If you would like to make a comment, please email me at irwin@weareallonemusic.com and I will post your comment here. February 17, 2010 Why do we live like this? Our planet and all life on it are facing a great crises. Wherever one goes on this earth there is great poverty and suffering. Natives in many countries live in poverty as their lands are taken, often by force, for the exploitation of wealthy contries. There are several wars going on in which the victims and targets are women and children. Trafficking of children and young women are destroying the lives of thousands of these exploited young people. Politicians in most parts of the world only seem concerned with re-election and their own personal well being often at the expense of the people they are suppose to be helping. We are still clear cutting forests in the tropics for the insatiable need for lumber. Our cars and factories send toxic gases into the atmosphere. When heavy rains come to the tropics, the trees which use to hold the rain water are now gone so that the resulting mudslides destroy farmland, kill people and destroy homes and towns. The United States is worried about Iran getting nuclear weapons yet the US is the only country to have used these weapons on a civilian population, twice. The Unites States has the most stockpile of these weapons in the world. Politicians argue over if global warming, caused by human activity is real or not. It seems that they want it to be false so that they can continue polluting the atmosphere without any concern for future generations. I say why should it matter if global warming is real or not? We should live wondering about future generations. Why should we consume much more than we need? Why should we clearcut land and not try to even recycle the materials from older homes and buildings? Why don't we consider what an action will mean in future generations? If we really loved our children, wouldn't we end all war now? How can cities continue to grow without bounds, eating up natural land and not even being self sustaining? How can we contiue to use farming practices that are depleting our land and putting poisons in our the soil and water and our bodies? How can a great society allow people to live in poverty, in slavery, homeless and then blame the victims? We need a complete transformation of human consciousness and I feel that it must come from the individual. So I ask myself and I ask the reader, what are we going to do to radically change our whole way of life? Do we feel that this an important question or just something to do when we are bored? If we don't change fundamentally, then change will come to us, and it may not be what we had in mind. If we objectively look at the world and see all that is going on, we can see that if nothing changes, the great crises will explode. Unfortunately, humans seem to wait for a great crises before they change but that change is often superficial and we slowly go back to our old ways after the crises has calmed down. As Pete Seeger sang, "When will they ever learn, when will they ever learn?" "Where Have All the Flowers Gone" by Pete Seeger. Hear it on You Tube. It is a glorious day. Sunshine, blue sky, spring just around the corner, a great day to be alive. I have many songs in my heart. This too is life. January 17, 2010 The tragedy of Haiti The earth quake that struck Haiti has revealed that most of the deaths were caused by human activity and not by the earth quake. Haiti is one of the poorest countries in the world. Why is a tropical country where food grows easily and all year, in such desperate shape? Why such poverty? It is too easy to blame the industrialized world for exploiting the resources of Haiti maintaining corrupt dictators who are kept in power so that the wealthy countries don't have to pay fair taxes for what they take. Then with such poverty and corruption, buildings are constructed without care or regulation. People needing fire wood for cooking cut trees and leave the mountain sides barren. Then hurricanes and earthquakes kill thousands as the buildings fall on people and the mountainside bury towns in mud. What is our response as we watch the death and devastation? Somehow whenever there is such a disaster, the whole world needs to ask how we have created such a situation. We need to take responsibility as individuals and as a world. The external world is a reflection of the individuals. If we are honest and look inside ourselves we will see fear and conflict. Where there is fear, there is no love. It is a basic fact. There is no such thing as a little fear. When one is afraid, it permeates one's whole life. It makes us want to be safe at the expense of others. We will put up with poverty as long as we can stay far away from it and hire police to keep the poor people in their places. This is a general statement but look around and see what is happening in our society. I feel that the only permanent solution is for the individuals to change at a deep level. If we see the fact that fear breeds nationalism, hatred and conflict, not just see it but feel it with our whole being, then our own intelligence may be awakened to immediate action. This is why right education is so important. Education must help the student and educator not only understand the external world, but to go deep within to discover the mystery of who we are. By observing our own conditioning and transending it and also discovering what we love to do, the only motive being our love of what we do, then we can awakened to the beauty of life on earth, and in that awakening, we change ourselves and then society changes naturally. January 11, 2010 What does it mean to go inside yourself for the answers? I often hear this phrase, "Go inside yourself", and I even say this to myself and to others. Yet, what does it really mean? I have never experienced that going within. When I try to go inside, I am confronted with many non stop thoughts. Its like looking through a tyty forest to see the other side. Thoughts are entangeling. Sometimes in brief moments, I can tell that I am creating all these thoughts, they are not random. Yet, I am convinced that someone else inside of me is creating the thoughts and I am a victim. Then I am compelled to do and go wherever the thoughts take me. So one part of myself is 'enjoying' the thoughts and the sensations they bring up and another part is saying that they are not good and I should repress them. So how do I go inside for a peek? As I write this, it seems so insane, how can there be two of me battling for ..... for what? I have a feeling that going inside myself for the answers is a journey that I can only take by myself. There are really no guide posts. No person, no system, no book can take me there. I am at the river and I must get across myself. I can't depend on anyone and if I do, I am just delaying going inside. I don't even know what I will find. If I knew, then that might be what I find. That is, the illusion, another thought, I created in my head. So it is a journey like going to another planet; no preconceived notions, no clues on what I might find. Well, here I go! I will let you know what I find. But then again, you probably will need to go inside your own self to know what's there. November 28, 2009 I'm bored. I mean, I'm scared to be alone and face myself! I remember the first time I ever really saw the night sky. I grew up in Hialeah, Florida, a suburb of Miami and I rarely saw more than a handful of stars at night. When I was 10 I joined the boyscouts, mostly at my parents insistance. During my first overnight camping trip with the troop, I saw the night sky. No words can express the shock and overwhelming beauty of that first contact with the stars. And that tremendous feeling of awe is what is there everytime one sees the stars and moon and meteors. However for most of us, the wonder is gone. We are use to it. We get bored. It must mean that we have stopped looking and experiencing not only the night sky, but all of nature and fellow human beings. I can remember the first time I met certain people. There was also that awe and beauty of being. So what changed? I think, for me, I got used to them. I also didn't want them to change or leave me so again, I stopped really seeing them. I feel that an important part of education is for the educational community to explore the art of looking, listening and feeling. We accept boredom as a way of life and we need to challenge it. Instead of encouraging each other to run away from boredom with our incredible entertainment and sports industry, we need to set up educational oasis where we come together to discuss and explore these questions. Is boredom really fear of being alone with ourselves? Is it possible to live fully in the present moment? What does it mean to be bored and not run away from it? I think this is all worthy of discussion. If I change myself, I change the world. And this world desperately needs real change. Change from the inside out. After all, isn't the outward disorder of the world just a reflection of what we look like inside? We tell our children to use words to resolve conflict but we show them how we solve conflict with war and punishment. Our society allows poverty and child abuse which are other forms of violence. The journey begins with the first step. Are we ready? Are you ready? Am I ready? November 1, 2009 Dealing with poverty and child abuse is real homeland security I recently heard a radio show from scientists talking about climate change. They basically said that it is a mistake to talk of global warming when we should be talking about climate change. Somehow global warming got attached to what should be climate change. This more accurately describes what is being caused by human industrialization. However by labeling what we do as causing global warming, it can be easier to disprove the whole theory and throw it out as nonsense. However I think many people are missing the main point which is, that the way we live our lives and treat the earth is insane. We allow people to live in abject poverty while others live in extreme luxury. We allow child abuse and abuse of women and think it is normal. We live in big cities that breed crime and pollution. We are concerned with recycling and switching off lights while we miss the point of why we live as we do. If we really cared, we would put all our resources out to solve these problems. We spend billions of dollars to "fight" terrorist. We spend billions on sports and entertainment. We spend billions to send people into space. So it seems to me that we need a complete revamping of how we live and our priorities. Are not people the priority? Aren't we all responsible for the homeless? We send men to fight and kill and when they come home damaged, many live on the street, unable to cope with life after war. We offer little real help. Young girls and women are treated as criminals and put into institutions while the men that raped them as children walk around free. We allow poverty which breeds future criminals. Aren't poverty and child abuse real homeland security issues? Isn't eliminating sex slaves all our responsibility? This is our challenge as individuals and as a society and world. We are we going to do? What am I going to do? September 15, 2009 Can we be healthy in an unhealthy society? It seems to me that the best kind of health care is making sure that we and our children only eat the best food, exercise, keep our air and water clean and pure, avoid stress and do what we love to do. It is appalling how poorly we treat our bodies. We allow society to produce junk foods and make them cheaper than healthy foods. We create schools for our children to fit into instead of building schools for our children. Humans in big cities breath polluted air and live stressful lives. We have created a society that breeds poverty and criminal behavior. We embrace capitalism which basically means doing whatever we can get away with to make money and get ahead. Then we blame the poor people for not working hard enough. We blame children for being born into abusive families. It is important for the individuals to be responsible for their health. Yet until everyone has the opportunity to be healthy and living happy lives,we remain an unhealthy society. As long as war and violence is a solution to getting what we want, we are an unhealthy society. We need to expand the dialog on health care to include the whole mental, emotional and physical health of the society.   September 9, 2009 On parenting and education It seems to me that parenting is one of the most important activities one can do. The first five years of a child's life forms the basic personality and tendencies. If a child is raised with unconditional love and support, he or she will have a better chance of possessing a mind that is capable of thinking and solving personal and global issues. If a child is raised with neglect and cruelty, he or she will become a burden to society bringing emotional and potentially criminal problems to those around him or her. If a child is raised in a fearful and judgmental environment, they may not have the capability to think outside their own narrow conditioning. In order to become a professional in our society, one must go through so many years of schooling and then be an intern in order to work. Yet there are no training requirements in order to become a parent. At this point I am not considering that it would be a monumetal task to get people to agree on what is right education for parents. I am proposing education that uses the following guidelines. I am proposing that we want children to learn to think for themselves and discover what they love to do as a profession, something they can give their whole heart and mind to. Something in which they would never hurt another human or creature in any way. I want children to respectfully challenge and question everything in their society, which to some extent most all of them do already. That means everything we do as a society for example, gender roles, religious beliefs, why we allow poverty in our communities, homelessness. why we allow people to go to war to kill and be killed, why we allow junk food that hurt people's health, why we use fear to control people, why we have created an environment where people seek drugs to escape their life situations, how should school's be set up, in other words, everything that our society has put together. And a most important thing, we the adults must be willing to listen and encourage this kind of dialog. We must be questioning and challenging also. We must be wide open because the children will challenge all our behavior and if we are not willing to change, we will just continue teaching children how to suppress their concerns and escape into various forms of entertainment as many of the adults and children have done. I'm not suggesting that it would be easy. Yet if a few concerned people and educators came together with this intent, discussing and learning as we went, maybe we could help create a new environment where a different kind of human being could emerge. One who is not afraid to stand up for what is true and will be guided by unconditional love. Theses are the kinds of schools and homes the world so desperately needs at this critical time in history. What are we going to do as human beings?     September 7, 2009 Why don't I change? As I explore this question, I wonder, change from what to what? Change implies that I am somehow dissatisfied with how I perceive myself and I want to "improve" myself. Maybe I don't like my situation, so I want to change circumstances so that they are more appealing to me. I want to eliminate pain and enhance pleasure. So instead of understanding myself and life, I want to change it so it is different in a way that I like. I have a goal in changing myself. This is a point that is hard to comprehend, can I really change my behavior by will or am I just modifying it? I see a tree and I don't like its shape so I prune it. However, it is programmed to grow a certain way and tries to grow back. So now I have to battle the tree and fundamentally it still grows as it was programmed although now it is crippled by my pruning it. In a way I am like the tree. I want to prune myself without understanding why I grow and act as I do. I try to change my self talk, punish myself, bribe myself even go to self help programs. If I want to understand a child, I must observe her or him as they are. Trying to change another human being is futile. We can punish, with hold love, use physical and psychological force and at the heart, the human being is still the same. So for me it seems that the first step is to deeply understand myself. Every thought, my compulsions, how I react to others, the root cause of fear. In other words, a daily moment by moment investigation into who I am. Once I see the fact of myself, it seems that my own intelligence can act without me needing to do anything. When I am driving and I come upon a red light, I slow down, no conflict. In the same way, when I see that my behavior is causing conflict and fear in my life and therefore, conflict in the world, it naturally changes. I think a fundamental part of education is to help the students joyfully find out about themselves. I wonder if our society is afraid of children discovering truth and then challenging the world with all the nonsense we do September 6, 2009 What don't we change? This seems to be a fundamental question for all people who are serious about changing ourselves and therefore, the world. First of all I write this as a person who has been entrenched in my own conditioning for this lifetime. So I am writing this as someone who is inquiring with the reader. Before we discuss change, I think it is fundamental to see that we, the individuals, have created this society that we live in. Inwardly we are scared. Scared of being hurt physically, harassed, losing our jobs, our spouses, scared of minority groups, of being poor, of being wrong, on and on. As the animal world understands, a scared human being is a very dangerous animal. We are also angry and often blaming others for our woes. Inwardly most of us are sexist and racist. We seek escape from ourselves through all kinds of media toys and through drugs and alcohol, even overeating. So when we look outside ourselves and see wars, horrible mistreatment of women worldwide, poverty, the very rich, those sports stars, movie stars and politicians elevated to high status, and governments and individuals lying about their deeds, then we can see that if we change ourselves, we change the world. It can't be the other way around. The individuals are the glue that created and sustain this society. So it seems to me that we must begin a careful inward investigation into ourselves. It feels easier to try to change the world and then the individuals will change. Governments have tried this and the results are always the same; corruption and violence, how can it be different? So the first step, I think, is to see the fact that when the individual changes, then he or she changes the world. So can we stop this internal process of trying to change others and start looking at our own lives? What would happen if we stopped trying to change our friends, our enemies, our families, our governments and focused on ourselves?   September 3, 2009 There can be no peace until we sit at the table as human beings. We seem to say we want peace as we sit at the peace table as Christians, Muslems, Jews, Palestinians, Hindus, etc. We say we want real health care reformand as we sit at the table as Democrats and Republicans. We say we are concerned with eliminating racism and sexism and we sit at the table as blacks and whites, male and female. When will we see that as long as we see ourselves as our labels and conditioning, and not as human beings, there can never be peace. I know I repeat this often in my blog and it is because the truth is so clear. When will we change? Next blog will be a discussion on what is change and why human beings seem so reluctant to fundamentally change.   August 17, 2009 What do we teach our children? As educators and parents we often feel that education means having our children learn about history, science, math and language so we our children can get a good job and be safe in this world. However, I think that we miss the point. Isn't education meant to help children think for themselves and make decisions based on what is good and right for the whole planet not just themselves? If we agree to this then we want children to challenge and question everything about our society. That means questioning religious beliefs, sexism, racism, war, why our society lets people live in poverty, why we allow junk food that destroys people's lives to be produced and sold, gender discrimination, why we create people who kill. In other words, everything. If we continue destructive behavior, then we must challenge that too. And isn't education to help the child find out what they love to do? If they do something for the love of it, wouldn't that change the entire social order? Wouldn't children naturally find professions that never hurt people only help them? We are so far removed from nature, isn't education here to help the individual love the natural world? If they truly loved nature, they would never do anything to destroy our natural environment. Finally we ask, what is the meaning or purpose of life? What is this thing we call love or god? In the search for truth, no one can tell you what it is or give you a formula. It is up to the individual to find god for themselves and discover morality for themselves. As educators, we set up the ground in the child's life by creating an environment without external fear or compulsion. We help them and ourselves understand fear and go to the root of it. Now that we have this foundation for education, can we come together as educators, parents and students and make the school a true oasis for self discovery? What the world needs now is a very radical change both outward and inward. Are we ready for this challenge?   August 1, 2009 If we really loved our children ... Our world's social structure is based on the quality of children's lives. How are children treated in our world? Just look at salaries for child related jobs. Teachers, social workers and day care providers earn far less than lawyers or politicians. Preventing and eliminating child abuse and sexual slavery doesn't get the same prioritiy as does bailing out banks or automotive companies. By the amount of money we have spent on war, basically to protect our oil interests, our priorities are clear. Its OK to kill a few civilians and destroy people's lives in order to keep the oil flowing. What are we going to do? If we really loved our children then we would end all war. If we really loved our children we would see that every child has a loving home. If we really loved our children we would end child sexual slavery now. Its time for doing and not just talking.   July 4, 2009 War; the main external result of nationalism and organized religion. As the United States celebrates the birth of this country with flag waving and self promoting patriotic activities, do we realize that this activity is a direct the cause of war? We separate the world into us and them, friends and enemies, men and women, this race and that race, democrats and republicans, Christians and Muslims. So here I am, a full human being who happens to have been born in New York and happens to be a male. Why identify with anything other than being a human being? Not only do we identify with our country, but we also identify with our gender. That is, our conditioned gender. I think we have no idea what it means to be a male or female, only a conditioned one. A conditioned male in general doesn't show his feelings and doesn't cry. When I grew up the only touch we were permitted by society was either violent touch or sex. Affection was not in the formula. When I grew up, women were raised to be second to men's needs. Look at all the countries and religions who think ideas and power are far more important than people. We generally ignore those who are suffering from child abuse, from poverty, from sexual slavery. If we really cared as a world, as human beings, we could solve all these problems quickly. We can gather millions of people to watch a sports event or follow a TV show. We can get millions to go to war. Why don't we care enough to solve these horrendous situations that people have to live with on a daily basis? When will we understand that we are citizens of the world. the only flag we should every raise is one that shows the whole world on it. Also, there is no hearchy to finding truth or god. Isn't it up to the individual to come upon this most important thing, finding god? There need not be any organization with people telling you how to think and feel and what rules to follow to get to god. Yet, we seem to use religions as a club that separates people even more. It may be that the solution to our problems as human beings is right here inside of each of us. Are we willing to really change the world? If not, it seems that the world will change itself and we will be swept along with the wave.   June 19, 2009 The need to be alone, from J. Krishnamurti, "Think on These things" page 201 All this is part of education: to face the ache of loneliness, that extraordinary feeling of emptiness which all of us know, and not be frightened when it comes: not to turn on the radio, lose oneself in work, or run to the cinema, but to look at it, go into it, understand it. There is no human being who has not felt or will not feel that quivering anxiety. It is because we try to run away from it through every form of distraction and gratification - through sex, through God, through work, through drink, through writing poems or repeating certain words which we have learnt by heart - that we never understand the anxiety when it comes upon us. So, when the pain of loneliness comes upon you, confront it, look at it without any thought of running away. If you run away you will never understand it, and it will always be there waiting for you around the corner. Whereas if you can understand loneliness and go beyond it, then you will find that there is no need to escape, no urged to be gratified or entertained, for your mind will know a richness that is incorruptible and cannot be destroyed. All this is part of education. If at school you meerly learn subjects in order to pass examinations, then learning itself becomes a means of escape from loneliness. Think about it a little and you will see. Talk it over with your educators and you will soon find out how lonely they are. But those who are inwardly alone, whose minds and hearts are free from the ache of loneliness - they are real people, for they can discover for themselves what reality is, they can receive that which is timeless.   June 4, 2009 The Energy of Life a quote from J. Krishnamurti in the book 'Think on These Things" page 212 "Why is it that in the home, in the classroom and in the hostel you are always being told what you must do and what you must not do? Surely, it is because your parents and teachers, like the rest of society have not perceived that man exists for only one purpose, which is to find reality or God. If even a small group of educators were to understand and give their whole attention to that search, they would create a new kind of education and a different society altogether." "Don't you notice how little energy most of the people around you have, including your parents and teachers? They are already dying, even when their bodies are not yet old. Why? Because they have been beaten into submission by society. You see, without understandingits fundamental purpose, which is to free the extraordinary thing called the mind, with its capacity to create atomic submarines and jet planes, which can write the most amazing poetry and prose, which can make the world so beautiful and also destroy the world - without understanding the fundamental purpose, which is to find truth or God, this energy becomes destructive; and then society says, "We must shape and control the energy of the individual." "So it seems to me that the function of education is to bring about a release of energy in the pursuit of goodness, truth, or God, which in turn makes the individual a true human being and therefore the right kind of citizen." May 12, 2009 These great photos were taken by Abby Zurschmiede. See more photos of rivers and wildlife of North Florida on her web site http://pineyflatwoodsgirl.blogspot.com/ The swallow tail kite is one of the most magnificent birds I have observed. Here you are floating down the Wacissa River or maybe you are in an open field by the river and suddenly, without notice, you see this spectacular bird. As it flys you watch the amazing forked tail going every which way. It seems like she is dancing on the breeze. I often wonder why most birds do not have such a grand tail. The swallow tail kite winters in South America so we need to be careful what pesticides we send and use in South America. We are truly are one world.   May 6, 2009 Should we try to save this giant live oak and 130 more oaks in Tallahassee from being cut down in a road widening project? Currently, Tallahassee is starting to widen Mahan Drive from Buck Lake Road, east. In order to do this, we will be cutting down a lot of trees. Many acres of trees were cut down just west of this tree to put in a Costco, Wal-mart and a mall. What does it all mean? Trees are cut down daily all over the planet. We make houses, furniture, paper, toilet paper and many other products. We need to clear land to put up buildings and homes. In war, we destroy the homes and need to cut down more trees to rebuild. We manufacture items that fall apart in a short time so resources are wasted without much thought. The big issue isn't saving a tree. It is a sympton of a bigger problem. We humans think we own the earth. We parcel it up and do what we like, rarely ever thinking about future generations. We have set up a system that benefits the richer people of the world so that they have more of what has been parceled out. In a society where there is no money, everyone has a place in the social structure. There are teachers, farmers, carpenters, cloths makers, healthcare providers, artists, and whatever people love to do. All sharing what they do and produce with the whole. Where does this social structure exist? No one this planet. Do we really want such a system of equality? By our actions, I think not. So let's not just save a tree, let's save the earth so that our children will know the great beauty of this earth.   April 21, 2009 Every day is Earth Day! April 22 is Earth Day. A day to rejoice and celebrate our home. Is it a time to bring to the fore front the issues that challenge the earth. Its like taking an inventory on your house. Let's see, there is a leak in the roof, termites have damaged the eaves. Oh yes, the faucet is leaking, too, and Frank and Tom aren't getting along. However the condition of the earth and the creatures that live in it are much more serious. If we don't act soon, we will do much damage that will be irreversible in our lifetime. In reality, the earth is doing OK. The earth is always changing. Through volcanoes, earthquakes, hurricanes, blizzards and the like, civilizations are covered up and new life sprouts from the ashes. Human beings help this process through the actions of war, poverty and violence. In the long run, this isn't so good for the animals and people who are living here. Yet in the long run, life goes on. I wonder, how can we care for the earth when we treat children so poorly? If we really loved our children, we would make sure there was no wars for them to go to and kill and be killed. We would end child sex slavery at once. We would build schools that take into account the children and not fit children into the schools. If we loved our children we would see that ALL children are our children. We would end child abuse. We would stop comparing one child against another. When we raise children with such disrespect, we raise citizens whose spirits are broken and then easily conform to the corrupt society we have all created. Don't we want our children to think for themselves and challenge everything that is "wrong" with our world? After all, isn't that an important part of education; to see what is harmful to to others and to challenge it? I think everyday is Earth Day. Everyday is a celebration of children, mothers and fathers. Everyday is a time to enjoy the wonders of the earth. It would be good if everyone participated in this daily event which would require that all wars and personal conflicts must end. For now, it is up to the individuals to understand that we can only change ourselves. So I ask myself, what is my response to all these terrible problems humanity is facing? Do I see that my own fears and jealousies are causing these global problems? Do I understand that as long as I identify myself with a country or any group, that I am part of the problem? If we saw ourselves as human beings and not Americans or Christians or Arabs or Hindus, that is, as world citizens, wouldn't most of our conflict end immediantly? Why don't we change? Why don't I change? I invite everyone to celebrate Earth Day and Children's Day everyday of the year. See you there!   March 31, 2009 There is only the present moment; What does it mean? I often say the sentence, there is only the present moment. Yet, do I live it? No. So why waste my time saying something I am not living? I say it because I sense it is true. The only time there is, is now. The past is gone and the future is untouchable. As soon as it is the next moment, it still feels like now. Fear only seems to exist in the future. What will they think of me? I am scared of losing my job or husband or people will make fun of me at school. Yet if Iam being made fun of in the moment, is there really fear or only alertness to potential danger. If I am almost in a car wreck, the fear comes later not at the moment of trying to avoid the crash. Fear clouds our thinking and freezes us from action. Therefore I must think clearly to get out of a dangerous situation and there is no room for fear in the present moment. Then I ask myself, How can I feel and live in the present moment? I don't know. What I do know is that no one can help me get there. No book, no teacher, no coercion or bribery can do it. I can only do it for myself. If I seek out "help", I have discovered that I don't really want help, I want comfort and I want to avoid trying to be in the present moment! Its also an odd question because I am living in the present moment. Only I am not aware of it. It seems that the solution to the worlds crisis is for the humans to become aware of the present moment. But if a person can only come to it on their own, how is the world to change? I think that if we humans were to deeply realize that until we live in the present moment, the crisis will continue. I leave myself and the reader with this question, what is keeping us from being aware and living in the present moment?   March 24, 2009 Have we lost contact with nature? It seems to me that we are losing contact with the natural world.We have invitied the world of entertainment into every cornor of our lives, using it as a distraction to take us away from the present moment. Children in general seem to want to be listening to music almost constantly or playing video games. Our society seems to be in a hurry to be any where but where they are. Sports, the lives of movie stars or politicians take up many conversation. Our schools in genral are not helping children to think for themselves. Instead, they lead students through a curriculum that gets most of them ready for obeying. It seems that schools don't want people who think for themselves. Society doesn't really want people who challenge poverty, war, capitalism, or competition. Young children challenge us just by living. By their actions, especially when they are very young, they show us how to get along with people of different races, with physical differences even different languages. They know how to share and wouldn't let a friend live in poverty or on the street. In my experience with children, before they have been conditioned by their parents and society, they are kind. By introducing comparitive behavior and competition, we make them like us, always striving to be like an ideal since who they are doesn't seem to be enough for society. The mode of transmitting this message, that they are not good enough, is ridicule and violence. This is how humans are conditioned. Children are so small and vunerable and are succeptible to this because they so want the love and approval of their parents. I think that it is important to be connected with nature. Maybe we could pay attention to the sunrise with the crescent moon and the wonderful scents of spring. Have you every just stopped to enjoy a flock of birds overhead or listen to a chorus of frogs in the trees before a rain? If we felt connected to the natural world, we would never hurt or kill any creature for whatever reason, with words or with fists. We would treat the earth with great care and love. I have heard it said that if one is not in touch with nature, he or she is dead. They way we are treating the earth and each other is very cruel and insensitive. Can we awaken in ourselves and in our children this feeling or wonder and mystery for our earth? There is an urgency to this question. Will we start now? Tomorrow is too late. Now is the only moment to begin.   March 16, 2009 What does it mean to listen, pay attention? This is a topic that I find at the heart of living a meaningful life. It is the art of listening. For me, listening is not only with one's ears, but with the eyes, the heart, the whole being. Listening is paying attention to all the details of our lives. It means noticing how we eat a meal or talk to people, those we like and those we dislike. It is noticing our reactions to passing a homeless person or being near someone society thinks is important. It is noticing the beauty of a flower or the filth of a poor neighborhood. It is noticing our thoughts as we speak to another. It is noticing how we look at women, if we are male, or how we look at men, if we are a female. So listening is paying attention to all the details in our lives. A question comes up, can we look at ourselves in a non-judgmental way? Isn't listening to notice the image we have created about ourselves and seing it clearly without distortion? The art of listening can take us deep into ourselves and also deep into life. It seems to me that listening in this way can slow down thoughts so that we can see where they come from and what they mean. I find thoughts like a child needing attention. If we give the child the attention they want, be it playing a game, reading a book or listening to an issue they are having, then the child can move on. Our thoughts keep repeating themselves and we generally don't pay attention to them. Instead we give into the anger, gossip, fear or pleasure the thoughts are generating. Is it possible to listen to these thoughts, not give in, not suppress or run away from them? There is so much to learn about ourselves.   February 16, 2009 Understanding Yourself and Transformation I feel that self understanding may be at the heart of the purpose of life. It seems to me that each of us needs to be responsible for our own understanding, not depending on another or a book. Observing what goes on inside and outside ourselves can be an inportant way to learn. If I am angry and want to go to the root of it, I observe it without suppressing the anger, without acting out the anger and without running away from the anger. I am going to try this and see what happens. I invite you to explore your own journey of self discovery. January 31, 2009 Questions I have found asking myself questions to be an important tool for understanding myself and the world. For example Iask myself why I feel disconnected with everything and every body. Is it possible to live without intrnal conflict? Is it possible to live without judgement of myself and others? What is the true purpose of education? Do children learn when they are punished or coerced? However, I have found that once I start this inquiry and answers start arising, then I need to ask questions about why I don't change. A small example; when I eat junk food like white floured and white sugared products, I don't feel so good afterwards. Even science backs up my body's response. So why do I still eat these products? This is such an important question because then the whole psychological world comes up. I see intellectually that when I am afraid, I only care about myself and withdraw. I can see globally that fear is destroying our relationships and creating wars. I see that identification with anything other than I am a human being creates division. For example, I think I am an American or Muslem or Christian or I identify as my gender or a football or political party. I can feel and see the destructive nature of this behavior but on a deep level I don't change. I even identify with an image I have created about myself as I am cool or I am a victim. So it seems to me that I need to stay with these questions. The only way I can change this world that has so much cruelty in it is to change myself since you and I have created and sustain the world as it is. I see a glimpse of the wonder of this planet and it seems that all my identification and fear keep me from it. I don't need to go to anyone or read any book to discover truth. It is all right in front of me. I don't need to change anyone. If I change, then I have changed the world since I am part of it.   January 5, 2009 It's amazing to look at the date. Wow, 2009!! Yet if we were to go ask a tree or a deer what time it is or what is the date their answer would probably be, It's now. What other time could it be? Yet we have created not only psychological time but also a future to look forward to and to fear and a past that dictates our actions in the present. We have created football games, holidays, other so called special days so that most of us instead of living in the now, live for the future. I see children and adults unhappy with today looking forward to Christmas or a sports event. Or when they get home, a video game. Then while they are in the moment of the event, looking forward to either another event in the future or worrying that the event will soon be over! So I ask myself throughout the day, what does it mean to live in the present moment? Why am I not in contact with life? I can feel a wall between me and whatever I am in front of. Are my thoughts creating this gap between myself and the rest of the world? I feel that only I can find out for myself and only you can find out for yourself, but are we interested enough to do this? Otherwise we give a little attention to this and just go on with our lives, feeling disconnected from everyone and everything. Yet the answer is right in front of us. Do we care enough to find out?   December 29, 2008 The fact of violence and the illusion of non-violence There is an element of violence in most of us that has never been resolved, never been wiped away, so that we can live totally without violence. Not being able to be free of violence we have created the idea of its opposite, non-violence. Non-violence is non-fact. Violence is a fact. Non-violence does not exist, except as an idea. What exists, "what is," is violence. It is like those people in India who say they worship the idea of non-violence, they preach about it, talk about it, copy it - they are dealing with a non-fact, non-reality, with an illusion. What is a fact is violence, major or minor, but violence. When you pursue non-violence, which is an illusion, which is not an actuality, you are cultivating time. That is, "I am violent, but I will be non-violent." The "I will be" is time, which is the future, a future that has no reality; it is invented by thought as an opposite of violence. It is the postponement of violence that creates time. If there is an understanding and so the ending of violence, there is no psychological time. J. Krishnamurti, from "Flame of Attention"   December 11, 2008 Capitalism and the economic crisis It seems to me that our economic system is based on these principles, *If you can make people want a product, even if it numbs their minds or is bad for their health; it is ok for the economy. Junk food, designer cloths, pornography, creating weapons for killing are all part of our economic system. *If the resources needed to produce these products are in other countries, a way is invented to declare war to secure them. Sometimes a dictatorship is supported to have easy access to these resources as oil, bananas, copper, etc. *There is a need for the economy to grow. A need to sell more and more. What is missing from this picture? The greater need of humanity. Some people suffer indirectly and directly from these economic policies. For example, war makes a lot of money. What is the solution? Maybe we need to start with recognizing the facts and feeling responsible as individuals. When I drop a dish and its breaks, I feel responsible and clean it up. Why don't we feel the same way about povery, wars, child abuse, sex slaves? It seems that as long as the suffering is not in our face, our neighborhood; then we pretend it is not our problem. Here is a quote from J. Krishnamurti about how words get in the way of direct perception. The word is never the thing. The word wife is never the person, the door is never the thing. The word prevents this actual perception of the thing or person because the word has many associations. These associations, which are actually rememberances, distort not only the visual observations but psychological. Words then become a barrier to the free flow of observation. Take the word Prime Minister and clerk. They describe functions, but the word Prime Minister has tremendous significance of power, status and importance whereas the word clerk has associations of unimportance, little status and no power. So the word prevents you from looking at both of them as human beings. There is ingrained snobbery in most of us, and to see what words have done to our thinking and to be choicelessly aware of it, is to learn the art of observation - to observe without association. (Letters to the Schools, Volume one, J. Krishnamurti, page 92.   November 30, 2008 Venus, Jupiter and the moon in southwestern sky What a wonderful sight! It had been cloudy and rainy for the last two days but as the sun set, the sky started clearing and there they were, Jupiter, Venus and the moon. Jupiter and Venus will begin appearing to move apart starting tomorrow but still close enough to be a magnificent sight. Then tomorrow, the moon will be very close to Venus. In fact, in Europe, the moon will actually move in front of Venus tomorrow December 1. The night sky is always spectacular and different. So it doesn't matter when we look at the stars. It depends on the quality of our looking. Do we look with full attention or do we look thinking already about what we are doing next or categorizing what we see? I wonder if we ever look at anything or anyone with that kind of attention?   November 23, 2008 VENUS and JUPITER in the western sky Go outside and look to the west after sundown. Venus and Jupiter and getting closer and will be just a couple of degrees apart on November 30-December 1, 2008. Also joining them on this date will be a crescent moon. Its a wonder to watch the palnets and moon move across the sky. And for our part of the counrty, fall is a dry time of year so the sky is usually cloudless. Here are two websites that have updates on the nightsky. The first one earth sky is full of great articles and podcasts about the nightly sky and other global scientific events as global warming and whats happeing to the bees world wide. These web site are worth looking at. www.earthsky.org/ www.skyandtelescope.com/observing/ataglance     November 6, 2008 We are all one. In our current global crisis, it seems so obvious that if we really understood that we are all one, our global problems could be addressed more easily. If only we saw ourselves as human beings and instead of belonging to this country or that country, we belonged the the Earth, life could be so much richer. We might lose the fear that is born from wanting security at the expense of others. In order to maintain our life style as it is, we feel defensive and become callous to the suffering of others. Maybe it can start with individuals understanding with their whole being that we are all one, sharing life on this planet. It starts with me. It starts with you. If we live it and feel it, surely it will transform the world. November 1, 2008 Where there is fear, there is no love When I first heard this statement I thought that it wasn't totally true. How could a little fear keep me from loving? Didn't I really love my daughter? When I say love, I mean that feeeling of love that is not towards anything or anybody but permeates all of life. Yet as I examined my life I see that when I am scared, I am contracted into myself and really only thinking about my own securtity. That security comes at the expense of others. If I want to feel safe, I live far away from poverty and crime filled neighborhoods and also avoid them. When I am scared, I am not generous with my time or my possesions. When I am scared, I see people as enemies. How can we say we love our children when we send them to war to kill and be killed? How can we say we love our children when we compare them with one another? How can we say we love our children when we feeed them junk food? How can we say we love our children when we teach them to be nationalistic instead of human beings, world citizens? How can we say we love our children when we teach them to fear their parents and people who are different? All this is born of fear. Our individual fears turn into nationalistic fears So what can I do with this information? All I feel I can do is observe fear in myself and not judge it. Once I judge fear as bad, then I condemn myself and the fear continues. I ask myself, is there a way to be fully present with fear, observing it in myself and how it impacts the world? Can I see it as I would see a fact, a tree or a flower? I think this kind of intense investigation is needed if we are to resolve the greatest crisis of humanity. Obviously fear is the heart and root of all our problems as individuals and as nations. Can we start this investigation at home and in schools? Can we encourage young people and ourselves to look deeply inside ourselves to go to the heart of the problem and once and for all, deal with it? It seems the only real hope for humanity.   October 25, 2008 Being free of inward authority. It is easier to reject outward authority then our own inward authority. Having realised that we can depend on no outside authority in bringing about a total revolution within the structure of our own psyche, there is the immensely greater difficulty of rejecting our own inward authority, the authority of our own particular little experiences and accumulated opinions, knowledge, ideas and ideals. You had an experience yesterday which taught you something and what it taught you becomes a new authority --and that authority of yesterday is as destructive as the authority of a thousand years. To understand ourselves needs no authority either of yesterday or of a thousand years because we are living things, always moving, flowing never resting. When we look at ourselves with the dead authority of yesterday we will fail to understand the living movement and the beauty and quality of that movement. To be free of all authority, of your own and that of another, is to die to everything of yesterday, so that your mind is always fresh, always young, innocent, full of vigour and passion. It is only in that state that one learns and observes. And for this a great deal of awareness is required, actual awareness of what is going on inside yourself, without correcting it or telling it what it should or should not be, because the moment you correct it you have established another authority, a censor. J. Krishnamurti, Freedom from the Known, pp. 19-20   October 18, 2008 What are we on this earth for? page 85 "A Timeless Spring" by J. Krishnamurti You are on this earth to live fully, happily, with your whole being, free of ambition, greed and fear. If you are greedy or ambitious, you cannot live fully, because greed and ambition dissapate your energy. To live fully, is to live without fear, without sorrow, without asking a thing of the gods, because you would be a light unto yourself. When you live fully - a light unto yourself - you will not follow anybody, you will have no nationality, or belong to any religious or political group. As you would be a free human being, it would, therefore, be possible to live in this world richly, whether you had little or much and, in the act of living, you would beautify the earth.   October 15, 2008 We Are All One, we are human beings first As I look at our global crisis, wars, poverty, child abuse, violence in all aspects of human life and it seems that people's labels are fighting each other. In the current election campaigns, democrats, republicans, independents are fighting each other. It is in the language they use. We are not human beings working together to see what is right for the good of the world, but labels fighting to be right. When people are worried about who is right, then only winning and losing are important and that includes lying, cheating, slander, etc. Our world problems can never be solved as long as you and I identify with our labels, our nations, our religions. We are human beings who happen to be born in Florida or Russia or Syria. We are conditioned to be these labels and we fight each other out of fear. It seems so simple, we are human beings not our conditioning or labels. Even as men and women we act out our cultural conditioning which has no relationship to being male or female. Women are mostly made fun of for having cycles, for having children, for trying to run for political office. Men don't cry much and most continue this humiliation of women. It is obvious looking at all our major cultures. Rape and domination of women by men is the norm in many curent societies. If we can come face to face with our own conditioning and see its impact on the world, maybe our own intelligence will act. It is so deeply ingrained in all of us that a transformation of human conciousness is necessary for this change. The society we live in is based on fear and violence. Look for yourselves, don't believe what I say. And if we honestly look inside ourselves, we see the same inner violence going on. Just listen to the inner dialog of self criticism, gossip and put-downs. So we are the world and if the individual changes radically inwardly, surely it will change the world.   October 1, 2008 Fear and Greed; The root of our financial problems As our financial system seems on the brink of collapse, it is a good time to look at the root of the problem instead of trying to put on a bandage. Clearly capitalism has some serious flaws. It seems to be based on whatever the market, that is people like you and I, will buy. If it means selling junk food to make money, then we sell junk food. If pornography sells, we sell it. If we can artificially raise the appraisal on our homes to the determent of the rest of the neighborhood, we do it. If we make money going to war and selling guns and bombs, we do it. In other words, fear and greed rule our economic system not what is best for the individuals of society. Maybe we can let the whole financial system go down and in its place a new one can be born. One based on love and care for every human being rather than fear and greed. As people lose their jobs, new ones can be created that uplift humanity. Until we face our fears as a world, a nation and as individuals, then today will be tomorrow. Our priorities seem to be individual security at the expense of global security. Until we feel responsible for every child in the world, not just our own, then this chaos will continue. It is up to the individuals to come face to face with their own fears and root them out. The revolution we need starts from the individual and goes up. After all, the society is created by the individuals. Each one of us has created and supports society by our behaviors. And this includes wars, poverty, racism, sexism, child abuse, sex slavery and all the brutality of our world. Its what we do that counts, not what we say. Children know this type of hypocrisy and learn it from the adult world. If we want peace in the world, we make peace. If we want the end to child abuse, we stop it. But we really don't seem to care about these things. Our actions show this to be true. The global crisis is getting worse. What are you and I going to do about it?   September 20, 2008 Our Actions Show Our Priorities Yesterday our government asked for $700,000,000,000 to bailout our failing financial institutions. We think this is a crisis. Yet why don't we see the crisis of child abuse, sexual abuse of our children, human trafficking of women and children for sex slaves? We have homeless, veterans and women living on the streets with PTSD and we don't think this is a crisis? We are in the mists of a war where over 4,000 americans and 97,000 iraqis have died. Is this a fight against terrorism or for control of oil supplies? Where are our priorities? Obviously we don't really care about people, we care about our own comfort. I recently looked up the word avarice, excessive or insatiable desire for wealth or gain. Doesn't this describe how we brought down our financial institutions? Yes, we can't blame the corporations for the sub prime mess. It was greed from the bottom up. Doesn't this also describe are desire for oil? Not until we feel responsible for everything that goes on in the world will we do anything about the important issues of humanity. Its not up to our leaders, its up to the individuals. You don't need to be elected to do something. If you feel the urgency of our problems, then understanding and action are one. I found this video about a young women speaking to the United Nations on our current global situation. It is moving. The Girl Who Silenced The United Nations For Five Minutes http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NZvlQwjVOKw     September 14, 2008 The Political Process: What is right or who is right? It seems to me that our whole political process is flawed. Instead of human beings sitting down with important issues and figuring out what is right, we are instead Democrats or Republicans or Christians or Muslims concerned with who is right. It is like watching a football game, win at all costs. It doesn't matter if one side lies or defames the other or injures the other players so that they cannot compete anymore. Yet we think that this insanity is going to resolve our important national and global issues. Don't we see that as long as we are only concerned with winning that real human concerns are secondary? Children are being physically and sexually abused and we don't have this on the table as an urgent concern that requires immediate attention. How can a human being function if their spirit is broken? Good education is denied to many children. Children are allowed to eat foods that are showed to cause poor health and cause intense internal agitation. Yet, we allow companies to continue producing junk food, alcohol and tobacco. Why? We raise our children in schools where thinking for yourself is not encouraged and send them to kill and be killed. Even though it is shown that lies have led us into Iraq and Vietnam, we still go. This is not insanity? It seems to me that we need a total revolution in human consciousness. If we observe our inner world, we will find the same chaos. We are scared, angry, jealous, self-centered and consequentially our actions are callous and violent. A fearful animal is a dangerous one. Notice how a dog will sense if someone is scared and initiate an attack before they are attacked. Unconsciously they know that a scared human being can kill. So the outside is mirroring the inside. If we see the fact of this, that each of us is a reflection of the world and responsible for everything that is going on, then maybe we will awaken our intelligence which might transform our whole consciousness.     August 11, 2008 Update On August 2 a small group of us canoed the Wacissa River from Goose Pasture to Half Mile Rise near the confluence of the Aucilla-Wacissa. Quite a wild and magnificant trip. To the right are some pictures taken by David Moynahan. You can see more of his photos at www.DavidMoynahan.com. The Wacissa is truly a wild river. It forms from several springs at its head waters in Wacissa, Florida. From there it continues south for 9 miles to Goose Pasture. From Goose pasture it goes for asnother 3 miles into the Aucilla. However at this point, the Aucilla goes underground and doesn't come back up for about 3/4 of a mile. From there the Aucilla flows about 5 miles into the Gulf of Mexico. From Goose Pasture, the Wacissa is truly a wild river. It narrows and forms many channels. In the 1800's, slaves (and when we say slaves we mean human beings being treated as slaves) were forced to dig a channel between the Wacissa and Aucilla. It was hoped that throught this canal which leads to the place where the Aucilla comes out of the ground for the last time called Nutall Rise, that cotton could be shipped to the coast. It didn't work. But today we have what is termed 'The Slave Canal' which brings many people to experince this wild part of Florida. As I kayak this canal, I image what it must have been like to be forced to dig and remove the large rocks. Until recently, the shuttle for both these canoe trips were very difficult for the vehicles. However, the roads are better maintained so it is easier. I am afraid that as more and more people come out to experience this wild Florida, it will slowly lose its wonder and remoteness.     SUMMER NEWS: August 6, 2008 Update Summer camp ended as we canoed the Econfina Creek north of Panama City. Its a wonderful stretch of river with several small clear springs. So ended our four week camp. About 5-16 middle and high school students and two to three adults canoed many rivers in our area. Next year I am going to have a digital water proof camera so we can take pictures of our adventures. I know that pictures help convey what these canoe trips are about and yet it is nice to not worry about taking pictures or missing a good one. It is easy to get lost in finding the right picture rather than being in the beauty of the moment. We are blessed with so much water and so many springs in North Florida. We are stewards of this beauty and there are many signs that the systems are slowly being damaged. Run off bringing fertilizers and pollution are slowly degrading the rivers. For the past ten years, the apple snails are gone from the Wakulla River and with them the limpkin. What are we going to do?     JUNE 21, 2008 I have completed my first cd called "Singing The Earth". It is a collection of 14 songs I've written expressing thankfulness, love and joy for our home, the Earth, greeting every day as if it is the first. I am currently working on two cd's. One is a serious, comical and satirical view of how we humans behave towards each other. The other CD is a collection of songs that invite the listener to go within and reflect on life's wonders.

Wacissa River boat ramp at the headwaters. A most beautiful river!                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                   Live oak to be cut down by road widening project on right side of the road looking east on Mahan Drive, Tallahassee Florida. This could be anywhere USA.   Live oak looking south on Highland Drive, Tallahassee, Florida.     Tree over the Suwannee River                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         Irwin and friend kayaking on the Wacissa Irwin and the Wacissa. See how the kayak blends into the grass!! Truck loaded with kayaks after we take out of the Aucilla.