Moonbeams & Primal Screams

We played a game yesterday.

We asked each other:
"When you die,
how do you want to be memorialized?"

One person got a little confused and said:
"I don't really want to think about how I'm going to die." To which I responded: "No, no.
It's not about how you die, it's about how you want to be memorialized, how you want to be remembered. How do you want to be celebrated? How do you want people to remember what you stood for?"

One person said:
"I want someone to build me a big freakin' Greek mausoleum!" Another person said:
"I want you to have a party, and have just as much fun at my death as you had with me in my life."

I said: "I want you to take me into the mountains and stand amongst the Pines. Look for a hawk. When you see the hawk, take my ashes and throw them into the wind ... because I WILL BE THAT HAWK.
And let this be a sign to you that my Spirit is SOARING, and I am off to the next adventure."

From now on, when I'm getting to know someone new, I will ask them this question, because their answer will summarize their essence for me in a nutshell, in an instant.

This is a response to an article:
"Sometimes a Cigar is Just a Cigar:
Chakras vs. Science."

First,
the cigar quote in the title of the article is from Freud who was a psychologist, not a scientist.
Furthermore, "Chakras vs. Science" is like saying "Sparkplugs vs. Science."
The two things are not comparable on the same level. One could say "Metaphysics vs. Science" or "Eastern Religion vs. Science," and then you would have a parallel.

This article asserts that ancient people didn't have the knowledge of the human body that modern medicine has.
It's funny how rational empiricists want us to believe that their way of thinking is more accurate, more RIGHT, in the grand scheme of things.
Contrary to what the article asserts, many of us who are interested in intuitive ways of thinking as well as rational thiught, know that science is only beginning to break ground in areas such as physics and are only beginning to discover truths that ancient indigenous cultures have known since the dawn of time.
The fact that these cultures use a different language; a more abstract, artistic, symbolic, metaphorical, and beautiful (if you will) language, born of more intuitive ways of knowing and being, does not render their language or information SUSPECT.
The writer of the article being critiqued in this essay is merely
revealing his own underdeveloped, or omplete lack of, imaginative/intuitive/abstract thinking skills.

And how did the Ancients know these things? Because they were the first scientists. The Ancients observed what was happening with their environment and the beings in it very closely because that was all they had. The Ancients weren't distracted by the gadgets and trinkets that Science and Technology think are the be-all and end-all of Modern Life. People who think like the writer of this article tend to not only discount and discredit the veracity of intuitive ways of thinking, they have historically brutalized, slaughtered, and annihilated the people and cultures who espouse those particular beliefs or ways of thinking.

Remember the Inquisition, the Salem Witch trials, and the systematic genocide of indigenous cultures perpetrated by the patriarchy: fat "white cats" who care only for money, power, prestige, control, and domination?

(Those Women weren't evil and those Indigenous People were not stupid savages; they were Wisdom-Keepers, the holders of knowledge that SERVED the PEOPLE
of their tribes, clans, and communities. However, by contrast: white, educated male Colonialists saw the power those women had, and the esteem they held in their communities for knowing the Earth and its herbs, flowers and treebarks, and their medicinal properties. And with greed-filled hearts these men saw an opportunity to pour PROFITS into their own purse-strings, not a way to SERVE the greater good.
And who is it that now holds this knowledge in modern society, and are getting rich from this knowledge? - the male dominated pharmaceutical industry. And who do they serve? Only themselves and their cronies. Industries and corporations are not people and they do not deserve the laws that are being enacted on their behalf while individual rights and freedoms are being taken away in this country on a daily basis right under our noses while we are distracted with materialism and consumerism and greed and fame and fortune).

Be very careful, indeed very leery, of articles where the writer tries to dissuade the reader from choosing whatever beliefs and lifestyles are right for the individual.

This article strikes me as a softer, more insidious, type of Witch Hunt. The writer of this article has clearly not developed the skills, insights, or self mastery to be able to "speak another language" or truly see what lies within and without, or to realize that reality is much more flexible and fluid than his limited ideas about it.

Science is only one language.
There are many others.

It doesn't take an expert to get an article published on the internet.

Question everything,
and everyone.