Today, I discovered an interesting article online that ran through the basic process of bookbinding. Books are near and dear to me and I've always wanted to know how to bind them in such a way as to make them durable. I'm hoping to experiment with it a bit this year to bind some blank books for journaling or diaries or pagan "book of shadows".

"If someone could actually prove scientifically that there is such a thing as a supernatural force, it would be one of the greatest discoveries in the history of science. So the notion that somehow scientists are resisting it is ludicrous."

E.O. Wilson
"What I've Learned"
Esquire Magazine, 1/5/2009

I believe the "sacred" begins and ends with me. It is what I say it is. That I'm alive and have the genuine will is what makes the sacred in my life possible. This means that, with a mere authentic focus, a tender heart, and with continuous understanding and love of my own life, the "sacred" is everywhere, is everywhen from the very core of my inner world to the farthest reaches of my awareness.

I AM the sacred. I need look no further than that.

If I wish to see the sacred everywhere, everywhen, and in everyone, I do. It is my wish that creates it and the sacred stays with me until my wishes come to an end.

The "sacred" is no more complicated than that.

The way the question is asked, it is rather suggestive of the notion that "suffering" has inherent value regardless of who is doing the suffering. I'm compelled to ask - who exactly is suffering, why are they suffering, what do THEY think and how do THEY feel about it? No general statement regarding "suffering" can be made to fit all instances of suffering. In other words, the question "Do you believe there is value in suffering?", outside of specific context, has no supportable answer.

If you ask, "in some cases, does suffering have value", then I'd have to answer yes AND no. In some cases it does, in others it certainly does not.

All in all, I have to say from experience and from what I believe about the nature of life in general, although suffering seems to be seemingly inevitable as the Buddha pointed out, suffering isn't desirable as a goal. In other words, suffering isn't the point of life because what one is saying is unhappiness ought to be a goal of life at most equal with happiness. I disagree. Assuming one loves one's life and wants it to continue, the only rational goal is good health and happiness. To seek unhappiness or suffering deliberately with that set of values is, at least in one's own case, immoral in that it violate one's own values - love of life and a desire for it to continue. To seek unhappiness and suffering deliberately isn't "love of life" as I understand it. Of course, if one does NOT love life and does NOT want it to continue, then everything one can do to advance unhappiness, poor health and abundant suffering seems to been in line with those values. To hold those values and NOT seek suffering would then be immoral in one's own case.

As it happens, most of us - perhaps all of us - exist somewhere in between absolute love of our own life and absolute hatred for it. Either consciously or unconsciously, we waver on just what our values are at any one moment either through ignorance, laziness, denial, or deception. We may adamantly profess love of our own lives and yet, from day to day we behave in ways that are inexplicable in the face of that professed value. Even those who swear up and down to be entirely miserable and who profess to hate themselves, their own lives and the lives of most others will then behave in ways incredibly inconsistent with what they profess. I cannot entirely explain why life-lovers and life-haters differ in behavior from what they claim to value except that it is perhaps lack of practice in consistency in one's values and, as I've observed to be true, lack of willpower to get the practice needed. Perhaps most of us KNOW what we ought to value but our laziness or outright apathy keeps us from pursuing it and achieving it.

In any event, although I do not believe suffering to have inherent value nor that suffering ought to be pursued deliberately, the latter mainly because I cannot see my way to genuinely hating being alive and deliberately seeking pain over pleasure, I do believe that, at times, when one suffers, assuming one adopts the necessary attitude during and after, some good can come of suffering. As I said, however, if the same lessons can be learned without suffering, I believe that is the preferred route to take.

If a life does not seek more life, healthy life, and happy life, I have to wonder if it's deserving of the label "life" in its fullest sense. A life that hates itself, detests pleasure, enjoys dissatisfaction, injury, pain and the constant threat of extinction is incredibly dysfunctional and its own worst enemy. It isn't an agent of life but rather an agent for all that threatens it.

The following isn't a poem per se. It was something I thought needed said and composed in an easy-to-read format and, because I am most comfortable with this one, it is what I used. Maybe it adds clarity to the thoughts, perhaps not. I'll let you decide and, as always, whatever they may be, your thoughts in response are prized.

People like Johnny Appleseed, John Muir, Henry David Thoreau and others had the right idea - passionately create life, spread life, nurture life, protect life, glorify life for the simple reason it is life.

Life - not just human life - is its own purpose. It needs no justifications and owes nothing to any other but the previous life that created it.

I don't know what you'd call a religion like that. I'm not certain it needs a name as much as it needs loving and consistent practitioners. It needs no gods, no messiahs, no second-comings, no prophets, popes, priests, deacons, holy places, holy books or holy relics, no holy accoutrements.

Members of this religion look at life in complete awe and are continually renewed by it.

Count me among them.

There are what I believe to be the root of all questions in the human mind: Is this all that I am? Is there more I can be?

I'm continually asking these questions and, happily, continually finding answers. Nevertheless, there is always a need to ask them again and never a final answer until the moment I am no longer able to ask.

We are the sum of our experiences and what we express back into the universe. We are inspiration and expiration. It is our questions that drive us, questions beginning and ending with "What am I?", "Who am I?", "Is this all that I am?", "Is this all that there is?", "Is there nothing more?"

When we no longer ask the driving questions, we die. Slowly or rapidly, we surely die. In light of that, perhaps one ought not focus primarily on questions with final answers, but rather on the questions whose answers create the need to ask them again.

On full examination, that may be the nature of all questions because it is surely the nature of those who ask them.

I have the hardest time accepting willful ignorance. It is throwing away ones life as surely as putting a gun to your head and pulling the trigger. I can, of course, understand its nature. It arises from fear. We covet who, what, when and where we are comfortable and fear that which isn't. It's ironic that, although change is everywhere and ever present, we instinctively resent change and the effort it takes to influence it in the directions we'd prefer. When we find a good spot physically and mentally, we wish to stay there despite fact and logic revealing our "good spot" is not so good after all. It is at that time we become willfully ignorant of any other contradictory information that might force us to abandon our "good spot" for something different and unfamiliar and perhaps not "good" in the same way as our previous position. Some of us adopt willful ignorance and remain there for our entire lives even after very real consequences have come and gone that one would expect to force our hand.

The truth does not care that you accept or ignore it. The truth is what it is and has real consequences - good or bad - that are inescapable. Francis Bacon once quipped - "Nature, to be commanded, must be obeyed." You can do what you like but only within those rules laid down in nature. If one can "break a rule", it was only a rule in human thinking, not one basic to nature.

In any event, I happen to believe that most human beings are conscious of the reasons NOT to become willfully ignorant. Nevertheless, most people do it to some extent. I can understand their doing it, but the habit is unacceptable.

Yes, of course. In fact, I contend the only place "beauty" exists is in the mind or, more rightly, one's "spirit" if you maintain as I do that "mind" is only one aspect of the entire person and inseparable from the physical. There is no body/mind/spirit division. There is only you - indivisible and complete. "Beauty", after all, is only a value judgment made by that which is consciously aware - a life. Because most organisms form values of a sort - granted, we humans are very complex creatures in that regard - I believe many other species have notions of "beauty" and of "ugliness". Naturally, we humans have a very complex, dynamic and uniquely human view of what is beautiful and what is ugly. At least on Earth, we humans do seem to be unique in our ability to conceptualize and, with our more complex facility for language invention and use, we even have words for it. Still, beauty isn't actually a characteristic of a sunset, it is rather the response or reaction of a living consciousness. Because our personal notions of beauty emerge from our individual experiences, our individual beliefs, values and goals, whatever beauty we personally observe is only a product of ourselves and not of nature primarily. By a simple shift of one's viewpoint one can literally turn the beauty of a person, thing, time or place on and off at will.

If I choose to see beauty in a traffic jam, in the building layer of dust on my bookshelves and maddening clutter on my desk, in my own rapidly aging skin, the bloody chops of a lion ripping and eating his prey, of a corpse-strewn battlefield or in the dark skies, the rage and destruction of a hurricane, I do. If I choose to see the ugliness in the night's stars or a sunset, in fresh snows, in a dew-covered rose or apple, in the antics of an aging cat, in a child's smile or the face of someone I used to call "spouse", I do. Because I realize that beauty and ugliness are only the product of my own chosen viewpoint, I further realize the everything, everyone, everplace and time contains what I personally need to inspire ugliness or beauty. It becomes clear, the ugliness or beauty I see is genuinely my own and no one or nothing else's. All else merely serves as catalyst for what is already within me.

Which I come to see, ugliness or beauty, is up to me. Happily, I choose to see abundant beauty and minimize the ugliness I experience, however, I do not fear ugliness. I realize that, in my life, only I create them both, which means I can also destroy them both through a simple or not so simple change of mind.

I was considering today that familiar line from the christian bible - "The meek shall inherit the Earth" and it  occurred to me what might have been originally meant by it:




Naturally, if you cannot find your heaven here or you believe there to be no heaven here at all, your malcontent would drive you to seek elsewhere. If one is able to see the enormous beauty here, now, if one can find it within the self to love this life, this time, this place, what need you of other heavens that will no doubt ask the same of you? If you cannot love this life, this time this place, if you cannot see the incredible wonder of what you have, what makes you believe you have it in you to love the next - if there be such a thing?

Count me among the meek, for I aspire to nothing more than this, I have no belief in "more" ... and have no need to.

The only genuine humility is that in which you have absolutely no other appropriate response. Any situation presenting you the choice of humility isn't a truly humbling situation. Choice of humility implies the power to avoid it altogether. Genuine humility is powerlessness to dictate terms. Nature does not ask nor does it need your reverence. You either pay attention and reap the rewards of good awareness or you do not and suffer the consequences of you inattentiveness. Your only choice is your level of awareness and how you act on it - it is nature that dictates the consequences of your choices and actions.

The message is clear, pretending to humility is despicable deception. Unnecessary humility is unjustified self-deprecation. The first is inadequate respect for the intelligence of others, the second is inadequate respect for self.

"Humility" and "shame" are not synonyms. Those who pretend to humility ought surely be ashamed of their betrayal of their own lives and those of others. They make a mockery of themselves, of all life and of nature itself. Their pretending to humility is the worst kind of arrogance and an attempt at control to which they have no claim. Rather than saints, they are snakes in the grass. Those who experience genuine humility have the right and ought to hold their heads high for the miracle of life that enables them to, in fact, be humbled. Genuine humility is a gift of nature. It is affirmation of the pricelessness of life.

Stones have no humility ... and no need of it.

Yes, absolutely. It makes adequate sense to me that, if I authentically enjoy my life here and now or, in the least, value being alive, I would wish my life to continue with no other debate required. It isn't logical to claim to genuinely value life and at the same time value its ending. Many, and rightly so, will bring up the point that life isn't worth living if one is continually suffering beyond the capacity to endure. True, if I have continued life, I'd like it to be with as little suffering as possible, i.e., a quality life, however, I believe I have a rather unique perspective on this issue perhaps common to others like me in that I already suffer a great deal with various issues into which I am not compelled to go into detail. Suffice to say, I've learned there is a tremendous amount of suffering I'm able and willing to withstand when my focus is correct as it relates to life itself.

At any rate, thoughts of my possible and likely death are an unnecessary distraction from the task at hand - living and living as well as I possibly can. I hear time again and read numerous quotes from rather notable people that say, in essence and rather nonsensically - "Life is precious because it comes to an end." To me this is like saying a Ferrari is valuable because it runs out of gas, or a new house is a treasure because it will one day collapse. If life is only valuable because it ends, one would think its value increases the more one puts an effort into ending it. Silly.

From a proper point of view, life is valuable for what it IS rather than for what it was or will be, i.e., instead of valuable for what it currently is not. Life's value derives from its active characteristics - here and now. It is not valuable for what it was in the past nor valuable for what it may be in the future. Certainly, those things have some relevance, however, they are not central to the value of life as it IS. Those lives do not exist in the moment. Because I'm as intensely focused on the quality of each "now" as I'm able to be and am little concerned with how many moments I have in addition to it, life's end or its lack of end is of little to no real consequence. Certainly, if I'm satisfied I'm using each new moment to the best of my abilities, I suppose I would like to continue receiving more moments to fully live with the same attitude toward them. I am not blind to the chance to experience even more and certainly more intensely than ever before. Insatiable curiosity grants me that much. If it is certain I will not have more moments past this one, that fact, as I've said already, doesn't or won't be allowed to deter me for long from focusing on the task of the "now". THAT is real life, that is what I value, that is my goal. If I am able to live in the moment and give some attention to encouraging more of them, I will. It is more important I do not sacrifice life - the now - for non-life - the past or future.

To live forever is a wondrous prospect if one is, in spite of the suffering involved, simply amazed at what has already been experienced, at what has already been created and achieved, and certainly if one is in something resembling awe of the here and now, again, in spite of one's current suffering. But, of course, living forever cannot become a primary goal.

Life, the here and now - you - deserve far better than to be distracted excessively by that fantasy.

I am not one of those who believes Ayn Rand was infallible, however, for a very long time, I have maintained the position that she was and still is perhaps modern history's greatest thinker. I concur with just about all of her thinking and find her positions and ideas repeatedly confirmed by events and in numerous practical applications today.

Whether you agree or disagree with much of what Ayn has to say on any or most topics, one thing is for certain, the need for such a deliberately conscious examination of the issues she addressed repeatedly in her thinking, writing and art is greater today than ever before.

I, for one, believe the ideas of Ayn Rand point to the one best path out of the global dilemmas we all face and the greatest assurance of a hopeful future for the generations to come. If, as a Gaia member, you truly desire a better world, my suggestion is to start with a reading of the many accessible works of Ayn Rand, "Anthem", her shortest novella, is my favorite among them all.

A lexicon of her works, my constant companion for many years now, is available online free at:


The above mentioned interview can be read here:

Recently I discovered the song "Her Morning Elegance" by Oren Lavie from his album "The Opposite Side of the Sea" and fell madly in love with the tune. I guess I've played it twenty times just today. Sometimes, you run across one of those songs you wish you'd written yourself and, in any case, doesn't leave you even when your mind is going in a completely different direction. Happy, catchy tune.

Infectious. Really.

Just watch it, silly.

- N.