RECONCEPTUALIZING EDUCATION

Are we to conclude from the Plutarch statement above, the Greek academic, historian, biographer, and essayist merely referred to learning for the sake of his pupils regurgitating information he delivered to them? Note his emphasis on what the mind is not. With urgency, then, a question rises: How does one provide the flame?

Written history demonstrates time and again to what extent the humankind relies on the knowledge and wisdom of its ancestors. When the subject is as challenging of a matter to a century as education is to ours, we need the access to specific branches of those historical libraries. Hence, the reappearance in this article of a most prominent educational philosopher scholarship has explored: Plutarch of Chaeronea.

To begin with, for me to speak through Plutarch in the present format has everything to do with his documented influence on the evolution of the essay genre. His more than 60 essays of ethical, religious, physical, political and literary contents out of his total 227 works are claimed to have had a strongest impact on his contemporaries but especially on the ensuing generations.

There is a multitude of related areas we can explore, or we can delve into as many details as we could draw from available sources. The fact will remain that all data are incomplete. For, what is known about Plutarch’s life constitutes a reconstruction work. Therefore, we will focus on my point of concern: education as conceptualized outside the term’s modern-day boundaries.

ANCIENT GREECE :

PLUTARCH AND HIS ACADEMIC PHILOSOPHY

1.      Early Life, Schooling and Family

Plutarch’s birth year is given as AD 46. Regards the time when his death occurred, sources dwell on a date after 119. He is believed to have been born to a prominent family in Chaeronea in Boeotia, Greece (arrow-highlighted in the first picture above) and his immediate family (parents, two brothers and a grandfather) as well as extended relations are described as happy and close-knit people. He is recorded as having received a liberal education at the Academy of Athens, studying physics, rhetoric, mathematics, medicine, natural science, philosophy, Greek, and Latin literature. In his effort to bring his education to completion, Plutarch is said to have traveled extensively in Greece and Asia Minor, with visits to Alexandria, Egypt as well (bio.).

There is not much information about this educational philosopher’s wife, other than her name –Timoxena, and her father’s name. While the dates are a blur, one wonders, if it weren’t the deaths of many of his children that prompted Plutarch to his deliberations on theosophy: out of the four sons and one daughter only two sons survived him and his wife. His letter of consolation to Timoxena is most poignant in its mediation to scholars of this prominent world figure’s life-altering events (see cited work section for a link to the entire letter in translation):

AS [sic] for the messenger you dispatched to tell me of the death of my little daughter, it seems he missed his way as he was going to Athens. But when I came to Tanagra, I heard of it by my niece. I suppose by this time the funeral is over. I wish that whatever has been done may create you no dissatisfaction, as well now as hereafter. But if you have designedly left anything alone, depending upon my judgment, thinking better to determine the point if I were with you, I pray let it be without ceremony and timorous superstition, which I know are far from you.

Only dear wife, let you and me bear our affliction with patience. I know very well and do comprehend what loss we have had; but if I should find you grieve beyond measure, this would trouble me more than the thing itself. For I had my birth neither from a stock nor a stone; and you know it full well, I having been assistant to you in the education of so   many children, which we brought up at home under our own care. This daughter was born after four sons, when you were longing to bear a daughter, which made me call her by your own name. Therefore I know she was particularly dear to you. […] (Plutarch         Letter).

1.                  Work

Plutarch’s life was marked with his commitment to education. He is known to have taught in Chaeronea, also lecturing in Rome as well as in other parts of Italy on philosophy and ethics (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy). His Moralia, a collection of his lectures, letters and dialogues offers the reader his treatments of an array of subjects, one of which has my concentrated attention in this essay: Academic philosophy.

It is no irony that a saying, “[c]haracter is destiny[,]” originates from Plutarch – foremost a moralist striving to illustrate the influence of character on destinies of individuals and state. His measurement of character entails conducts in war, in politics, and in love. This key concept of designing the human character stands in direct relation to the discussion at hand. In his ethical prescription for life, Plutarch pronounces the following lesson for his pupils:

There must be a concurrence of three things to produce perfectly right action: nature, reason and habit (PL MOR 1 P9. Ancient/Classical History).

The “habit” to which he refers, reveals the emphasis he places on education’s role in bettering a human being: “Character is habit long continued (PL MOR 1 P13).” His following claim sheds a brighter light on this thought:

So that we might acquire a habit of mind that is deeply trained and philosophic, rather than the sophistic that merely acquires information, let us believe that right listening is the beginning of right living (PL MOR 1 P259).

Where does reason, the third element of Plutarch’s character-building system, then, come into play? He answers as in the following:

When the intelligence of the new student has comprehended the main parts, let us urge him to put the rest together by his own efforts, using his memory as a guide and thinking for himself. The mind does not require filling like a bottle (PL MOR 1 P257).

Any statement he makes in Moralia accentuates his central idea behind the role of education for humanity:

While we take pains that children should eat with the right hand, we take no pains that they should hear the right instruction (PL MOR 1 P23).

The “right instruction” for Plutarch entails character building in his students – candidates for future statesmen. Hence, he fine combs through the conditions of their treatment throughout their learning process: 

Children ought to be led to honourable [sic] practices by means of encouragement and reasoning and certainly not by blows or ill treatment (PL MOR 1 P41).

That precise preparation of the circumstances will result in, as he asserts with conviction, the desired makings of history:  

Dull minds are content to learn the outcome, or general drift of history. The student fired with love of noble conduct and the works of virtue sees much chance in outcomes and is more delighted with the particulars of history where actions and their causes detail the strugglesbetween virtue and vice (PL MOR 7. P373).

In another section of his Moralia, once again, Plutarch lays dramatic emphasis on what education should not be about – simultaneously, underlining a serious dilemma of our times:

Children must be given some breathing space from continuous tasks; the whole of life is divided between relaxation and application. Rest gives relish to labour [sic] (PL MOR 1           P43).

‘Love for noble labor and the works of virtue’: two vital ingredients today’s educational systems lack at large.

2.                  Treatise on Poetry, History and Education

For Plutarch, poetry and history constitute the integral elements of Academic philosophy. Poetry and education, then, in the view of this ‘humanist par excellence’ (Encyclopedia Britannica), complement one another:

The Spartan, when asked what he taught, replied: I make honourable [sic] things pleasant to children (PL MOR 6. P9).

This way is the one to help pupils take through their learning toward Plutarch’s ultimate aim and accordingly, carries heavy responsibility in their own improvement of their character:

The memory of children should be trained and exercised; it is the storehouse of learning    and the mother of the Muses (PL MOR 1 P45).

Young pupils, Plutarch believes, must be given training in reading poetry, though beyond the metaphorical in order to realize this art will impact character formation and development in the matter people desperately need it later in their lives: 

Let poetry be used as an introductory exercise to philosophy. Those who train themselves to seek the profitable in what gives pleasure and to be dissatisfied with what has nothing     profitable in it learn discernment, the beginning of education (PL MOR 1 P81).

When pupils “pass from ostentation and artifice to discourse which deals with character and feeling[,]” proclaims Plutarch, “they begin to make progress (PL MOR 1 P421).” By becoming aware on the basis of poetry’s selected principles of their own capability to achieve a higher form of themselves, they will then be able to advance upon a state of being where they can materialize those principles, from which point to enter the path to virtue. Once they achieved that state of being they have attained by themselves, he asserts further, they can contribute to the improvement of others:

Menedemus remarked that: the multitudes who came to Athens to study were at the outset wise; later they became lovers of wisdom; later still orators, and as time went on, just ordinary persons and the more they laid hold on reason the more they laid aside their self opinion and conceit (PL MOR 1 P435).

In the statement above, we see once again the essence of Plutarch’s principle regarding the need for the concurrence of nature, habit and reason in order for the education of character to be achieved. Hence, the interrelated components of the concept behind philosophical education: poetry and history as the two irreplaceable cores of the same element that fine-tunes character. How befitting is the following Plutarch statement, when his ideal of training statesmen from their childhood on is taken into consideration: 

We should choose a calling appropriate to ourselves, cultivate it diligently and let the rest alone (PL MOR 6. P215).

And how succinct is his definition of the correctly educated statesman:

Arouse a man to emulate his better self (PL MOR 1 P383).

3.                  Influence

As stressed at the onset of this article, Plutarch, a phenomenon of human history prompted the development and advancement of essay writing and essayist texts. Far beyond such influence, however, he also left his impact on the emergence of the genres of biography and historical writing (Encyclopedia Britannica). His academic and philosophical presence in Europe is said to have stayed at its peak from the 16^th through the 19^th century the least.

His literary impact on following generations of authors has been immense: Sir Philip Sidney, Edmund Spenser, Ben Jonson, William Shakespeare, John Dryden, John Milton, Robert Herrick, George Chapman, Jonathan Swift, Walter Savage Landor, William Wordsworth, Robert Browning, Mary Shelley, and H.G. Wells in England; Ralph Waldo Emerson and Herman Melville in the United States; J.W. von Goethe and Friedrich von Schiller in Germany; and French drama of the late 16th and the entire 17th century; Jacques Myot’s introduction of Plutarch to Sir Thomas North, and Shakespeare’s three plays sourced by Sir Thomas North's English translation of Lives and from then on, the entire English-speaking regions of the world (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy). 

When compared to other Ancient Greek philosophers, Plutarch is not viewed as a profound figure in the field of philosophy. While he may not have added a new component to the arena of philosophy at large, scholars assert that he was instrumental in enabling his students and the public to comprehend the established systems – and not only in Greece but wherever he traveled. I join many critics who see in him ‘a humanist par excellence’ – and therefore justify the extensive space I reserve in my essay on the discussion of his relevant accomplishments as an educator serving humanity.

GILBERT KEITH CHESTERTON AND PLUTARCH’S ACADEMIC PHILOSOPHY

Education to deliver service to humanity is not a theory limited to Ancient Greece. There are men renowned for their high intelligence but also those lesser known who with persistent passion stood behind their conclusions as to what education is not supposed to be. In the following, a discussion ensues on an intellectual of modern times whose educational philosophy has been largely overlooked in modern ages: Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874-1936).

1. Life and Work: Selected Facts

Gilbert Keith Chesterton – one of the most unnoticed thinkers of the 20^th century, the English biographer, philosopher, writer, poet and literary and art critic has lived in the United Kingdom all his life. He is known never to have gone to college but to art school instead.

Dale Ahlquist has the following relatively unknown life and work details to report on Chesterton in an article in The American Chesterton Society: 

In 1900, he was asked to contribute a few magazine articles on art criticism, and went on to become one of the most prolific writers of all time. He wrote a hundred books, contributions to 200 more, hundreds of poems, including the epic Ballad of the White Horse, five plays, five novels, and some two hundred short stories, including a popular series featuring the priest-detective, Father Brown. In spite of his literary accomplishments, he considered himself primarily a journalist. He wrote over 4000 newspaper essays, including 30 years worth of weekly columns for the Illustrated London News, and 13 years of weekly columns for the Daily News. He also edited his own newspaper, G.K.’s Weekly.

Ahlquist also writes about the ease within which Chesterton expressed himself regarding literary and social criticism, history, politics, economics, philosophy, and theology and how this laid-back philosopher “debated many of the celebrated intellectuals of his time: George Bernard Shaw, H.G. Wells, Bertrand Russell, Clarence Darrow.” In an obvious tone of disappointment, Ahlquist adds to say how “the world has immortalized his opponents and forgotten Chesterton,” while, “i]ronically, all of his opponents regarded Chesterton with the greatest affection.” According to Ahlquist’s account, George Bernard Shaw said that “[t]he world is not thankful enough for Chesterton.”

It is long overdue for the world to become thankful for Chesterton’s conceptualization of education, as I argue.

2.  “The Superstition of School”

A significant Chesterton statement resonates the essence of Plutarch’s vision of Academic philosophy, and therefore he is in most appropriate company in this essay:

Education is simply the soul of a society as it passes from one generation to another.

Let us not forget the variety of topics Chesterton has covered in his essays of encyclopedic extent, hence how this particular claim by him is not to understand in isolation but rather in close connection to his sociological as well as political contexts – as in the proposed system to the ‘training of a statesman’ by Plutarch.

In his essay, “The Superstition of School,” Chesterton claims with conviction that "without a gentle contempt for education, no gentleman's education is complete (Classic Essays)." What he demonstrates, when he writes about “the snags of sociology,” is of critical value:   

[O]ne of them is concerned with Education. If you ask me whether I think the populace, especially the poor, should be recognized as citizens who can rule the state, I answer in a voice of thunder, "Yes." If you ask me whether I think they ought to have education, in     the sense of a wide culture and familiarity with the classics of history, I again answer, "Yes." But there is, in the achievement of this purpose, a sort of snag or recoil that can only be discovered by experience and does not appear in print at all. It is not allowed for on paper, even so much as is the recoil of a gun. Yet it is at this moment an exceedingly practical part of practical politics[.] […]

As if to describe our times, he further analyzes the problematic at hand:

The snag in it is this: that the self-educated think far too much of education. I might add that the half-educated always think everything of education. That is not a fact that    appears on the surface of the social plan or ideal; it is the sort of thing that can only be discovered by experience. When I said that I wanted the popular feeling to find political expression, I meant the actual and autochthonous popular feeling as it can be found in    third-class carriages and bean-feasts and bank-holiday crowds; and especially, of course (for the earnest social seeker after truth), in public-houses. I thought, and I still think, that these people are right on a vast number of things on which the fashionable leaders are    wrong. The snag is that when one of these people begins to "improve himself" it is exactly at that moment that I begin to doubt whether it is an improvement.

How in sync do the Chesterton words flow on and on, when one recalls Plutarch’s concern over the ‘improvement of a character’:

He seems to me to collect with remarkable rapidity a number of superstitions, of which the most blind and benighted is what may be called the Superstition of School. He regards School, not as a normal social institution to be fitted in to other social institutions, like Home and Church and State; but as some sort of entirely supernormal and miraculous moral factory, in which perfect men and women are made by magic. To this         idolatry of School he is ready to sacrifice Home and History and Humanity, with all its instincts and possibilities, at a moment's notice. To this idol he will make any sacrifice, especially human sacrifice. And at the back of the mind, especially of the best men of this sort, there is almost always one of two variants of the same concentrated conception: either "If I had not been to School I should not be the great man I am now," or else "If I had been to school I should be even greater than I am." Let none say that I am scoffing at uneducated people; it is not their uneducation [sic] but their education that I scoff at. Let none mistake this for a sneer at the half-educated; what I dislike is the educated half. But I dislike it, not because I dislike education, but because, given the           modern philosophy or absence of philosophy, education is turned against itself, destroying that very sense of variety and proportion which [sic] it is the object of education to give.

Chesterton delivers the solution to the problem of his diagnosis in no less succinct terms:

What is wrong is a neglect of principle; and the principle is that without a gentle contempt for education, no gentleman's education is complete. […] the truth of which I speak has nothing to do with any special culture of any special class. […] The moment men begin to care more for education than for religion they begin to care more for ambition than for education. It is no longer a world in which the souls of all are equal  before heaven, but a world in which the mind of each is bent on achieving unequal advantage over the other. There begins to be a mere vanity in being educated whether it  be self-educated or merely state-educated. Education ought to be a searchlight given to a man to explore everything, but very specially the things most distant from himself. Education tends to be a spotlight; which is centered entirely on himself [sic]. Some improvement may be made by turning equally vivid and perhaps vulgar spotlights upon a large number of other people as well. But the only final cure is to turn off the limelight and let him realize the stars. (1923)

It is not at all difficult to recall at this point as to how the same thought found its home in Ancient Greece in the writings and teachings of Plutarch:

When the intelligence of the new student has comprehended the main parts, let us urge him to put the rest together by his own efforts, using his memory as a guide and thinking for himself. The mind does not require filling like a bottle (PL MOR 1 P257).

As with Chesterton, the sole genius of the 21st century, Albert Einstein was – though quite under-examined for this aspect of his intelligence – a devoted advocate for education as a “searchlight (Chesterton).”

Dear Madam / Sir

We Believe In You ! ! !

This is the reason we are addressing this letter that speaks of our pleas to you on behalf of all of humanity.  The purpose of this communication is to call for your assistance in the elevation of a conscious realization of World Peace ~ World Healing.

As you are well aware, Humanity faces many challenges across our globe with such things as War, Strife, Famine, Bias and much, much more. As you, who are a citizen of the “Community of Humanity” and a Leader and Spokesperson for the will and needs of we the World Citizenry we are forwarding our soulful ~ soul filled appeal for your help and compliance and service unto such.

As we watch the shifting continue and the void deepen between the various factions of who we are,  becoming more globally prolific, we the people have no other alternative but to cry out to any and all, to you in hopes to awaken the empathy of all hearts to the immediate crisis that faces, and eventually will affect us all. The time for the “back room” “Political Jockeying’ and “Power Brokering” is nearing an end. The needs of the many, the all, are greater than the “Self Serving” desires and avarice of the few. The time has come for our collective and applied consciousness to be focused on resolution. We need your support to usher forth this righteousness that allows and feeds a parity amongst all segments of our Human Family.

We Need You !!!!!

We believe in YOU !!!!

Help Us Help Us ALL !!!!

Thank You

Inner Child

World Healing ~ World Peace Poetry 2014

www.worldhealingworldpeacepoetry.com

www.gofundme.com/3gvqks

a few thoughts . . . .

Across the Lands, around the Globe, wherever we look, if we are paying attention it is readily understood the dire need for World Healing ~ World Peace. Our world is challenged across many fronts of our Humanity. The conditions we now endure and experience are calling for our evolution to become more Accepting, Loving and Cooperative as Human Beings. There are many ills and circumstances that seek to steal our power from us. These include Politics, Religion, Ethnics, Culture, Gender, Geography, Classism, War, Famine, Disease, Global Economics, Greed and many more.

We must also consider the condition of this Planet we inhabit and what we so negligently allow as far as the environmental situations. Our Waters are being poisoned, and the Earth is being pillaged and raped for Oils, Minerals and other Natural Resources. We are “Clear Cutting” our Woods and Rain Forests, Genetically manipulating of Food Supply thereby generating other Life altering crisis’s that will sooner or later have to be addressed. Mother’s Oceans and Streams are suffering tremendously as in our Air quality. All this helps perpetuate the dependency upon "Big Pharma" and other unnatural remedies to provide a pseudo-comfort so that we may pretend we are living a healthy life of Peace.

One may look upon the myriad of conditional challenges and easily embrace the attitude of hopelessness. Many are ! Or, we can mobilize ourselves in a collective and thereby come to realize that we are still powerful beings who are capable of manifesting what may appear as miracles to the non believer. I choose to be a believer . . .  what about YOU ?

The Inner Child Family is firmly entrenched in its position to make a difference. The changes we vie to accomplish can only be achieved when we learn to work together on all fronts, to include all the aspects of the change we desire. Cooperation amongst the various factions of our Humanity is essential. Ultimately we are responsible for our individual and collective legacy, for those yet unborn will either have to endure what we leave behind or they will enjoy the fruits of our Soulful labors . . .  but this is our CHOICE !!!!

Blessings

Bill

toward the Dream

We walked

We marched

We hoped

We listened

We prayed

the memories

the realities

the dreams we hold

the dreams we held

came together

in a Social Stew

of convolution

some voices heard

many not

but all were there

represented by the hearts of the love

of our Sisters and Brothers

there was Joy

there was Sunshine

there was Love

and we embraced

upon the shared path

the coalition of colors

came together

and we are the Rainbow

this day

there was Promise

in that 50 Year Old Dream

and it still lives

the seeds were planted

in life’s holy garden

by the weary, needy hope filled

hands

who ardently pressed forward

toward the tomorrows

of their children

our Ancestors

We marched

We smiled with each other

We embraced

in a common love

in a knowing Spirit

that knows of deliverance

We sung songs of remembrance

for King,

for Till,

for Evers,

for Martin,

for “X”

and for you

and all the children

who are pleading

for resolution

where our eternal Souls

dance to the tunes

of this reality

we fully expect

a losing of the suffering

we endure

you endure

all endure

and it shall come

for we march

towards the Dream.

© 26 August 2013 : william s. peters, sr.

World Healing, World Peace Poetry 2014
www.worldhealingworldpeacepoetry.com 
http://www.gofundme.com/3gvqks

Greetings Family,

Inner Child Enterprises, ltd. through Inner Child Press has began the Campaign for World Healing World Peace through Poetry once again. This occasion instead of formulating the effort as a contest, we have chosen to take a different route.

http://youtu.be/xolQfQjdANg

As we make the plea to the Poets of the World to contribute their work, our objective this time around is to get the copies of the offering into every Member Nation's hand of The United Nations (193 - 200 members) as well as every Voting Member of the United States Congress (535). These two bodies of Policy and Legislature are perhaps the two most Publicly seen bodies of power. We at Inner Child believe the cause that asserts World Healing and World Peace is a noble and worthy one indeed that not only affects those who are currently inhabiting this wonderful world of ours, but those that are yet unborne.

Our first effort in 2011 - 2012 produced a wonderful and powerful consciousness Globally which brought people together. As the contributors expressed their concerns, hope, consciousness and love through Poetry, we discovered each other. These types of works bring people together as opposed furthering the divide of our Humanity.

We have established a Dedicated Web Site to facilitate the effort.

World Healing World Peace Poetry

We have also established a Fund to help make this vision come to be.  Contribute to World Healing, World Peace Poetry

We are very succinctly aware of the Global Economic challenges we all face in some form or another, so we humbly ask that if you are not in a position to assist economically, that you help the effort and help us all by paying forward the information. It is time to stop the madness of our inhumanity, don't you think. This effort is but 1 of the many ways we can make a difference.

To reiterate, our Goal is to raise $8,000.00 for assist in the Production, Printing and Distribution of the finished product. At this time we do not know whether the offering will cover all expenses. If we are as successful as we were with the first effort, we are looking to ship somewhere between 935 books if it is a one book production and as many as 1800+ books if we duplicate our past. Should we exceed our expectations we will continue to push forward and pray for Miracles . . . and they do happen every day.

For those who choose to contribute their Poetic Offerings please go to the Web Site for Submission Guidelines. We will be taking submissions from September 1st, 2013 through December 31st, 2013 with the Book being Published for Global Poetry Month in April of 2014. Entrants will provide a Picture of themselves; a Bio of 50 words or less; Links to their private Blog, Web Sites, etc and their Poetry. The Books will be available World Wide for a Free E Download upon completion. Make your mark in history and let your words be noted.

We  are not soliciting anything here but your Blessings and your Love for the Good of Us all.

Thank You for your time.

William S. Peters, Sr.

'just bill'

Inner Child Enterprises, ltd.

www.iaminnerchild.com

Traveling through a few places across the Southwest and observing some of the 3rd world conditions the people who originally occupied this land have to deal with was a paradigm shift for me. If they wish to lose their culture and assimilate, they lose all sense of their roots.

Native Americans have the highest teen suicide rate, lowest life expectancy, highest percentage of alcoholism and drug use, highest infant mortality rate, and highest percentage of diabetes of ANY demographic in the US. They are a forgotten people because their connection to each other and respect of land has either been raped out of them by instituting capitalistic material valuing mentality or by physically destroying them. No they do not have all the answers but their connection to the earth and its resources is something the new Americans (millions of immigrants from all over the world) can learn from.

The decimation of these people and their way of life was the BASIS of what we know as America today. Then the America we know was later built by slave exploitation. These children are forgotten casualties and are living an American nightmare. People are up in arms when the federal govt doesn't obey the constitution or hold up its word when it pertains to them but to the natives of America, the true American citizens, they have never known a US govt that kept its word.

 William S. Peters, Sr.

is

'just bill'

bill's Web Site

'just bill'

aka

William S. Peters, Sr.

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Email : innerchildenterprises@gmail.com

i Believe . .  a few things

i Believe . . .

that the world is purposefully designed and constructed to challenge us that we may re-discover in this life time who we are capable of being and thus finally become eternally resolute within the acknowledgement that we are Beautiful, Powerful and Divine . . .  we are God manifest

i Believe . . .

we live in a world whose need is to challenge our God / Cosmic Consciousness that we may ascend back to our very natural state of being, and when enough of us re-mate our selves to this collective mind it will spawn a shift that will encompass all of our empirical expression and we will move from the 3^rd to the 5^th effortlessly as it is written. It is inevitable. The sand of this desolate shore upon which we stand is washing from beneath our feet as i speak. The tides of a not too distant consciousness is rising and washing up upon the beaches we now inhabit.

i Believe . . .

that world of our Forefathers, that of “Institution” does appear to have failed us. We watch as the ages of Indoctrination, Dogma, Pragmatism, Rite and Rote begin to shimmer in the ether of what is valid. Yes, they are but appearances, an illusion within the construct of our dichotomous expression. We being embedded with a “Source Seed”, a Breath of that which is absolute can not fail Truth. Yes, these “Teachings” of the empiricy only served to stimulate our awakening and understanding of that which resides in the breasts of all men . . . that longing for “Absolution”.

i Believe . . .

that i / we as humans do and have spent far too much valuable “Time” in our lives engaged in meaningless dialogue and discussion attempting to quantify and define Creation’s “OMNI”  characteristics such as Source, God and Love. Like an Ant in attempts to describe the Mountain, it is not that we are completely incapable of doing so, however, truth is one must ask to what end. We like the Ant can mark our trail and communicate to others the treasures we have discovered in our journey that the whole of the colony may feed. Perhaps we should let go of our arrogant high mindedness and allow the experience of Source / God and Love to define us and the way we should go. What Ant says to another . . .”I have found a Mountain, let us go and make it unto our image”?

i Believe . . .

i am the Creator of how i see my life. I either allow my perspectives to be modeled by that which appears as “Dark”, or that which appears as “Light”. Most of us vacillate betwixt the two. There is also another consciousness that is beyond and supersedes our “dualistic idioms, for we all do know that ultimately life is littered with deception. Duality exists within the Singular and it, Duality can never dictate it’s, “The Singular” complete essence. Within the Singular exists all that ever was and all that can and will ever “BE”.  I see my “Self” as One with all things and when i reside in this consciousness. I am not moved by that which is transient, temporal or that which we create for our delusional amusement within the confines of our experiential-ness.

i Believe . . .

that what i believe is the seed that i have planted deep within the soils of my convictions. Some day i will witness the Budding, Blossoming and subsequent Fruits of my labor. I also believe that “mindfulness” of what we are planting in our Holy Garden, our “Eden” is essential. There is a “Good Ground” and there is an “Other”! Plant a good seed; nurture it with your Love and Compassion; Water it with the sweat of your brow. Additionally, let us not forget from time to time, to extract the weeds from these Dreams which left unattended will proliferate and choke life from what was once a fruit bearing promise. Prune your Dreams “In Season”. This is a very Spiritual undertaking that speaks to those forces who would bring forth your vision into your “reality”. Be a diligent Gardener of your Life and your Heart and your yield will be abundant and never ending.

These are but a few of the things that i believe, but there is One thing i do “KNOW” . . .  and that is that “I” am capable of more than what my little ‘i’ can fathom, for “’i am’ Love . . . ‘i am’ Source . . . ‘i am’ God manifest, for as is that which spawned me, so “I AM” !

a ‘just bill’ joint . . .

inner child

I awakened this morning, and i offered a prayer of gratitude to the Progenitor of my life, . . .  my God.

There are many things to be thankful for. They can be found in the Good and that which is perceived as Evil, the Light and the Dark.

I offered thanks for all the Woe in my life, for through it i learned that i had the gift of Endurance and Temperance.

I offered thanks for all those who have left my life through Death, Moving Away, Growing Up and the ending of Relationships, for it has taught me to appreciate those who are in my life NOW, as well as how to truly cherish the memories of the blessings of their presence i once enjoyed.

I offered thanks for all the Dark Days ... yes, for the dark days brought to me an understanding of how i could truly employ, not only the light of those found in the not so dark days, but how to utilize to the best of my own abilities, and that small light of my own that resides within me.

I offered thanks for all the Anger i suffered through . . .  that of my own and that of others. Through my anger i have come to know the true meaning of humility. This gift was imparted to me in being chastised and scolded by others, and in having to be the one who must later apologize for their errancies of character, attitude and expression.

I offered thanks for all the times when i was down on my luck. It was, and is those times i realize that luck and being down, was my own choosing, and that i had the power to alter my perspectives of how i viewed my life. Should i go forth with disdain for the hand that life has dealt me or should i cling to such powerful forces of hope and faith? These powers do have a transformative ability to change my energy to something magnificent and grand.

I offered thanks for all the Tears i have cried . . . for whatever reasons. Tears truly have a deep cleansing ability to alleviate my soul of the angst i have collected through many of life’s circumstances.

I offered thanks for all the “NOs” i have heard, given me by life when i so wanted to hear a “Yes”. Yes, in reflection, many times those “Yes’s” i wished for would have been detrimental to my higher good. I did not always understand this, nor did i care at that moment, for i was blinded by my own “Self Oriented” desires and my finite and limited perspectives on the whole of what may “Be” or “Become”. I have grown tremendously because of each and every one of those ”NOs” . . . and again i must say . . . I am Thankful.