The Perfect Wave Project: Introduction

To some degree, we're all attracted to the ideal – as we see in the movies, for example – and we live with a cultural ideal. But there's a problem when a cultural ideal lends itself to the suppression of the spirit, or demoralization, and the occlusion of sympathetic love in our society, towards others and our own selves. To help address this problem I propose a project we can call The Perfect Wave Project that strives to make greater use and integration of the arts.

For over twenty years I've been contending with the consumer culture and this problem of the ideal. To contend with this, I believe, is to draw on and emphasize certain aspects of the moral culture, which includes a societies religions, traditions, the mythos (the stories a society tells about itself), ideals, history, and the arts. Concerning the latter, The Perfect Wave Project reflects Walt Whitman's approach but expands to include all of the arts, including poetry as art.

Recognizing and addressing this problem I believe can be a boon to the local arts scene. There's much competition among artists and arts groups for limited funding and attention. Yet I believe we could weave a collective approach that can be a boon to all involved and potentially expand the funding base. The project itself shouldn't necessarily be part of any art institution but enable such an institution to make use of it. I've outlined some guiding principles that I believe could lead to its success as follows:

1. Weave mutually beneficial relationships among artists and arts groups.
2. Enable both individual artists and arts groups to creatively make it their own.

Besides the obvious surfing reference, use of the term perfect is informed and reconciled by influences such as follows:

The love of the body of man or woman balks account, the body itself balks account,
That of the male is perfect, and that of the female is perfect.
-- from Walt Whitman's "I Sing the Body Electric"

"Morality which is based on ideas, or on an ideal, is an unmitigated evil. No absolute is going to make the lion lie down with the lamb unless the lamb is inside. It is no good casting out devils. They belong to us, we must accept them and be at peace with them."
-- D.H. Lawrence

In the Biblical passage where the Apostle Paul addresses the Cornithians, he makes reference to a "thorn in his side." Recognizing his own weakness, he'd appealed to God to remove this thorn. The answer, Paul relates as follows:

But he said to me, 'My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.'

The Perfect Wave Project: Doing the Poet's Job Collectively

While I pass no judgments of what art should or should not be – art can be various things to various people – I do believe in greater possibilities of what art can be. In her introduction to Ellen Bass's wonderful book of poems, Mules of Love, the poet Dorianne Laux writes as follows about the poet's job:

What is the poet's job but to help us to become aware of life's transience, love's power, the subtle manifestations of hope, to play for us again the ancient themes.

I'm suggesting here that we can better do the poet's job through a collective approach rather than individually, recognizing the limitations of the art form. But I expect it would have to start within the circles of poetry, as the writer Henry Miller asserted:

The future always has and always will belong to – the poet.

We can start with Laux's quote above and break it down and inspect more deeply its various parts to help guide us.

The Perfect Wave Project: Human Flourishing and the Problem of the Ideal

To some degree, we're all attracted to the ideal – as we see in the movies, for example – and we live with a cultural ideal. But there's a problem when a cultural ideal lends itself to the suppression of the spirit, or demoralization, and the occlusion of sympathetic love in our society.

Being socialized into the consumer culture there's an inclination to feel -- the key word -- something like as follows: I want this ideal life, I want to be this ideal person and attract an ideal mate. Needless to say, the individual will have to come to terms with the real, though such feelings can remain, in the dubious pursuit of happiness. Part of our national obsession with celebrities, I think, at least in part, is that they appear to either have attained this ideal or be in a position to.

We can attain a sense of self through two means, though usually through some variation of both: comparison to others, or to a cultural ideal; or, through contribution to a greater collective. The former is problematic while the latter often fails to receive recognition and monetary compensation; consequently, our society is susceptible to a certain degree of demoralization.

The problem of attaining a sense of self through comparison, to others or too a cultural ideal, manifests itself in a variety ways but notably here is it's simply a weak foundation. Comparing ourselves to others, we lack the vision to pass such a judgment; consequently we can set ourselves to be humbled.

Comparing ourselves to an ideal contributes to a problem of promoting an image of our selves rather than confronting or opening up to the truth about ourselves. This can cause distance in our relationships; worse, it can cause a deep sense of shame for not being able to up to an ideal. The mind can have a way of not confronting the shameful truth. As the ideal can impair our ability to confront the truth about ourselves and our human nature in general, it impedes our progress in creating a society that promotes the best of our nature while minimizing the worst.

Recognizing how a cultural ideal can lend itself to demoralization, we subsequently can turn to the moral culture and determine what aspects can be promoted to alleviate that demoralization. Part of the reason Rick Warren’s book The Purpose Driven Life became and remains a best-seller, I believe, is that it addressed and provided some alleviation from this demoralization, that is, in the Christian context. But in a pluralistic country founded on the tenets of the enlightenment, a broader approach is needed because a country’s moral culture is more than religion, also encompassing, for example, its history, traditions, ideals, and its art.

In another time of division in this country, Walt Whitman, perhaps the country’s greatest poet, took on these issues in the prelude to the Civil War. Expanding on Whitman's approach and other influences, I believe there's a poetic path towards cultural transformation to better enable an imaginative framework that affirms one’s sense of self derived from contribution as the appropriate foundation toward human flourishing for both the individual and society.

The Perfect Wave Project: Healing the Cultural Divide

To heal the political divide that afflicts our country, we must first heal the cultural divide. That's the assertion of James F. Cooper, author of Knights of the Brush: The Hudson River School and the Moral Landscape. In the culture wars, he is an art critic that I expect would be viewed as one who swings to the right. But he takes issue with conservatives that would defund the arts; quite the opposite, as his concluding remarks state in the following excerpt:

We can boldly advance into the future with the visionary gifts that artists and poets alone possess. Or we can choose to hang back with the dead, blind culture of the old order. I suspect we will choose life. Let us unashamedly honor the strengths and virtues of our nation and encourage our own recognition of them. Let us begin this great task by enlisting gifted artists to help us see once again.

We can draw on Coopers argument and broaden the base of support for the arts without alienating its regular patrons. What I've tried to do as a writer and a poet, is take Walt Whitman's vision out of its time and place in the nineteenth century, bring it through the awful truth of the twentieth century, and set it down into the twenty-first century to restore hope and faith in both our human nature and our democratic society. Furthermore, I believe this vision is supported by and anticipates developments in scientific fields such as neuroscience and evolutionary biology.

New York Times Editorial

From New York Times columnist David Brooks, here's a link to a sobering editorial about the state of our country. But as Brooks asserts, other forces are at work to get our country back on track. What I've tried to do as a writer and a poet, is 'translate' Whitman's vision out of its time and place in the nineteenth century, bring it through the horrors of the twentieth century, and provide it in the twenty-first century to enable the hope and faith in both our human nature and our democratic society.

The Perfect Wave Project: Expanding on Walt Whitman's Poetic Vision

The love of the body of man or woman balks account, the body itself balks account,
That of the male is perfect, and that of the female is perfect.
-- from Walt Whitman's "I Sing the Body Electric"

The peculiar circumstances of my life, I believe, have enabled a deep appreciation for Walt Whitman's poetic vision. Consequently I feel compelled to take up this vision, as I understand it, and promote it as well. Recognizing the limitations of poetry as art, and the written word in general, to induce cultural change, I've created another approach.

By drawing on the mythos and framing it poetically yet truthfully, and interjecting the arts, including poetry as art, we have a hypothetical basis for a spritual movement to address what may be a spiritual crisis in the modern democratic society. As we hope to maximize participation, we plan to make particular use of the communal, participatory arts.

Here I define spiritual crisis as narrow interests (including self-interest and "special interests") that threaten the integrity of the society as a whole. Recognizing the use of the term crisis depends on one's sense of urgency, and also recognizing the limits of our vision, we can act without sounding alarmist by making use of the term hypothetical. Furthermore, with no good measure of how successful we may or may not be, and fully expecting detractors, use of the term hypothetical can be deflective as we continue to act.

The Perfect Wave Project: Background

My first foray into poetry came at just before and after a crisis event in my life back in the late 1990's as I conceived and wrote a lengthy surfer poem about searching for the perfect wave. On one level, this search became a metaphor for the power of desire towards an unattainable ideal. While the poem works on more than one level, it seems to be a comment on the consumer culture of southern California. This poem, "Ballad of the Ancient Surfer," which initiates the rest of my poems, can be found on the Pages section of this blog.

My subsequent poems would be shorter, with a degree of continuity in them that addresses some of the issues raised by the opening poem. Reflected in my subsequent poetry is the assertion of the power of love over desire, but with a continued oscillation, conflict, and coalescence between the two. The influence of Walt Whitman's poetry and vision pervades my own poetry and lends itself to a vision of human salvation through body and soul liberation. The concluding three poems can also be found on the Pages section of this blog.

A general theme in all of my writing, including my fiction, can be described as the striving to rise above despair and the misanthropic impulse to attain a vision of hope and faith in our human nature. My contention is that the path to human salvation lies not by trying to live up to an individualistic ideal but through greater cultivation of that dynamic of our collective nature that can be described as both love or spirit.

In the Biblical passage where the Apostle Paul addresses the Cornithians, he makes reference to a "thorn in his side." Recognizing his own weakness, he'd appealed to God to remove this thorn. The answer, Paul relates as follows:

“But he said to me, 'My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness'.”

As I read the poetic genius as it appears to reflect and project the course of human evolution, it’s not about our pride in how we measure up to either an ideal or against others, but in the spiritual realization of how beautifully we can complement each other, from the sexual to the societal. Thus I offer something I’m calling The Perfect Wave Project as a means to harness our redemptive qualities, enabling our combined strengths to overcome our individual weaknessess, and getting us on the right track toward that greater end.

New York Times Editorial on a Reason to Be Optimistic

From the New York Times columnist David Brooks, here's a link to an editorial that gives reason to be optimistic.

Two Theories of Change from the Enlightenment Period

Attached is a New York Times editorial from the columnist David Brooks that addresses two approaches to change at the time of the Enlightenment.

Religion Need Not Divide Us

Here's a link to a commentary by the Dalai Lama published in the New York Times. He provides what I believe to be a good basis for interfaith harmony.

The Coming Famine?

Here's a link to a book review that warns of a coming famine. The argument is based on the often heard warning that the days of cheap oil, of which our food supply is based, are coming to an end. To be certain, I've read good arguments to the contrary, some that I've also posted links to in previous blogs. But in the wake of apolcalyptic musings, thought I'd post this here.

Leaving the Realm of the Prophets: Summarization

As we prepare to leave the realm of the prophets, I'll summarize what I beleive to be the most important points.

Concerning prophecy, I believe one would be right to be skeptical but wrong to be dismissive. The key disposition is humility.

Given the lamentable condition of the world, it's both fitting and proper to look to the fulfillment of prophecy as a means toward divine guidance. This is not to suggest we abandon science, reason, or common sense, but merely to recognize our human limitations to understand all of the mysteries of the universe. Again, the key disposition is humility.

Poetry can be used to render prophecy more serviceable by recognizing the symbols as manifestations of our human nature. For example, the dragon of our nature can represent the destructive and enslaving forces of greed for both wealth and power, and its use of fear towards those who might challenge it. Christ accepting the cross (a.k.a., the blood of the lamb) can represent the human capacity for love, faith, and sacrifice. The above examples are taken from the Biblical Book of Revelation.

What takes root and grows in the collective imagination matters, whether one believes in the prophecy or not. The use of myth, defined as the stories a society tells about itself, shapes how the individual sees his or her self in relation to the rest of the world body. While I've focused on Christian myth, this is not to exclude prophecy from other groups. As I advocated elsewhere for greater merging of the mainstream American culture with its indigenous culture, particular attention I believe should be paid to Native American prophecy.

The Native American prophecy of the Rainbow Warriors, for example, can be combined with that of Christian prophecy. The prophecy of the Rainbow Warriors foresees a time of environmental degradation when the earth would begin to die because of greed. At that time the Rainbow Warriors, a people regardless or color, race, or religion, would arise and save the people, animals, trees, and the earth. Using the symbols noted above, I'm suggesting the Rainbow Warriors should take up the cross and use it to slay the dragon.

While attempting to fulfill prophecy, the old adage applies: "Man proposes, God disposes." Once again humility is the key. But as the meek may well inherit the earth, my interpretation is that this is no call for passivity but a call for action, such as that reflected in the early Christians as they overtook the Roman Empire. Because the year 2012 looms in the collective imagination, an opportunity for action is at hand.

In the Realm of the Prophets: How the Meek Can Inherit the Earth

Self-interest is human nature but because we're social beings, there can be a problem with how it sits with the soul and consequently can compromise human flourishing. I believe the optimal state of human actions are those that promote others as it also promotes one's self. Put another way, what's best for human biology is a society that reflects what I call the cross-cultural divine law of reciprocity, to love others as you love your self. As stated elsewhere, I believe such an existence to be compatible with the principles of a market economy.

The problem may not be self-interest so much but one's worldview that lends itself to self-justification of that self-interest. No one actually sees the world in its entirety yet we all have an 'idea' of the world that determines our actions. The problem comes as this 'idea' of the world is inextricably tied to our sense of self. Furthermore one's 'idea' of the world can be formed by an ideology that can be in conflict with the soul.

We can attain a sense of self through two means, though usually through some variation of both: comparison to others, or to a cultural ideal; or, through contribution to a greater collective. The former is problematic while the latter often fails to receive recognition and monetary compensation; consequently, our society is currently afflicted by some degree of demoralization.

Through vision, or projection of the soul, or primal soul, we can tell the human story from beginning to end. By drawing on the mythos and framing it poetically yet truthfully and interjecting the arts, we can tell the human story, in its diversity of forms, to induce the human spirit.  By telling the human story you enable the individual to awaken to the truth that affirms one’s sense of self derived from contribution as the appropriate foundation toward human flourishing for both the individual and society.

The problem comes with those whose sense of self is overly derived through comparison to others, that is , on the weak foundation of pride. Through the disparaging of others, for example, can falsely prop up one's sense of self, or group identity, probably to enable justification of their own actions. Those person's would have to undergo a painful adjustment to their sense of self by confronting the shameful truth. Yet its only painful because of the pride; the realization of the truth sets one free, so to speak, by awakening one's sense of self derived on the true foundation of contribution to the greater end.

However hypothetical or specualtive this line of reasoning may be, I'm suggesting it checks out with Christ's teachings, as follows:

"For whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted” (Matthew 23:12).

“Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.” (Matthew 5:5).

My interpretation of "meek" being a disposition of love and humility but not passivity. For more in depth reasoning about the process I've described above, readers can turn to past blogs, particularly from May 17 to July 4, 2010 as I describe the poetic genius as it reflects the course of human evolution.

In the Realm of the Prophets: Bringing Jesus Down to Earth as a Poet

So much has been made about Jesus in the religious sense -- being a prophet, the Messiah, the Savior, the Christ -- that we're apt to forget a more grounded sense that Jesus of Nazareth was also, essentially, a poet. The use of metaphor and symbolism in his parables, those short stories that convey a deeper truth, testify to this. Following his crucifixion, his own life would become a moving story and a powerful symbol that captures our imagination to this day.

Throughout the modern era we've been exhorted to "rise above" our human nature for the sake of reason or a moral ideal; and consequently, we often set ourselves up to fail, disdaining others as we disdain ourselves. Instead, I argue, we need to work with our nature and in so doing, begin to restore faith in our nature, loving others as we love ourselves.

The modern era has exalted reason, but as the poet Dante dramatized in the symbolic form of the poet Virgil, reason only leads us so far. And as the modern poet Walt Whitman exhorted, we can better discover a sense of our divinity through embracing the primal; for the truth is, we are animals, but we're social animals capable of reflecting that dynamic of our collective nature called love.

Culture, including religion, is not static but evolves over time. Through the crucifixion of Jesus, we have a powerful symbol that extends beyond the religious-cultural context of personal salvation; we have both the representation and the inspiration for the best of our nature, the human capacity for love, faith, and sacrifice that can lead us to human salvation. My assertion is that we can better draw on this power in the mythos, as we continue to make our way on the path of the poetic genius:

Through our poets with their heads in the clouds
we can welcome Christ Jesus riding down:
the Kingdom of God lies within you.

In the Realm of the Prophets: Restoring the Fall of Man

As addressed in the previous blog, the allegory of the Fall of Man addresses broadly the problem of the human condition and specifically the dispiritualizing affects of the fall into self-conciousness. When Christ comes onto the scene and says that to follow him one must pick up the cross and deny the self, I expect he's redressing this same problem of the human condition; he is exhorting his followers to move beyond the consciousness of the self and attain the spiritual realm of a collective consciousness and the feeling of unity with God and others.

Yet it is this feeling that's proved elusive in human history. Without question, the early Christians achieved it and sustained it on such a level as to overtake the Roman Empire, despite its daunting persecutions, thus attesting to its power to transform. As reflected in the verse from the Biblical Book of Hebrews, cited in the previous blog entry of October 4, there was a sense of a new convenant where people would no longer didactically proclaim “know the Lord” but feel it, with the commandments regarding their neighbors imbued on their hearts.

But as Christianity became an institution it inevitably conforms to some degree or other to the ways of the world for its operations and thus becomes more mundane; and it's back to telling people to “know the Lord” with the peculiar addition to “know Jesus” as well. In the modern era, following the horror of the First World War with its participant nations predominatly Christian, the writer D.H. Lawrence bristled against the moral order of his day. From his book Apocalypse, Lawrence wrote as follows:

With Jesus, a new thing came into the world. And we can say with confidence, that no further thing will ever come into the world again, without a further new breath of love, and of tenderness.

It is a certain feeling that were after, one that can also be sustained. To harness it, I expect it will come through a greater role for the arts in revitalizing the moral culture. I imagine that the restoration of the Fall of Man will be an affective mix of insouciance and experience, truth, physicality, and a deep level of acceptance towards others and one's self. That all may seem quite distant from our current state of affairs. Yet we seem to get a glimpse of it from time to time, in the present and throughout human history, a feeling that maybe we're not so far as we may feel at times.

In the Realm of the Prophets: The Allegory of the Fall of Man

My poetic take on the allegory of the Fall of Man is that it's a story about consciousness, notably the dispiritualizing aspects of the fall into self-conciousness. Adam and Eve become self-conscious that they're naked, robbing themselves of being in the spirit. It is not their nakedness that's evil but the dispiritualizing feeling itself that we can't help but feel. Yet through certain means, however, such as an intimate relationship, this feeling can be alleviated.

There is more to this allegory as it represents the rendering of a complex notion, that of the evolution of human consciousness, into a more communicable narrative. The allegory also tells the story of our pride, that is, consciously setting ourselves apart from others and nature, or the fall into the consciousness of the individual self. Also reflected is this removal of ourselves from the natural processes such as that which occurred through the agricultural revolution.

Because we're also conscious of our own death, it induces fear that can also rob us of being in the spirit. Without question, one of the great selling-points of Christianity is its promise of eternal life through Christ. Yet there are other means that can alleviate the fear of death, such as one's consciousness being in the spirit of the collective; because while individuals die, the collective lives.

In the Realm of the Prophets: Love Flourishing Best in the Bed of Freedom

The previous blog may suggest that some day we'll do away with the didactic and religion in general and bask in the feeling of love. Maybe some day but I'm skeptical. Religion and the didactic, or religous doctrine, can be imbued with deep wisdom that the contemporary mindset can fail to appreciate. Yet it's also true that religious doctrine can also be stuck in the past and impair true progress. Cultures, including religion, evolve over time.

In the wake of the 1960's, we should recognize that feelings of 'love' can degenerate into the afflictions of the self. What feels like love and what truly is love can be quite different, especially regarding sexual or 'romantic' love; and here religious doctrine can help guide us. True love, as it appears to me, is the denial of the individual self to attain a greater collective, or spiritual, experience.

We're on the trail of the poetic genius because of its reflection on the course of human evolution. The writings of D.H. Lawrence would necessarily break moral taboos to advance the realization of the spiritual aspects of the body. Yet it also must be said that his writings, such as the novel Lady Chatterley's Lover) would help sow the seeds of the sexual revolution and the rise of casual sex, which can be dispiriting toward the body, and contribute to other social ills: the spread of sexually transmitted diseases, unwanted pregnancies, the breakdown of the family social unit, childhood poverty, hurt feelings, etc.

The sexual revolution, I believe, is an example of human evolution that probably would've inevitably occurred in the human drive toward freedom. Through the experience, however, we can better appreciate the sacred rite of marriage. Yet if the marriage is mere convention or coerced, such as through intimidation or threat of shaming or social ostracism, it can detract from the realization of the greater spiritual aspects that can be discovered in the marital unit. To my view, attaining a deep level of intimacy may only come through a corresponding deep level of committment, and that love flourishes best when given freely.

In the Realm of the Prophets: Evolution from the Didactic to the Inspirational

As the prophet Moses led the Israelites from slavery into freedom, he provided a collective narrative of the old covenant to help forge a collective identity. He laid down the law of the ten commandments, a didactic expression of morality. Subsequent prophets would come and qualify this moral culture. As the prophet Jesus of Nazareth came onto the scene, he is quoted in the gospel according to Matthew (5:17) as follows:

Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.

While Jesus would seemingly fulfill the prophecy of both Isaiah and John the Baptist, he would also expand on the didactic expression of the ten commandments (i.e., “thou shalt not...) to the more inspirational expression of love (see Matthew 22:37-40). Subsequently, the Apostle Paul would clarify to the Romans of the early Christian church as follows:

For the commandments …. are all summed up in this saying, namely, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” Love does no harm to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfillment of the law (Romans 13,14).

In the Biblical Book of Hebrews (9:10,11), the following verse refects the transition from the old convenant to the new covenant, from less of the didactic, or teaching approach and towards more of an inspirational, or love as a feeling.

This is the covenant I will make with
the house of Israel
after that time, says the Lord:
I will put my laws in their minds
and write them on their hearts.
I will be their God
and they shall be my people.
And they shall not teach their fellow citizens
or their brothers, saying, 'Know
the Lord,”
for all shall know me,
from the least of them to the greatest.

The Christian church in time would become an institution, break into various denominations, all talking about love, but the truly successful ones can feel it and sustain that feeling on some level. It is this dynamic of our collective nature that this project concerns itself.

In the Realm of the Prophets: On the Biblical Book of Revelation

Having come to Christianity through poetry, I'm inclined to take the Bible poetically rather than literally. Certainly some verses can be taken literally, such as what strike me as the essential teachings of Christ: love God and love each other. But to my view, taking the Bible literally while failing to recognize its poetry is like reading lyrics without hearing the music.

I won't go into the historical background of the Biblical Book of Revelation too much, but it's inseparable from its time and place: a time of Christian persecution by Roman authorities back in the days of the Roman Empire. Arguably, the prophecy of the Book of Revelation has already been fulfilled as Christianity overtook the Roman Empire. Yet Christians worldwide continue to look for the second coming of Christ and that matters.

Christians can still act to acheive human salvation while maintaining that conviction that Jesus will physically return; and, I believe, it's common that many Christian churches promote such an approach. As I began this blog to express my vision -- my call in the blogosphere -- I didn't necessarily expect a lot of readers; I was conscious that if I only get one reader, it could still be all important if that one reader happens to be the right reader.

I ran into a guy in Eugene, Oregon who seemed to me to resemble Jesus in form and persoanlity, who struck me as a true poet and also happened to be jewish. If I run into him again, I'll ask him if it ever occurred to him that he might be the second coming of Christ. But short of a literal realization of the Book of Revelation, we should also explore poetic realizations in the fulfillment of prophecy, such as that which I alluded to in the previous blog.

In the Realm of the Prophets: How to Slay a Dragon

By introducing a romantic element in the form of a dragon, representing the human passion for greed in both wealth and power, we can address the problem while avoiding casting blame on any particular person or group. As we're promoting a vision that validates both the maladapted and well adapted alike, we hope that those who've attained whatever degree of wealth and power, or wealth and status, will use their position to promote love for the greater good in its myriad of forms.

Furthermore, by using symbols to represent certain aspects of our human nature, we avoid the 'us' and 'them' mindset that so enables the dragon in its rationale, such as the stoking of nationalism. By casting light on the issue, it can enable us to see with greater clarity of greed as a destructive force; the dragon hides in false narratives as stated in the previous blog of September 22.

So how do we slay a dragon? There's only one way that occurs to me, taken from a poetic verse in the Biblical Book of Revelation (12:13):

They defeated him
by the blood of the Lamb
and by the word of their testimony;
they did not love their lives so much
as to shrink from death

Put another way, you have to pick up the cross and slay the dragon, as Jesus states according to Biblical Book of Mark (8:34):

"If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me."

The narrative of Christ accepting the cross is a narrative symbolizing a deep sense of love and faith, among other virtues. Thus to overcome the dragon, representing greed in both power and wealth, we draw on the power of the cross, representing a deep faith in the human capacity to love, though it may not be of benefit to our lives individually. This is both an internal and external human struggle for the best of our nature to overcome the destructive forces of our nature.

Does this mean we're fulfilling prophecy? That's what we're trying to do as we seek divine guidance in human salvation. But the old adage applies here: Man proposes, God disposes.

In the Realm of the Prophets: Rooting Out the Dragon of our Human Nature

Given the lamentable state of the world, it's a characteristically human endeavor to beseech the heavens for divine guidance. To appeal to God, or whatever cosmic forces there may be in existence, to give us the means in which to address the woes that continually plague us through the centuries and presently threaten all of life on earth through either environmental degradation or nuclear obliteration -- so we will and we do.

The predominant cosmic force that I cite in this blog is the poetic genius and how it relates to the course of human evolution. By citing the poetic genius in relation to both human nature and human history, my argument goes, one can then make a projection as to where we need to go as a society. The modern era has exalted science, education, and reason but has failed to contend adequately with human passions; thus we find ourselves in the realm of the prophets.

In the previous blog entries, I addressed the fatal human passion of greed, in both wealth and power. But ask yourself, who among us -- especially as Americans -- has not strived to increase their wealth and power, or wealth and status? It is our nature, to be sure, and inextricably tied to our self-esteem, our ability to attract a mate, our level of security, etc. The problem we must recognize, however, if we're to truly learn from history, as Thucydides invites, is disarming this passion from becoming a destructive force. Unlike Thucydides, however, to acheive this we'll have to introduce a romantic element.

As the poet makes use of narrative, we can insert a romantic element from western myth in the form of a dragon. The hoarding dragon of myth, whose nature is to consolidate wealth and perch on his position to instill fear across the land should anything or anybody threaten that wealth, is representative of the human passion of greed for both wealth and power. Here I'm suggesting we have a dragon to slay.

In the Realm of the Prophets: Discerning the Cause of War

The often heard refrain that history repeats itself isn't true; yet certain patterns can be discerned, particularly as it relates to human nature. Because the French forces under Napoleon were largely defeated because of its disastrous invasion of Russia, it's tempting to say that history repeated itself when the German forces under Hitler were also largely defeated because of its siliarly disastrous invasion of the Soviet Union (as the state of Russia was referred to at that time in World War II). While it's tempting to say Hitler failed his history lesson, the circumstances, in fact, were unique; the German Army, for example, was far more mechanized and capable of a decisive blow before the onset of winter.

But as we turn again to Thucydides, let us ultimately not fail our history lesson as we attempt to discern the truth about our human nature. This, I believe, can be summarized eloquently by Edith Hamiliton, excerpted from her book, The Greek Way:

It was something far beneath the surface, deep down in human nature, and the cause of all the wars ever fought. The motive power was greed, that strange passion for power and possession which no power and no possession satisfy. Power, Thucydides wrote, or its equivalent wealth, created the desire for more power, more wealth.

Why we find ourselves in the realm of the prophets at the end of this so called, "Age of Reason", to draw on science, is because neuroscientists have demonstrated that the ability to reason is inseparable from emotion. Thus we must contend with the passions that underlie our reason, including our rationales for war. Napoleon saw himself as spreading the enlightenment. Hitler saw himself as fulfilling a German destiny of becoming the master race. Here in America, we must guard against rationales for war that invoke the spreading of freedom and democracy when in truth, partial or otherwise, the motives go deeper.

With the onset of the enlightenment, it was thought that through education and reason, humans would progress. Since the onset of the First World War, that view has dimmed. We're in the realm of the prophets to discover that which can contain our destructive passions.

In the Realm of the Prophets: the Historian Thucydides and the Past Phenomena of Prophecy

The Ancient Greek Thucydides was not a prophet but a historian renowned for his chronicle of the Peloponnesian War. This conflict, between the ancient Greek city states of Athens and Sparta, would encompass most of all of Greece (or Hellas) and bring an end to that special time in human history known as the Golden Age of Greece. When addressing the subject of prophecy, Thucydides is one such "voice of reason" worth citing because early in his narrative, Thucydides strives to set himself apart from any entertainment factor in order to confront the truth of human nature, as he describes in the following passage:

And it may well be that my history will seem less easy to read because of the absence in it of a romantic element. It will be enough for me, however, if these words of mine are judged useful by those who want to understand clearly the events which happened in the past and which (human nature being what it is) will, at some time or other and in much the same ways, be repeated in the future. My work is not a piece of writing designed to meet the taste of an immediate public, but was done to last for ever.

While the circumstances of historical events may change, human nature remains constant; consequently, if one knows human nature, one can make projections based on models of human nature, and thus to some degree predictions. Drawing on the mythos, the poet can then symbolize either extreme by referring to it as either heaven or hell on earth. This would be introducing a romantic element that Thucydides clearly distances himself from. Yet in the subsequent paragraph from the passage quoted above, Thucydides nevertheless felt compelled to cite what appeared to him to be the phenomena of prophecy at that time, as excerpted below.

Old stories of past prodigies, which had not found much confirmation in recent experience, now became credible. Wide areas, for instance, were affected by violent earthquakes; there were more frequent eclipses of the sun than had ever been recorded before; in various parts of the country there were extensive droughts followed by famine; and there was the plague which did more harm and destroyed more life than almost any other single factor. All these calamities fell together upon the Hellenes [ancient Greeks] after the outbreak of war.

As Thucydides wrote his history not for the immediate public but to last in time, so we have a timeless affirmation of what appeared to be the phenomena of prophecy reminiscent of the new testament Biblical Book of Revelation and the unleashing of the four horsemen of the apocalypse -- but over four hundred years before Christ. But again, as I noted in the previous entry, it's not that I argue that one shouldn't be skeptical, I only argue that one should not be dismissive.

In the Realm of the Prophets: Moving into the Shaky Ground of Prophecy

When addressing the subject of prophecy, my position is that one would be right to be skeptical but wrong to be dismissive. Before getting too far onto the subject, it would be prudent to review what is perhaps the most notable folly among humankind. As I cited in the earlier blog of June 19 in how it relates to our ability to reason, the following quote from the writer Montaigne is partiuclarly relevant to the phenomena of prophecy:

But reason has taught me that to condemn a thing thus, dogmatically, as false and impossible, is to assume the advantage of knowing the bounds and limits of God’s will and of the power of our mother Nature; and that there is no more notable folly in the world than to reduce these things to the measure of our capacity and competence.

As the year 2012 nears, because the Mayan calendar inexplicably ends at that year, interest in the prophecy and speculation about the end of the world as we know it has increased. Though one may not believe in a particular prophecy, the fact that others believe in it matters, affecting their actions and consequently your own: no man is an island, as John Donne put it. The prophecy of the second coming of Christ has particularly taken root in the collective imagination. But as 2012 nears, we should also note in American history what's referred to as "the Great Disappointment". At that time many nineteenth-century Americans expected the return of Jesus Christ in 1844 but, disappointingly, failed to show up, at least in physical form; and human history as we know it continues.

In the Realm of the Prophets: The Voice of One Calling in the Blogosphere

The importance of a projection in the outcome of human history is that it can lend the individual validity to their lives as they strive to shape this outcome -- if it is believed to be the truth. My problem from when I first achieved this vision, in 2002, to my present predicament here in 2010, is my limited credibility and means to express this vision. Hence, I am but a voice among many calling in the blogosphere.

Since 2002, my creative inspiration has striven to provide a rational argument, citing other recognized visionaries and creating a synthesis. But throughout I've been ever conscious of the limitation of both reason and the written word; consequently I've also strived to create something that can be conveyed through the arts beyond the written word. Sometimes I use the analogy of a new kind of instrument to enable other poets and artists, making it their own in some way or other, to create a new kind of music.

My revelations about Whitman and the soul came in what seemed a rapid succession that coincided with a spiritual awakening specifically to Christianity but also generally to an appreciation toward all religions. Having been an agnostic up to that point, exalting science and reason, I retain my respect for both science and reason, only recognize their limitations.

I also remain conscious of how a Christian often appears to a nonbeliever, that of one who's abandoned reason for the psychologically comforting notion of a life after death and a God looking out for us. While there may be that dynamic at play, to some degree or other, I see how Christianity can be a force to shape the course of human evolution and attain human salvation.

Following my initial vision and spiritual awakening in 2002, I began reading through the Bible. To date, having read through all of the new testament and some of the old, it seems to me the divine message as conveyed through Jesus is clear enough: love God and love each other. Our challenge is to realize it. As our path begins to take us deeper into the realm of the prophets, we'll have to move into that shaky ground of prophecy.

Poem: Tower One

The following poem I wrote in the aftermath of the attacks on September 11th, 2001.

Tower One

What heights
we had known,
story upon story,
borne of concrete
and steel, only
to collapse into
a crumbled heap
of smoldering
rubble, burning
jet fuel.
What meaning,
sifting through
ash and smoke
trailing off into
September blue
the reflections in
the broken glass.
What last message
from the doomed,
by email or phone,
story after story,
the three words
of the death bloom.
What heights
inspiring we'd
come to know,
story after story
borne of flesh
and bone; that is
the human story,
a message lasting,
and hope renewed
that lives in me
and lives in you.
At the cornerstone
of foundation new
place one message
that says, I love you.

In the Realm of the Prophets: Seeing through the Lens of the Soul

For the poet, it's less about attaining knowledge of the soul so much as being impressed by it in a deep and profound revelation of sympathy, a recognition of the human desire to love and be loved at the core of our being. Whitman, through his poetry, subsequently strives to provide vision and validation to his democratic brethren (in contrast to validation, the deeply wounded Rimbaud lashed out in derision). As the circumstances of my own situation enabled me to see, on some level, what I believe Whitman saw, so I became acutely conscious of the limitations of poetry as art to achieve those ends. Subsequently I've created a poetic framework through which the arts can be injected.

The soul is the key to vision because through its lens one can make sense of the present and project a greater future. Putting a more secular spin on it, one can make sense of the present and project a greater future through the lens of the primal past. Use of the word primal soul draws from a little bit of both the mystic and the scientific. At any rate, both heaven and hell on earth are projections of either extreme social-emotional climate based on models of human nature.

Our attempts to progress through education and reason often fail to take into account this dynamic of our collective nature. Our ability negotiate through reason becomes impaired by the myriad of collective possibilities of group identity; in addition, there is also the threat -- real or perceived -- of invalidation and the human tendency to acquire knowledge not to question but reinforce one's viewpoint.

Through the lens of the primal soul, human history appears in a flux between the individual and the collective. The arc of human history appears as follows: on one end, the collective spirit of a hunting and gathering society with the individual acting in harmony with others and nature; then following the course of human history, through its tragedies and triumph, to arrive at the other end, toward the eventual triumph of the human spirit in a global society of individual freedom acting in harmony with others and nature.

L.A. Times Commentary on the Communal Aspects of the Free Market

As related to the previous blog, the above link to a commentary by Jonah Goldberg describes the communal aspects of the free market. Yet workers may not feel as part of a communal enterprise, often for legitimate reasons. The arts can help enable the worker to see and feel as a collective by way of the promotion of the human spirit. Walt Whitman's poem, "I Hear America Singing" is an example of art that strives to enable the worker to see and feel as part of something greater than the self.

In the Realm of the Prophets: Reflections on the Soul

But what exactly is the soul, one may ask? A fair question that I can only answer inexactly. For this blog I use it in the context of a couple of definitions. It is that part of us connected to everything else in the universe; this can be one definition. Another is derived from that part of us which relates to the greater collective, the fact that we evolved as social beings in a hunting and gathering society. As I ever strive to come down out of the mystical to act in the grounded, I commonly use the latter definition (and also for this purpose, I often use the term primal soul).

It is often said that we are all 'one', that we're all related. While I expect that's true, the modernist probably doesn't feel that way, which is a reality that we must contend with. Yet there's no denying our social emotions, such as shame, love, etc. Consequently, when referring to the soul, it's on surer ground when attempting to construct a persuasive argument to define it as related to the greater collective in the various forms it may take (i.e., marriage, family, community, nation, etc.).

Because of our soul, because of our collective nature, because of our capacity recognize one's own self in another through sympathetic love -- however one puts it -- the cross cultural divine law as laid down by the true prophets to love each other as you love yourself is ever the optimum of human flourishing. The harm one does to another, even though it may be unintended or the circumstances force one into it, will still register in the soul in the form of shame and dampen the spirit.

As D.H. Lawrence asserted in his time, the mind can go wrong. It is common that the mind doesn't recognize this internalized shame. Also common is to feel hatred to another because that other in some way causes the mind to confront the internalized pain of the shame. But rather than confront that painful, shameful truth, the mind often latches onto an imaginative construct of reality that validates one's actions. But it only validates on the level of the mind but not in the soul. And ironically, Lawrence's life serves as an example of this and suffered for it, as I interpret it, for running off with another man's wife.

The essential problem is our consciousness, our worldview, our imaginative construct of reality, being misaligned with the soul. One may cite competition and self-interest as a motivational force in human nature and not be wrong; but as much of the free market enables, it should be a force that ultimately promotes others as it promotes one's self. If it fails to do this in any way, no matter how much one may apply reason, human evolution won't rest until a society is attained that's aligned with the soul

In the Realm of the Prophets: By Way of Body and Soul

Despite his methods, Rimbaud was clearly on to something. What I suspect put Rimbaud off course onto the path of the rebel is that his intense moments of creative inspiration follow a suggested sexual injury of being raped, inflicted upon him from miscreant members of the Paris Commune. This traumatic event is suggested in his poem, Le Coeur vole ("The Stolen Heart") and what we may glean from his life at the time.

Unlike Rimbaud, my intense moments of vision and creative inspiration strike in the wake of me being involved in a sexual healing, that of my wife as described in the blogs of July 21 and 22. In a highly charged moment of sexual and spiritual healing, I had the distinct sense of what Jesus saw Magdelene, attaining knowledge of the soul through a deep level of intimacy. This lends itself to further speculation but for those uncomfortable with the idea of Jesus with a penis, perhaps he only got as far as laying his hands on her and the level of trust and ecstasy was enough to induce such an event. One may touch someone lovingly but not sexually but it's a fine line. As D.H. Lawrence put it, sex is deep touch, and it's a touch that can deeply heal or deeply injure.

I speculate that Whitman had also been involved in a healing, but at any rate, his assertions of the body being inseparable from the soul rang strikingly clear to me. Lawrence, in his critique on Whitman, summarizes the position as follows, from his Studies of Classic American Literature:

Whitman was the first heroic seer to seize the soul by the scruff of her neck and plant her down among the potsherds.
'There!' he said to the soul. 'Stay there!'
Stay there. Stay in the flesh. Stay in the limbs and lips and in the belly. Stay in the breast and womb. Stay there, Oh, Soul, where you belong.

In the Realm of the Prophets: Attaining Vision

Back in 2002, while my prose stagnated at the bottom of the slush pile and my poetry writhed in work-shop writing hell – always more of a dreamer than a writer – my floundering existence would stumble into the realm of the prophets. During that period, working as a produce clerk at the local grocery store and taking occasional creative writing classes at the nearby University of Oregon, a confluence of ruminations and events would come together in a synthesis and subsequent vision. My experience I found to be not unlike Whitman's as he described it in later writings looking back at his life:

I found myself remaining possess’d, at the age of thirty-one to thirty-three, with a special desire and conviction. Or rather, to be quite exact, a desire that had been flitting through my previous life, or hovering on the flanks, mostly indefinite hitherto, had steadily advanced to the front, defined itself, and finally dominated everything else.

It is this feeling of a "possessed" state of ecstatic imagination and creative inspiration that helps lend itself to a mystical interpretation. Also worth noting is the sudden appearance of order from chaos as seemingly unconnected musings and notions suddenly merge together into clarity of vision. Upon publication of the first edition of Leaves of Grass in 1855, Whitman stated that he'd fulfilled "an impervious conviction, and the commands of my nature as total and irresistible as those which make the sea flow, or the globe revolve." In his 1871 seer letter, Rimbaud famously described a similar process as follows:

For I is someone else. If brass wakes up a horn, it is not its fault. This much is clear: I am present at this birth of my thought: I watch it, I listen to it: I draw a stroke of the bow: the symphony makes its rumblings in the depths, or leaps fully-formed on to the stage.

This mystical creative process that upwells from the depths of one's being, poets, from ancient times into modern times, have referred to as "the muse". But in his quest to become a seer, it seems to me, that Rimbaud went about it the wrong way, a way that he would later renounce. At the time he imagined himself as "thief of fire" whereas, as the Hopi Elders describe it below, it's more about submission:

True Vision is never wholly personal and by its nature needs to be shared. It’s made of the stuff of Infinity. Vision is Great Spirit’s way of offering us the opportunity to strengthen our faith by presenting us with a glimpse of the Divine Plan. Following Vision can lead to extraordinary results. Our confidence grows with ourselves and our relationship with Spirit and we empower our hearts to lead as we stand witness to the miraculous nature of spiritual guidance. As a useful servant of the Divine you access your visionary self by invocating, ‘Thy Will be done through me.’

Crossing into the Realm of the Prophets

Continuing our trail as we attempt to blaze a path into the promised land, our course necessarily takes us through the realm of the prophets. The modern mindset tends to have a split view towards both prophets and prophecy. One view is dismissive while the other is enamored. The problem with both views is that they’re too removed from our everyday human experience. While one side may fail to acknowledge and draw on a cross-cultural vital force throughout human history, the other side may strike a deer-in-the-headlights kind of gaze, mixed with parts of both fear and adoration, that impedes action.

To bring the two views together toward action, I propose a demystification process, bringing prophets and prophecy down to earth to some degree as an impetus to action, while suggesting that through this earthly process will we better admire and revere the mysteries behind it. Recognizing the limitations of my own credibility, I will cite “voices of reason” at varying points as we proceed.

As I came to the realm through poetry, it is by way of poetry that we enter. In the previous blog entries beginning May 17 through July 4, I attempted to convey my vision and ground the project firmly in the realm of poetry. In the blog entry of July 7, I articulated why it is we have to cross over into the realm of the prophets: the modernist exalting of science, education, and reason has failed to adequately contend with human passions, notably the passion of greed for both wealth and power, that threaten our own destruction.

A Moral Compass Devised from Poetry

Getting back to Dante, who poetically dramatized that reason, symbolized by the poet Virgil, can only take us so far, and that we must look to love, symbolized by Beatrice, to take us the entire distance. From the poetic genius of Dante we can devise a kind of moral compass to be used less didactically than poetically, that is, as a means to inspire. Providing a visual chart, on one side represents the exploration of the depths of our nature, in a downward spiral of pride, greed, wrath, envy, gluttony, and lust. At the bottom we find a misanthropic culture writhing in shame and shaming, a kind of hell on earth.

From here we go back up to explore the heights by harnessing the redemptive aspects of our nature that recognizes a hierarchy of collectives. We ascend through sexual love, to family love, to community love, to national love, to human love, to divine love, the latter to include our collective dependence on all creation. At the top we reach a kind of heaven on earth of individual freedom acting in harmony with others and nature, a culture of sympathetic love, where the arts and outdoors lend rhythm to action (to craft a line from the shards of Rimbaud’s shattered dream). As noted, these collectives are hierarchical and should be achieved within the context of the above; for example, to avoid the evils of nationalism, a national spirit should be achieved within the greater context, or within concert, of the human spirit.

But this compass is just a tool with limitations. If it’s misused toward shaming, it means its taking you off course in the wrong direction. It’s simply a means to confront the truth of our nature and provide focus on the redemptive aspects of our nature. For the modernist dismissive of the so called “dark ages”, by drawing on the middle ages for inspiration is an act of contrition. We shouldn’t devalue any time or culture on earth, but incorporate whatever lessons we may glean and move forward. Here we’re in step with the rallying cry of contemporary, integral philosophers, such as Steve McIntosh, as we strive to “transcend and include”, which also hearkens to Whitman’s “reject nothing”.

Devising a Moral Compass

As described by my “On the Trail of Dante” series (see blog entries of July 19-22) I've experienced both heaven and hell on earth with a continued oscillation between the two planes. From this experience, I’ve devised a kind of moral compass, forged by the fires of hell, so to speak. As we stay in the metaphor of blazing a trail to the Promised Land, the use of a compass is merely an instrument to help find our way. Looking at my life one way, comparing myself to an individualistic ideal, I may well seem the last person to be providing anything to do with moral guidance. But that just might be the divine point of it all. As it appears to me, it is not so much our shortcomings but our redemptive qualities that we must harness towards our salvation.

The way it points is not to wealth, or power, or status, or even happiness. The magnetic north of this compass is love. Because love is not necessarily rewarded, recognized, reciprocated, or appreciated, to follow this compass may also court a gauntlet marked by poverty, debt, humiliation, sorrow, longing, regret, and bitterness. A true test of faith, in the Christian context it's referred to as “bearing the cross.” Following this compass, one will be tempted to chuck it down into the nearest chasm that presents itself; and who can blame anyone for doing this. To take such a path individually, one may well look and feel like a complete idiot, something akin to Cervantes' Don Quixote, the knight of the sad countenance.

Collectively, however, such a path can be transformative. What is it about our human nature that's capable of overriding self-interest? What is it about our human nature we must call upon to overcome the entrenched narrow interests that threaten our democracy? This would be the prospect of true progress through actions inspired with meaning beyond our individual existence. I believe it to be inherent in all of us and it is that which we're trying to tap into here.

Response to McKibben Editorial: Addressing the Specter of an Environmental Crisis

In an August 4, 2010 Los Angeles Times editorial, Bill McKibben called for "bodies, spirit, passion" in addressing the climate crisis in our midst. As a long time Sierra Club member, I’m sympathetic to such a call. But one must ask whether such a call will be taken up beyond a significant minority contingent and can it be sustained over a longer period of time. Because environmental issues are essentially moral issues, there is a tendency for such calls to lapse into didacticism that not only fails to inspire beyond a significant contingent but conversely, lends itself to further demoralization.

For the reasons cited above, to be successful, I argue, the environmental movement should be part of a broader spiritual movement. What we’re up against is the limitations of education, science and reason to induce change. In Plato’s Republic, Socrates cites an “ancient argument”, or difference between poetry and philosophy (i.e., mythos and logos) that I submit continues to this day. By taking a poetic approach to human progress we can appeal to the totality of our human nature to induce change. At a time when top down incremental change may not be enough to address the challenges before us, a poetic approach provides the opportunity for bottom up culturally transformative change.

Moral cultures have been revitalized throughout human history to shape the individual’s relationship to the greater collective, to include the environment. By drawing on the mythos and framing it poetically yet truthfully, to tell the human story, an appeal can be made that goes deeper than the level of reason to induce the spirit, or inspiration. Through the promotion of a poetic approach and the use of symbol, metaphor, and narrative, we can frame it as spirit (the individual acting in harmony with others and nature) versus pride (the individual acting in discord with others and nature.

Use the “promised land” to symbolize a collective vision capable of overriding and incorporating one’s individual vision. Use the metaphor of moving from the land of the dead to the land of the living to illustrate our move towards sustainablity. Use the narrative of the prodigal son and interject the arts to cast light as to the individuals role in the outcome. Such an appeal can provide an invitation difficult to refuse, or difficult to disengage from.

Because we’re addressing issues rooted in deep historical and cultural circumstances (such as the agricultural and industrial revolutions, for example) and how we're socialized into the present in relation to how we evolved in the primal past, a poetic approach enables it more engaging. Furthermore, by staying in the metaphor can provide some alleviation to the bitter divisions and provide focus on the truth of our plight. Most important, by framing it as spirit versus pride, it can provide a glimpse of how this story ends: inidvidual freedom ultimately must be sustained by love for the collective, or collective spirit; and whether that’s Christlike love or the triumph of the human spirit is open for interpretation and can be both.

New York Times Editorial about Food Supply

Here's an editorial that challenges my inclination toward relocalization. Having been in the food supply business for many years it is of personal interest.

Turning Vision into Action

Inevitably, the question arises, how does one initiate a spiritual movement? Or, put another way, how does one go about turning vision into action? Having given much thought on the subject, I arrived at some pluasibilities that can be articulated in time. Currently, given my limited credibility and resources, to date I've had to focus on publication. But here I'll provide a glimpse of how we can literally take to the streets.

Once some organization begins to come together, we act local while dreaming global: promoting community spirit within the greater context of the human spirit. First you start with a general heading followed by a general purpose, for example: The Promised Land Project. Purpose: promoting the human spirit through poetry and the arts. Such a definition is fairly innocuous but if one should begin to feel, and believe they can sustain, a sense of urgency, in time such a purpose can evolve as follows: addressing a spiritual crisis in the modern democratic society.

Then you attach a subject for a specific action, for example: canning blemished fruit into preserves. Obviously, this is a very specific action to make greater use of resources. So you bill a meeting as follows:

The Promised Land Project: canning blemished fruit into preserves.

When the notion of a full-fledged spiritual movement may seem far-fetched -- and one should expect to encounter such moments -- one can break it down to the more manageable pursuit of “keeping up the spirits”, so to speak. Toward this end, one can bill another meeting as follows:

The Promised Land Project: dancing in the streets.

The above can serve as a new kind of public demonstration to keep up one's own spirits while attracting others to the cause. Such a demonstration also has certain advantages over the warmed-over, 1960's version. For those who put forth meetings or demonstrations, it is expected to be a mutually beneficial relationship, promoting others as we promote ourselves. The key to success is developing mutually beneficial relationships and enabling individuals and groups to make it their own in some form or other.

L.A. Times Editorial: A Conservative Perspective

Refreshing to read David Klinghoffers articulation of the conservative position, for now I believe calmer heads will prevail and the seeds of a synthesis are beginning to take root in the culture wars. Where conservatives erred, I believe, is revealed in his lament that liberalism reduced humans to “mere animals.” The truth is, we are animals, but we're social animals capable of reflecting that dynamic of our collective nature called love. Had we been able to better appreciate that prophet of our modern democratic society, Walt Whitman, we might have saved ourselves a lot of strife. We can more clearly recognize the divine in ourselves by embracing and celebrating the animal within, not by consciously setting ourselves apart from them.

At-risk teens shine on stage - Entertainment - The Orange County Register

At-risk teens shine on stage - Entertainment - The Orange County Register

Here's an article on the use of the arts for at-risk teens.

On the Trail of Dante: Towards a Vision of Paradise

“The highway of Love ends at the foot of the Cross” -- D.H. Lawrence

The acquired knowledge of the soul, as described in the previous blog, would induce a rapid succession of revelations, causing a foundational shift in my worldview and how we can truly progress as a society, and enable a projection of a kind of heaven on earth. The muse of ecstatic imagination and creative inspiration, that before had seemed to tease me along as a writer, suddenly seized upon me and poured right through me as my attention turned to transforming this vision into action.

Furthemore, my casual musings on love would synthesize into a spiritual awakening and "road to damascus" kind of experience of ecstatic illumination: take love far enough, it is self-sacrifice for the greater collective, hence the symbolism of Christ accepting the cross and the representation that God is love. As the Romans crucified Jesus of Nazareth at calvary to set an example, symbolizing their power and instilling fear, the fact that that same symbol would come to represent the power of love – eventually overtaking the Romans before their empire dissolved into history – that remains an effective force to this day, strikes me as a miracle and enough to make me a believer.

After years of a floundering existence marked by failure and rejection, at that time in 2002, I thought I'd finally arrived, and perhaps I did. But my life would resume an existence blessed in many respects while accursed in others. From the heights of basking in divine love, I fell back into the ways of the fallen world, retaining a degree of oscillation between the regions of both heaven and hell. On some level I've tried to accept this as my fate, as expressed in my poem, “The Poet that Rides the Waves” (see blog entry on June 27) while my spiritual journey continues.

On the Trail of Dante: Ascending beyond Purgatory

The picture of myself posted on the blog, by the way, is taken from “Dante’s View” in Death Valley National Park overlooking the valley, one of the hottest and lowest places on earth.

From a spiritual low point and crisis in 1997, by 2002, following Whitman and love in general, I’d ascended to a kind of purgatory. But like Virgil in Dante’s epic, Whitman could only take me so far. Dante would have his Beatrice, and so it would seem, I would have mine.

Based on my experience, a person may bare their heart upon occasion, but to bare one's soul is something quite different and a rarer occurence. My wife bared her soul to me on two separate occasions: the first time, in our hellish days, I couldn’t appreciate it at the time; yet both occurrences would shake me to the core. The second time, however, because of my ruminations on Whitman and the experience of my own personal odyssey, it would seem to set off a chain reaction within me and induce a rapid succession of revelations.

Through a physical act of sexual love and healing came immediate clarification as to what had put her in the depths of hell, through no fault of her own, the ramifications of a past of repeated childhood sexual abuse. But beyond the personal, I came to appreciate how a shameful truth, that the mind can fail to recognize, impairs our reason and alters our world view. Furthermore, I came to appreciate inextricability of love and the truth. Coming forward with the awful truth and finding love is how we can save each other on earth.

On the Trail of Dante: Surviving and Ascending in Hell

In the previous blog I described how I found myself in hell. As a means to help survive hell on earth is Henry Miller's book, Tropic of Cancer. While I don't expect many pastors to recommend the book to their congregation, to me it's a kind of Book of Job for the modern era. For the suicidal, launching into the "to be or not to be", it's tough to kill yourself with the image of Henry Miller across the room laughing at you. Furthermore, it was through Tropic of Cancer that I came to the poetry of Walt Whitman, who in time would prove to be my Virgil. In Dante's epic, the poet Virgil represents human reason, and what I appreciate about Walt Whitman is that he never asks me to abandon reason (unlike some pastors). Finding my way out of hell would be through love but such a route is not always clear. After a personal crisis where I stood at the edge of the abyss and looked down, I began to follow Whitman. Through Whitman did I come to appreciate that love and happiness are not one and the same. Abandoning the pursuit of happiness, which proved to be ever elusive, I instead initiated the pursuit of love. In the pursuit of love, to love for love's sake, so I began ascending from the depths.

On the Trail of Dante: My Journey into Hell

Having been raised secular, my spiritual journey began in poetry and can be described with some allusion to Dante's Divine Comedy. It begins in the dark wood of despair, as prospects for both myself and our consumer society began to dim. Proud in my existential reason and libertine notions of sexuality, I at least had the prospects of curvy women to stir my senses and propel me forward toward some promise and alleviation in life. So I set out in the pursuit of happiness, driven by passion and novelty.

Coming of age after the sexual revolution, I applied my moral reasoning: it's natural, it's consensual, it's expected without necessarily any commitment. But on some level deeper than reason, I cared for these women and they care for me. After the inevitable disenchantment and break up, there were tears, sorrow, and shame. What's more, the promise and the realization began to increasingly diverge.

Being a restless spirit in my youth, my life would lapse into an odyssey of wandering that carried me across the country, never achieving a sustainable level of satisfaction, and never staying in any one place, job, or relationship for very long. This accumulation of shame -- something that the mind doesn't completely pick up on -- carried me in a downward spiral to the depths and the realm of shame and despair, the manifestation of hell on earth.

New York Times Editorial on Corporations and the State

Like many progressives, I have a level of distrust towards corporations and their political influence in our democratic society, especially concerning the environment. But here's an editorial by New York Times Columnist David Brooks that gives me pause to look at the issue in another way. Brooks, I believe, raises some important issues.

Coming Down off the Precipice: My Essential Message

“The condition of men is the result of their disunion.” – Tolstoy (from The Kingdom of God is Within You).

As we come down off the precipice where I'd strived to provide you with a view of the Promised Land and how we can get there, I realize it's a lot to take in. But to intone the concluding lines of "Song of Myself", if you didn't catch it there, keep encouraged, some where it should make common sense.

When neuroscientists demonstrated the ability to reason is inseparable from emotion, it's as though the mask had been ripped off the the so called "Age of Reason" and revealed the ugly face of pride. After that we began to move into the realm of the prophets (who've been contending with human passions through the centuries) and so began a race to connect the dots and the question of freedom or slavery may be in the balance.

Whitman had attempted to put us on track: Of physiology from top to toe I sing,/ Not physiognomy alone nor brain alone is worthy for the/ Muse, I say the Form complete is worthier far. In 2002, I'd cracked the Whitman code, so to speak, and since then the Muse of ectatic imagination and creative inspiration enabled the creation of a hypothetical basis for a spiritual movement to get the country back on track. This I tried to articulate in the past blog entries beginning May 17 through July 4.

Herein lies the danger. One can be sympathetic to human nature but not human freedom. Humans evolved in a hunting and gathering society where they could feel as a collective that enables to keep individual passions in check. Since then societies have become increasingly complex leaving the individual feeling isolated. One may use sound reason and say, poor human, he can't help but follow his destructive passions, he needs a set of chains.

My essential message is that by way of the arts and the imagination, humans can feel as being part of a collective by way of the human spirit to enable individual passions to be kept in check. To date, Americans have sustained a certain degree of freedom but with the jails overcrowding and the limits of economic expansion called into question, the future is dubious. In times of fear and insecurity, often the tendency of human nature is to court authoritarian regimes, which can come from either the political left or right, to lay down the law in coercive measures. Yet I do not wish to cause any unnecessary alarm as these are models and projections of human nature relative to society in all its complexities.

A View from the Precipice: Freedom balanced by Love

I believe history is on the side of freedom. We are free to live for only our own self and not without sound reason do we do so. But there's no getting away from the fact that we're social beings tied to the earth; there's no getting away from what one might call the soul. Ideologies that exonerate freedom at the expense of others and nature disgraces freedom and, ultimately, jeopardizes it as well.

It is often said, with freedom comes responsibility. While I believe that's true, in my vision freedom ultimately must be sustained by love. Human history appears to be in a flux between the individual and the collective; and individual freedom is ultimately balanced by love for the collective, or collective 'spirit'. Here we must make greater use of the talents and gifts of our poets.

To my view, the modern era appears as that of an adolescent, young adult time. Free to create a sentimental, self-indulgent idea of our selves apart from others and nature, full of our reason, confident in our scientific reductionism, thinking ourselves old enough to do away with childish myths, we struck out towards that distant land in the pride of the self. Granted freedom, we thought we could live a life of self-interest if only other people would be more educated, more reasonable, or more responsible. But as I see it, human salvation will never come through an individualistic ideal, whether based on reason, morality, or the propagation of media images; human salvation comes through greater realization of our collective nature.

On the trail of the poetic genius, we come to the parable of the prodigal son, a story that ripely lends itself to a collective narrative towards a kind of spiritual movement. Yet I find myself sympathetic to the plight of the prodigal son and one senses the father is as well. Because by going off into the distant land, one learns more of the wisdom of the father than had they never ventured out there. Not like how the modernist who looks down on the middle ages as the so called "dark ages", I expect we'll look back at the modern era with dramatic sympathy, marked by tragedy and triumph, a period of learning nonetheless.

Through the promotion of a collective narrative, it can provide an invitation difficult to refuse, or difficult to disengage from. It casts roles that others may find in themselves, including those who reject it. While marked by an air of festivity, it calls into question one's sense of self, eroding away at the false pedestal, and enables an awakening towards the truth of our plight and the individuals role in its outcome. All together, the project provides a hypothetical basis for a spiritual movement capable of purging pride from the land, or at least to a critical degree towards the restoration of harmony and balance.

Providing a Collective Narrative

Come Out and Dance

Strike up the music of the band
Prepare the way for the fatted calf
The prodigal son is coming home.

He’s tired of slaving in the mud
While all his gifts and all his love
Go wasted on his mortal pride.

So turn that water into wine,
Long live spirit and death to pride.
The rebel son is homeward bound.

Spread the news across the land
Come out and sing, come out and dance
The age of poetry has begun.

Come share your gifts and I’ll share mine
We’ll build on something worthy of time
And the triumph of the Spirit will be won.

Better to look the fool than be the fool
Having learned the wisdom of the rule
To love each other as you love yourself.

Come dear brother, take my hand,
A house divided cannot stand.
It’s time we were a family once again.

Charity for all and malice toward none,
Come welcome home the prodigal son
Tomorrow we’ll work the fields again.

Come sing the human spirit above
All that divides and occludes our love:
Love each other as you love yourself.

So strike up the music of the band
We’re blazing a trail for the Promised Land:
Heaven on earth lies within you.

Transcending the Land of the Dead

"True Vision is never wholly personal and by its nature needs to be shared." -- Hopi Elders

The reader would be right to be skeptical. As we come to a precipice in the trail, if one can catch a glimpse of the Promised Land, one can also see obstacles that lie ahead even more clearly. Yet I feel compelled, at least on some level, to promote this poetic approach to human progress because, if in truth I have a gift for vision, it is something that needs to be shared.

It seems we've lost our way as a society and appears we've found ourselves in the land of the dead. While this analogy can refer to the environmental challenges that appear before us, it also makes reference to a certain death of the spirit. Individuals die but only the collective lives; to live for the pride of the self with disregard for the greater collective is to live a life of the walking dead. To be sure, it's a complex society and where we go from here is less clear.

As it appears to me, we can begin to transcend the consumer culture by turning our attention to our contribution. Each of us has a unique body, a unique personal experience, a unique perspective; consequently, each of us has a unique contribution. By providing a collective vision (i.e., "the Promised Land") we begin to move our consciousness from a culture of individual consumption and toward a culture of collective contribution.

We then provide a collective narrative, drawn from the mythos, to be promoted in various forms. By interjecting this narrative with the arts, with particular emphasis on the communal arts of music and dancing, we can then lend rhthym to action in the promotion of community spirit in the context of the human spirit. Simultaneously, we are transforming our consciousness towards the joys of our collective nature.

Because we're all in the process of unsocializing ourselves, we'll be in the somewhat odd situation of trying to win over others to our cause while trying to win over our own selves (including yours truly). But in such a dispostion, we can maintain our sense of humility. Because we're trying to restore faith in our human nature, we're essentially promoting others as we promote our selves.

“There is a land of the living and a land of the dead, and the bridge is love.” -- Thornton Wilder

The Merging of Mainstream American Culture with its Indigenous Culture

At the Huntington Library in Pasadena, California, there's an original letter written in Walt Whitman's own hand that extols his countrymen and women to break the habit of always looking to Europe for the future and look instead to its own native influences, including its Native Americans. In this entry, I'll cite the catholic priest William Stolzman who does just this as described in his book, The Pipe and Christ. Stolzman's parish was on the Pine Ridge Reservation and there he chaired a series of dialogues concerning the Lakota and Christian religions. In his book, Stolzman argues, successfully I believe, in the compatible and complementary attributes of both religions. In the beginning of the book, Stoltzman describes the Lakota way of dialogue in the following excerpt:

In the Lakota way, speakers introduce themselves. Only after that do they proceed to the matter at hand. In telling their personal histories and related incidents, they display their attitudes and feelings toward those events and, more important, the impact those events have had on them. Thus their comments are spoken from a definite context, with definite attitudes which give their remarks a special integrity, meaning, wisdom and depth. Thus the hearer is able to appreciate both the experiences, preferences, and limitations of each speaker. Through their personal introductions, the speakers respectfully recognize that others may know other truths because others have different experiences and relationships to what is being talked about.

As the mainstream culture strives to become more Christlike as articulated in Rick Warren's book The Purpose Driven Life, it would be well served to examine the Lakota disposition as described above. Each of us has a limited perspective and yet a unique perspective shaped by personal experience. Given the heated public discourse and ideological division in the political sphere, we should ask ourselves, have we sold out our unique perspective, to be conveyed in a disposition of love and humility, to bleat someone else's ideology? We live in an increasingly complex society that's ripe for purveyors of simplistic ideologies that unnecessarily sow division and discord among the people.

The Problem of Pride

The Promised Land Project strives to restore a sense of divine purpose to our culture in part by tracing the poetic genius as it reflects the course of human evolution and provides a projection of where we need to go as a society. Prior to the Civil War, the nineteenth-century American poets and artists sensed a promised land at a time of westward expansion. In poems such as Walt Whitman's "Song of Myself" (1855) and paintings such as "Kindred Spirits"(1849) one can still sense and long for this promised land. Yet in each example one can also sense the problem of pride.

Here I define the problem of pride as the setting of one's self apart from others and nature, a state of being we are socialized into to some degree. The problem of pride has lent itself in the twentieth-century to demoralization and environmental degradation (see blog entry of June 14). Here in the twenty-first century, as it appears to me, the situation can be redressed by a kind of spiritual movement as I've articulated in previous blog entries.

In the religious sphere, books like Rick Warren's The Purpose Driven Life are important contributions towards achieving Christlike love and humility, the antithesis of pride. Yet a broader approach is needed and we can look to other cultures in time and space to enable our society to achieve a state of balance and harmony. By appreciating tragedy in the poetry of Ancient Greece as reflected in the drama Sophocles' Ajax, for example, we can glimpse how we can truly feel love for our enemies by way of the human spirit.

Leading up to the excerpt as follows, the Goddess Athena has cast a spell on Ajax, sealing his doom, because he'd plotted to kill Odysseus. We pick up the dialogue after Athena reveals the situation to Odysseus:

Athena: Do you see, Odysseus, how great the gods' power is? Who was more full of foresight than this man, Or abler, do you think, to act with judgment?

Odysseus: None that I know of. Yet I pity his wretchedness, though he is my enemy, for the terrible yoke of blindness that is on him. I think of him, yet also of myself; for I see the true state of all us that live -- we are dim shapes, no more, and weightless shadow.

Athena: Look well at this, and speak no towering word yourself against the gods, nor walk too grandly because you hand is weightier than another's, or your great wealth deeper founded. One short day inclines the balance of all human things to sink or rise again. Know that the god love men of steady sense and hate the proud.

While our mythos is different than that of ancient Greece, or the simple recognition of the mind's ability to cause a false perception, the above example can lend itself to the creation and reproduction of art towards a new era.

Beware of Academic Conformity

“Human salvation lies in the hands of the creatively maladjusted.” -- Martin Luther King, Jr.

As we continue our attempt to blaze a trail toward the Promised Land by way of the poetic genius, the project will necessarily have to attract participants of varying abilities, talents, and gifts who can act creatively in an attempt to change their world. But a problem arises in legitimate pressures towards conformity. On this subject, the poet John Keats states as follows, excerpted from an 1803 letter:

The Genius of Poetry must work its own salvation in a man: It cannot be matured by law & precept, but by sensation & watchfulness in itself -- That which is creative must create itself -- In Endymion I leaped head long into the Sea, and thereby have become better acquainted with the Soundings, the quicksands, & the rocks, than if I had stayed upon the green shore, and piped a silly pipe, and took tea & comfortable advice.

But as we attempt to blaze a trail, who wants to run into quicksand? To take such a chance, one needs a cause greater than their self, and this project strives to provide that -- and great art may come out of it.

Speaking of quicksand, beware the ossified academics who're guarded of their status and position at the university feeding trough -- as Rimbuad put it -- and intent to conform the budding poet or artist into a mediocre image of their own self in an attempt to shore up their own self-image. But this is not to say one can't learn from them (though some of the lessons may not be the ones they'd intended to teach). It's granted that those who've achieved status and recognition in their field have done so legitimately. No one should feel threatened by the Promised Land Project because, as it's closely tied to Whitman's vision, it validates. Its aligned with the integral philosophy mantra of "transcend and include", as articulated by the contemporary philosopher Steve McIntosh.

Calling for a New Brood of Bodies and Souls

In the previous blog I spoke the appearance of a crisis but I hope to avoid sounding alarmist. In a complex society such as our own, it can be difficult to ascertain the level of resilience in our society. The term crisis depends on one's sense of urgency.

In this blog I've tried to articulate a synthesis that demonstrates where we need to go as a society in the course of human evolution and how we can get there. But as I stated at the outset, I recognize the limitations of the written word and assert that some kind of spiritual movement must take place. Beyond paper and types, or paper and ink, or (computer)screen and types, we're trying to create a poetry of bodies and souls.

Short of a spiritual revolution, however, the project can be broken down into more tangible parts, such as "keeping up one's spirits" or simply promoting community spirit within the greater context of the human spirit.

While perhaps too presumptuous to claim patronage from the dead, I’ve correlated my approach to follow Whitman’s call as reflected in the poem below. Calling for a "new brood" of bodies and souls, the poem lends itself toward a festive approach, as reflective in the poem, "Poets to Come" (somewhat misconfigured):

Poets to come! Orators, singers, musicians to come!
Not to-day is to justify me and answer what I am for,
But you, a new brood, native, athletic, continental, greater
Than before known,
Arouse! For you must justify me.

I myself but write one or two indicative words for the
future,
I but advance a moment only to wheel and hurry back in the
darkness.

I am a man who, sauntering along without fully stopping, turns
a casual look upon you and then averts his face,
Leaving it to you to prove and define it,
Expecting the main things from you.

Going to the Mythos in Times of Crisis

As noted in a previous blog, I reiterate the value of cultural diversity. Cultures have evolved over time and have withstood the test of time. When a crisis appears on the horizon, it is to our benefit to be able to draw on the vast array of human experience to meet the challenge. That said, a crisis has appeared on the horizon in our democratic society. Entrenched narrow interests (to include self-interest and "special interests") and a divided political sphere threaten our society as a whole. This can be described as a crisis of the spirit. To meet this crisis we should not fear to go to our mythos, the dynamic of our moral culture. As demonstrated in previous blogs, under the auspices of poetry, we can make vital use of the symbols capable of inspiration.

"If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me." (Mark 8:34)

While such symbols can lend themselves to the ascetic and the didactic, the Promised Land Project, grounded in poetry, strives to make use of them inspirationally. To simply state, didactically, "What would Jesus do?" is of limited value and easily can create a negative affect. Self-interest is human nature and the use of moralizing and shaming in an attempt to transcend entrenched interests in a complex society is more apt to degenerate the public discourse.

Yet while recognizing self-interest is part of human nature, we must also recognize the dynamics of our collective nature, such as our capacity to love. By differentiating between the mythos and religion, we can draw on such symbols and frame them poetically, yet truthfully, then interject the arts as a means to inspire.

The essential function of art is moral. Not aesthetic, not decorative, not pastime and recreation. But Moral. The essential function of art is moral. But a passionate, implicit morality, not didactic. A morality which changes the blood, rather than the mind. Changes the blood first. The mind follows later, in the wake. -- D.H. Lawrence

Art can be many things -- it's not worth arguing about -- but I believe Lawrence was on to something. The promotion of a collective narrative aligned with the truth can erode the foundations of false ideologies that excuse self-interest and harbor a deep sense of shame, propping up falsely one's sense of self, and causing the occlusion of sympathetic love. Yet it ultimately validates because it restores one's sense of self through a truthful level of self-acceptance towards self-interest and enables one to see more clearly one's own contribution to the greater good. Well, that's how it's supposed to work, as I see it.

Something of My Odyssey

As we make our way toward a precipice I'm hoping will afford a better view, here I'll relate some personal history about your guide. How I came to promoting a poetic approach toward human progress is a long story but a short introduction is in order at this point. I began my adult life as an agnostic exalting science and reason. After a stint in the Army and four years of college, my dreams began to overtake me, eventually eclipsing what had been a careful, practical approach into adulthood. Like any American, or human for that matter, I'd intended to secure a measure of wealth and status; but driven by irrational forces, reminiscent of some of the themes of Dostoyevsky, I simply failed to live up to my existentialist reason.

After a crisis point in my life, as my existentialist reason came to an all too literal dead end, I came to the poetry of Whitman and became fascinated by the American poet that exclaims Of physiology from top to toe I sing,/ Not physiognomy alone nor brain alone is worthy for the/ Muse, I say the Form complete is worthier far

As I came to appreciate the soul, or primal soul, in time I would strive to create a progressive approach that taps into the totality of our human nature, beyond mere reason, and the Muse seems to have obliged. That's only part of a long odyssey evocative of Dante as well as Homer. And I might add that I, too, consider myself to be something of a poet:

I am the poet that rides the waves
cresting high
and crashing low.

A poet in the wake of your Walt Whitman,
a poet of the body,
a poet of the soul.

The pleasures of heaven ascend me
and the pains of hell descend me.

If you knew how much I missed the mark
of that ideal
you might shake your head and go.

But wait my countrymen and women
my weaknesses can be made perfect in you.

Where I'm Going With All of This/The Importance of Cultural Diversity

To give a preview of where I'm going with all of this, after I've established the project's roots in poetry, we'll then be moving into the realm of the prophets. There we'll try to bring Jesus down to earth, so to speak, in the more grounded sense as a poet. Those believers who're more comfortable with Jesus amongst the clouds as a prophet, the messiah, the Christ, are going to have to have faith. For nonbelievers, I expect they'll find there's plenty of room for them as well as I continue to talk poetry and the use of symbol and metaphor in relation to the dynamics of human nature.

Before that, however, I'll have to underscore my sincere belief in the importance of cultural diversity. Much like the benefits of biological diversity, whatever challenges that present themselves in the course of human history, it's to our benefit to draw on the vast pool of human experience to help meet these challenges. In this blog, I'll be citing some aspects of the Native American culture, for example, that I believe will help enable us to be more Christlike.

By establishing the project in poetry and making creative use of both deductive and inductive reasoning, I believe we can successfully engage these issues cross-culturally and among believers and nonbelievers alike. But where I think this is going is the creation of what nonbelievers might call a conceptual metaphor in which to engage the world. But the last word I'll leave is taken from the Roman Catholic theologian and Dominican priest Gustavo Gutierrez, who is considered the father of liberation theology. Speaking on the University of Oregon campus, in 2005 I believe, he remarked that to him, the language of God is poetry.

Analogy to the Manhattan Project

“Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world.” – Albert Einstein

I can be a real dreamer and even to myself, aspects of The Promised Land Project can seem rather, shall we say, far-fetched. There are significant obstacles to overcome and though I see no impasse, still, my vision is limited. Furthermore, I've had my share of failure in life. But if one can learn from failure, whether it's one's own or from others, it's not in vain.

As the American Scientists gathered for the Manhattan Project, some hoped that the atomic bomb wouldn't work. No one knew unless they tried. But the atomic bomb did work and with the genie out of the bottle, so to speak, nuclear weapons continue to proliferate around the world to threaten our destruction.

While the Manhattan Project strived to tap the power of the atom for military purposes, the Promised Land Project strives to tap the power of the soul for peaceful purposes.

In this blog I try to articulate as reasonably as possible why this can work. The project provides a collective narrative that will have to be picked up by others to be promoted in various forms. But to work it must capture the imagination, it must engender inspiration to be sustained and renewed on some level, and it must be the truth -- as much as we understand that to be. Ultimately, like the scientists of the Manhattan Project, we can only know if it will work by trying it.

As it was American scientists that unleashed the nuclear weapons into the world, let it be American poets to unleashed an imaginative disposition that renders the use of such weapons unimaginable.