New! Audio on how these readings work, and about the solar house system.

Dear Friend and Reader:

We are nearly done with Vision Quest, phase one. Last night I finished the written sign readings. We plan to have the readings ready by Thursday morning. They are each the equivalent of about 22 book pages; each took about two days to write, based on many months of research.

Continue reading →

Today, I am doing double-duty: writing a column and reviewing a film. This is something I rarely do here at Fe 9-11. I try to keep popular culture in its place, since most expressions of popular culture — especially film — exist to present a genre; or, in more plain terms, a product.

But since returning home from watching the new film Spotlight,  I have to comment.

For those who haven’t seen the movie, the film is based on the true story of the Boston Globe‘s investigative journalism column, called “Spotlight,” which researches and exposes stories of crime and local corruption for the benefit of public interest. From 2001-02, at the request of the Globe‘s new editor Marty Baron, the Spotlight team took on the story of a pedophile priest in a local parish. But in the hands of an investigative journalism team used to digging deep, the story did not begin and end with the culpability of one priest, but of several — and over decades.

As their research advanced, everyone from victims and their lawyers to Archdiocese Cardinal Bernard Law were interviewed. First acting instinctively, then on fact, the Spotlight team discover and expose the size and scope of the cover-up of priests’ abuse of children. It is massive.

Lawyers were hired so often to negotiate victim’s hush money that it became a cottage industry. The Catholic Church and its leaders were highly respected members of Boston’s elite society and employed these connections to protect their priests from the police, the legal system and the press.

These realities kept hitting the team over the head incessantly like a foam rubber bat — registering only by repetition. But that repetition was not comic. It was sickening. Prior to Spotlight’s coverage, story after story of priests’ sexual abuse of minors were put out to journalistic pasture and left to die. Even the Globe had to admit it had published a story on a pedophile priest a decade before that ended up shunting the topic to the back pages.

We know how this story ends in real life. In January of 2002, the Globe‘s “Spotlight” column went on to publish the expose that would ultimately place Cardinal Law and the Catholic Archdiocese of Boston at the center of the cover-up, forcing his resignation later that year. The Globe went on to win a Pulitzer Prize for this coverage.

Like many who have seen the film and reviewed it, I felt a longing bordering on nostalgia for that level of journalistic investigation, the type that sees the tail of the monster and bravely feels its way through the dark to find its head and kill it. The Woodward-Bernstein team did it with Watergate, and the Spotlight team with the Catholic Church. Given the state of our world right now we need this type of journalism, period. But not only by the pros at the Globe or the Washington Post.

We are in a phase of history where the answers to our economic, environmental and social problems center on the unequal distribution of wealth. This has been going on for longer than this new century. Because people are making money at such grander economic and technological scales nowadays, the problem is much larger.

Those of us who aren’t as fortunate are feeling it more. The once-vibrant American middle class has shrunk. The discontent is more aggressive. The response to contain it is both divisive and oppressive. These are the symptoms of the world in an uproar, in this country and elsewhere. Yet the crime at the upper echelon that’s causing it still continues.

Through the lens of my experience of watching government at work from within the belly of the beast, I would feel my way through the political thought going on behind the story. Sometimes there is little of it. Other times, the thought behind the deeds seems so transparent and predictable that we already know the answer.

Even though I will never be at the caliber of Washington Post‘s or the Globe‘s investigative journalism, I try to give our readers good information. Watching Spotlight made me feel happy and proud of what I do here.

The moral of Spotlight‘s story is not to award or congratulate the Globe‘s reporters who unearthed the truth. It was the decades-long effort from the victims to bring this story to light, telling their stories often enough to bring it to the Globe‘s attention, giving them room to finally crack and break open the wall hiding the criminals.

It is also so today. We’re still struggling to make the story happen — from eyewitnesses recording incidents on their cellphones, to blogging and tweeting. We all collectively make our way to the truth. How else can we all know if we stay silent?

Before I actually had my own logo and byline, I often approached Eric with an idea of what I wanted to write. He responded with this question, no matter what the subject: “What’s the angle?” Meaning, where does this story take us? Why is it important to Planet Waves? In this case, it is because each of us has a story in common to share. And as the world becomes more enmeshed, there are more of us sharing the same story.

When you see the depth and scope of the aftermath caused by Spotlight‘s expose at the end of the film, you realize how important just one human story becomes. And story after story, we realize we aren’t isolated after all. We are in this together, even more so now than before. We will always make the story, because our lives here on this blue ball called Earth are the story. Come share your story with us.

Vision Quest, Planet Waves’ 2016 annual edition, is fast approaching publication. Pre-order all 12 signs at a great value or choose your individual signs.

By Judith Gayle | Political Waves

It’s been a heckuva year, Brownie! I imagine you’re just surfacing from an abundance of Christmas cheer (or blues, pick one) today, but due to the wonky calendar of holidays and my writing schedule, I’m having to fold some time and ponder the close of the year. As I write, Christmas is still ahead, with a houseful of dinner guests to arrive tomorrow, so I will wax philosophical with ideas that popped into my head as I polished the silver.

To repeat, a heckuva year; and thinking about all that filled the airwaves is really harshing my visions of sugarplums, but time isn’t linear anyhow. We seem to be skipping around a lot lately, sifting through eras past to find cause, and then digging farther still. Seems to me that the patterns are beginning to make themselves more clear by the minute, and that’s a very good thing.

Not that we aren’t used to everything being slightly out of sync these days, and sometimes more than slightly. Seems like the fastest year on record, along with the warmest, but a lot happened and much of it pivotal. Since I expect all the lists to come out this next week, I’ll spare you the details. You may or may not remember all the events, but I’m sure you remember all of the emotions that gathered around them.

How many mass shootings have we endured? I suspect you’ve lost count because they begin to blur in our memory, now that they are no longer considered “extraordinary” events. How many toddlers have killed or died playing with handguns? More than you think, and I was not surprised to learn that the Show Me State holds the title for the most. On the national stage as well as the international platform, how many brutalities have been done in the name of God?

This is difficult to contemplate, but it’s changing, and even if it’s not changing quickly enough, we have come farther than we know. I consider 2015 a year of inoculation, not so painless as a daily drop of Bach Flower Remedy under your tongue, but cumulatively as effective. Many of us have developed a resistance to what is heinous in the world — not just events, but harmful intent and hurtful words as well. We’ve become not just aware of them, but —if we wish — immune to their ability to toxify us.

I recently reviewed a bit of what Neale Donald Walsch calls the larger universe of cause and effect. I’m going to let him do much of the heavy lifting here. and post the link for a more complete explanation. Here are the five principles Walsch proposes, in order.

The Energy of Attraction, which gives you power.

The Law of Opposites, which gives you opportunity.

The Gift of Wisdom, which gives you discernment.

The Joy of Wonder, which gives you imagination.

The Presence of Cycles, which gives you eternity.

Says Mr. Walsch,

The second of the Great Principles of Life works in perfect harmony with the first principle, the Energy of Attraction. This second principle states that no sooner will you attract something into your reality than its exact opposite will also appear …

I am saying that the moment you choose anything — any outcome, object, or experience — its exact opposite will appear in some way…

It is necessary for the “opposite” of whatever you are choosing to create with the Energy of Attraction to show up, for the reason that life cannot be experienced in a vacuum.

A context must be produced in which you may experience what you have chosen.

Because not many people know this, they can easily turn negative in their thinking just when the universe was preparing to place before them all that their hearts desired.

They do not see the appearance of the opposite as a sure and certain sign that they are on the right path, heading toward their chosen objective. Rather, they see it as an obstacle, a blockage.

2015 was a year that exploded out the gate. Right-wing politicians strutted around with what they considered a mandate, while our president was ready to spit in the eye of his “lame duck” label. Early on, he seemed to throw caution to the wind, which many of us found very encouraging. That said, it was a year of ups and downs, accomplishments and tragedies, feeling very much like we were still pushing a boulder up a hill and our muscles were screaming, the soles of our shoes smoking. I think it’s fair to say that many of us weren’t feeling as though any progress was being made, blocked as we were by a large, immovable obstacle.

Obviously, not all of us remembered what the Law of Opposites was actually offering us.

Endeavor to see the appearance of the “opposite” as your first indication that Personal Creation is working flawlessly. Remember that the first step in creating anything is creating a context within which it may be experienced. Do not resist the opposite of anything that you wish to experience. Instead, embrace it. Look right at it and see it for what it is.

What you resist, persists. That is because, by your continued attention to it in a negative way, you continue to place it there. You cannot resist something that is not there. When you resist something, you place it there. By focusing angry or frustrated energy on it, you actually give it more life.

This is why all great masters have urged us to “resist not evil.” Do not fight that which is opposite to your stated desire or your preferred outcome. Rather, relax into it…

Do not become rigid and tense, ready for a battle. Never oppose that which opposes you. Do not OPpose, COMpose.

Compose your original idea of how you want life to show up. And compose yourself while you’re at it. Come from a place of relaxed assurance that life is functioning perfectly. Yet do not confuse relaxation with acceptance.

2015 was a year when many of us surrendered to the process of what channelers would call ‘the purge,’ accepting the facts on the ground, yet turning to other sources of comfort and empowerment like creativity, service to others, holistic practice and staying in the moment. We were altering our way of dealing with the world. Walsh would complement us on our intuitive grasp.

“Resist not evil” does not mean that you should not try to change what it is that you do not choose. Changing something is not resisting something, it is merely choosing again. Change is not resistance, but alteration. To modify is not to resist, but rather, to continue Personal Creation.

Modification is creation. Resistance is the end of creation. It firmly holds the previous creation in place.

Do you see?

At every moment of difficulty and challenge in your life you have a choice: opposition or composition. To repeat: You can either oppose that which you are experiencing, or compose that which you chose.”

There were echoes of this energy this week, and cookie crumbs to follow. One really encouraging Atlantic read on the political patterns of alternating conservative/liberal politics made it clear that Obama has moved the needle despite the obstruction, and set the pattern for clear progress. Those of us who have worked toward this goal should be heartened.

Man of the people, Bernie Sanders, beat Obama’s impressive record of campaign donations during the last debate, with small doners and Millennials backing his progressive movement. The current black-out of all things Bernie in media is an example of the attempt to stamp out that energy, with Establishment politics worried and the DNC in melt-down, but I don’t think that’s going to happen. There are people out there no longer impressed with the negativity and chaos of establishment politics, just now aware that they have a choice. They’re ‘composing’ something different, building on the pattern set by #occupy awhile back.

Let’s make 2016 the year in which we acknowledge what is happening all around us, while what WE are bringing to the table is a bright vision and a willing heart, activists in whatever ways are presented to us. Speaking of tables, I enjoyed an interview with Mandy Patinkin speaking passionately to Charlie Rose about his trip to Greece to personally assist Syrian refugees. He said he felt he had to do something to participate in the global crisis.

He ended with this advice: invite refugees to your holiday, he said, putting me in mind of Eric’s piece on potluck. Break bread with them, listen to their dreams, comfort their children. Get to know them. Make them friends. His last words were specific to the problem of being too much in our heads and not enough in our hearts. “All these religions talk about love,” said Patinkin. “Well, let’s DO IT!”

There’s the vision! And that would be a 2016 worth remembering!

Vision Quest, Planet Waves’ 2016 annual edition, is fast approaching publication. Pre-order all 12 signs at a great value or choose your individual signs.

Paris-based photographer Danielle Voirin travels the world and documents her experiences in photographs. She takes street photography and photojournalism a shade beyond even art, to the level of mysticism. You may see more of her work on her website DanielleVoirin.com, or her alt website, DaniVoirin.com.

Helina and Robin, mother and son since December 25, 2014.