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mermaidcamp

Keeping current in wellness, in and out of the water

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Obstruction of Justice

November 12, 2013 — 5 Comments

Justice

Justice

What is obstruction of justice, exactly? Many of us feel that somehow our relationship with the government is unjust. We think our tax dollars are spent without enough consideration. We feel cheated.  We feel mislead.  The formal definition of obstruction of justice is complex and complicated.  Federal law defines perjury as obstruction thusly:

I. Whoever

II. a. under oath or b. in any

i. declaration,
ii. certificate,
iii. verification, or iv. statement

under penalty of perjury as permitted under Section 1746 of title 28, United States Code376 III. in any proceeding before or ancillary to

a. any court or
b. grand jury of the United States

IV. knowingly

V. a. makes any false material declaration or
b. makes or uses any other information, including any

i. book,
ii. paper,
iii. document,
iv. record,
v. recording, or vi. other material,

knowing the same to contain any false material declaration,
shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than five years, or both.377

So if you lie to the Feds about Federal law you will be in trouble with the court.  Richard Nixon was brought down for his mendacity.  He made an effort to mislead the judicial system.  If you were alive for Watergate his is probably the face of political hanky panky at it’s most absurd.  Since Nixon, however, we are not feeling that our democratic tax dollars are used fairly.  We see our elected officials blatantly serving the lobbyists who support them.  We see the giant and growing discrepancies between the most wealthy and the poverty-stricken.  We are watching as liberty and justice for all vanishes from the United States of America.  A sliding scale for prosecution of crime fills the jails and penitentiaries with people of color while the banker robbers of the world are still mostly loose on the town.  There is now a sense that the government spies on the citizens, lies to the citizens, and often fails to serve the interests of the citizens.  The fourth branch of government is now lobbyists.  We never see their faces, but we know they are out to lunch with our elected officials and we are not.  In  our guts we know this is unfair.

Probable Cause

November 11, 2013 — 5 Comments

I became familiar with this legal term when my parents were robbed by lawyers who worked for a care home owner.  A young lawyer obtained the signatures of my severely mentally impaired parents in front of no witnesses and proceeded to use those signatures to rob them at the bank, destroy all their civil rights, trapping my dad in the care home, as was the plan.  Two weeks after they robbed and attacked my parents they ran away but kept about $8000 or so for the so called services they had performed.  To recover from this attack my parents’ real lawyer had to work and be paid to restore their estate plans and civil rights. It was costly and destructive as well as blatantly criminal.  I wrote to everyone including John Evans, the Federal prosecuting attorney in Tucson.  I was told that since they had obtained the signatures, even though they did not know my parents and had drastically damaged their health and well being, as well as their finances, they were allowed to pretend for those two weeks to represent my parents and be paid for it.  The FBI initially investigated the case and told me there was obvious fraud. Later they told me they had to drop the case because the border issues demanded all the man power in Tucson.  It felt distinctly as if the Feds decided that lawyers can commit crimes because they will fight back if you attempt to bust them for their obvious crimes.  It is easier to pick on border crossers than your friends at the AZ Bar.  Eventually the Bar did slap the young lawyer on the wrist, but he had already left the firm where he had robbed my parents. To say that I lost all respect would be an extreme understatement.

I have now owned a home that is supposed to be governed by an HOA.  The people on our HOA board have refused to do anything that AZ law requires of them, but have insisted that they have a right to invite the general public here to donate to a charity scam they have run in the condo next door to me and at the curb for many years. Feeding the Homeless in Tucson Parks is the philanthropical outreach our HOA board has used to express their special jurisdiction here in our public areas.  This 100% criminal operation has been been in operation in this same location for many years.  Since they have never been stopped breaking AZ law or stealing money from the dues directly they decided to give themselves the right to use the non profit corporation (our HOA) and our public areas and driveway to operate this charity scam.  None of the volunteer hours, or truck loads of bread, or cash donations that came in the mail, or items left in the driveway for many years has ever been reported to the IRS.  I have been informed by the HOA lawyer that the board has broken no laws by using our property to run this criminal scam. That means they plan to continue to use the fire lane in front of my home to invite the public here to be hostile to the entire neighborhood and pretend they are doing philanthropy.  The latest known solicitation for donations was done to Tucson Appliance for a new stove this spring.  That stove belongs in a homeless shelter or the food bank, not in a residential condo that has been used for criminal purposes.  If soliciting drive by donations and pretending to be a charity is not a crime against the neighbors and society I think it would be very hard to find one. My neighbors and I have reported these crimes for years, but law enforcement has not been available to stop this.  I have the impression that law enforcement cares very little about stopping crime or enforcing laws.  I may be wrong, but we shall see.

If you are asked for donations from anyone, ask to see the 501C3 the IRS issues legal charities. It is apparently easy to operate fraudulent philanthropical donation sites for many years with no interference from the IRS. Our local law enforcement has practiced and advised willful blindness to these crimes, which I think is incredibly weird.  I have hired and put  a lawyer on retainer because this has gone on for too long and seriously damaged our property value. I think we are entitled to law enforcement from the agencies we pay to enforce the law.  However, if you need to hire and pay a lawyer to show those agencies probable cause it is better than allowing crime to trash your neighborhood.

Time Line Insight

November 10, 2013 — 2 Comments

Dr Kenny

Dr Kenny

In May I was asked to draw a time line of my spiritual life. The participants in Thomas Moore’s workshop at Kripalu gathered in small groups to discuss what we found drawing the timelines.  The brief discussion among 3 students was revealing and gave me much to ponder.  One of us had been drawn to church and attending mass by herself as a child, with no particular parental support for her daily devotion to Catholic ritual.  The other woman in my group had been influenced heavily by her environment and felt trapped without a known exit strategy.  My own timeline referred to my parents and briefly to church (because I only had to be a Sunday school student for a couple of years) but after the age of 16 had nothing to do with formal religion.  The exercise was quite challenging, finding the major spiritual events or pivotal points in the soul’s journey.

My studies in Sacred Contracts with Carolyn Myss also includes assignments to create archetype timelines.  I am finding this practice to be the most powerful of all the exercises I have ever used.  It seems we warp the past and forget much of what seems extraneous, storing symbols that represent the events or people rather than storing an accurate version of reality in the past.  I went to my elementary school a few months ago in the company of the people with whom I attended elementary school.  We reminded each other of the past, but we had different versions edited and stored in our vaults of  memory.  When we toured the auditorium I knew it was the scene of one of my first encounters with the rebel archetype.  On the occasion of my third polio shot I became violent with the nurse, principal and staff who were trying to inoculate me.  I curled up in a chair in the front row and used my feet to strike out at the adults.  I won the battle and did not get that shot. The school never informed my parents, so I was 3rd vaccination free until the oral type came out and we all took it again.  Victory was sweet, and I felt that I had vanquished a dangerous and vicious foe.  It was Valentine’s Day.  I returned to my classroom uninoculated in my little red and white dress. A rebel was born.

When I saw the auditorium  as an adult I found myself walking next to a classmate who has become a medical doctor.  I also found myself giving Dr. Kenny, who was extremely popular and cool as a kid, a very hard time about his decision to practice medicine.  I don’t dislike Kenny at all, but was completely involved in a highly displaced freak out over medical procedures I do not trust.  This rebel theme continues throughout my life with a special concern over medical professionals and everything they do.  Rational or not, my mistrust for all things allopathic has grown and I believe it has served me well.  What I have discovered by creating timelines to assist my memory is that these themes that started early in life have shaped our lives and decisions in profound ways.  Opposite my rebel archetype is the teacher archetype who wants to teach others healthy alternatives and self care.  Duality is inherent in looking into the past.  We are the actor, director, and the script writer of our own dramas.  Once we have edited the memory of events it is likely we have hidden our own shadow qualities from ourselves.  To make peace with past agreements and commitments gone sour it is necessary to find what part one played at the time.  Timelines are like story boards that illustrate the flow of events and emotions that created our past.  Our futures will be defined by our understanding of the past.  I think I am having a big breakthrough realizing that Kenny would never hurt me, and maybe I have vexed myself unnecessarily over fear of medical professionals giving me shots. I can probably stop striking out at the adults with my patent leather shoes.  Thanks, Dr. Kenny, for the fabulous Jungian analysis.  I feel much better now.

The Power of Written Words

November 3, 2013 — 8 Comments

My father read Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn aloud to me when I was very young. There were other books that followed, but he really loved those two stories, and made them come alive while reading them.  He liked to sing and recite poetry.  We sang at parities all the time.  Since we had a player piano, talent was no barrier to musical contribution.  I pumped happily away for hours singing with the piano rolls.  I still know the words to most of those songs, or could with some prompting, remember the lyrics. I wrote songs myself as a teen, but do not remember them at all, which is funny.  I do remember The Cremation of Sam McGee by Robert W Service, which my father knew by heart.  As an Okie in Pennsylvania I know he identified heavily with Sam McGee because he frequently and randomly said “Since I left Plumtree, down in Tennessee, it’s the first time I’ve been warm.”

My dad was a funny troubadour of sorts who did not know that his 8th great grandmother was Mistress Bradstreet, Pilgrim poet.  He did often say,” You’re a poet, your feet show it, they’re Longfellows.”  Now that I have discovered the Bradstreet connection I am revising the rhyme:

Keep the beat,

Think on your feet,

You’re a Bradstreet.

Since I found Mistress Bradstreet at the Poetry Center I am wondering about my own relationship to words and poetry.  Do I have any poetic DNA that I need to develop?  Curious, I attended the inauguration of Arizona’s new poet laureate, Alberto, Tito, Rios of Nogales, AZ.  He addressed the crowd, read some poems, then answered some questions from the audience.  He is a professor so he found it easy to teach the group.  His style includes plenty of comedy, which holds the attention.  An audience question was, “What is the difference between writing poetry and writing prose?”  His answer was perfect and memorable.  He said, ” Each line in a poem should be able to stand by itself.  If one of my poems shattered and all the lines were left alone, each should be strong enough to get a good job in another poem.”   I love that. I also love the Poetry Center which is very near my home.  I don’t really think the lines in my poem above could find work elsewhere, but if I work on it, perhaps the spirit of Mistress Bradstreet will guide me to achieve better outcomes.

The other fine advice Mr Rios gave, which he illustrated with a story from his youth, was that you observe events and happenings in your life that will die without a story if you do not tell them.  His attitude is that all of us have the potential to use words in a poetic way, and the experience enhances our own lives when we do it.  We also liberate objects and events that want their stories to be told.  This magical reality view of the objects comes naturally from his bilingual and bicultural background.  In Spanish reflexive verbs make the world a highly animated place in which things take action.  I believe Tito Rios is the perfect artistic and cultural representative who could have been chosen as our official poet.  I am pleased to have been in the special inaugural audience.

No Woman No Drive, The Perfect Protest

October 28, 2013 — 3 Comments

I must interrupt the regularly scheduled program to tell you how much I love this Saudi guy.  Humor is by far the best way to make a point, and he does so with brilliant technical quality.  Help this song go viral because it is both funny and meaningful right now.

Selena, Goddess of the Moon

October 17, 2013 — 2 Comments


Selena bears good tidings at the full moon. She rides through the sky in a silver chariot reflecting all that is true and eternal.  She was a Titan goddess, predating the Olympians. Selena bathed during the day and rode around the heavens at night.  Her love affair with a handsome mortal resulted in 50 daughters.  She has the power to control time, mask reality, and  expose the truth.  She had her lover put to sleep eternally so she could visit him in a cave forever.  She is distant, cold, and yet kind.

The full moon is associated with mania and extreme states of mind.  The time between the last new moon and the full moon tonight was characterized by the loony government shutdown and all it entailed.  When the old men in the Senate had nothing, the women organized to end the stalemate.  They shed light on a ridiculous situation.   I am reminded of a saying attributed to the Buddha:

“There are three things that will not long stay hidden, the sun, the moon, and the truth.”

Selena

Selena

Fear, Blame, Revenge, Repeat

October 16, 2013 — 1 Comment

skull and crossbones

skull and crossbones

The human condition known as revenge is ancient and well documented.  The Greek goddess Nemesis represents retribution.  She lives in the underworld with Hecate.  She feels no remorse and hesitates at nothing to deal out vengeance when it is required.  She is a neutral spirit with a balanced approach.  She has the task of taking happiness from the undeserving while bringing more joy to those who earn it.  She is pictured with a balance scale, doing  calculations.  She is concerned with issues of money.  Her name is related to the word number, and the word economy.  She is not vengeful,  but is an accountant from the underworld.

The collective as well as your personal consciousness about wealth, money and right livelihood are the province of Nemesis.  She keeps the accounts in balance.  Abundance and prosperity follow the laws of nature.  Knowledge as well as belief influence the outcome of all your earthly investments.  Spiritual integrity in work and business ethics are measured against one’s degree of avarice and destructive behavior.  Can you find ways that your beliefs about receiving limit you now?  Can you think of ways to budget a more secure financial future for yourself through awareness?  Some Americans call her “Death and Taxes”, to say she is hard to avoid.  She is impossible to avoid, and she is counting all the time.  She will deliver what is due from the wheel of karma because that is her job.

Smart Phone Life

September 21, 2013 — 5 Comments

I am afraid of the  mix of media and social media consumed by the population in 2013.  There are distractions of all shapes and sizes.  Being over busy overbooked and overly self centered is a modern sign of success.  Emotional wellbeing of average people has been sinking while stability slips out of sight.  The youth will use technology in ways that are modeled by the adults they see.  When parents and other adults  lead the way to digital detox younger people may also consider life outside the smartphone.

I think the point Louis C.K. makes in this video about emotional range of motion is key.  His claim that smartphone distraction is avoidance of fully feeling sadness or happiness in favor of a phone buzz strikes me as a valid observation.  It is impossible to be engaged in meditation and smart phone love at the same time.  Some feel the attachment to the full time companion, Phoney, is destroying social skills.  I agree, but the strongest argument for limiting time and energy with Phoney is productivity.  Phoney is there to procrastinate with you, to deny reality and to take you away from all the pending doom.  It can never make you feel truly happy, but it does kill time.

Digital detox has entered the dictionary and folks are in treatment for FOMO ( fear of missing out).  This is perhaps the most ironic of all conditions…to abandon real life with no fear of missing reality in favor of never missing out on the ability to respond to a phone.   Do you know anyone who is in need of intervention for this tragic ailment?  I do, but would not know where or how to begin.

Culture in Need of Lovingkindness

September 16, 2013 — 4 Comments

Today we watch another mass shooting unfold in DC like the reality show that it is. The constant reminder of violence must have something to do with the growth and spread of violence. Lovingkindnessis the remedy for our growing epidemic of right and wrong.  If everyone is busy deciding to be right and seek vengeance from those who are wrong who will get in touch with reality?  Have we given up reality to watch it on television and tweet it live?  How riveting will it be to live tweet the IPO of twitter?  While some see gun control or calorie control as the way to solve of cultural problems, I believe we are highly delusional as a society.  The guns and the health issues are symptoms of systems that do not work.  Our distraction is killing us as individuals and as a culture.

Numb and nihilistic as we witness weather and violent torrents of human hatred wash over our land, we twist the truth by looking for the single issue or party on which to place blame.  The events in the world must blur for those who play computer games as well as absorb world tragedy as it unfolds.  The digital distance we have from other other humans and the truth is dragging us in a downward spiral of delusion.  I wonder if people can wake up and think they are in the World of Warcraft…or some variation on it.  We are cultivating violence and maya, when our only hope is in truth and lovingkindness.  Each of us generates energy that fuels the hatred; none of us is perfect.  On an individual basis we must take responsibility to feed and care for the soul of the world until al beings are free.  This will require centering.  This will require a shift in focus and a pivot in the direction of our thinking.

Science in the Basement

September 12, 2013

I spent a lot of time in the basement of this house in Oakmont, PA as a child.  It contained a player piano, a bar, a collection of dress up clothing, a record player with records, bottles of pigment, some prisms, a Teslacoil, and some fluorescent lights.  In the garage my dad kept bottles of crude oil he admired and chemicals he brought home from the lab to to experiments with me.   I had to practice on the piano daily and I often played with my friends in the playroom downstairs and out in the back yard.  We loved to play with the prisms, which my mom had made during WWII at an optics plant where she had worked.  We also enjoyed grabbing the electric end of the Teslacoil and lighting up the over head lights with our other hand.  How my parents decided that kids could play with the Teslacoil is a mystery, but they did not mind.

Before I left Oakmont I had a conversation with the doctor who presently lives in the house, Merrill D Bowan, O D who specializes in neurological optometry.  He told me about his studies with brain injury patients using prisms.  He has remarkable results helping people correct problems with proprioception and balance.  His work all made perfect sense to me, although I had just met him in the driveway and asked if he minded if I took a picture in the backyard of the basketball backboard my grandfather put up over 50 years ago.  When I looked around and stirred the memories I knew this was always a unique house in this neighborhood.  Our house was special and different because my father was a mad scientist who enjoyed teaching me to make hydrogen bombs for recreation.  The science energy is still there, alive in the brilliant and progressive mind of Dr. Bowan.  It is somehow very natural.  I am glad I had the chance to meet and talk to him.