Don't Get It Twisted

Months ago, I decided to stop following news on health care reform. It just seemed too much of a circus. Each week, if not each day, the media flip-flopped, portraying different angles on the story. It’s going to pass. It's not going to pass. It’s going to pass. At the end of the day it was dizzying and left me with that childhood feeling of “eeny meeny miny moe.” If reform of any kind were going to occur, it seemed it would only be on the luck of a draw.

The whole debacle left me questioning our politics and more importantly our value system. How did the things we care about become so unforgivably skewed? I remember when Janet Jackson performed at the 2004 Super Bowl and exposed her breast. It turned the media on its head forcing networks everywhere to be super diligent about language and nudity.

I find it peculiar that the human form and unsavory language are such magnets for outrage, but violence is seen as completely acceptable. Just last week, I turned on the TV while eating lunch and stumbled onto the movie “30 Days of Night.” The film was nearly over, but I’d flipped to it just in time to see someone being decapitated. By American standards, images of murder and dismemberment on the airwaves [at noon] are not seen as problematic, but the sight of a nipple or the utterance of a curse word cannot be tolerated. Correct me if I’m wrong, but this seems a little backwards if not ludicrous.

Now that the health care bill has passed outraged opponents have attempted chaos with random acts of vandalism and incivility. There was even talk of death threats against democrats who had voted for the bill. Are these the actions and values of a supposed civilized world?

Before the bill’s passage, political respect, courtesy and diplomacy seemed to have flown out of the window. Consider Congressman Randy Neugebauer’s uncontrolled outburst when he yelled out “Baby Killer!” during a fellow congressman’s speech. Or even more egregious when the president was interrupted by Congressman Joe Wilson yelling out “You lie!” How do we, as a society, foster respect for one another when our political “leaders” lack it toward each other? It’s disturbing to live in a population where so many people are supportive or apathetic toward something like war, but when it comes to universal health care they become proactive and put their foot down to say no.

Not too long ago, I was engaged in a conversation about relationships and the idea was thrown out, “Is it better to be right or to be happy?” I didn’t immediately grasp the concept of this idea, but I understand it today. We sometimes become so focused on being right that we end up compromising not only the integrity of the relationship, but also of the issue at hand. No one is happy (including us) but then we grasp at straws trying to take solace in the fact that we at least proved ourselves right.

Backwards? Ludicrous maybe?

Cracking The Shell

When I was a kid, I received some very unintentional training from my parents. They had this way of saying, “Don’t tell anyone” about events that were occurring in our lives. I remember them looking at new cars and saying, “We’re thinking of buying a car, but don’t tell anyone.” Around the same time, they wanted to rip out our back yard and install a pool. The story then became, “We’re thinking of getting a swimming pool, but don’t tell anyone.” And then the biggest “don’t tell anyone” came when I was twelve and we moved to West Africa where my father had taken a job. Years prior to that, he had discussed the idea and of course my instructions were “We’re thinking of moving to Africa, but don’t tell anyone.” For the most part, I obeyed these requests, but later resented them. These were events that also affected my life, but I was being asked to withhold them. It took me until college to realize I had grown into a secretive, young man. And it’s not that I had any secrets of note, but I had become a withholder with regard to what was going on in my life.

The irony is, years later, my mother would always tell me “You never talk.” And she was right. I could sense when she was trying to get me to open up and even though I was making an effort, I was still aware that from her point of view, it was like pulling teeth.

Luckily, this behavior never interfered with my ability to make friends, but it certainly got in the way of me forming intimate relationships on either romantic or platonic levels. For over a decade, I struggled to break out of the shell I’d formed and I’m happy to report that many years ago, I did break down many of those walls. I successfully jumped from the team of withholders and am now a proud member of “team-communicators.” And believe me, life, love and relationships of all kinds are much more fulfilling when you’re a communicator.

The more I’ve opened up, the more obvious it becomes who the withholders are. I have friends who I can talk to for an hour and still not have any idea what’s going on in their lives. These are withholders. Withholding actually requires quite a bit of energy and skill, but at the end of the day, it’s exhausting. A communicator’s life is much easier because there is no need to build walls and create smoke screens.

And withholders, no matter how good they are, should know they will rarely fool a communicator. Most communicators were at one time withholders. We know the tricks of the trade and we’re just waiting for you to tear down the walls, which only you can do. We know a withholder will never switch teams until he or she decides it’s the right time. And even then it takes a tremendous amount of work. If you are a withholder and you know it, start the work now. Give some thought to the team you’re playing on and ask yourself is it the one to which you’d like to belong?

House Of Cards

Shortly after high school, one of my good friends called to let me know she had visited a psychic. She was freaked because the woman she consulted with seemed to know so much about her personal life. At the time, and for many years to come, I was afraid of psychics. I didn’t want anyone telling me things I didn’t want to know. And there was also the question of fraudulence. Had I even wanted to see a psychic, how would I know if they were the real deal or just some charlatan trying to make a buck?

Fast forward to 2006. It was a Saturday night and I had agreed to meet my friend Tim at a popular Hollywood club. As is my M.O., I was running late, but I knew it didn’t matter. Tim is a big boy and very sociable. When I finally walked in around twenty minutes late, I found Tim talking to a group of four or five people. There were two from New York who were visiting a friend who had just moved to Los Angeles. Tim introduced me to the group and pointed out that one of his new friends was psychic. A million questions ran through my mind, but the first was, “How did Tim already find this out?” I hadn’t been that late, so clearly the cute and bubbly girl had used this information as an icebreaker.

After Tim declared, “She says she’s psychic,” I didn’t really know what to say. There was an awkward silence as I wondered how to turn this news into a conversation. The pregnant pause floated and then I rebounded with a question, “So what is it you see when you’re having a psychic episode?” I wish I could remember her answer, but the truth is I don’t. The setting seemed wrong for such a conversation. The club was fairly crowded and dark except for the laser light display. All of us were standing beside the bar, on the edge of the dance floor and the music was loud. By the time she answered, I had already judged that she was young and kooky, so I didn’t pay much attention to her response.

Eventually, Tim and I broke away and as was our custom, we closed down the club. After management had evacuated patrons from the venue, we stood outside talking. Little did I know I had received my first unofficial psychic reading. Apparently, while I was chatting with some of Tim’s new acquaintances, the psychic girl had informed him that there was an extremely dark energy going on with me, so much so that she asked Tim not to mention it. For some reason, she thought there was something going on with my grandfather (or that he had just died), but both of my parents’ fathers had passed away decades before my birth. I must admit I was annoyed and dismissed everything the girl said as trickery and buffoonery. I told Tim she was probably just using the conversation to flirt with him. Later, when Tim and I finally parted ways, I drove home thinking this is why I never wanted to see a psychic, for fear of being told something negative.

About a year later, I was visited by darkness and negativity. First, I was diagnosed with a rare form of thyroid cancer and while I was battling it, my mother passed away. In many ways I felt as if I had been thrown into the abyss. And the memory of Tim recounting the young girl’s story resurfaced. I wondered if this was the darkness she had (fore)seen.

In October of last year, on the recommendation of a friend, I sent my birth date to a reader of tarot. I never heard back from him nor did I reach out to him again. And then last Thursday, I received a call from the reader apologizing for taking so long. He had suffered a lot of personal problems and my reading had fallen off of his priority list. As such he had repeated another reading just before calling me. It is funny how the universe works. Just that week, I was suffering through quite a bit of personal turmoil and his call could not have come at a better time. Amazingly, he began to describe the exact situation that was causing me anguish and proceeded to talk in specifics about other issues that were going on in my life. At one point I was almost shaking from his accuracy. At the end of the call, I felt more peaceful and I thanked him for taking so long to get back to me. In some way, the reading of my cards had created order in the chaos.

For over a year now, I have had a deck of tarot cards at my house. I have two books on how to read them, but my study of them wasn’t all that eye opening. The main thing I do remember from one of the books is that tarot can be used to make sense of all of the chaos. And certainly all of us can use a little of that.

TO LEARN MORE OR TO READ AN EXCERPT
of my sci-fi/fantasy/adventure novel, “The Unveiling: 1.0,” please visit TheUnveilingSeries.com.

Sticks And Stones And Broken Bones

Over the holidays I had friends visiting from Paris. Unfortunately, they flew in on the eve of Atlanta’s first winter snowstorm. At most there was maybe an inch of accumulation, which immediately began to melt. But this is where the real problem began. The combination of melting snow and freezing temperatures meant ice was forming to create extremely hazardous sidewalks and roads.

The following day, and against my better judgment, I ventured out with my guests. It was extremely cold, but sunny. Even though temperatures were well below freezing, the sun managed to dissolve much of the ice. The highways were fairly open and surprisingly safe. My first thoughts were it’s not as bad as I imagined, but that was only until we reached downtown. Because there are much taller buildings there, many of the streets are caught in the shadows of the skyscrapers around them. To my dismay, these streets were covered in ice. At one point, I turned the car off of a perfectly clear street not realizing the block I was turning onto was slick with black ice. The car began sliding even though I had firmly applied the brakes. Luckily I was able REto coast down into an area where I regained traction. I tried paying closer attention and successfully parked at our intended destination – The Georgia Aquarium.

This is where the real trouble started. Once we left the parking structure, we found ourselves surrounded by a thin layer of snow and ice. We tiptoed ever closer to the aquarium entrance and then, when we were just across the street, one of my friends slipped and fell. As I watched, I prayed that she hadn’t hurt herself, but her face twisted in pain. The first words out of her mouth were “I really hurt my arm,” and when she pulled up her sleeve, I had a sinking feeling. The contours of her right arm (and she is right handed) were slightly off.

We gathered her up as she grimaced. The impact of the fall hadn’t seemed terribly bad, so each of us began speculating as to what could have happened to make her arm appear quite so tweaked. Maybe she had dislocated her wrist (is this possible?) We wanted it to be something simple or at least less severe than a break, but in my gut I have to admit I felt it was broken.

RECEIVING HEALTHCARE IN THE U.S. SYSTEM
After several hours in the ER, we were informed that Camille had indeed broken her arm just above the wrist. It is a sensitive area, which can affect the mobility of the hand. The important thing was getting her the care she needed, but the issues of our current healthcare system came to light. Camille is French and receives her healthcare through the French system. She did not have travel insurance and was therefore not armed with any kind of policy that would cover her care under the American system.

As we all know, Obama is struggling to reform healthcare in the U.S. When I hear people fighting against reform, I fear they have never needed serious care, which I have unfortunately needed in the past. Through my own experiences, I have witnessed first hand how ridiculous and unpleasant our current system can be. Should anyone think we are not in need of reform, I am here to say you stand corrected.

Imagine how disheartening it is to be suffering from a serious illness and have the first question asked of you, “do you have insurance?” Each time we are handed a clipboard of paperwork and asked to sign on the dotted line as a promise to pay should our insurance companies choose not to. The protocol demonstrates what the main focus of our industry is; the almighty dollar and the bottom line. Psychologically, it doesn’t instill confidence. The inherent message is that the actual care is secondary to primary financial concerns.

And what makes our current system even more ridiculous is that no one (but the insurance companies) seems to understand what the actual prices are. In the past six months, I have had various lab work done. At the end of these visits, I was sent to a cashier to settle my charges. Each time, I was shown a breakdown of services rendered and it was then explained to me what portion I was responsible for. I was flabbergasted as, on some occasions, I was asked to pay upwards of $400. I always opt to be billed because the actual invoices never correspond to the figures given to me at the cashier. Without fail, they have always been a fraction of what I was originally asked to pay. Apparently, even the actual providers are unaware of the discounts negotiated by the insurance companies, meaning their calculations and the insurance companies’ rarely correspond. Truthfully, I have no idea how today’s politicians are calculating the supposed costs of healthcare when our very own health professionals don’t know really know the numbers.

While my friends were visiting, I felt envious of their system. Rarely are they asked to pay anything when injured or ill and they aren’t made to feel that their ability to pay has bearing on the quality of care they will receive. And when they do have to pay something, it is generally a small and well known, quantifiable amount.

I hope one day our system can be reformed so a patient’s care will be the primary focus rather than how it will be paid for. As long as our system is seen as a lucrative venture for doctors and insurance companies rather than a healing one for patients, it will ultimately be the patient who suffers.

I HAVE WRITTEN A BOOK! TO LEARN MORE OR TO READ AN EXCERPT
of my sci-fi/fantasy/adventure novel, “The Unveiling: 1.0,” please visit TheUnveilingSeries.com.

Avatar: Opening Pandora's Box

Lord knows Hollywood has provided us with enough “Great White Hope” stories to last a lifetime. Just to name a few are:

The Substitute (with Tom Berenger)
Dangerous Minds (with Michelle Pfeiffer)
Losing Isaiah (with Susan Sarandon)
Dances With Wolves (with Kevin Costner)
The Last Samurai (with Tom Cruise)
The Missing (with Tommy Lee Jones)

In each of the above-mentioned movies, Caucasian characters are the rescuers of the downtrodden people of color. Such movies often bring Hollywood under fire for perpetuating racist stereotypes, mainly that people of color cannot rescue themselves without help from their fairer skinned counterparts.

The latest movie to come under fire for perpetuating such stereotypes is James Cameron’s “Avatar.” In the following article, the movie is panned for carrying racist themes:

http://movies.yahoo.com/news/movies.ap.org/some-see-racist-theme-alien-adventure-avatar-ap

I must admit before seeing Avatar, I was fearful of it not living up to its hype. There was such buzz about the film and then its early reviews (or at least the ones I read) were lackluster at best. In the last year (or two), I have found Hollywood movies quite disappointing. I wanted Avatar to wow me, but suspected my fears of it not measuring up were well founded.

A few days after its opening, I convinced a friend to see it in 2-D. It had been over a decade since I’d seen anything in 3-D and frankly, I wasn’t excited about things jumping out of the screen at me. Once inside the film, I realized I’d made a tactical error by not seeing it in 3-D. The colors and tapestry of Pandora are so rich and beautiful that you won’t want to miss even the tiniest of details. Within minutes of it starting, I knew I would have to see it again in 3-D.

Never before have I seen so many reviewers completely miss the boat. The reviews I read said the action was bogged down by a love story that didn’t work. They of course compared Avatar to Cameron’s earlier blockbuster “Titanic,” taking time to outline why Avatar’s love story was in no way comparable to the one that worked in Titanic.

Well, I am here to respectfully dispute all negative reviews that I’ve read of this movie. Avatar’s love story worked perfectly. And anyone who believes that it didn’t, or that racist themes are included in the movie has failed to comprehend Cameron’s brilliance.

Yes, Avatar’s main character, Jake Sully, is Caucasian, but he is not the rescuer of Pandora’s people of color. To think this is erroneous. In fact, it is quite the opposite in Avatar. Jake Sully’s journey is toward one of enlightenment. When the film begins, he belongs to a society of lost souls whose destructive nature will stop at nothing in their pursuit of wealth. Jake Sully’s people (and that’s us, folks) have ruined Earth, which is why they are on Pandora in the first place – to exploit it. Sully and people like him will sacrifice all in the name of greed. In fact, fighting for such causes has cost Sully the use of his legs and he is confined to a wheelchair. But he is only promised to have his legs restored, a technology, which exists, if he further compromises himself by participating in the destruction of yet another world.

Like most people on his team, Jake Sully is completely disconnected from his true role in nature. As such, he is by no means a rescuer. It is in fact the people of color who rescue him from a life of ignorance and miseducation. It is only through their eyes that he can truly see reality as it is, rather than as it is told to him. And yes, such an awakening is only accomplished through love of some kind.

Avatar is not an action-adventure movie; it is the story of Jake Sully’s path toward enlightenment. Once Sully’s eyes are opened, he becomes a crusader for truth and justice. But his complete transformation cannot take place in his original Caucasian body because that version of Jake Sully is both physically and spiritually corrupted. Jake Sully’s soul is only fully redeemed when he is removed from his former broken body and placed in his Avatar’s body as a fully enlightened individual.

Does Avatar have racist themes? Not at all. If you haven’t seen Avatar yet, see it in 3-D.

Just today, I saw this article, which is also quite interesting:


http://www.cnn.com/2010/SHOWBIZ/Movies/01/11/avatar.movie.blues/index.html

Here's What I Intend To Do About It!

Many people find it difficult to manage the end-of-the-year holidays. The days are shorter, which gives everyone the perception of being rushed or hurried. And in many places, cold, dreary weather is also something to contend with. Add to the mix shopping, gift giving, party planning, friends and relatives, and it’s oftentimes a recipe for stress. For most of us, the finish line is the first of January. It is only then that we can safely say we passed through it all.

January 1st, 2010 came and went. I woke up leisurely, meditated and then made breakfast. My normal New Year’s routine would have been to make a bunch of calls to family and friends, but this year I wasn’t feeling it. I received a few calls before breakfast. Afterwards, I finished watching “Brothers,” which I don’t recommend and then I watched a lot of commercials while flipping through channels on TV.

In the late afternoon, I finally decided to place a few calls. One of my friends answered sounding completely drained, if not depressed. I knew the easy answer for his tone of voice was a late night, crazy New Year’s Eve party, but I suspected this wasn’t the case. When I inquired, he explained many of life’s difficulties. Things from relatives with health issues to the challenges of growing old gracefully, or sometimes not so gracefully. I could hear both worry and concern in his voice and I sympathized, but I also grew impatient. After he had confided a series of predicaments and situations I simply asked, “What are you going to do about these things?”

The sad truth is there are rules to this life and many of them are beyond our control. Regardless of how hard we try, we will all grow old and illnesses will occur even to those with the healthiest of lifestyles. Tsunamis, earthquakes and tornadoes are things we read about every day. Yes, we can talk of how horrible these things are, but the proof of our spirits is in action. If tragedy and calamity visit our homes, to ponder and talk about them accomplishes nothing. The question we need ask ourselves is “what are we going to do about it?” I am happy to say my friend did have a action plan by the time we finished speaking and I can only hope knowing what to do helped ease his distress.

As we ease into 2010, I am left to ponder my own issues and what I intend to do about them. Whether it’s to build or resolve something, we are all constantly affronted with a myriad of decisions we must make. What we choose to do is always the answer. May each of your choices be fruitful now and throughout the year to come.

Peace and blessings for a prosperous 2010!

Strength, Courage & Transformation

Someone once told me spiritual energies are heightened toward the end of the year. The statement caused me to wonder why that might be? If I am to believe this phenomenon, I couldn’t imagine why our sense of spirituality might be more pronounced in December than in April. Still, year-after-year I wondered, with the question resurfacing in my head somewhere between Halloween and Thanksgiving. And certainly, if there were any truth to the idea, perhaps it explained the choice of December 25^th as the day to celebrate Christmas. This is not believed to be the actual birth date of Jesus Christ, yet it was picked as the time to celebrate his appearance in our lives. If it is an arbitrary date, might it have been chosen to correspond with a period of time in which we are most spiritually receptive?

For at least five years, I have thought of these concepts every holiday season. Most of the time, I was skeptical, suspecting more than anything else that it was just marketing. In October, the Halloween frenzy begins with children’s costumes and unheard of quantities of candy being bought and sold. In November, Thanksgiving appears and turkeys across the land meet their untimely demise. And then Christmas and New Year’s roll around to top it all off. This year, I have paid attention and the answer to my question appeared to me in nature. Yes, spiritual energies are heightened at the end of each year, and it has nothing to do with marketing (except that marketers have been brilliant to take advantage of buyers when they are vulnerable).

Oftentimes, we enjoy viewing ourselves as masters of our destiny, but this is not entirely true. Without exception, we are born into nature as puzzle pieces. To see ourselves as living outside of this system is not only a disservice, it is a denial of reality. Each winter, adjustments are made all around us. Birds fly south. Bears retreat into seclusion to hibernate in their own form of silent meditation. Trees shed their leaves stripping down to their barest of essentials. In places of bitter cold, snow blankets the land and ice covers the water and all of this is in preparation for rebirth. When the period is over, the birds return to lay eggs and raise their young. Bears emerge from their caves as if being re-delivered from the womb and trees and plants reinvent themselves with completely new configurations of flowers and leaves. All of the above are physical queues to remind us of our own spiritual evolution.

At the end of the year, if we are to grow and evolve, we must do as nature does, stripping down to the barest essentials of who we are spiritually. This is not easy work, but it is the right time to ponder and reflect on who we are and how we wish to be. Once we’ve crossed through the bridge of winter, we can re-emerge on the other side, reinvented with new leaves and flowers of who we are. And while each of us is capable of metamorphosis at any given place or time, we are more naturally predisposed (there goes nature again) to it at year-end when spiritual energies are heightened.

This year, as 2010 is ushered in, I’d like to wish all of you the happiest of new years and may your metamorphosis be one that brings you ever closer to your centers. Peace and blessings to you all!