{"id":767,"date":"2008-12-01T01:10:26","date_gmt":"2008-12-01T05:10:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/paganpages.org\/content\/?p=725"},"modified":"2008-11-19T17:38:21","modified_gmt":"2008-11-19T21:38:21","slug":"door-to-the-beyond-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/2008\/12\/01\/door-to-the-beyond-3\/","title":{"rendered":"Door to the Beyond"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hope and Audacity <\/strong><\/p>\n

Ah, my friends, the door once again beckons.\u00a0 Let us push on.<\/p>\n

“The bad news is, there is no key to happiness.\u00a0 The good news is, the door was never locked.”<\/p>\n

– Swami Beyondananda <\/em><\/p>\n

Hope.\u00a0 With it, we can do anything.\u00a0 Without it, or with the perception of being without it, we feel lost, and many of us choose this time to attempt to “end it all”.\u00a0 Sometimes we need attention, sometimes one of our friends catches us and kicks our ass and we get back to it.<\/p>\n

There is hope around us.\u00a0 For some of us, it may be the first time we have allowed ourselves to hope.\u00a0 With every glimmer, there is a rock in our path.\u00a0 Are we going to step over the rock, or are we going to howl about stepping on it and refuse to go further?<\/p>\n

If there was ever a time for not just thinking outside the box but destroying the whole damned box, this is it.\u00a0 Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., called several times for the formation of a National Association for the Advancement of Creative Maladjustment; MindFreedom International has now done so, only on an International level, and has even hired (the real) Patch Adams, M.D. (not Robin Williams) to run the organization.<\/p>\n

Crazies like us power the imagination of the world, and we now have an umbrella organization to deliver that power.<\/p>\n

Some of that power went into the recent US Presidential Elections.\u00a0 While the results were, for most of us, highly encouraging, we have not yet seen the end of the dismal jimmies and control freaks.\u00a0 The election of Barack Obama as the next President of the United States is not even the end of racism in our country.\u00a0 We all hope it is the death knell, but dying organisms stink a lot until you bury them.\u00a0 (For those conservatives among you, this event is also not the end of\u00a0 America… for those racists among you, get over yourselves.)<\/p>\n

America has never dealt with its inherent racism.\u00a0 It merely stitched the wound closed without treating it, leaving it to fester.\u00a0 This election opened the wound — hopefully to clean it out and let it heal — but the deep infection is exposed, and it smells awful.\u00a0 It is up to each of us to pray for real healing, rather than reseal the wound in its untreated condition.<\/p>\n

I am reminded of something I learned while working in wastewater treatment in my youth.\u00a0 Most treatment ponds tend to attract vegetation and other life.\u00a0 Since the vegetation tends to grow roots through the sealing layer of the pond, they present a problem, in that the contents of the pond could infiltrate the local groundwater.\u00a0 So for years, people in the business of wastewater treatment would poison these plants.\u00a0 What they discovered was that dying plants suck up many times more oxygen than living ones, and most times the whole pond and all the life in it died from not having enough oxygen in the water to breathe.\u00a0 A dead treatment pond provides no treatment, it just sits there smelling like something died (Can you say \u201canaerobic bacteria,\u201d boys and girls?\u00a0 Didn’t think so.).<\/p>\n

Who in this world can inject life (air) into a conversation, into a whole paradigm, better than we?\u00a0 Look for the humor in the situation, and whisper it to somebody.\u00a0 Watch it catch fire.\u00a0 Laugh it up, and be gentle with it.\u00a0 Always remember that the only tested, proven way to dissolve hatred is laughter — good, rollicking, loving laughter, entirely empty of ridicule.\u00a0 My battle cry is: \u201cPUNS OVER PUTDOWNS\u201d.\u00a0 Rid yourselves of jokes AGAINST yourself and others — find something loving to laugh about.\u00a0 Find the silly chink in the subject, and break out your prybars.\u00a0 HATE STINKS.\u00a0 That goes for hatred of yourself, hatred of the “other guy”, “other gender”, in fact, of anything “other”.\u00a0 Whenever any one person is not equal, there is no such thing as equality.\u00a0 THERE IS NO THEM, nobody here but US.\u00a0 Go ye therefore and heal likewise.<\/p>\n

We have been hospitalized, drugged, tortured, and stigmatized, but we find a way to keep going, even to laugh about it.\u00a0 I don’t want anyone, ANYONE, treated the way I have been treated… it’s all wrong and it keeps us apart.\u00a0 And there is SO MUCH we could do together.<\/p>\n

I hope I’m preaching to the choir.\u00a0 And I further hope the choir takes the word out into the world.<\/p>\n

Come with me and join the Right-To-Laugh Party.<\/p>\n

“Serious Crime: Sure, serious crime is up. But why not look on the bright side? Humorous crime is down.”
\n– Swami Beyondananda<\/p>\n

Until next we walk through the Door together, Metaphors be with you!<\/p>\n

Hugs<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hope and Audacity Ah, my friends, the door once again beckons.\u00a0 Let us push on. “The bad news is, there is no key to happiness.\u00a0 The good news is, the door was never locked.” – Swami Beyondananda Hope.\u00a0 With it, we can do anything.\u00a0 Without it, or with the perception of being without it, we feel lost, and many of us choose this time to attempt to “end it all”.\u00a0 Sometimes we need attention, sometimes one of our friends catches us and kicks our ass and we get back to it. There is hope around us.\u00a0 For some of us, it may be the first time we have allowed ourselves to hope.\u00a0 With every glimmer, there is a rock in our path.\u00a0 Are we going to step over the rock, or are we going to howl about stepping on it and refuse to go further? If there was ever a time for not just thinking outside the box but destroying the whole damned box, this is it.\u00a0 Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., called several times for the formation of a National Association for the Advancement of Creative Maladjustment; MindFreedom International has now done so, only on an International level, and has even hired (the real) Patch Adams, M.D. (not Robin Williams) to run the organization. Crazies like us power the imagination of the world, and we now have an umbrella organization to deliver that power. Some of that power went into the recent US Presidential Elections.\u00a0 While the results were, for most of us, highly encouraging, we have not yet seen the end of the dismal jimmies and control freaks.\u00a0 The election of Barack Obama as the next President of the United States is not even the end of racism in our country.\u00a0 We all hope it is the death knell, but dying organisms stink a lot until you bury them.\u00a0 (For those conservatives among you, this event is also not the end of\u00a0 America… for those racists among you, get over yourselves.) America has never dealt with its inherent racism.\u00a0 It merely stitched the wound closed without treating it, leaving it to fester.\u00a0 This election opened the wound — hopefully to clean it out and let it heal — but the deep infection is exposed, and it smells awful.\u00a0 It is up to each of us to pray for real healing, rather than reseal the wound in its untreated condition. I am reminded of something I learned while working in wastewater treatment in my youth.\u00a0 Most treatment ponds tend to attract vegetation and other life.\u00a0 Since the vegetation tends to grow roots through the sealing layer of the pond, they present a problem, in that the contents of the pond could infiltrate the local groundwater.\u00a0 So for years, people in the business of wastewater treatment would poison these plants.\u00a0 What they discovered was that dying plants suck up many times more oxygen than living ones, and most times the whole pond and all the life in it died from not having enough oxygen in the water to breathe.\u00a0 A dead treatment pond provides no treatment, it just sits there smelling like something died (Can you say \u201canaerobic bacteria,\u201d boys and girls?\u00a0 Didn’t think so.). Who in this world can inject life (air) into a conversation, into a whole paradigm, better than we?\u00a0 Look for the humor in the situation, and whisper it to somebody.\u00a0 Watch it catch fire.\u00a0 Laugh it up, and be gentle with it.\u00a0 Always remember that the only tested, proven way to dissolve hatred is laughter — good, rollicking, loving laughter, entirely empty of ridicule.\u00a0 My battle cry is: \u201cPUNS OVER PUTDOWNS\u201d.\u00a0 Rid yourselves of jokes AGAINST yourself and others — find something loving to laugh about.\u00a0 Find the silly chink in the subject, and break out your prybars.\u00a0 HATE STINKS.\u00a0 That goes for hatred of yourself, hatred of the “other guy”, “other gender”, in fact, of anything “other”.\u00a0 Whenever any one person is not equal, there is no such thing as equality.\u00a0 THERE IS NO THEM, nobody here but US.\u00a0 Go ye therefore and heal likewise. We have been hospitalized, drugged, tortured, and stigmatized, but we find a way to keep going, even to laugh about it.\u00a0 I don’t want anyone, ANYONE, treated the way I have been treated… it’s all wrong and it keeps us apart.\u00a0 And there is SO MUCH we could do together. I hope I’m preaching to the choir.\u00a0 And I further hope the choir takes the word out into the world. Come with me and join the Right-To-Laugh Party. “Serious Crime: Sure, serious crime is up. But why not look on the bright side? Humorous crime is down.” – Swami Beyondananda Until next we walk through the Door together, Metaphors be with you! Hugs<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-767","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/767","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=767"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/767\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":812,"href":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/767\/revisions\/812"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=767"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=767"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=767"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}