Late Winter Thoughts

Darkness will turn to light

Hello new readers! My subscriber list increased by about 18% just last week, in part after Tereza Coraggio at Third Paradigm wrote supportively about some of my posts. I was very honored and humbled by that. Thank you, Tereza! Also a comment of mine was one of the top two on a recent el gato malo bad cattitude post. It was a little out of context, but quite a few people were feeling it too. There might be a few readers here also from Deimos Station, a chat board you can take part in if you pay for a subscription with John Carter, L.P. Koch, Harrison Koehli, Mark Bisone or Grant Smith here or here.

I am very grateful.

nothing is obvious to scared people

Sacred Masculine

For the record, I love LGBTQ people. I love BIPOC people. I love people generally, because I believe in love. I think the genius of America is, I get to be in love with my fellow Americans if I want to be, thank you.

I don’t love it when “marginalized” people embrace the empire, and then lecture me from up on high about my supposed racism, misogyny, xenophobia, bigotry, misinformation, privilege and white supremacy. Then when those marginalized elite betters of mine treat East Palestine like the people there, the land and the waters don’t matter, well, your “marginalized” status is going to be grist for the mill of my Free Speech rights as an American.

East Palestine

I’m going to hold on to that fury and put it to productive use. I have been given permission to plant a garden on a local farm, only about a mile from where I live. It will be the biggest vegetable garden I have ever built, something like 4000 sq ft, and I am very excited about it. I will be documenting progress throughout. Pictures forthcoming.

I’m also working on a series about masculine archetypes. I have been reading The King Within, by Robert Moore and Douglas Gillette. This stood out, I think it speaks directly to the woke phenomenon, from a Jungian deep psychology perspective:

The animosity we feel is ultimately toward ourselves, but it often takes a lot of work before we can realize this. The Shadow endorses this work because it longs for reintegration. It is the Shadow’s method to lead us into holding our impossibly defensive, illogical positions - in order to confront us with whatever psychic complexes we would rather forget. Our “real world” hatreds are most usually against these inner complexes, and our Shadow works by repetition compulsion to call our attention to them.

Rather than face any rejected qualities, either positive or negative, within ourselves, we frequently deal with our Shadow by projecting those qualities onto others. As an Ego, we don’t project them. But our shadow does so in order to focus our interest on it’s feelings, wishes and agendas. Our shadow induces us to see other people we disapprove of or dislike in colors that are only marginally like their “true” colors but which are colors that the Shadow itself possesses.

Jung believed withdrawing a projection of the Shadow and owning it as a part of ourselves requires enormous moral courage. He also believed that what we will not face within our psyche we will be forced to confront in the outer world. So, if we can claim our Shadow’s qualities, and learn from them, we defuse much of the interpersonal conflict we would otherwise encounter. People who have served as the screens for our Shadow’s projections become less odious, and more human. At the same time, we experience ourselves as richer, more complex, and more powerful individuals.

In case you were wondering how so many woke can point their finger and scream “you are trying to destroy democracy!” and then turn around and support authoritarian, totalitarian policies and then call that saving democracy. The good news is, if you have moral courage you can integrate your shadow and become a much stronger human being for the effort. The bad news is, the longer one acts out the shadow, the harder moral courage becomes, the more the shadow sublimates the ego; if enough people do that you end up with civil war, or a fascist or communist government. A fascist or communist nation is basically a nation trapped in it’s collective shadow. Roughly half of America and most of this government and our institutions of every kind have been trapped in shadow going on seven years now.

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It’s hard to imagine being a kid these days, my Dad said one evening recently. They must be so confused, he said. We called out together some of the issues and messaging they are dealing with. Preyed upon by Pharmaceutical companies, social media companies, marketeers generally. Jabbed unto oblivion. You’re either an oppressor or a victim! White people are evil! America is a racist country! There are no men or women, it’s a spectrum! Masculinity is toxic! That’s not a woman dressed as a man, that’s a pregnant man! Girls, this boy girl is twice as big and strong and fast as you and grows a beard and has a penis but you have to play sports and shower with him her or you’re a transphobe. It’s natural to be out of shape and over weight! It’s ok to have an eating disorder! Trans is where it’s at, here’s some pharmaceuticals, you’ll feel better if we cut off your genitals! The world is going to end from climate change if we don’t save the world by eating insects, riding bike in the snow and heating homes with solar panels! But don’t eat anything for breakfast, to save money. People are a plague upon the earth! We need to risk WWIII and nuclear war to save Ukraine! Criminals are oppressed so increased crime and violence is a sign of social justice! Those people shitting in the sidewalk are just between housing. Put on this mask and get jabbed or you can’t go to this school and be with all your friends! Every person who says they were harmed by the covid vaccine are mentally ill and should be gaslit or ignored. The FBI/CIA/NSA and media work together to save democracy! Lockdowns are for your health, even though it was disasterous for your physical and mental health, you will lockdown if we tell you to. There’s fentanyl and meth everywhere and it’ll ruin your life and kill you but we’re not going to do much about that so be smart. It’s ok to burn inner cities and small businesses if you are angry and oppressed or an oppressor helping the oppressed, just not rich neighborhoods, corporate buildings or government of any kind except the police. No that’s not child abuse, that’s fashion.

Be good to kids. Much of the world seems against them.

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Storm’s Coming.

It’s good to remember what is most important, this time of the year, here in the north. It is easy to go to a dark place. I’m lucky this year, I am loving shoeshowing and X-skiing so much, I have good work to do, soon I will start seeds for the garden, soon it will be spring. Life is good, whatever the weather.

I hope you and yours are well, wherever you are.