The Gaia Mythos

by: Peter of Lone Tree

"To free ourselves of the separatist beliefs encoded in the stories that define and direct our lives is a great challenge, and a wonderful opportunity. The strands of a different story about humanity are spun through our minds like threads on a loom — but how do we weave them into a coherent design? The decisive shift for humanity today is not only a change of events, but a change in how events are told, a new adventure in mythmaking.

"To develop a different story about life on earth, we must first and foremost place ultimate trust in ourselves, not in unexamined beliefs, or blind tradition, or authorities. Living into the story ahead, a Gaian tale to guide the species, depends on the inspiration to imagine the tale, and the language to tell it in its fullness and depth.

"This introduction is about the language required for our story with Gaia, the living planet.":

Sharing the Gaia Mythos

An "Invisible" Epidemic...

by: Anna Van Z

This is from the blog Redneck Liberals:



























Jared Hagemann was a 25-year-old army ranger with PTSD who killed himself after being ordered to return to Afghanistan for a ninth tour of duty. Yes. A ninth tour of duty. According to Hagemann's widow:

Jared tried to come to grips with what he'd seen and done on his eight deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan. "And there's no way that any God would forgive him - that he was going to hell," says Ashley. "He couldn't live with that any more."

A big, sad, heart-breaking story... But try Googling "Hagemann suicide". You won't find much - just a couple of local news pages and a linkback from Crooks & Liars. And this in a country that supposedly "supports our troops"?

More military personnel like Hagemann have died at their own hands than have been killed in Iraq and Afghanistan. This is a f*cking obscenity. But where are the media? Where are the armchair warriors who drive round town with their little yellow ribbon magnets? Where is the f*cking president who promised to get our kids out of Iraq and Afghanistan? Yup. Nowhere. And here's how the military reward the family of just another guy they've used and destroyed:

The Army has refused to give Hagemann a memorial service... because it does not want the news media drawing more attention to service-connected suicides.

If our media had an ounce of humanity, Hagemann's story would be top news, not an obscure sidebar. If we as a people had an ounce of compassion, he'd be held up as a real hero by a country that wanted to say sorry from the bottom of its ignorant, ADD heart. F*ck all the phony thank yous, we need to be apologizing like a m*therf*cker to the troops and their families for the hell we're putting them through.

Quote of the Day:

by: Peter of Lone Tree

"I wanted to change the world. But I have found that the only thing one can be sure of changing is oneself."

- Aldous Huxley

Remember when you were in elementary school...

by: Anna Van Z

...and before the day's activities got underway, everyone had to stand and say the Pledge of Allegiance? Well, I've been thinking - shouldn't we modernize that pledge to reflect the current reality of our nation? So I got busy, and here's my new, updated pledge. It should be easy for kids to recite, don't you think?

























The UPDATED Pledge of Allegiance

I pledge allegiance

to the greed

of the global corporations of America

and to the profit margins

for which they stand

one world

controlled by banksters

with liberty and justice

for some
(but only if you can afford it).

Stocks

by: Peter of Lone Tree

"The Tel Aviv Stock Exchange opened to major losses Sunday, as indices plunged by more than 6 percent, immediately prompting a series of brief suspensions in trading."
Israel stock exchange close after a 6% fall

Whooosh!