Sunday, 31 January 2010

Post No. 103 - Disrespect (was going to be privilege): a clarification on control

Let me begin by warning you that this is basically a vent - a bit of a rant. My apologies.

I've just been at an annual picnic for polyamorous people organised by a local group. Prior to that, I had been planning on writing a post this week about privilege, as there has been a great deal of debate about racism in my state (Victoria - and yes, I consider Australia does have a problem with racism, but I'll get to that later).

The picnic was OK: the weather was WAY too hot (38 degrees Celsius), and I'm not a social butterfly, but the venue was magnificent (the Fairfield park - look at the photos of the Boathouse and Pipe Bridge in the Wikipedia listing; I'm planning on going back there in winter to get some photos) - and we got a cool change.

However, as we were leaving, I wound up in a debate with someone who wanted to be disrespectful and refer to trans people by the wrong pronouns (i.e. not the pronouns of their choice). This person was quite intransigent, and basically a useful reminder for me of the reasons that laws are necessary, and are based on the behaviour of reasonable people: unreasonable people are, oddly enough, unreasonable - and there was certainly no reasoning with this bloke!

As Martin Luther King Jr put it: "The law may not change the heart, but it can restrain the heartless".

I have been doing lobbying and human rights education for decades, and my opinion,
based on decades of experience, is that there are some people who will not change in this
incarnation. They will have to come back in a much tougher life, and learn the hard way -
perhaps even becoming what they are having trouble accepting, even.

I knew someone a few decades ago who for some incredible reason had a problem with Greek
people. She and I happened to be talking about past lives one day, and, after she said she
found what we had been in the past fascinating, I commented that I found the topic of what
we could be in the future just as fascinating. She took the bait ("hook, line and sinker"), and
I then told her she would most probably come back as someone who is Greek. (Incidentally, at that stage, unlike the last few decades, I didn't have any Greek friends. On a related matter, I wish I could make those Australians who are racially abusing others, particularly Indians, understand that they are likely to come back as whatever they hate - i.e., Indians or the race or group [e.g., women] that they are abusing. [Even better still - just make them understand the wrongness of what they are doing in this lifetime ... ])

She may not want to reincarnate as a Greek, of course, but it would be a case of a battle between her consciousness here, and her soul - her soul being truest, innermost essence (which would want that parallel to get over with this prejudice so it can get on with evolving), and in such cases, the soul wins.

Sorry, folks, in that is disturbing or unsettling. I don't find it so, as I consider my soul knows a hell of a lot more than I - I'll possibly seek to discuss (maybe even "argue") the toss, but ultimately, the decision will be made by the more experienced, aware and knowledge part of myself. So it is me that makes the decision, just not necessarily the me that I know while I'm in this incarnation!

That gets me back to the discussion I had earlier today. The person concerned, lets call him, 'M', was at the picnic with a person who is a mutual friend of myself and my partner, and I was there with my partner. The essence of the debate was that M thinks he should be able to think and say whatever he wants, and that other people seeking to have him be respectful is an imposition on his freedom. (He reminds me of the men in the film "XXY", who, after sexually assaulting the person with XXY chromosomes, claim to have done nothing wrong.)

OK, my view is that he is wrong - pure and simple. Having to change and have consideration for others is part of growing up, let alone evolving spiritually, and his argument seemed to me to be predicated on not wanting to change. As an example of that, when we were speaking of a third party, I told M that the person clearly preferred to be referred to as female, as had our mutual friend some weeks ago, and yet M continued with the wrong pronouns - despite saying that this was simply a case of not knowing what to do. (I suspect M became clearer about what he wanted to do and argue for as the debate proceeded, so he possibly did learn something from this experience.)

I've come across this sort of intransigent attitude before, and it seems to me to be the spiritual equivalent of a two year old's tantrum. In fact, this sort of attitude in the workplace was what drove me into some very active lobbying to change local equal rights laws back in the 90s, and contributed to the ending of a (romantic) relationship a few years ago.

Oh - he tried the old furphy about "buts it's so hard to tell whether they're male or female". Rubbish. The only difficulty is that you actively REFUSE to acknowledge what is before your eyes, and try to shove it into a neatly labelled box that you were given once before, labelled "male", or "female" (no other boxes being present for, say, bigendered people; in my experience, this sort of attitude comes with the prejudiced person trying to weigh up pre-defined characteristics - yes, they have 3 characteristics from Box A, but the 2 characteristics from Box B are more important so I'll call them "B" - and that attitide applies to far more than just gender).

It is NOT difficult to work out how to be respectful - for a start, the other person's response (e.g., body language) will tell you if you have made a faux pax. If, despite this, you are genuinely not sure, ask the person if you can have a word in private (you don't blurt sensitive questions like this out in public), and ASK THEM what THEY prefer.

It's worth thinking about the word respect. Wikipedia says, in part,on this:
Respect denotes both a positive feeling of esteem for a person or other entity (such as a nation or a religion), and also specific actions and conduct representative of that esteem. Respect can be a specific feeling of regard for the actual qualities of the one respected (e.g., "I have great respect for her judgment"). It can also be conduct in accord with a specific ethic of respect. Rude conduct is usually considered to indicate a lack of respect, whereas actions that honor somebody or something indicate respect.
One of the most fundamental attacks that you can make on a trans person is to reject their identity. This is potentially something which can happen many times, in a wide variety of situations - and, in my experience, this, rather than any inherent internal problems with being trans, is what mostly causes problems with suicide and depression. It's not being trans per se, it's the discrimination meted out through denial of the trans person's very real knowledge.

Part of M's problem was, whether he knows it or not, boils down to that he thinks he knows other people better than themselves. He certainly was reluctant to apologise for his very long history of getting pronouns wrong when referring to me - and even tried to claim that I was basing my reaction to his behaviour on his ethnicity rather than his past behaviour towards me (which was complete rubbish). It got to the stage where three of us were telling him he was wrong, and he was refusing to budge. Why? Too proud to admit an error? Feel threatened if someone says he is wrong - or perhaps feeling threatened if someone female says he is wrong? (On that, what about me being threatened by him: why does that not count in that person's world?)

Another part of the problem was that his opinion was based on stereotypes of gender roles - he didn't even know about problems of hirsutism in women (particularly post-menopausal women); he didn't know about "screamers" * in the lesbian world or women with deep voices because of smoking. His opinion was that he would only extend courtesy to trans people if they were making an effort to fit into HIS ideas of what a gender role should be ... bad luck if they're a moderately butch dyke like me, eh! (I've written elsewhere about the view, only a few decades ago, that cheerleading was something that was "manly", and allowing women to be cheerleaders could "masculinise" them - there are so many examples of how what is acceptable/unacceptable behaviour for a gender has changed over time - look at the Wikpedia article on this topic, and do some research on the idea of gender as a social construct.)

On that, whilst from a pragmatic point of view I can understand the value of education (people can be taught not to discriminate, just as they are often taught to discriminate in the first place), it annoys me that there is a widespread expectation that trans people will willingly discuss personal, intimate details of their medical history, something normally considered private (and probably covered by the Privacy Act, when it comes down to it) with people who not only are complete strangers, but are often displaying aggressive antipathy towards the trans person (as M was). (From a spiritual point of view, the need to have to go to elaborate educative steps shows the lack of spirituality of the aggressors: they WILL need to repeat that lesson, in similar circumstances, before than can progress to much further - and EVERYONE will eventually have to get the stage where they can be respectful without having been "educated" ... )

No wonder so many trans people try to fit in to stereotypes (it basically has survival value), and M didn't like having the risks he was creating for trans people in some public situations by using the wrong pronouns pointed out to him, but that is part of learning to be aware and considerate of other people, which is a part of the spiritual growth that we have been placed on this planet to achieve. (Knowing oneself is also a key part, but so is an increasing awareness - I've been working on the topic "what is a spiritual person" for a while, and these are some of the points I make in that. In fact, it can be interesting at some events to watch who stands in the way of others, or to watch who breaks the law [e.g. parking laws] for their own convenience, possibly thus greatly inconveniencing many others, or rushes off away from others they are with who are perhaps differently abled and thus not able to walk as quickly, who gives away their true spiritual status by their actions, which may be in conflict with their words.)

As I mentioned, M saw this as a case of others trying to control him. The truth is, he was actively controlling and influencing others - whether he was consciously trying to or not, and irrespective of any malice. (If a brick is accidentally dropped off a high building site and kills someone, the person has died irrespective of the motivations of the person who committed the "accident" - although, as someone who has an active role in OHS, I have to say that very few things are actualy accidents!) Apart from the hurt caused directly, M's behaviour could quite seriously put others at risk, but he didn't want to consider that there could be red necks in an area who he could trigger a response in by using the wrong pronouns when talking of someone.

With other people exhibiting that sort of problematic behaviour, the problem could be that they are insecure in their own sense of gender/sexuality (a "nice" explanation of this is that they may have been socialised into thinking being anything other than hetero is "bad", but the TRUTH is that advanced ["spiritual"] people don't have to go through any education to behave respectfully towards others), which is something I have seen in the workplace around the transition of trans people. In this case, I have to accept M's words at their face value, and accept that he has had experience of gender variant people, so - provided what he said is true, and he genuinely has behaved respectfully towards those other gender variant people - I should discount that possibility. (A similar motivation that I have encountered in some men around same sex attracted women is resenting that someone has been "removed" from the pool of potential partners - which is a case of, oh they wish!!!)

Apart from the fundamental issue of respect, some other key issues, as I see it, are:
(1) M does not see trans people or their advocates as having any credibility, and/or
(2) M has a fear of changing.

The first point is pure and simple arrogance on the part of M - and hypocrisy, given his desire to be able to think whatever he wants, a freedom he is clearly not prepared to extend to others.

On the second point, changing oneself can be a scary prospect for some people - they may feel, for instance, who am I/who will I be if I change? How do I keep a track of that? There is a bit of a New Age "urban myth" that cancer is a refusal to grow or change: that IS the case with some people, but there are a wide range of other reasons as well (including the carcinogenicity of some chemicals), but it has happened in some cases, and I have personally seen people who would rather die than change. (If I extend that to metaphorical, I could say I know people who would rather die than admit they are wrong :) ) This attitude is a bit of a shame, given that nothing is permanent ...

A significant aspect to today's incident is that I don't care what M thinks - he is just not important to me as a person (although even with people who are close [e.g. rellies I don't have much to do with, and have shown no interest in me or my adoptive sister], this may be the case). I only care that his external behaviour is such that I am safe, and that was what he was making clear he would not extend to me (by refusal to apologise for many such past wrong doings). He can think whatever he wants to (although, people being people, if he doesn't think of trans people as being the gender they identify as, his prejudice is very likely to "leak out"), and I'll deal with the psychic attack aspects of his behaviour.

Now, although I can deal with the psychic energy involved (although this whole incident has left me quite depressed - I am working on that, though!), I have better things to do with my life than put up with such small mindedness. Consequently, I won't go to such social events again (unless there is a major (profound) change in M's behaviour).

Now, I was going to post about privilege. Well, I still will in the near future, and as a link from this post to that one, I'd like to include an email I sent recently to my local MP:


"A couple of hours ago, while my partner and I were returning from a fundraising event, we stopped to have a late meal in High Street. While walking from our car to the shop, we noticed an elderly man, looking somewhat unkempt, with a shopping bag. He wasn't going anywhere, or doing anything in particular, just sitting, maybe watching the crowd go by - a crowd who, other than the two of us, seemed completely and utterly oblivious to this man. In fact, at one stage, he evidently heard some people talking about sitting on a bench, and since his was the only one in the area, he stood up before they approached to leave the seat vacant. Fairly clearly he was innocuous, and seemed most probably homeless. We slipped him some money - unasked for: he wasn't begging, and he seemed quite pleased to receive it, but as we drove home, we discussed the incident, and what we did seemed such a small thing to do, and we felt it would be nice to do more. I have only lived in this area for a couple of years, and still have not learned of all the resources which may be available here. I knew of some of the resources in Frankston - some formal, others not. For example, a friend of mine in Frankston used to search the streets late at night to find homeless people, and would find somewhere to house them overnight (one of those homeless people actually later married a friend of mine). Are there any resources which are available in the Northcote area that I can refer homeless people to - particularly late at night? I would appreciate your advice - including any contacts you may care to suggest I communicate with."

This theme of "not seeing" also crops up with the widespread problem of racism ... and with not acknowledging that one may have privilege in some way. I have seen first hand the conditions that some people have to live with when my day job has taken me to Asia - particularly when I befriended the woman who cleaned the room of a hotel I was staying at, and got to go to her one roomed home, down a narrow alleyway, in Hanoi. (The neighbourhood kids kept coming in and out to look at the crazy Western lady who had come to such a poor place - and when I made them a paper plane ... wow!) This sort of privilege is very well illustrated in Li Cunxin's book "Mao's Last Dancer".

I've often wondered why people are so scared to admit that they have privilege in some way - maybe they think they'll lose it if they admit they have something that millions of other's don't, something like clean drinking water, more than ample food, clothing, a roof and shelter, the security of a job, not having been born with a disability, .... Maybe they're scared they'll lose it, but I sadly think it is more likely that they are simply too metaphorically blind to notice what they have (which is, karmically and spiritually speaking, more likely to cause exactly that to happen), much as M is too blind to notice what he has been doing for years.

This world has quite some way to go. SIGH



* A screamer is someone who screams to develop a lower pitched or husky voice (often done in isolated areas). I've also thought ocassionally of some lesbian, separatist feminists I know wheo are anti-trans and the likelihood that they will come back as a trans person. At least they will have the support of those lesbian, separatist feminists who are NOT anti-trans ...

Love, light, hugs and blessings

Gnwmythr

PS - I am having problems with a "bad request" message, and so have had to use other PCs to work on this blog. One of the suggested solutions I've tried is changing the template back to "classic", which is why the appearance of this blog has changed - and, unfortunately, it still hasn't fixed the problem ...

Tags: discrimination, life lessons, personal responsibility, personal characteristics, Psychic attack, control, gender, Li Cunxin, Martin Luther King Jr, polyamory, racism, stereotypes,

First published: Tuesday 2nd February, 2010

Last edited: Tuesday 2nd February, 2010

Sunday, 17 January 2010

Post No. 102 - Judging others: people who experience a lot

Know anyone who seems to have had a great deal of suffering? Do they have endless bad luck?

Ever think they deserved it - perhaps karmically?

Well, it may well be that, far from having "deserved" a life of suffering, they are actually well ahead of you spiritually.

In my early days of serious study on the spiritual path, I came across a test to work out where you were karmically: when you do something that is wrong (not if!), note how long it is before that comes back to you. Let's say you cut someone off while driving: how long is it before something like that happens to you? There have been times in my life when it was only a few minutes, but usually it is longer.

If the return is only a few hours or days, maybe a week or so, you are doing reasonably well - for the karmic load that you assigned yourself in that lifetime. If it is months, you have a slipped behind ...

Note:
(1) no-one else can do this test for you, and you can't do it for others (unless you're so advanced that you don't need this blog and probably wouldn't be bothering to read it anyway - except maybe to check up on how I'm going :) )
(2) it is related to the karmic load that you have taken on for that lifetime.

People have a certain rate of karmic return that they take on. They can, to some extent, alter that from within a lifetime (for instance, when I was learning, we all accelerated our karmic return - and struggled thereafter), but mostly its set as part of the planning for an incarnation - which you may or may not have been a willing part of (you would definitely have been part of it at a soul level, but not necessarily at the level of consciousness which reincarnated as ythis parallel of the soul).

When you see people who are overwhelemd and struggling, consider that you may well be loking at people who have been extremely evolved sp[iritually in their previous lives, and then decided to clear up karma at an accelerated rate. Maybe they're dealing with what would be, at a "normal" rate of karmic return, say, six or ten lifetimes worth of karma - perhaps so they can have a "clean slate" before moving on to a new phase of existence.

From my personal experience of a relatively minor acceleration of rate of karmic return, that can be a major matter, so ... if you see people who are ovewhelmed by "bad" experiences, DON'T assume they've necessarily been exceptionally evil in a past life (and I have come across this attitude in some people who have learned a little about karma): they may actually be more evolved than you.

Love, light, hugs and blessings

Gnwmythr

Tags: attitudes, karma, spirituality, evolution, learning styles, personal characteristics, personal responsibility, simplifications, rate of karmic return, accelerating rate of karmic return,

First published: Sunday 17th January, 2010

Last edited: Sunday 17th January, 2010

Post No. 101 - A New Visualisation: Astral Trees as a clearing/healing tool

I developed the following technique while working on clearing a nest of vampires. No, not people who turn physically into dust at the touch of sunlight (nor even people who have porphyria) - not even people who are eveil or unpleasant, and some of them even have an interest in spiritual matters. No, this is a group of people who have wound up in a situation with lots of complicated factors (serious illnesses, including cancer [one terminal], lack of money, addiction [to smoking], etc) that they are being overwhelmed by.

When you're drowning, you grasp at almost anything - lifejackets, timber, or even other people. When I was a kid being taught in the local life saving club, one of the things we were taught to do is dive down when approaching a struggling swimmer and some up behind them so they don't latch on to you and get both of you into trouble. That was in the 60s: I rather suspect things may have changed since then (because of personal floation boards, etc), but the principle is a useful illustration of what I am talking about.

These people are not feeling good: they are, as is the human tendency to want to do, wanting to feel good. If anyone offers help, they will latch on and take more than the other can give. They will be as pleasant as they can be, in their own way, and as grateful as they can be (in their own way), but they will be totally unaware of the problems they are causing others - much as a drowning swimmer will not be aware that he or she is drowning the would be rescuer.

The end result, though, is that they fit into the strict definition of energy/emotional vampire - and they have, unfortunately, picked up some astral entities who are vampires (not ones that honour the Black Veil, a Code of Ethics associated with part of the vampire culture - see "Magickal Self Defense", by Kerr Cuhulain, pub. Llewellyn, ISBN 978-0-7387-1219-2, p. 111*), and who are both feeding off the pain, fear and other negative energies, and doing all that they can to

So ... what does one do?

Well, one does NOT abandon them: one uses smarter healing and clearing techniques and, while maintaining a sympathetic relationship, keeps a protective distance.

This is a lesson all would be healers and helpers need to learn: don't be too involved, look after yourself - if you don't, you won't be able to help anyone. It is particularly important to be aware of this if, as is too often the case, you are getting involved with helping others because of your own needs (for self esteem, to feel valued/needed/wanted, etc). Those may not be ideal motivations, but - unlike those who take cheap shots at such people - I think it is worth having more people helping others than less, provided the helpers are not causing harm, and such people do NOT necessarily automatically cause harm (they do, however, in some cases - usually where they place their own expectations of what they, the "helper", would want in that situation, rather than being objective and checking what the person being helped actually wants).

In terms of this blog post, a technique I have developed for this situation is to create a thought form of a tree. In this particular case, it is a silver coloured tree - actually, a series of trees, one for the house, and one for each of the key players, including the astral vampires who have attached themselves to these people. I perceive trees as light pumps, so effectively I have created light & love pumps for these people and the hourse they live in.

The trees were nearly overwhelmed in the first few hours, until I added vortexes, both up and down, to remove the negative energy being flushed out by these creations.

As is the case with any new technique, I've tried it out on myself first, and found that it is particularly good at clearing chakras, but not so good at, when I tried it, helping with asthma attacks (although that may have been because I was trying to deal with the lungs, rather than the other nonphysical energies which are associated with the asthma.

It may work for other people's asthma; it may work in this case I'm using for and not others. If yopu feel so inclined, think about it, meditate on it, communicate with your guides, and maybe try it.

I'm just hoping it will make helping these people less of a painful, disruptive and unpleasantly wearing experience. I have other, earlier, and more important commitments in life to honour.

Love, light, hugs and blessings

Gnwmythr

* I'm working on a review of this book

Tags: emotions, energy work, evil, expectations, family, healing, immaturity, interpersonal interactions, judging others, life lessons, lifestyles, limitations, personal responsibility, Vampires, trees

First published: Sunday 17th January, 2010

Last edited: Sunday 17th January, 2010

Post No. 100 - Film Review: The Lovely Bones

Last night, my partner, a friend of hers and I all went to see the film "The Lovely Bones".

As a film, my partner (who is also psychic) and I thought it was great (the friend said it was "like "Ghost" but without the humour"), with incredible performance from the actors and director. One thing which was particularly noticeable was how much harder it was for the serial killer to pick up victims in later years, when young women were being less subservient and docile than they had been conditioned into being in earlier decades.

I'm not going to try and make this a full blown or formal review: I'm just going to list a few points.

- I liked the way communication between the worlds was shown, with hints and whispers for those not trained
- it was pity the film didn't show the earthbound conditions that the serial killer would have experienced after his demise
- the trance mediumship of Ruth was a good scene (maybe not the most representative of real life mediumship, but resonably well done)
- the way the non-physical world changes in response to emotions is accurate (in concept) and was a particularly important point (in my opinion)
- the lack of help from spirit rescuers is, unfortunately, accurate: there are just not enough doing this valuable work
- it was a pity that the term for the Summerlands was the Christian term (i.e., "heaven"), but that was probably a commercial thing (particularly for the American market) - if the author/filmmakers knew of any other terms!

My partner had picked up the book at a school fete and started to read it years ago - until life got in the way. I'm now looking forward to reading and reviewing that - and am curious as to how much the author, Alice Sebold, knows consciously about rescue work. She has certainly had some rough experiences in life: a rape while studying led - eventually - to her writing career, and the following is attributed to her from the Wikipedia article about her:

In an interview conducted by Ann Darby of Publishers Weekly, Sebold said of The Lovely Bones: "I was motivated to write about violence because I believe it's not unusual. I see it as just a part of life, and I think we get in trouble when we separate people who've experienced it from those who haven't. Though it's a horrible experience, it's not as if violence hasn't affected many of us."

I'll have a think about that comment as well ...

In the meantime, I have a few (psychic) people that I want to recommend this film to.

Love, light, hugs and blessings

Gnwmythr

Tags: rescue, astral, attitudes, awareness, dreams, emotions, energy work, family, forgiveness, growth, life lessons, not letting go, personal characteristics, personal responsibility,

First published: Sunday 17th January, 2010

Last edited: Sunday 17th January, 2010

Tuesday, 5 January 2010

Post No. 099 - The Neanderthal Predation theory - some thoughts

There are two, maybe three, books I would like every human to read. They are:
(1) Richard Dawkins' book "The Selfish Gene", which I especially recommend before having children – more so if one is strongly driven to have children;
(2) Danny Vendramini’s “Them and Us” (pub. Kardoorair Press, Glebe, 2009, ISBN 9780908244775 ), to be read especially by all would be alpha males/queen bees, but I would also recommend this for teenagers, law makers/enforcers and parents; and
(3) maybe Desmond Morris’ book “The Naked Ape” pub. 1967, hardback: ISBN 0070431744; reprint: ISBN 0-385-33430-3).

Why? Because these books help show us some of the biological imperatives which are built into our physical essences, the self same physical imperatives that we no longer "have" to follow – imperatives that, in fact, are possibly physically, socially, emotionally, ecologically and spiritually harmful to follow.

In much the same spirit as the comment I’ve come across in dietary books and articles that we have “stone age biologies in a modern world”, hence giving us urges to eat foods such as fats which once had survival value but in today’s largely sedentary (Western) world are dangerous, these books, whether right or wrong, urge us to examine urges and assumptions that we take as fundamental, basic and “given”.

That “given” is in the sense of “of course everyone marries and has children”, or “of course all boys fight”, or “of course children get bullied”, or “of course everyone is Christian”, or “of course all women belong at home” – and continue inserting any prejudice/social more you wish to. This form of “given” is a form of enforcing conformance – which can be done through a wide range of methods, including humour (see the paper "Masculinity and the culture of engineering" by Dr Sue Lewis and others [the closest I can find to a link for this is http://digital.library.adelaide.edu.au/dspace/handle/2440/764; the paper came, I think, out of work by Swinburne University of Technology's National Centre for Women, subsequently renamed the National Centre for Gender and Cultural Diversity, which I cannot find a website for), socialisation (a lot of the 70s “consciousness raising” and much feminist literature since is useful at exposing this type of influence – although some has significant flaws such as transphobia or lack of awareness of the soul), or various forms of overt and covert violence.

The issue of violence – particularly covert forms (i.e., subtle and not so subtle threats and attempted intimidation) for controlling others – is a personal button that has been pushed by reading Danny Vendramini’s intriguing book, and I'm going to digress here to explore that a little.

Now, a lot of the horrors I’ve been subjected to by others in this lifetime has been about them trying to establish control over me:
(a) beginning with the bullying I had from would be alpha males and would be queen bees at school; through the
(b) faux parental attitudes of an extraordinarily bigoted and small minded former boss (e.g., he claimed that only 2% of the population were same sex attracted, which was made in the context of a conversation where the estimate that 10% of the people with HIV/AIDS were gay [in line with the 10% generally considered gay] and hence the problem was predominantly a gay problem: 90% of people with HIV/AIDS are hetero, but that was somehow immaterial to this bigot [who I actually suspect – particularly from his reaction to the transition of a transgender person – was a deeply suppressed homosexual); and the
(c) bullshit reactions to women being lesbians along the lines of “what a shame” (and worse: I’ve just been into a country town near where we are holidaying as I start this article, and have received some very frosty stares to my visible tattoos [no doubt a transgression against the rules of being female according to those people] and – possibly – my labrys tattoo [i.e., the “lesbian symbol” and my atypical [compared to many women] deep voice, which is quite mild); to
(d) the bullying and attempted intimidation I’ve had from the son and son-in-law of a former partner (which I will come back to later); and
(e) all the rest.

ALL of it (even the tailgating of other drivers - which is attempted intimidation) has, in one way or another, been about them trying to force me to be cowed into subservience – into toeing their line (conformity).

Well, most of it didn’t work. It has left me with residual scars (dents on my psyche's bumper bar, perhaps?) and issues to deal with , and I’m going to continue working through those in this post, to some extent, but I am still here, still being as true as I can to my own truest essence. They failed. They also ended the relationship I alluded to, but that led to some major improvements in my life anyway – and some useful lessons (which I am still working on intergrating into my being, so that if I ever find myself in a similar situation in a future lifetime, I will react differently).

It is in the context of lessons, particularly those around self knowledge, that I am writing this post. Keep in mind the story about the famous Greek philosopher (I forget whether it was Aristotles or Socrates) who is supposed to have had his head “read” by a phrenologist, who commented that the philosopher’s skull was of someone who was dull, stupid and slow mentally. The philosopher congratulated the phrenologist on being correct, and explained that he had worked very hard (and successfully) at overcoming the shortcomings he had from birth to become what he wanted to be. None of has to be blind adherents to our unconscious urges, biases and foibles. We can do personal growth work, counselling or we can plan other ways to overcome predicted tendencies if we wish to (and I include ALL astrological and other forms of divination in this: Cancerians DON’T have to be moody – we [I am a Cancerian sun sign] can overcome that, or channel it into a constructive expression, just as I decided at age ten to channel my anger into a constructive form – to use it [e.g. by using it to motivate me to write letters about injustices, or to be assertive], rather than allow it to use me). If I look at the history of warfare, we have gone from a situation where there were no rules (thousands of years ago non-combatants were too often slaughtered), whereas now, we have the (imperfectly adhered to) Geneva Convention and (also imperfect) monitoring of what is happening in combat - we even have (imperfect) attempts at controlling the weapons of mass destruction which have been created in recent centuries. [See Note 6]

In the case of “Them and Us”, Danny Vendramini has re-examined archaeological and other scientific evidence to develop a theory about the evolution of humans (homo sapiens sapiens). My first reaction to this, and that of others I know, was along the lines of “rubbish”, but I have now read the technical paper Vendramini wrote, and the populist book, and consider his theory plausible – and at least worth thinking about.

There are going to be some interesting debates about this concept over the next few years – but, irrespective of that, I consider it a useful way of approaching certain aspects of human behaviour, just as astrology can be a useful tool for approaching classification of personality (even if it is to say “no I don’t fit that description of me”).

To excessively shorten the theory so that it fits into this post, it goes something like this:
(i) ancient humans, a basically cautious (“timid”) hunter-gatherer species, moved into the region most of us now know as the Middle East (Vendramini uses the old term “Levant”) about 110,000 years ago;
(ii) Neanderthals moved into the Levant about 100,000 years ago;
(iii) Neanderthals were predominantly meat eaters, probably the apex predator in Europe from around 300,000 years ago, and, when current anthropomorphism is removed from our view of those times, were probably also cannibalistic (incidentally, one of the draft posts I have been slowly working on is how we tend to get anthropomorphic about the energies we call deities, which can be a problematic blinker);
(iv) one of the prey of Neanderthals in the Levantine included ancient humans (Vendramini writes something to the effect of “it’s all just meat – it’s nothing personal”), which – via 50,000 years of predation - is the cause of a known population bottleneck (i.e., decline of population to a small number – almost reaching extinction);
(v) through various evolutionary selection mechanisms, this small number of survivors adapted to the ever present threat from Neanderthals through means such as hyper-aggression and courage in young males (who were seen as sexually desirable), language, organisation, etc (see the book or the websites http://www.themandus.org/ and http://www.thesecondevolution.com/ for more – this post isn’t a substitute for reading either!);
(vi) the adaptations included:
- genetic coding (of “junk DNA”), via what Vendramini theorises are “Trauma Encoded Emotional Memories” (TEEMs), into seeing anything even vaguely resembling a Neanderthal as a threat (and hence fears of bogeymen in the night etc [Vendramini theorises that Neanderthals were more like “Big Foot” or the “Yeti” in appearance, and were evolved to hunt at night])
- increased athleticism and a more robust central nervous system, capable of surviving the shock and trauma of being hunted for millennia (which, Vendramini posits, is why humans can survive torture and other abuse, when other species may succumb to shock when captured from the wild)
- keeping women and children close to home and in monogamous relationships (Vendramini posits that the evolution of “romantic love” was an adaptation aimed at reduced the sexual assaults of Neanderthals on fertile females – along with other developments such as private sex, modesty, personal hygiene and even the missionary position [see Note 1]), which gradually changed the behaviour of women so that aggression and violence was expressed in different ways (anyone who doubts the existence of female violence needs to read the book “Queen Bees and Wannabees”; also, Vendramini provides some references [in his list of almost 800 references] on this topic which I intend to try to follow up);
(vii) the adaptations led to genocidal warfare between early humans and Neanderthals, with the aggression of young males leading to expansion of the early human race (for whom Vendramini revives the term “Cro-Magnon”), the extinction of Neanderthals and other hominid species (except in Africa, where there was possibly some interbreeding) and infanticide against any baby which triggered the TEEMs created by Neanderthal Predation, hence giving us as a species unusually limited genetic variability;
(viii) after the extinction of other hominid species, the hyper-aggression of young males became a problem for families wishing to rear children, which led to the development of agriculture, cities and law giving (in other words, “civilisation”) as a means of ensuring safety against packs of marauding young males (and at this time, those same formerly sexually desirable young males were no longer sexually desirable: caring, sensitive, supportive partners were [see Note 2]).

Phew – quite a step from recent views on Neanderthals, and a view that I feel strangely sad about (I liked the friendly version of the Neanderthals), but it does pose some possible answers to questions about evolution. (Mind you, the thoughts I had of the similarity between this sequence and those of the US creating problems for itself later by supporting people such as Hussein [against the Iranians] and Bin Laden [against the Russians in Afghanistan] and the rise and fall of hyper-aggression aren’t in that category :P )

It also has, if correct, some very significant information about what is hard wired into our bodies – things like xenophobia, sexism, aggression, violence (the information Vendramini includes on the history of warfare, especially amongst tribal societies, is staggering), and even the missionary position and why men stereotypically allegedly don’t ask for directions.

Of course, none of this is to say we have to be this way. We can choose to be otherwise, both as individuals, and as a society. It is in the latter area that I consider this theory, if correct, may have some powerful effects, with changes to attitudes towards child rearing (such as a long overdue reduction in tolerance of violence and aggression, including female violence and aggression - in fact, the most aggressive person by far I have met since the former relationship I will be writing about ended is a young female), justice (possibly less naive views of the responses to measures aimed at curbing violent/aggressive tendencies), and possibly even education (possibly less naive views of the existence of various forms of bigotry, and the need to take active action to address the cause of such prejudices, rather than piecemeal trying to address these after they have developed).

There are some (scientifically/intellectually) interesting (but not necessarily pleasant to recount) behaviours recounted in this book, such as the violence of primates (mainly apes and chimpanzees), including cowing females into subservience, and the ubiquity of anthropomorphism (which particularly caught my attention as I am planning a post on how this also gets applied to deities).

As far as the hyper-aggressive behaviour of young males goes, I have had some personal experience of that with the son and son-in-law of an ex-partner of mine.

To digress (and this is where I'll give more detail on some of the triggers I referred to earlier), their belligerence, aggression and criminality was a large part of what made the experience of being in that relationship that of being in an abusive relationship, and both prevented me from becoming active in politics (because of their tendency towards petty crime, which – combined with things like my being lesbian – would have made me too much of a target to have much of a realistic chance [and would have subjected them to unreasonable scrutiny]) and ultimately was the trigger for me leaving (I was expected to “toe their line” about law breaking once too many times). Examples of the behaviour, both major and minor, that I was subjected to include:
- as mentioned, being expected to shut up about criminal activities (which I largely refused to comply with, I am pleased to be able to say; the exception was when the younger daughter took the can for her stupid de facto, who chose to go driving and have an accident while drunk and under a suspended sentence: the choice I had next day when I was told what they had done was send the bastard to jail and watch the daughter, who I cared about, lose her home, or go along with it);
- being subjected to regular extreme drunkenness, including being expected to pussy foot round one of the males who became even more aggressive when drunk (my observation of this is that it is a far too common behaviour in Australian society);
- being grabbed by the throat as part of a “conversation”/"demonstration" about the finer points of strangling someone (really!);
- sadism on the part of one of the males, who admitted taking pleasure in trying to wind me up and also absolutely gloated about having threatened and intimidated someone at work into tears (I have to admit that I would actually like to see his karmic return with regard to that incident);
- violence including drunken a rampage up the street where one of these males, who used to make a big deal out of the “wrongness” of violence against women, assaulted (punched) a middle aged woman (he some months later also hit his partner, which was almost enough to cause my ex to turn against him; the rampage was supposed to be a demonstration, somehow, of how much he loved some children of his from a previous relationship who he wasn’t allowed to have access to) [see Note 3];
- having people (including a male) walk in on me while in the shower; and
- extreme disrespect towards me, the most upsetting of which was deliberately turning a photo of my family face down on the table.

Of course, throughout almost all of this I had a complete lack of support from my then partner (which is very different now, in my cuirrent relationship). My take on this initially was that my former partner was trying to maintain some harmony. Ultimately, it became clear she effectively valued supporting criminal and other problematic behaviour ahead of me, which was when I started planning my escape. The others valued their little family unit ahead of all other humans – hence the contempt for laws, which are (with some serious exceptions) about social order. About my only win was that they never indulged their drug habits at my house (I can’t call it a home).

At this point, I will remind you that Danny Vendramini's theory proposes a possible basis for xenophobia, which is effectively what this disdain towards anyone who wasn't family effectively was. They had a choice about following their xenophobic urges, whether through junk DNA coding or other, and chose to follow them.

The obvious question is: why stay in this nightmare? Out of some sort of rescue complex? Guilt, or a need to punish oneself? Or feeling this was all I could get?

OK, keeping in mind that:
- there were good times (particularly in the first few years, where I was actively supported in other areas of my life),
- that my partner’s gradually deteriorating health (she wound up on a disability pension) was also a motivator for me to stay,
- that I gradually wound up with financial problems (my ex’s health forced her to stop work when we had taken out loans to, in large part, help her kids) that prevented me leaving my ex, and
- that I belive passionately in sticking to my word (we had had a commitment ceremony - it was immaterial to me that she had broken her vows: I would rather die than break mine willingly),
... the latter feeling from the previous paragraph was actually my main, initial motivation.

I had been single most of my adult life, and genuinely felt I could not get a better relationship (and did not particularly want to go back o being single). Later, I stayed out of concern for that ex’s younger daughter, who wanted a better life for herself and her children (my ex’s older daughter had had enough good sense to establish a life for herself away from, to use the term they would, “all the dickheads” [even to the extent of trying sending her daughter to an expensive private school for a while, until she realised that wasn’t as good as she had hoped]) and the step-grandchildren (I am still working psychically to help her and them), and also the whole complex of other reasons that women stay in abusive relationships (such as things like the basic idea of feeling I have to be in relationship).

Now, I am slowly working through the healing I need to do, with the support of a wonderful, very aware, very spiritual, very capable, very different to my previous, partner.

Part of that healing process also includes a post I have been working on about my struggle to forgive these two males, which includes the need for validation and a valid – to me – feeling of control/power as opposed to the powerlessness that at least one of those bastards was deliberately seeking to create. This all gets more complicated when I try to interact with my ex's daughters or the grandkids and one or more of the males are still on the scene, but if I don’t forgive or come to terms with what they did to me, I risk tying myself to them through my hate, and failing to recognise any changes they may make – and there were some small signs of change for the better in one of them towards the end of my time there ...) Then again, it is possible for me to get to a stage where I am neutral towards those aggressors, but if they ever ask for my forgiveness, I have conditions they must satisfy before they receive it.

I know full well that there is almost no chance that my forgiveness would be sought, so any resolution may have to wait until my next life (I've recently starting accepting that I will be nowhere near completing the taks, especially karmic, that I have to complete in this life when I die, so will probably have to come back), but the situation is similar to one where my (now deceased) birth family grandparents, who were instrumental in my being adopted, asked me for my forgiveness: my answer was that the person they had most hurt was my birth mother, and for me to forgive them they would have to make their peace with her first. I had worked through my problems, and found myself at a point where I could not forgive because to do so was to allow an injustice to be continued.

In the same way, I feel that it would be wrong of me to blindly forgive the aggressive males I am writing about, as that way they would have no barrier to continuing to behave in the same fashion. If they prove to me that they have changed, then I'll forgive them - but I am aiming to get to a stage where I don't hate them. I know that sounds like I've set myself up a bit as ajudge and jury, but I still consider from time to time whether I should have child services step in as far as the children of one of them is concerned, and I will continue to work to psychically protect, heal and nurture (from a distance) the grandkids and ex's daughters, and do that AND seek to promote maturity and awareness on the part of both my ex and the aggressive males concerned [Note 7]. They came into my life for a purpose (well ,several, actually), and these continuing actions by myself are part of it. It will all change after we have drunk the Waters of Lethe for our next incarnations, but I will continue to do what I can now, and hope that I will belive in myself more next time round.

It is ironic that Vendramini’s book comments on violence by step parents, as:
A) my (adoptive) parents were wonderful, loving, supportive people who I am proud to call parents (which I also feel about my birth parents – I don’t feel a need to limit who I credit with being a parent to me: I also count several foster parents, and do not see ANY of them as being the lesser for the others);
B) although I am NOT taking on a step parental role in my current primary relationship (well, only relationship, actually – the poly in me is only potential, not realised at the moment), I spend quite a bit of time, energy and effort supporting my partner in her role as a parent;
C) all other step parents I personally know do not fit into the horror mould – in fact, if there is a “horror mould” to be applied, it is, in my experience, more likely to be the step kids :P *

Going back to the context of Danny Vendramini’s theory, my ex and her son and son-in-law are, in my opinion, prime examples of the vestiges of hyper-aggressive behaviour that once was valuable, and now is actually actively harmful.

So ... in a generic sense, what do you do about such people?

Well, if it is only themselves, and they are not impacting on others (which is almost impossible to achieve – remember the drunken rampage up the street I referred to?), nothing. If adults are involved, such as myself, you help those adults to make the decision to change their circumstances – I did eventually. (However, as I mentioned earlier, I have not forgiven those three, and the struggles I am having with finding a way from being a victim to being able to forgive will be the essence of another post.)

When children are involved, the situation changes. The ideal would be to:
I) counter the harm done at home through the school system (which is NOT just a case of providing encouragement and support: I consider our current education system too “soft” in that aspect, and that it needs to cover how to accept valid criticism, but valid challenges to destructive home values such as excessive loyalty to family [e.g., ahead of the law] need to be made, as well as creating an awareness of how to break cycles of destructive relationships);
II) give the next generation effective parenting skills; and
III) remove the children to constructive situations (which unfortunately, cannot be guaranteed with our current, chronically overloaded system – which, believe me, I have considered).

Lobbying for better education and child care systems is something I have been doing for many years, now – as well as doing whatever I can spiritually and psychically to bring that about.

When considering that (particularly a better education system), keep in mind that we no longer have to blindly obey biological imperatives. Our world is radically different: in fact, we need, as a species, to stop breeding enough children to grow the species' population; we need to stop reacting against threats no longer existent (as outlined so well by Danny Vendramini’s book); we need to – as a species - stop prancing about like spoilt little brats. By being aware, we can make conscious choices – not necessarily easy, emotionally pleasant/comfortable or easily implemented choices, but choices that promote our overall wellbeing individually, as a species and as a part of this wonderful planet.

Being aware of the (biological) drive to eat crap gives a basis to resist that urge when one should. Throughout history, being aware of the spiritual element of life has given basis for rejecting crap values (as one person at the recent Parliament of the World’s Religions said, “go beyond conformity”; note: I do not include religions aimed at enforcing conformity as a form of spirituality).

This theory gives a basis for examining our urges towards violence and aggression, in its various forms (and I include female violence in that). The theory may not be correct, but the self examination should be.

One change I have made as a result of reading this book is my position on the urge of young people, mainly – but NOT exclusively – male to “test themselves out” with risk taking and competitive/violent behaviour. In the past I have advocated society trying to find a relatively benign way to cater for this (for instance, provide tracks where they can take cars and do burn outs, drag racing etc – even to the extent of having ambulances present – so this isn’t done in suburban streets or other public roads where other lives ar put at risk and the safety and sense of security of other people is not threatened). I am now inclined towards a view that, maybe, as this is possibly vestigial destructive programming, maybe a better way of addressing this is to provide education and means of these people managing their primitive urges.

I’ve long advocated the ancient “classical” approach to education (albeit to all genders, not just male): aim to produce well rounded, evolved people, through both parenting and public education (whether delivered through public or private schools), people who respect and incorporate physical, emotional, mental and – if they wish – spiritual development and maintenance of those aspects into their lives. People who are not blindly naive, who are not so insecure that they are judgemental (or, at the very least, are aware of when they are, and take steps to prevent them acting to control/otherwise harm others as a result), who are not helpless, unaware slaves to their DNA and other coding. Maybe this needs to be extended, and I need to be less tolerant of the foibles of those portion (it is not all of them by a long shot!) of young people who want to be belligerent.

In any case, I consider there needs to be far less tolerance of violence and aggression amongst small children – boys and girls – and less automatic acceptance of violent toys and games, etc. One of my ex’s (not the problem one, another one before her) would take toy guns and swords off her children when someone tried to overrule her rules about her own children: I have always admired her for that, and I particularly admired my current partner at a recent family gathering when she called a young nephew on his punching the shoulder of a brother-in-law of mine – behaviour which usually gets accepted as “boys playing games”, an acceptance which is an active promotion of the hyper-aggression of Cro-Magnons that Danny Vendramini theorises evolved as a species response to Neanderthal Predation, a response which has been outmoded and dangerous for thousands of years.

Going back a little in this missive, I mentioned a qualifier when considering vestigial hyper-aggressives: “they are not impacting on others”.

As I wrote at the time, that is almost completely impossible. There are laws and police forces to deal (albeit imperfectly) with those who physically assault others, and a slow acceptance of violence having other forms (e.g., emotional abuse and financial abuse – which I consider was part of the relationship with the ex I have been referring to [ironically, though I was financially abused, I had the higher income], although society is being slow to accept verbal violence as the active form of violence that it is). I’ve written elsewhere in this blog on the psychic interactions of such people, and won’t complicate matters by repeating that them in this post. The one aspect I would like to cover a little further here is dealing with meeting hyper-aggressive people when one is a more spiritual person.

In an ideal world, theoretically that wouldn’t happen. However, this isn’t, and isn’t likely to be, an ideal world: it is a physically beautiful world, often, but it is a place created for us to grow, and there will always be challenges. In much the same way I consider it fundamentally wrong for us to try to insulate ourselves from the vagaries of nature [see Note 4], I think we should not forget where we came from, and what lessons we have learned in the past: we just need to be able to effectively pick and choose from them - and scientists are not necessarily the best arbiter of that: despite his theory, Danny Vendramini is not, by his own admission, a scientist – in fact, his position as an outsider is what has helped him come up with this theory (as a professional engineer in my day job, I can also state that engineers are also not in a position to be such arbiters!).

Despite the mocking of scientists and the scientifically inclined of such things, I am firmly of the view that alien life does exist, and has and is actively interacting with this world. It is possible to conceive that, as we leave this planet we will come across races that are less evolved than we are at that time, and may still be dealing with issues such as their own hyper aggression pasts: what do we do then – fall in a heap?

One response would be to work at having something like an army or military force, with people given (unlike now) a less damaging psychological transition into and more healing psychological transition out of it. Personally, I consider our best response, both individually and as a society/species, to such possible traumas to be to build up our psychic strength [see Note 5], psychological knowledge and spiritual evolution to an extent where we are not naive, and are capable of identifying and dealing with such trauma. (My experience is that we should do this when we are not stressed – it is too late to try to develop such skills when you are under stress.)

I’ll keep thinking on this, just as I will also keep thinking on other aspects of the Neanderthal Predation and TEEM theories, and see how I can integrate that with other knowledge I have come across. I disagree with Vendramini’s use of NP to explain mythology – he is probably correct in some aspects, but in others I consider the witchcraft/Wiccan explanations I have been taught to be more credible. Also, as Vendramini’s TEEMs are “trauma encoded”, I wonder if profound personal change/growth work can change the code? Changing evolution through conscious effort is something I and others have been working on for decades ...

Also, one thing I have wondered about is the number of lifetimes each of us goes through. Allowing for parallels, it is quite a few: perhaps TEEMs means we also can effectively access lifetimes on our genetic history line in each lifetime as well, which opens up almost all of humanity’s experiences to us as we pass through a series of incarnations. Now, that is one thing in terms of the traumas, fears, etc Danny Vendramini theorises about, but “good” things have survival value as well. Matriarchs in a herd of elephants remember and pass on information about threats, but also about useful things like where to find water in droughts; shamanism and other psychically active forms of spirituality (I’m being very “loose” or broad in my definition of “spirituality” there!) allow a way for us to access the knowledge of ancestors: perhaps some of that is genetic, in much the same way that having more primitive bits of biology also allows us to “shamanistically” access early stages of life? Hmmm ... just a thought ...

One thing I won’t resile from: apart from the personal, the responses to this theory I am proposing are social engineering – just as the attitudes that “it didn’t hurt me”, or “X always Y”, and many of the other behaviours Vendramini describes as ways evolution is accomplished are ALSO social engineering (“the playing fields of Eton” are one of the most notorious such examples of - in my opinion - bad social engineering, social engineering that led to the racism, violence and brutality of the British Empire). My proposed social engineering is, in my opinion, essential for the continued survival of our planet and – of less importance – our species, and our continued evolution and development.

As Danny Vendramini says in his book: “There is no them and us. It’s all an illusion. There is only us.”

If you would like to see some alternative views on the extinction of Neanderthals, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neanderthal_interaction_with_Cro-Magnons

* “Joke, Joyce”

Note 1
I am working on a post about the problem of sex negativity in society generally, and the spiritual communities in particular. This theory adds a new dimension to that post.

Note 2
Something I have read of is how the human foetus appears to go through the stages of evolution in the womb. From memory, it is supposed to look like primitive fish, etc before looking like humans. Certainly we still carry primitive bits of biology around with us – such as the more primitive centres of the brain (e.g., the amygdala, which is accessed by shamanic rituals, some of which can take us back to awareness of dinosaur like creatures – we weren’t human at that time, but parts of biologies were still present then). I’ve also come across a view that we tend, after birth, to repeat – in a compressed form – our past history. That has some validity for me, as I can see some of my past life cycles in what I went through as a teenager. Perhaps the change in partner preference also shows up during this process, with an initial preference of some young women for “exciting”, physical partners, which is later supplanted by a “settling down” preference for a more mature, stable, sensitive life partner? ... Just speculatin’ :)

Note 3
One night the son and son-in-law turned against each other, and I had the unenviable job of having to take the son and his girlfriend to hospital. The son was thrashing round and ranting so much in the car that I actually got out of the car initially. Goddess none of that stuff was fun, and it is a miracle I lived through it.

Note 4
I am pleased with one aspect to the current long drought in the state of Victoria, Australia: we no longer water lawns, and hence are far more aware of natural cycles in our world. I also recall the words of a Koori elder at a ceremony after the devastating Black Saturday fires earlier this year about the bush regenerating after fire: that has started to happen in much of the burnt out lands – I saw it just a few days ago, as I saw it here in the Grampians a few years ago. (Mind you, some land around Kilmore is too damaged, and has not regenerated – the fires were worse than usual.)

Note 5
I wish to make it QUITE clear that stronger does NOT mean thicker skinned or tougher, in the BS sense of “get tougher”, “be a man”, and other such rubbish, which simply makes one less sensitive: no, I mean getting stronger in the sense of “feel the fear and do it anyway”.

Note 6
Just because an attempt to address a problem, such as warfare, isn't perfect does not necessarily mean it is bad: it may well be a step along the way. To say that the Geneva Convention and other well meaning attempts at acheiving these aims are useless because it hasn't eliminated warfare is naive - no, it is stupid. Getting rid of warfre is a big issue: it will need lots of steps, of varying impact, before it is finally truly gone. Such attempts can, in my opinion, ONLY be described as bad if they make things worse (the League of Nations may be one such example; I consider the United Nations, although heavily flawed, does actually do quite a bit of good development work [which I get to see and take part in because of my day job] so it isn't an example of a "bad" attempt - and the UN Declaration of Human Rights and other statements/documents/agreements have been useful to me in lobbying I've done).

Note 7
One of the things I consider many people miss is sending healing, guidance and nurturing to those who are helping problem people - i.e., the guides/guardians of people such as the aggressive males I've been writing about, or the local thugs at a pub, or world leaders who are doign great harm. All of them have people in spirit who are trying to help them evolve: how about helping the helpers?

Love, light, hugs and blessings

Gnwmythr

Tags: aggression, courage, evil, forgiveness, evolution, interpersonal interactions, judging others, not letting go, education

First published: Friday 8th January, 2010

Last edited: Friday 8th January, 2010