I don't have the answers yet, but I have learned enough to be dangerous, and ask better questions..

And I am beginning to think I know why that Muslim man self-immolated yesterday in front of the White House.

But first, deadlikeme - you are amazing. Thank you so much for seeing so far into me. Isn't that what intimacy is - into me see? In one morning, I feel a million times better. Thank you thank you thank you thank you. I don't know that anyone has ever dedicated a poem to me before....that was utterly gorgeous.

Deep breath.

Second, Champy, you got me thinking. As I walked on the beach, I thought about the homeless man on the porch, who slept here by our consent. There is nothing"wrong" with this guy. He volunteers at the place I am living, which is keeping me from being on the street myself.

Gasp! Can this have happened to me? Could we have really slid this far down the economic ladder? Oh my baby - I am trying so hard for us not to ever be homeless, but the more I pursue this path of the artist, the more I put us in harm's way financially....

See, there isn't any work in this land for a mythologian with pyschological training. How do you work to ensoul a place in such a mythless time? Myths aren't untrue stories - they are the timeless narratives that we all unwittingly step into all the time. Who hasn't been to the Underworld in grief, or loss? Who hasn't seen that War and Love are always tied together, and that their children are fear, panic, and eventually....peace? Who hasn't, or isn't now, undertaking a hero's journey for their own golden fleece, whatever that is in your life?

Is there a job for someone with my skills?

If I wanted to sell you a million products you don't need, there'd be a job for me.

But I don't want to do that. I have dropped out of that life, quite consciously.

And the homeless guy on our porch - all he wants to do is heal large, wounded birds of prey, who were doing nothing but minding their own business when they ate the rat poisoned by the farmer, or ran into the train blasting through their hunting ground, or were hit by the car driving to its home smack in their nesting area. All he wants to do is help these creatures get back on their feet and return them to the wild. All he wants to do is touch that power in nature, and be part of its healing.

So he called the zoo, after being trained by my friend, who has done this kind of work all her life.

And the zoo said - sure come here and help us work. That will be $50 please.

And he said, "huh?" Because see, he wants to work at this, it gives his life meaning, and yet there is no paying work for this kind of thing.

But there's a million Mcjobs, and Waljobs.

I am beginning to smell the underbelly of capitalism - up close and personal.

If you buy the capitalist dream, why, there's a million products to cure all your ills, fix your problems, make life easier, and give you the rich experience you deserve.

So everybody goes to work making things, buying things, getting credit to buy things, and it's endless. And all that happens is eventually you get a bunch of empty people driving around in mammoth vehicles or hotrods that somehow are supposed to express the essence of who they are. And these people throw their vast waste from this endless consumption back into the earth, but no experience ever satisfies, so they have to have more. And more and more. And after a while, all you see is soulless beings in search of that next product or experience that this time will satisfy.

We look at a place like India and laugh at their starving people with cows walking among them. We wonder how they can be so dispassionate about this, and sigh about their own conditions, saying it is those people's karma to starve. We see that underbelly clearly...

...and yet somehow think we don't have the same.

But there are those who see our underbelly. They see our Mcjobs, our homeless, the gun-detectors in our schools,  our rampant murder rates, and our soulless eyes searching for meaning, as though it were to be found in.... products....

And they say resoundingly NO! Never! Do not force feed us this garbage. Keep your death over there!

So we invade them....

I think I am beginning to understand why that man self-immolated yesterday in front of the White House.

"Yesterday it hit me...I felt we were slipping away. Say if you  can it's ok...." Seal