May Sinclair's Thoughts

One More Time

2011-10-26T08:51:00.000-07:00

One more time…if we don’t learn from history we are bound to experience it, again.

While preparing a talk I’m giving about symbols I decided to use those for the two major political parties of the United States: the Donkey or Jackass and the Elephant. To my surprize I discovered they stuck as symbols back in the 1800’s when political cartoonist used them to lampoon a couple of our Presidents.

First, the symbol for the Democratic Party. The donkey is symbolic of patience, forbearance, suffering and stubbornness. It relates to having great stamina but not much power and creativity. And it concerns the feeling that there is a need for martyrdom to be expressed in satisfying another's wants, needs, and desires. The jackass symbolizes a stupid remark or action.*

Our 7th President, Andrew Jackson, was lampooned as a donkey. He genuinely feared the rise of a moneyed elite that he believed was bent on enriching themselves at the expense of the hardworking people of the United States and said in his Farewell address to America in 1837 : "...unless you become more watchful...and check this spirit of monopoly and thirst for exclusive privileges you will in the end find that the most important powers of Government have been given...away, and the control over your dearest interests has passed into the hands of these corporations."

It’s rather interesting that the quote is being similarly said by many a person today and found in our current newscasts.

Second, the symbol for the Republican Party. The elephant symbolizes the need to be thick skinned as it indicates a belief that survival requires hard work and sustaining energy because gaining power is of primary importance. It also indicates an inability to be forgiving due to the refusal to ever forget anything from the past.*

It was another political cartoonist, disgusted with the numerous scandals caused by our 17th President, Ulysses S. Grant’s lack of personal accountability among his subordinates and the cabinet members of his administration, who drew the Republican “vote” as a marauding elephant that became commonly used by other cartoonists eventually to be immediately recognized as the emblem for the Republican Party.

Once again, those scandals and lack of accountability by our political administrations could be easily related as a news item today.

Clearly, a symbol does not have to be kind to whatever or whomever it depicts for it to catch-on and stay stuck.

*"The Sandman’s Treasury", May Sinclair Copyright 2011

Where do we go now?

2011-08-27T10:44:00.000-07:00

It’s been a long time since I’ve written anything that is considered political, mainly because the political “is” personal and I’ve been so upset with the mess this country has found itself in which is based on the lack of concern from the vast majority of the politicians that I couldn’t get my thoughts onto paper, feeling like many: “What’s the use?”
I’m now looking at the fact that we will all be facing another election for the President of the United States without any true options. The campaign platform from Obama was not realized. He made promises of change that were not remotely kept. Both the Republican and Democratic Parties are filled with strife and the people who are willing to run for the office of President are both ridiculous and scary. So, where does that leave the vast majority of people who have been and remain affected by the political system that everyone agrees is broken? Maybe, it leaves us in a situation where we need another option. A third party, perhaps? Many say that won’t work because it will only take votes away from the Democratic Party, ensuring the Republicans will win the election. Well, I disagree with that thinking. After all, Obama won the last election because people believed him and his fine rhetoric about “change”.
Right now I’m cautiously looking at the options that are being created by various organizations that are doing what is necessary to form another way to get the United States of America back on track. That is possible. I don’t see is being possible by allowing the “broken system” to continue. We are living at a time when the citizens of this country are maturing. We tried to elect someone who gave the impression that he would “save” us and now realize we are going to have to save ourselves. All of the groups that can make a difference and change are going to need to support the people who have already shown what they stand for by looking at how they have formed, or re-formed, and voted on the issues that affect all of us. Those who have already shown that it is important for this country to get back to work rather than squabble over the finer points of ideology.
I’m a self-employed woman and am no more interested in a huge government that forms a welfare state than most other people. But, I am not so tunnel-visioned that I can’t see that the government needs to take actions to get people back to work, either. There are too many large corporations that have the edge over the small companies, especially when it comes to fossil fuels or renewable energy sources. The health insurance systems are based on profit rather than health care. There are too many comfortable politicians that listen to those rich corporation’s lobbyists and gain wealth from them to let the business communities regulate themselves. As long as the politicians are allowed to be kept separate from the average person they have no incentive to make “changes”. That is, unless they are not greedy and fearful, which is not the case for the vast majority who are content since they do not have to participate in Social Security, Medicare, and the need to contribute to their own retirement plan. And that is why the Democratic Party is worse off that the Republican Party. The Republicans are forced to vote the Party’s line or they don’t get the stay in office. Whereas far too many of the Democrats say one thing to get elected and then do something else when they are voted into office assuming the citizens of this country are not smart enough to come up with another option.
I don’t know which of the other options are the means of cleaning up the political mess yet, but I do know the ones we’ve had up till now are unacceptable.

Dear Democratic Party

2010-04-06T09:27:00.000-07:00

I have received two requests from the Democratic National Committee asking that I respond to surveys. I have filled out the forms and am including this letter along with them to let you know what I think of the political situation in the United States of America right now. Let me make it clear: I am a self-employed woman, without the time or interest to be a wild-eyed feminist, and certainly consider myself a capitalist. However, the competition found in capitalism is not based on a few large companies gaining all the wealth because they already have the money and power to enforce laws that benefit them, keeping them in their power positions.*

The impressive speeches made by President Obama leave many people with the concern that his plans are not based on what he said he would do to help make changes when he was campaigning, but are based on what he believes he can do to make this country's politicians cooperate together so that we are an example to the rest of the world. Does our President believe and adhere to the old American Mission: that the United States of America is to fulfill some great destiny by its people being docile and harmonious, so we can be an example that is to be copied by all the other countries on the planet? A rather lofty belief and one that requires our political house be put in order—which it is not. Seemingly he has only taken the actions to help create the changes he campaigned on when he is forced into doing it by the outcry from those who helped get him elected in the first place. These are my major areas of distress: President Obama did not get involved in the Health Care question until very late. I had expected him to get behind the bill early on and was shocked indeed when he denied that he had supported a one-payer option during his campaign. I was especially scandalized because it wasn't until he made that statement that I became willing to support him. Guantanamo Bay is still in operation and I am once again stunned that the Democratic Party feels a need to ask on its questionnaire whether water-boarding or any other form of torture is acceptable. U.S. troops remain in Afghanistan, so I must ask if anyone in our government has ever read any history about the middle-East? And now off shore drilling has been approved.

The people of this country are wondering what has changed. All that's happened so far is our government paid out billions dollars to shore up the banking industry, leaving those who caused the world economy to teeter on the edge of economic depression in their same positions of power. None of those government funds went back into those countless retirement funds that the banking and stock market leaders lost, but those powerful companies gave and continue to give millions of tax payer dollars to their executives. The citizens of this country also watched our government bail-out the auto industry whose executives showed up with their hands out, got their money, and left the congressional meetings in their private jets to continue selling cars that adds to global warming and keeps us in a war that has much more to do with oil than human rights.

Where are those electric cars? The ones originally manufactured by the General Motors Corporation were removed and destroyed while the new models promised by that company have never appeared. Where I live there are electric stations already in place and Southern California Edison is gearing up for recharging to occur in homes and offices, but our President has opened vast sections of protected coastlines to oil and gas drilling instead of offering meaningful help to the wind and solar power industries that can create two (2) to three (3) times more jobs than those oil companies, which only continues to shore up a petroleum based industry while undermining the non-petroleum options. The United States continues to drag behind other countries that are taking the lead in renewable energy as we remain ever addicted to and dependent on oil. Anyone who notices this must be disturbed by what has been said in comparison to what is actually being done.

Sorry, I cannot get off this soap-box because even the dullest person knows health care in this country is controlled by insurance companies that are profit driven. As long as profit is part of the dynamics we will never be able to sort it out. When a system, such as Medicare, that includes everyone in this country is established the cost of the system drops automatically—and it drops dramatically. It's the hodgepodge of so many health insurance companies—under holding company umbrellas—all doing the same unethical profit based things that maintains the high costs. The Democratic Party needs to look at what must occur to gain health care for every citizen right now, not years from now. Anyone who wants to pay for health services outside a national system is welcome to do it, but as long as everyone is not included in a national system, there remains a real lack of democratic freedom in this country. Are you among those political elitists who are willing to sacrifice the long term future of this country to retain your short term position? United States citizens are no longer politically naive, so if the Democratic Party goes along with other members of our government who continue to help maintain a health insurance system, based on profit that ignores so many millions of this country's people then the Democratic Party is absolutely not the answer to this country's problems.

Unless the government imposes laws to prevent them from charging the high amounts they already do for health insurance and prescriptive drugs, the only change is that those groups will gain an ability to make even more profits at the expense of us, the citizens. It is very obvious that health care expenses, including pharmaceutical costs, must be regulated. Making it illegal for health insurance companies to not offer coverage or cancel coverage due to pre-existing conditions cannot resolve the health care crisis unless part of the plan includes a cap on the price for health care. A lid without any thought about profit. The entire health insurance system is rotten from the top right to the bottom. Unless the profit attitude is taken out of the health care system those numbers are bound to increase. Double, or is it really triple, digit billions has been added to this countries debt to retain the economic system that keeps the rich and infamous in power. But, not a penny is to be spent to bring financial, emotional, and physical relief to this country's citizens.

The poles continue to indicate that the vast majority of people in this country still want national health for all citizens, including a single-payer option! The elected officials, both Democrats and Republicans, who can make that change, have refused to do it. Why aren't those Democrats who have the political power to make it happen not using their clout to bring about the promised changes? Why is it they are still trying to convince the inconvincible, rather than just getting on with making the change that is being clamored for by their own constituents? Ask what that says about democracy in this country? The Democratic Party has not been able to get members of its own party to vote-in what the vast majority of Americans desire. Thus, it indicates that both the Democratic and Republican elected officials do not care what the people want; there really is no democracy in this country because the large corporations are in power, lobbying and buying-off politicians, making the rest of us, the working people, slaves to those corporations and unethical politicians.

There are certain basic necessities that must not be profit driven: air, water, health, and education are some of them. Is the Democratic Party so insulated from the experiences of a normal citizen that it wonders what it needs to do to have the American public support it? How can the Democratic Party be so dense that it would ask the same people who worked hard to get this government into power to help again when so many of the promises for change have not been implemented, but have actually kept the old ways in place? I do not see this government being democratic. Rather it is a group of elitists engaging in a free-for-all with those having the most money and power ever struggling to maintain and gain more and more at the expense of everyone else. That is not a change. That is what we, the citizens, voted to get changed.

This letter will be posted on my Blog and you are welcome to respond as long as you address the issues raised without resorting to some form letter jargon.

Sincerely,
May Sinclair, PhD

* Page 335, Infamous Eve, A History

MoveOn.org is being extremely kind, but one of their posts this week clearly indicates a large segment of people in this country recognize that President Obama must be pushed into doing what he said he would do during his campaign.

Who actually lost?

2010-01-20T15:15:00.000-08:00

The Democrats (Party that is) seem to be concerned about the loss of one of the seats in the Senate. I wonder, are they really concerned? If they are, what about? The mischief that reigned during the time they were supposed to be getting health care reform in the United States isn't much of an indication they are concerned about the American people. So, I have to assume the concern being shown is really about their own little selves.

In November, 2008 I was willing to look at conciliation of all sides. I'm not now. I am leaning further to the left because it is obvious to anyone who pays attention that we have not gotten any of the changes for the people at all. The same people are in power and are doing the same things: keeping the good things in life for and to themselves.

We may not be serfs, having to stay on the land to serve our Lord and the Czar, but many people are forced into staying in jobs that limit them because of their fear of losing health care insurance. What part of that is democracy?

Obama was called a liar for the wrong reasons, but I'm questioning his truthfulness at this point. And I am absolutely of the opinion he's not being the firm Presidential figure—for the people—that he presented himself to be during the last thirty days of his campaign.

One more time I ask: What does it take for politicians to understand that what's been offered to the American people is NOT right? When do they finally get that they are the elected NOT the elect? When will they stop believing the American people will accept the same old games that maintain a status quo that is simply wrong? I suppose it will require lots of people losing their appointed seats in the political houses for them to get that the people ARE growing up politically and will not take it any more.

Energies in 2010

2009-12-16T12:36:00.000-08:00

There are cycles within cycles. This millennium of 2000 is often called The Awakening and Judgment. In 2008 we experienced what is termed The Wheel of Becoming, in 2009 we moved into the energy of Illumi-nation, and in 2010 we move forward into an energy that is rather complex. In Numerology the numbers are reduced to the lowest denomination except for a few special numbers, therefore 2010 would be reduced to 3, which is a number of joy and completion, Yet, I believe we will refer to the year as twenty-ten and that will be very significant because it indicates both The Awakening and The Wheel of Becoming.
By using the experiences that occurred under the energy of 2009, that of Illumination, all of us can experi-ence an Awakening making Judgments to continue increasing our understanding of what it means to be on The Wheel of Becoming. The energy of the twenty heralds the end of some former thinking and life-style because it is understood there is another—better—way to live that offers growth. All of those past hardships are used to extract wisdom. People do know what needs to be done to accomplish their desires. The energy of the ten indicates a conversion point in consciousness. All of those past lessons that were taught and fi-nally learned raise consciousness to another level of comprehension.
2010 is a year that may allow us to see some results from the plans made back in 2008. It will require per-sonal creativity to make improvements in everyone's living styles. Over the next year there will be a speed-ing up and cohesion of effort to bring those desires further along. Both imagination and raw inspiration must be used to direct all of life's affairs to see an improvement in business and personal relationships, finances, and everything else. This year's energy demands the use of creative practicality or there will be lots of emo-tional disturbance; wasted time, resources, and effort worrying about what others are doing or not doing. Cooperation is essential. Extravagance in any form is a problem. Gossip and mean spirited words only cause unnecessary delays. Friendly conversations and the use of common sense are important to ensure ide-als are not a lost or dropped part of the discussion. Being overly ambitious will only exhaust the energy. Being fearful about failure will also weaken efforts. Attempts are not failures; they are experiences to teach what works and what doesn't work—eventually creating success. It is a year for people to divest themselves of things that are no longer useful.
In January the vibrations are in place to resolve some issue lingering from last year. There are many details that still need to be worked out in an innovative and creative way. February brings forth a movement to-wards those goals as long as prudent efforts continue rather than just rash acts of expediency. The month of March is filled with thoughts and actions that concern domestic responsibilities. It is by being creatively inspiring as well as feeling inspired by others that a true joy of living occurs. April will require some time be given over to think things through. Much has occurred. To prevent feeling overwhelmed it is essential that busy thoughts be quieted for peaceful decisions to be made. During the month of May those doors of opportunity that were previously closed will be opened. Business, work, and careers can be enhanced and expanded. In June events occur to reflect something new in our lives. Some people will see it as loss be-cause of fearful thoughts about the future. Others will see it as an opportunity to expand their future. July is a month of social enthusiasm as the events move everyone towards those opportunities that do reach goals. During August the energy can seem to make people feel so sensitive that progress might be blocked. Or, that sensitivity can be used to become even more aware. September will see a great deal of communication go-ing on. There will be a great deal of physical travel or that which takes place in cyberspace. In October the energy urges structures be reformed. Work loads become heavy, but any sense of restriction is lessened though competent and realistic organization. Throughout November the energy is in place to balance out life. Patience, rather than rash acts, is important. December includes domestic responsibilities: whether they are wanted or not. Acceptance of accountability without feeling resentment about it will loosen up the ability to simply enjoy what is.
2010 can be confusing. It is a year filled with the energy that desires joyousness in the world. And as long a people understand that does not mean they have no individual responsibilities to uphold it can be a fortunate year.

The Numbers are Revealing. Or maybe they aren't!

2009-12-16T12:34:00.000-08:00

It really all depends on whether you know what those numbers represent. There is a greater percentage of people who recognize that those social, political and economic changes we were promised before we went to the polls in 2008 are not visible. Many are wondering if they ever will be. I'm one of them. Getting a single payer option for healthcare doesn't mean anything if it doesn't really manage to create the competition that will force the health insurance companies to change their ways. All I've seen is a lot of politicians doing what most of us fear they always do: take care of their own needs at the expense of the people.

It really is disgusting and I'm ready to let it all fall apart so that building can begin in earnest.

Thanks to the professionals

2009-09-17T13:42:00.000-07:00

I would like to thank Renee Fountain at http://www.bookfetish.org. and James A. Cox at http://www.midwestbookreview.com for their reviews of my book, Just How DO Affirmations Work?

Check out what they have to say.

The Numbers are rather revealing

2009-09-17T13:37:00.000-07:00

Over the past several months I've heard that as many as 83% of Americans are FOR a single payer plan for health care. And still there is none. Even the politicians who are for it haven't chosen to gather up the others who could make it happen, right now. I understand why President Obama cannot do it by himself. I don't understand why those who have the political power to make it happen are not using their clout to bring about the change that they can. Why is it they are still trying to convince the inconvincible, rather than just getting on with making the change that is being clamored for by their own constituents?

Okay, this is not Britain or Canada, but there is no reason why this country cannot come up with a way to have health care for all of our citizens that is unique to our own system and way of doing things. Right now. The idea of health insurance did not become a profit making system until a few political administrations ago. When the HMOs and PPOs first came along, they were non-profit groups. So, it is possible to have health care within groups that provide care in a unique American way as long as the issue of profit is removed. Health care is not something that needs to be profitable and it is possible to use a form of our current system for health care as long as it does not include a profit.

I listened to the speech President Obama made last week that intended to resolve some of the fear based rhetoric being spread all over the media. I was impressed with his candor and style. But I was left, just like everyone else, with the concern that his basic plan will not take shape for another four years. And I was also disturbed that the health insurance companies may just continue to rake-in profits. Actually, unless the government imposes laws to prevent them from charging the high amounts they already do to obtain health care, the only change is that those groups will gain an even greater ability to rake-in more profits at the expense of us, the citizens. It is very obvious that health costs must be governed. Just making it illegal for health insurance companies to not offer coverage or cancel coverage due to pre-existing conditions will not resolve the health care crisis unless part of the plan includes a cap on the price for the coverage. A lid without any thought about profit. As I listened to the speech I could just see the hands of the insurance company executives. Each of their hands caressing the other as they had greedy thoughts about the legally enforced expansion of their business numbers bringing their profits up to get them more private jets and exotic vacations.

Let's face it: this health care situation is the perfect place to decide what Americans believe about individual citizens and what we believe about business. The idea that corporations have the same rights as human beings is at issue. I am on the side that corporations are not human and therefore are not to get the same rights as individual citizens. Corporations are made up of individual citizens, so nothing is taken away from the corporations, but if those corporate entities get the same rights as humans, our political structure is then no longer democratic. Our politics becomes a free-for-all with those having the most money and power ever struggling to maintain or gain more and more at the expense of everyone else.

How long does it take for all of the changes to….well, change?

2009-07-21T08:58:00.000-07:00

Here we are still waiting for all of those elected politicians to realize that they are NOT the "elect". The majority of the people in this country are demanding a single payer health care system. You have to ask: Why don't we already have it? And why is it still being discussed? One reason is the amount of money being spent by companies to tell half truths and full blown lies so they can retain the status quo that lets them continue their business as usual. It is a case of double-speak. Those health insurance companies know that when there is a better system available too many of the current health insurance policy holders will change to that better system and stop paying exorbitant premiums. Another is the silent majority. We have spoken up and obviously been ignored, so we must continue to speak up and be heard or our personal heath care will remain an impersonal business!
The vast majority of companies in this country are not found on the Stock Exchanges. Nor are most of the employers and employees flying around in private jets. As long as we allow our most basic infrastructure to be based on the unrealistic ideas of those privileged people who gain their life-styles from stock earnings rather than from actually working there can be no parity, let alone equality of living in this country.
When the businesses in this country are freed from the extraordinary burden of an unhealthy system those who are in power and continue to block needed changes will be exposed for what they are. Well, with all of the information that has recently been made known they already are exposed. You remember when people were told they were not supporting our country if they did not support the war? That was a lie and it certainly will not work to suggest that a person who says the health insurance system in this country is not very good means that person is a bad citizen.
So I say, as are millions of other citizens, to all those elected politicians: pay attention. We all know that your first item of business is to keep your job. The people of this country are telling you that for you to keep your job, you are absolutely obligated to get those changes we voted you in to get, actually get changed.

Optimism is a BELIEF

2009-06-13T10:21:00.000-07:00

Atoms are the tiny particles making up everything. And they have their own composition. Quantum physic scientists are still trying to figure out how all the electrons and protons are affected by some person conducting experiments with them. We are all made up of energy—protons and electrons—set into various patterns of motion. Our thoughts are energy and they travel faster than the speed of light. Thoughts are not physical. Thoughts are not some active neurons in our brains. No matter whether every neuron in our brain is mapped out and examined there is not a single thought to be seen. It is very important to know that our beliefs, no matter their origin or cause, energize our thoughts. Each of us retains every belief we ever had. They are used to understand all of life's encounters and experiences. Yet, because they are based on personal perception, there is an ability to make changes. Truth is subjective and fluid.
There is no doubt that staying positive is an asset in anyone's life. But, we need to remember that every person lives what they believe! No thing ever happens in any person’s life that is not believed will happen. It is also important to remember that beliefs are not necessarily aligned with what a person says she or he believes. Many a personal belief is not popular and has gone underground into the sub-conscious, where emotionally hot topics are hidden, as a protection device for the person who does believe it.
Each of us has an obligation to reconcile our need to deal with our instincts to survive and our need to overcome our instinctual beliefs that self-protection is the only way to survive. We are responsible for reconciling our instinctual survival beliefs with the truth of unconditional love and absolute abundance. When intellectual reasoning indicates the issues of life are not reconcilable it is mandatory that life and life's events be looked at from another perspective.
We do affect the orientation of energy, forming molecules and wave patterns that are used by our minds. We thus put into effect our beliefs and create our reality. All energy shifts and changes, as it is formed within our unconscious and sub-conscious states, so we then experience it in our conscious condition. What we do not consciously think about we remain unconscious about. What we feel sub-consciously about that bothers us, well it still materializes in our conscious reality. All three: unconscious, conscious, and sub-conscious thoughts and beliefs shape and form the energy that creates our lives. Every one of us is the result of what we believe. We select the energy to create whatever we believe we can have and what we can be. The right sides our brains imagines it and the left sides of our brains bring it into reality.
All we create in our conscious mind becomes limited by our consciousness. It is placed within some type of structure. And all beliefs are controlling in some way and to some extent. Our controlled beliefs are the expressions of our self-perception. Those perceptions extend to the groups, communities, states, and world self-perceptions. All of us together make up our group-consciousness. Both individual and group consciousness that is positive, compassionate, tolerant, creative, enlightened, forgiving, and harmonious allows us to evolve mentally, physically, emotionally, and spiritually.

The Anger turns to Disgust

2009-05-23T12:54:00.000-07:00

You've got to ask how the health care companies and drug manufactures dare to use Medicare as an example of how much it would cost the government—the tax payers—to provide universal healthcare to everyone in this country. Using Medicare as an example is pure double speak. When everyone in this country, including the young and healthy, gets to use the same system the costs drop automatically—and dramatically. It's the hodgepodge of heath insurance options that maintains the high costs of health care.
It is mandatory that people stop taking from others because of their irrational fears about there not being enough to go around. Whether they are greedy, arrogant, or fearful doesn't matter because it still brings about the same results.
Does President Obama desire that he be remembered throughout history as just another president who got elected and then didn't follow through on his campaign promises? Is he going to maintain a status quo because of the pressures from those who did not elect him into office, but gave him campaign funds that can be used against him, to prevent him from making the changes he espoused? Are those elitists, who are willing to sacrifice the long term future of this country to retain the short term position of greed, be allowed to destroy this country? And will the president along with members of our government continue to be blind-sided by those fearful people heading companies based on greed? Will they allow a system that ignores so many millions of this countries people and is based on profit to continue? Will they allow this country to remain a global laughing stock?
Do we truly have a government of the people for the people? Or are we an enslaved people to the wealthy? Are we victims? Or are we a people courageous enough to demand that we get the changes we were told we were going to get? If we, the workers, are going to continue to work so hard that we are exhausted and can only manage to sit—checked out—at our internet screens, then at least email a letter to those who were elected letting them know there remains a spark of energy left in us to demand those changes that were promised to us.
Stop feeling separate and special. Know the truth: half of all the bankruptcies filled recently were caused by the fact that people were unable to pay medical related bills. And three quarters of that fifty percent actually did have health insurance.
The populist vote got Obama the Presidency. Be one of the people for the people to stop those actions being taken by the greedy and fearful in power. Be courageous and honest. Allow for the reforming of the foundations of our current politics. The business of government must be about creating equality for all. The powerful can be prevented from using their unequally taxed wealth to brain-wash an over-worked and under-educated population to deflect what is really going on. We have the ability to stop them from continuing their self-serving frauds and bring about a true free-market that is not concerned with life's basic necessities.

Why is it made to sound so tricky?

2009-04-03T11:23:00.000-07:00

I don't know about the rest of the country, but I personally feel a bit angry about this health care business. And that's about what sums it up—business. Why does health care need to be about businesses making a profit? I've been in the position where it became necessary to choose to pay the high cost for insurance under the COBRA system when my husband was laid off from his job and $800.00 a month for health care is expensive! The health laws are still being geared towards companies making profit from people who are in need of a basic necessity. Look around the globe and see how other countries care for their people. Surely, Americans are bright enough to take the best of what those countries do so we can create something even better here.

As long as profit is part of the dynamics we will never be able to sort this situation out. Companies in the United State of America that offer really acceptable health insurance to their employees are unable to compete with other countries that provide health care in a national format. How can that be good for the free-market system?

I am not for revising a system that continues to be geared towards making a profit on health. President Obama needs to stop listening to the insurance companies that have ruined the ability for citizens in this country to obtain health care and pay attention to what must occur to gain a health care option for every person. Anyone who wants to pay for health services outside a national system is welcome to do it, but as long as everyone is not included in a national system, there remains a real lack of freedom in this country.

Americans Are Not Stupid

2009-03-17T08:34:00.000-07:00

Go ahead, send a picture of a tea bag to the President on April 1, 2009, but include a letter that states what you think about how our taxes are generated and used.
Some people take from others because of irrational fears about there not being enough to go around. It can be argued whether that is a true definition of greed, but the results of being greedy or fearful ends up being the same. The people at the top of major corporations are an arrogant and greedy bunch. The regular working people who have good ideas within those companies are required to accept a pittance for "selling" them to the corporations. So, without any justified reward the workers keep their best ideas to themselves and continue to endlessly complain about the corruption, greed, and mismanagement at the top. Having worked for the largest corporation, many tiny companies, and been self-employed for over 30 years I know who gets what and when in each of those situations. Don’t kid yourself into thinking the auto manufacturer company's top executives will give up much to get the bail-out money from the Federal government. Most of the money will come out of the paychecks from those on the lines and staff personnel—unimportant people who just do the work.
The arrogance of egotism has always been and remains a large part of our tax system, too. How can the government prevent those who used their seemingly ever present poor judgment to lose so much money held in 401Ks from getting super incomes and bonuses when they have lawyers to protect them? Our government needs to look at it in an entirely different way. The middle income tax-payers need not always be the group losing as the process of exercising a "free-market" continues. By making everyone, including corporations and companies, pay taxes on the gross rather than the net there could be trillions of more dollars going into the tax funds, and those taxes would be paid on an equal basis. It is not possible for equality to occur as long as there are so many hidden loop-holes only known about or remotely available to the wealthy. Recently it has been clearly shown that only a few reap the rewards—and continue to do so no matter how big the gains or the losses might be. But don't get lost in the emotionalism in letting those excessive bonuses and salaries beome yet another means of keeping people angry and unable to think clearly about the fact that the system is simply unequal and therefore unworkable.
Economists refuse to look at a flat rate tax because it's too simple. Complexity is preferred as long as real human conditions are not part of the analysis. Citing the issue of the poor not being taken care of is a lame excuse because it's easy enough to set a bar where zero tax is part of the rules. Or, if there is some concern that those living on the edge of poverty are "getting a free ride" then use a sliding scale. However, the scale must be: less paid by those at the bottom and more paid by those at the top, and without any loop-holes or write-offs being involved. Maybe it's okay to let major corporations spend their money on lobbyists and dubious advertising as long as none of it is tax deductible.
Rather than taxing the middle-class again to maintain the status quo, let's go about providing free universal health care, pure water, clean air, education, housing, and food that still truly offers incentives to get to work by including every person, company, and corporation in the tax system equally.
The populist vote got Obama the Presidency. It can also clear away those actions being taken by the greedy and fearful in power, but only when courage and honesty are the foundations of the current politics. The business of government could be about creating equality for all. But as long as the powerful are allowed to use their unequally taxed wealth to brain-wash an over-worked and under-educated population while deflecting what is really going on there is no free-market, only self-serving fraud.
May Sinclair, PhD
3/16/09
Learn more about history: http://mythoughtsonhistory.blogspot.com

POLICITAL MATURITY

2009-02-13T10:54:00.000-08:00

During this time of people trying to get the government to deal with the real issues that are preventing this country from being on a balanced and even keel, the old complaints are being used to ground and beach our political boat onto the shores of despair.
How difficult is it to understand that throwing money at a problem without accountability is part of the problem rather than a solution? We all know that is what already occurred with the results being what we are dealing with now: lay-offs, company closings, home foreclosures, and inaccessible health care. All of this bickering only adds to the problem of being unable to trust our government. Nor is there much credibility in the media when we repeatedly hear the depressing and misleading stories put out by those who use fear tactics to maintain their position within the disillusioning status-quo. If politics isn't about the welfare of the people being governed, but continues to focus on infighting and using the current political structure to get elected then our country is in more trouble than we think.

Here is a great book to read...

2009-01-26T15:35:00.000-08:00

Let's Stop Beating Around the Bush

I just read a book that I'd give a ten star rating! I recommend this book be read by everyone. We need to know what actually happened during the Bush Administration. We already know the results, but this humorous book is full of the actions that lead us all to the state of our nation's unhealthy economic and social position.

Jim Hightower names names and quotes quotes along with giving public statistics that are alarming rather than tediously boring. This is not just another gloomy look about what's happened. It issues a message to individuals: that we each do count and can make a difference. How? By demanding that those people we vote for, at all levels of our government, do what they say they will do. And, if they don't, remove them from their elected offices. By not being fearful of bullies, the bullying will stop.

RELIGION DOES NOT HAVE THE EXCLUSIVE RIGHTS OF MORALITY

2009-01-04T10:53:00.000-08:00

I do wonder whether this country is ready to explode into civil unrest. There have been so many instances where civil rights and the US Constitution are simply ignored or manipulated. Yes, certainly in the past, but I'm actually referring to our current experiences.
Recently I listened to Mike Huckabee (Republican Governor of Arkansas) calmly spar with John Stuart (The Daily Show) about the issue of marriage being between one woman and one man. It was curious how Huckabee drug out the biblical scriptures to support his position, but was rather silent when Stuart pointed out the hazards and flaws in using "the way things were done in the past" per the Bible when it is just as easy to insist that men should have many wives and even concubines.
It was pathetically clear that the religious right is extremely comfortable in selecting whatever is useful from the past to support their current means of holding people hostage to the right's own ideas by using morality as an emotion weapon. Everyone has a strong desire to be considered moral. The challenge is to be moral, not just rationalize some personal agenda.
Besides, this issue is about a secular position, not a religious one. The US Constitution is a moral document. It is not based on any brand of religion. One of its major points is to keep Church and State separate. Is it not obvious that various people's ideas about religion have and continues to cause much strife in this world? A person does not need to see this matter is not about homosexual or heterosexual rights to the sacred, it is about civil rights.

2009

2008-12-29T09:31:00.000-08:00

There are cycles within cycles. This millennium is often called The Awakening, in 2008 we experienced what is termed The Wheel of Becoming, and in 2009 we move into the energy of Illumination.
2009 offers a higher vibrational level. Those with the Astrological signs of Leo or Aquarius significantly placed in their charts, those who have birthday dates on the 11th of the month, or those who have some other significant numerological 11, will feel the strength of this year's energy even more than others.
Throughout this year people will feel a strong urge to be receptive and to accept the vibrations surrounding them. When they do they can achieve a greater measure of growth. Throughout this year people are more sensitive which allows for more communication. However, the vibrations might be felt so intensely that acting normally can be a challenge. If the nervous tension becomes too great it is best to express harmony though cooperation and partnerships. Just remember that the word cooperation is mutual, no person or group will get to have another cooperate without expressing it, too.
2009 is a year for sharing new and exciting knowledge and feelings. It is also a great year for writing, even if it is a personal journal. Because insight will hit quickly there will be lots of poignant and wise thoughts being shared. This year will help everyone understand what it truly means to be human. There will be a greater amount of compassion and forgiveness of people's personal weaknesses. Without the need to approve of them so they can continue, past judgment errors and misguided actions are better understood and accepted.
The energy felt during the first half of this year will be in place to help create balance and to achieve what is necessary to experience the true purpose of living. The energy is a special gift that surrounds the world and offers an opportunity for people to discover or perhaps rediscover knowledge that moves us all towards enlightenment. Have no doubt this year will require people to cooperate with one another. And everyone needs to pay attention to their intuition because it will be very helpful in knowing when some relationship is not right or good and is therefore no longer to be continued.
In January the vibrations are strong for gaining awareness. Events and conversations are powerful. There will be a great deal of nervous tension. February brings forth greater awareness and criticism. It is a time of discoveries that are confusing and disturbing but necessary for balancing out the past. The month of March brings many changes that are more freeing, but also contain elements of restlessness and agitation. April will reflect some new awareness about individuals importance within family, love, and living situations that can bring an upset to the past order of things and ways. During the month of May there will be some difficulties related to communicating new ideas because people feel differently and those who have grown to expect past thoughts and actions will be disturbed by the changes. In June events occur for progress in work and business. July is a month of becoming aware about relationships that are stifling, but compassion is required to continue progress. During August there will be success, however, fearful people can intentionally slow down swift progress. September will see events occur that force a slower pace and patience will be needed as outcomes are awaited. In October people will feel the urge to look at the growth already achieved to become more creative. Expressions through art, music, and communication will be joyous and loving. Throughout November the energy is exceptionally powerful in its potential to make great strides of growth. There is a need for discipline and organization to resolve the confusion and criticism and prevent folly and delusions. December brings the ability to escape from the high emotionalism of the year. Life feels less restricted but it is important that all of the illumination grained throughout the year be used to construct a life that is based on new awareness.
2009 is a year for spirituality, philosophy, and metaphysics. The most import aspect of this year's energy is to balance out individual ideas that can be used as a foundation for sanctuary rather than continuing opposition.
………………………………………………………………
The award winning poet, Mason Clare, writes extensively about the ancient disciple of Numerology and is known throughout the United States and British Isles. All of her work is bases on extensive research and study of both ancient and modern philosophical teachings, where she has learned and continues to foster a merging of our physical, mental, and spiritual selves.

Interested in knowing your energies and those of your family and friends for the entire year? Go to www.Amazon.com and order Mason Clare's book Spiritual Years ISBN # 0-738-1167-X (Softcover) 0-7388-1166-1 (Hardcover)

Do You Feel the Fear?

2008-10-29T11:42:00.000-07:00

For the past few days I've gone about my normal—that is not so normal lately—business and felt as though I could physically touch the fear in the air. All the people waiting for the elections to occur for both the Presidential and Vice-Presidential candidates and their cherished State Measures are really involved. Everyone is hopeful that changes will occur—changes that directly affect their personal lives.
Interestingly, there was a massive group of people, in the town where I live, who made up signs and stood on several corners of a major intersection making their thoughts known about voting down the "Marriage between one man and one woman" measure. Many of those people were afraid a riot would occur because they were going against the Christian Right!
I, myself, don't quite understand why people get so involved in what other people do in their private lives. I don't see us going back to burning witches, hanging Blacks (African Americans), buying and selling slaves, or forcing anyone to hide their sexual persuasions. I believe in our Constitution and Civil Rights for everyone.

The feelings found in history

2008-09-18T15:48:00.000-07:00

In the early 1900s the well known historian George Malcom Young, noted "that the real, central theme of History is not what happened, but what people felt about it when it was happening."
We are certainly living in times that are offering up historical events and what people feel about them is paramount to whatever results will be achieved.
Perhaps I was hasty in concluding the ethnic and gender issues were safely resolved when Hillary Clinton conceded to Barack Obama. It hadn't occurred to me the Republican Party would attempt to open up that potential opposition again by bringing in a female dark horse running-mate for John McCain. Obama may have misread the high feelings of our national urge to have a woman step forward into our highest of offices. But then it also didn't occur to me that the Republicans would use their money as power to spin the issues, turning themselves into the protectors of family values, religious rights, and economic stability, just by saying they are.
Still, I will maintain my faith in the American people. I will continue to believe the vast majority are not willing to let any political group take our social, economic, religious, and political rights hostage by spinning the truths around when they are obvious to us.

Solidarity Continued

2008-09-01T11:35:00.001-07:00

At first glance I thought the choice of a woman to run with McCain was going to bring divisiveness to this country, separating women, who are strongly or even moderately interested in feminist issues, from the Obama campaign. But, upon noting the political position of Ms. Palin it became apparent that only those who would vote for an "idea" without knowing the facts could possibly be willing to vote the McCain/Palin ticket. Rather than dividing, the action is actually a strong means of solidifying the citizens of this country who know cooperation is strength not a weakness.

Solidarity

2008-08-28T15:18:00.000-07:00

You may not like Hillary Clinton or would have chosen her to be the next President of the United States of America, but come on, give her credit for being gracious in conceding to the majority in her political party. Both Hilary and her husband, the former President of our country, Bill Clinton did their part to unite the Democrats in their support of Barack Obama.

So now, maybe we won't have to experience the horror of the past when ethnicity and gender were used, by those who employed chaos to stay in power, against each other.

So Cute

2008-08-05T13:46:00.001-07:00

A few days ago a young girl dressed in her cheerleader outfit knocked on my front door. When I opened it she asked if I would support the High School by paying her $10.00 to get my car washed. As I simply said, "No thanks," she turned on her heels in disgust. While closing the door I wondered if she was annoyed about me not succumbing to her cute little charms or whether it was because I didn't let her clean my obviously dirty car.
My husband asked me who was at the door and I told him some girl selling car washes, but also added what was going on in my mind. I declared that I don't mind the schools having sport activities and cheerleaders, but feel disturbed by the emphasis that continues to persist for young girls to be petite and cute. It just seems too much.
I am sure that some of my thoughts were connected to the movie my husband and I had watched the evening before the cheerleader showed up at our front door. We had watched the 2004 version of "The Stepford Wives" and I couldn't get over how the attitude, appearance, and demeanor of that young girl reminded me of the brain-altered women in the film.
Then a few days later I opened a copy of the Costco Connection magazine that came in the mail and my mind really got to whirling. One of the articles advised all of us older women to get with it and start wearing hip hugger jeans. Otherwise we are just, well, looking too old. I do wear those jeans, even though I don't have nor intend to get a belly button ring, and it took a few moments for me, one of those older women, to realize that the magazine article is there to sell those jeans that may not be flying off the Costco shelves. Thankfully I am wise enough to know the difference between wearing clothes that are the latest craze—based on my body type—and falling into some marketing trap. But, I'm still concerned about the hype that marketers use to create a contrived mind-set for the young—and perhaps not so wise—that being sexy makes you happier.
Well, should capitalism ever be held responsible for the life-styles it creates even when people are so often emotionally set-up to hate themselves when their bodies aren't the ideal depicted in the media?

Yes, it is okay to talk about politics

2008-07-21T16:41:00.000-07:00

Just a few nights also I had a conversation with a couple of intelligent people who said that it is only right that all citizens of the United States of America support the George W. Bush administration since Mr. Bush was voted into his office as President by a majority of the people.
I was able to take their point, but responded back that what they suggest is: no matter what a person does once legally elected into office is…well, according to them, okay. As long as properly elected, all actions become right and just even if they include our President bending (and perhaps breaking) the laws to fit into his (and perhaps in future her) personal agenda.
I say no to that idea. It certainly sounds like a form of dictatorship to my ears.
When torture is authorized and then the word is bandied about with verbal hairs being split to determine what the term means there is a problem and I for one do not agree that all of us American loving citizens must support the current administration.
What say you?

Nostalgia vs Grief

2008-05-08T09:36:00.000-07:00

You've got to wonder if there ever was a time when life was simply great. Has there ever been a time and place that deserves to be thought about in comfortable nostalgia? Was there ever a slow paced time where people were not sleep deprived and always being accused of doing or not doing their life right? Likely, no. It all depends on that half-full, half-empty thing. As each of us asks questions about our own lives it turns out that some of the time life is half-full, half-empty, and at others even over-filled.
Recently I spoke with a woman who is revolted by people who speak of incidents where prayer saved one of their loved one's lives. Her disgust comes from the feeling that her own prayers did not save her beloved. On hearing all of those platitudes she cannot get around her questions: Were my prayers not good enough? Were my prayers undeserving?
Perhaps we all need to be thoughtful before offering hope-filled condolences to a person who remains in the painfully unresolved grief of loss. That person is not in a safe emotional place and is unable to hear anything that smacks of sanctimonious clap trap, no matter how well meaning.
I am thinking there well may be only two prayers that can be justified, those of gratitude (thankfulness/praise) and guidance.

Numerology Page

2008-04-04T16:00:00.000-07:00

We might think it’s silly, but most of us still take a peek at our horoscopes on the Astrology pages in Newspapers and magazines, right? Well, if you know of someone who is getting married this year have them check out the monthly “Numerology” page at www.prescottweddings.com where they can find out what energies can be expected on the day of their wedding. It isn’t even silly. I write the column under my nom de plum and can assure you it is all really real.

Beauty is really deep

2008-03-03T09:04:00.000-08:00

Everyone has heard the old saying, “beauty is not just skin deep”, but what does that really mean? Of course it means that beauty comes from within. But, again, what does that mean?
A great deal of our physical body is affected by what we believe about the world in general and specifically regarding ourselves. People always know what it is they don’t want. They are often hard pressed to know what it is they do want. That is because we are always trying to fit into the world—as we know it.
Our history is not just about killing each other or looking hot. Fortunately, there are now more places to find out what else happened in our past. We can learn all sorts of interesting things that help us know about our world, making it simpler to discover who we are inside. Self-knowledge is a good way to know what we believe is beautiful.
A peacefulness inside is expressed as a warm character that others are attracted to and like to be around. So, is peacefulness beauty? Absolutely!

Is there more to history than killing each orther or looking hot?

2008-02-29T08:38:00.000-08:00

There is certainly a wide range of topics along the grand pole of history. Likely the killing and destruction found in wars, which is not the only interest men have, is on one end while doing everything possible to be considered sexy, which is also not the only interest women have, is on the other.
But too often history about women is either found in Women’s History Departments of Universities or on what is called the “fringe” giving people the impression it isn’t very interesting or doesn’t affect their lives. Many people automatically connect the term feminism with violent beliefs about sexuality. Pro-Choice also includes having children outside the current legal boundaries and is not exclusively about exercising abortion. And all the men I know who are very much interested in equality for women, knowing full well it affects their ability to enjoy equality themselves, are turned off by the word feminism and what is available about the history of women in the main-stream market today.
I have taught private workshops on Dream Interpretation and Analysis from a Jungian perspective for a decade. Believe me, a person’s dreams are a reflection of what they believe about themselves. What we believe is based on what we are taught. A person’s well being or ill health is affected by self-esteem. We find ourselves experiencing physical pains caused by our fears until we make conscious choices. Knowing all history helps sort out our personal beliefs. Until then, women’s history continues to be thought of as “second class”.
Let’s face it, how many people are going to spend their highly limited free time reading “The Feminist Papers – Adams through Beauvoir”? Not too many, other than those required to read it when taking a course to get their college degree. Yes, there are some books that deal with the pioneering lives of women in our past. Most of it, however, continues to dwell on how women should be “super” achievers and be willing to over-achieve. The vast majority of non-fiction literature published about historical women during the past fifteen years is about the Goddess. There is certainly no problem with that—I used a great deal of it when researching my book, Infamous Eve, A History—other than it does not always attract the interest of the general reader.
Right now the history of women seems to fall into the perceived categories of: 1. Uninteresting, 2. A sales job on how women should continue to be everything to everyone, or 3. Goddess worship is the way for religion to be experienced so that everyone gets to be happy.
The biggest real problem is that most of the popular biblical history found in the main-stream is written about the men—heroes—even though those heroes were war mongers taking land belonging to others, murderers to get or keep their heart’s desires, and without a doubt control freaks. Other than the ones with a distinctly biased position, the religious histories written about women are few and far between. So much was ignored, suppressed, deleted, or plundered and re-written so that it appears to be about men instead that tenacity is required to actually write about it.
Too often exercising our free-will is still considered a bad option. Regardless of individual perspectives and beliefs about Equal Rights for Women, there is an undeniable existence of a barrier that keeps women on a level lower than men. As long as social customs and political laws bind women to men the biblical Eve will still be used to constrain women, especially regarding work, marriage, and children.
Past historical mistakes cannot be prevented from recurring over and over again when they remain unknown. When we do know what they are, the status quo, that keeps both women and men without equality, ends.

Is history being revisited?

2008-02-23T18:50:00.000-08:00

Is the grand Universe offering us an opportunity to deal with a lesson in our history not previously understood? Are we re-living a version of the events that surrounded the ratification of United States Constitution’s 14th and 15th Amendments? Those events greatly concerned and involved two of our most important historical figures. Elizabeth Cady Stanton is the woman responsible for initiating women rights in this country and Frederick Douglass, who was born into slavery, is a major figure in the effort to release the United States of America from the horrors of slavery. They worked closely together, but in July, 1868 they had to face the fact that their primary objective of freedom for all did not survive when the legislators of the day banned together to block the powerful union of women and black people to only offer males the vote.

The 14th amendment said: “The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude." The idea was to make sure freed slaves were not prevented from voting, but it only gave franchise to males rather than all citizens.

But then the Supreme Court case of Minor vs. Happersett allowed the individual states to determine which males got to vote anyway.

The cause of the amendments failure:
1. The rights of women were not included.
2. The Federal government did not prevent the individual states from initiating voter qualification laws like literacy tests and pole taxes.

Are we being beguiled into allowing the seemingly towering objective of gaining the highest office in the land by either a black man or a woman to deflect away from the primary objective and divide us so that no one really gains anything and those of us in this country who love it and care about equality are again torn apart in an attempt to undermine the power women and blacks exhibit together?

My gratitude is great

2008-02-21T17:07:00.000-08:00

Publicity and marketing are extremely important to any author—known or especially unknown. Of course those who are well known have more publicity and thus free marketing. The rest must use whatever means are at our disposal to get our names and books known by an ever expanding audience.

Some of the groups who have given space on their web-sites to my book, Infamous Eve, A History are:

http://www.bookfetish.com/
http://www.wandakeesey.com/
http://www.mysteryfiction.net/
http://www.newbookreviews.org/
http://www.readerviews.com/
http://www.bookviews.com/
http://www.midwestbookreview.com/

I certainly am grateful to each and every one.

Hoorah for the internet

2008-02-20T09:34:00.000-08:00

Information is a key element to freedom. One of the greatest events in our history is the ability for all sorts of knowledge to be available, to anyone interested, without the self-appointed watchers—meaning censors who generally have been made up of the wealthy because of the high costs involved in publishing, publicity, and marketing—preventing it.

The internet, although it can be abused, is one of the best ideas achieved on this planet! What I’ve found most interesting is that during the past 5 years it became possible to buy many more books from the traditional retailers than ever before then. Why is that occurring? Well, because the internet allows access to so much free information. Book stores and the libraries of colleges and universities are no longer in a position to block access to knowledge required by serious authors seeking facts and support for their own works. One of the most excellent out-comes is I no longer need to pay high shipping costs to get the books I need from Great Britain.

There are so many web-sites that with a small amount of effort previously little known works can be published and read. If one site says no, others will say yes. One of the sites that was pleased to publish my article on the Sacred Marriage is www.prescottweddings.com, which is one of the best places on the internet to get information about weddings—pre-history, history, and current.

March is Women's History Month

2008-02-14T09:22:00.000-08:00

Last year the only program I saw about women on the History Channel during the month of March—Women’s History Month—was a documentary about pioneering on at 6AM on a single Sunday morning. I am hoping to see many more this year, but don’t forget there is a women’s radio program on the internet where topics of varied interest are aired on a regular basis throughout the year. Pat Lynch, Editor-in-Chief of http://www.womensradio.com is a great woman who uses her resources to speak with people who know there is more to history than killing each other or looking hot. I’ll be sure to let you know when I talk with her on “Speak Up!”.

2008-01-25T12:35:00.000-08:00

The historical issue of health care in this country continues to be fraught with emotionalism, anger, and fear. It is very recent indeed that preventative health care options, like using herbs, have been considered so that wellness can be achieved without the direct intervention of those licensed by the American Medical Association.
I have spoken with lots of people over the past many years about their complaint: people who are illegal in this country or are on welfare get medical care when hard working people do not. The people voicing their opinions know that it is not a simple matter for them to show up at a doctor’s office or hospital to get medical attention because they, being employed, self-employed, under-employed, or with any form of asset, will be billed for all services rendered. They also know that is exactly why there are such high percentages of bankruptcies related to medical bills that are impossible for uninsured and even insured people to pay.
Those who do receive medical attention through some governmental, non-employed, circumstance have not and will not change. Rather than fighting the situation from that base and remaining in fear, it is high time that seeing the problem from the “them” perspective ends. The “them” stops as soon as everyone in this country becomes a “them” to get full health care benefits.

2008-01-24T10:35:00.000-08:00

Where did the idea that information about our past—history—is “his story”? I find it amazing that knowledge of the past gets pigeon-holed into his and hers.

Okay, much of what was written over the past thousands of years was produced by men chroniclers. So what? Maybe it’s time to clarify why—it is either women or men—who get to tell the story.

I was recently told that my essay of the Sacred Marriage couldn’t be published on a “History” web-site because my degrees aren’t in History or Religious Studies. I do wonder why Metaphysics didn’t quality for Religious Studies because it certainly includes ontology, which means the theories about the nature of being and types of existence, as well as cosmology.

Any thoughts about that?

2008-01-23T20:23:00.000-08:00

Thanks to all the publicity generated from Dan Brown’s fast-paced novel, The Davinci Code, millions have been introduced to the term, Sacred Marriage. However, his rather exciting description in the story is based on some unknown--very likely made-up--idea. Countless people have been stimulated by all the hype generated, yet I have not seen an article or main-stream book that truly gives the historical basis for the Sacred Marriage.

So here is mine: The Sacred Marriage by May Sinclair copyright 2006

Our historical knowledge of the Sacred Marriage has several renditions. The earliest known is from Mesopotamia, an area that is often indiscriminately called Babylonia or Assyria. In the ancient Near East super-natural powers were of an in-dwelling spirit, causing everything to be and to thrive. The spirit within a leafy or fruit-bearing tree or grove was female. In Babylon and Ugarit the Goddess of the tree or grove was called Ashratum, in southern Arabia she was named Atharath, while in Canaan the Goddess Asherah was depicted as “The Tree of Life”. Initially religions were based on fertility. One of the first people we know about in Mesopotamia, called Sumerians, were not local to the area, but, per their mythology, arrived from the Persian Gulf bringing knowledge of astronomy. The Sumerians worshiped a Sky-goddess, but merged their beliefs with that of the indigenous people venerating an Earth-goddess. They conducted a rite called the Sacred Marriage where a male consort was chosen annually by the Goddess incarnate to both protect and ensure abundances to her people. Without a doubt, the Sumerian Goddess was not part of an agricultural resurrection duo but was a solitary originating principle. Until sometime after the 4th millennium BCE (before current era), all of Mesopotamia was a theocratic Goddess worshiping, socialistic, matriarchal society. But that changed.
Mesopotamia was an area of great upheaval throughout several millennia. The agriculturists had enormous amounts of land dedicated to their Goddess. As pastoral peoples entered the area--peacefully or as invaders--with their herds, problems arose from differences in economic purposes. The nomads wanted open pastures and the Sumerians wanted enclosed lands to grow crops. To advance peace mercenaries were take-on from some of the semi-nomadic tribes and control was initially maintained over their hired warriors. But while retaining Indo-European traditions many of the newcomers also absorbed much of the Sumerian culture. In due course, becoming Mesopotamian kings themselves, the conflicts were between the earlier and later arrived nomadic groups.
The power held by the temples of the Sumerians was not usurped by secular or military authority for numerous centuries and only then because of the stress and anxiety caused by the ever increasing numbers of migratory groups all competing for the goods. Often the nomads moved into the area and simply accepted the traditions they found in place, but when there were religious difficulties efforts were made to have whatever deities they worshiped be added to the group of recognized goddesses and gods making up the Sumerian’s official pantheon. Or various aspects of their deities would be subsumed, meaning they were merged with those already present by using similar stories about each to integrate the newcomers.
Still, there is an important difference between the worship of gods in hunter societies who believed their priests, when in a trance, experienced transportation to the spiritual world and that of agricultural communities believing the Goddess entered into their priestess’ body when engaged in rituals. From the city of Uruk in southern Mesopotamia, Inanna, the Queen of Heaven was the astral deity linked to the planet Venus. Wearing a horned headdress signifying the moon, she was also symbolized by an eight pointed star and a ring post.
The Sumerian’s Sacred Marriage ceremony started with invocational singing as the Goddess descended into the High-priestess’ body. Once the Goddess entered the priestess a ritual bath took place as love songs were sung. Next the Goddess met her gift-bearing bridegroom at the gate and opened the door to him. Originally taking place in the abode of the Earth-goddess, a greenery adorned reed hut called a gigunu, the High-priestess, as the incarnated Goddess, declared the fate of her potential consort. Only when she favored the powerless priest, who had no authority of his own, was he next led to the wedding chamber where seated on a throne was crowned as her divine consort just before consummation of the marriage. The fertility of the entire area depended on the Sacred Marriage being correctly enacted at that holy place.
The Sumerians moved the gigunu atop the Temple ziggurat or stepped pyramid that represented the Cosmos, but much later the ziggurat was considered to be the home of a Mountain-god. Not until a strong male Nature-god was included in the ritual was the ziggurat considered a mountain top where the God was appeased and appealed to for preventing natural or man-made disasters. And it was only after the Akkadians moved out of Arabia into Mesopotamia in the mid-3rd millennium that the priestesses ultimately offered military and political advice received from the deities through oracles.
The Goddess was first worshiped as a solitary originating principle generating the gifts of life and abundance when incarnated into a woman priestess who expressed it through demonstrations of sex and birth. The Goddess, being a principle rather than a person, spread her abundance through sexual encounters with numerous virile young men. There are several legends of the Goddess and her lovers found in literature through-out the Near East. The stories suggest that the High-priestess chose a young lover who became her consort for the term of a year and was then sacrificed. The Sacred Marriage took place when the New Year Festival was celebrated at the Spring Equinox around March 21. Both human and vegetative seeds were sown. Parts of the festivities were enacted before the joyous people. The mystical part of the ceremony was conducted privately inside the gigunu. The Goddess exhibited her ability to bestow abundance through the sex act and its subsequent pregnancy. Throughout the summer the crops and baby grew. The harvested fields were celebrated at the Vernal or autumn Equinox on September 21, with the birth of the semi-divine child being rejoiced at the winter Solstice around December 21.
The mystical marriage and references to a bridegroom must not be confused with modern western ideas about marriage. The Goddess was not considered to be a wife nor mother figure. Rather, she was an originating principle that entered into a human priestess who then conferred abundance to her people as it was expressed through the sex act. Sex was a gift to humanity. It was sacred. The incarnation of the Goddess never had a long term husband. None of the rites performed in the temples were to show how marital relationships best work. They were expressions of the ever occurring seasons and a reassurance of the earth’s abundance. Attempts to alter that idea were made by the nomadic tribes insisting on their male God being an equal partner in creation. None-the-less, religious ideas and ideals are not easily over-turned--even by gods-of-might.
The earliest cities, Ur, Uruk, and Eridu found in the very southern part of Mesopotamia all grew up around a Temple. There were a number of titles for the priestesses and priests within religious orders of the ancient Sumerians, such as En and Naditu. One of the significant things about them is the women were not allowed to bear children although some were married. Like the Goddess Inanna, the priestesses remained childless. Yet, only after the Mesopotamian kings came from the nomadic tribes, was any child born to a priestess exposed to the elements and its fate.
Sargon of Akkad, who ruled during 2300 BCE, was rescued after being left to die at birth because his mother was a priestess at Kish. Other rulers born before and after Sargon claimed partial divinity from their goddess mothers, but were not exposed to infanticide. During Sargon’s period of history a priestess, as the incarnation of the Goddess, was only allowed to conceive a child during the Sacred Marriage to continue the hereditary rights of the reigning God-king. When Sargon obtained rites to divinity without being part of the reigning king’s family he raised a political challenge.
The Priest-kings were only incorporated into the Sacred Marriage, becoming the personification of a god between 2310-1651 BCE, when each king was deified during the ceremony to become divine throughout his lifetime. The Goddess was no longer solitary, ensuring abundances to her people during the Sacred Marriage, when her priestess was conferring divinity onto the king. During the altered ritual the Goddess Inanna, as an En, determined the qualifications of the aspirant ruler. Babylonian tables note Inanna had sexual intercourse with the king and through her cosmic power ensured his authoritative potency.
Originally the Sumerian religion indicated that all property, including land, belonged to the goddesses of the cities. Temple personnel were only the administrators and therefore nothing under their control could be bought or sold, only distributed. With the advent of gods-of-might, the concept of everything belonging to both the gods and goddesses remained, except the administrators were authorized to buy and sell everything on behalf of the deities. A city was theoretically the property of its main deity, so the Goddess had to be displaced for the God and his city to be identified together. The Temple was rededicated to the City-god while other shrines or smaller temples were built for his wife and children. Still, the Goddess continued to be the instrument used to secure kingship. On numerous Babylonian tablets there are inscriptions that clearly show the Goddess retained control of kingship__not the king.
All classes and cultures supplied daughters to the religious orders, including the Sumerians, Akkadians, and Assyrians. En, being either a male or female, was the spiritual head of the Temple, but holding the title involved more than participating in the religious rites of the Sacred Marriage. By the time the mystical marriage involved both religious and political functions the En was making decisions other than those of a spiritual nature. Certainly judgments were made at times other than when the Goddess incarnated into the High-priestess’ body. Eventually a female En was chosen because she was related to the reigning king.
It took thousands of years, but ultimately the priestesses were merely serving Nanna-Sin, the Moon-god as they represented the Goddess, Ningal, his wife and the mother of Utu or Samas, the Sun-god. Goddesses and gods living in the temples inside the cities were of the essence found within principles like truth and beauty, as well as cosmic phenomena such as the sun, moon, and earth. The Moon-goddess represented the power of creativity, but was superceded by a Sun-god when male power initiated the social move from a matriarchal to a patriarchal society. Property changed from being communal to personal--belonging to a god and king.
As often as the cities were sacked in Mesopotamia, they were rebuilt to allow business as usual for everyone. It was when the social structure went from a theocratic, socialist community to that of a hierarchical state, with a king at its head, that a change in the status of the goddesses and women are noted. Because the Goddess, called the “keeper of the storehouse” required constant protection, the Lugal, meaning great man, increased his standing to become a king. As military and economic powers were joined under the authority of the kings, the Lugal was inducted as an En priest, taking part in the Sacred Marriage. Ultimately accepting divinity for himself, the king succeeded in taking control of the temples’ earlier economic position and declared all lands belonged to the City-gods. His new power allowed him to take precedence over the Goddess and her priestesses. As the title and prerogatives of the Lugal progressed to permanent kingship it was inherited through dynastic royal succession with the palaces rivaling the temples’ wealth and influence. The Lugal, who controlled the judicial and military domains, when adding the obligations of an En that included the provinces of magic and ritual, took on the responsibilities for fertility and abundance of the harvests.
By then the New Year sacrifice included the king being held accountable for a good harvest. Sympathetic magic was correlated to the tears of the king bringing sufficient rain. A Babylonian tablet reports that if the king did not cry during the rituals it was a bad omen for the year. Eleven days prior to the Spring Equinox, as part of the New Year festival, the king, after being stripped of his insignia of office, was brought into the Temple’s inner sanctuary to be humiliated and struck. After his symbols of office were returned he was struck again. A tearful king signified that the deity was pleased. It was not until the first millennium BCE, at the point where the Sacred Marriage became only one phase of the New Year festival celebration, that the original separate rites of the Sacred Marriage and those specifically relating to the harvest were merged together.
Throughout three millennia the various law codes concerned the sacred women of the temples--their property, businesses, legal, and inheritance rights. As time progressed the laws became ever stricter for married women, yet worship of the goddesses and the sexual practices in their temples did not stop. Marriage to a man was separate from a woman’s sacred duty to perform sexual obligations in the Temple of the Goddess. The Goddess began as an originating principal. With the introduction of each male orientated or dominated society into Mesopotamia, her position was reduced until she ultimately ended up as a wife and mother figure supporting her consort and son by conferring semi-divine status to the kings.
Our second version of the Sacred Marriage--the one more or less referred to by Dan Brown--is quite different. It comes from the idea that males can only gain spirituality from females. In India we can look at the Kali and Shiva cult, which is a merger of yogic practices with the mysteries of the goddess concept connected to the cosmic eon, that included vulva and phallic worship along with human sacrifice. Sexual intercourse was believed to increase a god’s psychic powers so sages were trained to control their sexual actions__prolonging coitus without ejaculation. It was while participating in the Sacred Marriage that man gained renewal or immortality through the Goddess. The ceremony in India included the Goddess Kali placing a wreath of flowers on her bride-groom’s head or giving him an apple. Together the Kali priestesses and priests performed the Great Rite where the incarnated Kali initiated her consort Shiva into eternal union. Tantric poets said no man could know the Goddess until he also knew her death aspect, thus her consort, ritually slain, became the God incarnate--ever dying--ever-living.
Originally the Triple-goddess Kali was the creator, preserver, and destroyer, giving birth to time itself along with methods of measuring it: years, months, seasons, days of the week, twilight, night, dawn, and the lunar eons. With inclusion of the mathematically determined belief that earthly catastrophes are caused by planetary deviation, said to have originated by the Babylonians and Chaldeans, Indian conjecture established a version of its timing that equaled 12,000 years. The Great Year, originally based on the lunar cycle and its eclipse-predicting eon was changed to involve the earth in a universal apocalyptic revolution. The Goddess, thus altered, at a given point would protract into her dark and unformed aspect and the earth would be destroyed until she spoke the primal Word to create a new world. The change to a patriarchal position in India caused the female trinity to be superceded by a male one--Shiva. Kali first lost her Triple-goddess status to her consort Shiva, and then eventually her cosmic position to the Aryan Brahmin’s Brahma, successfully adjusting the Hindu trinity to become that of Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva.
That changed, too. By the mid-500’s BCE Buddhism took over. Buddha taught life is pain that comes from desire while wisdom is gained by halting all desire. Still, Buddhists believed a man could gain illumination by practicing Tantric rites because enlightenment resides in the sexual part of women. Unfortunately sexual desire was also considered evil because it leads to reproduction that stretches out the chain of life in reincarnation after reincarnation.
Another adaptation of the Sacred Marriage took place in the Jerusalem Temple. As in India, the Hebrews did now allow male priests to be unmarried because their invocations and spells would be ineffectual. Their wives provided them with spirit. The basic philosophy being that only through sexual union can either a God or a man gain contact to spirit and the reality of existence. An enlightened man gains apprehension through his feelings that are awakened by the awareness of his physical senses.
The palace and Temple in Jerusalem had all the splendors of Phoenician architecture along with the wisdom literature of Egypt and Arabia. Even having a serpent__the Jerusalem Temple was a vision of God’s paradise. Its doors and walls were decorated with palm trees, flowers, and Cherubim. There were twelve pairs of Cherubim: on the Ark, the veil separating the Holy of Holies, and on the ten sets of curtains. The location of the most sacred Holy of Holies within the Jerusalem Temple that housed the Cherubim-decorated Ark containing the images of Yahweh and his consort was called the Devir. Like the monarchs of the surrounding nations, the Davidic kings enacted the Sacred Marriage to ever restore fertility to the land. As in Mesopotamia the Goddess of the Hebrews initially held the cosmic power that she ultimately bestowed onto the king. And like the Great Rite in India, the merging of female and male in coitus, represented the Sacred Marriage of the Hebrew God Yahweh with Asherah__renamed Shekhinah__his female counterpart.
The Hieros Gamos, which is Greek for Sacred Marriage, was altered significantly when Alexander the Great opened up the East to the West. Western invasions brought wealth from the Orient, but constant war and its upheaval caused a desire for a personal religion that could supply inner peace. The state supported religions offered little to individuals, so there was a resurgence of mystery-religions that used the same methods developed by ancient shamans to bring individuals into a another state of consciousness. As early as the 10th century BCE, the mystery-religions introduced the cult of the Minoan Fertility-god, Dionysus into Greece. The Dorian’s Father-god Zeus also joined into the struggle for a piece of the mystery-religion’s action and fees. A number of stories were relayed about Zeus, Dionysus, and the Titans who were the human descendants of the Goddess Gaia and her consort Uranus. Sometime during the 5th century BCE, the Orphites moralized the myth that humans, being evil from the Titans and divine from Dionysus, had to be liberated from the evil of matter. The Orphic movement, as well as the Dionysian cults, practiced the Sacred Marriage rite, but there was a problem for the men who desired more intimacy with and equality from God. First some of the Gnostics and then later Christians said the stories were allegorical__meaning there was a hidden spiritual meaning surpassing the literal interpretation of the sacred message. Symbolism was developed to change the physical acts of the sacramental marriage into a union of the soul with God. The Sacred Marriage rite no longer belonged to the group; instead it was transferred to the soul, with the individual receiving the benefits previously offered to the community or city.
It must be added that the Sacred Marriage might not have completely disappeared into mere symbolic interpretation. On November 12, 1990 Japan’s Emperor Akihito, may have participated in the rite as part of his enthronement coronation ceremonies, Sokui Rei Seiden NoGi. In Shinto tradition the sexual union between the female and male is linked to the continuance of the fruitfulness of the earth. And it is the Goddess that legitimizes a new male ruler’s power while transforming him into a living God. Emperor Akihito’s coronation included a young women being placed within the inner sanctuary of the Shinto Shrine along with a Shinza-couch considered to be the resting place for the Sun-goddess.

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Infamous Eve, A History May Sinclair, PdD

2008-01-23T20:16:00.000-08:00

This is a very new experience for me. I hope you enjoy my essay on the Sacred Marriage.