Homelessness

Foundation's Destruction

The destruction of our foundation, the buildings, has its root in the cupidity our society functions; a wounded place in our collective psyche. The last 2000 years we have been working our way out of the the old schism of denying our choices exist. Dr Robert Sutton recognized this dynamic and his publisher agreed, the message far outweighs the sensibilities many would have with the title, “The No-Asshole Rule”.


That one rule is the catalyst to change from having choices and not: We are all assholes to each other, and we know it. We do have choices, every day, and when we enact the asshole behaviour we say the another is “not good enough to have what I have”. The studies from the Adult Children of Alcoholics (ACOA) has long identified this behaviour as shaming. We now call it bullying.


We bully when we “spread[ing] malicious rumors, undermining or deliberately impeding a person's work, withholding necessary information or giving the wrong information, pestering, belittling a person's opinions, tampering with a person's personal belongings, or work equipment”. (http://www.ccohs.ca)

Aviary's Avarice

The epitome of our white collar existence has been to make that wound continually bleed. To never include the whole by denying a group what every member needs to survive – food, clothing and shelter – for a time periods beyond requirement is being the bully.


The hawk's eyes always seek separately for their prey, while the hunting instinct requires camouflage. Funnily enough, UBC's Dr Robert Hare applies the hunter characteristics to his psychopath's scale when describing business people. Why BC authorities do not use the said scale when assessing mental health and criminal behaviour when the rest of the Western world is, is beyond me.

Platitudes

...is all I'm hearing as an absolute homeless person (November 15^th, 2012 - January 14, 2014) regarding appropriate housing for me; and, I am not the only one with a mental health diagnosis to be bullied by members of the BCGEU (British Columbia Government Employees Union), et al. That empty space between the words, “I took this job to help people” and the actual emotional intent behind the results to help the other is where being an asshole, or not, is born

 

Sunshine Lollipops and Rainbows

In the late 1970's, while wandering the Grand Canyon and Mexico I was reading Carlos Castaneda's books. As usual my mind wandered in and out of the sentences and picked only that which is tangible, the meditation exercises and rituals.

The one that was most effective was watching the sunset through the left eye while looking northward, and the sunrise through the right eye looking southward.  Every day energized me like nothing else and actually brought clarity between the known and unknown in my awareness. I watched the night sky from the bottom of the canyon; stars appearing from one edge and disappearing behind the opposite edge, then I began to feel the rotation of the Earth. In came the warmth of being a part of this planet while nested a mile within, and watching the universe be tantalizingly mysterious.

Since then I have learned other exercises and rituals that don't include the power of sunshine but can shift the yin/yang to a balanced position just as powerfully.  Today I combined the two and now I'm reeling in rainbows sparking between the synapses of thought, tingling the joy and happiness in the mundane.