Peach Clubhouse Newsletter-110425

Happy Easter all. I think you will really enjoy this, but with one caveat. The largest living thing on earth (contrary to what they say) is the whole earth ecosystem.

Much has happened, notably the movie Gasland made us wonder where the fracking is proposed in Texas – in relation to our sources of water. We want pure water coming out of our city and personal water wells. So now I have those maps at the Peach Clubhouse or you can get them from Alyssa@TexasDroughtProject.org.

Schedule:

Tuesday, April 26 at 6 pm, a Dalai Lama Renaissance, an amusing movie in which a group of powerful movers and shakers goes to visit His Holiness, the Dalai Lama, in Dharamsala.
Thursday, April 28, Peach clubhouse is closed
Friday, April 29, at 3 PM, in the meditation room at the Peach Clubhouse, the Brazos Insight Meditation Society will meet for meditation followed by discussion over a cup of green tea. You don’t have to sit on the floor. I usually don’t. But you can.

The first Tuesday night movie will be on May 3. The title is “In the Land of the Free,” and it is quite a grim story of the Angola 3. I think we can call this a local community concern, as is the Gas Fracking. More about that later.

Regular hours are Tuesday 9 to 4, Thursday 9 to 2, Friday 9 to 4. But the Peach Clubhouse will be closed during the second and third weeks of May.

Contemplation: Why do I get so upset when people bring our popular “aint-it-awful” mantra into the Peach Clubhouse? Well for one thing, I got the Peach clubhouse as a way to get away from toxic mantras. Because the constant contemplation of what we can not do results in — weakness — and what is worse, it offers up our personal power on the altar of the Corposystem. This blog and this house are all about our personal responsibility and power – not weakness. We have no guarantees in life, but our living earth is worth the effort to save her, no matter what. Everybody – please read “Powers of the Weak,” by Elizabeth Janeway. You can get it for seventeen cents on Amazon. And it’s on the shelf at the Peach Clubhouse. Chapter 11 discusses the first power of the weak. Disbelief. Not to believe their propaganda or our cultural acquiescence, without first examining all the alternative routes toward the common good. The second power is in community. There are plenty more that fly along under the radar. The trick is to look for them and then find ways to use them. There will be plenty of work for all.

Photo is of Robert King

The Power of Winning

Mrs. Obama visited Washington DC schools on Women’s day, and she told the students:   “All that matters is where you are and where you want to be.”

I’ve tried that system, and it works, more or less, in America, if I am willing to beat up on other people (or if I believe that other people are born losers so it’s OK to beat up on them) in order to get where I want to be.  Yes it’s possible in America that we might get somewhere better than we are.  No we will not become First Lady, if that is where we want to be.  The job is taken; the rest of us are the losers.

In the good old days we burned witches at the stake with no more evidence than that they were not winners.

We teach little kids in school that “everyone is a winner.”  Reality check!  That makes no sense at all.  They know it’s a lie — a winner’s lie and they aren’t winners — so they learn to disrespect the school system – and themselves.  They know they are not a winner.  Are they the ONLY one who isn’t a winner?.

The Angola 3 have been kept in solitary confinement more than 30 years — apparently for the sole purpose of proving that they are losers.

I’ll tell you what I really believe — I believe this is the belief system that grows our wars.  We Americans can’t even function without someone to feel better than, and if we aren’t it we burn inside because we think of ourselves as inadequate in some undefined, illogical way.  We need our losers.  If we can’t find someone to be better than onshore — we go off to Iraq to beat up on innocent bystanders.

In some other blog I will probably rant on about my opinion of people who make their way in life by being losers.  That’s not right either.  But if your culture is fixated on winners — then at least half of us will be required to function as losers.

The Vietnamese Buddhist, Thich Nhat Hanh, said that: “the peace movement in this country (America) is very capable of writing a protest letter but it can not write a love letter.”

I can stand on the corner of George Bush Drive and University during this upcoming peace day demonstration, Thursday the 26th at 5:30 pm and I can wave a sign, and I can be standing alongside people who are so filled with their war against war that the hate vibes would curdle your heart.  That’s not peace.

It’s all about not losing.