when we look into our souls in the deep of night, it is sad to note that the seeds of this aberrant chaos have been lurking in our midst all along. Racism, sexism, arrogance and corruption are not new. And we cannot always escape elements of them in our own lives, not merely in others we can point at.

But the best in our natures identifies these tendencies, these weaknesses, and tries to root them out. We begin by acknowledging our faults and flaws. We own them. And we do what penance and restitution we can.

Our collective approach must parallel the private one: we must identify the disease and rot in our system, own the fact we allowed it to happen, and rid ourselves of the corruption, vice and public theft in our government.

We do that through the courts and the ballot box. We must use both.

Raphael Warnock reminds me “ This is a moral moment. “

He also reminded me “this a failed President.”

Warnock is correct. We need to get rid of him the quickest legal way possible.

July 16, 2026

We have watched the ravings of a paranoid narcissist tonight posing as President of the United States — again.

He blatantly lied again and again about election security. Public evidence contradicts his assertions.

His manner was desperate, frantic, vicious.

We need to be rid of this maniac. Hopefully we can get rid of him through impeachment, Article 25 or the ballot box.

The sooner the better.

July 16, 2026

It must be obvious to any of us that the MAGA appeal is to glorify a world that never was. Nor should it have been.

This imagined world is free from legal constraints. Free from accountability. Free from the traditions of precedent. Free from the principles of decency. Free from credibility. Free from integrity. Freedom from the collegiality among nations – from keeping your word and commitments. Freedom to scoff at universal commandments such as “Thou shalt not kill,” Freedom to violate the status and rights of people as citizens, as refugees, even as accused defendants.

This is a product of the mind of a disturbed child. It is not the mind of a grownup. It is the mind of a “daddy killer.” I have no idea what it was to be the child of Fred Trump. I have no sense at all of his mother or what Donald’s relationship to her was. Whatever the details of his childhood, it is clear Donald did not survive his childhood intact. He is not a competent adult. He has no capacity for compassion, accountability, responsibility. Those are basic prerequisites of citizenship. They are minimum expectations of elected officials.

People who support the agenda, values and actions of Donald Trump are no more adult than he is. They are not fit to serve in our government. They are not fit to vote.

It is time to vote for grownups.

Still standing. The phrase evokes a sense of tenacity, of relentless effort against formidable odds, resisting the power of gravity itself. It may also suggest persistence, pursuing an objective, adhering steadfastly to principle. And it may also apply to simply surviving, sometimes simply through dumb luck.

It isn’t always perceived as a virtue. It might apply to an opponent whose obstinacy is exasperating, or it could represent a pitiful soul who just doesn’t know when to quit.

But to the person described, is there always, or at least often, a felt expression of Will, of the great “I am?” For some it may be the most intense awareness of being alive.

Martinez, California

May 4, 2024

Today’s news about Roe v. Wade is a challenge. It demands a response. Let me repeat: it calls for a response, not merely a reaction. One appeal in my inbox today referred to the writer’s struggle with anger and anguish. That is a reaction, and an understandable one, a heartrending one. To be fair and accurate, the writer went on to advocate action to redress this abominable SCOTUS action, thereby reframing her reaction into a response. If we surrender to anger and anguish, we surrender our power as well. We need more than that. Anger and anguish are not wrong. They are natural, understandable feelings. But they are not effective agents of change. We need go beyond influencing change to become agents of change.

Just « any old change » will not suffice. The goal is more than a different world. It is a better world. For that kind of objective – and the means for achieving it – we need clear minds. We need to acknowledge our fears, anxieties and experiences – without allowing them to cripple us into inaction. We need to identify and pursue pathways to justice, compassion, fairness, and respect.

At the same time, we need to adhere to the values of our objectives in how we assert, advocate and achieve our goals. Our irrational outbursts and action are not better than theirs just because they are ours.

This brings us to the matter of opening our hearts as well as our eyes. There are people who will agree with us in their hearts but oppose us or remain on the sidelines out of genuine fear or mere laziness. We need a place for them as fence-sitting allies in our hearts, just as we will wince at some actions of our strongest comrades. And there must be room in our hearts to acknowledge that some people see the world differently and they will continue to disagree « world without end…. »

What will NOT succeed is inaction. Action without clear objectives will not succeed either. Actions merely expressive of discontent can produce no worthy outcomes either. We need bold action based on worthy values with respect for each other.

Clear minds and open hearts….

In a newsletter I received this week from Giorgia Milne, a friend and teacher, I was struck by a quote at the beginning:

When a complex system is far from equilibrium, small islands of coherence in a sea of chaos have the capacity to shift the entire system to a higher order:

Ilya Prigogine, Nobel Prize in Chemistry, 1977

Possible implications of this assertion keep competing for attention in my mind.

For example, considering the behavior of SARS II 19, a.k.a. Covid, a range of behaviors among humans regarding testing, isolating, masking, vaccinating, distancing (a sea of chaos) has allowed pockets of the virus concentrations (islands of coherence) to evolve into strains that spread very efficiently (a higher order) that are likely at this point to remain among us perhaps forever.

An example of a different kind from my line of work involves considering that an informed, caring, touch (an island of coherence) to any location of a client’s body in pain of any kind (sea of chaos) can function as a fulcrum for the client’s own healing powers to organize around what wants attention and change (a higher order). And sometimes the fulcrum effect evolves from a way I touch the client by listening (!). Sometimes the « touch » is simply and powerfully what Giorgia calls a « Touch of Presence. » And sometimes it may seem structural and clinical, such as pressing directly into an agonizing trigger point for several seconds. In each case, the outcome is often exponentially more significant than the impetus it begins with.

In the arena of politics, I believe the principle may hold true as well. While there are strategies and efforts to mold people’s minds through media, strategies to control power with wealth, I believe the most powerful influences on my mind are personal. People talking in small groups, and especially one to one, touch me deepest. And these exchanges have been inhibited during our isolating, a condition I consider ominous. I believe the health of our present and future will be informed by our capacity to connect and reconnect from the heart as well as the head.

Each of us, potentially, is a « coherent island, » and our world is « a sea of chaos. » We have the capacity to shift the system to a higher order, despite the odds.

I awoke today with this line from e.e. cummings running through my mind. That poem has long been a resonant favorite of mine, rich in spiritual import, powerfully simple, a model of reflective introspection.

But this morning was the day after cataract surgery for my left eye, and with a paper-taped shield partially obstructing my vision, I was not anticipating I would experience the results of the surgery until later today. As I began to move around after arising, however, I began to notice I was seeing things differently: vivid colors, laser-edge clarity, complex textures, depth (seeing through the branches and leaves of our trees to blades of grass on the hill beyond, for example).

This was not the stuff of getting a new pair of lenses for my glasses. This is discovery of a new visual world. It leads me to think I have been looking through a lens effect cinematographers once used (and perhaps still do) to create a fuzzy border around a scene be applying Vaseline to the circumference of a lens.

According to my ophthalmologist, the acuity properties of the new lens should continue to improve for about a month (!). After that, entropy takes over and, as with life itself, it’s all downhill after the peak. Alas! But I do get to go through the process with the right eye in a little over a month. Perhaps that will extend my world of discovery even further ( x-ray vision?).

For me this experience, however fleeting or temporary, goes well beyond the physical, affecting my attitudes and outlook in general. I have a sense of buoyancy as I move around, a degree of expectation wherever I look, an up-ratcheted optimism about whatever is next.

“now the eyes of my eyes are open…”

White wild pear blossoms 

Herald Spring’s sweet surging sap

And all that follows

Some say BE THE CHANGE You seek. Others bear witness, Hold space for what’s next.

28 February 2021