Mother Earth

Mother Earth dancing into the night

Blue diamond shining beautiful and bright

Spinning graceful across the room

Watching in loving awe is Mr. Moon

Chasing the sun, leaning in and leaning out

Bringing seasons of life without a thought

Moon influences her emotions

Tides moving upon her oceans

Precious this diamond we call mother

We who watch, draw loving life from her

She is strong no need to hold her hand

But be close to enjoy and protect her land

Her body of waters, so beautiful the sea

Keep her waters clear for you and me

She dances on, a graceful timeless soul

So fortunate for us as we must know

Mike

My Forest

Woke early this morning wondering if I was still me

Would I know or would I care if myself I could not see

I tossed and turned with some worry and concern

For what reason today I could not discern

A hurricane of thoughts running through my mind

A worry I didn’t do, didn’t say enough for them to find

If I were lost would you look in this forest behind every tree

Would you risk what you might find and what you might see

In the forest of thick and heavy wood

Be gentle with what you find if you should

Mike

The Old Man and Me

I look in the mirror and see gray

I feel as if I’m twenty if I’m but a day

My mind says I’m a boy in baseball hat

But my stomach is clearly no longer flat

It looks easy, muscles twitch to play

But when mind says go, they just stay

Pretty young ladies, I notice and still see

But if they notice, it’s an old man that’s me

In my mind I can still work hard and long

But experience is smart and seldom wrong

Must be better to age, keeping heart young

Then to not and hear that final bell rung

Maybe I’ll learn to age gracefully

Or not and continue as me playfully

This, I guess, is but a little rhyme

Something old men do to pass the time

Mike

I have some interesting and impactful decisions to make.  Ok so good news I recognize that I have to make the decisions.  Now what about how I make the decisions?  Day in and day out we make hundreds of small decisions.  Should I make eggs for breakfast, what section of the paper to pick up and read, do I want coffee now, what do I put in the coffee the morning.  What is my route to work today, what do I wear today, on and on.  Even, do I read this blog in front of me?  So we get good at making hundreds, maybe thousands of logistic and administrative choices in our day.  We give them virtually no real thought.  Maybe, if asked, we can say I wore those clothes because they were on top in the dresser, or I like how that looks on me when I need to make a decision :-).  I went this way to work, because traffic seemed to be moving better, or I had to stop at the cleaners and drop some clothes off.  All in all the decisions make themselves and we rationalize them afterward.  So when it comes time to make important decisions, and there are rarely more than one or two a week, or month at the most.  Important decisions, means they are consequential to our livelihood, or our relationships, or our health (mental and physical).  Then those decisions deserve some of that brain power that is blithely being applied somewhat on autopilot getting us through the logistics of our day.   If I’m really honest and look back at business decisions, there are probably no more than about 5 or 6 a year that matter much, the rest are nearly obvious choices, administrative, logistical, or simply not very consequential because so much of the result of the decision is out of my hands.  Relationship and health decisions are far more prevalent, because we relate with others in a social fabric and dance that is a vital part of our lives and our health, of course we are creatures of habit so even those decisions were really made long ago and we are reinforcing them with our personalities and behaviors every day… so consequentially we are simply reinforcing the handful of significant relationship and health decisions we’ve made long ago.  Additionally we make daily decisions that are driven by emotion, these too will often fit patterns that are burned into our consciousness and are part of our personality responses.  These emotions, whether our own or those around us are like waves on the ocean that buffet us and push us in different, but still foreseeable directions.  The decisions we are making are to put ourselves on that ocean and allowing the waves of our and others emotions to push us around… good and bad… for waves are essential energy and essential life, until its stormy 🙂

So back to these consequential decisions… I work hard to see situations and the options from as great of a distance as possible.  What I mean by that is to extract myself from the emotions of the situation (mine and others) and to look at the options and consequences of those options with as much detached perspective as I can muster.  These type of decisions are so very different than what we do every day.  The every day decisions we make are in a way a hindrance to making good consequential decisions. They get in the way because they encourage us to be lazy, to make the big decisions just like we make the easy, every day decisions.  We also at times let emotion take over, and its no longer a decision, its how does it feel to me right now.  I can tell you that consequential decisions often feel one way now and feel another way years from now.  Don’t let the waves buffet us and push us toward the rocks.

So back to perspective…  If I can get far enough away then I can see the paths beyond the forks in the road.  I can reason and see where that road will take us if we take the left path or the right because I’m far enough away, and I’m not making decisions on how easy or hard that path looks when I look down at my feet.  Reasoning and vision into the future is not natural to us as a thought process, it requires work to bring ourselves up above the day-to-day decision process and the personal emotions that drive us.  However if we can make good decisions, the rewards for doing so can be great.  Well as I said I have some consequential decision to make, but I’ve done my work, I’ve stood high on the hill and looked down to see the route the alternative paths take, even the path choices that branch away in the future, I like the path that looks the most promising with more decisions yet to be made in the future.  Secure enough to ensure success, near enough to the direction and goals I’ve set forward.  I can make the decisions with a minimum of fear and emotion.   This allows me to be more sure in the decision process.  I know why, so I can act with conviction.   Some find pros and cons lists to be helpful, but I find that when we make these lists we often lie to ourselves because our emotions matter more than honest logic and the perspective of distance and objective view of the future.  No, I’ll stick with my abstracted perspective, give me the high point so I can see further into the future for that path.  Then I’ll feel better about how I’m going to get where I’m going.   Decisions, decisions… it makes our lives interesting and along with passion makes us human!  Oh, please wish me good perspective!

Mike

If your heart be open and your mind be free

Could you then understand someone like me

If I really listen careful to whisper on the wind

Would I know what is in your heart just then

Fear, joy, love and proud can they be understood today

Across the room or many miles with no discerned delay

If it is faith, or if it is intuition, is it perception, or simply love

Life’s emotion lives barely perceived like rustle from wings of a dove

Nature is resplendent with diversity, beauty and mystery

Be one with this nature and take in time, this point of history

For time is this point and future unknown, and past sins please relieve

Be in the moment and know what we know and allow our hearts to believe

We are connected by time, by nature and by whispers on the wind

Believe and then you’ll understand and know the loving message I send

Mike

I find it fascinating that Pope Francis, to fabulous acclaim, is speaking to the US Congress and to the United Nations.   His style of bringing everyone onto the same page to address problems as we and us instead of they is hopefully infectious. His compassion for others and inclusiveness is a good thing in politics as well as for the human spirit. Maybe, just maybe, we will be witnessing the second and third greatest miracles of all time: actually getting Washington DC and the UN to work!

I have hope and I pray for the seeming miracle of constructive dialog and cooperation to address many challenging problems in the USA and the world.   I fear however that those that are not able to stomach the constant bickering and gridlock will use this opportunity to resign.   I’m not certain of John Boehner’s purpose in resigning at this time, but it seems to me that someone so obviously moved by the Pope’s message should endeavor to carry on and fight for the civility and compromise so sorely needed.

We do need those miracles and maybe it’s too much to ask of a Parish Priest from Argentina who is 78 years old, but I think it’s worth the dream and the prayers.

Mike

 Poetry is elusive today for some reason

Maybe its lazy, hazy summer season

Maybe all the connections aren’t firing

Maybe it’s my mind that is old and tiring

Well I don’t know what to write about

Nothing in my mind that needs to come out

From my musing I’ll give you a brief respite

Until I have something of interest to write

Mike

I’ve written about perspective and wisdom, as you may know, if you’ve been reading my musings. Passion however is maybe the human trait that makes us most interesting. Passion is desire given a name. Its fear managed. Its what makes us love, its what makes us excel in the arts, in business, or in sports.   Some say that there is a fine line between genius and madness. I think that fine line is passion controlled versus passion uncontrolled. Contained by perspective, wisdom and improved on by practice, passion is what can make us great.   Think about the athlete that excels at his or her sport… its by passion that they excel, it also is at that border between perfection and destruction that we see passion play out and we are fascinated to watch. A batter in baseball fails more than two thirds of the time, yet he is great to succeed just that one third of time, because we know and understand the passion for their sport that they have conquered.

When we listen to a great musician we know we are hearing passion, we want to not just listen, but we want to watch, we want to see how they are engulfed by their music, and they become that music, and always so close to the edge of madness. Think about why we pay hundreds to go to a concert when for a few bucks we can listen to a perfect rendition of their work in the convenience of home? Same with a dancer, how close are they to failing, yet they perform faultlessly because they’ve controlled that passion we are witnessing through practice and perspective… they know what they can do and what they cannot instinctively… and because they’ve been to the other side of that edge before. Passion uncontrolled can be destructive and consuming, passion controlled is productive, wonderful and the greatest of all human traits.

I saw a dancer once and it occurred to me how she was controlling passion, managing her dragon as it seemed to me. Making passion productive. In our minds, our hearts, our souls we struggle to find, control, manage our dragon. We must put ourselves in the proper and perfect state of mind to manage our passions. Proper level of restraint, control, with perspective and wisdom as we dance with our dragon. We keep it where it needs to be, we use it when it is productive, and we keep in line…

Passion is a Dragon

Settle thoughts, settle heart, keep in line

Look to the future, remembering the past

Be in the present a perfect state of mind 

Passion is a Red Dragon that must be named

Contained, controlled and yet wild just the same

Work on it, train it, the dragon must be tamed

Fire in my soul lets the dragon fly as needed at time

Dance with it, control and make it work, others see

But keep in the present a perfect state of mind

See the sunset beautiful and perfectly framed

Then settle, enjoy and let the dragon dream

Sky dark, moon and stars more than can be named

Deep at night, the dragon stirs in its sleep

Keeping it alive, listen to it influencing me

Productive, think, protecting me in my castle keep

See joy and laughter and love of friends

Be in the present a perfect state of mind

Comfort in soul that such beauty never ends

Dragon sleeps but still there to awaken in time

Events and time, emotions and rhymes

Be in the present always a perfect state of mind

Mike

On Sunday mornings I like to read the Tampa Bay Times, Perspective section… I really think it’s a great name for this section of the paper.  It usually includes political editorial columns as well as historical perspective columns. This Sunday’s edition included two articles that I think were a very interesting pairing.  One of the articles was written by Timothy Snyder, professor of history at Yale University and was called “The Next Genocide Approaches”.   Despite its appalling name there is much to learn about the conditions that lead up to genocide, and the nature, and willingness of the masses to follow leadership into the depths of evil.  Nations in need of land, and energy resources to feed a growing population, especially to maintain a certain lifestyle can incite their masses to participate in horrific acts if they can demonize the people that are in the way of their goals.   Without repeating all the examples and premises of the article here, it was interesting to understand the historical perspective that lead to genocide, including the Holocaust  as well as the more recent killing of half a million Tutsis in Rwanda just twenty one years ago.  In both cases ethnic hatred was used to drive an evil solution borne out of a need to recover land and to reduce the number of mouths to feed to maintain an idealized lifestyle.  It was fashioned in the minds of so many as a fight for survival.  In the example of the Nazis, there was a belief that without war to take land for agriculture and oil resources, the German destiny could not be fulfilled and further the ethnic hatred they developed allowed an evil final solution of extermination to take hold.  Science of land use and development, of improved fertilization, pesticides, and geopolitical compromise to ensure open trading all lost out to a militaristic narcissistic view of superiority.  This led to a feeling of right to others property and a sense of revenge for slights of the First World War and the sanctions and financial crisis that followed.    When a way of life is threatened, when the political order is disturbed as is occurring in the Ukraine with Russian influence, as it is in the Middle-East with the rise of a religious-whipped frenzy of power grab, as China makes plays for resources in Africa, and as there is growing ecological over-reactions evolving elsewhere, we must be careful to keep our perspective.  We must have an understanding and we much learn from history, and we must understand science, and we must understand the weakness of humans to follow a seemingly logical and good intentioned path that leads to demonizing others because they impede our path.  Think about how easy it is for us to believe and even say that the person that cut us off in traffic is an idiot and an asshole, and of course other not so nice things…

The second article was about how good intentioned, charismatic leaders can make us believe in a path and a direction that is not supported by facts and ignores lessons of history.  So the object of this next article is Pope Francis.  Certainly this topic could be viewed as the antithesis of a discussion on the conditions that allow genocide…. And just for clarity… I’m not suggesting in any way that Pope Francis is leading us on a path that could be so evil.  However George Will’s article titled: Francis Delivers a Flamboyant, Fact-Free Message, was striking in the way he pointed out that the pope is describing the Earth as becoming “an immense pile of filth” and advocates subsistence farming, and other idealistic social behaviors.  Ignoring the improvements in cleaner energy that science is making, the improvements that abundant energy and improved efficiency in food production, in pharmaceutical production and of course the dramatic improvements that have been realized in the last two centuries of the industrial age.  Life expectancy improved by 2x or more.   Global poverty in just the last 3 decades has declined from 53 percent to 17 percent.  Furthermore agriculture is many times more efficient than a century ago thanks to fossil fuels, machinery and fertilizers and pesticides.   Will makes the point that “Francis grew up around the rancid political culture of Peronist populism, the sterile redistributionism that has reduced his Argentina from the world’s 14th highest per-capita GDP in 1900 to 63rd today.  (Pope) Francis agenda for the planet would globalize Argentina’s downward mobility.”

I think that Pope Francis is terrific for the Catholic Church as a revivalist for faith and most importantly for pressing the issues around tolerance and service that makes up the Christian faith.  However as George Will points out, we must have historical understanding and perspective and fact-based policies that determine our futures.  Charisma and populist well intended sound bites are not enough.  In fact, it is my opinion that in the wrong minds, sound bites and limited perspective are extremely dangerous.   Mr. Will is almost visceral in his attack on Pope Francis, so that it is uncomfortable to read, but I can understand why he is so adamant… the potential for damage caused by misunderstandings is huge.

We as a society must learn from our pasts, understand science and have a global perspective that helps us see past the seemingly well-intended populist sound bite messages.   In any case these are my musings from Sunday’s readings…

Mike