Some Relevant Thoughts to Ponder

      Here are some thoughts to ponder for today:

Some people don't like change, but you need to embrace change if the alternative is disaster.  (Elon Musk)

 If there is no struggle, there is no progress.  (Frederick Douglass)

Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time.  We are the ones we've been waiting for.   We are the change that we seek.  (Barack Obama)

My friends, love is better than anger.  Hope is better than fear.  Optimism is better than despair.  So, let us be loving, hopeful and optimistic.  And we'll change the world.  (Jack Layton)

 

A Relevant Rant, Part 3

      Last week was a call to action, a plea for us to stand up and engage our Masculine energies to help our planet and those living on it.

     How can we do this?  I can think of a few ways, but I ask you to think about some additional ideas.

     Here are some ideas that I have:

• Create a website (if one doesn't already exist) that lists companies on a scale of how they treat their workers, the environment, and their customers.  Do they put profit ahead of people?  Are they exploiting people in the Third World, paying them pennies a day?  Are they using renewable resources?  Are they egregious polluters?  
• Vote.  Vote.  Vote.  Your voice matters.  After you vote, keep in contact with your local, state, and national leaders and let your opinions be heard.  
• Do something that helps Mother Earth.  Pick up trash.  Recycle.  Use as little oil-based fuels as possible (bike, take public transportation, or drive EVs instead).  Encourage the use of solar or wind power by letting the people who oversee your local utility company know your opinion.  Plant a tree.  Donate to Earth-protecting charities.  
• Keep up the vision that our world can get better.  That we, as a species, can evolve.  That we can take off the veils of ignorance and greed and power-hunger and grow up.  

     Stand up.  Take action.  The world needs you, every one of you.  The time is now.  Please.

A Relevant Rant, Part 2

      Last week I was ranting about how for-profit private prisons, paid for with our tax dollars, are profiting on the "selling" of prisoner labor to local and national businesses.  I believe this to be another form of slave labor, and it infuriates me.

     I also promised that this was relevant to this blog and begged your patience.  So, here it is.

     I have said many times that in order to be ready to join with our Twin Soul, we need to first balance the male and female parts of ourselves.  So many of us in the New Thought realm prefer to stay safely nestled in the patchouli-scented Land of Om.  We like to keep our energy high and unflustered, our mind at peace.  I totally understand that and believe that it is an important part of self-care (maybe without the patchouli).  

     But that is staying solely in the Feminine part of ourselves.  We are nurturing ourselves, and perhaps those around us, and contributing to the All with peaceful thoughts, but please look around!  More than this is needed right now.

     We need to balance that with the active, Masculine part of ourselves.  We need to act, people.  

     Look around.  Not only are people being treated as expendable resources, but many, if not most, companies operate on the model of profit first, people second (or last).  Our leaders have taken that model as they put their own re-election ahead of legislation that may help people and the planet.  Power and greed seem to run this planet right now, and we are reaping the results.  The climate is heading toward a catastrophe, and the human species, along with many others, risk extinction.  (On my darkest days, I think that perhaps the human race deserves it, after how they have treated this planet and each other).  I believe that some of the things we are experiencing right now -- mega storms, record-breaking floods, severe droughts, huge fires, pandemics and so on -- are just the warning signs of what could come.  

     Action is needed.  We need to stand up and call upon the Masculine parts of ourselves.  More on this next week.

A Relevant Rant

      Sometimes I read about things that make we want to climb up on the roof and scream with outrage.  You, too?  

     Recently I read about how prison officials are using prisoners to do "volunteer" work for local businesses for a wage far lower than the federal minimum.  Some of these business leaders, I had thought previously, were good, upstanding people, involved in the community and serving in various leadership roles.  But they are profiting on what is basically slave labor.  If the prisoner gets injured, too bad.  If they don't want to do the job, they are punished.  If they want to better themselves and prepare for life after prison by getting an education, that gets second place.  It is infuriating.

     When I was a youngster, I remember visiting some relatives in a Southern state.  My uncle's house abutted a prison facility.  From his back yard, I remember watching through the fence to the fields on the prison property.  As I watched, a chain gang -- in their black and white striped prison uniforms, shackled to each other at the ankles -- was led out to work in the fields.  I remember at least two prison guards on horseback holding long rifles as they watched the prisoners work under the hot sun.  As I looked closer, I remember noticing that nearly every prisoner was African American.  Even as a young girl, I recognized this as another form of slavery and it made me mad.  

     Prisons (in this case, for-profit private prisons) are making money on the very people who need rehabilitation and education, not exploitation and cruelty.  Is this who we are as a country?  Is this what we truly value?  Has greed so corrupted our soul that we see every human as an expendable resource?  

     Yes, I needed to rant, but it is relevant, if you will bear with me.  More on this next week.

(image courtesy of pixabay.com)