Four Occult Secrets of Evolutionary Leadership In This Time of Political Crisis: Reality of America, Granularity of the Here and Now, Three-Dimensional Chess, Four Rings in the Great Arc of the Resistance

Time Magazine Cover, October 15, 2018

"For me — and I suspect I’m not alone — the Women’s March had the taste of salvation. Every day, for more than two months, I’ve woken up feeling like I’m looking into a black hole, with little sense of hope to buoy me up. It’s hard to feel that justice is possible in a world that lets Trump be president. At times like these, having friends is not enough. Social media affirmations are not enough. But standing in a crowd of hundreds of thousands of people waving signs declaring, “Pussy bites back”? That was what I needed to stop feeling so alone and so terrified. I wrote this without even stopping to consider what Trump might have tweeted about it. That alone suggests that this is a new day. It’s not over yet. Feminists may still lose. We might look back and feel that the Obama years were a historical anomaly, a brief moment in time when it seemed true progress was possible. Maybe we’ll all look at the Women’s March as the last day we were happy together, before Trump and his minions stomped the feeling of joy out forever. It’s possible. Or maybe today will be the day that history remembers as the day that progressives started to win again, the day they pulled out of complacency and infighting and came together to fight the real bad guys. Maybe today is the first day of the war that we will win. Standing on the street, watching people beaming at each other — at friends, family, partners and total strangers — with the strange pleasure of resistance, it’s impossible to say how it will turn out. But if progressives have a chance of winning, they have to fight. And on Jan. 21, 2017, the feminist left showed it is ready for battle." -- Amanda Marcotte, A Day to Celebrate Our Power: The Women's March Provides the First Moments of Solidarity and Happiness Since Trump's Election
Salon via AlterNet, 1/22/17

Do not despair. Do not turn away.

This is a gauntlet, this stretch of days and nights leading to November 6th.

Herstory will wait no longer. She is coming, she is bringing a mighty storm of reckoning, she is bringing a liberation that will shake this nation and the world. Herstory is dawning.

Can you hear Her calling? She is urging us to stand, to shout, to lean forward, to march, to fight, to vote and lead others to stand, shout, lean forward, march, fight and vote. And what is the objective? To smash the Patriarchy (politically, psychologically, spiritually, culturally, economically). To bring down the predators it engenders and protects. The ascendancy of the Feminine in psyche is essential to our next evolutionary leap; arguably, it is our next evolutionary leap.

The confirmation and swearing in of Kavanaugh was an abomination, and it was achieved through subterfuge, cruelty and ruthlessness. There will be a dire political reckoning.

• "The top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee says he will investigate alleged perjury and sexual misconduct by Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, and slammed a 'whitewash' probe completed by the FBI earlier this week. The New York Times reported that Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY), who will head the Judiciary Committee if Democrats take over the House after November’s elections, said that the legitimacy of the Supreme Court is at stake ..." -- Think Progress, 10/6/18
• Joan Walsh (@joanwalsh): "4 of the 5 justices in the majority were appointed by GOP presidents who lost the popular vote and confirmed by a Senate "majority" that represents a minority of the population. The 5th was accused of sexual harassment. 3 of 4 liberal justices are women. U.S. in a nutshell, y'all" (via Twitter, 10/6/18)

Whoever you are, wherever you stand, you are in position to offer vital leadership in this time of national and planetary crisis. Here are a few insights that could serve you well.

Wonder Woman, Warner Brothers, 2017

NOTE: The findings released by the Women’s Media Center, which studies female representation in media and culture, show that girls face a confidence gap compared to boys. But seeing women in superhero and other science fiction roles on screen can help girls “believe they can achieve anything they put their mind to.” It also provides them with “impactful sources of inspiration” — more so than when boys see male characters ... The study, entitled Superpowering Girls, was conducted in conjunction with BBC America ... -- Marina Fang, Huffington Post, 10/8/18

The Reality of America
 
The reality of America is very different than what you have been conditioned to accept, it is essential that you hear this and embrace the truth of it: America is NOT "a house divided," it is not "split down the middle," it has not "descended into tribalism." Indeed, the "red states" aren't even "red." If the "red states" were truly "red" why would the Zombie Cult formerly known as the Republican Party have to resort to increasingly desperate vote suppression measures? Why would they have to pour more and more dark money into "red state" campaigns? Why would they have to gerrymander? They do all of this in the "red states." Why? Because in reality there are far fewer (if any) truly "red" states. In reality, America understands what "the general welfare" means. In reality, America wants to tax the rich and lift up the poor. In reality, America wants universal healthcare. In reality, America wants green energy to fight climate change. In reality, America is tolerant, compassionate and heedful of its higher angels.

• Abrams’ and Kemp’s years-old fight has now hit a crescendo as they fight for the governor’s mansion. “Kemp and Abrams had been plotting their runs for governor for nearly a decade by the time the 2018 elections rolled around. Brian Kemp is the master of voter suppression, disengagement and democracy by subtraction,” said Francys Johnson, the former head of the state NAACP who’s now running for Congress. “The tension is as stark as it could have ever been in this race.” This election, like past ones with Kemp, will be fought out in the courtroom as well as at the ballot box. Kemp is already battling a number of lawsuits. “He has taken advantage of the evisceration of the Voting Rights Act,”Abrams told TPM. “He has used his office to undermine the right to vote for communities of color.” -- Cameron Joseph, Georgia Governor’s Race Is Epic Showdown Over Voting Rights, Talking Points Memo, 10/10/18

A second Civil War with the Neo-Confederacy has been raging since the success of Nixon's Southern Strategy in 1968, but in the last decade the tide of this great societal conflict has shifted. The Zombie Cult and its Death Eater Overlords are on the verge of defeat. And yes, our emergent demographics will end sociopathy as a philosophy of governance, IF you vote, IF we all vote.

And IF you don't vote? Well, remember, Franco and the Fascists didn't have a majority of the Spanish populace behind them. Likewise, Hitler and the Nazis. They seized and held power because they were ruthless and cultish, and the majority forces arrayed against them (i.e., moderates, liberals, leftists, anarchists) were divided against each other.

Beyond Duality and Oneness, In the Granularity of the Here and Now

There are some among us who choose to see themselves above or beyond political struggle. Especially since the Trumpster Fire was lit. They have just wandered off into the Land of Woo Woo. When you speak of RESISTANCE, these escapists will mutter "that which you resist, persists." But those who utter such inanities in our current circumstances do not really understand what Gandhi or Jesus or their authentic adherents were doing anymore than they understand what must be done in our here and now struggle. Such escapists are missing an opportunity to bite into one of the most profound revelations. the The generic spiritual narrative of the last two or three millennia (East and West) is that you must rise beyond duality and embrace oneness. But this construct is so very confused. Yes, indeed you shake yourself free from the somnambulism of the human condition (and its painful illusion of separateness) and yes, yes, you awake into the oneness of all life, BUT BUT BUT IF you stay awake for the NEXT STEP you will cross yet another threshold and ARRIVE in the HERE and NOW, as if for the first time, and you will experience this existence and your incarnation in a PROFOUNDLY NEW WAY, and you will celebrate granularity, uniqueness and fragility, care and yes STRUGGLE. These terms will all take on new meaning. And stepping over that threshold, looking around you, you will realize that the nation and world are in peril, and you will fight, yes, FIGHT. You will choose sides, and fight. You will RESIST. And those who don't stay awake to step through to that next revelation? They will likely just fall back into somnambulism (albeit redecorated) and assert some apolitical nonsense, such as, yes, "that which you resist, persists."

Nancy Spero - Masha Bruskina/Gestapo Victim (1994)

NOTE: "Nancy Spero played an integral role in the feminist art movement of the late 1960s and early 1970s, joining a group called Women Artists in Revolution and developing manifestos and staging protests that demanded inclusion of women in museums and galleries ... This painting is about Masha Bruskina, a volunteer nurse and leader of the Minsk resistance movement, who is a frequent subject of Spero's work. As the text printed of the canvas explains, Bruskina was a seventeen-year-old Communist partisan who, under the guise of a Gentile, helped wounded Soviet prisoners escape. She was eventually arrested by the German authorities; imprisoned and tortured, she never surrendered the names of other members of her group. She was publicly hanged in 1941, and the Nazis meticulously documented her execution ..." -- Jewish Museum (www.jewishmuseum.org)

Three-Dimensional Chess

Introduced as Mr. Spock's pastime in Gene Roddenberry's Star Trek (and subsequently codified in Franz Joseph's Star Trek Star Fleet Technical Manual), the concept of "three-dimensional chess" is now "used colloquially" as Wikipedia notes "to describe complex, dynamic systems with many competing entities and interests, including politics, diplomacy and warfare." Barack Obama and Vladimir Putin, for example, have both been aptly observed to be playing three-dimensional chess.

But the Occult Secrets of rEvolutionary Leadership are not meant for heads of state, they are meant for you, wherever you find yourself in this long march, on the edges, at the rear, in the midst of the throng, whoever you are. To be an effective rEvolutionary leader it is imperative that you start playing three-dimensional chess. What do I mean? You will want to be engaged in the struggle for incremental reform, the liberal way, you will want to be engaged in the struggle for revolutionary change, the way of the left, these ends are not at odds with each other if you are playing three-dimensional chess, they are just the way forward in two different dimensions. You can defend Obamacare and at the same time push for Medicare for All, you can stand with Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA) and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez at once, you just need to engage in the struggle on more than one dimension. Don't get caught up in the sniping between liberals and leftists, e.g., don't get consumed internal disputes over who should be Speaker or who could be DNC chair, in the context of this crisis these divisions only serve to strengthen the fascists' grip. Don't be a one-dimensional leftist or a one-dimensional liberal. Rise up, expand your psyche and soma, embrace and contain the much bigger truth which embraces both world-views.

The third dimension you must play in is what I call the Straw Dog dimension. In Chapter 5 of the Tao Te Ching, Lao Tzu says that the Universe sees the "10,000 things" (i.e., everything) as no more than "straw dogs" (i.e., ceremonial artifacts made for rituals and afterward discarded or burned); he goes on to say that the sage should cultivate the same attitude, "the universe like a bellows, is always emptying, always full." You need this emptiness in your fullness, and this fullness in your emptiness. What Lao-Tzu described in Taoist terms is what Indian yogis call Vairagya. You will typically see this Sanskrit term explained as meaning "indifference" or "non-attachment," but such definitions are so shallow, so misleading. Vairagya is not being unattached or somehow disconnected from life. Vairgya means to be truly present, truly aware and present, truly witnessing while fully engaged. Can you lean forward into the great battle, willingly, knowing that it is quite possible that you will lose and all will fall into ruin? Can you lean forward, playing your part deeply and wholly, as the conflict intensifies, knowing that whatever the outcome you will remain truly present and truly aware and bear witness to it all? This is vairgya. This is the third dimension.

Can you allow all three of these dimensions of engagement to occupy the space of your heart and mind simultaneously? If you can, then you are an evolutionary leader.

Marvel's Black Pantehr (2018)

NOTE: Black Panther celebrates African aesthetics, language, and cultural traditions with a healthy dose of Afrofuturism, which all combine to set it apart from those previous films. But just as groundbreaking are the film’s female characters, many of whom belong to the Dora Milaje, a team of Wakandan women trained from birth to be some of the best fighters in the world when it comes to martial arts, hand-to-hand combat, and weaponry. They protect the throne, as well as whoever is the Black Panther at that time. Seeing the Dora Milaje working together at the film’s center — and knowing this is only the beginning of their story — has proven a thrill for many viewers. So now’s the time to learn more about these distinguished protectors of T’Challa and the people of Wakanda. Here are five things you need to know about the Dora Milage ...  -- Jamie Broadax, Get to Know the Dora Milaje, Black Panther’s Mighty Women Warriors, Vox, 2/21/18

The Four Rings in the Great Arc of the Resistance

The Resistance arose in the aftermath of the 2016 "election." Your understanding of this Resistance, how you view it, how you relate to it, how you articulate its scope and aims, is of vital importance.

I encourage you to see it in the broadest terms while at the same time allowing for clarity.

I see this Resistance as a great arc, and within that great arc are four rings.

The first ring is that of the progressive movement, embodied (like it or not) by the Democratic Party, and stretching across a spectrum from centrist to liberal to left, those who backed Hillary Clinton, those who backed Bernie Sanders, those who will elect a new Congress this November, and those who will then choose the 2020 presidential candidate, someone new, a woman preferably, and younger than either Clinton or Sanders.

• Georgians voting in the state Democratic primary overwhelmingly backed Stacey Abrams, bringing the 44-year-old former Georgia House minority leader one step closer to becoming the first woman governor of Georgia and the first black woman governor in the US. But this historic win didn’t happen by accident. It was the result of months of effort by an increasingly influential network of political groups and outreach initiatives, many of them helmed by black women, that are eager to build political power and influence in black communities. “Black women are ‘sick and tired’ of being thanked by progressives for being their most loyal voting base. Black women are demanding that the progressive movement show us they respect our leadership and the power of our vote, by investing more in Black women running for office; and Black women-led organizing and institutions,” Melanie Campbell, president and CEO of the National Coalition on Black Civic Participation and the Black Women’s Roundtable, said in a statement hours before polls closed on Tuesday. Campbell’s group was one of several taking part in an effort called the Unity ’18 Campaign, which aimed to mobilize some 100,000 black women ahead of the Georgia primary. Throughout her campaign, Abrams frequently highlighted the historic nature of her candidacy, and noted that she wanted the party to better help black women, who make up a sizable portion of Georgia’s electorate. -- P.R. Lockhart, Stacey Abrams’s Georgia primary victory is the latest win for black political organizing, Vox, 5/24/18

The second ring is populated by those Republicans, from conservative to moderate, who have put country before party and honor before favor, there are many worthy voices speaking out from within this ring of resistance, e.g., Jennifer Rubin, Max Boot, Steve Schmidt, Joe Scarborough and others.

• Max Boot: "I respect some of my friends trying to work on reforming the Republican Party, but at least for the time being, I think it’s a lost cause. So my hope is that the Republican Party will suffer massive and repeated drubbings at the ballot box. That’s why I urge everybody to vote straight-ticket Democratic even though I have a lot of disagreements with Democrats. I’m not a Democrat; I’m an independent. But for the health of our republic, I think we need to destroy the Republican Party. We need congressional oversight of Donald Trump, which you’re never going to get out of Republicans. I think you need to punish the Republicans for taking these appalling positions, abusing minorities, championing white nationalism, isolationism, protectionism. The only way to wean them from that is to punish them electorally." -- David Corn, “We Need to Destroy the Republican Party”: A Conservative Luminary Calls for a Clean Start, Mother Jones, November-December 2018

• "Suffolk University’s latest poll has reassuring news for those concerned about the rule of law: A majority of Americans (55 percent) trust special counsel Robert Mueller and his investigation into alleged Russian meddling in the 2016 election, but 59 percent don’t trust President Donald Trump’s denial that his campaign was involved, according to a new Suffolk University/USA TODAY national poll. The survey also shows unfavorable views of President Donald Trump rising 6 points since June. Fifty-eight percent of likely voters said they hold an unfavorable view of the president, compared to 52 percent in June, while his favorable rate has held steady at 40 percent since the early-summer poll. Trump’s job approval numbers tell a similar story, with 56 percent of voters either disapproving or strongly disapproving of his job performance, and 40 percent of voters saying they approve or strongly approve. . . . , with 57 percent saying that corruption in the nation’s capital has gotten worse under the Trump administration. " -- Jennifer Rubin, Voters Don't Buy 'No Collusion',' Washington Post, 8/30/18

The third ring, in some ways the most poignant and vital of all four, is that of those within government at every level, in every department, but particularly in the DoJ, at the Pentagon, at Fort Meade and in Langley, and most notably of course Special Counsel Robert Mueller and his team of prosecutors. Most of these men and women do not see themselves as part of the Resistance, they simply see themselves as professionals and patriots fulfilling their roles and sustaining the institutions that have kept us free and strong. (Just as legitimate journalists do not perceive themselves to be resistance fighters, but simply as professionals fulfilling their Fourth Estate responsibilities). The unspoken hopes, fears, frustrations and warnings of those in this third ring are articulated and amplified in mainstream media by former officials from John Brenner and Malcolm Nance to Mimi Rocah and Joyce Vance to Frank Figluzzi and Chuck Rosenberg. This third ring carries the institutional memory of our permanent government, call it the "Deep State" if that feels right to you.

• For more than three decades, I observed and analyzed the traits and tactics of corrupt, incompetent and narcissistic foreign officials who did whatever they thought was necessary to retain power. Exploiting the fears and concerns of their citizenry, these demagogues routinely relied on lies, deceit and suppression of political opposition to cast themselves as populist heroes and to mask self-serving priorities. By gaining control of intelligence and security services, stifling the independence of the judiciary and discrediting a free press, these authoritarian rulers followed a time-tested recipe for how to inhibit democracy’s development, retard individual freedoms and liberties, and reserve the spoils of corrupt governance for themselves and their ilk. It never dawned on me that we could face such a development in the United States ... I will continue to speak out loudly and critically until integrity, decency, wisdom — and maybe even some humility — return to the White House.  -- John Brennan (Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, March 2013 - January 2017), I Will Speak Out Until Integrity Returns to the White House, Washington Post, 6/1/18

Jim Carrey‏ (@JimCarrey): Squeeze Mueller Squeeze! http://www.vote.gov

 And yes, there is a fourth ring, thinner, smaller than the other three. It is composed of a few "senior officials" at the highest levels of the current administration (such as it is). A handful of high-ranking individuals who have chosen to reveal their existence through an Anonymous op-ed piece published in the New York Times.

The only common agenda that stretches throughout all of these four rings is that A) we are a country of laws not kings, B) it is unacceptable that a foreign power, a geopolitical adversary, should interfere in our electoral process and force its chosen asset upon us through complex, massive and covert means, and C) that the deeply disturbed person currently occupying the Oval Office is dangerously unfit, both morally and psychologically, to be entrusted with such power and responsibility. There is little else upon which all of the factions arrayed within this arc would agree, but this common agenda supersedes all others.

• Chauncey Devega, Salon: "You and your fellow mental health professionals have continued to issue public warnings about Donald Trump’s danger to the country and the world. What are some of the specifics?"
  Bandy Lee, Yale University: "We recently put out a statement that special prosecutor Robert Mueller’s investigations are likely to provoke Donald Trump into taking extreme and dangerous measures to try to distract the public. The same would apply with the revelations that are coming forth with Robert Woodward’s book or the New York Times op-ed, his diminishing popularity — all these things are going to be additional stresses on an already stressed presidency. His level of lying — it’s already at a pathological level, but the Washington Post noted that his rate of lying has quadrupled. In other words, in the first six months of this year he lied twice as much as he did in the entire preceding year. All those are signs of deterioration: His increasingly angry tweets, his resorting to more and more fantastical versions of reality, his conspiracy theories — the deep state and so forth. These are signs of deterioration and we’re treading dangerously close to something devastating happening. When we make predictions, we’re not saying that something will definitely happen, but when the probability exceeds a certain level of acceptability, then mental health professionals have a duty to warn and to alert the public. That’s why we’ve been speaking up all this time, but the situation has become much more dire. It is unfortunate that we don’t have a political solution at this point. The correct response and treatment would involve containment — and denying Trump access to nuclear weapons."  -- Chauncy DeVega, Salon via Raw Story, Yale psychiatrist says Trump is getting worse: ‘I suspect he is unable to tolerate reality,’ 9/21/18

In its broadest sense, this resistance is not ideological, it is one of sanity, decency and love of country.

Check your registration if it's not too late. Vote. Vote early if you can. Vote Democratic up and down the ballot. Get your friends to check their registration if it's not too late. Get them to vote. Get them to vote early if they can. Get them to vote Democratic up and down the ballot.

And yes light a candle and say a pray for Robert Mueller and his team.

Birnham Wood has come to Dunsinane Hill. As the witches prophesied.

Putin-Trump is an existential threat to the life of the Republic, and Mueller's Putin-Trump probe (along the other investigations it has spawned) is an existential threat to Trump.

• Peter W. Smith, the GOP operative who raised $100,000 in his search to obtain Hillary Clinton's missing emails from Russian hackers before allegedly killing himself in May 2017, had a well-established business relationship Trump former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn Previous reports indicated Smith knew both Flynn and his son well, but today, The Wall Street Journal explains the backstory behind their connection. The late Peter W. Smith, an Illinois financier with a long history in Republican politics, met with Mr. Flynn in 2015, according to people familiar with the matter. At the time, Mr. Flynn had recently left his job as head of the Defense Intelligence Agency and was trying to set up his own consulting firm, while Mr. Smith was looking at investment opportunities in cybersecurity. -- Smith Met With Flynn in 2015, Committee to Investigate Russia, 10/10/18 

• Russia’s preeminent crime boss, a human grizzly bear named Semion Mogilevich, is said to be worth $10 billion, and he was the first Russian to figure out how to launder money on a mass scale. That meant interfacing with the West. Trump Tower, which opened in 1983, was one of the first buildings in New York where shell companies could buy and sell condos without identifying themselves, and it became what Craig Unger of Vanity Fair, in the movie, calls “a money-laundering paradise.” Russian mobsters, such as David Bogatin, began to deal with Trump the year after Trump Tower opened. A little later, the Trump Taj Mahal in Atlantic City was supposed to become Trump’s flagship, but it was a famous debacle that left him in ruins. Apart from its failure as a business, it was charged with violating money-laundering statutes. Trump, famously, was up to his eyeballs in debt, and since he’d filed for bankruptcy half a dozen times, American banks wanted nothing to do with him. All those loans had been his financial Viagra; now they’d dried up. But that’s what made him the perfect mark for the Russians. According to the movie, Trump would never have found his way back had it not been for the flow of cash from the Russian underworld. There are now 30 Trump Towers all over the world, and added together, they contain thousands of condominiums owned by shell companies. According to Unger, a $5 million condo could change hands three or four times a year and — voilà! — you’ve laundered $20 million. That, in essence, is Trump’s business. Not to mention characters like the Russian oligarch Dimitry Rybolovlev, who bought a property from Trump for $95 million, not long after the 2008 real-estate crash, and never pretended to use it. It was a favor — a way of infusing cash into Trump’s pockets. This is all part of the financial scuttlebutt that has followed Trump around for years, but “Active Measures” names the names and fills in the flowchart of Trump’s corruption with gripping authority. Of course, none of this proves that Trump colluded with Russia in any political sense. But coming just days after the conviction of Paul Manafort, it’s edifying, in “Active Measures,” to get a close-up portrait of how Manafort became the lackey of Putin’s Ukrainian puppet president Viktor Yanukovych. He also went to work for Dimitry Firtash, a Ukranian oligarch who was in bed with the Mob (together, Firtish and his criminal connections siphoned off billions of dollars of gas money), as well as a direct associate of Putin’s. -- Owen Gleiberman, Film Review: ‘Active Measures,’ Variety, 8/24/18

Mueller and the Mid-Terms! We need to see them both through to the end if we are to restore the timeline. Resistance = rEvolution!

-- Richard Power

ACTIVE MEASURES [Theatrical Trailer]

Jim Carrey (@JimCarrey): From the bowels of the White House he shrieked, hurled curses and tweeted bile — because that's what demons do. YOU are the Exorcist. Vote Democrat for goodness' sake. http://www.Vote.gov

September 2018 Solstice: "A Force that is At Once More Wonderful and More Terrible than Death, than Human Intelligence, than Forces of Nature ..."

Ocean Beach. San Francisco, September 2018.

"I see the world being slowly transformed into a wilderness; I hear the approaching thunder that, one day, will destroy us too. I feel the suffering of millions. And yet, when I look up at the sky, I somehow feel that everything will change for the better, that this cruelty too shall end, that peace and tranquility will return once more." -- Anne Frank, Diary of Anne Frank.

Sunday, 9/23/18, at 1:54 UTC, which means Autumn on Saturday, 9/22/18, at 6:54 p.m. in San Francisco and 9:54 p.m. in Brooklyn and on Sunday at 3:54 a.m. in Copenhagen and 7:39 a.m. in Kathmandu, and Spring on Saturday at 10:54 pm in Buenos Aires and on Sunday at 3:54 am in Capetown and 11:54 am in Sydney. The great wheel turns, turn with it; while feeling the dynamism of the planetary polarity. In the north of the world, we move toward the darkness. In the south of the world, we move toward the light. Yin and yang. Light and dark swirling, each emerging from the other. Allow yourself to align with the majesty of these sacred cycles. Such alignment is itself sanctuary. Allow yourself to draw on these sacred cycles as an immense engine generating inexhaustible power. This power will sustain you as our herstoric struggle for the soul and future of the human species enters an even more dangerous phase.

Ocean Beach. San Francisco, September 2018.

Resistance is rEvolution. 

Check your registration, get your friends and allies to check their registration. Vote, get your friends and allies to vote. Vote Democratic up and down the ballot. Get your friends and allies to vote Democratic up and down the ballot. March. Educate. Lead. This is not a drill. You can't escape choosing sides. You can't transcend what is upon us or reframe it for yourself and your followers from the luxury of your privilege. The complaint that having to choose between Democrats and Republicans is being forced to "choose the lesser of two evils" is a tragically false meme. But even if it were true, if you refused to choose the lesser evil then in reality you would have chosen the greater evil, because you have without a doubt empowered the greater evil. Seriously.

Great Highway. San Francisco, August 2018.

"Who knows, my God, but that the universe is not one vast sea of compassion actually, the veritable holy honey, beneath all this show of personality and cruelty?" -- Jack Kerouac, "The Origins of the Beat Generation" in Playboy (June 1959).

Ocean Beach. San Francisco, September 2018.

Sixty-Fifth Sun in Virgo

After months of intense and sometimes acrimonious negotiations with the Norns (I.e., the Fates), I have signed a new ten year contract for residency on Terra. Details of the agreement will remain confidential for now. But as we already know the price of joy is sorrow and the price of life is death. Cash only. No refunds. All sales final. The great wheel turns. We are strangers in a strange land. Gathered in a tavern of ruin. To celebrate savage beauty and whisper wild magic. Each of us carries a pearl of great price hidden in our elven cloaks. There are troubadours here, steeped in Gaian Poetics; some of these troubadours will be "killed before they reach Bombay." There are Dakini here, emissaries of an ancient future. Asked for a map of the wilderness ahead, one of these Dakini smiles treacherously, reaches into her medicine pouch for a handful of parchment ash and blows it into the west wind. At the center of this circle, the dark goddess herself stirs the hot bronze cauldron of our primal reality. And as she stirs, the great wheel turns. The Yang flows from within the Yin, the Yin flows from with the Yang. Chi is the river. Chi is the sea. Chi is the rain. Chi is the soil. Chi is the stone. Chi is the sky. Chi is the flesh. Chi is the blood. Chi is root, trunk, bark, limbs, leaves. Chi is the solar fire and the lava flow. Chi is the Space which shudders with the thrill of it all. Realize this for yourself and share it in the way you find yourself inspired to share it. Om Ah Hung Benzar Guru Peme Siddhi Hung.

The Year of the Dragon Rolls On

San Francisco, September 2018.

With her fierce intellect and powerful voice, Kali Holloway (@kalihollowayftw) is an invaluable journalistic resource on social justice and culture in this perilous time. She is a gifted writer/editor, a friend and colleague, and I am honored to share her poignant testimonial: "I, the Dragon is equal parts intimate memoir, zen treatise and firsthand historical document. Across a life filled with bothtrauma and triumph, Richard Power has traveled the world, witnessed extraordinary things, met an astounding list of fellow travelers and emerged with a story—many stories, many of them remarkable—that is both resonant and beautiful." -- Kali Holloway. "I, the Dragon: Chronicles of An Epic Life Among the Humans" is available in both a black and white signed edition for $55, and a full color limited edition (333 copies) numbered and signed for $133. For more information, visit http://GoFundMe.com/wordsofpower 

Great Highway. San Francisco, August 2018.

The Goddess falls in love with Herself, drawing forth her own emanation, which takes on a life of its own. Love of self for self is the creative force of the universe. Desire is the primal energy, and that energy is erotic: the attraction of lover to beloved, of planet to star, the lust of electron for proton. Love is the glue that holds the world together.” -- Starhawk, The Spiral Dance: A Rebirth of the Ancient Religions of the Great Goddess (1999) 

San Francisco, September 2018

The Secret Engine of the World

What are you called? Bruja? Baul? Bodhisattva? Tantrika? Aghori? Troubadour? Dakini? Bhakta? Curandera? Yogini? Wizard? Sorceress? These are all just cover stories. Your true designation is beyond human speech. Authentic, mystical love, real love, is the secret engine of the world. But this authentic, mystical love, this real love, does not act like fire or water; it does not incinerate or drown that which it encounters. Authentic, mystical love, real love, moves like a vast glacier; whatever it does not crush or bury, it pushes forward. Yes, this love glacier levels mountains and forges canyons, it breaks the unbreakable and reshapes the earth. The love glacier is so massive that it takes a lifetime just to glimpse it, and even then it can only be seen as far as the horizon; it moves so slowly it is almost undetectable, it takes a lifetime to measure its grinding progress. Authentic, mystical love does not act like fire or water; it does not incinerate or drown that which it encounters. this love moves like a vast glacier; whatever it does not crush and bury, it pushes forward. This is the secret engine of the world. How utterly empty and free you must be to revel in the movement of this glacier, knowing that all you have ever had or wanted will be torn up and ground under, and that then in the glacier's aftermath there will be only a long fathomless silence, in which you will be no more than the shadow of a raven on the white stillness of the deep snow. 

Ocean beach. San Francisco, September 2018.

"There is a room in the Department of Mysteries, that is kept locked at all times. 
It contains a force that is at once more wonderful and more terrible than death, than human intelligence, than forces of nature. It is also, perhaps, the most mysterious of the many subjects for study that reside there. It is the power held within that room that you possess in such quantities and which Voldemort has not at all. That power took you to save Sirius tonight. That power also saved you from possession by Voldemort, because he could not bear to reside in a body so full of the force he detests. In the end, it mattered not that you could not close your mind.  It was your heart that saved you.” -- Dumbledore to Harry in J. K. Rowling's "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix" 

"It Fed on the Flesh of Its Unknowing Until It Knew" -- Dragon Medicine: A Journey Into the Wilderness of Healing and Revelation

"I, the Dragon: Chronicles of An Epic Life Among the Humans" http://GoFundMe.com/wordsofpower

 The dragon within you knows the truth of this world. Hatched in the nest of sorrows, it fed on the flesh of its unknowing until it knew. Ageless, it sets fire to the corpse of an age; ageless, it births the next, where you took your first step. Not in space or time, but in that love being which pervades and envelopes both. You will have so much to say, and to share, but no words, and so little time.
Whoever you are, wherever you stand, (or fall, or kneel, or crawl), whatever beauty you hold in your hands, it is priceless, and fleeting, you must pass it on before it is lost forever, it will only be a whisper of what you saw, only the shadow of what you felt, but it may be enough to ignite the next smokeless fire in the throat of the next dragon birthing the next age from the womb of its mistress Maya, dripping in blood and placenta. This is the truth of this world.
   -- Richard Power, "I, the Dragon: Chronicles of An Epic Life Among the Humans" (2018)

Speaking on "I, the Dragon" at The Center SF, July 2018
Photo by @BrennaGeehan

In the Tea Room of The Center SF, on the Feast of Mary Magdalene (7/22/18), I presented "Dragon Medicine: A Journey Into Healing and Revelation" for a marvelous gathering of performance artists, yoginis, seekers, tantrikas, occultists, burners, poets and follow travelers.

In the course of the ninety minute offering, I read several excerpts from "I, the Dragon: Chronicles of An Epic Life Among the Humans" including "Algorithms of Grace," "Path of Sorcery" and "Special Victims Unit (SVU), I spoke on some of the narrative's major themes including the Anthropocene Age, Sociopathy as a Philosophy of Governance and the Ascendancy of the Feminine in Psyche, and I led breath, sound and meditation practices from the ancient teachings of Kashmir and Tibet. 

Fortunately, my friend and ally Philip Safarik filmed the event. I have posted this digital artifact on my "Spoken Words of Power" You Tube channel and also embedded it in this post.




It would be so easy to assume that you have almost NO ATTENTION SPAN left, and that there is no way you will take this 90 minute journey with me. But I feel that you have a stronger mind and a greater heart capacity than others might expect, I feel like your soul is closer to the surface than some might assume, so here it is ... Nevertheless, just in case, I have also created this table of corresponding times and content, so you can just go straight to one topic or another, and kind of approach this 90 minute journey as a buffet, that you can return to over and over ...

• 3:52-7:09 Practice: Vijnanabhairava #1 (Breath)
• 7:09-12:28 Universe, Multiverse, Mysterium
• 12:30-18:50 The Voice
• 18:52-20:11 Saga of Healing and Revelation
• 20:12-23:17 Reading: Algorithms of Grace
• 23:20-24:39 Hell
• 24:40-28:50 Reading: SVU (Special Victims Unit)
• 28:52-31:01 "I Shouldn't Even Be Here ..."
• 31:02-33:57 Planet-Circumambulating Expert
• 34:02-39:00 Reading: Path of Sorcery
• 39:02-42:53 Performance: Mary Power's "Love Arises
• 42:54-46:03 Practice: Vijnanabhairava #13 (Light)
• 46:05-52:25 Practice: Vijnanabhairava #15 (Sound)
• 52:56-53:47 Like All Great Sagas ...
• 52:50-58:00 The Anthropocene Age and The Singularity
• 58:01-1:06:50 Sociopathy As A Philosophy
• 1:06:51-1:08:51 Climate Wars, Climate Refugees
• 1:08:52-1:11:25 Ascendancy of the Feminine
• 1:11:27-1:19:26 Reading: How Durga Came to Power
• 1:19:29-1:21:00 The Medicine of Seven Beasts
• 1:21:01-1:23:35 Reading: Dragon

This event was the third movement in the "I, the Dragon" book launch.

Wall Mural, Lower East Side, NYC, May 2018

The first movement was an invitation-only private event in NYC on 5/19/18. Hosted by two powerful witches, Kelly Hefner and Clara Markowicz.  
Held in a private space steeped in art and love. On the Lower East Side of Manhattan. Occult, alchemical. Deep in the fierce heart of Gotham. An obsidian stone tossed into a black lake on a moonless night. With waves of powerful magic rippling outward. 
Two blocks from the last place I lived before boarding a Greyhound to blessed exile in Kalifornia, forty one years ago. Circumambulating the building before entering to give my talk, I smiled to discover a wall mural celebrating Blondie, one of the iconic bands of that New Wave / Punk Rock era.

A Glimpse into Rehearsals for @MPOWERDANCE.COMPANY's
Masterwork "Compassions." June 2018.

The second movement consisted of my participation in three consecutive nights' performance of MPOWERDANCE company's  "Compassions," a masterwork of dance, art, film and spoken word.  
 
Performed to packed audiences on June 22nd, June 23rd and June 24th, at the NOHspace here in San Francisco, "Compassions" featured the bold, beautiful dance and choreography of Mary Power. In a theater transformed by two dozen of Mary's exquisitely primal paintings hanging from the walls. The labyrinthian depths opened up were further illuminated by the sublimely tender, deeply sensual dance of Elaine Santos (@wellness_as_art) and the savagely liberating, shadow-summoning masks of Bart D. Frescura (@frescuraobscura). 
I was honored to hold forth and share readings from "I, the Dragon."

This  campaign will continue online for the next few weeks, and I hope to announce two or three more public events early in 2019. 

Meanwhile, you can now receive a signed black and white copy of "I, the Dragon" for a $55 contribution to this campaign, or a numbered and signed limited edition full color copy for a $133 contribution. Funds will be used to produce audio books of both "I, the Dragon" and "Wyrds of Power: New Language for A New Reality" and to promote upcoming events and workshops.  

"I, the Dragon" is available via Amazon.com

Join this magic circle.

-- Richard Power

New Moon, Partial Solar Eclipse, August 11, 2018: What Few Answers There Are

Wall Mural in Chinatown. San Francisco, August 2018.

New Moon, Partial Solar Eclipse, August 11, 2018.

The great wheel turns, turns with it. New Moon. (With a partial Solar Eclipse approximately 10 minutes prior). On 8/11/18. At 9:57 UTC, which means 2:57 a.m. in San Francisco, 5:57 a.m. in Brooklyn, 6:57 a.m. in Buenos Aires, 11:57 a.m. in Copenhagen, 12:57 a.m. in Addis Ababa, 3:42 p.m. in Kathmandu and 7:57 p.m. in Port Moresby (Papua New Guinea). Embrace the darkness as it envelopes you. It is the depth of the divine intelligence. It holds what few answers there are.

Another Testimonial

As noted in recent posts, I have received numerous deeply moving testimonials from yoginis, burners, performance artists, tantrikas, poets, musicians, dakinis and other magical creatures who read "I, the Dragon" and resonated with its message.

Here is yet another of these poignant declarations:

• "Reading Richard's words while in college supplemented a kind of learning, of growth that I wasn't finding in my assigned work, but so desperately wanted. His was the first language that worked on my body like yoga, a poetry that explained little and somehow still delivered me to heights of feeling! Reading 'I, the Dragon' is an experience of transformation, not just a retelling but an active process of reliving. Within its pages, Richard gives us the greatest gift possible: his life." -- Harrison Nir (@just_a_har)

"I, the Dragon: Chronicles of An Epic Life Among the Humans"
available via http://GoFundMe.com/wordsofpower

Big, Bold, Eccentric, Complex and Challenging

"Novel" and "autobiographical novel" are loose terms. "I, the Dragon: Chronicles of An Epic Life Among the Humans" is not a novel like Emily Bronte's "Jane Eyre," it is a novel like Doris Lessing's "Briefing for A Descent Into Hell." Little dialogue, even less character development. A journey into psyche. Not the recreation of some shared social or familial "reality." A subjective exploration of life and consciousness, not an objective rendering of some aggregate of relationships, personalities or the experiences of others. "Dragon" is as big, bold, eccentric, complex, and challenging as Joyce's "Ulysses" or Whitman's "Leaves of Grass." In time, it may come to be as recognized as such. Like both "Ulysses" and "Leaves," "Dragon" starts its journey privately published, in obscurity. "Dragon" is also a historical document, influenced by '60s-'70s "New Journalism," e.g., Norman Mailer's "Armies of the Night" and Joan Didion's "Slouching Towards Bethlehem." Yes, arrogant boasts, here is another, even more audacious: Not only is "Dragon" a work of stream of consciousness, erotic poetry and gonzo history, it is also a tale of mystical life as important as "Autobiography of A Yogi." Arguably more important, in its relevance to your life here and now, "Dragon" speaks to the psyche and energies of the 21st Century. The world in which we move is very different from that of Yogananda's era. We are moving beyond patriarchy and guru worship, we are moving beyond false dualities of right hand/left hand and light/dark. Of course, the true successor to "Autobiography of A Yogi" is "Autobiography of A Yogini," yes, written by a woman, by women, in numerous and diverse expressions. But "Dragon" establishes a new standard for full spectrum narrative of the mystical quest; it integrates the psychological, political, shamanic and ecological dimensions through which we move on the path of individuation, and it delivers this narrative in new language for a new reality. There is medicine for you and the world in the pages of this book.

Truth, Beauty and the Dark Goddess

I could have written "I, the Dragon: Chronicles of An Epic Life Among the Humans" in a way that would have left you weeping uncontrollably (and not from joy), I could have written it in a way that would have terrified you and sent you hiding under the covers, I could have written it in a way that would have you believing that everything happens for a reason, that everything turns out alright and that it's all a oneness of light and love (that version would have been very popular but it would have been a lie). I could have written it in a way that made me look very bad, I could have written it in a way that would have made me look very good. But instead I chose to share a life, a whole life, big, unruly, tender and savage in turns, a life full of loss and resilience, fluctuating between the grotesque and the gorgeous. Consequently, "I, the Dragon" is an intense, challenging read. And some will choose not to journey too far into its shadows. So be it. I serve the Dark Goddess. I serve Truth and Beauty. "I, the Dragon" offers powerful guidance and vital intelligence. I will leave the outcome of it all to the Fates. It would be foolish to imagine it could be any other way.

Magic

"I, the Dragon: Chronicles of An Epic Life Among the Humans" is available exclusively via http://www.GoFundMe.com/wordsofpower For a $55 donation, you will receive a signed copy of the black and white edition. For a $133 donation, you will receive a signed and numbered copy of the full color limited edition (333 copies). Funds raised will be used to produce audio books of both "I, the Dragon" and "Wyrds of Power" and also to facilitate upcoming book events and workshops.
I invite you to join this magic circle.

-- Richard Power

"I, the Dragon: Chronicles of An Epic Life Among the Humans"
 available via http://GoFundMe.com/wordsofpower

Lughnasadh 2018: Resistance = rEvolution

Thomas Cole - The Course of Empire: Desolation (1836)

• "Drought turned the surrounding woodland into fuel, strong winds fanned the flames and in just a few hours this week fired consumed the Greek coastal resort of Mati, outside Athens. Homes and hotels were scorched or destroyed, more than 80 people died and many hundreds ran to the sea, seeking refuge from the flames. Mati is the deadliest wildfire of 2018 so far, but the northern hemisphere fire season now extends from June until October, and more death and destruction is inevitable as one of the strongest, longest-lasting global heatwaves in decades continues to envelop countries from Siberia to the Mediterranean, from North America to East Asia. Temperature records keep getting surpassed, and there’s little rain in the forecast for many regions. People have had to be evacuated from Yosemite National Park, Sweden has lost an estimated 30,000 hectares of forest and large areas of bone-dry Latvia, Italy, Finland and Norway have all been blanketed in smoke. The 2018 wildfire season has been dramatic, prompting headlines about the world being on fire, but it is only unusual in that so many places are experiencing major fires at the same time, scientists say. Large blazes wracked Indonesia in 2015, Canada and Spain in 2016, and Chile and Portugal in 2017. In Russia, villages, farmland and more than 1,100 square miles of forest were destroyed in 2010, and again in 2015."  -- John Vidal, Fire, Fire Everywhere: The 2018 Global Wildfire Season Is Already Disastrous, Huffington Post, 7/28/18  
  
  "The undocumented immigrant from Honduras sobbed as she told an attorney Tuesday how federal authorities took her daughter while she breastfed the child in a detention center, where she was awaiting prosecution for entering the country illegally. When the woman resisted, she was handcuffed, Natalia Cornelio, the attorney with the Texas Civil Rights Project, recalled from her interview with the woman, who had been detained under the Trump administration's zero-tolerance policy to refer anyone caught crossing the border illegally for federal prosecution ... Some parents who are under arrest tell public defenders they don't know what happened to their children, Nogueras said. Some parents also claim they have been told their children are being taken to be bathed or cleaned up, then the adults don't see them again.  'The government is essentially torturing people by doing this,' Cornelio said. In an interview outside the federal courthouse in McAllen, Nogueras said: 'It depends on who the agent is on that day. They'll be told, 'We're going to separate your kids so they can bathe.' And that's not true.'" -- CNN, She says federal officials took her daughter while she breastfed the child in a detention center, 6/14/18

• "About half of all plants and animals in 35 of the world's most biodiverse places are at risk of extinction due to climate change, a new report claims. 'Hotter days, longer periods of drought, and more intense storms are becoming the new normal, and species around the world are already feeling the effects,' said Nikhil Advani, lead specialist for climate, communities and wildlife at the World Wildlife Fund (WWF). The report, a collaboration between the University of East Anglia, the James Cook University, and the WWF, found that nearly 80,000 plants and animals in 35 diverse and wildlife-rich areas -- including the Amazon rainforest, the Galapagos islands, southwest Australia and Madagascar -- could become extinct if global temperatures rise. The 35 places were chosen based on their 'uniqueness and the variety of plants and animals found there,' the WWF said. 'The collected results reveal some striking trends. They add powerful evidence that we urgently need global action to mitigate climate change,' the report said. A corresponding study was also published by the scientific journal Climate Change. If temperatures were to rise by 4.5 degrees Celsius, animals like African elephants would likely lack sufficient water supplies and 96% of all breeding ground for tigers in India's Sundarbans region could be submerged in water." -- Joshua Berlinger, CNN, Global warming puts nearly half of species in key places at risk, 3/14/18

• "A federal judge on Monday found that U.S. government officials have been giving psychotropic medication to migrant children at a Texas facility without first seeking the consent of their parents or guardians, in violation of state child welfare laws. U.S. District Judge Dolly Gee in Los Angeles ordered the Trump administration to obtain consent or a court order before administering any psychotropic medications to migrant children, except in cases of dire emergencies. She also ordered that the government move all children out of a Texas facility, Shiloh Residential Treatment Center in Manvel, except for children deemed by a licensed professional to pose a 'risk of harm' to themselves or others. Staff members at Shiloh admitted to signing off on medications in lieu of a parent, relative or legal guardian, according to Gee’s ruling. Government officials defended this practice, saying they provided these drugs only on “an emergency basis” when a child’s 'extreme psychiatric symptoms' became dangerous." -- Samantha Schmidt, Trump administration must stop giving psychotropic drugs to migrant children without consent, judge rules, Washington Post, 7/31/18 

Lughnasadh 2018

The great wheel turns.

In the North, Lughnasadh 2018. Midway between Summer Solstice and Autumn Equinox. In the South, Imbolc 2018. Midway between Winter Solstice and Spring Equinox.

Feel the dynamism of the planetary polarity?

This Lughnasadh is particularly poignant for three reasons.

First, today, 8/1/18, is also Earth Overshoot Day.

•  "As of Wednesday, August 1, 2018, we have officially used up all of the Earth's resources for the year — and there are still five months left in the year. Back in 1970, Earth Overshoot Day — the date when humanity as a whole has used up the resources needed to live sustainably for a year — fell on December 29, just two days from the end of the year. But since then, we've been increasingly overshooting the planet's annual natural budget, with that day creeping ever earlier on the calendar. In 2017, that day was August 2. For that day on for the rest of the year, we are running an ecological deficit, depleting local resource stocks through overfishing and overharvesting forests, and emitting more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere than ecosystems can absorb. We currently need 1.7 planets to support all of humanity's demand on Earth's ecosystems, according to Global Footprint Network. Each year, the nonprofit research group calculates the date of the Earth Overshoot Day by taking the planet's biocapacity — that is, the amount of natural resources that are available — and dividing it by the amount of resources we've used up. But not all countries are equally to blame for overshooting our natural budget. Higher-income countries use far more resources per year than lower-income countries. Qatar, the richest country in the world as of 2017, has the highest consumption of natural resources on Earth. If the whole population in the world lived like people in Qatar, we would need more than nine planets in total. In comparison, if everyone lived like people in Nigeria or India, we would need only a bit more than half a planet a year. And with the average lifestyle in Vietnam, we would use up exactly one planet." -- Earth Overshoot Day: Time for a radical rethink, Deutsche Welle, 1/18/18

Second, we are only 97 days from the U.S. mid-term elections. 

Our great nation dangles high over a fathomless abyss, and we are gripping the edge of the precipice. Desperately. Holding on. With both hands. 

The right hand is the hope of a great progressive wave in the election, one resulting in a transference of control in one or both houses of Congress.

• "On the one hand, there are some encouraging portents. Since the 1840s, the president’s party has lost seats in 41 of 44 midterm elections. The pattern has been for the out party to pick up something like 25 seats in the first off-year election after a new president takes office. Trump is of course far less popular than most of his predecessors. And Democratic activism is at a fever pitch. On the other hand, we have a level of voter suppression unprecedented since the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 ― purges of the rolls; needlessly stringent ID requirements; games played with polling places and their hours; extreme gerrymandering; and questions about whether systems will be hacked — either by the Russians or by Trumpian locals. According to the Brennan Center, which carefully tracks this mischief, 13 states have added restrictive voter ID requirements since 2010, 11 have new laws making it harder to register, and six cut back on early voting or voting hours. Many of these are the same states. In addition, according to David Daley’s indispensable Ratf**ked: Why Your Vote Doesn’t Count, seven Republican-controlled states resorted to extreme gerrymandering for House districts (and also state legislative seats) after the 2010 census, including key swing states such as North Carolina, Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, Iowa and Arizona. As a consequence, Republicans won just 52 percent of the Ohio popular vote for Congress in 2012, but garnered 12 of that state’s 16 congressional seats. In closely divided Michigan, they took nine of the state’s 14 seats. So will the combination of voter suppression and gerrymandering abort the supposed blue wave? I think not. Here are the counterforce: First, there are plenty of vulnerable House seats in states that were not subject to recent voter suppression or gerrymandering efforts. By my count, there are at least 40 such seats, and Democrats need to flip only 23 to take back the House. There are dozens of Republican seats in play in states such as California, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Oregon, Minnesota and more, where voting systems are basically honest, and there have even been measures to make it easier to vote. Second, extreme gerrymandering, as I’ve previously noted, can backfire ― because it seeks to pack Democrats into a few seats and spread the presumed Republican voters widely to capture the maximum possible number of seats. But in a wave year, there aren’t enough Republican voters to go around, and designer seats are suddenly at risk." -- Robert Kuttner, A Democratic Wave In The Midterms Is Looking More And More Likely, Huffington Post, 7/29/18  

Albert Bierstadt - White Horse and Sunset (c.1863)

The left hand is the hope that Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller will succeed in bringing the full weight of federal law to bear on enemies foreign and domestic.

• David Masciotra, Salon: "The crimes of Trump are much worse than even many of his opponents believe. How deep does his criminality run, and what should Americans realize, especially those who feel "bored" or confused by the Russian collusion story?"
  Greg Olear: "... The truth is, the guy’s been mobbed up for decades, with ties to both La Cosa Nostra and Russian organized crime. Trump is a money launderer for the latter, and has been for quite some time. 'Money laundering' sounds cute, like something Danny Ocean and his merry men do, but it’s a euphemism for something unspeakable. The Russian mob has become so vast and successful because it eagerly participates in the worst of the worst: human trafficking, child pornography, sex slavery, opioids, illegal arms deals, blood diamonds — all the grisly, awful stuff that Trump accuses MS-13 of doing. By taking those dirty rubles and making them legitimate, Trump is a party to all of that. The media also likes to forget that Trump is a serial rapist and sexual predator. We can use the 'allegedly' qualifier if you like, but he has bragged about this on many occasions. There are more than 20 accusers now, and I believe them. The kompromat, by the way, does not involve tinkling Moscow prostitutes, but far more heinous activities. This is a person who sexually assaulted a reporter from People magazine at his house -- while his wife was home. You don’t think he’s capable of greater depravity halfway around the world, when he thinks no one is watching? As president, he’s profited mightily from the office, in violation of the emoluments clause [of the U.S. Constitution]. Is he setting national policy to benefit himself and his family? Is there any doubt that he is? Look at how he and Jared Kushner handled Qatar, home to important U.S. military bases. Isn’t that by itself tantamount to treason? Treason is a vague term. Unlike rape or murder or even petty larceny, it’s not visceral. But it’s the worst crime there is, because Trump actively betrayed 330 million Americans. He conspired with the Russians to contaminate the election, he lied about it, he continues to lie about it, and we have yet to find out exactly what he has promised his Russian master. I’d like to think that Americans across the political spectrum would agree that the POTUS should not be a compromised asset of the Russian Federation. Helsinki reaffirmed what I’ve known for two years, and what Hillary told us in the debate: Trump is Putin’s puppet. Has a powerful world leader ever presented as submissively, as weakly, as Trump did in Finland? He makes Neville Chamberlain look like Rambo. Let the record show that it took five paragraphs to outline Trump’s criminality, and I’ve barely scratched the surface." -- Writer Greg Olear on “Dirty Rubles”: Trump is “gravest existential threat” to America in 150 years, Salon, 7/28/18

We will need both hands to pull us up and away from a freefall into utter catastrophe. 

Third, personally, this Lughnasadh leads into the final stretch of my year-long campaign to launch the medicine of my magnum opus into the collective psyche. 

In "I, the Dragon" - A Treasure Map, A Medicine Pouch, A Book of Spells, Part Autobiographical Novel, Part World History, A Saga in the Truest Sense," I quoted some profoundly inspiring testimonials. From yoginis, burners, performance artists, dakinis, poets, witches, healers and fellow travelers who resonated with the book's challenging message. Here are a few more.

• "Reading 'I, The Dragon' I was struck by the tests, trials and tribulations Richard has endured that began as a young child and have woven throughout his life. And I sense the hero’s journey he has lived, learning to rely on his intuition ... To forgive is not to forget. The true hero must undergo a death and resurrection in order to progress. Richard has achieved this multiple times within his life, emerging each time to a higher level of understanding and release. His story is raw and penetrating and touched me at the depth of my being." -- Wendy Ellsworth

• "This novel has me engrossed. The title alone set me into a completely compelling desire to get absorbed in the secrets of each page. Richard Power your words infuse my soul with Musings of the worlds unseen. I can’t seem to put this book down. Thank you for your honesty, your courage, your truth. I’m honored to know you." -- Alita Arose (@alitaarose)

• "Time for a new read, one that will compel your attention for the next few decades? I have a recommendation for you. Within Richard Power's luminous autobiography I, THE DRAGON are tales of global intelligence and espionage, sexual magic, of horrific abuse and exquisite transcendence, told in waves and incantations. Statues and stones speak, and pour archetypes into the author and the reader alike. That is the magic of telling one’s story. It becomes everyone’s story. It always was, through the magic of the akashic record or the planetary egregoire or the Zeitgeist or the collective unconscious. But its power is multiplied a zillionfold when it is told on purpose, told out loud, told to an audience, especially one who will understand and respect it well. For this telling is not some shallow celebrity memoir of rubbing elbows and surface gossip. This is deep and high, this telling. This is a wild precise elegant rampage of the Goddess Herself in a man’s life, a man who has carried fire for the whole world and a man I’m pleased and honored to call my friend." -- Emily Shurr

• "The book I cannot put down and at the same time I have to put down to catch my breath." -- Lalyn Curtis, @breathingskyhealingarts 

Released on Winter Solstice 2018, "I, the Dragon: Chronicles of An Epic Life Among the Humans" is only available via http://www.GoFundMe.com/wordsofpower and is not currently available on Amazon or any other commercial platform. Funds raised will go to produce audio books of both "I, the Dragon" and "Wyrds of Power: New Language for A New Reality" and facilitate public events.

-- Richard Power

Richard Power's "I, the Dragon: Chronicles of An Epic Life Among the Humans"
Available via http://www.GoFundMe.com/wordsofpower